WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ The Police Do a Better Job Than Heroes

Chapter 14

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As Coincidence Would Have It (1)

Three days earlier.

-Recruiting a hero to join a Metropolitan Police Agency operation to take down an armed robbery gang.

-Requirement: B-rank or above.

-Compensation: per Metropolitan Police Agency regulations.

"Oh? You see this?"

"This is a sweet deal. Look at the details, this looks handleable at C-rank."

"Police jobs pay kind of stingy, but... they still give a lot of credit for results."

"How many are they taking? If it's first come first served, should I apply right now?"

"Yeah~ I'm already filling out the form~"

"Hey! Don't use your speed ability for something like that!"

Around the time Kang Jin-ho's request went up, the heroes, not being fools, all caught the faint whiff of honey coming off it.

Money wasn't much of a draw for anyone B-rank or above, but a job that was easy on the body and still padded your record was rare. Naturally, a request like that deserved to get snapped up the moment it appeared.

"That request. Don't take it."

A cold voice echoed through the lobby of the Eastern Hero Association.

"What? Who said that?"

"Who do you think you are, telling us what to do?"

The heroes, phones in hand, immediately bristled and rose from their seats.

"...A-rank Trace?"

"Oh, it's Trace? Haha."

The moment they confirmed her face, they awkwardly sat back down.

Light City's heroes broke roughly into three categories. Combat types, who solved problems by fighting villains directly. Information types, who tracked down covert crime. And utility types, who fit into neither of the other two but held useful abilities of their own.

Judging by the name alone, combat abilities sounded like they should rank highest. But surprisingly, combat-type ability users tended to grovel before the other two categories.

There were plenty of reasons for that, but first, combat types simply outnumbered everyone else. Being the most common category meant being the least valued one.

Combat types also found themselves owing favors to the other two categories often.

Utility abilities included healing powers, the kind held by so-called "healers," construction abilities that could throw up buildings fast, and crafting abilities that produced gear and items.

Healer? Get hurt in a fight, you go get healed. Craftsman? Need better gear, or your equipment breaks mid-fight, you need their help. Naturally, staying on their good side mattered.

Utility types made sense. But why grovel to information-type heroes? Truth was, information-type heroes and combat-type heroes rarely worked together at all. At most, a combat type might provide escort while an information type conducted an investigation.

But the real reason combat types treated information types so carefully lay elsewhere.

First, their numbers were simply few. Compared to combat-type ability users, and even compared to utility types, information-type ability users were rare and hard to come by.

And second.

"Here. A lot of you have gotten credit for cases through me, haven't you? I've got one favor to ask. This case, I'm taking it."

When an information-type hero located a criminal, and the criminal or group was too much for that hero to bring in alone, the hero who'd found them got to designate who handled the arrest.

Villains who committed crimes covertly usually had low combat capability in practice. Which meant sweet, easy credit could get handed off to a combat-type hero.

Trace had climbed to A-rank in a remarkably short time, having cleanly closed out case after case, and there wasn't a single hero in the Eastern Hero Association who hadn't benefited from her work at some point. So even when she threw her weight around like this.

"Yeah, well..."

"Tch... well... it's a shame, but... can't be helped."

"Since it's Trace... just this once, okay?"

Everyone nodded along, slipping their phones quietly back into their pockets.

"Wait, Trace. Mind if I ask something?"

At that, A-rank hero Jelly Belly, who'd been listening quietly from a corner, spoke up.

"From what I've seen of you so far, I don't think you're the type to pull something like this out of greed for credit. There's probably some reason you need to take this particular job."

"Mm, that's right."

"Care to tell us what it is?"

"The reason, huh..."

Trace thought it over, then smirked and gave a short answer.

"I figure it's about time I had an assistant."

**

Back at East Precinct 7.

On the precinct's worn old sofa sat A-rank hero Trace, legs crossed. Across from her, Park Eun-yeong sat down with a bright smile, carrying a cup of instant coffee she'd just mixed up.

"What brings an A-rank hero to such a shabby little precinct?"

"Shabby, please. Everyone knows how hard you police officers work. And Officer Kang Jin-ho posted a request, so I came."

"I heard only one person applied for it."

"Everyone said they were busy. And I happened to have some free time."

"Ahh~ how relaxed of you."

"...Yeah."

Their tones and manners toward each other were both perfectly courteous, but Kang Jin-ho found himself swallowing hard for some reason. Park Eun-yeong being the lunatic she was, picking a fight of nerves here wasn't remotely strange, but Trace's expression was visibly souring by the second.

He could understand why Park Eun-yeong was annoyed, honestly. To put it bluntly, only one applicant for a job like this made no sense. And that applicant being Trace, an information type instead of a combat type, made even less sense.

'She's definitely taking this one on purpose.'

As Kang Jin-ho eyed her with visible unease, Trace's expression eased into a smile, and she pulled a document envelope from her bag, setting it on the table.

"Officer Kang. I won't dance around it. That subway station case you helped with before, it paid off nicely for me. Which is why I'm saying this, once this operation's over, come work as my personal assistant."

"...Sorry?"

"Base pay, ten times a police officer's salary. Performance bonuses split seventy-thirty in your favor. Full A-rank Association benefits, of course. With your kind of talent, is there really any reason to keep working as a police officer?"

"Uh, hold on, let's pause right there."

The moment Trace made her scouting offer, the first thing Kang Jin-ho checked wasn't her words at all, it was Park Eun-yeong's expression.

"..."

Blank. Those crimson eyes studied Trace with no emotion whatsoever.

'I'm screwed.'

The terms themselves were solid. The status window had already declared that working as a hero, just like working as a police officer, could also reduce karma, and as an A-rank hero's assistant, plenty of cases he could handle himself would come his way.

The problem was Eun-yeong.

The villain called Eun-yeong wasn't the type to sit quietly by while someone else made off with a toy she'd already marked as her own. And with the target obliviously provoking her on top of it, it wouldn't have been strange at all if Trace's head suddenly went flying.

'This is going to turn into a fight.'

If the tension kept building like this, Trace and Park Eun-yeong might actually come to blows. And if the two of them fought, there was no question who'd end up dead. Trace.

"Uh, hold on a second. Let's talk about the operation first. I'll give you my answer on the scouting offer after we finish the arrest."

Kang Jin-ho hurriedly steered the subject elsewhere, bringing up the case.

"I got information from a source I trust that a robbery's going to happen at a gold exchange near XX Intersection."

"I read the report. Honestly, the evidence section was pretty thin... you're planning to work out the details as you investigate, right?"

Trace answered casually, with no idea that Kang Jin-ho had just saved her life.

"The report leans heavily on speculative intel about what's likely, that's why."

"Well, that's fine. The suspects and the crime location are roughly pinned down anyway, right? I know plenty of heroes. I just call up any A-rank who's free and have them make the arrest in the act, the moment they hit the gold exchange."

Trace declared this with total confidence. Eun-yeong, listening, cut in.

"Is that really the right approach, though?"

"What?"

"If you read the intel, you'd know it mentioned they turned down a 'fake mannequin' job. Isn't there a good chance they canceled or postponed the actual crime because they couldn't put together a proper alibi? So you'd have people staking out a spot the suspects might never even show up to?"

"So what then?"

"The Hero Association already has a rough fix on the Black Faction's home base, doesn't it? Better to hit that first. The evidence should still be there too."

"Ahh~ but it seems like you've forgotten I have an ability that lets me see the past. The evidence can just be pulled from the past regardless, so there's no real need to raid their base right now. Besides, catching them in the act makes for better credit, and it hits harder when you announce it publicly, doesn't it? Just taking down the Black Faction on its own doesn't count for much, but bringing in a crew that tried to rob a gold exchange, that's real credit."

"Ahh~ I suppose credit does matter. You're a hero, after all."

"Of course~. Gotta earn that big paycheck somehow."

"..."

"..."

An odd silence settled again. Trace, arrogant enough to look down on anyone she considered beneath her, glared with a look that said, "why is an ordinary civilian cop back-talking me?"

Park Eun-yeong... was thinking something over. Exactly what she was thinking will not be described in detail here. What can be confirmed is that it wasn't the kind of content suitable for detailed description.

"Sorry to interrupt while you two are so busy debating, but."

Sensing that things were about to go very wrong if this continued, Kang Jin-ho quietly cut in.

"You're both talking as if we're going to take down the Black Faction, but I think that premise is a little off."

"...What do you mean by that?"

"Explain in detail, Jin-ho-yah."

"I mean there's no need to fight the criminals at all. Why would we need to fight them? Just walk in with confidence and make a clean arrest, that's the best approach."

"Huh? There's a way to do that?"

"Yeah. Everyone gets stuck in the assumption that criminals absolutely have to be subdued by force to be arrested, so nobody ever thinks of it."

Park Eun-yeong's eyes lit up with interest, fully focused now.

Trace's jaw dropped in disbelief.

Assumption or not, if a method like that actually existed, it would have been the very first thing anyone tried.

Regardless, Kang Jin-ho declared with total confidence.

"So first."

"First?"

"Let's head to the PC bang."

This time, both Park Eun-yeong and Trace fell silent at the same moment.

"..."

"..."

Head to the PC bang...?

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