WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Police Do a Better Job Than Heroes

Chapter 15

──────

As Coincidence Would Have It (2)

The next morning.

Slurp.

Kang Jin-ho, Park Eun-yeong, and Trace sat in a run-down basement PC bang, eating ramen.

"Jin-ho, trade with me. I want the jjajang ramen too."

"That's why I told you to order the jjajang one in the first place..."

"...You don't want to trade?"

"No, ma'am! I actually wanted the soup ramen too!"

"Right?"

Kang Jin-ho hastily swapped bowls with her. Trace watched the whole farce with her arms crossed, then let out a deep sigh.

"Officer Kang Jin-ho? So why exactly did you ask us to meet at a PC bang?"

"I texted you about it, didn't I? We need to contact some gang members, so we came here."

"Was it really necessary to come all the way to a place like this? If we used my personal equipment, we could send it without leaving a trace."

"That's exactly the problem, it's too clean. Sometimes a bit of analog misdirection works better."

Kang Jin-ho, speaking from a lesson he'd learned playing HiCiSi, opened an illegal messenger program.

"Uh, how do I do this again..."

In the game, he could handle this stuff with a few clicks, but using it in real life for the first time left him a little lost.

"Ah, just press this and this."

"...Thank you."

Thanks to his suspiciously well-informed supervisor Park Eun-yeong, he managed to finish the setup without much trouble.

"Alright, let's send the message. Should we wait for a reply?"

Kang Jin-ho tapped out the message, then slurped down the soup ramen Park Eun-yeong had handed him.

"Um, Officer Kang Jin-ho?"

Trace, who had been studying the messenger screen closely, frowned.

"It's the message you sent, and this photo you attached. About this."

"Right. That's a screenshot of a commission Clayboy took on. You can see it, asking for a fake doll with a snake tattoo?"

"I see it, but... you're sending it to the Black Faction's field captain?"

Trace genuinely couldn't follow the logic.

The message Kang Jin-ho had sent was a short summary explaining that the Black Faction was about to rob a gold exchange.

But if the Black Faction was the one planning to rob the place, what was the point of telling the Black Faction that? Threats wouldn't work on people like that, if anything it would just breed resentment.

"It's not the Black Faction."

"What?"

"The ones actually planning the robbery aren't the Black Faction to begin with."

Kang Jin-ho explained, chewing his ramen like it was nothing.

Ding.

Just then, a notification chime rang, a reply had come in.

[Who the hell are you, you son of a bitch.]

The Black Faction's field captain, clearly furious, led with the cursing. Kang Jin-ho calmly bit into a slice of pickled radish and kept typing.

[The Axe Faction is planning to hit a gold exchange soon, disguised as your people. The heist is meant to fail on purpose, and the Hero Association will wipe out the Black Faction as a result.]

"To begin with, an organization the size of the Black Faction robbing a gold exchange doesn't add up."

"Why not? Couldn't they at least try?"

Park Eun-yeong asked. Kang Jin-ho answered without looking away from the monitor.

"In a city crawling with villains like Light City, gold exchanges are guarded almost as tightly as banks, second only to them. The Hero Association leaves the Black Faction alone because they're not considered much of a threat. For an organization that size to try cracking a gold exchange would be way too much risk."

"Ah, I guess that makes sense."

Ding.

[Cut the crap you psycho. You think I'll believe that?]

The captain's reply, dripping with suspicion. Kang Jin-ho typed back, [Check the new guy who joined recently. He's a plant from the Axe Faction.] and kept talking.

"Also, the alibi setup is way too sloppy. Just propping up a clay doll somewhere with good CCTV coverage isn't going to fool an information-type hero. If Trace here responds to the scene, it'll get exposed in an instant."

"...Right. The moment I used my ability, I probably would have noticed it wasn't a person at all, just a fake doll."

"So that's what I figured. This whole case never had any intention of actually robbing the gold exchange."

"So you think it's the Axe Faction staging this to get rid of their rival, the Black Faction?"

"Right. If someone hits the gold exchange, the heroes will come in and crush the Black Faction. It's a plan to neatly clear out a thorn in their side."

Kang Jin-ho closed the messenger program, then leisurely sipped his cola.

"The Axe Faction will probably cover their faces with masks at the scene, but there's a good chance they'll let the fake snake tattoos on their forearms flash into view now and then. It's meant to trick an information-type hero arriving late into mistaking them for the Black Faction."

None of this had even happened yet, but Kang Jin-ho spoke with total conviction. Trace felt a chill listening to his explanation.

"Wait, that makes it sound like... they planned all this with me responding to the scene in mind."

"That's what I thought too. Haven't you been active in this area recently?"

"...That stings my pride a little. Did these low-life criminals really think I'd fall for something that stupid? But there's one thing I don't understand. How did you know the Black Faction's new recruit was a spy?"

"If the Axe Faction is running an operation like this, wouldn't they plant an informant somewhere? So it'd be whoever joined most recently. Just a guess."

In truth he'd seen it in the game, but Kang Jin-ho said it with total confidence. Well, the guess turned out to be right anyway, so what did it matter.

"Ahh~"

Park Eun-yeong pushed her empty ramen bowl aside, propped her chin on her hand, and grinned.

"So that's what you meant yesterday at the station, when you said we didn't need to fight, we could just walk in and make the arrest. You had a clever plan like this. You're going to let the Black Faction and the Axe Faction fight each other, then sweep them both up at once?"

"Yes. We just slip in once they've worn each other down, so there's no need to fight. Trace here has the evidence from the robbery, so that'll be secured. And since we're arresting them mid-fight, we can nail them on the spot, red-handed, which counts for our numbers too, doesn't it?"

"..."

Trace stared blankly at the side of Kang Jin-ho's face.

She'd been called a genius her whole life, which made this all the harder to understand. She'd thought the same thing when she first met him... could this really be explained away as just "sharp instincts"? Wasn't this closer to prophecy?

But she'd secretly looked into his background, and Kang Jin-ho really did check out as powerless. The test results from the police academy were on file. That man had no superpower at all.

'Even better.'

A true genius. A gift from heaven. In a city where superpowers ran the show, that kind of off-the-charts intelligence was a weapon nobody could predict. With Kang Jin-ho at her side, climbing to S-rank hero didn't seem like such a distant dream.

A subtle spark lit in Trace's eyes.

"..."

Park Eun-yeong noticed it too.

**

The Black Faction's hideout. An office hidden in the back of a run-down billiard hall.

"Hah..."

The field captain glared grimly at his phone screen.

[The Axe Faction is planning to hit a gold exchange soon, disguised as your people. The heist is meant to fail on purpose, and the Hero Association will wipe out the Black Faction as a result.]

[Check the new guy who joined recently. He's a plant from the Axe Faction.]

Honestly, he'd figured it was nonsense at first. Some idiot messing around for kicks. The message had even come from a PC bang. There wasn't a single reason to trust the guy.

But the scenario laid out was way too specific, and if it actually happened, it would be fatal for the organization. Like a piece of meat stuck between his teeth, the unease just wouldn't go away.

"So I figured, what the hell, just in case, might as well check~"

The field captain stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. Then he smacked the back of the head of the recruit kneeling on the floor with his forehead pressed down.

"Aack! Boss! I swear it's a misunderstanding!"

"Misunderstanding? You son of a bitch. Boss lights up a smoke, and you hand him a lighter with the Axe Faction logo slapped right across it, and it's a misunderstanding? You people got Axe Faction merch or something? Why the hell would a lighter have their logo on it?"

"That, uh, it's a trend with the MZ generation these days."

"...Hah, fine. Let's say that's true. Then why's there a photo of you with the Axe Faction boss in your phone gallery?"

"That's because I personally admire him as a figure..."

"What the hell are you even saying, you lunatic! If you're going to spy on us, at least put in some effort!"

The field captain grabbed the back of his own neck, at a loss for words. The Axe Faction sending such a sloppy spy was absurd enough, and the fact that the guys under him had lived alongside this idiot without noticing anything off was just as absurd.

He let out a rough sigh and shouted toward the door.

"Anybody out there!"

"Yes, boss!"

At the booming reply, a swarm of rough-looking, close-shaved men poured into the office. A few of them looked like they'd been in the middle of eating jjajangmyeon, black bean sauce smeared around their mouths even as they tried to look grim.

"Hey. You look at this lighter and feel nothing?"

The captain held up the confiscated lighter.

"Isn't that the thing that's trending with the MZ generation these days?"

"...Right, damn it. You all just need to be good at fighting, that's it."

"Sir? What's wrong, boss?"

"Shut up. Grab your tools. And this one on the floor, toss him in the trunk too."

The field captain lit a fresh cigarette and hoisted the iron pipe leaning in the corner onto his shoulder.

"Time to have a real heart-to-heart with those Axe Faction bastards."

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried