The Police Do a Better Job than Heroes - Chapter 16

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Police Do a Better Job Than Heroes

Chapter 16

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As Coincidence Would Have It (3)

A few hours later.

-Static crackles. A large-scale brawl is reportedly breaking out on XX Street.

"Yes, that's the robbery case I mentioned earlier. We'll handle it."

-Confirmed.

The radio crackled, and Park Eun-yeong answered at ease before stretching and standing up from her seat.

"Shall we?"

"Yes. Let's go."

They cleared out their spot at the PC bang and made their way quietly to the scene, where the alley already looked like a war zone.

"Get him!"

"Aargh!"

Iron pipes and clubs clashed noisily, and the fight looked evenly matched, with neither side gaining ground.

The Black Faction had struck first, but the Axe Faction was fighting on its home turf. Both sides had worn each other down, and by now barely anyone was still standing upright.

"God damn it! How the hell did you know we were hitting the gold exchange! My plan was flawless!"

The wounded Axe Faction boss spat blood, shouting like he'd been wronged.

"I got the tattoo stickers top of the line, planted a spy, and I was even scouting another ability user for the alibi doll! It was a guaranteed success!"

"You dumbass! Your planted spy had a photo with you on his phone. You think we wouldn't catch that?"

The Black Faction's field captain wiped blood from his mouth as he spoke.

"What? I told him to delete that..."

At the confused words from the Axe Faction boss, the Axe Faction spy, sprawled in a corner, answered tearfully.

"S-sorry, boss! I just couldn't bring myself to delete our memories together..."

"...You idiot. Yeah, loyalty above all! The plan's blown, but if we wipe out every last one of these Black Faction bastards right here, this territory's ours! Finish it before the heroes show up!"

"Sorry to interrupt."

Just then, Kang Jin-ho strolled casually in from the mouth of the alley. Beside him stood Park Eun-yeong, grinning brightly, and Trace, arms crossed, clicking her tongue.

"What, the cops? Already?"

"Cops? That stings."

Kang Jin-ho sipped a canned coffee, continuing at ease. Truth was, he'd picked it up at a convenience store on the way over, a prop meant to reinforce his upcoming "genius" image.

"Axe Faction boss. I heard your plan loud and clear. Slap fake snake tattoos on your forearms, hit the gold exchange, pull all the aggro onto the Black Faction. Leave behind a sloppy alibi cobbled together with superpowers so nobody suspects it was staged. Honestly, not a bad plan."

Kang Jin-ho crushed the empty coffee can with a click and grinned.

"Recently pulled in a big loan from somewhere, I'm guessing? Given you'd cook up a scheme like this just to wipe out the Black Faction. Figured once they're gone and their turf sits empty, you'd scoop up the rights and cover your losses. Am I wrong?"

The Black Faction's field captain could shrug it off, but when this cop who'd just appeared out of nowhere rattled off not just the top secret plan but the organization's cash crunch besides, the Axe Faction boss froze in place.

"Y-you bastard, how do you know that...!"

The Axe Faction boss's lips trembled, his face drained of color. Watching him, the blood-soaked Black Faction field captain let out a stunned laugh.

"Pfft! Hey, you dumbass! You go around broadcasting your plans to the whole damn neighborhood? Some rookie cop's got your whole scheme, top to bottom, and you didn't even notice? I'm too embarrassed to call myself a gangster after this!"

"Shut up! You son of a bitch!"

"I was actually the one who tipped off your field captain. We talked over messenger, remember?"

"..."

"You're no better, idiot. Got played and still charged in here like this?"

"Shut it, damn it."

The two gangsters, still snapping at each other, turned to glare at Kang Jin-ho with bloodshot eyes.

"Get him! Cops or not, kill them all!"

"Hey! Take out the cops first!"

"AAAAAAAH!!!"

At the boss's and the field captain's orders, the remaining low-level thugs screamed and charged. But they'd already burned through their stamina beating each other bloody.

-Crack!

"You think an ability user's an easy mark?"

"Ugh..."

Trace was an information-type ability user, but even so, being an ability user at all put her far out of reach for ordinary men. The gap in basic physical stats alone was enormous.

"Die!"

Just then, a thug spotted an opening and swung an iron pipe at the back of Kang Jin-ho's head.

"Hup!"

Kang Jin-ho ducked on reflex, and the pipe sliced through empty air. A kick followed naturally right after, landing square between the thug's legs.

"Ah, ugh..."

The thug crumpled to the ground. Kang Jin-ho looked down at his own hand, faintly startled. For someone who'd done nothing but game in his room, his reflexes were way too fast.

'Maybe the body's got higher base stats from all that police academy training?'

But when he'd first entered the game, his body had felt about the same as his old one, hadn't it? Now that he thought about it, he'd been feeling a bit healthier lately, less tired overall.

"Jin-ho, cuffs now."

"Ah, yes!"

His brief train of thought was cut off by Park Eun-yeong dangling a pair of handcuffs. Well, no point overthinking a good thing. Trace had already subdued every remaining thug.

"Alright, everyone stay down. You'll hurt your wrists."

With Trace assisting, Park Eun-yeong and Kang Jin-ho worked their way down the line, cuffing the fallen gang members one after another. Two criminal organizations wiped out in one sweep, and the gold exchange heist stopped before it even happened.

"Jin-ho, another win, huh? Keep this up and you're gonna get famous for real."

Park Eun-yeong poked him in the side with her elbow.

"No, it's not over yet, so..."

"Oh? There's more?"

"Not necessarily more, just..."

"Hmm."

While the two of them chatted peacefully as they cuffed the last of the thugs.

"Damn it, damn it! I'm not going down like this!"

The Axe Faction boss, sprawled on the ground, staggered back up to his feet.

"Want another beating?"

Trace shook her head, looking at him like he was pathetic. But the Axe Faction boss's eyes had gone completely wild, foam at the corners of his mouth as he screamed.

"Am I, am I an easy mark? Am I an easy mark to you bastards?!"

With trembling hands, he fumbled something out of his jacket.

His last lifeline, bought by selling off three prime storefronts and cleaning out the organization's vault to scrape together enough for a broker. The whole scheme to wipe out the Black Faction had been to cover the loss from buying this thing in the first place.

He'd never imagined he'd end up using it somewhere like this, but going down and getting arrested like this felt too unfair to stomach.

"You're all screwed now! We're all going to hell together!"

A glass orb holding black fire inside. The moment the Axe Faction boss threw it down and shattered it against the ground.

"Heh, like that's gonna... huh?"

The color drained from Trace's face in an instant, the ease she'd carried moments earlier gone completely. Ability users, especially information-type ones, had senses far sharper than an ordinary person's. Because of that, she was the first to realize what was happening.

"Officer Kang Jin-ho! Watch out! This is at minimum..."

Her words never made it to the end. In an instant every sound in the alley vanished, as if erased by a lie.

Silence. An awkward, unnatural silence.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Footsteps. From above, from ahead, from beside. Footsteps of death ringing out from every direction at once, ignoring any sense of spatial direction.

As despair closed around every throat, flames from an abyss that swallowed even light itself rippled out on all sides.

"Hmm."

The one who wielded black flame. The one who ruled over death. Wherever it passed, only screams of agony and despair remained behind.

A monstrous figure, its whole body swallowed in pitch-black fire, its form unrecognizable.

One of the city's most feared, most vicious 1-rank villains, Blackflame, had descended.

"..."

The cuffed gangsters gagged as though they couldn't breathe. Those still conscious strangled their own throats. Some clawed at the ground until their nails broke.

Stranger still, despite it all, not a single sound escaped. As if even making noise had become forbidden.

"Hmm."

The only voice audible belonged to the figure, tinged with displeasure. The pitch-black figure looked around with arrogant eyes, sizing up the situation.

Truth was, Blackflame's mood was foul. Short on funds for research it had been running lately, it had sold a summoning orb capable of calling it to the black market. It had never expected some garbage from the city's back alleys to be the one to actually call it.

Since it was already here, might as well kill time torturing these worms until its mood improved...

"..."

At that moment, Blackflame's gaze met a pair of crimson eyes standing in the corner of the alley.

Blackflame recognized Eun-yeong.

Eun-yeong recognized Blackflame.

The corner of Eun-yeong's mouth curled upward. Blackflame couldn't meet that smile and hastily looked away.

"...I have an extremely urgent matter to attend to. I'll take my leave."

-Swoosh!

The alley, swallowed by flame moments before, regained its light, and Blackflame vanished in an instant, as if it had never been there at all.

"Uh, um..."

The Axe Faction boss, who'd just burned through three prime storefronts and his secret vault, stared blankly at the spot where Blackflame had stood.

This...