WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ The Police Do a Better Job Than Heroes

Chapter 2

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Becoming a Rookie Officer (2)

Light City had a villain named Eun-yeong.

She moved through shadows, bent darkness to her will, and swallowed up space itself. Without question the strongest villain in the city, and by any measure one of its top three strongest existences overall.

But the truly terrifying thing about Eun-yeong wasn't her power. It was that she couldn't be predicted. Slice open a skyscraper because she was in a bad mood, or gut a passing mafia boss because she happened to feel good that day. Madness with no pattern to it at all.

Everything she did came down to whether she found it interesting. If she was interested, she did it. If not, she didn't bother. In the game, back when Kang Jin-ho had barely managed to arrest her, he'd asked her motive and gotten "it looked fun" as the answer. He remembered the hollow feeling that had followed.

"Want some coffee?"

"I, uh, I already had some earlier..."

"I watched you not drink a single sip. You'll have some, right?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Yeah. No point pretending otherwise. That was exactly who the woman in front of Kang Jin-ho was. Seemed like this time around she'd taken an interest in police work, and her nameplate proudly read "Park Eun-yeong." At this rate, she probably wasn't even trying to hide it.

How did he know Officer Park Eun-yeong was the villain Eun-yeong?

Simple. Same face.

Identical to the Eun-yeong he'd arrested. It would've been stranger not to recognize her. She usually kept her face hidden behind darkness when she was active, but Jin-ho remembered her bare face perfectly.

"You seem really tense. Nervous?"

"Y-yes, yes... first day and all. Ha, hah."

He forced a smile on the outside, but his mind was spinning fast enough to catch fire.

He'd woken up one day and turned into a police officer. And his direct training officer was a villain. Not just any villain, either. The single most insane one in the city.

If Eun-yeong hadn't been standing right there, he would have quit on the spot.

The "Light City" Kang Jin-ho had built wasn't a friendly environment for ordinary people. The hero faction was stronger overall, sure, but there were plenty of powerful villains too, and public order in general wasn't great. Just as many heroes as there were criminals.

That kind of lopsided megacity had come together mostly because of Kang Jin-ho's personal taste. The whole reason he played HiCiSi in the first place was to investigate the crimes of villains, and you couldn't investigate crime without crime happening first, right?

So the end result was a city that was enormous, wealthy, packed with security forces, and constantly plagued by crime, all at once. Working as a police officer in a place like that? Even out in the boonies, it wasn't exactly an appealing prospect.

'Can't quit now.'

The problem was, the moment he'd laid eyes on Park Eun-yeong, quitting had already stopped being an option. If he'd never set foot in the police force at all, fine, but suddenly quitting right after meeting Park Eun-yeong? After shaking like a leaf in front of her like that?

Suspicious. So suspicious that it wouldn't have been strange for Eun-yeong to crack his skull open just to see what was going on inside. The best move available right now was to play the part of a simply nervous rookie.

'Ugh, if only I hadn't been shaking...'

If Kang Jin-ho hadn't trembled the entire way from meeting Eun-yeong to arriving at this break room, maybe he'd have had other options. But he'd made his nerves painfully obvious, and he'd already drawn more attention than he could afford.

Look at those bright red eyes, brimming with curiosity. Park Eun-yeong sat with her chin propped on one hand, watching Kang Jin-ho like a cat eyeing a toy.

Could he have acted a little better? Sure, but honestly, Kang Jin-ho felt genuinely wronged by the whole situation. He'd never in his life imagined something like this happening to him, so of course he hadn't been mentally prepared.

Anyone else could try it. Not even thirty minutes since getting pulled into the game, and expected to stay calm and adjust perfectly? That wasn't a normal person. That was a regressor.

"Are you okay? You've had a rough look on your face this whole time."

Right then, Officer Park Eun-yeong leaned in close, her face full of concern.

That gentle look on her face made her seem exactly like a good cop genuinely worried about a rookie, and it actually threw Kang Jin-ho off for a second. Maybe she was just someone who looked like Eun-yeong? Maybe he'd made a mistake?

"I'm, I'm really fine."

"Really?"

"Yes!"

"Then... is it me? Am I scary or something? Is that why?"

"...!"

At the same time, something cold flashed behind Park Eun-yeong's eyes. Kang Jin-ho practically sprang out of his seat, scrambling to explain himself.

"No, no. It's just, I've never seen a woman this beautiful in my whole life."

"Oh, that so? I thought it was something else."

She smiled softly, as though it had all been a joke from the start. The graceful curve of her eyes, bent like a crescent moon, was enough to make anyone swallow hard.

"...gulp."

Kang Jin-ho swallowed too. Not because he'd been dazzled by her looks. He was just so tense his throat moved on its own.

"Officer Kang Jin-ho?"

"Y-yes!"

"Since I'm your senior though, mind if I drop the formalities from now on?"

"Yes! Please, go ahead!"

"Thanks."

Park Eun-yeong dropped the honorifics without missing a beat, smiling like a cat.

"Actually, we've had a few rookies come through before you... none of them adjusted, they all quit pretty fast. So I'm really glad you're here."

"Ah, I see."

Kang Jin-ho spent a moment imagining what might have happened to those "quit" juniors.

"..."

Probably shouldn't have imagined that. An image of himself "quitting the job" flashed into his head immediately, and it did serious damage to his mental health.

Kang Jin-ho revised his plan on the spot. He wouldn't quit the police force. Instead, he'd act incompetent, and let Park Eun-yeong's interest wander off on its own.

Eun-yeong was insane, sure, but she wasn't some god of destruction who leveled everything in sight either. Stay off her radar, and there was a real chance of living a long life without any major crises.

"Ahem, anyway! Since we've got a new rookie, let me say the usual thing."

"Yes!"

"Jin-ho. People these days trash-talk the police a lot, right?"

"Yes, they really do!"

"It really wounds my pride. We're capable people too, if we actually tried, right? We just lack the will."

"...yes."

The tap of Park Eun-yeong's finger against the break room table rang out unusually loud. By pure coincidence, the rhythm matched exactly with the beat of Kang Jin-ho's own heart.

"These days every single rookie says the same thing, 'do we really need to be the ones doing this?' Like, heroes can handle it, so why should the police bother. I really don't like that attitude. If you actually give it your all, good results follow naturally, but everyone gets scared off before they even try."

"Exactly!"

"I want Jin-ho to work hard. I want you to enjoy the job. People who don't work hard, they all end up quitting fast. I don't want to watch you become one of those people. I like you."

"...y-yes, exactly!"

His heart felt like it stopped cold.

Kang Jin-ho scrapped the "keep a low profile and coast" plan he'd been running with a second ago. This was a warning. Slack off and get caught, and it was certain death.

"So I want you to become the kind of officer our... our citizens want to keep close, someone interesting and capable. You were famous as a genius back at the academy, right? Can I look forward to that?"

She smiled.

A bright, pure, elegant smile. Anyone watching from the sidelines would've read it as a passionate senior's warm advice, breaking in a rookie while encouraging their growth.

"..."

But to Kang Jin-ho's ears, knowing the truth, every one of those sentences translated into a completely different language.

[If you turn out to be a toy that can't keep me entertained, you know what happens, right?]

A cold, sticky sweat ran down his spine. Eun-yeong had clearly latched onto the phrase "genius from the police academy." If he failed to meet her expectations, the odds of him "quitting the job" looked extremely high.

So the message was, act like a genius if he wanted to live? How did geniuses even behave? Kang Jin-ho had heard himself called sharp plenty of times, but never once a genius, and his mind went completely blank on the spot.

He had to hook her interest somehow. He had to prove he was capable and interesting...!

Kang Jin-ho clenched the hands resting on his knees. He didn't want to die over that insane villain's whims. Now that he'd fallen into a world he actually knew inside and out, he wanted to survive, no question, and live large while he was at it.

Looked at another way, this was an opportunity. Kang Jin-ho's head was packed with an endless supply of information about "Light City." Put that to proper use, and he could live a life more luxurious than anything reality could offer.

...assuming he survived long enough to enjoy it, anyway.

"Oh, hold on."

While Kang Jin-ho was steeling his resolve, Park Eun-yeong, who'd had her ear to the radio, suddenly wore an awkward smile.

"Hm, this is bad timing... I was going to let you rest today."

"What happened?"

"There's been a theft. It's our patrol team's turn to respond. But since it's your first day, Jin-ho, just stay here and rest."

"You mean a case?"

Kang Jin-ho's eyes lit up as he asked, sensing this was his chance to catch Eun-yeong's interest and prove his competence.

"Could you tell me more specifically what kind of case it is?"

"Huh? What did they say again... a theft at a café, and apparently the culprit didn't show up on the entrance CCTV. The whole register, cash and all, just vanished. Sounds like it might be a superpower crime. The Hero Association usually takes those cases, so all we need to do is go take statements and get some photos of the scene."

"A café..."

A café. A theft. Not caught on CCTV. The whole register gone.

The words clicked together in his head, and Kang Jin-ho remembered a case he'd seen back in Hero City Simulator.

Did he know this case? He knew this case. Could he catch the culprit?

He could.

"I'd really like to come along too!"

"Huh? Really?"

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