WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 25: Money Follows Naturally (7)

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Who wins if a lion fights a tiger? Who wins if a regular man with a dagger fights a regular man with a baseball bat? Who wins if a top-tier fighter squares off against a top-tier baseball player swinging a bat?

Since ancient times, "who would win" debates had always gotten people's blood pumping. Childish, sure, but that's exactly why they hit some primal nerve.

And the community HiCiSi players frequented was full of people who lived and breathed that instinct more than anyone.

-Yo why is the fire ability so weak? Loses every 1v1?

-Fire's an AoE type, of course it loses in 1v1 lol

-Mind control <<< isn't this broken if the surprise attack lands? Basically a guaranteed win

-If you're assuming the surprise attack lands, tons of abilities are broken, idiot

-If it's a narrow alley on a rainy day, wouldn't fire users lose even to healers?

-nah fire users have crazy stamina, healers gas out before they can finish them

An arena packed with armchair experts, veins bulging as they argued over terrain, weather, matchups, mental fortitude, and a hundred other variables. Kang Jin-ho was one of the old-timers who'd survived on that battlefield for a long time.

He hadn't dug deep into "combat" as his main focus, so he didn't know every last detail, but he had a solid grasp of the general picture.

Back to the present.

Thwack, thwack!

"Ugh..."

Marionette got shoved back hard, looking down at the torn hem of her dress.

"Ugh, blood. Disgusting."

Detective Mierou wiped the blood off his knuckles with a handkerchief.

One side gasping for breath, the other calmly fixing himself up. It was obvious at a glance who had the upper hand.

Detective Mierou, an information-type ability user, and Marionette, a mind-control type. Neither was a combat type, so on paper you couldn't say who'd win.

But Kang Jin-ho knew.

That uncertainty didn't apply to him, HiCiSi's old-timer. He had a rough sense of the relative strength between villains and heroes.

Marionette? A fine ability, and she knew how to use it well, but... her physical stats topped out at, at best, a regular-person medalist level.

Detective Mierou, on the other hand? He never slacked on fitness while working as a police officer, and being a cop, he held black belts in judo and jiu-jitsu.

Marionette struggled to maintain physical contact for more than ten seconds, and Mierou's ability to read emotions wasn't much use here. Both sides had trouble applying their powers to combat. So it came down to pure physical performance.

If this goes to a brawl, Detective Mierou wins, no question.

In unarmed combat, Mierou had a massive advantage. Kang Jin-ho knew this, which was exactly why he'd walked in here so confidently without calling for backup.

"Damn it, damn it!!"

Marionette's face went pale. Even if she wanted to run, Mierou was blocking the stairs, her only way out, and up close, honestly, she stood no chance.

Marionette wasn't a direct fighter to begin with. The reason she was always so careful executing her plans, the reason she only ever picked weak heroes or ordinary people to toy with, all of it came down to her being weak in direct combat.

'I must've lost my mind, why did I crawl out here myself!'

Marionette regretted it. Normally, she'd have watched from a distance and spoken the trigger word over a radio or walkie-talkie.

But today, she'd wanted to witness in person, up close, the thrilling sight of the Metropolitan Police Agency's ace, already brainwashed, tearing the genius rookie apart with his own hands. That malice had created a blind spot, and that blind spot had brought her to this crisis.

'Winning... is impossible. I need to escape.'

Marionette assessed the situation coldly. Beating Detective Mierou was impossible. Maintaining ten seconds of contact to trigger mind control was impossible. The best she could manage was an escape, but Mierou was clearly guarding against exactly that.

'...A hostage.'

Her eyes crept toward Kang Jin-ho. Detective Mierou was an ability user, but that officer was supposed to be a regular person, right...?

"Eyes over here!"

Thud!

"Ugh...!"

Mierou closed the distance the instant Marionette's attention wandered, snapping off a kick. Marionette barely blocked it, but she couldn't avoid her arm going numb from the impact.

'He should be winning by now.'

Meanwhile, Kang Jin-ho watched the fight with his own quiet unease.

Based on the data he'd built up playing HiCiSi, Mierou should have been winning by now.

But the fight, even with the detective clearly ahead, kept dragging on. He should've finished this already. Why hadn't he closed it out?

Of course, there was a mistake buried in Kang Jin-ho's reasoning here. The "Detective Mierou" he remembered was based on a version he'd trained up considerably, tossing him around this way and that in the game.

Marionette, on the other hand, he'd always arrested during her very first case ever since he'd started playing seriously, so his reference point was a version who'd never had a chance to grow at all.

He was comparing Mierou at his peak against Marionette at her floor, and on top of that, Mierou also had to worry about blocking the escape route, so naturally the fight dragged.

Whoosh!

Just then, Marionette wrenched out the dagger hidden in her dress and swung it wildly. Mierou reacted and managed to dodge, but he couldn't avoid stepping back hard.

A brief opening appeared. Mierou set up a defensive stance, mindful of the stairwell escape route, but

"Get over here!!!"

Eyes wild, Marionette instead lunged straight at Kang Jin-ho, who'd been hanging back at a distance, knife raised!

Marionette's physical stats were weak for an ability user, but that was only relative to other ability users.

She closed the distance at a speed no ordinary person could even imagine, and swung the dagger hard at Kang Jin-ho!

"...!"

"No!"

The world slowed down. Mierou running in a beat too late, Marionette grinning as she swung the blade.

Kang Jin-ho tried to move, tried to react, but it was too late. The gap in their physical abilities was simply too wide from the start.

'I should've kept more distance. My mistake.'

Kang Jin-ho let out a breath, staring at the blade flying toward his chest, when

Ding!

A message window popped up in front of his eyes.

-Calculation complete.

-1-rank villain [Blackflame] temporarily repelled. 100,000 karma awarded.

Whoosh!

At the same moment, Kang Jin-ho stepped back exactly half a step, dodging the swinging blade with precision.

Thud!

"Kkhk..."

He rotated his hips a half turn and drove a counterpunch, loaded with centrifugal force, straight into Marionette's solar plexus. Struck in the vital point, Marionette's eyes rolled back and she dropped unconscious on the spot.

For something he'd supposedly done on instinct, it was absurdly clean, and fast. Nobody would believe a regular person could move like that.

"...Constable Kang?"

Mierou, mid-sprint, stopped and stood there with his mouth hanging open.

"...What was that? Just now?"

Right.

He'd dodged that attack at a speed no regular person should be capable of, and landed a punch hard enough to knock a villain out cold. Even if you asked Mierou to reproduce that exact motion, he wasn't confident he could pull it off on the first try.

No, to put it bluntly. That kind of movement was impossible without an ability.

"...Didn't you say you're going in for an ability test soon?"

"...Yes."

"...You'd better go get that done fast. It's illegal to know you've awakened a power and not get tested."

Mierou said, letting out a deep sigh.

What had he said, back when they'd first met? That he was the real deal, an actual ability user?

If only he could take that back now, he genuinely wished he could.

The only thing he could still confidently say he had over Kang Jin-ho was his rank, nothing else.

* * *

Leaving Marionette cuffed and unconscious behind them.

"I called for backup. The rest of the team should be here soon."

Mierou said, ending his phone call.

"Yes, thank you."

Kang Jin-ho answered, but his mind was in complete chaos underneath.

A moment ago. He'd had no way to dodge that incoming blade. He'd just been standing there, staring helplessly at a knife aimed straight at his chest.

...He'd dodged it.

He'd dodged an attack he couldn't dodge. He'd struck an enemy he couldn't reach.

He, of all people, had felt it most clearly. Before and after that message window appeared, his body's condition had changed drastically.

'Gaining karma makes my physical abilities get better and better...?'

For repelling Blackflame, he'd earned 100,000 karma in one shot. He hadn't noticed before because he'd only ever gained small amounts of karma bit by bit, but apparently his body improved every single time he gained karma.

...This counts as a superpower, right?

What worried Kang Jin-ho most right now was whether karma and his status window would actually be classified as a "superpower."

Getting stronger, his combat ability going up? Great. More than welcome. In a city crawling with villains, he absolutely needed the strength to protect himself.

The problem was, what if he went in for the ability test and got classified as "no ability"?

Right now, Kang Jin-ho's physical condition had reached the very edge of the regular-person range. In other words, roughly on par with a professional fighter.

But he'd been just a somewhat healthy adult man until recently, and at some point he'd ended up with an athlete's body... and he wasn't a superpower user?

Lately he'd been going full throttle, no brakes, using his game knowledge every chance he got to solve cases... and he'd turn out to be powerless?

That would be way too strange. Strange enough that Eun-yeong would "get curious" about it.

Thinking of Eun-yeong sent a chill down his whole body. This construction site was dark on every side. It wouldn't feel out of place at all if Eun-yeong were watching right now.

"...Is there any way to bribe the examiner so I get classified as an ability user?"

"What? What did you just say?"

"Nothing..."

While Kang Jin-ho kept sighing heavily.

"Heh heh... heh heh heh heh..."

An eerie laugh came from behind them. Marionette, awake at some point, lay rolling on the floor, eyes glaring upward.

"You two are going to regret this."

Her voice was a mix of rage and humiliation.

"Do you know who's above me? You couldn't even imagine it. You've heard of 'Director Baek,' haven't you?"

"...Director Baek? Wasn't that just an urban legend?"

Mierou asked, his expression hardening.

Director Baek.

A so-called "villain consultant" quietly passed around by word of mouth in Light City's underworld, an evil genius.

Rumor had it that no matter how pathetic a villain was, one consultation with him and they'd walk away with a flawless alibi, slipping right past any hero's investigation.

But Director Baek wasn't officially registered in the Hero Association's database... because no one had ever managed to pin him down. That was exactly why Mierou reacted with such surprise, calling him an "urban legend."

"You're going to die. You'll die without even knowing why!"

Marionette screamed, drooling.

"He'll avenge me. He'll pay this humiliation back a thousandfold and destroy you both in the most painful way possible!!!"

Marionette's venomous curse echoed through the construction site.

An invisible, unknown genius mastermind actually existed? For a moment, Mierou was overwhelmed and swallowed hard.

But Constable Kang... was thinking hard about something.

Glancing sideways, he saw Kang Jin-ho showing no fear at all. If anything, he looked deeply absorbed in some very serious thought.

Being able to see emotions made this all the more unexpected for Mierou. Shouldn't he at least show a hint of fear, or reluctance?

Instead, Kang Jin-ho was deep in thought. It looked like he was working out how to deal with Director Baek. Even though he'd only just learned this unknown figure existed, he seemed to be seriously plotting how to take him down.

'...He's simply on another level.'

His whole way of thinking is different, Mierou marveled inwardly.

Kang Jin-ho, meanwhile, was thinking very hard indeed.

It had nothing to do with Director Baek.

'...What excuse do I give?'

If Eun-yeong asked how he'd figured out "music box," what on earth was he supposed to say?

Footnotes:

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