WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ The Police Do a Better Job Than Heroes

Chapter 32

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Staying Still Gets You Halfway There (6)

"I, I swear I'm innocent! I didn't do anything!"

Clayboy had gone so far as to drop to his knees, both hands rubbing together in pleading.

"Save the excuses for prison. My ears hurt just listening to you."

Hwa-yeong snorted and flared the ring of fire even higher in response, and Clayboy flinched hard enough to press his whole body flat against the ground.

"Excuse me, Hwa-yeong-nim? Could you explain exactly what happened here?"

Kang Jin-ho asked, stepping forward carefully.

"What happened, you're asking?"

"Yes, what took place here."

"What's it to you?"

Hwa-yeong didn't bother answering properly. He just crossed his arms and lifted his chin.

"I caught the culprit, didn't I? What changes if you find out what happened? Just makes my mouth tired."

"..."

Most heroes cared about public opinion and sponsors, so this kind of nasty attitude wasn't common, but Hwa-yeong was different. His personality could charitably be called fiery, and less charitably, socially hopeless.

Then again, fire-type heroes tended to run like this in general. Maybe awakening a fire-related power did something to a person, or maybe it was only people already like this who ended up awakening fire powers. Either way, they never listened, stubborn as mules, and their abilities weren't even overwhelming enough to justify the attitude.

Regardless, the HiCiSi communities were famous for their loathing of "fire guys," so Kang Jin-ho had already braced himself mentally beforehand. Honestly, the moment Hwa-yeong dropped casual speech on a first meeting, he'd figured something like this might happen.

"Go on, talk. Why exactly would I owe you an explanation?"

So instead of opening his mouth to launch into a long, tedious explanation, Kang Jin-ho...

Beep beep beep beep.

"Jin-ho-ssi? What's going on?"

"Trace-nim. I need some help."

...just called Trace.

"Trace? This bastard... is Trace-nim your friend or something?"

Hwa-yeong, apparently convinced Kang Jin-ho was pulling some pointless stunt, swept his hair back off his forehead and let his irritation show.

"Take the call."

"...huh, what call... wait, seriously? Hold on. Hello?"

%$#@$#@!.

"Yes, yes. No, that's not it. Yes. No, normally the police would need to look into... yes, I'm sorry. Yes. Understood."

"Are you done with the call?"

"Where would you like me to start explaining?"

A moment later, Hwa-yeong recovered a humility he hadn't touched in a long time. Trace's own influence mattered, sure, but getting on the bad side of the information-type hero cartel made a hero's career very directly difficult.

Hwa-yeong had a fiery personality, but he knew how to bend for someone stronger than him.

**

"So... I'm the security lead for this popup. Basically my job is just to stand around and keep the troublemakers away."

Hwa-yeong began explaining, stumbling over his words.

"I was having coffee nearby, on the phone with my girlfriend, when suddenly I heard screaming."

He'd hung up immediately and rushed to the popup site. By the time he arrived, the whole scene was already blanketed in white smoke.

"At first I thought it might be poison gas, so I held my breath, but judging by how people were reacting, it didn't seem harmful. Still, I couldn't just set the smoke on fire without knowing what was in it, so I had to be careful..."

"And then?"

"I shouted at the staff to stay put, not to move, but the smoke had already caused too much chaos. So, well, I decided to prioritize."

Hwa-yeong first headed for the tallest streetlamp nearby. From there he pushed his senses to their limit, swept the fleeing citizens for anything suspicious, and pinpointed where the smoke grenade had gone off.

"At the very least, nobody was running off with a stolen luxury bag in the middle of the chaos. So I got rid of the smoke grenade itself."

"How long did that take?"

"Roughly fifty seconds, I'd guess."

Once he cleared the smoke grenade, the white smoke blanketing the area vanished, and the popup's full state was revealed.

"Sounds like you handled it well, from what you're telling me."

"That's the thing..."

Hwa-yeong sighed and walked over to the platform where the giant teddy bear sat.

"Here, see this?"

"...see what?"

"Exactly."

Hwa-yeong tapped his palm against the platform.

"Normally, there'd be about ten luxury bags arranged around the bear here. But they're all gone. Every single one."

"Hm..."

So the thing the staff had been desperately searching for was the missing bags. Kang Jin-ho nodded as if he understood, then looked over at Clayboy, still trapped inside the ring of fire.

"I get the situation, but... why exactly is Clayboy the culprit?"

"What? Why else would a villain be loitering near a popup like this? I memorized the villain list a while back, and this guy was hanging around without even covering his face. There's probably an accomplice nearby, and if we interrogate him, he'll spill fast."

"I'm telling you it's not me! This is insane!"

Clayboy, Do Jin-hyuk, pounded the ground and screamed.

"I was just working a line-standing gig! I can show you my Apple Market transaction history! The clay doll's standing in line at the restaurant next door, I was the one actually standing here in person!"

"Does that make sense? Why would a villain do something like a line-standing side job?"

"Does that even matter? How exactly would I have stolen those bags in the first place? My power is making clay dolls, that's it. If I'd used that to grab luxury bags and run, I'd have been caught on the spot!"

"...that's... probably the accomplice's power, then."

Even Hwa-yeong seemed to run out of things to say to that, his eyes darting away as he avoided answering. In truth, Hwa-yeong himself had no idea where the bags had actually gone.

But usually, when you pinned a villain at a crime scene, that turned out to be the right call, and even if it wasn't the real culprit, catching a villain was never a loss. Hwa-yeong's attitude carried no hesitation at all.

"Anyway, you're the only villain in the area, aren't you? You're connected somehow, one way or another. Spill it already. Let's make this easy on both of us."

"Fuck, there's no talking to this guy!"

Clayboy, realizing he'd picked the wrong person to argue with, turned and shouted instead at Kang Jin-ho and Eun-yeong.

"I really didn't do it. I've gone clean. I decided to live honestly from now on!"

"Stop shouting and let's sort out the situation."

The one who stepped in was Eun-yeong, who had been listening quietly the whole time.

"First, Hwa-yeong. You're certain no one ran off carrying a bag, correct?"

"I, uh. Yes, well. Certain."

"So among the citizens, nobody fled with a bag."

"..."

Hwa-yeong thought to himself, why is this woman talking down to me, but something about her presence pushed the words right back down his throat, and he said nothing.

"Then the core issue is, during the fifty seconds the smoke lasted, every single luxury bag on that platform got stolen. Correct?"

"That's right."

"Hm... a B-rank hero watching the perimeter of the smoke, and somehow all the bags get hidden within fifty seconds."

Ten luxury bags, even if each one was small, added up to a considerable volume. Stealing all of them within a mere fifty seconds and then escaping through a crowd of hundreds? Practically impossible.

And on top of that, Hwa-yeong had been monitoring from above the whole time. Eun-yeong turned the problem over for a moment, but nothing came to mind beyond top-tier abilities like teleportation or intangibility.

Then again, most incidents in Light City could usually be explained if someone had teleportation. That was exactly why proper investigation became impossible without an information-type hero around.

"Jin-ho. Got any hunches on this one?"

"..."

Eun-yeong looked at him, clearly expecting something.

"For now, wouldn't it be better to hold onto this Clayboy fellow and wait for an information-type hero to arrive?"

Hwa-yeong pursed his lips, his expression practically saying what exactly can you even do here.

"Excuse me."

"!?"

Kang Jin-ho abruptly grabbed one of the staff members who'd been wandering around drenched in sweat and asked a question.

"Do you actually sell the bags here on-site?"

"Y, yes..."

"Are the ones on display for sale too?"

"If the customer wants that specific one, sure, or else... hup."

The staff member pressed a small latch on the platform where the bear sat, revealing an empty compartment inside.

"We usually keep the bags for sale in the back storage room, or in this reserve space here."

"I see... thank you."

A faint white trace, just barely visible in the inner compartment.

Kang Jin-ho nodded, then fell into thought.

It wasn't thinking meant to figure out who the culprit was. He'd already worked out what kind of case this was, and he'd fully grasped the method used.

What he was actually mulling over was the presentation. How much to explain. How much detail to give. What kind of image to project.

Plenty of eyes were on him here, and more than anything, Hwa-yeong, who'd kept up that nasty attitude the whole time, was watching too.

Kang Jin-ho, for the first time in a while, put on his full weight and gravity, adjusted the brim of his police cap.

And finally spoke aloud the line he'd always wanted to say, ranked number one on his list.

"First off, the culprit... is right here among us."

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