WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Police Do a Better Job Than Heroes

Chapter 37

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Life Is Like a Railroad Track (4)

"A little while back, we caught ourselves a 3-rank villain. His ability was communication-type, so his combat power was nothing to write home about, but he was serving as a link between different villains!"

"I caught him."

Trace shrugged, like it was nothing much. Kang Jin-ho, hoping to build up some affinity points, sprinkled in a little praise.

"As expected of Trace-nim. I always knew you could handle it."

"...Jin-ho-ssi, coming from you, that sounds sarcastic."

"...It wasn't."

Unfortunately, praise was one of those things where it mattered a great deal who said it. Kang Jin-ho, who'd been trying the same flattery he used on Eun-yeong, sat back down looking a bit awkward.

"Anyway. We caught this villain and interrogated him, and wouldn't you know it, he claimed there's a spy planted among the Eastern heroes! This guy was just a contact himself, so he didn't seem to know the details, but... the nerve, slipping a fake in among heroes. Unbelievable!"

Magic Muscle let out a sigh, his massive frame drooping.

"Normally in cases like this, we'd investigate the newest heroes one by one in order... but that takes a lot of effort, and heroes really hate it, you know! Nobody likes being suspected of being a villain!"

"Wait, I have a question."

Eun-yeong, who had been listening quietly, raised her hand.

"Aren't there heroes who can read minds or read emotions? Calling one of them in should solve this pretty easily, wouldn't it?"

"Hm, good question, Officer!"

Magic Muscle grinned, teeth flashing.

"Of course, we do have heroes with abilities like that! But unfortunately, highly trained spies can perfectly control their surface thoughts and emotions! If they float false thoughts in their head, or completely block off certain emotions, then mind-reading or emotion-detection abilities become useless!"

"Ahh~"

"And if we're talking about a villain who's more like a psychopath, moving purely out of goodwill or personal interest without any actual malice, then those abilities you mentioned wouldn't be much help catching them either! Their intentions would technically read as good, after all!"

"I see. That makes sense."

"..."

Kang Jin-ho felt like he'd just gotten a peek into the secret behind how Eun-yeong walked around the streets so openly without ever getting caught, but he chose not to say that part out loud.

"Anyway! We're preparing a high-intensity interrogation that can't be dodged by any of the shallow tricks I just mentioned... but before that, I thought, hey, maybe the officer they call a genius could figure out the spy, and that's why I came by!"

Magic Muscle carried on, voice full of energy.

"The date is next week, in the evening. The location is Blue Hotel! There's a social gathering being held there, and a lot of heroes are expected to attend, including all our suspects! If Officer Kang Jin-ho could shine there, that would be a huge help!"

"There are suspects already?"

Trace asked, eyes rounding.

"Yes! Setting aside the ones who've been active as heroes long enough to have their identities confirmed, among the more recently registered heroes... honestly, there are a few names that stand out. We'll investigate this shortlist first, and if we don't find anything, we'll move to the next step!"

"...Is it really okay to talk about this so loudly?"

Eun-yeong asked, sounding a little exasperated, but Magic Muscle just laughed heartily.

"Ha ha, why do you think I'm called Magic Muscle? It's because I can pull off magic-like feats! Nobody else can hear this conversation, so don't worry!"

"...The muscles weren't the ability?"

"It's Magic Muscle! The muscles, I built those myself, through exercise!"

Magic Muscle struck a bicep pose, flexing away, and Eun-yeong, apparently deciding she didn't want to deal with him anymore, pulled out a document and started typing it into the computer.

"Um, Jin-ho-ssi?"

Trace slipped closer in that lull and asked Kang Jin-ho a question.

"Last time, in the car, you figured out the whole 'subway drug deal case' just from what you heard, right? So maybe, if we tell you the shortlist, could you point out which hero seems suspicious right here on the spot?"

"Uh... I can't promise anything, but I'll give it a try."

Kang Jin-ho answered with an air of feigned ease, though inside, he wasn't confident at all.

Not because he didn't know who the villain disguised as a hero was. No, he knew.

The problem was he knew too much. Inside HiCiSi, villains disguised as heroes were nowhere near rare.

At some point, these villains would quietly remove the real hero and pass themselves off as the genuine article, but the spies weren't fixed. They got randomly assigned every game, which made it hard to just point at one and name them.

So catching a spy meant directly observing "behavior that deviated from the norm" and using that as a clue, which made pulling an answer out of thin air, sitting right here, next to impossible.

"Oh, that's exactly what I'd expect from Officer 'Gut-Instinct Kang Jin-ho'! Very reassuring!"

"...Who came up with that nickname, Gut-Instinct Kang Jin-ho?"

"I just made it up!"

"..."

Not knowing what was going through Kang Jin-ho's mind, Magic Muscle laughed heartily and launched into a proper explanation.

"Right now, I think there are three heroes who stand out as most suspicious! They've all shown some pretty questionable behavior lately!"

The spy candidates Magic Muscle had picked out were as follows.

First, the shadow-ability user 'Dark Stealth,' who wandered shady back alleys every night carrying a large bag.

Second, the flame-ability user 'Hell Fire,' who had reportedly holed up in his basement lately, loudly muttering chilling things to himself like "I know where you live" and "I'm going to kill your mother."

Third, the healing-type ability user 'White Lily,' who despite her usual pure and noble image, had been spotted secretly exchanging large sums of cash with low-level thugs near the black market.

"First up. Dark Stealth has an absolutely masterful knack for moving only through the blind spots of CCTV cameras! Always carrying that big bag around, and its contents are deeply suspicious!"

"And second! Hell Fire is like a bomb that could go off at any moment! The neighbors keep filing complaints about the bizarre, horrifying things he shouts, and honestly, I have no idea what kind of plan he's cooking up!"

"And finally, third! White Lily! I don't know what these back-alley deals of hers actually involve, but it's clearly not anything aboveboard! Judging by how much of the money she's earned from hero work she's pouring into it, it looks like a fairly large-scale operation!"

Frankly, to Magic Muscle, all three looked like villains, but according to the captured 3-rank villain, there was only one spy, so he had absolutely no idea which of the three it actually was.

"So, Officer, which one of these do you think is the villain?"

Magic Muscle laced his fingers together, waiting for Kang Jin-ho's answer like he couldn't wait to hear it.

"Well, um... I do have a gut feeling."

Should he actually say it? But if he didn't, an innocent person would end up under suspicion as a villain, so he probably had to say something, right?

After some hesitation, Kang Jin-ho ended up with no choice but to tell the truth.

"First of all... none of the three you're suspecting are actually villains."

"Wh, what did you say?!"

Magic Muscle startled, visibly shocked.

"Dark Stealth-nim... goes out at night to do in-person deals for limited-edition magical girl anime merchandise. Dark Stealth is using their shadow ability to dodge CCTV because they're worried it'll damage their usual cool image. There's probably a magic wand or some big kids' figure in that bag."

"...The cool, collected Dark Stealth has a hobby like that?"

Magic Muscle's mouth fell open. But Kang Jin-ho's story had only just begun.

"And Hell Fire-nim just has a loud voice and kind of a bad personality. The talking to himself happens when he's playing games in the basement, loses a bunch of matches in a row, and starts yelling curses at the top of his lungs. The basement's probably got bad soundproofing, so maybe tell him to get that fixed."

"..."

"And finally, White Lily-nim... she's addicted to mobile gacha games. Her managers put a payment cap on her for the sake of keeping up appearances, so she's going through black market brokers to make payments by proxy. The game she's playing is probably one of those famous for brutal gacha rates... and the reason the transaction amounts are so big is probably because she's paying the thugs a hefty commission on top."

"Is this what you mean by 'gut instinct'?"

"Yes..."

Kang Jin-ho's explanation had been calm but specific. The three heroes he'd just named all happened to be people Kang Jin-ho knew fairly well, which was exactly why he knew there was no way any of them had been swapped out for a villain, and that was why he'd said something.

"Well... I suppose it's a relief to hear those heroes aren't villains..."

Magic Muscle let out a hollow sigh.

"But to think the average level of our Eastern heroes is this pathetic... I wish there were a hole in the ground I could crawl into!!!"

A guy running around buying magical girl merch. A grown man spewing filthy curses about people's mothers. A guy who, because his agency capped his payments, went all the way to the black market just to throw money at a game.

If this was the average Eastern hero... maybe it would have been less embarrassing if one of them actually had been a villain.

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