The Police Do a Better Job than Heroes - Chapter 44

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Police Do a Better Job Than Heroes

Chapter 44

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Life Is Like a Railroad Track (11)

"The one who eats darkness, and the one who makes light, and between them..."

"A lamp."

"It grows at night, shrinks in daylight, and always belongs to its master's..."

"Fingernail."

"God damn it!"

Cold sweat poured down Labyrinth's whole body. The goal of stalling for time had gone out the window. Stalling in front of a monster like that was impossible.

Look, even now the heroes were closing in with murder in their eyes. Labyrinth had kept regenerating the maze to buy time, but the ether in his body was running dangerously low. He couldn't keep this standoff going forever.

Which left only one option.

'Run!'

Labyrinth clutched Silver Knife and edged backward, step by step. The heroes tensed, watching his every move, and then.

"Fine, take him!"

Labyrinth flung Silver Knife into a corner of the bunker and bolted for the emergency passage behind him, running full tilt.

"He's making a run for it!"

"Get Silver Knife first!"

"Okay!"

Following Acid Bomb's order, a combat-type hero rushed toward Silver Knife.

"Wh, whoa?!"

His body twisted weirdly in midair out of nowhere, and he yanked himself back just in time. His reflexes were good enough to stop him, or an ordinary person's ligaments would've been shredded.

"It's a maze, huh? Officer! Solve this riddle for me too!"

"That's a plain maze, no riddle attached. Just smash through it."

"Oh, yeah?"

-Kraaash!

A maze without a riddle reinforcing it collapsed in an instant in front of an A-rank hero.

"Hostage secured!"

"Now get that bastard!"

The remaining heroes charged after Labyrinth with total confidence.

"It's a maze!"

"Smash it!"

-Kraaash!

"Another maze!"

"This time too..."

-BOOM!

"Gah..."

The hero who tried to smash through the maze in midair got flung back like a cannonball and slammed into the bunker wall. Being A-rank, he didn't die, but the injury didn't look minor either.

"There's a riddle written on the floor here! Looks like he printed the riddles on stickers beforehand and stuck them down!"

"...an annoying trick to pull."

Labyrinth had used his head while fleeing, cunningly alternating between corridors with riddles and corridors without. Checking the walls and ceiling for riddles cost time, and smashing through blindly meant getting hit by the backlash.

"How's Silver Knife?"

"Doesn't look life threatening."

Meanwhile Trace and Acid Bomb checked on Silver Knife's condition. They undid his restraints and checked his breathing. He'd just been knocked out, no danger to his life.

Either way, the goal of rescuing Silver Knife had been achieved. With things settled that far, opinions split among the heroes.

"We've already rescued Silver Knife-sunbae, so can't we take our time clearing the passage? The information-type heroes are pretty exhausted right now."

"What are you talking about? This is our chance to catch a core executive of a 1-rank villain group. If we let him slip away now, who knows what he'll pull next. We have to catch him now, no question!"

While the heroes argued over whether to chase or regroup.

-Crackle, crackle.

Kang Jin-ho picked up his crackling radio and put through a call.

"Magic Muscle-nim?"

-Yes, Officer! What's going on?! The enemies are retreating all at once right now, we should be chasing them...

"No, that's not it. There's somewhere you need to get to fast."

Gasping for breath, Labyrinth finally reached a space where a thin strip of light was leaking through.

'...I'm alive!'

What he saw was a steel ladder, similar to the one Kang Jin-ho's group had climbed down. Just open the hatch above and he'd be on the surface.

It wasn't a fully safe path since it led outside, but at least there was hope of linking up with the combatants still fighting up there and getting away.

"Chase him!"

"There he is!"

With the heroes closing in fast from behind, there was no more time to hold out down here.

-Clank.

Labyrinth grabbed the ladder and ground his teeth.

"You'll pay for this, you damn hero bastard!"

Getting caught swapping out Silver Knife had been unexpected, but his response had been perfect. The plan had been to trap the heroes in the hideout and wear them down until they were wiped out.

If it hadn't been for that madman who solved every single riddle, he'd be getting praised by Ghost-nim right about now...

"I'll curse your name. I'll find your family, find your friends, find your lover! I'll trap them all in mazes and kill them right in front of your eyes!"

"...is he talking to me right now?"

Kang Jin-ho stopped chasing Labyrinth for a moment and turned to ask the heroes nearby.

"..."

The heroes didn't answer out loud, but their eyes said, "who else would it be?" Who else besides Kang Jin-ho could Labyrinth possibly be cursing at like that?

"You'll regret this moment for the rest of your life. Chewing over letting Lord Labyrinth slip through your fingers, for the rest of your days...!"

As Labyrinth spewed curses too vile to repeat and started climbing the ladder.

-Creeeak... crack!

Something snapped up above.

"Hm? This hole should be it! Looks a bit narrow, but... whoa!"

Above Labyrinth, a huge silhouette appeared, backlit by moonlight.

"Careful! I slipped!"

"...huh?"

Labyrinth left behind a stupid last word as his final testament.

-BOOOOOOOM!!!

The whole bunker shook like an earthquake, and with a tremendous crash, chunks of concrete scattered in every direction.

"Cough, cough. What was that?"

"Everyone all right?"

"The maze's aura is completely gone?"

The startled heroes stepped back, and once the thick dust had settled a little.

Where the sound had come from, a massive, muscular man lay sprawled among the rubble collapsed from the walls and floor.

"Ngh..."

The man, covered in blood from head to toe, slowly got up and looked at himself, startled.

"There was a feeling of crushing a person underneath me. D, did I just kill a comrade?!"

Magic Muscle, the muscular man, stared in horror at the human remains smeared across his body. Kang Jin-ho gently corrected him from the side.

"The guy you crushed was the one who kidnapped Silver Knife."

"Ah, is that so? What a relief! Hahahaha!!!"

Magic Muscle flexed his muscles to shake off the blood, then burst into a hearty laugh.

Of course, bloodstains still covered the area around him... but hey, it was a villain's blood, so no problem, right?

"..."

Watching the scene, Kang Jin-ho thought.

'S-rank prophecies really do have some serious performance.'

It had really, truly played out exactly as prophesied.

"Hahaha! I went to the location Officer Kang told me over the radio, and there happened to be an old manhole there! So I was just about to open the lid and peek inside when my foot slipped, and down I went!"

"Ah, that's how it happened."

Either way, thanks to Magic Muscle's unintended heroics, Labyrinth had been dealt with. Capturing him alive for interrogation was a bust, but the rest of the gang had been mopped up, and the hostage rescued safe and sound. The case counted as solved.

"Anyone injured, come this way!"

"Everyone back up! No photos!"

Before long, the paramedics, the Association's support team, and the police arrived to secure the scene.

"Tch. Association kids these days are so soft. Back in my day, three days was plenty for a rescue... and nobody even noticed the swap. Have people stopped caring about their seniors this much... tch..."

"S, sorry, sunbae."

"It's because everyone's making too much money these days. No sense of duty, no sense of responsibility, no camaraderie... plenty of guys out there would go villain if the price was right. A hero is supposed to be..."

The moment Silver Knife regained consciousness, he unloaded a flood of unpleasant lecturing, and the heroes who'd stood quietly listening at first started disappearing one by one, until eventually only the rookies were left.

'...honestly, the fake Silver Knife had a way better personality.'

'The fake one at least gave a nice smile...'

Nobody said it out loud, but everyone was cursing Silver Knife in their heads.

Meanwhile, the atmosphere around Kang Jin-ho was completely different.

"Officer Kang! Please tell us how you solved those riddles!"

"You made what could've been a disaster look easy! Thanks to you!"

Renowned A-rank heroes and rookies alike gathered around, gushing with admiration, and Magic Muscle clapped Kang Jin-ho on the shoulder with a grin.

"The credit you earned this time is enormous! I'll make sure to pull some strings so a proper reward comes through!"

"Haha, thanks. Honestly, I feel a bit awkward about it."

"Nonsense! People should get what they've earned! Isn't this just talent showing itself at a decisive moment, all because of how hard you've worked up to now, Officer Kang! Every single moment must have piled up to produce a result like this!"

"You think so? Hahaha!"

"Hahaha!!!"

While that warm, friendly atmosphere carried on.

"Jin-ho."

"...huh?"

Eun-yeong had appeared behind Kang Jin-ho at some point, a can of coffee in one hand, smiling faintly.

"Uh... Eun-yeong-sunbae? What brings you here?"

"Field support. So, did you wrap up the case all right?"

Right, the police had been dispatched to help clear the scene too.

"Ah, I see. Yeah, the case is solved. The villain was using a riddle-based ability to reinforce his maze, so I countered by solving the riddles."

"Oh, how'd you figure them out?"

Eun-yeong's mouth curled slightly upward, an expectant look on her face.