WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ The Police Do a Better Job Than Heroes

Chapter 47

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Even a Sparrow's Steps Are Steps (3)

"What do you mean both right and both wrong?"

"No time for wordplay, Officer. Just tell us straight."

Both heroes asked with clear irritation, and honestly, their edge made sense. Tracking down the culprit in a case like this depended first on pinning down exactly which ability had been used.

Two "bank robbery" cases might look identical on the surface, but the direction of the investigation split completely depending on what power the perpetrator had used.

Same story here. Whether the culprit used mind control or shapeshifting changed everything, right down to whose lead would end up taking the credit. Their nerves weren't exactly unreasonable.

"Alright, let's stay calm here. Let's just point out the parts of your theories that contradict each other."

Kang Jin-ho raised a hand, palm out, working to settle the room.

"First, Mind Reader's theory. There's a trace of a psychic ability left in the businessman's mind, and the despair he's feeling is genuine. That much is evidence. But the idea that 'he was brainwashed into opening the safe' is a deduction. And that deduction conflicts with Afterimage's testimony. According to her, the hand motions opening the safe looked completely natural."

"..."

Mind Reader's lips pressed shut. Kang Jin-ho turned toward Afterimage next.

"The culprit acted naturally, of his own free will. That's also evidence. But if this was a shapeshifting villain's work, there'd be no need to fake a cover story in the first place... and it wouldn't explain how they got the safe's combination. The businessman's head shows no lingering negative emotion, no pain, nothing like that."

"..."

This time Afterimage went quiet. Both heroes silently admitted it to themselves: each other's evidence was stabbing holes in each other's theory.

"So that's why you said both of us are right? If neither my ability nor Afterimage's ability was wrong."

"Correct. Assuming everything you two 'clearly witnessed' is entirely true, there's only one scenario that fits."

Kang Jin-ho raised a finger.

"The person who opened the safe did so of their own free will. But the businessman never suffered anything like torture, and the despair over 'my money got stolen' is a hundred percent genuine. For all three of those to hold true at once, the only real explanation is."

"A self-staged crime?"

"Exactly right, sunbae-nim."

Kang Jin-ho nodded toward Eun-yeong.

"If the businessman staged it himself, every question here gets answered. He was moving of his own free will, so the movements looked 'natural.' He wanted to cover it up somewhat, so there was a bit of a 'disguise operation.' But that alone wouldn't feel safe enough, so he probably had his own memory of it wiped, somewhere in the black market. That would be the trace of a 'psychic ability' Mind Reader saw."

"You're saying he erased his own memory?"

"Yes. From his own perspective, the despair would have been completely real. Without the memory, he genuinely believed he'd been robbed."

Everyone's eyes turned to the businessman, still collapsed on the floor.

"...Ahem, hm!"

The businessman's color was, remarkably, starting to improve. Moments ago he'd been convinced he'd lost more than ten billion won and collapsed from the shock. Now that he understood his own memoryless self had hidden that money somewhere, his heart eased a little.

"This businessman's charges were tax evasion and illegal drug distribution, right? If convicted, what's the penalty?"

"Asset seizure!" another officer answered briskly.

"That's probably why he pulled this. Just spiriting away ten billion outright gets traced eventually. As long as he himself knew where he'd hidden it, one session with an emotion-type hero like Mind Reader would finish him. So he erased the memory. That way, even with his mind read, he'd come across as an innocent victim."

"Ohh..."

"So that's what happened..."

While the two heroes and the officers were busy marveling at Kang Jin-ho's reasoning.

"Something's off, though."

Eun-yeong, leaning crookedly against the wall, tilted her head and spoke up.

"What... what do you mean, sunbae-nim?"

"You said he erased his memory."

"Yes, that's right."

"Then how's he planning to find that money again later?"

Eun-yeong folded her fingers down one by one as she continued.

"Leaving a clue is strange. A note, the safe, a person, whatever it is. A clue is, in the end, an 'object that can be found.' If he can find it, a hero or the police can find it even better. Wouldn't that be the exact moment the whole scheme falls apart? To make it airtight, he shouldn't leave any clue at all."

Leave nothing behind, and the money vanishes.

But leave something behind, and the crime gets exposed.

Tak. Eun-yeong's fingers finished folding down.

"So if he committed the crime 'perfectly'... what exactly did this guy get out of it?"

"..."

The buzzing atmosphere went quiet in an instant.

A sharp point. A hole punched clean through what had, moments ago, looked like a flawless theory.

"Maybe... the businessman's just stupid, and did it without thinking it through?"

"That doesn't add up either. Look how obsessed he is with money. He'd have run off with the cash if that were the case. If there's no way to actually gain from it, he wouldn't have tried in the first place."

"Hmm."

The officer who'd chimed in backed off, conceding the point to Eun-yeong.

'Wow.'

Kang Jin-ho found himself genuinely startled looking at Eun-yeong. He kept thinking she had a sharper head on her shoulders than most information-type heroes he'd met.

But Kang Jin-ho knew the answer. More precisely, he knew an awful lot about this world.

"Sunbae-nim is right."

"Yeah? Then why..."

"But there's a part you're missing."

Kang Jin-ho walked over to the businessman, who couldn't decide whether to be pleased or terrified, and poked the man's head with a fingertip.

"We lump these powers together for convenience as 'information-type,' but look closely and there are huge differences between them... and it's the same with abilities that touch memory."

"Why are you poking my head..."

The businessman squirmed, ignored.

"Mind Reader-nim. You said earlier you saw a 'strong' trace of a psychic ability in the businessman's mind, correct?"

"...Yes, that's right."

"I don't know exactly how you perceive a trace like that, but... did it look like burned-out ash? Or."

"It looked like a log with embers still glowing inside. Like..."

Mind Reader frowned, studying the businessman, then flinched.

"Like it was still running. Still active."

"That's it."

Kang Jin-ho snapped his fingers.

"If the memory had just been erased and left at that, the trace should have faded down to something like a scar, right? But if it's still showing up clear and vivid right now... then it's fair to say that ability is still doing something, even now. So to put it a different way, it's not that it got cleared out entirely."

Kang Jin-ho's gaze drifted toward the safe.

"There's a good chance it's been sealed shut, like a safe."

"...!"

"There's a condition for it to unlock...!"

Kang Jin-ho nodded at Afterimage's question.

"Yes. Probably something like 'once the trial ends,' or 'on a set date.' If the businessman, having committed his crimes, wants to pay his debt to society but has no remaining assets to seize because his body alone went to prison and came back out, and the memory returns at that exact moment. That would work. No need to leave a clue anywhere. His own skull is the safe. And once he's released, no one's going to run a check on him again, are they?"

"A villain who seals memories instead of erasing them..."

"Lethe."

Afterimage muttered it under her breath.

"2-rank villain, Lethe. A psychic-type. I've heard of her. Plenty of scumbags out there erase memories, but a bitch who 'seals' them, there's only the one."

Afterimage clenched her jaw like there was some old grudge behind it, then shot up to her feet.

"If the officer's theory holds, the culprit is definitely Lethe. I've heard she still shows her face in the black market sometimes."

The moment the name of a wanted villain got pinned down, the mood in the room turned around completely.

"...No wonder everyone keeps saying 'Officer Kang, Officer Kang.'"

"Sitting right here... wow."

The officers who'd only ever heard rumors about Kang Jin-ho kept nodding along, muttering things like "so that's why he's been doing so well lately."

"...I guess the Labyrinth case wasn't a coincidence after all."

"...We'll admit it. We were both wrong."

While the two heroes admitted they'd been about to lead the investigation in a completely wrong direction.

Kang Jin-ho quietly turned his head to check on Eun-yeong.

'Please...'

Eun-yeong had her palm resting on top of the head of the businessman, who was still making sounds like "uh, uhh..." and she was watching Kang Jin-ho in silence.

A faint smile hung at the corner of her mouth, an expression like a cat that had eaten its fill and stretched out on a sunny windowsill.

Satisfied. Thoroughly, unmistakably satisfied.

'Yes...!'

Good thing he hadn't chalked it up to another gut feeling or a lucky guess this time. Kang Jin-ho silently clenched a fist. He felt like he could finally sleep easy tonight.

"So, um, what do we do now?"

The officer who'd answered briskly earlier raised a hand to ask. Kang Jin-ho rubbed his chin for a moment before answering.

"Well... for now, I think this businessman got scammed too."

"Scammed? What do you mean?"

"Think about it. The client handed over his entire memory of where his money is to a villain. What reason does that villain have to keep her end of the deal? The businessman's not stupid, so he probably set up some kind of safeguard, but..."

Kang Jin-ho glanced at the businessman, who was trembling.

"Even if he files a complaint, it'll only be possible years down the line. It doesn't mean much at that point."

"Gnnnhh..."

Maybe it was the despair of realizing he'd been conned that pulled the strange groan out of the businessman. His condition had been swinging back and forth like a rollercoaster in such a short span of time that his body finally gave out and he passed out cold.

"So even if we arrest that guy, seizing his assets is going to be difficult?"

"Yes. Which means we know what we need to do next."

Kang Jin-ho shrugged.

"We go catch this villain, Lethe. She's probably sitting on more than ten billion won."

At the casual suggestion that they go arrest a 2-rank villain, the room split into two very different reactions.

"..."

The two heroes looked distinctly uneasy, like they were thinking, is that even possible?

"...!"

The officers, on the other hand, had their eyes lit up with something like, he must be saying it because it's possible!

And the one who'd actually said it, Kang Jin-ho, was quietly running numbers in his head.

'Ten billion. Whatever else it is, it's a tax evader's money, which means it has to be returned to the national treasury.'

Right now it sat in a villain's hands, but if they caught Lethe? The seized money would naturally flow into the treasury.

From the villain's pocket, into Kang Jin-ho's possession, and finally into the nation's coffers.

If he made that whole chain happen himself, in a certain sense, wasn't this basically...

'...isn't this a donation too?'

Kang Jin-ho was already eyeing the karma he could clear through donation...!

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