WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ The Police Do a Better Job Than Heroes

Chapter 48

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Even a Sparrow's Steps Are Steps (4)

"Um, that... Officer Kang?"

One officer raised a hand, using formal speech despite outranking Kang Jin-ho in title.

"I understand the culprit is that 2-rank villain, Lethe. But don't we not know where she is? If she's a villain who only shows up occasionally in the black market, there won't be any solid information on her..."

It was, honestly, a reasonable reaction. A 2-rank villain? Great if they could catch her. But how they caught her mattered a lot.

Comparing hero strength against villain strength in Light City as a whole, heroes came out ahead, no question. If the two sides went to open war, heroes would take it decisively.

So why hadn't heroes driven the villains out? Why did villains keep committing crimes? Information asymmetry.

"Villains don't just hide, they hide thoroughly. Countermeasures against various abilities are basic prep for them, and they'd have traps set up too..."

"That's true."

He wasn't wrong. But limited to this moment, and limited to Kang Jin-ho specifically... he wasn't entirely right either.

Beep, beep, beep.

Instead of answering, Kang Jin-ho pulled out his phone and dialed a number.

"Yes, yes. You can come now. Please hurry."

The call ended quickly. Before ten minutes had passed.

"Is this the place? Looks right."

The elevator doors opened and A-rank hero Trace arrived inside the penthouse.

"Trace?"

"...It's been a while."

Mind Reader and Afterimage greeted Trace with faintly complicated expressions. Truth be told, the two of them had more seniority, but Trace outranked them as a hero. Simply put, they'd fallen behind on results, which made it awkward to complain about.

More than anything, there was a nagging thought neither wanted to voice, if Trace had been dispatched to this case from the start, wouldn't it already be solved? No matter how hard they tried to hide the inferiority complex, their attitude turned sour anyway.

"Hi, hello."

Ignoring all that, Trace gave the pair a light greeting and walked straight up to Kang Jin-ho, smiling.

"Jin-ho-ssi needs my help? What should I do?"

"Him, right here. Please follow the path this man took."

Kang Jin-ho pointed to the handcuffed businessman. Trace's power let her see the memory of a space itself. She'd be able to trace the exact moment the businessman left the penthouse and made contact with Lethe.

"Not much time has passed yet. If we start tracking now, we should be able to reach Lethe."

"...Wouldn't it be better if I did it?"

Afterimage, listening in, crossed her arms with a sour look.

"Traces of movement can be prepared against. But Trace-nim reads the memory of the space itself, doesn't she."

"..."

Kang Jin-ho felt bad saying it, but in this situation, Trace's ability held a complete edge over Afterimage's.

Simple traces of something having moved could be erased later. But a memory imprinted in the space itself had no way to be erased.

"So... you're saying we're tracking down a 2-rank villain?"

"That's right."

"Hm."

Trace, briefed on the situation, fell silent for a moment before speaking.

"A 2-rank villain... will this many people be enough? Shouldn't we notify the Association and request a response team before moving..."

"There's no time for that. Your ability takes time to use, doesn't it. If we wait for backup, Lethe will get too far away."

"But..."

She was a 2-rank villain, after all. That designation meant Light City's public authorities had to keep constant watch on her. And all they had here was a handful of officers and three information-type heroes.

"Even if we catch up to her, will we actually be able to arrest her? If it comes to a fight, our odds..."

"She's bad at fighting."

Eun-yeong cut in.

"Her physical stats are about average for an information-type hero, and the most she'd carry for self-defense is probably a stun gun. Face her head-on and you could subdue her with a single gun."

"..."

"Something about a penalty tied to her ability, or whatever it was... she apparently hates combat situations and doesn't even keep bodyguards. If we show up, she'll just run, not fight back."

Extremely useful testimony from Eun-yeong. However.

"How... do you know that?"

"Isn't it well known?"

"...Is it well known?"

"?"

Trace tilted her head. There was no way the physical specs of a secretive Rank 2 villain, one whose news only trickled out from the black market occasionally, would be common knowledge.

'Eun-yeong, only you know that!'

Kang Jin-ho, startled, quickly cut in over her words.

"I, I've heard that too! Apparently it's a fairly well-known story in black market circles!"

"Really?"

"Yes! But that's not the actual problem."

Kang Jin-ho hurried to change the subject.

"Lethe is weak. But catching her might actually be harder than catching a 1-rank villain."

"Weak, but we can't catch her?"

"Right. The problem is her memory-sealing ability. To get around it..."

Kang Jin-ho looked over at the two heroes who'd been sitting quietly like scolded interns this whole time.

"I'll need their help."

**

About thirty minutes later.

"This way. She went down that path."

Trace stared into empty air, pointing a finger to indicate direction.

Sure enough, in a chase like this, Trace's ability was nearly unbeatable. Since she read memories carved into the space itself, there was no way to block or erase the trail.

Of course, there was one catch...

"Wait a second. I need to move over there and use my ability again."

"Right."

It wasn't instantaneous.

Every time Trace used her ability, she had to hold a state of deep focus, and since her effective range was limited, she had to keep relocating after reading each memory.

Every alley, every intersection they passed, Trace stopped and stared into empty space, and the group waited nearby each time.

Retracing the businessman's path this way took nearly three hours.

"We're almost there, I think. He put away the phone he'd been gripping the whole way. Must be close now."

As the sun quietly tilted toward evening, the group entered a part of Light City that felt like a shadow cast by the black market, distinct from it entirely.

Cracked stone walls. Grime caked on thick and sticky. Half-torn flyers stuck to walls. It was hard to believe a space like this existed in bustling Light City.

The moment they stepped into an alley that was obviously not right, the officers' hands drifted naturally to the stun guns at their waists. An unreadable tension hung in the air here.

'About time.'

And Kang Jin-ho quietly pulled out his phone.

Beep.

Timer started. The count began ticking up slowly from 00:01.

"Why are you turning that on?"

Mind Reader, standing beside him, asked curiously, but Kang Jin-ho kept the phone held so the screen stayed visible and answered briefly.

"Insurance."

"Insurance...?"

"You'll find out soon. Everyone, just remember what I told you before we came."

"?"

While Mind Reader tilted his head at the cryptic remark.

"Wait."

Trace, walking ahead, stopped in her tracks.

"There."

She pointed toward the interior of the alley. A narrow side path wedged between two buildings, barely visible. Two average adults would struggle to pass through side by side, and a single large person alone would have a hard time squeezing through.

"His trace leads in there. And... down that path. A lot of people have passed through, not just the businessman. All alone, all with their heads bowed low."

"Customers."

The people Trace saw were likely customers who'd come to have their memories erased. It seemed they'd found the right place.

The group swallowed and gathered in front of the side path. It wouldn't do much good, but the officers loaded their stun guns anyway, and the heroes drew up their ether, bracing for combat.

Static crackled.

The sound came from overhead.

"?"

Everyone's eyes snapped upward at once. On the second floor of a run-down building, a beat-up speaker tied to the window was letting out sound.

%#$$#@!$@!#$$.

"Is that... a song?"

"Does anyone else feel something off?"

"My stomach's a little queasy..."

They could hear it through their ears, but a strange sensation like something knocking against their minds made everyone complain of dizziness.

'First, I need to calm everyone down.'

They'd only just reached the entrance. This wouldn't do. Determined to turn the mood around, Trace pointed ahead and opened her mouth.

%#$$#@!$@!#$$.

"There."

She pointed toward the interior of the alley. A narrow side path wedged between two buildings, barely visible. Two average adults would struggle to pass through side by side, and a single large person alone would have a hard time squeezing through.

"His trace leads in there. And... down that path. A lot of people have passed through, not just the businessman. All alone, all with their heads bowed low."

"Customers."

The people Trace saw were likely customers who'd come to have their memories erased. It seemed they'd found the right place.

The group swallowed and gathered in front of the side path. It wouldn't do much good, but the officers loaded their stun guns anyway, and the heroes drew up their ether, bracing for combat.

Static crackled.

The sound came from overhead.

%#$$#@!$@!#$$.

"There."

What she pointed at was...

"Wait, wait."

Kang Jin-ho cut Trace off, stepping forward to the front of the group.

"Everyone, look here. Take a look at my phone screen."

Kang Jin-ho held up his phone. On the screen, the timer had crossed past three and a half minutes.

"What about the timer...?"

"I started this timer when we stepped into the alley. Remember when I said 'insurance'?"

"Yes, I remember that. That just happened a moment ago... huh?"

Mind Reader's expression stiffened mid-sentence.

Right, it had just happened. Stepping into the alley, starting the timer, Trace pointing toward the side path... it felt like, at most, a minute had passed.

But the timer had crossed past three minutes and was closing in on four.

"Our memories are being wiped."

Kang Jin-ho pointed a finger at the speaker overhead.

"Lethe is using her ability through that speaker right now. Roughly once a minute, she's sealing away the memories of everyone in this area."

'...Though it didn't work on me.'

It hadn't worked on Kang Jin-ho, but he didn't bother saying that out loud. He needed to convince the others anyway, and honestly, this whole performance was more than a little for Eun-yeong's benefit.

Rather than just barreling in blind, this was way more fun.

"At least three times. We brace for combat, the speaker plays, our memory gets cut. This cycle has repeated at least three times. At this rate, chasing down Lethe is basically impossible."

"...!"

"No way... that can't be..."

The faces of the group (minus Kang Jin-ho and Eun-yeong) went white. This was... the third time. And none of them had noticed at all.

"This is exactly why I said Lethe would be hard to catch. If our memories keep vanishing mid-chase, this will drag on forever. It won't hurt us physically, but... her whole goal is to get away."

"Then if we cover our ears...!"

One officer hastily clapped both hands over his ears, but.

"Won't work."

Eun-yeong shook her head, unbothered.

"That sound isn't the ability itself, it's just a targeting cue. Cover your ears, fall asleep, doesn't matter, the memory disappears all the same."

"...How do you even know that..."

"It's well known."

"..."

This time, nobody argued. It wasn't really the moment to be picking that apart anyway.

The situation felt eerily similar to the times Kang Jin-ho said "It's a hunch." Eun-yeong must have felt it too, because she pouted, lips pushed out.

"So, Jin-ho. What's the plan now?"

Kang Jin-ho, a fine junior officer who knew how to overlook a senior's little slip, chose not to call out Eun-yeong's stretch of logic and instead answered with a grin.

"There's a way. I already knew this would happen, that's why I told you all before we came, remember?"

Kang Jin-ho turned slowly. His gaze landed on Trace...

no, it didn't.

"Afterimage. This is your moment to step up!"

Out of nowhere? Afterimage? Right now? Everyone spun around in surprise at Kang Jin-ho's words, turning to look at Afterimage.

Afterimage, who'd been quietly listening this whole time, looked baffled and pointed a finger at her own face.

"...Me?"

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