WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ The Police Do a Better Job Than Heroes

Chapter 49

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Even a Sparrow's Steps Are Steps (5)

"Huh, huh..."

A tattooed thug stopped in front of a dilapidated building that looked ready to collapse at any moment. After checking himself over, he cautiously opened the door and stepped inside.

Click.

The interior was a completely different world from the outside.

A floor laid with plush carpet. Leather sofas and a solid wood table beneath dim lighting. Expensive teacups lined up neatly on wall shelves, and a sweet scent lingered, like someone had lit scented candles.

A small parlor hidden away on a forgotten street of Light City.

Customers who came to have their memories sealed would drink a cup of tea in this space, undergo the procedure as if drifting off to sleep, and leave with a lighter head.

"Lethe-nim?"

"I know."

Before the thug who'd opened the door could even get a word out, the woman sitting on the sofa set down her teacup and answered.

Blue hair, eyes hazy as though not fully awake.

2-rank villain Lethe. She waved her hand, shooing him out.

"Don't come in. You're in the way."

"But, but there are heroes and police at the entrance..."

"I said I know. Don't make me say it twice."

"Y-yes, ma'am!"

The thug hastily shut the door and vanished. Lethe yawned lightly and rose from her seat.

A faint blue energy leaked from her toes, flowing along wiring embedded in the wall. The wiring's other end connected to speakers installed throughout the alley.

Her ability had already been active for a while. And quite stably, too.

"...Not even the Association's aces. Neighborhood cops and a handful of information-type heroes?"

Lethe shook her head and leisurely pulled out a travel bag to pack her things. The teacups and sofa, she'd leave behind. She could always buy more.

What she absolutely had to take was the ledger, the cash, and the "memory registry."

It might look like she was taking this too easy, but honestly, she had no reason to hurry.

The narrow side path leading to this parlor was a maze she'd spent months building. Eight forks that all looked alike. Thirteen dead ends. And speakers installed in every alley.

When an authorized guest came, she'd turn the ability off. A subordinate would go meet them and guide them along, and the guest would arrive at the parlor without ever realizing it was a maze.

But when an uninvited enemy came.

"They get trapped."

Across the speaker's whole range, she scattered minute-long memory seals over and over. That way, an intruder inside the maze could never remember which direction they'd turned at which fork just moments ago. Sometimes one minute. Sometimes three. Sometimes five.

Did I come from the right? Was it the left? No, wait, where even is this?

Wasn't it a strain to use the ability this broadly?

Normally, yes. That was exactly why it worked in minute-long increments. In exchange for the benefit of wide coverage, the condition was that it could only seal a few minutes of memory at a time.

Of course, since it was being used as an area effect, it wouldn't work on ability users above a certain level... but heroes like that had well-known faces, and among the group outside, the only face Lethe recognized was Trace's.

That was the secret to how she'd never been caught. Mindful of the number one hero, she always set up her base in narrow alleys, out-of-the-way places, and moved locations periodically. Staying in one spot too long only meant increased risk.

"This time... maybe I'll head north."

Lethe muttered to herself, stuffing the ledger into her bag.

"That man who came by recently. He said he sent his money north too, so..."

Knock, knock.

A knock broke Lethe's train of thought. Her hazy eyes twisted into something venomous.

"Um... Lethe-nim?"

The door cracked open, and the thug poked his head in.

"So..."

"I told you not to come in."

"Eek! No, it's not that! But there's really, really something you need to see...!"

"...Hah. Reflect on that later."

Lethe used her ability on the thug, dropping him flat onto the floor with a thud, then turned her gaze to the monitor mounted on the wall. Obviously they'd still be running in circles near the entrance...

"...What?"

Lethe's movement froze for a moment.

On the screen, the group of intruders was running through the maze. Not crawling, not walking, running with total confidence.

Had the memory seal broken? There was no sign of that. Even though their memories should have been vanishing every minute.

"What is that..."

They were sprinting forward, choosing the correct path without a single moment of hesitation.

"..."

Lethe's hands, which had been packing, suddenly went frantic.

Whatever was going on, she needed to run first and figure it out later!

**

Back to when they were still standing at the entrance of the maze.

"Let's see..."

Kang Jin-ho rummaged through his bag and pulled something out.

"...A headband?"

Afterimage murmured to herself without meaning to.

But it wasn't just a simple headband. It came with a mount for a smartphone, the kind used for selfie cams.

"Hold on a second... okay, there. Let me put this on you."

Kang Jin-ho fitted the headband onto Afterimage, and the phone screen locked into place in front of her eyes.

-You are currently pursuing villain Lethe. Follow the path with the most overlapping human traces.

"Afterimage-nim, from now on, watch this instruction while tracking people's traces. No need to think about anything, just use your ability and keep going."

"...So even if I lose my memory, the text won't disappear."

"Exactly."

The most terrifying thing about memory erasure was that it was almost impossible to notice your own memory had been erased. But if you were aware of it beforehand, there were plenty of ways to cope.

"Everyone else, put these on too. And write yourselves a note on your phones."

After having the others write "Follow Afterimage" as a note, the group marched confidently into the side path.

-^#%$@#$#$^#

Even as the speaker blared and their memories were sliced away, Afterimage advanced steadily.

"Hmm..."

At every fork, she'd pause briefly, frown, analyze the traces, and pick a direction. The paths customers had walked carried thick, overlapping traces, while the dead ends showed nothing much.

"This way."

Afterimage moved toward wherever the traces piled up the thickest.

This was where Afterimage's ability truly shined, its biggest advantage.

"The activation speed is really fast, huh?"

"That's exactly why we needed you here."

Activation speed, that was the key.

Trace's ability was powerful, but it took a long time to focus. And to find the right path, she'd have to adjust the timeframe and retrace the traces over and over. Inside a maze where memories vanished every minute, it was an awkward ability to use.

Afterimage, on the other hand? The moment she focused, she could analyze the traces left on walls and floors instantly. Even as their memories disappeared, she could read the forks and keep moving forward without a hitch.

"But the traces are all still here."

"Right. I figured they'd have cleaned it up."

Of course, Lethe had prepared for exactly this kind of situation. She'd ordered her subordinates to regularly clean up and erase the traces people left behind.

But cheap, day-wage neighborhood thugs weren't about to do that job properly. And Lethe herself treated them as disposable pawns to be tossed aside whenever convenient.

"...Why was I running here again?"

"Phone! Look at your phone!"

"Oh, right!"

Bumbling through it like that, the group tore through the maze at speed. When they finally broke out of the maze and slammed open the hideout's door.

"Wh, what?"

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot!"

All that remained inside the hideout were a few thugs trying to grab whatever Lethe had left behind.

"Cuff them all!"

While the police subdued the group of thugs under Inspector Mierou's orders, Trace quickly read the Memory of Space.

"We missed her. She was here until just now, then slipped out with only her bags."

Trace's gaze shifted toward the path leading out to Light City's main street.

"...She went into the downtown area? That's going to be a headache..."

Afterimage narrowed her brow and clicked her tongue. Lethe wasn't someone whose face was widely known. She operated wearing a mask, which meant the odds of ordinary citizens recognizing her converged on zero.

And even though they'd already seen her face through Trace's ability, a 2-rank villain would naturally carry some tool to temporarily alter her appearance.

Trying to chase her trace through a crowd like that wasn't going to be easy. Traces would just tangle together in the mass of people to begin with.

"We're losing her here?"

"Ah..."

Just as the mood of the group started to sink at the thought of letting the fish they'd already caught slip away.

"No, it's not too late yet."

Kang Jin-ho grinned, pulling off the smartphone headband.

"Didn't I say I'd need the help of two heroes?"

This time, Kang Jin-ho's finger pointed toward the hero who'd been quietly following along, wearing thick glasses.

"...Me?"

It was Mind Reader!

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