WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ The Police Do a Better Job Than Heroes

Chapter 5

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Becoming a Rookie Officer (5)

Thirty minutes passed while the culprit calmed down some and the other officers kept sneaking amazed looks at Kang Jin-ho.

"So, you're saying you caught the culprit?"

The owner of Doochwit's Original Beans arrived at the substation. She looked around still wearing her apron, then spotted the culprit and flinched hard.

"You, you're..."

"The part-timer who quit not long ago. Right?"

"Uh, yeah. That's, that's right."

The café owner figured the culprit must have already confessed and didn't react much, but the other officers were floored all over again.

"Wait, how'd you know it was the part-timer who quit?"

"The only people who could've known the cameras were broken and that the register had a lot of cash in it would be someone who used to work here. The cameras have been down for three weeks, so I figured it was someone who quit around then."

"Ohh...!"

The other officers marveled at Kang Jin-ho's deduction, or rather, his performance of one. The culprit, who'd been hanging their head the whole time, shot up out of the chair looking wronged.

"Wait, does this even make sense?"

"Hey! Sit down! What do you think you're doing!"

"Why is there a superhuman at a police substation! There's no way this is a fair arrest!"

"Sit! And Officer Kang isn't a superhuman, he's a regular person."

Forced back into the chair by a couple of rough hands, the culprit kept fighting anyway.

"You expect me to believe that? I heard you doing the reasoning myself. How does a regular person figure out someone transformed into a cake from that little information? Huh?"

"I'm just pretty smart."

"No, even if you're smart, that doesn't..."

"The reason you specifically targeted this café was because of a limit on your power, wasn't it? You probably can't transform into any object. Something very specific. I'd guess you can only turn into things like cakes or donuts. Am I right?"

"...That's right."

The culprit's stiffly raised head sank down.

"You also decided to rob this café over a personal grudge, didn't you? The owner probably kept making excuses to delay your paycheck. So once you quit, you figured you might as well get revenge and commit a crime while you were at it."

"...Yeah."

"So you exploited a blind spot in how people perceive things... hello?"

"Yes, yes... that's right... I decided to steal the register last Sunday..."

By now the culprit wasn't even listening anymore, just spilling every detail of the crime on their own. Every so often they muttered something like "damn it, why am I so unlucky..." which made it obvious they'd decided Kang Jin-ho was a superhuman and simply given up.

"All right, let's go over there and finish this."

"I got the idea for this from watching a drama..."

The senior officers led the culprit away to write up the confession while they were at it.

"Pay your staff on time from now on, would you?"

"Yes, sir..."

The café owner left the substation looking completely dazed.

"Hey, rookie."

Precinct Chief Raphael scratched the back of his head and sat down next to Kang Jin-ho.

"Honestly, I thought you were messing around... never expected you to actually catch the culprit. Guess the rumors about you being some kind of genius were true after all. Sorry for doubting you."

"It's fine. I wouldn't have believed it either."

"Right. Just checking, but you're really not a superhuman? Even a really minor power, cops are required to register it. I still have to go get checked because of these horns. My ability's basically just getting a bit stronger, that's it."

Precinct Chief Raphael laughed, pointing at his own horns.

"No, I really am not."

"Good, you did great work today. Someone from HQ will come pick up the culprit later... we'll go over how to write reports another time. Rest up a bit before you head home. Got it?"

"Yes. Thank you."

"Yeah, yeah. Feels good to do some real police work for once."

Precinct Chief Raphael said that, clapped Kang Jin-ho on the back a couple times, and headed back to his office. Once he'd left too, only Park Eun-yeong and Kang Jin-ho remained.

"Heh."

Officer Park Eun-yeong let out a pleased little hum of a laugh. Kang Jin-ho's body stiffened up on its own, and his voice came out booming like a fresh army recruit's.

"Jin-ho. You're really something, you know? I actually thought the café owner staged the whole thing."

"Oh, thank you!"

"You worked it out just from reasoning, like you said? Not using some kind of power?"

"Yes, that's right!"

"It's really rare for a cop to catch a culprit red-handed like this in the field... you might even get a commendation. But why are you so tense? You pulled off something huge on your very first day."

"I, it's just that I've never had such a beautiful senior officer before... sorry!"

"Hm."

Park Eun-yeong's eyes swept quickly up and down Kang Jin-ho.

For a second she wondered if this strange rookie was hitting on her, but looking at his body, he really was just nervous. Someone trying to charm a woman didn't usually sweat that much.

"Well, I am pretty pretty."

Park Eun-yeong smiled that catlike, unreadable smile, then got up and grabbed a cold vegetable juice from the fridge.

"Seems like I got a really good junior this time. Today was fun. But hey."

"Yes!"

"I think... you knew who the culprit was the moment you saw them. Seemed like you were hesitating over whether to speak up, though?"

"!!!"

Eun-yeong's eyes gleamed like she could see straight through him, and Kang Jin-ho shot up out of his seat again.

"No! Actually, I wasn't confident in my own reasoning, so I was organizing the information until I was sure!"

"Yeah? Is that it?"

Eun-yeong set the vegetable juice down in front of Kang Jin-ho. It seemed awfully meaningful that it was specifically vegetable juice. Like it hinted at Kang Jin-ho's future if he ever hesitated to step forward again.

"If you ever think you can catch someone and just... sit there doing nothing. That's not okay, right? We're police."

"O, of course!"

"Good, good. Great work today, Jin-ho. Looking forward to working with you."

Park Eun-yeong patted Kang Jin-ho's shoulder with a gentle hand.

"...Yes!"

Kang Jin-ho got goosebumps all over his body from that pat, though.

**

The sun went down. Kang Jin-ho made it home safe.

It might seem strange that someone dropped into a game had a home to go back to, but the phone in his pocket had a home address saved in it. Strangely enough, the phone was the exact same model he used in reality, down to the same password.

"...Hah."

Kang Jin-ho collapsed onto his bed and scrolled through the phone, scraping together information.

To cut to the point, this world's version of Kang Jin-ho, the one here in Light City, was an orphan. There weren't really any numbers saved in his contacts, and digging through the photo gallery or social media turned up no trace of anything. It was like he'd fallen straight out of the sky.

"...Yeah, I guess I really did fall straight out of the sky."

How had this even happened? The second his head hit the pillow, exhaustion crashed over him hard enough to knock him out, but he couldn't sleep yet. If he'd really ended up inside Light City, he needed a solid survival plan first.

"First, I need to just stay alive..."

Survive first, figure out the rest later. Kang Jin-ho's goal was survival, first and foremost, and second and foremost too.

What good was today's glory if his head got chopped off tomorrow? He'd rather be the country mouse living quietly than the city mouse burning bright and dying young.

The problem was that his direct superior happened to be the biggest lunatic villain in this entire city. And after today, chasing points the way he had, he'd drawn way too much attention to quietly quit the police now.

If things kept going like this, only two futures waited for him. Either he'd spend the rest of his life as Eun-yeong's toy, clowning around just to survive, or one day her mood would shift and he'd get "retired" without warning.

"There's still a way, though."

Even if the sky fell, there was always some way out. There was exactly one solid lifeline that would let him escape Park Eun-yeong's grip without getting punished for it.

Light City's strongest hero. The one and only rival who could stand against Eun-yeong. Ranked number one among heroes.

What if he got close to her somehow, then grabbed onto her leg and begged, please save me? And if that led to Eun-yeong actually getting arrested? Wouldn't that be his chance to escape this insane city and quit the police for good?

The hero would be happy to lock Eun-yeong up. Kang Jin-ho would be happy to quit the force. Wasn't that a win-win for everybody?

"Well... none of that works unless I actually get to know her first."

He couldn't just walk up and report "I think my boss might be Eun-yeong," not when Eun-yeong controlled shadow and space. His head would hit the ground faster than any hero could arrive. And he didn't exactly have the personal contact info of the number one ranked hero either, so there was no method available to him right now.

The closest thing to a plausible plan was something like "get famous as a cop first, then use that to make contact later." But a cop becoming famous wasn't exactly easy...

"Ugh, forget it. My head hurts."

Surviving was surviving, and after all that tension, his eyes were finally starting to droop from the crash. Before he drifted off to sleep, Kang Jin-ho decided to say the magic words he'd been putting off for way too long.

"...Status window!"

And there it was. A translucent window really did appear right in front of his eyes!

"...Huh?"

The problem was that this status window looked nothing like the ones he was used to seeing.

-Current karma: 485,219,303

-Remaining monthly quota: 4,400

-Case resolved. Karma decreased by 500.

-Daily duties completed. Karma decreased by 100.

"...What is this."

Normally you'd expect stats, or a level, or at the very least some traits listed, that was the industry standard. But this thing claiming to be a status window had none of that. No manners at all, just a bald number tied to something called "karma."

Wait, what the hell even was karma? Kang Jin-ho found himself pressing a finger against the words "current karma" without thinking.

-Karma represents the accumulated total of the sins you have committed.

-You have taken 485,219,903 lives to date.

-If you fail to clear your karma before you die...

"Wait, when did I ever?"

The explanation that popped up was flat out ridiculous. Kang Jin-ho had lived his whole life as a model citizen who never once jaywalked. And now what, he'd killed people? Over four hundred million of them? That number was way too absurd to be real.

He shot up off the bed, ready to let loose a string of curses, but then.

"...Wait."

Something clicked. He instinctively realized exactly where that horrifying number had come from.

Because if.

If every single NPC that Kang Jin-ho had ever blown up for fun while playing HiCiSi, every citizen he'd let villains massacre, every soul he'd drowned by triggering some disaster, all of them counted as "people."

And if the sheer volume of sins he'd committed across thousands of hours of playtime, running dozens of cities, had all piled up and carried over into this world.

"Oh my God."

He landed, more or less, on the conclusion that he might really have killed somewhere around that many people.

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