WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ The Police Do a Better Job Than Heroes

Chapter 55

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Luxury Is In the Details (4)

"How...?"

"None of the rest of us on standby noticed, and this guy figured it out the moment he laid eyes on him? Without even using a power?"

The other staff members made a fuss over the youngest sibling's appearance.

"..."

Kang Jin-ho stood with his palm over his mouth, sunk in deep thought.

'...How am I supposed to wrap this case up?'

If this had turned out to be the easier scenario he'd mentioned earlier, the one that closed quickly, he could have just ended it right here. In that version, the case would drift toward "locked mansion murder," and he'd wrap it up by pointing to whatever clues turned up around the mansion and declaring, "The youngest sibling was alive the whole time!"

But looking at the youngest sibling now, there was no chance this ended easily. The other scenario, the messy one with a 1-rank villain tangled up in it, was locked in at a hundred percent.

"..."

Solving the case itself was one problem. Figuring out how he was supposed to have known a 1-rank villain was involved was another. All told, there were way too many problems.

He couldn't just say "solved it on instinct!" like he had before, not in a space that blocked ability use. And it would be hard to draw attention away from the number one ranked hero here. At minimum, the disappearance itself needed something resembling actual deduction, or at least a convincing performance of it.

So what about the 1-rank villain angle?

"..."

There was genuinely no good answer for that one. What was he supposed to do? Letting it go and pretending not to know would blow the case up even bigger. Solving it properly meant he'd have nothing to say when someone asked, "How did you know?" Lost in thought, Kang Jin-ho found his brow furrowing without meaning to.

"Um... are you okay? You don't look so good."

The youngest sibling, who had taken off the helmet and stood waiting, asked with concern.

"Yes, I was just thinking. About how to handle this."

"Well... couldn't I just tell them the truth?"

"That's part of it too, but... hm. Let's head to the living room first. I need to think this through there. Ah, and please put the helmet back on."

"Understood..."

"Oh, let's grab a few things on the way there."

Having calmed the youngest sibling down, Kang Jin-ho shook his head inwardly.

Just now, the youngest sibling had looked at his expression and worried about him.

'There's no way my face is visible through the hazmat suit's visor.'

Could an ordinary person, a civilian with no ability, actually see through that glass?

...who knew.

**

Back in the Gallon family's living room.

When Kang Jin-ho returned with the youngest sibling and the staff in tow, every gaze in the room, family members sipping their drinks as they waited, snapped toward him at once. He glanced around the room for a moment, then spoke in a flat, even tone.

"Case solved."

"...Excuse me?"

"Already?"

A ripple of unease spread through the Gallon family. They'd heard he had an ability. They knew he was the most likely candidate to crack the case. But already? It hadn't even been thirty minutes.

They'd expected him to at least collect testimonies from the family, take some photos, or run through a few "could this scenario work?" experiments. Instead he just walked in and solved it? How?

"First, there are a few things I need to go over."

Whether he registered their reaction or not, Kang Jin-ho tapped his fingertip against the polished wooden table.

"Honestly, something about this bothered me the moment I stepped into the main hall."

"Bothered you how?"

"This mansion. The layout itself... isn't it awfully open?"

Kang Jin-ho spun in place, taking in the room. It certainly looked like the mansion of the wealthy, ceilings high, everything wide open, the kind of space that felt refreshing just to look at.

"Is it even possible for someone to move around 'secretly' in a layout like this? I couldn't quite understand how the eldest sister was the last person to see the youngest sibling."

"...Everyone was drinking, caught up in conversation. We might not have noticed."

The eldest sister answered in a subdued tone. Kang Jin-ho nodded as if to say that was fair enough, and continued.

"Yes, that's plausible. Next, the youngest sibling's room struck me as odd. There were a few torn scraps of clothing at the scene, and a small amount of blood..."

"That blood is the youngest's. The clothes too. We already had it all tested."

"Yes, I'm not disputing that it came from the youngest sibling's body. The amount is the issue."

"The amount?"

"If the youngest were dead... isn't that far too little blood? The torn clothing is strange too."

"..."

Gallon's mouth pressed into a tight, displeased line.

"We considered the possibility that the youngest wasn't dead. We even considered that the blood and clothes might have been staged for show. But what would anyone gain from that? Kidnapping someone from the core district of Light City is next to impossible."

"I think so too. Given the security level here, even the most skilled villain would have a hard time walking in openly and dragging someone off."

"Effectively impossible-"

"But what if it wasn't a kidnapping at all?"

"..."

Gallon's brow creased at the unexpected turn.

"Kidnapping might be impossible, sure. But what if the person living inside simply walked out on their own two feet? Someone like me, an outsider, that's one thing. But I've heard that residents move in and out fairly freely. Depending on the circumstances, it might not even leave a record."

Too little blood for a kidnapping or a murder. Awkwardly torn clothing. No trace of any ability having been used. From those three clues, Kang Jin-ho built a theory. (He was performing.)

"Keeping all these possibilities in mind, I thought it through. And at some point, I became certain. That the youngest sibling wasn't dead, but very much alive. That the goal had been to slip out of this mansion unnoticed, on their own."

Kang Jin-ho raised a finger, and every eye in the room locked onto its tip.

"Which naturally brings us to another question."

"A question being..."

"Let's say the youngest sibling made it out of the mansion. But where exactly is this? The core district of Light City. A neighborhood with so few residents you could count them. Somewhere a single unfamiliar face would stand out instantly. In a place like that, is there any way for one person to slip out unnoticed?"

"...No. Especially not without using an ability. That's exactly why we assumed it was a kidnapping."

"Actually, there is one way. A way to walk out openly, without using any ability at all."

Kang Jin-ho touched the hazmat suit he was wearing.

"If you're dressed in something that hides your face, hides who you even are, it becomes possible."

"...!"

"Put on a hazmat suit, blend in among the staff, and walk right out. And doesn't it happen that the day this occurred was the one day a year the family throws its big party? A day when staff pour in and out in droves to prepare. Slip into that crowd wearing a suit like this, and who's going to recognize the youngest sibling?"

"..."

"..."

An uneasy silence settled over the main hall. The youngest sibling... had run away on their own?

"There is one thing that still bothers me, though."

Regardless, Kang Jin-ho kept going.

"To escape in a hazmat suit, it would have to happen during the 'party prep hours,' when there were plenty of staff around. Once the party actually started, the staff weren't in the mansion anymore. But that creates a problem, doesn't it? It doesn't line up with the testimony that someone saw the youngest sibling sipping a drink in the middle of the party."

"..."

"So it's one of two things. Either the eldest sister's testimony was mistaken... or it was deliberately false."

Kang Jin-ho turned slowly to face the eldest sister.

"To buy time for the youngest to get away."

"..."

The eldest sister's shoulders flinched. She opened her mouth as if searching for some excuse, some explanation, but nothing came.

"Noona, you don't have to."

One figure who had been standing quietly among the staff this whole time reached up and removed the helmet.

And when the youngest sibling's face was revealed at last.

"Youngest...!"

The eldest sister shot up from her seat. Her eyes brimmed with tears.

"We agreed you'd run! So why, why did you come back!"

"I just... got tired."

The youngest sibling spoke slowly.

This household that pretended to cherish family while feeling hollow at its core. The suspicion that maybe, just maybe, he wasn't cherished at all.

"That's why I asked Noona for help. Because of that suspicion. I wanted to see the outside world, just once, and I asked her to help me do it."

"I, I even faked the records for you. I erased you from the system. So why did you come back!"

"Actually, that part was a lie."

The youngest sibling gave a faint, tired smile.

"I wanted to know what everyone's faces would look like, if I just disappeared."

If they vanished as though dead, would the family actually miss them, or would everyone go back to fussing over appearances and worrying about the family's image, same as always? That was what they'd wanted to see with their own eyes.

"But everyone... worried about me more than I expected."

So that's why he came back. The youngest sibling finished with an awkward little smile.

"...Was that really it?"

"I guess... so."

The staff tilted their heads at first, wondering if that could really be the whole story, but the more they thought about it, the more it tracked. The family really had spent an entire day tearing the mansion apart looking for the youngest sibling.

"...We were too careless with you."

Gallon spoke, his voice heavy. A trace of shame flickered across the other family members' faces too, as if they hadn't realized the youngest sibling carried burdens like this, hadn't imagined they'd stage something like this.

"...Will you be okay?"

The eldest sister asked carefully. It was really a question about whether coming back to this family would truly be all right.

"Yeah. I'm okay now."

The youngest sibling nodded.

The family apologized. The youngest sibling forgave them. It was the moment the Gallon family truly became one again.

The family decided to throw another party, this time to celebrate the youngest sibling's return. A storm had passed through, but the wound it left would heal into something sturdier, something stronger than before.

"Officer Kang, why don't you take off that suit too and join us?"

Gallon extended a hand to Kang Jin-ho, his expression gentle. It was a gesture, a formal invitation to welcome the man who had solved the case so brilliantly as a proper guest.

The family's conflict had been mended. The officer who solved the case was about to receive a considerable reward. And the Gallon family's dignity had been preserved as well.

Everything was on the verge of wrapping up beautifully.

"..."

Kang Jin-ho pulled off the hazmat suit and smacked his lips without quite meaning to.

If it ended like this, it would make for a genuinely heartwarming story. But Kang Jin-ho couldn't let it end here.

He had to force something now. A little shamelessly... and a little boldly.

'Sorry about this, Eun-yeong.'

"Oh, wait, one moment!"

Kang Jin-ho raised his hand, his expression the picture of innocence.

"Before the party starts, would it be alright if I stepped out for a short walk?"

"...?"

"Sure. I suppose that's fine."

In the middle of this warm, sentimental mood, he wanted to go for a walk all of a sudden? Well... stranger things had happened. Gallon nodded, and about thirty minutes later.

"I'm back!"

Kang Jin-ho returned to the mansion, beaming.

"Oh, and funny thing, on my way back I happened to run into the S-rank hero Tienrang. Would it be alright if they joined us? Tienrang mentioned wanting to be part of the party too."

"...?"

"Excuse me?"

The staff preparing for the party, and every member of the Gallon family, all turned to stare at Kang Jin-ho with the exact same look of bewildered discomfort.

He went for a walk and just happened to... run into an S-rank hero? And now he wanted to bring them to the party?

"Yes, well... I suppose that's fine. If it's someone like Tienrang."

"What a stroke of luck! Hahahaha!!!"

Could that even be possible...?

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