‘Hero City Simulator,’ commonly called Hishishi, was a game. Like most city management games, the goal was to build a city, operate it well, and develop it further, but the difference was that the setting was not an ordinary city—it was a city where heroes and villains existed.
Heroes who sought to protect everyone. Villains who sought to kill everyone. And the player, standing between them, who had to manage the city.
Thanks to its unique concept and interesting gameplay, *Hero City Simulator* had gained quite a bit of popularity, and there were so many elements to dig into that there were users who played for thousands of hours.
-Event resolved!
-Public order improves by 5.
-Support rating rises by 5.
-Hero ‘Devil Finger’s favorability rises by 5.
“Did it work?”
Gang Jinho was a veteran of this game. There may have been those with more hours played, but if asked to name the person who enjoyed the most unusual playstyle, it was undoubtedly Gang Jinho.
He had tried making the city into a utopia ruled by heroes. He had dropped the entire city into the clutches of villains. He had struck a precarious balance between the two, maintaining a stalemate. There was no playstyle he had not tried.
Among them, Gang Jinho’s favorite play concept was that of ‘a city where the hero faction is stronger, but the villain faction also remains alive.’ If the villain faction was stronger, they would simply devour the city with force, but if the hero faction was stronger, the villains resorted to cunning. Since they would lose in a head-on fight, they would commit ‘crimes they would not get caught for,’ so to speak.
“Investigating the crimes these guys commit is really fun, you know?”
To Gang Jinho, this deductive element was the true highlight of *Hero City Simulator.* Criminals committed crimes using superpowers, and the player had to investigate and successfully capture the culprit to receive rewards.
Finding the real criminal from small clues left at the crime scene, persistent crime patterns, and constantly changing testimonies of victims offered immersion rivaling most deduction games. Well, since superpowers were involved, there were plenty of forced, unnatural events too. In those cases, he simply memorized the answers to solve them.
But having played Hishishi as a deduction game simulator for thousands of hours, a natural question arose.
“…Why are the police even here?”
There were police stations in Hero City too. They were even designated as essential buildings that had to be installed in every district, but Gang Jinho always wondered why these police stations existed.
Villains with powerful superpowers were caught by heroes. Ordinary criminals were caught by heroes. If a fatal accident occurred, heroes were the first to deploy. They even tried to handle minor things like traffic control and petty crime crackdowns because it helped create the image of a ‘down-to-earth and friendly hero.’
Police? They just existed. The only police-like work they did was catching petty thieves. Their main duties were sending drunk people home at night or giving directions to lost elderly. Ah, and they could not be left out of getting cats down from trees.
Honestly, from the police’s perspective, it could be frustrating. When there were superhumans flying through the sky and teleporting, was there really a need for ordinary police to be dispatched?
Investigation? A superpowered criminal committed a crime, so how was an ordinary cop supposed to investigate that? It was better to dispatch a superpowered individual with investigation-related abilities to collect clues.
At the very least, in the early days of the game, police played the role of receiving reports from citizens and summoning heroes, but as you upgraded the city, this function was taken over by the ‘Hero Headquarters.’
Once the Hero Headquarters upgrade was complete, the police… well… did not really do anything in particular, just wasted away, burning through resources. Incidentally, their maintenance costs were higher than ordinary city buildings, and installation was mandatory.
-Why do police even exist?
-They’re fucking useless, seriously;;
Naturally, users hated the police who were useless yet only sucked up money, and on related sites, ‘police’ served as a kind of laughingstock.
There were many guesses: the developer had a grudge against the police, it was evidence they had originally planned a normal city simulator, it was a feature for difficulty adjustment, and so on, but not a single one was certain.
Well, if Gang Jinho were to name one thing that was certain.
“Ah~ it just feels like a waste of money going to these guys.”
In a city where heroes and villains existed, the police were largely useless.
*****
“So the detailed explanation should come from your senior… Rookie?”
“Yes?”
“…What’s wrong?”
“Uh, no… Yes?”
“…Sigh.”
Seeing the rookie suddenly gaping blankly, Substation Chief Raphael let out a deep sigh. He was personally conducting this interview because the rookie was said to be a famous prodigy at the police academy, but the behavior he was showing now was very strange.
“Rookie. This place is much better than you think. Everything people say outside is all a misunderstanding.”
There were usually one of two reactions when a rookie police officer was assigned to Light City.
Either they came with high expectations and were disappointed, or they desperately tried to get reassigned somewhere else. This rookie seemed to be the latter. He could tell by the way he was deliberately acting stupid.
“Heroes and villains fighting? I’ll be honest. Yes. They fight every single day. Public order being bad? That’s true too. This is a place full of real fucking bastards. Coffee? Green tea?”
As he spoke, Chief Raphael mixed a cup of mix coffee and placed it in front of the rookie.
“But that’s, you know, the central district. We’re the outskirts. There’s no difference from any other substation here. We take care of lost items. Send drunks home. If some bastard complains about noise from upstairs, we go have a word. Villains? Not only do villains rarely show up in the outskirts, but even if they did, what could we do? Heroes handle all that.”
“…”
Chief Raphael flashed a slight smile to persuade the rookie.
“Of course there are petty criminals, but that’s the kind of work police do, isn’t it? So drink up and calm down. There’s no such thing as a rookie getting reassigned. Got it?”
“Yes…”
The rookie, Gang Jinho, nodded mechanically, but internally he still had not fully grasped the situation. He had clearly fallen asleep playing games after getting off work? The sensation of soft microfiber pajamas and a warm blanket was so vivid?
But when he came to his senses, he was wearing a police uniform, and before his eyes was a large black officer smiling at him.
A dream? But it was too vivid for a dream. Then reality? That was strange too.
Growing from the head of the black man now looking at Gang Jinho were horns. A pair of large, hard-looking horns.
A devil? A monster? But more than that, in the mind of gaming addict Gang Jinho, the words *Hero City Simulator* first flashed through.
Among the superpowered individuals appearing in the game, it was common for abilities to manifest outwardly like this.
Then was this place… inside the game? When he snuck a glance down, the name tag on his chest bore a patrolman’s rank insignia along with the name ‘Gang Jinho.’
No, for real? Gang Jinho opened his mouth to resolve his doubt.
“Uh… where is this…?”
“Hm? Ah~”
The chief, who had briefly furrowed his brows, soon nodded playfully as if he understood the intent of the question.
“This is the 7th Substation of the Light City East Police Station~ Make sure! to remember that from now on. Uh, just a moment. Hello?”
“Uh…”
Leaving behind the chief who cut himself off to take a call, Gang Jinho let his mouth hang open.
Light City. It was definitely the name of the city Gang Jinho had created in *Hero City Simulator.* It was a city he had painstakingly built up large, and a city he had constructed with enough affection to attach all sorts of backstories.
Light City. Heroes and villains. The large pair of horns before his eyes.
His reason screamed that this place was inside the game he had played, but his heart could not catch up yet. Perhaps it was refusing to catch up.
Yes, entering inside the game was fine. But not a hero or a villain, what? A police officer? Me? Why?
“Your senior is on her way up now, so I’ll introduce you.”
“Uh, wait.”
Time. Time. I’m not quite ready to accept the situation yet, so if you could just give me a moment to adjust…
Knock knock.
Regardless of whether Gang Jinho was screaming internally, Chief Raphael stood up at the sound of knocking.
“Oh~ come in. Come in.”
A moment later, the door opened and a black-haired woman entered the room.
Snow-white skin. Mysterious-toned crimson eyes. Hair tied back neatly in a round bun.
“This is our substation’s top beauty, Officer Bak. Say hello. This is our rookie. He’s Patrol Officer Gang Jinho.”
“Nice to meet you. Please take care of me.”
Smiling brightly as she greeted, the woman’s name tag read ‘Bak Eunyeong.’ A direct senior of such unbelievable beauty that she looked like she had stepped out of a TV drama. Any ordinary man would immediately kowtow to his ancestors and vow to devote his life to the profession of police, but…
“…”
Gang Jinho merely stood frozen, staring at her with a bitter expression.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s just…”
If this place was inside the game. If it was truly inside ‘Light City’ that Gang Jinho had created. Then that woman who had just been introduced as his senior was, probably…
‘…Isn’t she a villain?’
Because she was undoubtedly the strongest villain in this city.