Patrol is one of the duties of police work. Patrol is usually divided into vehicle patrol and foot patrol.
“Hey! Jin-ho, let’s go!”
“Yes!”
The police officers of Light City usually preferred foot patrols.
If one were to ask why, there were several reasons. First, Light City was a super-sized city with a population reaching one hundred million, so there were inherently a lot of people, and the roads were often completely packed during rush hour. Because of that, there was also a physical lack of space for vehicles to move around, and—
“Ma’am, over there. Are you alright?”
“Yeees… I drank too much yesterday… *urk*…”
“Shall I pat your back?”
Just as the city’s population density was high, the abundance of narrow alleyways and stairs was also one of the reasons. It would be more accurate to say there were many sections difficult to traverse by car.
In any case, all sorts of things really did happen in this Light City, so patrolling police officers needed the ability to respond flexibly to such incidents.
“Um, mister floating over there. Are you still not sober?”
“Huh? I did go a bit hard yesterday… Why?”
“Don’t you know you’re not supposed to fly around after drinking?”
“I was only floating like three centimeters… Cut me some slack…”
There was the uncle who’d partied until dawn and was returning home while flying in a half-drunken state, for example.
“Excuse me, my son has gone missing… Could you perhaps help find him?”
“Hm, understood. What sort of clothes was your son wearing, by any chance?”
“He was wearing a white shirt and ivory shorts… but there’s a problem.”
“A problem?”
“He has an invisibility ability… so you can’t see him.”
“…”
Or a lost child who had gone invisible.
“Hey, hey, officers!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“My little meow-meow climbed a tree and won’t come down… Please help me out.”
“…By any chance, is your meow-meow a cat?”
“No? It’s a pet tiger. He’s very docile.”
Helping an old lady get her pet tiger down from a tree, and so on.
Outside of Light City, things that would make one wonder, “Does that even make sense?” happened very calmly, and routinely. This massive city was the world’s largest city where all the world’s capital, science and technology, and superpowers gathered. Naturally, even its daily life couldn’t help but be different from the outside.
Well, if you come to Light City, you have to follow Light City’s laws. Gang Jin-ho mobilized all of his abilities and did his best to help them.
After helping all the citizens who requested assistance in this manner, Bak Eun-yeong, who was beside him, suddenly asked.
“But Jin-ho. Rookies usually can’t get their bearings when they first come to Light City. You look more used to it than I thought? Are you originally from Light City?”
“Ah, that’s not the case, but… I just figured, since it’s Light City, things like this can happen, so I think I’m fine.”
“Aha.”
Bak Eun-yeong nodded her head as if convinced. In truth, Gang Jin-ho had simply already learned the ecology of Light City through a game, which was why he was so composed, but he had no intention of saying so outright.
“Jin-ho, you really are amazing, aren’t you? You just glance at a case and solve it perfectly. You even solve them just by hearing about them without seeing them directly. You don’t actually have a superpower, do you?”
“Yes, I really don’t.”
“Really? It’ll show up if you get inspected later, you know? If you get caught, you’re dead to me?”
“…I-It’s really not there. Probably.”
“Right, right. I just said it because it’s amazing. But you said that, didn’t you? That when you hear about a case, your intuition hits you.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Gang Jin-ho’s actions up until now hadn’t been logically comprehensible, so naturally, the people around him had pestered him with “How did you do it?” to the point of annoyance. Each time, Gang Jin-ho had avoided specific explanations with vague words like “I realized it intuitively,” or “The feeling just hit me.”
He had glossed over it because he had neither the intention nor the ability to tell the truth. Seeing Eun-yeong’s eyes sparkling now, she seemed to have taken an interest in that “intuition” of his.
“Then, this intuition you speak of. Does it just activate randomly? Or do you activate it intentionally?”
“Hm… There are times when the feeling just comes regardless of my will.”
“Really? Shall we test it?”
“Huh?”
Gang Jin-ho had said it was “regardless of his will” because an unfamiliar case might come up, but he was greatly flustered because he hadn’t expected Eun-yeong to suddenly suggest an experiment.
“Well then, what should I ask? Wait a moment.”
Regardless, Eun-yeong’s crimson eyes sparkled as she looked around diligently.
Young children playing kickball. A homemaker returning from the mart while on the phone. A middle-aged man sitting on a park bench drinking coffee…
“How about this?”
As if having found an appropriate target, Bak Eun-yeong tapped Gang Jin-ho’s shoulder and pointed at something with her hand.
“Those three pigeons on top of that streetlight over there. Which one is the oldest?”
“…Huh?”
Gang Jin-ho was struck dumb by the completely unexpected type of question. No, I’m just someone who entered a game; how would I know the age of pigeons?
“…”
“Quick. Which one looks the oldest?”
But he couldn’t bring himself to say “I don’t know.” The eyes of Bak Eun-yeong, who was wearing a strange smile beside him, were far too terrifying. If he said he didn’t know here, she would be disappointed, right? If disappointments piled up… he might suddenly be “made to quit” his job, right?
Gang Jin-ho desperately wracked his brain. He had to give some plausible explanation, but nothing came to mind at all. They all looked identical; at most, the only difference was the blue protrusion sticking out of the rightmost pigeon’s head…
“Ah?”
A blue protrusion? Isn’t that… a robot?
The screen he had seen in “Hishishi” flashed through Gang Jin-ho’s mind. There was definitely an event where one of the telecommunications corporations, “Blue Net,” scattered bio-camouflaged drone pigeons in droves for information gathering.
When this event occurred, city public safety dropped by a whopping five points, and the screen was filled with illustrations of pigeons with blue protrusions on their heads. It was one of the game’s most notoriously hated events, so he had remembered it.
*Lucky me.*
Relieved inwardly that something he knew had come up, Gang Jin-ho deliberately opened his mouth with a calm expression on the outside.
“I’m sorry, but I think the question itself is wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“The pigeon on the right doesn’t seem to have an age. I think it’s a robot.”
“A robot? Really?”
Eun-yeong smirked and immediately picked up a small stone rolling around on the ground.
And then.
—Kwaaang!
“Huh?”
At the top of the streetlight. The robot pigeon sitting at a height of nearly ten meters burst with a bang. As sparks and machine parts poured down to the ground instead of blood and feathers, goosebumps rose all over Gang Jin-ho’s back.
Did she just hit that faraway robot pigeon by throwing a stone? Enough to make it burst in one shot?
“Actually, I already knew the right pigeon was a robot? I had heard about it. But I didn’t know you’d get it just by looking, Jin-ho? That’s really amazing!”
Without a care in the world. Bak Eun-yeong clapped, delighted. As if she couldn’t stop here, she looked around fiercely to see if there was anything else to ask.
“Hmmm, then~ Ah, this is it.”
In the middle of looking around, Eun-yeong’s body suddenly stopped. A mischievous smile hung on her lips. It seemed she had found an appropriate target.
“I’ve decided what to ask. How about those two over there? Is your intuition coming this time too?”
Following Eun-yeong’s words, he turned his head and saw two figures at the mouth of an alley.
Inside the dark alley. Two men were exchanging something.
The shorter man took cash out from inside his clothes, and the taller man wearing a hoodie nodded and received the money.
The amount of money exchanged wasn’t large, so it was a situation that could be seen as a simple second-hand transaction, but.
“Hm.”
For some reason, Gang Jin-ho found the taller man’s face familiar. He had definitely seen it while playing the game… Who was it again? Since it wasn’t clearly etched in his memory, he didn’t seem to be a strong villain or hero. But he was sure he had seen him.
He stood still and stared at the man for quite a long time.
“What’s wrong, Jin-ho?”
Bak Eun-yeong asked Gang Jin-ho with an expression that seemed subtly expectant.
Gang Jin-ho, who had been too focused to notice this, spoke unconsciously.
“It’s… that man over there. The tall one. He looks… somewhat suspicious.”
“Hmmm… Really? That’s amazing.”
To that, Eun-yeong replied with a bright smile.
“Taking a closer look, I think I know him. Shall we go talk to him?”
**
At the same time.
“Here, fifty thousand won. Thank you for your trouble.”
“Yes~ If you have any more requests next time… Huh?”
“Why?”
“No, it’s just, this feeling, uh…”
The Grade 4 Villain, “Clayboy,” realized that his body was suddenly trembling.
This feeling, it wasn’t unfamiliar. Definitely, one year ago, that day he still couldn’t forget, that day he regretted being born.
That day too, his body had trembled like this, trembling regardless of his will…
His teeth chattering, he desperately looked around his surroundings. And found her. The police officer with black hair and crimson eyes.
“Jin-hyeok~ It’s Jin-hyeok, right? Long time no see~”
And then he froze. He couldn’t even bring himself to think of moving. He felt like he would die if he moved carelessly.
‘…Why is that monster bitch here?’