A few hours later.
—Static. We’re getting reports of a large-scale gang fight breaking out in XX Alley.
“Yes, it’s the robbery case I mentioned before. We’ll handle it.”
—Roger that.
When the radio crackled, Bak Eunyeong replied leisurely, then gave a long stretch and stood up from her seat.
“Shall we?”
“Yes. Let’s go.”
After clearing their spots at the PC bang and quietly heading to the scene, the alley where the fight was taking place was already a complete wreck.
“Die!”
“Argh!”
Amid the deafening clash of steel pipes and wooden planks, neither side seemed to have the upper hand; the fight was deadlocked.
The Black Snake Gang had launched a surprise attack, but the Axe Gang was fighting from its home turf. As a result, the two sides had fought a war of attrition, and now barely anyone was left standing upright.
“What the fuck! How did you know we were going to hit the gold and silver shop! My plan was perfect!”
Spitting up blood as if he couldn’t accept it, the wounded Axe Gang boss shouted.
“I prepared the best tattoo stickers, planted a spy, and was even looking for another esper to make an alibi dummy! It was a foolproof plan!”
“Hey, you dumbass! We found photos of you with the spy you planted on his phone. Did you think we’d fall for that?”
The Black Snake Gang’s action captain wiped the blood from his mouth and spoke.
“What? I definitely told him to delete those…”
At the Axe Gang boss’s bewildered words, a spy from the Axe Gang who had been sprawled in a corner sniffled back tears and answered.
“I-I’m sorry! I couldn’t bear to delete my memories with the Boss…”
“…You. Yeah, loyalty is the best! The plan may have gone wrong, but if we wipe out all these Black Snake bastards right here, this territory is ours! Finish this before the heroes arrive!”
“Uh, sorry to interrupt.”
Just then, Gang Jinho casually walked in from the mouth of the alley. On either side of him stood a grinning Bak Eunyeong and Trace, who clicked her tongue and folded her arms.
“What, cops? Already?”
“Calling us cops? That hurts.”
Sipping a can of coffee, Gang Jinho continued leisurely. Truthfully, he had bought the canned coffee at a convenience store on the way here; it was a prop to emphasize his future ‘genius’ image.
“Boss of the Axe Gang. I heard your plan loud and clear. Put snake tattoo stickers on your arms, rob a gold and silver shop, and draw all the aggro entirely onto the Black Snake Gang. Leave behind a clumsy superpower-made alibi so nobody suspects it’s a frame job. Well, I thought it wasn’t a bad plan.”
Gang Jinho crushed the empty can with a sharp crack and grinned.
“It looks like you’ve taken out quite a loan recently? Seeing as you came up with such a plan just to eliminate the Black Snake Gang. Well, I suppose your calculation was that once the Black Snake Gang disappeared and the area became vacant, you’d swallow up all the turf rights and break even. Isn’t that right?”
The Black Snake Gang’s action captain was one thing, but when a police officer who had appeared out of nowhere fluently recited not only the top-secret plan but also the organization’s financial difficulties, the Axe Gang boss froze.
“H-how the hell do you…!”
The Axe Gang boss’s lips trembled in shock. Watching him, the blood-soaked Black Snake Gang action captain let out a hollow laugh, incredulous.
“Puhaha! Hey, you stupid bastard! Did you go around advertising it to the whole neighborhood? Getting your whole plan spilled from A to Z by a beat cop? I’m so embarrassed I can’t even be a gangster anymore!”
“Shut up, you son of a bitch!”
“By the way, I’m also the one who gave the information to the action captain over there. You know, we talked by messenger.”
“…”
“You’re no different, you moron. Rushing in here ’cause you got played too?”
“Chew on that, you fuck.”
The two bickering gangs soon glared at Gang Jinho with bloodshot eyes.
“Get them! Kill every last one of them, cops or whatever!”
“Hey! We take out the cops first too!”
“Waaaaargh!!!”
At the orders of the boss and the action captain, the remaining small-fry gangsters lunged forward with a shriek. But they had already beaten each other to the point of exhaustion.
—Crack!
“Do I look easy because I’m an esper?”
“Urk…”
Trace was an information-type esper, but she was still an esper—an opponent that ordinary men couldn’t hope to face. The gap in basic physical abilities was enormous.
“Die!”
Then, one gangster who spotted an opening swung a steel pipe at the back of Gang Jinho’s head.
“Hup!”
Gang Jinho reflexively ducked, and the steel pipe cut through empty air. Immediately after, a natural follow-up kick struck the gangster’s groin.
“Argh… ugh…”
The gangster collapsed to the floor. Gang Jinho looked down at his own hand with slight confusion. For a guy who’d only gamed in his room, his reaction speed was far too fast.
‘Is it because I have the body from police academy, so my base stats are high?’
But when he first entered the game, it had seemed no different from his original body. Come to think of it, lately his body had been getting healthier and he felt less tired.
“Jinho, we need to cuff them now.”
“Ah, yes!”
His brief musings were ended by Bak Eunyeong, who was jingling a pair of handcuffs. Well, if it’s good, it’s good. Trace had already subdued the remaining gangsters.
“Now, now, everyone just lie still. You’ll hurt your wrists.”
With Trace assisting, Bak Eunyeong and Gang Jinho began cuffing the fallen members one by one. With this, they had taken down two criminal organizations in one go and prevented the gold and silver shop robbery before it even happened.
“Jinho, another success? At this rate, you’re really going to get famous.”
Bak Eunyeong nudged Gang Jinho in the ribs with her elbow.
“No, it’s not over yet…”
“Really? What else is there?”
“It’s not that there’s definitely more…”
“Hmm.”
While the two were peacefully cuffing and chatting.
“Fuck, fuck! I can’t get caught like this!”
The Axe Gang boss, who had been sprawled on the ground, was staggering back to his feet.
“You want another beating?”
Trace shook her head with a look of pity. However, the Axe Gang boss’s eyes were completely rolled back, and he was foaming at the mouth as he screamed.
“Do I… do I look easy? Do I look easy to you bastards!!!”
With trembling hands, he fumbled in his bosom and pulled something out.
His final lifeline, purchased with great difficulty from a broker after selling three prime establishments and emptying the organization’s safe. His attempt to eliminate the Black Snake Gang had also been to make up for the losses from purchasing this item.
He hadn’t expected to use it in a place like this so soon, but being arrested by the police here was far too unfair.
“You’re all fucked now! Let’s all go to hell!”
A glass bead containing black flames. The moment the Axe Gang boss threw it to the ground and shattered it.
“Ha, as if… huh?”
Trace’s face, which had been brimming with composure just moments ago, instantly lost all color. Espers, especially information-type espers, had senses far sharper than ordinary people. Because of this, she realized faster than anyone what was happening.
“Officer Gang Jinho! Be careful! This is at least a—”
Her words were never finished. In an instant, all sound in the alley vanished as if by a lie.
Silence. An eerily unnatural silence.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Footsteps echoed. From above, from the front, from the side. The sound of death reverberated from every direction, ignoring spatial orientation.
As despair gripped their throats, abyssal flames that devoured even light flickered in all directions.
“Hmm.”
One who wields black flames. One who rules over death. Wherever he passed, only screams of pain and despair remained.
A monster covered in pitch-black flames, unrecognizable even in shape.
One of the city’s most vicious and heinous Grade 1 Villains, ‘Black Flame,’ had descended.
“…”
“…”
The handcuffed gangsters heaved as if unable to breathe. Those still conscious strangled their own necks. Some scratched at the floor until their fingernails broke.
What was even more grotesque was that despite all this, not a single sound was heard. As if making a sound was forbidden.
“Hmm.”
All that could be heard was a voice tinged with displeasure. The pitch-black monster arrogantly surveyed his surroundings, grasping the situation.
Truthfully, Black Flame was in quite a foul mood. Lately, funds for his ongoing research had been a bit short, so he had sold a summoning orb on the black market that could call him. He hadn’t expected back-alley trash from the sticks to use it so immediately.
Now that it came to this, he would torture the vermin to pass the time until his mood improved…
“…”
“…”
At that moment, Black Flame’s gaze met a pair of crimson eyes standing in a corner of the alley.
Black Flame recognized Eunyeong.
Eunyeong recognized Black Flame.
The corner of Eunyeong’s mouth curved up. Black Flame couldn’t meet that smile and hastily averted his eyes downward.
“…I have some very urgent matters to take care of. I’ll take my leave.”
—Whoosh!
The alley, which had been swallowed by flames, regained its light, and Black Flame vanished in an instant as if he had never existed.
“Wh-what…”
The Axe Gang boss, who had blown three prime establishments and a secret safe on this, stared blankly at the spot where Black Flame had been.
What…
What the hell kind of situation was this?