It took thirty minutes for the culprit to calm down somewhat, and for the other police officers to spend all that time staring at Gang Jinho in wonder.
“Y-you caught the culprit?”
The owner of “Duchil’s Beans” arrived at the police substation. Still wearing her apron, she looked around, then soon spotted the culprit and started in shock.
“Y-you!”
“The part-timer who quit not long ago. Right?”
“Uh, yes. Th-that’s right, but…”
The café owner assumed “the culprit must have confessed” and showed no particular reaction, but the other officers could not help admiring him all over again.
“No, how did you know he was a part-timer who quit?”
“To know in advance both that the CCTV was broken and that there was a lot of cash in the register, there aren’t many candidates besides an employee. Since it’s been three weeks since the CCTV broke, I inferred that it was a part-timer who quit around then.”
“Ooh…!”
The other police officers marveled at Gang Jinho’s deduction—or rather, his act of pretending to deduce. At that, the culprit, who had kept his head bowed the whole time, sprang to his feet as if wronged.
“No, does this even make sense?”
“Hey, hey! Sit down, you punk! What do you think you’re doing?”
“Why is there a psychic at a police station! It makes no sense that I got caught like this!”
“Sit down! And Officer Gang is not a psychic, he’s an ordinary person.”
Even as he was forcibly shoved back into his chair by the burly officers, the culprit did not stop talking back.
“You expect me to believe that? Fuck, I heard everything he deduced! How does an ordinary person figure out I transformed into a cake with only that much information? Huh?”
“I’m somewhat smart.”
“No, even if you’re smart…”
“The reason you specifically targeted a café was also because of the limitations of your ability, wasn’t it? You probably can’t transform into just any object… but into very specific objects. In other words, it’s an ability that only lets you turn into cakes or doughnuts. Am I right?”
“…You are.”
The culprit’s stiffly upright neck slowly sank.
“You decided to rob the café because of a personal grudge too, didn’t you? I’m guessing that owner made all sorts of excuses and didn’t pay your wages on time. So since you’d quit anyway, you decided to commit a crime as revenge.”
“…Yes.”
“So you used a blind spot in perception to… excuse me?”
“Yes, yes… that’s right… It was last Sunday that I decided to steal the cash register…”
Now the culprit was no longer even listening and was freely spilling every charge against himself. Judging by the way he occasionally muttered, “Fuck, why am I so unlucky…” it was clear that he had taken Gang Jinho for a psychic and completely given up.
“Now, let’s go over there and continue.”
“I came up with this method while watching a drama…”
And so the senior officers took away the culprit, who confessed to everything, and wrote up the report.
“Make sure you pay the kids on time.”
“Yes…”
After the café owner left the substation with a dumbfounded expression,
“Uh, rookie.”
Raphael, the substation chief, scratched the back of his head and sat down beside Gang Jinho.
“To be honest, I thought you were messing around… but to think you really caught the culprit. So you’re the guy they said was a genius, huh? Sorry for misunderstanding you.”
“Not at all. I wouldn’t have believed it either.”
“Right. I’m asking just in case, but you really aren’t a psychic, are you? Even if it’s a really trivial ability, police officers are required to register it. I still have to go in for examinations because of these horns. My ability just makes me a bit stronger, that’s all.”
Substation Chief Raphael laughed as he pointed at his horns.
“No, I really am not.”
“Good. You worked really hard today. The culprit will be picked up by the National Police Agency later… and we’ll learn how to write reports next time. Rest a bit, then clock out. Got it?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“Good, good. It feels nice to do something police-like for the first time in a while.”
Saying that, Substation Chief Raphael patted Gang Jinho on the back and returned to his office. Once even Substation Chief Raphael had left, only Park Eunyoung and Gang Jinho remained.
“Hm-hm.”
Officer Park Eunyoung let out a laugh mixed with a pleased hum. Gang Jinho’s body stiffened of its own accord, and his voice became as booming as that of a new recruit in the army.
“Jinho. You’re really amazing, aren’t you? I honestly thought it was something the café owner had staged herself.”
“Ah, thank you!”
“Did you figure it out just like you said? You didn’t use some psychic power or anything?”
“Yes, that’s correct!”
“It’s very rare for the police to catch a culprit on the scene like this… If you do well, you might even get a certificate of commendation. But why are you so tense? You achieved something incredible on your very first day.”
“W-well, it’s my first time having such a beautiful senior officer… I’m sorry!”
“Mm.”
Park Eunyoung’s eyes quickly swept over Gang Jinho from head to toe.
For a moment, she wondered if this curious rookie was trying to hit on her, but judging by his body, he really was nervous. Someone trying to seduce a woman wouldn’t be sweating bullets like that.
“I am pretty, aren’t I?”
Park Eunyoung, wearing an enigmatic smile like a cat’s, rose from her seat and brought a cold vegetable juice from the refrigerator.
“I think I really lucked out with my junior. Today was fun. But, you know.”
“Yes!”
“In my opinion… you seemed to know who the culprit was as soon as you saw him. You looked like you were hesitating over whether to step forward.”
“!!!”
As Eunyoung’s eyes gleamed as though piercing through his innermost thoughts, Gang Jinho sprang up from his seat once again.
“No, ma’am! The truth is, I wasn’t confident in my deduction, so I was organizing the information until I could be certain!”
“Really? That’s what it was?”
Eunyoung quietly set the vegetable juice in front of Gang Jinho. The fact that it just so happened to be “vegetable” juice was profoundly meaningful. It seemed to hint at Gang Jinho’s future, should he ever hesitate to step forward.
“If, by any chance… you think you can catch the culprit, but just stay still. You can’t do that, okay? We’re police officers.”
“O-of course!”
“Good, good. You worked hard, Jinho. I’ll be counting on you from now on, all right?”
Park Eunyoung gently patted Gang Jinho’s shoulder with a kind gesture.
“…Yes!”
Though as he received that pat, goosebumps rose all over Gang Jinho’s body.
**
The sun set. Gang Jinho was able to return home safely.
One might ask what kind of home he had when he had fallen into a game, but the phone in his pocket had his home address recorded in it. Strangely enough, the phone was the exact same model Gang Jinho had used in reality, and even the passcode was identical.
“…Haa.”
Gang Jinho collapsed onto the bed and rummaged through his phone, gathering information.
To start with the conclusion, this Gang Jinho of “Light City” was an orphan. There weren’t any particular numbers saved in his contacts, and even after digging through the photo album, social media, and so on, there were no traces of anything. It was as though he were someone who had dropped out of the sky.
“…Right, I suppose I really am someone who dropped out of the sky.”
How had this happened? The moment his head touched the pillow, exhaustion rushed over him and he felt as if he might pass out, but he could not fall asleep yet. Since he had truly entered Light City, he needed to make a definite survival plan.
“First, I have to survive…”
First, he would survive. Gang Jinho’s goal was survival first, survival second.
What use were riches and glory today if his head came off tomorrow? Rather than a city mouse who died young in splendor, he wished to be a country mouse who could live in peace.
The problem was that his direct superior was the craziest villain in the city. On top of that, he had drawn a great deal of attention today while trying to score points, so it was now completely impossible for him to quietly quit the police.
If things continued like this, only one of two futures remained. Either he would spend his life as Eunyoung’s toy, scraping by while playing the clown, or one day he would suddenly be “retired” due to one of her whims.
“Still, there is a way.”
Even if the sky falls, there is always a hole to rise through. There existed one sure lifeline that would allow him to escape Park Eunyoung’s grasp without suffering retaliation.
The strongest hero in Light City. The one and only opponent capable of standing against Eunyoung. The number one in the hero rankings.
What if he somehow got close to her and clung to her pant leg, crying, “Please save me!”? What if that led to successfully arresting Eunyoung? Wouldn’t that create an opportunity for him to escape this insane city and quit the police?
The hero would be happy because she could put Eunyoung in prison. Gang Jinho would be happy because he could quit the police. Wouldn’t it be a win-win plan for both of them?
“Well… that’s only possible if I get acquainted with her.”
It was too dangerous to suddenly report, “I think my superior is Eunyoung,” because Eunyoung handled darkness and space. Gang Jinho’s neck would reach the ground faster than the hero could arrive. And since he didn’t have the personal contact information of the number one ranker, either, he had no method for the time being.
The most plausible method would be something like “become famous as a police officer and get acquainted later.” But becoming famous as a police officer itself was no easy task…
“Ah, whatever. My head hurts.”
Surviving was surviving, but as the rebound from being too tense set in, his eyes slowly began to close. Before he fell asleep, Gang Jinho decided to say the magical words he had been putting off and putting off.
“…Status window!”
Then there was a status window. A translucent window really did appear before his eyes!
“…Huh?”
The problem was that this status window was very different from the ones commonly seen.
-Current Karma: 485,219,303
-Remaining quota for this month: 4,400
-Karma has decreased by 500 for resolving a case.
-Karma has decreased by 100 for completing a day’s work.
“…What is this?”
Normally, stats, levels, or at the very least traits would be written there—that was the standard in this industry. Yet this thing claiming to be a status window had none of that, and rudely displayed only numbers related to “karma.”
No, what the hell was karma? Without thinking, Gang Jinho pressed the part labeled “Current Karma” with his finger.
-Karma refers to the cumulative value of the sins you have committed.
-You have taken the lives of 485,219,903 people thus far.
-If you fail to clear all your karma before you die…
“No, when did I ever?”
The explanation that appeared was absurd in the truest sense. Gang Jinho was a model citizen who had never even jaywalked in his life. And what? He had killed people? More than four hundred million of them? Wasn’t that number far too outrageous?
At that, he was about to spring upright in bed and start swearing.
“…Wait.”
Suddenly, he instinctively realized where that horrifying number had come from.
In other words, if.
If all those countless NPCs whom Gang Jinho had blown up cities with for fun while playing “Hisisi,” unleashed villains to massacre, and drowned by causing disasters, were counted as “people.”
And if the evil deeds he had committed over thousands of hours of playtime and while managing dozens of cities had accumulated in this world.
“Oh my God.”
He ended up arriving at the conclusion that he might have killed roughly that many people.