I Became a Police Officer in a Superhero Genre

On an unreasonable day in September, when my transfer request to a local police station had been rejected for the 12th time, I was watching the late downpour from the safety of the police station as usual, thinking:

“How can I escape from here?”

Oh, hellish Special Investigation Team 1! What on earth do I have to do for you to let me go?

The reality that makes me sigh. I’m 32 years old. The age when you start feeling regrets about life in the morning.
At such a time, I’ve been thrown into the Special Investigation Team, which is officially recognized as cannon fodder in this world setting, and my life has become as precarious as a candle in the wind.

In my heart, I want to quit, but as a middle-aged man without any notable qualifications, quitting the police force would literally mean starvation.
Add to that the fact that I have a love-hate relationship with the job of being a police officer, so I couldn’t bring myself to throw in a resignation letter.

So as a second-best option, I submitted transfer requests, but rejection, rejection, rejection. A series of cold rejections.
I even fantasize about some high-ranking official suddenly descending from the sky and firing me for not fitting in with the investigation team, but the cold reality keeps pushing me back into grueling labor.
I know. If someone hears me complaining like this, they might say, “If that’s the case, why don’t you just quit being a police officer instead of whining?” but-
I studied my ass off and worked really hard to finally become a police officer. I really worked my ass off. When a person has truly worked hard and achieved something, it’s difficult to let it go easily.
On top of that, if I could just get out of this damn Special Investigation Team, I could keep my distance from supervillain cases and live safely. How could I easily give that up?
At least for me, it’s hard to give up. Do you know how hard I worked to become a police officer? If I collected all the energy drink cans I chugged back then, I could probably make an Iron Man suit model, for fuck’s sake.
-But honestly, there are many times when I wonder if I should quit being a police officer if I don’t want to die. Especially when cases keep popping up non-stop like now.
“Ah, damn it, what’s this report about cockroaches stealing?”
“What do you mean what? It’s our job!”
I sighed as I watched some of my complaining colleagues receive the radio call and set out.
In this Secret Hero Rise world, superpowered individuals appear and cause trouble almost every day, and the investigation team in charge of them is dispatched.

According to the novel’s description, the police’s job is to stall for time against supervillains until the hero arrives, and after our protagonist shows up and defeats the supervillain, we handle the aftermath.

For the plot’s sake, when a supervillain appears, it should be the protagonist who stops them, so of course, whatever the police do doesn’t matter, but-

This is reality. Real police officers are not just simple meat shields.

We police officers track down the whereabouts of escaped supervillains, and if we’re talking ratios, there are more cases where the police alone arrest supervillains without the hero New Hope.

But citizens don’t care about these facts at all. If you turn on the news right now, articles saying the police are incompetent, that the Special Investigation Team should be disbanded immediately, are common, and there are even articles saying the police should be disbanded immediately.

To top it all off, it was infuriating to see the media blaming us police for the recent verdict, where the supervillain Minus, who committed mass murder, was released as not guilty.

In contrast, all media outlets are praising our great hero New Hope. Is this because this world is inside a superhero genre novel? It’s so ridiculous that I’m at a loss for words.

“Supervillain Minus found not guilty. Insufficient evidence. Is it due to police incompetence? Fu-uck- The one who blew away that evidence was that hero you bastards keep licking, you sons of bitches.”

“Let it go. Do you think those pen-pushers care about such things?”

When I cursed, one of my colleagues responded. I noticed that the colleague speaking had a large gauze on his head.

He was injured by a supervillain at the scene the day before yesterday, but he came to work just a day later. As I was briefly admiring this true police officer’s appearance,

I sighed and looked around the room. Despite being the headquarters of the Special Investigation Team, the number of people was noticeably smaller compared to a regular criminal investigation division.

The Supervillain Specialized Special Investigation Team, said to be composed of elites from domestic police. That means the headcount is small, but this damn special investigation team, despite not being established for long,

has overwhelmingly the highest injury and death in the line of duty rate among all police departments in the country. The empty seats here belong to friends who are currently hospitalized or buried in the National Cemetery.

It’s truly a hellish place. We work so hard and live diligently, yet neither the media nor anyone else is on the side of the police.

Unlike other corrupt police I’ve seen so far, the police officers assigned to this investigation team are all righteous and courageous,
true police officers that I could only see in dramas in my previous life, so I really feel like crying at the unfairness of the world.

So I need to escape from this team somehow.

As I was engraving my determination to escape from here somehow for my future, while typing on my laptop to finish writing the report on the previous case,

Suddenly, someone clapped their hands to gather the attention of the detectives inside. A middle-aged man with the desert disaster of baldness spread across his head. The leader of the Special Investigation Team.

“Kids, we have a case. Gather round.”

I raised an eyebrow at the leader’s words, and at the same time, I had a feeling that another troublesome case had occurred.

Ordinary people might think that all police officers do is rush in groups when someone awakens superpowers and goes on a rampage, but

when a dangerous person awakens superpowers, we do a lot of work like marking them in advance for tracking or tracing the hiding places of escaped suspects.

And now, looking at the documents the leader brought in both hands, it’s better to assume that someone we had marked has done something.

“Fuck.”

My head is already starting to hurt. When an ordinary person awakens superpowers and goes on a rampage, we can subdue them and things calm down over time, so the aftermath is easy to handle, but

when someone who was originally a criminal awakens superpowers? Things really start to get annoying.

“…Who is it? The bastard who caused trouble.”

“Kan Suk-cheol. That bastard, the action squad leader of the North Mafia, has appeared again.”

“Oh, fuck.”

Of all people, that psycho had to show up? Everyone who was listening to the leader’s words either turned ashen-faced or let out a sigh.

Kan Suk-cheol. The action squad leader of the largest rampaging gangster organization in Seoul, he was wanted for killing countless people, but

just before being caught by the police, he awakened superpowers and literally ate the police officers at the scene while rampaging, then suddenly disappeared.

His awakened superpower is powerful strength and physicality. And he has the terrifying ability to become even stronger by eating people. A psycho who had been quiet for nearly 3 months is on the move? It was clearly not going to be good news.

“Kan Suk-cheol appeared 9 days ago. He suddenly showed up in the Mapo area, completely destroyed the organization he used to be part of, and then suddenly hid here in the redevelopment area of Gangdong-gu.”

“His purpose is unknown. According to current witnesses, the local police station has confirmed that he’s hiding out in the redevelopment area of Gangdong-gu. But this guy is too dangerous, and we don’t know why he’s here. So our job is to find out what he’s planning. And if possible, arrest him.”

It’s the usual secret investigation, huh. I read through the materials, and the leader continued his explanation while handing over witness testimonies and CCTV photo evidence.

But something about the content was strange. I couldn’t figure out what was bothering me, so I raised my hand and asked the leader.

“Why are we only dealing with this now when the guy appeared 9 days ago?”

No matter how you look at it, isn’t it too strange that we received no information about someone so dangerous that we were marking and chasing, even though he appeared?

Are other police departments up to something? As I tried to understand the situation and the reason for such a late report, the leader’s story was far from my expectations.

“The reason is – the prosecution above classified that guy not as a simple criminal but as a supervillain, so they were late in informing us because they were deciding on his alias.”

“What the fuck?”

I’m at a loss for words at this answer I never imagined. Even the gauze on my colleague’s head fell to the floor, losing strength at this unexpected answer!

I was so dumbfounded that I lost my words, but my other colleagues just nodded their heads as if this was something that could happen, without any particularly strange reactions. Are they used to it, or is this considered normal?

This world sometimes treats absurd and irrational things as if they’re completely natural.

For example, people not recognizing the protagonist despite only covering their face with a small piece of cloth, or like now, wasting 9 days to come up with an alias.

Before I knew the secret of this world, I would have just brushed it off thinking there are idiots everywhere, but after realizing this world is from a novel, it’s become harder to let things slide like before.

It’s like when you notice a stain on the floor that you didn’t realize was there before, and from then on, it keeps bothering you. Experiencing this repeatedly makes me wish I had never known about this world.

Is this the sin that reincarnators must bear? I felt a lament spontaneously bursting out, but I painfully gave up since the incident had already occurred, and I nodded along with everyone else.

“So, what’s that guy’s name?”

“This villain’s name is Sikgwi (Eating Ghost). It’s an order from above to keep watching him as we don’t know what he’ll do next, and arrest him if possible.”

“?”

I shuddered at the somehow familiar villain name. Sikgwi. Yes, it’s definitely a villain name that appeared in the original story. Even the ability is the same- Ah, it must be that bastard. This is the world inside the novel, after all.

Supervillain Sikgwi. A madman who literally grabs, tears apart, and eats people, becoming stronger in the process. In the novel, he’s just a minor character consumed in one episode and then arrested, but the thought of actually catching this monster makes my legs weak.

I examined Sikgwi’s photo. The guy who was already a muscle pig before awakening has now become a muscle-muscle chomp-chomp pig after awakening. No matter how much steroids one might take, such a physique would surely be impossible.

“So are we all going to catch this guy together? No matter how I calculate it, it doesn’t seem like we can catch him with our current headcount.”

“Yeah, I thought our investigation team was lacking in personnel too, so I requested support from the local police station and other violent crime units. They said people are coming.”

… How do they think they can handle that cannibalistic muscle pig with just gun-wielding police officers?

Is the language processing part of my brain malfunctioning? Or is this person just a bastard who deliberately misunderstands even when things are explained clearly?

As I looked at the leader with disgust, he shrugged his shoulders and even sneered as if he found me ridiculous.

Has his mind gone haywire due to the effects of hair growth products? As I was considering whether to send this person to a mental hospital, the leader pulled something out from under his desk and showed it to us.

What he brought out was a pitch-black protective gear. It was similar to the riot gear police wear when stopping violent protests, but it had more things attached to it and looked so thick that it seemed scary to wear in summer.

“What is that?”

When another colleague asked with a dumbfounded expression, the leader tapped the protective gear with an even more triumphant face and said:

“This is the anti-supervillain countermeasure protective suit supplied by the higher-ups this time! It’s made of special materials, so even if you’re hit by a missile, the person inside will survive!

They say that no matter how special powers someone has, with this, we won’t end up in the hospital like before! Then we should be able to catch him with just us!”

… No matter how you look at it, this sounds like nonsense a con artist would say. I examined the supplied protective gear from various angles.

This thing has a lot of stuff attached to it, but it seems weaker than regular riot gear. Looking at the performance explanation that sounds like something a con artist would spout, I tapped it here and there, pressed it, and shook it lightly.

Immediately after, without even applying much force, the newly supplied protective gear made a cracking sound. The protective gear that was said to protect the wearer even from a direct missile hit and block attacks from superpower users split into two pieces in the hands of an ordinary person.

My colleagues and I looked at the leader. Meeting our gaze, the leader didn’t even avoid eye contact and boldly said:

“Why are you looking at me like that? If you have something to say, say it.”

“Is it okay to make personal attacks?”

“Then you’ll get a pay cut.”

“Then I have nothing to say.”

To think that having the deputy leader position thrust upon me would be this sad when I have no actual power.

After throwing the split protective gear into the trash, I wanted to discuss with the investigation team members about what Sikgwi might be planning, just in case.

Kan Suk-cheol, or rather Sikgwi, is a violent guy, but more than that, he’s a cunning bastard who knows how to use his head. If such a guy has been staying in the redevelopment area of Gangdong-gu for 9 days, he must have some purpose.

As long as we don’t know what that crazy bastard is planning, we might end up in a reverse situation even if we call in the special forces, so shouldn’t we prepare for anything with the information we have now?

I also thought about contacting the protagonist and asking for help, but that’s really a method to choose only when we absolutely can’t solve the case ourselves.

Reality doesn’t unfold as easily as a novel plot, and what would happen if we called in a kid who only knows how to destroy everything when we don’t even know what that guy is planning?

Obviously, it would become a mess like when we arrested Minus.

I was racking my brain about how to handle this, but before that, I realized I needed to confirm the number of people coming to support us this time.

“So how many people are coming to support us this time?”

“Seven. You’ll take the support guys and investigate, and the other guys have been drafted as security personnel for the higher-ups’ picnic, I mean seminar, so keep that in mind.”

“?”
“They say they’re scared of supervillains when they’re going on a trip. So, you know. I heard they’re even bringing in private mercenaries besides us, those fucking crazy bastards.”
“?”

Is my head hurting because this nonsense is too novel? Wait, no, this doesn’t make sense. My ears must be malfunctioning. It doesn’t make sense to draft detectives for such a reason, right?

But mocking my hope, the leader said it was already decided and couldn’t be changed. He told me to just go investigate and observe from afar what Sikgwi is doing.

He says it as if it’s no big deal, but that monster isn’t someone to be ignored even if he’s far away.

It’s to the point where I wonder if this world is telling me to die. Without hesitation, I handed the leader the transfer request form I always kept in my pocket.

Of course, it was ignored. Fuck.