NOVEL NEXT Chapter 7 - This is What Being a Police Officer in This World Means(7)
..Past midnight. Multiple police cars are racing down a quiet road with their sirens blaring.
The scene where the road is controlled and four police cars are chasing the suspect.
At the end of the road, a barrier has been set up and spikes have been laid on the ground, but Lee Chan of the Special Investigation Team 1 knew that it would be useless.
Of course, because the target they’re chasing this time isn’t a drunk driving vehicle that the local police commonly chase. Chan gritted his teeth and looked ahead.
A strange being sprinting down the road while emitting something like blue lightning. No, a person.
But can you call ‘that’ running at 100 kilometers per hour so leisurely a ‘human’?
Chan had seen all sorts of superpower users since joining the Special Investigation Team, but as time passed and he saw more and more difficult-to-chase guys appearing,
he momentarily felt a fear that eventually, monsters that the police really couldn’t handle might appear. But that was only for a moment. Chan decided to focus on the current scene.
The current suspect, Kim Yun-sik, who failed to rob a bank and is now fleeing, was running while scattering blue lightning on the road.
The local police personnel tried setting up walls and spreading nets on the path he was running, but far from stopping Kim Yun-sik, it only resulted in hindering the police pursuit.
He could have clearly shaken off the police if he had kept running at that moment – but that damn bastard kept checking behind him as if mocking the pursuing police, not straying beyond a certain distance.
Seeing this, Chan gritted his teeth and put more pressure on his foot on the accelerator. Vroom – the engine roars and the vehicle moves forward a bit faster.
The patrol car’s speed has already far exceeded the road speed limit. But they still can’t get any closer to the suspect in front of them.
“…Bastard. Is he trying to play with us or what?”
“Damn superpower bastards. We shouldn’t let them off just because they say they’ve lost their minds, fuck, letting these crazy bastards go is just making more of them, isn’t it?”
As Chan spat out curses through gritted teeth, his mentor in the passenger seat also cursed. While getting angrier at the behavior that seemed to say ‘try to catch me if you can’,
Chan noticed the number of police vehicles chasing that damn thing and became curious. There are fewer cars than the number that originally responded. Scanning with his eyes to see who was missing, he could quickly figure out who wasn’t there.
“Where did the Deputy Chief go?”
“He’s probably doing something weird somewhere again.”
Chan’s mentor spoke without showing any signs of irritation or complaint. It was the same for Chan.
Lee Mun-su, the Deputy Chief of the Supervillain Specialized Special Investigation Team, is a detective infamous in a bad way among police officers outside the same investigation team.
A mad dog who, once he gets his teeth into a case, doesn’t care about family or anything else, not even if his own head gets cracked.
A strange person who’s hard to call diligent, but also doesn’t seem like the kind of guy whose very presence in a police uniform is an insult to diligent police officers. A person who’s best described as just a mad dog.
This man, who proved he was crazy by charging into a complex corruption case that was difficult to even bring up among police officers, not caring about anything,
was dragged into the Special Investigation Team, which is said to gather only elites by the choice of higher-ups, and sure enough, started doing weird things.
Due to his antics of throwing transfer request forms at the leader, even the detectives thought that maybe even this infamous mad dog couldn’t handle this Special Investigation Team,
but mocking such doubts, he performed well in various cases and exceptionally rose to the position of Deputy Chief despite his rank of Senior Constable.
If they could only explain to reporters what kind of achievements he had made, the people in the Special Investigation Team would first cite the Sikgwi case that reporters are cursing so much about.
With less than 10 people, they charged at over 30 gangsters plus a psycho who eats people, and there were no fatalities.
Reporters curse that the police didn’t do anything, but do these cursing reporters really know how impossible this is?
In the Special Investigation Team, it’s common for a colleague you ate breakfast with in the morning to return from just one case dispatch with only their ankle remaining.
A bastard who protects both citizens who need to be protected and fellow police officers by throwing his own body. An idiot who says he’s never lost even though he gets bashed up all the time.
It’s a clear fact that he survived because of the hero called New Hope, but even so, how many people, even among fellow police officers, could directly charge at such a disgusting muscle monster?
At least, there’s one in this investigation team. One detective who protects both police colleagues and citizens.
After realizing this, although his colleagues didn’t know what he was usually thinking, they were convinced that he was definitely a reliable person.
At least as long as he’s around, even that skinny new recruit probably won’t get hurt easily. The leader probably assigned him as a mentor knowing this, but-
“That new recruit must be having a hard time. I hope he doesn’t catch anything bad from that guy and end up getting chummy with that pervert in tights.”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
While saying this, Chan and his mentor continued driving the car in pursuit of the suspect. Watching the suspect who kept glancing back, Chan felt his irritation rising, but.
Suddenly, Chan could faintly see the face of the suspect emitting light from his body. And Chan became curious.
Why does the guy who failed to rob a bank, attacked the responding police, and then used his ability to mock the police, now have such a frightened expression?
Chan was curious but decided to step on the accelerator again, chewing on the fact that they needed to catch him first to confirm anything, but.
“- Oh oh, that bastard, he’s completely escaped! Current time 12:59 AM! Towards Olympic-daero! The suspect has completely disappeared! I repeat! Suspect has completely fled!”
After that, the suspect who had been fleeing while maintaining a certain distance suddenly moved away at an overwhelming speed that even cars couldn’t chase, becoming invisible.
The police, who had been desperately chasing and ended up like dogs chasing chickens, could only blankly stare at the road where the suspect had disappeared in frustration.
The crazy woman is plotting something crazy. The moment that became certain, the only thought filling my head was that I wanted to go home, but are police officers the kind of people who can go home just because they want to?
Please don’t let me die. No, in this case, should I be praying that I can return home with all my limbs intact without ending up in a state worse than death?
Buddha, Jesus, Allah, and what was it, Poseidon, please protect me. I try praying to all the gods that come to mind, but the gods didn’t answer my prayers.
My resentment and curses towards the world soar to the heavens, but powerless me couldn’t awaken any evil power and could only move blankly.
Since we came to investigate the case, I entered the suspect’s house with the help of the landlord. The moment I entered, what I saw was a mountain of trash.
I was disgusted, thinking ‘Why does it have to be this kind of guy’s house again?’, but looking around the living room briefly, it didn’t feel like the house was dirty because the owner didn’t clean,
but rather it seemed to have ended up like this because they couldn’t take out the trash due to some circumstances.
The trash bags were neatly stacked, ready to be taken out, and because they were tied with double layers, there was no foul smell or trash liquid leaking out.
The suspect seemed to usually live very cleanly, as other things in the living room were clean, and everything from the shoes at the entrance to the chopsticks was all neat, making it a house that looked suspiciously like it belonged to someone with OCD.
But that cleanliness was only up to the living room, and looking into the room, as is typical for men, the blanket was sprawled out in the middle of the only room as if it had never been folded. Okay, so this-
“This is fucking weird.”
Along with the experience accumulated from a long career as a detective, my instinct shouts. This isn’t just a case caused by someone who lost their mind after awakening superpowers.
Ah yes, of course, with the person next to me staring with wide-open eyes. As I smile leisurely, feeling like I’ve been swept up in a tsunami, Sai opens his mouth behind me.
“This person’s house. It’s strange. The state of the room and the living room is too different.”
Sai muttered after looking around the house. I couldn’t see his face, but the faint heat in his voice, barely noticeable to me, was irritating.
I felt annoyed by the tickling sensation on the nape of my neck, as if someone was trying to stab me with a knife from an unseen place.
Realizing that just touching those hands shaking the trash bag would crush a person to death, I decided to keep my mouth shut. I decided to ponder other things.
Considering the incidents this woman plotted in the novel, the suspect in this case would also be out of his mind, and the process would be bizarrely twisted. More precisely, should I say it becomes a thriller?
Thinking about what will happen next makes me want to quit being a detective, but the fact that she’s deliberately asking questions like this means she wants something from me.
Recalling the behavior patterns and personality of this mastermind from the novel, and pulling together everything I learned at the police academy and in the field, I examined this room.
The living room that’s strangely clean except for the pile of trash. And the dirty room that doesn’t match such a living room. What could be her purpose in crafting such an incident?
According to what I saw in the novel, this woman has strong sociopathic tendencies, seeking power, enjoying manipulating people, and showing off.
On top of that, there were many descriptions of this woman throwing obviously suspicious evidence in front, enjoying the protagonist’s confusion due to fake evidence while mockingly placing the real evidence nearby.
She’s in the position of a new recruit who just joined the Special Investigation Team, and in this case, she’s involved with me, the Deputy Chief. Then, in this situation, what action should I take?
What else but to push her forward and tell her to do well?
“… I think it would be good to examine the room first – you take a look around the room. It’s strange that the state of the living room and the room is so different.”
“Yes, understood!”
At my words, Sai answered with an enthusiastic tone and headed into the room.
If she crafted this incident to have her abilities recognized, she’ll find evidence or whatever, so I told her to examine the room.
Now, if she discovers something, all I have to do is utter exclamations like ‘Amazing-‘ ‘Wonderful-‘. If the protagonist appears, the case will twist strangely again, but today is her day off.
That means if I don’t make any mistakes, this case should be solved simply. Thinking this, I made a commitment to give compliments that even supporting characters in internet novels I’ve read couldn’t do.
While pretending to rummage through the trash in the living room, suddenly the lights in the house started flickering.
Wondering if it was a voltage regulator problem, I was blinking my eyes when suddenly, bang! The closed house door opened.
What I saw beyond the opened door was a man in a tracksuit. Dull-looking eyes with unfocused pupils. The man, sweating profusely and drooling, was Kim Yun-sik, the suspect in this robbery case.
The man, who should have been in the middle of a chase, had suddenly appeared here and was looking at me and Sai, the uninvited guests in his house, with bloodshot eyes.
“Who… are you guys…?!”
Kim Yun-sik, panting heavily in an excited state. His eyes alternated between me and Sai, then suddenly fixed on Sai inside the room.
Following his gaze, I saw that Kim Yun-sik was staring at a blue USB that Sai seemed to have found in the room. I wondered what that was, but.
Seeing that, Kim Yun-sik’s face turned pale blue, and suddenly blue lightning-like things started sprouting from his body, making such questions disappear.
That looks like something important at a glance, but the important thing is that Sai is holding it.
Moreover, the suspect, who seems to know nothing about her, looks like he’s about to charge at that monster right now – if he really charges, something terrible will happen.
“You, put, that, down…!”
Oh no, don’t do it. Really, don’t do it.
I slowly shook my head, hoping that idiot would calm down, but the idiot puffed up his chest and took a stance to charge right away.
Sai never forgives anyone who dares to displease her, so if I let this man charge like this, he will surely die.
Really terribly. As my thoughts reached that point, I felt a desperate need for New Hope’s presence like never before, but.
New Hope is probably sleeping soundly at home right now, so I can’t hope for such a miracle. Then, what should I do here?
Fuck, why ask? Even for someone like me, I’m still a police officer, so what I should do is already decided.
With tears in my eyes, I threw my body between the suspect and Sai to save the guy who was about to charge with lightning-like things surrounding his body.
In this situation, this is the only way to save the suspect. It’s impossible for me to stop a superpower user said to be faster than bullets, so shouldn’t I do my best to prevent Sai and the suspect from touching?
Still, it’s not throwing my body to save my nominal junior, but to save the suspect.
Cursing my situation, I barely managed to snatch the unknown USB from Sai’s hand. Immediately after, a big impact and pain hit my back, and my vision went white.
Damn it. It’s only been a day since my head was cracked, and I’m getting injured again?
While praying that I wouldn’t die, I made a promise upon promise that if I survived, I would definitely go to the local police station and never deal with these crazy bastards again.