Device Compatibility
The Sancheon Police Outpost Chief's phone was ringing off the hook.
“...Yes, sir. Understood loud and clear. Loyalty!”
Chief Seo Myeonggil took calls from the provincial police chief, the headquarters' investigation division chief, the National Police Agency's public relations officer, and the commissioner general's chief of staff, one after another.
Only then did he realize what he had done.
Watching him bury his face in his hands, I couldn't help but feel a twinge of pity.
“Ssshh... I'm screwed.”
It was the first time I had ever heard the chief swear.
“I told you, sir. It was the commissioner general.”
“Why didn't you just hit me then? You should have knocked me out before my three-inch tongue could wag!”
“Don't worry about it. It's not like you did it on purpose.”
“Will it really be okay?”
“It'll be fine. He's the commissioner general of the National Police Agency; surely he has that much magnanimity.”
“Right, he'll understand. It's not like I said anything too terrible.”
“Well, calling him a voice phisher was a bit much. Especially to the commissioner general himself.”
“Aaargh!”
He was crying.
Chief Seo Myeonggil was actually crying.
But as always, he rose again through the power of his faith.
Was it not written in the Bible?
Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you shall find.
Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For heaven helps those who help themselves.
In the end, he had to clean up his own mess.
“Give it to me.”
“Give you what?”
“The apology letter.”
Why was he asking for that?
“We can't let a piece of trash like this leave a stain on the bright future of Officer Min.”
With that, he ripped the apology letter I had painstakingly written into shreds.
“...What are you going to do?”
“Follow me. Today, I'm going to show these country folks the absolute majesty of public authority. Just trust me.”
He was going to be the one who helps himself.
Marching into the town hall with high spirits, Chief Seo unleashed all the pent-up frustration he had been suppressing.
“Grandma Soonrye. I heard Officer Min warned you before about lighting fires in your yard?”
“It wasn't just once or twice! He hides and watches, and the moment I light a fire, bam, he appears out of nowhere!”
“Do you know about the forest fire in Yangchon-ri over the mountain last month?”
“Of course I do. I was so anxious worrying the fire would spread to our village.”
“Do you know what happened to the arsonist who got caught then?”
“How should I know? Why do I need to know that?”
“Yes, you do. Because it's not someone else's problem.”
“...?”
“Even if you start a forest fire by mistake, it's up to three years in prison or a fine of up to thirty million won. If intent is proven, it's life imprisonment or a hundred million won fine. Grandma Soonrye, do you have a hundred million won?”
“Where on earth would I get that kind of money?!”
Grandma Soonrye snapped back, but Chief Seo didn't budge.
“Then how do you have the guts to light fires when you don't even have the money? We've warned you multiple times, and since you keep ignoring us, we can legally consider it intentional, can't we?”
“Aigoo, now you're treating me like a criminal. When you get old, you should just die. What glory am I even trying to live for?”
The invincible 'elderly card' meant to guilt-trip the opponent failed to work today.
Chief Seo had staked his retirement on this confrontation.
“From now on, if a fire breaks out in our neighborhood, I will investigate Grandma Soonrye first. So, if you don't want to spend the rest of your days in a prison cell, do not light any fires outside. This is your final warning.”
“You told me to come here for an apology, but you called me here just to threaten me?”
“Stop changing the subject and answer me. Are you going to light fires in your yard in the future, or not?”
“...Fine, it's too dirty to deal with anyway. I won't do it.”
With a fine of a hundred million won on the line, who would have the guts to light a fire?
Chief Seo's counterattack didn't stop there.
“Next, the chief of Sancheon 1-ri.”
“I'm right here.”
“Two years ago, you drove your cultivator into a ditch while drunk, didn't you? Broke your arm back then, too, if I recall?”
“Why are you digging up someone's painful past like that?”
“You also crashed into Uncle Chunsik's wall, and you blocked the road in front of the village to fight with a bus driver. All of those happened because you were operating a cultivator while drunk.”
“When you live in the countryside, you might grab the wheel after a drink or two. Why bring up such trivial things...”
“Hey, Chief Choi.”
“What, 'hey'?”
“You moved here from Asan when you were a kid and went to Sancho Middle School, right? I graduated from there too. I'm two years senior to you.”
“Is a public servant pulling rank on age right now?”
“Yes, let's pull rank. If the village made you chief because you're young, you should show some humility and self-restraint. If you had been unlucky, you could have run someone over with that cultivator.”
“...W-why would I run someone over?”
“Why? Are you dropping honorifics with your senior now?”
“No, it's just that you're exaggerating way too much.”
“You must have been too drunk to remember. This is the last time I'm letting it slide. If you get behind the wheel drunk one more time, I will personally throw you into a holding cell. Got it?”
“Just for having a little drink...”
“If you can't promise to stop drinking, move to another village before you hurt the elders here. Do you understand?”
“...”
“Look at you, not answering?”
“Man, you're crazy strict.”
“What? Martial law? Martial law in this day and age?!”
“It's a joke. Just slang the kids use these days. Can't even make a joke anymore.”
“You still haven't answered me.”
“Fine, I got it. Should I swear to the heavens? If I ever drink and drive again, I'm a son of a bitch. Happy now?”
“I'll be watching you with both eyes wide open. Just try breaking that promise.”
The crazy strict outpost chief pointed out every single illegal act they had brushed off in the past, calling them out one by one.
“Next. Who was the gentleman who's been urinating all over the place?”
“Why bring that up again? I'm a law-abiding citizen.”
The senior citizens' association president voluntarily confessed.
“You didn't live without laws; you lived without obeying them. You should be grateful we let it go easily, yet you wanted to scold a hard-working officer?”
“Hmph. When did I ever say I'd scold him...”
“The one who caught the thief in the watermelon patch at dawn was Officer Min! When Grandma Manbok's blood sugar dropped and she went into shock, the one who carried her on his back all the way to the hospital was Officer Min! The one who badgered the town chief to install a traffic light at the crosswalk in front of the village was also Officer Min!”
With every achievement listed, the villagers hung their heads.
The outpost chief glared at the elders and warned them.
“People need to have some shame. I declare here and now that as long as I am the chief of this outpost, I will never overlook any illegal acts!”
True to a village that lacked unity, traitors quickly began to emerge.
“Hear, hear!”
“Our chief speaks so well. He could run for county governor and win.”
“Laws are meant to be followed. Yes, absolutely correct.”
“The young officer has done so much work in just a month. Thank you, Officer Min.”
Chief Seo looked at me with a satisfied expression.
How's that? Satisfied?
Just then, the door of the town hall burst open.
“Mom! Is my mother not here?”
It was the owner of the village's only supermarket.
“Grandma Kkotbun didn't come.”
“She's not in her right mind, where could she have gone without a word? Aigoo, Mother!”
A missing person report for an elderly woman with dementia had just been received.
“She is eighty-four years old. Height is 155 centimeters, weight 42 kilograms. She's wearing a wrap skirt and white flats. Her legs aren't in good shape, so she couldn't have gone far.”
Officer Jang contacted the provincial police department's civil service center to request an emergency alert broadcast.
Hurrying back to the outpost from the town hall, Chief Seo gathered the officers for a briefing on the search.
“Since the village chief agreed to cover the surrounding area, we'll take the national highway and the railroad tracks. Officer Jang, take Officer Hwang and check around the highway all the way to Chosan Elementary School.”
“Yes, Chief.”
“And Officer Min will come with me... Huh? Where is Officer Min?”
“He asked for Grandma Kkotbun's resident registration number earlier, then said he had to go somewhere and left.”
“Where?”
“I'm not sure either...”
“Officer Hwang. Go check how many patrol cars are outside.”
“All three are there.”
“...Where on earth did he go without saying a word?”
The moment I heard she was missing, something flashed in my mind.
Keyword Search! Couldn't I find her with that?
It was the perfect opportunity to test the Level 1 feature.
Now that I had her resident registration number to use as a keyword, all I had to do was get into the Commando and input it.
I thought about reporting it first, but trying to come up with a plausible explanation would only waste precious time.
When an elderly person goes missing, missing the golden hour can lead to a fatal accident.
So, I just left without reporting.
I started the Commando and checked the navigation system.
When I selected Chase Mode, a message notification window flashed.
Would you like to challenge the next mission? (Y/N)
“It's not time for this yet.”
I had learned from experience.
The moment you touch it, the time limit starts ticking down.
Even when the level-up mission was given, it came with a sixty-day time limit.
If this were Seongam-si, where crime was rampant, it might be different. But in a quiet countryside village, finding lawbreakers was like finding a needle in a haystack.
If not for the gangsters operating in Chosan-ri, I probably wouldn't have succeeded in leveling up either.
If I recklessly accepted the challenge out of greed, I would definitely end up struggling against the clock.
And if I failed, all the benefits I enjoyed would vanish.
“The price of failure is too high. There's no rush to take on the challenge.”
I selected 'No' to save it for later.
Once I closed the notification window, the [Keyword Search] button became active.
“Resident registration number.”
I typed Grandma Kkotbun's resident registration number, which I had written down on a memo pad, into the keyword input field.
Name: Kim Kkotbun. Age: 84. Starting location guidance.
On the screen, which had switched to the navigation map, a red arrow was moving at a snail's pace.
“She's not at the barn either?”
“No.”
“What about the mill?”
“Not there either.”
Led by the village chief, all the residents set out to find Grandma Kkotbun. They searched every possible place, but she was nowhere to be found.
“We've searched the rice paddies and the fields, but she's nowhere. Where could an elderly woman with bad legs have gone?”
The officers who had gone to check the national highway and the railroad tracks also gathered back in front of the town hall.
“Did you find her?”
At Chief Seo's question, Officer Jang shook his head.
Chief Seo realized they needed to expand the search area.
“It's already past three. It'll be much harder to find her once it gets dark. The temperature drops rapidly at night, so if she gets hypothermia, it'll be a disaster.”
“What should we do then?”
“We have to find her. I'll contact the nearby military base to ask for cooperation. Officer Hwang, call 119 and request an ambulance. The younger folks, follow me up the mountain.”
It had been five hours since the eighty-four-year-old dementia patient disappeared.
As autumn set in, the night air in the countryside grew cold much faster than in the city.
If they dragged this out any longer, they would miss the golden hour.
Leaving only one female officer at the outpost, all the police personnel joined the search.
Except for one person.
That one person was driving the boxy Commando, kicking up a cloud of dust in the distance.
“Isn't that Officer Min's car?”
“Yes, it looks like it.”
“Where has he been, and why is he only showing up now?”
Had he changed just because he received the favor of the commissioner general?
Chief Seo decided he needed to give Officer Min a piece of his mind for leaving without a word and ignoring his calls.
The car slowed down and parked in front of the town hall. Not just the body, but even the windshield was coated thick with white dust.
“Did you drive through a desert? Why weren't you answering your phone...”
The moment I opened the door and stepped out, Chief Seo unleashed a storm of nagging, but I ignored him and walked to the back to open the rear door.
“You can step down, Grandma.”
A pair of white flats gently stepped onto the ground.
The supermarket owner recognized them instantly.
“Mother!”
The son pushed past Chief Seo, running forward to embrace his mother.
“Aigoo, the young officer did a great deed.”
“Well done, well done.”
“Officer Min saved a life.”
Praises poured in from all sides, and eventually, the crowd erupted into applause.
As expected, a good result forgives everything.
Still, I had to explain the situation to Chief Seo.
“I remembered seeing someone walking toward the reservoir, so I went to check it out quickly, and...”
I couldn't bring myself to say I had followed an arrow on a navigation system. I planned to keep that a secret forever.
The road to the reservoir had been washed out by heavy rain a few days ago, so I had to park the car halfway and walk.
Grandma Kkotbun had been sitting on the reservoir embankment, singing a song.
If she had wandered off from there, finding her would have been much more difficult.
“If that was the case, you should have told us before you left.”
“I was worried that if my guess was wrong, it would disrupt the search. I'll make sure to report before moving next time. I'm sorry.”
“There's nothing to be sorry about. We found her thanks to you. Anyway, good job.”
“Thank you, Chief.”
Since she wasn't a criminal, there was no monetary reward or points.
But I had gained something far more valuable.
It happened on the way back after putting Grandma Kkotbun in the car.
Exhausted from walking all the way to the reservoir, she fell asleep like a baby the moment she got into the car.
Well done. You have acquired 1 Citizen's Staff. Accumulated Staff: 10
A Random Gift Voucher has been issued. [Check Gift]
Is it a system that gives you a gift once you collect ten staffs?
“It's like a random box.”
I immediately clicked the [Check Gift] button.
[Device Compatibility] - The navigation system's [Chase Mode] can now be used on other electronic devices. Please select only one electronic device to pair.
[Smartphone], [Laptop], [Tablet PC], [Desktop]...
“I can open Chase Mode outside the car?”
It seemed like it would be incredibly useful when searching narrow alleys where cars couldn't enter, or in the middle of a forest.
I chose the smartphone for its portability.
Even if I wanted to choose something else, it was the only device I owned.
Ding.
A new app has been installed on your smartphone.
I had only touched the navigation screen to make my selection, but an app was automatically installed on my phone.
The name of the app was...
“Beomjappa?”
Finding the Fastest Way to Catch the Criminal.
This navigation system keeps making my heart flutter.