Chapter 2
Chapter 2
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 2
Chapter Title: The Duty of the Police
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In the heart of Gwanghwamun Square, Seoul.
No one dared to make a move.
Humans and aliens alike stood frozen as if by some unspoken agreement, their eyes fixed on one thing.
Ghorok! Ghororororo-!
The cry of a monster, a sound that should never be heard on Earth.
A massive, maned alien beast stood before the citizens, looking around and letting out a low growl.
It looked like a cross between a wolf and a lizard.
At the beast's feet, a Bluerobic planetarian mother and daughter—aliens with pointed ears and slender faces, known on Earth as 'Elves'—cowered, gasping for breath.
The mother Elf shielded her daughter's face, glaring up at the alien beast with fierce eyes.
The child, as if knowing instinctively that she must not make a sound, was barely holding back her tears in her mother's embrace.
A citizen muttered with a tense expression.
“U.C.I.D.… Where the hell is U.C.I.D.?”
The alien beast, treating the mother and daughter like a captured prize, glanced around its new environment, seemingly trying to assess the situation.
As the beast turned its head this way and that, the collar around its neck began to glow with a red light.
“Stand back!”
Suddenly, a man's voice shouted from behind, and a group of figures in black uniforms began to storm the area.
The citizens, thinking U.C.I.D. had finally arrived, turned around with expressions mixed with anxiety and relief.
But soon, their faces filled with confusion.
As the atmosphere grew chaotic, the alien beast growled and turned its head toward the commotion.
A large mercenary unit, marked with the letters ‘CH.N’, had appeared from nowhere and was moving in perfect formation, assuming attack positions.
Dantallion, an A-rank mercenary with handsome features and striking purple skin, ordered his subordinates to set up their weapon.
Whirr—Clank.
The mercenaries deployed a massive harpoon gun mounted on a large tripod.
Known as the ‘Head Crusher,’ it was the latest model developed by Cha-yoon Enterprise for hunting large alien species.
Feeling threatened, the alien beast opened its maw wide, let out a deafening roar, and raised its front paw.
The Elf mother and daughter at its feet could do nothing but squeeze their eyes shut.
“Fire!!”
Dantallion’s eyes widened as he shouted the command.
A flash of light burst forth.
Ghorok-!
The sharp harpoon, flying toward the beast, was reflected in its numerous eyes.
CRASH—
“What?”
For a moment, Dantallion couldn't believe his eyes.
The giant harpoon had collided with a transparent barrier that had appeared in front of the beast and disintegrated in mid-air.
Dantallion yelled at his men.
“What just happened?!”
“Look over there, sir!”
Dantallion craned his neck in the direction his subordinate was pointing.
In the distance, he could see a man with one arm outstretched, holding open a book that looked like it was about to crumble into dust.
The citizens murmured in confusion.
“What… What was that?”
“That… that guy… Isn’t that Park Shin-ju from U.C.I.D.?”
“What’s going on? Did he just protect the alien beast?”
Dantallion said nothing, simply casting a cold glare in Shin-ju’s direction.
Ignoring him, Shin-ju hurriedly chanted an incantation.
Rumble—
A massive black hole formed above the alien beast.
The surroundings were instantly plunged into a deep night.
Soon, a black, viscous fluid poured out from the dark void and began to envelop the beast.
Ghororororok!
The vast expanse of space greedily swallowed the alien beast whole.
The mother Elf squeezed her eyes shut and held her daughter tight.
The baby Elf could no longer hold back and burst into tears.
Ghoro-roro-rooo.
The alien beast stretched like taffy, its form twisting and distorting.
With a sharp gaze, Shin-ju waited for the beast to be completely absorbed by the black hole.
Once he confirmed it had been completely pulled in, Shin-ju quickly shut the book.
The black hole vanished, and light returned to the area. The people, having experienced a sudden shift from day to night and back again, could only stand there in a daze.
“Phew…”
Shin-ju let out a sigh of relief and ran over to the mother and daughter.
He knelt on one knee and checked their condition.
“Are you all right?”
The Elf who appeared to be the mother opened her eyes, recognized Shin-ju, and gave a slight nod.
The release from the extreme tension left her on the verge of fainting.
In contrast, the baby Elf in her arms was now wailing at the top of her lungs.
After confirming the mother and daughter were safe, Shin-ju’s expression hardened in an instant. He strode purposefully toward Dantallion, who was standing there dumbfounded.
“Are you insane? Didn’t you see the collar on that beast’s neck?”
Dantallion met Shin-ju’s gaze with a cold, calm expression.
“I saw it.”
“What…”
A vein throbbed on Shin-ju’s temple.
“You saw it and you attacked anyway?”
“What was I supposed to do? You might be able to solve any problem with that all-powerful book of yours, wherever you got it, but it’s not the same for people like us.”
Shin-ju bit his lower lip for a moment, then shouted.
“But you know full well you’re not supposed to kill or injure an alien beast that has an owner!”
Dantallion shot back, not yielding an inch.
“So I’m supposed to just stand by and watch while people are in danger? Subduing an alien beast without injuring it is practically impossible!”
Dantallion paused for a moment, then stared directly into Shin-ju’s eyes.
“If you have such a problem with it, you police officers should have shown up on time to stop it yourselves!”
Shin-ju opened his mouth to retort at Dantallion for blaming the police.
At that moment…
Wee-woo— Wee-woo—
The faint sound of police sirens drifted from the distance.
A police car soon arrived, and a woman quickly got out of the passenger seat and ran to Shin-ju’s side.
Blue hair and pointed ears. And round glasses.
She looked like an Elf straight out of a fantasy novel.
It was Enri Tankobichi, the youngest of the Tankobichi family, hailed as a hero of Bluerobic.
Despite her kind appearance, she boasted a muscular physique. She was a female officer of U.C.I.D.
“Shin-ju, are you okay? What about the injured?”
“I’m fine, Enri. It’s all taken care of. Could you take that mother and daughter to the hospital? Thankfully, they’re not hurt.”
Enri turned her head in the direction Shin-ju indicated.
Her expression turned to one of shock when she saw the collapsed members of her own species.
“Not again…”
Shin-ju placed a hand on Enri’s shoulder and whispered in her ear.
“Hide your expression, Enri.”
At Shin-ju’s words, Enri snapped back to her senses and schooled her features into a neutral mask.
She then rushed over to the prone mother and daughter.
Suddenly, Shin-ju realized something.
The only officer who had rushed over to him was Enri.
Shin-ju stared at the other U.C.I.D. officers standing idly by the police car.
They wore lazy expressions, as if thinking that Shin-ju and his ‘Old Book’ could handle everything anyway.
Furious, Shin-ju’s jaw clenched and unclenched.
Because he could wield various alien abilities with the Old Book, almost every case fell on his shoulders.
Especially if a case involved aliens who were even slightly difficult to deal with, everyone, without exception, came looking for him.
Shin-ju sighed and looked at a distant mountain.
In a way, it was his fault too.
What was that saying? ‘When a favor becomes an expectation.’
He shouldn’t have made it a habit of showing up and solving problems so easily just because they called.
But what choice did he have? When there was a simple way to solve the problem right in front of him, he couldn’t just not use it.
The existence of the near-omnipotent Old Book was slowly eroding the police’s sense of duty.
Finally, Shin-ju closed his eyes and took a careful breath to calm his agitation.
Dantallion was right.
This situation was the police’s fault.
Shin-ju opened his eyes and faced Dantallion.
Then he bowed his head and expressed his gratitude.
“I understand your desire to protect the citizens. In any case, I thank you for stepping up in the face of a great threat.”
Dantallion listened to Shin-ju with an indifferent expression.
“However, maintaining the city’s security is the jurisdiction of U.C.I.D., so if anything happens in the future, please be sure to report it to us.”
“Because if you’re not careful, you could be unjustly arrested for obstruction of justice and interference with official duties, even if you were doing the right thing.”
Dantallion, who had been listening quietly, seemed to have no desire to argue with the police any further. He closed his eyes and nodded.
“Hmph, fine. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Thank you.”
Dantallion turned and shouted to his men to pack up the Head Crusher and withdraw.
Shin-ju watched as the Elf mother and daughter were loaded into an ambulance that had since arrived.
Enri got into the ambulance with them, giving Shin-ju a nod.
Shin-ju returned the gesture and turned away.
The other officers who had come with Enri were already gone.
Shin-ju observed the faces of the citizens, their trust in the police hitting rock bottom.
Distrust and anxiety.
Amidst it all, there were the gazes of a few citizens who still held a glimmer of hope, wanting to believe in the police.
Shin-ju felt a sense of gratitude toward that small minority as he watched the mercenaries boarding their spaceship in the distance.
The mercenaries of Cha-yoon Enterprise, faster and possessing more definitive firepower than the police.
That weapon in particular, the ‘Head Crusher,’ had enough power to hunt even the Dragonkin from planet DRG-3000.
Shin-ju recalled the situation from an hour ago, when the Dragonkin Kandora and a mercenary had been on the verge of a clash.
If he hadn't mediated between the two groups properly, it could have easily escalated into a war.
The current trend of growing trust in mercenaries was not a good sign.
The increasing frequency of racial hate crimes and alien beast appearances.
Shin-ju felt an unidentifiable threat in the correlation between this series of events and Cha-yoon Enterprise, which was pushing its alien weapon and mercenary businesses.
“Cha-yoon Enterprise, a corporate giant that grew rapidly in the weapons industry by accepting alien technology and is now expanding into the mercenary business…”
He had also heard news that Cha-yoon Enterprise had recently been supplying weapons to mercenaries, regardless of their species, to test their performance.
Anyone with a weapons permit could purchase them, and Shin-ju couldn't shake his growing unease.
It meant there was a real possibility that Cha-yoon could expand its business to target civilians.
Gazing at the distant skyscrapers, lost in thought, Shin-ju muttered with a resolute expression.
“This can’t go on.”