I Became a Rookie Cop (5)
It had been thirty minutes since the culprit calmed down a bit and the other officers had been staring at Kang Jin-ho in awe.
"Y-you caught the culprit?"
The owner of Duchil's Coffee Beans had arrived at the substation. Still wearing her apron, she looked around and jumped in surprise upon spotting the culprit.
"Y-you!"
"The part-timer who quit recently. Right?"
"Y-yes. That's... true, but."
The cafe owner didn't react much, assuming the culprit had named himself, but the other police officers were impressed once again.
"How'd you know he was a former part-timer?"
"To know in advance that the CCTV was broken and that there was a lot of cash at the register, the suspect had to be someone like a part-timer. Since the CCTV had been out for three weeks, I figured it was someone who quit around then."
"Ooh...!"
The other officers marveled at Kang Jin-ho's deduction (or rather, his act of pretending to deduce). The culprit, who had been keeping his head down the whole time, suddenly shot to his feet, looking indignant.
"Does that even make sense?"
"Hey, hey! Sit down, you punk! What do you think you're doing?"
"Why is there a superpowered person at a police station? Of course it'd get caught!"
"Sit! And Officer Kang isn't superpowered—he's just a regular guy."
Even as he was forcibly shoved back into his chair by the burly officers, the culprit kept ranting.
"You expect me to believe that? Fuck, I heard your whole deduction. How does a normal guy figure out I can turn into a cake just from that info?"
"I'm just smart."
"Even if you're smart..."
"You targeted the cafe because of your power's limits, right? You can't turn into just anything... it's something super specific. Like cakes or donuts. Am I right?"
"...Yeah."
The culprit's stiff neck suddenly drooped.
"And deciding to rob the cafe was personal grudge, right? The owner probably made excuses and didn't pay your wages on time. So once you quit, you figured you'd get revenge and commit the crime."
"...Yes."
"So you exploited a blind spot in perception... Excuse me?"
"Y-yes... It was last Sunday when I decided to steal the register..."
Now the culprit was spilling everything without even listening, confessing every detail. From his mutterings like "Fuck, why am I so unlucky..." in between, it was clear he'd decided Kang Jin-ho was superpowered and given up entirely.
"Alright, let's go over there and finish your statement."
"I got the idea from watching a drama..."
The senior officers took the fully confessing culprit away to write up the report.
"Make sure to pay the kids on time."
"Y-yes..."
After the cafe owner left the substation with a dazed look on her face.
"H-hey, newbie."
Substation Chief Raphael scratched the back of his head and sat next to Kang Jin-ho.
"Honestly, I thought you were messing around... but you really caught the guy. Are you that genius everyone's been talking about? Sorry for doubting you."
"No, sir. I wouldn't have believed it either."
"Yeah. Just to be sure, you're really not superpowered, right? Even the tiniest power has to be registered if you're a cop. I still have to get checked because of these horns. All it does is make me a bit stronger."
He pointed at his horns with a laugh.
"No, sir. Really not."
"Good work today. The higher-ups will pick up the culprit later... We'll learn report-writing next time. Take a break and head home. Got it?"
"Yes, sir. Thank you."
"Yeah, yeah. Feels good to do some real police work for once."
Raphael patted Kang Jin-ho on the back and returned to his office.
With the chief gone, only Park Eun-young and Kang Jin-ho remained.
"Hm hm."
Park Eun-young let out a pleased hum mixed with a laugh. Kang Jin-ho's body stiffened involuntarily, his voice turning loud and booming like a raw military recruit.
"Jin-ho, you're really something. I totally thought it was the cafe owner faking it."
"Th-thank you!"
"You really deduced it like you said? No superpowers?"
"Yes, ma'am!"
"Cops rarely catch culprits right at the scene like this... You might get a commendation if you keep it up. But why are you so tense? You just racked up a huge win on your first day."
"I-it's my first time with such a beautiful senior... Sorry!"
"Hm."
Park Eun-young's eyes quickly scanned Kang Jin-ho from head to toe. For a moment, she wondered if this weird newbie was hitting on her, but his sweaty, tense body told her it was genuine. No one trying to flirt would sweat like that.
"I am pretty, aren't I?"
With a cat-like, enigmatic smile, she stood, grabbed a cold vegetable juice from the fridge, and set it in front of him.
"Feels like I got a great rookie. Today was fun. But hey."
"Yes, ma'am!"
"I think... you knew who the culprit was the moment you saw him. You hesitated about stepping in, right?"
"!!!"
Her sharp gaze pierced right through him, and Kang Jin-ho shot to his feet again.
"No, ma'am! I wasn't confident in my deduction, so I was just organizing info until I was sure!"
"Really? That's what I thought."
She slid the vegetable juice toward him. The fact that it was vegetable juice felt profoundly meaningful—like a hint at his future if he hesitated to act.
"You can't just stand by if you think you can catch a culprit. We're cops, right?"
"O-of course!"
"Good, good. Great job, Jin-ho. Looking forward to more?"
Park Eun-young patted his shoulder with a gentle hand.
"...Yes, ma'am!"
Kang Jin-ho felt goosebumps all over, but he endured the pat.
The sun had set.
Kang Jin-ho made it home safely. Sure, one might wonder how he had a house after falling into a game world, but his phone had the address saved. Strangely, the phone was the exact same model as his real-world one, down to the password.
"...Haa."
He collapsed onto the bed and fiddled with the phone, gathering info. In short, this Light City's Kang Jin-ho was an orphan. No contacts, no photos or SNS traces. It was like he'd dropped out of the sky.
"...Yeah, I did drop out of the sky."
How the hell did this happen? As soon as his head hit the pillow, exhaustion hit like a truck, but he couldn't sleep yet. Now that he was really in Light City, he needed a solid survival plan.
"Gotta stay alive first..."
Survival first, survival second—that was Kang Jin-ho's goal. What good was glory if his head rolled tomorrow? He dreamed of being a quiet country mouse, not a flashy city rat that died young.
The problem? His direct supervisor was the city's strongest psycho villain. And he'd drawn a ton of attention today trying to score points. Quitting quietly to be a cop was impossible now.
This path led to two futures: being Eun-yeong's plaything forever, clowning around to survive, or suddenly "retiring" on her whim one day.
"But there's a way."
Even if the sky fell, there was a hole to climb through. There was one sure lifeline to escape Park Eun-young's grasp without retaliation.
Light City's top hero. The only one who could stand up to Eun-yeong.
Hero ranking No. 1.
If he could get friendly with her and beg, "Please save me!" grabbing her pant leg? And if she caught Eun-yeong?
Wouldn't that let him escape this mad city and quit the force? Hero gets Eun-yeong locked up—win. He quits being a cop—win. Perfect for both.
"...But that requires getting acquainted first."
Reporting "My boss seems like Eun-yeong" outright wouldn't work—she controlled shadows and space. His head would hit the ground before heroes arrived. No direct line to No. 1 either, so no immediate plan.
Best bet: get famous as a cop and build connections later. But fame as a cop wasn't easy...
"Eh, whatever. My head hurts."
Survival was survival. The rebound from all that tension made his eyes heavy. Before drifting off, he finally uttered the magic words he'd been putting off.
"...Status window!"
- Current Karma: 485,219,303
- Remaining Monthly Quota: 4,400
- Karma reduced by 500 for resolving the case.
- Karma reduced by 100 for completing daily duties.
"...What the hell."
Usually, these things showed stats, levels, traits—industry standard. But this so-called status window rudely displayed only Karma-related numbers, nothing else.
What even was Karma? On impulse, Kang Jin-ho tapped the "Current Karma" line.
- Karma represents the accumulated weight of your sins.
- You have taken 485,219,903 lives so far.
- If you don't clear all Karma before you die...
"No way, when did I...?"
The explanation was pure nonsense. Kang Jin-ho was a model citizen who'd never even jaywalked. Him? Killing people? Over 480 million?
Absurd.
As he bolted upright in bed, ready to curse...
"...Wait."
Suddenly, instinct told him exactly where that horrific number came from.
Suppose.
If all those countless NPCs he'd killed for fun in Hero City Simulator—blowing up the city, unleashing villains on civilians, triggering disasters to drown them—were counted as "people."
And all those atrocities from thousands of hours and dozens of cities had carried over to this world.
"Oh my god."
He realized it might actually add up to about that many.