Police vs. Firefighters (1)
Gu Ja-min of Fire Safety Center 119, Rescue Team 1, had been the firefighter who was attacked by a drunken thug at Red Moon club.
He had just been discharged from the hospital and returned to work.
“Ja-min. You feeling any better?”
The team leader looked at him with concern.
Gu Ja-min had been struck in the back of the head with a beer bottle and needed more than ten stitches in the back of his skull.
“I’m fine. I’m still young, aren’t I? Hahaha! They even took out all the stitches.”
He laughed loudly and tried to reassure the team leader.
To be honest, it hadn’t exactly been a choice.
After the Gates appeared, hunters weren’t the only ones short on hands.
Once monsters stepped out into the world, accidents and incidents never stopped.
Fire suppression, rescue operations, emergency medical support, disaster response, relief work—
firefighters were needed everywhere.
While Gu Ja-min had been away, his coworkers had filled in for him.
“You all must’ve had a hard time because of me. Sorry, Team Leader!”
“Quit screwing around, you brat. If you’re not feeling up to it, go home and rest.”
“Come on, Team Leader. Our little Tough Guy’s going to be born soon. We’ve got to make every last won we can before then.”
Gu Ja-min’s wife was thirty-eight weeks pregnant.
The baby could be born any day now.
They had nicknamed the baby Tough Guy.
It meant exactly what it sounded like: a child who would grow up strong and sturdy.
At the same time, they had chosen the name because hearing loud sounds was said to help stimulate a fetus’s hearing and brain development.
And once the child was born, there was no doubt that money would start disappearing fast.
Firefighters received hazard pay every time they were dispatched to the field.
For the sake of Tough Guy, who would be born soon, Gu Ja-min couldn’t afford to lie in a hospital bed forever.
“You little punk. Once you had a kid, you stopped caring about your own life and started charging into everything headfirst.”
“Come on, Team Leader. I’m a firefighter. I know how to tell water from fire.”
“Do I look like I’m laughing? Huh? Do I?”
“Hahaha!”
The team leader sighed and went on.
“So, is it a boy or a girl?”
“Who knows? The doctor wouldn’t tell us for sure.”
After the birth rate had plummeted, hospitals were strictly forbidden from revealing a fetus’s sex in advance.
“Take a look at this. What do you think, Team Leader?”
Gu Ja-min pulled a photo from inside his jacket.
It was an ultrasound image from the hospital.
“Hmm.”
The team leader studied the black-and-white picture, trying to make out the image.
“This here. Isn’t this a little sausage? Looks like a boy to me.”
“That’s a toe. And you’re holding it upside down.”
“Oh, really?”
Gu Ja-min’s wife wanted the baby to be a girl.
She had grown up in a family of four children, with two younger sisters and one younger brother, and ever since she was little, she had never gotten along with her younger brother in particular.
So she said she would rather have a daughter than a son.
“What about you, Ja-min? Want a boy or a girl?”
“As for me…”
Gu Ja-min had never really thought about it deeply.
Just having a child was already a tremendous blessing to him.
Still, if he imagined a son who looked like him…
No way.
He might seem hearty and cheerful at first glance, but Gu Ja-min’s real personality was painfully timid.
He had trouble saying no even when asked for unreasonable favors, and when something unfair happened to him, he couldn’t bring himself to object properly.
Some people called him stupid for it.
They’re not wrong, I guess.
Gu Ja-min chided himself as he remembered what had happened at Red Moon not long ago.
A member of the Dark Alliance had attacked him, and the police had simply stood by and watched.
In the end, the one who had been hospitalized for no crime at all was him.
He hadn’t received a single cent in compensation, and the attacker hadn’t even been punished.
Gu Ja-min was furious, but he forced himself to swallow it down.
It infuriated him that he couldn’t do anything about it.
If anything, I kind of wish it were a daughter.
He gave a bitter smile.
The team leader said, “You are coming to the Firefighters’ Rally, right?”
The incident at Red Moon had become the spark that intensified the conflict between the police and the firefighters.
The firefighters had decided to form a coalition and hold an official protest.
“Do I really have to go? I’d rather everyone just stayed quiet and let this blow over peacefully. Hahaha!”
“What the hell kind of relaxed nonsense is that? If we just sit on our hands, those bastards might pull something else!”
By those bastards, he meant the corrupt police.
“You’re definitely coming. Got it?”
“……Yes, sir. Yes.”
That was when it happened.
BWAAAH! BWAAAH!
A blaring horn rang through the safety center.
It meant a rescue call had come in.
“Ja-min. We’re going out. Let’s move.”
“Yes, sir!”
The two of them hurried out of the office.
“Hup.”
We came back out through the Gate.
The team members were all panting, their faces drained of color and sweat.
“Damn, I’m dead.”
“Ow, my stomach’s killing me. I don’t think I’ll be able to get up tomorrow.”
It was the same ordinary scene as always, with everyday life mixed right into it.
The Gate had burst open at dawn, so we’d gone out on the call together.
Starting with me as the leader of the combat unit, we’d taken the Gate down with the team.
We defeated the boss monster inside and successfully closed the Gate.
With that, the city was safe once again.
“Everyone’s had a rough morning. Good work.”
“Thank you for your hard work, Team Leader!”
“I’ll handle the report, so you can all disperse.”
“Yes, sir! Team Leader! See you tomorrow.”
While everyone was scattering in different directions, one person remained behind.
It was Jin Ha-rang, a D-class hunter.
“Why aren’t you leaving?”
“Uh… Team Leader Yongki.”
“What is it?”
Jin Ha-rang looked up at me with sparkling eyes.
“Team Leader, you’ve gotten a lot stronger lately, haven’t you? Right?”
The boss monster we had just exterminated was a ruin-class monster.
At the start of the fight, I’d stayed in the rear so the team could get some real combat experience.
But as time went on and it started looking like the team was getting pushed back, I’d stepped in personally and cut the monster’s throat with Heoksikdo.
It had been a cleaner, faster strike than before.
So he noticed?
I had entered the Figroom and completed the mission.
Thanks to that, I’d sharpened my instincts for fighting against multiple enemies at once and earned my reward.
And that wasn’t all.
My actual combat power is basically A-class now.
That was one step above the official B-class rating I held in the Dio Guild.
These days, wherever I went, I could feel a certain hard-earned weight to me even without relying on my Hero ability.
Jin Ha-rang’s position was Ranger.
He specialized in patrol and threat detection, with sharp senses and excellent observation skills.
“What are you talking about all of a sudden?”
“You can’t fool my eyes. The others are covered in monster blood and look like a mess, but Team Leader, you didn’t even sweat a single drop.”
Jin Ha-rang grabbed my arm.
“What’s your secret? Tell me. I really want to become C-class this year.”
He begged so hard I almost told him the secret of the Figroom, but I stopped myself.
At Jin Ha-rang’s level, if he entered the Figroom…
He’d just die pointlessly.
I shook his arm off.
“Buzz off. I’m going to eat. I’m hungry.”
“I’ll buy!”
I stopped walking.
There was a strong impression in the guild that I was rich.
And why wouldn’t there be?
For one thing, I held the title of president of the Incheon Industrial Complex.
On top of that, my salary had jumped after a double promotion in rank.
And to make things even better, Grandma’s gukbap restaurant had become a massive hit.
There were even rumors that if I retired from being a hunter and inherited the restaurant, I’d be sitting on a pile of money.
If they knew I was also a major shareholder in the Dio Guild, they’d probably keel over.
Maybe that was why.
The idea of the youngest member of the team offering to pay for lunch came as a fresh shock.
“Really? Then let’s go eat omakase. I know a Japanese place.”
“O-omakase? How much is that?”
“Dunno. Maybe around fifty per person?”
“F-fifty?”
Jin Ha-rang held out his hand and spread his fingers, then stared at me with his pupils trembling and his eyes wide as saucers.
“Never mind. Come on, I’ll treat you. Let’s just get mala tang.”
“Oh! Team Leader, you’ve finally fallen head over heels for the charm of mala tang…”
“Mild flavor only.”
“Eek! That’s an insult to mala tang.”
Jin Ha-rang trotted after me as I walked ahead.
We were just entering the city along the road when—
WEE-OO! WEE-OO!
A piercing alarm tore through my eardrums.
A fire truck had entered the road, siren blazing.
Jin Ha-rang gaped and muttered, “Looks like there’s a fire somewhere.”
It was rush hour, so traffic was especially bad.
The fire truck could barely move forward.
Everyone tried to give way a little at a time to let it through, but the problem was elsewhere.
A sports car was parked dead center in the two-lane road, blocking everything.
The illegally parked car was obstructing the fire truck’s passage.
One of the firefighters seated in the passenger side leaned out the window and shouted, “Ja-min! Hug the side!”
“Yes, sir!”
The fire truck crept forward, narrowly slipping past the sports car like a turtle.
How irritating.
In many developed countries, including the United States, illegally parked cars were not treated as a problem when a fire truck was moving through traffic.
For them, the firefighter’s top priority was putting out the fire.
So if they had to shove an illegally parked car out of the way with the fire truck or move it by force without consent, the firefighter wasn’t held liable.
But Korea was different.
At best, all they did was slap a fine on the illegally parked car.
In the end, the fire truck scraped the sports car just a little.
“S-stop!”
When the fire truck came to a sudden halt, the man in the passenger seat lurched forward and groaned.
At that moment, two men burst out of a café.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Fuck! My car!”
One of them was so fat his flesh seemed to wobble with every movement, while the other was tall and gaunt.
Both of them had the same sleazy look on their faces.
Two firefighters got out of the truck.
“S-sorry.”
“We were dispatched, so we’ll pay compensation la…”
The fat one grabbed the firefighter by the collar.
“Compensation? Do you even know how much this car cost? I bought it less than a week ago!”
“Please calm down. Let go of me, all right?”
“Like I’m gonna calm down!”
The fat man slapped the firefighter across the face.
“Ghk!”
“Team Leader!”
As the firefighter crumpled, his partner caught him and held him up.
Jin Ha-rang covered his mouth.
“Aren’t those guys way too much?”
Looking closer, the two shared another common feature.
One had the same tattoo on the back of his hand.
The other had the same tattoo on the nape of his neck.
That’s…
It was the mark of a black butterfly.
The team leader managed to get to his feet.
“Sir! What do you think you’re doing? If you keep this up, I’m calling the police…!”
“Go ahead. Call them, asshole. You know who we are? We’re the Dark Alliance.”
I narrowed my eyes.
I had infiltrated Red Moon club and uncovered their hidden secrets.
The Dark Alliance was in cahoots with the police.
Even if they called the police—
Those bastards wouldn’t be punished.
The two firefighters flinched and stepped back.
“Understood. Then at least give us your contact information. I’ll get in touch with you later about compensation.”
“Bullshit. Where do you think you’re going? Hey. Grab him.”
The tall one stood behind the firefighter and seized his arms.
“I’m furious right now. So for the time being, let’s just take a few hits until I cool off.”
The partner with him tried to stop them.
“Please, don’t do this. Let’s talk it out!”
“And who the hell are you? Get lost!”
The tall one kicked him, and the partner rolled across the ground.
“Ja-min!”
The team leader, with both arms restrained, screamed.
It was absurd.
In broad daylight.
Right in the middle of the road.
A villain beating the hell out of firefighters who were out on a call.
Has the world really fallen this far?
I hadn’t known.
Pedestrians passing along the road only glanced over, but no one had the courage to step in.
What if it had been me?
What would I have done if I’d witnessed the same thing in my past life?
Probably the same thing.
I would have pretended not to see it and headed off to the factory to make money.
And even if I had tried to get involved…
I’d probably have gotten beaten up too.
It was a tired old saying that powerless justice was useless, but it was still true.
Jin Ha-rang took out his phone.
“Team Leader, should I call the police instead?”
Hunters were, after all, a profession under private companies.
They couldn’t wield power however they pleased.
And I don’t have that right either.
Even so, I stepped forward.
“No need.”
I walked toward the scene, now a total mess.
“Clench your teeth. I’m only going to hit you fifty times.”
The fat bastard spread his thick, stubby fingers like Doraemon’s hands.
With one hand in my pocket, I strolled slowly down the road.
“Hey.”
I set a foot against the sports car.
Everyone’s eyes turned to me.
Then I shoved it with my foot and kicked.
The sports car rolled twice to the side and slammed into the road.
Smoke rose from the overturned car, which now lay flipped over like a dead cockroach.
“Wh—what the…”
The fat bastard’s jaw dropped so hard his mouth gaped wide open.
I pulled my hand out of my pocket.
“I’m giving you five seconds.”
I held up five fingers.
“Come here.”