[Raccoon Man Beginning]
[Raccoon Man Beginning]
The Four High School Delinquents' faces turned red instantly at my provocation. They were already red from having a drink somewhere, but they turned even redder. Wow, I thought they were human tomatoes.
"Ah, fuck! What?"
"People should drink alcohol, not let the alcohol drink them. I won't charge you for the chicken, so can you guys just leave the shop now?"
I exercised my last bit of mercy and tried to coax them reasonably. Three chickens cost over 20,000 won. I'm offering it for free, so if they just thought they had bad luck and left, it would be easier for me and better for them.
But in the end, my words were just for show. Because the tallest guy among the Four High School Delinquents standing in front of me pushed me.
I intentionally tripped and fell backward with a Hollywood-style action.
Kung!!
"Whoops! These bastards are hitting someone! Hey! Baek-ri! Call the police! Police!"
"I already called them, Boss!"
"Then Baek-ri, escort the customers outside! You guys at the table! I won't charge you for the chicken today, so get out quickly!!"
The customers at the nearby tables hurriedly went outside, and the only ones left in the shop were our staff and the Four High School Delinquents. However, the customers were still watching from outside, treating it like a spectacle.
"What? Police? Fuck, call them! Go ahead and call the police! You son of a bitch!"
"Ugh! Ugh!"
The four of them rushed at me while I was down, kicking and stomping on me, and a startled Baek-ri ran from behind to block the group of four.
"What are you doing right now! Customers, have you lost your minds?!"
"Hey! Hey! What's up with this guy?! He's fucking strong!"
"He must be a Force User! Hey! Isn't it special assault if a Force User hits a civilian?"
"Fuck! Hit me! Go ahead and hit me, you son of a bitch!"
The drunk high schoolers were blind to everything. It was a chaotic mess, but Baek-ri didn't back down and dodged the incoming punches right where he stood.
There were a few times he almost got hit, but Baek-ri's hands drew a Taegeuk and deflected them smoothly. Kid, your Taegeuk-naseon-gyeong has reached quite a level.
Even if he borrowed the power of the suit, the last real combat must have helped him set his mindset straight. This is why the difference between someone who has experienced real combat at least once and someone who hasn't is so apparent.
After a few minutes of scuffling, the police arrived faster than expected, perhaps because they were patrolling nearby.
.......Two of them came, which is fine, but why is one of them a Female Police Officer?
"Stop right there! Student! I said stop!!"
"Fuck, so what if you're the police!"
The male police officer seemed to have experience dealing with drunks, as he moved busily and quickly subdued one of them, putting handcuffs on him.
"What the fu..... Ugh?!"
Another guy tried to attack his back, but got thrown with a hip toss. Thanks to that, a table fell over, and the chicken and cups on it fell to the floor, making a mess, but it wasn't something to worry about too much.
However, the Female Police Officer was sluggish. The male officer had subdued the tall guy, so the ones left were just average-sized kids, but she couldn't subdue even one, just getting pushed around by another guy and wringing her hands until the male officer, who had handcuffed two, caught the third one and then managed to subdue the last one.
But even that was unstable. Perhaps lacking strength, she couldn't properly use her hands because of the resisting high schooler's movements, so she just took out the handcuffs but couldn't actually put them on.
"Hey, you! Come out! Quickly!"
".......Yes? Me?"
One of my abilities is 'Sense'. My five senses are maximized, and my sixth sense is absurdly sharp. But even with those senses, the situation was so absurd that I couldn't understand it for a moment.
"Hurry up and put the handcuffs on."
"No, me?"
"Hurry!"
I asked back in disbelief, but the answer I got was just as absurd.
With a hollow laugh, I took the handcuffs and put them on the high schooler's hands.
I clearly called for the staff of the people.
If the staff is too weak to even lean on, what am I supposed to do?
For now, picking up Yejin after school today was out of the question. I told Seo-ae to give the waiting customers a half-price discount coupon and send them home. If they came all the way here and couldn't eat chicken, I should at least do that much as a courtesy.
Unintentionally, our shop closed early. I was planning to close early anyway, but closing like this feels quite bad.
I came to the Local Police Substation with Baek-ri to give a statement as a victim, and I sat back leisurely, listening to the Four High School Delinquents spewing profanity.
"Ah! Fuck, seriously! Take these handcuffs off! You fucking cops are being such a pain in the ass!"
"Looking at that bastard's way of speaking, it's obvious he was raised on fusion fantasy. Go ahead and act like an Isekai High Schooler Gang."
"If you take these handcuffs off, you're dead, fuck! Just a chicken shop geezer!"
I guess I do look older than I am. To be called a geezer by a high schooler.
Well, for kids of that age, anyone who's been to the military is treated like a geezer.
The Four High School Delinquents didn't seem intimidated even after coming to the police station, as if this wasn't their first or second time.
"First, Mr. Choi Ak, and the student there is Ha Baek-ri, right? And Mr. Baek-ri is a Force User."
"Yes, that's right."
"This is going to get complicated. If a Force User gets involved in a violent incident, they receive aggravated punishment."
"No, I just tried to stop them?! I never hit anyone!"
Baek-ri waved his hands, claiming his innocence, but the Four High School Delinquents handcuffed next to him chimed in and shouted.
"I saw that bastard swinging his fists! If he had hit us, we would've been done for!"
"Just throw that bastard in jail!"
"Ahem, students, be quiet!"
The middle-aged male police officer writing the report shouted at them. I just let them blabber on, finding the whole scene absurd.
Typing a few times and writing the report, he spoke to me quietly.
"Before this gets troublesome, why don't we call it a mutual assault?"
"........?"
Living in this world, you come across a lot of morons.
One side is a minor violence case, the other is a Force User violence case... I know the police caught in the middle have a lot to do when comparing who is more at fault.
But isn't that what the police are for?
"What did you just say? Ah, what is your name?"
"I am Inspector Kwon Soon-wook."
"Inspector Kwon. Did you just say mutual?"
"Mutual? Mutual? Like in mutual negligence? It's not like I'm going to rip their testicles off, so why mutual negligence?"
"You're playing an orchestra of bullshit that sounds like sucking on Piccolo's antennae. No, fuck, that would at least be artistic. I can't even listen to this kind of nonsense."
"Hyung, what do I do?! I really only tried to stop them and didn't even hit anyone."
"If you had actually tried to hit them, those bastards wouldn't even be sitting here right now. I know that well."
Even a rookie Force User can use physical enhancement to easily twist and kill a person. When Baek-ri first awakened, he could easily lift dozens, even hundreds of kilograms of rock fragments.
Splitting the heads of these high school brats who are still wet behind the ears wouldn't even require fists; just pushing them a bit hard would be enough.
"If you don't want a criminal record, young friend, you should just settle when their guardian arrives. The world is dangerous these days, so Force User felonies can easily lead to prison time."
"Inspector Kwon. You seem to have been a police officer for a long time to have reached the rank of Inspector, but it seems the only thing that's grown is your tongue."
"........"
Still, perhaps he had some self-awareness as a police officer, as he didn't curse or beat me. He just glared at me quietly.
"If you act like that, I can't help you either, Mr. Choi Ak."
"Did you ever have any intention of helping when you're suggesting a mutual settlement while knowing who's at fault from the start?"
I was getting angry enough to explode. If I talked any more, I would blow up.
Around that time, the guardian of the Four High School Delinquents appeared. He looked like the father of the tallest guy, as their faces were quite similar.
"Oh my! Inspector Kwon! Thank you for your hard work because of my son."
"Ah, Mr. Kim. Please sit over here."
Seeing that Inspector Kwon and the delinquent's guardian knew each other, I roughly guessed what the repertoire was.
These bastards are repeat offenders. No wonder they were acting out earlier, asking if it was my first time at the police station.
Since this world is ultimately a place where people live, the social system cannot be managed absolutely. There's no guarantee that there aren't police who take money and hush things up.
Especially in today's society. Hey, why are the police like this these days?
"Hyung, it looks like they know each other."
"Just answer what you're asked. I'll handle things here."
Anger is welling up from deep inside. At this rate, I feel like I could boil the marrow out of my bones like beef bone soup.
The man called Mr. Kim, who was talking to Inspector Kwon, approached us with an unpleasant smile.
"Boss, I'm really sorry for what my son did today."
"You didn't come just to say hello, so what do you want to say?"
"If we take this to the detectives, won't it just make things difficult and awkward for both of us? I'll give you a sufficient settlement, so let's settle it here."
Mr. Kim's gaze slid toward Baek-ri behind me.
"And if things go wrong, your shop employee might end up with a criminal record, right?"
"............"
Even though Baek-ri could be discarded at any time compared to my wife, that's only because Sion is the absolute standard to me, more precious than my own life.
In reality, if he were treated unfairly, I have plenty of willingness to get angry and help him.
If that weren't the case, I wouldn't have worn the Raccoon mask and done all that crazy stuff to save Baek-ri in the first place. He's too kind for his own good, but that's a good thing; it doesn't mean he deserves to be cursed at or treated unfairly.
"Fuck, do you have a dick in your mouth? Why are you saying such fucked-up things? I treated you like a human being because you looked like dried fern salad, and now you're doing whatever you want?"
"What?!"
Mr. Kim, frowning, soon snorted. He seemed confident about something.
And with a smirk, he asked me quietly.
"Don't you know that if a Force User is involved in an assault, the other side always has the advantage? Even if it goes to the detectives, you'll just waste time and money, and even if you win, it won't mean much, right?"
"That's something we'll see when we try. Shall we see who gets fucked later?"
I picked up my phone.
I didn't fight anyway, and since I'm the victim who got beaten up, I wasn't stopped from making a call.
I scrolled through my contact list, found one person, and called him.
"Hello?"
"[Ah! Yes, President Choi! What's going on?]"
"Lawyer Kim. I'm at the police station, can you come here right now?"
"[Police station? What happened that you ended up there?]"
"I got caught up in a violence case or something. Because of that..."
"[I'll head there right away. Just send me the location of the police station.]"
"To be precise, this is a Local Police Substation..."
I sent the location of the police station to Lawyer Kim and then made another call.
Before the short ringing sound even finished, the other person answered.
"[What's going on?]"
"I'm at the police station right now."
"[I'll bring Lawyer Kim and head there right away.]"
"Ah, I already called Lawyer Kim. Come slowly."
"[Understood.]"
Two phone calls are enough.
I said to Mr. Kim, who had a bewildered expression.
"From now on, speak in front of my lawyer."
A few dozen minutes until Lawyer Kim and Sion arrive.
I decided to lean back comfortably in the chair and wait leisurely.
It's the time for someone else to fall into hell, so why couldn't I wait for that?