I Became a Police Officer in a Superhero Genre

Under the sky where even the moon hadn’t risen, I hid my body in the shadows and examined the structure of the junkyard once.

Crumpled and crushed cars were piled high like towers in an empty field, and one building was placed alone in the middle of that open space.
It was a very desolate scene. The wind passing through between the towers of cars made a sound like an animal’s cry.

There was no sign of human presence, and the distant forest made this place look like a completely isolated separate world.

The thought that came to mind the moment I witnessed that scene was fear. Good heavens, is this really South Korea? The atmosphere is like a masked killer might jump out if you’re passing by?

No, in this place there’s a high possibility of a madman using superpowers jumping out.

I frowned and examined the structures in the darkness more closely. The CCTVs hung on the towers of broken cars were moving while emitting red light.

But those cameras all seemed to be monitoring only the front entrance of the junkyard. When I went to the opposite side of the building through the mountains, there were no visible cameras.

What does this mean? Either the bastards managing this place don’t care much about the forest behind, or.

Or all the cameras are inside because they’re focusing more on preventing people from going out than coming in from outside –

Whatever it is, if I enter the building about the size of 4 connected containers, the guys inside will obviously notice me and rush at me right away.

And of course, my body will be torn to pieces.

“Damn it.”

If I do that, I’ll draw attention, and sneak into the interior in the meantime – while pondering how to draw attention, I suddenly realized my appearance was strange.

Arrest Park Jung-hoon bastard? Can’t receive official police support for now? Okay. That can happen.

But what am I doing now?
If there’s even one superpower user inside that building, I’m a guy who would have a hard time saving just my own life, but I’m trying to go in alone like a madman.

After being tormented by Sai bitch and encountering shitty bastards, am I unconsciously deluding myself that I’m actually something?

If this were a novel, wouldn’t it be that kind of episode where the close police officer acts up saying he’ll help the hero alone in a situation where the hero is injured and gets wiped out.

And the hero endures their injury to come out fighting to help the close police officer in crisis?

Is this right? Is it really right? Should I go down from the park now and request support? Or should I call Dokkaebi?

I was torn, but thinking slowly again, even if the police came here, they would have no choice but to turn back without clear evidence of a crime.

And even if I came with Dokkaebi, as I said, they would have already prepared, so if there was something strange

The operation to return Mina’s wounds and rescue the hostages would have been ruined at once.

So fuck, this seems to make sense rationally, but also seems screwed up, and shitty.

I feel like I’ve become a clown tightrope walking on my lifeline without even realizing it.

I feel like Sai is whispering that now, hiding my body behind the shadow of the building, is my last chance not to fall from where I’m standing.

Thoughts like I could just close my eyes once and run away from here come to mind, but.

What about Sai if I leave Mina in that state?

Can the police alone stop the super villain bastards rampaging in this shitty world?

Ignoring emotional reasons and recalling rational reasons why I must save Mina, the option of running away itself felt foolish.

Even if I throw away responsibility and emotions, I’m not stupid enough to do such a foolish thing rationally.

So even if it’s shitty for now, I should endure thinking it’s all because Sai is bad.

I tried to find something that could cause a commotion to enter the interior according to my original goal.

What could there be that would draw the attention of the guys inside and cause moderate confusion?

I rummaged through my coat hoping something would come out. One USB stored in a case after being lined with special fabric. Two 100 won coins. And a lighter were all my possessions in my chest.

What can I do with these? After pondering for a moment, one method suddenly flashed through my mind.

If I really do this, it will certainly cause a commotion and everyone inside will have no choice but to rush out.

If things really get big, everyone from the police to firefighters will come running. I might be able to take out just Dokkaebi’s younger sister aiming for that confusion.

I looked around the area where towers of scrapped cars were piled up while lowering my body again.

Since they’re bastards with a criminal organization as their backing, I saw they had carelessly piled up waste oil that should have been removed when scrapping vehicles in barrels in one place without any management.
The lighter in my hand and waste oil. Using these two things, I can surely achieve my goal.

But at the same time, the thing called professional ethics and the thing called conscience in me suddenly jump out and start arguing that’s not right.

Is it okay to set a fire right in front of an ecology park of all places? Can a police officer do that? Have you really completely lost your mind? Various words echo in my head, but.

Suddenly I recalled what my senior officer, whom I had directly found criminal evidence for and stripped of his position, had said.

Whatever it is, it’s fine as long as you don’t get caught. Crime is crime because it’s perceived as crime. Those words.

I [didn’t] learn many things from that person, but there were no words more helpful to me than those. At least in the current situation.

I took one barrel with an appropriate amount of oil and moved to a place a bit far away. After spraying oil around the tower of metal chunks, I held up the lighter.

But until the end, I had doubts about whether this was really okay, whether this was really something I could do as a police officer, but.

I decided I’m not at fault since the reason I ended up doing this is all because of that damn Sai bitch.

I’ll set fire to any bastard who complains with this oil. With that determination, my conscience and professional ethics quietly shut their mouths.

Click! The lighter lit up, and I dropped it to the ground-

“- Fuck!!! What sin did I commit to have to commit arson!!!”

Ah damn it. My true feelings burst out. I ran while holding back tears that were about to come out from the injustice.

“Fire! Fire! Damn it, how did a fire start?!”

“Fuck! The oil smell is shitty! Which bastard didn’t clean up the waste oil while dismantling cars?!”

“Before that bullshit, quickly put out the fire! If the fire spreads to where the waste oil is piled up, we’re all dead!”

The sight of fire catching on the tower of scrapped vehicles was more eye-catching than I had imagined. It was as if a huge lamp illuminating the mountains brightly at night had been erected.

Anyway, as such a large flame rose up, the bastards inside the building all rushed out without exception to put out the fire, and the interior seemed empty as I had hoped.

But will that be okay? That fire looks a bit bigger than I imagined.

I was afraid sparks might really fly to where the waste oil was piled up, but.

Those bastards will try to prevent the flames from spreading to where the oil is somehow if they want to live too. Or they might move the waste oil to a completely safe place.

A ridiculous scene of criminals doing the cleanup after a police officer set a fire was unfolding, but. I moved my body while trying not to think too deeply.

Moving to the back of the building again, I entered through a window. Then I luckily found an employee uniform in the nearest room.

I put on the uniform right away and started searching the interior thoroughly.

From a quick look around the building interior, there were only facilities that people operating a junkyard would use, and no room that looked like it could hold a child prisoner.

While pondering why there wasn’t one, I realized there was one more thing that should be in this building besides a room where a child was kidnapped.

I quickly looked around the building interior once, but I couldn’t see a CCTV room.

Normally you might think they just store it on a server and check if something happens, but guys doing suspicious things wouldn’t be so careless about security, so.

There must be a security office checking CCTVs somewhere – which means there’s a basement.

I looked around the building once again. It was easy to move thanks to the commotion as they still hadn’t contained the flames. Some people brushed past me, but.

I thought no one would properly look at my face in a fire situation while I was wearing a uniform, but.

As soon as I had that thought, a man with a scar on his face spotted me and shouted:

“Hey! Who are you?! Where are you going?!”

“The basement! They said to bring all the fire extinguishers from the basement too!”

“What?! Then why are you here, idiot! Do you want to freeze?! You have to go left to the basement! Why are you going this way?!”
“I was flustered, okay!”

“Don’t freeze, idiot!!”

For a moment I thought I was caught, but when I brazenly went out, the scarred man told me to quickly bring the fire extinguisher and left his spot.

Thanks to that, I found out the way to the basement. I ran in the direction to go to the basement according to the scarred man’s words.

I found a door that looked suspicious at a glance and went down below it.

Unlike the junkyard facility above, the basement had an atmosphere of people living there as if employees used it as accommodation.

It’s nice to say it had an atmosphere of people living there, but it was far from cleanliness or neatness, with paths twisted here and there like a maze.

It felt like you could get sick if you stayed long because of the stuffiness unique to basements and the darkness due to lack of lighting.

This feeling was exactly like the old barracks used in the military. While grimacing at the shitty familiarity, I looked around below and saw the CCTV room was in the basement as I had thought.

In the CCTV room, half the people were grabbing fire extinguishers, and the other half were making a fuss while contacting somewhere.

I passed by that room and moved to find the place where Dokkaebi’s younger sister might be. Not long after, I could find a somewhat noticeable room farthest from the stairs that could go up.

Unlike other rooms, a room with a latch on the outside and 2 CCTVs attached to the entrance looked like a place where they locked up someone who shouldn’t escape from the room no matter how you looked at it.

I opened the latch on the room. Those in the CCTV room couldn’t pay attention to me. The chaos seemed greater than I imagined.

Surely the fire isn’t really about to spread to the piled up oil drums? While feeling uneasy, I quickly removed the latch and opened the door.

The heavy door opened with a creaking sound. It took strength to pull open the door as if it was a chunk of metal, but I could still open it.

The door slowly opened. And the interior scene came into view.

“Wh-who are you…?”

Under the dim indoor lighting similar to this basement corridor, amidst toys rolling on the floor, one trembling girl who looked terrified caught my eye.

A girl with dark skin and white hair. Green eyes like they contained a forest. It was Dokkaebi’s younger sister.

I found her. I rejoiced. At the same time, I took off the uniform I was wearing. Then I slowly moved to a position where the child could see me well and said:

“Do you remember me? I’m that police officer. I came to save you at your brother’s request.”

When I took off the uniform, the child seemed to confirm my face then, slowly blinking her eyes. Soon, as if recalling me, she showed a faint sign of joy and asked:

“…Are you the police officer? Did my brother, come to save me too?”

“No. Your brother isn’t here. But I’ll take you to your brother.”

“R-really?”

“Yes.”

“But, even though you’re police…?”

I nodded at the child’s question. But Dokkaebi’s younger sister still couldn’t seem to trust me, shrinking her body even while looking at the hand I extended.

That reaction didn’t seem like she simply didn’t trust me… it looked like she didn’t trust me because I was police.

No damn it, I was dumbfounded at what this child who looked only about 10 years old could have gone through to be wary of the police.

Even in this situation, I had the stupid thought of whether it would have been good to bring a child welfare worker, but.

Right after, my thoughts were forcibly stopped by an ominous explosion sound of “Bang!” along with tremors shaking the ground.

Good heavens. Did the flames really spread to where the oil was gathered?!

But I didn’t spray that much oil, and I calculated the wind direction to make it noticeable but not dangerous?!

But as if mocking my thoughts, continuous explosions and tremors from above.

I chewed on regrets that I shouldn’t have done crazy things like arson, feeling fear that the ceiling might collapse at any moment from those tremors and explosions.

This shitty basement looks like a place built without following any building codes just by looking at it, how long can it hold up if explosions occur above such a place?

Dust falling from the ceiling and shaking lights seemed like there wasn’t much time left.

I could hear people in the basement screaming and fleeing to the ground from afar.

While frowning and pondering how to persuade her with not much time left. What do you know. Dokkaebi’s younger sister approached me first, albeit hesitantly.

“My brother said, Detective is a good person. So, I’ll trust you.”

“- Okay, thank you. Then let’s go quickly.”

It was fortunate that I could save time persuading. Thinking that, I quickly wrapped the child with the uniform I had taken off and held her in my arms as I left the room.

“The representative said someone suddenly invaded the isolation room, so I came to check, and it was you indeed.”

A woman who suddenly appeared in front of me the moment I took exactly two steps out of the room where Dokkaebi’s younger sister had been confined.

Park Jung-hoon bastard’s secretary had appeared in front of me.

Questions like where she suddenly appeared from didn’t even arise.

The secretary who brought the two hulks I had seen before was smiling like a snake that found its prey, so does it matter how she appeared here?

“The representative said you seemed to have come here with some scheme, stupidly. I didn’t think it would really be true. I didn’t know you’d be this foolish even so.”

“To think an inferior non-superpower user with no abilities at all would try to confront superior superpower users. You’re stupid. Well- should I say you’re better than other primitive ones since you came this far?”

The secretary said that and raised the corners of her mouth as if mocking me. When I met her slightly opened eyes, the feeling of my body stiffening from the fingertips felt very ominous-

“Hey crazy. How old are you? No, you look at least mid-20s. Aren’t you embarrassed to say such things as someone who’s part of society? Fuck, it’s my first time seeing a bastard who spouts such nonsense in reality, not on the internet.”

“…Bring him to me right now! I’ll gouge out his eyeballs myself!!”

Ah damn, my true feelings came out.

I ran in the opposite direction, avoiding the hulks running to catch me at the secretary’s words.

If she had caught me with her ability to petrify people when they meet her eyes, I wouldn’t have been able to escape, but I survived because that secretary easily fell for provocation.

It wasn’t what I expected, but I should say I was lucky. I thought that as I ran for my life-

Fuck, those two bastards transformed into a polar bear and a black bear!!

I ran out of the dark basement corridor in terror.