In This World, Police and Heroes Do What They Must(4)

I was amazed. Thinking that she seems to have gotten stronger.

I knew Mina was definitely strong.

Even though I hadn’t seen it directly, I thought that although she might be weaker than Sai since she was defeated by her, she wouldn’t lose to most supervillains.

But I didn’t know it would be at the level where they’d be buried in the ground with just a light kick. Even well-known supervillains being embedded in the floor with a single blow, foaming at the mouth.

She had noticeably gotten stronger than before. It was surprising to see her stronger than she was just a few days ago, and at this rate, I wondered if she could just beat Sai—

But I reminded myself that it’s not quite at that level yet. No matter how strong the current Mina is, if you ask whether she could pull off the crazy things Sai did in front of me, I’d have to tilt my head doubtfully.

More importantly.

“What the hell were these bastards up to?”

Leaving behind the guys buried in the building floor with only their heads sticking out, I checked inside the tea house where they had been.

Five supervillains gathered in one place—this would be something that would horrify the Special Investigation Team, thinking these guys must be up to something again.

Drugs, or perhaps planning terrorism. Preparing myself to report whatever might be there, I rolled my eyes—

“What the hell.”

As soon as I opened the door, I saw five sleeping bags and a drum in the center with a fire burning inside it.

Looking around, there’s garbage from convenience store lunchboxes and traces of living that suggest they’ve been staying here for days, no matter how you look at it.

Up to this point, it could be considered somewhat normal. But not only are all the windows covered with boards, but they’re also blocked with tea cabinets that were used in the tea house.

It has an atmosphere as if they don’t want to be discovered outside even if they die.

If it were just this, I’d say it’s natural since they’re criminals gathered together, but there are memos scattered everywhere with photos and numbers of illegal immigration routes and brokers.

Don’t tell me this isn’t a space for drugs or gathering a gang…

“Were you guys hiding here until you could escape abroad?”

Doesn’t this look like they’re just hiding until they can flee overseas?

But even if they try to escape abroad using illegal routes, whether to China or Japan, they’re strictly cracking down and trying to kill anyone approaching on illegal boats.

Due to Sai’s existence and the groundless rumor that being close to someone who has taken the superpower awakening drug can turn you into a superpower user, Japan and China are preventing even their own nationals remaining in Korea from coming.

How are they trying to escape in such a situation?

Unless they’re fools, these guys should know that too, yet why are they so persistently collecting photos of illegal immigration brokers?

To solve this mystery, I need to ask the people who used this place. But.

“These guys aren’t dead, right?”

“No!”

“…But they’re foaming at the mouth?”

“Ah… I think they might have been drinking something like arrowroot tea. It seems they’ve vomited that.”

Ah, if they were drinking something like arrowroot tea, it can’t be helped.

After confirming that the guys planted in the concrete floor at regular intervals like seedlings were still breathing, I decided to open the windows first.

These crazy guys not only lit a bonfire indoors but also stayed with all the windows closed?

Don’t you know carbon monoxide is dangerous? Even if you’re a superpower user, that doesn’t mean you can’t die from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Ah. Should I exclude Mina and Sai? They’d probably be fine even if they were burned with fire.

For now, I decided to organize the interior and take a short rest while waiting for these guys to regain consciousness. And also to confirm what I wanted to check with Shin Yu-mi.

“…Um, I’m not sure if I should ask this question… but both of you seem unfazed by seeing such guys—what kind of lives have you been living?”

“Just a normal life?”

My words make Shin Yu-mi look nauseated.

Both Mina and I exchanged glances in confusion at her reaction.

But thinking about it, I realized that normally, the first thing to do when encountering a supervillain is to run away.

Yes, normally, it would be strange to bury supervillains in the ground and go about your business.

I would have run away too if Mina wasn’t here—but isn’t it fine since she is? Shin Yu-mi would understand if she knew that this penguin-like kid in her dad’s clothes next to me is the hero New Hope.

I shrugged my shoulders. Shin Yu-mi stuck out her tongue, saying police officers are really amazing people.

---

“So… why did you come looking for me?”

After roughly organizing the interior and sitting near the bonfire, we got straight to the point.

Although lighting a bonfire and brewing tea in paper cups with tea leaves created quite an atmosphere, looking at Shin Yu-mi’s eyes trembling with anxiety, it didn’t seem like a situation to lighten the mood by mentioning such impressions.

I took a light sip of tea and told her why I had contacted her.

“While tracking the person who killed your brother, I wanted to confirm that you’re okay, and I also wanted to know how you obtained this USB, how you ended up throwing yourself into such a situation.”

“…You really were chasing all this time.”

Shin Yu-mi laughed, “Ha-hat,” and lowered her eyes. The child, who was blankly staring at the paper cup in her hand, mumbled as if searching for words and then spoke:

“My brother wasn’t originally a diligent person. Even when he got a good job, he would quit quickly, and he knew bad people well, but he still maintained boundaries, was smart, and was someone I could rely on.”

“But while I was coming home from school, some weird guys injected me with an awakening drug and made me a superpower user like this. My brother went out to catch those who made me like this—

After that, I don’t know exactly. One day suddenly my brother’s face didn’t look good, and his condition deteriorated.”

Ah, so she doesn’t know either. I felt it was a shame, but this was also to be expected.

But still, it was strange.

In a situation where his sister became a superpower user, he got angry and tried to find the crazy people who committed terrorism, and then ‘somehow’ approached the fact that Sai was making the drug.

Is that normally possible? Sai wouldn’t show such a gap, would she?

I couldn’t understand how Kim Yun-shik managed to accomplish what even the police couldn’t do—what he did and where.

The only explanation that makes sense is that Sai deliberately leaked information, but if that’s the case, she wouldn’t let a USB like this escape.

What on earth is happening? I thought it would be good just to confirm Shin Yu-mi’s safety before coming here, but it’s still difficult—

But it’s worth charging ahead.

When I checked the USB contents, there was also the location of the laboratory where the awakening drug was being made. If the USB is real.

By eliminating the important location where the awakening drug is made, we can not only reduce victims due to the distribution of the awakening drug but also harm Sai.

As I couldn’t solve my questions and was chewing the rim of the paper cup with my teeth. Shin Yu-mi apologized for not being helpful.

But shortly after. She continued as if she had recalled something.

“Ah, as I mentioned, I don’t know anything about how he obtained such information or how he found out. But… I do know who my brother met before he ended up like that.”

“He said he was meeting a close hyung, who I remember was a manager at a water and sewage facility. He said they were meeting to congratulate him on getting a job…”

Water and sewage facility?

At her words, an ominous sensation suddenly ran through my entire body.

The water and sewage terrorism event from the original work. And the supervillains trying to escape this country right now.

There’s one thing that emerges as these two facts intertwine.

In that event, Sai was trying to pull off the crazy act of creating a massive number of superpower users by releasing the superpower awakening drug into water and sewage facilities nationwide, creating a situation where supervillains escaped.

In the midst of tracking supervillains who escaped from prison, Mina discovers what Sai is trying to do, and horrified, she finds a supervillain trying to flee and moves to prevent the incident in advance.

As a result, she fights against numerous supervillains who escaped from prison and then joined under Sai, stops a truck transporting the awakening drug, and prevents the terrorism.

In the original work, at this point, Yuna-ri, who was helping Mina, investigates the truck and finds the place where the truck departed, finding hints about Sai’s location, but as a result, Yuna-ri becomes corrupted—

I’ll worry about Yuna-ri later.

What I need to focus on right now is that the water and sewage manager and Shin Yu-mi’s brother knew each other, and the part about supervillains trying to escape domestically.

Originally, when a country is in this state, the military and government, if they’re not fools, would have to prepare for terrorism or attacks.

But according to what appeared in the novel, Sai didn’t particularly send troops to such heavily guarded places.

According to the description, she completed the control of water and sewage facilities with just the people she had planted inside, and as soon as the awakening drug arrived, all terrorism could succeed.

This means that Sai had already completed all the groundwork for terrorism from long ago.

What if Kim Yun-shik, Shin Yu-mi’s brother, met with an acquaintance who works at a water and sewage facility.

And heard about unsettling movements that even that acquaintance didn’t clearly recognize, then secretly investigated and reached Sai?

It makes sense. No, at least in my thinking, there’s no other explanation.

Plus, these guys also seem to be trying to escape from the country, but why?

In this country where even the police are not in their right minds and everything is a mess, why would these well-known criminals, who would find it easier to live here, try to escape from this country?

The cause is clearly only one, isn’t it?

“Damn it.”

I urgently approached one of the guys who was still unconscious. The one with the alias ‘Canine’ because he can shoot sharp fangs from his body.

I splashed the tea from the paper cup in my hand onto him. As moderately hot water was splashed, Canine trembled as if having a seizure and opened his eyes.

“Blglblg?!”

“Hey.”

“Ugh, urgh, y-you, who are you?”

“I’m going to ask one question now. If you don’t answer, you’ll sink to the bottom of the Han River, so do as you please. Ah, you know there are four more behind you, right?”

“Wha—what?!”

Canine, trembling with his eyes wide open in surprise at my threat. As he had just woken up and saw me suddenly spouting strange nonsense, he rolled his eyes.

But I ostentatiously brought over a kettle [the one they had been using] with hot water that was being heated by the bonfire and said, letting the boiling water flow right in front of the face protruding from the floor:

“I know you’re the type who shoots things like fangs from your body. Can you shoot them from completely cooked eyeballs too? Shall we experiment?”

Of course, I don’t really intend to splash it. But criminal bastards are always weak against stronger violence.

Since he hasn’t realized that I’m a police officer now, this threat would be quite useful.

There’s no time. I let hot water flow in front of Canine, who was still keeping his mouth shut. With hot water splashing on his face, he finally panicked and said:

“Okay, okay! What’s the question!”

“Why were you guys trying to escape? Don’t try to deny it. I saw all the contact information of brokers you guys gathered to flee overseas. Tell me why you were trying to escape.”

“Fu-fuck! Are you a cop?! Or some fucking vigilante?! You bastards think you’ll be safe after this—”

Canine raises his voice without answering my question. It’s clear that he thinks it’s dangerous to answer this.

This is going to be troublesome. I looked back for a moment. Mina, who met my eyes, seemed to understand the implication in my gaze and stepped forward threateningly, making a cracking sound with her fist.

Then, as if recalling being buried in the ground by Mina’s single blow, Canine’s face turned blue.

This time, I tilted the kettle mouth, which was still boiling inside due to the heat, as if I was about to pour it directly into his eyeball, and asked:

“Neither she nor I are patient enough. I might just cook your eyeballs and be done with it. But she’s the type who would rip off your arm and stuff it right into your back hole, you know?”

I feel like Mina is arguing from behind her sunglasses that she wouldn’t do such a thing, but I ignore it.

Canine, perhaps recalling the overwhelming power he had seen earlier and thinking it might really be possible, bit his lip for a moment. Then, with a tearful face, he said:

“Damn it! The monster woman who released us told us! What she’s going to do to this country from now on!”

“Starting from places where people drink water nationwide, she’s going to release awakening drugs everywhere to turn all the people in this country into superpower users, and turn all current superpower users who don’t follow her into mutant monsters!”

“I said I would follow her because I wanted to live! But damn, it’s such a crazy act! Everyone becomes either a superpower user or a monster! How can you live like that! That’s why I was trying to escape!”

Canine cursed, saying we would all die if it was discovered that he had said this.

Hearing those words, I held my head.

In the original work, it was limited to terrorism on water and sewage facilities in Seoul, but this time it’s nationwide?

Yes, if you’re going to do something, do it big, you damned woman.

Let’s see, it’s good to have heard testimony that she’s going to carry out water and sewage terrorism as in the original work. But the problem now is this:

If we look only at the Seoul region, yes, with police forces and military support, it could be easily prevented.

But amid supervillains rampaging and fleeing, and daily terrorism with superpower awakening drugs causing an increase in superpower users who rampage after losing their minds, she’s trying to carry out water and sewage terrorism “nationwide”?

Under the command of a terrifyingly intelligent crazy woman who has already completed all the groundwork? Can it really be stopped? No matter how I think about it, it seems impossible?

…No, that’s not it. There is one way.

If I report the terrorism fact to the police under my name and then, before the terrorism occurs, find the real laboratory where the superpower awakening drug is manufactured and destroy it with Mina, Sai won’t be able to move.

Then the remaining time is the issue—

“Do you know the execution time?”

“…Tomorrow at 5:30 PM. She said she would start the operation nationwide, beginning with Seoul, as the sun sets.”

I checked the time. Current time: 6:01 PM. About 23 hours left.

…Why don’t I have a car at times like this? I confirmed that there wasn’t much time left with a tearful face.

And then I slammed the kettle down on Canine’s head with all my might.

Although he gave good information, this is revenge for making me so troubled.

The fact that I came here was purely due to my own choice, so you might ask if this is just venting? It’s not venting.

Probably.