I Became a Police Officer in a Superhero Genre

The operation to arrest the main believers and bishop of the pseudo-religious Human Center ultimately ended in failure.
By the time we arrived at the scene, all evidence and key personnel had already fled, so we police could say nothing other than that we were one step too late.

But that doesn’t mean we didn’t gain anything at all.
As a result of thoroughly searching the building interior, we were able to secure decisive evidence that the Human Center group had committed serial murders, as testified by the suspects arrested yesterday, in the basement of the building.

Most of the evidence in the basement consisted of personal belongings with body parts or bloodstains of the victims,
and quite shittily, these victims’ belongings weren’t found in a place like a garbage dump but in a place like a torture chamber in the basement,
and the corpses strewn about everywhere were in such a terrible state that it was impossible to tell what body parts were missing or gone.
Even those who frequented serial murder scenes and bizarre murder scenes as if eating meals would vomit and go crazy as soon as they saw the basement.

Those damn bastards. My teeth are grinding. In the novel, both the bishop and these bastards just appear to spout nonsense and get beaten up by Mina before disappearing,
but after checking the basement torture chamber, I keenly felt how much of a lunatic this ‘person’, the bishop of Human Center, is.
Moreover, I was disgusted by the fact that such a bastard had plastered my photos all over his room.
After adding this bastard to the bottom line of the list of bastards I absolutely must catch, I then wandered around looking for something that might give a hint as to where that bastard had escaped while examining the building once more.

But nothing was found. I sighed as I saw the forensic team, detectives, and people living nearby gathering, and approached the captain.

The captain, sitting on a sanctuary chair looking ahead, waved his hand when he saw me, saying I’d come, and I sat next to him.

Without either of us taking the lead, we both sighed deeply at the same time. The captain told me the current approximate situation.

“We searched the building as thoroughly as if combing for lice, but we couldn’t secure even general believer lists of the victims or clues about the bishop’s identity.

We interrogated the suspects further, but it seems they don’t know where they escaped to either. Damn. The higher-ups are going crazy saying we must catch this bastard, damn it. Those reporter bastards have somehow found out about this place and are completely surrounding it too.”

“The reporters aren’t my business. What about CCTV?”

“There’s one that captured several vehicles leaving this building yesterday.

But those cars didn’t get on the highway or anything, and they weren’t found nearby either. They just disappeared from the spot. There’s no evidence, he says.”

The captain stopped speaking and rubbed his face with a drained expression like boiled spinach. He must have seen that terrible sight in the basement too.

“This is really driving me crazy… But why didn’t these bastards hide any evidence of murder in the basement when they cleaned up everything else so thoroughly before leaving?”

“What else could it be?”

I sighed while putting a cigarette in my mouth. I couldn’t light it since it was an indoor crime scene, but thinking about what I saw downstairs really made me desperate for it.

“They’re boasting. That they did this.”

In the novel, the description ended with Mina finding the child victims in a terrible state in this building, with blood and body parts strewn everywhere,

but thinking about what I saw in the basement, it certainly didn’t seem like it would have ended that cleanly.

Even just roughly looking with my eyes when I went down, I saw 4 human arms. One half torso, one head with the top part missing.

I knew this world setting was shitty, but thinking that bastards who commit such blatantly terrible acts are walking around outside really pissed me off.

Whether you’re a police officer or whatever, this feels dirty as a human being, damn it.

“Even when we asked the people living nearby, they said they thought this building was a residence with a small church. Judging by how they say they sometimes saw black vans and guys wearing the same thing the suspects wore,

it seems this was indeed the headquarters… Those damn crazy bastards, damn it, damn it all. If only we could find something.”

The captain was cursing and pondering how to find the bishop bastard whose name and face we don’t know, but I told him this wasn’t the time for that and stood up.

“When things are hopeless, we just have to start walking, don’t we? Let’s go with the old-fashioned way. The old-fashioned way.”

The old-fashioned way. In other words, hard labor. I plan to investigate by running around on my own feet and asking all the people living nearby if they know anything about this building.

It’s not like I feel an unbearable anger against injustice after seeing the atrocities in the basement or anything like that.

But still, we have to catch such a son of a bitch, damn it.

“Sigh, alright. Be careful. That crazy bastard seems to have an extreme interest in you. … But how old are you anyway? No, why do you speak more like an old-school detective from the ’60s than me?”

“My hair is still well attached, so I’ll be fine.”

“You’re really a son of a bitch.”

After ending our usual conversation, I immediately walked out of the building. Right now, while crossing through the chaotic building interior for the on-site investigation.

I could see Sai outside, blocking citizens from entering with the police line.

Sai was giving a goat-like laugh while answering that she couldn’t say anything to people asking what on earth was going on.

Although I only glanced at her for a moment while walking, she noticed my gaze and our eyes met. She nodded as if to say ‘take care’.

I felt an inexplicable discomfort at that sight and slowly nodded.

Discomfort. Yes, this is discomfort. That would be the right way to express it.

Her blue eyes, looking at the scene with the only indifferent face in a place so terrible that even veteran Special Investigation Team detectives would recoil,

were not even eyes one would make when filth or something disgusting was sprayed everywhere, but eyes as if looking at weeds placed on the street.

I certainly thought she must be involved in this incident too. But thinking about it, I haven’t directly seen evidence that she’s involved in this incident, so she might have no relation to this incident at all.

But even so, those eyes aren’t right, are they?

Suddenly, I became curious about how she was defeated in the novel. I slowly walked while stirring my mind to recall the ending of this novel.

Let’s see, the novel’s progression was like this. After the ‘Great Chaos’ incident, Mina goes through numerous pains and trials, but with the help of people she saved and police officers, Mina eventually stands before Sai.

Mina was able to become overwhelmingly stronger than her past self after numerous battles, and Mina thought that power had become enough to reach Sai, but.

In reality, Sai was even stronger than the strengthened Mina. Despite others who ran together for justice falling to her overwhelming power, only Mina doesn’t give up and continues to fight and endure,

and Sai, tired of such Mina, uses her ability to show Mina the disgusting and repulsive things she’s seen in human society, but even so, Mina doesn’t despair.

Afterwards, Sai, with an expression described as terrifyingly cold, says it’s no longer fun. Leaving only one word, she exits by dying to Mina’s single blow.
A monumental scene where Sai, who always babbled that Mina was an interesting person while tormenting her, finally acknowledges defeat seeing the unbreakable Mina.

It’s truly a hero story-like ending. The protagonist endures and endures in front of an overwhelmingly strong mastermind, succeeding in defeating the mastermind at the very last moment. A happy ending at the end.

As expected, it’s content where the police can’t do anything. But why did I suddenly become curious about this? I pondered and soon realized the reason.

The emotionless face I saw. I was curious if her expression when she saw this basement would be similar to the emotionless face she was said to have shown at the last moment.
The answer – even if I somehow manage to arrest Sai, I probably won’t know.

I was thinking that alone and was about to hurry my steps, when.

Beep beep-

“?”

Suddenly, a message arrived on my phone. I thought it might be simple spam since even the number wasn’t properly displayed for who sent it,

but because what should be called a detective’s intuition was fiercely shouting to check this message, I bit my lip and checked it, and was greatly surprised.

Only one photo was sent blankly in the message. When I looked at what that photo was, good heavens. Mina was in what looked like a construction site, with her arms tied and her head bowed deeply as if unconscious.

… There’s really a lot I want to say, but first, one thing.

Why are you tied up? You can easily break free even if tied with steel cables.

If this isn’t a prank to surprise me now, something has gone seriously wrong. What on earth is going on?

As I was blankly staring at the photo, not understanding the situation, a call started coming in as if impatient with me. A call coming from an unknown sender, just like before. I hesitated for a moment but then accepted the call.

“Hello.”

“[Is this Detective Lee Mun-su?]”

What comes through the phone is a person’s voice distorted bizarrely and rigidly as if using a voice changer. I intuitively sensed that the owner of this voice was the very person who had done that to Mina.

Who is this bastard? I tried to quickly turn around and go up to the second floor to tell the captain about this and ask for help, but the guy on the other end of the phone continued speaking before that.

“[Nice to meet you. I am Human. I serve as the bishop of the religion called Human Center. The reason I’m contacting you like this is – because a divine oracle has come down to you.]”

Bishop. Did that real bastard really contact me?
I was more curious about ‘how’ this guy kidnapped Mina, not ‘why’ he contacted me.

Did he perhaps drop something like a nuclear bomb on her…? No really, how did she end up in that state when she’s a kid who can even dodge bullets by seeing them?

I thought maybe she was attacked in a moment of carelessness, but this kid has an absurd crisis detection ability that allows her to easily dodge even bird droppings falling on her head while drunk with sleep.

Even at this time when she hasn’t been active as a hero for very long, Mina is someone who absolutely cannot be defeated even if you give heavy weapons to a well-trained army company and make them fight, so how could this little one?

What the hell.

I stiffened at the question hitting my head, and the inorganic voice continued speaking from the other end of the phone.

“[If you tell other detectives about this conversation now, I will kill this child. Detective. Because this trial is something you must endure alone.]”
“[Come to the construction site at XXX, XX-dong, Gangdong-gu. The time limit is 1 hour. If you don’t come quickly, this innocent child you care about will die.]”
I understood what this bastard wanted to say. Kidnapping and death threat. It’s a statement I hear more often than being asked about today’s lunch menu while doing police work.

But fuck, how did you catch her, you son of a bitch!!

It’s not like there’s some rock-like thing that can ‘neutralize’ superpower users like Kryptonite! Such a thing didn’t appear even in the ‘novel’!

How the hell am I supposed to understand how this is going, damn it! Use the original story to deduce? That’s already fucking dead and buried in a coffin, what am I supposed to do with it, damn it!!

I ran straight towards the address the guy mentioned.

When Mina opened her eyes, what she felt was a terrible headache and the coldness of winter. A pain incomparable to the pain felt from eating too many cold things.

After the pain like her head was being hammered, dizziness rushed in. Mina almost lost consciousness again the moment she came to her senses, but

the girl recognized that the current situation was not normal and somehow clung to the thread of consciousness, moving her head that wouldn’t put in strength to look around.

The first thing that enters her eyes is piles of cement bags and several standing lamps. Her half-crushed bag.

And what she saw next was the back of a man wearing a mask that looked like it had turned a face from a textbook into a mask.

“[You’re awake.]”

The masked man spoke to her as if noticing that Mina had regained consciousness. Mina flinched for a moment, but the masked man was doing something without caring.

What the man was holding in his hand was a tablet, and when Mina looked closely, there was a camera set up in front of the man.

“[False prophets. Monsters. Utterly disgusting. There is only one God in this world, and everything else is mere cursed replicas that deserve to be damned.

Yes. I am the only believer who understands His will, so why is such an insignificant man receiving His trial?]”

The man was muttering while tapping on the tablet as if possessed by something. That he looked very dangerous, wrapped in a demonic aura.

Mina thought this man was dangerous and tried to stand up to prepare for a fight, but her body wouldn’t move.

Mina then realized that her arms were tied. A simple rope. Mina could break it by applying just a tiny bit of strength, so she applied force, but why? The rope didn’t break.

When she tried to untie the rope by applying force, conversely, her flesh was dug into by the rope and hurt, and the bizarre sight of it turning red entered Mina’s eyes.

“Huh?”

Mina couldn’t understand. Her body doesn’t even get a scratch when stabbed with a knife, so why?

Only then could Mina understand the state of her body. Strength doesn’t enter her body. Her body feels heavy and her head hurts as if she has a severe cold.

How did this happen? Right, that bizarre being mixed between an insect and a human had stabbed some strange drug into her neck, and after that, she felt strength leaving her body.

What on earth was that syringe? A virus? Poison? While Mina’s head was spinning and falling into confusion, the man continued speaking.

“[Pathetic guy, lowly guy! Damn bastard! Why has such a worm received His choice, I ask!!]”

Bang! The masked man, who had been muttering, turned his body in anger and slammed the tablet he was holding onto the floor.

The tablet, which bounced away strongly due to how much force he used, broke into two pieces. One half of the broken tablet unfortunately hit Mina’s head directly.

“Ugh!!”

The pain she felt. The flowing blood. The throbbing wound.

At that moment, Mina realized that she couldn’t feel the superpower she had had all her life. Her whole body trembled with fear and an indescribable helplessness.

Why has her superpower disappeared? Mina felt her breath quickening. The man she could easily take down normally now felt terrifyingly scary.

Moreover, next to the man appeared the being that had attacked Mina. Mina had thought that being might also be a superpower user like herself, but her instinct told her. That thing is similar to but slightly different from a superpower user.

The bizarre thing that looked like an insect and human strangely entangled with 4 pairs of arms crawled along the wall towards the masked man, and its appearance was truly like something that had jumped out of a nightmare rather than being human to begin with.

Mina gritted her teeth. If it was just the masked man, it might be different, but with a monster like that too, even if she somehow managed to untie this rope in her current state, there was no possibility of escaping or winning a fight.
The man stood in front of Mina. He looked down at Mina with eyes full of anger and madness beyond the mask. No, he was burning with madness while thinking of someone else with Mina in front of him.

The girl stiffened her body in front of that hostility and madness. But the masked man soon calmed his madness as if a fire being extinguished by water and muttered.

“[There’s no way such an incompetent guy could overcome the trial, right? Yes, yes. A being without even superpowers, not blessed by Him, couldn’t possibly do anything.]”

“[If I expose this guy’s ugly appearance as it is, He would change His mind too.]”

After saying that, the masked man waved his hand. As if understanding something from that gesture, the bizarre being disappeared somewhere by climbing the wall just as it had appeared.

Mina felt suffocated. What can I do in this situation? She felt like she should do something as a hero, but she couldn’t do anything.

Mina gritted her teeth as the man’s words about an incompetent person seemed to be blaming herself, but the girl who had lost her power couldn’t do anything.

The girl who had lost her power was just helpless.