The Cop Is Too Strong [EN]: Chapter 164

165. Chief Inspector Kwak’s Despair

Gangjin Police Station, Violent Crimes Unit.

Everyone’s eyes widened at the sight of the newly appointed chief inspector.

The chief grinned and raised a hand.

“Nice to meet you all. I’m Kwak Su-cheol, the new chief inspector who will be in charge of Gangsu—no, the Violent Crimes Unit! Let’s celebrate with a round of applause!”

As Chief Inspector Kwak prompted for applause, the detectives, looking bewildered, belatedly clapped.

“Cl, clap!!”

“Woooah!!”

“What happened, Chief Inspector Kwak?”

“What’s going on? The best veteran from Gangjin has arrived.”

In his delight, the youngest, Woo Gang-cheol, stood up and shouted.

“Woooah!! Chief Inspector! Chief Inspector! Chief Inspector!!”

“Oh my, that guy. Seriously, I heard he was going to headquarters!”

The atmosphere completely reversed, and everyone welcomed him.

Rather than seeing him as just another addition to the higher-ups who needed approval, they saw him as a reliable shield and guide.

Having consistently delivered top results while at Gangjin Police Station, their faith in Chief Inspector Kwak was absolute.

In front of the coffee vending machine.

The Violent Crimes Unit 4 team members gathered one by one. Chief Inspector Kwak was also with them.

“What’s going on, hyung [older brother or respected male figure]?”

“Oh, that—the eye surgery was a lie. I mean, all I’ve done my whole life is take down violent criminals, so I should just keep doing that. Plus, I get to see you guys, which is great, right?”

“Seriously, you didn’t even tell me until the day you came in.”

“Surprise! Don’t you know that one?”

Shin Hae-soo pulled out a cup of coffee and handed it to Chief Inspector Kwak, saying,

“Chief Inspector, please take care of us.”

“Please take good care of us in the future!!”

“In the future? You guys just do well on your own. I’m on vacation starting tomorrow.”

Oh Gyeong-i bristled at the chief inspector’s words.

“What do you mean, taking a vacation right after your first day on the job!”

“I haven’t used my promotion vacation yet, okay? Anyway, listen to the chief inspector, and Team Leader Oh, good luck.”

The chief inspector patted Oh Gyeong-i on the shoulder and walked past.

His appearance, waving leisurely at the junior detectives who were greeting him with ‘Chief Inspector!’, seemed irritating.

Chief Inspector.

A position that steps back from the front lines and manages the entire Violent Crimes Unit.

They listen to the cases each team is handling, offer advice, and, if support is needed, place the appropriate team in the right place.

As a hub who knows the circumstances of each team well, they play a role in making the Violent Crimes Unit run much more flexibly.

Contrary to his grumbling, Oh Gyeong-i’s expression was bright.

It wasn’t like before, where they were closely together, but Oh Gyeong-i was happy that he would be working in the same office as Chief Inspector Kwak, whom he had been with like family for a long time.

Hae-soo also felt reassured by his presence.

Meanwhile, Chief Inspector Kwak, receiving their fervent gazes on the back of his head, had his mind full of thoughts about his vacation tomorrow.

* * *

The next day.

Kwak Su-cheol’s house.

Creak

“Oh my, you startled me. Why are you up so early?”

His wife woke up and came out to make breakfast, only to be startled by Su-cheol, who was already wearing an apron.

Su-cheol raised a wooden spatula and grinned.

“I woke up early to make breakfast for my darling wife. You work so hard cooking every day.”

“O-oh, is that so? Did you cut your tongue while cooking? Anyway, I’ll go wash up.”

“Okay, hurry back.”

“Stop it before I actually cut it off.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Su-cheol prepared breakfast for his wife, even helping her put on her suit jacket, and saw her off to work.

“Honey, make lots of money~”

“I always make a lot. Don’t go out if someone calls you; just relax and stay home.”

“Okay~”

Next, he sent his daughter off to school.

He placed a 50,000 won bill [approximately $40 USD] in his daughter’s hand as she left the house.

“Go get ’em, sweetie! Buy something delicious with this and brag to your friends that your dad got promoted!”

“Ugh, no thanks. If you brag about that stuff these days, you’ll get ostracized, you know? Use this money to order food when you’re home instead of cooking. Your cooking tastes bad.”

With that, his daughter put the money back on top of the shoe cabinet. Su-cheol sniffled and picked up the money again.

“Our daughter has grown up so much. She could get married… no, that’s not happening. Honey, if you get a boyfriend, bring him home. The uncles need to interview him.”

His daughter flinched at Su-cheol’s words.

“U-uncles? Those uncles from back then? I’ll just stay single forever.”

His daughter shook her head and left.

Next was his son, who was still in elementary school.

“Son, is there anything you want? Are you getting along well with your friends at school? Tell me if anyone is bothering you.”

“Something I want? Well, there is something…”

His son hesitated, twisting his hands, and Su-cheol asked again with an expression that showed he was dying of cuteness.

“What is it? Just tell me; Dad is in a good mood and will grant you anything!”

“…Handcuffs.”

“Huh?”

“Handcuffs, the ones Dad used to use…”

“O-oh… Ah, so my son likes this kind of thing? But that’s…”

“You can’t, can you?”

“No, um, Dad will just bring them home for one day, okay? You can’t take them out anywhere, is that okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll just touch them! Awesome! Thanks, Dad!”

The son was so excited about just seeing and touching real handcuffs for one day that he gave his dad a cheek kiss, something he hadn’t done in years, and left the house.

“Heh heh, it’s not a big deal…”

Kwak Su-cheol stared blankly at the spot where his son had left. As the door slowly and naturally closed, his eyes changed 180 degrees.

“Now, then… shall we begin?”

He immediately heated water in a pot and cooked ramen. Then, he took out kimchi and leftover rice that he had prepared in advance and moved to one of the rooms.

“Heh, heh, heh…”

He had been waiting for this moment. A time when he could purely play games all day without any interruptions.

No one would say anything even if he ate ramen in front of the monitor.

Su-cheol felt a small but precious sense of liberation as he pressed the power button with his toe.

Tap.

As he double-clicked an icon, the entire screen turned black, and then letters were written in a technique that looked like carving letters into a tombstone with a sword.

[Exit Online]

Su-cheol’s eyes sparkled as he looked at the screen.

“Today is a full day. I should glue myself to the chair.”

So, while eating ramen, he hunted, mixed rice into the broth, and finished with a carbonated drink, completing the unhealthy trio and patting his stomach a couple of times.

[Alert]

(One-Day-Fly – Not Connected)

“Hmm… still not here.”

These days, the One-Day-Fly who had been tormenting Su-cheol was rarely seen. Hunting had become easier, but strangely, he felt a bit sad.

The saying ‘bittersweet’ was perfect.

With him not around, the motivation to become stronger for revenge was also decreasing, which had a negative impact.

“This is a gift for myself…”

But even so, the game was always fun.

To commemorate his promotion, Su-cheol boldly purchased the 110,000 won full package [approximately $85 USD].

-Ting ta-ran ta-da!!

“Oh… what’s this?”

Among the boxes that came with the package, he opened the gacha gold box, which he hadn’t paid much attention to, and 1 million gold, which had a 5% chance of appearing, popped out.

Happy with the small fortune, he opened the equipment random box. Of course, the odds for this were even more abysmal, so he had long given up on expecting anything.

-Ding di-ri-ring!

But this time, a purple unique weapon filled the screen. It was a probability that was less than 1%.

“Wow, what day is it today? Is it my birthday? Ah, the game is congratulating me on my promotion too, yoo-hoo-hoo.”

Su-cheol whistled and went to the hunting grounds. At that moment, a rare boss that only spawned by chance appeared right in front of Su-cheol.

“Whoa, seriously!! What is this!”

He happily hunted the weak but loot-rich boss and acquired items.

“Wow, it gives a lot of scrolls, and oh! This is what I needed…!”

Seeing that things were going so smoothly after spending a little money on the game, which he had barely been able to play for 30 minutes a day, Su-cheol’s heart was very full.

He acquired a belt that was a superior version of his existing item through the boss and immediately replaced it, making the character in the monitor seem to shine even more.

“Damn, today must be the day for something big. Awesome? Ah, wait a minute.”

In his inventory, which he checked by chance, a sword and scrolls were neatly lined up. Su-cheol suddenly realized it was a divine revelation.

“This, I have to go for it. This is how they’re telling me to go for it. Not going for it would be an insult to the character! Let’s go, let’s go! Let’s go!!”

Even in the worst-case scenario, he could just use the weapon that came out of the random box today as a replacement. The attack power would be a little lower, but it was enough to give him the courage to go for it.

“Ugh!”

-Ding di-ri-ring!

“Whoa, seriously!!! Woo-ah-ah!!!”

Su-cheol jumped up from his seat, raised his hands high in the sky, and let out a joyful shout.

The sword was upgraded. Due to his chronic hand tremors, his hand slipped and he clicked twice, but both times it was enhanced without breaking.

The days when he was tormented by One-Day-Fly flashed through Su-cheol’s mind like a slideshow.

The sword was upgraded to +2, and he also changed his belt.

In just one day, he had jumped several stages at once and become stronger.

“Is One-Day-Fly around? One-Day-Fly, come at me, come at me.”

He moved to a higher hunting ground, reveling in his joy. But there, he discovered a user.

After roughly scanning the items they were wearing, they looked flashy, but according to the information, their level was quite lower than Su-cheol’s.

He shook his head and gave them advice, feeling good.

[ChiefKwak: In this game, control is more important than spending money. You can’t always rely on spending money, so this place is too much for you. Go to a lower hunting ground, noob.]

Su-cheol left a word like a boomer user and turned around, thinking it was a pretty cool piece of advice.

At that moment.

[Seoeunidang: …ChiefKwak?]

[ChiefKwak: You know me?]

“Ah, seriously, this fame. I guess they’ve heard of me somewhere—”

Stab-

[Your character has died.]

[Dropped +9 Sword of Despair (Unique).]

[7.33% of experience has been lost.]

[Your level has decreased.]

“…Huh?”

Everything happened in an instant. Su-cheol couldn’t accept the current situation and just blinked, standing there dumbfounded.

Above the corpse of the ChiefKwak character, the sword he had just enhanced was shining, and a character with the shabby ID of Seoeunidang was looking down.

Even though it was an expensive item, they didn’t even think about picking it up quickly and just spat out a word.

[Seoeunidang: One-Day-Fly told me to kill you if I saw you.]

[ChiefKwak: …]

At that moment.

Slither slither slither

From far away, a monster made entirely of liquid began to crawl slowly.

A Slime that appears with a low probability in each hunting ground.

If that thing swallows an item and 20 seconds pass, it can never be found again.

Only then did Su-cheol come to his senses and type faster than ever before.

[ChiefKwak: Hey, I won’t blame you for killing me, so can you pick up the item and give it back to me?]

[ChiefKwak: Please, there’s a slime coming, you can’t let the slime pick it up]

[ChiefKwak: Hey? Did you leave? Hey hey!! Pick it up, pick it up, I’ll pay you, just pick it up!]

[ChiefKwak: It’s coming, it’s coming!! Pl, please! Pleaase!]

Gulp crunch crunch

In the end, the slime came and swallowed ChiefKwak’s weapon.

As if waiting for that, the Seoeunidang character teleported away.

“Aaaaaaa!!!”

Su-cheol turned off the computer in extreme anger and went out the door.

Click-

He ran into his daughter, Kwak Eun-jeong, who was coming home from school.

Eun-jeong saw her dad’s somewhat teary eyes and asked.

“Dad, were you crying?”

At his daughter’s question, Su-cheol hurriedly wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

“H-huh? No, no, why would Dad cry.”

“Don’t watch sad movies, Dad. You shouldn’t be watching sad things during your menopause. Look for healing stuff.”

“Okay, okay, thank you, honey…”

“Ugh, it’s really annoying. Anyway, I don’t have school tomorrow, so let’s watch a movie together or something.”

“Huh?”

His daughter immediately went into her room, seemingly embarrassed, and Su-cheol watched her retreating figure with a pleased expression.

‘One-Day-Fly, you son of a b*tch…’

* * *

A few minutes ago, at the Daesung E&M CEO’s office.

Tap tap tap-

As the saying goes, a thief who learns late is more terrifying [meaning someone who discovers something late in life can become very skilled]. Ahn Seo-eun was always playing the Exit mobile game during her breaks these days.

She met Haru in the game every night and even received 1:1 training.

Although it was a fairly old game, her financial power was more than enough to fill the gap between newbies and veterans.

She had been playing the game a bit bored these days because Haru was busy looking for a job when she discovered a character named ChiefKwak who had been issued a kill order.

“ChiefKwak, ChiefKwak… Could it be Chief Inspector Kwak?”

[ChiefKwak: In this game, control is more important than spending money. You can’t always rely on spending money, so this place is too much for you. Go to a lower hunting ground, noob.]

“I guess not, attack.”

Stab-