The drunkard was leaning against the old clothes collection bin,倒下了.
We cautiously passed by the unconscious man.
Suddenly, I felt a presence coming from the direction we had just passed.
I gently pushed Adella’s back forward.
“Adella, you go inside first.”
“Why?”
“Because I think someone is coming.”
“I can’t just leave my sister…!”
“It’s probably the police.”
“Ah! Then we need to hurry! See you later, sister!”
Even if one hasn’t committed a crime, encountering the police naturally makes a person feel uneasy in some corner of their heart.
I sent off Adella, whose identity was unclear, and cast Light Magic to illuminate the dark path.
Sure enough, I came across a duo of patrolling police officers.
“Damn it, who smashed a soju bottle here? It’s dangerous!”
“I heard a noise coming from this side. Hey, kid! Why are you out here at this late hour?”
“Hey, didn’t your parents teach you to stick to the well-lit streets? What if something bad happens…”
The police officers examined my appearance and hesitated in their speech.
“NoName?”
“I think so? Wow!”
“Hello, Police Officer. Thank you for your hard work patrolling late at night.”
I politely bowed to greet them.
One shouldn’t recklessly oppose public authority.
“Gosh, that adorable tone! Your voice is so cute!”
“Haha, what hardship? Na-me, where’s your dad?”
“Dad’s at home.”
He might actually be sleeping.
“Then you came out alone? This neighborhood is dangerous! We’re here because of a report.”
“A report? Did a murder happen nearby?”
The officers shook their heads hurriedly.
“No, no, it’s not that. We came because there was a complaint about a bad guy causing trouble while drunk. This area is known for its poor safety, so we have to keep an eye out.”
“Na-me, make sure to always go out with adults from now on. Got it?”
“Oh, but it seems like I’ve already met someone like that?”
“Huh?”
I lowered the sphere of Light Magic a bit to shine on the back.
Then, two legs sprawled out on the ground came into view.
“Eep!”
I explained the situation to the shocked police officers who thought it was a corpse.
“He looked really drunk. He tried to smash his head with a soju bottle, so I put him to sleep.”
“You put someone to sleep? How?”
The police officer checked if the man was still breathing and turned to ask.
“If you hit them hard enough, they usually faint. Something like…”
I gently rubbed my belly area.
Hearing that, the officer pressed down on the drunken man’s belly.
Then he suddenly opened his eyes and screamed.
“UAAAH!”
Crack-
“Oh, that sounds like a broken rib. Maybe it hit a bit above.”
*
A few days later, I got a call from the police station.
I reluctantly visited during my way home from the Academy.
The drunkard was locked up in the detention center after receiving emergency treatment at the hospital for a week.
I heard that he assaulted a friend while drinking at a nearby street bar and threatened passing pedestrians afterward.
The police asked about the specific circumstances at the time, and I skillfully twisted the truth, making sure not to create a problem.
“So, there was another person with you at that time?”
“Yes, I was out walking with a friend.”
“Who was it?”
“My older sister.”
“Which sister?”
“Someone I met online.”
I didn’t lie.
Since the content wouldn’t help their investigation, the police didn’t pry too deeply.
The stereotype that “children don’t lie in front of scary cops” turned out to be surprisingly strong.
“Oh, I’m really glad you weren’t hurt. The man has a record of 14 offenses and still doesn’t know how frightening the world is. Sigh, what’s the use of having AI in the first trial? The law is still soft.”
“Right?”
“You should grow up to be a great person and send all these bad folks to jail, okay?”
“I’ll try.”
“Good, you did well today!”
The police chief, with four flower buds pinned to his uniform, smiled contentedly as he closed his laptop.
Meanwhile, officers of lower ranks were engaged in a fierce struggle with rough men.
The drunkard who had been dragged out of the second-floor detention center saw me and began pointing angrily.
“Hey, you little brat! You did this to my body! Is it okay for an academy student to beat up a good citizen?”
I gave him a quick glance and laughed.
“You didn’t exactly look all that good, did you? So it’s fine, right?”
“You brat!”
“Hey, seriously. What are you saying to a young kid?”
The officer grabbed his shoulder and tried to calm him down, but the man became even more agitated.
“Let go, you tax-wasting freeloaders! Hey, listen carefully! If you let this slip just because you’re a little famous, that’s it for you!”
“Why are you like this?”
“Na-me, just ignore him. He’s trying to extort money from you.”
“You’ve got money anyway? By today, send ten million to my account, or I’ll circulate a rumor until you get expelled from the academy!”
Perhaps because I had violently used my aura, he felt bold enough to stand up to me.
It was a common topic in the news that academy students got expelled for using violence.
“You seem to be making a huge misunderstanding; the academy is rather lenient towards self-defense. Shall I recite the foundation regulations?”
Ever since the rumor about the height limit of 120cm in the interschool competition, I had memorized all the foundation regulations.
“The media…”
“Go ahead, spread it. Citizens of the Republic of Korea are pretty strict with drunks.”
Korea in 2052 equates drunk drivers with sexual offenders or serial killers.
Moreover, it’s been ages since the leniency for intoxicated crimes was abolished.
“Lawsuit…”
“Not applicable!”
“Th-this!”
His face turned a colorful shade of red.
It’s remarkable how people with such short-sighted thinking exist everywhere.
Unlike in my past life, in 21st-century Korea, the state protects even these kinds of people.
If he had been born as a commoner in the medieval era, he would have been beaten to a pulp by thugs in an alley.
Even if he were a noble, he probably would have had an axe to the head during a trial by combat.
“That clueless fool must be living in the right era.”
The ratio of rude people remains similar throughout the ages, but the reason they stand out more to us now is precisely this.
I clicked my tongue and passed by the man being dragged into the interrogation room.
“Well, take care. It’s a shame that I have to feed such people with my tax.”
“Have you said everything? When I get out, I’ll…”
“Oh, calm down! Chief, hurry and take Na-me downstairs!”
The man with 14 offenses rebelliously resisted while being taken into the individual interrogation room.
“Hey, want me to buy you a fruit slush from the shop outside, Na-me?”
“Are you talking about the store across from the police station? While I should graciously refuse, I’ll gratefully accept it.”
“Hahaha, all right!”
The sounds of his struggles gradually faded into the distance.
As we passed through the narrow interrogation hallway and turned a corner, an extremely annoying sound rang in my ears.
“Damn it, what’s a no-good orphan doing being all cute, huh?”
I shook off the officer’s hand and quickly ran to the individual interrogation room he entered.
“Hey! Na-me! Where are you going?”
Bang-
I burst through the door of the small three-pyeong interrogation room with great force.
The police officer and the man sitting across from each other jumped up in surprise.
“Na-me, why did you come in here? It’s dangerous, get out quickly!”
The young officer shouted anxiously.
Regardless, I approached the man, who was handcuffed, and looked up at him.
“What, what are you gonna do? Want to have another go?”
“Try hitting me here if you’re brave enough.”
“What?”
“You were talking big, saying you’d do something when you got out of prison. Why don’t you show me?”
“You rotten girl…!”
As I slowly advanced, the man took a step back.
All that bravado was nowhere to be found as he shut his mouth tightly.
When we were separated by bars, he barked cluelessly, but as soon as the bars were removed, he acted like a scared puppy.
It was appropriate to compare him to a dog.
The detective who followed in also found the situation amusing and didn’t intervene.
I looked around the room.
The entire interrogation room was thoroughly sealed with a Magic Barrier.
The mana was so impure that it interfered with circuit magic and even properly operating aura.
It felt like trying to swim upstream in a torrential downpour.
However, I withstood the massive resistance and managed to channel a faint aura through the tips of my five fingers.
With nowhere else to retreat, the man plopped down on a chair.
“Don’t you need to apologize to me?”
“You’re the one who should apologize to me!”
“I get it. I’d feel better doing it that way.”
I lightly raised my hand.
Arrogance: Hibris
Getting hit by fighters and losing the will to fight is related to human survival instincts.
Ordinary people feel their legs go weak and their bodies shudder.
Aura Heart is no different.
Humans have evolved to become timid to survive against stronger foes.
Ordinary people cannot defy the orders of an arrogant king.
“My body… Oi… officer, my body is…”
“Why? What’s wrong, sir?”
Everything turned purple.
I pressed down hard on his forehead with my fist like I was grabbing a baseball.
“What’s this?”
Fizzle-
Smoke started wafting from the point I pressed down upon, reeking of something burning.
“AAAH! GAAAH!”
The man flailed his arms and screamed in pain.
I pressed harder, channeling even more aura into him.
“AAAH! It hurts! IT HURTS!”
“Na-me! What are you doing? Get away!”
The detective, who had been grinning, panicked and grabbed my arm to pull me away.
The man fell from the chair, moaning.
I could clearly see the five circular burn marks left on his head.
Hair would never grow back from that spot again, and any transplanted hair would inevitably fall out.
It was the maximum revenge I could execute with a minimal amount of aura.
“This is an incident…”
The police officers frowned deeply, rubbing their foreheads.
I quietly smiled while hanging there in the void.
Oh, I wanted a slush, but now they might not buy it for me.
*
Despite the accident I caused, the good-hearted officer took me directly to the slush shop.
I really hope he gets promoted soon.
“Sip.”
While drinking the refreshing pink cherry slush, he let out a deep sigh as if the ground was going to swallow him whole.
“I truly feel sorry, but if I could do it again, I would do the same.”
“Ha… tsk. No, ha… it was our fault too. So, we shouldn’t have just watched out of amusement.”
“I’ll keep it a secret.”
“As if your secret would matter, if that guy spills it.”
“I’ll never spill it. Once you taste it, you completely lose your will, right? It wouldn’t happen, but if it did, please call me again.”
“Na-me, no matter what…”
The officer continued his lesson about how personal retribution is bad in a law-governed state and how great power brings great responsibility.
I nodded every time and added supportive interjections, agreeing with him.
“Yeah, in this money-centric country of ours, you probably don’t care because you have money, but we have rabbit-like kids to feed, so please try to understand.”
“I don’t have money.”
“Right, I’m really grateful for your understanding… wait? You had 200 billion…”
“I spent it all long ago. I’m completely broke.”
He couldn’t believe it until I showed him my account balance.
As I sipped my cherry slush through a straw, I rolled my eyes, contemplating how to make money.
This is sweet and tart; it tastes good!
