Chapter 39: I Wish We Could Just Live Like This
Aize and I were walking down the street together.
Her car had been destroyed during yesterday’s fight against the Violence Demon, so she decided to buy a new one.
Aize knew a dealership nearby, so we decided to walk there as a light morning stroll.
Because Aize was so famous, she wore both a mask and sunglasses to avoid being recognized.
I wore sunglasses too.
Thanks to Aize, my own face had become fairly well known, and I didn’t want to get dragged into anything annoying.
Aize had her arm wrapped around mine and walked pressed tightly against me.
It was still morning, but plenty of people were already walking through the streets.
I could feel them glancing at us.
Even with her mask and sunglasses, Aize’s figure naturally drew attention.
She wore a light shirt and short shorts.
Even to me, her proportions were unusual for a Korean woman.
Her legs were much longer than her upper body.
Her smooth white legs were exposed up to her thighs, and her waist looked thin enough for one of my hands to wrap around.
Her entire figure seemed to shout:
What do you think? I’m unbelievably beautiful, right?
Some people seemed to be glaring at me like they wanted to eat me alive because Aize was clinging to my arm.
Honestly...
It felt pretty good.
Maybe it was a sense of superiority.
Whatever it was, being beside Aize somehow made my own presence feel greater.
“Aaah!”
A woman suddenly screamed.
She looked to be in her fifties.
Far ahead, a man was running away as though his life depended on it.
“Pickpocket! Somebody help me!”
The middle-aged woman had fallen to the ground.
From the looks of things, the fleeing man had stolen her shoulder bag and was escaping through the crowd.
Nobody seemed willing to chase him.
“Inhwang, what are you doing?”
“Aize, for something like this, wouldn’t shhk and shhk be better than whoosh?”
I meant that Phoenix Step would probably be better than Fierce Dragon Step.
“That’s right.”
Aize’s eyes curved into a smile behind her sunglasses.
I shaded my eyes and estimated the distance.
Around one hundred meters.
“Phoenix Step!”
I activated Phoenix Step of the Black Spirit Air-Walking Art.
My body faded like mist.
Then...
Shhk.
I disappeared.
Shhk.
I instantly appeared in front of the fleeing pickpocket.
“Waaagh!”
The pickpocket screamed when I suddenly appeared.
His feet tangled together and he fell onto the pavement.
“Y-You! Who the hell are you?!”
He scrambled up and pulled a knife from his clothes.
“I’m a violent-crimes detective.”
I answered politely.
“Move, asshole! So what if you’re a detective?! Detectives can still get stabbed!”
He waved the knife around threateningly.
Judging from his behavior, he looked like nothing more than a low-level pickpocket.
Meanwhile, people began gathering around because they found the situation entertaining.
If the guy tried running again, innocent people might get hurt.
“You bastard! You think I’m joking?!”
He stabbed toward my face.
With Ghost Eye active, his movement looked like slow motion.
I casually grabbed his wrist.
“Huh?”
My speed clearly startled him.
I tightened my grip.
“Aaargh!”
He screamed as pain shot through his wrist.
His hand gradually turned blue as the blood flow was cut off.
Clang.
The knife dropped to the ground.
“Could someone call the police while I hold him?”
I twisted his arm behind his back, pulled out my handcuffs, and cuffed him.
“Wooooow!”
Suddenly, the surrounding crowd erupted into cheers and applause.
“That guy says he’s a detective.”
“Oh my, he’s amazing. We actually have detectives like that in Korea?”
“He’s ridiculously strong.”
Click. Click. Click.
People began taking pictures of me arresting the pickpocket.
Hearing their praise made me feel strangely good, as though I had accomplished something important.
“Oh my, thank you so much for recovering my bag.”
The middle-aged woman had already approached and was bowing repeatedly.
“It’s nothing. I’m a detective. I’m just earning my salary.”
I took the shoulder bag from the thief and returned it.
“Check whether you lost any money or valuables.”
The woman opened the bag and pulled out a large wallet.
Then she opened it and hugged it tightly to her chest.
I assumed it contained a lot of money.
“Thank goodness....”
Her voice trembled.
“I was able to recover the picture of my husband who passed away last year.”
“A picture?”
“Yes....”
Her husband had died in a sudden traffic accident the previous year.
It had been completely unexpected.
She hadn’t even been able to say goodbye or hear his voice one final time before he left her alone in the world.
“Whenever we traveled, he was always busy taking pictures of me, so he hardly ever appeared in photographs.”
She looked down at the picture.
“We barely had any pictures together. This one inside my wallet was one of the few I really liked.”
The photo showed the middle-aged woman and a man of similar age smiling brightly at Sinseondae in Seoraksan Mountain.
“He never had an impressive job, but he always worked honestly and diligently.”
Her voice became quiet.
“We were always too busy just trying to survive, so we almost never traveled.”
She gently touched the photograph.
“We finally went to Seoraksan two years ago. That’s when we took this.”
Small tears formed in her eyes.
“He was such a caring man.”
She smiled sadly.
“When we were dating, he promised he would never make my life difficult.”
Her eyes trembled.
“Even when he was exhausted, he cleaned the house and washed the dishes because he felt guilty that he couldn’t keep that promise.”
She took out a handkerchief and wiped her tears.
“Who would have imagined he would leave so suddenly...?”
My chest tightened.
But I couldn’t think of anything to say.
Then police sirens approached.
A patrol car stopped nearby.
Two officers stepped out.
“We received a report. You caught a pickpocket?”
“This is the guy. Take him.”
I pointed toward the man kneeling on the ground.
“You actually caught him yourself? That’s impressive.”
One officer looked at the handcuffs.
“Are you a detective?”
“Yes. Kang Hyunwoo, Violent Crimes Division, Jungbu Police Station.”
I handed him the handcuff key.
“Thank you. We’ll take it from here.”
The officers dragged the pickpocket into the police car and drove away.
The surrounding crowd gradually scattered too.
The middle-aged woman bowed.
“Then I’ll be going as well.”
“Ma’am. Do you have a moment?”
She stopped.
“Do you need something from me?”
“Aize.”
I looked beside me.
“You can use Bingshin on ordinary souls too, right?”
“Yes. As long as they haven’t reincarnated yet.”
The middle-aged woman blinked.
“Souls? And... Bingshin?”
The ability itself was incredible.
The name was always the problem.
Then she suddenly looked carefully at Aize.
“And... isn’t Aize the name of that famous idol?”
“Hahaha.”
I awkwardly laughed.
