Kuma-san was a veteran detective who had been involved in and helped resolve innumerable cases. He was also a constant participant in various martial arts tournaments, frequently taking the championship trophy back too while he was at it. In short, he was extremely well known in his circles, and very greatly respected.
So when this Kuma-san went back after the incident with Shouta-kun and sent out a notice to all on-site policemen involved with the investigation regardings espers and the Super Water Spheres to “tell me first thing if you find anything relevant,” everyone accepted it as a matter of fact, with no one the wiser. Of course, it didn’t hurt that he was the lead investigator on this case too.
Now, if any of our Amaterasu members got arrested (knock on wood), we could just call Kuma-san. If it wasn’t too big or too conspicuous an incident, then he could help us pull the wool over on the on-site policemen and get that member released. Although we were still far from the status of getting a free pass from the police just by flashing our dog tags, I had hopes that we would eventually get there. Baba also said that she had settled things with Detective Dirtbag, so there were no worries on that front either.
In addition, Kaburagi-san supplied Kuma-san with fragmented and ultimately useless pieces of information about us for him to report to his superiors, the ones directing this investigation who weren’t under Kaburagi-san’s control yet. This supplied the investigation with the justification to continue strong, as well as helped to bolster Kuma-san’s authority within the force as even higher than the assigned lead investigator who “continuously produced results.” He successfully managed to convince the top brass that “this investigation is going to need a lot more time to crack open” as they “needed to proceed with great caution.”
With this, we had the police sandwiched from the top and bottom, with Kaburagi-san applying pressure from the outside and Kuma-san arranging things for us from the inside. There was no more reassuring combo. From what Kaburagi-san told me, her efforts at managing the intelligence agents from foreign agencies were also going well.
As a realistic problem, the humanoid World Shadows were actually quite vicious. Their standard strength was so high that your normal police officer would die for sure if he encountered one and tried to fight it. For starters, police batons were absolutely ineffective. Also, they had no bones or internal organs, so there was no point in using normal martial arts. Accurately sniping the stone core, which was only the size of a fist, as it moved all around would be an extremely difficult feat to pull off. In short, there was almost no chance of victory.
It would be a different story if weapons specifically chosen with a thorough understanding of what made up World Shadows were brought to bear—for example, bombs or flamethrowers—but your average policeman can’t very well be walking around town with bombs or flamethrowers on their person at all times. As such, if the police wanted to deal with the World Shadows themselves, they would need to establish a dedicated anti-World Shadow squad.
The easiest way to deal with a World Shadow would be to run it over with a car, but the narrow alleyways, underground sewers, and abandoned buildings where they usually showed up were generally places that cars could not reach.
So in summary, the best option for the police would be to just leave the whole Amaterasu and World Shadows matter alone and not get involved. Based on the setting that World Shadows get strengthened and become more vicious by feeding on the fear of humans, thoughtlessly publicizing their existence or trying to deal with them half-heartedly would only make the situation even worse.
Kuma-san began taking up the habit of dropping by Ama-no-Iwato for a drink after work every once in a while. Most of the time, it would end up with either me just listening to his grumbling or us exchanging idle small talk. To my surprise, I found both of them unexpectedly fun, as the two of us clicked really well. Although we seemed to be on opposing sides, with me on the side of espers achieving things through superpowers, and him on the side that wanted to beat up everything supernatural with his bare fists, the exchange of opinion that arose due to that difference between us also turned out surprisingly interesting.
Every once in a while, Kuma-san would lend me classic sci-fi works that could be said to be the forefathers of the modern battle genre, and I in turn introduced currently trending light novels to him. It was a very fulfilling exchange that we had going on between us.
If it wasn’t just my ego speaking, Kuma-san and I had become really close friends in the blink of an eye. On off days, sometimes Kaburagi-san would join us, and the three of us would watch spy movies together or otherwise just spend time enjoying each others’ company.
Also, we granted Kuma-san’s request for a pair of gauntlet PSI drives by refitting one that had been made previously for my personal use. It ran on telekinetic fuel, such that when he turned it on, it would generate a close-ranged burst of telekinesis whenever he threw a punch. In effect, it was a shockwave emitter. With this PSI drive on hand, he should be able to win easily whenever he came across a World Shadow on his own.
PSI drives made for extremely good weapons. In addition to being very portable, they also did not leave damage on the surroundings and made no noise. Their output was also beyond reproach. The sole fly in the ointment was its troublesome maintenance due to its unique fuel source. Oh, and also that they were extremely expensive to make, given that they were made of platinum. As such, although it was unrealistic to arm the entire police force with them, equipping individuals on a personal level would still be quite manageable.