Chapter 8 · 9 min
Chapter 8
Porter
Kim Dohyeon sighed as he organized the matchboxes.
By evening, the hunters who had filled the convenience store had all gone back.
When products were added to the convenience store, they were automatically stocked on the shelves, but the store did not clean itself.
If there was damage serious enough to affect the building itself, it was repaired automatically, but if something was merely spilled on the floor, Dohyeon had to clean it up himself.
Just today, a hunter had dropped a displayed box of matches, so Dohyeon was reorganizing them.
‘I’ve gathered plenty of mana stones now, so it would be nice if I could hire an employee.’
Hiring an employee was necessary even just to open the convenience store on the 9th floor.
But for some reason, no matter how much he thought about wanting to hire an employee, or even said it out loud, no employee could be hired.
‘There must be some condition I need to fulfill before I can hire an employee...’
The problem was that he had no idea what that condition was.
After finally finishing organizing the matchboxes, Dohyeon approached the door.
He intended to rest for a while as he looked outside.
‘Hmm?’
But the moment he looked outside, that thought vanished.
A woman was being chased by magical beasts.
‘What? Doesn’t she have any companions?’
Hunters usually traveled in groups.
Unless they were strong enough to be a ranker, wandering the Tower alone was practically suicide.
‘It doesn’t look like she was absorbed into the Tower.’
Dohyeon himself had only recently been absorbed into the Tower, so there was no way another absorption phenomenon had already occurred.
‘Huh? But that woman...’
Something was strange.
When he narrowed his eyes and looked closely, he could see a green aura radiating around the woman.
‘What is that aura?’
None of the hunters he had seen so far had possessed a trait like that.
‘No, is it even a trait in the first place?’
He pondered it for a moment, but the situation was worsening by the second.
The woman was driven into a dead end and surrounded by wolf-shaped magical beasts.
‘Damn, I need to help her quickly.’
Dohyeon hurried to the counter and took out a stick.
Then he grabbed a box of matches and left the convenience store.
____________
‘Ugh... No... There’s nowhere else to go...’
Im Sua fell into despair when she saw the cliff blocking the way ahead.
Behind her, the magical beasts were surrounding Sua and slowly approaching.
Sua had awakened a mediocre trait.
It strengthened her overall physical abilities, but it was still insufficient for fighting magical beasts.
That was why hunters who awakened this trait usually accompanied raiding parties as porters.
Sua was also a rookie porter who had joined the raid as a porter.
At first, her heart had swelled at the thought that she had become a hunter who climbed the Tower.
Even if she was only a porter, she had thought she had become a proper hunter too.
But after joining the raiding party and entering the Tower, those thoughts were shattered.
“Hey, Im Sua! Can’t you move faster?”
“S-Sorry!”
Working as a porter was far from easy.
Because she had to carry not only all kinds of food but also heavy water, even with a body-strengthening trait it was difficult to keep pace with the other members.
But if it had only been physically exhausting, she still could have endured it.
What was harder was the subtle contempt for porters that spread among the members.
“If you couldn’t even awaken a decent trait, then at least move quickly. How can you be this slow?”
“I’m sorry, Captain...”
Sua had no choice but to lower her head in front of the captain scolding her.
Sua felt wronged too.
Originally, they had planned to hire one more porter, but the captain had suddenly canceled it, saying it would be a waste of money, and then forced Sua to carry that porter’s share as well.
And even then, he subtly mocked Sua’s trait, making it harder on her mentally than physically.
But Sua did her best to console herself.
‘Once this raid is over, I’ll never have to see them again.’
However, the incident happened after they reached the 10th floor.
The vice-captain shouted.
“M-Magical beasts!”
The group had been taking a short break for a meal when they were attacked by magical beasts.
The members hurriedly drew their weapons and fought back, but there were too many magical beasts.
Eventually, under the captain’s orders, the raiding party began to retreat.
“W-Wait!”
But Sua, carrying the luggage for two people, could not keep up with the others.
At Sua’s shout, the captain glanced back while fleeing, then turned forward again and continued retreating.
He simply abandoned Sua and led only the other members away.
Having been used as bait, Sua threw away the luggage and desperately fled from the magical beasts, but in the end she was driven into a dead end.
Sua squeezed her eyes shut.
‘To die here... And after being abandoned by my own party...’
There could hardly be a more miserable end.
Tears welled in the corners of Sua’s eyes.
But the magical beasts did not care.
The magical beasts, now close enough to reach her in an instant, lowered their bodies and were just about to pounce on Sua.
Whoosh!
Pop-pop-pop!
“Yelp!”
“Yip-yip!”
Sua could not understand what had just happened before her eyes.
Suddenly, sparks flew behind the magical beasts and burst with explosive sounds.
At first she thought it was some kind of bomb, but when she looked more closely, it was not.
‘F-Fireworks!?’
Sua was completely bewildered by the sudden appearance of fireworks.
The magical beasts were completely startled and backed away to one side.
Terrified, they crouched down and did not move.
Thanks to that, an opening appeared on the other side of their encirclement.
‘This is my chance!’
Sua began running toward the opening.
As she fled, she looked behind her and saw that the wolves did not even dare chase her and were instead warily watching their surroundings.
‘I don’t know what happened, but I survived!’
Sua pushed through the bushes and escaped the forest.
But when she saw the sight before her, she froze in shock.
‘This is...’
[Tower Convenience Store - Main Branch]
A rectangular building stood in the middle of the forest.
In front of it, a man holding a stick and matches was looking at Sua.
______________
‘Good thing I bought fireworks and matches.’
He had added the fireworks thinking they might be useful in situations such as distress.
But hunters had no particular desire to buy fireworks that could attract magical beasts with their noise.
Thanks to that, while wondering how he could make use of the fireworks, Dohyeon had tested them on magical beasts wandering nearby and discovered that the magical beasts were afraid of them.
‘I guess they can’t help but panic when such a loud explosion suddenly goes off.’
Of course, fireworks could only buy a little time until the magical beasts grew accustomed to them.
Still, for Dohyeon, who had no combat trait, even that much was something to be grateful for.
Though he had never imagined he would use them to save another hunter.
The woman pushed through the bushes, stood still for a moment, then approached Dohyeon.
“Um, excuse me... Thank you for helping me.”
The woman bowed in gratitude.
Dohyeon nodded and said,
“That was close.”
“Thank you, really. B-But...”
The woman glanced over Dohyeon’s shoulder.
“That thing called the Tower Convenience Store...?”
‘Is she a rookie hunter who hasn’t heard about the convenience store yet?’
Recently, word of mouth had spread knowledge of the convenience store so widely that there were hardly any hunters who did not know about it.
But from time to time, he still met rookie hunters who had never heard of the convenience store.
This woman was probably one of them.
“This is my convenience store. I mainly sell food.”
“What?”
The woman blinked.
“A c-convenience store?”
“Yes. The magical beasts will gather here soon, so would you like to come inside first?”
Dohyeon led the way into the convenience store.
The woman reflexively followed Dohyeon inside.
“Good heavens...!”
The woman’s eyes widened after entering the convenience store.
“F-Fluorescent lights inside the Tower? How in the world...?”
“I-Is this really kimbap? And it hasn’t even spoiled... There’s no way it could have survived the trip here without spoiling, so how...”
“A lunchbox!? Is what I’m looking at really a lunchbox?”
After repeatedly exclaiming in amazement while looking around the convenience store, the woman suddenly looked at Dohyeon apologetically.
“S-Sorry. I never imagined I would see things like this inside the Tower...”
“It’s fine. More importantly, why don’t we introduce ourselves? My name is Kim Dohyeon.”
“I’m Im Sua.”
“Then, Miss Sua. Why are you wandering around the Tower alone? What about your companions...?”
“Well...”
After hearing the whole story from Sua, Dohyeon clicked his tongue.
‘In short, her companions betrayed her.’
It was common for raiding parties to use a porter who could not flee quickly because of all the luggage as bait while they retreated.
Sua lowered her head.
“W-What should I do? I threw away all the luggage, so I don’t even have any mana stones anymore. I at least need enough to pay an escort fee if I want to escape the Tower, but now...”
Dohyeon felt sorry for Sua after hearing about her situation, but there was not much he could do to help.
Should he give her some mana stones to use for an escort fee out of the Tower?
Just as he was considering it.
[Would you like to hire Im Sua as an employee?]
[Compensation: 5% of the mana stones earned at the store where the employee works]
‘Huh?’
Dohyeon’s eyes widened.
The employee hiring message that had never appeared no matter how much he wished for it was now floating before his eyes.
‘Why? What kind of condition is it...’
While bewildered, Dohyeon suddenly looked at Sua.
The green aura was still rippling around Sua.
Dohyeon realized.
‘Ah! So hunters with that green aura can be hired as employees!’
He still did not know what exactly the green aura meant, but perhaps it marked hunters who could be hired as employees.
“Miss Sua.”
“...”
“Would you be interested in working here?”
“...What?”
A beat later, Sua raised her head.
Dohyeon nodded at Sua, who was staring at him with wide, round eyes.
‘Finally, I’ll have an employee.’