Chapter 89

Chapter 89

Chapter 89 Book Café (1)

“Huh? What is all this?”

“Books.”

“No, I wasn't asking whether they're books.”

Books. A lot of books.

Fifteen thousand of them, to be exact.

Such an enormous number of books had been piled up in front of the coffeehouse that the delivery company had even brought along a small forklift, so the Elder had asked what they were for.

“I got lucky and found them cheap. The customers who come to the coffeehouse can read them, and I plan to read them too.”

“Even so, there's such a thing as moderation!”

“Elder, I don't think I'll be able to make you coffee until all of these are moved. Could you help me a little?”

“Ha! I come here after so long, and now you're outright threatening me.”

“Haha.”

That was what I said, but the task truly was daunting.

Fortunately, the boxes had been numbered by category. If we'd had to take out every single one of these books and sort them individually, it would've been enough work to keep us busy for two or three months straight.

And although the Elder spoke and acted like an old man, outwardly he looked no different from an ordinary young man in his twenties.

“Where should I put them?”

“Ah, in the room beside the filming office.”

Each box was heavy enough that I'd have needed all my strength to carry even one, yet the Elder casually picked up three at once.

I should've started this when Yongman and Sani were around.

“But if you read all these books, you'll become a sage. Have you finally decided to ascend to the Celestial Realm?”

“Somehow, that's where this conversation ended up again.”

Unfortunately, these books had very little to do with becoming a sage. If anything, they might have been at the exact opposite end of the spectrum.

People said there was no wrong time or field for learning, but no matter how many of these novels and comic books one read, it didn't seem likely that they'd lead to enlightenment or personal growth.

Though, of course, that was usually the protagonist's main story.

“I don't know about becoming a sage, but they're quite entertaining.”

“Tsk. Every time one of those self-proclaimed educated fellows recommended something because it was entertaining, it was always boring. Go, poetry, things like that.”

“That's true, but these are a little different. Would you like to try one?”

“No need. I'll just drink coffee.”

“You don't really have anything else to do while drinking coffee anyway, do you?”

“Ahem, well, that's true...”

At that moment, I remembered a slightly bad thing I'd done when I was young.

I remembered coaxing a friend who had no interest in books into visiting a rental shop.

Like a delinquent offering someone alcohol or cigarettes, I'd dragged innocent friends into that den again and again.

You could call it salesmanship.

In some ways, offering alcohol or cigarettes would've had purer intentions.

Alcohol and cigarettes were simply meant to be enjoyed together, but recruiting someone into a rental shop carried the selfish desires of the salesperson(?).

Back then, renting a single book cost as little as two hundred won and as much as nearly five hundred.

It was pocket change, the sort of money you could save by skipping one snack, but the sheer number of volumes was the problem.

With any long series that ran over ten volumes, the moment you picked up volume one, it was like boarding a train with no brakes.

Once you'd started, you had to see it through to the end.

That was why borrowing together in groups of two rather than one, or three rather than two, became an inevitable survival strategy.

But not anymore.

I'd already bought every book in the rental shop, so there was no need to recruit anyone, and even less reason to desperately play rock-paper-scissors with the friends I'd recruited over who got to read volume one first.

In other words, recommending novels to the Elder right now was an act of pure malice.

After we'd finished moving all the boxes, I stacked a pile of books on the table where the Elder was sitting.

They were a carefully selected lineup of martial arts novels that ranked among the top five of my entire rental-shop life.

“You can't possibly expect me to read all of these?”

“Of course not. Just try one, and if it's boring, read another.”

That was the greatest advantage of rental-shop novels.

There were plenty of books, so all you had to do was find one that suited your tastes.

New releases poured out every month too, so the excuse that there was nothing to read didn't work.

“Then I'll go finish organizing the books.”

“Very well.”

And how much time passed?

“Ahem.”

“What's wrong?”

“Where is volume two of this?”

“Ah, Conquest of the Martial World?”

As expected, the recommendation seemed to have been a tremendous success.

All those years in my youth, when I'd emptied rental shops of anything worth reading and even lined up at opening time on new-release days because there was nothing left, hadn't been wasted.

“Well, I pulled it out in a hurry while sorting the books, so I'm not sure where it is. Why don't you help organize them, and when it turns up, you can read it?”

“You bastard! You planned this from the beginning!”

“Of course not. I really don't know where it is.”

Naturally, the boxes were numbered, so if I'd checked which box I'd taken it from in the first place, I could've found it easily.

But from the beginning, I hadn't looked at the numbers written on the boxes.

After all, I couldn't deceive the Elder, a divine beast.

And so I gained another worker driven by desperate desire.

“Just fill the shelves from the top in the order the books come out of the boxes. You can do it quickly, right?”

“I understand, you brat!”

_________

It took an entire week of working through the nights to finish organizing the books.

Even carrying five or six volumes at once made my wrists ache from the weight, so I fought through the work with pain-relief patches stuck to them. Once the bookshelves had finally been filled to the brim with novels and comics, calling the sight magnificent wouldn't have been an exaggeration.

It was truly an adult's flex.

Including the bookshelves, I'd spent eighteen million won.

I was still driving the old compact car the Elder had constantly nagged me to replace, so spending eighteen million won on a hobby was undeniably excessive.

But I already had precedent.

I'd burned one hundred million won buying this coffeehouse for the single purpose of relaxing after work.

One hundred million won or one hundred eighteen million won.

What mattered was that I was happy right now.

“Hmm, it really smells like a bookshop.”

Every time I walked between the bookshelves, a musty scent tickled my nose.

Some people called it the smell of mold, while others said it came from chemicals released by the books.

Who cared?

To me, having fulfilled my childhood dream, it was simply the scent of nostalgia.

I pulled out a few books I was certain I'd read before but could barely remember because so much time had passed, then returned to the coffeehouse.

Most of the customers in the coffeehouse were already reading with stacks of novels and comics piled beside them.

The Haedong Divine Maiden had chosen romance comics, the Sorcerer had picked fantasy novels that somehow didn't suit his outfit at all, and Dohyeok, as expected, had selected fighting comics.

Of course, among them all, the Elder Nine-Tailed Fox's seat overwhelmingly boasted the largest number of volumes, clearly demonstrating the terror of discovering a hobby late in life.

-Rustle. Rustle.

Even the occasional chatter was absent today.

Everyone seemed immersed in books they'd never had the chance to finish back then, with cups of cold coffee serving as nostalgia beside them.

It almost felt like I'd become the bookshop owner I'd dreamed of being long ago.

But even this rental shop, which seemed to offer nothing but pleasure without responsibility, had its own troubles.

“Where is volume nine of this? I searched everywhere, but I couldn't find it.”

Just as I was completely absorbed in my novel, the Elder asked in an urgent tone.

He was holding volume eight of Conquest of the Martial World.

Ah.

It had finally come.

“Elder, volume eight is the final volume of that book.”

“That can't be! Unso has only just reached the peak realm and is about to go take revenge!”

“Well...”

I fell silent for a moment, unsure how to explain the realities of the genre-fiction world.

“The author stopped writing the series for some reason. The last publication date was in 2001.”

“You're saying the next volume hasn't come out in twenty-four years?”

“Yes.”

It was probably the question rental-shop owners heard more than any other.

‘When is the next volume coming out?’

Naturally, a mere rental-shop owner who simply received new releases from distributors had no way of knowing such information.

The customers who came to rent books were regulars too, so it wasn't as though they didn't understand that.

They were simply asking because they wanted to cling to even the faintest hope.

Then they realized an indefinite wait had begun and fell into despair.

The pain familiar to anyone who had visited rental shops was no exception even for a divine beast who had lived thousands of years.

“Why did you recommend a book that wasn't even finished!”

“It was still one of the most entertaining books I'd ever read.”

“You call that an answer? If I don't know what happens next, none of it matters!”

“Yes, well, that's true.”

“Y-You bastard!”

“But couldn't we find him?”

“What?”

“If the author isn't dead, there might be a way to find him and make him write again.”

“You saw the future, didn't you?”

“Not intentionally. Back then, I couldn't use the Divine Eyes so freely either.”

I had seen it.

Definitely.

At the time, I'd simply assumed I'd imagined it.

It was a story from more than twenty years ago.

____________

Twenty years ago.

I was a student who stopped by the rental shop in front of my school every day after classes.

I'd play basketball or soccer with friends, or go to PC cafés and arcades, but even then, the one place I never skipped visiting was the rental shop.

That day was no different.

“Hello.”

“Jinseong, you're here? Want to take a look at the new releases?”

“No.”

“Come on, take a look for me. Kids like you who borrow five books a day need to tell me whether they're fun or boring so I can return the bad ones quickly.”

“Come on, I might find something fun that everyone else thinks is boring.”

“You? The kid who somehow always picks out the popular ones? Here, I won't charge you for what you borrow today, so skim through these and pick out only the good ones. You don't have academy today, right?”

Pretending I'd been reluctantly persuaded, I sat beside the owner and began reading through the pile of newly released novels.

It happened occasionally.

There were easily twenty new series released in a month.

And all of them had only volumes one and two out. Among them, most were so unpopular they wouldn't even recover the cost of the books, or even if they were entertaining, had little chance of ever reaching volume three.

From the perspective of a rental-shop owner, having boring books take up shelf space was especially disastrous.

Having a heavy reader like me preview new releases was like using me as a first-stage filter.

I read so quickly that sorting through all the new releases took less than two hours.

“That's enough, right? I'll just pick five books to take.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

After spending quite some time filtering through the books, I entered the novel section to enjoy the sweet reward.

“Huh? Mister, wasn't volume nine of Conquest of the Martial World right here just now?”

“What are you talking about? That hasn't had a new volume in years.”

Had I seen it wrong?

And that wasn't the only hallucination I had that day.

Volume fourteen of E-Dragon, volume five of Dark Moon Blade, and even volume twenty-three of Druid of Dongdaegu Station.

New volumes of those cursed books that had turned countless readers into stone statues from waiting were neatly lined up on the shelves, yet every time I reached for one in delight, it turned into another book.

Through the power of the Divine Eyes, I'd encountered books that would be published in the future.

_____________

And now, twenty years later, I could sense that the future shown to me by the Divine Eyes wasn't far away.

“But first we need to find that author bastard before we can coax or threaten him into writing again. Do you have a way?”

“I do.”

“Excellent! That's wonderful! So, what is your method?”

Instead of answering, I stared directly at the Elder.

“You bastard, don't tell me?”

Exactly.

My first method was the Elder himself, who had found in an instant an Imoogi that had remained hidden for a thousand years and who thirsted for volume nine of Conquest of the Martial World more desperately than anyone else.

Even if the author had fled to the Celestial Realm or the underworld, he wouldn't be able to escape the eyes of my customers.