Chapter 65

I had no idea that a system window would appear for someone who was registered.

Not only was it not anonymous, it was a real-name system.

‘Wait, I don’t think the registration window appeared when it was Park Seonggyeon.’

Since he hadn’t shown any particular reaction, the registration notification probably hadn’t appeared.

But even if I assumed the registration window didn’t appear because Park Seonggyeon was only a sample, when I registered Je Hyun-oh….

“……”

I stopped thinking about it halfway through.

No matter what, Je Hyun-oh had to be treated as an exception.

‘And honestly, registration isn’t the only problem.’

In Clean3, I had used the Divine Protection ability to stop the battle with the butlers.

I had already prepared a lie to explain that.

“Well… I’m not completely sure either, but I think it has something to do with the bound item I recently obtained.”

I rummaged through my inventory and took out the Happy Smile Candy.

Then I solved both the registration and Divine Protection issues at once.

“It turns out this item can use a defensive ability. When I tried to activate it, it said I had to register the target first…. I was in a hurry, so I did it without asking for permission. I’m sorry.”

Since it was a bound item, the captains wouldn’t be able to check it anyway.

‘Sorry, Captains.’

It had been fine when the person involved was Dominic, but I felt a little guilty doing this to the captains.

Even after my explanation, Mo Haein and Kwak Hanmuk still seemed suspicious.

However, they didn’t press any further, as if they were willing to let it go.

I lowered my eyebrows and asked while pretending to look pitiful.

“Would it be okay if I use Divine Protection on the captains in the future as well…? I want to be helpful, even if it’s only something like this.”

Whatever part of my words he found amusing, Kwak Hanmuk smiled with his eyes narrowed.

“Chestnut is pretty admirable.”

Mo Haein didn’t smile. Instead, she gave me a strict warning.

“Only use it when you truly judge the situation to be dangerous. No matter how good it is, an item is still something from a Trial. There’s nothing good about using it frequently. Especially since you, trainee, tend to cause abnormal phenomena often.”

“Yes, I’ll be careful.”

After answering politely, I quietly shifted my gaze.

By then, Je Hyun-oh had approached and displayed a smiling emoticon on his goggles.

He clearly knew that what I was saying right now was a lie.

Of course, like Je Hyun-oh, he didn’t bother correcting the truth.

When I sent him a message with my gratitude, the emoticon changed.

…Was that lowercase letter supposed to be a thumbs-up?

I wasn’t worried that Je Hyun-oh would reveal the truth to the captains, but I was worried he might bother me in some other way.

For example, throwing me at a monster whenever I used Divine Protection.

I would have to be even more careful from now on.

The captains seemed like they wanted to ask me about what happened after Clean3 as well, but right now clearing Sla2Plate was the urgent matter.

So they decided to put the questioning aside for now and proceed with the strategy.

“What jobs did everyone choose?”

The originally planned job choices were:

However, Dominic joined in.

Duplicate choices weren’t allowed, and we couldn’t discuss it with each other, so everything became completely tangled.

As a result, the final jobs were a mess.

Everyone’s jobs except mine had changed.

When I learned that Je Hyun-oh had chosen Berserker, the captains and I couldn’t hide our troubled expressions.

Someone who was already not exactly sane choosing Berserker as his job as well.

It wasn’t a great start.

However, I didn’t bring up anything negative and only checked on the captains.

“Are you both okay with your jobs?”

“The Black Moon Blade is the most comfortable, but an ordinary sword is no problem either. Well, a glaive is also a bladed weapon.”

“…Wasn’t that a spear?”

Mo Haein gave a small laugh and explained the difference between a glaive and a spear.

I had thought they were similar because they were both polearms, but there was a difference.

I had played games with Eastern-style settings before, but I had never used a glaive, so this was something I was learning for the first time.

While storing this new piece of information about her away, I wondered if there were other things everyone else might have misunderstood as well.

I had always only watched them from the perspective of a game, after all.

Anyway, she could handle an ordinary sword well too.

As expected of Captain Mo, I thought as I looked at Kwak Hanmuk.

“Ah, I really wanted to play a mage. I even decided what spells I was going to use.”

Since he was talking nonsense as usual, he seemed fine too.

After organizing a rough plan in my head, I checked the time.

Quite a lot of time had passed while we were entering and discussing various things.

I quickly assigned everyone their tasks.

“Lieutenant Colonel Je, please take care of clearing the area around the restaurant. Captain Kwak, please gather materials around the village, and Captain Mo, you and I will clean the inside of the restaurant—”

“I’ll clean.”

Kwak Hanmuk shrugged.

“Captain Mo isn’t good at that kind of thing.”

“What? What are you—”

Mo Haein reacted as if she couldn’t believe it, then shook her head.

“Do whatever you want. I don’t care.”

I had no choice but to clean the inside with Kwak Hanmuk.

Since I wanted to delay telling Kwak Hanmuk about the slime for as long as possible, it felt like I had been assigned to a slaughterhouse.

Mo Haein headed toward the village, and Je Hyun-oh stood in the very center of the restaurant’s front yard.

He looked at me and waved his hand, telling me to move away.

I ran to the restaurant entrance so I wouldn’t be caught within his attack range, but I didn’t go inside yet and watched for a moment.

Je Hyun-oh lightly swung his metal hand.

The sight of a black trail following the movement of his hand was impressive enough to steal my gaze.

It would have been even cooler if the result wasn’t just cutting grass.

Rustle.

The weeds in the front yard were swept away in a rush.

I had already experienced how excellent his metal hand was for gardening during Clean3.

I thought he would be good at mowing grass too, and I was right.

I clapped and added another task for Je Hyun-oh.

“Lieutenant Colonel Je! Please do the backyard too!”

Then I gathered up the grass he had cut from the ground.

After picking up around 100 pieces and putting them into my inventory, I entered the restaurant.

Bbyorong, a cheerful notification sound rang out.

Looking at the system window reminded me of something I had forgotten.

‘Come to think of it, it’s quiet.’

It used to constantly chatter about this and that, but it had been quiet since Clean3. Even now that the system window had recovered normally, it still wasn’t saying anything.

There had been more than enough time for it to make useless comments.

I felt the soft sensation of the slime resting on top of my head.

‘Don’t tell me… is it being careful because of Dominic?’

The moment I decided that was a fairly convincing guess, the system window suddenly appeared with a pop.

It poured out letters as if it were angry, then suddenly cut off.

I called for the system window in my mind.

‘Why did you stop talking?’

However, there was no response.

I thought back over what the system window had said.

What did it mean that it exhausted its power for me?

I couldn’t guess, since I didn’t remember receiving any particular help.

I didn’t think I had done anything especially reckless either.

The one thing that was certain was that it didn’t have enough strength to nag at me for the time being.

I whispered to the pudding slime on my head.

“Dominic-ssi. Did you see that?”

“Do you mean the dust? I saw it clearly. This place certainly requires cleaning.”

Dominic’s ears drooped as he looked disgusted in a dignified manner from atop my head.

‘Can he only see quest windows?’

It seemed like he couldn’t see things like the system window speaking on its own or notifications that appeared as the Trial progressed.

“Goyo! I’ll clean the second floor!”

Kwak Hanmuk suddenly poked his head out from the stairs and shouted.

“Yes! I’ll do the first floor!”

I shouted back to him.

‘That startled me.’

Because I had something to feel guilty about, I was getting surprised every time Kwak Hanmuk said something.

I wanted to ask Dominic about Kwak Hanmuk, but I didn’t know when he might come back down, so it seemed too risky to talk.

I decided to be patient and focus on cleaning first.

Before properly starting the cleaning, I chose the table that looked the least damaged and cleaned it thoroughly.

I also found a large glass measuring cup and washed it until it was spotless.

“There’s going to be a lot of dust, so please excuse me for a moment.”

Then I turned the measuring cup upside down on the table and trapped Dominic inside.

The measuring cup was exactly the right size for Dominic.

Seeing the pudding slime trapped helplessly inside the glass measuring cup gave me an incredible sense of security.

Dominic drooped his ears inside the measuring cup.

“This place is…. a little uncomfortable, but I will wait.”

After opening the windows and shaking out the dust inside first, I searched around and found a bundle of paper cups.

I filled the paper cups with tap water, lined them up on the table, and dropped two pieces of grass into each one.

I checked the item description.

How dare it call my masterpiece “ugh”!

‘They don’t know how precious drinks are.’

I looked proudly at the 50 cups of Grass Leaf Tea.

Dominic, who had been quietly wriggling inside the measuring cup while watching me, called out to me.

“Roasted Chestnut….”

The tone of his voice as he stared up at me was unusual.

Wondering what was wrong, I jumped in surprise and waved my hands around.

“D-Dominic-ssi, it’s not that! Absolutely not! I only made this as practice. Do you really think I would give something like this to you, Dominic-ssi? To my precious and only contract partner?”

I even stumbled over my words because I was answering so hurriedly.

I repeatedly reassured Dominic.

“I’ll make you a proper, delicious meal, Dominic-ssi, so please wait just a little longer.”

“Yes, Roasted Chestnut. I will look forward to it.”

Dominic replied while flicking his ears.

The gesture was so cute that I wanted to bite him, but it also sent chills down my spine.

Taking care of a pudding slime was not easy.

The 50 cups of Grass Leaf Tea were priced at 0 gold because there were no customers who would pay money to buy them.

‘But if there are no customers who would buy it, then I’ll just make them myself.’

Just as I equipped myself with the mindset of a merchant, Kwak Hanmuk came down to the first floor.

His gaze locked onto the table.

…Oh no.

I had forgotten to release Dominic.

I hurriedly pretended to organize the Grass Leaf Tea and stood the glass measuring cup upright, allowing the pudding slime to escape.

Dominic, who had been stuck to the glass, flipped over along with the measuring cup before slowly wriggling his way out.

Kwak Hanmuk’s eyes followed Dominic exactly.

In a voice that sounded like he was questioning his own sanity, he pointed at the slime and asked.

“Chestnut-ah. Am I the only one who can see this?”

He had seen the pudding slime since the briefing, but it seemed like he had stayed silent because no one else was showing any strange reaction.

At that moment, Dominic crawled up onto me.

“Crazy! That thing again!”

Kwak Hanmuk hurriedly reached out and tried to grab the slime climbing over me.

It was such a quick movement that I didn’t even have time to stop him.

My heart dropped.

But then—

“Huh?”

Kwak Hanmuk’s hand passed straight through the slime’s body and touched my forearm.

Kwak Hanmuk waved his hand around several times, but every time, he failed to grab anything and only brushed against my arm.

As I flinched in surprise, Dominic calmly explained.

“Roasted Chestnut. You do not need to worry about me. Unless someone is my contractor, they cannot touch me carelessly.”

‘You should have told me that sooner.’

I couldn’t bring myself to get angry at Dominic, so I only cursed internally.

At least, I confirmed two things.

Kwak Hanmuk couldn’t touch Dominic. He couldn’t hear Dominic’s voice either.

I immediately discarded the excuses I had been thinking of: “A popular squishy toy was newly released as a Trial item,” and “I couldn’t abandon a baby slime that lost its parents in an accident, so I decided to raise it.”

Then I quickly created a new explanation.

“Why are you doing that?”

I looked at Kwak Hanmuk with trembling eyes, pretending to be worried.

He blinked in confusion.

“No, don’t you see this squishy thing?”

“No. I don’t see anything.”

I asked back with concern.

“Captain Kwak…. Are you okay?”