Chapter 67

It could be said that this was like scooping up Han River water and selling it.

I shouted as if I were deeply moved by the twins.

“Thank you! Since I knew I would be meeting the two of you, I brought a little human food with me in advance.”

Flames erupted, and a table and chairs made of red marble appeared.

Ella crossed her legs and sat down on the chair as she commanded.

“You have prepared quite well. Let us see what you have brought.”

Together with Kwak Hanmuk, I lined up 50 cups of Leaf Tea on the table.

The twins each drank a cup of Leaf Tea.

Ellun, who had maintained a languid expression the entire time, suddenly widened his eyes. With a shocked expression, Ellun spoke.

“It tastes bad….”

Ella also shuddered the moment she took a sip and harshly criticized it.

“Terrible! You have no talent for cooking, so choose another profession immediately. This is all garbage!”

Then she burned all the Leaf Tea on the table to ashes.

Kwak Hanmuk did not forget to put on an act.

“Ah…! My younger brother Chestnut stayed up day and night, putting his heart into making those Leaf Teas…!”

Thud.

When he collapsed face-first onto the ground, Ella shouted angrily.

“Get out of here!”

Ellun quietly blinked while looking at me.

A welcome notification appeared.

Sla2Plate had an excellent system called tips, where customers would sometimes pay more than the listed price of the food.

This time, after seeing Kwak Hanmuk pretending to be pitiful, Ellun had added 10G as a tip.

After earning a total of 60G, I lowered my gaze and spoke sadly.

“I’m sorry…. Next time, I will definitely bring food that satisfies Ella-nim and Ellun-nim.”

I felt bad, but tomorrow would also be Leaf Tea.

At the beginning, when money was tight, I had no choice but to feed them only Leaf Tea.

After promising the twins that I would return tomorrow as well, I left the dungeon.

“Wow….”

Kwak Hanmuk let out an impressed exclamation and spoke with a very satisfied expression.

“As expected of you, hyung-nim. I’m freaking rich now.”

Showing his fangs as he grinned, he stuck close to my side and chuckled.

“Make me do something like this again. This is insanely fun.”

Dominic seemed to have enjoyed it quite a bit as well. In a voice filled with amusement, he complimented me.

“That was a touching performance. Roasted Chestnut, you would have done well as an actor too.”

‘It wasn’t that impressive, Dominic-ssi.’

After receiving overwhelming praise and bringing the play to an end, I headed toward the village general store together with Kwak Hanmuk.

It was while I was happily thinking about what to buy at the general store with my 60G.

Kwak Hanmuk narrowed his eyes.

“What’s that?”

Several sturdy-looking men were blocking the narrow forest path.

With a bright, cheerful pyorong sound, a notification appeared.

We had encountered bandits.

The bandit event normally almost never happened in the very early stages.

However, on rare occasions, the event could occur after overcoming its low probability.

If you encountered bandits at the very beginning, before you could properly level up or obtain equipment, that run could be considered ruined.

But right now, I had Kwak Hanmuk.

And what did the bandits have?

‘Money.’

Unable to hide my joy, I answered.

“Customers, Captain Kwak!”

Kwak Hanmuk dusted off the dirt stuck to his suspenders and jeans before turning around to look at me.

I gave Kwak Hanmuk a thumbs-up with both hands.

“Excellent.”

And while Kwak Hanmuk dealt with the bandits, I ran to the general store and spent the huge sum of 5G on a rope, which I used to tie up the unconscious bandits one after another like sausages.

Then, together with Kwak Hanmuk, I dragged them back to the restaurant.

When we returned while dragging the bandit group along, Mo Haein, who had been finishing up the cleaning, looked at me with bewilderment.

“Trainee…?”

To her, who looked confused about what was going on, I first looked for Je Hyun-oh.

“Lieutenant Colonel Je?”

“He’s carving trees in the backyard.”

It seemed he had developed a hobby of trimming trees after entering Sla2Plate.

Having a non-violent hobby was a good thing. Especially since he had hands suitable for gardening.

I left Je Hyun-oh to create ornamental trees and quickly went inside the restaurant to diligently make Leaf Tea.

One cup per person.

After preparing enough according to the number of people, the bandits soon began waking up one by one.

I smiled at the bandits.

“You must be thirsty after doing bandit work in broad daylight, right? Have one cup each.”

The bandits stared blankly at the rows of Leaf Tea lined up in front of them.

In front of them was a paper box proudly placed there with a short phrase written on it.

The bandits exchanged glances with each other before hesitantly picking up the Leaf Tea.

And the moment they each took a sip, they showed intense reactions.

“Uweeek!”

“Ugh…! What is this?!”

“Is this water made from food waste?!”

While all kinds of chaos broke out, one of them tried to escape outside.

Mo Haein, who was standing guard at the door, held a kitchen knife to his throat.

Then she briefly said.

“Tip.”

There was no bandit who could refuse the tip request of such a kind employee.

They obediently emptied all the money they had and left after paying tips for the Leaf Tea.

Gold piled up inside the paper box.

With a cheerful pyorong! sound, a satisfying notification appeared.

To earn a whopping 120G.

It felt like winning the lottery.

On top of that, my level had risen significantly while defeating the bandits.

Since we were judged as a five-person party, some experience was divided, but with just a few small quests completed here, the entire Special Mission Team could reach level 10 by today.

That meant we would be able to enter the dungeon starting from the second day.

Just thinking about starting ingredient gathering tomorrow night naturally brought a smile to my face.

Mo Haein lowered her kitchen knife and stared at me.

“I’ve lived my whole life and this is the first time I’ve seen someone extort money from bandits.”

Was that a compliment?

I was about to laugh shyly, but I quickly read the words “crazy bastard” in her eyes and controlled the corners of my mouth.

“Captain Mo. Let’s think of it as rehabilitation costs.”

Kwak Hanmuk shook the tip box and smiled wickedly.

With 175G in my possession, I happily headed to the general store to shop.

Before that, I briefly stopped by the backyard to check what Je Hyun-oh was doing, and all the trees that had been wild had been transformed into decent-looking ornamental trees.

“Lieutenant Colonel Je! Once you finish the backyard, please take care of the front yard too.”

When I explained that the better the restaurant’s scenery looked, the more bonus reputation points it would receive, Je Hyun-oh clicked his metal hand.

I became slightly nervous, wondering if I had been too demanding, but he displayed an emoticon on his goggles.

“……”

What was that supposed to mean?

For just a moment—only a very brief moment—I thought that Je Hyun-oh had been treating me much more gently since entering Sla2Plate this time.

However, even after trying to guess the reason, I could not figure it out at all.

He was someone who could not be understood through ordinary common sense.

‘Could this be something like a retreat before making a greater leap forward…?’

Since he was a teammate, he probably wouldn’t kill me.

But he might just trim me into an ornamental tree.

The way he stared silently really made it feel like that, so I quickly escaped under the excuse of going shopping.

At the general store, I carefully selected and purchased the items I needed most.

Aside from the basic cooking tools equipped in the restaurant, I purchased one upgraded cooking tool, one bag for expanding my inventory, and one apron.

When the restaurant employees equip appropriate outfits, the chance of receiving tips increases.

However, at the beginning, there was no money to afford things like chef uniforms or waiter uniforms.

Therefore, I equipped an apron and aimed for a little extra income.

In particular, when a chef wears an apron, the chance of customers giving tips for their food increases.

After shopping, I finished organizing the restaurant, completed some simple quests, and even finished processing the gathered materials. Before I knew it, the first day had come to an end.

There were no lights around the restaurant at all, so outside was completely dark.

When I went up to the second floor of the restaurant, which was used as the employees’ quarters, it was a mess there as well.

Kwak Hanmuk had cleaned it as much as possible, but there was no basic furniture.

There was only a ceiling and floor; the environment was practically no different from sleeping outdoors.

When I played the game in parties with unfamiliar users, I had been obsessed only with upgrading the restaurant, regardless of whether I had to sleep outside or not.

Employees could sleep on dirt floors, but customers’ plates had to be luxury!

That had originally been my restaurant management principle.

But not anymore.

Since everyone had entered the trial for my sake, I wanted to provide them with a comfortable environment.

‘Need to earn money quickly.’

Thinking that I would desperately make money, I checked the time.

At midnight, you automatically fell asleep.

Since falling asleep somewhere other than the designated bed resulted in death, we hurriedly scattered to our respective rooms.

Before going to sleep, Kwak Hanmuk grabbed my shoulder one last time.

“F*ck, I can still see it….”

After confirming that he could still see the pudding slime, he disappeared with a gloomy expression.

I entered my room and lay down on the straw bed.

It was a bed that vividly reminded me of CallOVo’s detention cell.

The pudding slime that I had placed on my stomach slowly crawled downward.

It seemed to press itself against the straw bed, but then it froze for a moment before calmly climbing back onto me.

He didn’t say anything, but it was obvious he had been startled by the rough texture.

He was an extremely high-class slime that had probably never once in his life lain down in a shabby place like a straw bed.

I waited until Dominic secured a safe spot on top of me, then called out to him.

“Dominic-ssi.”

Then I pleaded in the most pitiful voice possible.

“We’re the only ones left now. Could you tell me about that? How can I see Dominic-ssi even though my rank is low?”

I wanted to know the truth.

However, Dominic did not answer and only continued laughing. It seemed that my curiosity about the situation was amusing to him.

What appeared in front of me afterward was.

It was a broken system window.

I could not hide my stiffening expression.

What… was this?

This wasn’t CallOVo.

The memories I had buried away resurfaced, and goosebumps rose on my cheeks.

From atop my chest, Dominic spoke kindly.

“How is it, Roasted Chestnut?”

“……”

“Since Roasted Chestnut’s rank is still low, I thought it would be dangerous to tell you without receiving anything in return, so I made this.”

“……”

“Hmm, the craftsmanship is a bit lacking. I will bring you a better version next time.”

“……”

“Roasted Chestnut should be able to make things like this soon as well. You are still young, but you will grow quickly.”

He did not forget to modestly lower his own abilities.

Saying that there were cases where young ones learned quickly, Dominic continued speaking in a gentle tone.

I barely managed to open my lips.

“Ah…. Thank you.”

How much time was left until Dominic regained his true nature?

Until then, I would do my best to make him like Earth as much as possible….

But I had no idea what kind of existence Dominic would become once his memories returned.

A feeling like I was staring into an endless void with no end washed over me.

To avoid being consumed by that overwhelming feeling, I firmly clenched my teeth.

And as if nothing had happened, I asked with a slight smile.

“Dominic-ssi. Could you teach me how to make this too?”

Although Dominic frightened me, creating quest windows was an ability I wanted to continue having.

Since I had registered the entire Special Mission Team, if I could create quest windows, I would be able to use them effectively.

“Hmm…. If it is alright, may I take a look at Roasted Chestnut?”

“What do you mean by ‘take a look’?”

“I was thinking of checking inside Roasted Chestnut. Since Roasted Chestnut is young, it would be better to approach it through the old method. Starting with the heart first….”

After hearing Dominic’s explanation that followed, I started feeling sick.

Perhaps because he was an alien slime, he seemed unaware that humans on Earth died if their insides were rummaged through.

“Is there another way besides that?”

When I spoke with a desperate desire not to be tortured while alive, Dominic let out a low laugh.

“It won’t hurt.”

It sounded like something a doctor would say to a patient pretending to be sick.

I shuddered inwardly.

“I’m scared of things like that. If there is another way, I would appreciate it.”

“If that is the case, then it cannot be helped. For now, that is the only method I remember.”

Dominic immediately backed down after I refused, without asking again.

“I will tell Roasted Chestnut once I remember another method.”

“Thank you.”

I had been a little nervous that he might check forcibly, so I secretly felt relieved.

In any case, it seemed that I would not be able to receive help regarding the quest window.

Since trying to receive Dominic’s help might cause me to pay an even greater price, I thought it would be best to quietly focus on closing the trial.

I left the pudding slime wandering freely on top of me and closed my eyes.

Perhaps because I had cleaned the restaurant too hard, sleep had been overwhelming me for a while.

While thinking about the things I had to do tomorrow, the moment midnight arrived, the system forcibly put me to sleep.

Maybe it was because I was too tired.

I couldn’t sleep deeply and had a strange dream.

A dream where Dominic finally checked inside my body.

The 3-meter-tall man split open my chest with his large hands.

As I struggled in fear, terror, and pain, Dominic whispered the same words to me over and over.

Then, at some point, it really became alright.

Looking at me, who was amazed, Dominic seemed to smile.

Having regained my peace, I soon sank into a very deep sleep.

Completely forgetting the bad dream.

And the next morning.

Dominic had disappeared.