“The Azalea Pawnshop” in the morning had a different atmosphere than at night. It’s an old but tidy building tucked away in a quiet alley. The signboard that stated that it was open 24 hours was lit.
It must be open for business. I stepped inside.
“Hello.”
“Kkyuuu….”
“Are you there? Azalea-ssi!”
I called out to the inside of the counter, and after a while, Azalea came out.
“Hoamm …. Oh my, what a surprise!” Azalea, who was yawning with her mouth open, squinted her left eye at me. Her red hair was tousled and her expression was full of fatigue. She looked like she had just woken up, “I didn’t expect customers at such an early hour, haha…….”
“Ahaha, I have to open the cafe later.”
Azalea sat down on the stool in front of the counter and cupped her chin with one hand. She spoke with a languid expression, “There was a big game board last night, and I’m a little tired from attending it, you know? In this area…….”
Instantly, a picture flashed through my head of a secret gaming room straight out of a noir film. Thick smoke, windowless buildings with passwords to speak and enter, eyes watching each other…….
It was a scene so befitting of an undefeated gambler, but it was not something I wanted to talk about. I interrupted her with an impatient wave of my hand.
“Now, wait a minute, don’t talk about it!”
“What’s wrong?”
“The story of the dangerous illegal gaming house is something …. I don’t want to know.”
“What are you imagining? I’m just playing Blue Marble game1 at a social gathering of the local merchants’ association.”
“Ah, Blue Marble….”
That’s fun, yeah. Why do you say such a story with such a meaningful expression? I looked at Azalea with an accusing look, but she changed the subject nonchalantly.
“So what brings you here today? To drop off your things? Or something else?”
“Oh, it’s because of this slime.”
“….Slime?”
Azalea furrowed her rounded eyebrows slightly. I opened the door to the slime carrier and pulled out Lime.
“Kyuuuuu!”
Now I know what these cries meant without trying to interpret them. What does slime live on, I really want to know too, Lime.
“You told me before that you’re an information merchant, and if I wanted to know anything, I should come to you.”
“…… I did.” Azalea replied with a nervous look.
“What I want to know is, slimes … do you know what slime’s favorite food?”
“…….”
“…….”
And silence.
A chilling silence settled between Azalea and me. Azalea rubbed her temples with her fingertips and spoke in a troubled tone.
“Miss, that’s not the kind of information that I deal with.”
As expected, she doesn’t know about the food of slime either.
I didn’t blame her for her bewilderment, but I was desperate. It had been some time since Lime had been fasting.
“But no matter what it eats, it spits it out! Look!”
I pulled a coffee fruit out of my pocket and offered it to Lime.
“Kyuuuu!”
Pooh! It looked like it was going to take it, but then it spat it out. Again, and again … no matter how many times I tried, Lime steadfastly refused the coffee berries.
“……Hooo.”
Azalea, who watched the scene with interest, took out three paper cups from the drawer. She put the coffee berries that Lime spat out into only one of the cups and placed it on the table.
Sha-shake, shake. Azalea quickly shuffled the three paper cups, then stopped.
“Now, which of these contains food?”
“Kkyuuu!” Lime quickly found the coffee berries in the third cup. I watched in admiration as she did it like a clever puppy doing the nose work.
Was the answer a game? Did Lime need to be engaged by having it forage for its own food?
…Pooh!
But Lime also spat back the berries it found.
Sha-shake, sha, shake. Azalea put the coffee berries back in, mixing the paper cup even faster. It was a dazzling display of mastery, but Lime was completely unfazed. It pinpointed the berries and spat them back out.
After repeating the game a few times, Azalea said with a look of satisfaction, “This child has a talent, would you like to leave it to me? After a little more teaching, I can make it…….”
“……Wait, don’t teach someone else’s slime something strange!”
I panicked and hid Lime behind my back. Lime was almost given a new job. Azalea spoke up, not hiding her disappointment.
“Ha …. perhaps you should take it to the vet.”
“But at the hospital that provides slime treatment, I have to make a reservation first and wait for a month. What if Lime becomes malnourished in the meantime?”
“Well, what I don’t know is what I don’t know, so please go back.”
“You said you’re an information agent! You even gave me a business card and told me that you would give me information if I drop off something worthwhile.”
I sounded like I was grasping at straws, but it was pointless. Azalea looked like she wanted to just send me back and get some more sleep.
“I ……. I was under the impression you knew about that thing.”
“That thing?”
“Well, I guess it’s okay, since I don’t have any other use for it.”
“What?”
Azalea opened the glass display case behind the counter. Moving it around, she revealed a secret compartment inside, from which she pulled out a notebook and held it out to me.
“I got this by accident, not long ago. I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you how I obtained it. It’s probably fate that a customer came in today for such a ridiculous reason. Here, take it.”
“What is this……?”
It’s a very old notebook, and as I hesitantly accepted it and looked at it, I was stunned by the name written in the corner of the cover: Park Heesun.
……This was my grandmother’s notebook.
What made it different from the other notebooks I’d found before was that my name was written on the first page.
━ To my granddaughter, Rieul.
My grandmother’s handwriting was clear. I felt my heart sink.
“There was only a blank sheet of paper inside, but it seems to be an important thing to you……”
I bowed my head and cradled the notebook in my arms, and then….
Whirring. The pages turned automatically without me even touching them. And there was a burst of pure white light. I knew immediately.
This sensation … again.
My mind was being sucked somewhere. A whirring sound. With the sound of a book flipping quickly, the scene in front of me changed.
Into pitch blackness. The image flashed in front of me, then froze in one scene. An emotionless voice, as if spoken by an inhuman being, whispered in my ear.
【The last world that had been reached beyond the eons of time.】
【This time…….】
‘This is…….’
I tried to move my lips, but no voice came out. My vision was locked, and I couldn’t move my body at will. Unlike last time, I felt like I could only watch the vision as if I were watching a movie.
The landscape around me was unfamiliar and barren. Scorched stone rolled across the floor, and I could hear the cries of monsters nearby. This place was inside a dungeon.
Several Hunters moved forward, slaying monsters. Among the dozen or so of them, I spotted familiar faces. Ki Yoohyun, the twins Joo Shinwoo and Joo Shinhee, and Oh Seoho. I couldn’t make out the rest of them, but they seemed to be high-ranking Hunters, judging by their attire and combat prowess.
But the atmosphere was strange.
They didn’t look like a party, but rather just a collection of individuals. No co-operation whatsoever, just an endless stream of monsters to kill individually.
“Tch, what a mess this guy is making.”
Boom! One of the Hunters who had just slain a monster sarcastically remarked for all to hear. The target of his sarcasm was obvious. It was Ki Yoohyun.
“Now, now, now, calm down. We’re already nearing the end of the Great Dungeon Abyss. We have Muwon with us, so we’ll be able to stop the Demon God and return home soon.”
“You want me to trust him? Honestly, how do you know he’s not in league with that crazy cult? After all, the whole thing with this Demon God started from…….”
“Haha, Hunter-nim. Those words are a bit…..”
“I heard that you’re from that Cult too, is that why you’re siding with that madman?”
“Ha, haha….”
Oh Seoho tried to intervene, but to little effect.
This, it can’t be ……. before the regression, this was when Ki Yoohyun climbed the Great Dungeon to stop the Demon God.
However, even though it was only two years in the future, everything was so different. Ki Yoohyun and Oh Seoho were suspected of having something to do with the Demon God’s resurrection because they were from the Cult, and the twins merely glanced at them with icy expressions.
Ki Yoohyun didn’t look like the man I knew either. The man I know doesn’t have that dark look on his face.
The party moved forward, limping. The battle grew harder and harder, and eventually…….
Oh Seoho was killed.
Ki Yoohyun, who had been expressionless the entire time, showed a hint of pain.
After that, the spirit of the party quickly deteriorated. The final floor, reached after many sacrifices, appeared within sight of the Ultimate Gate. The Demon God beyond the door stared at the sacrifices and…….
【The key is not ready.】
【You are not yet qualified to open the gate.】
From nowhere, a thread as thin as a spider’s web stretched out and wrapped around Ki Yoohyun, clutching at his already shattered soul. Despair and pain shone in his black eyes.
‘No……!’
I wanted to scream, but my mouth wouldn’t move. I couldn’t even close my eyes. I couldn’t even close my eyes. Unable to control my own body, I could only watch the scene before me.
Ah.
You’re going to die here. This is how you died.
Poof!
An unpleasant sound was heard, and …… dense darkness enveloped my vision.
Translator’s Corner:
a Korean board game similar to Monopoly ↩︎
