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Chapter 5
Following my finger, Joohee turned around—and immediately looked flustered.
Everyone behind her was glaring at her murderously for standing there chatting instead of buying anything.
“We don’t have all day here!”
“If you’re not buying, move aside!”
“I even took half a day off work for this!”
See? I told you I didn’t have time for pointless small talk with you.
Joohee’s face turned bright red like a carrot as she bit her lip.
“What are you doing? Move already.”
“I-I want one too!”
“…What?”
Joohee slammed the 10,000 won bill she’d been clutching onto the counter. It was crumpled beyond belief from how tightly she’d been holding it.
“Give me one. Ahem. I-I waited in line too…”
Aha. So in the end, you wanted bungeoppang too?
She’d probably gotten curious after hearing everyone talking about it and joined the line, only to discover the owner was me and couldn’t resist taking a few digs.
“You want to eat bungeoppang made by a mere F-rank?”
“…That’s not what I meant.”
Back in school, she’d expected everyone to cower whenever she said something.
But this was the real world now.
Why would I be intimidated by someone who only acted tough around high school students?
“Why is this taking so long!?”
“Seriously, this is frustrating!”
As the complaints from behind grew louder again, panic flickered across Joohee’s face.
Even so, she stubbornly stood there insisting on buying bungeoppang.
Knowing her personality, the old Joohee would’ve stormed off long ago claiming she didn’t want it anymore.
She really must have been curious about the taste.
‘Good grief… she must’ve wanted one pretty badly.’
Sure, she was annoying, but not enough for me to heartlessly chase away someone who genuinely wanted to try it.
I stopped teasing her, packed a bungeoppang into a bag, and handed it over.
Her expression brightened instantly.
“Here. Enjoy it. Oh, and we don’t take cash at our shop.”
“…What?”
“Hunter Pay only. Remember that next time.”
With this many hunters around, accepting cash would quickly become a nightmare.
So the moment business started picking up, I immediately switched over to QR payments through Hunter Pay.
“…W-Who said I’m coming back!?”
Saying that while clutching the bungeoppang like treasure really wasn’t convincing.
I briefly watched Joohee walk away before taking the next customer.
At this point, I really couldn’t afford to keep people waiting any longer.
Thankfully, even while talking to Joohee, my hands had kept moving nonstop, so I was able to continue taking orders smoothly afterward.
“Ughhh, I’m exhausted…”
Only after baking bungeoppang late into the night did I finally close up shop.
My whole body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.
The moment I got home, I collapsed onto the bed.
“If I didn’t have that skill, I seriously would’ve died…”
If not for the skill that boosted my stamina by 200%, I might’ve given up halfway through.
“That’s why you should exercise regularly, nya!”
“Exercise… yeah, I probably should.”
No matter how much my stamina increased, it wouldn’t matter if my base stamina was trash to begin with.
I glanced at the cat, who was nagging me nonstop.
Come to think of it, I still didn’t know the cat’s name.
‘We can’t keep calling him “cat” forever.’
Our meeting had been unexpected, but we were business partners now. I figured I should at least know his name.
“So what’s your original name?”
“My name, nya?”
“Yeah. We’ve been together a while already, and I still don’t know it.”
The cat grinned smugly.
Then he proudly leapt onto the bed beside me.
“Of course I have a name, nya! A very amazing and magnificent one!”
After taking a dramatic breath, the cat shouted:
“My name is (BEEEEEEP), nya!”
“Ugh! What is that sound!?”
“(BEEEEEEP)! (BEEEEEEP)! (BEEEEEEP)!”
An awful screeching noise filled the room, like nails scraping against a chalkboard.
I could tell he was saying something, but to my ears it only came out as a high-pitched, horrifying noise.
After trying several times, the cat finally gave up and slumped down miserably.
“Sigh. There are too many restrictions in the human world, nya…”
“The human world? Then where are you from?”
Flopping down beside me, the cat claimed he came from a very distant place.
Apparently, he was so talented that he’d been specially dispatched to Earth on an important mission.
‘That sounds more like he caused trouble and got exiled.’
That was definitely the vibe I got, but he didn’t seem willing to explain further even if I asked.
Poking at the cat’s belly, which had spread across the bed like a blanket, I said:
“I don’t know what your original name is, but I definitely can’t pronounce it, so I’ll just give you a new one.”
“You’re naming me, nya?”
“Yeah. Hmm… since my name is Haneul, how about Hanyang?”
It was a combination of my name and the “nya” habit in his speech.
I’d come up with it on the spot, but honestly, it sounded pretty good.
The cat hissed furiously as if he hated it, but I ignored him.
People always said pets with silly names lived longer anyway.
“It’s late, but nice to meet you properly, Jung Hanyang!”
“HISSSSS—!”
I forcibly hugged Hanyang, who was at least twice as fat as a normal cat, and rolled around on the bed with him.
He was warm and soft, like a bag full of hot fish cake soup.
“Gack! I can’t breathe, nya!”
Hanyang struggled dramatically, making choking noises.
What an exaggeration.
Then suddenly, I remembered the shop.
“Hanyang, our shop has a really huge problem.”
“A problem? What is it, nya?”
“The number of customers keeps increasing, but I can only make two at a time, so I can’t keep up.”
If I just had more molds, I could bake multiple pastries at once.
Instead, everything took forever and the output was tiny.
That was why the line kept getting longer.
“Sigh… since it’s an item-making tool, I guess I can’t just buy extra molds separately?”
“Hmmm… there is a way, nya.”
“There is!?”
Hanyang nodded lazily.
“But it’ll be difficult for you to buy one right now, nya.”
“Wait… are you talking about the Hunter Market?”
Hunter Market was something every hunter knew about—a specialized item marketplace for awakened people.
It sold all kinds of items, with prices varying wildly depending on their functions.
I’d always been curious about Hunter Market even before awakening.
Was I finally going to use it too…?
“Hunter Market? It’s not some weird market like that, nya.”
“Then what is it?”
Hanyang proudly declared:
“It’s called Afterlife Dot Com, nya!”
“…Afterlife Dot Com?”
What kind of ominous website name was that?
With a dubious expression, I opened my laptop and searched for it.
“Nothing’s coming up?”
“You’ll never find it through normal methods, nya.”
Leaping onto the keyboard, Hanyang started stomping away at the keys with his stubby paws.
I followed his instructions obediently, clicking and pressing Enter whenever he told me to.
After entering and exiting several strange websites, one final page finally appeared.
[Enter Afterlife Dot Com ⇒]
The moment I entered, an endless list of products filled the screen.
Without hesitation, I clicked the bungeoppang category.
(Amazingly, there was actually a separate bungeoppang category!)
My eyes widened instantly.
“Wow! This mold can make six bungeoppang at once!”
“A bottomless storage container? That’s insanely useful!”
“Wait, what’s this? An all-purpose robot hand!?”
The more product descriptions I read, the more every single item seemed absolutely perfect for me.
Ugh, this is bad. I want all of them…
“But what’s this price unit? P?”
The mold cost 300P.
The storage container cost 700P.
And the robot hand cost 1300P.
Surely it didn’t mean 300 won…
“It stands for points, nya.”
“Points?”
Apparently, points were the virtual currency used on the site, and you could exchange real money for them if you wanted.
“In Afterlife Dot Com, human currency is practically worthless, nya. Don’t expect much.”
Worthless?
How bad could it be?
I checked the exchange rate to convert my money into points—
…and nearly screamed.
“…Is this right? One million won for just 1 point?”
Then the mold alone cost…
300 million won!?
What kind of insane price is that!?
“That’s why I told you you couldn’t afford it right now, nya.”
“Forget right now—I’ll never afford it in my entire life!”
Three hundred million wasn’t pocket change!
Spending a lifetime’s savings on a single bungeoppang mold was just…
“Stop worrying and go to sleep already, nya. An opportunity to earn points will appear soon enough.”
Hanyang said he didn’t know exactly when, but it wouldn’t take long.
And just like the smart cat predicted, an opportunity to earn points really did arrive not long afterward.
