🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 2
She almost swore, but her body was already telling her the truth.
“And what? There’s even a penalty for failing?”
Se-hee’s eyes moved back to the system window.
“What does ‘annihilation’ mean? You’re not just going to kick me out, are you?”
She reread the message, hoping it did not really mean what it sounded like.
It wasn’t like she could simply log out of the game, either.
“So if I don’t run a business, I really disappear?”
A short sigh escaped her lips.
“Fine. I’ll do it. I’ll do it, okay?”
Se-hee quickly took the items out of her inventory.
But there was one major problem.
“Wait. Where’s the gas burner?”
Se-hee gripped the bag and hurriedly searched through the inventory window.
“What am I supposed to do with just the ramen? Am I supposed to boil it or not?”
Instead, a new message quietly appeared at the bottom of the inventory window.
[Current Cooking Environment: Not Secured]
[Please purchase a cooking tool or secure an alternative method.]
Se-hee almost laughed because the whole thing was so ridiculous.
It was telling her to buy something when she had zero points.
There was no explanation, no one to talk to, and several wolves surrounding her.
“Isn’t this false advertising?”
She complained, but the system remained silent as usual.
“What am I supposed to use to buy it in this situation?”
At that moment, Se-hee’s eyes turned toward the metal object wedged between the twisted trees.
It was the truck that had hit her.
“If it’s a truck…….”
Once she thought that far, her heart began beating a little faster.
Se-hee took a step toward the truck.
The wolves immediately growled louder.
She gritted her teeth and hurriedly looked through the truck’s cargo area.
Then she spotted a familiar-looking metal container.
A gas burner and a pot.
“……Seriously?”
The moment she reached out her hand, the inventory window reacted.
A warning appeared, saying that the items were damaged and dangerous.
“Is this really the time to worry about that?”
Without hesitation, Se-hee grabbed them.
For just a moment, the corners of her lips lifted.
It was an expression she had made without even realizing it.
The same smile she always wore in front of clients.
At the same time, the system conveniently interrupted.
[Special Skill Unlocked]
[Capitalist’s Smile (A)]
: When displaying a professional sales smile, there is a certain chance of increasing a customer’s desire to purchase.
“You’re telling me this now?”
Before she could even finish speaking, something changed.
The leader, who had been raising one of its front paws, trembled slightly.
Its growling stopped.
Instead, the leader’s nose tilted briefly toward the pot on the ground.
The front paw that had been ready to attack
did not completely lower, but it stopped moving forward.
“I know, I know.”
Se-hee spoke quietly without lowering the corners of her mouth.
“You think I’m prey.”
That was when it happened.
Immediately afterward, one of the wolves kicked off the ground and charged at Se-hee.
Its front paw sliced through the air.
It came so close that it nearly brushed the ends of her hair.
“Wait, wait……!”
Just as the wolf that seemed to be the leader of the pack opened its jaws wide, ready to tear her apart,
Se-hee turned the lever on the gas burner with trembling hands.
She had no time to think.
Click, crack!
A blue flame cut through the darkness of the forest.
The wolves hesitated when they saw the fire and backed away.
Se-hee did not miss the opportunity and quickly poured the bottled water into the aluminum pot.
She could not become wolf food even after coming to another world.
The water seemed to boil much more slowly than usual.
The wolves circled around Se-hee, waiting for a chance to attack.
Bloop, bloop―
Finally, the water began to boil.
Se-hee tore open the pack of Mansung Tangmyeon in her hand.
Her hand trembled almost uncontrollably as she poured in the soup powder, but her mind was becoming increasingly calm.
The moment the soup powder touched the boiling water, something strange happened.
Swoooosh―!
A delicious aroma burst out, instantly driving away the fishy smell of blood and the unpleasant air of the forest.
A spicy flavor that tingled all the way to the bones, combined with the deep, savory richness of beef bone broth.
It was the essence of capitalism, packed with 70 years of know-how.
“This is the smell.”
The aroma did not simply spread through the air.
It moved almost as if it were alive, pushing its way through the mist of the forest.
“……Huh?”
Perhaps it was because of the savory aroma.
The wolves that had been about to attack suddenly stopped moving and twitched their noses.
Among them, the leader’s yellow eyes flashed before becoming fixed on the noodles cooking perfectly in the pot.
“You want to eat this, right? Stay still until it’s completely cooked, okay?”
Se-hee watched the wolves carefully in case they attacked her halfway through.
But instead of looking ready to attack, every single one of them looked like a dog waiting for its meal.
[Environmental Effect Activated: Spicy Aroma Spread]
“What? No, this is just ordinary Mansung Tangmyeon! It’s the soup powder that did all the work!”
No matter how she looked at it, it was still just Mansung Tangmyeon.
Waterfall-like amounts of drool poured from the wolves’ mouths.
The wolves that had looked ready to pounce on her were no longer looking at Se-hee.
Instead, their eyes followed the tip of the chopsticks she was holding.
“It’s almost done.”
Se-hee scooped a little of the noodles onto the lid of the pot.
The steaming noodles were the only warm and glowing thing in this hellish forest.
She carefully picked up a strand of noodles with her chopsticks and blew on it.
Hoo, hoo―
The moment she put it into her mouth, a familiar taste spread across her tongue.
“Mmm. Just right.”
They weren’t too soft or undercooked.
The soup had also coated the noodles perfectly.
Se-hee nodded as she looked down at the pot.
“That’s strange. Didn’t it say my cooking skill was F? But this turned out fine.”
No matter how she thought about it, this was clearly cooking.
Yet it felt as though her cooking skill had not affected the result at all.
“Does ramen not count as cooking?”
The moment she finished speaking, a blue window appeared in the center of her vision, as if it had been waiting for that exact question.
[Hand of Destruction (EX)]
: Any food cooked directly by you will be completely ruined.
However, cooking items purchased from the System Shop is an exception.
“EX?”
In another world, wasn’t an EX-rank skill usually ridiculously overpowered?
It was a skill that obviously sounded amazing.
But……
“Wait a second.”
Something felt strange, so Se-hee read the description again.
Slowly and very carefully.
“If I cook something, all the food gets ruined? That’s not being bad at cooking. That’s a curse!”
Se-hee stopped with the chopsticks in her hand.
“So that means, I didn’t actually make this well…….”
She paused for a moment before reaching the obvious conclusion.
“The ramen is just that good.”
Se-hee deliberately took a step backward.
She thought about the worst-case scenario and measured how far she would have to run.
In the middle of a monster-infested forest, silence filled the air.
The only sound was the bubbling ramen broth.
When the broth boiled up once more, Se-hee made her decision.
“Okay. Eat.”
Se-hee placed the finished ramen, pot and all, in front of the leader of the wolf pack.
The wolf did not immediately rush at the ramen.
Instead, it lowered its head and brought its nose close to the edge of the pot.
It sniffed the food, its tongue briefly flicking through the steam, and cautiously pulled out a single strand of noodles.
“Woof?”
Once.
Then again.
The wolf’s eyes widened.
After sniffing the ramen cautiously, it suddenly rolled its eyes and began sucking up the noodles.
“Woof! Woof woof!”
A moment later, after devouring the ramen like a storm, the wolf lay down on its stomach at Se-hee’s feet.
“You look pretty comfortable lying there.”
The wolf clung to the empty pot and refused to let go.
Its tail swept across the ground twice.
As if taking that as a signal, the other wolves also lowered themselves to the ground one after another.
Once all the wolves were lying flat, the system reacted as if it had been waiting for this moment.
[Basic equipment for settling down will be provided.]
[One-person automatic tent installation complete.]
“Equipment?”
Before she could even finish speaking, the space right beside Se-hee flickered and distorted.
Then an old tent appeared.
Se-hee stared at the tent for a moment.
She could not tell whether this was a reward or simply a bare-minimum survival kit.
It was a bizarre tent that looked completely out of place in the forest, with a banner hanging from it that read in roughly painted red letters:
[Se-hee’s Supermarket]
On top of that, the tent poles were slightly bent, and there were worn-out patches all over the fabric.
“Well, I guess it’s better than nothing.”
While Se-hee muttered to herself, another window appeared.
[Reward for securing the first customer granted!]
1 old parasol, 3 Maximum Gold
“Coffee too?”
She felt a familiar texture inside the bag in her hand.
Maximum Coffee.
The very lifeline that had kept her alive during countless all-nighters at work.
Se-hee slowly let out a breath and looked down at the pack of wolves lying in front of her.
The leader in particular had settled itself right between her and the tent.
As if this was its territory.
“No way.”
Se-hee spoke very carefully.
“You’re not planning to stay here, are you?”
