Chapter 13
Honestly, it would be much faster to go to the hospital and vomit than to keep howling here.
That kind of emergency treatment is much more effective, after all.
But this beastman didn't seem to have any intention of doing that.
The Minotaur, whose entire body was packed with muscle, was gritting his teeth and enduring it.
That was probably because of the broadcast he had running.
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Look at Uboongie tearing up.
-His expression is completely wreckedㅋㅋㅋ
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋ Look at how fast he's chewing the ice.
-Uboongie, hang in there a little longer. Two million won is right in front of you.
-Legendary brain damage, going to a convenience store without drinking a potionㅋㅋㅋ
-If that's the case, go to the hospital.
-Uboongie's sobbing because it's too spicyㅠㅠ
The viewers snickered as they watched him puff smoke from his mouth.
Apparently, recklessly taking on challenges like this was his main content.
“Ghk, ghaaagh…… bros! I—I really feel like I'm gonna die right now! It feels like a bomb went off in my stomach.”
The Minotaur shouted tearfully while gripping his selfie stick.
White vapor escaped from his mouth each time.
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Stop whining and chew more iceㅋㅋㅋ
-But doesn't he actually look like he's in danger? His lips are completely swollen ㄷㄷ
-Endure it. Are you really going to give up here and walk away with only 100,000 won?
-It'd be a shame.
The viewers were firing off mocking messages along with their donations.
The Minotaur kept bantering with them while sweating profusely.
From where I stood watching, it was obvious that he was at his limit.
‘Isn't his esophagus going to get completely burned up at this rate?’
I couldn't just let a customer collapse and foam at the mouth on our store floor.
If I called the police and an ambulance now, there was no doubt my shift would be delayed again today.
A way to neutralize the spiciness, huh.
“Excuse me, sir.”
“Ah, yess? Huu, is there more ice?”
“There is, but……”
“Then just a little more ice……”
“Eating more ice won't help. You should drink a potion instead……”
“Huu, haa, I really can't do that!”
He shook his head vigorously.
“The condition for the challenge is not drinking a potion……”
“…Is that normally part of the challenge?”
“Hk, whew, no. That's not it, but I'm the one challenging myself. Hck! I have to endure the Lava Fruit for thirty minutes without potions or treatment. I only have ten minutes left. Hk!”
A fruit whose heat even medicine couldn't counteract.
The potions sold at convenience stores apparently didn't work unless the case was relatively mild, so sending the customer to a hospital was the recommended course of action.
And yet this customer absolutely refused to go to one.
This was unexpected.
“It's two million won! I can't give up!”
Two million won was a lot of money, to be fair.
Judging by his determination, neither sending him to the hospital nor giving him a potion would work.
But I couldn't just leave him like this, either……
“There is a way, though.”
“R-really?”
When Buldak spicy noodle challenges, spicy tteokbokki, and Dwijyeosseu pork cutlets were all the rage, there was a drink I would sometimes have after eating spicy food.
A magical drink that instantly settled the churning in my stomach after just one sip.
I didn't know whether it was genuinely that effective, but my stomach always felt better afterward.
I got up and walked over to the refrigerated display case.
Two of the biggest Big Size ice cups.
One one-liter pack of peach-flavored Coolpis.
And some rich milk, too.
It was a K-antidote cocktail.
“I'll mix this for you, so drink it.”
As I began pouring the Coolpis and milk into the ice cups and mixing them, the Minotaur and his viewers erupted in puzzled reactions.
-?? Did the part-timer suddenly become a cocktail bartender?
-He's going to put out the Lava Fruit's heat with Coolpis? ㅋㅋㅋㅋ Is this guy for real?
-No, bro Uboongie! You think a cheap drink like that can put out the fire? ㅋㅋㅋ Buy a potion, buy a potion!
-If he buys a potion, he fails the challenge, so why would he?ㅋㅋㅋ
-The part-timer's eyes are so damn serious, it's hilariousㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
The Minotaur blinked at me.
“W-will this really work?”
“I don't know.”
“Huh?”
“I don't know whether it'll work. I'm not a doctor, and I have no idea how effective it is. I'm just giving you the cocktail I used to drink when I ate spicy food.”
“Ah……”
“You said you weren't going to drink a potion.”
At my shameless answer, the Minotaur looked flustered.
The viewers' chat began racing upward, too.
-Lmaoㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-He's honest.
-That's fair.
-Milk does make it a little better after eating something spicy.
-If you're not going to drink a potion, have that at least.
-The part-timer's pretty smart.
The Minotaur glanced at the broadcast, then squeezed his eyes shut.
“Screw it, who cares! I'll drink it! If it doesn't calm down, I'll go to the hospital!”
Was the hospital perhaps faster than this, anyway?
He began gulping down the Coolpis milk.
And that was when it happened.
Fwoosh—.
A faint pale-green light shimmered from his body.
“Hmm?”
Neither the Minotaur nor the viewers seemed to notice.
The viewers mocked him in the chat, saying it wouldn't do anything, while the Minotaur desperately drank the Coolpis milk.
But I could clearly see his body glowing faintly.
-“Didn't it get on your hands, too? That World Tree pollen!”
I remembered the manager's voice shouting that.
The pollen she said had gotten on me while I was planting the World Tree.
But no matter how I looked, I hadn't been able to see it……
Could that be the power of the pollen?
The Minotaur's eyes widened as he drank the Coolpis milk.
“Huh?”
He stared at the milk he had been drinking in surprise, without even thinking to wipe the milk from around his mouth.
“What is this? What? Why is my stomach calming down……”
When he set down the empty cup, the faint light flowing from his body died away.
Whatever it was, it seemed to have been absorbed properly.
The man who had been howling about his stomach boiling was now calmly staring down at his own abdomen.
The Minotaur set down the cup of ice and repeatedly rubbed his belly.
“Bros! It's a little better now. It still stings, but I can really endure it at this level. I felt like I was going to die before, but now I feel like I'm going to live!”
He shouted toward the camera as if he couldn't believe it.
The chat window, which had been racing upward like mad, froze for an instant before exploding with messages.
-???
-What?
-Did it really calm down?
-Without even drinking a potion?
-What's that cocktail?
-Don't mess with us.
-Wow, a convenience-store bartender miracleㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Uboongie's expression looks so realㅋㅋㅋ
-Looks like it really doesn't hurt anymore.
“Wow……. How did you do that?”
***
Sonya reveled in having a day without a single schedule for the first time in ages.
Ever since she had cleared the Tower recently, she hadn't had a single day without a schedule.
Television-station interviews, variety-show appearances, sparring with her colleagues, simulations for future raids, feedback sessions on the seventy-second floor she had cleared, and even lectures for younger hunters she took along with her.
She had spent her time as if even ten bodies wouldn't have been enough.
Now that she finally had a chance to rest, she turned on an internet broadcast she had been leaving on in the background whenever she had a spare moment.
Uboongie's hunter stream.
It wasn't because she thought he was entertaining.
She had only turned it on because his stream was at the very top.
It was something like a habit or routine.
She simply played whichever broadcast was at the top when she logged in.
She found it difficult to bear having her room fall silent.
Even though she was more burdened by other people's eyes than anyone else,
even though she tried to retreat into the darkness whenever she rested alone,
she couldn't actually stand it when silence descended.
She usually played internet broadcasts because they allowed the streamer to communicate with viewers in both directions.
Even while alone, she could find a little comfort in feeling as if she weren't truly alone.
“This is boring.”
She clicked her tongue at the broadcast, which did nothing to stimulate her dopamine, and was about to turn it off.
Then she realized that the convenience store Uboongie had hurried into looked familiar.
“Huh? This is……”
It was the convenience store she had visited.
The place with the part-timer who hadn't recognized her.
She had been about to turn off the broadcast, but instead watched it quietly.
And she quietly watched the part-timer mix a cocktail for Uboongie.
“Could that be……”
A strange reaction she sensed in the fleeting moment when he mixed the cocktail.
A faint glimmer that neither the viewers nor Uboongie himself noticed.
As an S-rank hunter, she recognized the identity of the light glimmering from Kim Min-cheol's hands.
“World Tree pollen?”
World Tree pollen.
It was a powder famous for never clinging to anyone unless the World Tree genuinely acknowledged them.
Its power alone could heal injuries, and it was also a supreme alchemical ingredient used in all kinds of magical reagents and magic circles.
“Don't be ridiculous! That's really World Tree pollen?”
That was how difficult this pollen was to obtain.
Even elves had experts who specialized in obtaining it because most of them couldn't acquire World Tree pollen themselves.
And now an existence other than an elf possessed pollen that only those acknowledged by the World Tree could receive?
“How……?”
How picky was the World Tree, after all?
Even she, an S-rank hunter, had failed to earn the World Tree's recognition and had been unable to obtain its pollen.
And yet the part-timer possessed it.
“I did think he couldn't possibly be an ordinary part-timer……”
World Tree pollen was something she had struggled for quite some time to obtain.
It was an essential item for clearing the seventy-third floor.
The pollen she had never even found a clue to despite clearing all the way to the seventy-second floor was now visible right before her eyes.
She couldn't hold herself back.
She immediately stood up.
She didn't care that it was broad daylight and the streets were crowded,
nor did she care that people's eyes would be drawn to her, as she put on her hat and mask and went outside.
“I have to ask him.”
She wanted to ask.
Where he had gotten it.
How he had obtained it.
And perhaps,
whether he could give her a little.
Her footsteps quickened.
***
“Bros! Thanks for watching Uboongie's challenge today. I'll make and drink this magic cocktail again sometime. It was seriously legendary! Well, that wraps up today's stream! Uba, everyone!”
He winked at the camera, then finally pressed the button on his selfie stick to end the broadcast.
“Sorry for the trouble. I'm really sorry. And thank you. You saved my life. I seriously thought I was going to die.”
Unlike when he had been streaming, his expression as he bowed and apologized was quite serious.
This was probably what he was really like.
“Please ring me up.”
“The ice you ate, plus the Coolpis and milk, comes to 34,000 won.”
After swiping his card, he scratched his head and looked at me.
“About that cocktail recipe. Could you tell me how to make it?”
“Well, it isn't difficult, but……”
I gave him a rough ratio of Coolpis to milk.
“And this is a token of my appreciation.”
He held out a stack of crisp bills.
It was 400,000 won.
“I succeeded thanks to you. If you hadn't been here, I'd probably be on my way to the hospital by now. Please think of it as covering my hospital bill and accept it without hesitation.”
“Huh? But……”
“Please take it. I'm a hunter in my own right, you know. I couldn't feel it when I was drinking it, but now I can sense it clearly. There is definitely some incredible energy in this milk cocktail. The feeling of my insides being washed clean in an instant—it's impossible that milk alone could suppress heat that even potions can't easily cure.”
He seemed to be laboring under a serious misunderstanding.
Apparently, he thought the reason his stomach had calmed down was some incredible magic, when it was actually the effect of the World Tree pollen that had gotten on my hands.
Hmm.
That wasn't it.
But I didn't bother correcting him.
It seemed like it would require a complicated, boring, and pedantic explanation.
“Honestly, the energy was so incredible that even this money feels far too little. If it were for hospital bills, I would've had to spend much more. So please, accept it.”
I thought for a moment, then took the bills he offered me.
It would have been rude to refuse for no reason.
“Thank you. If you eat something spicy again, you'd be better off going to the hospital.”
“Haha! I won't go anywhere near a Lava Fruit next time! Take care!”
That was how I sent the customer off and began cleaning up the scattered ice.
Ding—.
The bell rang, announcing the arrival of a new customer.
I looked up.
“Welcome.”
The woman who had visited our store last night was standing in the doorway.
She wore a black baseball cap pulled low, a black mask covering more than half her face, and a loose zip-up hoodie.
It was the exact same, thoroughly suspicious look as yesterday.
I stood the mop against one side and headed toward the counter.
I had expected her to wander around the store like a ghost again, but she came straight to the counter without hesitation and stopped in front of me.
“Oh, you haven't picked out anything to pay for today……”
“Where did you get that powder?”
Golden eyes gazed at me.
“Huh? What powder?”
When I asked in confusion, she leaned her upper body slightly over the counter and whispered,
“The power you used on the Minotaur earlier.”
“……”
“World Tree pollen.”
‘She recognized it?’
Neither the Minotaur himself nor the tens of thousands of viewers had noticed anything at all.
The Minotaur hadn't realized it until quite some time after consuming it.
And someone who hadn't even been in our store had recognized it?
Who on earth was this woman, to possess an eye for these things on the same level as the manager?
“I just mixed Coolpis and milk to neutralize the spiciness because the customer said his insides were burning. That's all.”
“……”
Even after my answer, her eyes refused to leave me.
She blinked slowly for a long moment, then finally leaned back.
“…I see. Everyone has at least one secret they'd rather keep hidden. I'm sorry. I was being terribly rude.”
She didn't press me any further.
Her gaze softened as she picked up a tuna-mayo triangle kimbap and a drink from the display, then placed them on the counter just as she had yesterday.
“Ring me up. And throw away the receipt like yesterday.”
“Ah, yes. That comes to 2,700 won.”
The woman took her things and headed for the same corner table where she had sat yesterday.
As she peeled off the wrapper and bit into the triangle kimbap, her gaze clung to me throughout the entire meal.
‘Seriously, all I did was mix in some milk. Why is she looking at me like that?’
I gripped the mop again, sweating nervously inside.
This is making me uncomfortable.