Chapter 49
“Uh……. You don’t sell them?”
The winged fallen angel, blinking, asked the golem.
“That is, cor, rect. The Hunter Tower branch is cur, rently boy, cotting angels.”
“I’ve heard of a boycott where people don’t buy something, but this is the first time I’ve heard of one where you don’t sell it.”
“It is the law, de, cided by our mas, ter.”
And the resolute golem.
“Hmm……. Then give me Maison—the strongest kind.”
And the fallen angel who couldn’t communicate with it.
“We do not sell, it.”
“Come on, then how am I supposed to go to that other convenience store?”
“That is, cor, rect.”
“…I’m not going. No, I can’t go. It’s too far. I’m not going. I’ll just shop here, so sell them to me. The manager isn’t even here.”
The fallen angel scratched her head as though she couldn’t be bothered.
Every time she scratched her head, the halo above it wobbled precariously.
“Even if the man, ager is not, here, the rules must still, be fol, lowed.”
“But I’m a fallen angel. Fallen angels aren’t even angels, so we can’t go to Heaven. And I worship a different god now. I worship cigarettes as my god.”
Worshipping cigarettes as a god.
Was that something an angel was allowed to say?
“Even so, it is impos, sible.”
The golem was resolute.
Perhaps sensing that she had no chance against the golem, the fallen angel, pouting, sidled over to me.
“Hey, part-timer, just ignore that golem and give me some cigarettes. A carton, if possible.”
“……”
What should I do?
It was then, while I was pondering what to do.
“Oh? A human? You’re a real human?”
The eyes of the fallen angel customer looking at me lit up.
Her face brightened, and she leaned toward me while resting against the counter.
As she did, her loose neckline slipped down, revealing the cleavage beneath her collarbones.
Could that drooping feeling really be—
‘No bra……?’
Feeling that I shouldn’t keep looking, I raised my head slightly.
“Wow, the part-timer is human? You’re working part-time at this harsh, hellish vampire manager’s convenience store. That must be tough. That vampire hasn’t tried to bite you for your blood, has she?”
“It isn’t difficult.”
“Hehe, I see. Vampires and humans aren’t the best match, but sometimes they work out well. Anyway……”
She stared at me for a long while, then gave a sly grin.
“You’re the type who has a lot of luck with women. Almost to the point of being a disaster.”
“…Can angels normally see things like that?”
“No. It’s just that handsome humans like you are rare in Taepyeong City. Women like you. Female beastkin especially go absolutely crazy over you.”
“……”
“You’d better be careful walking around at night.”
After saying that, she held out her hand to me.
“Give me.”
“Give you what?”
“I’ll take a pack of cigarettes as my fortune-telling fee. That’s pretty cheap.”
“I don’t think I can do that.”
“…Cigarettes are gods……. I’m the one who worships a god, and I even gave you a fortune reading myself……”
Her eyes turned toward the bottle of water on the counter.
“Wow, isn’t that water spirit essence? Did you get something like this as a gift, too? You must be dangerously attractive. Enough to be frightening.”
“……”
After admiring the spirit water, she shifted her gaze to the golem, which had been silently watching the situation.
Then she let out a deep sigh.
“Sigh, I really didn’t want to use this method……”
The fallen angel sighed and plopped down on the floor.
Then she glared at the golem with a solemn expression and shouted.
What was she planning to do?
“I’m going to lie down, okay? I’ll lie here and hold out. This convenience store discriminates against its customers.”
Ah.
I had wondered if something impressive was about to happen.
But this was just a troublesome customer.
“This is species discrimination—no, angel-race discrimination. Fallen angels are legally considered beastkin in Taepyeong City!! Are you discriminating against beastkin? Are you saying birdfolk aren’t people?”
The golem remained silent as it watched her.
Its expression seemed to say, Go ahead, do whatever you want—as if that would work.
Of course. The golem had no such thing as shame.
But.
“Aaaah, I’ll hold out until this business goes under! I’m sure my master will be thrilled if today’s sales take a hit!”
The fallen angel seemed to have no shame either.
I was the one trembling at the battle between two emotionless monsters(?).
“Mr. Golem, why did the manager refuse to sell things to angels?”
“It is be, cause of our rela, tionship during the Holy-Demon War. Angels have not been han, dled at this store since, then.”
“Then what happens when an angel normally shows up……”
“Usually, if we tell them po, litely, they leave on their own. This reaction is……. dif, ferent from a nor, mal angel.”
I guessed it was because this customer was a fallen angel, just as she had said.
The manager had told me that the fallen angels who remained in Taepyeong City were too rotten to return to Heaven.
‘She certainly looks the part.’
She was the very embodiment of a lost cause.
A broken halo.
A loose T-shirt.
Sweatpants stretched out at the knees.
Slippers dragging along the ground.
If not for her wings, I wouldn’t have even thought she was an angel.
“Let’s just sell her the cigarettes and send her on her way. I’ll explain it to the manager.”
Otherwise, if other customers came in, the convenience store’s image would really be ruined.
“Since she’s a fallen angel, she isn’t technically an angel anymore, just as she said.”
The golem seemed to consider my words for a moment.
“Your opinion has me, rit. Under, stood.”
It nodded.
“Phew, the part-timer is kind.”
“Would you like Maison?”
“Yes. The strongest kind. A carton, please.”
She rummaged through the pockets of her sweatpants and spread several crumpled ten-thousand-won bills and coins across the counter.
I counted the crumpled money, finished the transaction, and handed her a carton of cigarettes.
“Thanks.”
After taking the cigarettes, she tore open the carton and opened one of the packs.
She tapped the pack, then immediately took out a cigarette and put it between her lips.
Then she turned as if she were about to leave, but paused and whipped her head back toward me.
Her eyes, which had looked like those of a dead fish, were shining strangely.
“By the way, part-timer.”
“Yes?”
“What I told you earlier as my fortune-telling fee wasn’t just something I made up. You really need to be careful.”
“You mean the part about my luck with women being on the level of a disaster?”
“Yes. You really, really need to be careful.”
“…Understood.”
She gave me a sly grin.
Perhaps it was because of the dark circles around her eyes.
The smile she gave me was decadent.
She had the look of someone trying to seduce another person.
Why did the look in Asteria of Hellfire’s eyes suddenly come to mind?
I wondered whether an angel was even allowed to look at someone like that.
The same went for saying that she worshipped cigarettes as a god.
I could almost understand why she had become a fallen angel.
Her low neckline swayed again, but I deliberately fixed my gaze on empty space.
“Anyway, thanks for getting me those cigarettes.”
The fallen angel waved her hand and pushed open the convenience store’s glass door.
Along with the tinkling bell, her figure receded.
“Phew.”
I felt as though I had prevented the situation from becoming a truly dangerous nuisance.
“You have wor, ked hard.”
The golem approached me and spoke.
“We should mod, ify the man, ual for deal, ing with fallen angels.”
“It might be a good idea to discuss it with the manager and change it.”
I suddenly remembered what the manager had said.
-Angels who have lost their halos are fine. Those fellows have fallen, after all.
-No. Avoid them, too. They have fallen so far that far too many of them can no longer control their desires. There isn’t a single normal one among those things called angels.
There wasn’t a single normal one among the angels.
That customer wasn’t exactly a pleasant type, either.
Honestly, from the strong smell of cigarettes coming off her, she was the sort of person I didn’t want to get close to.
It was fortunate that she was pretty. Otherwise,
she would have been an unbearable nuisance to deal with.
“Forget it. What’s the point of thinking about a customer who’s already gone?”
I should focus on the matter at hand.
I picked up the bag of trash the golem had sorted.
“I’ll sort this and be back. Keep an eye on the counter.”
“Under, stood. Please, be care, ful on your way.”
Behind the convenience store was a small backyard that also served as a recycling area.
When there were few customers or the trash had piled up a little, we tied the bags and disposed of them here.
Unless there were many customers or things were hectic, I often took out the trash when we had this much free time.
I opened the door and stepped outside.
Creak-.
“……”
Then I had no choice but to stop when I saw the scene beyond the back door.
Whoooosh-.
The convenience store’s backyard in the early morning.
Someone was squatting in a corner piled high with cardboard boxes, exhaling a long plume of gray smoke.
Every time she took a drag, the crooked halo above her head flickered and crackled like a broken neon sign.
It was the jobless fallen angel who had just left through the door.
When she spotted me, she slipped the cigarette from her mouth between her fingers and grinned.
“Oh hey~ It’s the part-timer. Nice to see you.”
It was truly the least welcome greeting in the world.
“……You haven’t left?”
“My house is far away. I’m too lazy to walk, so I’m going to charge up on nicotine before I go. It’s a divine-power recharge, you know. You could call it prayer time.”
I set down the trash bags in both hands and asked incredulously.
“This is our convenience store’s recycling area.”
“I know. That’s why I’m not shaking the ash onto the ground.”
When I looked where she was pointing, I saw that she was neatly tapping her ashes into an empty paper cup—who knew where she had found it.
For a fallen angel, she had a surprisingly strong sense of civic responsibility.
The paper cup already contained two cigarettes smoked all the way down to the filters.
“I figured this wasn’t a no-smoking area.”
“When you’re finished, please throw the paper cup into the general waste bag over there.”
“Yep, yep. Of course. I bought these cigarettes here, after all. I observe basic manners.”
She took another deep drag from her cigarette.
Whenever she exhaled with a puff, the small wings at her waist trembled.
“Are angels’ wings normally that small? I thought they were pigeon wings.”
“Oh, these?”
She fluttered the adorable little wings on her back.
“They shrank because I couldn’t return to Heaven and ran out of divine power. It’s actually closer to malnutrition. If I ate lots of things like chicken, they’d grow right back.”
“……Didn’t you just mention birdfolk while telling me not to discriminate against beastkin? Wouldn’t eating chicken be cannibalism?”
“You really don’t know much, part-timer.”
She answered while grinding out the cigarette butt, which had burned all the way down, inside the paper cup.
“Chicken is a god. Of course an angel should worship a god.”
“…You said earlier that cigarettes were a god.”
“I’m a polytheist.”
What a rotten angel.
“So, by the way, are there any discarded boxed meals today? Preferably one with chicken karaage.”
At the fallen angel’s shameless, blatantly blasphemous request, I realized that Ms. Priella was a much more dignified elf than I had thought.
At least Ms. Priella was an elf who worked diligently.
“There aren’t any.”
“Aww, what a shame.”
After putting out her cigarette, she looked at me for a moment.
“Kim Mincheol, is that the part-timer’s name?”
She glanced at the name tag bearing my name and murmured.
“That’s right.”
“I see……. But, part-timer, why did you suddenly come out to the backyard? Did you know I was here?”
“Of course not. I came out because it was time to take out the trash.”
“Why didn’t you have Mr. Golem do it?”
“I just wanted to do it myself……. Is that a problem?”
At my question, she shook her head.
“No. I think I understand why luck with women keeps piling up around you like a disaster.”
She casually held out a cigarette to me.
“Don’t you smoke, part-timer?”
“I don’t. I’m a nonsmoker.”
“I see.”
Then she nodded, slipped the cigarette back into her pocket, and said,
“My name is Gabi.”
“Pardon?”
“It wouldn’t be fair if I were the only one who knew the part-timer’s name. Let’s call it even.”
“…Understood.”
“I’ll come again tomorrow.”
“Didn’t you buy a whole carton?”
At my question, she grinned.
“How can anyone live on cigarettes alone?”
After saying that, she left the backyard and returned home.
And that night, the manager let out a deep sigh when I told the manager that I had sold cigarettes to a fallen angel.
“That crazy woman finally moved near our store. Well, deal with her roughly and send her away. If you get caught up with her, she becomes a real nuisance.”
After hearing her description, the manager waved her hand and told me to deal with her briefly and drive her away.
They seemed to know each other fairly well.
I couldn’t bring myself to ask how they knew each other.
“…Manager, are you all right?”
“What are you talking about?”
Hmm.
Let’s not stir up trouble for no reason.
The manager seemed to be in a good mood today.
“Nothing.”
“Hehe, next time, I’ll definitely finish it!”
“Yep, I’ll do my best.”
I thought I wouldn’t have to run into the fallen angel again.
I was sure of it.
***
The jobless woman came trudging along.
The halo above her head crackled.
I thought the fallen angel wouldn’t come again since she had bought so many cigarettes, but she showed up again today, just as she had said yesterday.
Beep-.
“That’ll be 8,300 won.”
“Mincheol, I’m back~.”
Gabi, who had placed a pack of sanitary pads on the counter, giggled.
Ah, damn it.
I think I got stuck with the wrong troublesome customer.