Chapter 50
“Why are you making that face?”
Gabi met my eyes, leaned against the counter, and smiled brightly.
Her clothes were no different from yesterday.
A yellow shirt and gray sweatpants.
Her half-lidded eyes were striking beneath the dark circles beneath them.
Her eyes were slanted enough that someone might find her gaze sharp, but.
“You look like you never expected me to buy this, don’t you? I’m a woman too, you know.”
“That’s not it.”
“Hehe, Mr. Mincheol, you’re fun to tease.”
Gabi swung the pack of sanitary pads she had paid for as she glanced around the convenience store.
“That inflexible red golem isn’t here today. Is it on vacation?”
“It’s my shift right now.”
“So it wasn’t its shift back then?”
“No, it wasn’t that. The golem was just helping me with my work.”
“I see~.”
Even though she had finished paying, she showed no sign of leaving the convenience store.
“But you’ve got some serious mental fortitude, Mr. Mincheol. You’re a human who keeps working under a vampire, aren’t you? Aren’t you tired of working under a vampire who keeps going on about being a Jinjo and whatnot?”
“Do you know the manager?”
At my question, Gabi flinched, then subtly looked away and scratched her neck.
“Ah, well……. That person has been infamous for that exhausting personality of theirs for ages, so I’ve heard about them through the grapevine. They were a famous vampire among the angels. I even ran into them exactly once back then…… Ugh, no. Just thinking about it drains me.”
Gabi shuddered and hurriedly swallowed the rest of her words.
“Anyway, hang in there. If they ever come at you saying they want to suck your blood, tell me. I’ll sell you a bottle of my special holy water at a discount. Hehehe.”
I wondered how she would react if I told her I had already had my blood sucked.
But I swallowed those words before they could leave my mouth.
There was no need to give her something else to tease me about.
“I haven’t been harassed. By the way, Ms. Gabi, don’t you work?”
“Eeeh? Why would I work? What a bother.”
Gabi shuddered in rejection as though my question were absurd.
She looked as though she couldn’t understand people who worked for a living.
“Then what about money…….”
“Well, my pension covers rent and maintenance fees, more or less.”
“……Angels get pensions too?”
“Of course. The pension system was just being established around the time Taepyeong City was founded. Unfortunately, I retired…… right after Taepyeong City was established, so my years of service were low and I don’t get much. Ugh, even if I went back to that time, I probably wouldn’t have lasted long. Just thinking about it makes me feel suffocated.”
Even angels had a pension system.
Their welfare system was pretty decent.
“But isn’t retirement something that doesn’t really exist for angels? From what I’ve heard, the hours there are practically hell.”
“It’s hell over there. Worse than hell. I can only say that because I’m a former employee.”
Zzzt.
As she spoke, the halo above her head flickered with static.
“Then don’t you earn your living expenses separately after retiring?”
“Oh, that? I make money off games. I hit the jackpot this morning, too.”
“Make money off games? You mean selling game items for money?”
“Yep, yep. I run three RPGs at once.”
Gabi proudly pulled a smartphone with a screen cracked from corner to corner out of her sweatpants pocket.
“Ah, I had something to show you today. Would you like to see it?”
On the smartphone screen she held out was a photograph of an online RPG’s inventory window.
A glittering +15-enhanced mythic-grade greatsword.
“This dropped early this morning, and if I put it on the marketplace, it’ll fetch a whopping 300,000 won in cash! 300,000 won! Isn’t that amazing? That covers my food expenses for a month. I’m telling you, I don’t need to work.”
“Hmm……. Congratulations. That’s impressive.”
“Right? And here’s the next picture.”
Swish.
Gabi swiped across the screen with her finger.
This time, it was a night view that seemed to have been taken from a balcony railing.
The Taepyeong City skyline in the background had been blurred with an out-of-focus effect.
The focus was on an ashtray piled high with cigarette butts on the railing.
The whole image was also covered in a gloomy purple filter.
The blurred nightscape of Taepyeong City shimmered in purple.
Just as I was wondering what sort of picture this was.
“What do you think? It’s the night view from my room, and when I focused on the ashtray and applied this filter, doesn’t it give off a totally end-of-the-world cyberpunk vibe? I wanted to show it off, but I don’t have a Starstar account. Hehe.”
It was just an ashtray belonging to an unemployed person chain-smoking on an apartment balcony.
But she clearly seemed to believe it had an incredibly hip aesthetic.
“Hmm…… Well, I respect your taste.”
“Aw, you don’t understand my aesthetic, Mr. Mincheol. This is a truly hip aesthetic. And I’ll show you the next picture too……”
Swish.
Gabi was excitedly swiping to the next picture when.
For an instant, I had the illusion that the cracked smartphone screen itself was glowing.
“Huh?”
In the picture.
There was a woman floating in midair with eight enormous wings spread wide, clad in golden armor that radiated holy light.
Above her head, three halos stacked one atop another shone like the sun, and the face looking down while gripping a greatsword radiated unwavering resolve.
A solemn angel with platinum-blond hair streaming behind her, as though she might pass judgment at any moment.
Her eyes, wreathed in dazzling light, shone brilliantly.
Looking closely, she had exactly the same facial features as Gabi, whose eyes were ringed with dark circles and who always had a cigarette between her lips.
In other words, that was……
“Ms. Gabi, that’s……”
Startled!
“Aaaah!”
After checking the screen at my words, Gabi screamed and snatched the smartphone into her arms at lightning speed.
Her perpetually half-lidded fish eyes had widened as though they might pop out.
“Ah, s-sorry! I didn’t mean to show you something like that! Why did the screen swipe over to this side?!”
Her formerly pale face and nape, exposed above her loose-necked T-shirt, flushed bright red.
Gabi, who had been talking about end-of-the-world aesthetics just moments ago, stamped her feet and had no idea what to do.
“Was that your old appearance, Ms. Gabi? You looked really…… cool. Your wings were huge, too.”
“Aaaaaah! Forget it! Please pretend you didn’t see it! Damn it, I put that in my dark-history folder, so why was it here?!”
Dark history, huh.
The ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts that she had just shown me seemed much more like dark history.
Gabi abruptly covered her flushed face with both hands and shook her head repeatedly.
“Forget that picture just now! Red Sun!!!”
There had to be some reason I didn’t know about.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t hate that appearance so much.
Because she had been more beautiful to look at than I had expected.
“Understood.”
“You really didn’t see it.”
“Yes.”
“I showed you something awful.”
Hmm.
I held back the remark that, no matter how I looked at it, her current state was much more of a sorry sight.
“Everyone has a different aesthetic they’re pursuing. Isn’t having your own style only natural?”
Gabi, who had hidden the smartphone, stared blankly at me.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“…You’re the first person to say something like that to me, Mr. Mincheol.”
She continued speaking as she gently waved the sanitary pad in her hand back and forth.
“Everyone always said my, um, dark-history look was better. They kept telling me to go back to how I used to look……. That’s why I ran all the way here, because I hated it……”
“……”
“I’m glad I moved here. Hehe.”
Maybe I should have just told her that her old appearance looked better.
It was then.
Ding-a-ling-.
The door opened, and new customers……
“Welcome.”
Step, step.
The footsteps entering were different from those of ordinary customers.
The intervals between their footsteps.
Even the volume of their footsteps matched perfectly, enough to send a chill down my spine.
There were clearly two customers entering the convenience store, but it felt as though only one person had come in.
The two men were dressed in immaculate white suits, their hair slicked back with pomade so firmly that not a single strand had fallen loose.
Their hairstyles were identical enough to make me wonder whether they were the same person.
Their shirts were buttoned up to their throats, and their ties were knotted with knife-edge precision.
On their chests, golden badges bearing the words ‘Salvation Trading Company’ gleamed, and pure-white halos floated above their heads.
They were employees of the angel company the manager had mentioned, Salvation Trading Company.
I felt suffocated just looking at them.
“Ms. Gabi, do you know how to deal with angel employees……”
I turned my head to ask Gabi for advice, but.
…….
She was gone.
What the hell? Where had that woman gone?
I looked around and found her hiding in the corner of the dried-snack section, only her head poking out as she watched us.
‘What? Could a fallen angel be wanted by the angels?’
That thought lasted only for a moment.
Because the two men approached me with perfectly synchronized steps.
“Greetings. We are Angel Codes 402 and 403, from Sales Team 2 of Salvation Trading Company.”
The two suited angels approached the counter and bowed at precisely forty-five degrees.
I could have sworn a golem was speaking.
Their voices contained not a trace of emotion.
But code?
Did they not have names?
“Uh, do you need something?”
At my question, the two angels looked around.
After gazing around for a moment as though checking the air inside the store, they.
“We use only products handled by Salvation Trading Company. Our company’s products are not available at this store. We apologize.”
“Ah, yes……. Then what brings you here……?”
“According to the results of our company’s current soul assessment, the soul contamination of the brother working at this convenience store is extremely high. The contamination level is 24%, presumably caused by contact with nearby undead. To resolve this issue, we would like to introduce our premium salvation package……”
One of them pulled a thick bundle of contracts from inside his jacket and placed it on the counter.
“No, thank you. I don’t need anything like that.”
“Brother. If you do not purchase Salvation Trading Company’s salvation package, you will be unable to go to Heaven after death. Since souls that do not receive Heaven’s salvation fall into Hell, we recommend purchasing our package to cleanse the contamination clinging to your soul. According to Salvation Trading Company’s internal regulations……”
In short, it was this.
Do you believe in the Way.
With a multilevel-marketing scheme added on top.
Now I understood why the manager had reacted so strongly.
These guys were impossible to reason with.
“I said I’m not buying. And this is a convenience store. If you aren’t buying anything, that’s interference with business……”
“We have come to save your soul, brother. You must place your complete trust in us……”
The angels showed no intention of leaving.
The inflexible men glared at me with emotionless eyes, pressuring me.
I wondered how I was supposed to get these stuffy old bastards out of here.
I was just considering whether I should press the emergency button for dealing with troublesome customers.
Crack.
A sound like something being crushed came from behind the display.
I slowly turned my head and saw Gabi, who had been crouching in hiding, gnashing her teeth and crumpling the pack of sanitary pads in her hand.
“Ah, shit. This is too damn noisy to put up with.”
Gabi shoved both hands into the pockets of her sweatpants and sauntered out from behind the display.
Scrape, rip.
“Hey. Do you two know how to do business properly?”
At the sound of her slippers dragging across the floor, the two suited angels turned their heads in unison.
“A fallen angel……”
“That explains the elevated contamination level.”
“Our company’s information indicated that there were no fallen angels in the vicinity.”
“Initiate the salvation protocol immediately……”
It was while the angels were each muttering a sentence to one another.
“Chapter 4, Article 12 of Salvation Trading Company’s Public Support Manual. ‘When the subject’s refusal is clear, physical or psychological coercion is prohibited.’ Do you or do you not realize you just violated the rules?”
“……!”
When company regulations sprang from Gabi’s mouth, cracks appeared in the angels’ rigid expressions.
“The fallen angel will undergo memory erasure when they leave headquarters……?”
“Who are you, exactly……?”
Gabi lazily jerked her chin.
“Get lost.”
At that moment.
The half-broken, flickering halo above Gabi’s head emitted a crackling sound, and an explosive burst of light poured out.
Fwoosh-!
For the briefest instant, the shadow of eight enormous wings surged up behind her hunched back.
“H-huh……!”
The color drained from the faces of the suited angels as Gabi’s aura hit them head-on.
Their knees began to tremble like aspen leaves.
“Th-this wavelength…… Could it be……?”
“Th-the Almighty First Legion Commander……”
“Shut your trap.”
“Eeeek!!”
When Gabi widened her eyes, the angels flailed as though they had fallen into a panic.
That was all it took.
“S-sorry.”
“We will leave.”
The angels tangled together and rushed out through the convenience store’s glass door, nearly tripping over themselves.
The angels from Salvation Trading Company fled, their screams fading into the distance.
It had all happened in the blink of an eye.
I looked once at the door through which the angels had fled, then once at Gabi standing in front of me.
“……”
I thought they had said something about a First Legion Commander just now.
“Phew.”
Sensing my gaze, Gabi snorted once, scratched the back of her head, and awkwardly opened her mouth.
“P-please pretend you didn’t see that. Hehe.”
“Ah, yes……”
I instinctively pressed my lips shut.
To be honest, I hadn’t really sensed much of anything, but I knew it had been impressive.
Her wings had appeared faintly for a moment before disappearing.
“Um, Mr. Mincheol.”
“Yes?”
“C-could you buy me some sanitary pads? I lost my temper watching those guys threaten me, and I ended up……”
“……Ah.”
She pointed at the burst sanitary pads and gave an awkward smile.
The tips of her bashfully twitching ears had turned as bright red as when she had been caught with the dark-history photo earlier.
“I’ll buy them.”
“Thank you.”
There was not even a trace of that radiant appearance from earlier in her smirk.
But she did look relieved.
I couldn’t even begin to imagine how much she had suffered at her former workplace.
***
“The bastards from Salvation Trading Company entered Jinjo’s territory?”
The manager’s brow furrowed at the news that angels had come.
“Those bastards…… I definitely warned them.”
It was the first time I had seen the manager’s face twist so severely.
“There won’t be any more incidents like this. How dare those angel nobodies conduct business in Jinjo’s territory.”
What sort of place was Salvation Trading Company, anyway?