Chapter 6
Since the Cheong Clan Alliance incident, the mood on the gallery had changed a little.
… ─[[ Solo Dining Gallery ]]─ …
[Notice: How to Eat Alone]
1. Find a restaurant
2. Go inside
3. Eat
That's it
ㄴ Anomaly Living Its Best Life 360) Ooh
ㄴ Anomaly Living Its Best Life 360) Are you some kind of solo-dining pro?
ㄴ The Fixer Gallery plague has spread all the way over here
ㄴ Anomaly Living Its Best Life 360) Are you talking about me?
ㄴ Who else would I be talking about? lol
ㄴ Yeah
ㄴ Anomaly Living Its Best Life 360) Harsh, man;
ㄴ Anomaly Living Its Best Life 360) You insolent fools! Don't you know I could pull out just one cross and wipe out trash like you in a second!!!
ㄴ Oh, come on. What kind of copypasta is this now?
ㄴ Looks like they wrote it themselves lol
[I'm screwed]
The part-timer at my favorite solo-dining place suddenly confessed to me today
I liked it because I could eat in peace
It feels like my secret hideout just disappeared…
ㄴ Cute?
ㄴ *) He's a guy, dumbass. What do you mean, cute?
ㄴ Aren't you a guy?
ㄴ *) That's why I can't go eat there. No questions.
ㄴ Gay, gay, gay…
ㄴ My goodness
ㄴ Anomaly Living Its Best Life 360) LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
ㄴ *) Quit laughing and get lost unless you're gonna tell me about a good place where I can eat alone
ㄴ Anomaly Living Its Best Life 360) Ha
ㄴ Anomaly Living Its Best Life 360) Is it time to share my gold mine?
ㄴ Anomaly Living Its Best Life 360) (link)
ㄴ Why is it normal?
ㄴ I clicked it prepared for a hack, but it's such a normal post I don't know what to think lol
ㄴ Anomaly Living Its Best Life 360) Do you guys seriously think I'm some kind of virus?
ㄴ *) Keep laughing, Best Life. Yeah, that restaurant list is pretty solid
ㄴ Anomaly Living Its Best Life 360) LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO he’s a guuuuy LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO and a guuuuy coooonfessed LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
ㄴ Oh, come on lol
ㄴ Seriously, you need to see a doctor lol
“Wow.”
Even before this, my account had been pretty well-known on the Fixer Gallery.
More precisely, I was famous as a lunatic who picked fights with fixers whenever I got bored.
“I feel like a celebrity or something.”
But I didn't have this many people following me before.
I got banned whenever I felt like it and had to make a new account, so people who'd followed me couldn't keep up.
But after the Cheong Clan Alliance incident, the way I was treated on the Fixer Gallery changed.
Let's take a look at the head mod's notice for the details.
[Notice: Exception to Permanent Bans]
[One-Punch Man🔸]
From now on, Anomaly Living Its Best Life won't be permanently banned.
The Five-Person Council recently announced a major internal cleanup to reform government agencies.
I figured our Fixer Gallery should take part in that policy, or else there could be repercussions later.
Until now, we'd treated all the questions Anomaly Living Its Best Life raised about various fixers
as total nonsense, but we're going to stop doing that.
Some of it might be lies, but some of it might be true.
Since we all witnessed the Cheong Clan Alliance incident, I don't think anyone will object to this decision…
Still, if Anomaly Living Its Best Life goes too far in breaking the gallery rules, I'll give them a temporary ban, so feel free to report them anytime.
ㄴ You're working hard, head mod
ㄴ Ohhh
ㄴ Yeah, this seems like the right call
ㄴ What the hell was the Cheong Clan Alliance thinking? lol
ㄴ They would've been done for if they hadn't embezzled the money, probably
ㄴ Ohhh, so it was an all-or-nothing embezzlement
ㄴ Anomaly Living Its Best Life 360) Everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The head mod is a super-duper bourgeoisie who gets 1,216 credits a month, so line up here and learn to live off their paycheck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Me first
ㄴ Anomaly Living Its Best Life 360) Head mod, bring me a hambuggy hambuk hambukeo hambuk-stacks Hamburg hambugauga hambigi hamburger Hambugatti hambuggy on and on~~~~~~~~~~~~
ㄴ Really?
ㄴ What
ㄴ They get paid that much?
ㄴ Line
ㄴ Line
ㄴ Line
ㄴ One-Punch Man🔸*) …
ㄴ One-Punch Man🔸*) Anomaly Living Its Best Life, banned for six hours
ㄴ LMAO
ㄴ So how is this any different from usual? lol
ㄴ At least you don't have to make a new account, so cheers~
ㄴ But you know what's crazy?
ㄴ The guys Anomaly Living Its Best Life had been calling out haven't shown up on the gallery since yesterday lol
ㄴ No way, is that actually true? lol
ㄴ Wow, I'd made a note of them too, and not one of them's been around since the Cheong Clan Alliance blew up
ㄴ Looks like the Buksabu arrested them all. Yikes.
If it had only been the Cheong Clan Alliance, it probably wouldn't have been much of a story, given the size of their office….
But the matter grew bigger when people from government agencies got tangled up in it too.
When a Management Bureau fixer-team section chief who'd rigged the rankings through bribes rather than actual results was handed over to the Buksabu, the Fixer Gallery went absolutely nuts.
The rankings, now being put right.
Depending on how that goes, there are tons of fixers who'll either be celebrating or crying.
The benefits you get vary dramatically depending on your office's ranking.
But it'll take a week to normalize the rankings and the agencies.
And while waiting, there's nothing like hanging around on the gallery to ease your frustration.
So naturally, people turned their attention to my posts, which had started this whole mess.
Especially the information I had.
Since lots of people were interested in the mysterious information that proved highly accurate whenever I let something slip, plenty of them put Anomaly Living Its Best Life right in their post titles.
[Hey, Anomaly Best Life]
Do you open every post with your nickname in it?
Will you look at this one too?
ㄴ Anomaly Best Life, banned for six hours
ㄴ *) ? Why?
ㄴ They were acting up in the notice, so the head mod hit them with the ban hammer lol
ㄴ *) What an idiot
ㄴ *) I've got a ton of stuff to ask them
ㄴ You're not Anomaly Living Its Best Life if you don't get banned lol
…Sorry.
I didn't mean to get banned either.
I guess I got carried away because I don't think there's anyone else on the gallery I feel as close to as the head mod.
But what can I do?
This is just how I spend my time on the gallery.
These days, if I don't get banned once a day, something feels off.
Still, I decided against asking Gode right away to make me an alt account.
It's nice having lots of people looking for me, but showing up right away would be a move only a novice would make.
“A true superstar drives both the haters and the fans crazy.”
All right.
I've spent every day on the gallery since I got isolated. Today, I'll give it a proper break!
It'll be two birds with one stone—I can start shaking off my gallery addiction, too!
I immediately opened the map app and checked the location of the number-one restaurant on the Doksan-dong food list.
“I was planning to check it out in person anyway….”
Today, I'll explore some of the restaurants on the list I found yesterday.
I'll visit them one by one and see if they're good places to eat alone.
“Damn. But this list is full of fake chicken places, too.”
I can't really complain, since finding properly raised chicken is harder than finding a star in the sky.
Still, aside from it being an excuse to go downtown, I do want to eat it again.
Real-chicken Ssakssak Chicken….
* * *
About twelve hours later.
Near Doksan-dong in southwestern Seoul, at the former Cheong Clan Alliance office.
After the Judicial Bureau's officers had left, the place stood empty. The woman left behind stared intently at her terminal, waiting for someone who had to show up on the gallery.
“Damn it. Their ban's been lifted, so why haven't they shown up…?”
The person she was looking for was none other than Anomaly Living Its Best Life.
There was only one reason.
She'd lost her job because of them.
“Sheesh. We used to get along pretty well, so I was going to ask them for a favor. Why do they have to disappear right when I need them? Did they figure out I was going to ask for something and run off?”
Cheong Harin, a Grade Ra fixer with the Cheong Clan Alliance.
Her salary had already been late last month, so she was fed up with the company. The moment the Seoul Judicial Bureau's investigation began, she became the first whistleblower.
I mean, my pay was late even though I was right below the three founders in the pecking order!
How could she have just sat back? She'd told the Judicial Bureau everything suspicious that had happened at the office, hoping to clear herself of any charges.
How they'd said they were using the citizens' donations to buy equipment for an operation, but she hadn't even seen the equipment for months.
How she'd increasingly spent time alone with the three founders, and so on.
A kind of plea deal was made, and in the end, Cheong Harin was the first fixer from the Cheong Clan Alliance to be released from the Judicial Bureau.
But getting out wasn't the end of her troubles.
She still had to make a living, didn't she?
Even if she tried to get hired at another fixer office, they'd obviously turn her away at the door since she didn't have a single Sephira.
The Cheong Clan Alliance had made do with conventional weapons alone, without any Sephira, so Cheong Harin had been able to earn a living there. Now that that was no longer an option, she was flat-out unemployed.
That was why Anomaly Living Its Best Life, the person she'd often butted heads with on the gallery, was her hope—her only lifeline.
She wasn't expecting much. She didn't even know if they were a fixer.
But someone capable enough to get the Buksabu involved?
At the very least, they weren't an ordinary person.
On top of that, she had a good reason to tug at their conscience: she'd lost her job because of the incident.
If she could just talk to them, she could beg through tears for the bare minimum of help to stay afloat.
… ─[[ Fixer Gallery ]]─ …
[Is Anomaly Best Life dead?]
[Real contrarian behavior, doesn't show up when you actually need them]
[Best Life, the head mod says sorry]
[99% chance it's a 'buy me a bikini' pic]
[Did the head mod really lift their ban?]
[You should've behaved yourselves in the first place, you bastards…]
[Honestly, even if I were Anomaly Best Life, I wouldn't want to hang around the gallery lol]
But no matter how many hours passed, Anomaly Living Its Best Life didn't show up.
It had already been six hours since their ban was lifted, and there was still no sign of them.
The area around her was gradually growing dim as dusk settled in.
Just sitting around killing time in an empty office was driving Cheong Harin crazy.
“…Maybe I should get something to eat first.”
She'd been sitting there since this morning without eating a thing for twelve straight hours.
Even her growling stomach had apparently given up and gone quiet.
“Sigh. Right. Better to die with a full belly than starve to death.”
With heavy steps, Cheong Harin headed out.
Her destination was a ramen shop with just one item on the menu: chashu ramen.
Even in these times, when it was hard to get ingredients, it was run by a chef with a miraculous touch who could recreate the flavors and textures of the past using substitute meat and grains.
“Wow, my luck really sucks. I came on purpose when it wasn't peak time….”
But for some reason, the shop, which usually had hardly any line, was packed.
The line stretched past the neighboring shop.
“What's going on? I thought I was the only one who knew about this place. Did someone post that Doksan-dong food list on the gallery?”
She could've gone somewhere else, but on a day as stressful as today, she absolutely had to eat something delicious.
Besides, the restaurant didn't have an unlimited supply of ingredients, so if she didn't join the ever-growing line, they might close before she could make up her mind.
“Damn it, I'll just get in li—!”
Cheong Harin hurried over and lined up behind a girl with black hair.
‘…Oops.’
The girl's hair was so long that it dragged along the ground.
She'd almost stepped on it by accident.
‘Ugh. She's dragging her hair through this filthy place.’
Cheong Harin cared a lot about her hairstyle for a fixer, so she always kept extra hair ties in her pocket.
That side of her sometimes made it easy for her to approach people without hesitation.
In no time, Cheong Harin had tied the girl's hair into several ring-shaped loops.
True to her reputation as the fastest hands in the Cheong Clan Alliance, she finished the hairstyle before the girl even noticed.
‘Let me brush off some dirt, too….’
She combed the dusty ends with a fine-toothed comb to get the debris out, then shook them clean. Done.
The girl didn't move at all, even though Cheong Harin had been quite busy fixing her hair.
Wondering if her senses were dull, Cheong Harin leaned forward slightly to get a look, and then—what did she see?
“Mmm………….”
The girl was holding her terminal, deep in thought.
So that's why she hadn't reacted at all.
What was she so worried about?
The girl's behavior was unusual, and Cheong Harin couldn't take her eyes off her as the line slowly moved forward.
She picked up her terminal, put it back in her pocket,
took it out again to look at the home screen, then put it back in her pocket.
She repeated those same actions for a full thirty minutes without changing the order once.
‘Huh.’
She'd definitely seen this kind of behavior somewhere before.
Wasn't it the representative of the Cheong Clan Alliance, where she'd worked?
Right after getting into an argument with Anomaly Living Its Best Life on the gallery, that person had been so angry they seemed to be debating whether to log on again.
Yeah, the girl's behavior now looked remarkably similar to that.
‘Kids act before they think. Maybe she said something she regrets.’
Perhaps it was because she looked so restless and upset.
Cheong Harin found herself speaking to the girl without even thinking about it.
“Did you have a fight with a friend?”
Only then did the girl notice the person behind her leaning their head toward her.
She jumped and turned around.
“N-no~?”
She was unbelievably cute.
Especially those round eyes.
Since the Anomaly Flood had altered people's genes, Cheong Harin was used to seeing all sorts of colors, but she'd never seen such a mysterious shade of purple before.
Cheong Harin felt an urge to pinch her cheeks, but pressed her rising right hand down with her left and said,
“Really? Even if that's not it, you look a little anxious. Are you okay?”
“Y-yes.”
“Good. I was just worried, so I thought I'd ask. Sorry if I'm being nosy.”
“No, thank you.”
Right after that, the girl turned to face forward, put her terminal in her pocket, and didn't take it out again.
Maybe she'd made up her mind, or perhaps she'd hidden it on purpose because Cheong Harin was standing behind her.
‘Ah… there I go sticking my nose in again.’
Did I butt in for nothing?
Maybe I should've just kept quiet after all.
While she was thinking that and staring blankly at the sky, the girl belatedly noticed that her hair had been tied up and poked Cheong Harin's thigh.
“Um, my hair….”
“Oh, oh, yeah. It was dragging on the ground, so I fixed it with one of my hair ties. Want me to undo it? Maybe I shouldn't have…?”
“No, thank you. I'm not very good at doing this sort of thing myself.”
“Well, that's good, then—.”
Just then, a part-timer suddenly ran out of the restaurant and began quietly counting people in line as he went along.
Before long, the part-timer stopped right beside the girl.
He looked at Cheong Harin and said,
“I'm sorry, but I think we've only got enough ingredients to make it for this girl today…. We got a lot more customers than expected. I'm very sorry to everyone behind her, too!”
Ah, damn.
So this was what happened because she'd hesitated for a moment earlier.
The people behind her sighed as if they'd expected it and dispersed.
Cheong Harin was about to give up and leave, when—
“Would you… like to eat together? I… I'm small, so I can only eat half anyway~!”
The part-timer heard the girl's offer and looked at Cheong Harin.
As if to ask whether she'd be willing to have even half a bowl.
Fixing her hair.
It might have seemed like nosiness, but it was still a kind gesture….
Even if everyone had become more selfish, maybe the world was still worth living in after all.
Cheong Harin smiled brightly.
It was the first truly genuine smile she'd given in a long time.
“Thank you so much for inviting me to eat, little miss…!”