24-Hour Friendly Market, Specializing in Dimensional Items - Chapter 105

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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24-Hour Friendly Market Specializing in Dimensional Items Episode 105

Episode 105. Same Result

I definitely put down the magic harp behind me before Kim Seol thrust the menacing Winterfrost at me.

Thanks to the “Frozen Sea” that Kim Seol used with genuine intent to kill me, Sminac became ruins, but it should be somewhere around here.

But.

“Where did it go?!”

I shouted while digging through debris and sand scattered haphazardly in all directions.

It’s natural that it wouldn’t be easy to find right away.

Even though it had a description full of typos, it was A-grade so it shouldn’t have broken easily.

‘Don’t tell me it froze along with Kim Seol’s skill and shattered?’

If it was the ultimate skill of S-rank Hunter Kim Seol, it wouldn’t be impossible.

Just imagining it makes me dizzy.

Even while I was frantically turning over the sandy ground in panic, Kim Seol just stood there quietly.

Kim Seol, who had been rolling her eyes while staring into space, spoke in a monotone voice.

“Park Ji-woon says he’s coming this way.”

“Only now? After everything’s over?”

It’s welcome news to hear, so kind words come out naturally.

Kim Seol, tainted by my sarcasm, responded in an equally blunt tone.

“It’s not over yet.”

Right, I know too that it’s only over when the scenario completion notification appears.

That scenario that gets completed just by bringing the magic harp to the kraken who lived such a sad life.

I let out a deep sigh and collapsed onto the debris.

Kim Seol, who had been quietly staring into space as if talking with the strategy team, suddenly asked.

“Shouldn’t you hide that face from Park Ji-woon too?”

“….”

Park Ji-woon knows this face. We have a behind-the-scenes relationship.

It’s a reasonable suggestion, but I don’t have the energy to worry about such things right now.

It bothered me that the opportunity had vanished so futilely when I was about to complete the hero’s narrative by stealing all the strategy team’s roles.

Being an ordinary citizen who grew up normally, the chance to become South Korea’s hero isn’t something I can easily give up.

‘Now that my face is already exposed, if even this falls through, I’ll cry.’

I really will cry.

For reference, I haven’t cried since my parents’ funeral.

I pulled myself together and opened my inventory.

The Discoverer’s Eye, which has been particularly useful on This Floor, glowed brilliantly once again.

“What’s that now?”

Kim Seol, who had lowered her guard toward me after learning I was a woman, asked casually, but I ignored her words and commanded the Discoverer’s Eye.

“Find the magic harp.”

The Discoverer’s Eye disappeared without complaint, cutting through the water.

Surely it wasn’t hidden somewhere or broken in the meantime, right?

Beep- Beep-

That’s right!

Kim Seol’s eyes widened in surprise at the alarm sound echoing throughout the sea, and she looked up.

The sound was coming from above our heads.

It wasn’t even coming from very far away.

“Ah, that took ten years off my life!”

“Just how many items do you have?”

Lightly ignoring Kim Seol’s question asked as if she couldn’t understand, I pointed upward.

“Let’s go up to the surface. The kraken will be waiting, so we can hand it over right away.”

Kim Seol’s expression was subtle.

Even though I had ignored all her questions and only said what I wanted to say, she didn’t seem angry.

Rather, she seemed surprised by the fact that I, a suspicious person who appeared out of nowhere, was actually solving everything.

‘She looks like she has a lot of questions.’

But Kim Seol knows well that I won’t answer no matter what she asks.

Kim Seol opened her mouth in a dry tone as if she wouldn’t suspect anything for now.

“If we give that harp to the kraken, will both the scenario and the mermaids’ prophecy be resolved?”

A clean question without unnecessary details.

She seemed to realize that making trouble wasn’t a good choice.

It was probably also because of our promise not to mention today’s events to each other anymore.

I matched her tone and answered calmly.

“Who knows about that. But since the kraken has been looking for the magic harp for a long time, if it receives this, won’t its heart soften a bit? Then it might give the mermaids a chance.”

It was definitely a casual answer.

But….

“Wait a minute.”

I looked up at the sudden sense of déjà vu that came over me.

A fact I had completely forgotten, distracted by Kim Seol’s anger and then by the lost magic harp.

The surroundings were quiet.

“…Where did all the mermaids go?”

Not a single mermaid tail was visible in the ruined Sminac.

Even if they ran away because of Kim Seol, this was too quiet.

Even if they fled because of Kim Seol’s indiscriminate attacks, they wouldn’t have gone far from Sminac.

There’s no way they’d abandon a home they’d cultivated for decades over such an incident.

Moreover, now that Kim Seol had gathered her mana and the situation had settled, there was no sign of mermaid movement anywhere.

That’s when it happened.

Thud-

My hair stood on end at the heavy noise that seemed to shake the sea.

Since the kraken was waiting quietly outside, there shouldn’t be anything that could make such a loud sound in this quiet sea.

‘But what is this sound?’

At that moment, Nasmith’s face lighting up at the sight of the magic harp suddenly came to mind.

The face that trailed off saying he didn’t know it was a relic to fulfill the prophecy, that he had only used it to help him sleep.

Now that I think about it, despite that gloomy face, his eyes were shining with a strange desire.

As if thinking that with just this, he could defeat the kraken….

“Kim Seol!”

Kim Seol reacted immediately to my urgent cry.

Her sharply honed gaze fixed on me.

“Let’s go up quickly.”

* * *

The closer we got to the surface, the clearer the mermaids’ shouting became.

As soon as I reached the surface, I climbed onto the ice fragment boat made by Kim Seol’s ability, and I could instantly understand what situation was unfolding.

What the rumbling that shook the sea was, what the mermaids were shouting about.

What situation was happening right now.

Under the night sky with a bright full moon, the sea was filled with dozens of merfolk.

Not all of them were alive.

Many merfolk were injured, as if a battle had already taken place.

The merfolk with determined eyes, as if they had made some great resolution, were staring intently at one place.

It was the Kraken that should have been waiting obediently here as I had told it.

Red blood flowing down the Kraken’s smooth body and crude spears stuck here and there in its legs.

Three legs had already been torn off and were floating randomly on the surface.

In its bright yellow eyes, emotions like curiosity or joy that it had struggled to find were completely gone.

Instead, all that was visible was pain.

I gripped the cold railing of the small boat, speechless.

Kim Seol also had eyes that couldn’t understand what situation had unfolded.

At the center of this chaos was Nasmith, holding the magic harp high.

Unlike his first impression of being kind and innocent, Nasmith now had a fierce expression.

It was the face of someone going to war.

“My children!”

When Nasmith shouted, the merfolk aimed the sharp tips of their tridents toward the Kraken as if they had been waiting.

“When this harp puts the Kraken to sleep, we will kill the Kraken today and reclaim the moonlight!”

It was a roar filled with all their pent-up resentment, as if seeking revenge for their life in hiding.

They were seriously mistaken about something.

…No, perhaps this was only natural.

The hostility that the descendants of the Siren who had only used their abilities for survival, the merfolk who had spent long years hiding to survive, held toward the Kraken.

The Kraken’s rage toward Nasmith, who was attacking while holding the relic of Atari, his last friend, after the Siren’s descendant had killed his first friend.

The emotions that both merfolk and Kraken held toward each other couldn’t be said to be wrong on either side.

I had thought it could end well.

I had thought it was an easy scenario.

‘I didn’t know there would be so much bloodshed.’

With a somehow helpless feeling, I muttered quietly.

“Stop it.”

However, neither side withdrew their anger.

Finally, the merfolk threw their tridents with all their might, and the Kraken raised its long legs high in response.

Kim Seol belatedly erected a thick ice barrier between the Kraken and the merfolk, but everything had already been thrown.

Merfolk falling with short gasps and the Kraken writhing its legs in agony.

Nasmith was also coughing up blood from the strong impact.

And at that moment, red magic power that had flowed from somewhere passed before my eyes.

The enchanting colored magic power that swept across the sea seeped into the wounded beings.

“This is…”

It’s Asmodeus’s energy.

At the same time, I could see Park Ji-woon in the distance on a small boat.

He had probably rushed over after seeing Kim Seol’s message and put the fighting beings to sleep in his urgency.

“I only wanted to gain freedom…”

Nasmith, who had been muttering like that, closed his eyes weakly.

Having dropped the magic harp that he had thought would be the merfolk’s last salvation.

Kim Seol carefully guided the boat toward the harp.

“Lee Hae.”

“Huh?”

“You do it.”

“…”

Kim Seol said firmly.

Though not swayed by emotion, her eyes had sunk with her own complex feelings.

I shook my head and answered.

“You need to do it to get the clear contribution.”

I’m just an extra in the scenario, so it would be useless even if I did it.

“Just you do it.”

Kim Seol turned her head away as if she wouldn’t hear any objections.

Well, she might have thought it would be ridiculous for her to do it when I had done everything.

I carefully retrieved the magic harp.

Even in this chaos, the harp was still shining with brilliant rainbow colors.

When I slowly moved the small boat closer to the Kraken, the Kraken struggled to lift its leg.

That leg also had about ten thick spears stuck in it.

I carefully placed the magic harp on the Kraken’s leg, pretending to be nonchalant.

“Here you go.”

The Kraken curled the tip of its leg that it could barely lift and grasped the magic harp.

‘Is it thanking me?’

I stroked the Kraken’s leg that was no longer moving and turned my gaze away.

Tears were flowing from Nasmith’s eyes, whose life had ended from his severe injuries.

In the scenery visible behind him, there was no living life either.

“…This really sucks.”

I deliberately muttered lightly, but the terrible feeling remained.

The result is the same.

If I had ignored Kim Seol and come straight up to the surface, the Kraken would surely have touched the magic harp and been lost in memories.

That would have ended the scenario too.

Anyway, it means the scenario’s result is the same.

It means both the best scenario I had imagined and this terrible ending are the same…

‘But why… did it turn out like this?’

I thought while looking down at the seawater that had lost its original color and turned red.

The Kraken, who despite being a monster everyone avoided, had communicated as a friend with the pirate Sonia.

The merfolk who had lived in pain for long years due to their ancestors’ mistake.

What exactly was the answer to this scenario?

When the magic harp was originally given, was it designed for the merfolk to attack the Kraken?

‘Why did Babel give such a scenario?’

My head was complicated because there was nothing I could clearly understand.

Then Kim Seol spoke in a troubled voice.

“…The scenario is complete.”

As a merchant, I couldn’t see things like scenario completion windows.

There was only one thing visible to my eyes.

The young merperson who had been napping while listening to an old merperson’s lullaby when Kim Seol and I went to the seaweed field.

An innocent face that had no idea what had happened.

Watching the clear face of the young merperson who had become another Atari become distorted, I couldn’t bear it and hung my head low.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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