24-Hour Friendly Market, Specializing in Dimensional Items - Chapter 119

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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 119

 

Episode 119. A Stroke of Luck (2)

 

I stopped frantically pressing the boiler button and muttered.

 

“Ugh, it’s cold.”

 

Right now I was desperately working to get rid of the cold air remaining in the repair shop.

 

It’s been 30 minutes since Kim Seol left, so why does it still feel chilly?

 

‘Is it just because I feel uncomfortable?’

 

Kim Seol, who came as a customer to the repair shop, was clean and efficient without any unnecessary fuss.

 

But the fact that she prepaid asking me to handle the payment if a customer comes to repair a mask feels uncomfortable in many ways.

 

And giving me her direct hotline was even scary.

 

‘That means she’s looking for me.’

 

Personally, at that.

 

After what happened on the 53rd floor, she’s waiting for me to contact her?

 

Just imagining it sends chills down my spine.

 

Of course, I have no complaints about getting triple the repair cost I paid 60,000 gold for the Mask of All Things.

 

And I have no intention of contacting Kim Seol to confess in detail that ‘someone came to repair a mask.’

 

Then I get money and confirmation that Kim Seol didn’t recognize me, and Kim Seol gets hope that she found a clue to look for me, even if futilely, so it’s good for everyone.

 

“But it’s still uncomfortable…”

 

The whole time Kim Seol was talking, it felt strange.

 

The nuance of her asking me to contact her didn’t feel like she was looking for me because I was a suspicious ‘Lee Hae.’

 

Rather, it was more like an obsession with someone who discovered her secret.

 

I stopped pressing the boiler button and thought carefully.

 

Kim Seol’s trauma is probably related to men.

 

Judging by how she lost her fighting spirit and panicked as soon as I returned to my original face.

 

‘Then does her trigger get pressed based on certain characteristics of men?’

 

I pressed the innocent boiler button once more while thinking.

 

There were three men in the 53rd floor raid team.

 

Lee Ja-gyeom, Park Bo-bae, and Park Ji-woon.

 

I thought it might be age, but all three are young adults similar to me.

 

“Height… maybe?”

 

But Park Bo-bae is too tall for that to be it.

 

Then body type?

 

I thought of various possibilities and tried fitting them one by one, but none of them felt quite right.

 

Rather, the more I thought about it, the more unfairly treated I felt.

 

I decided to keep it secret and she decided to keep it secret too, so shouldn’t that be the end of it?

 

Why does she give off vibes of looking for me only after it’s over, making me worry?

 

‘No, shouldn’t S-rank Hunters have stronger mentals in the first place?’

 

It was around the time when the arrow of misplaced anger was flying in a strange direction.

 

[⁕ The Irregular Dimensional Market is scheduled to open in 3 days :)]

 

“Oh!”

 

I exclaimed with delight, my face brightening.

 

A notification that arrived at a completely unexpected timing!

 

I had pre-programmed ‘Let me know when the Irregular Dimensional Market opens’, and Sam-i brought me the good news without being lazy at all.

 

It was news I had been waiting for a really long time.

 

During this time, I had tried various things to fulfill the second requirement of the Title Quest.

 

First, for market research and to play the role of a godmother, I had packed bundles of microfiber blankets that Alessandro had praised and infiltrated Floor 51.

 

Floor 51 had been open for quite a while, so hiding around wasn’t easy, but I managed it somehow.

 

I didn’t hesitate because my goal was clear.

 

First of all, I don’t know what would sell in other dimensions.

 

So I went around stirring up the whole neighborhood to see what items might sell.

 

Alessandro’s experience alone wasn’t enough to fill 100 types of sales items.

 

Fortunately, various small things caught attention, so it could be called quite a successful investigation.

 

And finally, I went to Clara and Anton, and with a scheming face, I pushed the microfiber blankets on them, gently coaxing them with ‘Get one of these’.

 

There’s no need to explain what reaction the newlywed couple, who had been using rough cloth blankets, showed when they saw it.

 

The newlywed couple raising a newborn baby’s eyes went wide as soon as they felt the soft texture.

 

After that, everything went smoothly.

 

Anton, who was well-connected, secretly recruited potential customers with tight lips from all over Casabl.

 

I thought it was a red pepper powder cartel.

 

Well, the conclusion was a complete sellout.

 

The potential customers in Casabl, who were used to rough blankets, experienced the microfiber blankets and praised them as if they would sell their souls.

 

Up to that point, it was good.

 

But despairingly.

 

‘Ah, thinking about it again brings tears to my eyes…’

 

The numbers in the Quest notification didn’t change.

 

Even though I definitely sold it to that lovebug couple for proper payment!

 

Only then did I realize one thing the Quest hadn’t told me precisely.

 

‘Inside the Tower’ isn’t recognized as a dimension.

 

I needed to sell items to ‘other dimensions’, not ‘dimensions that became stages after destruction’.

 

The Tower of Babel, where beings who had already died in their original dimensions reappear as performers, was coldly out as a business partner.

 

To realize this in front of Clara, who was burying her face in the microfiber blanket with joy.

 

If Sam-i had told me earlier, I wouldn’t have gone through such trouble.

 

[⁕ You didn’t ask :)]

 

“Ah, just shut up. Can’t you read the room?”

 

[⁕ Understood :)]

 

Sam-i, who had earned points for telling me about the Irregular Dimensional Market, lost points again.

 

Sam-i will probably never escape being a zero-point AI.

 

Anyway, with that in mind, I was eagerly waiting for the Irregular Dimensional Market to open.

 

Right now, the Irregular Dimensional Market is the only way I can meet beings from other dimensions.

 

Of course, since there’s the ‘Open Market’ function, I could just put items up for sale and wait for them to sell.

 

But even then, people need to know what I’m selling to search for it and buy it.

 

Unless they have transaction history with me like Manti and can access my market window, beings who’ve never met me won’t even be able to find my market window in the first place.

 

As a result, selling 100 types of items at the Irregular Dimensional Market and completing the Quest is my chosen primary goal.

 

Promoting Friendly Market across various dimensions and making them check my market window all day long is my secondary goal.

 

If I can achieve that, I’ll be like Mansour, no, Eoksour…

 

“Let’s go!”

 

I immediately left the repair shop with burning determination.

 

* * *

 

The Mart in Babel society had changed a lot compared to before.

 

These days, when most people order online and have things delivered, you could say almost no one comes to the Mart to shop in person.

 

What’s worse, since the Inventory function was introduced, there have been more thieves.

 

How did South Korea, where they used to say nothing gets stolen except bicycles, become an area overrun with petty thieves?

 

So the Mart in Babel society doesn’t use the method of putting items in a cart and paying all at once at the checkout counter, but instead uses an automated system where payment is processed each time you take an item from the Shop Stall.

 

It’s certainly more convenient since you can put things directly into your Inventory, but shopping needs the emotional aspect of using a cart…

 

That’s why I’m now personally dragging around an orange cart that rattles and doesn’t handle well.

 

I came to the Mart in person anyway since I don’t have a home to receive deliveries.

 

‘While I’m at it, it’s good to see what I’m selling in person.’

 

The microfiber blanket is also a premium product that I personally touched and selected.

 

I won’t bother hiding that I like the Mart.

 

I passed through the entrance for Awakened verification and went inside.

 

I actually wanted to hide my face, but there was no way around the system that checks Hunter License, ID, and even facial recognition.

 

Well, there’s nothing strange about me shopping with my own face anyway.

 

What if the numerous dangerous elements targeting me come charging in?

 

I’ll just escape to Babel Square.

 

I lightened my mood and pushed the cart.

 

Surprisingly, there were many people inside the Mart.

 

‘Oh, the scent of non-Awakened.’

 

Of course, I’m not a pervert, and there’s no such thing as a non-Awakened scent in the world.

 

I just said that because the blue carts people are pulling are for non-Awakened.

 

Among the people pulling blue carts, there were only three people pulling orange carts, including myself.

 

With the convenient Inventory function available, there probably aren’t many Awakened who bother pulling carts…

 

But carts are the symbol of the Mart!

 

I expressed my sympathy for the awakened ones who didn’t know the joy of carts and moved on.

 

“Let’s look at the blankets first.”

 

Microfiber blankets were guaranteed bestsellers, proven by Alessandro, Clara, and Anton’s reactions.

 

Even Laut, who knew nothing, rolled around on the microfiber blanket babbling, so this would sell anywhere.

 

I’d like to buy about 100 of them if I could, but I have too many different types of items to sell for that.

 

So just 10 for now.

 

‘If I promote them properly, they’ll definitely sell on the Open Market too.’

 

I thought of the Friendly Market business card quietly sleeping somewhere in my system window as I put the blankets in.

 

The daily necessities section was like a treasure island.

 

Thick, highly absorbent cotton towels that anyone would love regardless of age or gender.

 

Soft, comfortable underwear and socks.

 

Cooling tissues that would drive knights crazy after training.

 

A bundle of heat packs to balance things out.

 

Since many dimensions used alcohol for disinfection, a box each of antiseptic and saline solution.

 

I also grabbed lemon-flavored carbonated water that Alessandro had found fascinating for its fizz.

 

“Ah, this is so fun.”

 

I sighed while fiddling with a baby silicone cup I’d picked up as a gift for Laut.

 

Too many new products had come out while I was stuck inside the Tower of Babel.

 

People really should live within civilization.

 

‘I thought my eyes were going to spin.’

 

I’d been in the mart for 2 hours and wasn’t bored at all, so I must be someone specialized for shopping.

 

I really liked this mart too – it had lots of items and was close to the Tower of Babel.

 

I should make this my supply source from now on.

 

“I wonder if this would sell too.”

 

By the time I added a donut cushion for certain conditions that surely existed in other dimensions too, over 50 different items were already in my inventory.

 

That meant the Gold linked to my real-world account was evaporating by the minute.

 

‘But this will all come back as profit, right?’

 

You have to invest to make profit in any business.

 

But my cart was still empty.

 

“Now, shall we go?”

 

I muttered with a rather solemn tone.

 

There was one last place I had to visit.

 

The most sacred place in the mart, the playground of mart addicts, and where all the world’s happiness gathered.

 

The snack section.

 

There was a reason I’d been dragging around an empty cart.

 

‘I wanted to fill a cart with snacks at least once.’

 

Even if people criticized it as pointless, I had no shame.

 

I lived without money and couldn’t even buy a single snack comfortably, so I might want to push around a cart full of snacks!

 

I steadied my quickening breath and entered the snack section.

 

The snack industry seemed to be developing very rapidly – there were so many new products.

 

With the grand dream of trying each and every one, I started picking up the individually packaged snacks from the paper boxes one by one.

 

These could be opened and sold individually by their contents, so it was killing two birds with one stone.

 

Next up were the various bagged snacks filling up one corner.

 

Bagged snacks puffed full of nitrogen were nowhere to be seen during my travels from Floor 1 to the 53rd floor.

 

Probably if you asked everyone ‘Do you like potato chips?’ they’d ask back ‘What are potato chips?’

 

Where else in the world could be more pitiful than that?

 

As I was randomly sweeping snacks into my basket, I suddenly stopped.

 

No matter how much I looked at the shop stall, I couldn’t find what I was looking for.

 

“Ah, it’s not here….”

 

The moist and crispy cream cheese sweet potato latte flavored truffle butter potato chips!

 

Even though it was a limited edition snack, I thought they’d make it a regular item since it was so popular.

 

Only some winter-limited sweet and sour tangerine gangjeong was mockingly taking up space, while my beloved potato chips were nowhere to be found.

 

‘The ones I stocked up on were all eaten by Nam Pureum….’

 

Unable to believe reality, I urgently grabbed a passing employee.

 

“By any chance, do you not carry the moist and crispy cream cheese sweet potato latte flavored truffle butter potato chips anymore?”

 

“Oh, you memorized that whole name… Ah, that product sold out today. It’ll come back in next week.”

 

Good news.

 

It wasn’t discontinued!

 

“When next week? I want to come back.”

 

Finding my inability to contain my joy and sighs of relief amusing, the employee spoke with laughter in their voice.

 

“Monday, 10 boxes coming in. You can make a reservation – should I set aside one box for you?”

 

“No! Can you set aside all 10 boxes for me?”

 

The employee who had been wearing a kind smile flinched at my maniacal response.

 

But soon shook their head regretfully and answered.

 

“Someone else came earlier and reserved 5 boxes. You know, that famous person?”

 

As soon as I heard the innocent employee’s answer, my instincts went on high alert.

 

‘Wait a minute.’

 

A very ominous feeling.

 

A famous person had reserved 5 boxes of limited edition snacks.

 

Only one person came to mind.

 

Usually these kinds of premonitions are never wrong.

 

“By any chance, was that person….”

 

“That’s right. This is a secret, but it’s the first time I’ve actually seen them.”

 

The employee secretly looked around before leaning toward me.

 

“You know that person, the Karma Guild leader….”

 

Having received confirmation, I squeezed my eyes shut at the unbelievable fact.

 

The mart I had my eye on just happened to be in Nam Pureum’s territory.

 

What shitty luck, seriously!

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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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