24-Hour Friendly Market, Specializing in Dimensional Items - Chapter 124
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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 124
Episode 124. Babel Official Excellent Seller (5)
I frowned because I couldn’t understand the content that appeared in the translation window.
‘So, they haven’t climbed the Tower for 10 months?’
That means there isn’t much time left before the Tower’s deadline.
This isn’t the time to be leisurely out here spinning cat wheels.
Could it be that Manti’s dimension doesn’t know about the time limit?
“You do know there’s a time limit on the Tower, right?”
When I asked back with more urgency, Manti slowly blinked her blue eyes once.
“You know, don’t you?”
Why isn’t she answering?
Cute eye blinking isn’t going to solve this!
I suddenly sat down and whispered quietly.
“You didn’t forget about it, did you?”
Manti, who had been staring at me intently, meowed softly as if my worry was pathetic.
-Isn’t this the story I told you before? You should know it too. Didn’t I say that the Archmage attempted to communicate with other dimensions?
I could feel a firmness in her piercing gaze telling me not to make a fuss.
I felt embarrassed for no reason and scratched the back of my neck.
“…Right.”
Come to think of it, on the day I first met Alessandro at the Irregular Dimensional Market, it was Manti who provided evidence for the Tower destruction theory.
Of course she would know about dimensional destruction.
‘But why is she so calm?’
If it’s 10 months, dimensional destruction is approaching moment by moment, but Manti’s attitude is not just calm but even detached.
It’s completely incomprehensible.
I couldn’t contain my curiosity and asked.
“But why are you so calm?”
Manti, who had been looking up at me with clear, transparent eyes, seemed to be choosing her words for a moment.
Then she soon answered with a low, calm meow.
-Our dimension must reach the 71st floor in the near future. However, there were countless sacrifices on the 70th floor before that.
As soon as I read the content that appeared in the translation window, I frowned and asked.
“You climbed to the 70th floor?”
Manti nodded her small head in affirmation.
Didn’t she say last time that they were climbing the 64th Floor?
Unlike Earth, which had only climbed to the 53rd floor, I was amazed at how tremendously far ahead Manti’s dimension was.
Of course, considering that the background of the 51st Floor that Manti had previewed earlier was different from ours, the difficulty might be different too.
It seemed that the Tower of Babel was identical up to the 49th Floor, and from the 51st Floor onward, different scenarios were assigned to each dimension.
Even so, they had climbed all the way to the 70th Floor, and at that level, I couldn’t help but be explosively curious about what the scenario difficulty would be like.
‘Still, the high floors should be similar across dimensions.’
Even though the stage changes from the 51st Floor onward, what each floor represents should be clear.
Just as the 49th Floor, which was before the 50th Floor, was particularly difficult, there must be a clear reason why the 70th Floor was difficult.
I hid my sinister ulterior motive of gathering information and asked.
“Was the 70th Floor that difficult?”
-The loss was great. We lost half of the heroes who were climbing the stairs. Therefore, to never repeat such tragedy again, we have been quietly nurturing those who will advance next.
If they lost half of their main forces climbing the Tower, just how extremely difficult must it have been?
Imagining our country with all the rankers from 1st to 7th place dead was so dizzying I couldn’t even speak.
‘They probably couldn’t have killed Agemor right away either.’
And it wouldn’t just be Agemor.
They probably couldn’t even dream of sealing the Dark Mage.
Then Manti poked my solar plexus with her front paw.
It seemed my expression had unconsciously grown heavy.
-However, after the 71st stair was opened, changes occurred in the Tower as well.
Manti meowed in a tone like ‘there’s still one more thing left.’
“What kind of changes?”
-The fact that we could receive support for our heroes.
I reflexively frowned at the nonsensical statement.
“…Support?”
What is this sudden Alessandro running away talk?
From whom?
While I was just blinking in confusion, Manti meowed lightly as if she had expected me to be curious.
-I mean receiving support from beings of other dimensions.
I thought I might be able to get some information.
‘What kind of update is this now…’
Is the world changing so fast that I can’t keep up?
I couldn’t hide my bewilderment and asked.
“You mean mercenaries?”
I thought that was a culture only seen in the sports industry, but suddenly mercenaries in Babel society?
Manti, who didn’t care about my bewilderment at all, continued speaking.
-We are also preparing to welcome reinforcements that will arrive soon. If that’s the case, I believe we can set foot on those high stairs once again.
So basically, they’re currently on Floor 70 with their entire force wiped out and saying goodbye to the world.
‘And they’re going to hire mercenaries from outside to climb Floor 71 together?’
“Huh, really now.”
It’s absurd no matter how I think about it.
‘Wait, wasn’t Babel supposed to be the villain?’
I thought it was desperately trying to destroy dimensions, but now it’s kindly allowing them to invite experts from outside?
What exactly does Babel want from those who climb the Tower?
I was only briefly confused by this new information that I neither understood nor wanted to understand.
“How do you hire mercenaries?”
I pulled myself together and asked a proper question.
Who knows what might happen.
Maybe our country will suddenly have everyone from Seo Jae-hyuk to Chae Geun-dam completely wiped out, and an A-rank Hunter will accidentally take first place in the rankings.
More importantly, if this system is already implemented in Manti’s dimension, there’s a high chance we’ll use it later too.
Even if our country’s main forces are still alive by then, having additional helpful forces would be welcome.
However, instead of answering my question, Manti looked up at my face with a strange expression.
“Why?”
Manti looked up at me endlessly with lake-clear eyes, then finally meowed softly after a long while.
“Meow, meow. Meow.”
She meowed quite a bit longer than usual, so I wondered what she was saying and immediately looked at the air.
-Well, I suppose this is a story you don’t know yet. ■■■, ■■ ■■■ ■■is….
The translation window before my eyes was a festival of squares.
I couldn’t stand it.
“Ugh!”
I took out my other hand that wasn’t holding Manti and threw a punch at the air.
‘You won’t even show me this?’
My friend is trying to tell me some secret story!
Whether I displayed violence or not, Manti didn’t care and meowed again.
-Don’t be impatient. You’ll face the answer yourself someday.
No, I want to check the answer right now….
Our dimension has only just reached Floor 53, so Floor 70 is still a distant story.
‘But if the floors after 70 are difficult enough to require hiring mercenaries… shouldn’t our country’s Hunters get stronger too?’
Even if Babel has a kind side I didn’t know about, if there’s something we can prepare, we should prepare it in advance.
Then Manti’s meowing broke my thoughts.
-Are you planning to cross that river?
I reflexively answered.
“What river? The river of squares?”
Was it telling me that I didn’t need to know right away as I faced an answer sheet full of squares?
Or was it telling me that I didn’t need to prepare in advance?
However, Manti tilted her head as if asking what I was talking about, her previous seriousness completely gone from her face.
Following Manti’s head gesture with my gaze, I soon muttered with an embarrassed face.
“…Ah, this river.”
Before my eyes flowed a fairly large river, narrower than the Han River but still quite substantial.
I hadn’t realized I’d come this far just walking wherever my feet took me.
When I glanced back, I could see a very small golden arrow twinkling in the distance.
“I’ve come quite far.”
I knew the Irregular Dimensional Market was large, but I never expected there to be rivers and bridges like this.
A wide arched bridge extended across to the other side of the river.
On the opposite side of the river, just like this side, countless stalls were lined up, and at a glance, various life forms with different appearances were moving about busily.
I’d have to go there sometime anyway.
‘I still haven’t found anything worth selling at Bamanjang.’
Strictly speaking, it was because I’d just been walking aimlessly while listening to Manti’s story instead of looking at goods or anything else.
I shrugged my shoulders and answered.
“Well, shall we go take a look?”
However, just as I took a step forward, a notice flew before my eyes.
[> Middle Manager Message
– Sister, a customer is here!! Ι Kang Yeon-hee (Bamanjang Store)
– A customer wanting repair has visited. Ι Alessandro Hale (Babel Square Store)]
It was a customer who would help raise my Title Quest score.
* * *
The shop stall I returned to, carrying Manti who had fallen asleep and was purring, was already half empty.
As if they’d fought a war while I was away, Alessandro and Kang Yeon-hee looked completely exhausted.
“Why do you both look so tired?”
“Do you know how many customers came while you were gone? You could never imagine.”
Alessandro shook his head while holding his forehead.
Since he was specially recruited as a knight order captain, I’d rarely seen him look tired, but now he looked particularly exhausted.
But before that, something that should be here wasn’t.
I quickly turned my head to look around the front of the stall.
“…Where’s the customer who wanted repair?”
I’d rushed back here like my feet were on fire because they said a customer was waiting.
I was out of breath and dying, but I came running here while pretending I wasn’t and struggling to catch my breath!
It was Kang Yeon-hee who answered my question.
“The repair technician said it would take a little time to arrive, so they want to look around for a bit.”
‘I came here in a hurry for nothing.’
I grumbled and slumped down in a chair inside.
As I was swallowing my irritation that was too ambiguous to express outwardly, Kang Yeon-hee slowly approached me.
Then she stared intently at the small, pure white Manti in my arms and asked carefully.
“Sister, are you friends with this cat?”
“Yeah. She’s my best friend.”
“I never thought there’d be someone who talks to cats.”
“…She really does talk.”
When I answered defensively, feeling wronged for no reason, Kang Yeon-hee smiled with her eyes crinkling.
It was the kind of smile that said everything was fine, so my aggression instantly hit rock bottom.
“It’s amazing, really.”
“What is?”
“Just, this place. The cat is amazing, and it’s amazing that such a big market exists. The things being sold are also incredibly amazing.”
For someone who was shocked and couldn’t come to her senses when she first entered the market, this was quite a calm observation.
I had been to the market several times and met various life forms.
“When I was only making potions, I didn’t know, but everything is amazing.”
For Kang Yeon-hee, who had been stuck in Ba-man-jang running a potion factory, this would indeed be an unfamiliar scene.
“It feels like the world is incredibly vast.”
“Of course it is.”
Soon I’ll be able to summon mercenaries too…
As I kept my mouth shut, unable to explain the even wider world, Kang Yeon-hee spoke in a murmur with a voice full of suppressed emotion.
“Thanks to you, sister, I feel like my world has expanded.”
That probably wasn’t a lie, but her eyes were sparkling so brightly that I was left speechless.
It’s not like I did anything particularly amazing, I just brought her along to sell some items together.
Instead of answering, I just stared at Kang Yeon-hee.
Kang Yeon-hee hesitated for a moment, then whispered in a small voice as if confessing a secret.
“So, I want to try various things.”
Could that possibly mean she wants to try making things other than potions?
Just as I detected this hopeful signal and was about to unleash my devil’s whisper.
“Excuse me.”
A very large man had somehow taken position in front of our shop stall.
He was as tall as Alessandro, wearing a pitch-black hood pulled deep over his head so his face wasn’t visible.
The owner of an ominous aura that seemed somehow filled with darkness.
Just as I unconsciously tensed up and swallowed nervously.
“I came to get an item repaired.”
The man spoke carefully in a quiet and polite tone.
‘He’s just a customer, I got nervous for nothing.’
Feeling embarrassed, I put on an overly friendly tone.
“Yes, I’m a repair technician. What kind of item is it?”
Without any explanation, the man pulled something out of thin air and placed it on the shop stall with a thud.
“Is this possible too?”
What the man had taken out was a broom with a saddle attached.
Seeing that broom, Kang Yeon-hee and I simultaneously turned our heads and made eye contact.
We were probably both thinking of the same movie.
‘…Could he be a Hogwarts student?’
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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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