24-Hour Friendly Market, Specializing in Dimensional Items - Chapter 216

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. 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 216

Episode 216. A Ray of Sunlight (4)

“…What could it have been?”
“Huh? What did you say?”
I jolted awake and straightened my back to ask.
I lazily raised my arm to wipe my mouth, and Kim Seol stared at me with an expression of utter disdain.
Really, you’re not even trying to hide your contempt, Ice Princess.
This was the storage location of the “Tears of the Divine”—a sacred artifact I’d barely managed to enter after an exhausting negotiation.
For over two hours now, I’d been sitting with my hands extended forward, pouring out Gold like blood from my fingertips.
Well, it was easy work—all I had to do was sit still—but humans grow bored when they’re motionless for too long.
Besides, thanks to the brazier Rowena had brought, my body had grown warm and drowsy, and I’d been dozing off contentedly.
Kim Seol shook her head and opened her mouth again.
“What do you think the original method of solving the Scenario was supposed to be?”
Thank you so much for asking the question you originally intended instead of scolding me. Truly.
It seemed that wasn’t the end of it—Kim Seol dragged an empty chair beside me.
I gazed quietly at the golden aura enveloping the Tears of the Divine before answering.
“Wasn’t the answer already revealed earlier?”
“I suppose so.”
“Take the Tears of the Divine to the Temple, repair it, channel its power to ring the Bell. Given that Gontawa apparently has carpenters and architects, it seems the repair of the Bell Tower was included in the solution.”
This was something I’d heard from Rowena.
Since the Bell Tower had collapsed and the bell couldn’t be rung, they would have departed from Gontawa to Panco in advance to repair the Bell Tower.
“And probably killing Kaem to prevent all of this would be the complete answer.”
Kim Seol crossed her legs and added calmly.
“That’s probably the standard route Babel had in mind.”
Her tone was unusually composed.
Of course, with me—someone who possessed the Repair Skill—stepping in, there was no longer any need to go to the Temple, and no need for a defense game during the Bell Tower repairs.
Everything was unfolding in the easier direction.
For a moment, only the crackling of burning firewood echoed through the space.
It took sixteen minutes before Kim Seol, who had been silent, spoke again.
“It’s strange.”
“What is?”
“Your existence.”
Suddenly having my very existence questioned, I lifted my head with a puzzled expression.
Kim Seol’s face, illuminated by the orange glow of the brazier, appeared composed.
Yet there was something subtly enigmatic in her expression.
“Honestly, I don’t understand what Babel wants from us. Does she want our dimension to survive? Or does she want all the Scenarios to end?”
“…Well.”
“I thought the original purpose was to put us in a difficult situation, but then you showed up.”
She didn’t look directly at me, but her words carried a weight that felt oddly pointed.
“You’re repairing the bell here instead of going all the way to the Temple, and the Bell Tower—which might take days to repair—you’ve already finished.”
Kim Seol continued carefully.
“It’s the same with Laocoön. Park Ji-woon lost significant power when he fell asleep. I thought we were in serious trouble, but the scenario in Laocoön resolved surprisingly easily.”
“….”
“That’s not all. The clues you provided us about dimensional collapse—the Market, the ability to access the Tower of Babel. Those are things only someone who can orchestrate a broken situation could possess.”
Honestly, when the Babel Management Bureau revealed my identity, I expected this kind of interrogation to happen.
But since everyone said nothing, I thought they’d decided to just trust me and move on.
‘Why bring this up when I can’t even move?’
Of course, Kim Seol’s doubts are reasonable.
I could perhaps explain away the title “Market Administrator,” but if the existence of a hidden title becomes known, everything becomes suspicious.
Even with various circumstances as the Creator, it’s not something I can casually discuss.
The Dimensional Rift, my Brother who’s a director, and the “Lost World” where he disappeared—all of it.
As I silently gazed at the Tears of the Divine, Kim Seol murmured calmly.
“If you wanted to destroy the dimensions, you wouldn’t have given me abilities. If you wanted me to keep solving scenarios, you wouldn’t need to present such difficult problems. This scenario has an orthodox path, but scenarios like Falcon or Ganasia were so difficult that we didn’t even know what the orthodox approach was.”
Yes, that’s a reasonable analysis.
Or maybe Brother and I didn’t balance things properly?
Kim Seol quietly gazed at the hearth.
I awakened when South Korea was blocked at the 49th Floor, but Kim Seol climbed the Tower for much longer than that.
How must she have felt watching the Tower she climbed so painfully and difficultly become easily solved with my single intervention?
If she weren’t grateful, she’d be heartless, but if she felt emptiness—I think I could understand that much.
“So… it seems like Babel deliberately gave you a role like that.”
“….”
“As a deus ex machina.”
Isn’t that too grandiose?
I’m really just the Creator cleaning up problems that arise on the stage my Brother directed.
‘But why are you suddenly bringing this up?’
The tone feels too grateful, which makes me suspicious instead.
I deliberately asked lightly.
“So you find it suspicious?”
“I do.”
“I’m not even surprised since I expected it.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because you dislike me.”
“…What?”
Kim Seol’s seriousness had vanished, and she was now staring at me in apparent confusion.
Kim Seol stammered.
“That’s not it.”
“Well, if you stopped any random passerby and asked them, they’d tell you I’m someone you dislike, wouldn’t they? Though I suppose I’m not the type to be loved by everyone anyway.”
“What are you talking about… What do you mean?”
“Isn’t that the whole point of this conversation? You already don’t like me much, and now I seem suspicious too, so you want me to just help out and disappear, right?”
I would’ve thrown up my hands in exasperation, but I was too busy spewing Gold to manage it.
I settled for just shrugging my shoulders instead.
Kim Seol stared at me in bewilderment after hearing my deliberately twisted interpretation of events, her mouth hanging open for a long moment.
“Lee Hae-won, it’s not that I dislike you.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“No, you’re misunderstanding.”
“It’s fine, really. It happens, Ice Princess.”
“Don’t call me that ridiculous nickname…!”
As expected, Kim Seol bristled at that.
But I could be certain from the data I’d accumulated that Kim Seol didn’t like me—couldn’t I?
We’d survived together in Laocoön, yet every time she looked at me, her eyes were cold and guarded, as if that had never happened.
Kim Seol waved her hands urgently.
“It’s just… that, I…!”
“You…?”
“What I mean is, I….”
“Wait, are you about to tell me some painful story from your past? I’m not good at comforting people.”
Kim Seol’s eyes alone told me to shut up.
“Sorry.”
I apologized quickly, and Kim Seol turned her gaze back to the firelight.
“…I hate tall men. Since I was young… there’s family trauma involved. But you always show up looking like that. Like a tall man.”
I wasn’t particularly curious about Kim Seol’s family history, which wasn’t known to the public, but I nodded silently.
It meant her wariness toward me hadn’t been without reason.
And trauma doesn’t simply disappear easily.
Even for Kim Seol, who possessed the power to control everything in South Korea, this was only natural.
A “tall man”—I could vaguely imagine what kind of childhood she must have had.
Though she hadn’t told me everything, the fact that she could share this much with someone who wasn’t particularly close to her, and do so without flinching, meant Kim Seol was an incredibly strong person.
‘Or perhaps it meant she’d overcome it to that extent.’
I wasn’t crazy enough to pry into Kim Seol’s inner thoughts and demand the exact details.
What I was certain of was that she must have given this considerable thought before bringing it up.
I’m not good at comforting people, and I don’t read hearts well either.
“Since my face is the most familiar to you, should I take off the mask?”
All I could offer was this kind of cheeky response.
Fortunately, my playful approach seemed to work, as Kim Seol let out a soft laugh and murmured.
“That’s enough. Just leave it at that.”
I lost my words for a moment at the gentle smile drawn across her pale cheeks.
…I’d forgotten because she was always so cold, but she really was beautiful.
I gazed at the orange firelight flickering above her deep blue eyes and added nothing more.
“You understand that ‘just because’ isn’t actually ‘just because’ from a social perspective, right?”
“When I say ‘just because,’ I mean it literally—just because.”
Well, that’s a relief.
I suddenly realized that a nagging question I’d been skirting around this whole time had finally been answered.
“So that’s why you don’t like Seo Jae-hyuk much?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I suppose that’s fair.”
Among the top seven rankers, Seo Jae-hyuk was the only tall man.
‘I almost feel sorry for Seo Jae-hyuk now.’
He probably had no idea why Kim Seol disliked him, enduring her cold gaze all this time without understanding.
Kim Seol hesitated before murmuring carefully.
“Anyway, thanks to you, no one’s died so far. I’m grateful.”
“Yeah, well.”
And between us settled an awkward silence—one I couldn’t quite explain, though I understood the reason well enough.
We’d been sitting in silence for two hours straight, but this new awkwardness had definitely started when Kim Seol made that bashful confession to me.
“Kim Seol.”
“What?”
“Stop poking at the firewood.”
Kim Seol seemed embarrassed too; she’d been rummaging through the logs with a poker since earlier.
I found it awkward to watch, so I decided to steer the conversation elsewhere.
“I wonder how Han Ro-mi is doing.”
“That woman’s never had it rough. Well, even if she did, Lee Taek-ju went to her.”
Lee Taek-ju left to find Han Ro-mi after watching me repair the Tears of the Divine.
According to Gontawa and his people, we couldn’t leave Han Ro-mi alone next to Kaem, who seemed to be playing the villain in Raquan’s story.
Han Ro-mi didn’t strike me as the high-damage type, and Lee Taek-ju had that gentle, unassuming air that wouldn’t arouse Kaem’s suspicion.
Kim Seol and I would pick them up at an opportune moment and head for the Bell Tower.
Kaem had to stay there to prevent anyone from awakening God, so even if we left the Temple, he wouldn’t be able to follow.
That meant we wouldn’t need to fight Kaem, and God would….
‘…Wait a moment.’
In that instant, I noticed something oddly unsettling.
At the same time, the light streaming from my fingertips faded.
The Tears of the Divine, freshly reborn after greedily consuming my Gold, began to fall slowly through the air.
The Tears of the Divine, carrying a faintly chilling aura, settled into my palm.
True to its name, the tear-shaped jewel gleamed brilliantly.
The pale light seeping from within and the clear blue radiance made my entire body feel refreshed and invigorated.
Kim Seol sprang to her feet as if she’d been waiting for this moment and gathered her belongings.
“Let’s go.”
Her tone was brisk, as if to say we should finish this quickly and leave.
I grabbed Kim Seol’s arm and asked urgently.
“Wait—is this really the scenario objective?”

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