24-Hour Friendly Market, Specializing in Dimensional Items - Chapter 230

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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 230

Episode 230. Daydream (5)

The luminous aura startled at my forceful rebuttal and retreated a step backward.
More precisely, it resembled the snow-white shadow wavering unsteadily in retreat.
Yet Spirit Being showed no particular alarm, speaking as the space resonated softly around it.
“There would have been only the things you longed for and cherished.”
Well, strictly speaking, that wasn’t entirely wrong.
My family were indeed people I missed, and while Guk Min-seong was repulsive and disagreeable, I didn’t hate him since he was my closest friend.
“That may be true, but I don’t like Guk Min-seong.”
“…Don’t humans of different genders typically fall in love?”
Sigh, where should I even begin to point this out….
The fact that it assumed my closeness with Guk Min-seong meant that kind of relationship revealed that this entity didn’t truly understand human nature.
In short, it was completely ignorant of the concept of exceptions.
If this were a debate about opposite-sex friendships, I could talk for three days and nights straight.
‘But there’s no reason to explain that to this being.’
I forced myself to answer calmly.
“That’s a prejudice.”
I tried my best to respond composedly, but anger flared up, and I found myself gritting my teeth as I answered.
Startled by my firm response, Spirit Being tilted its head to one side.
I wasn’t even sure if that form actually possessed a neck.
As Spirit Being moved, the luminous aura swayed gently back and forth.
“So that’s why you awakened?”
From our conversation, I noticed its tone was surprisingly cheerful.
…Wait, it’s saying I awakened because of Guk Min-seong?
I didn’t want to admit that.
No, to be precise, I couldn’t bear that affectionate attitude and those repulsive eyes of Guk Min-seong, who called me his fiancé….
Now that I think about it, they do seem similar.
I smacked my lips and changed the subject.
“Is this the 100th Floor?”
I had accumulated considerable experience through my explorations.
The first thing I needed to do was confirm my current location.
“That’s right.”
“…Huh?”
Wait, it actually answered me?
I was surprised a beat too late at the unexpectedly straightforward response.
“Then what was it that I saw?”
“Only those who have reached the 100th Floor can witness such a view.”
Wow, they’re actually answering me.
They even gave me a definitive answer about the “100th Floor.”
What I can confirm is that the 100th Floor isn’t a floor with a Scenario.
If that mysterious nameless being were a Performer of a Scenario, they would have explained the stage and setting of the Scenario.
Which means this place functions like an Intermediate Station rather than a Scenario.
I gazed at Spirit Being with a calmer mind.
“Why are you showing me this?”
“It’s a choice.”
The answer was concise, but I could grasp its meaning.
Though it’s merely an illusion, they’re showing an impossible dream that someone desperately yearns for.
And among them are those like me who face reality and break free.
‘Do all Awakened ones experience this situation when the 100th Floor opens?’
As I unconsciously contemplated the future, I realized this was a fact too significant to overlook.
The 100th Floor—where no Scenario is given and all Awakened ones can enter.
I escaped because I couldn’t endure Guk Min-seong, but for most people, beautiful dreams would likely come true.
‘That means they could be trapped in dreams forever.’
What if all Awakened ones become trapped on the 100th Floor?
My expression hardened at the mere thought.
It would be wonderful if the Sudden Gate disappeared once we cleared the entire Babel Tower, but unfortunately, I couldn’t be certain that would happen.
The 100th Floor would undoubtedly be both a terminal station for reclaiming what was lost and a stage that would shake South Korea.
I asked carefully, composing myself.
“Did you create that dream?”
“Both yes and no.”
I barely suppressed a sigh at Asmodeus’s characteristic response.
But from my experiences so far, I knew this answer was almost a confirmation.
The 100th Floor—accessible only after enduring all the Tower’s trials.
A mysterious being that creates impossible dreams there.
They’re treating me favorably, yet I feel a pressure I’ve never experienced in any Scenario.
I pretended not to notice, but it was a thick and vivid pressure.
I quietly pondered the answer before asking slowly.
“Who exactly are you?”
Spirit Being didn’t answer immediately.
As if swayed by wind, the aura of light wavered quietly.
After a long moment, Spirit Being spoke.
“Eyes that have tasted bitterness.”
I blinked.
“Is that your name?”
What kind of name is that?
The naming sense is quite unusual.
Or is it a metaphor?
“No? I’m just an ‘Eye’.”
“Snow? Ai?”
“I’m the Eye that watches over everything.”
So it was ‘Eye’ after all.
Fortunately, it wasn’t a metaphor either.
Of course, it calls itself an eye, but I can’t see where it’s attached, and I have no idea where it tasted that bitterness from.
In any case, the conclusion was that I couldn’t get a sense of what kind of being this was.
Learning one name wasn’t going to solve anything.
If there was one glimmer of hope.
“Call me however you like.”
The fact that it was accommodating my convenience suggested there was more I could learn.
“Bitter Eye.”
“It would be better to just call me Eye.”
I stared at the Eye for a moment before speaking.
“What exactly are you?”
The Eye that had tasted bitterness fell silent again.
This time the luminous aura didn’t waver, and the silence stretched far longer than before.
Just as I was about to ask a different question, thinking it didn’t want to answer, the Eye spoke slowly.
“…That’s strange.”
“Pardon?”
“You.”
The luminous aura tilted slowly toward me.
The distance between us didn’t narrow at all, yet it felt as though it were peering at me from even closer than before.
I suppressed the urge to step backward.
The Eye examined me for a long while before speaking slowly.
“You… don’t remember at all, do you?”
It didn’t sound like a reproach, but rather a tone of bewilderment.
“…Don’t remember what?”
I responded in the same bewildered tone.
Remember what?
To be lectured about memory by someone I nearly married Guk Min-seong because of.
The thought of myself living a normal office life within this fantasy made a small laugh escape me.
But the Eye continued in an utterly serious tone, without a trace of amusement.
“You don’t remember?”
“Remember what exactly?”
“Me.”
“….”
Now that sounded like a genuine reproach.
There’s no way I could forget such a mysterious and suspicious luminous aura….
Another layer of confusion was being added to my already perpetually bewildered state.
“We’ve met before.”
Eyes added with a more resolute tone, as if reminding me that this was no jest.
“Long ago, before you ever opened the eyes of a Tuner.”
This wasn’t a metaphor—it meant before I became the Creator.
‘Before my Awakening?’
Babel Tower had existed in this world for twelve years.
But ever since Babel Tower appeared, I’d only been pushed out of part-time jobs by Awakened ones; I had no memory of meeting Eyes.
Then….
“You’re not talking about before Babel Tower appeared, are you?”
Eyes didn’t answer, nor did they nod.
But that silence became a faint answer to me.
If the “long ago” that Eyes—who had tasted bitterness—spoke of was truly a very long time ago.
‘…When there’s a gap in my memory?’
I went rigid.
There was only one stretch of time in my life where my memory was hazy.
The accident I experienced at age eight.
When I lost my parents and was left alone with Brother.
‘I don’t remember that time at all.’
Not how the accident happened, nor how Brother and I survived it.
When I opened my eyes at the hospital, the funeral was already over, and all I knew was that Brother was my only remaining family.
No matter how hard I tried to recall what happened before and after, that memory alone was completely hollow, as if carved out entirely.
What if I truly had met Eyes when that accident occurred? Then perhaps….
‘No way.’
Even if Eyes is favorable toward me now, this being possesses tremendous power.
I cannot even gauge whether this entity is evil or good.
…So it’s only natural that suspicion sprouts—that the accident in which my parents died might not have been a mere accident.
I opened my mouth.
To ask if Eyes knew the truth of that day.
To ask if we met when I was eight years old, and if the accident truly happened then.
But before I could speak, Eyes opened their mouth first.
“I need to go now.”
“…What?”
I answered reflexively, curtly.
I’d just been constructing conspiracy theories in my head, and now I felt blocked before I could even lay them out.
Eyes spoke calmly, unbothered.
“Time seems to be running short.”
“What time are you talking about?”
Was there a time limit on the 100th Floor?
But what Eyes said next was something I hadn’t anticipated.
“Because your dimension is about to collapse soon.”
I froze.
“What did you say?”
What are you talking about—this isn’t a joke, is it?
The collapse of Earth that I’d struggled so hard to prevent was now right at my doorstep?
I knew time flowed differently inside and outside the Tower, but it had been nearly a year since I’d cleared it?
I’d come to the 100th Floor after completing reconnaissance for three scenarios’ worth of content in advance.
At that pace, I should have been progressing smoothly through the Tower…?
‘Or did Seo Jae-hyuk fall?’
I’d only spent two weeks in the fantasy and thirty minutes in the darkness.
Yet the collapse of the dimension had arrived so suddenly—the abrupt news made my head spin.
I blinked rapidly, wondering if I’d misheard, but my counterpart seemed to have no intention of offering further explanation.
“See you next time.”
Judging by how concise and unadorned the farewell was.
It was clearly an order to leave.
I desperately waved my hand.
“Wait!”
I hadn’t discovered anything yet!
When I’d met Eye, where it happened, whether my parents truly died in an accident.
I hadn’t found Manti either, nor had I discovered the clues Brother had left behind.
But before I could stop them, Eye leaned in close to me.
Then something pressed firmly against the center of my forehead.
At the same moment, my vision turned white.

* * *

It wasn’t that my vision had turned white—I’d been instantly transported to a bright place.
After being in darkness, the sudden opening of the world before my eyes forced me to blink several times.
Unable to process the chaos in my mind, I gazed downward with a hollow feeling in my chest.
“…Water.”
Water rose up to my ankles.
I carefully moved my feet.
The transparent, crystalline water rippled around me.
I slowly lifted my head to assess my surroundings.
It seemed the bitterness I’d tasted hadn’t expelled me from the Tower after all.
“A Lake…?”
I was standing in a Lake that couldn’t exist on Earth—one with no visible horizon.
A cloudless sky reflected perfectly across the water’s surface.
If not for the sensation of my feet submerged in water, I couldn’t have determined whether I was standing upside down in the air or properly rooted to the ground.
It was a landscape I would have admired purely, had I not known Earth was on the brink of annihilation.
And there was even clearer evidence that this wasn’t Earth.
‘Soap bubbles?’
Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of transparent droplets floated around me.

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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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