I Only Baked Bread, but I Was Mistaken for the Best - Chapter 82

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

Chapter 82. A Successful Reopening (3)
“Is that really true? I became a Hunter entirely because of you? And you made that bread too?”
“Y-yes. That’s… that’s right…”
There’s a saying, isn’t there?
The world contains two kinds of lies.
One is the red lie—told to deceive others and gain personal benefit.
And the other is the white lie—told for the sake of the other person.
In that sense, I had no choice but to tell Dayeon a white lie.
“There’s someone who’s been watching over you for a long time. She was worried about you, so she entrusted me with that bread.”
“That… that can’t be…”
“I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true.”
Of course, no such person exists.
I made the bread myself.
But if I told Dayeon that I made it, she’d become even more entangled with the Witch’s world.
And my entire identity would inevitably be exposed.
“I… I believe you! Teacher Seung-hyun would never lie!”
Ding!
[Quest has been completed.]
[You have earned 10,000 BP as a reward.]
The Quest completion meant Dayeon truly believed my words and had resolved to convey this to Ria.
Even if that weren’t the case, the way she looked at me now was utterly pure and innocent.
Ugh… I feel a pang of conscience.
I’m sorry, Dayeon.
But it couldn’t be helped.
“Right. So tell Team Leader Ria exactly that.”
“Yes! I understand! Oh, I need to leave now for training. Thank you so much for the bread!”
“Sure. I packed plenty, so share it with your team members.”
“Yes! Thank you! I’ll be going now! Take care, Haeryang!”
Dayeon left the shop with a brightness unlike before.
Despite everything that had happened, she seemed to have found happiness, which put my mind at ease.
I was nodding in agreement with that thought when—
“That was a lie, wasn’t it?”
“Pardon?”
Haeryang’s sudden remark caught me off guard.
Damn, I’d overlooked something.
Haeryang’s skill of synthesizing minute details to deduce the truth—her ultra-fine analysis!
Sure enough, having perfectly identified the basis of my lie, Haeryang continued.
“Your voice trailed off slightly when you spoke, and you kept touching your nose unnecessarily.”
“You can tell… from that?”
“Of course. Well, if that’s what you say, Owner, then that’s how it is.”
Her smiling face was beautiful enough to captivate most people, but I couldn’t afford to be enchanted by it now.
If anything, it seemed desolate.
Even Noir had mustered the strength to rise from his exhausted state and was staring intently in this direction.
“Ha… haha… Ultra-fine analysis really is… quite impressive….”
“You don’t even need ultra-fine analysis to figure it out if you just pay attention….”
“Huh? What did you just say….”
“Nothing! We need to reopen for business soon, don’t we? Let’s get back to work! Work!”
Haeryang muttered something under her breath before briskly moving away to prepare a beverage.
I could only stare blankly at her retreating figure.
“Meow… meooow….”
From behind me, Noir seemed to be saying that my master was incompetent at everything except baking bread.
* * *
Ding~
“Thank you for coming!”
The last customer left, and the shop door closed.
As the bell’s chime faded, Haeryang, I, and Noir looked at each other for a long moment before extending our hands and shouting.
“Done!”
“We sold everything!”
“Meooow!”
A triumphant high-five erupted simultaneously.
Though my body was weary and exhausted, the day’s sales figures made all the fatigue vanish completely.
“Wow… Owner… how is the daily revenue 10 million won?”
For a shop of this scale, 2 million won in daily revenue would be the normal expectation.
“It’s all thanks to Haeryang working so hard.”
“You worked harder, Owner.”
“Meooow.”
“That’s right, that’s right. Your big sister knows you worked hard too, Noir!”
Haeryang gently stroked both of Noir’s cheeks, seizing the moment for his self-promotion.
He certainly had worked diligently.
While Gora had handled the bread-making, all the other tasks including customer service had been accomplished by Haeryang and me alone.
“It seems like we’ll need to hire a new part-time employee soon….”
But now that I was actually considering it, I found myself hesitant.
Not only did I need to find someone trustworthy, but there was also the risk that sales could plummet once I hired someone.
However, to my concern, Haeryang shook her head and replied.
“I think it’s necessary too, Owner. We won’t be able to operate properly at this rate.”
“Really?”
“Yes. From what I can see, customers will only increase, not decrease.”
True enough, the responses on Byeolsuta, which I’d been consistently monitoring, had been quite hot.
Even people who didn’t yet know about our bakery were being drawn in through the algorithm.
“Okay. I’ll look into it right away.”
“Then I’m happy to go. Should I head out first?”
“You worked hard.”
“Yes! I’m leaving! Owner, please leave early too!”
With a cheerful chime, the shop fell silent as Hani stepped outside.
My heart felt full, but my body was so exhausted that as I sat still, Noir slowly got up and approached me.
“Master. You’ve worked hard.”
“You worked hard too.”
“What are you saying? I’m the one who worked hard. Meow.”
“I knew you’d say that.”
“So hurry up and hire a human slave. Meow.”
“You’ll get in trouble talking like that these days. You should call them an employee.”
Slave, my foot.
What era does this cat think we’re living in?
“Then hire a human employee. At this rate, that woman or the master might collapse from overwork.”
“If even you’re saying that, I really should look into it.”
If today’s workload continues like this, someone will surely collapse and have to be carried out.
Before that happens, I should hire a good employee as soon as possible.
“Let me post the job listing.”
Since the minimum wage was 11,000 won, I set it at 15,000 won, which was higher.
With few employees and so much work to do, I thought this amount was only fair to offer.
“And then we wait.”
“So will a human sla… employee appear?”
“Stop calling them slaves. Anyway, after that, I’ll need to conduct interviews.”
“Complicated. Why not just hire someone and fire them if they can’t do the job?”
“Because it’s better to hire the right person the first time rather than go through that.”
I posted the job on a recruitment site like AlbaMonster, so applications should come in soon.
Once applications arrive, I’ll conduct interviews and hire a new employee.
Of course, I have no idea how long that will take.
“Since I just posted it, applications should come in tomorrow or the day after at the earliest… Huh?”
“What’s wrong?”
“This… this can’t be right?”
My phone’s notification vibrations went off frantically.
Applications poured in as if they’d been waiting, and I couldn’t gather my thoughts.
“Why are so many people applying?”
“That’s something for the master to figure out, isn’t it? Meow. I really need to sleep now.”
“You’re a Familier, so you don’t even need sleep, remember?”
“I need to sleep. I feel like this fatigue will only recover if I sleep somehow. Master.”
With those words, Noir bounded into the corner and disappeared.
I hadn’t realized it until now.
One of the most difficult situations for a self-employed business owner.
That was precisely what it meant to hire a normal part-time employee.
“With this many applicants, surely there’s at least one decent person among them, right?”
I had been completely oblivious to the reality.
* * *
“How is it possible that there’s not a single person worth hiring….”
I muttered while handing transportation money to another applicant who had just left the shop.
Even filtering through the applications to find seemingly decent candidates proved to be an ordeal.
Were there simply too many good applicants?
That couldn’t be it.
The applications were dominated by absolute lunatics, let’s just say.
“What kind of person writes ‘Yu Ha-neul Hunter fan-girling’ as their reason for applying?”
And their special skills section listed memorizing Hunter vehicle license plates and long-distance photography (equipped with silent camera).
Was that all?
“Why are there so many YouTube wannabes….”
Could it be because of Roro?
Many applicants had submitted their forms claiming they too dreamed of becoming YouTube stars.
After filtering out these types, thirty people remained.
Yet despite conducting interviews every break for over a week, I still couldn’t hire anyone.
“What good is a decent application if they’re not right when you meet them in person?”
I’d checked the last applicant today, but the result was a complete bust.
They simply wanted to eat our bakery’s bread to their heart’s content.
It’s nice to be appreciated, but they weren’t suitable to work with us.
“Should I just hire someone decent, anyone at all….”
“That won’t work, Owner.”
Haeryang, who had been quietly observing my interviews from the side, drew a firm line.
“You’ve seen it yourself. If we hire people like that, they won’t just fail to do their job properly—they won’t last even a day, will they?”
“That’s true.”
In fact, our bakery’s work is quite simple.
I handle all the baking, and Haeryang takes care of making beverages.
So the job only involves customer service, greeting guests, restocking bread, and handling the register.
The problem is that we have so many customers that even this becomes overwhelming.
“And if things go wrong, complaints arise, which directly affects the bakery’s image. Let’s stick with your original thinking—we need to hire well when we do hire someone.”
“I was planning to do that anyway, but with so few candidates, I’m wavering.”
“We can manage with Noir and me doing our best until then!”
A laugh escaped me at the sight of Haeryang raising her slender arm with determination.
That’s right—people like her exist.
So surely someone equally good will appear eventually.
Let’s wait a bit longer.
Until a good person shows up.
“Then I’ll go check the inventory for a moment!”
“Understood. Hurry back and get some rest.”
“Yes, Owner!”
Haeryang then headed toward the back of the shop.
In that moment, I thought I really needed to hire a decent part-timer to lighten Haeryang’s workload, seeing how hard she was pushing herself.
Ding.
The bell chimed despite it being break time.
I should have locked the door right after finishing the interviews, but it seemed I’d left it open in my mentally exhausted state.
There was no helping it.
All I could do was guide them and ask them to return another time.
“Oh! I’m so sorry! We’re currently on break… huh?”
As I mechanically bowed to apologize, a familiar silhouette came into view.
A woman with long, dyed blonde hair wearing sunglasses and a mask.
And a hastily thrown-on tracksuit on top of that.
“Aren’t you Chae-eun?”
“You were on break? I’m really sorry!”
Chae-eun, who hurriedly apologized back, was a regular customer at my shop.
Just a regular customer?
She was an extraordinary regular.
She always placed massive orders for Pampernickels.
“Did you come to place an order today?”
“Yes, but… aren’t you on break?”
“For you, Chae-eun, it’s possible.”
Skipping my break meant a hundred Pampernickels in sales, so of course it was possible.
Just as I was about to get up from my seat.
“Oh! No, I mean, I will buy bread, but before that, there’s something I need to tell you first!”
“What is it?”
“Um… so… Owner, are you interested in appearing on broadcast?”
Broadcast?
Ah, could Chae-eun be doing YouTube too?
Of course, my answer was yes.
I’d benefited from her orders so far anyway.
Though probably not with a million subscribers like Roro’s channel.
“Of course. When would you be filming? I’ll leave a comment once it’s uploaded. Haha.”
“Huh? Upload? A comment?”
“Yes. Aren’t you uploading it to a YouTube channel?”
“Ah. Right. You wouldn’t know, Owner…”
“What do you mean…”
“Just a moment.”
Chae-eun removed the hat she’d been wearing low on her head.
That still wasn’t enough, so she took off her mask and finally her sunglasses, then asked with a confident expression.
“Surprised, aren’t you?”
“Ah. Yes. I… yes?”
“Huh?”
I stared blankly, unsure what had startled me, but it was actually Chae-eun who seemed taken aback.
Still, I couldn’t leave my customer confused.
“Um… well… it’s my first time seeing you without the sunglasses and mask. Haha! Hahaha… ha…”
“…”
Clearly, that wasn’t what had surprised her.

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