The Second Coming of Gluttony - Chapter 14

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

Episode 14. A Dangerous Treasure Hunt (2)

Looking at such a neatly organized list, Seol’s head bobbed naturally. Whoever this student was, they kept excellent notes.
‘They must have been a diligent, well-behaved student.’
With time to spare, Seol moved slowly across the hallway. In Class 3-2, a few students were shuffling about frantically, while in Class 3-3, Shin Sang-a was jumping up and down with delight, squealing “Yeeeees!” But when he glimpsed a young man quietly watching from beyond the window, Seol froze in place.
After acquiring three coins from the window in the Class 3-4 hallway, Seol entered Class 3-5 and found an unexpected person there.
Yun Seora. She was in the middle of searching. At the sound of the door, she glanced sideways but paid him no mind, fully absorbed in the Treasure Hunt, methodically checking inside each desk one by one.
Seol tilted his head.
‘Why is she checking them one by one? When she has the map too.’
Seol’s thought was only half right. Both had maps, but the information differed. For instance, A Student’s Diary showed detailed locations: “Class 3-5, Section 3, 2nd desk (X1), Section 5, 6th desk (X4)”—precise details. Yun Seora’s map, by contrast, only marked it roughly as “inside desks, Class 3-4.”
If there were only one like a teacher’s podium, it would be simple. But with items like lockers or desks that couldn’t be pinpointed, she too had to do some legwork.
Yun Seora finally found one coin and, satisfied, tucked it into her bag. Then,
“?”
She blinked, watching Seol quickly locate four coins from the desks by the door.
‘Next is…’
Seol immediately moved to Class 3-6. By the time Yun Seora snapped to attention and followed, the young man had already cleared it out.
‘Easy, so easy.’
Seol hummed and whistled as he walked. He’d been worried, but suddenly finding a way through lifted his spirits considerably.
He swept through Class 3-7 cleanly and then stopped short. Yun Seora stood in front of the door.
She alternated her gaze between a locker wide open at the back of the classroom and her map, then looked up at Seol with that perpetually blank face—though her eyes kept blinking. Seol felt a sudden chill.
“…….”
“…….”
For reasons he couldn’t explain, he felt like a criminal.
‘…Let’s skip Class 3-8.’
He tiptoed past her and headed for Class 3-9. Guilt made him quicken his pace.
What Seol couldn’t understand, having skipped Class 3-8, was that Yun Seora was following him eagerly.
‘Why?’
Feeling inexplicably uneasy, Seol ran. Then came the sound of rapid footsteps pounding behind him—clack-clack-clack-clack! Panicked, he rushed into Class 3-9.

[4th Floor, Class 3-9, on the teacher’s podium (X3)]
[4th Floor, Class 3-9, on the TV storage unit (X1)]

As Seol quickly snatched the coins from the podium, Yun Seora dashed toward the storage unit at cavalry-charge speed. By the time Seol glanced over, her arm was already swooping toward the top of the cabinet like a hawk’s wing.
“Ah.”
Except her hand didn’t reach.
The TV storage unit was enormous, and its length stretched well over two meters. It sat so high it nearly brushed the ceiling. For Yun Seora, whose height barely crested mid-160 centimeters, reaching the top was obviously impossible.
Not even on her tiptoes.
Not even with both heels raised to their maximum, standing on the balls of her feet.
She wasn’t a crane, but even hopping didn’t help.
Her hand only swept uselessly through empty air.
Hop, hop. If she’d just stepped on a chair or desk, it would have been fine. But her earnest struggle was so endearing that Seol burst out laughing. “Pfft-ha-ha-ha.” Her movements stopped dead.
He clapped his hand over his mouth, but it was too late. Yun Seora’s head turned creakingly, and she stared at him blankly.
Seol felt mortified. No matter how dull his sensibilities were, he knew it was rude.
…Yes, he knew…
But he had to fight hard against the laughter threatening to burst forth. It was explosive. The gap between her usual indifferent face and demeanor and the behavior he’d just witnessed was unbearably, impossibly funny.
After all, there’s a saying: the harder you hold back laughter, the harder it becomes to suppress.
‘What should I do?’
One word and he’d lose it. Seol drew a deep breath, stifling laughter like holding his breath, and walked toward the storage unit. As he retrieved the coin and glanced over,
‘No way. Why does she look so frustrated?’
Seol carefully offered what he’d obtained. Yun Seora, after looking at the coin for a moment, fixed her gaze intently on him. It seemed to say she pitied him.
“…….”
“…….”
An awkward silence hung between them. Seol was on the verge of madness. Just take it or leave it—Yun Seora needed to make a decision and go so he could laugh freely. Holding back his laughter was torture.
“Take it….”
Just as Seol painfully forced the words out,
“Gah-HA-HA-HA!”
For a moment he realized his mistake, but the laughter had already exploded.
“No, no!”
Between my parted fingers, Yun Seora’s complexion showed pale.
Once the laughter faded, reality settled in.
Yun Seora seemed oddly composed—her gaze merely lowered, her expression still that familiar blankness.
‘Is she okay?’
I was about to relax.
A soft sniff.
She drew in a quiet breath through her nose. Moisture gathered in her wide eyes, faint but visible.
Pride, maybe. Her breathing grew heavier, her face trembling slightly. Looking closer, I saw her lips pressed tight.
Then she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and turned to leave.
“Wait…”
I watched her departing figure in silence, still holding out the Coin.

5th Floor.
Right after the Treasure Hunt began. Kang Seok dragged us into the Restroom and shut the door.
“What’s wrong? Is something urgent? Come on, let’s go find Coins faster!”
Lee Hyeong-sik’s words drew a hollow laugh from him.
“What’s the rush? We can find Coins later or just take them from someone else.”
“Take them?”
“Yeah.”
At Kang Seok’s blunt declaration, Lee Hyeong-sik touched his nose. He winced—the pain apparently lingered. Jeong Min-u’s expression wasn’t much better either.
“He won’t just sit still for that…”
“Right. I think it’d be better to gather them the fair way.”
At their weak objections, Kang Seok flared up.
“Bullshit. One hit and you’re both trembling like cowards. Toughen up, you idiots.”
“…”
“Look at you two. You get hit and just take it? Really?”
“B-but—”
“Me? I can’t do that. If I get hit, I pay it back. Tenfold, hundredfold. That’s only natural, isn’t it?”
“…You got a plan or something?”
Jeong Min-u asked, suspicious. Kang Seok licked his lips, checked the door once more, then gestured.
“Gather around.”
Lee Hyeong-sik and Jeong Min-u leaned in close.
“First, we collect Coins too. As many as we can before midnight.”
“Huh?”
“Listen. This is where it gets real.”
Kang Seok lowered his voice and laid out the plan.
“Wh-what did you say?”
Lee Hyeong-sik’s jaw dropped in shock.
“Hold on…!”
“Shut it.”
Kang Seok’s growl made Lee Hyeong-sik’s teeth clatter.
“…Do we really have to go that far?”
“Yeah, we do. That bastard came at us without holding back, so we go all-in too.”
“I don’t know… can we even pull it off?”
“We can. Watch.”
As Jeong Min-u tilted his head uncertainly, Kang Seok grinned wickedly.
“What do you think of this?”
He pulled two sheets of paper from his pocket and waved them back and forth.
“That’s…”
“The Bonus wasn’t just for him. If we pull this off, holding these in our hands and waving them around will be the easy part.”
Speaking with pure arrogance, Kang Seok winked slyly.
“…What do you say?”
Jeong Min-u, arms folded with his index finger twitching, simply shrugged. Lee Hyeong-sik then sighed as if he’d given up.
“Fine. Don’t worry. Five to ten minutes, max. Got it?”
Both men nodded. Kang Seok gritted his teeth.
“Just take him down. That bastard. Once we take him down, we win.”

[Time Remaining Until Midnight 00 : 36 : 12]

The Treasure Hunt was slowly drawing to a close.
There were three thousand Coins in total. However, not all of them were hidden. It seemed that once you collected every Coin in a given area, time would pass and they would Regenerate. She’d figured this out by watching ‘A Student’s Diary’ update constantly.
Because of that, Seol, who had to traverse the 4th and 5th Floors countless times, stretched herself thoroughly.
She felt satisfied. Thanks to her relentless, diligent gathering, she’d managed to amass as many as sixteen hundred Coins—exactly fifteen hundred fifty-two, to be precise. Among twelve people, she alone had monopolized more than half.
‘Time to move on.’
Seol tapped her backpack and climbed the stairs. She could gather more if she wanted, but she had to account for the time needed to spin the Gacha Machine.
Since cooperation had fallen through, she couldn’t predict what might happen. It was wiser to prepare in advance than to wait anxiously until noon.
The 5th Floor Library was empty—everyone still absorbed in the Treasure Hunt. The Gacha Machine resembled the ones that used to sit in front of stationery shops when she was young. Only larger.

[Gacha List]
1. 1–9 Coins: Food, daily necessities, Guide’s notes, medicine….
2. 10–49 Coins: Relief supplies, souvenirs, various maps, Maid’s letters….
3. 50–99 Coins: Weapons, armor, survival points, new mobile phones….
4. 100 Coins: Spell Orb, Lucky/Unlucky Coin Box (1–499 Coins)
5. 199 Coins: 6th Floor Key (guaranteed)
6. 300 Coins: SPECIAL

Seol fell into thought. She’d have to reserve 100 Coins as a Passage Fee, and keep some aside for the Key—just in case. That left her with 1,253 usable Coins.
Should she spin SPECIAL four times, or just two or three times and mix in some Spell Orbs?
The deliberation didn’t take long.
In truth, Kang Seok’s group seemed suspicious. She’d passed them a few times coming and going, but they hadn’t done anything overtly strange. Just diligently searching for Coins. But you couldn’t hide your aura.
‘The colors shifted.’
Originally only Kang Seok had shown yellow, but now Lee Hyeong-sik and Jeong Min-u appeared in yellow as well. Caution advised. That all three shared the same color meant they were plotting something. So Seol chose the latter option.
She needed weapons. Powerful hidden cards that would let her overcome even the worst-case scenario on her own strength.
Seol gripped the Coins, then couldn’t help but curse—inserting them into the machine proved to be quite the labor.
“Damn it, damn it.”
A moment later, Seol rubbed her hands and gathered her acquisitions.
The results were far from disappointing.

[Lucky/Unlucky Coin Box: 81 Coins]
[Spell Orb: Spider Web (X1)]
[Lucky/Unlucky Coin Box: 136 Coins]
[Spell Orb: Poison Fog (X1)]
[Spell Orb: Ignite (X1)]
[Lucky/Unlucky Coin Box: 292 Coins]
[Spell Orb: Hydrochloric Acid (X1)]
[SPECIAL: Mirror of Understand (X1)]

Most importantly, she’d gotten lucky twice with the Lucky/Unlucky Coin Boxes. Not a jackpot, but a solid mid-range success.
That left her with 1,061 Coins. Even after spinning SPECIAL twice, 162 would remain.
Seol decided to be satisfied here. This was more than enough, and time was running short besides. Once midnight arrived, the ‘Hour of the Dead’ would activate. Now all that remained was to quietly return to Headquarters and wait until noon.
Seol’s footsteps descending to the 4th Floor were steady yet light.
Only one thing departed from expectation: Class 3-1 was completely empty. Despite being the Headquarters with less than ten minutes remaining, not a single soul was visible.
Click.
“Oh? You got here first?”
Right. They should be arriving soon. Seol turned back.
Hyeon Sang-min entered the Headquarters looking haggard. A moment later, Shin Sang-a shuffled in as well.
“How’d it go? I bombed.”
“Me too….”
“No, seriously? Did some lunatic sweep everything? Why are we finding nothing?”
“Right? First impressions mean everything—I only managed to find seventy.”
Shin Sang-a rubbed her feet and grumbled.
“Worse than me. I at least hit exactly a hundred.”
Hyeon Sang-min’s voice was equally listless.
Seol thought for a moment, then decided to hand thirty Coins to Shin Sang-a. Since she’d already set the remaining 162 aside as a buffer, she didn’t hesitate.
“Huh….”
Shin Sang-a’s eyes widened.
“You’re… giving them to me?”
It was the look of someone gazing upon their savior, gratitude beyond words.
“What? Thirty?”
“Take them. Should I give you some too?”
“Wow! How many did you collect?”
Seol scratched her cheek.
“…Enough to get by?”
Hyeon Sang-min, who had been watching with disbelief written all over his face, suddenly burst into laughter and fell backward.
“So it was you all along.”
“?”
“That’s it. If someone hadn’t swept them all up, it wouldn’t make sense. We tore through this place like madmen… thank god Yun Seora wasn’t the culprit.”
“Why would Yun Seora—”
“Huh? You didn’t notice? I thought she knew where all the coins were and was hoarding them. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who thought that.”
He had a point. Seol had cursed her under her breath as selfish, and now felt a pang of guilt. When Hyeon Sang-min added his remark, that guilt only deepened—the sense of causing unintended harm.

[The Hour of the Dead is now active.]

Midnight had finally passed. All three fell silent at once, as if they’d agreed beforehand. The Headquarters still held only the three of them.
“Why aren’t they coming?”
“Obvious, isn’t it?”
Hyeon Sang-min, cigarette hanging from his lip, answered Seol’s question.
“To be honest, I even debated whether to come myself. Still, I managed to scrape together a hundred coins… but I doubt anyone else did.”
“They didn’t?”
“Probably they’re grinding it out right now—just a little more, just a little more—trying to collect the Passage Fee. Except for the ones who’ve staked their lives on Resurrection, of course.”
That was true. Even if not as much as Seol, Yun Seora must have collected a considerable number. With the two of them cleaning house, the remaining coins would have dwindled drastically.
The competition was bound to intensify—plainly obvious. Seol had never imagined it would come to this while simply gathering coins for enjoyment. Or rather, she hadn’t let herself imagine it.
“Well, once their lives are on the line, they’ll show up.”
Hyeon Sang-min muttered between drags on his cigarette.
“What are we… going to do?”
Shin Sang-a asked carefully, gauging the mood.
Seol felt contradictory emotions stirring. A part of her didn’t care what happened to Kang Seok’s group, but thinking of Yun Seora and Lee Seong-jin made her uneasy.
“…We should search for anyone we can find.”
“Me too. I’ll help.”
Shin Sang-a agreed readily, as if relieved. Just then, Seol found herself curious about this woman’s Status Window.
“Damn.”
Hyeon Sang-min slowly pushed himself up.
“I don’t feel like it… but I suppose I should. A promise is a promise.”
He sighed and nodded playfully toward the door.
“Let’s go, Captain.”
That was when—

(To be continued in the next part)

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