Chapter 7

Chapter 7. Shopping Mall (2)

[7. Theft of hotel property cannot be forgiven. If you have triggered a store alarm, find a sharp object as quickly as possible and stab yourself in the heart.]

Looking at the two people who were wondering what he was laying such groundwork for, Su-myeon asked his question.

“Um, by any chance… where did you two originally live?”

Because he could not immediately think of a suitable question, Su-myeon asked something rather out of the blue.

“Ah, where I live? Pangyo.”

Go Ju-hee answered right away, and Han-su also answered calmly.

“I live in Jongno. But why are you suddenly asking that?”

Since it was a question from Su-myeon, whom they had come to think of as someone they could rely on in this unfamiliar place, everyone answered, but it was still a truly random question.

Seeing their puzzled expressions, Su-myeon decided to answer honestly.

“Ah, well… this all feels too unreal to me too. I just wanted to check whether this really is reality.”

It was not a lie, so there was no reason to feel guilty.

The real-world place names put him somewhat at ease, but he still could not be certain.

Feeling that he should check just in case, Su-myeon continued asking questions.

“Then, by any chance, do you two know much about games?”

“Ah, I’m sorry. Games are…. Ah! I know that one. The one with that famous pro gamer.”

“I… know nothing at all….”

Even the fact that UTG was a famous horror game was only something that worked on people who liked games.

It was not strange for someone with no interest in games not to know it at all.

Even so, Go Ju-hee seemed to share the same world as him, talking about recently popular e-sports and various topics.

Han-su, however, knew almost nothing, like someone completely detached from worldly affairs.

“Ah, then….”

But after they shared a few more things that were popular these days, it became certain.

Go Ju-hee definitely recognized reality.

It meant she was not simply a character inside the game.

As Go Ju-hee also talked with Su-myeon about trivial things like real-world celebrities and popular memes, she seemed to feel a little more at ease.

“…I’m sorry.”

How on earth had he lived his life? Han-su knew none of the things the two of them were discussing so amicably.

Quietly apologizing, Han-su looked a little depressed by the fact that he had not been very helpful.

Su-myeon quietly patted the downcast protagonist on the back.

No matter how indifferent someone was, could they really be this ignorant of how the world worked? That thought did occur to him.

But protagonists being given excessive settings and extreme concepts was something like fate.

‘Still, if this is reality after all, then there’s hope.’

He decided to learn only that much about the connection between the game and reality and not take any more interest in it.

What mattered was the fact that if he left this hotel, he could go home.

At that moment, Su-myeon suddenly flinched at the vibration he felt from his pants pocket.

‘…Is it a Secret Shop notification?’

Beside Su-myeon, Han-su looked strangely gloomy.

Su-myeon looked at him with half-lidded eyes, then casually added,

“If you feel that bad, go buy me a boxed meal or something.”

I’ll save that money and buy shoes.

He already knew very well how necessary good, non-slip shoes would be in the stages that would appear later.

And besides, he planned to check his phone while they were away.

“Ah, I’m hungry too. Then I’ll go with him and buy something. Is there anything you can’t eat?”

At Su-myeon’s words, Go Ju-hee finally clutched her stomach and stood up too.

Seeing that, Su-myeon added one more thing.

“No. Anything is fine, but shouldn’t you buy new shoes too, Ms. Go Ju-hee?”

Perhaps because she was short, Go Ju-hee was wearing fairly high heels.

Thinking back on how she had not only overtaken him in those but had run at the very front, he did find it impressive.

But there was still a long road ahead, so going all the way in that state would be impossible.

At Su-myeon’s words, Han-su looked down at her shoes as well, then added,

“I’ll buy your meal too, Ms. Go Ju-hee.”

“Pardon? Ah, you don’t have to….”

“I’m lending it to you, Ms. Go Ju-hee.”

Go Ju-hee, who had been about to refuse, scratched her cheek awkwardly at Han-su’s prompt reply.

“Ah, yes. Then please lend it to me.”

Watching Han-su follow behind Go Ju-hee as she walked ahead with quick little steps, Su-myeon looked around.

Fitting the appearance of something imitating a large hotel shopping mall, there were cushioned benches between the shops lined up on both sides.

“Nice…. Lying down really is the best….”

Su-myeon quickly went to a bench, lay down with his back against it, stared up at the impossibly high ceiling, and took out his phone.

<Beautiful Belle’s Secret Shop>

Along with that screen, two products were displayed in the shop.

[Nemean Lion Hide (3 Coins)]

[A lion hide reborn as a stylish sukajan jacket! A jacket that cannot be damaged by anything.]

[Tin Woodsman’s Heart (3 Coins)]

[A heart made of warm red silk. It gives you a heart that has a mind, yet never tires.]

The items had names one might see only in fairy tales, but judging by the product descriptions, they seemed fairly useful.

The problem was that with his current funds, he could only buy one of the two.

As he wondered what to do, Su-myeon naturally closed his eyes.

The moment he put his head against the bench, sleep rushed in.

While he was thinking a hope-torture kind of thought—that if he fell into sleep like this and woke up, maybe his cozy room would appear again—Ha-min returned.

“Um, Su-myeon hyung! Here’s your coffee…! Uh… a-are you sleeping…?”

“I’m not sleeping. Is there a straw?”

Having grasped his intention from Su-myeon’s words, Ha-min opened the coffee, stuck a straw into it, and placed it in Su-myeon’s hand.

Holding the cool cup, Su-myeon lay there and somehow drank the coffee through the straw without spilling it.

“You know, hyung. I was scared there might be those monsters in the store too, but it was an unmanned system. So I was really relieved.”

Ha-min sat on the floor, leaning his back against the bench Su-myeon was lying on, and began chattering to Su-myeon while opening his boxed meal.

In truth, Su-myeon wished this unfamiliar Ha-min would please go away and eat by himself.

But he could not bring himself to tell him to go away, so he ended up answering vaguely.

“…That's so.”

Su-myeon already knew that, which was why he had sent Ha-min alone, but apparently Ha-min had made a fairly big resolution in front of the convenience store.

Soon, Go Ju-hee and Han-su also approached, each holding their own boxed meals.

Su-myeon had wanted to rest alone, but after wetting his throat with coffee, the smell of bulgogi and spicy pork piercing his nose from all directions eventually forced him to sit up.

No matter how he looked at it, this hotel was Western-style, but it was pointlessly well localized in places like this.

“Which one is mine?”

“Please choose. I didn’t know what you liked, so I bought one of each kind.”

The boxed meals Han-su laid out numbered no fewer than five.

Bulgogi, spicy pork, pork cutlet, bibimbap, and even fried rice….

“No, the voucher is limited, so if you spend it like this….”

Su-myeon stopped mid-sentence without realizing it.

Ah, right. That was true.

“If you choose just one, I’ll eat the rest.”

Han-su was a big eater.

“I’ll have the spicy pork.”

“Yes. I’ll eat the rest.”

Listening to Go Ju-hee and Ha-min giggling at the two men’s conversation, Su-myeon picked up the warmly heated boxed meal.

Whether because Ha-min was young and innocent or because his mental recovery was unbelievably fast, the boy was something else.

Once rice entered his empty stomach, Su-myeon felt more alive too.

Just around the time he finished drinking the rest of his coffee, someone other than their group approached while watching them carefully.

It was a middle-aged man.

“Excuse me, but… is this place really safe?”

He stared at Su-myeon as he asked.

The protagonist is sitting right beside me, so why are you asking me that? Su-myeon was too tired even to ask that back.

Since there was also the karma he had already built up by stepping forward, he could guess the reason.

Feeling the gaze on him was extremely burdensome, Su-myeon answered quickly.

“As long as we follow the rules, shouldn’t it be safe? I think it would be good to buy some necessary items from the stores around us.”

It was an obvious thing to say, but even that seemed to reassure the man, and he nodded.

Taking out his phone as if to check the rules once more, the middle-aged man, Park Du-pal, spoke.

“Ah, another rule did appear.”

“…You saw what happened earlier, right? If even one person breaks a rule, everyone could be put in danger.”

At Su-myeon’s words, warning them once more just in case, people’s reactions divided in two.

Han-su and Go Ju-hee seemed ready to look around immediately.

“Then I’m not going to buy anything.”

“Eh, I won’t go either.”

Ha-min and Du-pal chose simply to stay where they were.

Su-myeon greatly sympathized with the feelings of those who wanted to remain still.

However, his current position was very different from the ordinary case.

“I’m going to go buy shoes.”

To Su-myeon, this shopping mall was a fairly familiar space, so it was a little too wasteful to simply throw it away this time.

After this place, it would be a long while before they reached a space where they could properly stock up on food ingredients or items.

Because of that, staying in the shopping mall for several days, gathering a large quantity of food supplies and necessities, and then going up was also a fairly recommended strategy.

‘Of course, I don’t plan to stay that long.’

My strategy is a speedrun.

“For now, let’s look around and meet here in two hours.”

Listening to Han-su’s words, Su-myeon added,

“And since everyone has a phone, why don’t we exchange contact information so we can message each other while we have the chance?”

When he said they could contact the missing people and find them, everyone accepted it.

However, the problem was that these phones were not their original phones.

“…But what’s this phone’s number?”

“Uh… it says to add friends by entering a four-character code. Where is this?”

Naturally, Su-myeon already knew, but he pretended to search a little, matching the way the others were fumbling around, then showed them.

“It’s in My Info after you open the message app. My code is….”

But Su-myeon froze when he saw the code displayed in his app.

Everyone looked at him as he stopped speaking mid-sentence.

“…#####?”

When Su-myeon read his own code in a puzzled voice, everyone searched for their own codes.

“Uh… mine says #LOVE.”

After Go Ju-hee spoke, Ha-min and Han-su added as well.

“Mine… says #BASE?”

“Mine is #WOLF.”

Besides them, everyone had codes made of various four-letter alphabetic words.

Because Go Ju-hee was a character who died very early on, this was the first time he had heard her message code, but he knew the codes of the other characters because, in the original game, they had also exchanged codes with each other in this shopping center.

“But why is only Mr. Su-myeon’s like that?”

As Go Ju-hee said, only Su-myeon’s code had a slightly different form.

At any rate, there was no problem with inviting each other and exchanging messages.

The other people seemed to take it as simply a little unusual, but Su-myeon felt strangely uneasy.

‘It’s like they’re treating a person as an error code….’

Was he only being oversensitive because he was the only person who recognized this game?

Suppressing the discomfort, Su-myeon, who had saved all five codes other than his own, also moved off to find a shoe store.

Once Su-myeon began moving first, the others scattered according to their own goals.

“Let’s go together. I need to buy shoes too.”

Go Ju-hee followed Su-myeon.

He had been the one who had advised her to buy shoes in the first place. With no reason to refuse, he nodded.