* * *
“Choi, table two.”
“Yes!”
The restaurant part-time job was more manageable than I had expected.
Perhaps because it wasn’t a large establishment, the customers who visited were fairly consistent.
Most households took care of their meals at home, and the restaurant was mainly visited by travelers passing through the village for special reasons or short-term residents who had come to enroll at the training ground.
In that sense, it was puzzling that Ragner had visited the restaurant again today, just as he had yesterday.
It wasn’t as if we had made plans to meet here.
‘He said this was his hometown, right? Doesn’t he have his own house? Why does he insist on eating here?’
In any case, I had wanted to get his advice on the reward issue, so it was a relief that he had come to me first rather than me having to seek him out.
“Here’s your order.”
As I set the plate down on Ragner’s table, I subtly studied him.
Today, neither Teon nor the dog was in sight.
“It’s your first day on the job, and you’re already skilled.”
“Ah, it’s just serving, that’s all.”
The owners had even praised me for doing well.
There were twelve tables in the restaurant.
Unusually, rather than groups monopolizing tables, there was a culture of naturally sharing seats if there were empty spots.
So as someone unfamiliar with this village, I had been a bit flustered at first.
The previous employee was a village native who could remember all the customers’ faces and regular orders, but I wasn’t.
So I attached numbers to each table and introduced an order slip system.
Now I just needed to write the table number on the order slip and post it to the kitchen.
Then the older woman would call out the number when the dish was ready, and all I had to do was carry the plate to the corresponding table.
Finding fast and efficient methods for any task—isn’t that the strength of Koreans?
‘Honestly, at this level, this is a total cushy job.’
As lunchtime wound down and many customers left, the restaurant grew quiet.
Throughout it all, Ragner had been sitting there, drinking tea.
After finishing my last serving, I subtly sat down across from him.
“Are you busy?”
“No, I’m free. I’m unemployed now, after all.”
A former hero, unemployed?
“Ah, then could you spare me a moment?”
Ragner smiled languidly.
“As much as you need.”
Maybe it was partly because I resembled his dog, but he just seemed to be a kind and good-natured person by nature.
He could have easily refused if it was bothersome.
“Choi, the orders are all done now, so rest until closing time.”
Since my shift was conveniently over, I immediately took off my apron and sat down properly.
“You heard from Ruadis, right? She’s going to add clearing our dungeon as a graduation requirement for the training ground.”
“Yes, that’s a good thing. But I also heard that it’s still far too insufficient to develop the students’ real combat instincts.”
“Ugh….”
That day… desperately stopping Ragner from clearing the dungeon had really been the right call.
Ruadis had at least gone easy….
“So here’s the thing. Ruadis gave me one more assignment. I need to prepare appropriate rewards for successfully clearing the dungeon.”
“With the dungeon in its current state… the reward room must be empty too.”
His perceptiveness was annoyingly sharp.
“But do you have to fill it with your own money, Choi? Was that how dungeon reward rooms were originally managed?”
“Yes, well… something like that. A dungeon isn’t much different from where people live…. And Ruadis said she’d help with the rewards too.”
Just then, a plate of warm bread and meat was placed in front of me.
“Oh…!”
“Choi, let’s talk while you eat.”
I was so moved my heart trembled. The work was easy and they even provided lunch!
Would it have been better if I had fallen into a restaurant instead of a dungeon from the start?
Or maybe a café run by a Demon King would have been fun too.
“Please eat.”
“Ah, I was going to eat after we finished talking….”
“Eat while we talk.”
I glanced at Ragner, then subtly picked up the utensils.
Truthfully, I had started feeling hungry the moment I arrived at the village, and now I was so hungry my stomach was touching my back. He hadn’t heard it growling, had he?
As I chewed a piece of meat seasoned with a savory sauce, I suddenly felt embarrassed.
My companion had already finished his meal and was leisurely having tea, and here I was, spreading the smell of food around—wasn’t I being too much of a nuisance?
When I cautiously lifted my head, Ragner was staring intently at me as I ate.
Had I eaten too hastily?
“Ahem, ahem, anyway, here’s what I was thinking. Graduates have to pass through Garga Forest, right? So I was thinking, what if we gave them items that would help with that as rewards…?”
“Normally… people would expect to get gold coins, jewels, equipment, or special items from a reward room.”
That would be the norm. That way, their eyes would be dazzled by the reward, they’d grab it quickly, and leave without even paying attention to the sacred relic room.
But if our dungeon fell within that normal category, would I have needed to go looking for clients in the first place?
The Demon King went bankrupt, and we’re operating on the emergency funds of a fist-sized fairy. Sob, sob.
“That’s true, but our pockets are tight…. Rather than filling it with half-baked rewards, I thought it would be better if it could at least help increase the graduates’ survival rate. Efficiency first!”
“That’s a good idea.”
As the conversation paused, I was about to spear a piece of meat when Ragner grabbed the seasoning container sitting on one side of the table and slid it toward me.
“It’s tastier if you sprinkle this on.”
“Ah, thank you.”
Come to think of it, everyone had been sprinkling this on. What did it taste like…?
“In short, you want to know what kinds of items are necessary?”
“Yes! If it were you, what items would you absolutely bring when passing through Garga Forest?”
I moved my fork busily as I asked the question.
The seasoning had a taste similar to pepper. It enhanced the meat’s savoriness, making it an excellent choice.
Ragner, who had been stroking his chin in thought, spoke up.
“If it were me, I’d first bring a compass. Not an ordinary compass, but a special one that works in a demon realm.”
“What’s different about it?”
“In a demon realm, ordinary compasses become useless due to monsters’ abilities or special environments. The forest changes its appearance constantly, and the sky is covered in fog so you can’t gauge your position by the stars. So to find your way out safely, you need a guide.”
There must be no small number of people who get lost in the forest, wander until exhausted, and starve to death.
I used the back of a used order slip as notepaper and wrote it down. Compass.
“Next would be water purification stones. They’re essential for securing drinking water. No matter how clean the water sources in a demon realm look, you must never drink from them carelessly. You never know what harmful substances might be mixed in.”
“Water purification stones?”
At my words, Ragner rummaged through his pocket and placed several fingernail-sized stones on the table.
They were transparent stones, like glass, glinting with a soft blue light.
“Put one in a cup, and it turns the water clean. It can be reused up to three times. Right now it’s transparent, but the more you use it, the more opaque it becomes, so you can decide whether to reuse it by checking the transparency.”
“Ooooh….”
“Would you like to touch one?”
“May I?”
Ragner nodded, and without hesitation, I reached out and picked up a stone.
The texture itself was nothing special. Cold and smooth.
“Is it magic? That’s fascinating.”
If items like this existed in my world, wouldn’t environmental pollution improve a lot? Water shortages would disappear too.
Ragner, who had been watching my hands fiddle with the stone, spoke.
“Monsters or those who use evil powers cannot touch purification stones. Probably the moment they touch one, they’d feel pain.”
“Pardon?”
“Because it’s made by hardening holy water from the temple.”
“Uh….”
I felt somehow uneasy and put the purification stone back where it had been.
Don’t tell me… was he testing just now whether I could touch it or not?
“I only made a simple contract with the Demon King, so… um….”
“I wasn’t suspecting you, Choi. If I really thought it was dangerous, I wouldn’t have offered. You just looked so amazed, as if you were seeing one for the first time.”
“Uh… are purification stones common?”
“They’re not common, but you can find them easily at a general store. They’re used in daily life too.”
I suddenly felt like I was in big trouble.
I had confessed the secret that I had contracted with a Demon King, but the fact that I was from another world was still a secret.
So then… it was like reacting to a commonly used smartphone with, ‘Oh, what kind of object is this?’ That’s exactly what just happened.
