<Episode 71>
Hanyang, who had briefly disappeared, returned with a special gift. The gift turned out to be a hair tie decorated with a red ribbon. Just imagining him carrying it all the way in his tiny mouth made my heart feel warm and fluffy.
“You brought this for me? It’s so cute. Thank you.”
I immediately parted my hair in half and tied up the top section with the ribbon. When I checked the large bathroom mirror, the ribbon stood out perfectly against my short hair, and I absolutely loved it.
“Hanyang, how do I look? It’s nice, right?”
“Well, it’s not bad, nya.”
Hanyang answered in an indifferent tone, but his eyes sparkled. I guess it really suited me. Smiling, I kept turning my head this way and that while admiring myself in the mirror.
“Come to think of it, my dad used to tie my hair with ribbon hair ties like this too.”
When I was little, my father used to do my hair every morning in place of my busy mother. The hairstyles he made with his large, clumsy hands were always uneven and messy, but they still made me happy.
‘Back then, it was a ribbon hair tie too, wasn’t it?’
He called it my princess hair tie and used it every single day until one day it suddenly snapped apart. I had been so upset and heartbroken back then.
“But this one looks sturdy.”
As I kept turning my head while staring at the mirror, Hanyang spoke up.
“Stop looking in the mirror and check your status window instead, nya. The gift I brought is very special.”
Now that he mentioned it, a light had been blinking at the bottom of my status window for a while. I raised a finger and selected the notification, and an item description appeared before my eyes.
—
Ribbon of Wishes (S)
: Accessory-type item. Generates a protective shield when the wearer senses danger (0/3)
—
“Gasp! S-S rank…!”
I let out a quiet exclamation at the completely unexpected effect. An S-rank item—and a defensive item at that! It was exactly the kind of item I desperately needed, considering I could handle weapons but had practically zero defense.
‘I absolutely have to wear this at all times, no matter what happens.’
In gratitude for the present that suited my tastes perfectly, I brought out some handmade cat treats I’d recently bought for Hanyang. After that, we lay on the bed and shared all the little things we hadn’t been able to talk about while he was gone.
At some point, Hanyang curled up beside me and fell asleep in a little ball. I tucked the blanket over him, then slowly closed my own heavy eyes as well.
And that night, I dreamed a happy dream of my late father tying my hair.
The next morning, the moment I arrived at the café, Ari’s eyes lit up at my hairstyle.
“Unni, you tied your hair up for the first time in a while?”
“Yeah. I got this hair tie as a gift. What do you think?”
Ari immediately gave me a big thumbs-up, saying it suited me really well. Apparently, it was perfect for weather like this. Then she noticed Hanyang standing behind me with a grumpy expression and jumped in place.
“Our Hanyang! You always say you’re too lazy and stay home resting. Are you finally showing us your precious face today? Is that what’s happening?”
“Stop being annoying, nya.”
Ari shuffled over on her knees, trying to touch Hanyang’s plump belly, only to be firmly stopped. Her shoulders drooped sadly.
“When will Hanyang finally allow me to touch his belly fat…?”
Watching Ari stare wistfully at Hanyang’s retreating, I barely managed to hold back my laughter. Honestly, wouldn’t she need to wait at least a hundred years before Hanyang let her freely touch his belly?
Looking at the dejected Ari, I lightly clapped my hands. There was something we needed to discuss before opening the café.
“Alright! Starting tomorrow, our café is finally going to launch ‘Sotteok-sotteok.’ What do you think?”
“Customers have definitely been asking nonstop when we’d start selling it… But can just the two of us really handle it?”
Of course, the two of us alone couldn’t manage it. Between the fish-shaped buns, tteokbokki, and fish cakes, we were already stretched thin just handling the current menu.
‘But if we replace a menu item instead of adding one, then it’s possible.’
Just like this!
“Let’s sell fish cakes only through today and replace them with sotteok-sotteok starting tomorrow. The weather’s warm now anyway, right?”
The fish cake item’s special effect was self-heating; it increased cold resistance by 20%. But now that spring had arrived, replacing it with another menu seemed perfectly reasonable.
There was actually another reason why I was confidently announcing the new menu item. With a proud smile, I pointed at an item in the corner of the café that resembled a coffee machine.
“Ta-da~! It’s called the ‘Skewer-presso’! It’s an item that automatically makes skewers when you press a button. I splurged and bought it.”
Its operation was incredibly simple. You just inserted empty skewers upright into the top section, then filled the lower compartment with ingredients in order.
As expected, there really was nothing unavailable on Underworld.com. Since I bought two of them, I’ll send the extra one to the second branch later. All the hard work I’d put into completing request-board missions to buy this had been worth it.
“Wow, there’s an item this innovative?!”
Ari bounced excitedly on her feet, clearly loving it. We filled the lower compartment with sausages and rice cakes, then pressed the button, and beautifully assembled sotteok-sotteok skewers began coming out one after another.
“With this, opening a new menu item shouldn’t be a problem anymore, right?”
“Of course not! Everyone’s been waiting for sotteok-sotteok to launch. It’s finally here! Yay!”
Just as Ari predicted, the moment we started selling sotteok-sotteok the next day, it immediately became the number one seller of the day.
And with the Skewer-presso, you’d think operating the café became easier, right?
‘…I forgot about the sauce.’
The sauce containers were surprisingly heavy. Thanks to that, rumors spread that Ari developed impressively strong forearms after spending the entire day squeezing sauce onto skewers.
***
“Director, this is Nutrafill’s first-quarter sales report.”
Secretary Han carefully placed a file folder onto the desk.
“As I reported previously… the sales figures are not looking good.”
The graph she turned toward him clearly showed a downward slope. Compared to last year’s average sales, there had been a 38% decrease. Ever since the revelation that Hunter Park Jaemin, the brand’s main model, had murdered civilians, sales had been spiraling out of control.
“We urgently replaced the main model, but the damage to the brand image is already significant. Investors are getting anxious as well.”
Secretary Han hesitated before continuing.
“On top of that, ‘that store’ keeps expanding…”
“So in the end, our product lost to some tiny little shop?”
At Park Seongcheol’s displeased tone, Secretary Han lowered her head deeply without finishing her sentence. The crease between Park Seongcheol’s brows deepened further.
Throwing the report onto the desk irritably, he pressed hard against his temples. He had expected Park Jaemin’s scandal to affect sales, but seeing the actual decline in numbers made a boiling rage churn inside him.
Worse still, that childish little store called “Haneul’s” continued growing larger day by day. Park Seongcheol exhaled sharply, fury filling his breath.
“…What’s the progress on recreating flavor in Nutrafill?”
“The research team is still reviewing it. They say the chemical compound developed this time can weakly disrupt hunters’ brains. However…”
After glancing around, she lowered her voice.
“It’s extremely addictive. Even a tiny amount would be lethal to civilians. And there’s also the risk of worsening the side effects hunters already experience…”
“Enough, enough! You bragged so confidently that I could trust you this time. Exactly how much longer do you expect me to wait?”
Park Seongcheol glared at Secretary Han, who had curled into herself, with bloodshot eyes.
His son, who had caused an enormous scandal. Researchers who endlessly burned through money without results. And that F-rank insect who didn’t know her place and kept causing trouble. There wasn’t a single thing he liked.
“…Haah. Fine. Just leave.”
Trembling in fear, Secretary Han hurried out of the vice director’s office.
Under the dim lighting, Park Seongcheol slowly tapped his fingers against a whiskey glass.
“AAAAAAARGH!!!!!”
Unable to contain his fury any longer, he hurled the whiskey glass at the window. With a sharp crashing sound, the glass shattered into pieces.
“Do you know how hard I worked to climb all the way up here?!”
He slammed his fist against the desk. From a successful congressman to the capable vice director of the Hunter Management Bureau, his career had been a smooth road upward. Yet now, unacceptable stains were beginning to appear one by one.
“Where the hell did it all go wrong?”
Slowly, he retraced his past.
Was it when he abandoned his ex-wife and married a congressman’s daughter?
When his ex-wife’s son awakened as an S-rank Hunter?
Or when he learned his own son had killed civilians?
When did he decide to cover it up?
No. None of those were the real issue.
There was one single cause that had twisted everything apart.
“…Jung Haneul.”
Finally, he slowly raised his bowed head.
If not for the items she created, those idiot hunters would have continued buying Nutrafill. His son’s mistakes would never have been exposed to the world either.
“That bitch has been ruining my life. A mere F-rank worm!”
Laughing like a madman, Park Seongcheol picked the discarded report back up. As he flipped through the pages, the side effect labeled “extremely addictive” caught his eye.
“Addictive, huh…”
After sinking into thought for a moment, a vicious grin slowly spread across his lips.
‘It’s difficult to recreate flavor? Then all we have to do is make it impossible for them not to consume it by force.’
Staggering to his feet, he grabbed his phone and called someone.
He needed a person who could quickly put his innovative idea into action.
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