Dungeon Bakery Chapter 2

“Good grief. What is this……?”

Baek Seol was so bewildered by the system messages appearing one after another before her that she could barely collect her thoughts.

<System: Dungeon Bakery will now belong to its owner, Baek Seol.>

<System: With the appearance of owner Baek Seol, the seal on ‘Staff of the World ???’ has been released.>

<System: The Dungeon Bakery system is being configured according to the owner Baek Seol’s disposition. This process will take some time…… (Configuring)……>

Mom. I think I must be dreaming.

Thinking of her mother, who had passed away when she was young, Baek Seol grabbed her cheek and pulled hard.

“Ow!”

Her cheek was still stinging from where she had pinched it, so it seemed this wasn’t a dream after all. She rubbed away the tears that had welled up in her eyes with her sleeve, only to suddenly feel frightened.

“Then…… I’ve become the owner of this place?”

But they said there was already a landlord here?

Baek Seol, who had lived the life of a timid, ordinary citizen and a miserable slave, couldn’t exactly feel happy about suddenly awakening and becoming the owner of a building. If anything, it was frightening.

“Then what happens to the landlord……?”

The real-estate agent suddenly flashed through her mind.

‘I should go see the real-estate agent first!’

Ignoring the system messages announcing her existence before her eyes, Baek Seol hurriedly left the store.

“Wait, just a moment……!”

She thought she heard someone calling out to stop her from inside the store, but Baek Seol assumed she had imagined it. After all, when she had looked around the store, there had clearly been no one there except her.

After running nonstop, Baek Seol arrived at the spot where the real-estate office had been, only to blink several times at the unbelievable sight before her.

“Wha…… What?”

The real-estate office had definitely been here just moments ago.

“Where did it go? Am I in the wrong place?”

The real-estate office had disappeared.

Baek Seol hurriedly looked around. This was definitely the place. Next to the utility pole covered in tutoring flyers. In front of the little corner store.

“Excuse me, did you happen to see the real-estate office around here?”

When she grabbed an elderly man passing by and asked him, he pointed somewhere with his index finger.

“Hm? The real-estate office? There’s no such thing here. All the real-estate offices around here went under ages ago. Because of that dungeon.”

The place the old man pointed to was the very location where Baek Seol had awakened—and where the ‘Dungeon of Beginnings’ was located.

Twenty-seven years ago. A spatial distortion suddenly occurred on Earth.

People called that day the Great Cataclysm. Starting from that day, they abandoned the old calendar system and began counting the years as ‘Cataclysm Year 0,’ and so on.

At the same time, the strange places that appeared after swallowing up portions of space were called dungeons by the people of Earth.

And astonishingly, the ‘Dungeon of Beginnings’ was the very first dungeon to appear on Earth just before the Great Cataclysm—and no one had yet managed to find its entrance.

Because its entrance had remained undiscovered for so long, the ‘Dungeon of Beginnings’ had long since been forgotten by the public.

Even by Baek Seol.

‘I didn’t notice it earlier, but there really was a Dungeon of Beginnings right next to the store.’

In the end, after wandering around for quite some time without finding the real-estate office, Baek Seol returned and glanced toward the side of the bakery. Not far away was an empty lot with a strange atmosphere. That was the place known to be the location of the ‘Dungeon of Beginnings.’

There was no entrance, and it had been assessed as having a danger level approaching zero. Even so, there was something unsettling about it.

“What on earth is going on…….”

With a bewildered expression, Baek Seol opened the bakery door.

And was immediately greeted by an unexpected scolding.

“How could you just run off like that! What’s the point of getting out of the seal ppi? There was no one around to listen to me!”

“Huh……?”

“Do you know how hard it was to hide all this time ppi! I was so happy that I could finally talk ppi!”

Flap, flap!

The moment she opened the door, a white fluff flew right up in front of her face and continued to scold her. Though it was so small that it wasn’t exactly frightening.

“A…… bird?”

The white fluff flapping its wings in front of her and squawking angrily was definitely a bird.

And extremely……

“Cute!”

It was so adorable and lovable that Baek Seol completely forgot that her mind was still in chaos.

I’ve seen this bird before.

What was its name again? Ah, right. A bush warbler! A bush warbler!

Its small, round body was covered in white feathers, and its black eyes sparkled like tiny beads. It was squawking as though it were angry, but even that was cute.

“Uh. But how can a bird talk?”

“I’m not a bird ppi!”

A bird was telling her that it wasn’t a bird.

Naturally, Baek Seol didn’t believe it. But the bird insisted vehemently that it was not a bird.

“I am the Staff of the World, the guardian of □□□□□, and □□□□□…… □□□□□……!”

Strangely, the bird kept saying something, but the only words Baek Seol could understand were ‘Staff of the World.’

And that was the term she had seen in the system message earlier.

“The Staff of the World?”

“That’s right! I was originally a staff that guided the world, but from now on, I have decided to specially guide the owner of Dungeon Bakery. Consider yourself honored ppi.”

The bird calling itself the Staff of the World stopped flapping its wings and sat down on the table, puffing out its chest proudly.

Even so, it was so cute that Baek Seol almost got a nosebleed, temporarily forgetting her situation.

No, wait. This isn’t the time for this.

I almost forgot what I was supposed to do because I got distracted by this adorable bush warbler.

“Where would the owner’s contact information be…….”

Baek Seol assumed there had to be the landlord’s contact information somewhere in the store, so she began looking around.

And right at that moment—

<System: The configuration of the Dungeon Bakery system according to owner Baek Seol’s disposition has been completed.>

The system message flashed brightly, announcing its presence.

As though the bird had seen the message too, it spoke.

“Finally finished. The system configuration was slow because the owner left her position.”

The system configuration was complete.

While Baek Seol was wondering what that was supposed to mean, an opaque window suddenly appeared before her eyes.

Tabs began appearing, looking exactly like something that belonged in a tycoon game.

“Hmm. It seems the system has really taken your circumstances into consideration. What an arrangement. Well, judging by your reaction earlier, you are a somewhat worrying human.”

While the bush warbler muttered to itself, Baek Seol was feeling strangely familiar with the whole thing.

That was because she had always loved and enjoyed tycoon games. Even now, she had several games installed on her phone.

It was a hobby that gave her small moments of happiness and a sense of accomplishment whenever her body and mind were worn down by her life as a slave.

‘This one…… looks like the quest window. This one is the tab for buying and selling things. And this one is probably the crafting tab?’

The tabs were intuitive.

The exclamation mark grew larger and smaller as if announcing its presence, so that had to be the quest window. And since the word ‘Shop’ was written in small letters on a picture of a table, this was obviously the purchasing tab.

As a seasoned tycoon-game veteran, she could say this with absolute certainty.

Wow. This looks really fun!

“You’ve got a system configured like this to suit your circumstances for now, but once you get used to it later……”

“W-Wait.”

Oops. Without realizing it, she had almost started opening things one after another just like she would in a game.

Stopping the bush warbler, who had been rambling on with its explanation, Baek Seol took a few hesitant steps backward.

“I can’t become the owner of this place.”

“……What?”

Squeak? The bush warbler’s tiny head tilted to the side.

Its eyes seemed to be asking what kind of nonsense she was talking about.

Baek Seol gave an awkward smile and scratched her cheek with her index finger.

“I just came here to get a room to rent. And I’m busy with my studies too…….”

Baek Seol calmly explained her situation.

I’m a lowly graduate student. I don’t have the money to run this place. I’ll only gain financial independence after graduating from graduate school. Therefore, I can’t be the owner of this place right now!

The bush warbler delivered a devastating blow immediately after she finished speaking.

“Did you forget that you agreed to all the clauses earlier ppi?”

“……!”

“There was also a clause agreeing to the obligations in the event of terminating the contract.”

Baek Seol flinched.

Come to think of it, a message had appeared earlier saying that she had agreed to all the clauses.

And that included an obligation regarding contract termination?

What on earth was that obligation……?

The bush warbler narrowed its eyes and rubbed its two wings together like a villain.

“If you terminate the contract ppi!”

“If, if I terminate it?”

“You have to write your name one hundred times with your butt ppi!”

“……!!”

What! Write her name with her butt a hundred times?!

Baek Seol immediately assumed the duck-butt position to write her name with her butt.

That much was easy.

The bush warbler hurriedly spread its wings.

“Wait! I heard that for an adult human woman like you, writing your name with your butt is an extremely humiliating punishment! I definitely saw it on the internet!”

“I’m sorry, but I’m not human.”

“……Squeak?!”

“Graduate students aren’t human.”

The bush warbler was speechless for a moment.

Regardless, Baek Seol slowly began writing her name with her butt……

“Wait a moment! You can become incredibly rich if you run this place!”

Rich……? Baek Seol’s ears perked up.

‘Rich’ was a word she had yearned for all her life.

It was also the reason she had entered graduate school.

‘But if I just endure a little longer under Professor Kim…….’

Professor Kim.

That was the name her fellow lab members secretly used for the professor she worked under.

Professor Kim was a world-renowned engineer in his own right. If Baek Seol could simply graduate from graduate school under Professor Kim, she would be able to get into most major corporations with ease.

If things went really well, she might even be able to join Dokjin Corporation, a company that had become world-renowned through its mana-stone and potion businesses.

……Of course, graduation was practically impossible, considering there were still countless senior students who hadn’t managed to graduate yet.

Seeing that Baek Seol had stopped moving, the bush warbler quickly shouted.

“I guarantee it. On top of that, you’ll own this entire building. You’re already a building owner! Wasn’t becoming a landlord your dream ppi?”

“H-How did you……?”

“The system told me. And besides, if you become rich here, you can escape that terrifying place called graduate school that turns you into something other than human ppi!”

“……!”

That’s true.

If she became rich, there would be no reason to keep attending graduate school.

She had gone to graduate school in the first place to become rich!

Baek Seol’s ears perked up like a little animal’s.

If she owned the building, she could take care of both lodging and meals here……

And if she became rich, she wouldn’t have to attend graduate school anymore.

“Just try it for one year. You can decide what to do after that, can’t you ppi?”

The bush warbler stretched out one wing.

It looked almost like it was asking for a handshake.

Baek Seol stared at the wing for a moment.

“Actually, you’ve already agreed, so you have to take responsibility somehow. Otherwise, you’d be a bad adult ppi.”

“…….”

Responsibility.

At that word, Baek Seol’s lips pressed into a firm line.

Come to think of it, Baek Seol had already agreed to take responsibility—though not entirely of her own free will.

She had been the one who pressed the Y button, after all.

Baek Seol knew very well how heavy the word ‘responsibility’ could be, thanks to something she had experienced when she was young.

Even if she had agreed to it almost as if she’d been tricked……!

‘Ugh…….’

Baek Seol took the wing between two fingers and gave it a small shake like a handshake.

“……Okay, I’ll try it. Just for one year.”

Right.

It wasn’t as though she absolutely had to quit graduate school.

She could always take a leave of absence.

The moment Baek Seol thought that, the quest window flashed and appeared before her eyes.

<Beginner’s Quest ①: Entering the Bakery>

You have just become the owner of Dungeon Bakery!

Don’t know what to do first?

Well, let’s start with cleaning!

Store Cleanliness: 0/100

Reward: A Bakery Uniform Just for You

‘Connection with Staff of the World ???’

Beginner’s Quest ②>

Right.

That was how tycoon games started.

With cleaning.

Watching the bush warbler fly toward her carrying a cleaning apron and a triangular cap, Baek Seol gave an awkward smile.

Mom, I became a building owner.

She muttered the words silently to herself.