Dungeon Bakery Chapter 3

“Hey. Don’t you think something’s weird?”

Baek Seol asked as she wiped the beads of sweat from her forehead.

“Hm? What is it, ppi?”

The bush warbler sucked on her iced Americano through a straw and crossed her short little legs. Leaning against a golden statue that seemed to have appeared in the shop at some point without her noticing, she casually swung one leg back and forth. She looked remarkably relaxed.

How was a bird even able to suck on a straw that well?

It had already been a week since that mysterious little bird had started enjoying an iced Americano every day while watching Baek Seol clean.

“……It’s already been a week. So why is the cleanliness still only at 31?”

“……Ppi, ppi.”

The bush warbler subtly turned her head while taking another long sip through the straw. The iced Americano Baek Seol brought in every morning was now almost empty.

The quest was still <Beginner’s Quest ①: Entering the Bakery>.

In other words, she was still cleaning.

<Store Cleanliness: 31/100>

She had spent the entire week doing nothing but cleaning, except when she was eating or sleeping!

Why! Why on earth was the Cleanliness still only 31?!

Baek Seol made a miserable face.

The joy of becoming a building owner, of being able to become rich soon, of finally escaping graduate school—it had lasted only briefly.

She was now facing hardships just as grueling as graduate school itself.

On top of that, the system’s message windows looked like ancient Windows pop-ups from decades ago, and she still couldn’t get used to them. Baek Seol was accustomed to sleek, modern interfaces, so the outdated screens irritated her every time she saw them.

Ugh. I hate this.

The bush warbler, who had been pretending not to pay attention, casually spoke up.

“It can’t be helped, ppi. Considering how long this place was left abandoned, it’s only natural for the Cleanliness to increase slowly, ppi.”

“How long was it abandoned……? What, was it abandoned for more than a million years……?”

“……Ahem.”

The bush warbler looked oddly guilty as she pretended not to hear and took another sip of her iced Americano.

Surely it hadn’t really been more than a million years.

A strangely ominous feeling crossed Baek Seol’s mind, but she shook her head firmly.

Thinking about scary things would only make things harder for her.

She wanted to return to the bakery even now, but she had reached a point where she truly couldn’t anymore.

‘The quest…….’

When she opened the quest window dejectedly, she saw another quest besides the currently active <Beginner’s Quest ①: Entering the Bakery>.

It was actually the very first quest that had been given to her, before the Beginner’s Quest. She had been too busy searching for the real-estate lady to even check it properly.

<Quest: Same-Day Instant Loan!!>

Boss! You need to run your shop, but the lack of funds has got your head spinning, right?

Don’t worry! We’ll solve it for you!

Special Benefits for Graduate Students! Confidentiality Guaranteed!

(Warning: The loan funds will be used immediately to purchase Dungeon Bakery. If the debt is not repaid within ten years, your body will be bound to the system in accordance with the previously signed ‘Body Surrender Agreement.’)

<Remaining Debt: 999,999,999P>

Mom, I think I’ve been scammed. Right?

Baek Seol grabbed at her hair.

When she had first discovered this quest, she had protested that she had never agreed to anything like this.

But then—

‘It was included in the terms I agreed to at the beginning.’

Thanks to the bush warbler’s kind explanation, Baek Seol had realized that she had personally agreed to bury herself under an utterly ridiculous mountain of debt.

And that wasn’t even all.

The warning was written in such tiny letters that it was barely visible.

“Giving up my body if I can’t pay the debt within ten years? How is that even legal?”

The bush warbler watched sympathetically as Baek Seol, who had stopped cleaning, muttered to herself while pulling at her hair.

“The system really did a wonderful job setting this up, ppi. Maximizing human motivation to this extent…… ppi.”

“Ugh…….”

“You can’t expect to become a building owner for free, ppi. Everything has a price, ppi. Still, there’s no interest, ppi.”

The bush warbler let the straw fall from her beak with a little plop.

She was so irritated that Baek Seol wanted to bonk her right on the head.

Or perhaps she should throw out the golden statue the bush warbler leaned against every day.

The bird spent every day leaning against it and watching Baek Seol clean, and the sight was becoming increasingly unbearable.

“What’s with that look, ppi? You look like a delinquent, ppi.”

“Graduate students naturally have eyes like this.”

At Baek Seol’s curt reply, the bush warbler huffed indignantly.

“If you think about it, you’re not even a graduate student anymore, ppi.”

“……Why not? I’m on a leave of absence. I didn’t quit.”

Baek Seol had taken a leave of absence from graduate school the very day after she became the owner of the bakery.

Apparently, students in other departments usually needed permission from both their academic advisor and department chair when submitting a leave-of-absence form.

Baek Seol, however, had been granted her leave immediately without any of that.

‘Maybe because so many people take leaves of absence, or maybe because of Professor Kim’s reputation.’

No.

Most likely, Professor Kim had simply been too lazy to bother with such procedures and had gotten rid of them altogether.

Either way, it worked out well for Baek Seol.

She suddenly remembered the assistant who had looked at her leave-of-absence application with an expression of pure pity.

Then the bush warbler suddenly shouted.

“You’re the owner of a bakery now, ppi! Shed your graduate-student identity, ppi!”

“Yes, yes. That’s why I’m working so hard cleaning all day long, isn’t it?”

“That’s right. Work hard, ppi!”

The bush warbler looked extremely proud.

Sigh.

Baek Seol didn’t bother suppressing the sigh that escaped her and went to rinse the mop.

The mop, which showed every sign of having survived many years, took quite a while to wash properly.

And just as she was about to begin her second life as a slave……

Snap!

“Eek! You scared me.”

Perhaps the inside had already rotted away, because the wooden handle of the mop suddenly broke.

Baek Seol nearly fell over while pushing it across the floor.

Having nearly shaved ten years off her life, she wiped away her cold sweat and stared helplessly at the broken mop.

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“What else? Buy a new one, ppi.”

“But…….”

Baek Seol looked troubled.

Ever since she started living here, she had learned something about this neighborhood.

It was quiet.

Far too quiet.

There weren’t even any proper restaurants around, to the point that Baek Seol considered herself lucky simply because she could cook her own meals here.

And naturally, there was no large supermarket nearby where she could buy something as simple as a mop.

Besides, mops were expensive.

Baek Seol, who had no money, felt genuinely saddened by the death of her mop.

As she tried to reconnect the broken handle with tape somehow, the bush warbler clicked her tongue.

“Why don’t you use the shop, ppi?”

“……The shop?”

“Yes. Isn’t it right there in the system window, ppi?”

Oh.

There was a tab for purchasing items.

With the enormous amount of debt flashing in the quest window, she hadn’t really thought to check the rest of the system.

No, it would be more accurate to say she had consciously avoided it.

‘Let’s see. Here it is.’

Baek Seol lightly touched the Shop tab on the system window, and a screen for purchasing items immediately appeared.

At the moment, the only things available for purchase were cleaning-related supplies.

The other categories were marked with question marks, so it seemed more items would become available later.

‘The mop…… Here it is.’

She had 500 points remaining.

These points were different from real-world money.

Points were the currency shared among Awakened individuals.

‘And I never imagined I’d be the one spending them.’

The points could also be converted into Korean won.

One point was equivalent to 1,000 won.

So 500 points would be……

“What?! Why does a mop cost 500,000 won? I’d be better off buying one outside!”

“Ahem. Ordinary cleaning supplies can’t remove the accumulated grime in this place, ppi. And look at the description, ppi! It may not look like much, but it’s a heavily enhanced mop, ppi.”

“…….”

<+10 Mop>

A mop designed exclusively for Dungeon Bakery. Its cleaning power is exceptional.

What was she supposed to do with a fully enhanced mop?

Was she ever going to use it as a weapon?

Baek Seol let out a groan and purchased the mop.

Ding!

<System: You have purchased the bakery-exclusive ‘+10 Mop.’ 500P has been deducted. 0P remaining.>

Five hundred points disappeared in an instant.

And the amount of money she had left was now exactly zero.

“Could I really spend an entire year doing nothing but cleaning? I’m not going to make any money at all. I’m going to end up in the negatives.”

Muttering to herself, Baek Seol looked toward the bottom of the item purchase window.

There was a button labeled ‘Switch to Selling.’

If she pressed it, apparently the screen would change from purchasing items to selling them.

Depressed, Baek Seol pouted and tapped the ‘Switch to Selling’ button.

Having played every tycoon game she could get her hands on in the past, there was one thing Baek Seol always checked whenever she saw a buying-and-selling interface.

“Hey. Ahem…….”

The bush warbler thought Baek Seol was absentmindedly staring at the screen and tapping it pointlessly.

She felt a little sorry for her.

So she decided to offer some encouragement.

“Just hang in there a little longer, ppi. See that door over there, ppi? It’s locked right now, but once you open it, you’ll be able to make money, ppi.”

“Door……?”

Baek Seol answered distractedly, without taking her eyes off the screen.

There were all sorts of mysterious objects and places inside the shop.

Although there was clearly no connected space visible from outside, that door sitting alone on one wall was one of them.

It was a rather handsome brown door, so until now Baek Seol had assumed it was merely decorative.

“How do I open that door?”

Seeing that Baek Seol still seemed completely out of it, the bush warbler assumed she must have been exhausted and answered in a generous tone.

“You need to spend 10,000 points to unlock it, ppi. If you look through the system window, you’ll probably see it together with a lock icon, ppi.”

Just as the bush warbler had said, when Baek Seol checked through the system window, there was a lock icon around the door.

And above it were the words:

‘Unlock Cost: 10,000P.’

“You’ll be able to gather 10,000 points in no time as you clear the quests, ppi. Hang in there until then, ppi.”

Of course, there are probably a lot of quests you’ll have to clear before then, ppi.

The bush warbler added the last part in a quiet voice, but it went straight into Baek Seol’s ears.

10,000P.

Converted into Korean won, that was ten million won.

Baek Seol quietly asked,

“10,000 points? That’s all I need?”

“Huh? Well, yes. That’s all you need. The only condition is…… ppi?”

Clink!

Suddenly, the sound of money dropping came from somewhere.

The bush warbler then realized that the golden statue she had been leaning against had disappeared.

That realization came only after she tumbled backward because there was suddenly nothing behind her to lean on.

“Ppi! W-What is going on……!”

Clink! Clink!

The bush warbler couldn’t believe what was happening before her eyes.

Every time she blinked, the furniture in front of her was disappearing.

No.

More precisely—

It was being sold!

“Wait! What are you doing, ppi?!”

“What else? I’m selling them. The selling prices are way too low compared to what they originally cost. Tsk. The golden statue was originally worth 999,999 points, but I only get 999 points for selling it.”

With a dazed expression, as though possessed by something, Baek Seol continued tapping the air.

Every time she did, another item in the shop disappeared.

“Yep. Just as I thought.”

“What, what?”

“Look. The cleanliness is going up.”

“……?”

“Ppi……?”

While the bush warbler blinked in confusion, unable to understand her at first, Baek Seol checked the quest window.

<Store Cleanliness: 71/100>

She had only sold a few pieces of furniture.

And the Cleanliness was already at 71.

On top of that, her points were already approaching 8,000.

‘So the reason the cleanliness wasn’t increasing was because the furniture itself was filthy.’

It seemed like it would be better to sell everything and simply buy new furniture.

Having played countless tycoon games, Baek Seol always did one thing whenever she started a new game.

First, she figured out whether there were any unnecessary items.

Game developers might have created and provided certain items because they thought they were necessary, but in reality, there were often far more useless things than one might expect.

Decorative items that did nothing but take up space, for example.

And once she identified the unnecessary items, she checked whether she could sell them regardless of her quest progress!

That was what Baek Seol had checked just now.

‘Perfect. If I keep going like this…….’

While the bush warbler lay sprawled helplessly on the floor, the work proceeded smoothly.

Clink! Clink!

The sound of money piling up continued to ring out.

<System: Congratulations! Store Cleanliness has reached 100. Beginner’s Quest ① has been completed. Rewards will be granted.>

Reward: Bakery Uniform Just for You

** ‘Connection with Staff of the World ???’**

** Beginner’s Quest ②>**

Ding! Ding!

The system announced that the quest had been completed.

And after confirming that she had finally accumulated 10,000 points, Baek Seol unlocked the brown door she had thought was nothing more than a decoration.

<System: Congratulations! You have used 10,000P to unlock the ‘Door of Beginnings.’>

Oh. So it’s unlocked!

Before she could even finish thinking that, system windows began popping up one after another.

<System: You have completed a quest of a much higher level than the quest currently in progress. Lower-level quests will be completed automatically.>

<System: Congratulations! Beginner’s Quest ② has been completed. Rewards will be granted.>

<System: Congratulations! Beginner’s Quest ③ has been completed. Rewards will be granted.>

<System: Congratulations! Beginner’s Quest ④ has been completed. Rewards will be granted.>

.

.

.

Baek Seol was a Dobby with neither time nor money, so she couldn’t enjoy games by investing as much time as other people did.

That was why she had mastered every trick in the book.

……She just hadn’t expected those tricks to be this effective.

‘Wait, what kind of beginner quests go all the way up to ten? If I’d actually done all of those, I wonder how much time I would’ve wasted. Good grief.’

As Baek Seol watched the quests being completed one after another, a look of exhaustion crossed her face.

Meanwhile, the bush warbler, utterly stunned by the effectiveness of her little trick, let out a small groan.

“Ppi……. Good heavens…….”