Dungeon Bakery Chapter 55

Baek Seol quietly kept her mouth shut and waited for Ella to eat the lemon cream bread.

“……”

Holding her breath as she waited, Baek Seol finally saw the lemon cream bread move toward Ella’s mouth. A large bite of bread disappeared between her chapped lips.

Chew, chew……

After taking a few bites, it didn’t take Ella long to finish the rest of the bread.

Chew, chew, chew. Nom.

“……”

“She says, ‘It’s delicious,’ ppi.”

Baek Seol’s face brightened. She hurriedly took out all the lemon cream bread she’d brought and held it out to Ella.

“Here, I brought plenty more. You can eat it all!”

Ella accepted the lemon cream bread without hesitation. Then she began eating ravenously. She devoured the bread with such gusto that it was hard to believe she was the same person who’d been refusing food until now.

After finally finishing all the lemon cream bread, she even sucked the lemon curd off her fingers.

Why did that sight move her so much? Baek Seol found herself sniffing for no particular reason.

“……”

Perhaps her stomach was full. With one hand resting gently on her belly, Ella began to speak.

“‘I miss Mother. She liked lemur, too.’”

Lucy silently translated Ella’s words.

“‘Everyone is dying there. My mother, our glorious Birdman queen…… I’m a coward who ran away and abandoned my people. My wings were torn off because I was a coward…… My wings…… I can no longer fly……’”

“……”

Tears welled up in Ella’s eyes before streaming down her cheeks. Then, for the first time, a sob burst from the mouth that had remained silent all this time.

“Waaah…… Waaah……”

She cried like a little child. Her eyelids swelled red, and snot ran from her nose. Even as tears streamed down her cheeks, she made no attempt to wipe them away.

“‘Then why are you trying to save someone like me? Is it simply because I was born with noble blood? Why is everyone dying to save me? Why are they sacrificing themselves for me? It’s too heavy…… Their lives are too heavy……’”

Listening to her story, Baek Seol felt she was beginning to understand Ella’s circumstances. It seemed Ella had survived at the cost of other people’s sacrifices. On top of that, she appeared to be of a fairly high-ranking lineage among the Birdmen.

“‘You should have let me die…… This useless life of mine…… It isn’t even worth saving.’”

As she listened to Ella speak, Baek Seol felt something stir deep within her heart. It was a memory of a certain day, buried in a place so deep that even she barely knew it existed.

But she couldn’t recall that memory, so all she could do was let the emotion it had stirred up wash over her.

That emotion was anger.

“How can you say something so foolish?”

A cold voice slipped out before she realized it.

Ella looked at her in surprise. As Baek Seol stared at her, sitting there with her lips slightly parted and her eyes blank, she pressed her own lips into a firm line.

The things she was about to say might be crossing a line. They might even be rude.

But……

“I don’t know the details of your situation. But I do know one thing. When you put yourself down like that, you’re insulting the people who gave their lives for you.”

“……”

“If your life were truly worthless, they wouldn’t have sacrificed their precious lives to save you. You know that better than anyone, don’t you?”

Baek Seol’s voice was cold and stern.

“And besides, you said your people are trapped somewhere. But you escaped from that place, so shouldn’t you be looking for a way to help them? Just as they saved you, you should find a way to save them.”

“……!”

Ella’s pale green eyes trembled violently. Baek Seol rose from her crouched position in front of her.

“So live. Live and repay them. That’s the only way the lives they sacrificed for you can have meaning.”

After finishing, Baek Seol held out her hand to Ella. The gesture clearly said, Take my hand and stand up.

Ella’s lips trembled as she looked at the outstretched hand. After hesitating for a while, she finally took Baek Seol’s hand.

Baek Seol grasped Ella’s hand tightly and pulled her up. Her now-lightweight body swayed as she rose to her feet.

“U……”

Ella lost her balance and nearly fell, but she grabbed Baek Seol’s arm and managed to stand firm. Her lips were still trembling, but her pale green eyes had grown a little more resolute.

Baek Seol gently relaxed her tense mouth and offered her a small smile.

“Until then, I’ll make you plenty of lemon cream bread. So let’s do our best together.”

“Tha……”

Meeting Baek Seol’s smile, Ella stumbled over her words. This time, she spoke in the human language rather than the Birdman language.

“……Thank, thank you.”

“Ah……”

There was something about Ella’s delicate, beautiful voice that stirred the listener’s instinct to protect her. Baek Seol was suddenly overwhelmed by the feeling that she’d pushed this fragile Birdman too hard.

It wasn’t a particularly pleasant feeling.

‘Why do I feel like I’ve become a bad person?’

In any case, she’d gotten Ella to eat lemon cream bread, and Ella had even thanked her.

S-so that was enough, right?

Baek Seol scratched the back of her head.

Just then, a system window appeared, announcing that the quest had been completed.

<System: Congratulations! You have completed the quest ‘The Birdman Ella’s Sorrow’! A reward will be granted.>

After the system window disappeared, she heard the sound of points accumulating. But Baek Seol didn’t have time to check.

It seemed much more urgent to make sure Ella recovered properly.

“Me…… can stay? Here.”

Ella could speak the human language, but she was rather clumsy at it. Her pronunciation was strange, as though a foreigner were awkwardly trying to imitate Korean. She also mixed formal and informal speech, and her grammar was often incorrect.

“Of course. You can absolutely stay.”

“I…… try hard.”

“Good. Then, to help you get stronger, there’s something you need to do first.”

“……What?”

“What do you think? Eat, of course.”

After saying that, Baek Seol went to the bakery and brought back a whole pile of food. Bread made at the bakery, along with lunchboxes and other things she’d bought outside and stocked up on, were placed in front of Ella.

“And you should get some exercise, too. With Pal.”

Ella looked overwhelmed by the food piled in front of her, then turned to where Baek Seol was pointing.

Pal was circling nearby in a rather awkward-looking posture.

“Ah……”

Ella blinked when she recognized Pal. How could she fail to recognize the monster that had attacked her before?

Baek Seol knew very well that Ella might be wary of Pal. But that was precisely why she’d deliberately brought him over.

It was partly a message telling Ella to steel herself. And Baek Seol also had a feeling she understood why Pal had been hovering around Ella.

“Neigh……”

Pal cautiously approached Ella and watched her reaction.

Just as she’d thought. Even though Baek Seol had ordered him to do it, he must have felt guilty about attacking Ella.

When Ella didn’t back away and simply looked at him, Pal seemed to take courage. He edged closer and gently rubbed his cheek against her shoulder.

“Hehe…… It’s okay.”

“Neigh……”

Fortunately, Ella readily accepted Pal’s apology. Then, as though she’d suddenly realized something, she looked at Baek Seol.

“Me, too. Me, too.”

“Pardon?”

Then, just like Pal, she approached Baek Seol and gently rubbed her cheek against her shoulder.

Baek Seol was caught completely off guard when a beautiful woman suddenly rubbed her cheek against her.

Ella smiled shyly and murmured softly.

“Sorry.”

“……”

“Forgive?”

Looking into those pale green eyes as they gazed at her with a hint of nervousness, Baek Seol let out a soft laugh.

“You mean for attacking me back then? It’s okay. I forgive you. Forgiven.”

“Forgiven!”

Ella beamed and threw her arms around Baek Seol, hugging her tightly.

How could such a slender pair of arms have so much strength?

Baek Seol awkwardly smiled as she felt her body being squeezed flat.

‘Anyway, that’s one problem taken care of.’

And right at that moment, a system window appeared.

Baek Seol’s eyes widened. She’d thought there wouldn’t be any more system windows now that the quest was complete.

<System: Congratulations! You have completed the achievement ‘Help the Dungeon Family Three Times’! A Silver Button will be awarded as your reward.>

Help the Dungeon Family Three Times?

It was an achievement she’d seen before. Back then, she’d received the Whistle skill as a reward for helping twice.

The dungeon family……?

Does that mean the Birdmen are monsters belonging to the Dungeon of Beginnings, too?

‘Lucy said the Birdmen weren’t monsters belonging to the Dungeon of Beginnings. But the system is saying the opposite.’

In that case, the system was probably more accurate.

“Ahem. I see, ppi. So that person considers the Birdmen part of the family……”

Lucy muttered to himself, then subtly turned his head away as though trying to change the subject. It seemed the situation had become awkward because he’d ended up lying.

Regardless, that wasn’t the important thing right now.

Baek Seol blinked. An indicator had appeared, showing that something had been added to her inventory. She opened it without thinking.

Inside was a square plaque with a familiar-looking design.

‘Isn’t this thing from Neotube?’

It looked just like the plaque awarded when a Neotube channel reached a certain number of followers.

Perhaps the system had figured out Baek Seol’s interests and given her a reward suited to them. It was true that she watched Neotube quite often.

Still, wasn’t this a little too similar? It even had the play button, which could be considered Neotube’s signature symbol, right there on it.

‘Isn’t this plagiarism?’

Just as Baek Seol narrowed her eyes and directed her suspicions of plagiarism toward the system, Lucy spoke up in wonder.

“Hooh. The slimes, Black Rabbits, Black Elephants, and now the Birdmen. That makes three times, ppi. What’s a Silver Button, ppi?”

“It’s a result that perfectly demonstrates the system’s unethical and uncreative nature…… Huh? There’s something written on it.”

She noticed some very tiny writing beneath the play button. Without letting go of her suspicious expression, Baek Seol read it aloud.

“‘Press here’?”

“Doesn’t that mean you should press the button, ppi?”

“Looks like it.”

When Baek Seol took the Silver Button out of her inventory, Ella blinked at the sudden appearance of the strange item.

Baek Seol gave her a little smile and muttered,

“So it looks the same, but it’s actually different?”

Somehow, it felt as though the system was trying to make that very excuse.

With that thought, she promptly pressed the Silver Button.

Light poured out of the button, and letters began to appear in midair.