Mastore 56 - Dumpster

Magic Realm Convenience Store – Ch. 56

Convenience Store Clerk Taking a Practical Exam (1)”

I helped a kid a bit, and after helping, it felt like something like a blocked meridian opened in my body.

I was about to say that when I suddenly lost consciousness for a moment, and when I opened my eyes, I had my head planted on the table by the window. There was drool running down my mouth, too.

Manager, who was looking down at me, seemed like she had a lot to say but instead just let out a chuckle and made a short remark.

“Go home and get some sleep for now, and just come in by 6 p.m. You look really exhausted.”

Exhausted? Not drowsy?

I thought, but in my drowsy state, I just replied, "Okay," and I remember setting my alarm after returning home. After turning off the alarm that went off exactly at 5:30, I wondered, was I really exhausted? Because of the opened meridian?

I was going to ask about it when I went back to the convenience store, but the situation inside wasn’t one where I could just ask questions. There were a ton of customers.

"That’ll be 34,820 won."

With customers bursting even to the distant beverage shelves, Manager was using both cash registers to serve customers. It wasn’t until I silently walked in and started bagging the items on the counter that Manager realized I was there.

“Oh, Chan, when did you get here?”

"Just now. I'll bag the items, Manager. You handle the registers."

"Just sit down. It's not even your work shifts..."

Even if I wanted to, the customers had taken up all the tables, so there was nowhere to sit. Manager glanced at the line stretched in front of the counter, and after a moment, said apologetically.

"...I'll ask for your help."

“Sure.”

I was planning to talk with Manager a bit before leaving anyway. After scanning the barcode on some moisturizing cream and handing it to the bald snail-person customer, I continued helping the onslaught of customers while asking,

“Manager, what time should I go to take the exam?”

“7 p.m. The exam room is in front of the Academy District Station.”

If we teleported the convenience store, it wouldn't even take 3 minutes to get there, but to do that, we would have to kick out all the customers here and lock the door. In other words, we can't.

“How long would it take by subway?”

"About 40 minutes at most? But, Chan doesn't know the lines well, right?"

“The line…”

In my world, I’m the kind of guy who can travel to the ends of the earth as long as I’m given the address. How hard could a subway map be?

"Do Chan know what the nickname for the subway here is?"

“What is it?”

“Hell Magic Circle.”

“What kind of magic circle is that?”

"If you copy the line map onto paper, you might actually be able to use magic?"

There's no actual hell magic, but because the line map looks so grotesque, many subway newbies experience commuting hell, so it got the nickname Hell Magic Circle. Hearing that made me lose a bit of confidence.

"Then what about taking a bus?"

“That’ll be tough. It’s the time when traffic is really heavy.”

For similar reasons, taking a taxi was also out of the question. When I asked what the best option would be, Manager answered decisively.

“I told Yoonha about it, and she said she’d give you a ride.”

“Oh, really? When’s she coming?”

"She said she'd be here by 10, so... 5 minutes left."

Looks like we won’t be able to talk for long.

“Manager, can I ask you something real quick? About this morning’s thing.”

"That thing? Uh... Ah, that. I know what you’re talking about.”

It wasn’t something I could openly talk about in front of the customers, so I asked vaguely. This morning, I had to use my constitution on the dragon little girl, and after doing that, I felt twice as sleepy as usual. Does Manager think there's a connection?

This is an important issue. I have to go take the practical exam later, and I can't pass out again if I do the same thing there.

“It’s possible. Other species in the same profession sweat a ton after doing something similar.”

"Even though I only used it twice, with that little girl and the watermelon gummy?"

"Well. Rather than the number of times... Chan pulled an all-nighter then. Wouldn't that have a bigger impact?"

Manager’s theory was that I wasn’t just tired because my body’s a two-use styrofoam cup, but because I pulled an all-nighter and then did that on top of it, making me even more exhausted.

"Or it could be because Chan’s less familiar with it. Come to think of it, it's the first time Chan have done it consciously, right?"

“That’s true.”

“I don’t think Chan will faint or anything if you do that a few more times.... but just in case, when Chan is taking the exam, don’t go overboard with it.”

“Got it.”

I guess I should think of it as having some kind of usage limit. As soon as we finished talking, I noticed Yoonha noona squeezing her way through the crowd of customers.

“Hey, Lee Chan! Come out!”

Then giving up and calling me from outside the front door.

"Manager, I think I need to leave now..."

I felt a bit uneasy. I'm sure I served and sent off several customers, but looking around again, there are more customers than before. Is this something one person can really handle?

"This many customers is normal for this time, Chan."

“Huh.”

"I'm used to it, so don't worry and go take your exam well. And."

Manager, pausing register briefly, took something out from under the counter and handed it to me. It was a transportation card.

“I’ve filled up my 20,000 won account, so buy yourself a drink or something on the way."

"...Thank you."

Not knowing how to politely refuse, I just accepted it. After all, following orders is my fate, and when a superior tells me to do well on the exam, I have no choice but to ace it.

I bowed my head and came out to the front, and Noona saw me and grinned, saying,

"Oh my. This Yoonha, it is truly an honor to behold the countenance of the soon-to-be top scorer.”

"Noona, can't you just go home?"

“Just kidding, let’s go. You’ll be late.”

* * *

Outside, I followed Noona as she led the way toward the subway station. We took the escalator down to the subway lobby, saw a treasure-goblin street vendor dragging a suitcase around, and even an orc struggling to get through the ticket gate….

After passing the gate, I saw the route map posted on a column, and just like Manager said, it looked like you could tear it down and summon a giant robot with it. What exactly is the railroad authority spending our taxes on?

"Hey, Lee Chan, what are you doing there? Aren't you coming?"

I wanted to take a good look at how the structure was laid out, but since Noona was rushing me, I didn’t get the chance. We arrived at the platform, boarded the subway that arrived just in time, and only after sitting side by side in two empty seats did Noona smirk and say,

“Phew, it’s tough looking after a guy who’s just moved to the capital.”

“A guy who’s just moved to the capital? Me?”

"That's what Unni said. She said you just moved from the countryside and don’t know the subway system well, so I should look after you.”

What's this about now?

But after thinking about it for a moment, I realized Manager probably didn’t have much of an excuse from her perspective. A 29-year-old guy working a part-time job in the city, and he doesn’t know the subway routes? Unless I had short-term memory loss, it made no sense.

It might not be bad to go with the concept of a guy who just came up from the countryside at this point. If someone asks me if I’ve seen magic before, I could just say, "Well, there wasn’t any of that in my countryside village."

“Am I wrong?”

“Well… tractors do go by every now and then.”

“Then it is the countryside.”

Right after, the subway departed, and only then did I see the interior scenery of the subway. An orc was gripping the handrail with his head tilted, and an elf and a dwarf were sitting in the priority seats. It felt like I was looking at a character selection screen in an online game.

After a couple of stops passed in silence, Noona poked me in the side.

“So, how are you feeling? You okay?”

“Why are you asking about my mood all of a sudden?”

“It’s just that you were staring off into the distance like you were nervous.”

“…I don’t know?”

Honestly, it's not that I'm not nervous. If I mess up this practical exam, I’ll have to live in anxiety, wondering when and where I might get dragged off until the next exam rolls around.

But whenever I try to think about the exam, I have no idea what I’ll actually be doing there, so I can’t even wrap my head around it….

No. Since I ended up taking the subway anyway, I should ask Noona about this.

"Noona, are there people around you preparing for the anti-magic national license like me?"

“Hmm… yeah, I think there are a few? Even in my guild, there were a few hunters getting ready for it.”

She added that the anti-magic license I am trying to obtain is a license that has recently been gaining popularity among hunters. The retirement age for hunters is around 45, and apparently, many are scrambling to find other ways to make a living before and after they retire.

“A bunch of guild members went to take the written exam this year too. But they all failed.”

“For real?”

"Why would I lie? But you, didn't you come out in 10 minutes after undoing the magic on the exam room as soon as you went in?"

“I didn’t mean to.....”

"As soon as I heard that story, I thought all the guild hunters would flip out if I told them about you."

Then she added that she didn’t tell them because those guys would probably come find me at the convenience store and flip me over too.

“Why are you asking?”

“I was hoping to hear some examples from anyone who’s preparing for the practical exam.”

“…Honestly? That probably won't help much even if you hear it, Chan. It might be different if you were retaking the written exam.”

"Why?"

"They say there's so much to prepare for, it might be better not to prepare at all... Hey, Chan, we need to transfer at this station."

I couldn't understand much just from hearing it, so as we transferred trains, I tried to organize the information noona had mentioned in my head.

Toxins, and contaminated magical power? I have no idea what that is, but anyway, to undo chemical-related magic, you need a certain level of knowledge about chemical magic. Just acquiring that knowledge alone can take several months.

Also, let's say a wind turbine in a wind power plant malfunctions and creates a typhoon around itself. In this case, knowledge of both electrical magic and wind attribute magic is needed. Because you first need to figure out if it's a wind-related problem or if it's caused by the turbine overclocking.

In this case, the required knowledge is doubled. Or you could just bring in experts from both sides. But apparently, for the practical exam, they randomly pick a few out of the hundreds or thousands of existing magics for you to neutralize. Every practical exam in history has been like this.

After transferring to the next subway, Noona summarized it in one sentence.

"Simply put, it's like a lottery with hundreds of winning numbers. What you studied might come up, or it might not."

"Are the exam staff some kind of psychos?"

"You're saying exactly the same thing as the guys who told me this story."

If those exam staff knew the idiom about putting yourself in someone else's shoes, I don't think they'd ever set such an exam. Because of this, instead of trying to predict which magic will appear on the test, most people focus more on honing their anti-magic abilities. That’s what I wanted to hear.

“How do they do that?”

“It’s nothing special. For example… you might spend hours trying to cleanse a corrupted dragon scale… or stare at a demon heart with an anti-magic potion nearby… or analyze a perfectly normal tooth to figure out what magic might’ve been cast on it.”

I was about to say, ‘Makes sense’, but all of the examples she gave were things I already knew. Noona smirked faintly and then asked me in return:

"Chan, how long did it take you to purify the scales? 5 seconds?"

“Uh....”

“I get that you’re worried, but just have some confidence. If you don’t pass this time, they might as well consider there are no qualifiers for this quarter.”

In the end, it’s something I’ll only know when the results come out, but…

I figured I should try to stay optimistic. Whatever, I’ll just do it. It’s not like they’re going to ask me to catch a rainbow-colored beetle or extract vampire blood….

* * *

However, once I got to the exam room and checked the exam content, I thought catching a beetle might have been easier.

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