Mastore 130 - Dumpster

Magic Realm Convenience Store – Ch. 130

Even Chihuahua can roll (2)

The Chihuahua must have found my lack of understanding unbearably frustrating, as he proceeded to give supplementary explanations about his job.

To paraphrase, he works for a company that handles network security for public institutions and corporations, and his main job is to hack into security systems and then explain the vulnerabilities as a security expert.

After that, he spent several more minutes using specialized terminology that I could barely follow. After listening as carefully as I could, I offered my thoughts.

“Huh?”

"For fuck's sake, look. This is what we call a mouse..."

He immediately grabbed a wireless mouse and shoved it in my face with his eyes bloodshot.

If I said something like ‘Who doesn’t know what a mouse is?’ his eyes would probably burst. But what am I supposed to do when I genuinely don't understand?

Besides, the whole situation was absurd—functions, vulnerabilities, injections, all these technical terms that require study to understand were coming out of this Chihuahua's mouth. It’s not like this is some racial characteristic of Chihuahua kobolds in this world...

“You see these two buttons? The one on the left is the left mouse button, and the one on the right is the right mouse button.”

"You use a mouse for coding too? In movies, they just goes tap-tap-tap on the keyboard."

"Where the hell did this bastard see that kind of crap?"

“It isn’t?”

"Of course, it’s like that in movies, but why do you keep asking questions when you won’t even understand the answers?"

That seemed right, so I decided not to ask any more about this. Fine, maybe Chihuahuas are naturally good at coding, or maybe this guy was abducted by a magic UFO, zapped with a beam, and came back like this. What does it matter to me? As long as he does his job well, that’s all that matters.

After being quiet for a moment, the Chihuahua looked at his laptop screen once and asked again.

"So what time do you close?"

"I told you. We’re open 24/7, 365 days a year."

"Are all the other places like that too?"

It varies by store, and broadly falls into two categories depending on how they contracted with the franchise: 24-hour operation year-round, or 18-hour operation.

If you see a convenience store with its lights off at night, instead of thinking, ‘Huh? Why is that store closed?’ just assume they’ve signed a contract for 18-hour operations.

When I explained this, the Chihuahua briefly looked at my face, then abruptly turned back and put his paws on the laptop.

"I'll be working until morning, so you just do your job."

(D: Perhaps the Chihuahua… worried about Chan and intend to stay in the store???)

I thought about asking why he even asked about other stores’ hours if he was just going to stay here, but I let it go.

I’ve been measuring this Chihuahua’s anger levels like this: the better his mood, the angrier he gets, and the worse his mood, the calmer he becomes. It’s an inverse relationship.

By that measure, right now he was probably just below his boiling point, if not already there. Isn't this the first time this guy has talked about himself so calmly and at such length?

I wasn’t exactly sure why, but maybe he was irritated because everyone else was resting due to the gate issue while he had to work. I pointed toward the front door and said,

"Then I'll go do my job. I'll be back shortly."

Normally in this situation, he'd be saying ‘Who's going to watch the store then, shithead?’ and worrying about our store, but he's just silently hammering away at his keyboard.

I stepped outside and made a call. To the vampire professor.

It was a late call, but he wouldn’t be sleeping anyway, being a vampire and all. The call rang twice before it was cut off.

[I don't have time to talk. I'm busy now, so later—]

"I’ll make it quick. About what we talked about this morning."

The professor abruptly stopped speaking. After a moment, one phrase.

[Wait three minutes.]

Then he hung up. As I waited, I looked blankly up at the night sky.

There were plenty of dark clouds tonight. Looked like rain was coming soon.

The moonlight that had brightly illuminated the sky all week had completely vanished. ust as the minute hand on my phone clock changed for the third time, the call came in.

[I'm busy so I'll be brief. The registration procedure has just been completed, and from now on, you're also an involved party in this case. Within your assigned area, through the police department, Hunter Association, Magic Bureau...]

"Wait. Where and where?"

[...Police department. Hunter Association. Magic Bureau. You can requisition necessary personnel through these three agencies, and beyond that, you have the authority regarding the exploration or investigation of gates, or in emergency situations, the direct elimination of gates.]

Even after hearing it, it didn’t feel real. So if I call the police, they’ll come and hand out donuts to me? If I whine to the Hunter Association or the Magic Bureau, they’ll come and listen to all my complaints?

I tried to imagine it, and the sight of a convenience store worker in uniform saying 'do this, do that' seemed quite ridiculous. The professor continued.

[Also, your assigned area is within a circular range of 1.5km radius centered on the convenience store where you work. If you have any objections, I will assign a different area.]

"No objections. What else?"

[You may begin. Or do you have any other questions?]

I had a mountain of them. For instance, what’s the Magic Bureau’s phone number anyway?

If I asked something like that, I'd obviously be asked if I were a North Korean spy. After a moment of thought, I asked about the most ambiguous part of what I had just heard.

"You mentioned 'other means' earlier, what are those?"

[It refers to any means available, on the premise that they don't violate the law.]

"So I need to know what those are to think—"

[Any means at your disposal.]

The professor, who’s all about pragmatism, repeated the same thing in a frustrated tone. Then he muttered,

[At the committee.]

“Yes.”

[Considering the scale, frequency, and damage assessment of gates appearing within the city center, we estimate that the core gate has a maximum of 7 days left until natural dissipation.]

“What’s the minimum?”

[2 days.]

Even now, countless anti-magic specialists are said to be moving around with sweaty feet.

They have to deal with civilian damages that have already occurred, deploy personnel including anti-magic specialists to expected gate emergence points, identify the location of the core gate, and remove it before it naturally dissipates.

[What I'm saying is that there's no spare capacity to instruct on each and every method or means. Even just the list of civilian casualties—]

“I get it. Do you have any advice for newbies who have been into the industry for 2 or 3 weeks? Maybe a quick tip?”

I thought that if I hung up the call like that, I would just feel lost. After a moment of silence, the professor clicked his tongue and said,

[When you took your national license exams, how did you approach the tests?]

"The exam was just..."

[Do it in the way that you achieved your best results. I'll send the information you need to know as a PDF file in the early morning. Check it immediately upon receipt. I'm hanging up.]

With that, he really did hang up, and the call time showed less than 3 minutes. Seems like he really was ridiculously busy.

I slid my phone into my back pocket and stared up at the night sky again. I still felt lost, but I couldn’t take back what I had already said. If it’s about doing what I did during the exam...

I was the one who erased the magic, but I received tremendous help from others throughout the process. Noona helped me choose tasks and provide muscle, and Manager personally selected the final task.

Right now, following the process is what matters. Even if I wanted help, Noona and Manager were probably already busy running around dealing with their own problems….

“.....”

The overwhelming feeling just grew stronger. If I had known things would turn out like this, I really should have studied more anti-magic literature.

—Tuk.

While I was thinking, a drop of water fell on my wrist. Reflexively, I looked up and saw droplets of rain occasionally visible under the streetlights.

"What kind of rain is this, again."

I should go back inside and continue thinking. s I entered the store, the Chihuahua immediately turned his head toward me, having heard the door chime.

“Hey, shithead!!”

“Why.”

“What the fuck you mean ‘why’, if you leave a customer in the store and leave, what will happen to the store? What if some thief comes and empties the safe? Are you going to take responsibility?"

“Did you steal anything?”

"Am I a thief? Why would I steal anything?"

Seeing how he had lost it in just five minutes, it seemed like he had finally gotten past whatever was blocking him in his coding and was in a better mood. Feeling uneasy, I offered a suggestion,

"You should head home soon. They say they don't know when all hell will break loose because of the gate opening outside."

"Will that do my work for me?"

"Your work won't be done for you, but wouldn't home be better than here? That's why you pay rent to live there."

“I can't work at home, shithead. The bed’s way too comfy.”

This I understood. It's like, when you leave work right on time thinking you'll finish the overtime work at home and take tomorrow off—but once you get home, you end up throwing everything aside and collapsing.

“Then do whatever you want....”

"Hey."

"What is it now?"

"Why did you go outside?"

I was about to answer that I went out for some fresh air, but stopped myself.

Even though this Chihuahua cursed me out, he still explained what he was doing, so I figured I should return the favor. After thinking for a moment, I pulled out my license and answered.

"I do anti-magic work on the side. Just doing some government business at the same time."

"This bastard, you were country’s dog?"

"No, it’s not like that. Since you asked, let me explain. Gates are opening all over the place outside, and I’ve been asked to do something about it..."

I explained that the gates were appearing because of something called a core gate somewhere, and I was tasked with finding it around this area. They also told me to resolve any civilian damages that might occur.

Honestly, I’m not sure about the civilian damage part. I can erase magic, but I can’t fix things that have been destroyed by magic. That's something my phone does on its own...

"So I want to find that gate, but I'm not sure how to find it—I was thinking about this before coming back in. Yeah."

I wrapped up my explanation and looked at the Chihuahua. His forehead was wrinkled like he was utterly baffled. He asked me in a tone of disbelief.

"Why is a convenience store clerk doing something like that?"

Exactly. Why was I even doing this?

When I was taking the taxi back earlier, I did think about this topic a bit. How did my plan to just do a quick part-time job and leave get so tangled up? What exactly do I want to do in this world?

I finally reached something resembling a conclusion right before I got out of the taxi. That this isn't a problem that will be solved with just an hour of contemplation.

I've lived in a different world for 29 years. My life hasn’t been easy enough to figure out the answer in just an hour.

So I thought about it a little more simply. Not what I want to do in the future, but why I want to do this right now. Why I need to do it. The answer to this came easily.

"Because of this goddamn gate, customers aren't coming, customers."

My previous workplace went bankrupt because of COVID, and it looks like I'm about to have that experience again because of this cursed gate. Sales haven't even reached 100,000 won in two days, you know?

If I were just a simple part-timer, that'd be one thing. But I had a yearly contract and, even if only nominally, the title of manager. Shouldn't I at least try something? It directly impacted the store’s sales.

"Whether I can do it or not is beside the point. The store is in danger of going out of business at this rate."

As I finished speaking and looked out the window, the Chihuahua suddenly blurted out,

"How the hell do you find that damn gate?"

"I don't know either. Well, they say something about lumping together all the places where gates are opening and it will likely open in the middle or something..."

"Hey."

“Yeah.”

I looked at the Chihuahua as he answered, and he was turning his laptop back on from sleep mode.

"Wait a minute, you shithead."




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