Mastore 135 - Dumpster

Magic Realm Convenience Store – Ch. 135

Our store is open for business as usual (2)

Huh? Why are you there...?

—After thinking this for just a brief moment, I immediately grabbed the front door handle.

The floating metal trash bin looked like it might overturn at any second. And the words Mongmong was shouting were enough to make one's insides burst...

"This humble dog cannot stay here much longer. I must repay a life debt to my benefactor!"

I forced open the door against knee-high floodwater. What had previously been a minor leak now turned into a massive torrent pouring inside.

With a ‘come what may’ resignation, I dashed out and immediately shouted upon reaching the sidewalk in front of the store.

“Hey! Hey, Mongmong! Hey!!”

The cursed ‘double rainfall’ event had reduced visibility to zero. I couldn’t see shit, except maybe my tears. Why, why the hell was this biblical-level disaster happening right in front of my workplace?

Moreover, with rain pouring like a waterfall on my head and shoulders, I was starting to feel like I might actually die crushed under the rainwater. Then, a booming voice cut through the chaos.

“Boss! Boss, is that you?! How did you know to find this humble dog here?!"

"I didn’t! You floated here, you rascal! Right in front of the store!!”

The voice came from my right. I waded into the raging current (more like a river now) and barely spotted the trash can drifting down the center of the road. The current was practically at flash flood levels.

You don’t beat a current. You calculate them.

Waist-deep current. If I slip here, I would be swept away. I crouched as low as I could, bracing myself in the center of the first lane.

A moment later, when I grabbed the garbage can that had floated right in front of me like embracing it, a voice mixed with equal parts sorrow and joy came from inside.

“I knew you’d come for me, Boss!”

“No, I'm trapped too."

“What?”

With the storm trapping us both here, it wasn’t exactly untrue. I immediately opened the trash can lid and grabbed the soaking wet Mongmong's body and took it out.

Holding him securely in one arm, I fought against the current to get back onto the sidewalk, grabbed the door handle, and used my shoulder to shove my way back inside. I placed the dog atop the stack of ramen boxes on the checkout counter.

Right after, I collapsed beside him, gasped for breath with all my might.

“Ugh. Keuk. Huufffttt.”

The rainwater I inhaled through my nose alone felt like an entire bottle of mineral water. While I was still catching my breath, Mongmong spoke up in a cautious voice.

“I am truly sorry, Boss. It was never my intention to trouble you…”

“...Cough.”

After wiping the water from my face with my hand, I looked at Mongmong, and his fur was so soaked with rain that he had shrunk to half his usual size. His face was entirely hidden behind his drenched bangs.

I was going to complain about nearly drowning while rescuing him, but seeing his tail curled pitifully between his legs killed any desire to do so. I took a deep breath and answered.

“Let’s forget about it, rascal. There are days like this in life.”

"Whimper..."

“Just don’t shake yourself dry in here. If those cigarettes get wet, you’re paying for them, got it?”

"...Cigarettes? Is this humble one not standing on the floor?"

I brushed his wet bangs aside for him. Mongmong glanced around the near-flooded store and muttered in a stunned voice.

"Good heavens. To think even this store has ended up in such a state..."

“What do you mean by that? You’re saying this rain is pouring everywhere else too?”

I skipped the small talk and cut straight to the point. When I next met this fellow, I had intended to ask him what exactly he had been talking about with that winged horse for an entire day.

I was curious what advice he had received as a fellow mystical creature. He seemed to realize now wasn’t the time for that conversation, though, and immediately began explaining with a story from this morning.

“The park this humble one was staying in was like this too. The same dark clouds loomed outside there as well."

He says he had been sleeping peacefully under the security office eaves until morning, when he was startled awake by the sound of gushing rain. When he looked up, he saw the same kind of ominous clouds looming over the street in front of the store.

In an instant, water rose up to his paws, and he instinctively thought it was dangerous. Sensing danger, he held his breath and fought his way through the rain.

"I did manage to escape thus, but the moment I escaped, thoughts of Boss came to mind. If this kind of rain was falling over the whole city, even Boss might not be safe…”

He continued splashing through the rain without stopping, sometimes even dog-paddling his way through, but as luck would have it, the dark clouds from the park were busy pouring rain on this street too.

"This humble one tried to muster courage, but I simply could not bring myself to attempt dog-paddling through such rainfall."

Still, he couldn’t just give up, so he searched around carefully and found a beloved trash can that could be used as a substitute for a raft.

After quickly knocking it over with his paws and making sure nothing was inside, he hopped in. His near-miraculous control of his front paws and snout worked well enough to close the lid, but he hadn't thought about what would happen next.

"I couldn't see outside at all, you see. This humble one had no way of knowing where I was drifting to..."

"Ah. So that's why you were shouting 'I'm a dog but I can talk, please save me—' at the top of your lungs?"

“.......”

He whimpers and curls up his tail, as if he has nothing to say. Watching him, I sighed and briefly scratched his head. His completely soaked fur no longer felt the same as before.

"I met Hana this morning, and she was really worried about you too. Wondering if you'd be okay with all this rain."

"Ah, even Young Miss Hana..."

“That’s right, you rascal. So I want to tell you to please stop doing things like this, but since you came out here worrying about me, I’ll let it go. For now.”

With the weather like this, nowhere would’ve been safe anyway. At least he made it here to show his face.

Not that this place was much better. Still, rescuing him was something to be grateful for…

"...But really, what do we do about this?"

First, I tried to look on the bright side. At least the sound of the rain was steady now.

Though the dark clouds outside are gushing water like a fire hydrant hit by a bomb, at least the rainfall isn't getting any heavier. Who knows what'll happen later, though.

If it stayed like this, it didn’t seem likely we would reach a scenario where the store fully submerged or we had to abandon store entirely.

The problem is, if this pace continues, that's a problem in itself.

It had taken me 30 minutes to clear the first shelf, but barely ten minutes later, the water had risen to the second shelf already. The estimated damage to our goods was easily surpassing a million won?

Snack bags, boxed treats, anything buoyant was floating around like untethered life rafts. Even now, water's sloshing under the counter where I put Mongmong...

"...Damn it. I don't know..."

“Kkiing....”

Maybe my face looked particularly miserable, because Mongmong approached with a wobble and began licking my arm.

I tried to push him away, telling him not to lick the muddy water. It was some comfort to remember I wasn’t suffering alone. Besides, watching him sparked something in my memory.

Manager said earlier. No matter what happens, hang in there.

Those weren’t empty words. She must’ve an inkling something would happen to the store. I don't know if I had any inkling that the store would be half water and half air, but...

She must’ve definitely gotten permission for magic that could handle a situation like this. That's the kind of person she is. ‘Hold out’ probably didn't mean ‘guard the store well’, but rather ‘keep yourself alive until I return’.

The promised time was 3 hours. Two had already passed. I could probably manage.

But I wasn’t so sure my tear ducts could last the remaining hour. With Wi-Fi down, I couldn't even use magic, and was stuck helplessly watching the merchandise float around the store…

“…Hey! Hey, Lee Chan!!”

“What?”

"You alive in there?!"

A sudden shout from outside. Wasn’t that Noona’s voice?

"Boss, wasn’t that Miss Yoonha just now?"

Just as Mongmong spoke, a familiar goggle-wearing woman in a jacket appeared at the right end of the show window, walking through waist-high rainwater without any hindrance whatsoever.

She moves as if completely unaffected by water resistance. Walking up and grabbing the front door handle, she effortlessly opens the door I had struggled with, as easily as opening a screen door.

The moment she stepped in, she pulled off her goggles and grinned at us.

"Glad you're alive. Mongmong seems fine too."

"A pleasure to see you, Miss Yoonha.”

“Feels like I’m about to die, but why are you here? Aren’t you crazy busy?”

"Crazy busy, but Lee Chan, you sent that text saying something might happen to the store."

"Huh..."

“So quit complaining. Can I use this?”

She pointed toward the display table near the window. I said okay without knowing what she would do with it, and noona lifted the table with one hand without even swaying.

After jamming it into the doorway like a dam, she rummaged through her jacket pocket and mutterd.

"I've set this at roughly 5 tons, so don't stub your little toe or anything... Ah."

She stops and pulls out what looks like? A sponge?

"No, what’s Noona planning to do with a sponge?"

"You'll see, just get up on the counter. And don't let your feet touch the water."

Dubious but obedient, I climbed up. Noona dunked the yellow sponge into the water.

In an instant, all the water in the store started getting sucked directly toward it.

The suction was so strong a whirlpool formed around her hand. Floating snacks and cup noodles battered her relentlessly as they were dragged past.

Noona's expression, who was receiving intense ‘love’ from the bagged snacks and cup ramen, was a half-zen expression. This must be the kind of work she said she had been killing herself doing. After about a minute of lowering the sponge according to the water level,

The sponge touched the store floor and absorbed all remaining moisture, and Noona, who had been kneeling on the ground with one knee pressed against the ground, stood up and said.

"Gonna stash this in a corner, but don't touch it or there'll be trouble. You know why, right?"

"Ah, is that a magic sponge?"

“A magically priced sponge too. Over a million won each.”

"You can just use that here? We’re broke, though."

"Hey, don't bring that up. I'm already fuming about that as it is."

When I asked my grimacing Noona, she told me that a massive flood had hit the city. There were dozens or hundreds more dark clouds in front of the store.

There are so many places that need cleanup that priority guidelines came down through the district office about which places to handle first. Number one priority was the district office’s own parking lot. Second was the apartment complex where high-ranking officials lived.

"Third was some startup’s building lobby. There's not a single person who came to work, so why are they telling us to clean up the water there? And why clean the parking lot water? It's still raining."

"Maybe their brain cells got diluted from all the rain?"

"Whatever. Anyway."

Noona had been busy rescuing other species that were literally drifting away in the flood, and in the midst of this, the district office started spouting nonsense which snapped her, ‘You handle that yourselves, I'm doing my own work.’

"This sponge was supplied to drain the parking lot water, but I just told them to go screw themselves and took it. They couldn’t even use them anyway."

Apparently, the sponge absorbed water proportionally to its weight, meaning only a magician capable of handling immense weight could use it.

After finishing speaking, Noona looked outside and muttered.

“Lee Chan. Sorry, I have to go out again.”

"Is there another place you need to drain water from?"

"No. The sponge is at full capacity, so even if I wanted to help civilians, I can't now. Going to do something else."

"What's that?"

When I asked, Noona answered while biting her lower lip.

“Finding the key gate.”

“...uh....”

"The emergency committee sent an official document saying to cooperate if an anti-magic specialist requests assistance. I sneaked the sponge out, so I wanna at least do that much, but I couldn’t even hear who made the request. The signals are all cut."

Noona says she was planning to climb to high points of buildings and immediately track down any detected magical activity. She muttered a few curses about the district office before suddenly adding, as if she had just remembered.

“Lee Chan, haven't you heard anything? Even though you've got less than a month's experience, you still have a anti-magic license."

"About that, Noona."

“Yeah.”

Her face turned serious, ready to listen even to trivial words. I got straight to the point.

“I think I know where the core gate is right now. Could you help me out?”




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