Mastore 154 - Dumpster

Magic Realm Convenience Store – Ch. 154

Everything has a cause and effect (6)

Hana came wearing the exact same clothes she had worn two days ago. A yellow raincoat and boots, and a folding umbrella in her hand. The only difference was the red backpack strapped over the raincoat.

Standing in front of the front entrance, she peered into the store, appearing to be checking whether there were customers inside or not. I immediately invited her in.

"Come on in. Isn’t it cold outside with the rain?"

"Well, just a sec..."

She pulled down the hood of her raincoat, checked over herself carefully, then lifted one leg back to inspect the soles of her boots. There was quite a lot of mud stuck to them.

After tapping her heels against the step in front of the entrance, she stood on the doormat and carefully rubbed the soles to shake off the remaining mud.

Only then did she enter the store, and although some mud crumbs remained, it was fairly clean. Hana walked up to the register, then glanced back at the path she had taken.

A moment later, she apologized with a gloomy voice.

“Sowwy for making the floow dirty…”

“I was about to clean up anyway. Don’t worry about it.”

I can clean up the footprints of a 7-year-old kid eight times over a hundred times more. Carefully avoiding her horns, I ruffled her hair and pulled out a chair for her behind the register.

“Didn't you say you would be going somewhere with your mom for a few days? Since the city’s dangerous.”

It was actually dangerous. If this kid had been in the store when it was pouring rain, wouldn't there just have been two horns poking out above the rainwater moving around?

Here it had just ended with heavy rain, but in other places, completely different phenomena had occurred. I could still vividly recall footage of ginkgo trees protesting in the streets, chanting, ‘We refuse to be roadside trees!’

I thought she might have flown to her maternal grandparents' house following her mother, so I was honestly surprised that this girl came looking for me. In response to my question, Hana shook her head side to side.

“Mommy said it was okay now after watchin' TV at lwnch.”

"Oh, really?"

“Yeah. I was ridin’ on Mommy’s back…”

While riding on her mom's back with kindergarten homework and toys packed heavily, her mom saw the news and said, ‘We don't need to go’, and returned to human form.

The timing must have lined up with when I destroyed the core. Thanks to that, she was able to go back home and finish the homework she couldn't do before.

“I couldn’t write my diary yestewday. I almost got in big twouble!”

"Hearing that makes it feel worth it, Hana."

“Wowrth it?”

"Uh... it's nothing."

It seems right not to tell this kid about what happened in the sewer. She would probably cry, saying it was really dangerous. I quickly changed the subject.

"Is your mom really big?"

"Suuuper big. When she swoops down, she swoops.”

Still seated, she stretched her arms wide, then glanced at me. As if that wasn’t near enough, she trembled as she extended her fingers and tail as far as they could go.

Although I couldn't estimate at all from this, the feeling that she was big was well conveyed. It seems like normally she transforms into a human-like form like this kid and lives that way...

“Where were you guys getting ready to fly off from?”

“Fwom ouw backyard.”

This kid's house yard also seems big enough to stretch out arms and tail. Is there something like a helicopter landing pad in the yard? Except with a big ‘D’ instead of an ‘H’ painted on it.

While I was imagining this, I felt Hana staring at me intently and paused. Looking down, I saw she was hugging the backpack on her back.

When our eyes met, she gestured for me to wait a moment and then rummaged through her red backpack. A moment later, what she took out was a box of bandages.

“What’s with the bandages?”

"Mister, the bandage you put on me befowe."

"Hmm...."

I vaguely remembered. That day she helped me find the core gate, she had scraped her knee, maybe from wading through the rainwater.

After sticking a band-aid on it, I had warned her to be careful before sending her off. Hana handed me the bandage box and said.

“So I saved up 500 won each and bought it with my allowance.”

Our store has exactly the same bandages. Waterproof bandages, 10 pieces for 2,500 won. It means this kid spent 5 days' worth of allowance on buying these bandages.

"Hana. This is too much...."

“It’s okay. Mommy said, if someone helps you, you should repay them pwoperly… Pwoperly? Properly?”

"You just pronounced it correctly. But, what? Your mother?"

That comment tugged slightly at my ear. When I asked, Hana continued with a completely innocent expression.

“Mommy asked me whewe and who put the bandage on me.”

It was a slightly chilling statement. So her mom had noticed that her daughter was hanging around with a 29-year-old human convenience store clerk?

“Um… what did your mom say?”

I tried to stay calm as I asked. Buying snacks for a child, letting them make friends, putting on a bandage and sending them off—these aren't wrong things to do. From an objective perspective, that is.

But since I have no idea what this kid's mother thinks, I can't even guess how she will perceive this situation. To my question, Hana gave an ambiguous answer.

"I said a kind mister I met on the street put it on. A weeeeally nice mister."

"You said you met on the street?"

“Un.”

I didn’t remember asking her to say that. How come?

While I was puzzled, Hana’s expression turned slightly gloomy as she added.

"Mommy doesn’t really like me playing outside of school…"

"Aha...."

“So if I told her about this place, she might tell me not to come here anymore. So I didn’t tell her.”

Hana has a mature side that's excessive for her age. Even when we went down to the basement warehouse, she had been holding back from playing with everything she wanted to, and like just now, she wiped the mud off her shoes before entering.

When her mom asked about the band-aid, it seems that maturity dice landed on six. Just from hearing what was said, it doesn't seem like she mentioned my name or the convenience store specifically, but...

I should start to mentally prepare myself. I responded to what Hana said.

"Your mommy doesn't really like you going outside?"

“Un. Just a wittle.”

“I understand that. She might be worried that you might meet a bad adult outside.”

"But... Mister isn’t a bad adult..."

"Your mommy has never met me. So later when you go home, try telling your mommy at least about coming here."

It's only a matter of time before the child's mother gets to know me anyway. It’s not exactly common to randomly run into a kind stranger on a rainy day, who patches up a kid’s wound with a waterproof band-aid.

It's obvious she'll ask several more times about what exactly happened, and I don't want to make the child awkwardly explain with her lisping speech each time. I wanted her to come here because it was easy and comfortable for her, but if it becomes stressful, what’s the point?

"Should I still tell her?"

"Don't worry. I'll try to explain well."

I also wanted to know what kind of dragon her mother is. Since she said she's a career woman working at a company, if I speak well, wouldn't she be somewhat understanding?

“…But, Hana, where’s your mommy right now? Is she working?”

“Un. She got behind on her wowk, so she'll be working until late at night.”

"Is kindergarten closed today?"

“Un.”

It looked like she had brought her backpack just to bring the band-aids. Checking the time, it was now 9:30.

"How long are you staying today?"

"Um... until Mister goes howme?"

"I'm going home a bit late today. Got some things I need to do.”

“Reawwy?”

"I'm thinking of moving. From the house I've been living in."

When I said this, Hana's face instantly hardened and she went silent. Why is she also, no. That's not it.

"...Mister, are you going far away...?"

"No, I'm not going far. It's close. About 30, 40 minutes from here?"

“…Reawwy?”

“Yeah. Really. I’ll still be here at the same time every day.”

Only after hearing that did her face light up again. I guess for little kids, when they hear ‘moving,’ they immediately think they’ll never see someone again...

Raising her tail that had drooped all the way to the bottom of the chair, Hana looks up at me and asks.

“Where awe you moving to?”

“Near the Academy District.”

During my dawn shift, I had looked through a house-finding app to see if there were suitable houses near the store. Nothing available around here.

As a backup, I looked at places near the Academy District Manager had suggested, and there were quite a few places near the subway station.

Of course, I didn’t contact anyone immediately. Rather than jumping at a place just based on price, I wanted to at least check out what the surrounding area looked like.

I've only been there twice, for a short while to take a license exam. Since it's a place I'll have to live for the next few months, I'm thinking of trying to avoid places where students crowd and wander around if possible.

"Today, I’ll just take a quick look around. No rush, so stay as long as you want. How long do you want to stay?"

"Um...."

When I asked, Hana rummaged through her school bag again and took something out. This time it was a box of chocolates, and the packaging looked pretty fancy.

“This one. Mommy weft it at home for me to eat…”

“I see.”

“I wanna eat it with Mister and with Innie too. 'Cause Unnie played wif me a wot.”

Perhaps due to going down to the underground warehouse together, it seems Manager has now become someone she remembers fondly when they meet. Since she says so, why not do that.

"Then let’s have some snacks while we wait for Manager-nim. Sound good?"

“Un!”

So we each picked a snack from the display shelf and opened the bags. Kids always start tearing snack bags from the edges, right?

This makes it difficult to eat when placed down. So I grabbed the middle of the bag and tore it open properly, and Hana, looking amazed, kept glancing between the bag and me and then asked,

“Wow. How did you do that?”

I remember giving the same awestruck look when a kids my age did this trick. After putting down the torn bag, I held up another bag in front of her eyes.

"This is more about technique than strength. Here, see the middle part of the bag?"

“Un.”

“This part is the key. Grab both sides of it tightly with your fingers, and pull—”

* * *

About 30 minutes later, Manager arrived for her shift and immediately waved when she saw us.

"Chan, hi. Hana, it's been a long—"

She stopped mid-word, freezing mid-wave, then sniffed the air and stared at me.

“What’s with the snack smell?”

I had opened about eight snack bags just to show Hana how to open them.

For the first two, Hana tried to tear them herself, but the bags would all tear wherever her dragon claws touched them. She looked so gloomy that I ended up showing her until she was familiar with it, and this is how it turned out.

Even after 30 minutes of munching, the pile barely shrank, so I stashed the extras under the counter where they wouldn’t be seen. The manager, coming inside the register, peeked under it and finally made a face like she understood what was going on.

“Looks like you two got really hungry.”

“No? I wasn’t even hungwy!”

"Just really craved snacks after a while. Want some?"

When I asked, Manager smiled and picked up a snack from under the register.

"I like this banana-flavored snack."

"That one's delicious. Although it does have a lot of crumbs."

So Manager and Hana sat inside the register munching on snacks, and I stood cleaning up the emptied snack bags one by one. Also doing the handover shift while I’m at ti.

"There wasn't anything special... and there weren't many customers, Manager-nim."

“Not many, huh?”

“Yes. There weren’t any from right after our shift change yesterday until this morning, and it wasn’t until the commuting hours that there was a brief rush.”

Manager had expected that sales would soon return to normal. Perhaps feeling uneasy that things were flowing differently than expected, she crossed her arms and stared intensely at the sales recorded on the POS machine.

Night shift sales barely hit 220,000 won, and 20,000 of that was from the snacks I had just bought. After a long moment, Manager unfolded her arms and looked at me and said,

“Chan-ah. It’s something I should decide after seeing today's total sales, but…”

It seems like she's hesitant to speak about something she herself is uncertain about. Sensing it wasn’t something I should rush her about, I stayed quiet and waited, and after a moment of silence, Manager suddenly said this,

“Should we just move?”

“What?”

“I mean the store. I'm thinking of maybe teleporting to the Academy District area for a few weeks for business."




|Note

---

Consider supporting me by subscribing on Patreon for 5$. 

Advance chapters of Magic Realm Convenience Store Worker : 10 Chapters

Also, consider visiting my patreon to check out my other projects