Now Open for Business — A Delivery Guild

Mia’s so-called guild wasn't a guild at all.

To be precise, it was a single sunless storage locker wedged at the dead end of a squalid alleyway.

"Welcome to headquarters!" Mia declared, throwing her arms wide. A cloud of fine dust billowed into the air with the gesture.

There was no signboard. The door groaned on rusted hinges, and atop a rotting wooden crate in the corner sat a solitary gray rat. The rodent cast a lazy sidelong glance at me, twitched its whiskers, and let out an insolent yawn. Evidently, in this strange world, even the vermin were unimpressed by the rarity of a living, breathing man.

"Where are the clients?" I asked dryly.

"Starting today, it’s just the two of us! You and me!"

"...In ten years of running deliveries," I muttered, rubbing my temples, "this is the first time I’ve seen a guild where the employees double as their own clientele."

"It’s a startup! Every great enterprise begins like this. I heard even the biggest mega-corporations started in dingy garages."

"And pray tell, which parallel universe's mega-corporations are you quoting?"

"Dunno. Just picked it up somewhere on the streets."

She was completely shameless, yet her amber eyes practically sparkled with unbridled optimism. It was that very same fierce, defiant look she had worn yesterday when she threw her own body between me and a pack of alley thugs. In truth, I had no legitimate reason to turn her down. Running endlessly across the city just because society deemed me some priceless National Treasure was already making my knees ache.

"By the way," she chimed, tilting her head, "what's your name?"

"I’m Mia. And you?"

"Kang Dohyun."

"Kang... Do-hyun," she repeated, rolling each syllable over her tongue before flashing a radiant grin. "What a wonderful name. Literally the most expensive name on the face of the earth."

"...First time in my life I've been told my name costs a fortune."

A continent where men made up a pathetic 0.8 percent of the total population. Here, even three syllables belonging to an ordinary Korean guy were treated like royal heirlooms.

A sudden vibration buzzed against my thigh.

"...Maintenance fee?" I muttered under my breath. Good grief. Even an omnipotent transmigration system was pulling a paid subscription model on me. This damned app was a greedier hustler than I was.

"Spare me the fine print," I groaned, swiping open the fresh interface.

"...It's literally a neighborhood errand app."

"That’s what delivery is all about!" Mia cheered, tugging impatiently at my jacket sleeve. "Take the calls! Grab them, hurry!"

Well, every fresh business had to start from the dirt. In my ten years behind the handlebars, a delivery was a delivery, and a paycheck bought dinner. Work was work.

"Wait," Mia asked, squinting sideways at my empty hands, "can only you see that list?"

"Yeah. Just me."

"Whoa. That’s a totally broken cheat skill!" Her eyes shone with newfound awe, though she quickly puffed out her chest with cheeky pride. "Still, without me, you’d never find your way through these alleys even with that magic list. I could map every winding brick in this slum with both eyes shut."

"...So we’re an indispensable team, then?"

"Took you long enough to realize, Senior!" she beamed.

Loath as I was to admit it, she wasn't wrong. The system pinged the coordinates, and Mia cleared the path through the labyrinthine ghetto. As far as partnerships went, the division of labor was solid.

Our first stop was the apothecary stall. An elderly herbalist stood hunched over her wooden counter, clutching her lower back with a grimace. When her cloudy eyes shifted to me, they nearly popped straight out of their wrinkled sockets.

"A-A man?! A real, living young man?! Am I seeing a ghost?!"

"Your order for a medicated adhesive patch has arrived, ma'am," I answered briskly in my most practiced customer-service cadence.

I reached into the insulated delivery pack slung over my shoulder. The random junk that had been rattling around in my delivery box right before my sudden transmigration had crossed dimensions intact alongside me. Among them was an unopened pack of medicated pain-relief patches.

I peeled off the plastic backing and held up the thin fabric sheet.

"...You expect me to slap this paper-thin scrap onto my skin?" she asked, regarding it with deep skepticism. "This is supposed to be medicine?"

"Just give it ten minutes. You'll feel a deep, icy coolness sink into the ache."

Ten minutes later, the transformation was nothing short of comical. The old woman gingerly straightened her spine, bent forward, twisted side to side, and straightened right back up without a single creak.

"This... this is miraculous!" she gasped, her hands quivering. "It’s identical to the high-tier restorative prayers that temple priests charge a hundred silver coins to cast!"

It cost three hundred won at the corner pharmacy, ma'am.

Naturally, I kept that thought firmly to myself. With trembling fingers, the herbalist pressed a gleaming silver coin into my palm.

"Is this enough? If it falls short, I have more stashed away..."

"It's more than generous, ma'am. Plenty."

An entire silver coin for a single salonpas patch. The economic logic of this matriarchal fantasy realm was truly spiraling down the drain.

"...Leaving me with exactly one coin," I muttered. The system was skimming taxes like a state bureaucrat.

Our second destination, the cobbler's workshop, was in dire straits. The artisan was utterly out of durable waxed thread, had broken her last heavy-duty awl, and lacked an extra pair of hands to brace her vice. She was staring down at a pair of ruined leather boots with tears pooling in her eyes.

I reached into my pocket and fished out a tiny tube of commercial cyanoacrylate superglue.

"We ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠can mend the sole with this," I offered.

I applied a single generous bead along the separated leather seam and clamped the rubber tread down firmly with my thumb.

One... two... three.

"...It won't budge," the cobbler whispered, pulling at the sole with all her might. Her jaw dropped as the leather refused to yield even a fraction of a millimeter. "No matter how hard I wrench it, it won't tear free!"

"That's the general idea."

The artisan looked up at me as if beholding a descended deity of craftsmanship. "This sacred adhesive sorcery... what is its formal title? Which prestigious arcane academy does this secret art belong to?! Who was your grandmaster?!"

"...It's called Superglue."

"The School of the Instant Glue..." she murmured reverently, scrambling across her cluttered workbench to transcribe the words onto a fresh sheet of parchment with trembling ink. "And its revered founder?!"

"...Some anonymous chemical engineer back in Korea, I suppose."

"The Great Sage of Korea..."

She scribbled furiously, her expression solemn enough for holy scripture. Suffocated by the sheer weight of her secondhand reverence, I discreetly took three steps backward toward the exit.

Our third dispatch, the little girl’s craving for sweets, was settled within thirty seconds using a lone strawberry-flavored hard candy I salvaged from the bottom of my pouch. The child looked up at me with round, glistening eyes, cradling the cellophane wrapper like a celestial treasure.

"Mister... are you an Archmage?"

"Sure, kid. Let’s pretend I am for today."

A world where a guy who used to work the graveyard shift behind a convenience store register could pass as a legendary grand wizard. Honestly? It didn't feel entirely terrible.

"...The maintenance fee goes up when I rank up?"

Unbelievable. This platform operated on predatory corporate telecom pricing. Promotion was dangling right before my nose, but advancing meant coughing up even higher recurring fees. My brief surge of pride evaporated into cynical exhaustion.

By noon, a thunderous growl echoed through the barren warehouse.

Grumbleeee.

Mia’s face instantly flushed crimson. She clamped both hands over her stomach in a desperate attempt to stifle the noise.

"...T-That wasn't me! You didn't hear anything just now!"

"I heard it loud and clear. Sounded like a dying monster."

Watching her squirm, a sudden impulse struck me. It was time to test the culinary summon tab of the Dimensional Shop. I navigated the catalog and authorized a purchase.

I had just spent more than half of my morning earnings in a single tap, but a man couldn't run on an empty stomach. A heartbeat later, the rich, mouthwatering aroma of freshly fried poultry and bubbling golden oil engulfed the dingy warehouse.

Mia froze mid-breath, her nostrils flaring.

"...W-What in the world is this smell? It smells... it smells delightfully sinful!"

"Eat up," I said, twisting off a plump, steaming drumstick and thrusting it into her hands.

She accepted it with trembling fingers, bringing it to her lips with utmost caution. She took one tentative bite through the crackling batter into the tender meat beneath. Instantly, her eyes widened to saucers. Her slender shoulders shook, and genuine tears welled along her eyelashes.

"Wh-What... what is this?! How much did this cost?! Just how absurdly expensive is this food?!"

"Back home? Maybe twenty thousand won."

I paused, mentally calculating the local conversion rate based on the silver coin from earlier.

"...In this city's currency, probably the equivalent of a fully ordained knight's monthly salary."

Mia shrieked, nearly dropping the chicken leg into the dirt. "Are you out of your mind?! This one piece of meat is worth three months of my slum wages?!"

"Just eat it. Once we earn more coins, we can order another batch."

"I can't! It’s too terrifying to swallow!"

Despite her theatrical panic, her hands were already darting out to snatch a second piece. Then a third. Clutching a royal knight's wage in both greasy palms, Mia proceeded to devour the entire bird while openly weeping with sheer bliss.

"Can we... can we really eat meals like this every day? Truly?"

"As long as our coin balance stays healthy."

"Then I'm sticking to you for the rest of my life!"

"Just because of fried chicken?"

"Because of the chicken! And..."

Mia mumbled something indistinct through a mouthful of meat, her cheeks stuffed full. I couldn't quite catch the trailing syllables—or perhaps I deliberately chose not to. Instead, I popped the tab of an ice-cold can of Coca-Cola.

Psssshk!

"What's that now?!" she gasped, jumping at the hiss of carbonation.

"A week's wages."

"Excuse me?!"

"One can of this liquid is worth about a week's labor for a common laborer here."

Mia took the chilled aluminum can with both hands, holding it like a sacred chalice of holy relics. She took a small, hesitant sip, swallowed, and immediately erupted into a violent fit of hiccups.

"...The bubbles bite my tongue! A whole week's wage... that stinging fizz literally tastes like pure guilt!"

"Get used to it," I said with a smirk. "The economy in this world is broken, not my appetite."

Finally, I rummaged down to the very bottom of my courier bag. My fingers brushed against a crinkling square plastic package—a familiar fiery red wrapper.

A single pack of spicy instant ramen.

"...I should save this for an emergency."

"Why? Is that one outrageously pricey too?"

"At current market rates, this is a banquet fit for high nobility. The moment I boil this broth, the aroma would make a Duke's dinner table look like peasant gruel."

Mia swallowed hard, staring at the plastic wrapper as if it held the secrets of the cosmos.

By dusk, the delivery app’s integrated bulletin board was on fire.

"...It took less than twelve hours for rumors to spread across the entire district," I muttered, scrolling down the frantic feed.

"Of course it did!" Mia declared proudly, puffing her chest out once more. "Wait, why are the numbers so high? The last comment has over fifteen thousand thumbs-up!"

"It means fifteen thousand women are currently desperate to pin down your location."

"...Is that good or bad?"

"Both."

As I spoke, a fresh reply blinked onto the bottom of the thread.

"...And that part is definitely bad," I sighed.

"Rumors bring customers, customers bring coins, and coins bring..." Mia began, trailing off as realization dawned. "...knights."

"Bingo."

Her cheerful expression tightened slightly. Leaked coordinates meant far more dangerous callers than desperate paupers seeking shoe repairs.

"...Still," she murmured softly, inching closer until her shoulder pressed against mine. "The very first client of my guild happens to be such an incredible man."

She leaned in, looking up at me with unwavering intensity. "Hey. I'm going to take the number one spot right beside you."

"...Number one in what?"

"In everything. First row in your life. Period."

Her straightforward honesty caught me entirely off guard. Bright, cheeky, and completely uninhibited—women in this realm truly lacked the luxury to play coy games.

"If I'm being a burden, just tell me," she added quietly.

"...I never said you were a burden."

"See? I knew you wouldn't run away." Her triumphant smirk was irritatingly perceptive.

Right on cue, the warehouse door swung ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠wide.

Through the drifting motes of dust stepped a woman with an expression as frigid as winter ice.

Lena von Aska.

The ducal heiress who had facilitated my escape yesterday stood framed against the dim alleyway, her moonlight-silver hair catching the faint lanterns outside.

"Found you," she stated coldly. "My runaway National Treasure."

Mia leapt to her feet like a startled kitten. "Wh-Who are you?! This is our private guild headquarters!"

Lena didn't spare Mia so much as a glance. Her piercing gaze remained locked exclusively on me. Reaching into the breast of her tailored aristocratic coat, she retrieved a crisp sheet of vellum.

Thump.

She laid it flat atop the wooden crate.

"A contract."

"...A contract?" I echoed.

"The Royal Knights are currently mobilizing to 'secure' you," Lena said, her melodic voice razor-sharp. "Their pretext will be state protection; the reality will be permanent confinement. While such arbitrary seizure of a free citizen is technically unlawful, they wield the crown's authority, and no commoner possesses the standing to challenge them."

Beneath her composed facade, I caught the faintest tremor in her fingertips.

"Enter into a formal pact with me. This is not coercion. It is an offer."

Twelve revisions. The system’s running commentary was ruthlessly exposing her. The unflinching Ice Princess had drafted and redrafted a simple business contract a dozen times.

I picked up the parchment and scanned the terms.

Article 1: Guarantee of Personal Safety. Article 2: Unrestricted Freedom of Movement. Article 3: Comprehensive Material Backing for Independent Courier Enterprises.

To my surprise, the terms were astonishingly fair. There wasn't a single predatory or restrictive clause. In fact, every stipulation was slanted overwhelmingly in my favor.

"...This contract puts House Aska at a severe disadvantage, my lady."

"It is not a loss," she countered smoothly. "It is an investment."

"And what is the expected return on this investment?"

Lena paused, carefully measuring her breath. "...That can be negotiated in due course."

I had intended to test her boundaries, but her icy composure was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠formidable. "Let me clarify one point. Article 3 promises 'comprehensive backing.' How far does that extend?"

"As far as your requirements dictate."

"My requirements might be unusually expensive."

"Then House Aska shall accommodate them."

"Even fried chicken?"

"...I am unfamiliar with the term, but allocate it to the budget."

"Even instant noodles?"

"Include that as well."

"At this rate, I might bankrupt a ducal estate."

"House Aska does not bankrupt easily," Lena replied without flinching. "Besides... you are worth the expenditure."

At the word 'worth,' Mia bristled like an angry cat, but Lena didn't bat an eyelash. The woman was impenetrable at the negotiating table. Her expression remained cast in stone, fielding every probe without hesitation.

Truthfully, the backing clause was immensely tempting. My system would only demand steeper maintenance costs as I climbed the tiers. Grinding local errands could only yield so much when platform fees chewed away my margins. Having a wealthy ducal sponsor watching my back was a massive strategic advantage.

The only slight inconsistency was the unmistakable crimson creeping up the tips of her pale ears.

"Let me ask the inverse," I continued. "Where is the termination clause?"

"There isn't one."

"...None at all?"

"Do you desire one?"

"Standard contracts usually have an exit ramp so either party can walk away if things go sour."

Lena held my gaze, her silver eyelashes motionless. "I have no intention of walking away. Therefore, none was required."

Her words were cold as frost, but the underlying sentiment burned uncomfortably hot. It was almost cheating.

"Hold on just a minute! If we’re talking contracts, I have dibs!" Mia interjected, planting herself firmly between us. "I founded this guild with him this morning! First come, first served!"

"Step aside, child," Lena said dismissively.

"I'm twenty! I am a full-grown adult!"

Lena's brow twitched minutely. For the first time, she turned her frosty gaze toward Mia. "...Did you say a guild?"

"Yes! And we're registering it... very soon!"

"Meaning it is unregistered."

"I said we're doing it soon!"

Dismissing Mia once more, Lena returned her focus to me. "The choice remains yours. I do not deal in force. Whether you sign this document or tear it to shreds, I leave it entirely in your hands."

That much felt entirely sincere. The system hadn't flagged it as deceit.

I skimmed the final lines of the document. Right at the very bottom, my eyes caught on a specific passage.

Article 7: Mandatory Cohabitation.

"...What is the meaning of this clause?"

"...A security precaution," Lena answered, her voice dropping a fraction.

"Security."

"The state knights could strike at any hour. To ensure your absolute protection, we must reside under the same roof."

"Sharing a roof sounds practical enough," I mused, tapping the parchment. "Though I couldn't help noticing the penmanship on this particular clause is remarkably neat."

"...What are you implying?"

"The other sections were penned with broad, sweeping strokes. But this line looks like it was measured with an architect's ruler."

Lena’s fingers curled slightly against the crate.

The system was merciless. Out of twelve total drafts, three had been spent agonizing over this single line.

"By the way, how many bedrooms does this safehouse possess?" I asked casually.

Lena remained silent for two full beats.

"...One."

"One room under one roof isn't just cohabitation, Lady Lena. That's—"

"I-It is not sharing a bed!" she stammered, her regal composure fracturing for the briefest instant. "It is guarding! Strictly... for close-quarters security!"

"Why is the bodyguard blushing, then?"

"...I am not blushing."

"Your ears are bright red."

"...My ears are naturally prone to temperature changes."

"I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠thought you were made of pure ice."

"...Even ice can warm."

Her voice trailed off into an embarrassed silence. While her face remained an austere porcelain mask, the shell of her ears burned a vivid, undeniable scarlet.

An excuse. The app really possessed terrible timing when it came to dishing out truth bombs.

I placed the contract gently back onto the crate.

"My Lady."

"...What is it?"

"I am willing to sign this agreement. However, regarding Article 7..."

Lena’s shoulders stiffened, barely perceptible beneath her coat.

"...We will review and amend that clause together after mutual consultation. You did say you wouldn't force anything upon me."

"...Those were my words, yes."

"Then don't force yourself into cornering your own feelings either," I said gently. "Neither of us needs to be coerced."

Lena stared at me, the rigid mask of aristocratic aloofness finally giving way to a faint, bewildered tremor. For the first time, the Ice Princess looked undeniably human.

Mia watched the exchange in stunned silence, her mouth falling wide open.

"...Whoa. Turns out even a ducal lady is made of flesh and blood."

"Hush, child," Lena whispered, though her voice lacked its earlier bite.

"I told you, I'm twenty!"