Choice Breakthrough
Jin Hayun was standing right behind me — the same Jin Hayun who had clearly said she was going off to study.
"Aren't you going to study?"
"Hehe… I'll help you with the shopping."
"I don't really need any help."
All I had to buy was a single tomato. There was nothing for her to help with in the first place.
"Hurry up!"
Before I could refuse, Hayun had already grabbed a basket and disappeared into the store.
01 : 44 : 38
I opened KokoaTalk and checked the remaining time. Plenty left, thankfully.
I had nothing else planned for the day anyway, so I decided to humor Hayun for a little while.
"Hurry up already!"
I fell into step beside her as she kept urging me along.
"Why the sudden offer to help?"
"If I help, there's obviously a reward, right??"
"Ah."
"Heh-heh…"
I realized what she wanted.
Most likely, it was my finger. More precisely, she wanted to suck on a finger I'd made delicious with my ability.
I'd promised to do it for her once in a while if she behaved, but waiting a whole week was apparently too much for her.
"Don't you have a part-time shift today too?"
"Yeah."
Unlike me, Hayun worked even on Sundays. Same start time — six o'clock. That left her barely any time to study, and yet here she was, trailing after me.
"Let's grab the groceries quick and get you back to studying."
"Ehh…"
"You said you'd be good."
"Yes! But what did you come to buy today?"
"Tomatoes."
"That's it?"
"Yeah."
Her face said it all — You came all this way for just that?
"You're not getting anything else?"
"Like what?"
"Ramen?"
"Not good for you."
"Snacks?"
"Same thing."
"You're seriously only buying tomatoes? Then why did you even bring me?!"
"You're the one who followed me."
"Hehe…"
Trading nonsense like that, we headed first for the produce section to grab the tomatoes.
This is…
They looked ordinary enough on the outside, but these were almost certainly the vomit-flavored tomatoes.
The moment I reached for them, an uneasy thought hit me.
"Do you sell these by the single tomato, by any chance?"
"No such thing, kid. That's the smallest pack we've got."
"Ah…"
The worry was that the second I bought them, every tomato in the pack would become a vomit-flavored tomato. I didn't even know exactly how many I was supposed to eat. In the worst case, I might have to eat every single one I'd purchased.
That was why I'd hoped to buy just one — but of course that wasn't an option.
"Oppa, why only one?"
"Just… I'm in the mood for exactly one today."
"Want me to buy some and give you one?"
"Oh, would you?"
"Ah, I'm broke…"
Slap—
She turned both pants pockets inside out with a grin. She'd known from the start and was just messing with me.
I had no choice. I put the tomatoes in the basket.
The smallest pack held five tomatoes, lined up neatly. In the worst case, I might have to eat every last one of them.
The thought made me restless. I needed to get home as soon as possible.
"Now let's go pick out snacks!"
"I'm already done."
"Ehh… for real?"
"Yeah."
"No way! Since we're already here, buy something else."
"I'm busy right now. I need to get home fast."
"…So I was good today, right?"
"You didn't even do anything."
"Letting you go without a fuss counts as being good, doesn't it?"
At the same time, Hayun clamped down on my sleeve. The message was clear: if I didn't acknowledge it, she wasn't letting me leave.
"Fine. I'll do it next time instead."
"Promise."
I quickly hooked my pinky around the one she held out.
"Seal it."
Thwack—
"Hiiing…"
Apparently a forehead flick was the only way to make her listen.
"Oppa, want me to walk you home?"
The second we stepped out of the store, Hayun latched on again.
"Hey. Go study."
"If I listen to this too, does that count as two?"
"Kyaaa!! See you tomorrow!!"
She started spouting more nonsense, so I raised my hand for another flick — and she bolted as if she'd been waiting for exactly that.
I had no desire to chase her down, and no time for it either. I gave her a quick wave and headed home.
The "see you tomorrow" was just something you say when you already know you'll run into each other every day.
"Haa…"
I set the freshly bought tomatoes on the floor and sank into deeper thought than I had in a long time.
What if I really have to eat all of them.
About an hour and a half left. Roughly fifteen minutes per tomato.
These tomatoes looked plump and red on the outside, but they held a flavor I couldn't begin to imagine.
Haa… If only there were a bonus reward this time too…
When I'd eaten the shit-flavored curry, at least there'd been an extra reward — I'd been able to treat it as a challenge for that prize. This was just pure torture.
I was still making good use of the Taste Alteration I'd gotten back then, which made the fact that eating these would give me nothing feel even more hopeless.
Taste Alteration…?
"Shit! Hold on!"
I had no idea why it had taken me this long to remember.
I had an ability that could change any food into whatever flavor I wanted. I could eat vomit-flavored tomatoes as if they were something delicious.
Not using Taste Alteration on Sundays — holding it in reserve just in case for the Balance Game — had been a stroke of pure genius.
"…"
My celebration lasted only a moment before a new problem presented itself.
If I changed a vomit-flavored tomato to, say, orange flavor — was it still a vomit-flavored tomato? Wouldn't "orange-flavored tomato" be the more natural name?
I wasn't sure the game would count it if I just swapped the taste and ate it.
I was too afraid of whatever penalty came with skipping a Balance Game choice to risk it. And now that I'd already decided I might not have to eat the vomit-flavored tomatoes, the idea of having to eat them after all made me ten times more reluctant.
Five of them, no less — so fifty times more reluctant.
"Haa…"
By the time I finished fretting, only an hour and twenty minutes remained. Just eating them would have left me with time to spare, but all this overthinking was starting to make it feel tight.
Factoring in eating time, I've got about thirty more minutes to think…
Assuming the worst case of five vomit-flavored tomatoes at ten minutes each: fifty minutes total. That left roughly thirty minutes for deliberation.
Ah!
Thinking about the eating time sparked an idea. I didn't even stop to organize my thoughts — I grabbed the tomatoes and went straight to the kitchen.
I sliced all five, arranged them on a plate, and roughly sprinkled cheese over the top.
This was a tomato salad.
Cool, sweet, the most delicious watermelon in the world.
Given the juiciness and texture of a tomato, the flavor that fit best — and the one I actually wanted — was watermelon.
After activating the ability, I started eating immediately.
More precisely, I started eating cool, sweet, most-delicious-watermelon-in-the-world-flavored vomit-flavored tomatoes.
"Huh… These are actually insane."
I'd always liked watermelon, but this put everything I'd ever eaten to shame. It tasted like nothing but the sweetest center of the fruit.
I polished them all off in no time.
Kokotalk—!
"Haa… Please."
All that was left was to check KokoaTalk.
If the timer had stopped, it counted as complete. If time was still ticking, it hadn't been accepted.
That was exactly why I'd eaten so fast. I could just try both versions. If the ability-altered tomatoes didn't count, I'd simply go back to the store.
Ideally the ones I'd just eaten would be accepted — but even if they weren't, I could still avoid the worst-case scenario of missing the Balance Game entirely.
With a trembling heart, I unlocked my phone and opened KokoaTalk.
"Huh…?"
To my surprise, a message from KokoaTalk was already waiting. I hadn't expected that at all.
Still shaking, I opened the chat and read the contents.
"Whew…"
More than the reward itself, the fact that I no longer had to eat vomit-flavored tomatoes filled me with relief.
I still didn't know what they actually tasted like, but after the shit-flavored curry, I had zero interest in touching anything remotely similar.
Either way, using Taste Alteration had worked perfectly. Not only had the game accepted the tomatoes as eaten — I'd even earned a Choice Breakthrough reward on top of it.
True to the Balance Game's unhelpful nature, it only told me this existed after I'd already done it.
The reward was [Stat Increase vs Trait Enhancement].
Once again it was a pick-one-of-two, but this time it was different. The first option — Stat Increase — was the same as always. The second had changed. Instead of acquiring a new trait, it was now about enhancing an existing one.
I didn't know the exact criteria, but for now I decided that breakthrough rewards let you strengthen abilities you already had.
If a brand-new trait had been on the table, I would have taken the second option without hesitation. That said, enhancing an existing trait was far from a bad deal.
If this was tied to the current choice, it meant strengthening Taste Alteration. A shorter cooldown, for sure — and maybe even the ability to alter composition itself.
But Stat Increase was tempting too. KokoaTalk had personally recommended it before. Since the reward selection was itself a Balance Game, Stat Increase had to offer benefits on par with gaining a new trait.
Whatever stat went up would almost certainly relate to this choice, though I couldn't begin to guess which one.
Taste…? Would something like that improve?
I couldn't know the exact effect, but Stat Increase was the option KokoaTalk itself had endorsed. Trait Enhancement was clearly a boost to Taste Alteration, given how it tied to this particular choice.
Either pick would be good for me — which made choosing that much harder.
After more than an hour of deliberation, I made my choice.
It rested on the faith I'd placed in every hypothesis I'd built so far.