The Mart's Dumpling Stand
You have selected the mart—where you secretly ate more than you worked during your tasting corner shifts—as an activation area.
User Chloe Grace's available activation areas have increased to a total of four: the moldy underground studio, the convenience store stocked only with expired food, Borimdang and the surrounding 20 meters, and the mart. Congratulations.
Donghee briefly wondered if the reward was far too generous compared to the quest's difficulty, but the thought vanished almost immediately. There was simply too much to gain from the mart.
First, she emptied her entire inventory.
“Next time I get points, I need to expand the inventory first.”
If she wanted to stock up at the mart, expanding her inventory was the most urgent priority.
With an excited heart, Donghee opened the front door and stepped inside.
The activation area granted through the basic quest had no time restrictions, which put her at ease.
“The status window might not seem like it, but it’s actually pretty generous. Two names and a whole mart opening? At this rate, reviving the territory will be a piece of cake!”
Boasting loudly, Donghee passed through her studio apartment and climbed the stairs, humming a cheerful tune under her breath.
Walking along the path between the hazy fog walls, her steps felt lighter than ever. Today, she didn’t need to stop by the convenience store.
“The mart has way more kinds of ramen, more dumplings, and more types of bread!”
Muttering to herself even though no one was listening, she breezed right past the convenience store. With so many jewels stockpiled, she could skip Borimdang today too!
The mart stood tall on the opposite side of Borimdang, centered around the convenience store.
“A mart really does need to be big. Thanks, status window. Handing out such an excellent activation area as a reward—how generous can you get?”
After showering the status window with praise, Donghee stepped inside the mart.
But moments later, that praise turned into a string of curses.
“Hey! You fraud! What kind of nonsense is this?!”
The only place Donghee could enter was the frozen dumpling display where she had once worked part-time doing tastings.
Grumbling furiously, she filled her inventory with frozen dumplings.
She briefly considered stopping by the convenience store or Borimdang for other items, but a stubborn pride welled up instead.
“Flat dumplings, rib dumplings, spicy dumplings, vegetable dumplings, water dumplings, king dumplings, shrimp dumplings.”
After stuffing every kind of dumpling she could find into her inventory, Donghee glared at the invisible status window and left the mart.
“Damn it, there’s so much stuff on the other floors. Clothes, shoes, cosmetics—everything! And you only open the dumpling stand? Isn’t this too much?”
She complained loudly, as if hoping the status window would hear.
The status window remained deathly silent.
Normally it would have already started teasing her with lines like “No conscience?” or “How shameless,” but today it stayed quiet. Strange.
Without anyone to argue with, Donghee soon fell silent herself. Getting angry alone was just a waste of energy.
“I’ll go home and have Delma grill some flat dumplings for me. Oh! Maybe I should ask her to try making dumplings with dural? Dural-skin dumplings! Shortened to ‘dural dumplings’—the name’s weird, but still! It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”
Forgetting her earlier complaints, Donghee hurried out the front door and returned to her room.
“Ray, I’m certain Chloe has come into a large sum of money.”
Erma shook Ray’s shoulder irritably. He was slumped over, drunk and listless.
After being driven out of Grace with nothing, Ray had spent every day drowning himself in alcohol.
The table before them was a mess—half-filled glasses, empty bottles, and half-eaten fruit scattered everywhere.
Everything had been going well. Or at least, they had thought it was.
Chloe wasn’t from a wealthy noble family, but marrying her would have elevated his status from a mere lower noble. He might even have reclaimed the viscount title that Viscount Patrasche had stolen from his family.
Plus, the business he had planned to invest in had seemed like a guaranteed success. Now that opportunity had gone to someone else.
Ray felt as though he had let a gold ingot slip through his fingers right in front of him.
The more he thought about it, the more unbearable it became. He suddenly sat up and downed the remaining half-glass of liquor in one gulp, then roughly wiped the alcohol dripping from his chin with the back of his hand.
“This is all your fault.”
His face flushed red, Ray suddenly glared at Erma with bloodshot eyes. The stench of alcohol was so strong that even the person standing nearby felt dizzy.
“What do you mean by that?”
Erma covered her nose and mouth with her hand, her expression twisting in disgust.
Already irritated by the ruined plan, Erma’s anger flared at Ray’s sudden accusation. Ray, however, had no energy left to care about her feelings.
“If you hadn’t kept following me to Grace, that idiot Chloe wouldn’t have noticed anything!”
“So now it’s my fault?”
Erma was speechless. Who was the one secretly holding hands and kissing behind Chloe’s back?
“Then whose fault is it? I told you to stop following me. I warned you Chloe might catch on!”
“When did you ever say that? You’re the one who laughed and said that stupid girl would never notice!”
“I don’t know, I don’t know! It’s all your fault, so take responsibility. I barely managed to push the investment deposit deadline to tomorrow. Do whatever it takes to get the money! Sell that precious body of yours if you have to! Who knows—maybe that old man will hand over a fortune if you let him have you once!”
Ray shouted at the top of his lungs, picturing the lecherous old noble who had been eyeing Erma.
“Are you finished talking?”
Erma stared at him as if she wanted to kill him.
She wanted nothing more than to throw him out of the house right then and there, but doing so would mean losing their last remaining hope.
After all, this was the same Chloe Grace who had once been hopelessly in love with Ray.
No matter how much her feelings had changed, love couldn’t cool so completely overnight.
There had to be something more to it.
Giving up now would waste all the time and effort they had invested. Besides, finding another fool as gullible as Chloe wouldn’t be easy. Erma quickly suppressed her anger and tried to assess the situation calmly.
And, as always, she came up with a self-serving interpretation.
“Ray! Could it be that Chloe is acting this way because she’s jealous of us?”
“Jealous?”
Ray nodded seriously at Erma’s words. Who was Chloe Grace?
She was the woman who had used every trick in the book to make him hers. And now she was supposedly giving him up so easily?
Ray knew exactly how handsome he was, and he knew precisely how to use that appearance to his advantage.
He ran his fingers through his disheveled hair and peeled off the apple skin stuck to his face.
With just a few strands of hair back in place, Ray looked several times more handsome than before.
Erma felt certain once again that her judgment had been correct.
“Yes, jealousy. There’s no other explanation. Who is Chloe Grace? Ray, she’s the woman who was crazy about you. Even people here in Fron know that. And now she’s suddenly changed? Does that make any sense?”
Ray’s scowl gradually softened as he listened to Erma. The more he heard, the more it made sense.
“You’re right. Chloe liked me so much. No—she still likes me. She’s never once refused any of my requests.”
“Exactly. But just in case, why don’t we sell that villa we received last time?”
“Ah! The villa! We can sell that and use the money for the investment!”
Remembering the villa Chloe had given him, Ray broke into a bright smile.
“And change your clothes quickly. Fix your hair too.”
Erma urged him as she helped the now-clear-headed Ray to his feet. But drunk as he was, Ray couldn’t stand properly and immediately collapsed back into the chair. The sudden movement made him retch.
“Ugh! I can’t do anything right now.”
At Ray’s slurred words, Erma sighed deeply—then clapped her hands as if she’d had a brilliant idea.
“Ray! You don’t need to change clothes. Let’s go to Grace just like this!”
“Like this?”
Ray knew exactly how disheveled he looked. Someone as obsessed with appearances as he was couldn’t possibly accept that. He shook his head firmly—only to feel the world spin around him.
“Ugh! I’m dizzy. I think I’m going to throw up. Ugh!”
Erma looked at the retching Ray with disdain, then pulled him back up.
“This is perfect. You’re the Ray who loves Chloe so much that you’ve come crawling to her, drowning your heartbreak in alcohol you can’t even handle.”
“Huh?”
Even in his drunken haze, it sounded like a good plan. Ray suddenly felt a little more sober.
“Keep going.”
Seeing that Ray agreed, Erma continued excitedly.
“You have to cry pitifully in front of Chloe. You used to act in plays, remember? The only thing you were good at was crying on cue. Don’t you remember?”
“Of course. When I cried, even the noble ladies would start weeping along with me.”
Just a few years ago, Ray had been a promising stage actor—before he was kicked out for failing to keep his lower half in check.
“So let’s leave for Grace right now. Go there, cry, cling to her—do whatever it takes to squeeze money out of that idiot. How long are you going to live like this, groveling? You promised me. You said you’d pull off one big score and let me live in luxury. Keep that promise.”
Erma spoke with tears welling in her eyes.
“Yeah. I can do it. I can cry. Because Chloe Grace hasn’t forgotten me.”
Still unable to stand straight, Ray muttered like a chant.
“I’ll call a carriage. Do well.”
Erma gave him a solemn look as she made her request.