The True Nature of Villains
It bears repeating, but villains have no regard for nations or countries.
And in some cases, not even dimensions.
“Hey, hyung. I haven’t even bought anything yet, so why is the envelope burnt my fault? Huh?”
“The spark that flew from the customer’s body landed in the bread envelope they’re holding, so it burned~”
After two minutes of logic debating, the skull-headed villain sighed and began calculating the bread.
I decided I no longer cared about how the skull-headed villain planned to eat his bread.
Hadn’t someone said that the variety of convenience store villains equals the number of customers who enter?
If no one had spoken up, then from today onward, I would be the one saying it.
Even the convenience store in Sanctum City where dimensions gathered wasn’t exempt from villains.
Customers who sprouted sprouts on the store tiles like game character effects with every step they took (eventually I had to pick them one by one).
A pair of goblins desperately exchanging gems from their pockets, barely finding a currency they could exchange (I found one that could be converted and settled the payment).
And there was a dark-skinned female elf who swept up the World Tree products in excitement and calculated the entire order.
“The, the, selling the essence of the World Tree like this is so unscrupulous… This cannot be distributed! Uhe, hhehe~”
“…12,300 Luos.”
“Hehe… hhehe…”
“Twelve thousand three hundred Luos.”
“Whoa! Yes, yes. Please take this…”
And there it was, the World Tree-flavored potato chips I had briefly noticed while restocking.
By the way, perhaps the first time this particular departing female elf had visited the convenience store, Kim Gichan added the quite plausible rational deduction of “the poor customer with a strange fetish for the World Tree.”
“Her face is pretty, but she’s such a pitiful friend.”
“It does look that way.”
I left a short sigh at Kim Gichan’s interjection and raised my head to prepare for the next customer.
“You, calculate this and this. The young lady today has her Uria card with her—”
“Yes, 800 Luos. Thank you. Goodbye, next customer.”
The customer rush was clearly exhausting him.
It was obvious he was mistaking customers.
“You.”
However, the red-haired demon king behind the counter, who had finished calculating, still hadn’t bagged the items and stared at me fixedly.
“Are you ignoring the young lady?”
Damn it. It wasn’t a mistake.
“W-what do you mean, customer?”
I squeezed my eyes shut and forced out a customer-service smile. Shouts erupted behind the demon king, but as a mere part-timer, there was nothing I could do.
“I ask you again. The young lady did not wish to hurry past your front because she feared you, correct?”
The demon king’s expression showed no emotion at all. Conversely, it meant that even in a situation where no emotion was involved, someone could easily pass judgment on another’s death.
But what was I supposed to do about that?
There was no place in this world where a person who had actually killed me with their own physical body could meet the next day without issue!
Not even Sanctum City.
On top of that, behind the demon king’s back, a sea of customers completely filled the convenience store.
I turned sideways.
“…Senior.”
However, Kim Gichan, busy arguing with the villain customer, hadn’t noticed my big event.
“Senior?”
“Ah, why. I’m busy too right now. What—”
Kim Gichan turned his head, scanned me once, and then me and the demon king standing blankly in front of me.
And our gazes met again.
Kim Gichan gave a wry smile.
“Jin-ho.”
“Hyung, just once.”
However, Kim Gichan shook his head slowly.
“That person now… is your customer.”
“Kkub…”
The restrained laughter leaking from those tightly pressed lips was infuriating.
I swallowed my inner tears and looked back at the demon king. A person who had promised not to kill me again even though I was scared… was not a demon king.
I could have said it honestly.
“… Demon King.”
“Speak.”
Taking a deep breath, I confessed my true feelings to the demon king.
“…Right now, don’t you see the line of customers piling up behind?”
“……?”
The demon king blinked.
As I expected, the shorty couldn’t keep up with the explanation?
“There are so many customers lined up behind wanting to calculate, and because the demon king is standing in front, complaints are exploding from the back. Customer, it takes less than 20 seconds to receive one and calculate. If the demon king had stood there for two full minutes like that, I would have received six more customers.”
“Ah! Yes, I’m scared, so that’s why. Of course, wanting to meet the person who killed me the next day is scary, but that’s different from disliking the demon king. I don’t dislike the demon king, but because I’m busy dying here, please ask that impatient villain group over there if they don’t want me to kill them again, or just tell them today is busy and go.”
Huu.
Now that I had gotten everything I wanted to say off my chest, I felt a little relieved.
In an instant, the surrounding atmosphere became strangely quiet. I turned my head.
Every customer in the convenience store, including Kim Gichan, was looking at me.
… What?
I had said it straight, so I was right.
Turning my head again at the rustling sound, I saw the demon king. The demon king who had picked up the snacks from the counter with small hands… for some reason, had a pouting mouth.
“It’s over…”
Then my eyes fell on the right hand tightly gripping the card from the earlier transaction.
Ah, no way.
They wanted praise?
“Um… Demon King? So next time, when you have some free time—”
“It’s over!”
The demon king cut me off.
And after giving me one sharp glare,
“… Hmph.”
Leaving just that one word, the demon king walked out of the convenience store with a tottering gait.
Immediately after, the customers behind them slowly set down their products in a slightly dazed state.
“Um… Little brother. Even though I’ve experienced a lot here for a year.”
Kim Gichan patted my shoulder.
“I’m really having a hard time judging whether this situation is an ace or a waste.”
“What? It’s all because of you, hyung.”
The noise from the surroundings had disappeared, so Kim Gichan’s voice echoed clearly throughout the convenience store.
… Could I really survive a whole year here?
The thoughts from yesterday came back again, but all I could do was scan the product barcode of the next customer’s item.
***
The day the demon king pouted and ran out of the convenience store, customer numbers didn’t decrease. I was able to rest only after two o’clock in the afternoon. Until then, Kim Gichan and I had been dealing with the rushing customers, completely drained.
“Is there something like a Russian hour here too? It rushes in and then rushes out.”
“There’s something similar. The opening times differ by major dimension.”
Kim Gichan, restocking, continued explaining.
“Here, three major dimensions open every day. We divide the sub-dimensions into three big groups to control traffic volume.”
“What’s the grouping standard?”
“Dimensional similarity, maybe. I don’t know. What does a convenience store part-timer know?”
Considering that he answered various questions quickly, it seemed he hadn’t been slacking off here for a year.
“So unlike Korea’s fixed office hours, customers don’t pile up according to when dimensions open.”
“How many are there in each?”
“Roughly, eleven o’clock in the morning, four o’clock in the afternoon, and nine at night, based on local time.”
That was why customers had flooded in right after eleven. I tied up the full garbage bag and thought.
But thinking about it, the contract said the working hours were eight hours, right?
“But if you leave, hyung, I’ll have to look after the store alone.”
“That’s right.”
“Who’s looking after the remaining convenience stores if we exclude eight hours of work?”
In a bustling area, how could a convenience store open and do business for only eight hours a day?
It must be something only the building owner, no, the Sanctum City major shareholder could manage.
“Don’t worry about that. There are workers assigned instead.”
“There’s another part-timer besides us two?”
“No, they’re not from Earth. They’re a Sanctum City dimension drifter living nearby.”
“Dimension drifter?”
I asked for the first time. The term seemed intuitive enough that I could guess without difficulty.
“I told you the bundled dimensions open at specific times.”
“That’s right.”
“Then the bundled dimension must contain countless sub-dimensions.”
That was certainly true.
It wasn’t just three or four major dimensions, but sub-dimensions too.
“Those sub-dimensions also have different opening times or cycles individually.”
“So people from the sub-dimension wait?”
“That’s right. And dimension drifters are born from that.”
In other words, Kim Gichan said dimension drifters mostly appear in sub-dimensions with long reopening cycles.
Each dimension has a wildly different reopening cycle, and some are closed for months or years, even decades.
Therefore, people have to spend years here in Sanctum City to return to their original dimension.
And among them, people who fell here without any preparation were frequent.
“That’s what we call dimension drifters. Florance hyung is also a dimension drifter.”
That was new information to me. Somehow, it was surprising that a half-plant creature was running a flower shop in Sanctum City, which wasn’t exactly nature-friendly. Was that the reason?
“So one of those dimension drifters works here. What kind of person is it?”
“Not a person, so… they’re called Lila.”
Lila?
“… You’ll see them soon!”
“……”
Strange.
“… They’re not a dangerous person, right?”
“No way~ They’re super polite and courteous! Ahahaha!”
… Anyway, since they’re working here without running away, they probably aren’t dangerous.
***
The next day.
By the third day, I felt somewhat adapted to the bizarre phenomena compared to yesterday.
Of course, I had to endure the customer rush on my own, but aside from the outlier events like the demon king shorty, most days were just intense convenience store work.
“Oh, by the way, logistics arrives today.”
Around lunchtime, Kim Gichan suddenly said.
Now that I thought about it, he had mentioned logistics and the Backroom yesterday.
“How long does logistics take?”
“Um… it’s quite a lot, but we won’t have much to do ourselves.”
What did he mean by that? Were there people assigned to help?
Perhaps Lila, who was supposed to work with us…?
“You’ll find out later. Around five o’clock.”
“I saw it arrive yesterday too. Make sure to do the handoff properly.”
“It’s better to see it directly than listen to explanations.”
“… How many times a week does it arrive?”
“Twice.”
Only twice a week?
If they can handle such a large crowd arriving only twice a week, how many items come in at once? Was I supposed to sort all of them?
Well… since I asked, they probably wouldn’t answer, so I’d better wait a little.
“So you put them in the Backroom?”
“Yeah. Fresh items go straight on the shelves, and only the leftovers go to the Backroom.”
Fresh Food, or FF for short, was the main fresh produce sold at the convenience store. The advantage was rapid turnover due to high demand. High circulation rate.
Of course, CS25 Sanctum City branch had a longer shelf life. In Earth, fresh kimchi gimbap lasted only three days at most, but here it lasts about a month. When I asked Kim Gichan, he replied, “It’s a neighborhood that handles dimensional travel too, but isn’t it odd that there’s no technology to extend food preservation time?”
Indeed, Sanctum City was a terrifying place.
Because of that, logistics didn’t come every day. FF products also came roughly twice a week.
“And the convenience store truck lady… her figure is really, oh my…”
“Again with that?”
“No, it’s really…”
I listened to Kim Gichan’s meaningless sigh and decided to wait until the time logistics arrived.
… Of course, I was also curious about that enormous figure.
***
Around five o’clock in the afternoon, the logistics arrived.
I had expected something beyond imagination since it was Sanctum City, but as the saying goes, expecting disappointment from people. A huge delivery truck stopped right in front of the convenience store door as usual.
The only difference was it was a ten-ton truck.
But even here, was it all right for trucks to come inside? Sanctum City, with a fountain in the center… I wondered if trucks could enter.
Someone stepped off the elevated platform about chest-high and got out from the driver’s seat. The person who was driving the truck… no, the being… was an angel.
“Oh~ Are you the convenience store clerk? I’ve never seen your face before~”
“Whoa.”
It was a woman angel wearing a shirt.
Angel work attire was shirt and suit.
Moreover, the shirt was incredibly stretchy.
The only way I could react was to stare at that violent chest.
“… Um. Ah, hello.”
I snapped out of it from the angel’s gaze stealing mine and greeted.
“Yes~ Nice to meet you! I’m Rafa, and I’m an angel. I handle delivery work at Sanctum City Urban Distribution Bureau~”
The angel smiled, raised both hands in a fist, and took a fighting pose. Naturally, her chest moved in rhythm with the lively movements.
I turned my head for a moment and thought.
The convenience store logistics professionals here were this high.
It was the moment Kim Gichan’s words made a little sense.