If Anomalies Were Nightmare Customers (2)
"What?"
The rabbit-suited anomaly sprang to his feet.
"You said this was a convenience store! What kind of convenience store doesn't even sell centipede skewers?!"
"Normal convenience stores don't carry those."
"Then what do you sell?"
"Cigarettes, drinks, boxed meals, ramen, household goods..."
"Ugh, forget it. I'll just throw one to my slaves or something."
He flicked his paw a couple of times, dusting the whole matter off.
Ji Yesol leaned in and whispered.
"B-Boss... I, I have centipedes..."
How is an anomaly this naive?
Give a nightmare customer what he wants, and he only gets worse.
"Ms. Yesol. You can't be nice to nightmare customers. Remember that drunk one from before?"
"P-pardon...?"
"What?! You're calling this Wonder Bunny a nightmare customer?!"
The instant the words nightmare customer hit his ears, Wonder Bunny went into a full-blown meltdown.
I ducked under the counter and pulled out my anomaly gear.
Ghost story equipment, crafted from byproducts of the F-Grade ghost story Suspicious Flying Squirrel.
I'd sunk a whole 50 points into it at the shop. Never imagined I'd be reaching for it this soon.
I did have the B-Grade gear from my severance package, but... burning that on a nobody like Wonder Bunny would've been a waste.
"Phew... I really didn't want to wear this."
While the rabbit bastard bought time by smashing up my floor, I quietly got my defensive gear on.
"B-Boss...?"
The moment I suited up, Ji Yesol's eyes went round.
◈ Trait: Raises Health and Mental Strength by 0.5 points each.
◈ Durability: Destroyed upon taking 10 hits.
Defensive gear, it claimed. In practice, it was a flying squirrel onesie.
I wore it because it beat wearing nothing, that was all.
Leave out the part about it being anomaly equipment, and I was just a thuggish-looking geezer in animal pajamas.
"B-Boss... y-you look... adorable...!"
Adorable, my ass.
Right. A man with a mobster's face throws on animal pajamas and suddenly he's cute.
This was killing me.
◈ Trait: Fires suspicious flying squirrels to restrain the target.
Ka-chunk!
"Hug me!"
The moment I chambered a flying squirrel, the little thing let out its cry.
The instant I leveled the muzzle at him, Wonder Bunny backpedaled.
"Are you insane?! Fine, the great me runs a rival shop, but right now I'm a customer!"
"Nightmare customers aren't customers."
TWANG—!
"Hug me!"
"Hug me!"
The flying squirrels swarmed Wonder Bunny and latched on.
"GRAH! Stop! Get them off!"
He was the weakest of the three shopkeeper anomalies. Anyone else and I'd have thought twice — with him, it was worth a shot.
TWANG!
"Hug me!"
TWANG!
"Hug me!"
He shrieked the whole way down, but the squirrels' onslaught soon had him pinned to the floor.
CRACK—! I swung the launcher's stock straight into his skull.
"Th-the great me is a customer..."
Instead of an answer, I drove a boot into his gut.
WHUMP!
"Ow! Quit it! Quit!"
"Hic!"
Ji Yesol hiccuped.
You'd think an anomaly would have watched humans get pummeled plenty of times. Why was this what shocked her?
Had it never occurred to her that a human might do the pounding for once?
Might as well teach Ji Yesol the same lesson while I was at it.
Human or anomaly — act like a nightmare customer in my store, and this is what happens.
THWACK!
"Hurgh—!"
I was the idiot for ever assuming only humans could be nightmare customers.
I'd been dealing with these things all this time — how had I never noticed? Anomalies were born to torment humans in the first place. Their talent for nightmare-customer behavior was on a whole other plane.
KA-BOOM!
I punted Wonder Bunny — still fused into one writhing lump with the flying squirrels — clean out the door.
Anomaly expelled.
+10 Ghost Story Points!
"Hic."
Ji Yesol had clamped her mouth shut and held her breath the entire time I was working Wonder Bunny over. Now the hiccups started all over again.
Ding-dong-dang-dong—
The Neverland of Disaster is now open!
Commencing the Neverland of Disaster Management Contest!
Huh?
First place, and the park hasn't even opened yet?
A closer look at the scoreboard showed the currency wasn't Korean won. It was Ghost Story Points.
Well, I like this already.
Using the shops in this ghost story required Ghost Story Points — and beating down anomalies inside the story paid them right back.
So if I just went around mauling as many anomalies as I could find, I could hold my ranking?
The rabbit bastard, the cat bastard, even the bird bastard — every one of them had the silver tongue to sell a single hunk of junk at a premium. In a genuine business showdown, I had no shot.
But if the scoreboard counted points instead of sales, then there was no need to duel these natural-born merchants at their own game at all.
And then I remembered why the Neverland of Disaster was rated A-Grade: this ghost story was infested with a hellish number of anomalies.
Subdue the hellishly many anomalies in hellishly large numbers, and the points would flood in to match. I was quietly confident. I'd bagged my share of misc anomalies in my day, and combat-rating-B Ji Yesol was standing right beside me.
"Ms. Yesol, I'm heading out to pick up a map."
After all, I was human. Rule Number One applied to me.
"Y-yes...? Then I have to mind the store all by myself...?"
Ji Yesol's hands were trembling.
"Ms. Yesol can do this."
I rested a hand on her shoulder and whispered.
"Every customer who walks in today will be a nightmare customer. Beat the hell out of every last one with your centipedes."
"Gulp."
Ji Yesol swallowed dry.
"You can do it."
"Y-yes... Boss...!"
Even so, there wasn't much to worry about. I was only grabbing a map from the staff anomaly and coming straight back. Five minutes, ten at most.
"This is bad."
All I'd planned was to stop by Zone 1 — the Ride Zone — collect a map, and head back.
Maybe it was the total absence of other humans, but staff anomalies and customer anomalies alike had come swarming at me.
I'd flattened everything in sight, and what did it earn me?
That's right. A grand total of 500 Ghost Story Points.
The gap between points from selling goods and points from beating down anomalies was heaven and earth.
"What the hell is Ji Yesol doing?"
Unless nobody at all was visiting the store, I was the only one inching up the board.
In fairness, I had pried a map loose after pummeling one staff member. An ordinary pamphlet-style map. You have no idea how much grief that one sheet of paper cost me.
"What a sight..."
In the mirror, my flying squirrel pajamas hung in tatters. Nine hits already, and counting.
"One more smack and they'd tear right off."
At least I'd made it back before the gear fell apart. And if the place was getting shaken down by low-grade anomalies, I'd be having words with Ji Yesol.
Ding—!
"Ms. Yesol! What the hell have you been—huh?"
Ji Yesol stood with her head bowed, trembling like a leaf. A woman sat there with her arms crossed — having, mind you, dragged one of the store's chairs out in front of the counter to do it.
A bob cut bordering on a crop. Golden pupils blazing like lanterns inside jet-black sclera. In her white-gloved hand, a silver conductor's baton caught the fluorescent light and glittered.
"Raising thy voice with a customer present? Thou art no gentleman at all, I see."
"B-Boss... I-I'm sorry... I, I... my body just wouldn't... not in front of her..."
Tears hung at the corners of her eyes.
Now I got it.
She'd been squatting in my store this whole time. That was why no other anomalies could get anywhere near it.
And Ji Yesol must have instinctively grasped that this woman outclassed her — hence the statue impression.
"Ms. Yesol. Get behind me."
"Y-yes... Boss...!"
Ji Yesol scurried around and hid behind my back.
"It has been some time, Han Jinho! This venerable one is Maestro Amanecida — the conductor and tuner who shall bring true melody and harmony to this world, where naught but discord plays! Word reached me that thou hadst opened a convenience store, and so I have come. And yet thy part-timer is dreadfully short on pluck!"
"Oh, for crying out loud."
I marched up to the counter and hurled whatever my hand closed around. Mostly empty energy drink cans.
"Urk!"
"Get out."
"N-now, hold! Hear this venerable one out! I hear thou hast left the Company and gone into business for thyself. Could thy one and only cherished friend fail to come and offer congratulations?"
"Since when are you my friend?"
She clutched her baton tight, visibly wounded. If a few conversations made someone a friend, nobody on earth would be friendless.
"How heartless! Did we not share the fires of friendship within this venerable one's domain?!"
Maestro Amanecida. An S-Grade anomaly. Self-proclaimed conductor and tuner, the one who would set the world right. Master of the S-Grade ghost story Dawn Orchestra. Back when I was riding high at the Company, she and I had been sworn enemies.
Just recalling the hundred-odd times I'd stormed the Dawn Orchestra to catch that one woman made my stomach turn.
How did it end, you ask? I won. Beat her soundly and nailed her into a Company containment cell.
Whatever was prowling the Neverland of Disaster right now had to be an avatar.
"Why the hell would an S-Grade anomaly come barging in here?"
"Didst thou just address this venerable one as an... 'anomaly'?"
Amanecida raised her baton. Behind her back, golden instruments floated up into the air, one after another.
"Eeeek!"
Ji Yesol screamed and grabbed my arm.
The self-styled Conductor and Tuner of the World had one defining quirk...
...the moment anyone called her an anomaly, she went berserk.
"Take it back! I take it all back!"
Yep. That had pushed every button she had.