Chapter 73
Chapter 73
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 73
Chapter Title: 25-Hour Convenience Store Horror - Rules (5)
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Before 11:00 sharp.
The last customer left, and the door closed behind them.
The strength drained from my hand gripping the Great Mop.
I let out a short breath.
The person in the hood who had come in first turned out not to be an anomaly, after all.
—Ugh. Because of the hood, I couldn’t see their face, so I thought they were definitely hiding something. I was sure they were an anomaly!
Perhaps because the hour was finally up, Han Su-ryeon’s voice sounded much brighter.
I smiled faintly.
She seemed more tense facing this indirectly than I was confronting it head-on.
‘More importantly.’
I clenched and unclenched my fist.
I had spotted one more anomaly.
And dealing with it hadn’t been much trouble.
They always repeated their ‘one-dimensional attacks.’
They followed set patterns.
That simplicity was a kind of opportunity for me.
Even if it creaked a bit, my body moved in line with my thoughts.
That fact was crucial.
My body even felt sturdier than before.
I couldn’t explain it.
And above all—
From the repeated regressions in previous anomalies, my cognition, senses, and body connection had become far more precise than before.
How much force to apply, how far it would reach.
What angle to dodge at, where the safe point was.
When I pictured it in my mind, my body followed on its own.
This wasn’t ‘training’—it was the ‘imprint’ left by repeated deaths.
The survival instincts etched into my brain to stay alive.
Until now, I’d only used it as a sense for escaping, but this time, I repurposed that sense.
In the end, the experience I’d piled up from fleeing had saved me.
I just hadn’t realized it.
I wasn’t a superhuman like Kang Su-ji.
My body wasn’t tough, nor did I have superhuman strength.
So, I couldn’t get arrogant.
I forcibly suppressed the excitement that came after slaying the enemy.
I shoved the accompanying sense of accomplishment back into my chest.
I maintained my cool.
I downplayed my assessment.
What I’d done was something anyone could do.
For beings beyond common sense like the anomalies I’d seen, this wasn’t worth getting cocky over.
From the start, compared to Kang Su-ji, who could slice steel with a sword, I was still firmly in human territory.
I just understood their patterns through experience from countless deaths.
I simply traced out the optimal motions more efficiently than anyone else.
That’s how I endured another hour.
By now, the afterglow of battle and the trembling in my fingertips had faded.
And the three minutes left were nearly up.
As it approached the hour,
Her voice trembled more and more over the receiver.
—Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease.
Her desperate plea brushed my ear.
I let out a short breath and looked up at the ceiling.
I thought I’d judged it well—
Ding.
With the sound of the second hand moving, the front digit on the electronic clock changed.
[11:00:00]
The store lights dimmed further.
A regretful sigh mixed in over the receiver.
This deduction was due more to other factors than the anomaly.
-1 for not restocking the shelves properly while focusing on customers.
-1 for the shelves breaking again while dealing with the anomaly.
Now, only five lights remained on.
My life was at half.
***
After that, the process repeated similarly.
Every hour on the hour.
All actions from the past hour were tallied.
The results always manifested as lights.
Beep—
[12:00:00]
The record from 11:00 to 11:59 was reflected.
During that time, I missed the calculation of one anomaly.
The shadow under its feet didn’t match its form.
I only realized it after it left the convenience store.
One of the ceiling fluorescents went out.
Only darkness remained where the light had been.
Han Su-ryeon’s worry came over the receiver.
Instead of replying, I wiped the black blood from the back of my hand.
I knew where I’d gone wrong.
Now I had to check the customers’ shadows too.
Beep—
[13:00:00]
The hour after 12:00 was relatively quiet.
No sign of anomalies, and the customers were normal.
But if I left the counter empty, customers turned feral, so I couldn’t properly organize the shelves.
By the hour, the ramen section was empty.
-1.
Another ceiling light went out.
Three left.
Beep—
[14:00:00]
This hour, two anomalies were mixed in.
The first one came with a bento whose expiration date was fine and asked,
“Is this expired? Can I eat it?”
The second approached the counter without placing anything on it, hand in pocket, and said,
“Eh.”
Just those two words.
‘...An anomaly?’
Deduction for the shelves breaking.
Deduction for lost sales from unauthorized eating.
The store was now pitch black.
Light only reached the counter and right in front of it.
Her choked-up voice leaked over the receiver.
A single beam from the counter light scattered off the glass window.
***
With the light reduced, the floor reflections vanished.
Now only one bulb left.
And the next round was slowly approaching.
The convenience store door opened, and a hooded customer entered.
At that moment, a voice rang out over the receiver.
—Caught on camera 3!
—It’s moving around the ramen corner.
—Now… it’s stopped in front of the bento shelf.
Han Su-ryeon’s voice came through.
She felt more determined than before.
Her voice tried to stay calm.
But a faint tremor lingered between her words.
I waited at the counter.
The store was quiet.
Only the faint hum of the refrigerators echoed.
The man hadn’t moved from the shelves yet.
—Now holding something in his right hand.
—The quality’s bad, hard to see… a bento?
—Wait, moving again. Heading to the counter now…
I quickly scanned him.
Couldn’t meet his eyes.
Head down, he slowly walked over holding bentos in both hands.
He looked normal on the surface.
He stopped in front of me.
“Checkout….”
A short, dry voice rang out.
He placed the bento from his hand on the counter.
His palm hovered right in front of me.
A face slowly revealed under the light.
Nothing inside the hood that should have been there.
No eyes, no nose.
Just a smooth slit for a mouth and two holes above and below it.
Anomaly.
The moment I moved to act—
—Agent, behind… camera 5… another… same person…
—The same person just came in…
At those words, the door opened.
Ding—
I reflexively turned my head.
Hoodie.
Same color.
Same stride.
Same gestures.
Not just one.
Another man in the same outfit entered behind.
—...One more?!
Three in total.
They all looked this way.
All three opened their mouths at once.
“Checkout.”
“Checkout.”
“Checkout.”
Their voices overlapped.
Like frequencies interfering, the sounds tangled and spread.
An unpleasant static scratched at my ears.
More than that.
Did they think I’d check them out just because they said so?
I pushed the bento on the counter back.
At that instant, all three mouths twisted.
Screams like tearing eardrums erupted from the holes.
Even so, 1 against 3 was—
Bang!!!
The counter shook violently.
...
Silence settled over the convenience store.
I didn’t lift my head.
Instead, I closed my eyes.
“Limit reached.”
At that moment, the ceiling light flickered wildly.
Light blinked on and off.
Soon, after prolonged noise over the receiver mixed with static, a faint voice leaked through.
—Now… the CCTV… all… black screens…
“No matter what.”
Leaning on the bodies of the three fallen anomalies, I picked up the bento.
Three penetrating shots to the abdomen and legs.
Even for me, three at once was too much.
At least for this round.
Good thing they had no ally recognition during attacks.
I flipped the bento.
Its expiration date had ended exactly ten minutes ago.
“…How’d it know.”
Beep—
In the silent space, a second-hand-like warning beeped, and the last light went out.
A frantic voice mixed with static came over the receiver.
—...Agent!?
—...Agent, respond!
I let out a short breath.
“...Wait. I’ll come back.”
With that, darkness fully swallowed me.
***
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Moving to the last save point.]
[The most recent save point is AUTO SAVE 5.]
[25-Hour Convenience Store Horror]
[Death Type]: Piercing.
[Tip]: Leaving the workplace during work hours is not proper conduct.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I opened my eyes to a familiar sight.
The hum from the refrigerators rang in my ears.
Under the fluorescent lights, snacks and drinks were neatly arranged on the shelves.
My shaky vision focused.
At the same time, the receiver on the counter rang.
Her voice flowed out exactly as before.
—Is this the convenience store?
—Are you… here for the part-time job?
I fetched the uniform from the storeroom, put it on, and returned to the counter.
And once again, we had the same conversation.
After the first regression, the death by the checkout villain.
I challenged it over and over.
The same way.
This was the thirteenth regression since then.
And—
What I learned with each repeating round was one thing.
Keeping the lights on until midnight was no simple task.
My best record was 8:00 PM.
Also, depending on my actions, the anomalies changed ‘slightly’ each round.
And those tiny differences affected the next hour’s anomalies’ behaviors.
I gave up on distinguishing every anomaly across all hours.
Even the so-called ‘normal customers’ weren’t, strictly speaking, living humans.
Just shells of dolls.
I realized it when I accidentally smashed the expiration-date villain and the “eh” villain.
What spilled out wasn’t blood, but white fluid.
And naturally, the expected penalty didn’t come.
Instead, only the penalty for breaking the shelves applied.
Only then did the puzzle pieces fit.
Whether alive or not. Doll or anomaly. That wasn’t the point.
This place only evaluated ‘actions’ and ‘results.’
‘I overthought it.’
If there were no customers.
I wouldn’t need to organize shelves.
No need to manage stock.
No sales meant no hourly sales calculations.
Nothing missing from the start.