Once Eaten, There's No Taking It Back
“Uwaaaaang!”
The baby’s wail jolted me awake in an instant. I had fallen into a surprisingly deep sleep for the first time in a long while. I jumped up, soothing the little one before feeding him milk and changing his diaper.
Following Maria’s instructions, I patted his back to bring up the burp and cooed to him until he dozed off again.
With a sigh, I laid the sleeping baby back on the sofa and surveyed the house, which had become a complete disaster in my absence.
“......”
I had never seen this much of a mess since moving into this house. Even though it was my familiar space, it felt utterly alien now.
The sky outside was still dark with the early dawn, so I promised myself I would clean up in the morning and tried to drift back to sleep.
But every two hours, the baby’s cries pulled me back awake. I fed him milk, changed his diaper, and when I finally looked at the clock, it was already afternoon.
I sat up in a daze, staring at the ruined house, when my stomach let out a loud growl.
Gurgle.
......Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t eaten anything proper since leaving home yesterday morning.
But there was nothing in the house to eat.
It was only natural, since I usually handled breakfast and lunch outside and bought dinner on my way home from work.
“......This is a mess.”
Looking out the window, it was pouring snow outside. I couldn’t leave the baby alone, and carrying a sleeping infant out in this weather didn’t seem like a good idea at all.
......Delivery food is expensive.
I stood up, drank a glass of water, and opened my phone with the intention of ordering some simple food to tide me over until the morning.
Maybe cup noodles or a whole box.
While I was at it, I might as well order a bulk pack of water too. I had only bought one pack of tissues yesterday, but I should get a whole box......
Just as I was about to search for the lowest price on the usual portal site, the notification I had seen yesterday popped up, and I suddenly opened that mysterious shopping app.
The welcome popup that greeted me was just as absurd as before.
━━━━━━━━━━ WELCOME! You have become a protector of new life. From now on, for three years, our social welfare company Angelus Inc. will support you and your child through points on our app! Your shopping payment amount will be 100% credited as points! - [View App Info] ━━━━━━━━━━
Everything looked off. The app was supposed to be one I had received from the company website, yet the company name had been changed.
And the wording felt far too targeted at my current situation.
......Was it a hack?
How could anyone even hack an app that hadn’t even officially launched?
Honestly, I didn’t care much. It was a pity about the gift cards, but I didn’t have the mental energy to write a review right now.
I tapped the delete app button from the system, ran a virus scan, confirmed there was nothing wrong, and then went back to searching for items.
Whatever the case, I had to get it done before the baby woke up again. I quickly finished shopping.
I checked the items in the cart and proceeded to payment.
Ding!
“......”
━━━━━━━━━━ The payment has been completed through the Manito Shopping app. Please check the details in the app. ━━━━━━━━━━
The moment I checked the message, it felt like someone had poured ice water on me. Was this the infamous smishing I had only heard about?
I didn’t have money to spare!
Ding!
Should I contact the bank or the police? I was panicking when a bank app push notification appeared.
It was exactly the amount I had paid.
“......”
I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. At least there seemed to be no financial loss.
Since it was a debit card, not a credit card, there was no additional money that could be withdrawn.
Moreover, while it was my entire fortune, to the police or the bank it wouldn’t seem like a huge amount, and I had no idea how much cooperation they would provide anyway.
Especially on a weekend. It was common sense not to expect any slow administrative work even on weekdays.
......If only the items didn’t arrive.
I could file a damage claim with the company. After all, I wasn’t the only one who had downloaded the app.
“......”
With my strength fading, I clicked the shopping app that was still prominently displayed even though I had definitely deleted it.
━━━━━━━━━━ Thank you for completing your first order! - 100% of the $127 payment amount has been credited as points. - The credited points can be used equally to cash only through this shopping app. ━━━━━━━━━━
When I checked my page, I really had earned 127 points.
I could use them like cash, and the fact that I got 100% back every time made me wonder where such an idea could have come from.
Out of curiosity, I checked the app information.
━━━━━━━━━━ Manito Shopping Ver. 1.1.5 Developer Information: Angelus Inc. ━━━━━━━━━━
“......”
Manito Shopping. The app name had changed, it wasn’t even a beta test version, and the developer wasn’t even our company. If it was Angelus, it was the daycare name.
When I returned to the main home screen, the window looked no different from any ordinary shopping app.
This week’s special sale, popular items categorized by type, recommendations for members......
Ding!
━━━━━━━━━━ As we welcome the weekend, time sales have begun! Up to 50% off the usual price! Don’t miss this chance! ━━━━━━━━━━
A bitter laugh escaped me. Were they playing with people?
Annoyed, I tried to close the phone, but a sparkling food photo caught my eye.
『Happy Weekend Mini Home Party Deluxe Ten Dish Food Box Deal!』
My hand, unable to resist the hunger, clicked on the photo, and my eyes began to scroll down the images of delicious food.
Croissant sandwich. Garden salad. Meat lasagna. Grilled steak with french fries, smoked salmon roll, shrimp gambas, Cobb salad, assorted fruits, and sweet dessert and drink sets.
“Mmm, this looks good.”
I muttered to myself and checked the price. With the 50% discount, it came to $125. This included the delivery tip.
In a daze, I added everything to the cart and tapped the immediate order button.
━━━━━━━━━━ Payment completed. *Items purchased with points guarantee the fastest delivery service. ━━━━━━━━━━
“......”
If it was a problem that I felt a certain satisfaction, then that was the problem. They were playing with people. I would definitely have to interrogate the company tomorrow.
Gurgle.
Ah, I’m hungry.
Gazing at the sleeping baby, I again considered my options.
The convenience store was a seven-minute walk away. With snow falling, running there would be difficult, and even if I made it there and back quickly, choosing items and paying would take nearly twenty minutes.
“Just bear with the hunger.”
Shaking my head, I decided to tidy up the disaster in the house before the baby woke up again.
But since there was no suitable furniture to put things on, the cleanup didn’t feel like much of a cleanup.
The trash had already piled up for a whole week...... A larger trash bin seemed necessary.
The number of people had increased, but the amount of daily necessities needed wasn’t double or triple—it felt like quadruple.
Everything was money. What a disaster. Should I look into a second-hand furniture store?
Knock knock.
While I was scribbling on paper about various methods and pondering countermeasures, I looked up at the sound of someone knocking on the front door.
“Who is it?”
Since there was no answer, I checked outside through the security camera, but no one was there.
I locked the door safety ring and slightly opened the door to check. A large delivery box was placed right next to the door.
I immediately opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. A delivery worker was walking away in the distance.
“Excuse me!”
“Yeah?”
“Is this perhaps delivered to my house?”
The delivery worker checked his PDA and showed me my address and name.
“It’s your name, right?”
“Yes...... It matches my name.”
“You didn’t order a ‘Ten Dish Food Box Deluxe,’ did you?”
“Ah...... Yes, I, I did order it.”
The delivery worker looked at me with a strange expression, as if asking what the problem was.
I stood there without saying a word, and he scanned me up and down like I was a strange person before turning around and leaving.
I stood there as if my head had been hit with a hammer. I had to get inside the house first. I picked up the box and went back in.
The box was quite heavy.
At the bottom were juice and carbonated drink sets, and stacked on top were ten food boxes—some cold, some warm—neatly piled.
One by one, as I unpacked them, the entire dining table and kitchen counter were filled with food.
『Ten Dish Food Box Deluxe』
The bright red ribbon wrapping the food boxes had the words engraved in white, looking exactly like a Christmas gift.
“......”
What on earth was this?
Gurgle.
The delicious aroma wafting from the warm food made my mouth water. But could I even eat this?
Gurgle gurgle.
If I called the store to ask something, the delivery worker’s reaction would probably be the same. “Didn’t you order it?” “The order came in normally.”
Gurgle gurgle gurgle.
......Could it be that something was done to the food? Why go through all this trouble just to mess with me? It didn’t make sense.
Gurgle gurgle gurgle gurgle......
Slurp.
The first bite of steak melted on my tongue.
“......”
The first mouthful was hard, but after that it was easy.
I took a bite of the croissant sandwich filled with fresh tomatoes, onions, Swiss cheese, and turkey.
It was incredibly delicious.
Next, the smoked salmon roll that went perfectly with my tongue.
The shrimp gambas I had never eaten before was an experience, and the lasagna was already familiar so it was even better. If it felt a little heavy, I alternated with the garden salad, Cobb salad, and colorful fruits.
Finally, the sweet dessert. Nothing was missing. It was perfect.
Even though I tasted everything in a daze, there was still a lot left. I could probably eat for several days.
Well then......
Am I dead now?
Could this be someone’s last meal sent by an enemy?
But even if I waited quietly, instead of dying, a sense of fullness and satisfaction rose. I put the food neatly into the fridge and sat back down at the dining table.
“......”
Since I still couldn’t come up with a good idea, I opened the app again.
Remaining points: 2 points. No other changes.
I had paid $127 for the items and received 127 points in return, and I enjoyed the feast with them.
......I didn’t know what kind of harmony this was, but since I had already touched the food, it would be difficult to report the strange app to the police.
I would look into it tomorrow when I went to the company.
* * *