Waiting Room (4)
After the third tutorial and the third death. And the revocation of Hero Candidate status. The moment Luniel reminded them of that fact once again, the people who had died in the first tutorial felt fire under their feet.
At first, everyone had carried some inexplicable confidence, thinking there was no way they’d actually die three times. But once they died, they realized it. If they messed up, they really could die all three times.
Of course, having their Hero Candidate qualification revoked didn’t mean they wouldn’t be sent to Aeteria. It simply meant they would receive none of the support that Hero Candidates were entitled to. Receiving a new life was still guaranteed.
Luniel hadn’t yet explained exactly what benefits Hero Candidates received, so I didn’t know the details. But living without the Hero Candidate title didn’t seem like it would be easy. Even on Earth, moving to another country and starting over wasn’t simple. How much harder would it be to live in an entirely different world with no foundation whatsoever?
Besides, the place we were heading to wasn’t exactly normal. When you considered it was a medieval fantasy world currently under invasion by the Demon King, it only made sense to accept any support they offered, whatever it might be.
So what should we do right now to survive the second tutorial?
Eat well and rest well.
As seen in the video, the second tutorial involved fighting an enormous number of goblins. To do that, we needed to conserve energy and maintain peak condition, which meant eating properly and getting enough rest were crucial. But people with zero points had no way to obtain food.
In the end, they would have no choice but to come begging to me.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Apparently they couldn’t even wait like proper adults. It hadn’t been long since Luniel’s announcement, yet someone was already knocking on the door. I had a rough idea who it was and didn’t particularly want to open it, but it could be someone else, so I got up from my seat anyway.
Of course, I grabbed my sword first.
“Uh… hey?”
“Yeah. Hey.”
Through the slightly opened door, Kwon Soyeon greeted me awkwardly, so I returned the greeting for now. She wasn’t the person I’d expected, but since she was moving with that guy, I figured her purpose wasn’t all that different.
Still.
“Iseo… were we too sudden earlier? Did we catch you off guard?”
“Come in first.”
Since we had some history, I invited her inside. I pulled out a chair and sat down while Kwon Soyeon hesitantly stepped into the room behind me.
“Nice room. You’ve got a desk and even a bathroom…”
“What? Did Han Seungwoo send you to sweet-talk me into giving up my room?”
“Why do you always twist everything? I just came to see a friend.”
She tried to play it off, but the way she panicked the moment I mentioned Han Seungwoo made me snort with laughter.
She looks like absolute shit.
Her hair was a tangled, matted mess from all the hardship, and her clothes were torn in several places. The blood that had soaked them had dried and changed color, completely ruining the fabric. She was in what you’d call a filthy state, but her natural looks hadn’t gone anywhere. She was still strikingly beautiful.
Her intentions are so damn obvious.
It was clear that since I probably wouldn’t listen if he came himself, he’d sent the friendly and pretty Kwon Soyeon instead.
“Haa… Since it looks like you’ve already guessed everything, I’ll be direct. Iseo, please help us.”
She spoke calmly, but I could see her pupils trembling. The Kwon Soyeon I knew had quite a high sense of pride. She rarely asked others for favors and usually only felt satisfied when she handled things herself. Of course, her personality might have changed a bit since I last saw her, but that’s how I remembered her.
Yet here that same person was, throwing away all her pride and begging.
Was it because of her sense of responsibility? Even if the title was now meaningless, she had been the vice-president. It had been a long time since such things stopped mattering, but seeing how Han Seungwoo was still acting like a representative despite his own pathetic state, maybe the title still held weight among them.
Anyway, this is entertaining.
Maybe it was because I’d rarely been in the position of power in my life, but all sorts of scenes flashed through my mind. Most of them were from the 19+ novels I’d read in Toonbelpia, which was a problem, but this was exactly what dark fantasy was supposed to be.
“I can help.”
“Please, if not you, we’ll all starve. I’ll repay you somehow after the tutorial ends!”
“But the only one I can help is you.”
“…What?”
Kwon Soyeon asked in confusion, but I simply shrugged as if there was nothing I could do about it. Honestly, I had no reason to burn through my own points to feed those people, and I didn’t have enough points to feed them all properly anyway.
“Is there any reason to be surprised? You already know how much food costs here.”
At least this place was a bit better than the tutorial. The 20pt bread was on sale for half price at 10pt. It was certainly an improvement, but still expensive. The fact that they were selling what was basically a rock for 20pt was the real problem, but 10pt was still ridiculous.
Especially since their group had thirty people. Even if each person ate just one hard piece of bread, that was 300pt. There was no way the people who hadn’t even gotten rooms had that many points. Even if they scraped together everything they had, they’d probably only have a little over 100pt. That’s why they were sending people to beg and borrow points.
“So what are you going to do?”
When I pressed her to decide quickly, Kwon Soyeon grew anxious. She chewed on her lip, deep in thought.
“…If it’s just for me, how much can you give me?”
The way she bit down hard on her lower lip before asking cautiously was so cute that I chuckled as I answered.
“50pt. You know that’s a lot of money for one meal, right?”
“50pt…”
It might not sound like much, but it was enough to buy not only hard bread but also beef soup. Even if you just dipped the bread in water, it tasted better. The thought of dipping it in rich beef soup made even me, who had plenty of points, salivate. There was no way she could refuse.
“……”
I naturally assumed she would choose the beef soup, but she agonized for longer than expected. Eventually I got tired of waiting and bought the beef soup myself to ease her dilemma a little.
The room instantly filled with the savory aroma of beef soup. Kwon Soyeon pretended not to care, but her eyes were glued to the soup and wouldn’t move.
“So what are you going to do? The soup’s getting cold.”
I deliberately stirred the thick soup as I asked. She swallowed hard, then finally answered with determined eyes as if she had made up her mind.
“Give me bread worth that 50pt instead.”
Whoa, impressive. She’s not choosing the soup?
I was genuinely impressed as I watched Kwon Soyeon choose bread over soup. Sacrificing herself for others. It wasn’t easy even when you had plenty, but to make that choice after starving for so long was truly remarkable.
It made me want to torment her even more.
“I don’t remember giving you that option.”
“What are you talking about? 50pt worth of food or five pieces of bread is the same!”
“Well, isn’t that up to the person giving it?”
Kwon Soyeon shouted in anger at my sudden whimsy. I leisurely took a spoonful of the soup. Despite the savory smell, it actually tasted worse than those cheap three-minute corporate soups. Still, since it was the first proper food I’d eaten since dying, it wasn’t bad at all.
“Haa… So what exactly do you want me to do?”
“Hmm. What should we do? Want to try getting on your knees? Especially after what happened earlier.”
Kwon Soyeon let out a hollow laugh as if she couldn’t believe it, then glared at me with eyes full of contempt.
Heh. Standing here like this, I really do feel like a massive asshole.
Honestly, I hadn’t planned to go this far, but the more I did it, the more fun it became and I ended up going down a different path. So I felt a little sorry, but oh well. This was just the kind of guy I was. I had only hidden it while trying to fit into the boundaries of society. Deep down, I had always been this kind of person.
The way she trembled while glaring at me gave me a strange sense of catharsis. Honestly, even worse things had crossed my mind, but if I went that far she would probably run out without looking back, so I kept it at a moderate level.
“So you’re not going to do it?”
At my low words, Kwon Soyeon squeezed her eyes shut as if giving up. After hesitating for a moment, she finally spoke.
“Bread… give me a bit more.”
“How much?”
“Ten pieces.”
“Do you think your knees are worth that much?”
“…Seven.”
“Okay. I’ll be generous.”
Anyway, since she had come this far, I wanted to see her kneel. If I pushed any further she might actually run away, so I stopped there.
“I didn’t know you were this kind of guy.”
Kwon Soyeon glared at me with trembling lips as she slowly lowered herself to her knees. The way she bit her lip so hard that it turned white showed just how resentful she felt about selling her pride for a few pieces of bread. The moment her knees touched the floor, an unfamiliar rush of excitement surged through my body.
I hid my emotions as best I could and bought seven pieces of bread from the machine in the corner, placing them in front of her knees. Then—
Kwon Soyeon snatched the bread with lightning speed. Her face flushed bright red as she stood up and immediately turned away.
“Haa… That’s enough, right? I’m leaving.”
“How cold. I was going to let you taste the soup as payment for the nice show you gave me.”
At the word “soup,” Kwon Soyeon slowly turned her head. Even though some time had passed, the soup was still steaming. I scooped up a big spoonful and held it up so she could see it clearly. Her eyes followed the thick liquid as it dripped down.
I wondered if she would hold out even now.
“I’ll eat it since you’re giving it to me, but I’m not going to say thank you.”
Watching Kwon Soyeon, who was completely different from the person who had first entered the room, I simply shrugged and handed her the soup. She took it from me almost like she was stealing it and began devouring it ravenously, clearly starving. I sat in the chair and watched her quietly.
She’s eating so well. She was hesitating so much earlier.
Since she had even knelt to get the bread, she probably thought she had done her part. She was eating so enthusiastically that her earlier hesitation seemed pointless.
But if she eats that eagerly, will the smell really not stick to her?
With a slightly flushed face, I watched Kwon Soyeon eat the soup with great interest. There was no place here where she could wash off the smell. The moment she left, the others would be waiting for her. In this situation, if she went back to those starving people after finishing an entire bowl of soup, there was no way they wouldn’t notice.
So then—
Would Kwon Soyeon be seen as a hero who swallowed her pride to bring back bread, or as a traitor who secretly ate meat soup by herself?
It was a moment I was very curious about.
“Soyeon unnie!”
The moment she stepped out of Yoon Iseo’s room, Song Dayeong waved at her cheerfully. Kwon Soyeon smiled and showed her the bread in her arms before quickly walking down.
“Unnie! You did it!”
“Sorry, but I only got seven.”
“It’s fine. Seven is still seven.”
Even seven pieces of bread were precious right now. They had asked the other survivors for help and only managed to get about fifteen in total. Getting seven from one person in that situation felt like rain in a drought.
“Good work, Soyeon. So even that bastard considers you a friend and granted your request?”
“No, I really had to beg and beg to get these.”
Kwon Soyeon quickly drew a line when she handed the bread to Han Seungwoo, worried he might send her back to Yoon Iseo again. Kneeling in front of someone she had considered a friend just days ago to get seven pieces of bread was an experience she never wanted to repeat.
“Our unnie worked so hard. Come here, let me hug you.”
“What are you doing? I haven’t washed, I’m dirty!”
“It’s fine. Who here has even washed~”
Song Dayeong approached with a bright smile. Kwon Soyeon shook her head but eventually opened her arms and tightly hugged the girl who jumped into her embrace.
“Hehe, unnie hasn’t washed but you smell nice. Sniff sniff, it smells like beef or something.”
“W-what are you talking about, Dayeong? Beef?”
“Hmm, but it’s definitely coming from you.”
At the word “beef,” Kwon Soyeon panicked and tried to push Song Dayeong away, but it was already too late.
“Beef? Dayeong, you didn’t secretly get something from Yoon Iseo behind our backs, did you?”
“Oppa! What are you saying? Secretly get something?”
It was ridiculous. The way he said it made it sound like she had taken a bribe or something. She had simply eaten what was given to her. Of course, the fact that she had eaten it alone was a bit regrettable, but while these people had been sitting here doing nothing, she had endured the humiliation of kneeling to bring back bread.
Kwon Soyeon believed this was a fair reward for her sacrifice. Though it seemed the others didn’t see it that way.
“If you’re so confident, Soyeon, then prove it.”
“What proof?”
“If you really didn’t eat anything, there shouldn’t be any smell from your mouth.”
“What the…”
When Han Seungwoo even demanded to check her mouth, Kwon Soyeon’s eyes trembled as she looked around. But there was no one on her side anymore. Instead, everyone was staring at her with disappointed expressions. The sense of betrayal made her lower her head.
“Dayeong, check once.”
At Han Seungwoo’s command, Song Dayeong slowly approached Kwon Soyeon. Kwon Soyeon squeezed her eyes shut and finally spoke.
“Haa… Fine. I ate a little soup. There, happy?”
“Soyeon, what are you saying? Don’t you even think about the fact that everyone here is starving?”
“That’s why I brought back bread.”
“You ate beef soup by yourself and now you’re bragging about bringing back a few pieces of bread?”
Kwon Soyeon felt so wronged that tears threatened to fall, but she held them back. It was shameless beyond belief that the representative of people who had been starving without even those few pieces of bread would say such a thing. But the moment she ate the soup, she had stepped into a trap she could never escape. The fact that she had eaten soup while others starved was undeniable.
“So what exactly do you want me to do, sunbae?”
Kwon Soyeon steeled herself and glared at Han Seungwoo. It was clear they no longer cared how she had obtained the bread. They were fixated only on the fact that she had eaten soup they couldn’t have, and had already branded her a traitor. No matter what she said now, she knew she couldn’t erase that label, so she gave up quickly.
“Well. This is difficult. I think I need to talk with the others.”
With those words, Han Seungwoo turned and walked back toward the group.
“Unnie, I’m disappointed in you.”
Even Song Dayeong, whom she had trusted, turned away. At that moment, Kwon Soyeon fully realized it. She could no longer stay with these people.