The Porter
Kim Dohyun sighed as he set the matchboxes back in order.
Evening had fallen, and the hunters who had packed the convenience store were gone. Stock he added appeared on the shelves by itself, but the place did not clean up after anyone. Damage severe enough to threaten the building repaired itself; goods spilled across the floor did not. Today alone, a hunter had knocked over a whole display of matchboxes, and Dohyun was the one putting them right again.
I've gathered plenty of mana stones. If only I could hire an employee...
He would need staff anyway, if he meant to open a store on the 9th Floor. And yet no matter how clearly he formed the intention—no matter that he spoke it aloud—no employee ever appeared.
There must be some condition that has to be met before I can hire anyone.
The trouble was that he had no idea what that condition might be.
When the last matchbox was finally in place, Dohyun walked to the door. He thought he might rest a moment and look outside.
Hm?
The thought vanished the instant he did.
A woman was running from beasts.
What? Is she alone? No party with her?
Hunters almost always traveled in groups. Unless you were strong enough to stand among the rankers, wandering the Tower by yourself was suicide.
She doesn't look like someone the Tower just absorbed, either.
Dohyun himself had been pulled in not long ago. Another Absorption Phenomenon so soon was hard to imagine.
Wait. That woman...
Something was off. He narrowed his eyes, and a green aura came into view, spilling off her in waves.
What is that aura?
None of the hunters he had met so far had shown anything like it.
Is it even a trait to begin with?
He turned the question over, but the situation was worsening by the second. The woman had been driven into a dead end and ringed in by wolf-like beasts.
Damn. I have to help her.
Dohyun hurried to the counter, pulled out a stick, snatched up a box of matches, and stepped out of the store.
No... I can't... there's nowhere left to run...
Lim Suah stared at the cliff walling off the path ahead, and despair closed over her. Behind her, the beasts tightened their circle and crept closer.
The trait she had awakened was a modest one. It strengthened her body overall, and it was nowhere near enough for fighting beasts. Hunters with traits like that usually followed raid parties as porters, and Suah was a rookie who had joined a climb in exactly that role.
At first her heart had swelled at the thought that she, too, had become a hunter who challenged the Tower. Porter or not, she had believed she was a proper hunter now. That belief shattered the moment she signed on with the party and stepped inside.
"Hey, Lim Suah! You gonna move, or what?"
"I-I'm sorry!"
Porter work was nothing like she had imagined. She had to carry the rations and the heavy water both, and even with a physical-enhancement trait she could barely keep pace with the others. If it had only been her body giving out, she might still have borne it. What wore her down further was the quiet contempt for porters that seeped through the party.
"Couldn't even awaken a decent trait, and you're this slow on top of it? What are we supposed to do with you?"
"I'm sorry, Captain..."
Before the captain's lecture, all she could do was bow her head. It was not even fair. They had meant to hire one more porter, until the captain decided the money was better kept, canceled at the last moment, and dumped that porter's entire share of the load onto her. He still found ways to sneer at her trait, until her spirit hurt worse than her body.
Even so, Suah did her best to soothe herself.
Once this raid is over, I'll never have to see them again.
The disaster struck after they reached the 10th Floor.
The vice-captain shouted.
"B-beasts!"
The party had paused to eat when the attack came. They snatched up their weapons and fought, but there were simply too many. At the captain's order, the raid began to fall back.
"W-wait!"
Burdened with two people's loads, Suah could not keep up. At her cry the captain glanced back mid-retreat—then faced forward again and kept going. He abandoned her and took only the rest of the party with him.
Left as bait, she flung the packs aside and fled the beasts with everything she had, only to be driven at last into a dead end. Suah squeezed her eyes shut.
To die here... and thrown away by my own party...
There could hardly be a more wretched end. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. The beasts did not care. They had already closed to within arm's reach, bodies crouched low, on the verge of springing—
Fwoosh!
Boom!
The beasts yelped and scrambled. Suah had no idea what had just happened in front of her. Sparks burst behind them and detonated with a roar. At first she thought it was a bomb. A second look told her otherwise.
F-fireworks!?
The fireworks had appeared out of nowhere, and Suah was utterly lost. Badly startled, the beasts pulled back to one side, hunching down in fear and refusing to move. On the other side, the circle had broken open.
Now!
Suah ran for the opening. A glance back showed the wolves did not even dare to give chase; they only watched the woods around them, on edge.
I don't know what that was, but I'm alive!
She pushed through the brush and broke clear of the forest—then froze at the sight that opened before her.
This is...
A rectangular building stood in the middle of the forest. In front of it, a man holding a stick and a box of matches was looking straight at her.
Good thing I stocked fireworks and matches.
He had added the fireworks on the chance they might prove useful in a disaster. Hunters, though, wanted nothing to do with something whose noise might draw beasts in. While Dohyun was still puzzling over how to use them, he tried a few on the beasts wandering nearby and discovered that they feared the things.
A blast that loud, out of nowhere—of course they'd panic.
Fireworks could only buy a little time, until the beasts grew used to them. For Dohyun, who had no combat trait at all, even that was something to be grateful for. He had never expected to spend them saving another hunter.
The woman pushed through the brush, stood still for a moment, then came toward him.
"Um... th-thank you for helping me."
She bowed as she said it. Dohyun nodded.
"That was far too close."
"Thank you. Truly. But..."
Her eyes slid past his shoulder.
"That place... the Tower Convenience Store...?"
A rookie hunter who hasn't heard about the store?
Word of mouth had spread so widely lately that hunters who didn't know of it had all but vanished. Now and then, though, he still met a newcomer who had never heard the name. She was probably one of them.
"This is my convenience store. I mostly sell food."
"Pardon?"
Her brows jumped.
"A c-convenience store?"
"Yes. The beasts will be on us soon. Would you come inside for now?"
Dohyun led the way in. She followed him back through the doors almost without thinking.
"Oh my god...!"
The moment she stepped inside, her eyes went perfectly round.
"F-fluorescent lights? In the Tower? How on earth...?"
"A-are these really gimbap? Seaweed rice rolls? And they haven't even spoiled... There's no way food could survive the trip here without going bad. How did you...?"
"Lunch boxes!? Are the things I'm looking at actually lunch boxes?"
She kept gasping as she looked around, then turned to Dohyun, suddenly apologetic.
"I-I'm sorry. I never imagined I'd see things like this in the Tower..."
"Not at all. More importantly, shall we introduce ourselves? My name is Kim Dohyun."
"I'm Lim Suah."
"Miss Suah, then. Why were you wandering the Tower alone? Your party...?"
"Well..."
Once he had heard the whole of it, Dohyun clicked his tongue.
In short, her own party betrayed her.
Using a porter—someone too loaded down to flee quickly—as bait during a retreat was common enough. Suah lowered her head.
"Wh-what do I do? I threw the packs away, so I don't even have mana stones left. If I want to get out of the Tower, I need at least the commission fee, and like this..."
Her plight was wretched, but Dohyun had no ready way to help. Should he simply give her mana stones and tell her to use them as the fee for an escape?
He was still turning it over when the words appeared before his eyes.
Would you like to hire Lim Suah as an employee?
Compensation: 5% of the mana stones earned by the store where the employee works
What?
Dohyun's eyes went wide. The employee-hire message that had refused to appear no matter how he wished for it was suddenly right in front of him.
Why now? What kind of condition is this...?
Still thrown, he looked at Suah. The green aura was still rippling around her. And then he understood.
Ah! Hunters wrapped in that green aura—those are the ones I can hire as employees!
He still had no idea what the aura meant. Even so, it seemed to be marking the hunters he was allowed to take on.
"Miss Suah."
"..."
"Would you consider working here?"
"...What?"
A beat later, Suah lifted her head. She stared at him with wide, round eyes, and Dohyun nodded.
At last. I'm going to have an employee.