Let's Raid the Convenience Store (2)

The slimes bouncing in front of the convenience store dredged up an old memory.

The MapleStory character I'd treasured as a kid. I'd been loaded with the kind of gear every elementary schooler lusted after back then — a pot-lid shield, a pair of work gloves — so whenever I showed up at the PC bang, the other kids would stare at me with naked envy.

Then some player told me he'd teach me a hack if I just logged into this one website. I did. The next day, my character had been stripped down to his underwear.

Fuck.

Thinking about it, it was a shitty memory.

Anyway — the slimes that had been nothing but trash mobs back then were sitting right here in front of the convenience store.

I'll avenge my character.

Their levels weren't anything to be wary of, so I drew my knife and started toward them at a measured pace. The slimes seemed to notice us as well; they stopped bouncing and turned in our direction. One had strayed from the pack, so I closed the distance fast and brought my knife down. The blade split it clean in two.

I thought I'd killed it easily — but the slime didn't die. The scattered goo gathered itself back together, bubbling and knitting, until it was whole again.

"Ssaem. You don't know, do you."

"Huh? Know what?"

"Watch how I do it."

With that, Jin-hwan stepped forward, hammer in hand, and brought it down on the slime.

Wham!

Something cracked. The slime, flattened beneath the hammer, dissolved into liquid and soaked into the ground.

"With slimes, you've gotta smash the core like this."

At that, I took a closer look. Sure enough, a small bead-like thing was visible inside its body. Back in Maple, you just hit them and they died. The slimes these days had apparently evolved.

I did as Jin-hwan had — drove my knife into the core inside the slime — and it burst and died on the spot.

Killing them really wasn't that hard. They were blocking the way into the convenience store, so we started picking them off one by one.

Ah. I should predating these too.

A slime was still a monster. Eating one would definitely raise my stats, so I pulled out my fork and went looking for a corpse. Huh?

The problem was, the slimes burst the instant they died and soaked straight into the ground. No body left to eat. Which meant no Predation.

"This one's the last of 'em!"

They were easy enough that most of them were already dead, with only a single slime remaining. Jin-hwan was already bringing his hammer down on it.

"Wait!"

Screech!

Jin-hwan's hammer stopped dead, hovering just above the slime like a car slamming on the brakes. The slime, snatched from the jaws of death, wore an expression of pure relief.

"Ssaem, why?"

"Try eating that slime."

The slime couldn't understand the words, but a bad feeling crawled through it all the same. A man was walking toward it, step by unhurried step. Then, thankfully, the man set down his blade, and the slime dared to hope it was being spared.

Then a fork appeared in the man's hand.

The slime had just enough time to wonder what that was supposed to be before it tried to flee — and the man's hand closed around it.

"Ssaem, you're gonna eat it like that?"

"Yeah. Gotta try it. Doesn't look like I can eat them once they're dead."

Something was very, very wrong. The slime thrashed in the man's grip, trying to squirm free, but the grip was iron. It couldn't get out.

And then the fork came down.

Shunk.

The slime felt something tearing a piece of itself away. Normally, as long as the core was intact, it could regenerate its body as much as it wanted. This was different. It felt as though its body were vanishing, bit by bit.

"Ssaem, what's it taste like?"

"This? Kinda like those fruit jelly cups?"

"For real?"

"Yeah. Apple-flavored, even. Wanna try?"

"Ugh. No thanks."

The slime watched in horror as the people chatted over the act of eating it. How could anyone be this cruel? Even those savage goblins killed their prey before they ate it. Eating something alive? Unthinkable.

Sensing it was about to die, the slime threw everything it had left into one last struggle. But the fork kept coming, merciless, punching down again and again. Piece by piece its body disappeared, until only the core remained, and its consciousness began to fade.

And then the core went into the man's mouth.

"Huh? This is green grape candy."

The core rolled around on the man's tongue, and the slime's already-fading mind grew fainter still. If the core just stayed intact, it could live again. All it had to do was wait for the man to spit it out.

"Candy's gotta be crunched, after all."

Crunch!

With that sound, the slime departed this world. And then the messages appeared.

"Ah. That one was pretty good. Shame."

I found myself wishing there'd been a few more. It had looked so much like actual jelly that I hadn't felt much revulsion eating it, and that candy at the end had been perfect.

Huh?

I'd been hoping to eat a few more slimes. Instead a new skill had appeared, and I couldn't quite hide my bewilderment. Apparently there were hidden quests beyond the ones the system handed out — ones completed by specific actions.

The new skill. I wasn't entirely sure whether it was a good one or not. It looked like it could be used in all kinds of ways, but the restrictions seemed pretty steep.

"Ssaem, what are you doing? Let's go in."

"Huh? Oh. Right."

I posted the monsters on lookout outside the convenience store, then headed in. The interior was a wreck. Plenty of people had clearly already been through here — most of the food was long gone.

"Already cleaned out."

"There's still a decent amount left, though?"

The water looked like it had all been taken, but a fair number of drinks remained. The instant rice and canned ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠goods had been stripped bare, but the high-calorie stuff — chocolate bars, bags of snacks ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠— was still sitting there.

"Alright. Everyone, grab what you can."

"Yes, sir!"

We started stuffing everything left in the store into the bags we'd brought. The bags ended up decently heavy. They weren't completely full, but we'd gathered enough food to last us a while.

We slung the bags over our shoulders and stepped back out of the convenience store, headed for the school.

"This is just like a scene from those zombie movies we watched at school," Jin-hwan muttered.

In the movies, the survivors always ducked into a nearby convenience store to loot food while dodging zombies. The parallel was a little too on the nose. I watched Jin-hwan zoning out for a second, then smacked him on the back.

"No time for that. Let's get back, fast."

There was no telling when or where some monster might show up. We needed to get back to the relative safety of the school as quickly as possible. We started moving again at a careful pace, Daego taking point.

We'd only gone a little farther when something moved up ahead.

Vroooom.

The sound of a motorcycle. We scrambled into a nearby alley and hid. Whoever was on that bike was definitely human — but we'd just seen what noisy things could do. A racket like that might draw monsters.

Screech.

The motorcycle stopped in front of the convenience store we'd just left. A man climbed off and seemed to look around inside.

"We already cleaned that place out."

Jin-hwan was right — there was no food left in there. But the man didn't seem to have come for food. He glanced around, found the bandages in the store, and started wrapping his own arm.

"Ssaem. He looks hurt. Shouldn't we help him?"

Jin-hwan was a Healer; I supposed he couldn't help being worried. I wasn't sure if it was a class thing, but he hadn't used to be this kind of person. Hearing him say that was a surprise.

"Yeah. He might know something we don't. Let's go."

I checked the surroundings first, confirmed there were no monsters, and started toward the convenience store. I left the monsters behind — no sense putting the guy on edge by walking up with them in tow.

The man was checking something inside the store. Then he glanced out the window — and our eyes met.

In the same instant he burst out of the convenience store and threw himself onto his motorcycle.

"Hey! Wait a second!"

Vroooooom!

I shouted and ran after him, but he was already disappearing into the distance.

"Did he run because he saw us?"

"Looks that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠way."

I didn't blame him, exactly. In a situation like this, it wasn't as if everyone went around helping strangers. Anyone would know that.

"But it looked like he was checking something out, didn't it?"

"Yeah. What was he looking at?"

Until the moment he spotted us, the man had been examining something. We headed back into the convenience store to find out what. But no matter how much I looked around, there was nothing special in there.

He was definitely looking at something around here…

I stood where the man had been standing and turned my head toward whatever he'd been facing.

A whiteboard?

A plain-looking whiteboard. Completely blank, not a mark on it. It was strange enough that he'd been staring at the thing, so I walked slowly toward it.

That was when a new window appeared before my eyes.

"What the hell is this?"

A bulletin board. It was asking me to activate it, so I did.

The number sitting at 0% began to climb. And the moment it hit 100%, a new window unfolded in front of me like a screen.

I was staring at a board that looked exactly like the forums on any ordinary game site when a gunshot rang out from somewhere nearby.

Bang! Crack!

The bulletin board shattered.

It wasn't Min-cheol who fired.

The man who'd fled from us moments ago was standing outside the convenience store, a gun in his hands.