7. Bought Some Clothes—A Bit Tight, Though...
Cheon Cho-young roamed the streets of downtown Yangpyeong, gasps of amazement spilling from her lips.
"This isn't Yangpyeong anymore—it's Sector 14?"
The old place names had vanished from the signposts. In their place stood a single phrase:
WELCOME TO SECTOR 14.
"This is tricky."
The sky was dark even in broad daylight. Skyscrapers lined the roads in unbroken rows, despite this being Yangpyeong. And figures she couldn't tell apart from robots drifted past, one by one.
She had honestly believed she'd never adjust to a world changed this much—yet the shop signs were still written in Korean, so at least she could tell where was where.
Cho-young pushed open the door of a tiny clothing shop wedged between a fast-food joint and a jewelry store, and stepped inside.
Ding-a-ling—
"Welcome!"
Here, too, a female clerk who could have been robot or human greeted her warmly. Her face was unquestionably a person's, but both arms and both legs were entirely mechanical implants.
"Ah. H-hello there..."
Greeting her sheepishly, Cho-young wandered through the shop, sneaking awkward glances at the women's clothes hanging along the walls.
At the sight of her, the clerk's jaw dropped clean open.
H-her chest...
It was a size that would startle anyone, man or woman alike.
"Looking for something in particular?"
The clerk asked kindly, but Cho-young merely flinched in startlement.
"Clothes..."
"What kind of clothes?"
"Anything I can just wear day to day... I think that would be fine."
The clerk's gaze traveled in one slow sweep from the top of Cho-young's head down to her toes.
A pureblood?
It meant a person without a single implant. An extremely rare case, the clerk concluded.
"What are your measurements?"
"Sorry?"
"Your measurements. Bust, waist, hips."
"Uh, um..."
As if there were any way she would know those.
The clerk gave a snort of laughter, as if she found her adorable, slipped behind the counter, and reappeared with a measuring tape in hand.
"Shall I take them for you?"
"Oh—yes, please."
The clerk stepped in front of Cho-young and reached her arms toward her back. Except—
"Uh. Ahaha..."
Her chest was so large that the clerk's hands couldn't even reach around to her back. Cho-young, her face flushed red as red could be, averted her eyes.
"Um, could you hold this end of the tape for me?"
"Ah—yes, of course!"
Cho-young took hold of the end of the tape stretched toward her chest, and the clerk gripped the other side and circled around her once.
"You're an I-cup, ma'am."
"Yes, I'm—wait, what?"
Cho-young couldn't help but be floored. She'd known they were big, sure. But an I-cup? Was that even possible?
"We generally class a bust as an I-cup when the difference between the upper bust and the underbust comes to about thirty centimeters, you see? And you, ma'am, are an I-cup."
Cho-young's face burned redder still.
"You really didn't know?"
"N-no..."
"How could you not... What have you been wearing all this time, then?"
Cho-young ducked her head bashfully and pinched up the limp hem of her shabby Daoist robe with one finger.
"You've only ever worn this?"
"It's just... even when I ordered online, nothing ever fit, so..."
Only then did the clerk nod in understanding.
"Then your underwear too...?"
A nod.
The clerk abruptly put on a look of grim resolve and put away the measuring tape.
"I wonder if we have anything that will fit... One moment, please!"
Now more worked up than Cho-young herself, the clerk darted all over the shop, gathering up underwear and clothes by the armful.
And so before Cho-young spread out bras and panties, along with a mountain of outfits.
"How about something like this?"
The clerk asked with a smile, and Cho-young broke out in a cold sweat.
The lace is a bit...
Practically every one of them was a bra trimmed with lace. Some were so risqué she wondered whether they even counted as bras, while others were designed to do little more than barely cover the essentials.
"I think I'd prefer something plain, actually."
"Plain? Oh..."
Why does she sound so disappointed?
The clerk's face fell at once. She gathered up every last lacy bra, set them on the counter, and returned with a selection of plain designs instead.
One of them caught Cho-young's eye.
"Th-this one looks good."
It was a sports bra.
"This is about as plain as it gets. A back-hook bra would probably be absolute torture for you, ma'am."
Then why did you recommend all those other ones?
"Would you like to try it on?"
Cho-young nodded and carried the gray sports bra into the fitting room.
She stripped down and stood there, and her reflection stared back from the mirror. It helped that she was alone, but the sheer, unbelievable size of her chest had her blushing all over again in no time.
She pulled the sports bra on the way she would a T-shirt, and gasped at how firmly the elastic hugged her chest.
Still better than the ones I bought online.
Every last online order had been so tight she could barely breathe. This one, at least, let her breathe more or less evenly.
Cho-young put her Daoist robe back on and stepped out—straight into the clerk, who was waiting just in front of the fitting room with several pretty outfits draped over her arms.
"Would you try this one too? It's one of our new arrivals, made specially for fuller-busted women—but it never sold, so it's just been sitting in storage. Hoho. I suppose it was waiting for its rightful owner all along."
Why is she getting so worked up?
Cho-young took the recommended dress and slipped back into the fitting room.
A short while later—
The clerk's eyes sparkled at the sight of Cho-young stepping out in her new clothes. She even broke into applause.
"Wow, they're wings! Wings!"
She hadn't come expecting shopping for women's clothes to be pleasant, but hearing wings out of the clerk's mouth still put her in a good mood.
"I'll— I'll take this one."
The Cho-young reflected in the fitting-room mirror was the closest thing imaginable to the style once known as the "Dongtan missy look." A dress that displayed every curve of her body exactly as it was. Thanks to its generous stretch, even someone as impossibly chesty as Cho-young could actually get into it.
"Next, this one!"
"Huh?"
"You're not going to live in just one outfit, are you? Now that you're here, you should stock up on the good stuff."
"Ah—okay."
Like a character in a dress-up game, pushed along by the clerk's boundless enthusiasm, Cho-young went through five more fittings and ended up buying every single item.
"Come again soon! I'll stock up on plenty of big sizes just for you!"
"Goodbye."
Cho-young bolted out of the clothing shop as if fleeing for her life.
So uncomfortable.
Her hips were every bit as generous, so the dress kept rolling itself up with every step. Cho-young walked down the street, tugging the hem back down again and again.
The gazes of countless men turned her way. There was nothing to be done about it.
And I still have to stop by the mart. At this rate...
She needed to buy this and that for growing Yeongcho, after all. But parading a gaze-hijacking figure through streets packed with people was beyond mortifying.
Cho-young flicked on her hologram and pulled up a map. Convenience stores and ordinary grocery marts didn't carry farming supplies. As she searched for a proper hypermarket, she thankfully discovered a Nonghap Hypermarket just a short distance from where she stood.
So even after sixty-two years, Nonghap's still around, huh?
Destination decided, Cho-young started running as fast as she could, fleeing every eye on the street—completely unaware that the sight of her running only drew even more of them.
Let's see—a watering can. Some ties to bundle up the long stalks, and stakes too. A pack of work gloves, plus cultivation soil. Since it has to grow even in the dark, a big planter for indoors as well.
Having heaped everything she needed into a huge cart, Cho-young wheeled it toward the checkout counter.
"Welcome. Please place your items on the—"
Today as always, a male cashier droned out his rote greeting with the vacant expression of a corpse—then lifted his head to ring up the purchase.
In that instant, his entire field of vision filled with a violent wall of flesh.
Whoa.
It was beyond words. Was a human chest even allowed to get this big? Could anyone actually walk around carrying those?
"Nice."
"...I'm sorry?"
"Ah—no! That's not what I—"
Just as the man was blushing and floundering, streamer GhostCatchingShaman—Shin Hye-yeon—was wheeling her cart around the liquor aisle.
Visit her? Or not?
That abandoned house from before. No—not an abandoned house anymore, but streamer Cheon Cho-young's home. She was in the middle of agonizing over whether to go knocking or not.
Thanks to that, Hye-yeon had circled the liquor section five times over without putting a single thing in her cart.
What if she won't sell it?
What did she even mean, what if? The woman had looked low-realm at a glance—should she just subdue her by force, then?
The moment her thoughts went that far, Hye-yeon shook her head.
Pajeok Gate, the sect Hye-yeon belonged to, was a Daoist sect that walked the righteous path. Subjugating and killing others to advance one's own realm was the work of demonic sects and nothing less.
She really was terrifying back then. "Get lost," she said. Eyes like that would give even me pause...
Still, she was raising Yeongcho, wasn't she? Which meant Hye-yeon would simply have to slap a steel plate over her face and barge in without an ounce of shame.
After agonizing to the very last, Hye-yeon finally dropped a single can of beer into her cart and headed for the checkout counter.
She was standing in line to pay when, all of a sudden, she spotted it—a chest radiating a presence she'd seen exactly once yet could never, ever forget.
Huh?
It was Cheon Cho-young. What was she doing here? Oh, right—that abandoned house was around here somewhere, wasn't it?
Just as Hye-yeon, her heart pounding out of control, moved to approach, a burly man's voice rang out.
"You are exactly my type! Give me your number!"
Hye-yeon's eyes darted swiftly. Ahh. From the look of the situation... so that's what this is?
Cho-young stood before the male cashier, backing away with a face like she'd just bitten into a pile of crap, while the cashier squeezed his eyes shut and thrust out his arm for her to admire.
One look made it abundantly clear how miserable Cho-young found the whole situation.
This is my chance. A chance to score points with Cho-young.
Their first meeting might not have gone well, but if she rescued her from an awkward spot, she could certainly win some favor. And then she would ask. Ask her to sell her the Yeongcho.
Beer can in hand from her cart, Hye-yeon strode over and planted herself squarely in front of the counter.
And she set the can of beer down with a resounding crack.
BANG!!
PSSSHHH!!
The sheer force of it split the can open, and its contents sprayed in every direction.
The male cashier, staring down dazedly at his beer-soaked clothes, looked up at Hye-yeon in bewilderment.
Hye-yeon's eyes snapped wide open as she spoke.
"Ring it up."