The Elevator to Hell (1): The Sublime Ritual of Grilled Meat
In the disaster prevention room on the basement first floor of Starflex, I was currently preparing the most sacred and reverent ceremony of my entire life.
Tap.
The matte black portable gas burner, freshly liberated from the living/camping section, was placed down without hesitation. On top of it, I carefully set a heavy cast-iron griddle with its beautifully grooved oil channels.
“Huuu…”
I clasped both hands together, took a deep breath, and purified my mind. In this moment, I was neither Troll Baeksu nor the System. Just a beast standing before meat. A lamb awaiting its offering.
Click. Whoosh—!
The moment I turned the gas burner’s knob, blue flames danced to life and began heating the cast-iron griddle. How long had it been since I last saw a flame of civilization that I could control myself?
“Fuck… If I’d known it’d be like this, I would’ve brought cigarettes…”
With trembling hands, I picked up the 1++ grade Hanwoo flower sirloin I’d taken from the butcher section. Snow-white marbling like fallen petals against vivid crimson flesh. The nightmare of boiling that stuff in purified water was long forgotten. At last—at long last—I could give this meat the respect it deserved.
“Alright… please ascend.”
I gently laid the Hanwoo onto the blazing-hot griddle.
Sssssssssssssss—!!!!
“Kugh—!!!”
The instant the meat touched the surface, an overwhelming explosive sound burst forth. It was more majestic than any symphony, more sacred than any serenade. The Maillard reaction turned the surface brown as moisture evaporated, and from those cracks poured the salty, rich aroma of beef fat that quickly filled the narrow disaster prevention room.
“Fuck… Fuuuuck…”
Tears streamed down my face. Not from the smoke. From pure emotion.
I sprinkled the herb salt I’d swiped from the camping section over the meat. Tap. Tap.
But this wasn’t the end. I brutally suppressed the beastly instinct screaming at me to devour the perfectly seared meat right away.
“You have to wait… until the juices spread…!”
As everyone knows, the completion of a perfect steak lies in patience—in resting. Salivating heavily, I covered the meat with camping foil on the cutting board and let it rest for about three minutes. Only then did I pull out the steak knife I’d also grabbed from the living section.
Slice. Slice.
The sharp blade glided smoothly along the grain, revealing a perfect medium-rare cross-section glowing with a beautiful pink gradient.
“Y-yesss…”
The moment I carefully slipped a piece—now brimming with juices thanks to the rest—between my lips.
“…!!”
Before my teeth even made contact, it melted on my tongue with extreme tenderness. The condensed richness of the fat and the savory burst of herb salt exploded across my mouth.
“Khhup… Hngggg…!”
I covered my mouth and sobbed like a beast.
“This… This is what I wanted…!”
Not some tough, boiled blood clot. This was perfect grilled meat, completed by the flames of civilization!
“Now I understand… why humanity discovered fire…”
I felt like dropping to my knees in gratitude—whether toward the meat still sizzling on the griddle, toward myself for enduring this long, or toward the System that had truly made all of this possible.
“Th-thank you… System…”
The real one, not me.
[Blueprint Domination] Skill has leveled up to Lv.3!
📍 Additional tiles granted: 15
*****
While Shin Sok was having his deeply moving meal, the outside world was in the middle of a literal frenzy of purchases.
“Payment complete! I bought it! I bought iiiit!!”
“Me too! I got it!!!”
Inside a dark, abandoned building in the Yellow Zone, a stalker suffering from severe dehydration shakily brought a pack of beverage to his lips and gulped it down in one go.
The drink that people used to mock for tasting like mop water before the apocalypse. But the liquid sliding down his throat was nothing like the horrible memory lingering in his hazy mind.
“What kind of bastard… *sob*… what kind of bastard said this tasted like mop water…”
It was perfectly sterilized moisture, incomparable to contaminated muddy water or filtered piss. Packed with natural electrolytes and a gentle coconut sweetness, it was violently reviving his dying cells.
“It’s so sweet and refreshing… I feel like my blood is getting cleaner…!”
Choked sobs echoed through the abandoned building. The reason they clutched these items with trembling hands and shed tears wasn’t simply because they’d replenished fluids and calories.
What they had truly purchased was hope.
The overwhelming hope that, even in this hellish apocalypse, the world could slowly get better under the System’s protection.
“Four thousand people… It went from two hundred to four thousand…”
“If I can just hold on a little longer… maybe it’ll be my turn next…!”
The spark of that hope wasn’t limited to the members who had succeeded in purchasing. The tens of thousands of survivors who hadn’t yet received an invitation also renewed their resolve as they watched the dramatically increased member count.
As long as my will doesn’t break and the System shows mercy, someday I too will be chosen.
In a world that had been nothing but despair, the survivors finally began to shine with the vibrant energy of looking forward to tomorrow.
*****
A little while later.
“Sluuurp…”
I was engaged in a fierce struggle with something I’d liberated from the camping section.
“Isn’t this instruction manual way too unfriendly?”
The massive professional-grade pole tent I’d ambitiously taken from the camping section. As an apocalypse survivor, setting this up in style was basically law, but after fiddling with the poles and trying to shove them in every direction, I eventually hurled the whole thing to the floor.
Clatter.
High-difficulty assembly like this was too much for a lifelong basement-dwelling mouse-clicking unemployed bum.
“Of course a tent should be one-touch.”
In the end, I grabbed the large one-touch tent that had been on display in the corner, untied the strap, and flung it into the air.
Flap— Bang!
It unfolded completely in a single second, creating a cozy little nest. I laid down a rubber mattress and tossed the premium goose-down sleeping bag I’d brought from the camping section on top, making it extra fluffy.
“Khh… This is it. This is what I’m talking about.”
Goodbye to the days of curling up like a shrimp on a disaster prevention room chair. I’d endured it thinking I should be grateful, but my back had been killing me.
“Fuck… I’m actually moved…”
Of course it wouldn’t compare to a real bed, but just imagining slipping into that goose-down sleeping bag made me anticipate how warm and cozy it would be.
“But if I just crawl in it’ll probably be too hot…”
I adjusted the air conditioner and set the temperature to the lowest setting—18 degrees.
“Whoa… It’s chilly.”
The national camping rule is to sleep with the outside cold and the inside warm. The chillier it gets, the more satisfying the dive into the sleeping bag will be.
“Alright, tent’s done… Next is the romantic hammock.”
Since I’d opened the camping section, a hammock was basically mandatory. I’d always wanted to try this.
I picked up the hammock with the palm tree pattern and looked around. But there was nothing to tie it to. No trees, obviously.
“Should I tie it to the display shelves?”
The shelves displaying camping gear looked sturdy, so I decided to tie it there. There was an instruction manual, but who the hell knows how to tie a bowline or a figure-eight knot? I just tied it tight three times.
“Now then… for the comfort of weightlessness…”
The moment I carefully put my weight on the hammock.
Creeeeak— Crash! Bang! Bang!
With a tremendous noise, both display shelves supporting the hammock collapsed forward, unable to bear my weight.
“Kugh…”
The cookware, lanterns, and tent pegs that had been displayed on them came raining down on my head. I tumbled to the floor along with them, landing hard on my ass.
“Ah… Ow, fuck… That hurts like hell…”
I groaned as I pushed the fallen pots off me.
“Screw this! I’m done!”
It really is true that if you do something people normally don’t, you get punished. I’d lived just fine without a hammock anyway.
“For now, I’ll be satisfied with the tent and sleeping bag.”
I’d finished decorating my new home outside the disaster prevention room. Staying in that cramped, stuffy room staring at CCTV feeds had been driving me insane.
“Let me check my real estate status and how many tiles I have left.”
I pulled up the System message from earlier when I’d burned a mana stone to upgrade [Blueprint Domination] to Lv.3.
[Blueprint Domination] Skill has leveled up to Lv.3!
15 additional tile ownership rights have been granted.
I originally had 10 tiles. With this level-up, I’d gained 15 more ownership rights.
“And out of those, the ones I used for the camping section…”
“The living and camping sections really are huge. Fourteen whole tiles…”
Still, it wasn’t a bad investment. Above all, I got to eat meat. From now on I could keep cooking with fire. There were plenty of dishes and survival goods I could sell if needed. Plus I’d be setting up the tent soon.
“Of course, I’ll have to wait and see.”
For now, I had one precious remaining tile left.
Building Sorcerer Main Quest 3: Achieve 30% ownership of the current floor
📍 Mana Stones required for next level-up: 80,000
🎁 Current Mana Stones: 59,000
“The 30% quest is still a bit away.”
But at the current pace, I could earn mana stones just by breathing. So the question was—what should I use this precious last tile on?
“If someone asks, it’s only right that I answer.”
I walked out into the corridor of the disaster prevention room and faced the two firmly shut iron doors beyond the dark ruins.
Elevator (B1) — Tiles required for ownership: 1
Without hesitation, I touched the elevator tile on the holographic blueprint floating in the air.
“Click.”
Consuming the remaining 1 tile to acquire ownership of the Elevator (B1) tile!
Fwoosh—!
A transparent wave spread toward the end of the corridor. The red [B1] light on the elevator—which had been dead for six months without power—lit up brightly.
Ding-dong!
With a cheerful mechanical chime, the heavy iron doors slid open to both sides.
“Okay, let’s go.”
I stepped inside.