Chapter 22
That evening.
The food stall’s canopy was raised once again.
Perhaps because the rolled-omelet training had continued until the afternoon, the inside of the stall looked like a battlefield.
A small battlefield filled with mountains of eggshells and the smell of cooking oil.
“Chef! Chef! Did you fart again, by any chance?”
Poming flew up and shouted in a half-joking voice.
Hong Mangi shook his head.
“That’s because of you. You made us cook way too many.”
Hong Mangi slumped in his chair and lightly patted his stomach.
“I’m suffering from protein overload. I ate way too many eggs. I might grow wings at this rate.”
“Hehe. Was that about your hundredth one? Just rolled omelets?”
“It’s not like I wanted to eat them. You’re the one who wouldn’t let us throw them away.”
“Food! Must! Never! Be wasted!”
Poming spun around in the air and landed back on the counter.
Standing beside him, Kang Jaemin was carefully moving a properly rolled omelet onto a plate.
“Oh! This time it didn’t tear!”
Hong Mangi narrowed his eyes and walked over to inspect Kang Jaemin’s omelet.
“Oh… You’re right. The color came out nicely too, and the inside looks soft.”
Poming clapped his paws together.
“Kang Jaemin-nim has finally graduated from being a complete beginner at cooking!”
Kang Jaemin spoke with a satisfied expression.
“Cooking is really difficult. And this is just one dish.”
The yellow rolled omelet he had made sat neatly on the plate.
Inside it were a piece of carrot, a strand of green onion, and the effort he had put in throughout the entire day.
“Maybe because I made it myself, I can’t judge the taste objectively.”
Hong Mangi stood up while taking off his apron.
“Then we’ll make rolled omelet the main dish tonight. If customers come, we’ll mostly serve them this.”
“You mean the souls of Hunters?”
“Yeah, basically.”
“Really?”
“Of course. Otherwise, when are you going to make it again?”
At that, Kang Jaemin let out a small laugh.
For the first time in a while, the inside of the food stall was filled with simple, relaxed laughter.
Hong Mangi, Kang Jaemin, and Poming.
The three of them were welcoming the evening in their own ways.
Then—
Whoosh—
A gust of wind blew through.
The food stall’s canopy fluttered slightly.
Then, very faintly and quietly, the presence of someone seeped inside.
Hong Mangi slowly raised his head.
Poming also stopped talking at once.
“Uh… Chef?”
“Poming, did you feel that?”
“Yep!”
Soon, two men slowly entered the food stall.
They stepped through the canopy with heavy, quiet footsteps.
One wore a black field jacket over a torn vest.
There were clear marks left by a helmet on his face, along with visible burn scars.
The other looked as though he had casually thrown a Hunter vest over a suit jacket.
Around his neck were marks that looked like burns from an electric shock.
Without saying a word, the two men quietly sat down in the farthest corner, facing each other.
Then both slowly exhaled at the same time.
“What a damn life….”
“We really are dead, right?”
Kang Jaemin looked at Hong Mangi and asked,
“What is it?”
Hong Mangi answered his puzzled expression.
“They’re here. Customers.”
“What? Really?”
At the same time, the two men sitting as customers turned their gazes toward Hong Mangi.
“That owner over there.”
“Doesn’t it look like he can see us?”
Hong Mangi quietly looked at Poming.
Without needing any words, Poming understood the meaning behind the glance and gave a small nod.
“Both of them are dead.”
“Looks like they were on the same team.”
Hong Mangi quietly tidied up the cutting board and took out three eggs onto an empty plate.
“I’ll serve the customers.”
Hong Mangi quietly closed the canopy.
Clink.
The sound of the fastening ring echoed, sealing off the boundary between the stall and the outside world.
The moment the entrance was closed, the atmosphere inside changed noticeably.
The two seated souls began whispering.
“Huh? Looks like he’s closing up.”
“Man, there’s nowhere to rest.”
“Let’s just stay seated. It’s not like he’ll notice us anyway.”
There was a slight hoarseness at the end of the man’s voice.
At first glance, he seemed calm, but there was an indescribable sharpness in his eyes.
His name was Jeong Yongbin.
Then—
“Excuse me, customers. What would you like to eat?”
Hong Mangi approached them with a gentle expression and asked.
“Ugh!”
“You can see us?”
Kim Gijeong, who was sitting across from Jeong Yongbin, widened his eyes in shock.
He was so startled that he couldn’t hide the trembling in his fingertips.
“Are you some kind of shaman? Or do you have an ability related to that kind of thing?”
At his question, Hong Mangi quietly smiled.
Then he slowly removed his apron and silently sat down on the chair in front of them.
“I’m a Hunter too. Somehow, I ended up gaining an ability like this.”
The eyes of Jeong Yongbin and Kim Gijeong immediately became intense.
“Oh, really?”
“That’s fascinating… Did you defeat some kind of boss? No, wait. If you gained an ability like this, what did you even kill? What kind of boss was it?”
Hong Mangi smiled before asking,
“May I ask… how the two of you ended up losing your lives in this world?”
Jeong Yongbin spoke first.
“You’re asking how we died?”
A gloomy expression briefly appeared on his face before he continued.
“Yesterday. We entered a dungeon. Gijeong and I were in the same party. Ah, I guess introductions are late. My name is Jeong Yongbin, and this is Kim Gijeong. We were both C-rank Hunters.”
Kim Gijeong lowered his gaze.
“We weren’t B-rank or anything, but we spent plenty of time in fairly high-level dungeons… We’d been working together for a long time.”
“But yesterday was different.”
Jeong Yongbin continued.
“For some reason, I wasn’t feeling very good yesterday. It was like I had a bad feeling that we shouldn’t go inside….”
Kim Gijeong quietly wiped the corner of his eye with the back of his hand.
“The reason we died is pretty obvious. We failed against the mid-boss, but death really happens in the blink of an eye. I got hit from behind, and Yongbin….”
“Got hit directly in the head and blew up first.”
Jeong Yongbin finished the sentence in a calm voice.
“After that, we spent the entire day wandering around everywhere. People say the dead go to the afterlife, but I started wondering if we’d really have to keep wandering around like this forever. Honestly, it felt hopeless.”
Hong Mangi listened quietly before nodding.
“You’ve been through a lot. You can sit here and rest now.”
“But you said you’d serve us food, right? How much does it cost? We don’t exactly have money for the afterlife.”
Kim Gijeong asked carefully.
Hong Mangi replied,
“It’s free. I don’t charge the dead at this restaurant.”
Jeong Yongbin raised an eyebrow.
“Then what’s the main dish?”
Hong Mangi smiled slightly.
“A freshly made plate of rolled omelet. Eat that, and even if you’re dead, you’ll be able to rest comfortably.”
“Rolled omelet?”
Kim Gijeong let out a faint laugh.
“That was the last side dish I packed in my daughter’s lunchbox before I died.”
“Eggs contain protein and fat, and carrots and green onions help stabilize brain function. For a mind shaken like yours is right now, it’s very good. It’s warm, soft, and settles comfortably in your stomach. Once you feel that warmth inside, your heart should calm down a little.”
Jeong Yongbin nodded.
“Eggs should at least fill the stomach a little.”
“If that sounds good, I’ll make it right now.”
Hong Mangi turned toward the kitchen and spoke.
“Jaemin-ssi, one rolled omelet, please. Take your time and make it carefully.”
As though he had finally understood the situation, Kang Jaemin relaxed his tense expression and poked his head out.
“Yes! Understood. Uh, but how many servings?”
“Two plates for now.”
“Got it. I’ll start immediately.”
Kang Jaemin took out the eggs.
Inside the quiet food stall.
Hong Mangi sat facing the souls of the dead Hunters and slowly opened his mouth.
“Um, if you don’t mind… could you tell me what kind of people you were?”
“I just introduced myself a moment ago.”
“Not that… I’m just curious about your lives.”
At Hong Mangi’s gentle question, the two fell silent for a while.
The sound of boiling broth filled the background, along with the soft sizzling of the rolled omelet cooking carefully in the pan.
Eventually, one of them spoke first.
“Like I said, my name is Jeong Yongbin. I was a C-rank Hunter.”
He continued.
“I was born in Seoul and grew up in Seoul. My life wasn’t especially lacking, but it wasn’t special either. Before I became a Hunter, I spent a long time preparing for the civil service exam. I wanted a stable life. That was basically my goal in life.”
He gave a small laugh as he spoke.
Hong Mangi listened quietly.
“Things went more smoothly than I expected. At first, anyway. My body was healthy, and if nothing else, I was responsible. I rose to C-rank pretty quickly, and about a year ago, I started preparing for marriage with my girlfriend.”
His speech slowed slightly.
The moment he said marriage with my girlfriend, he seemed to become lost in thought.
“But in that time, housing prices doubled. Housing subscriptions, all of that… none of it meant anything anymore.”
“I thought about everything. Should we live with my parents? Should we get a smaller place? Should we move outside Seoul? But think about it. Hunters like us make our living from dungeons. Where are we supposed to go if there are no dungeons nearby? In the end, I had no choice but to stay in Seoul….”
Hong Mangi looked at him sympathetically and asked,
“And then…?”
“Hmm… I pushed myself too hard. The reason my condition was bad was because I had been overworking myself every single day. And the dungeon where I died… truthfully, it was a place I never should have entered in the first place.”
Jeong Yongbin nodded and continued.
“BX-03 Dungeon. I knew we shouldn’t enter without at least one A-rank Hunter, but a slot happened to open, and I thought I couldn’t let the opportunity pass. I heard the boss there had a chance to drop a special item, so I trusted that one thing and entered. Together with this guy.”
He glanced at Kim Gijeong.
“And then we fought the mid-boss head-on. I took one bad hit from the very first attack, and my head exploded in a single blow.”
The atmosphere briefly turned solemn.
“Even right before I died, I was thinking about things. My housing subscription account. My life insurance. And the house… Honestly, if I hadn’t pushed myself so hard trying to afford a home, maybe I wouldn’t have died.”
He let out a faint breath.
“Like I said, I was the kind of person who wanted stability badly enough to prepare for a government job. But once marriage came up, I started getting desperate.”
Before he could continue, Kang Jaemin brought over the rolled omelet.
Without saying anything, Hong Mangi carefully moved the omelet from the cutting board Kang Jaemin had brought onto a plate.
The plate was warm.
It felt almost as though Jeong Yongbin’s entire life before his death had been placed upon it.
“…That must have been hard.”
At Hong Mangi’s short words, Jeong Yongbin gave a faint smile.
“I didn’t know until I died.”
“I never realized the pain of having nothing could push me down this quickly.”
His head lowered quietly as sadness filled him.
After a moment, he forced himself to speak.
“Excuse me, Owner.”
“Yes.”
“About my fiancée… could you comfort her for me?”
Hong Mangi nodded.
“Yes. I will. And I’ll tell her how much Hunter Yongbin cared about her.”
Jeong Yongbin’s hands slowly relaxed over his knees.
For the first time,
he let out a truly peaceful breath.
Then Kim Gijeong raised his head.
“Then I guess… it’s my turn now.”
