Chapter 2
“My goodness. What on earth is all this…?”
Baek Seol couldn’t gather her wits amidst the cascade of system messages appearing one after another before her eyes.
<System: Dungeon Bakery shall henceforth belong to its owner, Baek Seol.>
<System: The seal on ‘Staff of the World ???’ has been released upon the appearance of owner Baek Seol.>
<System: The Dungeon Bakery system will now be configured according to the preferences of its owner, Baek Seol. This process will take some time… (Configuring…)…>
‘Mom. I think I must be dreaming.’
Mentally calling out to her mother, who had passed away when she was young, Baek Seol gave her cheek a hard pinch.
“Ouch!”
Feeling the stinging pain in her cheek, it seemed this was no dream. Rubbing away a prick of tears with her sleeve, a sudden wave of fear washed over Baek Seol.
“So… I’ve become the owner of this place?”
Didn’t they say this place already had a landlord?
Having lived the grueling, slave-like life of a timid, ordinary citizen, the fact that she had suddenly awakened and become the owner of a building didn’t come across as pure joy to Baek Seol. If anything, it was terrifying.
“Then what happens to the landlord here…?”
Suddenly, the real estate agent flashed through her mind.
‘I should go check with the real estate agent first!’
Ignoring the system messages before her eyes announcing her existence, Baek Seol quickly ran out of the shop.
“Wait, hold on a sec—!”
She thought she heard a voice inside the shop trying to grab her, but Baek Seol brushed it off as her imagination. After all, when she had looked around the shop earlier, there hadn’t been a soul besides herself.
Running without pause until she reached the spot where the real estate agency had been, Baek Seol blinked repeatedly at the unbelievable scene before her.
“What… what is this?”
Just a moment ago, the real estate agency was clearly right here.
“Where did it go? Is this not the right place?”
The real estate agency had vanished.
Baek Seol frantically looked around her surroundings. This was definitely the spot. Right next to the utility pole plastered with tutoring flyers. Right in front of the small corner store.
“Excuse me, by any chance, did you see where the real estate agency here went?”
Catching a passing grandfather to ask, the old man pointed somewhere with his index finger and spoke.
“Huh? Real estate agency? There’s no such thing here. All the real estate agencies around here went out of business ages ago. Because of that dungeon over there.”
Where the grandfather pointed was the very place where Baek Seol had awakened, the location of the ‘Dungeon of Beginning.’
Twenty-seven years ago. A sudden spatial distortion occurred on Earth.
People called that day the Cataclysm. Starting from that day, humanity abandoned the traditional calendar system and began counting years like ‘Cataclysm Year 0.’
At the same time, Earthlings decided to call the unfamiliar locations that appeared after swallowing up space “dungeons.”
And remarkably, the ‘Dungeon of Beginning’ was the very first dungeon to appear on Earth right before the Cataclysm, and a place whose entrance had yet to be found.
Because its entrance hadn’t been discovered for such a long time, the ‘Dungeon of Beginning’ had long been forgotten by the general public. It had slipped from Baek Seol’s mind as well.
‘I didn’t notice earlier, but the Dungeon of Beginning really was right next to the shop.’
In the end, after wandering around much longer without finding the real estate agency, Baek Seol returned and glanced at the side of the bakery. Not far away, there was an empty lot exuding a strange atmosphere. That was the place known to be where the ‘Dungeon of Beginning’ was located. Although it had no entrance and was evaluated to have a danger level approaching zero, it still felt eerie nonetheless.
“What on earth is going on…?”
With a dazed look on her face, Baek Seol opened the door to the bakery. What met her was a barrage of nagging out of nowhere.
“How could you just run off like that, squeak! What’s the point of being freed from the seal, squeak! When there’s no one here to see me, squeak!”
“Uh, huh…?”
“Do you have any idea how hard it was hiding in secret, squeak! I was so happy I could finally talk, squeak!”
Flap, flap!
The moment she opened the door, a small white puffball flew right up to her face, scolding her incessantly. Not that it was particularly scary, given how tiny it was.
“A… bird?”
The little white ball fluttering its wings and chirping nag after nag right in front of her was definitely a bird. And a remarkably…
“So cute!”
It was such a cute and lovely-looking bird that it made her forget her dazed state of mind.
‘I’ve seen this bird before. What was it called again? Ah, right. A crow tit! It was a crow tit!’
A small, round body with white feathers. Black, sparkling bead-like eyes. It was chirping as if threw a tantrum, but even that was adorable.
“Uh. But how can a bird talk?”
“I am not a bird, squeak!”
The bird claimed it was not a bird. Baek Seol, naturally, didn’t believe it. But the bird strongly insisted. It was not a bird.
“I am the Staff of the World, the guardian of □□□□□, and □□□□□…… □□□□□……!”
Strangely, while the bird was saying something, the only words she could understand were “Staff of the World.” And this was a phrase she had seen earlier in the system message.
“Staff of the World?”
“That’s right, squeak! Originally a staff that guides the world, from now on, I have specially decided to guide the owner of Dungeon Bakery, squeak. Consider it an honor, squeak.”
The self-proclaimed Staff of the World stopped fluttering, perched on the table, and proudly puffed out its chest. Even so, it was so cute that Baek Seol almost forgot her situation and nearly had a nosebleed.
‘No, wait. This isn’t the time. I almost forgot what I had to do, hypnotized by a cute crow tit.’
“Where around here would the owner’s contact info be…”
Thinking the landlord’s contact information must be somewhere in the shop, Baek Seol began looking around her surroundings.
And right at that moment—
<System: The Dungeon Bakery system has finished configuring itself according to the preferences of owner Baek Seol.>
A system message flashed, announcing its presence. As if it had seen the message as well, the bird spoke.
“It’s finally done, squeak. System configuration was slow because the owner stepped away, squeak.”
System configuration was complete. While wondering what that meant, an opaque window suddenly appeared before her eyes out of nowhere.
Tabs started becoming visible, looking as if they belonged right inside a tycoon game interface.
“Mmm. The system seems to have been exceptionally considerate of you, squeak. To have a layout like this. Then again, seeing your reaction earlier, you did seem like a human to worry about, squeak.”
While the crow tit mumbled to itself, Baek Seol felt a somewhat familiar sensation. This was because she usually loved and enjoyed playing tycoon games. Even now, several games were installed on her phone.
During her life as a graduate student slave, when her mind and body were tormented, it was a hobby that brought her a tiny sense of achievement and modest happiness.
‘This… looks like the quest window. This tab is for buying and selling items. And is this one the crafting tab?’
The tabs were intuitive.
Seeing an exclamation mark growing larger and smaller to announce its presence, that was definitely the quest window. And with a small “Shop” written over a table illustration, this was undoubtedly the purchase tab.
As a veteran of tycoon games, she could say with certainty: ‘Wow. This looks really fun!’
“Right now, the system is configured like this to fit your situation, but later, once you get used to it…”
“W-Wait a minute.”
Gasp.
She had almost turned things on left and right like a real game without realizing it.
Cutting off the crow tit, which was blabbering explanations, she staggered backward.
“I can’t become the owner of this place.”
“…What?”
Squeak? The crow tit’s tiny head tilted to the side. It shot her a look as if asking what kind of absurd nonsense that was.
Baek Seol laughed awkwardly and scratched her cheek with her index finger.
“I just came here to get a rented room. Plus, I’m busy with my studies…”
Baek Seol calmly explained her situation. I am a pitiful graduate student. I don’t have the money to run this place. Only when I graduate from graduate school will I have economic capability. Therefore, I cannot become the owner of this place right now!
It was right after her explanation ended that the crow tit delivered a heavy blow.
“Did you forget that you agreed to all the clauses earlier, squeak?”
“…!”
“Included in there was your agreement regarding obligations upon contract termination, squeak.”
Baek Seol flinched. Now that it mentioned it, a message had popped up earlier saying she agreed to all clauses. There was an obligation regarding contract termination among them?
Just what was that obligation…?
The crow tit narrowed its eyes and rubbed its two wings together like a villain.
“Upon terminating the contract!”
“U-Upon terminating?”
“Writing your name with your butt one hundred times!”
“…!!”
‘What! Writing my name with my butt one hundred times!’
Baek Seol immediately assumed a duck-butt pose to write her name with her hips. Something like that was a piece of cake.
The crow tit hurriedly spread its wings.
“Wait! I heard that for a female adult among humans like you, writing your name with your butt is an extremely humiliating punishment, squeak! I definitely saw it on the internet, squeak!”
“I’m sorry, but I’m not a human.”
“…Squeak?!”
“A graduate student isn’t human.”
The crow tit was briefly rendered speechless.
Regardless, Baek Seol slowly began to write her name with her hips…
“Hold on a second, squeak! If you run this place, you can become insanely rich, squeak!”
‘Rich…?’
Baek Seol’s ears perked up. “Rich” was a word Baek Seol had craved all her life. It was also the reason she had entered graduate school.
‘But if I just endure a little longer under Prof Kim…’
Prof Kim. That was the nickname her fellow lab mates secretly called the professor she served.
Prof Kim was a world-renowned engineer in his own right. As long as she graduated from graduate school under Prof Kim, getting into a decent major corporation would be a breeze. If things went exceptionally well, she might even be able to enter Dokjin Enterprise, which had become a global corporation through mana stones and potions.
…Of course, graduating was like passing through the eye of a needle, to the point where there were countless seniors who still hadn’t graduated.
Checking that Baek Seol’s hips had stopped moving, the crow tit quickly shouted.
“I guarantee it, squeak. Plus, you will own this entire building, squeak. You’re already a landlord, squeak! Isn’t your future dream to be a landlord, squeak?”
“H-How did you…”
“The system told me, squeak! Besides, if you get rich here, you can escape that terrifying place called graduate school that makes you not human, squeak!”
“…!”
‘That’s right.’
If she became rich, there would be no reason to attend graduate school. She was attending graduate school to get rich in the first place!
The ears of Baek Seol, a livelihood-driven snob, twitched.
If she was a landlord, she could resolve room and board right here… and if she became rich, she wouldn’t have to go to graduate school.
“Just try it for a single year, squeak. Can’t you make your decision after that, squeak?”
The crow tit stretched out its wing. It was a posture as if asking to shake hands. Baek Seol stared blankly at that wing.
“Honestly, since you’ve already agreed, you have to take responsibility one way or another, squeak. Otherwise, you’re a bad adult, squeak.”
“…”
‘Responsibility.’
At that word, Baek Seol’s mouth set in a firm line.
Thinking about it, Baek Seol—though not of her own volition—had as good as agreed to take responsibility. It was she herself who had pressed the Y button, after all.
Baek Seol knew all too well from her childhood experiences just how heavy the weight of the word “responsibility” was.
Even though she had agreed almost as if she were scammed…!
‘Ugh…’
Baek Seol held the wing between two fingers. She shook it lightly as if shaking hands.
“…Alright, I’ll try it. Just for one year.”
Right. It wasn’t like she absolutely had to drop out of graduate school right away. She could take a leave of absence.
The moment Baek Seol thought that, a quest window flashed open in front of her eyes.
<Beginner’s Quest ①: Entering the Bakery
You have just become the owner of Dungeon Bakery!
Don’t know what to do first?
Well, let’s start with cleaning!
Shop Cleanliness: 0/100
Reward: A bakery uniform made exclusively for you
Connection with ‘Staff of the World ???’
Beginner’s Quest ②>
Right. Of course.
The start of any tycoon game was cleaning.
Looking at the crow tit flying toward her with a cleaning apron and a triangular hat, Baek Seol smiled awkwardly.
‘Mom, I became a landlord.’
