Convenience Store Worker From Another World Chapter 137

Episode 137. Our store is open for business as usual (4)

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You asked the wrong question. You shouldn’t have asked when he came… .

“I was looking for something, sir. But how did you end up here?”

It’s not that I’m not happy about it, but I don’t think there’s any demand for a taxi driver in this weather. If the guys out driving call a tow truck, they’ll call one, not a taxi driver.

Or maybe the old man was targeting a niche market? When I asked, he took off his fedora, the brim of which was bent by the rain, and answered.

“You sent me a message earlier. You said something might happen at the store.”

“Well, I saw your reply….”

“After seeing that, I guess I’m a bit nervous… ”

After straightening the crooked brim and putting it on his head, he smiled kindly and finished speaking.

“I came out for a quick look while my pet was sleeping.”

That’s what they said, but honestly, I didn’t really believe it.

The sound of the rain is so loud that if you don’t talk right in front of it, your voice will be buried. How can you sleep in the sound of the rain?

I guess saying that he came out for a bit was just an excuse. I wanted to tell him that there was something strange in the basement, so it would be better to go home right away… .

I didn’t say anything. You’ve probably been through this more than I have, and what more could I say to someone who came out to say that they cared about me? Instead, I asked you one more question.

“I sent you another sentence after that message. Didn’t you see it?”

“What sentence do you mean?”

“I wrote something telling you not to come here. I saw that it was marked as read.”

“I guess it’s because I’m getting older and my eyes are getting blurry, but I don’t think I saw it.”

“yes….”

“Hey, Lee Chan. This is what I’m talking about.”

My older sister, who had been sucking on a dozen or so mouthfuls of cigarettes with her back turned, turned to me, met my gaze, and her eyes widened. The old man immediately greeted my older sister in a friendly manner.

“Nice to meet you, Miss Yoon-ha.”

“… Yes, it’s nice to meet you too, Elder Wolf. But, I have something to talk to you about. Can I finish?”

I was surprised for a moment. The situation must have been quite urgent because he was trying to get straight to the point.

“Of course. But can I stay on the sidelines and listen in for a bit?”

“It doesn’t matter… Yes. The articles will all be out tomorrow anyway.”

Her expression gradually crumpled as she continued to talk. Sister Yoon-ha took a last drag of her smoking cigarette and held the pipe in her hand.

“It’s not something that will make you feel good when you hear it, but….”

“Is this the right place, Sister?”

“Uh. Almost.”

A brief explanation follows.

Most gates have a consistent pattern of sucking space. A swirling pattern like water being sucked into a water hole. I’ve seen this on the news too.

“That’s not what’s inside right now. It started with the ladder twisting, then the floor was visible, then it was bent, and the rainwater wasn’t going down because it was blocked by something invisible.”

It is by no means an ordinary gate, and this fact alone makes it worth checking out the inside. I interrupted him and asked.

“Is it worth checking? Not 100%?”

“There’s nothing 100% in this industry. Not a single one. Especially not in this case. I’m just speaking from experience and guesswork…”

“experience?”

“I’ve seen this phenomenon before. When I went to close the core gate.”

Yoon Ha-noona said that in the 10 years she has been working, she has only handled two core gate-related cases, and one of them was almost identical to the current situation.

“At that time, one of my seniors saw this and said this. It wasn’t just sucking in space, but it seemed to suck it in and spit it out at the same time.”

“Ugh… .”

“It looks that way to me now. It was a key gate back then, so this might be the same. It’s just that much.”

After hearing the explanation, I looked inside the manhole again, and it really did look like it was spitting out space just like my sister said. Even as I was looking at it, the gap between the floors of the ladder was rapidly shrinking.

I think it’s my sister’s position that even if you can’t be 100% sure, you should definitely check, but you still haven’t heard the important thing. So I asked right away.

“I told you, sis, that if you don’t close the gate, it will naturally disappear and become a mess. How many hours are left until it naturally disappears?”

“… I don’t know how to measure that. Can you tell me what you think?”

I think I’ll feel a little better if I hear that. When I asked, my older sister answered as if she was spitting it out.

“Three hours. The meterman pointed to a place where the exact same phenomenon was occurring and said it would take exactly three hours.”

“Hey… .”

I think I heard it for nothing. What can we do for the next three hours… .

First of all, the radio waves aren’t spreading throughout the city.

How long will it take for my sister to fly back here and ask for support like she did when she came here? Even if it takes a short time, will things go smoothly even if she reports? I heard there aren’t any hunters working there right now.

Since there are no Hunter personnel, the situation within the Magic Agency will likely be similar.

I’ve never personally seen those civil servants work, but they must be incredibly busy. They must be receiving hundreds of calls per hour for gate-breaking in the city right now.

Even if everything goes well, it doesn’t seem like the other world’s magic bosses will handle things quickly. They’re the ones who think draining their parking lot is more urgent than letting the other races drift away.

“… … .”

The reason my older sister only smokes cigarettes is because she thinks the same way as me. The act of asking for help from somewhere is meaningless.

Something has to be done. Within 3 hours.

Only two things come to mind: either launch a counterattack out of this street before it’s too late, or… .

“president.”

“… … .”

“president.”

“… Ah. Yes, sir.”

On the way, an old man spoke to me quietly, and he was staring intently at somewhere across the street with his eyes narrowed.

“It seems like the situation is very urgent right now.”

“It seems so. But what is in the direction you are looking at now?”

“I said that because there seem to be two pedestrians. They are women.”

My store is the only one open in this neighborhood, so why are there so many pedestrians?

I looked at them with a feeling of hopelessness, but just as the old man said, two people who looked like people were slowly approaching me through the heavy rain. I still don’t know if they were women.

First, one of them is pulling what appears to be a motorcycle. His hair and clothes are black.

Another one was hanging on to the other guy who was holding onto the motorcycle, but he lost his footing and fell into the rain.

Then someone with black hair stopped the motorcycle on the ground and picked up one of the fallen people, and the person who was pulled out of the water let out a cry that was almost a terminal scream.

“Eww!! Phew!”

“under….”

“Do you know anyone, sir?”

My half-bursted heart burst open again the moment I heard that. It’s Miss Elena and Officer Iruel. I don’t know how they met each other, but…

While watching, the motorcycle that Officer Iruel had parked tilted sideways and submerged in water. It seems like this isn’t a situation where you can just watch.

“You two look familiar, sir. I’ll go and help you out.”

“I will go with you. What will you do, Miss Yoon-ha?”

“… Yes? What kind?”

My older sister, who was deep in thought, looked at the two of us, followed the direction we were looking, and immediately put away her smoking pipe.

“I’ll go with you. I don’t think I’ll ever find an answer even if I keep thinking about it.”

“What was I thinking about?”

“I’ll go back and tell you later, but let’s help them out first.”

So the three of us waded through the water together and headed toward the two. When we were halfway there, Officer Iruel must have noticed the three of us because he came toward us, leaving his motorcycle behind.

The officer came up to Elena and saluted with the hand opposite the shoulder she was holding.

“This is Police Officer Iruel.”

The police officer was also in a terrible state. His uniform, which was always neat and tidy, was soaked through with water and stuck to his body, and his tie was no longer visible, as if the string had snapped. The same goes for his police cap.

So I could check the hair color, and today, I couldn’t find a single blonde hair. Well, what police officer wouldn’t be stressed if they were asked to provide public support in this weather?

However, he greets me with a blank expression and an indifferent tone, making me wonder if he has ever been angry even once in his life. On the other hand.

“Hehe, hehe… Knock knock, knock knock, knock knock!”

Miss Elena is clinging to the officer as if she might faint at any moment.

He must have planned it out, as he was wearing rain boots and a raincoat, but judging by the muddy water pouring down incessantly from underneath the raincoat, it didn’t seem to be very effective in waterproofing.

Even hanging on was becoming too much of a struggle and he was slipping more and more. He immediately advised the officer.

“I’ll hold onto her, officer. She’s a succubus I know.”

“Euuuu… Gulp.”

“Please give me a moment.”

The officer staggered forward, handing Miss Elena over to me without hesitation. He didn’t show it, but he must have had a really hard time getting through the rain.

The older sister quickly caught the officer’s shoulder as he was about to fall, then put the officer’s arm around her shoulder and said.

“I think you might need some support, officer.”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to worry about me… .”

“You don’t even need to worry about it. Today must have been especially hard for you.”

Officer Iruel is from a race that is greatly discriminated against in this world’s society. Elves.

I was a little curious as to whether my sister would find this strange or feel sorry, but she had no qualms about supporting the officer. I think it was the latter.

The officer looked slightly surprised, but did not refuse. Instead, he turned around and muttered.

“Behind, there’s a business motorcycle….”

“I’ll bring it, officer.”

The old man who had been watching spoke briefly, then lifted his leg and placed his foot on the surface of the rainwater as if he were stepping on a step. Then he took a short breath as if catching his breath.

“hmm.”

Then he stood on the surface of the rainwater and started to run across the water. No, what am I looking at?

“Hey, that’s hard for me to do. What does that person really do?”

“You’re a former soldier, but can you do that too?”

“If you concentrate hard, you can walk, but you can’t lift a motorcycle like that. That’s mind-boggling.”

“Ugh… .”

“It’s not my major either.”

During this brief conversation, the old man brought his motorcycle. With one hand. He was still standing on the water, and his voice was calm even though he was carrying a motorcycle that weighed 150 kg.

“It’s been so long since I’ve done this, I feel like I’m a bit out of shape.”

My sister lets out another exclamation, and Miss Elena seems too exhausted to even look.

Officer Iruel and I just blankly looked up at the old man, and then the officer saluted again and said.

“Thank you for your cooperation.”

“It’s okay. It’s something that happens often when you work as a surrogate.”

At these words, the police officer’s face became filled with doubt, but he didn’t say anything out loud. He was nodding and closing his eyes, feeling like he might collapse at any moment.

“Officer, Miss Elena, how many minutes have you been walking like this?”

“It will take less than an hour.”

“Ugh… .”

Miss Elena was feeling nauseous. If we delayed any longer, it would be like a deja vu of our first meeting. She looked around at the other four and advised them.

“Let’s go back to the store first, customers. I blocked the rain there, didn’t I?”

The four of them nodded in agreement, and the five of them headed to the store in silence. As they approached the store, the thought that kept coming to mind was that the situation was getting more and more absurd by the ten minutes.

All the customers in the store I had been talking to are flocking in. One of them is gone because he went to his mother’s house, but that’s a hundred times better. If he were to go outside in this weather, all you’d see would be his horns above the rain… .

This sense of absurdity reached its peak when I opened the front door of the store and entered. There was someone who looked exactly like me and who I had wanted to see. Right in the middle of the lobby.

“Hey, Chan-ah. Hi.”

“uh….”

“I couldn’t find it no matter how much I looked inside the store, so I was about to go out and look for it myself.”

The store that we paid money to open has become a mess, but I don’t know why the store manager’s expression is so calm. The store manager looks around the store with the five of us one more time before continuing.

“There are a lot of customers today. Right?”