Convenience Store Worker From Another World Chapter 59

Episode 59. Pyeondol-i looking at the practical skills (4)

First, I went out of the columbarium. I wanted to have a meeting and get some fresh air. My sister was putting a smoking cigar in her mouth, when she noticed a bench and a vending machine next to the main gate, she asked me.

“Hey, if I make you some coffee, would you like some?”

“Uh… black.”

“You eat black?”

I don’t usually drink it either, but I think I need some caffeine right now.

After receiving coffee from my sister and sitting on the bench, I checked the time. It was exactly 7:30. The sky had been dark for a long time, and the only source of light was the streetlight overhead.

I took a sip, and it was so bitter. It really woke me up.

“I’ll buy it when I get back to the convenience store, sis.”

“What are you talking about buying later? I’m just buying you a 300 won coffee.”

“Isn’t 300 won money?”

“Oh, then that’s okay.”

After taking another sip, I tried to organize what I had heard in my head.

Of the 112 coffins that were delivered, we need to find the one that contained the remains from which the embalming agent had spilled. Since the documents were lost, we won’t be able to find and compare the serial numbers on the coffins.

The first method that came to mind was to simply open the coffin with a chisel and examine the inside carefully. If the problem was that the preservative had been spilled, the preservative powder would have gotten on the bottom of the coffin when it was transferred to the coffin.

“Well? I don’t know much about this stuff.”

“Even you don’t know this, sister?”

“Hunters aren’t the type of people who deal with remains. If we really have to be specific… they’re the type of people who keep remains from coming out.”

Even if you say that, I don’t know. My sister took a puff of her smoking cigarette, blew it into the air, and then expressed her opinion.

“I think… if it was going to end like that, I think it would have been done a long time ago… .”

“I see, isn’t that so?”

If it was something that could be done by opening and closing the coffin lid, I don’t think I would have made the request in the first place. It wouldn’t even take a few hours at most. The inside of the coffin is treated separately so it can’t be opened, or it’s sealed thoroughly…

There must have been some reason why it couldn’t be opened, so I made the request. In the first place, I don’t even have a few hours to open and close the coffin lid. Thinking back, it seems like a failed plan.

This means that we have to look at the outside of the coffin and visually determine what the problem is… .

“Sister, something else came to mind.”

“What is it?”

“You put on your mourning clothes, put on some coffin dance music, and then you dance with the coffin on your shoulders. How about that?”

As time passes, the bones will have worn away a bit, so shouldn’t you be able to distinguish something strange by hearing a creaking sound?

“Then, if your bone breaks, will you take care of it?”

“I’m joking….”

There is a way that really comes to mind. When I told my sister about this, she looked half in doubt.

“That sounds plausible, but… can you even do something like that?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t tried it.”

It wasn’t a method I had thought of with confidence. There was nothing else that came to mind and I didn’t have time. After drinking my half-cold coffee, I got up from my seat.

“If you do it your way, what help should I have?”

“What can I help you with? I need you to hold the ladder.”

* * *

I returned to the room where the coffins were lined up, but Director Rich was away. I guess he thought it would take a long time.

This will be a post-mortem report, but this is better. If a third party sees it, they will wonder what the hell that guy is doing there. First, set up the ladder I saw earlier next to the main gate… .

After raising the platform to the highest point and unfolding it, I climbed the ladder. Sitting on the edge of the platform, I looked down and all the coffins on display came into view precariously. My older sister shouted from below.

“Hey, Lee Chan, can I just hold on to it?”

“uh.”

Looking down, I thought back on the things I had done over the past few days. I erased magic, I erased selectively… I even blew up one of the magic wallets that the cat had brought.

Among them, I’m going to try to do the thing I did when I blew up my wallet again.

If you look closely, the magic tools appear distorted. It would take a long time to check them one by one, so I think it would be much better to look at them all at once from a high place.

I don’t know exactly what the ingredients of the preservative they poured into the coffin were, but I’m sure it was some sort of magical powder. They wouldn’t have sprinkled stone preservatives on the remains that were supposed to be used as a vessel for the soul.

If we interpret this differently… it could also mean that the remains have more magical power than the other remains. Since the conditions are different, wouldn’t the degree of distortion also appear different?

It was a flawed theory that had never been verified, but for now, there was nothing else I could believe in. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes for a moment, and then slowly opened them.

It did look distorted. Everywhere.

“What the heck… .”

Right, left, front wall, all the storage boxes on all sides without exception are shaking. The coffins lined up on the floor are the same. It feels like I’m on a sailboat in the vast ocean. It’s like I’m suffering from terrible seasickness… .

A few seconds later, even the side of my head was burning as if it had been set on fire. I barely managed to hold on to the edge of the ladder as my upper body tried to fall forward.

“Hey! Are you okay?!”

Looking down, I saw my sister with her hand half outstretched towards me, as if she was going to grab me if I did anything.

“…I feel motion sickness.”

“Motion sickness? Hey, Lee Chan. Don’t push yourself too hard and just come down…”

“wait for a sec….”

I lowered my head and closed my eyes a couple of times. Perhaps because the symptoms came so suddenly, the return to normal was also sudden. I counted a few seconds in my head and looked around the room, and the motion sickness from earlier had disappeared as if it were a lie.

“I feel a little better now.”

“I told you to go to sleep and rest for a bit. You almost fell over in front of me―”

“I saw something, sis.”

“what?”

If I feel like it’s absolutely impossible, I won’t do it. But, I think it might work.

Looking back with a clear head, I felt like I saw something in the ripples all around. It was definitely the floor. One of the coffins at the bottom.

“What did you see? A revolving lantern?”

“Other than that, there was something really invisible. An invisible something?”

When I started talking nonsense, my older sister scratched her head as if she was frustrated and shouted.

“I don’t know what you saw… but if you think you can do it, try. I’ll accept you even if you fall.”

Yes, he said. He chewed on it with his eyes tightly shut. Was that a side effect or was it because he was new to it and not used to it? Will this really work?

If I keep doing this, won’t there be any problems for me?

Let’s get this out of the way. I only had one thought. I didn’t come here on my own two feet to worry about this kind of thing. I came here to get results.

When I opened my eyes, the world was distorted again.

Everything was tangled up like a swarm of worms. Even the hand holding the ladder didn’t seem to be mine. Still, it wasn’t as dizzy as before. Yeah, I’m still in my 20s.

I lowered my head and distanced my consciousness from the other walls’ storage cabinets. I didn’t need anything else, I just needed to look at the coffins on the floor. Compared to the other coffins, the one in the upper right corner was clearly… .

What do you see?

“Sister. From where you’re standing… .”

“Uh. From where I’m standing.”

“Three spaces forward, fourth from the right end.”

I didn’t have time to take my hands off the ladder and point, so I spoke like coordinates. I tried to say it twice, but my sister heard my first words and immediately ran over and stopped at the location I mentioned. It was exactly the location I had in mind.

“Three spaces forward, fourth from the right, is this it?”

“…Uh. Then….”

“What? Next?”

“Next, from where you are standing, two spaces forward, three spaces to the right… .”

“Hey, do you remember what I said about one problematic pipe?”

I know that too. But what can I do with what I see?

In addition to the coffin I mentioned at the beginning, there are two other places that are severely distorted. One side is slightly distorted, the other side is extremely distorted. I don’t know why. I wonder if it’s not the remains inside, but a mummy or something… .

In any case, it was definitely different from the other hundreds of coffins. My sister looked puzzled, but moved to the location I had told her, took a notepad out of her pocket, and tore it up.

“I marked it just in case. What next?”

“And, the second from the top left from where you’re standing. So, from my side…”

“Stop talking and rest. I know where you are.”

I closed my eyes right after hearing the answer. I feel like I’m going to throw up. How many minutes have I been like this? One minute? Two minutes?

The idiot is doing all sorts of things without scanning the barcode. He was leaning against the wall with his back against the ladder and pressing his eyes, when he heard the sound of a door opening under the ladder. When he looked down, he saw Manager Rich and his older sister just entering the room.

“… Are you saying… that you’ve already finished… the work…?”

“The guy above will explain the details.”

It seems like my older sister called me while I was taking a short break. I came down the ladder awkwardly and looked at Richie’s face. His eyes were half-expectant and half-worried. But I did everything I could.

“Director. I remember the request was to find the one faulty coffin out of 112.”

“Yes… .”

“But when I looked, there wasn’t just one defective pipe. There were three.”

“… Really? How exactly… .”

I don’t know how or in what way it’s wrong, because I’m not a professional. Rather than honestly saying I don’t know, I made a more plausible excuse.

“I guess we need to open the coffin and look inside to confirm that. Is that okay?”

“… It seems difficult… If I open the coffin… I have to rebuild the magic circle inside the coffin… .”

I guess this was the reason why the coffin couldn’t be opened.

It wasn’t something I needed to explain in the first place. The request was to find the faulty coffin, not to find out how the coffin was faulty. If you were going to ask for that, you should call a separate undertaker.

“Well, I don’t know how it went wrong, but… there’s definitely something wrong with the marked tubes.”

“Is that so…?”

“I am sure.”

I’m not sure. We won’t know unless we open the coffin and look inside.

But I can’t do that right away, and I just hope you don’t think I did a half-assed job. Richie, who had been staring at me with his gray eyes, smiled faintly after a while.

“It must have been a very… difficult task…”

I almost threw up along the way, can you see that?

I wanted to, but my forehead was unusually cold. I wiped it with my hand and found sweat. Richie picked up the tablet PC that he had left on the floor with a kind smile and put his thumb on it.

Then he handed it to me. I took it and checked the screen, and the words ‘Request Completed’ were written in large letters.

“Thank you for your hard work….”

Done. I tapped the screen again, and it returned to the first list screen full of requests. There were about 27 requests left. It hadn’t decreased much compared to a few minutes ago.

On the way, Director Rich asked.

“But… I’m curious… What kind of identification method did you use… If I ask…?”

“Uh… I’m sorry. The identification method is a bit complicated, so it’s a bit difficult to explain it here…”

My older sister burst out laughing next to me. Even I thought it was a funny excuse.

“Ah… I understand… .”

Director Richie also smiled with a wrinkled smile, as if he was embarrassed. I feel this every time we make eye contact, but he really has a lot of wrinkles. I wonder how old he is…

Wait a minute. Are you old?

“Excuse me, sir, but can I ask you something?”

“Yes… Go ahead… .”

“Do you know of any places on this list of requests?”

Being older also means having a lot of experience. I flipped the tablet PC over and handed it to Richie. He glanced at the first line and immediately started mumbling.

“It’s an ancient language….”

“Yes.”

“Hmm… the first line… seems to be from a quarantine company…”

Pest control company? SESCO? If you go, won’t you catch bugs?

I filtered it out because I didn’t feel good about it. In addition, the things that Manager Richie recites in order… Logistics center, I can’t go here because I have a really bad memory related to a herniated disc. Watch store, chemical store, bank…

“Bank?”

“Yes… .”

“Do you happen to know where that bank is?”

“Probably… it won’t be far…”

Not far away, a bank. It’s a white-collar job. If you think about dead squats with rice sacks or fiddling with precision watches, this place seems a hundred times better.

“That’s number 37, and… .”

While the director was finishing the list, I asked my older sister in the quietest voice possible.

“Sister, how about the bank?”

“Bank? Bank… No, I don’t know what the bank would call you for. Counterfeit money?”

“Wouldn’t it be better than getting on and off at any rate?”

“Hmm… It disappeared… .”

In the meantime, someone took another request. If I don’t choose this one, I might really get on and off later. After asking for the manager’s understanding for a moment, I received a tablet PC and pressed request number 37.

Then, something occurred to me.

[ Please handle the bank ATM robbery . ]

No, why are you doing this to me… .