After Ten Millennia in Hell

The next morning…

Echidna shook Oh Kang-Woo awake. After having a simple breakfast, Kang-Woo went outside with Echidna and Han Seol-Ah. He took the two girls to a giant department store in Mok-dong, Yeongdeungpo.

At first, the girls seemed to be wary of each other, but soon, with shining eyes, they began to choose clothes.

'They're getting along better than I'd expected.'

Kang-Woo had thought that Echidna would be wary of Seol-Ah since Echidna was very introverted. Even yesterday, she'd pouted and glared at Seol-Ah while they were unpacking. Now, they were both looking around the department store while chatting as if they were sisters.

'This must be the power of women.'

Kang-Woo couldn't understand what was so fun about picking clothes. To him, they all looked the same.

"My, look at this. This would look great on you, Echidna."

"… Would Kang-Woo like it?"

"Hehe. Of course he would."

"Then, I'll try it on."

Seol-Ah wandered around picking out clothes for Echidna as if she were her little sister.

It seemed Echidna had also taken an interest in clothes, so she followed Seol-Ah around with her eyes shining.

'I guess it's fine as long as they're both enjoying themselves.'

It wasn't a bad idea for Echidna to make other friends and not depend on him too much.

Excessive dependence would only cloud her judgment.

"Come here for a second, Kang-Woo."

"Kang-Woo, does it suit me?"

As he turned his head, he saw Echidna looking at him nervously. She was wearing a beige jacket and a checkered skirt that reached her knees—she looked astonishingly cute.

'It's like she's wearing a school uniform.'

Leaving aside her real age, because she looked so young, it seemed like she was wearing a school uniform.

"Yeah, it suits you."

"Hm! Hm!" Echidna snorted while blushing.

She looked up at Seol-Ah with sparkling eyes.

"I want this."

"Fufu. Okay. I'll buy it for you."

"Thanks. So you were a good person, Seol-Ah."

Echidna had been won over all too easily with just a single outfit.

She smiled radiantly while grabbing onto Seol-Ah's clothes.

"Haaaah! You're too cute!"

"… Seol-Ah, I can't breathe."

Seol-Ah hugged Echidna and rubbed Echidna's cheeks against her face.

Kang-Woo smiled at the two of them, satisfied.

'I'm glad I took a break.'

Seeing both of them having fun made him smile.

After paying for the clothes, the girls each clung to one of Kang-Woo's arms and pulled him along.

He truly had flowers in each hand.

He could feel people glaring at him with jealousy, and Kang-Woo followed the girls while smiling like a victor.

'This is the life.'

He thought of the days he'd endured among demons who were nothing but muscle-headed battle junkies and the nights he'd spent in fear that tentacled monsters would appear in his dreams.

Kang-Woo was so happy that he thought maybe all the suffering he had gone through had all been for this moment.

An hour passed.

"How about this one, Echidna?"

"It suits you, Seol-Ah."

'Mhm. Very nice. They've gotten even closer.'

Two hours passed.

"Hoho. Please try this on, Kang-Woo!"

"You look cool, Kang-Woo."

'Hmm.'

Three hours passed.

"Kang-Woo, Kang-Woo. Let's go back down to the second floor. I think it was better there."

"Oh, I'd also like to go back to where we were an hour ago."

'What's this?'

Four hours passed.

"Ah, like I thought, we should go back to where we were in the beginning."

"Yeah, yeah. I liked that place better."

'Why isn't it ending?'

Even after four hours, they were still shopping.

Kang-Woo looked at them with a dumbstruck expression.

The problem wasn't that they were going to every single store but that they went back to stores that they had already been to whenever they changed their minds.

'We've been to this store four times already.'

Kang-Woo had a pale expression on his face.

Unlike Kang-Woo, who was slowly becoming lifeless, both girls looked at the clothes without taking a break. It was as if they were using the Authority of Invigoration.

He felt like he'd been locked up in an endless möbius strip.

'Is this life?'

It wasn't that he was physically tired after only a few hours of walking, but repeating an action that seemed meaningless made him mentally tired.

'Am I really on a break?'

He'd gone to the department store to take a breather before things got busier, but rather than taking a breather, he felt as if he was becoming even more tired shopping than when he was in battle.

His mind was about to reach its limit when suddenly…

"Now that we've looked around enough, should we take a break?"

"You've… looked around enough?"

"Fufu. We're going to take a look around for things besides clothes in the afternoon."

He felt as if he had been struck by lightning under blue skies.

Kang-Woo's face turned even paler.

"Kang-Woo, I'm hungry."

"Oh my. It's already past lunchtime. Should we just have a light meal at the food court?"

"Food court?"

Kang-Woo tilted his head in confusion, which rather shocked Seol-Ah.

"Do you perhaps not know what a food court is?"

"Yeah. I've never heard about it."

When Kang-Woo had lived on Earth in the past, forget food courts, he had never even been to a department store.

Seol-Ah seemed troubled.

"Hmm… It's where multiple good vendors are located in one place. There's a wide variety of menus to choose from, and it's all reasonably priced."

"Whoa."

Kang-Woo's eyes shone. Eating was one of the things he'd been enjoying the most since returning to Earth.

"Let's go."

Kang-Woo's exhausted expression recovered its vigor. He headed to the food court with eyes full of expectation.

What he saw next shocked him.

"W-We can order anything from here…?"

"Yes. You say the number corresponding to what you want to eat, and then you get a meal ticket."

"Whaa…"

As he looked at the menu with more than a hundred different options, Kang-Woo couldn't help but feel a thrill.

'Is this Heaven?'

There were three different types of kimchi stew: one with tuna, one with ham, and finally, one with meat.

If this wasn't Heaven, Kang-Woo didn't know what was.

"I can't believe a place like this exists…."

Kang-Woo regretted having missed out on places like this while having been in a craze of hunting and leveling up.

'I've been forgetting about the most important thing.'

Why had he returned to Earth in the first place?

Wasn't it to eat and play as much as he wanted?

He could feel his desire boiling. They weren't normal desires but desires amplified due to having the body of a demon.

He could feel his desires devouring his sense of reason.

"Kang-Woo, what should we eat?"

"Everything."

"Everything?"

Kang-Woo walked up to the counter and stated in all seriousness, "Please give me everything from number 1 to 168. Oh, and ten each of numbers 67, 68, and 69."

The dishes that he had ordered ten each of were obviously kimchi stews.

"K-Kang-Woo! Please calm down!"

Seol-Ah came running to Kang-Woo, who had lost all sense of reason.

"Why?"

"There's no way we can eat all that."

"We can just take any leftovers home."

"They'll go bad before we manage to eat it all."

"Don't worry. I can make it so they don't go bad."

As long as Kang-Woo flipped the effect of the Authority of Decay, he could store all the food without having to worry about it going bad.

The gears in Seol-Ah's head started to turn quickly to come up with a way to calm Kang-Woo down.

"The food court has a diverse menu, but the food isn't that good. Instead, I'll make whatever you'd like to eat on this menu at home. You should just eat until you're full here."

"Hmm. If it isn't good, then…"

After hearing the food wasn't that good, his desire quickly died down.

Disappointed, Kang-Woo just ordered the three types of kimchi stew, pizza, fried chicken, and tangsuyuk[1]. It was still quite a lot, but it was nothing compared to what he'd originally planned to order.

"I want what Kang-Woo's having."

Echidna ordered the same dishes as Kang-Woo with shining eyes.

Seol-Ah tried to stop her but gave up after seeing her sparkling eyes.

"… I'll just have udon."

The bell for their food rang not long after they had ordered their food with the meal ticket.

Kang-Woo and Echidna had ordered so much food that even a table of four wasn't enough to put everything on the table. They had to stick another table on the side.

"Right then, let's eat."

Kang-Woo had a spoonful of the pork kimchi stew.

"Hmm."

Just like Seol-Ah said, it was a bit lackluster compared to the one she made.

'But…'

Kang-Woo's eyes shone. What it lacked in taste, it made up for in variety.

This was a very precious opportunity to make his dream of combining a variety of foods, which he could have never imagined while in Hell, into a reality.

Kang-Woo turned his head to the pizza and placed it above the kimchi stew.

"… Kang-Woo?"

A dumbstruck voice came out of Seol-Ah's mouth.

Kang-Woo ate a slice of pizza with kimchi stew simultaneously.

It wasn't just the pizza; he also mixed the tangsuyuk and fried chicken with the kimchi stew.

"Slurp! Whoa, this tastes better than I'd thought it would."

"Are you supposed to mix it all in there like that?" Echidna asked Seol-Ah while tilting her head in wonder, staring at Kang-Woo eating kimchi stew with pizza, tangsuyuk, and fried chicken.

"… No."

"But Kang-Woo is doing it."

"That's because Kang-Woo is…"

'… A weirdo.'

She barely managed to stop herself from saying that as she stared at Kang-Woo diligently eating his kimchi stew.

It was at that moment…

Slide!

A man suddenly approached them and sat across from Kang-Woo without asking for permission. Snickering, the man said in a countryside dialect, "Wow! Ya rilly know yer stuff! Yeah! Stew is meant fer mixin' all kinds uh stuff into it!"

Kang-Woo stopped eating and glared at the man in front of him.

The man was wearing an out-of-fashion aloha shirt and a gold chain necklace. He was covered in muscles and had bright tanned skin. Looking at him was like looking at a smaller version of Kang Tae-Soo.

"… Who are you?" Kang-Woo said in an annoyed tone.

The man smiled.

"Mah name is Baek Kang-Hyun from the Hanul Guild. Have ya heard uh me?"

"…"

Kang-Woo's expression hardened.

There probably wasn't anyone in Korea who hadn't heard the name Baek Kang-Hyun.

"Yer the rookie of the Red Rose Guild, right?" Kang-Hyun snickered and kept talking. "A'hv an offer fer ya."

"An offer?"

"I'll give ya fifty billion won and match ya with Unique-grade equipment. I'll git ya uh car and house that can't even compare to whut ya have right now. Join our guild. I'll save ya an executive position."

Seol-Ah's mouth fell open after she heard the ridiculous amount of money and conditions offered.

Kang-Woo's expression, however, didn't change in the slightest. He smirked and leaned back in the chair.

He opened his mouth in a relaxed manner.

"That's it?"

1. Tangsuyuk is a Chinese-style Korean meat dish with sweet & sour sauce. ☜