The Fantasy World Fanatic Wants To Leave Work

40 – 40. Shining Night Convenience Store (1)

Somehow, it seemed quiet these days, as if it was the calm before the storm before a disaster struck.

But just after two days of silence, a disaster that seemed to leave me with only two minutes of remaining life came.

I don’t know why, but it happened that way.

“Stay here, Diana…”

“What?! What are you trying to do?”

First, I tried to close the convenience store’s door.

When I assessed the situation, it seemed that it couldn’t break through the exterior wall of the convenience store…

“Did it swallow the door?”

In an instant, the convenience store door was devoured.

The entrance of the convenience store also turned as dark as the windows, and from there, one red eye started to reveal its light.

No matter how I thought about it, it didn’t seem like a good idea to touch that thing with bare hands.

“If that’s the case-“

I couldn’t block it from entering the convenience store.

But that’s okay.

Because I still had the invincible red button.

If I pressed the red button, I could drive away such a monster. There was no evidence for it, but I felt tremendous confidence.

Didn’t I want to press the red button right away when I couldn’t close the door anyway?

But why did this thought come up right now?

Everyone has a plausible plan.

Until they’re screwed.

“f*ck!”

I did press the red button, but I had no choice but to remove my hand from the button soon after.

Just like the entrance of the convenience store, the button was swallowed in an instant.

Normally, the emergency button in a convenience store requires holding it down for at least 3 seconds for the report to be received, but this U.C convenience store needlessly adhered to such authentication, and the report wouldn’t be received if it wasn’t held down for more than 3 seconds.

I only pressed it for barely a second.

“What’s going on?”

“I feel regret that it would have been better to give up one finger instead!”

“What?!”

No, stay calm.

The existence that is meant to be consulted in such a sudden situation is the manual provided by U.C. Convenience Store.

Fortunately, the support system of U.C. Convenience Store is working properly, as evidenced by the fact that the message was not sent to the manager.

There might be some helpful information in the manual.

From Noble mtl dot com

[*U.C. Convenience Store Guide Manual*]

[Important!]

[Hello. Congratulations on passing the interview. As you may already know, our ‘U.C. Convenience Store’ is different from ordinary convenience stores. Before starting your official work, please familiarize yourself with the contents of this manual and work safely.]

[Any accidents that occur due to not familiarizing yourself with the manual are solely your responsibility.]

I desperately quickly skimmed through the manual.

“…there is nothing useful?”

Why are all these rules useless?

The closest one, Rule 9, doesn’t match the current situation.

The outside of the window is still dark, with only red eyes staring at me.

Even though it says to contact the manager, I can’t reach the manager at the moment.

What should I do? It’s not specifically targeting me yet.

Of course, it’s not specifically targeting me yet.

The feeling that life could end at any moment is running through my spine.

Stay calm.

Don’t lose your composure and calmly assess the situation.

Should I try closing my eyes, nose, and ears like Rule 8-1 and hold my breath for a minute?

“It’s dangerous!”

“Ugh-!”

Diana grabs me suddenly.

And in front of my eyes, the black figure that engulfed the entrance and buttons of the convenience store, with eyes resembling pupils, passed in front of me like a blade.

Thud-!

The figure cleanly sliced off the plant pot that was on the counter.

If it weren’t for Diana holding me back, what was cleanly sliced would have been not the pot but my neck.

“Snap out of it! Do you really think we’re going to die here?! I don’t want to die here!”

Diana said with a face that seemed like she could cry at any moment.

“Yeah, staying calm and not panicking won’t make any difference,” I muttered.

If I lost the game, it was better to prepare for the next card rather than fretting.

“Come with me!”

“Where are we going this time?”

I grabbed Diana’s hand and sprinted towards the emergency exit.

Even though our plan to block the convenience store’s entrance and report to the police by pressing the red button had failed, I still had several cards I could play.

The emergency exit.

If we could reach the floor with the manager’s office through the emergency exit, there might be a solution.

[*Emergency Exit*]

[Please use the emergency exit only when a dangerous situation occurs inside the convenience store. However, do not use it if they are present. The emergency exit is for emergency use, not a shelter.]

However, the warning about not using the emergency exit when they were present quickly came to mind.

Could those red-eyed beings be them?

Their eerie appearance and ominous aura did somewhat match what I had in mind.

So, should I use the emergency exit here?

Just as I was hesitating…

“Are you trying to block this too?!”

But soon, I didn’t need to ponder about it.

Black objects flying from behind made the emergency exit a target, and the red-eyed figures started to peer in our direction.

“What the…!”

I had no choice but to detour through the hallway and throw ourselves into the storage room.

According to the manager, the storage room could be used as a shelter depending on the situation.

Bang!

Click!

After entering, I immediately locked the door.

“Ha…! Haah…!”

Only then did my legs give in, and I slumped down, utterly drained.

Fortunately, the black entities hadn’t devoured the storage room’s door.

For now, it seemed we were safe.

“Are we, are we still alive?”

Diana safely entered the warehouse.

There had been warnings that someone other than the convenience store staff entering the warehouse might cause trouble, but at the moment, there didn’t seem to be any particular issues.

The strangest part was outside the warehouse.

First things first, let’s see if there’s anything useful in the warehouse to get up and look around.

“Yeah, somehow I managed to survive…”

Finally, just as I took a breath, I felt a pain in my shoulder. As I reached to touch it, my hand came away covered in crimson blood.

It seemed to be from the things that flew out through the emergency exit just now.

My left arm was practically drenched in blood.

“No, it seems like I’ll die soon-“

“Hyunwoo?!”

Thud!

In the end, I collapsed to the floor again.

Humans are remarkably fragile creatures, more than one might think.

It was just a slight cut on my shoulder, but already my body felt weak, lacking strength, and excruciatingly painful.

“There’s too much blood! Is there something to stop it?”

“…It’s fine. It’s not like experiencing this once or twice.”

Staggering, I retrieved the first aid kit from the warehouse.

I had taken it from Diana earlier, applied medicine, had some work in the warehouse, and then lazily left it there. Now, I found myself needing it.

I hoped I wouldn’t have to use it, but fate had a different plan.

“Are you okay? It must hurt a lot-“

Diana seemed strangely more surprised by my calmness despite seeing the blood.

It might sound odd, but I’m used to seeing blood.

In the first place, on Universe-1221, my head had cracked open once, and blood had gushed out profusely.

“I’ve been stabbed by a knife before, even got pricked by a broken soju bottle. There are plenty of crazy folks in any universe… Oh, could you tie this up for me?”

“Uh, okay…”

I tried to stop the bleeding and bandage it, but being cut on the shoulder made it difficult to tie the bandage with just one hand.

“Life is truly messed up. Is it just the store manager who’s never around when most needed?”

-Message sending failed-

[The connection to the system has been lost due to unknown reasons. :)]

I roughly tended to the wound and then checked the messenger.

The unopened mark still remained, and it seemed that the messages I sent earlier didn’t get delivered properly.

“…I’m sorry for getting involved in something like this for no reason.”

As I poked my forehead and lamented my situation, I thought of Diana, who got involved because of me.

“No, it’s not your fault. Even though I thought it was dangerous, I joined without thinking because it seemed interesting.”

“You really just jump into things without a plan.”

“Well, maybe not as much as you, Hyunwoo.”

“That’s true, but…sigh. Is it normal for someone to suddenly come in like this? Until now, they’ve always kept their distance, and suddenly they ambush us like this?”

What’s even more chilling is the fact that Diana’s clone appeared at the convenience store as soon as her main body disappeared.

In other words, she had been waiting for an opportunity when no one was around at night.

But thanks to Diana sitting in the convenience store, I never had a moment alone until we closed the door, so I continued to keep my distance until I saw her clone and impulsively rushed toward it.

If that had been the real Diana instead of her clone, I would have had to fight that monster one-on-one by myself.

I might have died even before reaching the warehouse by myself.

Considering all that followed, I wondered if there was any need for those actions until now.

“Diana, have you ever seen something like that before? You’ve lived for a long time.”

“I was born around the time the Papal Kingdom was established. But I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“…How old are you?”

“My exact age is a secret. It’ll hurt if you know. I’ve already told you that the age of an elf is forbidden, but I can give you an estimate.”

Diana said with a creepy expression.

I don’t want to die here for no reason, so let’s not talk about age anymore.

“What exactly is that thing? What is its identity that it suddenly wants to kill us?”

“I don’t know…”

Anyway, if it had ended there, I would have just thought that it was an unfortunate incident.

But there was a sense of unease in that black thing’s actions.

I get it if it swallowed the entrance of the convenience store when I tried to close it, but it’s definitely strange that it immediately swallowed and disabled the emergency button when I pressed it.

“Is there any other way to escape from here?”

“No, as far as I know, besides the blocked entrance, I haven’t heard of any other passages. There’s one secret weapon, but I can probably only use it once.”

Moreover, they even blocked the emergency exits, making it impossible to escape from the store.

Considering all of this, they definitely have knowledge about U.C. Convenience Store’s system.

They must have known that even in the past, Diana wouldn’t have been oblivious to me trying to press the red button to report to the police.

Originally, that was normal, but it seemed to have thoroughly understood my behavioral patterns.

Could it be that they were the ones who had been giving me warnings all this time?

“…First of all, I need to save my secret card.”

I said, gripping the secret card tightly in my pocket.

It seemed to know well how it could kill or neutralize the troublemaker at the U.C convenience store with its red eyes, as if it had killed him several times before.