“Anyone kind enough to spare just three damn coins@@@”
“I’m dumping my luck-boosted manual labor gloves dirt cheap. Check it out, folks……”
The once-forgotten Shadow Castle had now been overrun by beggars. Just as expected.
“Hey? Kessler! Where’ve you been? C’mon, man, have a heart…”
Ragged users wearing nothing but undershirts and wielding only the most basic clubs had their default expressions set to “teary-eyed”—they swarmed toward Kessler, whose polished appearance clearly screamed money.
Kessler gave a sharp sideways glance at the male user acting cutesy and whining in front of him like he’d just witnessed something truly disgusting, then kept walking.
Even along the road leading into the castle, the streets were crowded with beggars sitting on the ground, empty rice bowls cracked and laid out in front of them.
“This is driving me nuts. I need to keep grinding, but my club’s durability is totally gone.”
The more motivated users were off doing hard labor gigs in the work zone. But even there, the labor force was oversupplied, and the wages were brutally lowballed.
“Hey? Kessler! Baby Fox!”
In the alley leading into the castle’s beggar quarter, I spotted Bori Noona and flailed both my legs excitedly.
My outburst made Kessler pause as well. Bori Noona was sitting dazed behind a cloth stall she’d set up, but as soon as she saw us, she charged forward as if she’d just rediscovered the meaning of life.
“Kessler, you look loaded… Could you maybe buy my socks? I only wore them three times.”
[System]: These are socks with a hole in them. (Worn: 4 times)
“Yeah, no.”
Despite her pitiful expression and the single tear that slid down her cheek, Kessler walked right past her without a hint of hesitation, like she was just another random beggar on the street.
That morning’s quest, Find the Thief, had involved an item inspection on all users.
During this process, evidence of tax evasion and illegal trades was uncovered, and a massive investigation ensued. Heavy fines were issued.
Most users had at some point engaged in illicit trades. The frequent real-money transactions were nearly impossible to police, but the lack of reports on large amounts of currency being pocketed triggered even stiffer penalties.
As a result, many users were left penniless, and the once-crowded outdoor barbecue area in the main plaza was now utterly deserted.
Meat wasn’t easy to come by. Even without factoring in labor costs, users had to pay for potions and equipment durability.
The only “free” meat source was bat meat from the underground caves, but the problem was that those creatures were now nearly extinct.
This was because, during a recent spike in the bat population that had triggered a quest, Kessler had gone in and wiped them all out using Shadow Pressure.
‘He even ended up in the Shadow Atonement Prison because of that incident!’
Anyway, the users whose assets had been confiscated by the castle’s administration office had been reduced to day-to-day survival—barely scraping together enough to eat each day.
And at this moment, what I had to do was crystal clear.
“Why?”
Kessler set me down as I squirmed wildly in his grasp.
Meow-meow!
I barked twice—fox-style—to say I’ll be back soon, then darted off as if dashing across a hallway.
Humanization.
The moment I turned the corridor, I cast Humanization. There was still a risk of running into Jung Da-hoon, but this had to be done, even at that cost.
‘Everyone was wearing that crying expression and nothing else!’
Wearing only boxers that covered just the essentials and the default undershirt, I pulled an old club from deep inside my Bag That Can Hold Anything and gripped it tightly.
With FishyFishy as my equipped pet and my expression set to “tears,” I looked properly miserable and downright pathetic.
Ready. I rushed out toward the Quick Sale area.
“Please, spare some change!! I’ll even take ten won!!”
Most people had the same default beggar appearance. Some users were truly broke, sure, but others were just pretending to be for profit.
At that moment, a well-dressed user began tossing coins and spinning in place, drawing a ring of beggars around them in a frenzied race to grab them first. It turned into a full-on speed battle.
I scanned the quick-sale stalls amid the chaos. If there was ever a day to grab a good item at a low price, it was today.
“I’ll take this one. How much?”
“Seventy thousand won. I bought it for one-fifty and barely used it.”
[System]: You have purchased Scarf Tainted by Death.
“I’ll take this too.”
“Thank you so much for your purchase, sir……”
[System]: You have purchased Hairpin of Hell.
I was actually able to snag gear with keywords like death and hell for dirt cheap. They’d come in handy for a future quest.
“I’ll take this one too.”
Despite not being very affordable, I also bought the Handmade Mask Set. It was a precaution in case I ran into Jung Da-hoon.
With my face thoroughly wrapped and hidden, I was making my way between the stalls when—
“Woo-rim-ssi!”
Despite my covered face, someone called my name. It was Bori Noona, who’d been selling a heap of odds and ends.
“H-How did you recognize me?”
“How could I not recognize you?”
She’d said it with complete certainty. Resigned, I pulled down the suffocating mask and greeted her.
Then, scanning over her stall, I picked up one of the socks she had failed to sell earlier.
“I’ll take this one.”
“Whoa, ah… I didn’t call out just to make a sale.”
“It’s about helping each other out. Bori-ssi, help me when I’m down sometime too. How much is it?”
“Three thousand won.”
She scratched the back of her neck awkwardly as I handed her a ten-thousand-won bill.
“Keep the change.”
“Woo-rim-ssi…….”
[System]: You have acquired a sock with a hole previously worn by player ‘Bori’.
I gave her a warm smile. I’ve been fed and taken care of plenty by Bori Noona in my fox form. This was my chance to give something back.
“Ah, and… your boyfriend?”
Honestly, that’s what I’d wanted to ask. Jung Da-hoon’s whereabouts.
“Ah… Woo-rim-ssi… Our Da-hoon got arrested.”
“Arrested?”
“With all the chaos over tax evasion lately… He was already drowning in debt, and while they were investigating the source of some funds from a cash trade, it all unraveled…”
Turns out, Jung Da-hoon had racked up debt during his election campaign. Lately, he’d been preparing for trial and made a cash transaction with another user to cover the lawyer fees.
But cash trades don’t show up in the system, making it impossible to verify the origin of the money. That got him hauled in by the Fair Trade Committee for illegal activity, and now he was locked up in prison.
“That’s… really unfortunate.”
I offered my condolences as I casually pulled my mask back over my face—though I couldn’t quite keep my smirk from creeping up.
“So, yeah, that’s why I needed money. Da-hoon-ssi’s starving in there.”
“Starving? Don’t they serve food in prison?”
“Da-hoon-ssi’s a picky eater. He doesn’t eat onions, carrots, or seafood at all.”
“Ah, I see.”
I was about to walk past her when I stopped and turned around.
“When’s your boyfriend expected to be released?”
“He has to pay off all his debt. Until then, it’s forced labor.”
“That must be hard on you too, Bori-ssi.”
Her heart might’ve been heavy, but mine felt oddly at ease. That bought me at least a month.
***
Four days since returning from the trip, the castle was still crawling with a mix of truly bankrupt beggars and users pretending to be.
“Where’d you get those?”
“Looted the bags of the dead. Levi and Bada died of malnutrition after eating nothing but bland porridge.”
At that moment, I overheard two beggar users in rags who were trying to sell straw dolls.
The news that two rare-nicknamed players had died while attempting to survive in the jungle added a grim layer to the already bleak atmosphere.
I was about to move on without thinking much of it.
[!!! A Good Thief never backs down.]
“Hm?”
[The class quest, The Good Thief 2, has been activated.
With a good heart, you cannot sit idly by in the face of death.
Steal food from evil spirits and ghouls, and gift it to those kindhearted souls dying of hunger.
—Players on the verge of death who received your gift: (0/10)
—Upon success: ‘Theft’ skill proficiency will increase to Intermediate.]
‘Best option is to swipe ten loaves of bread from that rotten skeleton’s bakery…’
The problem was, with my low skill proficiency, I couldn’t steal duplicates of the same item.
‘Who qualifies as an evil spirit again?’
First, I went into the lowest-difficulty option: the Evil Skeleton’s Bakery.
– Clack clack, welcome~ This is the house of bread flavored by the sweat of exploited kind-hearted skeletons! Clack clack clack
‘Huh?’
While scanning the merchandise, something caught my eye. I casually made my way over and slipped it into my bag.
‘What’s this?’
[System]: You have stolen Thank-You-Always Barley Bread (10-loaf set).
It was a new item that hadn’t been there before. It must’ve been a bulk product tailored for this quest—probably added due to the increased spending power of the skeletons who’d gotten rich off robbing players.
After stealing it, I went around handing out the barley bread to users marked with the skeletal emergency light above their heads—those nearing death.
“Thank… thank you.”
“Hrk. I feel the blood flowing back…”
[Class quest The Good Thief 2 has been completed.
Reward
—Good Influence +10 (Your facial impression improves thanks to the Good Influence effect.)
—‘Theft’ skill proficiency: Intermediate]
“Leveled up way too easily.”
I got lucky. Intermediate skill proficiency was something you could only grind up little by little through labor or by completing rare special quests.
Thanks to me playing the role of a benevolent thief with stolen goods, more food donors started to appear. Then, with the introduction of advance pay for labor jobs, the city gradually began to recover about a week later.
The law firm I’d used not long ago had now expanded into accounting services as well.
The skeletons, who’d sucked the lifeblood out of the users, had gotten so wealthy they now needed accountants for year-end tax filings.
“One spicy chewy noodles and a stone-grill BBQ camping set, please.”
“That’ll be eighty thousand won.”
I shelled out a hefty sum for a samgyeopsal camping set. Then I made my way to the prison. Today marked exactly one week since Jung Da-hoon’s imprisonment.
“I’m just so mad. Jung Da-hoon’s the kind of guy who doesn’t even understand gratitude. I’m done caring about that man. He can eat gruel with pigs at the labor camp for all I care.”
That was from a few days ago. Bori Noona had scraped together what little money she earned selling junk to buy him ramen and a triangle kimbap, then visited him. But he complained the ramen was soggy and shoved the tray back at her.
“If someone’s been locked up in a dark prison cell for over ten days without doing anything, they’re bound to get cranky.”
“He’s always been a picky eater—like, absurdly. But seriously, does he even have the right to be picky at this point?”
Since then, the two had apparently been stuck in a cold war.
Reflecting on my conversation with Bori Noona, I purchased the popular spicy noodles and the BBQ camping set at Central Plaza and submitted a visitation request at the prison.
Following the prison guide, I walked through the long underground hallway of the jail. Jung Da-hoon was in front of one of the solitary cells reserved for high-offense inmates.
He looked completely miserable—filthy, as if he hadn’t bathed once while being worked to death over the past week.
“Jung Da-hoon-ssi?”
“…What is it?”
His voice came through gritted teeth from behind the bars. I crouched down to meet his eye level.
“I asked you what you want.”
Without another word, I slid the packed noodles container through the bars.
“Eat.”
“What’s this setup supposed to be?”
“I heard you weren’t eating properly, so I came.”
“What if it’s poisoned?”
“If it were, I’d be joining you in this damp little prison cell, wouldn’t I?”
Not a single word about refusing to eat.
Without delay, I pulled out the next item—the stone-grill BBQ camping set.
It couldn’t be passed through the bars, so I laid it out right in front of the cell and started grilling the meat myself.
“……Did Bori-ssi send you?”
“Nope. Bought it with my own money, one hundred percent. Now eat. The noodles are gonna get soggy.”
Though his face still looked suspicious, he took a bite of the spicy noodles.
Then, like a blind man seeing light for the first time, he practically inhaled the rest.
Meanwhile, the raw meat on the grill sizzled as it cooked. I tossed on some garlic and asparagus for good measure.
“…Why are you being nice to me?”
“Gotta eat properly if you want to live.”
I handed him a few small bottles of sauce, and he set up a neat little arrangement.
He placed a piece of grilled meat on a mound of white rice and held it out. He received it without hesitation.
And then, fat teardrops began to roll from Jung Da-hoon’s eyes.
“I don’t even know how my life ended up like this…”
