Ki, they’re making kimchi jjigae? Who? How?!
The ingredients for kimchi jjigae were absolutely impossible to find at a regular supply station. You’d have to go all the way to a Special Supply Station just to get chopped kimchi, small-packaged vegetables, or tofu — and he genuinely wondered if anyone would even bother spending Coins on something like that.
Besides, all the Special Supply Stations had already been shut down, so even if someone wanted the ingredients, there was no way to get them anymore.
Maybe it’s kimchi cup ramen? He found himself curious for no real reason and sniffed the air again.
No. This is absolutely not the kind of depth a cup of ramen could ever produce.
He was so drawn in that he nearly forgot he was in the middle of using his Stealth Skill. He hadn’t eaten dinner — he’d come out looking for Jeong Iseul’s team — and lunch had been nothing but two energy bars, so he couldn’t stop his appetite from surging.
Kim Seokju quietly followed the scent toward the entrance of the furniture department store.
Just then, a Werewolf came barreling out from inside the building, shoving past the other monsters.
Uuuooooh—!
The Werewolf let out a strange howl, tongue lolling out, shaking its head wildly and gagging in a bizarre, repetitive way as if it had absolutely no idea what to do with itself.
“I told you it was spicy. You guys can’t eat this stuff.”
Kim Seokju snapped to attention at the gruff voice of a young man coming from inside.
A voice he’d never heard before.
That’s not one of Iseul’s team members.
There was an unfamiliar someone inside the furniture department store.
Who on earth is that?
His curiosity about this person wasn’t just because of the kimchi jjigae.
It was a voice that showed not even the slightest hint of fear, despite all these Werewolves gathered around. Even now, the person was casually grumbling at these dangerous monsters — “You’re shedding fur everywhere, go stand over there” — completely at ease. Any normal Player would have been worried about being torn to shreds by the sheer number of monsters before they could even get a word out.
But the strange thing wasn’t just the young man inside.
The Werewolves were all acting strange, too.
The monsters that had appeared after the world was thrown into chaos seemed to operate by some set of rules all their own — their activity ranges and behavioral patterns were firmly fixed. The Werewolves were no different. And yet, for some reason, they had strayed far beyond their usual territory and were packed densely both inside and around this building.
As if they were trying to watch something inside the furniture department store.
Kim Seokju, utterly baffled by the abnormal situation, couldn’t afford to keep puzzling over it. The number of Werewolves crowding around the building entrance was only growing, and his Stealth Skill had only a few minutes left on the clock.
I don’t have time for this.
Reminding himself of his actual mission, Kim Seokju carefully slipped away from between the Werewolves. Fortunately, moving nimbly enough meant he didn’t accidentally bump into anything and give himself away.
With the dazed expression of someone under a spell, Kim Seokju passed the furniture department store and carefully made his way through the streets of the shopping complex.
It wasn’t long before he found a woman hiding inside a ruined storefront, peering vigilantly out through the window.
“Iseul——!”
He’d barely called her name aloud before he clapped a hand over his own mouth. Most of the Werewolves had drifted toward the furniture department store, so fortunately no monsters reacted to the sound.
Instead, the woman who had been watching out the window shot to her feet with wide, startled eyes. She couldn’t make out Kim Seokju’s Stealth Skill-cloaked form, but she caught the voice just fine.
“Seokju, oppa?!”
From beyond the broken window, Jeong Iseul’s small voice was unmistakably shaken.
Knowing Kim Seokju’s abilities well, Jeong Iseul quickly moved aside the furniture she had stacked up at the entrance. There was one other person inside with her, so clearing away the heavy-looking pieces didn’t take long.
The moment the entrance was opened, Kim Seokju dropped his Stealth Skill and stepped inside.
“What happened?! Why are you here, oppa?!”
“That’s exactly what I should be asking you.”
Kim Seokju let out a tired sigh at Jeong Iseul’s words and swept his gaze around the interior. Inside the rundown building with no electricity, there was only Jeong Iseul — a sword strapped to her back — and one male team member who looked to be in his early twenties, clutching a subspace bag tightly to his chest.
The two other members who had gone out with Jeong Iseul to secure food were nowhere to be seen.
“What happened to the other two?”
“That’s…”
Jeong Iseul averted her eyes with a troubled expression.
“Not long after we entered the shopping complex streets, we were ambushed by Werewolves. The sun hadn’t fully set yet, so we thought most of them would still be inside the buildings — but for some reason, they were all out in the streets. And then…”
Jeong Iseul hung her head, thinking back on the Werewolves that had behaved so differently from their usual patterns today.
Kim Seokju patted her shoulder to comfort her, his heart heavy.
“What happened to those two isn’t your fault. Don’t blame yourself.”
“…What are you talking about?”
Jeong Iseul lifted her head, and her eyes had gone cold enough to carry a glint of killing intent.
“They used us as bait and bolted. Of course it’s not my fault.”
“Ah….”
“On top of that, they ran off with the subspace bag that had all our food in it, so we’ve been surviving on nothing but water for now.”
Jeong Iseul’s face twisted into something fierce and wrathful. Beside her, the young male team member, who was clutching the bag with the drinking water, flinched and quietly edged away from her.
“Just wait until I get my hands on them. I’ll grind them to a powder like an energy bar.”
Both men recalled the sight of Jeong Iseul crushing energy bars with her bare hands out of sheer laziness, then dissolving the powder in water to drink. Their throats ran dry, and their legs went just a little weak.
“By the way — the streets are still the same out there, right?”
Jeong Iseul let out a sigh and pressed close to the window. The street ran in a straight line, so the view from the window wasn’t wide, but Kim Seokju could roughly guess what she meant by “still the same.”
“The Werewolves are packed so tightly in front of the furniture department store there’s barely room to step. Thanks to that, there aren’t really any wandering ones outside the street, but… I think we have to give up on getting through.”
“Haah… what is even happening here.”
Jeong Iseul ran her hands roughly through her straight hair that fell just around the shoulders and crouched down onto the floor. The young male team member, Woo Jaekyung, sank down beside her with a mournful look on his face.
“A-are we… going to make it back alive…?”
“Why are you worrying about something like that? They’ll scatter once daylight comes anyway.”
At Jeong Iseul’s nonchalant response, Woo Jaekyung went on in an anxious voice.
“B-but their behavior patterns are off…. We don’t even know why the monsters are gathered around that building like that…. What if they just keep staying like this — how are we supposed to get back…?”
“Speaking of which.”
It was Kim Seokju who cut in, interrupting Woo Jaekyung.
“I think there might be a Player inside that building.”
He said “might be” somewhat vaguely, but Kim Seokju was certain. There was a Player alive and well inside the furniture department store.
Jeong Iseul stared at him for a moment, then let out a hollow laugh and waved her hand dismissively.
“Come on, say something that makes sense. You’re telling me there’s a Player in there but the Werewolves are that quiet?”
Having hidden in this building herself and kept watch outside repeatedly, Jeong Iseul thought Kim Seokju’s claim was completely absurd.
Monsters instinctively bared their aggression the moment they spotted a Player, trying by any means necessary to kill them. They’d screech and roar, and some of them even let out spine-chilling laughing sounds.
Meaning — just by listening to the sounds a monster made, you could more or less tell whether it had spotted a Player or not.
Especially the Werewolves’ howling, which was so thunderously loud you had to worry about your eardrums.
And those monsters had been quiet all this time. There was no way anyone was inside the building they had surrounded.
“You know what I smelled when I was passing by in Stealth just a while ago?”
But Kim Seokju’s expression was more serious than it had ever been.
“Kimchi jjigae. And not just any — it smelled like Omori kimchi jjigae, the kind made with all the proper ingredients.”
“Ah… you said you worked part-time at a kimchi jjigae restaurant two years ago, right?”
Jeong Iseul responded absently, then let her face scrunch up a little.
“Wait, wait. Don’t tell me you think the Werewolves gathered because of the kimchi jjigae? If that’s what you’re saying, I’m actually going to lose it. I’ll flip the whole table.”
“How do you flip a table that doesn’t exist……. S-sorry……”
Woo Jaekyung, who had tried to chime in only to receive a sharp look, sank down dejectedly.
In the meantime, Kim Seokju spoke with a seriousness that matched his expression.
“The ingredients you can actually cook with only existed at the Special Supply Station. You know how dangerous it was around there, right? And if someone’s spending Coins on cooking ingredients, they’ve got to be someone with incredible skill.”
“Skilled or not, if there were a Player in there, the Werewolves wouldn’t be that calm! I mean, and what kind of lunatic cooks kimchi jjigae in front of monsters!”
That can’t be right.
Jeong Iseul snorted in disbelief.
Even so, Kim Seokju’s expression didn’t change.
“I thought that was strange too — but I think I understand it now.”
He had done a lot of thinking on his way here.
The smell of that extraordinary kimchi jjigae.
The calm, unhurried voice of a young man heard among the monsters.
The Werewolves that had gathered as if to watch something, and how unusually well-behaved they were.
Turning it all over in his mind, he’d managed to form a single hypothesis.
Not a wild fantasy — but a theory that made a fair amount of sense.
“I think there might be a Monster Tamer inside that building.”
A moment of silence fell.
Jeong Iseul froze with her eyes wide open, and Woo Jaekyung was opening and closing his mouth, completely at a loss for words.
They had heard rumors about it.
That somewhere in another zone, there was an extraordinary Player who had dominion over monsters and commanded them like servants.
Could it be… that Player was here?
“I’m thinking of making contact with that Player once day breaks.”
Kim Seokju glanced between Jeong Iseul, who was barely containing her shock, and Woo Jaekyung, who still wore a bewildered expression. His face was unmistakably resolute.
“We might be able to get out of this place — and join Eclipse.”
