I faced the system, brimming with anticipation.
The qualification quest for a Constellation, which felt similar to a hidden quest, was to satisfy Altun with food.
The reward was the unlocking of a hidden ability in the Coin Shop.
Had I benefited much from the Coin Shop up to now? Honestly, yes, quite a bit.
Although I’d never really used the Coin Shop properly since the Constellations had been so generous with gifts, I still turned to it whenever I was short on skills or mana.
And besides that, I’d also extended my life by purchasing elixirs from the Coin Shop.
From the perspective of an ordinary human, I truly understood just how overpowered the Coin Shop was as an ability.
But to think there was a hidden function to that shop, and that I could now unlock it—
How could my heart not race?
I couldn’t help but wonder what new powers the Coin Shop would now reveal.
(Anonymous 1): Coin Shop? Did it have any special functions?
(God of Rain and Sunlight): Yeah, isn’t it just a place where you can buy more items and skills?
(Anonymous 1): That’s probably it. Come to think of it, the Coin Shop sells all sorts of things.
(Endless Waiting): If you just write someone’s name, there’s even an item that can kill them.
‘…They sell a De*th Note too?’
I had never seen anything like that, to be honest.
It seemed that unlocking the Coin Shop’s abilities would indeed allow me to buy all sorts of items I’d never even seen before.
[The Coin Shop has been upgraded!]
I opened the Coin Shop at once.
Scanning it carefully to see what had changed, I found, just as the Constellations had said, that all kinds of new things had been added.
Everything from ores not found on Earth to ingredients and skills.
The Meteor Strike, which Anonymous 1 had once sponsored me as a single-use skill, was there, and so was the [Instant Death] skill.
It was a skill that would kill anyone you touched, regardless of who they were.
And yes, they really did sell a De*th Note.
Of course, the price was so steep that you could save coins for a lifetime and never afford it, but just the fact that such an item existed sent shivers down my spine.
(Anonymous 1): Is that all there is?
(God of Rain and Sunlight): Hey, that’s still something. If you have enough coins, you can buy anything you want now.
(Father of Crops): True. If you have enough coins, you could be like a god. Not like us Constellations, but literally live as a god on Earth.
(Water Deity of Cheongha): That’s true.
At that moment—
[Premium Shop]
Just when I thought the expansion of the Coin Shop was complete, a new space appeared.
‘…What’s this?’
[Would you like to create your own shop?]
Upon entering the Premium Shop, a new status window popped up.
(Father of Crops): Hm, Jinwoo. The Coin Shop has chosen you.
‘Excuse me?’
(Father of Crops): Do you know what my and Yulian’s main sources of income are? Especially me, I’m not even really mentioned in my homeland anymore. So how do you think I manage to sponsor you?
(Last Blacksmith): I’m not really mentioned back in my homeland either.
‘Father of Crops, you sell crops. Last Blacksmith, you sell weapons.’
(Anonymous 1): We can’t just sell things willy-nilly. Well, technically we can, but the process is complicated—you have to get approval from the system, or wait for a Constellation at the auction house, stuff like that.
(Father of Crops): Exactly. Making your own shop and listing items like me or Yulian isn’t easy. In other words, you can now create your own private store within the Coin Shop, just like us.
‘…A personal shop?’
(Last Blacksmith): That’s right. Say Anonymous puts a skill up for auction or in the Coin Shop. They’d take a hefty fee. And you can’t just sell whatever you want, whenever you want. But if you have your own shop like us, there are barely any fees, and you can freely register whatever you want to sell, whenever you want.
‘…If that’s the case?’
(Father of Crops): You said you wanted to run a restaurant, right? You can open your own restaurant in the Coin Shop. The Constellations can buy and eat the food you register.
(Last Blacksmith): You can create a restaurant just for Constellations. If you collect enough coins that way, you could even become a Constellation yourself, or extend your life with elixirs.
(Anonymous 1): …So you can finally open that restaurant on Earth you always dreamed about.
“Haha, this is amazing.”
It really was a jackpot.
I registered my own shop. The name of the shop was…
[Kimbyeol Restaurant]
—Serving cuisine from the dimension known as Earth.
Kimbyeol Restaurant.
The name of the place where I would now sell food to the Constellations.
Just because I had my own shop didn’t mean my life would suddenly become a drama. I’d still travel as usual, play around with the Constellations.
But now, hope had entered my life in a dramatic way.
The Coin Shop had been upgraded, but I still had things to do.
Jinwoo toured around famous sightseeing spots in Chuncheon, like the Kim Yoo-jung Literature Village and Uiam Dam, taking in the sights.
Only when evening fell did the Chuncheon trip come to an end.
As I chose my next travel destination, I started cooking.
‘…Next time, I want to go somewhere like Gyeongju.’
(Returnee from the Demon Realm): Isn’t Gyeongju pretty far from Chuncheon? Even on the highway, it’s at least four hours.
Correct.
It’s pretty far. But now, I have plenty of time.
That means I can take things easy.
‘I’m thinking of looking around some places on the way to Gyeongju, maybe stop by Busan or Daegu. Then I’ll revisit places I want to see again.’
(Returnee from the Demon Realm): Hm, not a bad plan.
(Last Blacksmith): Didn’t you go all the way to Andong before? Sangho said it’s just a little further from there, so it shouldn’t be a problem.
I also planned to stop and rest in other regions on my way from Chuncheon to Gyeongju.
Having decided, I only needed to set off.
I enjoyed a simple dinner of kimchi fried rice and, the next morning, began driving right away.
Inside the camper van, the extra-dimensional space was separated from the driver’s seat.
Eric played with the spirits and Byul in my stead while I took the wheel and got on the highway.
Although I liked traveling on national roads, I also enjoyed the rush of new towns zipping by and the open stretches of the highway.
It’d be hard to read and respond to chat in real time, but that was just as true for the national roads, so there was no real issue.
And since the distance was quite far, there was really no reason not to take the highway.
(Returnee from the Demon Realm): By the way, does this camper van just look like an ordinary camper van to other people?
‘Yes.’
To our eyes, it looked flashy and extravagant, but to ordinary people, it just looked like the camper van I used to drive around.
It had license plates and was registered as a regular car.
The more I saw it, the more I realized it was a camper van with S-class, if not higher, specs.
Safe even in accidents, and with limitless extra-dimensional storage.
(Returnee from the Demon Realm): It’s true, the scenery on the highway is surprisingly fun to watch.
(Anonymous 1): It really is.
There were lots of mountain villages with little houses clustered together.
Every time I drove down the highway and entered a new city, the apartments looked quite impressive too.
(Anonymous 1): You’re not driving straight to Gyeongju, are you?
‘No, I’m planning to go to Andong.’
It was historically significant, and the last time I went with Sangho, we’d just eaten and gone back up to Seoul, so this time, I intended to really enjoy myself.
Just like Gyeongju, Andong also had plenty of traditional cultural sites.
I thought it would be fun for Byul to experience some history, a step beyond just playing around.
And Andong was also called the city of rivers, wasn’t it?
The Water Deity of Cheongha would surely enjoy it as well—I had factored that in a little, too.
Well, I suppose everywhere I’d visited so far had been either rivers or seas, so it wasn’t exactly a new thing, but you never know until you go.
I’d heard Woryeonggyo was beautiful, so I wanted to stop by, and maybe take in Hahoe Village while I was at it.
*****
Before heading to Gyeongju, Jinwoo cooked a large batch of food and registered it in his personal shop.
He started with kimchi fried rice, which was easy to make, then cooked and registered dozens of servings of Korean dishes like kimchi stew and soybean paste stew.
Taking the Constellations’ recommendations, he priced them rather expensively in coins, bit by bit.
(Father of Crops): You have to take advantage of scarcity. If you only sell a little bit of really delicious food, there’ll be a waiting line of Constellations, and later you can raise the price and they’ll still happily buy it.
(Anonymous 1): Yeah, been burned by that myself. For now, just put up a little Korean food, and later add some Western, Chinese, or Japanese food. You can charge more then.
(Water Deity of Cheongha): Even what you’re selling now is over 500 coins per dish, which is expensive…but if you keep selling in small amounts, you’ll be able to charge 1,000 coins and they’ll still eat it. That’s how tasty your descendant’s food is.
That’s the advice the Constellations gave me.
As Jinwoo finished registering products and continued driving, far away on another star, there was a Constellation browsing the Coin Shop.
An ordinary-grade Constellation who’d become one through cooking, ‘The Last Chef,’ happened to see Jinwoo’s shop.
The dishes at Kimbyeol Restaurant were foods he had never seen before.
He was someone who had made his name as the top chef on the H Continent, in a dimension reminiscent of medieval fantasy.
Serving as both hero and chef, he had worked as the Imperial Knights’ exclusive chef, eventually becoming a mage who could imbue his food with buffs and gaining widespread fame.
Thanks to his dishes and buffs, his continent had won a war, and he had become a Constellation in the end.
Like the Father of Crops or the Last Blacksmith, he was someone who had reached the pinnacle of his field as a human.
So when he discovered foods he’d never seen before, his heart beat faster.
‘Quite expensive.’
The portions looked large, but these were all new dishes to him.
Selling unproven food at a high price could mean three things: you’re confident in the taste, you’re a complete beginner, or you’re a con artist looking to scam some sucker.
The Last Chef was the type whose heart raced at the sight of new cuisine, so he bought Jinwoo’s dishes.
There were four available: kimchi stew, soybean paste stew, kimchi fried rice, and a bowl of plain rice.
The plain rice was very cheap; the rest were expensive.
‘So you’re meant to mix the rice with the stew.’
He hadn’t been a Constellation for very long.
He had only recently learned of the community’s existence, so he hadn’t gathered much information about the food of other dimensions he loved.
Delighted at having new dishes to study, he examined Jinwoo’s food.
‘It certainly looks appetizing.’
He took a big bite of kimchi fried rice first.
Just from the looks of it, he thought it was a simple dish: a stir-fried mix of rice, fantasy-world seasonings, a vegetable dish called kimchi, and ham.
…But.
‘The taste is anything but simple.’
Far from simple, it was excellent—rich in umami, not greasy, with a strikingly flavorful aroma.
“Did he even use flame pepper?”
He knew how to use ingredients well.
He tried scooping rice into the kimchi stew and soybean paste stew and tasted them.
A savory, addictive flavor, salty and spicy enough to keep you coming back for more.
Though the two stews had opposite flavors, they both made him want to keep eating.
They were truly impressive dishes.
‘…Ha, unbelievable.’
There wasn’t a single weak point in the food.
Everything was perfectly balanced—not too salty, not too bland, and not greasy at all.
‘How did he make food like this?’
He was genuinely curious.
How on earth had someone made food like this? And where did he find such ingredients?
He chewed the kimchi and smiled wryly.
It was his first time tasting such an ingredient, and it was just too delicious.
Curious about the Constellation who made these dishes, he browsed the community.
(The Last Chef): Who is the owner of Kimbyeol Restaurant? I’d like to meet them.