Chapter 2
“Oh my gosh. What is this…?”
Baek Seol couldn’t even think straight as system messages kept appearing one after another in front of her.
<System: Dungeon Bakery will now belong to its owner, Baek Seol.>
<System: With the appearance of owner Baek Seol, the seal on ‘The Staff of the World ???’ has been released.>
<System: The Dungeon Bakery system is being configured according to its owner, Baek Seol’s personality. This process will take some time…… (Configuring)……>
Mom. I think I’m dreaming.
Thinking of her mother, who had passed away when she was young, Baek Seol pinched her own cheek as hard as she could.
“Ouch!”
Her cheek stung, and that little bit of pain told her this probably wasn’t a dream.
She wiped away the tiny tears with her sleeve, but then suddenly froze in fear.
“Then… does that mean I’m the owner of this place?”
But didn’t this place already have a landlord?
Baek Seol had spent her whole life as a timid, ordinary person, barely getting by like a slave. So suddenly becoming an Awakened and the owner of an entire building didn’t feel exciting at all.
If anything, it was terrifying.
“Then… what happens to the landlord?”
The real estate agent suddenly came to mind.
‘I should go ask the real estate agent first!’
Ignoring the system messages that were still appearing in front of her, Baek Seol quickly rushed out of the bakery.
“Wait a minute—!”
She thought she heard someone calling after her from inside the bakery, but Baek Seol assumed she was imagining things. When she had looked around the shop earlier, there had been no one else there.
She ran without stopping until she reached the place where the real estate office had been.
Then she blinked several times at the unbelievable sight in front of her.
“W-What…?”
There had definitely been a real estate office here just a little while ago.
“Where did it go? Am I in the wrong place?”
The real estate office was gone.
Baek Seol hurriedly looked around.
This was definitely the right place. It was next to a utility pole covered in tutoring flyers, right in front of a tiny convenience store.
“Excuse me, have you seen the real estate office around here?”
She stopped an elderly man passing by and asked.
The old man pointed somewhere with his finger.
“Huh? The real estate office? There’s never been one here. All the real estate offices around here went out of business ages ago. Because of that dungeon.”
The place he pointed at was where Baek Seol had awakened—and where the ‘Dungeon of Beginnings’ was located.
Twenty-seven years ago, a strange distortion in space suddenly appeared on Earth.
People called that day the Great Cataclysm.
From that day onward, people stopped using the old calendar and started counting the years as “Cataclysm Year 0,” “Cataclysm Year 1,” and so on.
At the same time, strange places that appeared after swallowing up parts of space began appearing around the world.
Humans called them dungeons.
And the ‘Dungeon of Beginnings’ was, surprisingly, the very first dungeon to appear on Earth just before the Great Cataclysm.
Yet even after all these years, no one had managed to find its entrance.
Because its entrance could never be found, the ‘Dungeon of Beginnings’ had long since faded from public attention.
Even from Baek Seol’s memory.
‘I didn’t notice it earlier, but the Dungeon of Beginnings really was right next to the bakery.’
After wandering around for quite a while and failing to find the real estate office, Baek Seol finally returned.
She glanced toward the area beside the bakery.
Not far away was an empty lot with a strange atmosphere.
That was supposedly where the ‘Dungeon of Beginnings’ was located.
There was no entrance, and its danger level was said to be almost zero.
Still, the place gave her an uneasy feeling.
“What on earth is going on…?”
Looking completely lost, Baek Seol opened the bakery door.
And immediately got hit with a scolding.
“How could you just run off like that?! What good is escaping from the seal if there’s no one around to look after me?!”
“Huh…?”
“Do you know how hard it was to hide all this time?! I was so happy that I could finally talk to you!”
Flap, flap!
The moment she opened the door, a tiny white bundle flew right up to her face and started yelling at her.
It wasn’t exactly scary, though.
It was way too small for that.
“A… bird?”
The little white bundle flapping its wings and squawking angrily right in front of her was definitely a bird.
And it was incredibly…
“Cute!”
It was so cute and adorable that Baek Seol completely forgot about how confusing her situation was.
‘I’ve seen this bird before.’
What was it called again?
Oh, right.
A Java sparrow!
That’s what it was!
It had a small, round body covered in white feathers and shiny black eyes that looked like little beads.
It kept squawking angrily, but even that was adorable.
“Wait. How can a bird talk?”
“I’m not a bird!”
The bird insisted that it wasn’t a bird.
Naturally, Baek Seol didn’t believe it.
But the bird continued to insist.
“I am the Staff of the World, the guardian of □□□□□, and □□□□□… □□□□□…!”
Strangely enough, the bird was saying something she couldn’t understand.
The only words she could make out were “Staff of the World.”
Those were the same words she had seen in the system message earlier.
“The Staff of the World?”
“That’s right! I was originally a staff that guides the world, but from now on, I’ve decided to guide the owner of the Dungeon Bakery instead. You should feel honored!”
The bird that called itself the Staff of the World stopped flapping its wings and landed on the table.
It puffed out its tiny chest proudly.
But it was so cute that Baek Seol nearly got a nosebleed.
‘No, wait. This isn’t the time for that.’
She had almost forgotten what she was supposed to be doing because she was so distracted by the adorable little bird.
“Where’s the owner’s contact information…?”
Baek Seol figured the landlord’s contact information had to be somewhere in the shop, so she began looking around.
And then, right at that moment—
<System: The Dungeon Bakery system has finished configuring itself according to its owner, Baek Seol’s personality.>
The system message flashed brightly, announcing its completion.
As if it had seen the message too, the bird spoke.
“Finally, it’s finished. The system took longer than usual because the owner left.”
Was the system finished?
What was that supposed to mean?
Before Baek Seol could figure it out, a translucent window suddenly appeared in front of her.
It looked like something straight out of a tycoon game.
Several tabs appeared on the screen.
“Hmm. Looks like the system really took your personality into consideration. What an interesting setup. Well, after seeing your reaction earlier, I was a little worried about you, human.”
While the little bird muttered to itself, Baek Seol felt strangely familiar with the whole thing.
That was because she loved tycoon games.
She played them all the time.
She even had several installed on her phone right now.
It was her hobby—something that gave her little moments of happiness and a small sense of accomplishment whenever life as a graduate student became too exhausting.
‘This looks like the quest window…’
‘And this one is for buying and selling items.’
‘Is this the crafting tab?’
The tabs were incredibly easy to understand.
A little exclamation mark kept growing and shrinking, drawing her attention to the quest window.
There was also a picture of a table with the word “Shop” written underneath it, so that one was obviously the purchase tab.
As a hardcore tycoon-game player, Baek Seol could say it with complete confidence.
‘Wow. This actually looks really fun!’
“Right now, the system has been arranged according to your current situation, but once you get used to it—”
“W-Wait.”
Oops.
She had almost started clicking through everything like she was actually playing a game.
Baek Seol stopped the bird’s endless explanation and slowly stepped backward.
“I can’t be the owner of this place.”
“…What?”
The little bird tilted its head.
Its tiny eyes seemed to say, What kind of nonsense are you talking about?
Baek Seol gave an awkward smile and scratched her cheek with her index finger.
“I only came here because I wanted to rent a place. And I’m busy with school too…”
She calmly explained her situation.
‘I’m just a miserable graduate student.’
‘I don’t have the money to run a bakery.’
‘Once I graduate, I’ll finally have the financial freedom to do something like this.’
‘So there’s no way I can be the owner right now!’
The bird delivered a heavy blow the moment she finished speaking.
“Did you already forget that you agreed to all the terms?”
“…!”
“There was also a clause about what you would have to do if you broke the contract.”
Baek Seol flinched.
Come to think of it, a message had appeared earlier saying that she had agreed to all the terms.
Did that include something about breaking the contract?
‘What kind of obligation was it…?’
The bird narrowed its eyes and rubbed its tiny wings together like a villain.
“If you break the contract—!”
“I-I have to break it?”
“You have to write your name one hundred times using your butt!”
“……!!”
What?!
Write her name with her butt one hundred times?!
Baek Seol immediately bent over and got into position.
That was easy.
The bird hurriedly spread its wings.
“Wait! I heard that writing your name with your butt is a very humiliating punishment for an adult woman like you! I definitely saw it on the internet!”
“Sorry, but I’m not human.”
“…Pip?!”
“Graduate students aren’t human.”
The bird was speechless for a moment.
But Baek Seol didn’t care.
She slowly started writing her name with her butt—
“Wait! Just hear me out! If you run this place, you could become incredibly rich!”
Rich…?
Baek Seol’s ears perked up.
“Rich” was a word she had desperately wanted to hear for as long as she could remember.
It was also the reason she had gone to graduate school in the first place.
‘But if I can just endure a little longer under Professor Kim Gyo…’
Kim Gyo.
That was the secret nickname her fellow students used for the professor she worked under.
Professor Kim Gyo was a world-renowned engineer.
If Baek Seol could graduate from graduate school under him, she would have no trouble getting a job at most major companies.
And if she was really lucky, she might even get into Dogjin Corporation, a company that had become a global powerhouse through its mana stone and potion businesses.
…Of course, graduation was incredibly difficult.
There were still tons of senior students who hadn’t managed to graduate yet.
The bird quickly shouted when it saw Baek Seol stop moving.
“I guarantee it! And you’ll own this entire building too!”
“You’ll already be a landlord!”
“Isn’t becoming a landlord your dream?”
“H-How did you know that…?”
“The system told me. Besides, if you become rich here, you can escape that terrifying place called graduate school that’s turning you into something less than human!”
“…!”
That was true.
If she became rich, there would be no reason for her to stay in graduate school.
After all, she had gone there because she wanted to become rich in the first place!
The ears of the practical, money-minded Baek Seol perked up.
If she owned the building, she could live and eat here for free…
And if she became rich, she wouldn’t have to stay in graduate school anymore.
“Just try it for one year,” the bird said. “You can decide what to do after that, right?”
It stretched out one wing.
It looked almost like it was offering her a handshake.
Baek Seol stared at the tiny wing for a moment.
“You already agreed to the contract, so you have to take responsibility somehow. Otherwise, you’d be a bad adult.”
“……”
The word responsibility made Baek Seol’s expression turn serious.
When she thought about it, she had already agreed to take responsibility, even if it hadn’t exactly been her choice.
She had been the one who pressed the Y button, after all.
Baek Seol knew better than most how heavy the word responsibility could be.
She had learned that from things that happened when she was young.
Even if she had basically been tricked into agreeing…
‘Ugh…’
Baek Seol gently took the bird’s wing between two fingers.
She gave it a small shake, like a handshake.
“…Fine. I’ll try it.”
“Just for one year.”
Yeah.
It wasn’t like she absolutely had to quit graduate school.
She could always take a leave of absence.
The moment Baek Seol made up her mind, the quest window suddenly flashed and appeared in front of her.
<Beginner’s Quest ①: Entering the Bakery>
You have just become the owner of the Dungeon Bakery!
Not sure what to do first?
Well, why don’t we start with some cleaning?
Bakery Cleanliness: 0/100
Reward: A bakery uniform made just for you
• Connection with ‘The Staff of the World ???’
• Beginner’s Quest ②
Yep.
Of course.
Every tycoon game started with cleaning.
As she watched the bird fly toward her carrying a cleaning apron and a triangular cap, Baek Seol gave an awkward smile.
Mom… I became a landlord.
She silently said it in her heart.
