Ten Minutes At Borimdang

“What?”

Dong-hui had been picturing something along the lines of a truly magnificent luxury jewelry hall somewhere in the world. The condition that she could only designate a place she had actually been to left her at a complete loss.

“As if I’ve been to all that many places.”

A jeweler’s, on top of everything, was somewhere she had never so much as thought of setting foot in. When just getting through one day after another was hard enough, what occasion would she ever have had to go shopping at one?

Is it just not possible to activate a jeweler’s, then?

All at once every quest that had landed in front of her felt impossibly far off. Only this morning, with the alert chime going ding, ding, she had been swelling with hope that she might get to open a jeweler’s.

“What do I do…”

She was racking her brains for anywhere that might at least turn into money when ‘Borimdang’ surfaced out of nowhere, a place she had once made a delivery to back when she worked part-time at a restaurant.

“That’s right! I made a delivery to Borimdang!”

She had not gone there to buy gold, but a visit was a visit. The status window had attached no clause saying she had to have bought gold there, so she could surely open it up as an activated area without any trouble at all.

“I’ll open a jeweler’s as my activated area.”

A negative effect?

All of a sudden Dong-hui could not keep straight whether it had been Borimdang or Boramdang.

“Agh, uuugh! What do I do!”

Not even in the moments before a job interview had she felt pressure on this scale.

After a long stretch of tearing at her hair and agonizing, she suddenly snapped her head up and spoke in an anxious voice.

“Bo, rim…, dang?”

With every letter she spoke, her heart hammered like mad.

Please, please let it be right!

The instant the words were out, a notice reading ‘Loading’ came up on the status window, and an arrow spun round and round, clockwise. That went on for several minutes. Around the time Dong-hui’s patience ran out, the following words were etched onto the window, clear and precise.

Not even a 1, but 0.5 levels? Why? Was that not the exact trade name?

She fixed the blue status window with an anxious eye, all but glaring at it, but nothing about it changed. Her heart half excitement and half worry, she waited, and at last the altered status window unfolded itself in front of her.

“It worked!”

Dong-hui shot up out of her seat and shouted, both arms flung high in the air.

At last a jeweler’s had gone into her activated areas. Her activity radius coming out at 2.5 rather than 3 left her thoroughly uneasy, but the name had gone up on the list of places she could go, and for now that would do.

In that case, I’ve got to go see it!

Dong-hui checked that her Inventory was completely empty, then took up position before the front door still planted boldly against one wall of the room. Her heart was pounding so hard it might have come popping out of her mouth, and she clamped her lips shut.

— Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Today of all days the sound of the keypad rang out unusually loud. She was only going into her own room, and yet her mouth went bone dry, as though she were breaking in to steal something. At this rate she really was going to faint before she even reached the jeweler’s.

Strictly speaking, it might actually be stealing.

Steadying her breathing as best she could, Dong-hui threw the front door wide and stepped right into the studio.

The first sight to meet her eyes was the same as last time. Through the hazy fog, at the end of the short stretch of road, the convenience store blazed with bright light, and right beside it stood Borimdang under its faded purple sign.

— Thump. Thump.

It felt as though the sound of her hammering heart were climbing up her windpipe and echoing inside her skull.

What if it’s empty, what if the owner’s planted right there inside, what am I supposed to say then.

Even as Dong-hui trudged toward Borimdang, her head swam with tangled thoughts. The closer she came, the more clearly the goods displayed inside the glass wall came into view.

The precious metals in the display case were nothing like the designs in fashion among young people. As befitted an old shop, the case held no light, airy accessories, only pieces with a dignified, weighty character to them.

Gold bracelets as thick as fingers and necklaces with big fat gems set solidly into them; pearl necklace, bracelet and earring sets, every bead giving off a milky glow. Off to one side sat rows of jeweled rings in every color imaginable, blazing under the lights, the kind rich men’s wives would come out wearing on every finger.

And of course, say what you will, the very highlight of it all was…

“Gold toads!”¹

Gold toads, from ones the size of a pinky nail to ones boasting the size of a fist. The largest toad even had glittering gems set into its eyes.

Standing in front of the brightly lit Borimdang, Dong-hui pushed at the plate-glass door with her heart fluttering.

“Is anyone here?”

A little frightened now, she swept her eyes over the inside of the shop, the question coming out thin and drawn-out.

“Hey. I can see all of that. If you’re going to talk to yourself, at least do it where I can’t see it.”

Dong-hui snapped irritably at the letters set down at the very end, timid but perfectly legible.

She did not want it confirmed, every single time she came, that this was a space where no living thing but herself existed. That frightened her far too much.

The moment it heard Dong-hui’s voice, the status window sluggishly erased the letters. She glared until the last one was gone, then went back to looking slowly around the inside of Borimdang.

That was when it happened.

The words came like a bolt out of the blue, and Dong-hui’s voice rose of its own accord.

“What?”

“Hey!”

Dong-hui bellowed at it, but the status window had already switched into timer mode. Startled out of her browsing, she threw the display case open and swept necklaces and rings and gold pieces into her Inventory.

“The big ones, the big ones!”

Since the Inventory counted by number of items rather than by weight or volume, Dong-hui went busily for the big, chunky things, the necklaces and bracelets and gold toads, rather than the rings or earrings. It felt much like the looters who tear the doors off shops and sweep up whatever they can lay hands on when a riot breaks out in America.

Dong-hui swept up gold in a frenzy, checking the status window every few seconds. The time was draining away fast.

The line kept alternating with the blinking timer, piling onto Dong-hui’s anxiety.

Thanks perhaps to how fast she had moved, all 400 Inventory slots were filled with two minutes to spare.

“Ugh, hell, I can’t stop shaking.”

Even her breathing shook, so that her voice quavered like a goat’s as she spoke.

If she had had her way she would have taken more, but there was no room left in the Inventory, and she did not want to go running out at the last second either. Dong-hui checked one last time that the count was packed full at 400, then threw the glass door wide and came out.

Only when the cold air touched her face did her wildly bucking heart settle a little. When she turned to check inside the glass wall, the goods she had put into her Inventory were packing the display cases exactly as they had been at the start, just as at the convenience store.

“Awesome!”

A laugh came out of her all by itself.

“I’m rich, aren’t I?”

The jewel merchant reached the estate sooner than expected. He swaggered on about how he had happened to be passing nearby and how luckily the timing had worked out, while Butler Scrooge hurried him into the drawing room.

Even in front of the lord he kept his head stiffly up, gazing at Dong-hui at his leisure with an arrogant look on his face. The crease furrowing the fat between his brows said he was displeased at having been dragged out to an estate with nothing worth seeing.

The part oiled and combed to an exact two-to-eight², the thick dark-brown eyebrows the same shade as his hair, the greedy amber eyes glaring out bright and round beneath heavy lids, the blunt nose, the thick lips: the man was the spitting image of the gold toad she had stolen out of Borimdang not long before.