Episode 62

Until I met Mun Seonhwa, the place had been packed and noisy, but by the time we’d cleared away what we’d eaten and came out, most of the crowd had already drained away, leaving it quiet.

When we entered the merch shop, goods were lined up across long Dura tables set up like display counters, and many of the items already had signs saying they were sold out. One side seemed to have been completely cleaned out, and the staff were tidying it up; someone hurried over and started talking to one of them, pointing at the merch that had been on display.

It wasn’t exactly empty, but with sold-out gaps here and there, there wasn’t all that much to look at. At least the plump Eunseo tribe body pillows hanging from a rack, stretched out long like silver cutlassfish, were funny enough to be worth seeing.

“They got wiped clean.”

At my mutter, Gang Jegyeong replied, “They really did,” while merely browsing the area with his eyes. Then he glided over to the table and picked up a pen. It was a black ballpoint pen, beautifully stamped in gold foil with the Via tribe pattern. He didn’t seem to have picked it up because he was interested; he just turned it this way and that with a face that looked utterly casual.

Unexpectedly, he didn’t seem interested in the merch at all. I’d secretly expected him to get excited over each item, chirping about how this was and how that was, so I felt a little disappointed.

Still holding the ballpoint pen, he looked around here and there, then abruptly spoke to me.

“Go Yeong, is there anything you want to buy?”

“……Not really? I just came to look around.”

“Then, as if you’re helping me get coupons, why don’t you pick out a few things? I’ll reverse-pickpocket you.”

After saying that, he curled his eyes and lips prettily and smiled. ……Do what?

I stood there blankly at the unexpected phrase, then asked a beat late.

“Do what?”

“Reverse-pickpocket you.”

As far as I knew, reverse-pickpocketing usually meant, in games, unilaterally gifting items or the like to a newbie or an acquaintance without asking or considering their opinion, then acting like it had nothing to do with you.

“Take something as a souvenir. Nothing they sell here is expensive, so don’t feel burdened.”

As he said that, he held out the ballpoint pen he was holding. As if even something like this would be fine.

……He wasn’t even saying he’d simply buy it for me; he said he’d reverse-pickpocket me. I’d never been reverse-pickpocketed in any game, but here I was, experiencing it in real life. His absurd choice of words made me laugh under my breath.

I lightly rolled the pen Gang Jegyeong handed me once in my hand and slowly nodded to show I understood. There wasn’t anything I particularly wanted, but he wasn’t the type to back down obediently just because I refused, and as Gang Jegyeong said, it didn’t seem bad to have at least one thing as a souvenir.

If I was going to receive something anyway, it would be best to choose something usable and easy to keep for a long time. A pen was safe enough, but ever since I dropped out of university, I rarely had any occasion to use writing utensils like this.

This one was on hold for now. I put the pen back where it had been and, with eyes trained from roaming fields, scanned the table in search of another suitable item. But everything was obviously decorative and nine times out of ten useless, so nothing really caught my eye. Mugs or tumblers looked the most usable, but I had plenty of those at home.

Since nothing on this table appealed to me aside from the pen, I moved to the table connected right beside it and found a pouch with the Dusk logo on it. A pouch roughly big enough to fit a single laptop. Seeing it made me think of the tablet that always rolled around on my bed or desk. It would be nice to put that in here…….

While I was turning the pouch this way and that with a not-bad look, pale fingers suddenly popped out in front of my eyes. Wondering what he was holding, I extended my hand, and a small lump of metal in clear packaging dropped onto my palm.

“Wouldn’t something like this be nice to take as a souvenir too?”

What Gang Jegyeong held out was a badge, a butterfly-shaped metal plate stylishly stamped with the Paladin class mark. Wow, they really made and sold all kinds of things. I muttered to myself as I fiddled with the packaging.

The badge’s dusky sunset-colored background was exactly like Dusk. The class icon itself was already famous for being pretty, so it probably would have sold well even if they had simply engraved the icon in silver on black, but they had put effort into every detail, from the colors to the concentration of the pearl sheen. People must have bought a lot of them, because badges for popular classes like Assassin and Priest were completely sold out.

It was definitely less practical than a pen or pouch, but something like this really did seem fine to buy and keep as a souvenir, just as he’d said. I liked the badge’s design too, but…… if someone who claimed to be attached to the Paladin class didn’t even have one of these, it would feel as if they weren’t sincere. That was part of it too. Zero Soft had probably aimed for that very thing.

After voluntarily rolling into the game company’s trap, I tugged on the cardigan of Gang Jegyeong, who was staring down at my face from right in front of me.

“Is there anything else? Let’s look around the other places too.”

But the surroundings had really been almost completely cleaned out.

Why does he keep telling me to buy more? I grumbled quietly, but for some reason, I couldn’t ignore Gang Jegyeong’s gaze, which even looked earnest. In the end, I lowered my head again and looked over the table just once more.

Even after checking every corner of the display, which had more empty spaces than filled ones, the only thing that caught my eye was the ballpoint pen I’d seen at first. Aside from ones stamped with race patterns, there were also pens engraved with the English names of game classes. Paladin, Crusader, Ignorer, Doctor. I couldn’t see it, probably because it had already sold out, but there must have been Priest too.

The design was decent enough, but since I didn’t use pens often, it didn’t really draw me in. If it had been a pen engraved with the Korean word for Paladin, maybe it would have been different, but the English word Paladin didn’t appeal to me that much.

“……Just the pouch and this.”

Gang Jegyeong, who took the items from me, glanced somewhere, then nodded with a face full of regret.

“If you see anything else you want to buy, tell me. I need the coupons anyway, so the more I buy, the better.”

As if he still had lingering regrets, he told me to keep looking around, left me by the next table, picked up a Doctor badge for himself from the display, and called over an event staff member nearby to ask whether any art books were left.

After a short wait, Gang Jegyeong received a large paper bag and an art book, then wore a satisfied expression as if he had never been disappointed.

While the staff member processed the payment with a card reader, Gang Jegyeong took out only the pouch and badge separately. Then he handed the pouch into my arms as I hovered beside him, slipped the badge neatly into the left pocket of my jersey, and, with an easy smile, went back to receive his card. He’d voluntarily let himself get fleeced, so what was he so happy about?

I was standing there blankly while waiting for Gang Jegyeong to return, but a staff member somehow realized he was Jaesugang and caught hold of him before he could come back. Judging from how the conversation went on after he accepted it instead of shaking them off, I guessed they would even ask for his autograph, and the other staff members nearby who had caught Gang Jegyeong’s voice seemed to be inching over too.

“Hmm…….”

I glanced at Gang Jegyeong, then put my hand in my pocket and crinkled the thick badge packaging. When I recalled Gang Jegyeong saying he would reverse-pickpocket me, the normally packaged badge suddenly felt like a tradeable game item that hadn’t been bound yet.

……Reverse-pickpocketing, huh.

I checked Gang Jegyeong’s direction once more, then approached the table. Right on cue, one of the staff members who was sorting through the remaining stock noticed me and kindly asked whether I was looking for anything.

As a rule, when people live together, if something comes, something ought to go in return. It just so happened that because our races were different, I hadn’t been able to give him even a single gift in-game……. It seemed the time had come to show him the true taste of reverse-pickpocketing in reality.

He said he needed coupons, didn’t he? I bent slightly, lowered my voice, and casually spoke to the staff member like an NPC issuing a quest.

“Please pack one of each item you have left in stock.”

“……Pardon?”

“Should I say it again?”

“Ah…… Ah, yes! No! No, please wait a moment.”

The staff member, who had ended up accepting the quest with a bewildered expression, hurriedly set down the box they had been organizing and tapped the person folding empty boxes beside them, asking for help. In that way, the number of people grew from two to three, then from three to four, and they roamed the merch shop, sweeping up one of each remaining item.

The merch the staff members diligently gathered began filling a paper bag the size of a sheet of drawing paper. Even though it was packed full and looked fairly heavy, when I tried lifting it myself, aside from the mug and body pillow, everything was light, so it wasn’t that heavy.

Worried that the price might come out lower than expected, I looked over the items, then eventually urged the staff member by asking how much it was.

“Does it go over five hundred?”

“Um, one moment, if we include this too…… Yes! It comes to 660,500 won.”

Still, it was higher than I expected. However…… I didn’t quite like the awkward number. Wouldn’t it be better to go over seventy rather than sixty-six? Would Gang Jegyeong feel burdened when he received the coupons later?

……But 660,000 won and 700,000 won were more or less the same, and if he was going to feel burdened anyway, wouldn’t it be better to receive a lot and feel burdened? After rationalizing it to myself, I looked at the price list set off to the side and racked my brain, trying to raise the total a little more.

Then, something that boasted one of the highest price points here caught my eye.

“This…… are all the white creature plushies gone?”