*
Vrooooom—
The tricycle went tearing down the path between the rice paddies.
‘My feet feel so light!’
Thanks to the 200% strength buff attached as an option, Geuru’s strength was 2(+4).
Once his Strength stat rose to 6, he could pedal longer and with more force.
When he pushed the speed to its limit, Uju, riding behind him, blankly hugged Geuru around the waist and gaped.
‘It’s fast……?!’
For a mere tricycle, it was incredibly fast. It felt like they were going about thirty kilometers per hour.
‘Is this that twenty-billion-won Oonamazu tricycle from the news article?’
Uju recalled the article about Geuru that he had carefully clipped.
The thought that he was riding a bicycle like that sent a thrilling excitement through him.
The wind made the children’s hair and clothes flap wildly. Mephisto was biting Geuru’s hair, enduring the headwind.
Put-put-put-put—
Just then, the village chief, who had been leisurely driving a cultivator, raised a hand in admiration.
“That’s one fine bicycle.”
“Hewwo!”
“H-Hello!”
Vrooooom—
The tricycle overtook the cultivator.
“Hohoho.”
The village chief was chuckling when the tricycle suddenly reversed its route and started coming back, making a question mark pop over his head.
“……?”
“Grandpa!”
“Yeah? What is it?”
“Where’s the convenience store?”
“Ain’t no convenience store here. There’s a supermarket past that rice field over there, a su-per-mar-ket.”
“Supermarket! Do they sell eggs there?”
“Eggs? Course they do. Go on that way.”
“Thank you!”
“Sure thing~”
Geuru and the others began racing again toward the place the village chief had pointed out.
Behind the children, the filming crew in a van hurried after them.
*
“Hewwo!”
“Hello, ma’am.”
The elderly supermarket owner looked over each of the greeting children in turn, then murmured in admiration.
“Kids these days are sure pale and pretty……”
After staring at the children as if they were fascinating, the supermarket owner fixed her gaze on Mephi atop Geuru’s head.
“That chick is nice and plump. Boil it up and it’d make two servings.”
“Ppi?!”
Mephi crossed both wings over its body.
‘Two servings?!’
Shocked at the same time, Geuru quickly put the trembling Mephi into his bag.
If he didn’t want Mephisto turned into a two-serving meal, he had to hide him inside the bag.
Feeling afraid of the supermarket owner, who was smacking her lips, Geuru said,
“G-Grandma! Eggs, please!”
“You’re buying eggs?”
“Yees!”
Geuru took out his quokka wallet.
As a nouveau riche, Geuru could buy something like eggs without batting an eye. After all, he had withdrawn a whole thirty thousand won in cash!
The supermarket owner took a carton of thirty eggs from the refrigerator and handed it over.
“All right, you kids can just give me three thousand won.”
Geuru pulled crumpled bills from his wallet.
After receiving three thousand-won bills, the supermarket owner patted Geuru on the head and gave him the eggs.
When Geuru took the eggs and staggered, Uju quickly took them into his own hands.
“Can you carry that?”
“Ah, yees!”
Thanks to Uju, Geuru’s hands were free, and he took a folding cart out of his bag.
“Is that what they call a magic item? Kids from Seoul sure have all sorts of things these days.”
In truth, even kids from Seoul couldn’t possibly have an item like this.
Starting with the price, it was something ordinary people would have a hard time getting their hands on.
The little items Geuru owned were all probably because he was an S-rank production type and could make them himself.
But Uju merely kept his mouth shut and did not bother correcting the supermarket owner’s misunderstanding, while Geuru simply grinned.
“Hehe!”
While Geuru unfolded the cart and attached it to the bicycle, Uju put the eggs inside it.
“My, what a pretty little baby, and even your bicycle is pretty.”
“……!”
Was this that moment again?
Just as Geuru was about to start rambling that this bicycle wasn’t only pretty, but even had a three-horsepower turbo booster engine and could transform, Uju quickly stopped him.
“Let’s go now. We left without telling anyone, so the adults will be worried.”
“Ah, okay. Got it.”
They were about to head back when it happened.
A chill!
Geuru’s head snapped up.
It felt as if cold water had been poured over him without warning.
At the sudden chill that crept in, Geuru looked left and right.
Uju also rubbed up and down his arms, which had somehow broken out in goosebumps.
“Something just felt chilly, didn’t it?”
“Uh-huh.”
Uju took off the shirt he had been wearing over his tee and put it on Geuru, then said,
“The sun’s about to set, so it must be getting cold.”
“Is that so?”
But it’s still so bright?
Just then, the supermarket owner, who had also felt the chill, rubbed her goosebump-covered arms and quietly muttered,
“The dotgabi must’ve appeared again……”
“Dotga?”
When Geuru asked back with a puzzled face, the supermarket owner waved her hand with a deliberately serious expression.
“Hurry on home. Your folks’ll be worrying.”
“Yees!”
“Yes, goodbye.”
“Goodbyee!”
Buuuuung—
The children got back on the bicycle and began speeding home like an arrow.
As the staff climbed into the van to chase after them, one of them whispered softly.
“Just now. Didn’t it really get cold for a second?”
“A chill? I felt it too.”
“It wasn’t that it got cold because it was getting dark, but more like a chill came and went for a moment……”
“Right, right. I got goosebumps all over for no reason.”
“T-Then what the village chief told us is real?!”
A brief silence fell among the staff.
Because while choosing the location, they had heard a story during the preliminary interview.
“Stop it. I really hate ghost stories.”
“T-They say if a ghost appears during filming, the show becomes a huge hit.”
“……Still.”
“……Yeah, if one really showed up, that’d be a bit much.”
“We’re leaving!”
“Y-Yes!”
The staff hurriedly climbed into the van.
*
The place Producer Hwang had secured for this variety show was a tiled-roof house located a little distance away from the village.
It had once been the owner’s parents’ home, and though they had passed away, he said he had continued to manage it well. As he had said, the tiled house was old, but clean and quiet.
Mountains that looked as though they had been painted in a single sweeping stroke spread across the front view, and in the modest vegetable garden, all kinds of crops were growing.
Chili peppers, lettuce, green onions, cucumbers, carrots, and more.
On top of that, there were chickens hurriedly brought in on one side, so it would not be difficult to secure protein either.
Since Clumsy Rural Vacation! had the concept of chaotic self-sufficiency, it was a place that suited a variety show filming location perfectly.
Of course, obstacles still existed for the cast.
After discovering that the wood was wet and the fire in the furnace would not catch properly, Kazuki and Iromi met each other’s eyes.
“I’ll go get some wood!”
Iromi sprang up energetically, then paused as she looked at Jurim, who was dozing off on the wooden platform.
‘Wow, Nayeon’s guildmaster really is the real deal.’
To put it nicely, she had no pretense. She was exactly the way she appeared in the media all this time, to the point that it was almost refreshing.
Even ordinary people had to manage their image in this world nowadays.
Was this, instead, the composure of the strong……?
Feeling oddly impressed, Iromi patted her aching lower back from having squatted for so long.
There had been no word at all from the children who had gone to get eggs.
The one she had considered the most reliable was merely baggage that only slept, and the only people actually trying to do something with some enthusiasm were Kazuki and Iromi.
‘Should I have turned this down when they said I had to go with this lineup?’
But unable to give up her curiosity about On Jurim and Amakusa Kazuki, as well as the buzz that would roll in even if those two merely sat there, she had walked into hell with her own two feet.
Swallowing her tears as she picked up firewood in the shed, Iromi straightened her back.
“Romi, you totally seem like the eldest daughter. You look like you’re suffering to feed your family.”
Producer Hwang came over and teased her.
“You seem to be having fun, Producer.”
“Do I?”
“A lot.”
“Well~ watching other people suffer is the most fun, after all~ Goodness, I’d love to help, but it’s such a shame that I can’t~”
“You’re bad, seriously. Totally bad.”
Iromi smiled gently and glanced to the side.
The producer, writers, and production team had all followed her over in a swarm.
She was used to having cameras and people stick to her like this, and yet.
‘It’s so annoying.’
She couldn’t pinpoint who it was, but among the crowd, there was an unpleasant gaze mixed in.