## Chapter 120 – (11)
Things went much smoother than I had anticipated.
It was surprisingly just as Soi had said.
‘Even if you stay still, you’ll get a chance to be alone with her, you know?’
When I asked her out of curiosity, Soi just smiled and gave me a vague answer, saying it was a woman’s intuition.
If I had pressed her for details, she probably would have given me a more concrete answer, but I figured she had her reasons for not telling me, so I didn’t pry.
The important thing was that things were really working out as Soi had predicted.
I couldn’t believe Eun-jung had suggested it herself.
I had a hard time holding back my joy.
Eun-jung and I were assigned to the pharmacy.
The reason was simple.
The food team, responsible for securing provisions, was supposed to go to the shopping mall.
But the mall was now overrun by monsters after our last visit.
You could say it was their just desserts.
I felt a mix of bitterness and satisfaction.
Anyway, Soi and Jae-hoon could handle monsters with ease, so they were put in charge.
On the other hand, the pharmacy was likely occupied by incarnations of constellations, people.
The pharmacy seemed to be attracting quite a bit of attention.
“Fighting people might be tough for Jae-hoon.”
“…Jae-hoon is too kind.”
Eun-jung said with a bitter smile in response to my words.
We arrived near the pharmacy.
Suddenly, a flood of messages poured in.
[The owner of the Serpent Staff is furious and asks you to punish the thugs occupying the pharmacy.]
[The Goddess of Justice greets you warmly and desires justice for the villains occupying the pharmacy.]
[The owner of the Arena promises sponsorship if you win the battle.]
[…]
The messages from the constellations were so numerous they were obscuring my vision.
I had to block them temporarily.
It seemed to be a place that was already attracting a lot of attention.
‘The pharmacy, huh.’
I searched my memory.
But it was hard to recall.
If it was attracting this much attention so early on, it definitely would have been mentioned in the original story.
Why couldn’t I remember it?
Just in case, I set things up so I could pull out the jungle machete from my inventory at any moment.
Eun-jung looked worried, her lips pressed tightly together, at the attention from the many constellations that had appeared.
“What on earth is going on inside the pharmacy…”
“…”
This time, I couldn’t give her the answer.
Instead, I smiled at Eun-jung and said,
“Don’t worry. I’m here for you.”
I said it nonchalantly.
Surprisingly, after saying it a few times, I wasn’t that embarrassed to say it of my own volition.
On the contrary, I was starting to feel that the confidence of introducing myself as her “Oppa” wasn’t so bad.
I could see why some guys called themselves “Oppa.”
“Oppa, you’re being cheesy.”
Eun-jung giggled.
She used to make a face like she was disgusted.
Now she was reacting like it was funny.
She even called me “Oppa” once.
I warmed up a bit beforehand.
Whatever was going on, I’d deal with it quickly.
And— I had to raise Eun-jung’s favorability.
Feeling relaxed, we confidently entered the pharmacy.
It was called a pharmacy, but it was different from a typical neighborhood pharmacy.
It was located in a commercial district with a large shopping mall.
It was a pharmacy that occupied the entire first floor of a large building, big enough to be ranked among the top in such a place.
Moreover, the 2nd to 8th floors of this large building were all hospitals.
ENT, ophthalmology, dentistry, plastic surgery, orthopedics, and so on.
As a pharmacy that dispensed all the medications for these many hospitals, its size and scale were beyond imagination.
It even had four counters.
Two seemed to be for reception, one for payment, and one for dispensing medication.
Of course, it seemed to be used in a completely different way now.
“Some medicine, blood pressure medicine, please. My husband…”
“My child has a headache…”
“I… cough… I have a cold…”
As soon as we opened the door, we saw about three people.
We weren’t the only ones looking for medicine.
Several customers were approaching the counter and pleading.
But no matter how I looked at it, the man sitting at the counter didn’t look like a pharmacist.
Tattoos on his arms, a white short-sleeved shirt, and a bad posture.
“Ugh, more of them.”
Then the man slowly walked out from behind the counter.
He scratched his head, looking annoyed, and in his left hand was a sashimi knife, sharp enough to send shivers down your spine.
“Is the door broken? It keeps opening even when I lock it… oh?”
The man raised the knife, then widened his eyes as he spotted us, who had just entered.
Then he pointed the knife at one of us.
He was pointing at Eun-jung, who was next to me.
The man grinned.
“Hey, you, step aside. Oppa will take care of you later. You need medicine, right?”
Eun-jung’s expression instantly hardened.
“Oppa, my ass.”
“…”
Everyone seemed taken aback by her refreshing curse, and I was holding back a laugh, feeling satisfied.
That’s my girl.
Do you know how much I had to go through to hear her call me “Oppa”?
Who do you think you are?
“…You bitch.”
Suddenly, the man looked at the man next to him who was coughing.
His eyes gleamed with murderous intent, and his actions were sudden.
Stab.
“Kuaaaak!”
The man coughing had a knife plunged deep into his waist as if the thug was venting his anger.
Eun-jung’s eyes trembled.
Her body was shaking with anger, fear, and bewilderment.
She must have never seen such a sight before.
“…”
Without a word, I secretly took out a ring from my inventory and put it on my hand.
I used healing on the man who had collapsed, clutching his waist and screaming.
At least he wouldn’t die.
And I put my arm around Eun-jung’s shoulder.
“Calm down, it’s okay. I’m here for you.”
“Hoo… hoo… Yes, yes. Oppa…”
I was trying not to use healing or the inventory as much as possible because the constellations were watching, but looking at the situation, it seemed inevitable that I would attract their attention anyway.
Hearing the screams of the fallen man, several more men wearing gas masks emerged from inside the pharmacy.
None of them were pharmacists.
Seeing them each holding a kitchen knife, I could roughly guess which side they were on.
But, gas masks.
Could it be—
‘So they were here around this time.’
If I was right, these guys were the ones who would become a real pain in the ass around the middle of the story.
Even now, they had a considerable amount of skills and constellation blessings.
I could understand why they were attracting so much attention from the constellations.
“Hey, kill everyone except that girl.”
“Yes.”
The people who had been begging for medicine seemed to have lost strength in their legs because of those chilling words.
They collapsed to the floor and crawled towards me, towards the entrance.
And I, on the other hand, approached them.
Eun-jung said in a trembling voice.
“O, Oppa… don’t go.”
“…Do you trust Oppa?”
Eun-jung hesitated, then nodded heavily.
“…So you do have some pride, huh?”
The man with the sashimi knife said that.
I frowned.
“Ugh, why is he so unlikeable?”
“…”
“You’re as good as dead, yet you’re still running your mouth.”
My words hardened his expression.
And soon his face turned red.
“…When did this bastard get a knife?”
If there was one lesson I learned from having a half-baked possession by this villain, it was that sometimes you have to speak your mind to keep your sanity.
The guy’s face turned red at my words, and he was now flustered when he saw the jungle machete in my hand.
The same went for his subordinates next to him.
The subordinates raised their kitchen knives to subdue me after seeing the sword, but—
Swoosh!
I simply spun my body quickly and swung the sword.
I swung the sword so fast that the sound of it cutting through the air almost sounded like a whistle.
The sword, infused with inner energy and glowing red, cleanly bisected them without resistance.
It didn’t matter what skills they had or what blessings they received.
At least, not to me.
I swung the sword once more in the air to get rid of the blood.
It was a merciful death compared to what they had been doing.
But I didn’t want to waste any more time on them.
It was just annoying.
I went inside the pharmacy.
I opened the door that said “Preparation Room” and an unpleasant smell wafted out.
I pushed it away with my inner energy so that the toxicity wouldn’t enter my body.
Several men wearing gas masks turned to look at me.
With terrified expressions.
“We, we’re making it. It originally takes a long time to separate…”
“…?”
“Heeik… please don’t be angry…”
Could they possibly think I was their comrade?
…It must be because of my size.
An angry face, you say.
This is my default expression.
“I’m here to rescue you.”
“Re, really…?”
The men looked at me with fear.
Especially at the menacing jungle machete and my face.
But eventually, they seemed to decide to follow my words and slowly walked out, one or two at a time.
Then they screamed when they saw the guys lying on the floor, their bodies split in two.
At first, they screamed in surprise, but the sound that came after that.
It was a cheer.
“Serves you right!”
“You crazy bastards!”
It’s not easy to react like that to a corpse unless you’ve been holding it in for a while.
They must have been hated quite a bit.
Someone even kicked the corpse.
Come to think of it.
Everyone who came out of the preparation room had sharp wounds on their shoulders or arms.
I didn’t need to see who made those wounds.
“…Who are these people?”
Eun-jung, who had regained her senses, asked me.
“Huh? Oh, …drug offenders?”
“…It wasn’t our will.”
The men lowered their heads at my words.
