Chapter 37. Mobile Food Stall Restaurant Shelley Branch No. 2 (2)
“Is this where that mercenary is?”
Victoria asked as she stepped out of the truck.
Yukgap glanced at the map Doctor Mozg had given him and nodded.
“Yeah. The address is definitely right.”
“Hm.”
Victoria narrowed her eyes and stared at the place in front of them.
A rusted, faded sign hung above a tall wall.
She slowly read the words.
[Neulpureum Nursing Home]
“This is a nursing home.”
Victoria looked at the sign.
Yukgap groaned.
“Ugh. The address is right, though.”
The building at the address Doctor Mozg had given them was an ordinary, old nursing home on the outskirts of the city.
“Well, I suppose being a mercenary doesn’t mean you never grow old.”
Victoria stared beyond the nursing home walls.
Yukgap, however, remained suspicious.
“This is someone who stayed connected with Abraxas until the end. We can’t underestimate him.”
Even if it looked like an ordinary nursing home from the outside, there was no telling what kind of traps might be hidden inside.
If anything, Yukgap knew better than most that the more ordinary something looked, the more dangerous the secrets hidden beneath it could be.
“All right. Let’s begin.”
Victoria spoke tensely.
She took a deep breath.
Then she shouted dramatically,
“Transform!”
Ba-ba-ba-bam!
A loud trumpet fanfare suddenly blared behind her.
At the same time, colorful lights flashed, and clouds of multicolored smoke burst from Robert’s truck-shaped body.
With a series of loud clanks, a flashy signboard and folding tables emerged from the vehicle.
“Open for business! Restaurant Shelley Branch No. 2!”
Victoria threw one arm into the air and shouted.
Yukgap stared at her in silence.
“Do you really have to do that pose and shout that line?”
Victoria clicked her tongue.
“Tch. You have no sense of romance.”
“What kind of romance is that supposed to be?”
“You always need a signature pose and line before transforming! That’s one of the rules of the world!”
“What kind of garbage rule is that?”
Yukgap sighed and glanced at the food truck.
The dishes they planned to sell today had already been prepared.
Every single one had been carefully made by Victoria before they came here.
“I wonder if this will really work.”
“Trust me. No one will suspect us with this.”
Victoria sounded completely confident.
Yukgap looked at the prepared menu.
“I wonder if bungeoppang will actually sell well.”
Bungeoppang.
That was the main item they had chosen to sell today.
It was not too complicated or unusual, and almost anyone could enjoy it as a snack.
Victoria, who had chosen the menu, spoke proudly.
“You don’t understand. Bungeoppang is everywhere, and it’s popular everywhere. Nobody would find it suspicious even in some remote alley like this.”
Yukgap shrugged.
“But we’ve never made bungeoppang before. It actually takes a fair amount of work.”
“Hehehe. I knew you’d say that, so I prepared something.”
Victoria chuckled and snapped her fingers.
A bungeoppang mold slid out from the truck.
Golden fish-shaped pastries were already cooking inside.
But an oddly fishy and difficult-to-describe smell drifted from them.
Yukgap instinctively realized something was wrong.
“Don’t tell me you actually put real crucian carp inside the bungeoppang.”
“Of course not! What do you take me for?”
Victoria recoiled.
Then she removed one suspicious-looking pastry from the mold.
Proudly holding it out, she explained,
“I made the batter using slow-boiled crucian carp extract. I heard crucian carp juice is incredibly healthy.”
“...”
“And just in case, I made some with dog extract and goat soup too. These should definitely appeal to elderly people.”
As if proving her point, bungeoppang of all kinds of bizarre colors steamed inside the mold.
Every single one smelled horrifying.
Yukgap exploded.
“Why the hell would you make bread out of those things?! Are you insane?!”
Victoria looked confused.
“But Seryun told me elderly people love foods like these.”
“Did it never occur to you that listening to that bastard and making bread out of them was the problem in the first place?”
Victoria immediately snapped back.
“You don’t know that! How can you judge them before we’ve even sold any?”
“Who in their right mind would eat crucian carp juice bungeoppang?!”
“Maybe someone has unusual tastes!”
While they argued, the nursing home door suddenly opened.
A middle-aged woman stepped outside.
Judging by her clothes, she appeared to be a caregiver working there.
“Excuse me. What are you doing here?”
She looked at the two suspiciously.
Yukgap and Victoria immediately changed their expressions and hurriedly made excuses.
“Hahaha. It’s nothing. We’re just traveling bungeoppang sellers. We had a small disagreement over ingredients.”
“That’s right! We are absolutely, absolutely, absolutely not doing anything suspicious. Since we’ve met, would you like to try some bungeoppang made with crucian carp juice? It’s on the house.”
The caregiver sighed and shook her head.
“I’m sorry, but you can’t do business here.”
Yukgap and Victoria stared.
“W-Why?”
“Is there some law against selling bungeoppang near a nursing home?”
The caregiver calmly explained.
“No, but the residents here are in poor health, so they can’t just eat random snacks. Many of them have diabetes too. Outside food isn’t allowed.”
“Whaaaat?”
Victoria shouted in shock.
The caregiver hurriedly warned them.
“If the director sees you, there’ll be trouble. Please leave quickly.”
With that, she returned inside the nursing home.
Yukgap stared at the tightly closed door.
“We’re screwed.”
“What do we do now?”
Victoria muttered while looking at the slowly setting sun.
Their plan had been to sell bungeoppang here and naturally make contact with the mercenary.
But it had fallen apart before it even began.
The nursing home door remained firmly closed.
All their preparations had become meaningless.
“You stay here. I’ll sneak in after dark.”
Yukgap stared at the wall.
Victoria realized he had made a decision.
“What are you going to do?”
“The problem was trying to take the long way around when there was an easier method from the start.”
Yukgap gripped the dagger he always carried.
Its blade gleamed sharply.
Victoria looked alarmed.
“I thought you weren’t going to kill people anymore.”
“I’m only going to scare him a little. If he tells me what he knows, I won’t hurt him.”
Yukgap answered seriously.
He had carried out countless infiltration missions in the past.
Honestly, climbing over the nursing home wall and secretly approaching the target would be easy.
He had only tried to use a peaceful method because he wanted to avoid the extreme situations that would inevitably arise during an infiltration.
But now that option had failed.
This was the only method left.
“Excuse me.”
A strange voice suddenly interrupted.
Yukgap immediately turned toward it.
“Who’s there?”
Several elderly women wearing black hoods stood nearby.
The woman in front removed her hood and cautiously asked,
“I overheard you earlier. You said you were selling bungeoppang...?”
Victoria immediately rushed forward.
“Y-Yes! We have crucian carp juice bungeoppang that’s good for elderly people, dog-extract bungeoppang, and goat-soup bungeoppang!”
The old woman held out several crisp bills.
“I’ll pay. Pack all of it.”
“What? All of it?”
Neither of them had expected that.
The elderly woman clicked her tongue.
“The food at this nursing home is famous for being terrible. Everything is healthy, so it’s all bland. And they don’t allow outside food. Food stalls that occasionally come by like this are one of the few joys we have left.”
The other elderly women behind her immediately joined in.
“That’s right. I don’t even remember the last time I had proper bread.”
“They say it’s bad for our health and won’t let us eat anything!”
Apparently, a few residents had overheard their earlier conversation and secretly come outside to enjoy some rare snacks from beyond the nursing home.
The problem was that none of the bungeoppang they had brought could be considered normal.
“But they all taste strange...”
Yukgap trailed off weakly.
One of the old women smelled the dog-extract bungeoppang and suddenly burst into tears.
“Sniff! When I smelled this earlier, it brought tears to my eyes. It reminded me of Mongshil, the puppy I raised when I was a child.”
“I think the direction of that nostalgic memory might be a little off.”
What kind of childhood memory did dog-extract smell bring back?
Yukgap could not bring himself to ask.
“See! I told you elderly people would love them!”
Victoria, who had been criticized earlier, looked incredibly smug now that her menu was proving popular.
Yukgap reluctantly nodded.
“Yeah. I guess sometimes your ideas actually work.”
“A pioneer is always persecuted! Out of my great generosity, I’ll forgive your narrow-minded ignorance! Now hurry and serve my masterpiece to the customers!”
Victoria grinned from ear to ear, delighted that her special bungeoppang had finally been appreciated.
Apparently, simply proving that she had been right was enough to make her happy.
“Anyway, give us everything!”
“That’s right! We finally found some rare snacks. We can’t keep them all to ourselves!”
“We have plenty of money! We’ll pay whatever it costs!”
The elderly women eagerly demanded the bungeoppang.
Then Yukgap suddenly thought of something.
This was an opportunity.
He calmly said,
“I’ll give you everything for free.”
“All of it?”
The old woman looked at him in disbelief.
Yukgap made his offer.
“But in exchange, I have a favor to ask.”
