Chapter 34: Finding a way out

Of course, I couldn’t find any food or ingredients, as befits a world where souls reside.

To be precise, there is a legendary fruit that can only be obtained in the spirit world, but they don’t know exactly where it is, so it’s virtually the same as not having it.

They say that if you eat it, you can live eternal life or something.

So if my plan failed, that’s not true either.

There was a way to get ingredients.

It’s to bring them from the real world, not the spirit world.

I thought it was a blessing in disguise when I heard that Kindred, not me, could cross over to the real world and bring them.

But if Kindred can freely cross the spirit and real worlds, I thought that she could take me out of this place, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

“I exist in both the spirit world and the real world, but you belong only to the real world, right? That’s why you need a soul bonding with someone who belongs to both worlds like me to go back.”

“Then if I can exist in the spirit world, does that mean I can walk between the two worlds as I please like you?”

“That’s right. But you wouldn’t want that, right? That’s because being officially part of the spirit world is the same as being dead.”

What, that’s scary, I don’t want to.

Dying to return to the real world, what a contradictory method.

It’s much more reasonable to work hard enough to raise Kindred’s likeability and return with all my limbs intact.

I thought that going to the real world after death was no different from being a ghost.

Kindred got the cooking ingredients in one way or another.

If you ask how she got all these ingredients, you lose.

I just hope she didn’t steal them from someone else’s store.

If she did… it’s a great pity for the store owner.

No, if death came and took something other than life, is it lucky?

Looking at the ingredients she roughly holding, I thought of a dish I could make here.

By the way, with the wolf and Ah… ri, is that right?

Something seems to have changed in her outfit and a lot of things?

Anyway, I decided to make tteokbokki (a popular Korean street food dish), which is good for many people to eat and doesn’t take too long.

In particular, I thought that this tteokbokki could give Kindred, who hasn’t felt much stimulation from her tongue so far, a new pleasure.

I roughly mixed syrup and a traditional Ionian sauce that tastes similar to gochujang, then added a secret powder-based sauce to make the seasoning mix. After that, I sliced the rice cakes into pieces just the right size for tteokbokki.

The rice cakes weren’t in the usual thin, long cylindrical shape, but once it was finished, it still turned out well—just like the tteokbokki you’d find at a Korean snack bar.

And the wolf, who had been running around with Ahri for a long time, stopped hunting (real) and came to me, attracted by the smell of the tteokbokki.

Thanks to this, Ahri, who is now relieved, has been stripped of her cloak and her clothes have been changed to a similar atmosphere to Kindred, is breathing roughly, collapsed on the ground.

Wait a minute, then does that mean that Ahri has died and become a being in the spirit world?

I prayed for Ahri’s soul in my heart.

“I’m not dead! Don’t kill a perfectly alive Vastaya!”

Oh dear.

It’s a pity… I mean, it’s a relief.

With this, Ahri won’t hear that she’s weak anywhere she goes.

That’s because she became one of the people who escaped from death, even though she was claimed she only did it half-heartedly..

It’s an achievement that you can be proud of while living your life with your chest out.

Let’s turn our attention to Mr. Wolf, who is drooling uncontrollably at the smell of tteokbokki, leaving the one who escaped death—now completely exhausted—off to the side for a while.

I clearly know that saliva is triggered by taste memory, so does that mean that he has eaten something spicy?

As soon as I handed him the tteokbokki, the wolf snatched it up and kept eating, even while breathing fire from his mouth.

The lamb politely refused at first, saying she was fine—but seeing the wolf like that? Not a chance.

I couldn’t tolerate the idea of wasting food, so I forcibly fed her a bite. She ended up taking a plate herself, saying it was better than she expected.

Are her taste cells dead so she can’t feel the pain?

The wolf is so spicy.

Ahri, who had now fully returned to her fox form, tried to dash over on all fours—but I had to stop her. If I fed her this, she’d probably sweat too much and die from dehydration.

She kept whining and trying to push past my hand to get closer, but I had no choice.

In the end, after promising that I would make it again later, Ahri sat down quietly far away with a gloomy expression.

While eating tteokbokki, I didn’t have anything to do, so I was just watching them eat, and the wolf, who had eaten all of his tteokbokki first, said that he was bored and asked the lamb to tell him a story.

I don’t know what story she will tell, but it was worth listening to just by the fact that it was a story Kindred was taking out.

Maybe it’s a story from a very long time ago that only they know.

“Once upon a time, there was a lonely man with a pale face and black hair.”

“Why is he lonely?” “Everyone avoided that man, even though it was an inevitable destiny to meet.”

“So what did that man do?” “He split himself in half with an ax.”

“To always be with a friend?” “Yeah. To always be with a friend so he wouldn’t be lonely anymore.”

After listening to all the stories, I felt a slightly ambiguous emotion.

It’s an ironic thing that even a being that is infinitely fearful from a human’s point of view lives with the same emotions as humans.

After finishing all the tteokbokki, Kindred said they’ve maxed out their likeability and can now take me back to the real world.

It kind of feels like I’m getting through this too easily, but hey—if it works, it works.

I’m worried that it won’t get dark because so much time has passed here than I thought.

Kindred grabbed me and muttered something, and suddenly an orange hole opened up in the floor.

In the hole was the scene of the street I was originally in, but strangely everything was stopped.

It seems that time in the real world has not flowed while being here.

Since all I had to do was go through the hole, I told Ahri to transform back into human form and said goodbye before jumping in.

As we passed through the hole, the street started moving again.

It’s like releasing the pause of a movie.

Okay!

Alright, let’s grab a place to stay first, and go out to enjoy the festival properly!

“Was there any gain, Lamb?” “Yeah. After all, that person experienced death somehow.”

“Then why did we meet that woman for the first time recently?” “She must have died in another place or died without knowing us.”

“Can we hunt that woman?” “Someday, when the time comes.”

“I want to hunt again because you said hunting.” “Just hold on a little, Wolf. You’ll be able to continue doing it in the future… until the day when only we Kindred are left.”

“Then will you run away from me too?”

“Don’t worry, my wolf… I will never run away.”

“Never.”