LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 8
“It’s damn hot….”
The man who got off the bike took off his helmet and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.
It’s hot and humid. The sun beating down is scorching.
It’s already September, but why is the weather so brutal?
It’s still as hot as summer during the day, and just riding around on this bike is enough to sap anyone’s energy.
“I’m so bored, so bored.”
I wonder if I’ll win the lottery or something.
The man sneakily pulled out the lottery ticket he had tucked away in his wallet, only to put it back in.
He didn’t really expect to win. The bigger the expectation, the greater the disappointment, after all.
If he got his hopes up too much, he might end up losing what he already had. He bought the lottery ticket out of routine, just to get through the week with a small glimmer of hope.
It felt like a kind of talisman.
“Let’s see, what floor is it….”
Another day just like any other.
The delivery man opened the bag on the back of the bike to check the destination of the food.
“5th floor… The doorbell is broken, please knock at the door. And… meet for card payment?”
Why is it that every time there’s a request like this, it never goes smoothly?
The delivery man muttered as he headed to the destination, hoping that the person who ordered wouldn’t be a nightmare who gets upset over a few knocks.
A relatively tidy one-room neighborhood. The delivery man headed towards a corner of the area.
Among similarly shaped buildings, the one where the customer lived.
“What the hell, the elevator is under maintenance….”
Starting off with a situation like this for the first delivery, it seemed like today was going to be unlucky.
The delivery man lifted the bag of food with one hand and slowly ascended the stairs.
Honestly, the fifth floor isn’t even high enough to call it a high-rise. But for some reason, he was sweating just from this light exercise due to the weather, and let out a small sigh.
Heat from the freshly prepared food seeped out through the gaps of the bag he held. Sneaking a side glance at its contents made him frown.
“That damn tteokbokki….”
Tteokbokki was the type of food he’d get at least once a day whenever he took a delivery. For him, tteokbokki was just that kind of thing.
Is it really that delicious? He found himself questioning it naturally.
Of course, he had eaten tteokbokki many times since he was a child. But he couldn’t understand why people would order delivery tteokbokki, which is quite pricey compared to the regular kind, so often.
He couldn’t understand why people ordered delivery tteokbokki to this extent.
It wasn’t like it flipped their world upside down with its incredible taste or anything.
‘Must be a woman, right?’
The delivery man was certain that the customer was highly likely to be female.
This was understandable, as most men, thinking along the same lines as him, wouldn’t bother ordering tteokbokki for delivery unless there was a massive discount at the store.
On the other hand, women generally had a tendency to prefer tteokbokki. Just look at his ex-girlfriend; every time they met, they headed straight for a tteokbokki or mala tang place.
Thoughts like “Why do people buy tteokbokki? The customer seems to be a woman. Why do women like tteokbokki?” swirled around his head for a while.
Before he knew it, he had arrived at the customer’s front door.
“Ahem.”
He took a moment to collect himself. It was time to knock and deliver the food to the customer.
Embarrassingly, the delivery man was quite introverted and was very cautious about knocking on someone else’s door.
Carefully, but just loud enough to be heard.
Knock knock—
Exactly two times.
After finishing his knock, the delivery man anxiously awaited a response from inside.
But five seconds passed, then ten seconds, and still, no sound came from within.
‘Of course.’
As expected, the customer did not show up with just one knock.
He took a deep breath and knocked again, this time with a little more force.
Knock knock knock—
He even added one more.
‘This should make them come out, right?’
But once again, his expectations were rudely ignored.
He had a hunch that today was going to be tough since the elevator was broken.
‘They’re testing my limits.’
Letting out a deep sigh, the delivery man knocked on the door again, clearly increasing the intensity this time.
Bang bang bang—!
A middle ground between a light knock and a heavy thud.
There was no way anyone could miss this. He didn’t know what the customer was doing inside, but it was ridiculous to think they couldn’t hear this noise unless they had stepped out.
‘I hope they don’t mind that I knocked hard.’
The delivery man recalled his past experiences with difficult customers as he fixed his gaze forward.
At that moment, the door swung open, and someone popped out.
It was definitely the customer he had been waiting for. The delivery man suppressed a slight annoyance and smiled, extending his hand to hand over the food before leaving—.
“Uh….”
He let out a faint sigh while pausing his movements.
The person who appeared when he opened the door was, as he expected, a woman.
But she was a woman.
“Ah, I’m so sorry! I couldn’t leave my post for a moment, hehehe…”
She smiled shyly, bowing her head slightly, and it was simply adorable. It was oddly cute that the back of her hair was slightly disheveled as if she hadn’t styled it.
Most importantly, she was beautiful. So beautiful it was hard to believe.
However, the delivery man sighed not just for that reason.
“Um, could you give me the tteokbokki? No, wait. I need to give you my card. Just a moment….”
The woman quickly disappeared behind the door again, and the delivery man finally seemed to come to his senses.
‘…What did I just see?’
The reason he reacted this way was partly because the customer was stunningly beautiful, but mainly because of her outfit.
Just a big white tee. A boxy t-shirt that was oversized enough to cover her upper body and go down to her thighs.
No problem up to that point.
However, when the delivery man recalled what he briefly saw, it was clear that she was wearing… nothing underneath-.
“Ugh, I keep making you wait. I’m sorry. Do I just insert the card here?”
“Yes? Ah, yes…”
Until the woman inserted the card into the device he brought and handed him the tteokbokki, apologizing once more.
The delivery man couldn’t gather his thoughts.
When he finally came back to reality, he found himself on the first floor of the one-room building.
“Ha, ha, ha….”
The delivery man, like a fool, chuckled as he headed toward his bike.
Then he drove his bike without going to another store and sat on a nearby bench for a moment. It felt too dangerous to drive right now.
‘It’s like I’m under some spell.’
He felt strangely dazed. His face was flushed. It made him realize that adults weren’t just warning him about women for nothing.
‘I thought today would just be a bad day.’
Turns out it was a lucky day. He saw a beauty who made him forget about his ex-girlfriend entirely.
The delivery man sat on the bench for a few minutes, reminiscing about the recent memory.
*
*
*
“Ha, ha. Huh.”
Tears welled up and, without realizing it, he let out sounds.
It’s not a weird sound. Don’t get me wrong.
It’s just the sound of him eating tteokbokki.
Indeed, just as the introduction claimed about the hazy mind, it didn’t take long for the distinct red sauce to tease his taste buds.
“Ugh… why is it so good?”
Tears welling up, I couldn’t help but shovel in Tteokbokki after Tteokbokki.
It wasn’t because it was too spicy, of course. I just didn’t want to end up with an upset stomach from eating too quickly. Yeah, that’s it. You could call it a strategic retreat, I guess.
As I cooled my burning mouth with a cool drink, I organized my thoughts in my head.
Why on earth did I order Tteokbokki? I can barely handle spicy food and usually don’t even touch it.
There was only one reason. My body had changed.
Feeling the urge to eat something, I flipped through the delivery app, and out of nowhere, I suddenly craved Tteokbokki.
I knew how strange it sounded, but it was true. Just like cats rolling around in catnip, I felt instinctively drawn to it.
Tteokbokki, Mala Tang, giant macarons… By the time I realized my eyes were often wandering in that direction, it was already too late. Before I knew it, I had ordered a Tteokbokki set worth six thousand won.
I couldn’t help it; I needed to reach the minimum order amount. But still, it was quite a hefty expenditure. This was especially concerning since my bank account now had barely one million won left.
One million won.
It’s a lot, but not all that much when you consider the bills, and I couldn’t deny it was a worrying amount for living forward.
‘Rent and maintenance fees will eat up my money fast.’
Especially on days like today, when impulsive spending leads to unexpected expenses. With my body transformed and all sorts of costs piling up, spending this much on food was quite alarming.
But I also realized this was somewhat of an accident that happened because my body had changed. There was no way I could have predicted or prevented this.
Since ancient times, humans have been slaves to hormones, and now I was a slave to Tteokbokki, unable to turn it down… Well, that’s my situation.
“Noms.”
Tteokbokki was delicious. Enough for Camilla, who battles in the Abyss, to enjoy a satisfying meal.
Surprisingly, I could eat a lot considering my size. Thank goodness my taste buds hadn’t shrunk.
Anyway, that wasn’t the important part right now.
After this short yet intense meal, I declared solemnly, “I need to make money.”
At this rate, I’d run out of cash and starve to death.
But how? What could I do to earn money?
“Hmm…”
There were many ideas that came to mind, but there was only one thing I could do immediately and wanted to do.
Making money through what I’m best at—that was it.
“There’s only one option: Broadcasting.”
It was time to start broadcasting.