Housekeeper in the dungeon

Episode 26

3. The Housekeeper in Wonderland

Kang jin-hyeon organized the situation familiarly.

He summoned all the people in the labor hall and divided them into three groups.

The first were those who had been forced into labor and were physically able-bodied, and the second were those with limited mobility.

The third were the traffickers who were watching them. The traffickers were tied up like oysters in a row.

After taking a head count, Kang led everyone to the dungeon gate.

The faces of the laborers were filled with joy and excitement at finally escaping the dungeon after months. The faces of the traffickers, on the other hand, were grim as shit.

Once out of the gate, things went crazy.

Police and media gathered, and Kang jin-hyeon, who rescued them, quickly became the center of attention.

Day after day, the media ran headlines with sensationalized words like undeclared dungeons, forced labor, and human trafficking.

“It’s complicated.

Hee-Na had a hectic time. She was interviewed by the police as a key witness at a human trafficking scene and quickly contacted her employer to explain her unintentional absence.

Because of their involvement with Kang jin-hyeon, the Blue Dragon Guild granted them three additional days of paid vacation without comment.

Meanwhile, the missing players were sent home after receiving medical treatment and a police investigation.

Hee-na waited outside the temporary headquarters for her brother. The headquarters was crowded with people like her, waiting for their missing family members.

Finally, a familiar head came into view. Hee-na waved her hands wildly and called out for Hee-won.

“Brother! Hee-won Lee! Hee-won Lee! Brother!”

Hee-won spotted Hee-na and came running over, his face gaunt, but his expression bright with freedom.

“You’ve been waiting a long time, haven’t you? You must be tired, so why didn’t you go home first?”

“No, I didn’t wait that long, and besides, you don’t know your way home, so we have to go together.”

“I’m not stupid, I don’t forget my home address just because I’ve been away for a few months!”

Hee-won’s ridiculousness made Hee-na glance at her brother. She resented him for acting like it was no big deal after everything he’d been through.

Annoyed, Hee-na blurted out to Hee-won.

“No. You don’t know my house. I’ve moved out.”

Hee-won looked puzzled at this.

“What do you mean, we still have a year and a half left on the lease?”

“That house, it got caught in the dungeon gate, and all but the ruins are gone.”

“What?”

Hee-won’s face, which had remained calm the entire time, stiffened.

He was Korean, after all, and he seemed to be more shocked by the fact that the house was gone than by the fact that he had been kidnapped and released.

“So, did we get compensated for our apartment? No, before that, where are you staying? When did this happen?”

Hee-Na put a finger to her lips to silence her brother’s incessant questioning.

“Shhh. I’ll explain everything later. First, let’s go to my house.”

“I thought you lost your house?”

“I took care of everything.”

“We still haven’t paid off the rental loan, so how did you borrow another loan? You didn’t take out a loan shark, did you, Hee-na?”

Hee-na was horrified that Hee-won was talking nonsense.

“Are you crazy? Do you think I’m the kind of person who would do something like that?”

The idea of Hee-na, the safest of the safest, taking out a loan was ridiculous.

She’d rather be homeless than take out a loan. It was safer that way. At least that’s what she thought.

After dragging Hee-won out into the open, she cautioned him.

“Brother, no matter what you see, don’t make any noise. You’re going to see a snail, and you can’t call it a bug, and you can’t hit it. This is very important. Remember again, you have to take care of the snail.”

Hee-na, afraid that her carefully decorated house would be covered in floral wallpaper again, warned Hee-won again and again.

Seeing her sister’s serious expression, Hee-won stammered.

“What do you mean, ‘snails’? Where is our house anyway?”

“Let’s go inside first.”

Hee-Na cast the skill Home Sweet Home. A front door appeared on top of the plain concrete wall.

Hee-won’s mouth dropped open at the magical scene.

“Come on in. Someone’s watching.”

Hee-na quickly opened the door and pulled her brother in. Hee-won was sucked into the wide-open door.

Hee-won’s first reaction upon entering Hee-na’s “home sweet home” was.

“What, what, what is this place?”

Hee-Na, being the good little sister she is, replied.

“It’s my house, big brother. So come in and sit down.”

She pushed Hee-won’s back and sat her down in the small room. The room, just over three square meters, seemed almost full as Hee-na and her brother sat down.

“Landlord, I condemn you! I condemn you!”

Amid the chaos, Oh Sae-yi crawled out of nowhere and pointed out Hee-na’s unauthorized stay.

He was a snail who cared so much about whether Hee-na, who was over twenty years old, stayed out or not.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Something came up and I fell into the dungeon and barely made it out.”

“?!”

The colorful snail’s antennae perked up at Hee-na’s reply. It seemed startled, and it looked like it was checking to see if she was hurt.

The tiny snail’s worried antennae made Hee-Na’s heart twitch.

“I’m fine, thank you for your concern.”

“The landlord’s limbs are fine. Thank God.”

During the tearful reunion with Oh, Hee-won poked her head in.

“The snail is talking like a system. Am I dreaming because I want to go home so badly? Hee-na, can you please explain the situation to me because I’m so confused?”

A door that appeared out of thin air, a tiny room inside that door, and a talking snail…….

The sequence of events left him genuinely bewildered.

“Must report the identity of visitors.”

Ouyang Yi also asked for the introduction of the new face.

Hee Na introduced them to each other, with a snail and a human on each side.

“Oh, this is my brother, he’s my real brother, his name is Lee Hee-won, and this cute snail’s name is Oh, he’s the manager of this house.”

Oh-saek greeted them with a flick of his antennae.

“Bang Bang Bang.”

Hee-won waved awkwardly at the tiny snail, which was the size of his fist.

“Uh, yeah. Hi, Oh Sack.”

Hee-won then turned to Hee-na, eagerly asking her to explain the whole situation to him. He looked very confused.

Hee-na spoke to him straightforwardly.

“I’ll explain everything now. First, ……, I’m awake.”

In response, Hee-won slapped his cheek.

“Am I still dreaming?”

* * *

It took quite a while to explain all the dynamic events that had unfolded over the past few months.

Starting with the when, how, and what led to her awakening, Hee-Na recounted how she came to have this house, how she joined the Blue Dragon Guild, and how she found her brother.

“That’s how I found my brother in that labor camp …… and how Hunter Kang jin-hyeon saved them.”

After she finished, Hee-na went to the refrigerator and poured herself a cup of bottled water.

“Kya, delicious!”

Was it because she found her brother, whom she had been worried about? The water was cool and tasted like honey.

“So you’re saying that this house was obtained with your skills?”

Hee-won asked, finding Hee-na’s explanation hard to believe.

He seemed more surprised by her “home sweet home” skill than by her awakening to the odd class of “housekeeper.

Hee-won, being a typical Korean, tended to attach a great deal of importance to home.

“You know. The ability to create a home is kind of strange.

People often compare building owners to gods and call them “God waterers,” so Hee-na acquired a skill similar to a divine miracle.

“It’s a small house, but it’s such an amazing skill to give me a house, I can’t even imagine!”

Hee-won’s comment about the narrowness of the house was met with a chuckle.

“Small space → lack of competence of the landlord.”

He pointed out that the skill wasn’t the problem, but Hee-na’s low skill rank, and then added

“You can expand your residence through self-improvement and charging later.”

“Huh? What does that mean?”

Hee-Na asked, puzzled.

“I thought the self-improvement part was about ranking up, but what does ‘billing’ mean?” I was stumped.

“Charging? Isn’t that a term for when you’re playing a game and it’s really bad?”

The snail clicked its antennae.

“Sort of.”

“So paying the system makes the house better? But how do you pay the system? Do you just throw money at it out of thin air?”

Hee-Na mumbled a question. The cute snail was all well and good, but she was being too brief.

Sometimes he forgets things he should teach me and doesn’t tell me.

While I was looking at Hsiao-hsiao inwardly, he began to explain.

“Charging = paying for a ‘slice of space’.”

“Paying for ‘Shards of Space’ will expand your residence.”

From what I understood, I realized that the charge didn’t mean paying money, but rather paying for something called a ‘space piece’.

But for everything I knew, there was another thing I didn’t know. And so the question marks kept coming like wieners.

“What’s a slice of space?”

When I asked him what a piece of space was, his antennae moved slowly in a circular motion. It seemed to be deep in thought.

“…… (searching for an appropriate description) …….”

It even added a parenthetical description of its state.