Food Truck Owner Inside the Dungeon

Dungeon Food Truck Owner – Chapter 16

It has been a month since I unexpectedly awakened.

During that time, Ji-eun pretended as if nothing had happened, waking up every morning to decide on the menu, prepare the ingredients, and carefully cook the food.

She didn’t realize it because she seemed happier than ever when she was cooking, but now, exactly a month later, Ji-eun was quite exhausted.

Was it because her body was tired? No.

When she first won the food truck contest, Ji-eun had considered opening early morning businesses, so she could handle the physical exhaustion.

The problem was that now she could only operate inside the dungeon, and despite preparing food with great care every day for a week, there had been no customers at all.

“Haa…”

On the one-month anniversary of her business, after returning from the last business hours in the dungeon, Ji-eun looked at the refrigerator filled with leftover ingredients and sadly closed the door, then slumped down.

Kneeling with her forehead resting on her knees, her face wasn’t visible, but Ji-eun was clearly on the verge of tears.

“……”

Approaching her and circling for a while, the black cat, Kamang, gently spoke up.

Shaking her head in response to Kamang’s words, Ji-eun couldn’t hide her upset feelings and began to choke up.

“What’s going on… I’ve been waking up every day at dawn and preparing hard, but why…?”

<…….>

At first, she operated for two hours, then one hour, and after more than two weeks, she changed the operating time to 30 minutes, pretending as if she was waiting for customers in countless dungeons.

Just a moment ago, she had returned from the last operation at the currently unexplored fifth-floor dungeon, [The Resting Place of the Corrupted Fire Spirit King].

The place was filled with ominous red flames that seemed to swallow everything, not ordinary fire, but black flames flickering throughout the field.

It had been 20 years since the gate opened, but no one had ever reached the fifth floor of the dungeon until now.

The boss monster was unknown, and nothing had been revealed about how to tackle it in this mysterious space.

But none of that mattered to Ji-eun, who was exhausted from the continuous failures.

“There are no customers! None this time either!!”

Entering the fifth-floor dungeon meant another failed business venture.

Yesterday, today, and maybe even tomorrow might be failures too!

Ji-Eun, who was struggling to catch her breath because of the anger that just wouldn’t cool down—even with the blower she bought at the Hunter Market during her first visit to the 5th floor in 20 years—kept venting all the frustrations she had been holding in. “I’ve never! Not once have I been able to reach the first or second floor!”

<…….>

“The same goes for the third floor. Why did they say that more than half of the areas are already explored, yet I always end up choosing unexplored dungeons? I’m really struggling; I’m exhausted.”

Every day, the ingredients were provided for free and would automatically disappear after midnight, but Ji-eun meticulously prepared each one, peeling, cutting, and going through every process without skipping any step.

With carefully prepared ingredients, she made delicious food, always preparing at least three different dishes, fearing that a visiting customer might not like just one menu.

Eventually, despite trying to hold back, tears quickly welled up in Ji-eun’s eyes and streamed down her cheeks.

Once the tears started, they continued to flow, expressing her sorrow without stopping.

“Running a business in a dungeon?”

<…….>

“I thought it wouldn’t be easy. I naturally expected there wouldn’t be many customers! But do you know why I prepared more than 30 servings every day?”

“Just in case a customer might come! What if too many customers came and I didn’t prepare enough? What if they were hungry after exploring the dungeon and I couldn’t meet the demand?!”

Pouring out her sorrowful feelings, Ji-eun began to sob even harder.

Wiping her endlessly flowing tears with the back of her hand, her eyes quickly became red and swollen.

“Kamang.”

“Did you think I was happy after awakening?”

<…….>

“I’ve never been happy. The awakening I didn’t want made entering the dungeon a huge challenge for me.”

Kamang didn’t respond. Hearing Ji-eun say she never wanted or was happy about her awakening, Kamang sat down on the counter floor, facing Ji-eun.

Seeing Kamang like that, Ji-eun wiped her tears again and continued speaking.

“But recently, I’ve been really happy. I found out that you can’t eat food inside the dungeon. For some reason, only dried fish, water, and potions are allowed in this world’s food.”

<…….>

“But I can make and sell food. Maybe because of my hidden class, I thought it was something only I could do, and from that moment, I felt a sense of responsibility and even an unintentional sense of mission.”

She learned this while browsing the Hunter bulletin board.

You couldn’t bring anything that could be called food into the dungeon.

Moreover, she found out that the ingredients to make food were also rejected for some unknown reason, leaving only terrible-tasting potions or dried goods barely consumable. When Ji-eun realized this, she was overjoyed.

“That means I can provide a very special help to others!”

At that moment, Ji-eun surely thought so. She was the only one who could make and sell food inside the dungeon because of her hidden class awakening.

It was a perfect blue ocean market that was practically a monopoly, but Ji-eun was so excited by the thought that she could make other people happy with delicious food rather than just making money that she jumped up and down and worked even harder to prepare food all day long.

And until now, she had been trying her best to make delicious dishes in that limited space.

She had strong wrist guards on both of her wrists that were numb from working too hard with the knife, and there were bandages all over his fingers that had been cut by the knife while he was preparing ingredients and scalding them in hot water.

While waiting for customers, she stood for so long that she often put pain relief patches on her ankles and calves, yet she always smiled, thinking someone would come.

“I thought about not relying on skills and either forming a party or going into the first floor of the dungeon alone, but that was impossible.”

Ji-eun’s level was 1.

Ji-Eun, who had just finished the tutorial, couldn’t enter the dungeon alone due to her significantly lower basic stats compared to other typical awakened ones.

Moreover, there was no way to form a party to enter the dungeon. Even if it was the first floor, there was no party willing to accept Ji-eun, a level 1 non-combat awakened.

“I wanted to hire someone with money to safely take me to a popular dungeon on the first or second floor, but in this world, it’s hard to find trustworthy people.”

There were people who targeted those who had just graduated from awakening training centers and had some money to lure them into parties.

It was common for them to extort Hunter Market points inside the dungeon through threats, and if that didn’t work, they would often end up killing each other.

While there might be some pure-hearted individuals in the world, countless horror stories vividly illustrated that there were many who were not, appearing on the Hunter bulletin board several times a day.

Although such incidents had almost disappeared now, Ji-eun had no means to defend herself, unlike the hunters.

The skill [This is a Bulletproof Truck!] only provided safety against monster attacks.

What if a party member suddenly turned on her after she hired them with Hunter Market points?

Even though she had a hidden class, Ji-eun had no ability to defend herself against humans. She would either have to comply with their demands or suffer something worse. In the worst-case scenario, she could even lose her life.

“If I say on the Hunter bulletin board that I can make and sell food inside the dungeon, who would believe me? And even if they did believe me, there’s no guarantee those people would leave me alone.”

There were countless ways to threaten Ji-eun, who was the sole seller of food in the dungeon.

As she thought about this, Ji-eun felt dizzy.

No matter how much of a hidden class she was, her combat power was close to zero, or perhaps even lower, and she had no way to defend herself.

After a month of holding back her frustrations without telling anyone, Kamang, who had silently listened to Ji-eun’s sorrows, lowered his head.

<…I’m sorry. I don’t have any comforting words.>

“Ugh…”

How much had she been suffering inside?

Seeing Ji-eun, who always showed a smile and never once expressed her struggles or exhaustion, now crying made Kamang droop his tail in despair.

Ji-eun picked up Kamang and hugged him tightly.

“Still, if I had been alone, I wouldn’t have lasted this month.”

“You played music for me every day, danced, and talked to me… That’s how I managed to get through it.”

It was nearly 11 PM.

After sitting there holding Kamang for a long time, Ji-eun suddenly stood up.

“I’m going to try operating until midnight. After all, it’s exactly one month since I started my business today.”

Every night, she would finish her operations ten minutes before the ingredients disappeared at midnight, come home, faint from exhaustion, and wake up sharply at 6 AM. It had already been a month.

Stretching with a cheerful face, Ji-eun smiled.

“I just have a good feeling about today. I’ve really pounded the pork for the tonkatsu well, and it would be a shame to let it disappear like this.”

“Just 50 more minutes. Let’s try serving customers one more time.”

As Ji-eun spoke, her eyes were still red from crying just moments ago, but with over an hour left, she insisted on entering the dungeon one last time. Kamang, seeing her determination, nodded helplessly.

With Kamang’s agreement, Ji-eun input the opening and closing times without hesitation.

The current time was 10:50 PM.

The closing time was, as always, 11:50 PM.

It was Ji-eun’s stubbornness to provide food to those exploring the dungeon, even if just a little longer.

“Don’t you have a good feeling about this?”

“Hey, why are we talking about luck stats again here?!”