Comic fantasy · Mystery
Hero, May I Have Your Receipt?
Saving the world still requires an expense report.
Junior accounts clerk Han So-geum hopes one final assignment will secure her a permanent job: settling the hero Leon’s expenses. But his holy-sword repair bill paid for a cooking pot. With Ttalkkak, a talking treasure chest that eats receipts to replay ten seconds of a transaction, she follows the suspicious clues hidden in his claims.
Explore Chapters 1–3 of both novels, with an illustration for each chapter. Full chapters are available in Korean; titles and introductions are in English.
Chapter 1
You Bought a Pot with the Holy Sword Repair Budget?
One cooking pot charged as sword repairs opens a much bigger accounting mystery.
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Chapter 2
The Dragon Charges a Reading Fee
The hero was paid once. The ledger records three payments.
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Chapter 3
A Receipt Gets Only Ten Seconds
One chance. Ten seconds. It is time to open the final receipt.
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Read an English excerpt from Chapter 1
So-geum smoothed out the creases and read the first line.
“Holy-sword repairs. Eight silver coins.”
“An essential expense for the campaign.”
“Which part did you repair?”
Leon lifted the pot’s handle.
As her gaze followed it, the handle lowered very, very slowly.
Silence settled for a moment.
“Could you show me the sword first?”
Leon propped the sheathed holy sword against the desk. Its handle was intact, and none of the decorations were missing. When he drew the part she pointed to, a flawless blade gleamed.
The pot was flawless, too. There was even a mark on the bottom where the price label had been peeled off.
“Sir.”
“Yes?”
“Which of these did you have repaired?”
This time, Leon kept his hands still.
“Well, the holy sword is iron, and the pot is iron…”
“Then I suppose you could buy a spoon with the armor budget.”
“That would be a rather expensive spoon.”
When So-geum put down her pen, Leon stopped smiling.
“Let’s start with the receipt.”
The paper he took from his pocket listed a general store, a date, and a total of eight silver coins. It had a serial number, too.
The item: one iron article.
So-geum tilted the receipt toward the light, then set it down.
“This doesn’t tell me whether you repaired a sword or bought a pot.”
“But it was essential. Dinner depended on it.”
“Whether you needed it and what you bought are two separate questions.”
Leon fidgeted with the rim of the pot. Watching his hand, So-geum reread the claim. There was no sign that the amount had been altered.
“You did actually pay eight coins?”
“Exactly. No change.”
“Now that’s my kind of transaction.”
The voice came from the corner of the desk.
So-geum turned toward the small treasure chest beside her pen holder. Its metal-rimmed lid stood open.
It had been asleep when she arrived that morning. She’d thought it was a paperweight.
“Enough about iron. Give me the paper.”
As Leon offered the receipt, So-geum intercepted it.
“One moment.”
The lid drooped halfway shut.
“I was about to eat that.”
“You’re Ttalkkak, right? Let me copy it first.”
On a fresh sheet, So-geum recorded the store, date, item, and amount. She checked the serial number twice, following each character with her finger.
Ttalkkak edged closer across the desk.
“Can I at least smell it while you copy?”
“Just don’t eat it.”
“A difficult condition.”
So-geum turned the copy toward Leon.
“If this is the original issued at the transaction, Ttalkkak can eat it and show us what happened. But the receipt will be gone.”
“How much can it show?”
“Ten seconds from the moment the deal was completed.”