Thinking that the analysis results for Mark Two’s bodily fluid, Dokdoki’s poison, and the carrot I had sent through Yeongseong hyung might finally be ready, I stepped out of the dungeon.
A whole pile of notifications from the short time I’d been out of contact immediately appeared on my phone.
“What’s all this?”
My family were practically the only people who ever called me.
Even Yeongseong hyung in Yongsan didn’t contact me unless something came up, so I had no idea what was going on.
“Whoa!”
The first name to catch my eye was Kang Hanul, the Predator.
There were several missed calls from him, along with quite a few messages.
“W-what’s going on?
Why’s he been trying to reach me so many times?
Didn’t we just see each other yesterday?”
Another name that stood out was Yeongseong hyung.
Naturally, I thought he’d be contacting me about the analysis results, but that wasn’t it.
“He wants to know if I can get him some tomatoes privately?”
Were they really that delicious?
Of course, I’d tasted them myself and knew how good they were.
Still, the reaction he’d shown when he first tried one had been rather hard to read, so I was surprised.
Next, I checked Hanul’s messages, which began with a question.
—Hey, little brother, you busy?
—How about we grab a meal together sometime when you’re free?
—You wouldn’t happen to have any more tomatoes or carrots left, would you?
—If they’re for sale, I’d like to buy some.
He’d also sent a bunch of middle-aged-man jokes, comments about what had happened the previous day, and even a recipe for braised beef short ribs.
“Why’d he send me this?”
Once I skipped past the messages that made no sense to me, his main point was clear.
He wanted me to bring him more mana-infused produce.
“Hmm.”
I’d just finished harvesting the tomatoes, and the Leila would be ready before long.
He wasn’t asking for a handout, either.
Since he was willing to pay, it was worth thinking about.
“There’s certainly no downside to getting close to Kang Hanul.”
His personality was a little eccentric, but he didn’t seem like a bad person.
Besides, he was so famous in Awakened society that people were lining up for a chance to make his acquaintance.
“I should message Yeongseong hyung first…”
So he had fallen for the tomatoes too.
I could understand.
Even to me, they tasted like something from a completely different world compared with ordinary tomatoes.
I replied that I still had some tomatoes and would bring them over, then sent Hanul a message as well.
“Sorry…
for…
the late…
reply.
I have…
some Leila…
would that…
be okay?
No carrots…
but some…
tomatoes…
left.
Send.”
I used to be pretty quick at typing on a phone, but three years of living in a dungeon had left me hopelessly out of touch with civilization.
While I waited for their replies, I decided to browse the internet and catch up on what was happening outside.
“Oh?
It’s Ara Hongryeon.”
An article about the Ara Hongryeon Guild, which Kang Hanul belonged to, had appeared at just the right moment.
I clicked on it, only to discover that it wasn’t particularly good news.
—Ara Hongryeon Guild in Crisis!
Unable to Clear a Mere Grade 4 Dungeon?
“Hmm!”
Naturally, higher-grade dungeons were more dangerous.
When dungeons had first begun appearing in our world, Grade 4 had been considered top-tier, but now it fell somewhere in the middle.
“Now that’s unexpected.
I never thought Ara Hongryeon would fail to clear a Grade 4 dungeon.”
According to the article, an entirely new type of monster had appeared.
Its details hadn’t been made public, but the fact that an expedition personally led by Jeong Soyeon, one of Ara Hongryeon’s most prominent Awakened, had failed was significant.
—LOL, guess Ara Hongryeon’s washed up now.
—They only count as one of the five great guilds out of respect because they were the first guild founded.
Their true level’s finally starting to show.
—Man, Jeong Soyeon should just transfer to another guild.
The Terror Guild’s Awakened have been appearing on variety shows a lot lately.
Why doesn’t she join them?
└Whoa, it’d be huge if she joined the Terror Guild!
The comments were overwhelmingly negative, but there was a reason for that.
“Hmm…” This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
More and more guilds were springing up that tried to appeal to ordinary civilians, and their Awakened were beginning to appear frequently across various forms of media.
Ara Hongryeon and a handful of other guilds, however, remained focused on clearing dungeons.
The comments seemed to reflect that divide.
‘Ara Hongryeon especially.
Being the first guild in South Korea carries a certain symbolic weight.’
I had no way of knowing what its guild master, Han Seokjun, was really thinking.
But perhaps he wasn’t so much afraid of change as determined to uphold the traditions that had brought the guild this far.
“Hard to say who’s right, but I hope this works out for them.”
Muttering to myself, I moved on to other articles.
Most of those were related to the Awakened too.
“Park Su-ho’s dating Kim Hye-rin?
Wow, that’s big news.”
Gossip was always entertaining.
I’d once dreamed of becoming a celebrity Awakened myself, so reading articles like these brought a strange sense of satisfaction by proxy.
There was bitterness mixed in as well, of course, but those Awakened, who were practically celebrities now, seemed so far removed from my own life.
Ding!
While I was reading through the latest news, a reply came in.
It was from Yeongseong hyung.
—Can we meet right now?
I’ll come to you this time.
He sounded awfully rushed.
A reaction like that was enough to tell me that this probably had something to do with more than how the tomatoes tasted.
“Because they’re items?
Or because of their effects?”
Whatever the reason, we agreed to meet at a café near the entrance to Mount Obong, and I went back into the dungeon.
Seeing that the pile of tomatoes had shrunk even further in my absence reminded me just how powerful my little gluttons were.
“Don’t think I can bring that many.”
Come to think of it, I hadn’t asked how much he wanted.
If there weren’t enough, I could always give him more later.
I packed about two kilograms of cherry tomatoes and made my way to the café.
The distance was much shorter for me, but the slime dungeon was halfway up a mountain with no proper path.
Factoring in the hike down, we’d probably arrive around the same time.
“Wow, you’re already here?”
I’d thought I might make it first, but Yeongseong hyung was already seated inside the café, waiting for me.
“Sorry for calling you out so suddenly, Gyuseong.”
“Not at all.
I show up at your shop without warning all the time.”
As soon as I sat down, I pulled the tomatoes out of my bag.
Yeongseong hyung couldn’t take his eyes off my hands.
“It’s about two kilograms.
I wanted to bring you more, but I don’t have much available right now…”
“Gyuseong, are you growing these yourself?”
He spoke quietly, keeping his voice low enough that only I could hear.
There was hardly anyone else in the café, but he was still being careful.
“Something like that.”
“Something like that?”
“Yeah.”
“I see.”
He understood that I was deliberately being vague and gave a small nod.
“Oh, right.
Here are the samples and documents you left with me last time.
They even sent back about half of the carrot.”
“Thank you.”
“And the Ara Hongryeon Guild asked whether they could get more of this poison.
I held off on answering them.
Can you get any more?”
“The Ara Hongryeon Guild?”
Why was that guild suddenly coming up here?
Then again, Yeongseong hyung had seemed to know Kang Hanul pretty well.
Had he commissioned Ara Hongryeon to analyze the things I’d brought him?
“Oh, didn’t I tell you?
I used to work as a researcher at the Ara Hongryeon Guild.”
“Wow!
Seriously?
That’s the first I’ve heard of it!”
“I assumed you already knew.
Guess I never mentioned it.”
Because he ran a little shop in Yongsan, I’d never imagined he’d worked for Ara Hongryeon.
I should’ve caught on when he was always bragging about his connections.
“I can get more poison.
I don’t know how much, though.”
“You really have gone completely off the grid.”
“…I guess I have.
I’d never thought of myself that way, but once he called me a hermit, it actually felt true.
From crops to poison, I was producing all sorts of strange things.
What would turn up next?
‘With those random slime abilities, practically anything might be possible…’
While I drifted into thought, Yeongseong hyung nodded and said he’d let the guild know.
“Oh, hyung.
When I checked the message you sent, I noticed Kang Hanul had contacted me too.”
“That guy’s always sticking his nose into other people’s business.
Just humor him.”
They really did seem close.
Then I remembered something I’d been curious about ever since his first message.
“Mr.
Kang Hanul seemed to want these because they tasted good.
Did you like them that much too, hyung?
You didn’t really look all that impressed that day…”
“Hmm.”
Yeongseong hyung hesitated for a moment before speaking in a low voice.
“My wife’s sick.”
“What?
Your wife is sick?”
“Do you know Kim Siyeong?”
“Of course I know Awakened Kim Siyeong!
She’s from the Ara Hongryeon Guild…”
I trailed off and stared at him with a sudden suspicion.
“Wait.
Don’t tell me the wife you just mentioned is…”
“That’s right.
Siyeong is my wife.
And she’s very ill.”
“Ah…”
There was no way I wouldn’t know about her.
The incident had caused such an uproar that even ordinary people with no connection to the Awakened had heard about it.
It had involved a monster known as one of the Seven Deadly Sins, and even the dungeon itself bore the name of that sin.
‘Stinginess.’
It was a Grade 9 dungeon, one of the highest grades ever recorded.
It had also been a dungeon that drove countless Awakened to their deaths.
‘They’d managed to clear several Grade 9 dungeons and were riding high on confidence.
Then that one plunged them straight into despair.’
Public opinion was that the Seven Deadly Sins dungeons should be upgraded to Grade 10.
“I had no idea you were Awakened Kim Siyeong’s husband.
Is that why you wanted the tomatoes?
For your wife?”
“That’s right.”
So there was a story behind it.
Now I understood why Yeongseong hyung had been in such a hurry to come all the way here.
“Was she poisoned?”
“Yes.
And we still haven’t found an antidote.
We’ve spent years researching every possibility, but…”
Yeongseong hyung lowered his head with a grim expression.
Seeing him so despondent when he was normally so cheerful made my heart ache too.
“An antidote…”
Something suddenly occurred to me: the fruit and vegetable juice.
One of its listed effects had definitely been detoxification.
‘Though it was called Incomplete Fruit and Vegetable Juice, wasn’t it?’
Maybe it could help.
But to give him that help, I’d have to reveal my Liquid Synthesis ability.
He already seemed to suspect part of it, but still…
“Hyung.”
“Hmm?”
“You have an idea what my ability is, don’t you?”
Yeongseong hyung flinched at the sudden question, then nodded cautiously.
“It wasn’t too difficult to narrow down.
You were always bringing potions for me to sell.”
“Hyung, I think I might be able to use my ability to help you.”
“…What?”
It just so happened that I had half a carrot left.
That would be enough to make some fruit and vegetable juice.
And crops were still growing in my dungeon.
Tomatoes were the key ingredient for detoxification anyway, so I could harvest more and try making different combinations.
“Hyung, I think it’s my turn to help you now.”
“Gyuseong…”
Yeongseong hyung’s wife was practically my sister-in-law, wasn’t she?
One way or another, I was going to cure her.