14
At Ki Ja-hyeon’s words that he had bought a house, Yoon Se-hak’s eyes went round.
“Wh-What? Where did you buy one? When did you buy it? How much did it cost!!”
“That is personal information....”
This place was where people who had escaped Area 5 but were only barely hanging on in Area 4 stayed because they had no house.
The rent was not absurdly expensive, but it was not exactly cheap either, so maintaining it with ordinary earnings was not easy.
And in such a situation, he had saved money,
bought a house,
and was moving out?
From this antlion-pit-like rental housing!!
‘Was porter work that profitable? I-I live in rental housing too...!’
Of course, Yoon Se-hak was in the rental business.
But all of it belonged to the Scorpion Gang, not to him.
He was merely the boss’s subcontractor, and in the end, when all his work was done and he went home, he had to go sleep in one of the mediocre company residences provided by the Scorpion Gang.
But Ki Ja-hyeon only had a smile on his lips and did not seem inclined to answer him.
“Well, it just turned out that way.”
“......”
Yoon Se-hak also closed his mouth there.
It was not because he could not ask.
It was because digging further there would only come back to him as self-loathing.
Then he ground his teeth.
Fine. Leaving was fine. How could he stop someone who said he was leaving?
However, he had no intention of letting him leave quietly.
“When I came by last time, you know, you were using the house like a complete mess!”
“Oh dear, is that so?”
Saying that, Yoon Se-hak opened the iron door to Ki Ja-hyeon’s house with the master key however he pleased.
“Look at this. The creeeak...! sound....”
Swoosh~
“The sound...?”
“Hmm? What sound?”
Swoosh~
“Uh...?”
Swoosh, swoosh~
“Why isn’t it making any?”
Aside from that, Yoon Se-hak also tried to point out the leaking pipe, the old cherry molding, the flattened floor covering, and so on.
But every single thing he tried to point out....
“It looks new...?”
“Yes. Because it is new!”
“Huh...?”
That was right.
Over the past month, Ki Ja-hyeon had already finished preparing to leave this place.
He had fixed the old door, replaced the leaking pipe, and while he was at it, had even replaced all the wallpaper and flooring with new ones.
‘I knew you’d come out like this!’
“I-It must have cost a lot of money?”
“Come on, how much could a few things like that cost~”
“......”
In reality, it had cost less than the money from selling a single bottle of Elixir (True).
It was not good to raise his spending habits, but since the unit of his earnings had changed, would this much not be all right?
Just seeing Yoon Se-hak’s shit-chewing expression right before his eyes made that money feel well spent!
“No, I could’ve done that...!”
As if he would have.
He would have pocketed the construction fee and wiped his mouth clean.
“I thought it might bother you. I will not do that next time.”
Of course, there would be no next time.
Yoon Se-hak’s expression grew gloomy now that he had nothing to say.
“......”
Of course, even in this situation, there was a way to argue.
After all, restoring it to its original state did not mean making it new.
If he screamed that it had to be returned exactly to its previous condition, he could make Ki Ja-hyeon sufficiently flustered.
However,
“R-Right...!”
He could not.
The first reason was that it made him feel ashamed.
The second reason was....
***
A few days later,
Vroooooom~
On the road after stuffing all his belongings into the pickup truck,
Ki Ja-hyeon thought back to the final conversation he had had with Yoon Se-hak.
– Well, since you’re leaving anyway, live happily and well. Thanks for everything until now.
– Can you give me time to say goodbye to Thunder and Cloud? They’re fur-covered cockroaches, but I guess I got a little attached to them.
– Damn it... Are you really going? Is that how it is? The cherry tomatoes...are gone now, right? That is how it is, right?
– Fine, farewell! If someone asks me whether I know Ki Ja-hyeon, I’ll tell them you were the best tenant I knew! I’ll definitely tell them thaaaat!
“It was unexpected.”
How should he put it?
Yoon Se-hak had let him go without as much fuss as Ki Ja-hyeon expected?
Of course, Ki Ja-hyeon had paid him faithfully and offered cherry tomatoes, and strictly speaking, he had not done anything wrong, so if it was only natural, it was natural.
At the end, Yoon Se-hak had told him to contact him if he ever sold cherry tomatoes, but that probably was not the only reason.
...Probably?
“In any case, it wasn’t a bad parting, was it?”
He had fixed the house for the next tenant, and he had come out without turning red-faced with Yoon Se-hak, so from Ki Ja-hyeon’s perspective, it could be called a refreshing and pleasant parting.
Vroooooom~
Like that, the pickup truck advanced toward the next stage.
The pickup truck he was riding was not his own, but one provided by Jeongbyeong Office.
In truth, he should not use something like this for personal reasons, but this much flexibility had melted into the relationship between Ki Ja-hyeon and In Jeong-byeong.
Of course, that did not mean he could get away with not reporting it.
So he had talked with In Jeong-byeong for the first time in a while.
[Why are you so busy these days? This is when your value is highest, so you need to row when the water comes in, not throw away the oar! Putting all that aside, you are not having trouble making a living, are you? You are not sick or anything, right? You are all right, right?]
“He really is a good man.”
Come to think of it, he really had not gone out to work as an odd-jobber much lately because he had been making elixirs.
Resolving to at least show his face there sometime soon, Ki Ja-hyeon pressed the pickup truck’s accelerator and passed through the wide-open wasteland.
VROOOOOOM~
There were only a few things loaded onto the pickup truck.
In the first place, everything had come as built-in furnishings, so aside from a few small pieces of furniture, all of his belongings were the potted plants he had moved from what he had planted, and the one dog and one cat busily looking outside from the passenger seat.
Woof...woof, woof! Woof! (Uneasy. Nervous. Where am I going!)
Mya! Myaaaa! (Leaving. To a bigger world!)
“Heh heh. This time, Cloud’s words are probably right.”
That was right. Ki Ja-hyeon and the creatures were leaving now.
To a bigger world!
Screech.
The bigger world they arrived at like that.
Beside the enormous 330-square-meter plot,
a cozy 66-square-meter house was waiting for them.
***
Moving his belongings was easy.
He just had to lift them and move them.
No matter how simple his belongings were, how could there not be anything heavy?
There was enough luggage that two workers would normally have had to come and move it.
But Ki Ja-hyeon alone was enough.
Because,
“I Awakened!”
When one Awakened, the body’s performance itself changed.
The body was automatically strengthened depending on the Trait one possessed.
Damage dealers, tanks, ranged damage dealers, buffers, healers, and so on... The degree differed depending on the type, but ordinarily, strength became two to five times greater than before Awakening.
Of course, it was impossible to know by how many times Ki Ja-hyeon, whose Trait was druid, had been inflated.
However, because he had steadily built up lean muscle while working as an odd-jobber even before this, it seemed there had been quite a large increase.
Why?
“Uryaaaaah!”
Because he could hold in each hand a piece of furniture that would normally require two people to carry!
After moving all his belongings like that, he stepped forward.
The door lock opened, revealing a fairly grand 99-square-meter house.
Unlike its shabby state a few days ago, not only the wallpaper and flooring, but also every possible defect in every corner had all been inspected.
“Money really is great~”
He had paid for this place in full, but he still had tens of millions of credits left. Ki Ja-hyeon had poured that money into the interior, and the workers had turned this place into a livable house in three days.
“Now I can say goodbye to that damned cherry molding forever, can’t I?”
He brushed his finger over the wallpaper.
Rough~
A rough yet luxurious silk texture!
It was, without question, a larger and finer house than his last one, incomparable in every way.
Above all, the pipes did not scream when he flushed the toilet, and when he lay down to sleep, he did not hear the sound of water dripping from the ceiling.
It was, in every sense, a perfect environment!
Woof, woof! Grrrrr! (Strange place. Nervous, uneasy!)
Myaaa! Myang! Myaang? (New territory. Friend! Begin search?)
“No. This is not the new territory.”
That was right. It was certainly a good environment, but the main body of this place was separate.
He had not moved here because of this house.
No matter how good this place was, to Ja-hyeon, this house was merely a side attachment where he would briefly lay down his body.
Ki Ja-hyeon grasped the handle of the heavy wooden door placed in one corner of the house.
The real reason he had chosen this place.
It was to head toward the enormous 330-square-meter warehouse.
Creeeeeak—!
When the locked door opened, a space so vast it felt distant spread out before Ja-hyeon’s eyes.
A wide-open expanse of around 330 square meters.
Ki Ja-hyeon stood tall in the middle of it.
The two creatures went absolutely wild.
Woof, woof! Woof! Grrr! (Huge, vast, excited!)
Myaaaaa! Myaaak! (Giant world. Search begins!)
Hop, hop.
Dash, dash, dash!
Thunder stirred up dust as it swung its short legs, and Cloud shot like a rocket toward the steel framework four stories high!
To creatures that had spent their lives in narrow houses, such an enormous plot must be a completely new world.
“Hohoho. You guys like it that much?”
If the creatures were happy, Ki Ja-hyeon was happy too.
He felt like running around and playing with them as well!
However, the dirt floor under his feet was far too dry and crumbly for that.
Dry land that seemed to have been abandoned for years....
If land was abandoned, its soil fertility would normally recover even a little, but this place still looked barren even after several years.
Suddenly, he became curious.
What on earth had the previous owner of this place tried to grow on this wide plot?
“They must have tried growing something. And failed.”
In a world like this, plants made money.
They were not things one could eat easily whenever one wished.
There was a reason even hunters lost their minds over crops like lemons and cherry tomatoes.
And the owner had probably failed.
The soil had not been good in the first place.
The land here was so poor and barren now that even Ki Ja-hyeon, a druid from a previous life, wondered whether anything would sprout if planted here.
However,
for the current Ki Ja-hyeon, who had become a druid, there was a way.
He could make the ground fertile with the natural power he had gathered so far.
The method was simple as well.
He simply had to pour out his natural mana.
Hummm.
A blue haze rippled all through his hand.
Ki Ja-hyeon’s natural power began spreading evenly over the barren ground.
Tsssssssss!
No skill was needed here.
He was simply feeding his natural mana evenly into this field, so the techniques from his previous life were enough.
Swoooooosh...!
The natural mana embraced the crumbly ground as if consuming it, then breathed out fertile soil as if excreting it.
The process repeated and advanced outward from Ki Ja-hyeon. Only when around thirty minutes had passed could Ki Ja-hyeon finally release his hand and step back.
“Good grief....”
Thump.
All the natural power in his entire body had been exhausted, but thanks to that, he had been able to spread natural mana evenly throughout the roughly 330 square meters of land.
If he did this just a few more times, this crumbly, dry soil, which had been so close to death that its respirator should have been removed, would transform into fertile land!
Of course, even now, it should be enough for something to be planted and take root.
That much was clear just from how the soil, which had been close to gray moments before, had regained a brown color.
Just as he was feeling proud of himself alone,
[The 330-square-meter plot has absorbed a druid’s natural mana and been declared your territory.]
[Growth speed of crops planted in the territory doubled.]
[Crops grow well even when spacing between crops is dense.]
Suddenly?
Without even turning on the blinker, this suddenly?
But it was also a situation familiar to Ki Ja-hyeon from his previous life.
“Is this called territory declaration here?”
There had been no phrase like territory declaration, but he had seen a similar effect in his previous life as well.
Land infused with natural power originally had such effects.
It made things grow quickly and grow densely!
In other words, it could be called a super-special hair-growth tonic.
“It’s fascinating to see it shown in numbers.”
But Ki Ja-hyeon ended up being surprised after all.
[Hidden achievement: Great Nature’s Purification achieved.]
“I achieved an achievement? I didn’t even know they existed.”
Then again, achievements were not something one could obtain easily.
No one could know the conditions, and because an achievement someone else had obtained could not be obtained in duplicate, there was no genealogy or anything of the sort.
Ki Ja-hyeon had purified a 330-square-meter plot, and in doing so, had obtained an achievement.
“Still, it feels good.”
In that case, what would the reward be?
Stats?
A skill?
Or something else entirely?
[Reward obtained: Spirit Tree Seed.]
“Holy shit!”