The Forest Spirit Comes Calling

A message window popped up over his head out of nowhere.

The Spirit of the Forest? It had found him?

What is this?

He scanned the area in a hurry, but nothing that looked like a spirit was anywhere in sight.

Whoosh— whoosh—

Waving a hand through the empty air did nothing either. There was no sensation of catching hold of anything. Was it like a voice call, then—only a voice, coming through a message window?

"Wh-who's there?"

Minhyuk asked, looking up at the sky.

The Shrine of the Tower? A transcendental being?

So what is that supposed to mean?

He couldn't make sense of it at all, but he grasped this much by instinct: whatever it was, it was absurdly impressive.

He'd like to know that himself. He'd been swept up in an ocean storm, and when he came to, he was here.

As for the Holy Power...

Who could say. It had shown up while he was being venerated as the King of Monkeys. Very suddenly.

Mmm. Not a single thing he could actually explain.

"...Yeah, well. Suit yourself."

After that, it went quiet. Minhyuk gave a light shrug and got back to the work at hand. He couldn't see the thing anyway. He might as well treat it like an invisible roommate and get on with his life.

Thud— thud— thud—

"Done! Great work, everyone!"

Kkureung—!

Kkorong-kkorong—! Kkururuk—!

The moment the planting was finished, the meerkats poured toward the sea and plunged in.

Splash— splash—

Hooee—!

Off to play in the water with the Sea Otter again, by the look of it. Minhyuk washed his hands with the perk Squeaky Clean and started on the meal.

Elia said she'd come eat, too.

Today's menu was a generous two dishes: steamed corn and potato pancakes. A spread that Elia, a vegetarian, and the meerkats, whose diet ran mostly raw, could all share. He'd started feeling a little guilty about always being the only one eating something delicious.

"Let's start with the steamed corn."

Bubble, bubble—

He set a steamer over the boiling water, put in the (Special) corn, and closed the lid. Before long he had (Special) steamed corn, moist and perfectly cooked.

What? He'd thought it had wandered off, it had gone so quiet. It really had been watching him.

Then again, maybe they didn't have steamed corn at the Shrine of the Tower. Still, there was such a thing as Korean hospitality.

"Would you like to try one?"

Minhyuk casually lifted an ear of steamed corn.

Poof—!

The steamed corn vanished from in front of his eyes in an instant. Had it taken it?

Already eaten. Good thing it suited the spirit's taste.

"I grew it myself?"

More precisely, it had gone through cultivar improvement in Fertile Soil (LV. 2). Even so, was it really worth that much shock? From someone who was supposedly a transcendental being of the Tower?

Hmm... well, fair enough. It's a signature Safe Zone effect. Corn grown out in the wild doesn't have it.

Minhyuk put it out of his mind and just made the potato pancakes.

Yeah, sure. Have some more.

Well, well. Look at this one.

It had said it would eat just one. Then it ate three more ears of steamed corn.

I steamed plenty, since I was feeding the kids anyway, so it doesn't really matter. Still.

Acting uninterested while eating like a fiend. If it was going to be like this, it should have just said from the start that it wanted a lot.

"Why? Something wrong with the way I'm looking?"

"I'm not the petty ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sort who makes a production out of four ears of corn."

A guilty conscience, maybe. Getting all huffy over the strangest thing.

Anyway.

"Boss! I'm back!"

Elia closed up the shop and returned to the deserted island.

"Mmm. Smells yummy..."

"Hungry? I made the round potato pancakes you like, and steamed corn."

"Wow! Boss is the best!"

The meerkats who had been playing in the sea shook the water off—brrr—and came back to the Beachfront Safe Zone.

Kkureung-kkureung—!

"What is it, Kkureung? You need something... huh?"

Minhyuk's eyes went wide. Kkureung was dragging two fish, each as big as his own body, right up in front of him.

"You caught these yourself? You did? Two of them?"

Kkureung-kkureung—!

Well, well. They did say you grow to resemble the company you keep. He'd learned how to hunt fish from the Sea Otter.

"Hang on. You all start eating."

Minhyuk gathered up the two fish and headed for the kitchen he'd set up in the sand.

Skrit— skrit—

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

He dressed them with a kitchen knife, separated the innards and the heads, and set those aside on a wooden plate. Those were the parts the meerkats lost their minds over.

Sizzle—

The bodies got a pinch of salt and went onto the heat until they turned a deep golden brown. That was the part Minhyuk lost his mind over.

When he came back with the grilled fish and the innards, Elia and the meerkats were waiting, practically drooling.

"What? Why aren't you eating? I told you to start."

"Nuh-uh! We can't eat till Boss gets here."

Elia shook her head, perfectly firm. Hmm... why? Did the elven world have something like Confucian etiquette, too?

"I'm here now, so let's eat."

"Waaah!"

Kkureung—!

Kkorok-kkorok—!

Elia speared a potato pancake with a wooden fork, and the meerkats set to the portions of innards he'd handed out—chomp, chomp, chomp—neat as anything. Minhyuk reached with his chopsticks for the golden grilled fish.

"Ahh. This is the stuff."

Briny, and yet clean—the juices just right. Meat, as always, was the correct answer.

"Have a whole one. I grilled two anyway."

Minhyuk picked up one of the fish and gently lifted it.

"Honestly. I keep telling you, I'm not the kind of man who gets stingy and cheap about food."

Poof—!

Before long, one grilled fish had vanished without a trace.

Yeah, yeah. Do whatever you like with that.

Day 107 Adrift.

After bananas, cucumbers, potatoes, and corn—cherry tomatoes. Drawing on the energy of the renewed Fertile Soil (LV. 2), they had set fruit in heavy clusters. The cherry tomato field had gone as red as a carpet of fallen leaves.

For the record, cherry tomatoes went for 2 coins on the market. Among the crops, they were the runt of the litter.

But cherry tomatoes fought with quantity, not quality. Call it a human-wave tactic—bury the opposition under sheer numbers.

Pluck— pluck— pluck—

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

He picked and picked, and still they refused to dwindle. An absolutely unhinged yield.

Thanks to that, he leveled up twice. Experience rattled out of the field like a machine gun.

And how long did that go on?

"Nnngh—!"

Cherry tomatoes: full clear. After a battle of more than an hour, he had 1,500 of them.

Of those, ordinary cherry tomatoes at 2 coins apiece came to 1,039. (Special) cherry tomatoes at 20 coins apiece came to 461.

A star product of the Safe Zone, worth a staggering 11,298 coins!

"Heheh. The coins are rising like a river."

He wasn't going to sell every tomato he'd picked today, of course. Set aside what the members of the Safe Zone would eat, and the profit would drop. Even so, he was in a good mood, and that was that.

Shoop—!

With that chore finished, he shifted over to the plains Safe Zone.

"Hsss..."

Eyes that had been all smiles a moment ago narrowed to slits. Minhyuk tilted his head at the wheat field.

"Why?"

The wheat was leaning like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was growing just fine—lush, even—but the lusher it got, the steeper the lean. Serious didn't begin to cover it. He'd watered it on schedule and trodden the rows with care.

"At this rate... it's going to flop over before I can even harvest it, isn't it?"

Hmm. That wouldn't do. He'd already made an SS-rank millstone in advance. If the wheat died on him, it would be a genuine catastrophe.

A decent way to...

Minhyuk brooded, then picked up a fallen branch nearby. For now, even a wooden support to brace it—

Oh. Right. This one was still here.

"So what's wrong with it?"

A thoroughly convincing diagnosis. Well, a transcendental being that governed the forest would have growing wheat down cold.

Minhyuk asked, perfectly obedient.

"Then what am I supposed to do?"

What. So it had been empty advice, with no meat on it.

"So the moisture in the soil is the problem, then?"

Minhyuk shook his head, firm. Life could hand you trials. Failure was not on the menu.

And who was he? None other than the master of the Safe Zone.

Snap—!

Minhyuk flicked his fingers, light as anything.

A green aurora bloomed over the wheat field, and the soggy earth dried to just the right degree. Soil the roots could brace against—complete.

"Well... thanks for the tip. The wheat field's saved, thanks to you."

That more than covered a single ear of steamed corn. Still—share a little food, and you got a field diagnosis and a farming lesson besides. He was grateful, in his way.

"Aw, come on. That's a bit much."

Minhyuk hummed his way back to the Beachfront Safe Zone. His biggest worry, the state of the wheat field, was settled. He'd rest easy until dinner.

Day 112 Adrift.

"Finally...!"

Golden-brown stalks, grown as tall as Minhyuk himself, bowed their heads as one. Plump ears weighed them down, and a glossy sheen poured off the grain.

The wheat had ripened at last. Minhyuk carefully plucked one ear and shook it out over his palm.

Pitter-patter—

Fifty grains to an ear. Three ears to a stalk, on average. Ninety stalks rooted in the field.

13,500!

Well over ten thousand grains of wheat, his. Not much, of course. Run it through the mill and into flour, and you'd barely manage a single loaf of bread.

So the sensible thing was to sow all 13,500 and grow them out.

Even so... one slice of bread, for everything I've been through. That's allowed, isn't it?

No more, no less. Exactly five thousand grains.

"An oven. First, an oven."

Right—you needed an oven if you meant to bake bread. Minhyuk was just hurrying toward the Beachfront Safe Zone when—

...Huh?

The Spirit of Life? And what was this one supposed to be?

A friend of the Spirit of the Forest?

Hmm. What was this?

This feeling that his deserted island had just become a famous restaurant.