A Sprout on the Fourth Day

The cucumbers had sent up sprouts in barely a day.

The potatoes were another matter. Nearly three days had passed since planting, and far from any green life pushing through, nothing stirred but a dry wind worrying the soil. It might as well have been the wasteland out of a cowboy film.

This one ought to be getting the same growth boost from Fertile ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Soil…

So why was it so slow? Had something gone wrong? Wilson's seed potatoes? The nutrients in the ground? Or had he given them too much water? Should he dig them up with the wooden hoe and see for himself?

Worries of that sort ate through his days.

Pon!

Day four since the seed potatoes had gone into the earth.

"Ooh!"

At last, a potato sprout had broken the surface. The sight of that fresh green cotyledon pulled a laugh out of him before he knew it.

"Heh heh."

Maybe it was only because the sprout had taken four days to show itself, but he felt an odd swell of pride—the way a parent might, watching a small child grow.

"Kkureung—!"

Kkureung threw both arms wide, delighted by the potato sprout. Of course, in his case it was probably just the joy of knowing there would be potatoes ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to eat for a good long while.

"Slurp…"

Minhyuk was hardly immune to the drool himself.

Carbs? Those, he could not resist.

"Yeah. Slow is fine. So long as we're pointed the right way."

By way of telling them to grow up big and strong from here on, he even offered a word of encouragement that sounded like it belonged in a third-rate self-help book.

"Hup—!"

He watered them with care from the colossal leaf basket, the water trickling down in a thin, steady stream. Next came the cucumbers.

"…"

Minhyuk gazed quietly at the cucumber patch, which was thriving just fine all on its own. Encouragement… he ought to give them some too, shouldn't he? Favoring only one side, like the praised onion and the scolded onion, would feel a little wrong.

"You've got talent. Keep at it."

After a pep talk tailored to cucumbers and another careful watering, he stretched out on the sand and took his ease in the sun.

Warm sunlight. An emerald sea rolling clean and bright all the way to the horizon—the kind of view he'd only ever seen on social media, waves whispering in off the shore.

"Ahh~ this is the life~"

Maybe it was all those nights he'd spent sealed in gray concrete, working overtime like a machine, but every day here felt like a trip to a resort.

"Hhh. Maybe I should go for a swim?"

A resort meant playing in the water, after all. Minhyuk yanked his shirt off in a flash.

"…No. This is way too dangerous."

And just as quickly, he fumbled it back on.

Pretty to look at, sure… but there's no telling what's actually in the water.

Even the peaceful seas of Earth had sharks. This was the Tower. Who was to say there weren't terrifying sea monsters out there?

"Later. I can do it later."

Once the Safe Zone had a little room to spare, he could expand it out over the sea itself and build a private pool no monster could approach.

"Lulu-lu~"

Humming under his breath, Minhyuk went back to his sunbathing.

Day 26 of the castaway life. The dead of night.

"Khhhrggh…"

While Minhyuk slept deep—

Thud—! Thud—!

Enormous footsteps boomed at the edge of the jungle.

"Nn… huh…?"

The vibration was so strong it dragged even Minhyuk, a heavy sleeper, out of his dreams.

Grrrrrr…

A low growl tugged at his attention. Bleary-eyed, he looked toward the jungle—and his blood ran cold.

"Hhk!"

A silhouette of truly staggering size. Pitch darkness swallowed the details, but something enormous was pacing the jungle's edge, and the trees around it toppled like weeds.

Crack—! Crrrack—!

He'd seen giant monsters on the move a few times before, but those had been far off, somewhere around the mountain peaks of this deserted island. Nothing had ever come this close. Minhyuk dropped low at once.

What if it comes this way…?

The Safe Zone meant he probably wasn't in any real danger, but scary was still scary. Worse, the jungle's edge was where the potato field sat. If a flying splinter so much as nicked the sprouts—

No. Absolutely not…

Crack—! Crrrack—!

Trembling with fear, Minhyuk waited for the colossal creature to pass.

"Ugh…"

He stayed up the whole night like that. When the morning sun finally rose—

"Hoo… Let's go look."

"Kkureung…!"

With Kkureung stationed on his shoulder, Minhyuk stepped into the jungle's edge, where the potato field lay.

"Ahh…"

The place was an absolute wreck. Trees that had stood dense were snapped every which way, as if a typhoon had torn through, and broken fragments lay scattered all around. Even the wild cucumber vines had been trampled to pulp.

More shocking than any of that—

"Whoa… that thing is huge."

A gigantic footprint stamped into the ground. The depression it left was several times larger than Minhyuk himself. A deserted island where creatures like this wandered around.

"Still… thank goodness it's all right."

By a miracle, his potato field was untouched. And with the tall, dense trees gone, the sunlight poured in even brighter. Paradoxically, it had become a better place to grow crops.

"And there are plenty of usable chunks of wood now, too."

Not mere branches—thick logs, split into handy pieces, a world apart in usefulness. A crisis only had to be turned into an opportunity.

"Hup—!"

Minhyuk hauled a log section about the size of a go board back into the Safe Zone.

"Judging by the size… this would be perfect as a water basket."

The colossal leaf he'd been using wasn't bad, but it was too big and too floppy to balance, and he'd spilled the water more than once while carrying it. A wooden water basket of a reasonable size would have none of those problems.

Scrape— scrape—

He set to work at once. First he stripped the rough ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bark away with a carving knife and smoothed the outside. Then, the way you'd scoop a watermelon with a spoon, he slowly hollowed out the inside.

A wooden water basket of just the right size—done.

"Huh?"

Message windows he'd never seen before had popped up. He checked them at once.

Kkh— Lighter, and yet it held more?

The increase was substantial, too. Watching a skill effect pay off was deeply satisfying.

"But… why didn't an effect like this stick when I made the wooden hoe and the fireboard?"

Maybe because those had been made from branches. Minhyuk gave a light shrug and immediately put the wooden water basket to the test.

Stability went without saying, and it wasn't much heavier than the leaf, either. Best of all, it was half the size and held nearly the same amount of water. The stream poured out clean and steady.

This was a pass.

"Grow up nice and strong."

Minhyuk watered the potato field and the cucumber patch from the wooden basket. The potatoes had only just put out stems; harvest was still a long way off. The cucumbers, though, were already ripe and delicious, hanging heavy from the vines.

Harvest time. Which was to say, time to take them to market.

"Thanks for growing so well, all of you."

After a farewell to the cucumbers, he used the merchant-summon function.

"Hehe, Boss! I'm here!"

"Elia's here? You can do a good job today too, right? Like a proper, splendid merchant?"

"Uh-huh, uh-huh!"

Elia nodded with complete confidence.

"There's more than last time, though. You sure that's okay?"

"How many is it?"

"Um, well…"

The harvest came to three hundred in all. Set aside a hundred and fifty as food stores, and what remained was…

"A hundred… and fifty…?"

Fifteen times the first sale. Elia's eyes went perfectly round. Well, of course. For a six-year-old, a hundred and fifty was simply too big a number.

"Too many? Should we try thirty first? Nice and easy?"

"Mmm…"

Elia stuck out her lower lip and thought it over for a moment.

"No! All of them! A hundred and fifty!"

She shook her head hard.

"Really? You don't have to push yourself. What about thirty at a time?"

"No, I can do it! Elia's a super-duper merchant!"

"Oh…"

Minhyuk let out a quiet breath of admiration, watching the fire in her. Good grief. A work ethic like that at six years old. That was… actually impressive.

"You sure? You can sell all hundred and fifty?"

"Yeah! Just trust me!"

Elia clenched her fist. It wasn't much of a fist—her hand was small and plump, and awfully cute.

"But… if I sell them all, you gotta let me eat potatoes."

"All right. I won't eat any until you get back. Here—promise."

"Yay! Boss is the best!"

An employee this passionate? Potatoes were nothing. He could spare those any day.

There are about three potatoes left in the food stores…

One, maybe? Elven princess or not, any more than that was out of the question.

"I'm off!"

"Okay. Be careful. If they don't all sell, just come back anyway. I'll still let you have potatoes."

"Okaaay!"

After Elia left with a hundred and fifty cucumbers packed into her subspace backpack, Minhyuk was, for the first time in a while, doing some real work.

Tok— tok—

First, he harvested by hand the hundred and fifty cucumbers he had turned over to Elia.

A storm of experience points. Thanks to it, the Safe Zone widened by another three pyeong.

But the work wasn't finished there.

Tok— tok—

He harvested every last one of the remaining hundred and fifty cucumbers, the ones meant for his daily bread.

Experience poured in like mad. At this rate it wasn't a cucumber harvest so much as an experience harvest. And so Minhyuk's Safe Zone leveled up once more.

All he'd done was pick cucumbers, and the Safe Zone had grown another six pyeong in a flash.

"Hmm…"

Minhyuk frowned, puzzled.

More ground where he could grow crops? Good. Obviously, thank you very much. What farmer in the world would complain about a bigger harvest?

The problem was labor—hopelessly short beside the new farmland. The jobs still sitting in front of him made that plain enough.

"First I've got to clear out the cucumber vines…"

He had to sow the Safe Zone's new ground, six pyeong of it. The beach was no issue. A few light sweeps of his hand and that was that.

But the jungle's edge, built on hard-packed earth?

He'd have to break the soil himself with the wooden hoe. And every time a crop finished, he'd have to till the field all over again.

And from here on, I was planning to expand only the land at the jungle's edge…

Digging up all that ground alone? At this point he hadn't become a farmer so much as class-changed into a miner…

A problem that would only grow as the Safe Zone did.

That was when it happened.

"Kkureung…? Kkureung-kkureung!"

Kkureung, who had been staring hard at Minhyuk, thumped his own chest as if to say leave it to him. Minhyuk stroked the small, fluffy head.

"No. You're already doing plenty."

If the little guy were just lazing around and eating, he might have found him some chore or other. Surprisingly, though, Kkureung held a very important post on this deserted island: pocket-sized radar.

Better he stick to his real duty than be put to some half-baked labor. He was so small the work would've been inefficient anyway.

"Workers… I can't buy those from the shop, can I?"

Minhyuk thought it over a moment, clicked his tongue, and then laughed, open and easy.

"Forget it. Nothing in this world comes free."

It wasn't as if he were pulling overtime alone with some suffocating, set-in-his-ways boss. This was a deserted island with fine views and fine air, and all he had to do was work a little, at his own pace.

At this level, it's a reward.

And when it came to satisfaction and a sense of achievement, there was no comparison at all. This was exactly the feeling that made people leave the city to farm.

"All right! Let's go till the field, Kkureung!"

"Kkureung!"

Wooden hoe in hand, Minhyuk headed for the newly widened Safe Zone.

Around the same time.

The 777th floor of the Tower. The legendary land, Eternal Island.

Deep in the jungle, a rapid patter of feet—pat-pat-pat-pat!—and the Meerkat Brothers raced along in a tight pack.

"Kkurung?"

"Kkororong?"

"Kkuruk-kkuruk!"

Meerkats usually settled in one place, dug their burrows, and lived there. So why were they tearing through the jungle like vagabonds?

Simple. They were looking for their lost youngest!

The colony had scattered to escape a snake's attack, and only the baby of the family had lost the way and never come home.

"Kkururung—!"

"Hold it!"

At the eldest meerkat's word, the others stopped dead in their tracks as one.

Sniff, sniff—noses twitching.

"Kkorung! Kkorureung—!"

"I smell the youngest! He's close. No question!"

The moment the eldest made the call, the whole colony shot forward together, feet pattering over the jungle floor.

"Hang on just a little longer, little brother!"

"Your brothers are coming!"