Chapter 039
[Chapter 039]
< Emotions Embraced for the First Time in Hundreds of Years >
When Yu Jin-hyuk took a bite of the carrot.
“······?”
Nothing happened. There was no sensation of energy spreading through his body, nor a feeling of the wound healing.
However, it was unusually delicious.
‘Were carrots always this sweet?’
Sweet like fruit preserved in sugar, yet with the fresh and cool scent unique to freshly pulled vegetables.
Crunch, crunch!
Possessed by a taste he had never experienced before, he devoured all ten carrot roots in the blink of an eye.
“······In the end, were they just delicious carrots?”
He smiled bitterly and laid his body on the bed.
So it wasn't to be.
Was it impossible for a mere carrot to achieve what hundreds of billions of won worth of elixirs couldn't?
Fatigue and disappointment rushed in simultaneously.
Soon, he slipped into a deep sleep.
Blink.
How long had he slept?
Yu Jin-hyuk opened his eyes due to extreme thirst.
To grab the water cup on the nightstand next to the bed, he inadvertently stretched his right arm.
Gulp, gulp-
“Why am I so thirsty?”
Even after emptying a full cup in one go, it didn't get better.
And suddenly.
“······Wait?”
He felt something strange in the right arm that held the cup.
Normally, a terrible pain like being bound by iron chains from the shoulder to the elbow should have been felt.
There was not a single exception for 3 years.
But.
“Really?”
It was perfectly fine.
There was no pain.
The shoulder joint, which had been stiffly hardened, moved smoothly.
With a look of disbelief, he slowly lifted his right arm.
“This too?”
Upward, to the side.
And behind his back.
Movements that always accompanied pain were now possible too naturally.
“!”
He hurriedly got off the bed and stood before the mirror.
And he looked at his right shoulder.
The hideous stigma of the curse that had been blooming in dark red.
The color of that stigma had turned very faint, but surely lighter.
“Unbelievable······.”
He wasn't completely cured.
The curse was still binding his body.
But there was a clear improvement.
“······Ha.”
A hot tear flowed down from Yu Jin-hyuk’s eye.
* * *
A hospital ward in Seoul.
There, today as well, clear laughter echoed.
“Wow! It's a real hamburger!”
She was a child who smiled well normally, but there were times when she was particularly more excited.
Exactly, when my newly served master visits.
I sat quietly in a corner of the bed and gave him an audience with a reverent heart.
The one and only contractor I had waited for through eternal ages.
“Eat slowly.”
I could tell from the first moment I saw him.
That he was different from any human I had ever met.
An infinite potential resembling the primordial earth.
That great existence is striving so hard for the happiness of this small girl.
“Ah, does Bunny want to eat too?”
Regarding this existence, it was the small child named So-ye.
An existence the contractor cherishes is also precious to me.
This small child was also my second master.
“Do you like Bunny?”
The Master turned his gaze toward me.
We made eye contact with his black button-hole eyes.
Faint golden energy blooming from deep within the pupils.
It was an attempt to see through my essence.
“······.”
Perhaps if it were an ordinary Awakener, their mind would have collapsed, crushed by the power of the abyss dwelling within me.
However, the mysterious power of the Master did not collide with my power but enveloped me softly.
I didn't bother to resist.
If he wanted to, he could even break the barriers in the deepest part of my being.
But the Master did not do so.
Even though he could sufficiently see through me, the Master just looked at me intently for a moment and then turned his gaze.
“Oppa! This is really, really delicious! The best in the world!”
The Master's interest was only on my second master, So-ye.
It was directed toward this small existence.
The Master was a person whose nature was truly hard to know.
He seemed ordinary at times like this, yet when considering the power dwelling within him, he was someone who could never be called ordinary.
“Lately, thanks to Bunny being here, it doesn't hurt. Not at all!”
“You like Bunny that much?”
“Yeah! It's the best!”
Led by a strange sensation, I volunteered to be sold to this person, but until now, when considerable time has passed, there was not much I knew about the Master.
Of course, even he himself didn't seem to know his own greatness well.
* * *
Before leaving Seoul, I stopped by Old Man No’s house for a moment.
Since it was a place I had never been to, I was curious and worried.
“Old Man No, I’m here.”
“Oh, Manager Jang! Come on in!”
Old Man No greeted me warmly.
However, in a corner of the house yard, a strange creature was tied up.
“Old Man No, is this······ by any chance a Hellhound?”
A two-headed, hideous yet somehow familiar wolf.
It was a monster I had seen in B-Rank Rift data during my Bureau days.
“The other day, after colliding once with your Gorani, I saw it tied up in vines like that the next morning. It seems the Gorani even handled the processing and left.”
“Such a thing happened?”
I looked at the shrunken Hellhound with pity.
The moment the Hellhound saw me, it began to tremble its whole body.
“Kking, kking kking······.”
In particular, it looked visibly restless after smelling the scent on my body.
‘Ah, is it because of the Gorani’s scent?’
As if a memory it didn't want to recall surfaced, it tucked its tail between its legs and huddled its body as much as possible.
Yet those trembling legs looked like a desperate attempt to protect this house and Old Man No by instinct.
It wasn't trying to threaten me, but it was a desperate attempt to protect its new master, Old Man No, with all its might.
“What should I do with this fellow, Manager Jang?”
“Wouldn't it be good to just raise him? This neighborhood isn't entirely safe, so having him as a guard dog wouldn't be a loss. Although he's a bit small.”
“Don't even mention it. He was originally the size of a house, then he suddenly shrunk.”
“Pardon?”
Apparently something had happened with the Gorani.
“Do you want some of this?”
I pulled out the ingredients left over from the cooking class.
Fresh carrots, potatoes, lettuce, and the like from the garden.
I placed them in the Hellhound's food bowls.
Since it had two mouths, two bowls each.
“Sniff, sniff······.”
It was wary at first, but soon it began to devour the food ravenously, unable to resist the delicious smell.
“He eats well. I was worried about what to feed him besides milk.”
“I’ll send some food for him too.”
“No, you gave so much before. Is there really that much produced from your garden?”
“Yes, I guess farming suits my constitution. Anyway, please show me around the house.”
I entered the house with Old Man No.
At the scenery inside the house, I let out an exclamation involuntarily.
A wide living room where the natural landscape unfolded beyond the floor-to-ceiling glass window.
On the mantelpiece, a taxidermied Gryphon was showing off its majesty, and on the floor, a rug made of high-end Wyvern leather was spread.
“Haha, were you surprised? I've had nothing but money since I was young. The problem was I had no place to spend it.”
Old Man No laughed heartily and sat on a giant sofa made of whole alligator leather from Pachel-Sus, gesturing toward me.
“Old Man No, what are you going to do now?”
“I want to rest for a while. It's my first vacation in 20 years.”
“Even if you say that, your body must be itching.”
He was a person who lived his entire life in the field.
I said this because I knew it was obvious he’d get restless after a day or two of just sitting and resting like this.
“Your career is a waste, Old Man No. As we talked before, if another guild takes over Rift management, wouldn't it be worth working there? A place that treats you as much as you struggled, that would be the best, wouldn't it.”
“No, forget it. I said I just want to rest now.”
Old Man No waved his hand, but I saw it.
An exercise machine for mana-resistant strength training, which is hard to even see in a regular gym, placed on one side of the living room.
It was high-weight training equipment that even average hunters found difficult.
“Are you doing this kind of exercise at home?”
“Ah, this? I shouldn't let my body get dull, you know.”
Hearing that, I thought "as expected".
He’s not someone who would stop here.
Though not in a field position, he was a person who never neglected training, saying body tempering is the basis of all work.
Then, I discovered a car catalog placed on the table.
“Old Man No, are you going to buy a car?”
“A-ah, no! This is just······.”
Old Man No was flustered and pretended not to know while turning the topic.
“B-by any chance, do you know what kind of cars young people like these days? I heard my nephew got his license.”
“You had a nephew too?”
“Of course, a man just about Manager Jang’s age······ if it's Manager Jang, what kind of car is good?”
I pointed at a model visible in the catalog.
“Lately, isn't this brand the best? Sturdy, and the design is well-made too.”
“Is that so? I thought this model looked better.”
What Old Man No pointed at was a Porsche Panamera, which costs hundreds of millions.
“Is this kind of thing a bit much? Thinking of you riding it, that is.”
“It's not my taste at all.”
Old Man No showed a disappointed expression.
“Then, this one?”
“This one······ it's a bit expensive, but the design is pretty.”
“Is it?”
“You know, everyone has a dream car. Doesn't this feel a bit closer to my taste? I don't know your nephew's taste, but if he's my age, I don't think he’d dislike it.”
Old Man No laughed repeatedly.
That expression looked the most at ease among any expressions I had seen.
* * *
I was afraid.
The primordial being said that his master invited me.
He said it was a reward for purifying the water spring.
Since I am Lord Muryong’s first friend, he wanted to treat me properly.
But he said he is a human.
Humans.
Humans were scary beings.
I heard stories that some of my kin were caught by humans and met a terrible end by being pickled in snake wine.
However, I couldn't refuse the invitation of the primordial being.
I trusted him and headed toward the human territory with fear.
Slither-
I carefully entered that yard.
Because the unfamiliar human territory was awkward, I instinctively hid my giant body behind the primordial being.
“Ah, Muryong’s friend? But······ doing that doesn't hide you at all.”
the human let out a hollow laugh.
“Sssssssss······.”
I made a small sound, but he just laughed, saying I am a friend with a lot of shyness.
The human lowered things placed on a giant tray one by one.
“Here, this is for Muryong. Jelly made by pickling [Paprika of the Sun] in honey.”
-HMYOOOOOOOOO-T!!!
Muryong was busy stuffing the jelly into its cheeks, and the giant Gorani swallowed the food in 1 second.
The expression was so ecstatic it made the viewer gulp.
“Since Hasuo cannot chew hard things yet, a puree made by grinding [Cucumber of the Glacier].”
“Pwa-aeng!”
And finally, my turn.
“Hmm······ since I don't know what snakes like, I first tried making it like sashimi.”
What the human placed before me was a food I had never seen in my life, with green onions sprinkled on thin white radish slices.
I hesitated for a moment.
What if it contains poison?
However, the primordial being tapped my scales "tuk-tuk" with its small hand as if saying it's okay.
I carefully extended my tongue and tasted the radish slice.
And.
“······!”
My giant pupils became even more giant.
To me, who had lived only eating rock moss or fish in the stream until now, this was a taste of a new world.
A crisp and cool texture, with a faint sweetness and fragrance lingering at the end.
Lick, lick. Crunch!
After that, I forgot even my dignity as a high spiritual animal and began to inhale the food with my nose in the plate.
“He eats better than I thought.”
The human was just watching us with a satisfied smile.
Perhaps······ not all humans are scary.
No, already this person before my eyes was not felt to be an ordinary human.
The great Master personally chosen by the primordial being.
And the existence that creates this miracle-like taste.
He, too, must be a great existence that I cannot dare to fathom.
Slither··· Grrr······
I huddled my full body in a coil and watched the scenery of the yard.
It was a peaceful afternoon when I felt pleasantly sleepy under the warm sunlight.
The human was stroking the primordial being’s head with a satisfied smile.
The aggressive Gorani was lying flat next to its master and wagging its tail, and the root mass that looked like a newly born young spirit was waddling among them.
A scenery like a single small world, perfectly harmonious and peaceful.
To me, who had lived hundreds of years alone guarding the lonely valley, it was a too unfamiliar and dazzling sight.
Suddenly, such a thought also came.
The thought that I also want to become a member of this world.
“······.”
I flinched as I was flustered by the unfamiliar emotion I embraced for the first time in hundreds of years.
Then I thought.
That it might be okay to come here to play occasionally.
< Emotions Embraced for the First Time in Hundreds of Years > END