Chapter 047
< Peaceful Herb Garden Daily Life >
47
MK Sphere Tower, Yu Jin-hyuk’s personal break room.
“······.”
Yu Jin-hyuk was lost in thought while looking out the window.
It was an expression where all sorts of emotions crossed.
Participating in the Okinawa great Rift special dispatch team.
It was a decision he made himself, but as the time to depart approached, his mind couldn't help but be complicated.
There was no hesitation in the decision to participate.
But after his injury worsened, it was the first time participating in such a national disaster class great Rift.
It wasn't that he had no fear.
“Hunter Yu Jin-hyuk.”
Just then, Shin Seung-ah approached him and spoke quietly.
“Executive Shin.”
“This is from Gorani Man 12-nim. She said it's an expedition ceremony gift.”
“Expedition ceremony gift?”
“Yes. When I briefly mentioned the Okinawa case, she specially took care of it for you, Hunter.”
On the tray were several fresh kale leaves and juice that looked like it had just been ground from them.
“She said to pay for it once you return from finishing this mission.”
“This······ even the smell is different from previous ones. Such a precious thing······.”
Yu Jin-hyuk drank the kale juice in one go with a thankful heart.
Then, his head, which was complicated ahead of departure, felt as if it cleared like a lie.
Anxiety and hesitation vanished, and only a clear conviction about the work he must do remained.
“Are you ready, Hunter?”
“Yes, I’m ready.”
“The Japanese side said they've prepared a press conference room at Kagoshima Airport. Would you like to stop by and respond to an interview before going?”
“No.”
Yu Jin-hyuk’s firm reply.
Normally in such a large-scale dispatch, a press conference before departure was like a mandatory course.
Since it was the best stage to maximize the star quality of heroes going to save humanity while risking their lives and to get national support.
But Yu Jin-hyuk neither liked such showmanship nor had any interest in it.
“I asked while already knowing.”
Shin Seung-ah smiled faintly.
There did exist hunters stronger than Yu Jin-hyuk.
Since that gap would naturally exist even among the same S-Rank Hunters.
But a hero like this man, who has that strong power yet fulfills his responsibility silently without a speck of arrogance, was probably only one in the world.
“Let's go straight to Okinawa. The private jet is waiting at the airport.”
“Yes, let's go.”
He drank the remaining kale juice in one go.
All the way to the private jet, he was lost in thought while looking out the window.
‘Sense of mission? No, this is just work I should rightly do. Because that's the reason I decided to become a hunter.’
It's not for the guild's honor, nor for his own ranking.
If that disaster is not blocked, numerous people will suffer.
For those whose names and faces he doesn't know.
He thought that was the weight he, an S-Rank Hunter, must shoulder.
And simultaneously, one person's face came to mind.
‘Due to this great Rift, perhaps Gorani Man-nim······ no, even worrying about him is an act of doubting him. Since he must have reached a boundary incomparable to me.’
Although he knew nothing, Yu Jin-hyuk was intensely certain.
Surely, he must be an existence far stronger than himself.
Perhaps even the great Rift created in Okinawa this time might be nothing more than a mere natural phenomenon to him.
However, he seemed to have no great interest in the world's noises.
A person who lives an ordinary daily life despite possessing powerful strength.
A great person who is peacefully tilling a garden in his own way somewhere.
‘His daily life shouldn't be disturbed by the noise. A peaceful daily life, that would be the life value he pursues.’
That was another reason why S-Rank Hunter Yu Jin-hyuk was heading to the land of death.
So that his benefactor can keep growing delicious vegetables without being swept up in bothersome work.
To protect that peace.
* * *
Okinawa Naha Harbor.
“Hurry! Quickly get on the next boat!”
“I lost my child! Has anyone seen my daughter?”
The harbor was literally an "abi-gyu-hwan" (hellish chaos).
Due to the influence of the great Rift, a vague fear that the entire island might sink was approaching as a reality.
People were pushing each other to get on the evacuation boat without even having time to pack their luggage.
“Min-su! The control line over there is about to collapse! Go support quickly!”
“Yes, Team Leader!”
Kim Min-su of the National Hunter Management Bureau Field Response Team 2.
He was desperately evacuating people while being hit by pouring rain.
He was a member of the emergency civilian support team dispatched by the South Korean government.
Goo-oo-oo-
The air was murderous.
From the dark red Rift tearing the sky over the far-off ocean, energy beyond mana, chaos itself was flowing out.
A disgusting sensation as if the soul were being scraped just by breathing.
“It's okay, it's okay now. Let's go to mommy.”
Kim Min-su hugged a child who was wailing after being separated from parents while comforting, and suddenly recalled one person.
A person who always silently did his part on the front lines at every such rugged field.
‘Senior Kang-hyun······.’
Kim Min-su thought.
If Kang-hyun were still at the Bureau, he would surely be at this hellish scene right now.
And he would have been running to the dangerous place before anyone else and saving people.
‘It's really good that you left.’
Kim Min-su sincerely thought so.
That it's rather a relief that that kind and sincere person didn't come to such a terrible place.
‘I wonder if he's doing well in the country house garden right now?’
Instead of sweat and dust, the fresh smell of grass.
Instead of screams and wails, a peaceful landscape full of bird songs and wind sounds, just thinking about it for a moment made him feel like he could breathe in this hell.
After placing the child in the parents' arms, he raised his head again.
That gaze headed toward the Yanbaru National Park side where the storm was raging far away.
The center of the disaster.
The Rift there was currently tearing the sky even wider while tinting the surrounding sea dark red.
Not a completed disaster, but a disaster just being born.
Kim Min-su could feel it instinctively.
That the Rift was currently growing terrifyingly while sucking in every surrounding mana and life force.
With the current intimidation, in a few days it would surely become a true monster that could swallow an island whole.
“······.”
In Kim Min-su’s eyes, primal fear was lingering for the first time.
* * *
Yanbaru National Park, Okinawa Prefecture.
A place that formed a superb view with the emerald sea, as the subtropical primordial forest was preserved as it was.
It was a paradise on earth where tourists who loved rare flora and fauna and clean nature visited incessantly.
But now, no one remained here.
Every human left the island.
Paradise is turning into hell.
Whish-sh-sh······
The giant Rift opened in the middle of the sky.
The chaotic mana flowing from that dark red wound was polluting the land.
The green forest full of life is now dying in ash color.
Fresh grass leaves were shriveled black, and sharp thorns sprouted at the tips.
The thick branches of the trees turned gaunt like corpses with only bones left and stretched toward the sky.
The clear valley water turned into sticky black oil and emitted an odor.
In the air, all sorts of terrible smells were mixed.
The fishy smell of iron, old oil smell, pungent sulfur smell.
And even the scent of chaos that made the mind distant just by smelling it, as if it were not of this world.
Slid-slid-slid-
Over that land of death, bizarre creatures began to crawl out from the gaps of the Rift.
Giant centipedes with dozens of legs, wolves with snake tails, sharks with bat wings······.
Every one of them was a terrible hybrid as if mocking the laws of this world.
But the monsters didn't go wild.
As if by appointment, they all bowed toward the deepest part of the national park, the summit of Mount Yonaha.
That place.
A single red flower was blooming at the center of every disaster.
The essence of chaos and the authority of destruction itself.
Every single one of those petals burned like a living flame and distorted the surrounding space.
Every time the flower breathed once, the chaotic mana pouring from the Rift was sucked into it.
Using the disaster as nutrient, it is reborn as an even more powerful disaster itself.
The monsters were prostrate without movement like lowly things before a god, waiting for their true king to fully bloom.
And that red flower.
Is quietly waiting in far-off time for the one and only master who will pluck it.
* * *
I was sitting on the veranda, drinking a health juice made from kale freshly picked from the garden this morning.
[Item: Kale of Resolution]
[Description: Upon consumption, it clears the anxiety and hesitation in the heart and grants a clear mind that can start the day vigorously.]
“Hmm, it's sweet.”
It was a new crop from the garden.
Bitter taste was minimal, while the unique freshness and cool taste of grass leaves were the best.
It was a peaceful morning.
Ding!
An urgent breaking news notification popped up on the terminal.
[Anchor: ···Yes, it's a video that just came in. It's a shocking video filmed by a magic satellite over Okinawa, Japan, which is currently designated as a restricted access area. Let's look at the screen together.]
The screen switched, showing the summit of Mount Yonaha in Okinawa where a storm was raging.
And in the middle of that summit.
With the giant Rift that seemed to swallow everything as a backdrop, a mysterious flower was blooming.
Red as blood, a flower emitting a heat as hot as lava.
In the middle of death and disaster, it was blooming so enchantingly and beautifully.
[Anchor: Experts estimate this flower to be a mutant plant that bloomed by using the immense mana flowing from the Rift as nutrient, and it's unknown what kind of terrible influence it will have on the ecosystem······.]
The anchor's serious voice was continuing.
Truly an atmosphere where the world would end.
But then.
Drip.
“······Hmm?”
From the mouth of Muryong, who was watching the news with me on my lap, transparent saliva was flowing like a waterfall.
It couldn't take its eyes off the red flower on the screen, and its eyes were sparkling as if it discovered the world's most delicious jelly.
-Hmyooooo······!
“Muryong! What's with this saliva!”
While I was wiping Muryong’s saliva.
“KKIYOOOOOOOOOOT!”
“?”
The Gorani next to me was also the same.
The Gorani was panting while wagging its tail like crazy, as if it would shove its nose into the screen.
“Why is he suddenly like that?”
Pat-pat-pat!
Muryong flapped its front paws as if flapping wings like a butterfly toward the red flower on the screen.
It was its unique body gesture that came out when it discovered something it wanted to eat.
“No way, you don't want to eat that, do you?”
A hollow laugh came out.
While the entire Earth is trembling saying it's a disaster for humanity.
‘Perhaps it's a natural reaction for our house kids.’
To the fellows who were growing while eating garden crops, the root of the disaster didn't look like an object of fear, but just some mysterious snack holding powerful energy.
-Hmyo, hmyoo!
“Kkiyot!”
As soon as I turned off the news, the fellows surrounded me all at once and began to beg.
Muryong pulled my pant leg, the Gorani wagged its tail and licked my hand.
“Pwa-aeng······.”
“Even you?”
Even the quiet Hasuo looked up at me with piteous eyes.
You want that that much?
“If I give that to the kids as a snack······.”
Since the fellows liked it so much, even such a nonsensical thought came.
Thinking it might be quite worth seeing if I plant it in the garden for viewing.
“Let's see.”
For fun, I looked through the [Designated Coordinate Movement Scrolls] in my inventory that I received as Tower Market(Dang-geun-tap) trade rewards.
[North Sea Deep Sea Hot Spring], [Amazon Unexplored Area], [South Pole Secret Base], etc.······.
The scrolls gathered while trading were diverse enough to almost go on a world tour.
“Ah, here it is.”
[Okinawa Yanbaru National Park Outskirts]
Among those many scrolls, there was no way Okinawa wouldn't be there.
A one-time scroll but with immediacy, a high-priced magic item capable of moving to Okinawa at once without distance restrictions.
It was one of the things I had been collecting one by one whenever I had the chance on Tower Market(Dang-geun-tap) thinking I’d use it someday.
If I use this now, I will arrive somewhere in that news screen's landscape.
But.
“Well, it's not a problem to think about now. Since they say S-Rank Hunters from the US and China were also deployed······ there's no need for me to step forward particularly.”
It's not that I’m not interested in the great Rift or world peace, but looking at the turning situation, it seemed it would be resolved well somehow.
And above all, to the current me, what's most important is.
-Mu-nyo-o-ng!
“Kking, kkiing!”
Turning my head, Muryong was lightly tapping its small snack basket under the kitchen shelf with its front paw.
The Gorani was also waiting for its snack turn while panting behind it.
“Seriously.”
A laugh slipped out at the appearance of Muryong and the Gorani.
Waiting for permission was commendable and cute, so a smile naturally came out.
Sae-geun, sae-geun-
“Pwa-a-a-a-eng······.”
Perhaps because of the influence of growth, meanwhile Hasuo was also seen sleeping on top of a pumpkin leaf.
It was a plain and daily, heart-warming landscape.
Enough to make me think I would be truly happy if I could continue this kind of life.
< Peaceful Herb Garden Daily Life > END