Hey, Somebody Save Me!
[We will soon be arriving at Cairo International Airport. For your safety, all passengers are requested to...]
"Wow... that took forever, huh?"
"......."
Seventeen hours of flight. I poked at my aching backside and tried striking up conversation with the escort agent beside me, but he gave me the silent treatment.
Fine, he was a foreigner — but he at least understood enough to give me a glare or two.
Right... why bother talking. It's not like I'm going to be friends with this nose-in-the-air prick.
A shining C-rank agent probably couldn't stand sharing words with a lowly E-rank criminal like me.
I resigned myself and leaned back into my seat. And that's when it happened.
"Ahh... I gotta pee."
"Ooh, miss, you need to pee? Just hold it a little— ah, wait, no! Hey!"
Seated across from me with the arrogant agent in between, a woman let out a groan — and he reacted like a man possessed. He then hailed a flight attendant and rattled off a whole stream of nonsense at her.
My jaw hit the floor.
......Wow.
Unbelievable. Genuinely unbelievable.
Forget the fact that he could speak Korean — that woman was worse than I was?
The woman who, before being sent here, had single-handedly wiped out an entire engineering guild. I'd heard she did it to hoard all the loot for herself.
"Hey, Mr. Nose-in-the-Air. I need to pee too."
"Hold it. We're landing soon. If you soil yourself right there, I'll have you tried on the spot for terrorism."
My throat tightened.
I should just keep my mouth shut.
Honestly, I didn't even need to pee. Knowing what was dangling between his legs, obviously I'd be the one holding it in.
The plane touched down on the runway, and I was handed off from one escort to the next and led off toward somewhere.
"Hey—hey! Over here, over here!"
A man waving his arms in front of a battered van — a middle-aged fellow sporting a loud floral Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses. He shook hands once with the agent who'd escorted us.
"Great work, great work! Thank you!"
"......."
Without so much as a reply, the agent turned and walked away. Watching his back recede, the man muttered under his breath.
"My, my. Quiet as ever, that one. Look at him — doesn't even blink in front of a pretty lady like this."
What a load of crap.
"Oh my, where are my manners! ...Starting today, I'll be your supervisor — Kim Young-hak. A pleasure to meet you."
"I'm Na Jihun. Looking forward to working with you!"
Krrrunch—
Kim Young-hak's handshake was a bone-grinding squeeze. I'd expected as much from the start, but this man too, was...
A Hunter.
"Excuse me, mister. It's hot out — can't we skip the greetings and just get in the car?"
"......."
At that, Kim Young-hak released my hand and stared at the woman in dead silence. Then he balled his fist, and in the blink of an eye, his arm shot up.
THWACK—!
"KYAAAH!"
The woman crumpled to the ground, her jaw shattered. Blood streamed from the corner of her mouth, and she wiped at it with a trembling fingertip.
"Wh... what...?"
She clearly couldn't process what had just happened. But soon enough, her eyes filled with fury and locked onto Kim Young-hak.
Kim Young-hak didn't spare her so much as a glance. He simply brushed off his hand.
"Ah, my apologies. Seems this criminal hasn't finished her training yet. Explaining things with words would be far more effort than she's worth, so I have no choice but to use a method that's easier and faster."
......This guy is not playing around.
Dread crawled up my spine.
They say anyone who smiles with narrowed eyes is a psychopath — well, this one's no ordinary piece of work either.
The woman, unable to swallow her rage, lunged at him — and didn't land so much as a scratch before being beaten to a pulp. Even after she started begging forgiveness midway through, Kim Young-hak didn't stop swinging until she was out cold.
Then, blood still dripping from his knuckles, he turned to me.
"You won't cause any problems, will you, Mr. Na Jihun?"
"O-of course not."
As if I'd dare...!
Even setting aside the display I'd just witnessed, the rank gap alone decided everything.
The unconscious woman was D-rank.
Which meant Kim Young-hak was at minimum C-rank — there was absolutely no way I was going to cross him. No. I couldn't afford to.
Vowing to stay so far beneath his notice that I'd never even appear in his field of vision, I climbed obediently into the van.
"Mr. Na Jihun?"
"Yes?"
"You need to load the lady in as well. Why are you pretending you had nothing to do with this?"
"...Sorry, what?"
I caused it...? What kind of nonsense is that?
"Move. Before I get angry."
"Ah? Ah, yes, yes! Of course, sorry!"
Something felt off, but for now I did as I was told.
The van took off the moment I sat down beside him, and Kim Young-hak, still wearing that pleasant smile, opened his mouth without missing a beat.
"That startled you, didn't it?"
"......Startled by what, exactly?"
"By how roughly I handled the lady."
"......."
...Don't tell me.
The 'you caused this' remark from before — and the fact that he was bringing it up now, unprompted. Slowly, his intention began to come into focus.
He's telling me to keep my mouth shut.
I declared my cooperation, loud and clear.
"I have no idea what you mean."
"Oh? Then why is the lady lying there in a bloody pulp?"
"She must have fallen down on her own."
"That's a lot of swelling for a fall, isn't it? It'd be awkward if someone else asked about it."
"Well, now that you mention it... I suppose we did have a bit of a scuffle."
At that, Kim Young-hak burst into a booming HAHAHA! Then he clapped me on the shoulder, wham wham, and said:
"Khh... excellent, excellent! Mr. Na Jihun! I believe we're going to get along just fine!"
Thankfully, it seemed I'd passed the first impression test.
Right. Flattery is something I can supply in unlimited quantities. As long as it keeps me alive.
Two long years at the very bottom of life's barrel. Reading a room like this was nothing to me.
I kept the conversation going, matching his mood beat for beat. A short while later we dumped the unconscious woman off at what looked like some kind of office, and the van tore on for several more hours.
At last we arrived at our destination. Stepping out of the van, I spotted a single, modest building.
"This is the place. A bit shabby, wouldn't you say?"
"It's more than I deserve."
"Heh heh, you really are a likable one. Anyway — a water truck comes by once every two weeks, and food supplies are delivered once a week. As for everything else... you understand, right?"
"Yes. You don't even need to say it."
Meaning: figure it out yourself.
A building standing utterly alone in the middle of a nameless desert. Solar panels were installed on the roof, and the walls were bare of windows except for a single weathered wooden door.
The only sight worth seeing was a water tank taller than a grown man.
"Well then, let's head inside."
When he pulled open the creaking door, a cloud of dust billowed out. He swept the interior once with his gaze, then stepped inside.
Unexpectedly, the place came with basic amenities.
A bed — cramped, but big enough for an adult to lie down on — a refrigerator, a lamp, and a toilet. A squat toilet, naturally.
Kang Il-hwan told me budget had been allocated to replace it with a modern system...
And whose pocket that budget vanished into was as good as obvious.
"Anyway, everything's here. So what am I supposed to do?"
"Why, whatever you like, of course."
"......."
"Kuk kuk, just kidding. If you check the refrigerator, you'll find all kinds of seeds stored inside. Normally you'd focus on high-yield crops like wheat or corn, but..."
He rested a hand lightly on my shoulder.
"That's the government's recommendation. Here, peaches sell for a very pretty price."
......That's not a recommendation, that's an order.
"Trees take a while to grow, though. Will that be alright?"
"Keh heh! Patience is a virtue, isn't it! Of course it's fine! And besides... it's not like an E-rank can sustain anything for that long anyway, right? Right?"
"Haha..."
Damn it. I was going to get drained dry and die before I even finished my sentence.
Growing stalk crops and growing a tree were two entirely different universes of effort.
On top of that, this climate was far too brutal for a peach tree —
and once I factored in the maintenance mana I'd have to burn just to keep the things from withering, my head was already starting to ache.
Still, what can you do. When someone says jump...
"......I'll work as hard as I can."
Kim Young-hak flashed a contented smile. Then, with a casual wave of his hand, he was gone.
Only after the sound of the van's engine had faded completely into the distance was I finally able to collapse where I stood.
"I'm absolutely screwed, aren't I..."
What was I going to do?
I could gloss over things like this in the early days, sure — but I couldn't keep that up forever.
The man was greedy for money to the bone, which meant eventually I'd have to show results...
The problem is that I'm E-rank.
An E-rank's mana had a hard, unforgiving ceiling.
Push too far, and I might just 'accidentally' die in an incident and get replaced by some other poor bastard.
"So I need to find some kind of angle..."
The one silver lining was that my ability specialized in growing trees.
Speed and scale were beyond me, but growing a tree beautifully? That, I could do.
"...Right. I'll style it elf-garden chic and turn it into a tourist orchard. Something that sleazebag won't dare touch."
***
From the next day on, I threw myself into the work.
Using the prepared seeds and fertilizer, I sprouted peach trees. The layout wasn't a standard orchard but a garden design, and I grew the trees so their living wood would shape itself into benches and chairs.
But bearing fruit in a single day proved impossible no matter what — I kept collapsing mid-growth on day two, over and over.
"Haa..."
And so, on the tenth day, impatience began to gnaw at me.
I'm working as hard as I can but...
It wasn't enough.
The supervisor was supposed to drop by once every two weeks, which meant Kim Young-hak would be back in about four days. There was no chance in hell he'd be satisfied with a handful of peaches.
How on earth had it come to this?
I came here to rest and recover, and instead I'd found myself dumped into some absurd survival game...
Feeling more and more disgusted with my own sorry lot, I flopped onto my back on the sand.
"......I've prepared a beautiful garden for you, Young-hak."
No way in hell that cold-blooded bastard would fall for a line like that.
Come to think of it, it was kind of funny, though.
Kim Young-jin, Kim Young-hak.
They're all a bunch of Kim-Young-somethings. Is everyone with that name a psycho by default?
"AAARGH— I don't know, I don't know, I don't know!!!! Just kill me— kill me!!"
Flop.
"...Huh?"
As I flailed my arms, something caught against my hand. I wiggled my fingers a little, felt it again, and gripped it tight, dragging it up out of the sand.
Ssshhh—
Sand poured off in a flowing stream. And when I opened my hand to look at what I'd seized, an unexpected identity revealed itself.
"This is..."
A wooden ring?
A wooden ring adorned with an ornament shaped like a horned mask. Its craftsmanship was exquisitely detailed — and strangely mesmerizing.
More beautiful than anything I had ever made. An inexplicable spite welled up in me, and I muttered under my breath.
"......Pretty well-made, for tourist-trap merchandise. Let's see how it fits, shall we?"
Swoosh—
Click.