The Power Nobody Knew
In the rattling car, Oh Hyeon-seong sat in the passenger seat, watching the quiet scenery drift past the window.
"I didn't expect you to come all the way to Seoul to pick me up."
"First time seeing your face in five years — I figured I owed you at least this much service. What, you moved?"
"Not until you said that."
"Hahahaha!"
The man spouting all this nonsense was his old hometown friend, Gwon Gyeong-min.
A city boy who'd run his own small business, the guy had suddenly settled down in the countryside out of nowhere — and even gotten married on top of it. Ever since, every time he met Oh Hyeon-seong, he'd been relentlessly pushing him to quit city life and move out to the country too.
Case in point: the moment Oh Hyeon-seong so much as mentioned farming, the man had driven straight up to Seoul without a second thought.
"You wouldn't so much as lend an ear when I brought it up before, and now you suddenly want to move out here? You have no idea how shocked I was."
"People's minds change as they get older."
"Was it because of that incident?"
"What incident?"
"Your injury. You went completely silent out of nowhere, and then it turned out you'd been badly hurt — surgeries, rehab, the whole thing. How bad was it, exactly? Weren't you supposed to have a desk job?"
"Well... I stepped out briefly to a site we thought had finished its monster subjugation, and got caught up in an accident. Bad luck, that's all."
Oh Hyeon-seong said it with a conveniently vague wave of the hand.
The truth was that he had retired from hunting for good. With superhuman willpower, he'd submitted his resignation right there on the helicopter being airlifted out, and as promised, the government had processed his discharge immediately — exactly as they'd agreed in advance.
But that didn't mean he could jump straight into a new life. The injuries he'd sustained on his final site were so catastrophic that it took him over three years just to regain consciousness after surgery. Additional treatment and rehabilitation kept him in the hospital even longer.
Five years had already passed since that last mission. Even now, his doctors urged him to avoid any strenuous movement whenever possible.
"Damn, what kind of bolt from the blue was that."
"It's all in the past. I'm not moving to the countryside because of the injury, either. More importantly, I'm not sure I should be relocating this hastily."
"Huh, and that thought only occurs to you now?"
Gwon Gyeong-min broke into a sly grin.
"When you move to the country, you should go somewhere you've got connections. You may not have family here, but you've got me, so don't worry."
"Getting married's turned you into quite the responsible man, huh."
"You mocking me? I've been a man's man since the day I was born. Anyway, there's nothing to worry about. They say moving out to farm isn't as easy as it sounds, but this is a path I've already walked and vetted for you. No cliques, everyone's friendly, and there's a decent number of young folks too."
Gwon Gyeong-min launched into a whole catalogue of stories about the village.
Since this would be his new home, Oh Hyeon-seong listened carefully. The last thing he wanted was to leave the city behind only to end up a stranger who never mixed with the locals.
As the two traded stories of one kind and another, mealtime crept up on them. Feeling peckish, they stopped at a highway rest stop and ordered some food.
"Ugh, this tastes like garbage."
Gwon Gyeong-min dropped his sausage back onto the plate with a clatter. Of course, the steamed potato Oh Hyeon-seong was holding tasted just as dreadful.
"Dirt-cheap synthetic meat, and a factory-made potato that might as well have been sawdust."
"What can you do? Everything's gone downhill since the Gates appeared. Still gotta eat to live."
"Sheesh, how do people in the city survive on this stuff?"
"The countryside's no different. Even naturally grown crops are affected by the miasma monsters give off."
The appearance of the Gates had triggered a massive upheaval in humanity's diet.
Hunters stepped in and exterminated the monsters, but the miasma the creatures had already spewed lingered in the environment, affecting it both directly and indirectly. To be fair, residual miasma at those levels couldn't do anything significant to a person.
But the miasma seeping deep into the soil stunted the growth of crops and livestock, and made them sickly. As a result, humanity's food production plummeted.
To overcome the crisis and keep food on tables somehow, synthetic meat and synthetic crops began pouring out of corporate factories. These new foods were remarkably cheap and efficient. Their only flaw was that they tasted absolutely terrible.
Genetic engineering eventually produced miasma-resistant naturally grown crops and livestock, but these didn't taste any better. They sacrificed huge swaths of productivity compared to factory-made goods in exchange for only a marginal improvement in flavor.
With the wealthy flocking to premium custom-synthetic produce, it was these small farming villages that were left touting the natural stuff.
"No, come on — this is going too far. Natural food is way better. What kind of meat has the texture of chewing colored construction paper?"
Gwon Gyeong-min argued with feeling.
It was certainly true that naturally grown food tasted better than the cheap factory-made stuff. To put it more precisely: top-grade synthetic meat > natural meat > bargain-bin synthetic meat, with price proportional to taste in that order.
But all three were horrific compared to the meat people had eaten in the old days. Even the upper crust enjoying steaks worth millions of won were eating meals worse than the scrap meat from an ordinary neighborhood butcher of the past.
Oh Hyeon-seong could no longer even remember what the original taste had been like. Perhaps that was the terrifying thing about humans — how they eventually adapted even to this and carried on without a care.
"Who knew all that food I used to mindlessly stuff my face with as a kid would feel this precious now? Nothing fancy, even a single potato... I wish I could taste it all again at least once before I die."
"Fat chance. You'd have to raid some buried secret seed vault for that."
The two men chuckled and got back on the road.
The truck carrying the two men sputtered and groaned its way up the incline. When they finally pulled up in front of the destination, Gwon Gyeong-min immediately began dragging him this way and that.
"The old owner had to rush up to Seoul, so he was letting it go for next to nothing — I snatched it right up. Said he'd have lived here his whole life if it weren't for his chronic illness. I'd had my eye on this land for ages anyway, so I bought it without a second thought. Been holding onto it just for you."
"Whoa... what were you planning to do if I never came?"
"Took longer than I expected, but I figured you'd come eventually. You looked, I don't know — worn out, back then."
"That obvious, huh."
Oh Hyeon-seong gave a wry smile.
"So, what do you think?"
"The house is in way better shape than I imagined. But... isn't it a bit too big? With the annex, it could comfortably fit an entire extended family."
"What's wrong with that? City people go crazy for big square footage."
"Anyone would think you'd lived here for decades."
"Hwa-ha-ha!"
Gwon Gyeong-min laughed it off with a hearty roar. Declaring that the house could wait, he led the way, pulling Oh Hyeon-seong out across the yard — and then said something he never saw coming.
"All of this, top to bottom, is private property. From over there all the way over there."
"What? All of it? You're joking, right?"
Oh Hyeon-seong's jaw dropped.
He'd been told there was land to farm, so he'd assumed a modest vegetable garden at most — but even a rough estimate put this at several thousand pyeong or more. Granted, he hadn't received every last patch; there were roads and empty plots mixed in. But during the drive up, he'd genuinely assumed those were the villagers' fields.
"No joke."
"Are you kidding me? I said I was moving to the countryside, not starting a business. I couldn't manage this much land alone even if I tried..."
"You don't have to use all of it. Out here, unlike the city, idle land doesn't raise any eyebrows. If you've got nothing to do, build yourself a gazebo and goof off. And quit muttering and look over there already."
At Gwon Gyeong-min's words, Oh Hyeon-seong turned his gaze. He'd been looking right at the man's face — what was he supposed to be looking at? But the moment his eyes found the spot, he found himself staring, dazed and transfixed.
A wide-open vista overlooking the entire village. The view was truly spectacular. So this was why the man had been going on about land he'd been eyeing for years.
"It's a bit removed from the village, but I figured you'd actually prefer it that way."
"...Dead on."
Seeing his expression, Gwon Gyeong-min snorted with laughter and clapped him on the shoulder.
"I've got somewhere to be, so I'm heading off first. Go say hello to your new house. See you tomorrow."
And so, almost against his will, Oh Hyeon-seong had found himself saddled with a house and land far beyond anything he'd imagined. After staring blankly at the scenery a while longer, he shook his head vigorously and set about unpacking.
He'd never been one to carry much baggage, so the job was done in no time. The house was absurdly spacious enough that he could just cram everything in wherever it fit.
"Alright, everyone, come on out."
Kyiing!
Out in the yard, Oh Hyeon-seong summoned his spirits. The space was plenty big enough for it. Because he'd called them all out at once, hundreds of tiny spirits came spilling into the open air.
They frolicked this way and that, thrilled and excited.
"Looks like the new house suits you."
A fond smile spread across his face as he watched them.
They had no combat ability, so they'd never accompanied him onto the battlefield — but they were the ones who'd been by his side since the earliest days of his awakening. And yet, he'd never seen them this delighted before.
'Come to think of it, the city must have felt suffocating to these guys.'
The low-tier spirits contracted to him each carried the attribute of fire, water, life, or earth, and their appearance changed accordingly. Among all the awakened in the entire world, Oh Hyeon-seong was the only user of all four elemental attributes — a fact that hardly seemed to mean anything anymore, at this point in his life.
Either way, it stood to reason that they'd prefer a place brimming with the elements of nature over a city packed wall-to-wall with concrete.
"In that case, I suppose I should get to work too."
Oh Hyeon-seong headed for the small vegetable garden attached to the yard. The sprawling land beyond it was far too daunting to touch, so he'd start with the more manageable garden first. Even a man retired to the countryside couldn't sit around idle forever, after all.
Though come to think of it, even this little garden was nothing to scoff at. All his life he'd done nothing but kill monsters without much thought — he knew absolutely nothing about farming. Even deciding to move out here had been nothing more than a vague wish, a passing impulse.
And so Oh Hyeon-seong reached into his pocket and drew out his secret weapon.
'Start with the easiest thing first!'
In his hand was the packet of lettuce seeds he'd brought with him from Seoul. Lettuce — the plant that supposedly sprouted up on its own with nothing but water. He'd heard somewhere that people even grew it on apartment balconies, which made it the least intimidating opponent he could imagine.
Searching how-tos on his phone as he went, Oh Hyeon-seong began sowing the seeds.
He had, of course, done nothing in the way of compost or lime beforehand. He wasn't about to run some grand agricultural operation — the plan was simply to dip a toe in and see how it went.
Kyiing!
The spirits, watching him with fascination, began to gather one by one. The tiny spirits clustered around the freshly planted seeds and began dancing gently above them, tracing little circles as they played. Their antics drew a soft chuckle out of him.
"Don't let them get wrecked, got it?"
The spirits nodded their heads in determined unison.
With the work done, Oh Hyeon-seong brushed the soil from his palms and headed back inside. Finishing the unpacking would see the day through in no time.
The next day, Oh Hyeon-seong stood before the garden with a look of utter bewilderment on his face.
The lettuce — rooted and grown overnight — stood there in full, vibrant form, impossibly fresh. All this, in the span of a single night.
"...What is this."