Potatoes From Another Dimension
"Insane."
Oh Hyeon-seong's eyes went wide.
No meat, no rice, no other ingredients. He had done nothing but shove a single leaf of lettuce into his mouth — and yet the flavor of that one leaf was nothing short of staggering.
"What is this?"
No bitterness at all, a crisp, snappy texture. Above all, the lettuce was brimming with such vivid life that it was like painting color over a dull, monochrome world.
I ate lettuce just last week, but there's no comparing it to that.
Factory-farmed lettuce was notorious for its papery, mushy texture — chewing it was like chewing paper. The excessive bitterness went without saying; you counted yourself lucky if you'd picked a cheap batch that didn't smell musty and stale. Natural-grown produce wasn't much better. Now that Earth's environment had fallen under the influence of Takgi, natural crops had to sacrifice so much just to grow while resisting its erosion.
But with this lettuce from his garden, before texture or aroma even entered the equation, the word fresh seemed to bloom on his tongue. Green, vibrant life burst open inside his mouth. It was like the vegetables from before the gate crisis had ever happened.
This is no time for this.
Bang!
Oh Hyeon-seong bolted outside and yanked lettuce out of the garden patch. He didn't even have the presence of mind to grab a basket — he simply came back cradling an armful of lettuce in both hands. After dusting off the soil and rinsing them once in water, he returned to the table.
Crunch!
Good heavens...
Delicious. Ridiculously delicious. This was just a weed, for heaven's sake — he could happily live as a herbivore for the rest of his life if it meant eating lettuce like this until the day he died.
And this is me — the guy who never complained but never cared either, who'd eat whatever was shoved in front of him without a flicker of interest... getting this shaken by a meal?
He crunched his way through the lettuce, then scooped up a spoonful of rice as an afterthought.
"Kkh—"
Oh Hyeon-seong quietly set the spoon down.
The rice was a problem. Even the garden-fresh lettuce couldn't rescue that bland white rice.
"Did you... do that on purpose? Make it taste good?"
He asked the spirit of life, who had been staring at him intently the whole time, but the little creature shook its head. It hadn't been intentional. The spirits had simply made the plants healthy and fast-growing — the deliciousness was just a natural byproduct of passing through their hands.
What on earth did you all do...
What had happened over the course of that single night? Oh Hyeon-seong decided he would need to keep a close watch on the spirits' behavior in the garden from now on.
But just around the time he'd polished off every last leaf of lettuce he'd brought back —
Ding-dong!
"Hmm?"
The doorbell rang from outside. Gwon Gyeong-min, who had been showing him around all day, was spending time with his family, and he hadn't ordered anything by delivery. With no one else who could plausibly be looking for him, he opened the front gate with a question mark hanging over his head.
On the other side stood a young woman and a young man.
"Oh, he's home!"
"Wow, you're really young! Hello there!"
At their bright, cheerful greeting, Oh Hyeon-seong asked with mild suspicion, "And you are?"
"We're your next-door neighbors!"
"Next door... oh!"
He nodded, a beat late, as the house came to mind — the one you reached by heading a little way down the western path. It was far enough away that you could never call it next door in city terms, but it was the closest neighbor he had. Being similarly set apart from the village center to the south helped too. If any house could be called next door to his rather isolated home, it was that one.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Oh Hyeon-seong — I moved in yesterday."
"I'm Yoo Eun-ha. Hehe, we heard a bit about you from Mr. Gyeong-min."
"I'm Yoo Seung-su. We came from across the way there — did you happen to see the wooden house?"
"Of course I did. I was actually planning to come by this afternoon, but you weren't home."
"We had business in the city, so we were on our way back at the time. When we got home, Mr. Gyeong-min gave us an earful, so we hurried over to pay our respects. Haha."
Oh Hyeon-seong shook Yoo Seung-su's hand in a firm, energetic grip. Come to think of it, apparently Gyeong-min was already being called "Mister" by these two. The man was barely in his early thirties. Maybe it was because he had a family, or maybe he simply had an older face. Either way, the thought that he'd been lumped in with him and was now getting called "Mister" by grown adults left Oh Hyeon-seong with a strange feeling. Before his five-year hospital stay, he'd been a perfectly respectable twenty-something himself, after all.
"Are you two siblings, by any chance?"
"See? Told you he'd figure it out right away!"
Yoo Eun-ha thrust up her index finger in a jaunty little gesture and nodded. With just two people arriving, the quiet house suddenly felt full of life. It was a pleasant liveliness — nothing like the grating kind of noise.
"No use standing out here — come on in."
"Thank you for having us~"
They stepped inside and settled onto the wooden platform bench in the middle of the yard. At the appearance of a stranger, the spirits scurried away to hide. One hide was all it took for them to vanish without a trace — typical of their slippery talents.
Perhaps thanks to the siblings' easygoing, sociable energy, conversation flowed without a hint of awkwardness.
"So you've finished all your greetings for the day?"
"That's right. Everyone's been so kind."
"We came out here and settled in two years ago. It was our first time farming, so we worried about clashing with the locals, but there was none of that. It's a really good village."
"Fellow city-born transplants — let's look out for each other!"
At Yoo Eun-ha's words, Oh Hyeon-seong chuckled and nodded. He considered himself lucky that these two were his closest neighbors. Unlike the city, where you could simply put up walls and ignore everyone, being stuck next to a prickly neighbor in the countryside would have made life exhausting in a dozen small ways. Being fellow city transplants, they were less likely to clash over values — and now he had someone who could offer advice from the perspective of a fellow newcomer to farming.
"By the way, you're really handsome. And you're so tall — are you a hunter, by any chance?"
"Ah... not at all. I did work in that field, but I was desk staff doing the follow-up paperwork. Just a civil servant, really."
Oh Hyeon-seong answered with a shake of his head. Just as his old friend Gwon Gyeong-min believed, he introduced himself only as a civil servant and kept his true identity hidden. The unit had disbanded, and there was no longer any strict need to honor the secrecy oath, but with him wanting a quiet rural life, nothing good could come of people learning he was a hunter. Above all, despite operating on the very front lines, his name was unknown to the general public. Back then, hunters' activities weren't as openly publicized as they were now, and he had belonged to a unit that was classified as a state secret. As a result, outside of those who had served alongside him, very few hunters today even knew who he was.
"You're really not an awakened?"
"Come on. What hunter would move to some backwater village — not even a regional city? Do you know how much hunters are worth these days?"
Yoo Seung-su chided his sister, but she only tilted her head and muttered, "Still... no matter how I look at him, he's got the hunter look..."
In the past, the standard of beauty had been celebrities — the archetypal profession of living off one's face. But times had changed. High-tier awakened, as a rule, were born with outstanding physiques. Long, well-proportioned limbs, superior body proportions, and skin so clear and flawless that skin trouble was unthinkable, maintained at all times. Not every one of them, of course, but the ratio of strikingly beautiful men and women among the awakened was far higher than among ordinary people. And this tendency only grew more pronounced the higher the rank. The more talented the hunter, the higher the odds they'd been born with exceptional looks. The majority of hunters were unremarkable to look at, but the ones who made it into the media were all top-tier performers — which meant the public face of the profession belonged entirely to the beautiful. Thanks to this, a distinct image had formed around the hunter profession, and by now hunters had become something even bigger than the celebrities of old. They saved people on the battlefield and slew monsters. As beings absolutely essential to keeping society running, they naturally drew the full attention of the media. Add to that looks and star power that everyone envied, and it was impossible for them not to be popular. Unlike the days when they'd operated in the shadows, the hunter industry had swung into the spotlight within just a few years and grown into a massive business in its own right — the very reason hunter management agencies specializing in the field had sprung up.
"Still, you must have seen plenty of famous hunters, working for the government. I'm so jealous. Wait — did you ever see Han Su-yeon? Seeing Han Su-yeon in person even once is my lifelong dream."
"Ask a real question for once. Could an ordinary staff member ever see Han Su-yeon?"
"She walks right past them, you idiot! Why do you keep butting in?"
As the siblings began bickering between themselves, Oh Hyeon-seong hurriedly changed the subject.
"So what brought you two out here?"
"Well... the company was just grinding us into the dirt... haha."
Yoo Seung-su said it with an awkward laugh. "But don't get me wrong — we didn't come running here to escape. We came with ambition."
"Ambition?"
Just as Oh Hyeon-seong wondered what kind of ambition a farming village could possibly hold, Yoo Seung-su abruptly thrust forward the box he'd brought with him. Curious, Oh Hyeon-seong opened it — and inside the large container lay a heaping pile of potatoes.
"Fresh new-harvest potatoes, still warm from the ground. Prepared specially for our new neighbor."
"Ah, thank you. Though isn't it a bit early in the season to be harvesting potatoes?"
"Normally, yes. But technological advancement hasn't benefited only synthetic crops. Natural cultivars have been developed in all kinds of varieties too — though their limits are clear, since Takgi resistance eats up so much of the development cost."
"The old-timers stick with the varieties they've always used, but we're different. And with proper facilities in place, those limits can be pushed back a whole lot further."
The siblings launched into an explanation like water rushing downhill. What they had invested in was a highly advanced, next-generation smart farm — one capable of growing new breeds that could never survive in an ordinary field. Crops could be planted year-round regardless of season, Takgi damage was reduced to stabilize and steadily increase yields, and above all, they cultivated premium cultivars with dramatically improved flavor.
"Everything we grow gets supplied to Hankyung Department Store. Thanks to that, they pay us a much better rate."
"Hmm? Doesn't the department store only deal in high-grade synthetic produce?"
"That used to be the case. But perceptions have shifted a lot in the last two or three years, so a meaningful customer base of upper-class shoppers seeking natural produce has emerged. For a long time the gap in flavor was just too wide compared to premium synthetics, but thanks to steady refinement, the taste has been brought up to nearly the same level."
"On top of that, we've invested heavily in top-of-the-line equipment, so our quality is even better. That's how we ended up supplying the food hall of Hankyung Department Store — famous for being picky as all get-out."
"Hoh..."
So there was real substance behind their talk of ambition. At this level, they weren't just senior farming transplants — they were first-rate agriculturalists.
"Then these potatoes too..."
"Of course. The taste will knock your socks off. It'll open your eyes, I promise."
Yoo Eun-ha declared it boldly. After adding a few more explanations about their cutting-edge facilities and the latest trends in agriculture, the siblings took their leave with a promise that he absolutely had to try the potatoes. Oh Hyeon-seong exchanged contact information with them and saw them off clutching the gift he'd nearly forgotten to hand back.
"Interesting."
Oh Hyeon-seong looked down at the box brimming with potatoes. If they were good enough to be supplied to the food hall of Hankyung Department Store — the finest in the country — then these had to be counted among the most delicious natural potatoes in existence. As soon as the siblings disappeared, the spirits that had been hiding began wriggling out from their hiding spots all around him.
"Well then... shall we run a little test?"
Just which side would taste better? Phone in hand, Oh Hyeon-seong began searching for how to grow potatoes.