The Rice of Genesis
The backlash from Haeju had knocked Lee Gil-sang unconscious.
The curse itself had been unraveled cleanly, and his life was in no danger whatsoever — but he wasn't going to be getting up anytime soon.
Hyeon-seong dug him out from where he'd been buried and carried him off to a reasonable spot in the annex.
Properly restrained, of course. With the curse dispelled, he intended to get a full accounting the moment the man woke up.
In any case, with the sudden commotion behind them, the reunion of five got back underway.
Which was, frankly, a successful turnout.
Unlike Oh Hyeon-seong himself, who was practically a man of leisure these days, the others had all managed to carve time out of their packed schedules at the same moment.
Gatherings like this wouldn't come easy again.
And so he decided it was time to deploy his secret weapon.
"...When on earth did you buy all this?"
"With the money from selling strawberries. What's the point of earning it if you don't spend it?"
Oh Hyeon-seong hauled a massive barbecue grill out of the storage shed.
Han Su-yeon, helping him carry the load, couldn't help but marvel at how genuinely professional the equipment inventory was.
He was raking in plenty from the department store deliveries; there'd been no need to scrimp here.
Everything had been bought for this exact moment.
They set up tables and chairs in the yard, lit lanterns to warm the steadily darkening sky, and stacked firewood in the fire pit until flames crackled to life.
"Oh, who knew you had such a good eye for this, Sunbae."
"Only just figuring that out now?"
At her words, he nodded with unmistakable pride.
Even by his own assessment, the setup looked properly impressive.
A scene of refined beauty more than sufficient to satisfy every ounce of his romantic longings.
"Wow, what is all this?"
"...Not bad at all."
His juniors, emerging outside, let out their own exclamations of admiration.
It was enough to earn a nod of approval even from Baek Ji-soo.
Quietly satisfied, Oh Hyeon-seong stepped out of the house and returned from the second storage shed with the pork he'd been stockpiling there.
The barbecue party began in earnest, and everyone gathered around to eat.
The reactions were, of course, entirely predictable.
Given their first taste of real meat — something synthetic cuts could never hope to imitate — they all lost their minds completely.
And with the rice, the side dishes, even the sauce on the table all made from ingredients grown right here, the combined force of it all went without saying.
It was a spread that could do nothing but draw gasps from every direction.
Even so, there was one reaction even he hadn't anticipated.
"...Why are you eating so much?"
"Hmm?"
Baek Ji-soo, cheeks stuffed with a full mouthful of rice, turned around reflexively.
Oh Hyeon-seong, standing beside her, gave her a look of pure incredulity.
This was the woman who'd claimed her sense of taste was gone.
She'd left half of that bibimbap he'd so ambitiously served her last time, and now she was devouring food like this?
"Ahem."
A faint flush crept up Baek Ji-soo's cheeks as she glanced around.
She'd been too busy eating to pay attention to her surroundings, but fortunately, everyone except Oh Hyeon-seong was seated around the fire pit, deep in conversation.
"...It's good."
"'It's good'? Look at you, tossing out empty pleasantries now."
"It's not just talk. It's genuinely good."
"Has your sense of taste come back or something?"
"Yeah. It's back."
"...I'm sorry, what?"
Her blunt answer caught Oh Hyeon-seong completely off guard.
And so Baek Ji-soo explained: her sense of taste, long thought to be utterly destroyed, had recently returned to her.
Needless to say, she left out the useless detail that every one of her senses had been quietly dimming as she drifted toward death.
"I don't fully understand it, but I think it changed after I ate that meal you gave me, Sunbae."
"...Did that actually happen?"
Oh Hyeon-seong nodded, dazed.
That was a very good thing, of course.
But her sense of taste — supposedly gone for good — coming back?
That was something he hadn't predicted in the slightest.
Recovering from sequelae and regaining function in a completely lost faculty were matters of an entirely different order.
"Anyway. Thank you, Sunbae. I really enjoyed that lunchbox too."
With a smile, Baek Ji-soo gave his forearm a light tap as she passed.
She was trying not to show it, but he could tell she felt oddly self-conscious.
More than that, though, a thought struck him — since she'd been discharged and he'd run into her again, had he ever once seen her smile like that, a real one?
"Kyaaang!"
Just as the evening was ripening into something warm and comfortable, the spirits made their appearance.
There was no one here they needed to hide from, so they poured out into the yard and played to their hearts' content.
Delicious food below, the moon and stars glittering above, and the fire spirits flickering and dancing, their wavering lights weaving everything together into one.
It had been so long since they'd all gathered like this.
The night they all shared was quite the memorable one.
He'd crossed countless frontlines and racked up plenty of unforgettable memories along the way.
But this night, somehow, would stay with him for a different reason entirely.
The next day, Oh Hyeon-seong dragged himself outside, rumpled and half-awake.
Everyone else seemed to still be sleeping, but when he stepped into the yard, he found Ryu Ji-hwa already up and about.
"Sunbae-nim! Good morning!"
"Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed from the crack of dawn, huh."
"It's already time to be up! I was about to head out for a walk — come run with me, Sunbae-nim!"
"Hmm, should I?"
Oh Hyeon-seong lazily threw on some clothes and slipped on his shoes.
Unlike the energetic Ryu Ji-hwa, years of country living had worn comfortable habits deep into his bones.
These days, he half suspected that being so active this early in the morning was the abnormal thing to do.
Himself from the old days included.
"The air's so crisp and refreshing!"
"Is it? Feels cold to me."
"And the scenery is gorgeous!"
"That much I'll grant you."
The two of them set off together, jogging at an easy pace down the road.
With natural walking trails scattered in every direction — the kind other people had to drive out to visit — there was no wrong way to run here.
"So your leg's fully healed now?"
"Not completely. But it's far better than when I was in the hospital."
"You'd never guess from the outside."
"It'll keep improving with time. Anyway — are you skipping breakfast again today?"
"Yes, sir. I'm managing my diet."
Ryu Ji-hwa nodded as he answered.
He was the one who'd organized this whole gathering, yet he hadn't touched a single bite of the food here the day before.
Hunters with their enormous activity levels and basal metabolisms generally had no need for diet management, but the ones who took special care of themselves tended to be equally meticulous about what they ate.
For a hunter, one's own body was the greatest asset there was.
"Well, come by sometime when you're free and have a proper meal."
Oh Hyeon-seong said with a shrug.
Ryu Ji-hwa was, more than anyone, the type to treat his personal routine as sacred.
He had no intention of forcing the man to break it.
There was no sign of miasma accumulation in him yet, after all.
Even now, at this very moment, Ryu Ji-hwa was growing at a frightening pace, and Choi Jeong-il believed it wouldn't be long before he surpassed him as a hunter.
The man had that much raw potential — enough that even Oh Hyeon-seong acknowledged it.
"Oh, there's a building over there?"
"Ah, right. That's the siblings' place."
Oh Hyeon-seong said as a wooden house emerged from among the trees.
Ryu Ji-hwa flashed a grin.
"Since we're here anyway, why don't we drop in?"
"Right now?"
"You always say it yourself, Sunbae-nim — knock the iron out while it's hot."
And so they paid an entirely unplanned visit.
The peaceful household was thrown into an uproar.
An uproar created by the shamelessly bold Ryu Ji-hwa and the Yoo siblings, who flew into a frenzy at the sight of him.
When they asked what his relationship was with this man calling Oh Hyeon-seong "Sunbae-nim," Hyeon-seong did what he always did and glossed over it.
Word was already out about Han Su-yeon, and Joo Ji-hye too. Would one more name really change anything now?
He'd reached the stage where he could only sigh, Ah, so they've heard through the grapevine this time.
All that was left was for people to marvel at what a well-connected man he was in hunter circles.
"Th-thank you so much..."
"One photo? Come on, you'll regret it later if that's all you get."
Ryu Ji-hwa grinned, snatched the phone right out of Yoo Eun-ha's hand, and started taking pictures for her.
He pulled the awkwardly standing girl right up beside him, pressed in close for the shot — full fan service, professionally executed.
"This is... this is insane."
Yoo Seung-su watched with eyes green with envy.
That could have been him, spending a moment like that with his own favorite.
He could only curse himself for missing Joo Ji-hye when she'd visited the village — failing to see her in person with his own two eyes.
They're having fun, the little dorks.
Oh Hyeon-seong suppressed a chuckle at the siblings' antics.
He couldn't for the life of him see what was so special about hunters he saw every other day, but they looked happy, and that was all that mattered.
"In any case, please take good care of our Sunbae-nim. Neighbors, make sure he has plenty of company so he doesn't get lonely out here all by himself."
"What am I, a lonely old bachelor?"
"Hahaha!"
"I wonder if everyone's made it back to Seoul by now."
Oh Hyeon-seong muttered, sprawled on the wooden porch with a long, lazy yawn.
The house had gone quiet again.
Having shipped all his juniors off, he'd just woken from a nice long afternoon nap.
It's getting ridiculous how much I sleep these days.
Tsuss!
Just then, a tiny orb of light bobbed and drifted around him.
At first glance, it would be impossible to guess what it was — but this was Alisa, in her unmanifested form.
When she took form she looked fully human, yet in her true state she was this strange little light?
One way or another, she was unquestionably an unusual spirit.
Pa-at!
Alisa manifested, shifting into her human shape.
Oh Hyeon-seong led her, trotting faithfully at his heels, out toward the fields.
The field was a lush patchwork, every crop thriving in its own way.
But amid it all, one area stood apart from the rest.
In a corner of the field.
A small, hastily built rice paddy had been laid out there.
Created with the help of Alvern, spirit of water, and in it grew rice stalks gleaming gold.
I sweated over these, cultivating them with bated breath — I'd only barely gotten my hands on the original strain.
Thanks to the spirits, he'd managed to bring the small handful of rice seeds safely to sprout.
One mistake and the seeds would fail to grow properly, ending everything on the spot — the tension had been real. But the spirits' skill, as ever, was remarkable.
And so harvest time had arrived.
He'd reaped the fully grown stalks, run them straight through a home rice hulling machine on the spot, and cooked up a pot of rice.
"At last... is this the decisive hour."
Oh Hyeon-seong stood before the rice cooker with almost reverent solemnity.
Then, with a click, the lid opened onto pure white rice.
Research had shown that with the spirits' crops, closer to the original heirloom strains tasted better than repeatedly refined premium varieties.
And sure enough, even the appearance looked anything but ordinary.
"Want some too?"
Even Alisa, watching beside him, smacked her lips.
She was the one who'd refused to eat the crops the spirits grew all this time, citing the shocking reason that they were filthy.
Yet even she wanted a taste of this.
Just what difference was driving this change of heart?
"Just wait a moment. We test first."
Oh Hyeon-seong heaped a generous serving of white rice into a bowl.
Then he sat down at the table where that single bowl had been set out.
Alisa settled in beside him, staring fixedly at the rice as she swallowed hard, though she never once reached out or lost her patience.
With a fond little nod, he gave her head a pat and picked up his spoon.
"Hoo. Now I'm a little nervous."
The differences between strains went far beyond taste alone.
According to what he'd heard from Choi Jeong-il, the gap in effects was far greater than the gap in flavor.
He meant, of course, the miasma-neutralizing power the spirits' crops carried.
There was a measurable difference even comparing only the strains in commercial circulation. But this time I've grown the actual original seeds from the past... just what kind of difference will there be?
He swallowed, then took a great big spoonful of the steaming white rice.