Chapter 47
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 47
Chapter Title: A Hopeful Search
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“Something like that did happen. It was over sixty years ago now.”
Cheon Doun replied, recalling his childhood.
His meeting with the small root. It was the first thing he experienced after stepping into a Gate.
It was so long ago that he'd forgotten about it until now.
Having spent so much time with a broken mind, there were parts he couldn't recall.
“So what happened? Did you meet the root again?”
“There has to be a follow-up story.”
“A follow-up… there is one. But it's not very interesting.”
“It's interesting enough. Hurry up and tell us. If there's a follow-up, it means you met the root again, right?”
The siblings asked with expectant eyes. Under their gazes, Cheon Doun recalled what happened next.
Leaving the root behind, he crossed the Gate and arrived in front of the research institute.
Researchers and instructors were there, checking the health of the returning test subjects.
[Another returnee. Number 17 has returned as well.]
[Incredible. He lasted the full ten days. Everyone else came back with nosebleeds on the second or third day.]
[As expected, he never disappoints… Ugh! W-wait! Number 17, stop right there! Don't come any closer!]
The instructors recoiled in horror as Cheon Doun approached.
[Number 17, you wait right there!]
[Hey, go get the Director!]
They shouted, their faces pale.
Having eaten Mandragora fruits for ten days, a thick demonic energy billowed from Cheon Doun.
*Ah. I forgot.*
Beyond the Gate, he had kept his power released to keep monsters away.
After ten days of that, he forgot to contain his energy and returned as he was.
Cheon Doun contained his mana before they could bring the Director.
The Director, who had rushed over, tilted his head upon seeing a perfectly normal Cheon Doun.
[What's supposed to be wrong?]
[That guy was giving off the aura of some high-level monster… Huh?]
[I-it's fine now?]
[Number 17. Emit the same aura as before.]
*What aura?* He looked at the instructor with an innocent face. As he just stood there blankly, the instructors grew frantic.
[Like before! Huh? Like some kind of monster! Just standing there, it was like this! The pressure!]
[Hey, calm down. He just came through the Gate, so some of that dimension's energy probably tagged along. That happens from time to time.]
[No, it was on a completely different level! If you had seen him yourself, Director…!]
[Enough. Making a busy person come and go like this.]
The Director went inside with an indifferent expression. Cheon Doun also walked past the instructors with a similar look.
Seeing this, the instructor's face twisted with frustration. He grabbed an innocent researcher by the collar and asked.
[Hey! You felt it, right? That sinister aura!]
[W-well. I did feel a shiver. But I'm not an Awakened… I can't be sure about auras and all that. And Number 17 has always had a creepy vibe at times.]
The researcher replied with a vague expression.
[And like the Director said, he just came out of the Gate. We don't know if it was just energy leaking from it.]
[Agh, this is so frustrating. I'm telling you, it wasn't that kind of energy!]
When even the researcher who witnessed it with him didn't believe him, the instructor pounded his chest in frustration.
He had suddenly become a coward making a fuss. There was no one to clear his name.
“That's what happened right after I returned to the institute. After that… Ah, right. Two weeks later, there was a second Gate passage experiment.”
An extension of the first experiment.
The goal was to increase the time they could spend beyond the Gate.
[Number 17, your explosion spell's deadline has been specially extended to one month. You were the only one to last the full ten days in the first experiment.]
*This test subject is my masterpiece.* The Director spoke to Cheon Doun with an expression that seemed to say just that.
[I've extended the deadline to the absolute limit. Go and endure for as long as you can.]
And so, for the second experiment, he was given a month's time.
The procedure that followed was the same.
Each person was assigned a date to be sent to the Demon World, and when Cheon Doun's turn came, he was given a return stone and a backpack with a month's worth of necessities.
[I hear you lasted all ten days in the highlands last time. Must have been boring. I'll send you to a more interesting place this time.]
The instructor opened the Gate with a vile smile.
[It's on a whole different level from before. Let's see if you make it back alive this time.]
The instructor smirked as he put his hand into the Gate. He connected the Gate to the most dangerous area he knew.
Their eyes met. The instructor smirked. Cheon Doun smirked back. At that, the instructor's eyebrow twitched.
[What. Why are you smiling… Huh? Whoa, whoa? Aaargh!]
The moment Cheon Doun flicked a finger, the instructor lost his balance and fell toward the Gate.
The Gate swallowed the instructor and vanished.
Cheon Doun, who had tripped him with a single strand of thread around his ankle, turned to the researcher with a refreshed look.
[Looks like there was an accident. Give me another return stone. I need to go in too.]
[Uh…? O-okay.]
The researcher flinched and handed over a spare return stone.
Cheon Doun broke the return stone and entered the newly opened Gate.
With both the instructor and Cheon Doun gone, the researchers looked at each other with blank faces.
[That instructor… did he have another return stone?]
[He probably did. But didn't he say he was opening a Gate to the most dangerous place he knew? I wonder if he'll even have a chance to break a return stone.]
A brief silence fell.
[He didn't just fall, did he?]
[Probably not. Why would he suddenly pitch forward when he was standing perfectly still?]
[Number 17 did something, right?]
[Probably. I didn't see what he did, though.]
*Will he make it back alive?* They looked at each other and shrugged.
[If he's lucky, he'll be back.]
That was the end of it. Not a single person intended to report what had happened.
*'If I get involved with Number 17, I'm the one who'll suffer.'*
*'It won't show up on the CCTV anyway. This isn't the first time something like this has happened.'*
*'He should've learned to steer clear by now. That instructor is so stubborn in the weirdest ways.'*
*'The Director gives him special treatment, so we can't do anything about it. Why does he do this? Always causing a ruckus.'*
The atmosphere was actually one of blaming the instructor. The researchers cleaned up the area as if nothing had happened and turned away.
***
The place Cheon Doun arrived at through the Gate was the cliff where he had stayed with the root.
Two weeks had already passed. Would it still be there? Or would it have left to find a better place to live?
Arriving with this question in mind, Cheon Doun stopped dead in his tracks.
He stared silently at the cliff.
The cliff. No, what used to be a cliff. The cliff where the small root had lived had collapsed.
*A landslide.*
The traces in the area indicated as much. A massive landslide had occurred, and the cliff had crumbled due to natural erosion.
Cheon Doun placed a hand on the ground. He spread his mana to check beneath the collapsed cliff.
There were no life forms to be felt.
Was it gone because it was dead? Or was it gone because it had fled?
Cheon Doun moved his hand. Threads emerging from his fingertips sent the mountain of rocks flying as if they had exploded.
[It's not here.]
There was no root's corpse under the rocks. Cheon Doun's stiff expression relaxed slightly.
*Right. It might look weak, but it's a monster. It must have sensed something was wrong before the collapse and evacuated.*
It must have fled in surprise from the landslide.
He had plenty of time. This time, he had a month. He would take his time and search.
Cheon Doun started walking, looking for places where the root might be hiding.
***
One month. The time Cheon Doun spent searching the mountain without rest.
He roamed the mountain without eating or sleeping.
Since his time here was limited, there was no time to rest.
In the end, Cheon Doun couldn't find the root. It was the same even when he searched by spreading his mana.
It had only been two weeks since his last visit to the Demon World.
He couldn't imagine that the root, with its slow speed, could have left this massive mountain in just two weeks.
If he couldn't even find a trace, then only one possibility remained.
*Was it eaten?*
The possibility of it being eaten by another monster. The hypothesis he had tried so hard to ignore finally surfaced.
Cheon Doun sat down on a nearby rock as if drained of strength. He stared at the ground with a blank face.
The root that made him fruit was gone.
The root that danced when he gave it water was gone.
The small plant root that would quietly come over and lean against him when he slept.
That root was no more.
A small hole opened up in a corner of his heart.
He had a feeling this was a hole that would never be filled, no matter how much time passed. What kind of feeling was this?
A sense of loss. Guilt. Regret that he should have paid more attention to its safety before leaving.
[I'm sorry.]
He muttered the words that would never reach it.
That day, for the first time, Cheon Doun understood what it meant to lose something.
***
“And that's what happened.”
Cheon Doun finished his recollection. The siblings couldn't say a word.
They clearly hadn't expected such an ending. Cheon Doun gave a bitter smile at their reaction.
“See? I told you it wasn't interesting.”
This is reality. A happy ending where everyone is happy is only possible in movies.
As he was thinking this, Yu Beom clapped his hands, breaking the mood.
“Alright. Then let's go find that root.”
“What?”
“You said you couldn't find it back then. So we should find it now. We happen to need a Mandragora that's grown enough to bear fruit. You get to meet a childhood friend. It's a win-win.”
*Did he not hear what I just said?* As Cheon Doun wore a strange expression, Yu Beom continued.
“That root is probably still alive.”
“Why?”
“You said you made a string from a Silk Thread Caterpillar's silk and put it on the root.”
“I did.”
“What kind of monster would dare approach and try to eat something wearing that?”
Cheon Doun froze.
“You said you searched by spreading your mana, right? Did you detect the aura of the silk necklace then?”
“No…”
He hadn't. He remembered clearly, as he had searched in various ways.
“See? So it didn't drop it either. As long as it has that, the hypothesis that it was eaten by a monster is out. That leaves one conclusion. For some reason, it left that mountain before you came.”
“Left? You know how slow Mandragoras are. How could it leave in just two weeks at that speed?”
“There are plenty of ways if you think about it. It's a small root, right? It might have fallen into a stream while drinking water and been carried nonstop down the mountain.”
“That's right. And it seems quite intelligent for a monster. It might have clung to another monster's body to get down the mountain when the landslide happened. The ones in the garden are like that too; they seem cunning enough for it.”
Cheon Doun was momentarily speechless.
The siblings' hypotheses were things his younger self had never considered.
He may have had great power, but he was only fourteen.
From the moment he saw the collapsed cliff, he was already consumed by negative thoughts.
His subconscious assumption that it was dead led him to a narrow-minded conclusion.
“Think about it. Before you met us, did you ever think my sister and I were still alive?”
“No.”
“See? It was the same for us. We thought you died long ago. It had been decades since we last saw you. But all three of us are alive and well. Do you still think there's no chance that root is alive?”
Yu Beom said. Yu Jia nodded beside him.
“Monsters have strong life force. It may look like a small root, but it's a species that holds a vast amount of mana. It wouldn't have died from a simple landslide.”
As the siblings continued, a smile crept onto Cheon Doun's lips.
They weren't just saying that to comfort him. The siblings genuinely believed the root was alive.
Just the fact that someone genuinely believed it was enough to spark a small hope. Cheon Doun smiled and stood up.
If there was even the slightest chance it was alive, there was no reason not to look for it.
“For now… yes. Let's try searching places where Mandragoras are likely to be.”
The search area included the snowy mountain he had visited before, covering all the highlands in the entire forest region.
Cheon Doun drew up his mana.
The mana that had been condensed around him spread out explosively, covering the forest region.
***
A snow-covered mountain peak.
Light green leaves pushed through the thick snow, covering the area.
Roughly a hundred Mandragoras.
Their leaves stood up stiffly at the sudden rush of mana.
-Huung?
The small Mandragoras poked their heads out of the snow.
*What's this sudden feast? Not sure, but let's eat first.*
The Mandragoras excitedly fluttered their leaves.
But one of them, the largest of the bunch, widened its eyes.
A white string hanging from its stem swayed like a necklace whenever it looked around.
-Huuung…?
The root pulled its entire body out of the ground. It ran toward the direction where the mana felt strongest.
-Huung?
-Huung, huung?
At their leader's sudden movement, the small Mandragoras also pulled themselves from the ground.
Heave, heave. Pop, pop.
The hundred or so young Mandragoras pattered along behind their leader.
The large root stopped at the edge of a cliff. It stared at a spot somewhere down the mountain.
Its eyesight was poor, so it couldn't see anything. But it had definitely felt it.
-Huuung.
An aura it had never forgotten. An aura it had believed it would one day meet again.
*O great helper. Are you here? I am here. Are you there?*
-Huuung!
The root cried out with all its might.