Chapter 5
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 5
Chapter Title: Farmed Goods
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‘Th-that’s… our bag.’
He spotted the three bags Cheon Doun was carrying. Among them were their own bags. That alone was enough to guess what had happened.
‘Those bastards, they must have been taken down by Mr. Cheon Doun!’
Unaware of his mistake, Kim Taehoon felt a sense of satisfaction.
But that was short-lived. Remembering his urgent situation, he waved his hand at Cheon Doun to signal his distress.
“Mr. Cheon Doun, over here! It seems we need to return immediately... Please! Sell us just one return stone!”
The fact that those were their bags was already in the past.
The law doesn't apply in the Demon World. The moment something is taken, it becomes someone else's property.
That had been the unwritten rule among Hunters for the past 90 years, so now they could only rely on Cheon Doun's mercy.
“Just one return stone... Please, I beg you. We'll pay in cash.”
No one brings money to the Demon World. But as D-rank Hunters, they were different. They always carried their life savings for moments like this.
Kim Taehoon undid his wrist guard. Inside was a crisp check. O Seongju also took out a check from his wrist guard.
Two checks, each for ten million won. It was their life savings, carried just in case.
“Please. Would this be enough?”
Kim Taehoon held out the checks with a desperate look. Cheon Doun watched them with an intrigued expression.
‘They're suddenly giving me money.’
He was just on his way home, and twenty million won had fallen into his lap. There was no reason to refuse what was being offered.
It was just a piece of paper in the Demon World, but if he ever needed to go to the human world, it would be useful.
Cheon Doun took the checks and then pulled out a return stone. He snapped it in half, activating the coordinates inscribed within and opening a blue Gate.
“Go on.”
“Th-thank you!”
The two exclaimed, their faces on the verge of tears. In the Demon World, a return stone was a lifeline. Even if someone had a spare, almost no one would sell it.
In fact, they were lucky not to have been robbed and killed. For the two of them, this had been a last resort, fully aware of that worst-case scenario.
‘He gave it without even hesitating.’
Is this the confidence of the strong? The two looked at Cheon Doun with faces mixed with gratitude and relief.
“We will never forget this kindness.”
“Kindness? You paid for it.”
Cheon Doun turned away with a cheerful expression. As he was about to head down the mountain, he looked at the checks and then went over to O Seongju.
“I got more than the market price. I'll give you this as change.”
“Huh?”
Cheon Doun grabbed his arm and infused it with mana. O Seongju's eyes widened as mana poured into him like a waterfall.
His empty mana hall filled up. It swirled instantly, driving out the demonic energy that had seeped into his body.
Cheon Doun was personally manipulating the mana to purify O Seongju's body.
‘Is... is that even possible?’
Watching this, Kim Taehoon's jaw dropped. Infusing one's own mana into another was something even A-rank Hunters avoided.
If their mana clashed and got tangled, both of their mana halls would shatter, killing them.
But that didn't happen.
The power gap was too great. In the face of overwhelming power, there was no clash, no resistance.
“This should do it.”
When Cheon Doun let go, O Seongju's pale complexion had returned to normal.
A body that would have needed over ten days of rest had recovered in an instant.
“You should go now. The Gate is about to close.”
Cheon Doun walked down the mountain with light steps. O Seongju, who had been staring blankly at his retreating back, belatedly bowed.
“Th-thank you!”
He bowed deeply, but Cheon Doun was already far down the mountain. O Seongju watched his back and said.
“I've made up my mind.”
“About what?”
“I'm going to retire when we get back. With a baby on the way, I can't do this dangerous work anymore.”
If he hadn't met Cheon Doun, he would have died today. Returning from the brink of death made him feel like his entire perspective had changed.
“So what are you going to do now?”
“I don't know. Maybe I'll apply for an office job at the Hunter's Association. They give preference to people with field experience.”
O Seongju said, looking relieved.
“Oh, right. Since he's a Hunter too, I might run into him again if I work at the Association. I hope I can repay his kindness then.”
“Yeah. If fate allows, we'll meet again. Let's go back.”
The two repeated their thanks inwardly as they stepped into the Gate.
* * *
After arriving home, Cheon Doun looked at the checks in his hand.
Two checks for ten million won each.
He had plenty of return stones, so he'd sold one, but the absurd profit he'd made brought a smirk to his face.
"Is this what it feels like to be a crooked merchant?"
His clear memories only went up to his mid-twenties.
His memories after that were hazy, as if covered in fog, but he still had a faint grasp of common knowledge.
"A return stone should cost around 500,000 won at most, I think."
He'd never bought one himself, but he'd heard other Hunters talking about it during subjugations.
Thanks to the special circumstances of the Demon World, he had sold a 500,000 won item for twenty million.
From Cheon Doun's perspective, it was a windfall. From Kim Taehoon and O Seongju's perspective, they had saved their lives for twenty million won.
It was a transaction where both the seller and the buyers were satisfied.
"I'll save this for when I need it."
Cheon Doun folded the checks and stuck them between the logs of the wall. This time, he opened the bags and took out the contents one by one.
“A sleeping bag, a blanket, a gas burner... Ah, ramen. It's been a while since I had this at the orphanage.”
The bags contained gear for a long-term stay. There were spare clothes in each bag, but they weren't in a wearable condition.
‘Covered in pollen. Did they enter a man-eating plant's territory?’
The clothes, sealed in a bag, were caked with yellow powder and had hardened.
The reason they hadn't thrown the clothes away was that this pollen was traded as an ingredient for potions.
‘Pollen... brings back old memories.’
Cheon Doun recalled his childhood.
He was thirteen years old. Having been implanted with new Monster cells, he was dragged to a shooting range for a test.
The newly appointed instructor glared at Cheon Doun in annoyance.
[Hey, kid. How long are you gonna cry? If you have time to cry, pick up a gun. I told you, you can go back to your room if you hit the target score.]
Instead of answering, Cheon Doun looked up at the instructor.
[I'm not crying.]
Despite his words, tears streamed down his face. His nose was running, too. *Sniffle.* At the sound, the instructor's eyebrow twitched.
[I told you to stop. Do my words mean nothing to you?]
The moment the instructor extended his collapsible baton, a researcher who spotted it came running over, out of breath.
[Oh, Instructor! Just leave that one alone!]
[Leave him alone? You're the ones who told me to beat the crying out of them to fix their attitudes.]
[That's true, but Number 17 is an exception. He's not crying, it's allergies. He gets like that every spring because of the pollen.]
Hearing the researcher, the instructor's face soured.
[Allergies, my ass. That's just him being a baby. A few broken bones will cure him right up, you'll see.]
As he gripped the baton, the researcher blocked him again.
[I said don't! That kid's a complete psycho...! Ahem. A word in your ear... You know the instructor who quit recently because of an eye injury, right?]
The instructor nodded. He knew, of course, since he had filled the vacancy.
[I heard a test subject came and ate his eyes out while he was sleeping. Well, it's a Chimera research facility, so accidents happen...]
The instructor trailed off. With a look of disbelief, he glanced at Cheon Doun and subtly stepped back.
[Don't tell me it was him?]
*Nod.* The researcher sighed and continued.
[There's no proof. But every instructor who hit him... that very night... Ahem. You get it now, right?]
The instructor nodded. The manual he received when he was hired at the institute flashed through his mind.
The words telling him to never, ever touch Test Subject No. 17.
Not properly checking the photo had been the problem.
Realizing what he had been about to do, a cold sweat ran down his back.
Instructors here were just people working at an illegal research facility. They were D-rank or lower Hunters who had been kicked out after committing crimes.
If they were attacked in their sleep, they stood no chance. Especially when their opponent wasn't an ordinary child but a Chimera mixed with Monster cells.
[Anyway, that kid's a lunatic. Just ignore whatever he does.]
The instructor nodded in serious agreement with the researcher's words. Listening to their conversation from the side, Cheon Doun looked puzzled.
‘Ate his eyes out? Why did a rumor like that start?’
He had never eaten the eyes. He had just dug them out with a spoon. He thought his reason for doing so was perfectly valid.
That instructor had shot Cheon Doun in the leg, saying he didn't like the look in his eyes. Cheon Doun didn't like the look in the instructor's eyes either, so he paid him a visit with a spoon. That was all.
Recalling his childhood, he looked at the clothes caked with hardened pollen.
‘My allergies disappeared after my body was modified... but I still don't have good memories of pollen.’
It sold for a high price, but it was something he didn't need right now. If he wanted some, he could get as much pollen as he needed, so there was no reason to feel wasteful.
‘I'll take the clothes to the waterfall to wash later. As for the rest of the stuff...’
Bowls with bowls, food with food. As he was sorting things out, he found a deep pot.
Cheon Doun gauged the depth of the pot and then filled it with soil. He picked out the twigs and pebbles, leaving only carefully selected soft soil.
“This should be enough.”
Cheon Doun placed the Mandragoras he had tied to his waist into the pot.
“There. Grow in here for now.”
The Mandragoras moved around inside the pot and then grew sullen. Their fine roots and leaves drooped lifelessly.
Clear disappointment. It was a sign of their displeasure with their new home.
-Huuung...!
The smallest of the three roots thrashed and rolled around in the pot.
As if it were contagious, the three Mandragora roots rolled around in the pot. They were throwing a tantrum.
-Huuuung!
-Hung, hung!
The Mandragoras' characteristic "hung" sound was an added bonus.
In reality, they had no vocal cords, so the sound was made by air passing through holes in their roots, but combined with their tantrum, it sounded strangely like crying.
“I'm not saying you have to live here forever. Just put up with it for a little while. It's because I haven't tilled the garden yet.”
Cheon Doun said, looking at the empty plot in front of his house.
When he built the house, he had cut down the trees and cleared the grass. But the roots buried in the ground remained.
He should have dug up the Mandragoras after tilling the field, but he'd gotten ahead of himself.
“I'll move you once I've made a garden, so let's just stay here for now.”
-Huuung...
The Mandragoras burrowed into the soil with listless movements.
Once their roots were completely buried, only their light green leaves stuck out of the soil.
‘Their leaves are drooping.’
Mandragoras were creatures from high mountain areas with dense demonic energy. In that case, he should cheer them up with a generous dose of it.
Cheon Doun moved the mana within his body and had the soil in the pot absorb it.
-Huhuhung?!
-Huuung!
The soil in the pot stirred. The drooping leaves regained their luster as if they had never wilted.
Cheon Doun placed the pot in a sunny spot.
The small leaves swayed gently in the wind.
‘This should be fine for a while.’
Cheon Doun looked around with a pleased expression.
‘Now, what needs to be done... Tilling the garden, doing laundry. I need to organize my things, so I should build a chest of drawers, too.’
He had a mountain of things to do. And that's why he enjoyed it.
For Cheon Doun, who had lived his entire life without a room to call his own, building his own territory with his own hands was a great joy.
“First, let's do the laundry.”
The pollen stuck to the clothes could rot if left for too long, so the priority was set.
Cheon Doun was putting the sealed clothes into a bag when he paused.
He felt a gaze on him. He also heard human footsteps. Then, the footsteps changed to those of a four-legged beast.
‘Transformation...? Ah. Is it the Machine Lifeform the Hunters mentioned?’
A Chimera that could freely change its form.
The snowy mountain where the Machine Lifeform lived wasn't far from Cheon Doun's house. A Machine Lifeform wandering nearby must have found the house and approached it.
‘Well, there is a house in the middle of the Demon World. It's understandable that it would be curious.’
Cheon Doun looked beyond the bushes. The distance was about 300 meters. Despite being quite far, it was staring directly at him.
The Machine Lifeform, hiding behind a tree, peeked at Cheon Doun hesitantly.