Chapter 59
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 59
Chapter Title: The Crevice Cave of Memories
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The Mandragoras had been transported to the mountainside by O Bongsu’s ability.
Driven by their homing instinct, they were now making their way up the mountain.
After pinpointing their location, Cheon Doun went ahead of them and set the Leader Root down on the ground.
“If we wait here, they’ll come.”
Even if it couldn’t understand his words, it could sense the presence of its kind.
The Leader Root sensed its kin ascending from the base of the mountain and stared in that direction.
Some time passed before a rhythmic humming sound, like a chant, could be heard.
It was the Mandragoras’ signal, calling for any kin in the area to join them.
After a little more waiting, a line of roots appeared, climbing the mountain in single file.
-Huuung?
-Huuung!
The Mandragoras spotted the Leader Root and ran toward it with joy.
*I have led them in your absence.* The root at the very front seemed to report.
Whether it actually said that was impossible to know, but that was how it appeared to Cheon Doun.
-Huuung!
The Leader Root glanced over them once before taking the lead and beginning to walk.
The Mandragoras marched in a single file through the snow, their mountain trek a series of hardships.
-Huu, huuung…!
Occasionally, a root would fail to hold on to a steep path and tumble down.
Its plump body made it impossible to stop, and it would roll over and over in the snow.
Each time, Cheon Doun would stop it and place it at the back of the line.
-Huuuuuuung!
There was also a Mandragora that lost its footing further up and slid down like it was sledding.
He caught that one too and placed it at the end of the line. As this repeated, the day began to draw to a close.
“At this rate, it’ll take about five years.”
They were a slow-moving species to begin with.
Every time he thought they’d made some progress, another one would come rolling down from the front, making it feel like they were just treading in place.
He had wanted to let them climb on their own if possible, but he couldn’t spend years following them like this.
‘Looks like I’ll just have to carry them.’
Cheon Doun shot white threads from his fingertips. They wove together in mid-air, forming a net that covered the Mandragoras.
After confirming that none had been missed, he slung the net over his shoulder like Santa Claus.
‘The roots at the bottom… they look fine.’
They might look weak, but they were still monsters. The weight of their own kind wasn't enough to harm them.
-Huuung!
*My leaves are wrinkled,* one might complain, but no root seemed to be in pain.
“I’m going to move, so stay still.”
Cheon Doun hoisted the bundle of roots and leaped toward the mountain summit.
With each jump, he cleared cliffs and crossed ridges.
The young Mandragoras, thinking this was like being carried on an adult’s back, cheered in excitement.
*Is this the power of a giant Mandragora? If we eat a lot, we can become like that too.* Such hopes spread among the young roots.
* * *
He had been to the Mandragora habitat before, so finding it was easy.
“Judging by the footprints, this is the place.”
A flat terrain at the edge of a cliff. With Mandragora footprints in the snow, there was no doubt.
Cheon Doun set the net down on the ground. As it opened, the young roots scattered in all directions.
The Leader Root took command, directing them to burrow into the ground.
Meanwhile, Cheon Doun sat on a nearby rock, enjoying a moment of leisure.
Below the cliff, a forest stretched out. His home had to be somewhere in there.
“Ah. Is that it?”
In the center of the forest was a clearing, bare of trees. It was the spot Cheon Doun had cleared to build his house.
A faint yellow light was seeping out from it.
“You can see the fence’s light even from here.”
As the sun set, the light, though not strong, became noticeable.
It was a faint glow that only someone with Cheon Doun’s or the siblings’ eyesight could likely see, but finding a marker for his home’s location made him smile.
‘It looks nice from here. Easy to spot, too. I like it.’
Was this what it felt like to have a place of one’s own?
The house he had started building half for fun had somehow turned into a place he cherished.
He had intended to build a temporary shelter to stay in until he left the Gate, but as memories piled up one by one, it had become a true home.
Cheon Doun looked down at the forest with a pleased expression.
Though he hadn’t realized it, he had come to think of the entire forest as his territory.
-Huuung.
Having finished its work, the Leader Root approached him. By now, all the other Mandragoras had burrowed into the ground and were asleep.
Only Cheon Doun and the Leader Root remained.
The root looked at Cheon Doun, then turned away. It walked a few steps, then looked back at him again.
“You want me to follow?”
When Cheon Doun stood up, the root’s leaves unfurled as if to say, *That’s right.*
The root walked a good distance away from the group. After some time, a low cliff, more like a hill, blocked their path.
The root began to dig away the snow piled up at the base of the cliff.
What it revealed was a small crevice. The root entered it.
‘Something similar happened before.’
Back then, it had gone inside and emerged with a fruit. Was it the same this time?
Cheon Doun peered into the crevice.
He saw a small cave, about thirty centimeters wide. Inside, the root was scratching at the wall with its fine rootlets.
Once a certain amount of dirt had been scraped away, it gathered the soil, carried it out, and dumped it outside. Then it went back in to scratch the wall, and brought the dirt out again.
After repeating this action, the root stood before Cheon Doun with a satisfied look.
-Huuung!
Covered in dirt, the root pointed at the crevice. What on earth was it trying to say?
Cheon Doun looked inside the crevice again.
“Ah.”
It wasn’t that something was inside the crevice. It was making a space *to be* inside.
“You made a cave.”
A crevice in the cliff. A small, thirty-centimeter cave inside it.
This was the cliff space he had shared with it decades ago. It resembled that place.
“You recreated that place?”
Instead of answering, the root went into the crevice. It peeked its head out to look at Cheon Doun, then went back inside.
*Long ago, I lived in a place like this.* Its actions seemed to say as much, and Cheon Doun smiled.
“Yeah. You really did recreate that place.”
The place that had been destroyed in a landslide. The root had recreated the lost space by itself.
It had found a similar crevice and hollowed out the interior walls to widen the space.
Little by little with its rootlets. For sixty years, it had repeated the process of gathering grains of dirt and carrying them outside.
The small cave where it had lived with Cheon Doun was now complete.
“You wanted to get that place back.”
It wanted it back. It made it because it was gone. It made it because it couldn’t go there.
Whenever the root thought of Cheon Doun, it would come into this cave and gaze outside.
Doing so made it feel as if Cheon Doun would be just outside the cave. As if he would be sitting beside the cave, leaning against the cliff, just like in the old days.
It had mulled over that old memory, letting its longing build up over the years.
-Huuung!
*This place is my secret base.* Cheon Doun smiled at its apparent declaration.
“Alright. Then shall we try to recreate that feeling?”
Cheon Doun gathered some dry branches. He cleared the snow from the ground and prepared a spot for a campfire.
When he dropped a ball of fire from his palm, a campfire instantly lit up. Warmth spread, and shadows flickered around them.
“It was like this back then, too. You slept in the crevice cave, and I slept out here by the campfire. Right?”
The Leader Root toddled over and sat in front of the campfire.
“That’s right. It was like this then, too. Whenever I lit a fire, you would come out of the cave and sit next to me like this.”
On that day, some sixty years ago, whenever Cheon Doun prepared to sleep, the root would poke its head out of the crevice.
Mandragoras were plant-type monsters. They weren’t compatible with fire.
But the fire kindled by its companion was different.
[Huuung!]
That was a warm light. As long as it didn’t get too close, it could enjoy the warmth.
Realizing this, the root would come out of the cave and sit by the campfire.
“Yeah, just like now.”
The root plopped down next to Cheon Doun. It kicked its two thick main roots for a moment before lying on its back.
-Huuung….
The night had deepened, and stars had begun to appear.
*Even this is the same as that day.* A small amount of plant sap welled up in the root’s eyes.
The crevice cave in the cliff. The night sky. The campfire. His companion sitting beside him.
The Mandragora closed its eyes.
This place had been a space of fabricated memories, built over sixty years. But in this moment, it had become real.
“I’m starting to feel a little sorry.”
Cheon Doun muttered as he looked at the root.
While the root had spent its time thinking of and missing him, Cheon Doun had forgotten all about it.
His mind had been broken by the side effects of an experiment, and he had even forgotten his own name.
Although it was against his will, the fact remained that he had forgotten.
‘Is it better to take it with me?’
Seeing it long for him, unable to forget a single memory from decades ago, troubled him.
It was like a puppy yearning for its owner.
Was this Leader Root a unique individual with such a disposition, or was this a natural trait of all Mandragoras?
Either way, if it had missed him this much, he wondered if it would be better to take it with him and keep it by his side.
He brushed the dust off the root with his hand, dirtied from digging.
“Will you come with me?”
There was no answer.
He wished they could communicate with words, but he could only guess.
He had come this far anyway. There was plenty of time to think.
*For one day, let’s spend the night together in front of the campfire, just like old times.*
Cheon Doun closed his eyes alongside the root.
* * *
*My companion, are you asleep?*
The Leader Root’s eyes snapped open. It quietly got up and looked at Cheon Doun.
*You giant companion. I know what you’re thinking.* The root glared at Cheon Doun with such a look.
-Huuung!
*You’re planning to leave me behind again.* The Leader Root extended a rootlet. With it, it struck the back of Cheon Doun’s hand.
*Tap.* Its anger for having been made to wait sixty years.
Now it felt a little better. It had tapped him gently so as not to hurt him, so he probably hadn't woken up.
After confirming Cheon Doun was asleep, the root headed toward its group.
Cheon Doun silently opened his eyes and watched it go.
*What is that mischievous root up to?* He suppressed his presence and followed it.
Returning to its kin, the root looked around.
Its gaze stopped at one spot.
A Mandragora with five leaves. It was the one that had led the roots up the snowy mountain.
The Leader Root approached it. It took off the white string it wore around its own leaves.
It placed the string on the five-leafed Mandragora, then turned away.
It had passed on the white string received from its companion, but it had no regrets. It had planned to treasure it forever, but it was no longer needed.
It had the real thing now, not just the string. There was no need to clutch an old string and yearn any longer.
The root, on its way back to the cave of memories, stopped in its tracks.
Cheon Doun was standing in front of it.
The root looked up at Cheon Doun. It glanced back at the Mandragora group it had just left. Then it looked at Cheon Doun again.
“No regrets?”
It had no regrets.
“That’s the group you lead. Are you sure?”
The group had simply grown large by chance. It wasn't a group it had raised with the ambition of becoming a leader.
There was no sense of loss in handing it over to a younger Mandragora.
In the first place, Mandragoras, with their gentle nature, did not possess the combative desire to become rulers.
*Companion. I have lived my life to the fullest. I lived diligently because I thought that if I stayed alive, I might one day meet you again.*
As it lived that way, its group had simply grown larger.
-Huuung!
The root walked toward Cheon Doun. It grabbed the hem of his pants and began to climb.
As it settled into his pocket, Cheon Doun’s expression became conflicted.
“Mandragoras are a species that live in groups. You would have been recognized as a separate group from the vegetable patch ones. If you follow me, you’ll be alone.”
-Huuung.
“Are you okay with that?”
-Huuung!
A humming sound came from within the pocket. The root buried its face deep inside.
*Don’t you dare try to leave me behind.* Its posture seemed to say.