Chapter 7
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 7
Chapter Title: Reward for the Vegetable Patch
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Having arrived home, Cheon Doun considered his next task.
Building the vegetable patch and making a chest of drawers. The priority between the two was already clear.
“I should make the vegetable patch first.”
Mandragoras are ridiculously fragile.
They’re sensitive creatures that wither if planted in an environment they dislike. If forcibly confined, they let out a fatal scream the moment they're pulled out.
To avoid such an end, he had to hurry and build the patch.
Cheon Doun went around the forest, gathering stones the size of a human head.
He began to build a border for the patch with them.
“Should this size be enough?”
A rectangular vegetable patch.
Too large, and it would be hard to manage. Too small, and if he transplanted more Mandragoras later, they would bolt, complaining it was too cramped.
Considering this, he settled on a suitable plot of land about fifty square meters in size. After creating the border, he broke off a tree branch to make a pole.
He imbued the staff with mana before plunging it into the ground, using it as a tool to till the soil in place of a plow.
The pole, driving deep, snagged on something and stopped.
Using the pole like a lever, he pried it up, and a watermelon-sized rock was pulled from the ground.
“It's like this from the very start.”
He dug out the rock, threw it far away, and once again began stabbing and churning the earth with the pole.
‘Is this a tree root?’
This place was originally a forest. He had cleared the surface, but underground was a tangled mess of roots and rocks.
Just as he was repeatedly digging out and tossing away roots whenever they got caught.
A rustling sound came from behind Cheon Doun.
‘She's here.’
The Machine Lifeform that had visited in the form of a poodle.
That same Machine Lifeform peeked its head out from behind a tree.
‘As expected, she's in human form.’
A young girl, about seven or eight years old, fidgeted with her fingers as she watched Cheon Doun.
“Ah… Greetings.”
the girl said. Nervous, she offered an awkward greeting and then became flustered. Seeing her clumsy demeanor, Cheon Doun smiled faintly.
“Yes. Greetings to you too.”
As Cheon Doun responded, the Machine Lifeform seemed to gain courage and pointed at the house.
“There is a house there.”
“So there is. A house.”
“Is that your house, mister?”
“As you can see.”
“Then you live in the Demon World?”
“You could say that.”
The child's eyes widened. Weren't humans supposed to be unable to live in the Demon World? Her face was filled with that question.
The child looked Cheon Doun over, clad in his animal hides.
He was dressed like a primitive man from a book or a movie.
Of course, for a primitive man, he was far too handsome, but the attire itself fit the description.
“Mister… so… are you a native of this place?”
After much thought, the child came up with the most plausible hypothesis.
Suddenly, he was a native of the Demon World. How should he react? Cheon Doun suppressed a laugh and nodded.
“That's right. I'm a native here. What tribe are you from?”
“Tribe? Uh, I… over there. I came from across the waterfall. It's a very distant place. I'm a member of that tribe.”
“Across the waterfall, you say? I heard the Coconut Tribe lives over there.”
Cheon Doun spouted nonsense with a straight face. The child, falling for it, had her eyes darting about frantically.
“Co-coconut…! Th-that's right. I'm from the Coconut Tribe.”
The child nodded, though her face was a picture of confusion.
The Coconut Tribe. It was a name that somehow suggested their staple food must be nothing but coconuts.
If he asked what their staple food was, should she answer that?
The child, who had inadvertently become a member of the Coconut Tribe, studied Cheon Doun's expression.
‘That expression…! He believes it. He believes I'm from the Coconut Tribe!’
The young Machine Lifeform's delusion soared to the heavens.
Believing Cheon Doun had bought her lie, the child gained confidence and straightened her shoulders.
“And this. I found these clothes on the way. So I put them on.”
“Those look like my clothes.”
“N-no. In our Coconut Tribe… uh, finders keepers. These are my clothes now.”
The child clutched the clothes, asserting her ownership. It was a flimsy claim.
“Alright, they're your clothes.”
Cheon Doun said, holding back his laughter.
He had imagined something rigid like a robot when he heard 'Machine Lifeform'.
But what appeared was a young child who looked like she had 'clumsy' written on her forehead. To be precise, a young Chimera in that form.
‘Of course, her strength won't be the same.’
This was the child who had crushed five B-rank Hunters on the snowy mountain with overwhelming power.
Her actions might be clumsy, but her abilities couldn't be dismissed.
‘I don't know for sure, but her killing capabilities must be exceptional. She was likely created for that purpose in the first place.’
However, her mental age was low. Three to five years old at most. That was Cheon Doun's assessment.
‘She's clearly young. But the words she uses are quite mature in comparison. No, not mature… more like she's reading from a book?’
Cheon Doun had seen cases like this at the research institute.
A side effect that occurred when human knowledge was forcibly injected into a creature with low intelligence.
Cognitive dissonance. The child before him was suffering from the side effects of Chimera experimentation.
The child hesitated before stepping out completely from behind the tree.
After glancing at Cheon Doun, she suddenly gave a deep bow.
“I have a favor to ask you, mister.”
“What is it?”
“I want to stay here. I would be grateful if you'd allow it.”
“That's sudden. Why?”
“I want to settle in a safe place. I was… kicked out of the Coconut Tribe.”
“Oh dear. How did that happen?”
Cheon Doun suppressed his urge to laugh and asked with a serious face.
“That's… uh, a s-secret of the tribe. Anyway, I was kicked out. That's what happened.”
“I see, so that's what happened.”
He didn't know what 'that' was, but he nodded anyway. As if encouraged, the child spoke again.
“There are many monsters everywhere here. But there aren't many around here. This is a good place.”
Because Cheon Doun had marked his territory, most monsters avoided this area.
The monsters recognized this area as Cheon Doun's territory. The child sensed this instinctively.
‘She doesn't seem like the type to cause harm by having her around. It should be fine.’
He felt no malice from her. No hostility either. Just a small creature who had approached him because she truly needed a place to rest.
“Alright. You can stay as long as you want. But not for free.”
“Th-then?”
“You have to work while you're here. You have to pay for your lodging. Right?”
She might look like a child, but she was a Chimera, just like him.
If she was going to stay here, he planned to put that power, which had overwhelmed B-rank Hunters, to good use.
“See this vegetable patch?”
Cheon Doun pointed to the patch.
“You need to till this land. If you can till this whole area, you can stay.”
“Is that all?”
“Of course not. As long as you live here, there will always be work to do. Mostly physical labor, like tilling this patch.”
The child's expression brightened. Her face said she could do that much anytime.
“I'll do it. I'm strong. I'm very good at physical work.”
“You look it. What's your name, kid?”
“Name? Uh, that is…”
The child's eyes darted around. Her gaze stopped on a nearby flower.
A flower that looked similar to one from the human world.
“Forsy—… Kim Nari. My name is Kim Nari.”
It was an alias anyone could tell was made up on the spot. Instead of questioning it, Cheon Doun held out the pole he'd been using to till the soil.
It was a pole nearly two meters long. A child would have staggered under its weight, but Kim Nari took it nonchalantly.
‘She must not know how strong a normal child is.’
For someone trying to hide her identity, she reveals her strength so casually.
‘It seems she's never been outside the lab.’
A child with zero experience of the world.
It was highly likely she had grown up in an isolated environment, meeting no one but researchers.
Cheon Doun finished his assessment of Kim Nari. The first world Kim Nari had ever encountered since birth was right here, the Demon World.
“There will be a lot of rocks and tree roots buried in the ground. Pull them out and throw them far away. You can do that, right?”
“Of course.”
Kim Nari rolled up her sleeves. Every time she lifted the pole and slammed it down, it sank deep into the earth.
When she twisted it with force, the ground heaved and buried roots were pulled out.
Watching this, Cheon Doun smiled with satisfaction. A good source of labor had just fallen into his lap.
‘I guess I'll make the chest of drawers.’
Cheon Doun headed into the forest to cut down a suitable tree.
* * *
When he returned after cutting the tree, the entire vegetable patch had been tilled.
His smile at gaining a useful worker was brief.
A sniffling sound came from behind the house. As he got closer, he saw Kim Nari squatting on the ground.
“Are you crying?”
Startled by his voice, Kim Nari jumped.
She was surprised that she hadn't sensed Cheon Doun's presence, and flustered at being caught crying.
“N-no, I'm not crying.”
“Yes, you are. Wipe your nose and then talk.”
Kim Nari sniffled and rubbed her eyes.
“Was tilling the field so hard it made you cry?”
“No.”
“Then why are you crying?”
Kim Nari didn't answer right away. Cheon Doun didn't press her. He just sat down beside her and waited quietly.
Once she had calmed down a bit, Kim Nari was the first to speak.
“I remembered fighting with my friends.”
“That's a common thing. Forget it.”
“Is it okay to forget?”
“Yes.”
Children normally grow up fighting with their friends. That was common sense, but Cheon Doun intuited that the 'fighting' she mentioned was of a completely different kind.
‘She must have had a rank battle.’
Chimeras are created for the purpose of subjugating monsters. As such, they received all sorts of combat training.
The test to see how well they could control their power during that process was the rank battle.
An event where test subjects were made to fight each other and then ranked.
‘In my day, we had them often around the age of ten.’
Those with low scores in the rank battles were used in experiments with high failure rates.
With their own safety on the line, all sorts of schemes existed during that time.
Poisoning each other's food was basic. Pushing someone down the stairs was a daily occurrence.
There were also many instances of groups ganging up on and beating those with higher ranks.
The fourth-ranked kid, who was ambushed and beaten in his sleep. His arms and legs were broken, and he was carried off to the infirmary.
[You know, the guy who was ranked fourth. They say he's automatically out of this rank battle.]
[Of course he is. That's why we beat him up. He won't be able to get up for months. What are the instructors saying?]
[Nothing. The atmosphere is that the one who got beaten was stupid. Let's just keep this up.]
Starting with that, a strange light began to gleam in the test subjects' eyes.
Though young, they were Chimeras implanted with monster cells. Having undergone combat training, no innocence remained in them.
[Those guys are at it again.]
[They did the same thing in the last rank battle. Looks like they're only targeting the high-rankers this time, too.]
[This is bad. Everyone who ranked in the top ten last time, gather 'round. We have to form a team if we want to survive!]
During a break when everyone was gathered, the third-ranked child shouted. At his call, the high-ranking children gathered at one table.
Cheon Doun also stood up out of curiosity, but the other children blocked his way.
[You stay out of it.]
[Why?]
[You're asking because you don't know? Shouldn't you have the sense to stay out of things like this?]
the third-ranked kid said with a frown.
Every time a rank battle was held, Cheon Doun always took first place. To the other children, he was nothing short of an insurmountable wall.
If only he would disappear, wouldn't all their ranks move up by one? Such thoughts spread among the children.
The mid-rankers teamed up. The high-rankers also teamed up. The only one left was Cheon Doun.
It was obvious who the next target, eyed by both sides, would be.
[There's no place for you here, so get lost. Oh, and be careful when you sleep. You know the fourth-ranked guy got ganged up on in his sleep, right?]
Snickers erupted here and there.
Hostility, ridicule, and mockery for one who was about to fall. Cheon Doun looked at them and then flicked a finger.
A single thread shot out from his fingertip and instantly wrapped around the children's legs.
Crack, crunch.
The sound of bones breaking echoed repeatedly. The nine children rolled on the floor, not even knowing what had hit them.
This was the first time Cheon Doun had shown the ability of the Silk Thread Caterpillar.
[You… you! You son of a bitch! What the hell did you do!]
the children clutching their legs shouted through gritted teeth.
Instead of answering, Cheon Doun walked past the fallen children and left the lounge.
[That's nine dropouts.]
His murmuring voice was utterly cheerful.
After that day, no child ever messed with Cheon Doun again.
* * *
Recalling his childhood, he looked at Kim Nari.
Cheon Doun had no one he was close to at the institute. Therefore, even when his peers turned their backs on him during the rank battles, he suffered no mental damage.
‘Is this kid different?’
Her slumped shoulders looked devoid of energy.
“You must have been close with your friends?”
“I was. But maybe I was the only one who thought so. They all ganged up and beat me.”
Betrayal by her peers. A situation where many ganged up on one.
Cheon Doun realized what kind of position Kim Nari had held at the institute.
‘She must have been similar to me.’
A unique individual who monopolized the top ranks. The resulting ostracism from her peers.
The difference between him and Kim Nari was that she couldn't withstand the pressure of the rank battles.
What should he say in a situation like this? Cheon Doun pondered for a moment before taking a bun out of his bag.
“Eat this.”
“Uh… is this for me?”
“Yeah. You tilled the vegetable patch. It's today's wage.”
“A-a wage? This is the first time I've ever received a wage.”
Kim Nari held up the red bean bun. A huge grin spread across her face, as if she had never been crying.
“A wage…! This is my wage!”