01. In Search of the Growth Elixir
01. In Search of the Growth Elixir
The Demon Realm Snowfield — a place where blizzards rage all year round.
Known as the White Maze, where everyone loses their way in impenetrable snowstorms, a legend has been passed down of a brilliantly shining ancient civilization that once existed there in ages long past.
Merely setting foot in the Snow Country is said to be an act of suicide.
Yet there were fifteen death-wish volunteers who ventured in search of those ancient ruins — a place people had entered, but from which none had ever returned.
Gambling addicts who staked their lives on unverified legends,
and among those madmen of all ages and genders, each with their own story, I was mixed in as well.
Though calling it "mixed in" makes the situation sound a bit strange.
Because the leader of the Snow Country Expedition Team who gathered these lunatics was none other than me — Seo Ji-hoon, who had possessed the novel's villain, 'Atlas Titan,' the man who killed people for mocking his height.
I gathered these madmen willing to throw themselves into a snowfield where you couldn't see an inch ahead, trusting solely in a single journal written by a man who claimed to have survived being stranded in the Snow Country fifty years ago — and in the end, we found the ruins buried beneath the thick snow of the Snow Country.
The ruins of the ancient civilization were real.
We broke through all manner of traps meant to expel intruders, pressed onward... and ultimately succeeded in finding the treasures of the ancient civilization that had been passed down as legend.
The pale light a mage conjured in the air reflected off the countless gold pieces in the treasure vault, casting a yellow glow over the faces of the expedition team members.
"Grandfather's journal was real..."
At the sight of that overwhelming spectacle, a brown-haired woman from the expedition team with braided hair spoke in a trembling voice.
In her hand was an old leather-bound notebook — the very journal written by the 'survivor' of the Snow Country that had led these lunatics into the snowfield.
From the moment they entered the ruins, she had been in an elevated mood, overcome with emotion as everything her grandfather had said proved to be true.
"Do we have time to sit around? We've got to go check if the rest of it is real too."
"Yeah, that's right... Just wait until those bastards at the Archaeological Society see this!!"
She had been grinding her teeth at the Society ever since they laughed at her for writing a thesis on the ancient civilization rumored to be in the Snow Country, and now she was recording everything about this place by hand and with magical tools, leaving nothing out.
Now that real ruins had been discovered, if she submitted a thesis based on these materials, she'd be able to smash their proud noses flat.
"Bwahahaha!! Gold! There are mountains of gold piled up!!"
"This goddamn subsistence-level bullshit is over now!! We're rich!!"
After all, how many people were here for research purposes?
Everyone was scooping up the heaps of gold and jewels, but I was not looking at the piled gold — instead, I was scanning among the treasures stored separately in the exhibition hall.
Among armor and treasured swords crafted in styles I had never seen before, and all manner of dazzling treasures, I picked up a small bottle that had been carefully preserved.
Inside the transparent bottle, crafted from crystal and gilded with gold leaf, a red and green liquid swirled together in strange patterns, looking incredibly mysterious.
"Yes, this is it...!!"
It matched the appearance I knew.
This was the 'Growth Potion,' said to make you grow taller the moment you drank it.
The only treasure I had desired from the Snow Country.
It clearly possessed the characteristics described in the legends, but as for whether it was actually safe, I had no idea whatsoever.
But I didn't have the luxury to care about that.
When I looked straight ahead, I saw the backs of my comrades gathering treasure.
Even when I turned my head, all I saw were backs and chests — there wasn't a single person whose face or the back of their head I could see.
Well, it wasn't some terrifying scene where everyone else's heads had been lopped off.
It was simply because I had a dwarf-like stature where I couldn't even see the face of a normal adult male unless I painfully craned my neck upward.
Ever since possessing this body, my height hadn't exceeded 150 centimeters.
The shortest person in this expedition besides me was 165, so no matter what, there was no one whose eyes I could meet when looking straight ahead.
I could no longer endure this low field of vision.
I opened the cap of the potion and downed the ominously swirling mixture of green and red liquid.
-Pung!
The moment I drank it, a deflating sound rang out and pure white smoke billowed in all directions.
"Whoa, what the heck is this?!"
"Captain?! Are you okay?!"
The comrades gathering treasure looked toward the rising smoke in shock.
"Did... did it work?"
It was truly instantaneous, but I felt like something had changed.
When I pushed through the smoke that obscured everything, a completely different world unfolded before me.
I could no longer see people's chests.
Even though I hadn't raised my head yet, I could see the surprised eyes of the expedition members.
I could see everyone's greasy scalps, unwashed for far too long.
My field of vision had risen.
My short limbs, my torso — they had lengthened.
"Ha... hahahaha!!"
Laughter leaked out of me.
Finally... finally, I had returned to my pre-possession height.
Sixteen years had passed since I possessed the body of Atlas Titan — the villain of a web novel who killed people for mocking his short stature.
This world was never kind to men who were short or had physical defects.
And if you were the eldest son of a noble family, it was even worse.
It had already been sixteen years of persecution simply for being short.
Now I could see people's faces without having to crane my neck painfully.
This was the familiar sight I used to see often before possessing this body.
It was the view I had longed to return to every single day for sixteen years.
Now everything would be resolved.
Growing taller meant far more to me than simply my body getting bigger.
My fate, as determined by the novel, my relationship with my parents — everything would get better.
"Oh...!! Cap, did you finally achieve your wish?!"
"The Growth Potion... the legend was real!! Congratulations, Atlas!"
Around me, all the expedition members were congratulating me.
They had seen from the sidelines how hard I had tried with the single hope of growing taller, so they were genuinely happy for me.
As I looked at my elongated hands and feet with fascination, receiving everyone's congratulations, someone who had been observing me closely spoke up.
"...But if you suddenly grew that much taller, shouldn't your clothes not fit anymore?"
Now that I thought about it, that was true.
Looking closely, I was wearing my clothes perfectly, just as before I grew.
Even though I had grown over thirty centimeters taller, it was as if my clothes had grown right along with my body.
An ominous thought occurred to me.
"This... could it be...?"
-Pung!
A deflating pop that was almost laughable, and that hazy smoke rose up again.
When the smoke cleared, the short-statured me from before drinking the potion walked out.
"Uh... uh oh... Captain...?"
Seeing me shrunk back down like a halfling, the expedition members couldn't say a word.
Quietly suppressing the energy of the potion that felt like it was swirling inside my body, I tossed the empty bottle aside carelessly and spoke.
"Haa......... this is garbage."
What I had found was certainly the potion described in the legends.
But it wasn't a Growth Potion — it was a Polymorph Potion.
Polymorph was true 'transformation,' the magic of dragons... This potion allowed the drinker to freely use that high-level magic, Polymorph.
Wow, so it really was a genuine dragon treasure. For someone like me who gave up studying magic, to be able to use Polymorph as naturally as breathing — it really was an incredible treasure.
But that doesn't mean I grew taller.
"So... this other thing... was what I spent all that time searching for..."
I could transform into a taller form, but inside, my true nature — stumpy like a halfling — still remained.
When the magic ended, I simply returned to my original form, just like before.
This wasn't growth.
It was just deceiving myself into thinking I'd grown.
I slumped down, and everything I had been through up until now flashed before my eyes like a magic lantern.
Possessing the body of Atlas Titan, my parents abusing me when I didn't grow taller no matter how old I got, running away from home and joining the Knight Order because I heard you grew taller if you joined, deserting the Order when there was no improvement and beginning the search for the Growth Potion,
and now, this stumpy, unchanging form remained as it always had.
"Fuuuuuuck, why does it only screw me over!!!! You shitty fucking life!!!!!"
Pent-up rage exploded out of me.
I grabbed the gold pieces around me and hurled them everywhere.
"Hey, hey hey hey!! Captain's gone crazy, everyone run!!"
"He'd been kind of quiet lately, I just knew it!!!"
"You... you piece of shit!!!!!"
It was only after I rampaged like that for about twenty minutes that my fit finally stopped.
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After recording everything that needed recording in the ruins and packing up everything that needed packing, the Snow Country Expedition Team exited the snowfield once more and headed for a nearby village.
Because everyone had prepared expensive 'magic pouches' expecting to fill them to the brim, they had carried out an amount of gold that would normally make a person stagger, yet their steps were light.
Normally, the Snow Country was a white labyrinth you could enter but never leave.
That was why the Snow Country was designated as a Demon Realm and a place no nation wanted to go near — but the Snow Country Expedition Team could exit that place as if it were nothing.
It was only natural, really.
Because the Snow Country Expedition Team had me — Atlas Titan — as its captain.
Having been possessed after reading the web novel containing this world's story, I knew a great deal of hidden background lore that the people of this world did not, and I still hadn't forgotten it.
Among that lore was the strategy guide for the Snow Country.
In the original novel, the protagonist also broke through the Snow Country, and I had merely followed that same method.
The protagonist in the novel, upon reaching the Snow Country ruins, had grown sufficiently tall and thus hadn't even glanced at the Growth Potion.
If he had known that potion was a Polymorph Potion, would he have drunk it? It would have been more useful to him than the Growth Potion.
Before returning to the Empire, to rest their exhausted bodies, the expedition team arrived at the last supply point — a village near the Snow Country. The villagers, seeing the Snow Country Expedition Team members covered in white snow from head to toe after escaping the snowfield, all wore expressions as if they had seen ghosts.
Since it was a village they had also stopped at before entering the Snow Country, the villagers had all assumed the team was dead, so they seemed shocked to see them return perfectly fine.
Paying no mind to the villagers, the Snow Country Expedition Team entered the village's only tavern and began drinking heavily.
Bella, the female expedition member who had provided the Snow Country journal, sat down in front of me as I pathetically nursed a drink alone in the corner of the tavern, staring at the fireplace.
"Atlas... are you still angry?"
"You must be happy... You got what you wanted."
"So you are still angry..."
At my prickly reply, Bella was gauging my mood.
She had gotten what she wanted, while I, who had played the most crucial role in the expedition, had gotten nothing, so she seemed to be walking on eggshells.
"I guess I put too much hope in the potion. To not even consider the possibility it wasn't the real one... I'm such an idiot."
I said it self-deprecatingly, but I hadn't been able to help believing that the Growth Potion absolutely existed in those ruins.
First and foremost, I operated on the absolute premise that the Growth Potion existed.
It was an item the author had definitively stated existed in the hidden background lore of this novel.
Though where it was located was never properly revealed, it was definitely a potion said to exist.
Therefore, when I heard the legend about the Snow Country, I had naturally assumed it was the real thing.
Well, it wasn't, though.
"You're not an idiot... Others might not know, but I do... Atlas is a greater person than anyone else... It's just that no one can see you properly because you're shorter than them..."
"Thanks for trying to comfort me, but what I want is for my body to get bigger, not my heart."
"I like you just the way you are."
"And I'm telling you I don't like me the way I am."
I found her effort to cheer me up somehow endearing and wanted to pat her head, but with my short limbs, I'd have to strike a comical pose just to reach Bella's head across the table, so I gave up.
As I lifted my glass again, a high-quality letter envelope dropped down from the ceiling with a plop.
When I looked up, I saw something of human shape melting into the darkness.
"Huh? What's this??"
"Don't be startled, it's just a letter from home."
A letter falling from thin air wasn't surprising to me.
That was because the crest stamped firmly into the wax seal on the envelope was one I knew all too well.
The moment I broke the seal and read the letter, I shot up from my seat, packed my things, and left the tavern.
"Atlas, where are you going?"
When I suddenly got up from my seat, the startled Bella followed me out.
"Sorry!! I'll leave the cleanup to you!! Something urgent came up at home, so I have to head back first."
This was what the letter said.
It was a message telling me that both of my parents had, in the end, died suddenly within a short time of each other, and asking me to return.