Chapter 152
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 152
Ju-hyeon offered to help prepare dinner, but his offer was promptly shot down.
"It would be best if you just stayed put."
"But I feel bad just accepting your hospitality without doing anything…"
"If you want to stay human, don’t move."
"...Ah."
"Exactly."
Iser nodded and headed into the kitchen. Aria gently escorted the bewildered Ju-hyeon to the sofa and offered a brief explanation.
"Unless Teacher prepares and cooks it himself, it’s difficult for a human to consume."
"What happens if I eat ingredients that Mr. Gio didn’t prepare…?"
"You’d become one with that painting. I assume you wouldn’t want that, gentleman."
"Would even just prepping the ingredients be a problem?"
"Unfortunately, your body is incredibly fragile. I doubt you could handle it."
Aria smiled warmly.
"You seem eager to help, so how about you set the table instead?"
"...Well, I can at least set out the utensils without any problems, right?"
"Don’t worry. A simple task like that won’t trigger any corruption."
"Thank you for the invaluable warning."
"Don’t mention it."
Watching Aria nod lightly and follow Iser into the kitchen, Ju-hyeon inwardly sighed in relief as a chill ran down his spine. Whether by sheer coincidence or Gio’s careful consideration, Ju-hyeon had never consumed any raw ingredients here.
Come to think of it, all the drinks have been tea or juice.
It seemed he had been in a rather perilous situation all along.
I let my guard down because ingredients harvested from dungeons are usually harmless for humans to eat…
Perhaps because this was the dungeon of the ‘Black Cloak’—a being treated as a humanoid monster—Ju-hyeon had judged everything by the standards of ordinary dungeons. Knowing nothing of the Origin and the Garden, it was only natural that he’d been so careless.
And for good reason—in the modern era, ingredients sourced from dungeons had become a valuable food supply. Thanks to prices cheaper than Earth-grown produce, even the average middle-class family frequently used dungeon-sourced ingredients. Ju-hyeon was no exception.
"Hey there, gentleman."
"Ah, yes?"
"Would you care to enjoy some tea with me while we wait for dinner?" Aria asked, emerging from the kitchen holding a tea set on a tray.
"Gio seems to have made a new tea."
"A new tea…?"
"It’s a tea made from tiny, star-shaped flowers."
"I’ve actually tried that one before."
It was a flower Gio had brought over one day, mentioning he had ‘grown it in the waterbird’s nest.’ Ju-hyeon took the tray from Aria with a welcoming expression.
"It had a very rich, nutty aroma."
"The kitchen staff looked busy, so I just brought it out myself."
"Is… is that alright?"
"He’s not the type to get angry over someone stealing food."
"So you stole it."
It was a strange feeling, hearing the word ‘stole’ from a humanoid monster. Perhaps because she was a monster born from the mermaid race, which was sometimes treated as a subspecies of humanity, he found it surprisingly novel that she possessed the self-awareness of having stolen something.
Not that I should show it, though.
Ju-hyeon set the tea set on the table and began to brew the tea.
"Mr. Gio told me it’s a tea made from dried Basram flowers."
"The Basram flower was cultivated in the world where I was born."
"So it was a famous enough flower tea to be cultivated."
"A single blossom was worth its weight in gold."
"...Gold was expensive in that world too, right?" Ju-hyeon asked with an awkward laugh. "Why was it so incredibly expensive?"
"Because it was extremely difficult to cultivate."
"How do you cultivate it?"
"They’re very picky about who grows them."
"Picky about who grows them…?"
"Yes." Aria gave a small laugh. "Only a select few among the Priests of the Sun could make them grow properly."
"A flower that only priests can cultivate… That certainly sounds fascinating."
"Basram flowers are grown through hydroponics in places where the energy of the sun is strongest."
"Hydroponics? Come to think of it, he did say it was grown in a waterbird’s nest. How unusual."
"Once, Basram flowers grew in the pond located in the deepest depths of the Temple of the Sun…" Aria trailed off, then continued a moment later. "...That is where they flourished."
"The deepest depths of the Temple of the Sun?"
Ju-hyeon could picture the scene.
"What was the Sun Cult’s status back then?"
"It was the religion that ruled the surface."
"Then these Basram flowers must have been truly precious."
"So much so that they were treated as an elixir touched by the sun."
"..."
Ju-hyeon paused mid-pour.
"...An elixir?"
"Yes, the most highly prized elixir on the surface."
"Am I brewing tea with an elixir right now?"
"Why are you asking something so obvious now?" Aria offered a clean, bright smile. "Everything you’ve consumed here so far has likely been of that caliber."
"...Oh..."
Trickle.
Ju-hyeon finished pouring the tea.
"Suddenly, I feel a bit uncomfortable drinking this."
"Teacher probably didn’t think anything of it, so you might as well drink up."
"From a mere human’s perspective, this is terrifying."
"Drinking this won’t cause any major changes to your humanity."
"If not a major change, does it cause a minor one?"
"Your body will become exceptionally warm."
"...Like wild ginseng?"
"Perhaps similar." Aria took a sip of the tea Ju-hyeon had poured. "Though the effects will be much better than that."
"...The aroma is truly rich and wonderful, though..."
"It smells exactly like well-ripened grain, doesn’t it?"
The mermaid’s lips curved into a gentle arc.
"Giovanni possessed the warmest energy of all the Priests of the Sun."
"..."
"The Basram flowers he cultivated had the sweetest, most gentle fragrance in the world."
"...Could this be..."
"Though Basram flowers can no longer grow in my dungeon," Aria caressed her teacup and continued. "Until the blossoms are harvested, Basram flowers will wither at even the slightest hint of cold. Only when those closest to the sun constantly watch over them can they grow properly."
"They’re incredibly delicate flowers."
"My human Teacher was the priest who could make Basram flowers bloom better than anyone else. The Temple of the Sun wanted to bring him back by any means necessary and lock him away. After all, they needed him for their elixir business."
"That’s... a much more worldly story than I was expecting."
"But Giovanni was too busy traveling the world, healing and caring for people. The Temple must have been frantic. Many also hated him for refusing to obey the order’s commands."
"Hmm..." Ju-hyeon sipped his tea and asked, "Were there no priests who cultivated them in private?"
"Of course there were. The problem was, most priests simply couldn’t do it."
"Was cultivation really that difficult?"
"It couldn’t be done just by filling the space with the sun’s energy."
"Then...?"
"They had to give them love." Aria looked at the tiny blossoms floating inside the transparent tea set as if they were adorable. "They would only grow if they were truly loved and cherished."
"...That’s amazing," Ju-hyeon nodded. "And it requires a lot of effort."
"That is why cultivation was so difficult." Soon, Aria let out a soft chuckle. "Even so, some priests cultivated Basram flowers in private. They lacked sufficient solar energy, and they couldn’t bring themselves to love a simple flower soaking in water. Yet, in the end, they still managed to grow them, little by little."
"How were they able to do that?"
"It’s simple. They would place items imbued with the sun’s energy into the cultivation room. The more items they added, the more the room’s energy would resemble that of the Temple of the Sun. A holy relic of the sun, for example. Or perhaps the belongings of a saint..."
"But does that satisfy the condition of 'love'?"
At Ju-hyeon’s question, Aria set down her teacup.
"It did not."
"Then how...?"
"That’s why another method was needed."
"What kind of method?"
"They would place the corpse of a priest in the water with them."
"..."
"Because of that, the temple ponds also served as graves for the saints."
Blinking, Ju-hyeon asked, "Pardon? Using corpses... like that?"
"They said it produced a result similar to 'love.'"
"...Why would it do that...?"
"I suppose a devotion where one offers their entire being as fertilizer was also considered a form of love," Aria laughed. "That is why the Basram flower was also called the 'corpse-eating flower.'"
After all, wasn’t it far more cost-effective to use the corpses of a few priests with moderately strong solar energy than to have the highest-ranking priests, brimming with it, grow them personally?
"In fact, it was an era when the corpses of Sun Cult priests were traded on the black market."
"..."
"Of course, the quality was lower than the flowers grown with genuine love."
"Uh..."
"But even the Basram flowers grown that way were highly effective," Aria continued in a nonchalant tone. "That just shows how immense the demand for this elixir was. It was a flower so precious that they had to resort to using holy relics of the sun and even the corpses of priests. Its practical efficacy was vast, far beyond mere symbolic meaning."
"...Could you tell me exactly what kind of effects it has?"
"There are stories that it can bring the dead back to life. It warms a person’s body to such a degree that there are actual cases resembling resurrection. The method of consumption was to dry it thoroughly under the heat of the sun, grind it into powder, and mix it with water."
"At that point, wouldn’t you just burn up...?"
"If that were the case, it wouldn’t be treated as something so precious. There are no side effects. It simply keeps your body at an ideal temperature at all times, which has the effect of making you highly resistant to illnesses."
"..."
Ju-hyeon looked down at the teacup in his hand. Then, he looked back at Aria.
"Is it really alright for me to drink this?"
"It won’t kill you."
"No, I think that is the problem."
"Do you wish to die?"
"Don’t tease me. I mean, I want to die as a human."
"There were stories that it extends one’s lifespan."
"This flower?"
"Well, though there were never any stories of it being made into a flower tea like this..."
"Ah..."
Ju-hyeon’s eyes darted around as he pondered.
"Would the effects be weaker if consumed as tea?"
"Do you expect the effects of a flower dried by the Sun God himself to be weak?"
"...Wait a minute." Ju-hyeon asked. "The Sun God?"
"Oh dear, you didn’t know."
"Mr. Giovanni...?"
"Do you see that teddy bear gentleman over there?"
"Ah." He could see the teddy bear waving from the kitchen, seemingly helping with the work. "Yes, he said he was his father..."
"He was the previous Sun God."
"Pardon?"
"Gio inherited that divinity."
"..."
Seeing him turn pale, Aria smiled warmly.
"Isn’t it wonderful? Having the Sun God as a friend—there could be no greater honor."
"It certainly is an honor, but no, still... even so, this is..." Ju-hyeon made a troubled face. "It’s far too much for me."
"Your friend? Or this tea?"
"I don’t know how I can ever repay this..."
"To think of repaying a gift from a god."
"W-well, I suppose you could put it that way." Perhaps embarrassed by his own thoughts, Ju-hyeon blushed awkwardly. "But I can’t just keep receiving things."
"..."
"And Mr. Gio isn’t just any ordinary god, either."
"...Just a little bit..." Wiping the smile from her face, Aria let out a deep sigh. "You resemble my foolish younger brother."
"...Me?"
"Yes, just a little bit." Aria soon showed a gentle smile once more. "If only my brother had received divine mercy in a better era, just like you."
The emotion contained in those words was so incredibly complex that Ju-hyeon dared not try to comprehend it.
"Then he would have become a priest of peace, not a monster."
"...Do you regret it?"
"As you well know, if one feels regret, they are not a monster."
"I suppose so."
Those who still had dreams, lingering attachments, a daily life—or anything at all—could not become monsters.
Ju-hyeon knew this all too well.
"..."
And that was why he could foresee the mermaids' end.
*
Dinner was lamb skewers.
"Lamb skewers..."
"Do you dislike them?"
"Not particularly, but..." Ju-hyeon laughed awkwardly at the skewers of well-seasoned meat. "This is Golden Sheep meat, right?"
"You remember well." Gio smiled brightly. "It seems you enjoyed the taste of the lamb chops you had last time."
"W-well, yes. That’s certainly true, but..."
"Is there a problem? I can adjust the flavor for you."
"..."
Soon, Ju-hyeon resigned himself.
"No, it looks delicious."
"Of course it does. I made it."
"Hahaha..."
I need to move out quickly.
I need to get my own place and eat normal food.
While Dana was still wary of him, this was his last chance. Ju-hyeon made up his mind to get a house on Earth again.
It was an unexpected and unique way of overcoming his trauma.