Chapter 108
The World Tree sapling pities the Manager.
The World Tree sapling sends morning dew to comfort the Manager.
“……”
Saessak had sent morning dew.
There was a 1 in the mailbox at the top of my smartphone screen.
Maybe that was why.
For some reason, it brought back the first time I’d received morning dew.
I remembered the absurdly polite thing Kang Woo-hyuk had said to me.
“How can you call an old man hyung? That’s incredibly rude! I’m a polite kid, okay? Right, Sister?”
“Pffft!”
Woo-hyuk’s voice rang in my head, along with the woman’s laughter as she finally couldn’t hold it in any longer.
Haaah... I suddenly really wanted to drink Isul again.
“...Let’s just clear the quest.”
I’d better keep my spirits up for Saessak, who’d tried to cheer me up.
I took a long breath in and let it out, then headed into the second passage from the left.
The corridor, lit by glowing stones, was swarming with giant ants.
The moment they saw me, they started gnawing and chittering.
It almost looked like they were exchanging thoughts among themselves.
Of course, that was an illusion.
When giant ants opened and closed their mandibles, it was less conversation than instinct.
They chittered even when they were alone.
“World Tree Root!”
My hand transformed into tree roots and immediately began draining the giant ants of their energy.
The ones I caught tried to attack with their mandibles and spray acidic fluid from inside their bodies, but it was useless.
Once they realized their attacks had no effect at all, the giant ants died off in vain.
That was how I worked my way through all the branching corridors with ease.
It didn’t take long to reach the queen ant’s chamber.
Only as long as a leisurely stroll around the neighborhood.
All I had to do was keep using World Tree Root over and over, walking steadily without any need to attack or defend.
Last time I’d been here, it had taken me hours just to clear one passage...
Gnaw, gnash!
A creature at least four times larger than the other giant ants slammed its huge mandibles together.
Maybe because of its size, the sound was far louder than the others’ mandible clicks.
The queen ant displayed its fury without the slightest hesitation.
As a dungeon boss, it was practically spewing venom.
I could even feel its will as the owner of the ant nest, refusing to let an intruder go unpunished.
It was the same sight I’d seen the last time I came here.
Back then, the queen ant’s rage had been silenced by a single Warm Touch.
It was no different now.
Tree roots shot out swiftly and wrapped around the queen ant’s body.
My index and middle fingers trapped the queen ant and drained its energy.
A queen ant was nothing more than a giant ant with a bigger body.
It couldn’t possibly escape World Tree Root.
Gnaw, gnash...
The queen ant struggled furiously, but like the others, it quickly lost the light in its eyes and died.
There wasn’t much energy absorbed through the roots, either.
It was more than the other ants, but compared to everything else I’d drained so far, it was a drop in the ocean.
It was honestly embarrassing to compare it even to the smallest amount I’d gotten from Ji Sang-wook.
Still, it wasn’t as if I’d gained nothing at all.
While I was walking back through the corridor, I checked the quest window.
B-Rank Former World Tree Quest: The Manager’s Path (Beginner)
Give fertilizer of A-rank or higher once (0/1)
Use Altera-Shonem 1000 times (396/1000)
Use World Tree Root 1000 times (848/1000)
“So I only need to use it 152 more times.”
There had been about a hundred to two hundred giant ants in a single passage.
If things went well, I might be able to complete the 1,000 uses of World Tree Root while clearing the corridor that led to the corpse storage room.
What’s more, once I got there, I could make fertilizer.
A-rank or better fertilizer, the kind needed for the Manager’s Path quest.
If I filled the required number of uses for World Tree Root, made the fertilizer, and gave it to Saessak, then all that would remain was using Altera-Shonem.
I checked how many uses were left.
Use Altera-Shonem 1000 times (396/1000)
While I was circling the ant nest, the elves hadn’t been sitting idle either.
It had gone from 384 to 396, an increase of 12.
That left 604 uses...
“Maybe I can finish the whole quest today?”
I reached down and gripped the magic pouch at my waist.
Packed full, it bulged in my hand like I was holding a ball.
After I got an inventory, I moved everything into it.
The reason the once-empty magic pouch was full again was all thanks to Hong Su-jeong.
She’d swept up every scrap of trash cluttering Crystal Workshop and brought it all here.
I gently patted the bulging pouch.
I didn’t know exactly how much it held, but I’d brought back every last bit of that massive pile of trash without leaving a single thing behind. I should have more than enough to make up the remaining 604 uses.
If it wasn’t enough, I could always ask the managers for some more trash.
As I made my way back to the junction where the passages split off in multiple directions, I couldn’t see any of the giant ant corpses I’d killed.
By then, the surviving ants had clearly already carried them off to the corpse storage room.
That was why I’d chosen to clear the passage to the storage room last.
So that as many giant ant corpses as possible could pile up.
The sapling sends excitement to the Manager.
The Manager hopes to depart quickly.
“Puhahaha...”
A laugh escaped me.
I didn’t bother holding it back, and did as Saessak wished.
I stepped into the passage leading to the corpse storage room.
The moment I entered, two kinds of giant ants welcomed me.
The ones attacking me.
And the ones dragging away the dead.
I stopped in place.
Using World Tree Root, I caught the giant ants that had attacked me.
“Hmm...”
It would have been easy to kill these guys and move on.
But then the corpses left behind would have been a waste.
I’d be leaving behind something I could still use.
“But I can’t exactly kill them all and then carry them over... ah.”
I looked at the giant ants trapped by World Tree Root while their energy was being drained away.
What an idiotic thing to agonize over.
Honestly, I must have a brain hanging around for decoration like a hair ornament.
I just needed to kill them, keep World Tree Root active, and carry them with me afterward.
I was pathetic for worrying over something that didn’t even require a second thought.
The World Tree sapling pities the Manager.
“Mm...”
Don’t pity me over something like this.
It’s embarrassing...
After letting out a sigh, I looked back at the giant ants.
The ones who’d tried to attack me once and been killed so easily now hesitated to rush in again.
They kept their distance and looked like they were debating what to do.
To put an end to their useless hesitation, I used World Tree Root.
It was the same skill that had lifted the bodies of my retainers when they transformed into giant monsters.
It could easily lift several dozen giant ants.
Four tree roots wound around the giant ants, while a fifth lashed out like a whip and drained their energy.
And that took quite a bit of concentration.
In truth, I’d thought World Tree Root wasn’t the kind of skill that required concentration at all.
I realized I’d been completely wrong the moment I tried to move just a single index finger separately.
If I didn’t focus, the index finger turned into a tree root and moved in directions I hadn’t intended at all.
And the other four fingers wrapped around the giant ants would suddenly spread open as well.
“This is...”
Stretch out, then clench tight.
So far, I’d only done simple motions like that, which meant I hadn’t realized how hard the control would be.
That was probably also because there hadn’t been any enemies able to dodge World Tree Root so far.
If it was this hard with one finger, what would happen if I tried to move all five separately?
At least I found out now.
I’d avoided the sort of disaster where I might attack an ally instead of an enemy.
It looked like I’d need practice if I wanted to handle it properly.
So I stretched out my arm again and lifted the giant ant corpses.
I might as well practice right away.
I headed slowly for the corpse storage room, refusing to lose concentration.
“Hoooo...”
Because of that, it took longer for me to reach the storage room than it had to clear any of the other passages so far.
The moment I let my thoughts drift even a little, the hand transformed into tree roots did something strange.
It would whip in a different direction than the one I wanted, or it would drop the corpses I was carrying.
Still, by the time I reached the front of the corpse storage room, I’d improved compared to when I started.
And...
Use World Tree Root 1000 times (1000/1000)
I’d completed the World Tree Root condition, too.
Now all that was left was to step into the corpse storage room, where the stench of rot hung thick in the air, and make the fertilizer.
I stood before the hole leading downward.
Then I dropped the giant ant corpses I’d brought with me into it.
Each time I did, the smell of rotting flesh and the visible miasma rising from the hole grew worse.
As before, the skill Manager of the World Tree kept the stench from becoming unbearable.
And maybe because this was my second time.
I could jump down without hesitation.
Thud.
The soles of my feet crushed the giant ant corpses.
More precisely, I landed on the mass of giant ant corpses that had rotted, dissolved in acid, and fused into one enormous clump.
“Huh?”
But there was something a little different from last time.
The mound beneath my feet was smaller than it had been when I came here before.
“Because there were fewer giant ant corpses piled up in storage... maybe?”
Come to think of it, last time I’d been here they said the dungeon’s mana might overflow.
That wasn’t the case now.
It would take another month or two before the dungeon mana overflowed.
That meant there was still time, and fewer corpses had piled up in the storage room.
Well, it was still basically a “giant clump of venomous miasma.”
The sapling sends soil from around itself to the Manager.
Saessak immediately sent over soil to purify the miasma-clump.
The soil it sent wasn’t through the mailbox, but directly from my smartphone.
To avoid making the same mistake as becoming a human fountain, I braced myself and sprinkled the soil over the massive lump.
Each time the soil, rich with the World Tree’s mana, was scattered, the foul energy and stench slowly faded away.
The huge mass of miasma that had filled the corpse storage room disappeared as well.
Once the lump vanished, my body, which had been standing on top of it, dropped to the floor.
I landed steadily without losing my balance.
The sapling sends the Manager a feeling of satisfaction.
At my feet lay a round lump.
Smaller than my fist, it gave off the refreshing feeling of walking through a forest.
The fertilizer for Saessak had been made.
Tap, tap.
I immediately used Warm Touch to stroke the fertilizer and Saessak.
The fertilizer floated up into the air, just like it had at Jae-i’s Blacksmith.
It flew toward my smartphone and went into the screen with a soft pop.
The World Tree sapling has obtained A-rank fertilizer!
The condition of giving fertilizer of A-rank or higher once for the Manager’s Path quest has been fulfilled.
“Huh? A-rank?”
Why A, and not A+?
Was it because the miasma lump was small?
If that was the case...
It might have ended up as B-rank fertilizer.
“Heh, good thing I went through all that trouble to bring it back...”
I’d almost failed to meet the quest condition.
Though I could have come again next time...
But that would have meant waiting at least two months.
For safety’s sake, I might even have waited as long as three months.
As I rubbed my chest in relief, a white light burst from the smartphone in my hand.
The fertilizer had all been delivered.
The white light faded, and then Saessak appeared.
“...Oh!”
Saessak looked different from just a moment ago.