Episode 18
Crack! Crrrack!
The Skeleton Lord’s skull split open.
The result of all that relentless pounding.
The thing drooped to its knees, its hollow head laid bare, then toppled onto the ground.
The red glow in its eye sockets vanished too.
It was dead for good.
Only then did its body begin to crumble into dust, scattering slowly into the air.
After I watched that sight, I finally let myself flop backward onto the ground.
“Man, that was rough.”
Lying there, I spotted the log I’d dropped earlier.
I rolled it over, used it as a neck pillow, and lay back down.
It was so thick that my neck was bent at almost ninety degrees, but it was still better than pressing the back of my head straight into the dirt.
I propped both feet up on the Lord’s big, heavy armor.
The corpse still hadn’t completely vanished.
It was slowly crumbling away like a time-lapse of weathering and decay.
“Hoo... I got lucky.”
I had to admit that much.
I’d only won because this thing was a Skeleton Lord.
If it had been an A+ class monster in beast form or human form, I wouldn’t have survived.
Because it was such a fatal undead presence to World Tree mana that even its corpse was disintegrating, I’d been able to kill it at all.
The log had played a huge part too.
Just existing had gotten under its skin, which helped more than I’d expected.
If I hadn’t been able to rile the Lord up, I never would’ve dragged it into a psychological collapse like that.
[A+ Rank World Tree Quest Cleared!]
[Manager of the World Tree Baek Do-woon has successfully defeated the Skeleton Lord.]
[Success Reward - World Tree Bark (A rank), Essence of the Previous World Tree (A rank)]
[If you click Claim Reward, the reward will be sent to your mailbox.]
[Would you like to claim the reward? (YES / NO)]
As soon as I cleared the quest, the success rewards appeared.
Tree bark…?
“……”
I thought about it for a second, but nothing came to mind.
From the name alone, I had no idea what kind of skill it was.
Well, I could just claim it and see.
I looked at the other reward, the Essence of the Previous World Tree.
Maybe because it was a quest window, clicking it didn’t bring up any useful explanation.
Still, if it came from the World Tree, it had to be good somehow.
And it was an A-rank skill too.
With that vague assumption, I hit Claim Reward.
Not long after, my smartphone vibrated against my chest.
That meant the reward had been sent to my mailbox.
“Ji-on! Are you alive?”
That voice was... Woo Yeon-hoo?
Worry colored his tone, and I turned my head.
Woo Yeon-hoo and his party were running toward me at full speed.
Each of them was hauling the mana generator for transportation on their backs like complete maniacs.
Their hair was plastered with sweat, which told me how hard they’d run.
For some reason, the six men and women charging toward me looked incredibly welcome.
Even though it had been less than two hours since I’d last seen them.
I pulled my head off the log and sat up.
I couldn’t exactly greet people who’d rushed all this way to worry about me while I was still lying around like a corpse.
“You guys came to save me?”
“Of course we did—! Wait, you mean you defeated the Skeleton Lord all by yourself, Ji-on?”
He’d stopped right in front of me and was staring down at the Lord disintegrating into dust at my feet.
The other party members behind him widened their eyes too, clearly stunned by the corpse.
One of them muttered, “So all that effort we put into running here... for what?”
“You took that thing down alone?”
I scratched my masked cheek.
I’d only gotten lucky, but there was no need to say that.
“I guess so.”
“If I’d known that, we should’ve taken our time getting here.”
Woo Yeon-hoo smiled wryly as he spoke.
What was he saying that for?
He and his party had genuinely moved me.
They’d come because they were trying to save me, and that was what mattered.
“Right. I should return what you lent me earlier.”
He tossed a small magic pouch at me.
It wasn’t the pouch that had held the Udamhwa.
The original magic pouch had been about the size of a fist, but this one was as wide as an outstretched palm.
“This isn’t mine—”
“It is yours, sir.”
Woo Yeon-hoo’s expression was firm, though faintly embarrassed.
Ah. I see.
Meaning he was too shy to say thank you outright.
So instead of gratitude, he was giving me a magic pouch even better than the original one.
If I said it wasn’t mine now, I’d just be the one making things awkward.
I nodded and thanked him.
After that, I collected the items from the Skeleton Lord, whose corpse had fully disappeared by then.
I hefted the log from under my feet and slung it over my shoulder.
“What’s that supposed to be?”
“Can’t you see it? It’s a log.”
“...Yes, it is.”
I clearly didn’t want to explain, so I answered half-heartedly, and he just nodded.
The others in his party were curious too, but none of them asked.
I’d made it pretty obvious I didn’t feel like talking about it.
“All right, then. Shall we head back?”
“Oh, o-oh! Yes, let’s!”
I said it cheerfully, hoping to lighten the mood.
They seemed to agree that the atmosphere had gotten a little too cold, because they answered brightly too.
Only one person, Woo Yeon-hoo, was stroking his chin and lost in thought.
What was up with him?
“Ji-on.”
“Yes?”
“Would you perhaps consider joining our guild?”
I hadn’t expected a recruitment pitch all the way out here.
His teammates looked as surprised as I was.
Kim Ji-yeon muttered, “Why would you even make an offer like that in a place like this?”
I tapped the mask covering my face.
“I have no intention of revealing my identity. You don’t even know who I am, so would that really be okay?”
I declined the offer with a hint of softness.
I still had no interest in joining any guild.
If I had, I wouldn’t have left Baek Uncheon in the first place.
If I ever joined a guild, it would be Baek Uncheon.
“Your identity, huh... Well, I suppose that makes sense.”
Woo Yeon-hoo’s attitude was a little strange.
Ah. Right.
He definitely knew who I was.
It probably hadn’t been that hard to figure out.
South Korea was covered in CCTV cameras, after all.
If you traced the movements of a weird masked guy, you could find him pretty quickly.
Honestly, I’d never expected to keep it hidden forever, so it didn’t really matter if he knew.
I’d assumed this would happen from the moment I first stepped into Ildae Group.
“……”
When I kept staring at him, Woo Yeon-hoo gave me a wink.
That wasn’t all.
Kim Ji-yeon beside him touched a finger to her lips and smiled faintly too.
Apparently she knew as well.
Woo Yeon-hoo must not have told her.
When the Lord dragged me off earlier, Woo Yeon-hoo had been about to shout my name.
He probably recognized me from hearing it then.
At least from the way the two of them were acting, it looked like they had no intention of exposing me.
I was relieved, but I couldn’t stop the sigh that tried to come out.
“Haa...”
＊＊＊
The moment I got home, I yanked off my mask and clothes at random and collapsed onto the sofa.
Maybe because it was a place that made me feel safe, I’d somehow ended up wanting to lie down the second I got back.
Just as I was sprawled there, about to check the quest reward,
Buzz.
My smartphone vibrated.
I was already looking at the screen, so I knew right away why.
Assistant Manager Lee had sent me a message.
[I got your message. You’re home, right?]
“If I’m home, what are you gonna do about it?”
I muttered under my breath instead of replying.
Assistant Manager Lee sent another message.
[I’m trying to thank you, so don’t act like you hate it.]
“……”
[Good work on the Udamhwa harvest. Ms. Min-ju says to say hi.]
“Did she and Do-hee plant a wiretap around me or something? How the hell are we having a conversation?”
I muttered while glancing around the room.
Of course, there was no wiretap in sight.
I stopped entertaining stupid thoughts and opened Growing the World Tree.
The World Tree sprout appeared on the screen at once.
“Huh?”
The sprout looked different from usual.
There was dirt on the tips of its leaves, and the soil underneath had been dug up.
It almost looked as if the sprout itself had been digging into the dirt below.
“Did you literally dig the soil and send it over?”
I asked just in case.
The sprout just stood there.
It swayed gently, as if surrendering itself to the breeze like always.
I waited for an answer, but none came.
“...What are you even doing?”
Instead of letting it keep acting weird, I should check the mailbox and see what I got.
I clicked the mailbox at the top of the screen.
[Mailbox]
[Skill World Tree Bark (A rank)]
[Essence of the Previous World Tree (A rank)]
When I opened it, I found the World Tree Bark and the Essence of the Previous World Tree inside.
First, I decided to leave the essence alone, since I still had no idea what it actually did.
The mailbox lasted a full week anyway, so there was no rush to claim it.
I clicked the Claim button next to World Tree Bark.
Then blue light burst out from my smartphone screen and wrapped around my body.
The blue glow circled around me for about three seconds before slowly fading away.
The skill had been learned.
“Skill window.”
In the skill window, NEW! appeared alongside World Tree Bark (A rank).
I clicked it to check the details, and a new window popped up at once.
[Skill Window]
[World Tree Bark (A rank) - Due to World Tree mana, the body takes on the form of the bark of the current World Tree (sprout state).]
[It consumes 100 mana per second to maintain, blocks all damage, but will break if struck by an attack stronger than the defense of the World Tree Bark.]
[You can turn it ON/OFF at will.]
“Oh...”
World Tree Bark.
This was a defensive skill.
I had no idea how durable the sprout’s bark actually was, but since the system had rated it A rank, I figured it would probably block most attacks without trouble.
What stood out most was the mana consumption.
One hundred per second.
There was no way I would’ve even considered activating this back in the day.
My total mana had only been 260, which meant I could’ve kept it up for just two seconds.
Of course, not anymore.
My mana now sat at a ridiculous 10,260,000.
By simple calculation, I could maintain it for sixteen minutes.
And since my mana recovery had improved dramatically after becoming the Manager of the World Tree, I’d definitely be able to sustain it much longer than that.
Lastly, the part saying my body would change through World Tree mana caught my eye.
I’d seen with my own eyes what things infused with World Tree mana were capable of.
Wouldn’t this bark also have powerful effects against impure things?
“That leaves the essence...”
I had absolutely no idea what it was.
Closing my eyes, I thought about the essence.
Pathetically, the only thing that came to mind was birch sap.
Buzz.
As if telling me not to waste time on useless thoughts, my smartphone vibrated again.
I thought it might be Assistant Manager Lee again, but it wasn’t.
It was my one and only little sister, Do-hee.
“Eek...!”
It was so terrifying I accidentally threw my smartphone.
The phone smashed onto the floor and kept vibrating a few more times as more messages came in.
It was definitely from Do-hee.
That made me too afraid to pick it up again and read it.
For some reason, I felt like the screen would say, What are you so scared of that you dropped your phone?
I did the math on her return date and how much time I had left.
“The 28th... if it’s the 28th...”
That was four days from today.
In other words, this Friday.
It was noon on the 24th now, which meant Do-hee had exactly 102 hours before coming back to Korea.
Hoo. Stay calm.
Time was still on my side.
I needed to think about how to handle this.
Five seconds. Ten seconds. Thirty seconds.
My worries were over in less than a minute.
Calmly, I got up from my seat and immediately did what most people do when they come face-to-face with a problem.
That’s right.
I ran away.
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