Chapter 58
White light burst from the smartphone.
As though it were something sacred, I lowered the phone onto the bed with great care.
Then I knelt and raised both arms high overhead.
I tipped my head back too.
The white ceiling of the hospital room came into view.
If I had my way, I’d have been looking at the sun instead.
Still, whether it was the ceiling or the sun didn’t really matter.
What mattered was that the week I’d spent tapping at the screen had finally paid off.
“Crowd?”
Tae-cheon’s voice echoed in my head.
It was from the conversation we’d had that morning, the day I subdued the assassin named Banum.
Back then, I’d been tapping the smartphone screen while talking to the two of them.
“You’re on the outs with Crowd? They’ve already killed two people?”
“Including the assassin who came by last night, that makes three, right?”
“Do-woon..., those bastards are completely insane.”
“They’re madmen trying to overthrow the world!”
I’d explained Crowd to Do-hee and Tae-cheon.
There was no other way to explain the assassin who had come after me.
The two of them already knew about Crowd.
From their expressions, it seemed they’d clashed with them more than once.
So their goal wasn’t conquest, but overthrowing the world?
“If this was related to Crowd, you should’ve told us right away!”
Do-hee had snapped at me.
Her anger carried worry for me beneath it.
Once I saw that face, I couldn’t even come up with an excuse.
Of course, it wasn’t that I couldn’t make excuses at all.
I didn’t make one, and instead went after them.
“So you two know a thing or two about Crowd?”
“Don’t even get me started. Those assholes are relentless. They never just back off-”
Do-hee hit Tae-cheon on the shoulder while he was talking.
Tae-cheon looked at her, but she was only looking at me.
My little sister.
My lovely little sister.
“You didn’t tell me either, did you?”
“......!”
“Well, um, that is...”
“Then I guess I can be angry at you too?”
I’d said it with my left hand on my hip.
Do-hee and Tae-cheon both quietly looked away from me.
They hadn’t told me they’d fought people like Crowd, and they expected me to tell them?
Look at these shameless little brats.
“Let’s call it a draw.”
“Right! We came here to talk about you, hyung. Right?”
Tae-cheon and Do-hee put on awkward smiles.
They looked so small and cornered that I let them off.
After that, we discussed what we needed to prepare for going forward.
Since killing Kim Mu-yeon had been filmed, we had to get ready for the fallout.
“Fortunately, we won the public-opinion battle, so our image isn’t bad.”
“Jae-im had a rough time of it.”
“...Hmph. That’s because Aegaeon’s image was already terrible. What sort of hardship would that be?”
“Don’t be like that. Jae-im’s a good guy. Hardworking too. He just turns stupid whenever Do-woon gets involved.”
“That’s exactly the part I hate.”
When Do-hee glared at him, Tae-cheon glanced away again.
Then he changed the subject and explained what the government and the Association thought about the matter.
“The government and the Association are on our side. They’re telling us to claim self-defense as the victims.”
“It was self-defense to begin with.”
“Exactly, so they’re being friendly. They said they’d help us get acquitted at trial.”
This was a dispute between A-class guilds.
Instead of just watching, they were going to help us?
“You made a deal.”
“This is why I hate how quick-witted Baek Do-woon is.”
“What did they ask for?”
“We relinquished the monopoly rights to Naksan Park Gate in Hyehwa.”
I’d heard about that place from Director Lee before.
It was an A-rank gate, and I’d worried they’d rushed to secure the monopoly rights.
Which meant it had definitely been somewhere with some purpose behind it...
“You only got it recently. Didn’t you need it?”
“We did, but we don’t anymore.”
No longer needed it?
I tilted my head, unable to make sense of it.
But Do-hee just nodded with a smile on her face.
She knew something.
“And you’re not going to tell me?”
“You don’t need to know, hyung.”
“That’s harsh.”
I tried looking dejected, but it didn’t work this time.
The two of them just kept smiling at me.
Once they got like that, there was no way they were going to tell me anything, no matter what I said.
I knew, because sometimes I made that same face too.
“Ha...”
Then I heard a sigh in my head.
The owner of that sigh was Yu Jae-i, who came after Do-hee and Tae-cheon left.
Unlike usual, she wasn’t wearing any rough work clothes.
Maybe she’d put on makeup, because her eyebrows were darker than usual, giving her a brighter, sharper look, and her red lips were full of life.
Even the dark clothes she’d worn had changed color.
Her brighter appearance made her look strikingly pretty.
She was beautiful enough to make that word rise to my tongue on its own, but she didn’t exactly look like someone visiting a hospital.
There was even a warrior’s resolve in the face she wore, as if she were going off to battle.
“......”
“I came because I was worried, and you’re just playing games.”
Yu Jae-i said that.
Her eyes flicked back and forth between my index and middle fingers as they kept tapping at the smartphone screen.
She looked a little irritated, so I decided to change the subject.
“By the way, where are you going today?”
“What?”
“You came looking gorgeous.”
“...I’m not going anywhere.”
She answered with a faint smile.
Apparently she liked being called pretty.
But the smile didn’t last long.
“I dressed up because I thought that fox-faced bitch might show up again today.”
Fox-faced bitch?
Yu Jae-i suddenly looked around the room.
In particular, she stared intently at the pile of things people had brought me for my hospital visit.
Fruit juice, a luxury fruit basket, mid-grade healing potions, and so on.
“Same as last time. Guess she still hasn’t shown up. Hmph, fine then.”
She muttered that too.
What the hell happened while I was unconscious?
I tilted my head and looked at Kim Ji-yeon and Shim Yoon-jin.
They only laughed awkwardly, “Ahaha...”
No, don’t just laugh. Explain the situation.
They never did explain it to the end, but it wasn’t hard to guess why Yu Jae-i was acting like that.
Not long after Yu Jae-i left, Woo Chae-yeon came to visit with her older brother.
“I was really worried about you, oppa.”
“Huh? Oppa?”
I asked back, stunned.
Woo Chae-yeon sat beside me and peeled an apple with a bright smile.
I looked at Woo Yeon-hoo, as if asking, What the hell is going on?
He seemed no less lost than I was, staring wide-eyed at his younger sister.
Once Woo Chae-yeon finished peeling the apple, she handed it to me.
“Here you go.”
“Ah, yes, thank you.”
“You can speak casually, Do-woon oppa.”
And as she said that, she tapped my shoulder with a slender hand.
Where had the girl who’d calmly and coldly brought down monsters gone? In her place sat a fox.
Wait, a fox?
Ah. So that was the fox Yu Jae-i had been talking about.
And now I had a rough idea of what had happened too.
So that’s why she’d put on makeup and dressed up so prettily?
“Do-woon oppa?”
“Hold on, I’ve got something to say to your brother. Could you give us a little space?”
“Yes?”
At that, Woo Chae-yeon looked at her brother.
Woo Yeon-hoo just lifted one shoulder.
“I need to talk about something important, so please bear with us.”
“...Okay.”
Fortunately, Woo Chae-yeon stepped away without complaint.
She stood up, closed the hospital room door behind her, and left.
Five seconds later, Woo Yeon-hoo and I both spoke at once.
“I’m sorry.”
“Why is she acting like that?”
“It seems she has a thing for you, Do-woon. I think she’s trying to pull you onto her team.”
“Me?”
“You’re strong, your head works pretty well, your face is decent enough, your social standing is good, and on top of that, you saved her life. Of course she’d want you.”
“Decent enough? So you’re not calling me handsome?”
“Want me to bring you a mirror?”
“...Tch.”
When I clicked my tongue, he gave a snort of laughter.
That laughter didn’t last long either.
His face quickly settled back into its usual seriousness.
“What Jae-i said was right. Apparently anyone can make the key.”
“Which means Crowd has another reason for targeting Yu Jae-i...”
“Ah, those piles of scrap were mechanical devices.”
“Mechanical devices?”
“I can’t say for sure, but they looked like launchers.”
“Launchers? Then they could be weapons.”
“Yes.”
I thought again about the contents inside the boxes.
The key they’d tried to have Yu Jae-i make.
A launcher for firing something.
Violet Violence, which boosted physical ability.
And finally,
“What was the mana stone for?”
“It was an ordinary mana stone. But...”
“But?”
“It contained the condensed mana of ten A-class hunters.”
A mana stone packed with an enormous amount of tainted mana.
The mana stone might have been the launcher’s fuel.
But what were they trying to launch?
And what exactly was the key supposed to open?
“I have no idea what they’re trying to do.”
“I’ll keep investigating.”
“Please do. Oh, right. Could you talk with Tae-cheon sometime?”
“Hmm?”
“I mentioned Crowd to him this time. I think Tae-cheon was hostile to those bastards too.”
“Ah. All right, then.”
“Though...”
“......?”
“Is that game fun?”
Woo Yeon-hoo asked, nodding toward my right hand.
Even in the middle of a serious conversation, my hand still hadn’t stopped moving, and he looked genuinely baffled by it.
I only smiled and didn’t answer.
The Woo siblings stayed until the VIP room’s visiting hours ended, then left.
After that, over the week I spent in the hospital, a few more visitors came by.
Director Lee and Choi Gi-woo each stopped in once, said little, and left after showing their faces.
Kim Jae-sik sent a message apologizing that he couldn’t come, and that stood in for a visit.
I welcomed them all while tapping away at the smartphone screen.
In other words, except for when I was sleeping, I never once put the smartphone down for an entire week.
And as a result, on the day I was discharged, the smartphone screen finally shone white.
“...What are you doing?”
Tae-cheon, who’d come early in the morning so we could leave together, asked me that.
I was kneeling on the bed with both arms thrust upward, and he seemed unable to make sense of it.
Fair enough.
If I saw someone doing this, I’d wonder the same thing.
“A celebration ceremony.”
“Ha.... What is it this time? What did you pull now?”
Tae-cheon let out a long sigh as he spoke.
He probably thought I’d pulled something good from a random box again.
He was half right.
Something good had happened, but it wasn’t because I’d pulled it from a random box.
I held up the smartphone and showed him the screen.
“Ta-da.”
“What is that? A tree?”
On the screen, a young tree was growing.
The green trunk had already turned brown.
The four leaves had transformed into long and short branches, and dozens of leaves were growing on them.
That’s right.
Our Saessak had finally become a young tree.
The World Tree has grown!
It has advanced from the slightly grown sapling state to the young tree state!
As the World Tree grows, all skills are enhanced to the young tree state.
Please open the character window and skill window to check Manager Baek Do-woon’s condition.
“See it? This magnificent sight!”
“Magnificent... If anything, isn’t it cute?”
“Cute and magnificent. Why not both?”
“Can those even be used together?”
An Event Dungeon Entrance Ticket?
It probably meant the place where I’d stopped the monster wave.
Since that event had gotten me the inventory and the pinecone...
Maybe I could get another pinecone too.
I should go do the event before heading to Crystal Workshop.
Was I being greedy, hoping to get the inventory again?
“Character window.”
Each leaf had increased my mana by 50,000.
Now that Saessak had become a young tree, how much would it have changed?
There were dozens of leaves on those branches.
I blinked in confusion.
I looked away, then back at the window.
The number 2,000,000 hadn’t changed.
“...Mana overload?”
The status field caught my eye.
The current manager has too much mana for the body’s present level.
To resolve mana overload, the body level must be raised.
If you do not, you will receive the penalty of mana not circulating properly.
It is recommended that you perform pruning immediately.
What? You want me to do that again?
You know how much that hurts when you say it?
The young tree of the World Tree would like to correct that and says pruning is fun.
No, it isn’t, Saessak.
Pruning is extremely painful.
For people.
“Huh?”
Saessak wasn’t Saessak anymore.
It had become a young tree.
So what was I supposed to call it now?