Chapter 74
“So he’s a criminal. Why don’t we just kill him?”
After saying that, I shrugged.
In truth, there was no need to kill Lee Jeong-geun. If I handled it the way I had with Ji Sang-wook, I could clear the quest without killing him and still earn mana, too.
But... I didn’t want to go to that trouble.
Unlike Ji Sang-wook, this bastard wasn’t an ordinary hunter. He was a wanted criminal.
“I’d rather we didn’t kill him if we can help it. I suspect there’s a lot we can learn from him.”
Ah, I see.
Lee Jeong-geun was the kind of criminal whose name Choi Hee-seok, a hunter ranked seventy-ninth, would know on sight.
Then there was probably plenty to dig out of him.
Whether the bastard would spill it willingly or not was another matter, and not one I cared about.
“If you cooperate, I’ll make sure you’re well compensated. Money or items, whichever you prefer.”
“In that case, I understand.”
“Much obliged.”
“It’s nothing, really.”
After that, we headed back in front of the workshop.
We dragged Lee Jeong-geun along behind us, but even as he was being hauled away, he didn’t make a sound or struggle at all.
He looked exactly like a giant stuffed dog.
Hong Su-jeong, who had been inspecting the mushroom humans, looked up and glanced at us. Her face was the picture of someone with a stomachache.
“I don’t think I can remove this.”
“Hmm? Why not?”
“It’s stuck in the brain. If I try to pull it out forcefully, I’ll probably drag the brain out with it.”
“Eugh.”
At her blunt wording, Ji Sang-wook gagged.
Even Choi Hee-seok, who had been standing there with a stoic expression, frowned.
He was feeling the same disgust Ji Sang-wook was.
“Then it can’t be removed at all?” he asked.
“That’s not exactly true. If we remove the connected parts one by one, it should be possible.”
“Then—”
“You’d have to eliminate the two hundred million fungi connected to the brain, though.”
“Uh, huh.”
Choi Hee-seok let out a groan.
Two hundred million fungi, one by one?
Even if we removed one every second, the math alone made it impossible.
And the number of mushroom humans was a problem, too.
How were we supposed to remove the mushrooms from nearly twenty of them?
“As I thought, the best thing would just be to kill these bastards—”
“Ahem, ahem!”
He cut me off with a deliberate cough.
For some reason, he gave me the same suffocating feeling Tae-cheon used to give off whenever he stood beside me.
Frustrating. Claustrophobic.
Did all tanks end up like this?
Or did people with this kind of personality simply become tanks?
Then again, Tae-cheon had already been that way from the start.
“I-If we don’t remove it, what happens?”
“They’ll stay like this until they die, I suppose.”
“Ah...”
She answered Ji Sang-wook’s question at once.
If we yanked the thing out too roughly, they’d die. If we removed every last fungus by hand, it would take far too long.
And if we simply left them alone, it was obvious what the government or the Hunter Association would do with them.
They’d shove them into some ward somewhere and keep them alive.
While blathering on about human rights and all that.
My tax money being wasted to keep monsters like this alive?
Absolutely not. I’d never accept that.
“Su-jeong, if we can get the mushrooms out, these guys will go back to normal, right?”
“Yes, in theory.”
“Hmm. So that’s how it is.”
“Why?”
As I answered, I reached toward the mushroom on the mushroom human’s head.
“Why else? I’m going to pull it out.”
“What? No, don’t!”
“Do-woon—”
Before Hong Su-jeong could stop me, my hand was already faster.
My right index finger tapped the mushroom growing from the top of the mushroom human’s head.
When they saw that, Choi Hee-seok froze in the middle of raising both arms to stop me.
He’d probably expected me to grab it and rip it out by brute force, so he was thrown off by the fact that I’d just touched it with a single finger.
The other two were just as baffled and tilted their heads.
Warm Touch has touched the parasitic mushroom.
If the current state is maintained, collection of the A-rank Park Woo-hyeon mushroom will begin.
Park Woo-hyeon?
Why the hell was a person’s name attached to the mushroom?
Ah. Right, this was a mushroom created by the ability of that bastard who’d retreated earlier.
Then maybe that bastard’s name was Park Woo-hyeon.
If the current state is maintained, collection will begin.
The collection probability is corrected by the title Companion of the World Tree.
Park Woo-hyeon mushroom belongs to a subordinate life-form of the World Tree.
Probability correction, probability correction, probability correction.
Collection probability: 100%.
If Warm Touch is maintained for 3 seconds, collection will proceed.
3, 2, 1.
Once the correction finished, the bluish window vanished.
The parasitic mushroom I’d been touching—
Pop!
It sprang out all at once, like a frog leaping.
It reminded me of the Snapdragon Flower that had popped up in front of the Woo family at one point.
Weirdly enough, it was kind of nice to see.
I caught the mushroom that had popped out, rolling it in my palm as I said, “See? It works.”
The three of them stared at me with their mouths hanging open.
Hong Su-jeong in particular kept opening and closing hers.
She looked like she had a hundred things she wanted to say, but couldn’t get them in order enough to speak.
“Uh, w-well, so—”
“Why don’t you check first?”
“What? Ah, yes!”
I pointed to the one who had turned from mushroom human back into an ordinary human.
Only then did she start examining him.
She turned his face this way and that, scrutinizing him from every angle.
She was so rough I half expected her to snap his neck.
“This is insane!”
“What is?”
“Only the mushroom was pulled out completely. The parts connected to the brain have been cleaned out!”
“Well, then that’s good.”
Just as I’d expected, the mushroom had come out cleanly.
Now that we’d confirmed there was no problem, maybe I should go ahead and harvest the rest of these parasitic mushrooms in peace.
I flexed my fingers and walked toward the other mushroom humans.
Warm Touch has touched the parasitic mushroom.
If the current state is maintained....
＊＊＊
“Do-woon, you’ve been waiting a long time, haven’t you?”
Had I been waiting a long time?
Hong Su-jeong only came out of the lab after a full day had passed.
It had taken her exactly twenty-four hours to examine every inch of Lee Jeong-geun’s body.
If anyone had asked whether that counted as a long wait, maybe it did—but to me, it hadn’t felt that long at all.
I’d spent the time happily tapping away at my smartphone and having a good time with Saessak.
During that time, a single leaf even sprouted from Saessak’s slender branch.
My mana had also gone up by fifty thousand, reaching 2,052,600.
Being able to increase my mana without any special training was honestly a huge blessing.
Ji Sang-wook seemed bored watching me sit there in a daze.
Since he was already in Seoul, he said he’d stop by and see Lee Si-hyeong before heading out of the workshop.
He claimed, “I’m going to take down a video,” but he was clearly going out to have fun.
If that had really been his goal, a phone call would have been enough.
“I’m fine. Did you finish the investigation?”
“Yes. Just now.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
“Pardon?”
She tilted her head as she sat down across from me.
Her interest in investigating Lee Jeong-geun had been pure curiosity.
The problem was that it had also been a commissioned job from Choi Hee-seok.
And the flower at the heart of any research commission was, without question, the report.
She had to write up everything she’d found over the past day and submit it.
“You still have to write the report, after all.”
“Aaaagh!”
She let out a cry and buried her face in both hands.
From what I’d learned since meeting her, she loved investigating and researching things.
That didn’t mean she liked writing reports.
She lifted her head and looked at me before making an absurd suggestion.
“Couldn’t someone just write it for me?”
“Do you think that’s possible?”
“Ughhh...”
The one who’d made the request was the Hunter Association.
Submit a report written by someone other than the expert assigned to the case?
There was no way that stiff, by-the-book association would allow that.
And even if they somehow didn’t take issue with it, there was no way I’d do it for her.
Why the hell would I do something that annoying?
I’d rather go make a lap around a Gate.
“It looked way too interesting...”
She buried her face in her palm again and muttered.
It was painful to watch her so crushed.
Seeing her suffer over a report gave me a strange sense of kinship, too.
I’d always hated writing reports the most when I worked at Baekwooncheon, too.
Whenever that happened, Assistant Manager Lee would quickly take care of it for me, which was a lifesaver....
He was a pain in the ass, but he was good at his job.
“If you really want to ask someone, ask Senior Choi.”
“How am I supposed to ask someone who isn’t here?”
Choi Hee-seok had left this place in my care and gone back to the Association.
He’d also been assigned the job of submitting a report to her, but he had his own obligation to report to his superiors, too.
The contents would definitely be about the effects and origin of Baba and VP, as well as me.
In a few days, the Hunter Association would probably issue a warning telling people not to buy or take Baba and VP.
“Then there’s nothing to be done.”
She shrugged and got to her feet, walking toward the lab she’d just come out of.
Seeing that, Hong Su-jeong ran over to stand beside me.
“You’re about to do it, right?”
“Do what?”
“I mean, you’re going to turn him back to normal like you did with Ji Sang-wook, right?”
“Ah. Yes, that’s right.”
“I want to watch!”
“I don’t mind, but it’s not exactly a pretty sight.”
The hunters who’d watched that happen at Hallasan Gate had been horrified.
They’d gagged and said it would be better just to kill them.
There was no way a body being torn apart and a new one growing in its place would be pleasant to look at.
“I’m fine!”
“All right, then.”
I couldn’t stop someone so full of curiosity.
When we went into the lab, Lee Jeong-geun was there.
He was still in the form of a giant dog.
His six eyes were glazed over, as if he’d been drugged.
I reached out with my right hand and used World Tree Root.
“W-Wow?”
Hong Su-jeong let out a breathless sound of admiration.
Her eyes shone brightly as she watched my right hand turn into tree roots and coil around Lee Jeong-geun.
Those glittering eyes were a little scary, like she wanted to dissect what she was seeing.
After wrapping around his whole body, I immediately started draining his energy.
Just like with Ji Sang-wook, Lee Jeong-geun’s huge frame gradually began to shrink.
Hong Su-jeong, watching from the side, let out a startled “Waaah!”
The young World Tree warns that demonic energy will soon begin to leak out, so do not let it escape under any circumstances.
The moment the message appeared, black smoke began to seep from the bastard’s body.
Just as I’d expected.
I tightened my grip on my right hand at once.
The black smoke that had left his body flowed back inside, then traveled into my right hand.
It felt once again like I was holding congealed tar that had turned liquid in my palm.
“Huh? Is it over?”
“No, not yet.”
Then I extended my left hand toward Lee Jeong-geun.
He was smaller now, but still a three-headed dog.
Now I had to turn that body back into a human one.
When I used the skill, my left hand became tree roots and sank into his body.
I immediately injected World Tree mana into him.
Then a creaking, grinding sound rose from inside him.
The monster’s body was beginning to transform back into a human’s.
“Hiiik...”
Hong Su-jeong let out a disgusted little noise.
She winced as though roots were being driven into her own body, yet she still watched Lee Jeong-geun’s transformation from start to finish.
Soon, a blue light burst from his body.
The process of returning him to human form was complete.
The only difference from what had happened with Ji Sang-wook was that I’d touched the mana in his heart a little.
Now Lee Jeong-geun’s body could no longer properly circulate mana.
“W-Wow! His body really changed!”
She marveled, glancing back and forth between me and the naked Lee Jeong-geun.
Then her gaze moved to my right arm, which was still curled into a ring.
“Wait... are you purifying the energy right now?”
“That’s right.”
“Holy crap. An ability that steals mana and turns it into your own? Then any elixir should be fine for you, Do-woon. You can just purify it.”
Elixirs had compatibility issues.
That was why Woo Chae-yeon hadn’t been able to eat Snapdragon Flower.
But that didn’t apply to me. Just like she said, I could simply purify it.
Quest Alert!
You have defeated the Followers of the Demon Race. (6/10)
Current completion reward: a branch of the previous World Tree.
Looks like the purification was finally done.
A branch, huh? It had been a while.
My right hand, which had transformed into tree roots, slowly slipped back to normal.
The total mana gained through World Tree Root this time is 326,480.
80% remains until the first fruition.
Three hundred twenty-six thousand? I’d gathered far more mana than I’d expected.
And I was already about 80 percent of the way to fruition.
“Hey.”
I was wondering what fruition might mean when a voice called out to me.
When I looked over at Hong Su-jeong, she quickly averted her eyes.
What now?
“Something just occurred to me.”
“Yes?”
“Do-woon, are you by any chance... the World Tree...?”
Huh? Had she figured out I had World Tree-related abilities?
Well, she had just watched a body turn into wood right in front of her, so—
“Are you, like, Lord?”
“...Pardon?”
“That’s it, right? You brought back the World Tree leaves and pinecones, and your arm keeps turning into a tree and everything! Right? You’re the World Tree Lord, aren’t you?”
...What the hell kind of nonsense was that?
The young World Tree expresses confusion.
Yeah, Saessak.
You’re confused too, aren’t you?
So am I.