Chapter 98
“You can stay here if you want, or look around somewhere else.”
After saying that, Minister Hwang left with Director Bae.
Left alone in the minister’s office, Han Jin-hwan and I immediately took out our smartphones.
I did it to play World Tree Growing; he did it to make a call.
I got up from my seat and walked over to the window.
“Ah, hyung. I just met the minister.”
Calling him hyung meant the other person was probably Choi Hee-seok.
It also seemed like he was reporting everything that had happened so far to the Association.
He went over every word of the conversation he’d just had with Minister Hwang.
Was that really necessary?
The thought crossed my mind.
We’d just exchanged greetings and been given an explanation of the schedule ahead.
Tap, tap-tap.
Leaning back against the sofa, I thumbed at my phone.
My index and middle fingers moved quickly across the screen.
My eyes weren’t on the phone itself.
Instead, I was looking at the quest notification floating over one corner of my vision.
The Manager said, "I'm growing the World Tree!"
As a result, the former World Tree quest has been triggered.
…….
I hadn’t expected a quest to pop just because I said I was growing the World Tree.
So those were the conditions for triggering it.
What was funny was that it was only firing now.
It had been almost a month since I started raising Saessak.
Had I never told anyone else that I was growing the World Tree?
I thought I might have told Do-hee and Tae-cheon....
“Ah.”
Come to think of it, I hadn’t actually said that to either of them, either.
“The World Tree sprouted on my smartphone.”
That was all I’d said.
They knew that the game was called World Tree Growing, so they probably understood that I’d raised the World Tree itself.
And that I would keep growing it.
But... I’d never actually said those words out loud.
B-rank former World Tree quest The Path of the Manager (Beginner) has been triggered.
Quest objectives - Use Warm Touch 10,000 times (435/10000)
Feed it A-rank or higher fertilizer once (0/1)
Use Altera-Shonem 1,000 times (36/1000)
Use World Tree Root 1,000 times (0/1000)
Success reward - former World Tree sap
There were a lot of conditions to clear.
Usually, one condition was enough, but this time there were four.
The good news was that none of them looked especially hard.
Still... the counts were a little strange.
Warm Touch was already being used as I tapped the screen, so it made sense that the number kept rising.
The count that had just been 435 was already 548.
Even as I watched, it was climbing fast: 550, 551, 552.
At that rate, I could probably finish ten thousand before the day was out.
Altera-Shonem 1000 times (38/1000)
What was strange was Altera-Shonem.
I’d never once used it myself, yet the number had gone up.
That was probably... thanks to the elves in the Sanctuary.
I looked at the screen.
There, in front of Saessak, was an old elf kneeling and using Altera-Shonem.
The elves, in their SD-character forms, all looked similar, but you could tell them apart by details like hair length or whether they had beards.
The old elf with the thick white beard was definitely Reditus.
Behind him, the others were lined up and waiting their turn.
Regina, with the brightest golden hair of all, was nowhere to be seen.
There weren’t twelve of them, either.
It looked like they’d gone outside the Sanctuary with the others to look for trash and other organic waste to use for Altera-Shonem.
That probably wouldn’t be too difficult.
The world outside the Sanctuary was desolate and ruined, so there was plenty of junk lying around.
Finding trash would be easy enough; the hard part was avoiding the demon army.
“Good thing the elves came looking for me....”
If they hadn’t come to the Sanctuary, I wouldn’t have been able to solve this quest.
I wouldn’t have even known Altera-Shonem existed.
And even if I’d somehow learned about it after getting the third volume of the Manager’s manual, it still would’ve been a nightmare.
Ten thousand uses of Warm Touch were nothing compared to a thousand uses of Altera-Shonem.
That would take far more time and effort.
“What was that you just said? Elves?”
Han Jin-hwan came walking over after ending his call.
Apparently he’d heard me muttering.
I answered him as he sat down on the sofa opposite me.
“I was talking about the game.”
“Game? Oh. The one you’ve been playing?”
“Yeah.”
I held up the phone and showed him the screen.
Han Jin-hwan leaned forward and peered at it.
When he saw the little tree and the elves, a short sound of admiration slipped out of him.
The corner of his mouth lifted a little, too.
It was the kind of smile people wore when they saw something cute.
“Oh.... That’s pretty small and cute. Looking at it, I’d think it’d be popular.”
“It was updated this time. It didn’t have anything like this before.”
“I see. These characters are elves, right?”
As he spoke, he reached out a hand.
Oh, no. No, he didn’t.
I pulled the phone back out of his reach.
I couldn’t let his hand touch the screen.
Lightning mana would flow through the screen and into Saessak.
It had happened before when Do-hee touched the screen; mana had transferred then, too.
Han Jin-hwan would definitely be the same, so I needed to keep his fingers away from it.
If I wasn’t careful, he might realize that World Tree Growing wasn’t a normal smartphone game.
“That’s cold.”
“Haha.”
I laughed awkwardly and smoothed over the situation.
After a snort of his own, Han Jin-hwan asked, “So what are you gonna do while we’re waiting?”
“Well... first, I should eat?”
Of course, the person I’d be eating with wasn’t Han Jin-hwan.
It was the elves in the Sanctuary, who were diligently using Altera-Shonem.
I planned to bring them enough food for several days, since I might not be able to come by for a while.
If they asked me to eat with them, I’d have to refuse.
Just as I was thinking that, Han Jin-hwan, apparently not interested in food, changed the subject.
“How long do you think it’ll take?”
“Hmm. He told us not to go outside, so I don’t think it’ll be very long.”
Minister Hwang had told us to stay inside the building.
Even if this was free time, it seemed best not to go around doing whatever we wanted.
There was a convenience store and even a supermarket in here, so it wasn’t a problem.
We could get food without issue.
“Then, after we eat, want to loosen up a little?”
“Loosen up?”
“More exactly, I want to do a little experiment.”
“An experiment...?”
“Whether you can withstand my full power or not.”
“...Out of nowhere?”
“That probably won’t happen, but you never know how things will go.”
Something that might happen.
A situation where Han Jin-hwan would need to go all out.
Putting those two pieces together led to one conclusion.
The situation where he’d have to fight Aladin Miller.
That must be what he meant.
Of course, as he said, that wasn’t going to happen.
There was no reason for it.
“...All right.”
“Good. Then eat and come to the basement on the first floor. The whole place down there is a training area, including the sparring hall.”
“Yes. Understood.”
When I answered, Han Jin-hwan left the minister’s office.
He was probably heading straight for the basement on the first floor.
I should get moving, too.
First... I needed to go to the supermarket and buy food heavy on meat.
＊＊＊
I came into the Sanctuary with my arms full of bags.
Since I might be gone for several days, I’d mainly bought frozen food.
The Sanctuary was equipped with grills and other things for cooking meat we’d already used several times.
As long as there were ingredients, they could cook for themselves even without me.
They also knew magic for preserving freshness, so I didn’t have to worry about that either.
The elves who spotted me greeted me at once.
“Oh! Hello!”
“Manager! You’re here!”
Unlike when I’d first met them, the elves looked lively and full of energy now.
It seemed like good food and enough rest had done them a world of good.
They’d kept up a regular routine, and their health had come back with it.
Seeing them so full of life made me strangely pleased, too.
Patria, with his neatly trimmed beard, walked over.
“Thank you for coming by again today.”
Among the elves, it was always Regina or Patria who came out to greet me personally.
I’d become friendly with the others as well, but those two were always the ones who dealt with me directly.
I suppose they treated it like a matter of rank, like elder or queen.
Personally, I didn’t think it mattered much... but the elves probably had rules of their own.
It wasn’t really my place to interfere.
“Regina hasn’t returned yet?”
“No. She is in Yggdrasil.”
“That sounds rough.”
“If I’m honest, I’d like to go out myself, but I can’t handle the key....”
“Oh, is that how it is?”
I’d assumed Regina was just being considerate because Patria was old.
But if he was saying he couldn’t handle the key, that wasn’t it.
“The key she gave us actually chooses its master.”
“Chooses its master?”
“Yes. Unfortunately, neither I nor the others were able to make it work.”
Patria turned his head and looked toward the forest path.
It was the road leading to Yggdrasil, the one Regina had guided me along before.
“Only Regina-sama was able to use it.”
“......”
So that meant Regina was the only one who could move between the Sanctuary and Yggdrasil.
Maybe also anyone she’d personally touched, if I had to stretch it.
But both Regina, the leader, and Patria, the elder, couldn’t leave at the same time.
If there was no one in charge, people would start doing whatever they liked.
Even if there were only twelve of them.
Even if they didn’t look like that from the outside at all.
“Patria.”
“Yes?”
“An urgent matter came up, so it looks like it’ll take a few days to bring back the animals.”
“That is fine. Please do not trouble yourself over it.”
“For the same reason, I may not be able to come to the Sanctuary for a few days, either.”
“Ah.... Is that so?”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, not at all. As one who is always asking favors of you, I can only be grateful. More than anything else... we know very well that you manage Lord World Tree all day, even outside the Sanctuary.”
“......?”
They knew?
From the way he said it, it sounded like he knew I was sending mana to Saessak through Warm Touch.
They’d never seen me do it directly, so how would he know?
I tilted my head and looked at Patria, but he only smiled.
So did the other elves.
They looked at me with warm, gentle smiles.
What was this, had Saessak told them?
＊＊＊
I left the Sanctuary and headed straight for the basement on the first floor.
The basement corridor was already packed with people.
The training hall, the sparring hall... those were places people only came to when they had a reason.
It was like going to the gym and seeing the same faces you always saw there every day.
So if this many people had gathered, there had to be some other reason.
The reason was obvious.
Han Jin-hwan.
Just as I expected, he was occupying one of the sparring spaces.
He was sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed.
“Wow, look at that presence.”
“He’s cool even sitting still.”
“Someday I wanna be like that....”
“But why the sparring hall and not the training hall? Is there even anyone who can go against him?”
Of course people had come to see him.
That said, the onlookers didn’t dare approach and only watched from a distance.
Not because he was radiating some kind of aura that told people to stay away.
It was simply because the sparring hall display read Han Jin-hwan vs. Baek Do-woon.
It wasn’t an open spar, but a match with a set opponent, so they weren’t going near it.
They didn’t want to get in the way.
“Who’s Baek Do-woon?”
“No idea.”
“Sounds familiar, though....”
“Oh. I remember!”
“Who is it?”
“You know, the guy who killed Kim Mu-yeon!”
“Ah, ahh!”
Oh. The tag attached to my name had changed.
Up until now, it had mostly been Do-hee’s older brother or Tae-cheon’s friend.
Among people who spoke ill of me, I’d usually been called the freeloader who got in on the back of good connections, or the sister leech.
But now... I was known as the guy who killed Kim Mu-yeon.
It made sense that I’d gotten famous, since Kim Mu-yeon had been a well-known A-class hunter.
Even so, being known as the man who killed someone was still the same kind of notoriety.
“Excuse me.”
“Hey, don’t push- ah! Baek Do-woon!”
I tapped someone on the shoulder, and they turned on me irritably.
Once they recognized me, they stopped being annoyed.
Instead, they stepped aside so I could pass.
Once one person moved, the others nearby did the same.
I lowered my head in thanks and walked past them.
When I stepped up onto the sparring stage, Han Jin-hwan opened his eyes.
“You’re here?”
“Have I kept you waiting long?”
“No, I just finished eating and came here myself.”
So he hadn’t wanted to talk about eating after all?
Maybe it felt a little awkward to eat with the person he was about to spar.
He unfolded his legs and stood, then asked, “Do you need time to prepare?”
“No. I’m good.”
“Then let’s start right away.”
“Yes.”
Han Jin-hwan held up three fingers on his right hand.
He meant he’d begin after folding them down.
When I nodded, he folded the ring finger.
Then the middle finger.
And the instant he folded the index finger last,
Crash!
Lightning fell from the ceiling straight toward my body.