By Zephyria King of the Wild
Swoosh…. As clear water poured down, colorful leaves of every hue swayed. After watering until the watering can was empty, Yohan smiled with satisfaction. Then he sprinkled the byproducts he had brought. It was the finely minced parts left after purifying and butchering monsters.
“Grow strong and tall.”
Leaves and vines cried out, devouring what Yohan threw. In the past, it would have been a sight to make him recoil, but now Yohan was calm enough to prune overly grown stems and leaves.
The spot he was watering was a field where various vegetables like onions, scallions, perilla leaves, and lettuce were planted. At first, he wanted to grow purified plants, but they often rotted and died, unable to overcome the toxic miasma of the corrupted soil, and the yield was terrible. So, he opted to grow them in their corrupted state and harvest them as needed. The only downside was having to break up the occasional turf war between onions and scallions that grew over the fence, trying to eat each other.
After watering, Yohan gently sprinkled a low-concentration light, like an insecticide. If he didn’t purify them like this occasionally, they would mutate too grotesquely, and the danger level of the vegetable patch would skyrocket. Having finished his tasks, he turned around to see Joo Ho-young approaching with a cheerful stride, carrying a basket full of oddly shaped produce.
“Hyung! I’m done harvesting!”
“You worked hard, Ho-young-ah.”
Yohan greeted him warmly and looked into the basket. Some of the unidentifiable produce inside were letting out monstrous roars and attempting to escape. But Joo Ho-young skillfully stopped them with flicks to the forehead. As soon as Yohan purified them, they returned to a somewhat normal form. Yohan’s face lit up as he looked over the giant bananas, pineapples with shells as hard as steel, and other unidentifiable tropical fruits.
“Ah, mangoes. I haven’t had these in ages?”
The fruit fields were much more dangerous than the vegetable fields, so Yohan was restricted from approaching them alone. He had witnessed monsters passing by, trying to eat the fruit, only to die and become fertilizer multiple times.
Even now, Lee Hyun-muk was scorching a fruit tree with electricity, burning it black. When he spotted a particularly dangerous specimen, he would immediately beat it into a half-dead state. Perhaps because of this, the plants would tremble and shrink whenever Lee Hyun-muk appeared.
“Yohan-ah, you can come closer now.”
Lee Hyun-muk beckoned after finishing his treatment, and Yohan, who had been loitering nearby, quickly approached him. Lee Hyun-muk offered something, and Yohan quickly reached out, purified it, and accepted. It was a single cherry, unusually large and glossy.
“The cherry tree is being troublesome today.”
Yohan was so captivated by the handsomeness of Lee Hyun-muk’s smiling face as he said this that he lost his gaze for a moment. Snapping back to reality, he chimed in with Lee Hyun-muk’s words.
“It must be a strong tree, the cherries are really big. They’re as big as eggs.”
The three returned to their dwelling with the abundant harvest. It was a building they had moved to in search of a more spacious and comfortable place after Joo Ho-young joined them. While their previous place felt like a cheap guesthouse, this new one was like a well-decorated small inn. The space was more than enough for four people.
Yoon Seung-ryong, who had been slouching by the entrance with a lazy attitude, yawning, jumped up when he saw the three. Boredly guarding the house, he greeted Yohan and the food, then asked,
“How’s the rice paddy?”
“It seems to be growing well! It grew quickly.”
“Even this hell has its advantages. I never knew farming could be this easy.”
Yoon Seung-ryong whistled and took the food inside. While farming was easy, it was only possible because they were Awakened. An ordinary person would have had to risk their life dozens of times for watering, fertilizing, and harvesting….
As he followed Yoon Seung-ryong inside, Yohan glanced up at the dark crimson sky. It had already been several months since they had been living here, in the Abyss. Would there ever come a day when they could escape from here? With a small sigh, he recalled the story Joo Ho-young had told him a few months ago.
“As I see it, this place is like a giant stomach.”
Joo Ho-young, who claimed to have witnessed a method of escape, suddenly began his story with the analogy of a giant stomach.
“I wandered around various sectors before settling in the Japan sector. But no matter how I thought about it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were being digested inside something.”
A giant stomach… The metaphor was quite shocking and chilling to Yohan. It also held a certain degree of truth that he could relate to.
“The more it becomes corrupted and damaged, the more it’s being digested. The Flood is like powerful stomach acid. After a Flood passes, that place becomes even more horrific than before. After a few Floods pass periodically like that, the original form can no longer be found. Eventually, it all becomes a mush, clumps together, and disappears.”
Joo Ho-young speculated that the place where the Flood had passed multiple times, becoming a mush and disappearing, was a wasteland. He continued,
“And what happens if you overeat beyond the limit that can enter a stomach?”
Joo Ho-young contorted his pale, thin face and mimed gagging. Lee Hyun-muk, who had been listening quietly, frowned.
“It’s regurgitated?”
“Exactly! I saw it myself once. Maybe 50 years ago…?”
Joo Ho-young glanced at Yohan, who blinked, then trailed off and corrected himself.
“…Or maybe five months ago. Time feels like it flows so slowly here. Anyway, a new sector appeared, and I was watching to see if there was anything salvageable, but it just disappeared again. To the outside, as if it were bounced out into our original world.”
A faint, almost imperceptible glimmer of hope flickered across Joo Ho-young’s face for a brief moment before vanishing.
“It reappeared after some time, but if… if I had been in that new sector, I could have gone back outside.”
Listening to Joo Ho-young’s words, Yohan’s heart pounded because it sounded so plausible. However, Yoon Seung-ryong shrugged with a skeptical attitude.
“That’s a very slim possibility.”
“It is. Usually, you only find out a new sector has appeared after some time has passed. It requires luck. Besides, new sectors don’t appear that often. Especially if Yohan just entered recently, it wouldn’t have been long since it was consumed.”
Even while listening to Joo Ho-young’s story, Lee Hyun-muk and Yoon Seung-ryong showed no reaction. In their eyes, nothing could be seen but worn-out resignation and despair. Yohan, who had been getting excited alone, also calmed down at their reaction.
“Then, how low is the probability?”
“Winning the lottery might be easier. You don’t know where a new sector will appear, and even if it does, the chance of going back outside like Ho-young saw is low.”
Lee Hyun-muk gestured towards Ho-young, who was still unable to leave. Only then did Yohan resign himself. If someone as quick as Joo Ho-young hadn’t already tried numerous times, wouldn’t he have? Yet, even he hadn’t escaped yet. Nevertheless, Yohan decided to hold onto a faint hope. Otherwise, he would become too depressed….
“Here, Yohan-ah. Eat a lot.”
“Thank you.”
Called by Yoon Seung-ryong, Yohan, who had snapped out of his reverie, gratefully accepted the plate. The plate was piled high with golden-brown roasted potatoes, grilled meat, and various fruits. They were trying to conserve canned goods and sauces that could be stored for long periods, so their meals had recently become healthy and primitive. Yoon Seung-ryong, in charge of cooking, sighed.
“It would be great if we could get chili seeds.”
“I know. Until we purify them, we can’t know their original form, so we keep coming up empty.”
Yohan expressed his regret at Yoon Seung-ryong’s words. He was trying his best to collect various vegetable and fruit seeds, but chilies were particularly difficult to find. When he purified something he thought was a chili, it turned out to be cucumbers, eggplants, or loofahs. He regretted not obtaining them beforehand when they were in the Korean sector. The half-consumed jar of gochujang felt like such a waste.
“Now that I’ve got beans, I think I’ll try making doenjang or soy sauce. If I shape them roughly like meju, something will be completed eventually, right?”
The mealtime, filled with such conversation, was truly peaceful. Joo Ho-young, with his face buried in his Game Console, ate as if he wasn’t eating, like the youngest sibling, while Lee Hyun-muk ate silently, like the eldest son. With four people, it certainly felt lively.
While eating diligently, Yohan glanced at Lee Hyun-muk. Actually, it wasn’t just the dwindling main seasonings that were a regret. It had been several months since they had been living here, yet his relationship with Lee Hyun-muk had made no progress. In fact, it was difficult to try anything.
‘It’s no wonder, we never have time alone.’
Although they had been assigned individual rooms after moving their dwelling here, it was meaningless. The three corrupted individuals clung to Yohan’s side whenever they could, looking like cold people huddled around a campfire, so he couldn’t bring himself to insist on using his private room. Yohan himself was starting to feel his limits recently.
‘It’s only because I purify them every day, but in reality, just being here is causing Corruption to progress.’
As long as they were here, a complete cure for Corruption was impossible. This meant Yohan’s purification had to continue endlessly for these people to maintain their sanity. Especially since his purification intensified during sleep, they ended up sleeping huddled together in the largest room every night. This left no room for Yohan to be alone with Lee Hyun-muk. So, Yohan had resigned himself to it, half-heartedly.