Chapter 501: It's Ominous!
“Phew. It’s done.”
Leah, the God of Abundance, who had become the proxy guardian deity of Inos on Sejun’s behalf, looked at the map in front of her and completed the task of encircling the land where the residents lived with a giant river using her divine power.
Immediately,
[You have completed the construction of the giant river to block the Fourth Calamity, the Petrifying Spider.][Quest completed.]
[As a quest completion reward, you have obtained 100 Divine Power.]
[As a quest completion reward, your Divinity has increased by 5.]
[The residents of <Inos> feel safe thanks to the giant river that can block the Fourth Calamity, the Petrifying Spider.]
[The public safety of <Inos> improves.][The chieftain of <Inos> allocates spare manpower to farming, increasing the food production speed.]
[The population of <Inos> rapidly increases.]
A string of messages appeared.
After the Fifth Calamity, Slimes, were wiped out by Paespaes, the Fourth Calamity, the Petrifying Spider, invaded Inos.
The Petrifying Spider, whose main diet was stone, was a terrifying creature that turned its prey into stone and devoured it, but it had a fatal weakness: it died upon contact with water.
Normally, Petrifying Spiders invaded together with other calamities that removed water, but strangely, there were no additional reinforcements this time.
This was thanks to Melpheus, who didn’t even consider unit combinations.
‘Did their commander suddenly become stupid? Well, that makes things easier for me.’
“I’ll build up power here for now before moving on. Is there anything else?”
As Leah pondered how to further develop the residents of Inos while looking at the map,
[The residents of <Inos> offer an evening prayer of gratitude to their guardian deity, producing 10,000 Divine Power.][According to the contract terms, you receive 1% of the 10,000 Divine Power.]
[You have obtained 100 Divine Power.]
The residents’ prayers generated Divine Power.
A large amount of Divine Power came in regularly three times a day, like breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
“Mmm, sweet.”
As expected, Trust-in-Park, thank you.
Leah once again felt grateful to Sejun, who had suggested she become a proxy guardian deity.
Hehehe. If I manage this place well, Park Sejun might even assign followers to my temple too, right? First, I’ll start with that follower of mine…
Just as Leah was happily indulging in her fantasies,
Crack.
Suddenly, a crack appeared in the flowerpot in Leah’s room.
“What’s this?”
It’s ominous!
An inexplicable sense of foreboding swept over Leah.
***
99th Floor of the Black Tower.
Swoosh.
As Sejun harvested the garlic from above Alice’s body,
[You have harvested Six Clove Garlic of Mental Strength.][‘You’re a Field’ Lv. 8 activates, inflicting additional damage.]
[‘You’re a Field’ Lv. 8 activates, harvesting the stats of Alice, the Mesmerizing Spider and 9th seat of the Apostles of Destruction.]
[Strength increases by 50, Stamina by 30, Agility by 20, Magic Power by 50.]
[The potential of all stats has reached its limit.]
[You can no longer absorb stats.]
[The harvested stats are returned to nature.]
A series of messages appeared.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t accept you.”
Parting is inevitable when you meet someone.
“Find a better owner. Goodbye…”
Sejun said, looking at the messages with an enlightened expression.
Hitting the wall of potential, Sejun had been experiencing this kind of situation more frequently lately.
As he continued to lose stats multiple times like this,
“Great Hybrid Chairman Park!”
In a hurry, Theo called out to Sejun and came running toward him.
“What?! What’s….”
Thud.
Why does he always run onto my face?
Just as Sejun was about to ask for an explanation, Theo leaped and clung to his face use Meow-step.
“Meow…”
Sejun grabbed Theo by the scruff and peeled him off.
“Chairman Park, we’ve been scammed, meow!”
Theo said with a serious expression. Even then, he still looked cute.
“Scammed? How could we possibly be scammed?”
Sejun asked, looking incredulous.
It was odd to say this out loud, but at the moment, there wasn’t anyone with the audacity to try and scam him.
“Leah-nim gave us a defective Divine Relic, meow!”
Theo shouted in an angry voice towards Sejun.
“A defective Divine Relic?”
“That’s right, meow! I put this into the Pouch of Abundance, and it broke saying its energy was exhausted, meow! It’s defective, meow!”
Theo explained the situation while showing Sejun the Seed of Great Magic Stream.
“Huh?! What is that?”
Sejun noticed the seed in Theo’s paw and asked.
Then,
“Puhuhut. I, Hybrid Vice Chairman Theo, made it exactly as Great Hybrid Chairman Park planned, meow! Here, take it, meow!”
Theo gazed at Sejun with admiration as he handed over the seed.
What plan did I make?
With a puzzled expression, Sejun checked the name of the seed.
[Seed of Great Magic Stream]‘Seed of Great Magic Stream?’
Why was there a ‘Great’ in front of it?!
He quickly checked the seed’s options.
The content showed that it had evolved by combining 10 Magic Stream seeds, and a condition of requiring 500,000 or more magic power was added to the usage restrictions.
What?! The difficulty level for sprouting it just got way harder.
It seemed the difficulty had shifted from hellish to impossible.
No wonder it broke.
Sejun immediately understood why the Pouch of Abundance had been destroyed.
It was like trying to run a high-spec game on a low-end computer.
Still, considering the fact that it had managed to create ten Magic Stream Seeds and then broke down, it had performed reasonably well, right?
“Hehe. It’s transformed into the Seed of Great Magic Stream, just as I planned.”
“Exactly! Puhuhut. Great Hybrid Chairman Park is amazing, meow!”
Sejun threw a boastful shot at Theo, who was looking at him with admiring eyes.
“But can it evolve even further?”
He looked at the seed with pure intellectual curiosity, as sprouting it had already entered the realm of impossibility.
Should I try putting it in the Golden Box of Abundance?
For a moment, he felt an urge to see what the next evolution of the Seed of Great Magic Stream would be like, but…
‘No, wait. If I do that, it could break too.’
In the worst case, he might lose his method for increasing Medicinal Mugwort and Transcendence Black Beans.
Especially since, lately, the dragons had been fighting Jǫrmungandr, the world-devouring serpent and 3rd seat of the Apostle of Destruction, and had used up a lot of Transcendence Black Beans, placing a large order.
If he broke the Golden Box of Abundance out of mere curiosity, they’d definitely be furious.
Plus,
‘The dragons can’t get hurt, after all.’
Sejun also felt a sense of responsibility after hearing that thanks to the Transcendence Black Beans, the Four Dragon Council had won the battle without losing any dragons.
Just as Sejun was about to give up on putting the Seed of Great Magic Stream into the Golden Box of Abundance,
“Then, should we impeach Leah-nim, meow?!”
Theo asked, flaring his nostrils with an expression full of expectation.
“No. This isn’t Leah-nim’s fault. The seed’s ability is just too high.”
“Meow?! Then we’re not impeaching her, meow?!”
“Yeah.”
“Got it, meow! Then if Leah-nim doesn’t give us a new Divine Relic, let’s impeach her, meow!”
With Plan A blocked, Theo immediately initiated Plan B.
“Of course. That would definitely be grounds for impeachment. Hehehe.”
“That’s right, meow! Puhuhut.”
Thus, the two of them decided to get a new Divine Relic from Leah.
“To summon Leah-nim, we’ll need the King of Farming, so let’s go find him first.”
“Alright, meow! Let’s go find the King of Farming, meow!”
They went off to find Podori, since the King of Farming was currently helping Podori as an assistant, squeezing sugarcane juice as an act of apology.
However,
[Ssibal the 18th, huh? I sent him on an errand to the 79th floor of the tower a few hours ago.]
“Ssibal the 18th?”
[Ah, it’s short for Saint Ludwig Schruen Argon Walter XVIII, which is the King of Farming’s real name.] (TL: This name is also created by combining 슈 from Schruen (슈루엔) and 발 from Walter (발터), resulting in 슈발 (Ssibal), which is slang for ‘fuck’.)
“Oh. Did you come up with that, Podori? You’ve got a knack for naming things.”
[You think so? But it’s nothing compared to you, Sejun-nim.]
“Aww, come on. It’s not that special.”
[No, seriously. When I think back to the shock I felt when you named Karurur…]
“Hahaha. Karurur was indeed one of my best names.”
Sejun and Podori continued chatting about naming things.
At that moment,
“Chairman Park! Now’s not the time to talk about that, meow! We need to hurry and catch Ssibal the 18th, meow!”
Theo urged Sejun impatiently.
“Oh, right. Hey, guys, tell Cuengi that I’m heading down to the 79th floor for a bit.”
Kkwek!
Sejun asked a passing Mushroom Ant to relay his message to Cuengi.
“Toryong!”
He called out to Toryong and used it to move to the waypoint.
“Minotaur King, if Cuengi comes looking for me, please tell him I went down to the 79th floor.”
Moo.
[Understood.]
Just in case, Sejun also asked the Minotaur King to pass the message along if he saw Cuengi.
And then,
Clank.
“Vice Chairman Theo, get in.”
Kkirorong.
Carefully, Sejun placed Blackie and his followers, who were sleeping lazily in the sling bag, onto the storage floor, and then spoke to Theo.
“Got it, meow!”
Theo quickly entered the storage and waited by the door.
“Just wait a bit.”
“Okay, meow!”
Clank.
As Sejun closed the door to the Void Storage,
I want to see Chairman Park soon, meow!
Theo entered waiting mode.
***
On the way down from the 90th floor of the Black Tower to the 80th floor.
Tadadak.
Riding on the back of a Silver Wolf, who had come down from the 99th floor, was Ssibal the 18th.
“Wow.”
Was it always this pleasant here?
It was a completely different experience compared to when he had been traveling with Uren and Piyot.
A little while later,
“We’ve arrived. See you next time.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
The Silver Wolf left after dropping Ssibal the 18th off on the 79th floor.
“Hm. That must be Sparkie-nim over there?”
Clang. Clang.
Ssibal the 18th began walking toward a massive tree that reached all the way to the sky.
– Are you Sparkie? I’m your senior, Podori, who became a World Tree before you. From now on, you should treat me with the respect a senior deserves…
Ssibal the 18th was planning to deliver Podori’s message, who was trying to establish seniority as a World Tree.
But… is it really okay to deliver the message like this?
“I’m just a messenger, so it should be fine, right?”
Ssibal the 18th naively thought nothing would happen to him.
However…
“What did that little punk just say to our mother?!”
“This means war!”
The birds protecting Sparkie, who overheard the conversation, didn’t stay quiet.
Having already lost their Mother Tree once, they were now extremely devoted to the current Mother Tree, Sparkie.
I’m doomed.
Before he could even think of running, Ssibal the 18th, who was from the 4th floor of the tower, was captured.
“Please, tie me up gently! My bones will break!”
He was thrown in front of Sparkie.
[Say that again. Did you just say to call Podori-oppa a senior?]
“Yes, but I didn’t say it myself, it was…”
[Silence! I’ve had enough! I’ve been meaning to teach Podori-oppa a lesson for not listening to Flamie-nim, and today feels like the perfect day.]
I’ll call for a World Tree Meeting to settle who’s the better World Tree between me and Podori-oppa.
[Flamie…]
Sparkie was about to to call Flamie to convene the World Tree Meeting, as all World Trees were connected through Flamie.
At that moment,
“Mother! Sejun-nim has arrived!”
A bird hurriedly flew over to Sparkie and reported.
[Sejun-nim?]
Then I’ll ask Sejun-nim to decide who the better World Tree is.
Since Sejun was Flamie’s master, in Sparkie’s view, Sejun’s authority was far greater than that of the World Tree Meeting.
And then,
“Of course, Sparkie is the better World Tree.”
Sejun took Sparkie’s side.
Because…
Eggs have more uses than grapes, don’t they?
After all, there were more dishes you could make with eggs than with grapes.
[Thank you, Sejun-nim! Did you hear that?! Now, go tell Podori-oppa! And also let him know that since I’m the superior World Tree, he should treat me as his senior.]
“Y-Yes!”
Thus, Ssibal the 18th was released.
“Ah… I don’t want to go…”
His feet wouldn’t move. If he delivered this news, he’d definitely get scolded by Podori.
At that moment,
“Puhuhut. Found you, meow!”
A saving paw reached out and grabbed Ssibal the 18th.
“Theo-nim?”
“Puhuhut. Ssibal the 18th, if you summon Leah-nim, I’ll send you back to the 4th floor of the tower, meow!”
“Really?! Understood. Leah-nim, please descend here!”
104.28.193.250
Without a second of hesitation, Ssibal the 18th immediately summoned Leah.
But then,
[Leah, the God of Abundance, refuses to descend.]So this was the source of the ominous feeling!
Sensing the impending disaster, Leah had already refused to descend.
However,
“Tell Leah-nim that if she refuses to descend, I’ll strip her of her position as proxy guardian deity.”
“Yes.”
[Ahem. Park Sejun, what’s the matter?]
Leah had no choice but to descend due to Sejun’s threat.
*****
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