[You have arrived at the 70th floor farm of the Black Tower.]
[You have moved from the top floor, the 99th floor, to the 70th floor.]
[You have descended 29 floors.]
[Due to the effect of <Title: Retrogressor> , all stats increase by 29.]
Sejun arrived at the 70th floor.
“Eugh!”
He hurriedly covered his nose due to the foul smell surrounding him. Why does it smell like poop?
And then,
“Huh? This is…”
Sejun’s eyes caught sight of ginkgo trees dyed in bright yellow. This place was a ginkgo tree farm.
“So this smell is…?”
When Sejun looked at the ground, he saw countless ginkgo fruits fallen.
“Hehehe. This is going to be delicious.”
Peeling the skin and roasting the seeds inside is another delicacy.
“I need to call the kids quickly.”
As Sejun hurried to open the void storage,
[A quest has occurred.]
[Quest: The farm management is too poor, and there is a severe stench. Collect all the fallen ginkgo fruits to remove the smell.]
Reward: Recognized as the rightful owner of the Black Tower’s 70th floor farm.
“Perfect.”
Sejun smiled upon seeing the quest. He was going to collect them anyway.
And then,
Clank.
“Guys, come out.”
Sejun opened the void storage to call his companions.
However,
Thud!
The door slammed shut again.
“What?”
Clank.
When Sejun opened the void storage door again,
“Use this to cover your nose, meow! It smells like Chairman Park has pooped, meow!”
Kueng! Kueng!
[The poop smell coming from Dad is too terrible!]
“No matter how much I like Sejun hyung, I think we should stay away for a while.”
Piyo!
[Theo~nim! Please give me one too!]
Kking?!
‘What did you eat?!’
The companions were seen hastily covering their noses with green onions given by Theo. These little rascals!
“It’s not me!”
Sejun was indignant towards his companions misunderstanding him.
“It’s coming from here!”
Pook.
Because ginkgo fruit flesh should not be touched with bare hands, Sejun used McGee’s Dagger that Theo had brought to stab a ginkgo fruit and showed it.
Thanks to showing the real culprit, the ginkgo fruit emitting a foul smell, Sejun was cleared of the misunderstanding that he had pooped.
But even though the misunderstanding was cleared, the companions who had covered their noses with green onions did not come out.
They didn’t want to step on the smelly ginkgo fruits.
Moreover, there was another reason they didn’t want to go out.
Kuehehehe. Kueng!
[Hehehe. It’s delicious!]
“Eheh. Tasty.”
Kking! Kking!
‘There’s a lot to eat! We’re not going out from here!’
Sitting on the ground, Cuengi, Ajax, and Blackie were eagerly eating the roasted dried sweet potato made by Sejun.
“Cuengi, Ajax, put the ginkgo fruits in here.”
Sejun said, opening the mouth of a leather pouch to the two.
Sejun also didn’t want to touch the ginkgo fruits.
Thus, he asked Cuengi and Ajax, who could use telekinesis and magic, for help.
Kueng! Kueng!
[Understood! Float!]
“Yes! Levitation!”
At Sejun’s request, Cuengi and Ajax, while chewing on the sweet potato jerky, levitated the ginkgo fruits into the leather pouch.
Despite the enormous quantity, the leather pouch seemed to have no end, endlessly accepting more fruits.
It was a leather pouch that dragons used to give money to Sejun, enchanted with spatial expansion and weight reduction magic, and Sejun was using it to store crops.
1 hour later
[You have cleanly collected 102,231 ginkgo fruits that had fallen in the ginkgo tree farm.]
[You have completed the quest.]
[You are recognized as the rightful owner of the land deed for the 70th floor ginkgo tree farm.]
[Land Deed’s Skill: Farm Information Lv. Max is activated.]
With all the fallen ginkgo fruits packed into the leather pouch, the quest was completed.
As the land deed quest concluded,
“Now, let’s go find the night sweet potatoes.”
Sejun decided to search for the night sweet potatoes, his original goal.
“First, you guys look around to see what’s nearby.”
Sejun asked Cuengi, Ajax, and Piyot, who could fly, to scout the area.
While the three were scouting around,
Thud.
Sejun took out a pair of brown gloves and the leather pouch with ginkgo fruits from the void storage.
[Poison-Resistant Gloves]
→ Gloves made of specially treated leather for handling poison.
→ You will not be poisoned by touching poisons of grade B or lower.
→ Usage Restriction: Lv. 30 and above, Magic power 100 and above
→ Creator: Leather Artisan Wilson
→ Grade: B+
The gloves were one of the items looted from the black market brought by Theo.
Click, click.
Sejun wore the poison-resistant gloves and began to remove the seeds from the ginkgo fruits. Hehehe. They’re going to be delicious when roasted.
As Sejun extracted seeds from the ginkgo fruits,
[You have obtained Ginkgo Seeds.]
[Your job experience has slightly increased.]
[Your proficiency of Seed Harvesting Lv. 8 has slightly increased.]
[You need to use the Seed Harvesting skill 633,716 more times to complete the job quest.]
Messages appeared.
“Ah. This counts as seed harvesting too.”
He had completely forgotten about it, focused only on the thought of roasting and eating the ginkgo.
“It’s killing two birds with one stone. Hehehe.”
Thanks to that, Sejun hummed a little tune while eagerly cracking open the ginkgo.
Then,
(Uh-huh!)
A golden bat, which had been holding its breath for over an hour to avoid the smell of ginkgo, appeared, gasping for air.
It was because it ran out of breath that its invisibility was undone.
“Huh?! Golden bat, were you there?!”
Sejun was surprised to discover the golden bat suddenly appearing at his side.
He had thought it was hiding somewhere but didn’t realize it was right by his side.
(Huff, huff. Yes…)
“Puhuhut. Golden bat, quickly put this on, meow!”
Theo handed a green onion nose plug to the golden bat.
(Pip-pip. Thank you.)
The golden bat covered its nose with the green onion nose plug made by Theo.
After a little while,
Swoosh.
The golden bat naturally went back into stealth. Being invisible was more comfortable for the golden bat.
However, since the green onion wasn’t part of the golden bat’s body, it remained visible,
‘It’s on the leg’
‘Now it’s on Theo’s back.’
Sejun could tell where the golden bat was hiding.
As Sejun was finding the golden bat’s hiding spots while cracking open the ginkgo fruits,
Kueng!
[Dad, there’s a forest and a waypoint over there!]
“Sejun hyung, there’s a rocky mountain over there!”
Piyo!
[Sejun~nim, there’s a lake over there!]
The three scouts returned. A forest, a rocky mountain, a lake…
“Let’s go to the forest.”
Sejun decided.
The forest seemed to be the environment most similar to where night sweet potatoes would grow, plus there was a waypoint.
“Puhuhut. It’s adventure time, meow!”
Theo, excited to explore a new place, hung onto Sejun’s leg, raising his front paws and shouted.
Thus, Sejun and his companions set off towards the forest.
Upon arriving at the entrance of the forest,
Gurgle.
Cuengi’s belly clock, signaling lunchtime, rang.
“Let’s take a break.”
Sejun hurriedly started a fire and began cooking.
Today’s dish was skewers.
Now that they had ginkgo, Sejun planned to make ginkgo skewers and other skewers as well.
Ssok. Ssok. Ssok.
Sejun prepared ginkgo skewers, rice cake skewers, fish skewers, and fruit skewers,
“Hehehe. I wonder what expressions Cuengi and Ajax will have when they eat these.”
He took out a side dish container filled with sausage vegetable stir-fry from the void storage.
And then,
Suk. Suk.
He took out sausages from the container and alternately skewered them with rice cakes. It was a So-tteok-so-tteok.
As the skewers were ready,
Chuk. Chuk. Chuk.
Sejun placed the ginkgo skewers, rice cake skewers, fish skewers, and So-tteok-so-tteok skewers on the fire to grill.
Once the skewers were somewhat cooked,
“Guys, let’s eat.”
Sejun called his companions.
“Here, fish skewers.”
Naturally, he gave fish skewers to Theo, a fish aficionado,
“Just wait a moment.”
Sejun gave So-tteok-so-tteok skewers to Cuengi and Ajax, who had similar tastes to him.
“Puhuhut. As expected, the grilled fish made with Chairman Park’s dedication is delicious, meow!”
Kuehehehe. Kueng?!
[Hehehe. What’s this?! It’s delicious!]
“Everything made by Sejun hyung is delicious!”
While the three were enjoying the skewer dishes,
Slurp slurp.
The golden bat was glued to a fruit skewer, frantically sucking the juice out of the fruit.
Everyone enjoyed the skewer dishes.
Piyo…Piyo..
[Ppiyhng… I’m the only one without a skewer…]
Except for Piyot. Piyot had no skewer.
It enviously watched the others as it took out peanuts from its own peanut pouch.
Then,
“Here. This is for Piyot.”
Sejun made a peanut skewer for Piyot by sticking 5 peanuts on a needle.
It took longer than expected to make the skewer because the peanuts would split each time he tried to skewer them.
Piyo! Piyo!
[Thank you, Sejun~nim! Theo~nim, I have a skewer too!]
Flap, flap.
Piyot flew next to Theo with his peanut skewer and ate together,
“Hehehe. Delicious.”
Sejun also had a pleasant meal with his companions.
At that time,
Rustle.
“How dare you enter Lord Igirus’s territory?! Who are you?!”
With the sound of moving grass, two kangaroos appeared from within the forest, pointing their spears towards Sejun and his companions.
But the timing was terrible. They appeared right when everyone was eating.
Kueng!
[You don’t disturb someone while they’re eating!]
“Don’t mess around-!”
Thud.
The two unlucky ones were immediately knocked out by the energy from Cuengi and Ajax.
A little later,
Slap, slap.
“Wake up, you slaves, meow!”
After lunch, Theo woke the two up.
Their front paws were already stained with black ink. Theo had stamped their paws while they were unconscious.
“Umm…”
“Where is this?”
As the kangaroos woke up,
“Lead us to where Igirus is.”
Sejun spoke.
The place where the leader Igirus was likely to be their base. There was a high chance that night sweet potatoes would be there.
“Fine. We will guide you to Lord Igirus. Follow us!”
‘This turned out well.’
‘If it’s the boss, maybe we can win.’
Thinking that Igirus could handle them, the two led Sejun to their base.
However,
Kueng!
[Submit!]
Igirus’s knees easily buckled under Cuengi’s telekinesis.
“Pl…please spare us!”
Naturally, Igirus was unable to defeat Sejun and his companions,
“Puhuhut. Stamp it, meow!”
Press.
He stamped the seal on Theo’s contract.
As the situation was resolved,
“Can you show us your food storage?”
Sejun asked to see the kangaroos’ food storage in search of night sweet potatoes.
However,
“Food storage? We don’t have such a thing.”
The kangaroos didn’t have a food storage.
It was obvious. The forest was abundant with fresh leaves to eat; there was no need to harvest them in advance only to let them wilt.
“Then have you ever seen something growing from the ground like this?”
Sejun showed the kangaroos a sweet potato.
“No. We don’t dig the ground…”
It was a similar reason to before.
There was plenty of foliage to eat in sight, so there was no need to dig for food from the ground.
“Alright, let’s go, guys.”
Eventually, Sejun left Igirus’s base without any harvest and walked towards a red light pillar.
He planned to register the waypoint of the 70th floor of the tower and decide whether to return to the 99th floor or stay and continue searching for night sweet potatoes.
As Sejun arrived in front of the red crystal,
Click.
[The 70th floor waypoint of the Black Tower has been saved.]
He placed his hand on the red crystal to register the waypoint.
At that moment,
Sniff, sniff.
Kking!
‘It smells like something like the yellow and chewy thing!’
Fenrir, peeking out from Sejun’s pocket, smelled the sweet potato.
And,
Kking!
‘It’s mine!’
Boing.
Jumping out of Sejun’s pocket to eat it alone,
Thump thump.
He ran following the smell.
And then,
Plop.
Kking?
The ground collapsed, and Fenrir was swallowed into the darkness.
*****
5/5
*****
