Standing before the field, Oh Hyunseong surveyed the land he had cleared.

He had already drawn up a rough plan while acquiring the seeds, but he ran through the calculations in his head once more and divided the land into sections.

This is my first time farming in earnest, so I shouldn’t get too ambitious. I’ll start by growing only a few of the crops I need most.

If he followed his heart, he would grow every type of crop whose seeds he had gathered, buying as many varieties as his finances allowed.

After all, it would let him taste countless flavors humanity had long since forgotten.

But dealing with the aftermath would be a problem.

If he recklessly planted crops that grew at such incredible speed, he would soon find himself buried beneath everything that needed harvesting.

Even with the spirits’ help, he had never tested how much they could handle. For now, he conservatively settled on a manageable scale.

Thus, he selected several crops.

"First... rice."

The foundation of every Korean meal, the source of strength that filled the stomach.

Oh Hyunseong took a handful of rice seeds from the sack.

According to popular belief, the appalling taste of modern rice had single-handedly cut the happiness of the Korean people in half yet again.

What Oh Hyunseong missed most was also a steaming bowl of rice.

Not some bizarre imitation that felt like modeling clay in his mouth, but a proper bowl of real rice.

No matter what he cooked in the future, he would often eat it with rice.

In a sense, this was the most important of all the crops he would plant today.

At first, I thought growing rice meant undertaking a major project to bring in water and build a paddy... Fortunately, I found an alternative.

According to Yu Seungsu, rice did not necessarily have to be grown in paddies. There were also varieties that grew in dry fields.

They were called upland rice. Though they had once tasted different from the rice modern Koreans primarily ate, improved cultivars with no noticeable difference now existed.

Even so, Yu Seungsu had advised against it. Upland rice required far more labor and produced a different yield, he had said. There was a reason it remained uncommon.

Under ordinary circumstances, Oh Hyunseong probably would have listened to him.

But he had the spirits, so the difficulty of tending it was irrelevant.

Besides, undertaking a massive construction project to create a paddy at this stage was hardly practical.

"Whew. Shall we get started, then?"

Oh Hyunseong began sowing the rice seeds. Since he had allocated more land to rice than any other crop, it took a fair amount of time. Once he finished with the rice, he began planting the other crops.

First came more potatoes to replace the ones he had exhausted, followed by new additions such as sweet potatoes and corn.

Ingredients like chili peppers, onions, garlic, and green onions were essential as well, so he included them on his initial list. If he intended to start cooking proper meals, these were arguably even more important than the other staple grains.

He finished by planting the indispensable beans.

"And now... fruit, last of all."

Oh Hyunseong turned around.

A pile of something far larger than the tiny seeds he had been planting stood prominently behind him.

They were apple saplings.

With the spirits accelerating their growth, even apple seeds probably wouldn’t take that long to mature... Still, I wanted to plant well-tended, high-quality trees if possible.

He had chosen these saplings after Yu Seungsu strongly recommended a particular place, saying it was the best option if he intended to grow apples.

It was impossible for an amateur like him to identify the exact differences, but he liked how sturdy all their roots appeared.

Grab!

I used to be a hunter, so this still isn’t particularly taxing.

He effortlessly lifted an apple sapling and planted it in the ground.

There was more physical labor involved than he had expected, including digging the holes, but given his background, it presented no real difficulty.

He merely had to be careful not to plant his left leg the wrong way.

The strawberries are all planted too. That’s everything.

Having finished planting the strawberries beyond the apple orchard, Oh Hyunseong straightened his back and rolled his shoulders.

With those final two fruits, he had planted everything he had planned.

Feeling a profound sense of accomplishment, Oh Hyunseong turned around.

The spirits who had been watching him applauded.

Oh Hyunseong chuckled and addressed them.

"No need to clap. You’ll have to do some work too."

The spirits tilted their heads at him.

"Don’t you want to eat something delicious like those potatoes again?"

This time, the spirits nodded furiously.

They had only just discovered the pleasure of food, and they had been deeply disappointed when they could no longer eat any after the potatoes ran out.

Oh Hyunseong spoke to them.

"Once these crops grow, they’ll give us delicious things. The healthier they grow, the more incredibly delicious food they’ll give us. Then we’ll be able to enjoy even happier meals."

Kking! Kking!

The spirits’ eyes sparkled as they responded enthusiastically.

Some embraced one another, others bounced up and down, and still others danced in excitement.

It looked almost like the site of a grand festival.

Of course, Oh Hyunseong was every bit as excited as they were.

Some of what he had planted were saplings, and the crops would not all take the same amount of time to mature. Still, just as the potatoes and lettuce had, most of them would probably begin producing something he could harvest as early as tomorrow.

He could not help looking forward to the next day.

"Hyunseong! Oh Hyunseong!"

"Hm...? Isn’t that Kwon Gyeongmin?"

His gaze snapped toward the familiar voice coming from some distance away.

He spotted Kwon Gyeongmin making his way up toward the field.

Although he was easily close enough to be visible, Kwon Gyeongmin failed to notice him.

Thanks to the barrier Han Suyeon had erected, Oh Hyunseong could not be seen while standing inside the field.

Nor could anyone see the crops he had planted.

All the fields uphill from the house were distorted to appear as nothing more than empty land.

"Where did that bastard go? He’s not at home either."

Kwon Gyeongmin appeared to be looking for him.

Unexpectedly, however, Yu Eunha was walking behind him. Moreover, she wore an extremely grave expression.

"Hyunseong! If you can hear me, hurry up and come out! This is a real emergency!"

Something seemed to have happened.

"Be careful. It’s right over there."

"Hm..."

Oh Hyunseong approached the cultivation unit Kwon Gyeongmin indicated and tilted his head.

Sizzle!

Then it came into view.

A deep hole had opened in the ground, its interior stained pitch-black.

Black energy that inspired instinctive revulsion seeped upward from within.

"Corrosion really did occur here."

Oh Hyunseong frowned slightly.

The identity of that pitch-black energy was impure energy.

It was the very energy that had tormented humanity ever since the Gate crisis—and one that Oh Hyunseong had encountered countless times.

"Th-Then what do we do?"

"To classify it more precisely, this is a sudden instance of localized Corrosion caused by impure energy. When enough residual impure energy accumulates underground, it gathers in one place and surges back to the surface. That’s what happened here. It melted through the earth and the floor as it rose, creating this hole."

Oh Hyunseong extended a finger and swept it lightly through the pit.

The others shuddered at the mere sight, but he casually flicked the black energy swirling around his finger away without the slightest reaction.

"Has a Gate ever appeared in this village?"

"No, not recently. Nothing like this has happened once since I settled here."

"What if you widen the radius beyond the village?"

"Ah! Come to think of it, I heard Gates opened several times in the mountains a few kilometers away. But they said every one of them was subjugated without incident..."

"Then that was probably the cause."

Oh Hyunseong nodded at Kwon Gyeongmin’s answer.

Yu Eunha, who had been biting her nails, interjected with a question.

"So a Gate didn’t open in the village, and no monsters appeared here?"

"Localized Corrosion occurs when accumulated damage from prolonged exposure to impure energy manifests in the surrounding environment. In other words, something like this doesn’t happen immediately just because a monster appeared nearby."

"Phew. So we don’t have to worry about monsters attacking us, right?"

"It isn’t theoretically impossible, but for now, you can assume that’s the case."

Oh Hyunseong nodded in response to Kwon Gyeongmin’s question.

A detection network far denser than it had once been now covered the entirety of Korea.

If a Gate had begun forming near an inhabited village like this one, the warning signs would have been detected before the Gate itself could even materialize.

Besides, if a monster had been prowling around the village long enough to cause this degree of Corrosion, it would have found and attacked the humans here long ago.

An undefended rural village like this would be nothing more than an easy meal to a monster.

"Once you contact the Administration and they finish dealing with it, it shouldn’t recur for at least a few years."

"You nearly scared ten years off my life. Seriously. I was wondering if we needed to evacuate the entire village. Thank God we have an expert like you."

Kwon Gyeongmin stroked his chest in relief.

Oh Hyunseong might not be a hunter capable of defeating monsters, but they could rely entirely on his experience working in a relevant government department.

There was no chance a small village like this would have an expert in the field. Merely having someone so knowledgeable about Gates nearby was immensely reassuring.

"Then I’ll head down and tell the elders. This is everyone’s first time experiencing something like this, so they must have been frightened. Oh, and I’ll make sure they hear about what you did too."

Kwon Gyeongmin patted him proudly on the shoulder before leaving the facility.

Apparently, even this counted as contributing to the village.

Oh Hyunseong scratched his head.

"Haah..."

From beside him, however, came a devastated sigh.

It was Yu Seungsu, who had been sitting off to one side the entire time.

"Damn it. No wonder we kept getting all those impossible malfunctions. Why didn’t I think of this? I should have realized immediately..."

"Hey, how were we supposed to know this would happen?"

"No. I should have considered it. I had to."

Despite his sister’s words, Yu Seungsu buried his face in both hands.

The crops surrounding the gaping hole of impure energy had turned black and rotted.

"What’s wrong? Is it because of the damage to the crops?"

"That’s right."

Yu Eunha clicked her tongue and shook her head.

Seeing Yu Seungsu appear even more devastated than he had expected, Oh Hyunseong silently asked her what was wrong.

"It’s just... The entire shipment of strawberries we were supposed to deliver to Hankyung Department Store is gone."

Fortunately, they had discovered the Corrosion early, so relatively few crops had died.

However, its effects extended farther than the visible damage.

Even crops only indirectly affected by the Corrosion could become deformed or develop severe abnormalities in flavor, leaving them no choice but to dispose of them.

The other varieties had fared somewhat better, but the strawberries growing in this section had suffered devastating damage.

Most had died, while the survivors were so badly deformed that the entire crop had to be discarded.

It was a loss they had no conceivable way to make up.

Moreover, strawberries were one of the siblings’ primary products.

Strawberries had attracted attention as a fruit well suited to smart farms from the technology’s earliest days. As a result, they had undergone considerable development even among naturally grown crops.

Now, provided they had the right cultivars and excellent facilities, they could be grown in rapid cycles throughout all four seasons, while their flavor could also be raised to a remarkably high level.

Thanks to that, the naturally grown strawberries from the siblings’ farm tasted every bit as good as premium synthetic strawberries.

The problem was that Hankyung Department Store had taken a correspondingly strong interest in them.

"They were planning a small event featuring our strawberries soon, and next month we were supposed to negotiate preferential terms. We could have raised the unit price and increased the size of our shipments... But if we fail to deliver now, it’s over. No question."

Yu Seungsu clutched his head in anguish.

They had managed to secure a place in the notoriously selective food hall at Hankyung Department Store and had faithfully delivered every shipment without a single failure.

But just as they were about to reap the rewards of all that work, this had happened.

Considering the investment it must have taken to build a facility this large, there was no way they could afford to ignore their profits.

I’ve never seen him like this before... This must have hit him hard. But it’s not as though I can give him my strawberries.

As it happened, Oh Hyunseong had just planted strawberries in his own field.

But he could not give Yu Seungsu the strawberries harvested there to deliver in place of his own.

The crops raised by the spirits would undoubtedly taste incredible again. The problem was that their flavor would be far too incredible.

If something like that suddenly appeared in a famous department store, the whole world would erupt. Even the most powerful people in the world would lose their minds over it, so of course they wouldn’t leave its source alone. That would be a problem.

Oh Hyunseong let out a deep sigh.

He racked his brain for a suitable solution, then suddenly opened his eyes wide.

He had thought of one.

A way to earn money without becoming entangled in anything troublesome.

"I might be able to help you after all... Give me the contact information for the person in charge over there."

Chapter 11

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