Chapter 50 

 The Spirit of the Earth

Thump!

Oh Hyeonseong’s mouth was filled with rice.

The grains were white and glossy, spreading across his mouth with a soft, smooth texture that he could feel on his tongue.

They had just the right amount of chewiness and elasticity, and despite not chewing it many times, he could already taste a subtle sweetness.

What is this…?

Was this really rice?

Even when he dug through his memories of the past, before the Gate Incident, he couldn’t recall ever tasting anything this exquisite.

It was as though every possible quality of rice had been pushed to its absolute limit, all within a single grain.

The moment he ate it, the impact was so tremendous that it felt as though a halo had burst into existence behind him.

It’s delicious!

He scooped up several more spoonfuls without a single side dish, happiness filling him completely as he ate.

But during that time, there was someone staring intently at him.

“…”

“Oh, sorry.”

Oh Hyeonseong finally noticed Alisa’s desperate gaze.

Judging from her expression, she looked ready to start drooling at any moment, so he quickly scooped some rice for her.

Chomp!

Alisa eagerly gobbled it down.

She chewed the rice carefully with her mouth completely full, enjoying every bite.

Oh Hyeonseong couldn’t help but chuckle at an expression he had never seen on her before.

“Eat plenty. There’s lots of rice.”

He even scooped out another entire bowl and gently ruffled Alisa’s hair.

Sitting side by side like that, they shared the simplest yet most satisfying meal.

After emptying his bowl, Oh Hyeonseong remained seated for a while, savoring the lingering aftertaste.

He wondered whether it was really possible to be this moved by a single bowl of rice.

Just then, after finishing an enormous bowl herself, Alisa rested her head against his leg and lay down.

“…”

Her expression was languid, her eyes half-closed.

She even got sleepy when she was full.

Despite being a Spirit of a much higher order, the way she acted sometimes reminded him of the lower Spirits of other attributes.

After leaving her like that for a while, Oh Hyeonseong carefully moved her and covered her with a blanket.

“You should clean up after eating.”

He lifted the entire table and stood up.

But at that moment, he felt something strongly out of place.

It was only after standing up that he noticed a subtle yet unmistakable difference in his lower body.

“My leg… healed?”

Oh Hyeonseong’s left leg was perfectly fine.

This wasn’t simply a matter of his aftereffects being alleviated.

It meant that his leg had been completely healed.

There wasn’t even the slightest stiffness left.

“Ugh!”

Lee Gilsang woke up with a violent struggle.

His head was ringing, and he frowned as he regained consciousness.

But when he saw the unfamiliar room around him, he was startled.

He was lying face-down with his head pressed against the floor. He tried to push himself up with his arms, but his limbs were tightly bound, making it impossible to move.

“Crazy…”

Only then did Lee Gilsang realize what state he was in.

Bluish magical rings were restraining his arms and legs, and no matter how hard he struggled, he couldn’t break free.

As he searched through his memories, he finally remembered what had happened.

R-Right… Those were made by Han Suyeon. There’s no way someone like me could break them.

The events of yesterday came back vividly.

He remembered standing at death’s door before somehow being pulled back from it.

He was fortunate to have miraculously survived.

The problem was that he was still trapped in what might very well be the most terrifying place in all of Korea.

“Squeak!”

Suddenly, a sound came from behind him.

He flinched and turned around.

An otter stood on top of a cabinet, looking down at him with its arms folded.

“A-An otter?”

While Lee Gilsang stared at it in utter bewilderment…

The door suddenly flew open.

“You’re finally awake? You slept for quite a while.”

Oh Hyeonseong looked at him.

He had expected the recoil from such a powerful curse to keep him unconscious for a long time, but Lee Gilsang had been out for more than a day.

He had remained unconscious while they had eaten barbecue yesterday, gone for a walk that morning, taken a nap, and even harvested the rice.

Yet the moment Lee Gilsang saw him, he bowed his head and cried out.

“Your Majesty!”

“What the hell have you been talking about since yesterday…?”

“You saved the life of a worthless fool like me…! I am eternally indebted to you!”

Lee Gilsang lowered his head deeply, his expression filled with emotion.

A massive mastermind who held the entire nation of Korea in his grasp.

Such a person had personally stepped forward to save his life.

He had even freed him from the curse that had bound his neck.

That fact alone filled Lee Gilsang with profound awe toward the immense being standing before him.

Of course, Oh Hyeonseong could only stare at him in bewilderment.

Still, after thinking about it for a moment, he nodded.

“Since your mouth is working again, tell me. Who put that curse on you?”

“It was a curse bestowed by the Master of the Underworld. Not one of the bosses of the Four Great Organizations known to the outside world, but the true master who reigns above them. I have never seen him myself, and no one knows his true appearance.”

Lee Gilsang began explaining everything he knew about the man.

Even Lee Gilsang, a high-ranking executive of the Samjeong Society, one of the Four Great Criminal Organizations, knew absolutely nothing about him.

He didn’t even know the man’s name.

All he could recognize was that such a being existed.

The ordinary members of the organization couldn’t even imagine that someone existed above the bosses.

It sounded like the kind of story that belonged in some cheap conspiracy theory.

But it was all true.

And right now, Lee Gilsang believed he was standing before an even greater mastermind than that.

Hmm. I don’t have the slightest idea who he could be.

Oh Hyeonseong hummed thoughtfully.

But he didn’t press any further.

At this point, he didn’t particularly want to know.

He was already retired.

He had no reason to involve himself in the affairs of the underworld when he wasn’t even interested in the affairs of the legitimate world anymore.

There was only one thing that truly interested him.

“Then deal with all that among yourselves. What I want to know is where you got those original rice seeds.”

“Those… We purchased them from the Russian mafia and secretly brought them into the country. We thought we could sell rice seeds for a much higher price here.”

“What? Wait. Why did the Russians have seeds in the first place?”

“According to them, the samples came from a seed vault that had been closed down long ago.”

“A seed vault…? Wouldn’t those have been completely exhausted by now?”

Humanity had established seed vaults to preserve seeds in preparation for possible disasters.

But by now, every single one of those facilities had either been destroyed by monsters or thoroughly looted.

Especially Russia.

Its entire territory had been ravaged during one particularly devastating incident, so there was no way a seed vault could still remain there.

“This is something I investigated separately before making the deal… There were rumors that the samples had actually come from a neighboring country, not Russia. A secret seed vault that had never been discovered before!”

A secret seed vault containing tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands, of original seed samples.

Of course, he had only heard rumors, so he couldn’t say for certain whether they were true.

But if they really were…

Their value was impossible to measure.

At a time when food varieties were extraordinarily valuable, it would be like learning that hundreds of treasure ships filled with gold had sunk somewhere in the world and were still waiting to be discovered.

Oh…?

Even Oh Hyeonseong couldn’t help but be intrigued.

After thinking for a moment, he continued.

“You broke into my house without permission, and when you tried to run away, you even smashed a window. I’ve already had someone come and fix it, but you still need to pay the price, right?”

“I-I’m sorry. Just tell me what you want.”

“First, make sure your organization doesn’t cause me any trouble over this incident. You can do that much, can’t you?”

“Of course! I’ll take care of it myself!”

Lee Gilsang immediately answered.

A tremendously valuable batch of original samples had disappeared, so this wasn’t something that could easily be swept under the rug.

But he had no choice.

Forget about the samples.

If he failed to read the atmosphere and continued provoking this place, the entire organization might disappear overnight.

“And one more thing. Properly investigate that rumor you just mentioned and bring me the truth. I’ll consider the whole thing about you hiding in the wardrobe settled if you do that.”

“D-Did you just give me a mission?”

“…I suppose I did?”

Lee Gilsang’s face filled with profound emotion.

Oh Hyeonseong wondered why he was acting like that again, but Lee Gilsang was genuinely delighted.

To receive an individual mission directly from an unfathomably powerful mastermind…

He considered it an opportunity bestowed upon him by an awe-inspiring existence.

The Samjeong Society and the organization itself had already been erased from his thoughts.

“…Understood! Even if I have to give my life, I will return with good news!”

Oh Hyeonseong quietly released Lee Gilsang.

I wonder if he’ll really come back with a report.

He didn’t particularly expect it.

But at the very least, Lee Gilsang probably wouldn’t cause him any trouble.

He seemed to have seriously misunderstood something, and after seeing the others who had gathered here yesterday, he wouldn’t want to stir up this place either.

But that was no longer Oh Hyeonseong’s concern.

His attention was focused entirely on his completely recovered left leg.

“Huff… huff!”

Running through the forest, he kicked off the ground with all his strength and accelerated instantaneously.

In the blink of an eye, he covered dozens of meters at a speed impossible for the eye to follow.

Yet his leg felt absolutely no strain.

And that wasn’t all.

Even when he performed violent movements or put all his strength into an attack, his leg remained perfectly fine.

BOOM!

The rocks on the mountain behind him split apart and came crashing down.

The result of swinging the previously injured left leg.

If he had done something like this in the condition he had been in when he was discharged from the hospital, he would have nearly passed out from the unbearable pain.

But now, he couldn’t feel even the slightest discomfort.

“It really is completely healed. Even so, for it to recover this quickly… I never imagined it would be this effective.”

Oh Hyeonseong stared down at his leg with a bewildered expression.

The lingering aftereffects in his leg, which had improved considerably compared to the past but still remained, had completely disappeared after nothing more than a single bowl of rice on the first day.

The difference was dramatic compared to the effects he had seen when growing the other improved varieties.

However, the miasma remaining in his body had not completely disappeared.

There had simply been too much of it accumulated over the years for all of it to vanish.

The remnants of miasma had clung on tenaciously, much like cancer cells.

Even crops from the Spirits, which possessed powerful neutralizing effects, couldn’t easily eliminate all of it.

Nevertheless, from then on, Oh Hyeonseong made sure to eat the new rice with every meal over the next several days.

As a result, the rate at which his body recovered increased dramatically.

Even without doing any training, he could feel himself rapidly approaching the peak condition of his prime.

It’s already time to eat.

After returning home, Oh Hyeonseong sat down at the dining table.

Once again, a wide bowl was filled to the brim with rice.

It tasted the best while also being good for his body.

There was no reason not to heap it onto his plate and eat his fill.

Thump!

Ahhh.

He had been eating this rice continuously for several days already, yet its flavor remained just as incredible.

Every time he chewed, a profound sense of wonder washed over him.

Once again, it felt as though a radiant halo had burst into existence.

Especially today, the sensation was so vivid that it seemed as though flashes of light were actually going off before his eyes.

But after a moment…

He realized something was strange.

Fwoooosh!

“No… It’s real.”

It wasn’t a figurative expression.

Actual light was bursting before his eyes.

The same intense energy he had felt when he reunited with Albeurn in the past filled the room.

And then, a gigantic being appeared before him.