Chapter 2

The Ability No One Knew About

Inside the rattling truck, Oh Hyeonseong sat in the passenger seat, gazing out the window at the quiet scenery passing by.

“I didn’t expect you to come all the way to Seoul to pick me up yourself.”

“It’s been five years since I last saw my friend’s face. The least I can do is give you this kind of service. What, are you touched?”

“I was, until you said that.”

“Hahahaha!”

The man spouting such ridiculous remarks was his old friend from his hometown, Kwon Gyeongmin.

A city boy who had even run his own small business, Gyeongmin had suddenly settled down in the countryside and even gotten married.

Ever since then, whenever he met Oh Hyeonseong, he had persistently urged him to follow his example and move to the countryside.

This time was no different. The moment Hyeonseong mentioned that he was thinking about moving to the countryside, Gyeongmin had immediately driven all the way to Seoul.

“I was so surprised when the guy who never even listened to me suddenly said he was going to move to the countryside.”

“People’s thoughts change as they get older.”

“Is it because of that incident?”

“That incident?”

“Your injury. I was wondering what had happened when you suddenly stopped contacting me, and then I heard you were seriously injured. Surgery, rehabilitation… How bad was it? Didn’t you say you worked in an office?”

“Well… I went to a site where we thought the monster subjugation was already over, and I got caught up in an accident. I was just unlucky.”

Oh Hyeonseong gave him a vague excuse.

He had completely abandoned his life as a Hunter and retired.

Using his superhuman mental strength, he had submitted his resignation while being transported in a helicopter, and just as the government had promised him beforehand, his resignation had been accepted immediately.

That did not mean he could immediately begin doing something else, however.

Because of the life-threatening injuries he had sustained during his final operation, it took more than three years just for him to regain consciousness after surgery.

On top of that, he had remained hospitalized even longer for additional treatment and rehabilitation.

Five years had already passed since his final mission.

Even now, his doctor had warned him to avoid strenuous activity as much as possible.

“Damn, what a terrible thing to happen.”

“That’s all in the past. I’m not moving to the countryside because of my injuries, either. More importantly, I’m not sure if it’s really okay for me to suddenly move out here like this.”

“Huh. You’re only thinking about that now?”

Kwon Gyeongmin flashed a grin.

“When moving to the countryside, it’s best to choose somewhere where you have some kind of connection. You don’t have family, but you have me, so don’t worry.”

“You got married and now you know how to say manly things, huh?”

“Are you kidding? I’ve been a real man since birth. Anyway, you don’t need to worry. Moving to the countryside isn’t as easy as you might think, but this is a path I already cleared and tested myself. There’s no hostility from the locals, and everyone’s nice. There are quite a few young people, too.”

Kwon Gyeongmin began telling him all sorts of things about the village.

Since this was going to be his new home from now on, Oh Hyeonseong listened carefully.

He had gone through all the trouble of leaving the city. The last thing he wanted was to become an outsider who couldn’t fit in with the local residents.

As the two continued chatting about this and that, it was soon time for lunch.

Feeling hungry, the two men stopped at a highway rest area and ordered some food.

“Ugh, this tastes fucking awful.”

Kwon Gyeongmin said as he slapped his sausage down on the table.

The whole boiled potato Oh Hyeonseong was holding tasted just as terrible, of course.

“Cheap processed meat and factory-made potatoes that feel like they were made out of sawdust.”

“What can you do? Things have gotten pretty tough for everyone since the Gates appeared. Still, we’ve got to eat.”

“Good grief. How do people in the city even survive eating this stuff?”

“It’s not much different in the countryside, is it? Even naturally grown crops are affected by the miasma released by monsters.”

The appearance of the Gates had brought about a massive upheaval in humanity’s food supply.

Hunters had stepped in to eliminate the monsters, but the miasma they had already released remained behind, directly and indirectly affecting the environment.

Of course, the residual miasma was not strong enough to have any meaningful effect on humans.

However, the miasma that seeped deep into the soil hindered the growth of crops and livestock and caused them to become diseased.

As a result, humanity’s food production had plummeted.

In an effort to overcome the crisis and somehow maintain the food supply, corporations began flooding the market with synthetic meat and crops produced in factories.

These new foods were incredibly economical and efficient.

They were simply horrifyingly tasteless.

Genetic technology had also been used to secure naturally grown crops and livestock that were resistant to miasma, but those weren’t particularly delicious either.

Compared to factory-produced food, they sacrificed a great deal of productivity for only a marginal improvement in taste.

The wealthy flocked toward highly customized, premium synthetic crops, while small rural communities like this one were practically the only places still promoting naturally grown food.

“No, seriously. Even so, it’s not supposed to be this bad. Naturally grown food tastes way better. What kind of meat has the texture of chewing construction paper?”

Kwon Gyeongmin protested vehemently.

It was certainly true that naturally grown food tasted better than cheap factory-produced food.

More precisely, the relationship between taste and price could be summarized as:

Premium synthetic meat > naturally grown meat > cheap synthetic meat.

But all three were still terrible compared to the meat people had eaten in the past.

Even the upper classes, who could afford steaks costing millions of won, were supposedly eating meals inferior to the scraps sold at ordinary butcher shops in the old days.

Oh Hyeonseong had reached the point where he could barely even remember what food used to taste like.

Perhaps the frightening thing about humans was that they could eventually adapt to even such terrible flavors and simply continue living without much thought.

“Who would’ve thought that the food we used to gobble down without a second thought when we were kids would become this precious? It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. Even just one potato… I wish I could eat one of those again at least once before I die.”

“You think that’s possible? We’d probably have to raid some secret seed vault buried somewhere.”

The two men chuckled as they left the rest area.

The truck carrying the two men chugged its way up a winding slope. When they arrived in front of the house at their destination, Kwon Gyeongmin immediately began dragging Hyeonseong around, showing him everything.

“The previous owner suddenly had to move to Seoul, so he was trying to sell the place dirt cheap. He said he would’ve lived here for the rest of his life if it weren’t for his chronic illness. I’d already had my eye on this land, so I didn’t hesitate. I kept it untouched all this time for you.”

“Wow… What were you going to do if I never came?”

“It took longer than I expected, but I figured you’d eventually come. You looked… I don’t know how to put it. You looked exhausted back then.”

“Was it really that obvious?”

Oh Hyeonseong gave a bitter smile.

“So? What do you think? Is it okay?”

“The house is in much better condition than I expected. But… isn’t the house too big? With the annex included, you could easily fit an entire extended family in here.”

“Isn’t that a good thing? City people are obsessed with having more square footage.”

“You’d think you’d lived here for decades.”

“Hwahahaha!”

Kwon Gyeongmin laughed heartily.

Saying that the house itself wasn’t what mattered, he led Hyeonseong beyond the yard.

Then he said something Hyeonseong had never expected.

“All of this, both up and down, is private property. From over there all the way to over there.”

“What? All of this? You’re joking, right?”

Oh Hyeonseong’s mouth fell open.

He had heard there was some land where he could farm, so he had assumed it would be little more than a small vegetable garden.

He had been completely wrong.

Even at a rough estimate, the land covered several thousand pyeong.

Of course, not all of it was farmland. There were roads and patches of empty land as well, but even while driving up here, Hyeonseong had thought the fields belonged to the villagers.

“I’m not joking.”

“Are you serious? I said I was moving to the countryside, not starting a business! There’s no way I can manage all this land by myself…”

“You don’t have to use all of it. Unlike the city, nobody finds unused land strange out here. If you’ve got nothing to do, build yourself a pavilion and live like some carefree immortal. And quit mumbling to yourself. Look over there.”

At Kwon Gyeongmin’s words, Oh Hyeonseong turned his gaze.

They had been talking face-to-face, so he wondered what Gyeongmin wanted him to look at.

But the moment he turned around, he was left staring blankly.

A wide-open view overlooking the entire village.

The scenery was truly breathtaking.

So that was why Gyeongmin had kept pestering him about having a piece of land he had been keeping his eye on for several years.

“It’s a little far from the village, but I thought you’d actually prefer it this way.”

“…You know me well.”

Seeing Hyeonseong’s expression, Kwon Gyeongmin chuckled and patted him on the shoulder.

“I’ve got somewhere I need to be, so I’m heading out first. Get acquainted with your new home. See you tomorrow.”

Oh Hyeonseong had somehow ended up with a house and an enormous piece of land he had never expected to own.

After staring blankly at the scenery for a while, he shook his head and began unpacking his belongings.

He had never been the type to carry around a lot of luggage, so it didn’t take long to organize everything.

The house was ridiculously spacious, too. He could practically shove everything into random places and still have plenty of room.

“Come on, everyone. Come out.”

Huff!

Oh Hyeonseong stepped into the yard and summoned his spirits.

There was plenty of space, after all.

Since he called all of them out at once, hundreds of tiny spirits poured out.

The spirits excitedly ran around in every direction.

“Looks like you guys like the new house.”

A pleased smile spread across his lips as he watched them.

They had no combat abilities, so they had never accompanied him onto the battlefield, but they had stayed by his side ever since the early days of his awakening.

Yet he had never seen them this happy before.

I suppose the city must have felt suffocating to them, too.

The lower-ranking spirits contracted to him each possessed different attributes—fire, water, life, and earth—and their appearances varied according to their attributes.

Among all the Awakened in the entire world, Oh Hyeonseong was the only person capable of using all four elemental attributes.

It was something that seemed almost meaningless now.

Still, it made sense that they would prefer a place filled with the elements of nature over a city packed tightly with concrete buildings.

“Then I guess I should try doing something myself.”

Oh Hyeonseong headed toward the small vegetable garden attached to the yard.

The enormous stretch of land beyond the yard was far too overwhelming for him to do anything with yet.

So he decided to start with the manageable vegetable patch.

Even though he was moving to the countryside after retirement, he couldn’t spend the rest of his life doing absolutely nothing.

Of course, even this small garden couldn’t really be taken lightly.

He had spent his entire life killing monsters without a second thought, but he knew absolutely nothing about farming.

Even when he had first decided to move to the countryside, it had been nothing more than a vague wish and impulse.

That was why Oh Hyeonseong pulled his secret weapon out of his pocket.

I’ll start with the easiest thing!

What he held in his hand was a packet of lettuce seeds he had brought with him from Seoul.

Lettuce was supposedly something that would grow rapidly as long as you gave it water.

He had even heard that people grew it on apartment balconies, so as far as he was concerned, it was the easiest crop to start with.

Oh Hyeonseong began sowing the seeds while searching up instructions on his phone.

Naturally, he didn’t bother preparing the soil with compost or lime beforehand.

He wasn’t planning on seriously farming just yet.

For now, he simply wanted to try his hand at it.

Huff!

The spirits watched Oh Hyeonseong curiously and gradually gathered around him.

The tiny spirits gathered around the places where he had planted the seeds and began floating and dancing above them.

Watching them play in small circles, Hyeonseong let out a quiet chuckle.

“Don’t damage them, okay?”

The spirits nodded confidently.

His work was done.

After brushing the dirt off his palms, Oh Hyeonseong went inside the house.

By the time he finished unpacking, the day would probably be over already.

2

The next day.

Oh Hyeonseong stood in front of the vegetable garden with a bewildered expression.

The lettuce had taken root overnight and grown rapidly.

It was so fresh and healthy that it had already grown into fully mature plants.

All in just one night.

“…What is this?”