TL: Hanguk
99th floor of the Black Tower.
“Isn’t this a bit too much?”
Grave~nim, this is too much.
Sejun grumbled to himself while looking at a piece of paper detailing the growth conditions for the Brown Tower.
[Brown Tower Growth Conditions (0/8)]
– Tower Farmer (A): Not achieved
– Create at least 9 new varieties: Not achieved (0/9)
– Increase the soil fertility of the Brown Tower by at least 50%: Not achieved (40%)
– Secure at least 10,000 pieces of World’s Energy: Not achieved
– Possess 9 Divine Relics: Not achieved (2/9)
– Achieve 5 Great Achievements: Not achieved (3/5)
– Expand the Brown Tower’s entrances to 120: Not achieved (65/120)
Not a single one of the eight growth conditions had been met.
At least the number of Divine Relics and Great Achievements had somewhat progressed, which was a small comfort.
“Vice Chairman Theo, I need just eight more Divine Relics.”
“Puhuhut. Got it, meow!”
God~nims, we need eight Divine Relics, meow!
Theo requested the gods, and the gods who received the quest sent Divine Relics to Theo.
“Puhuhut. Chairman Park, here they are, meow!”
Theo handed over the Divine Relics he had received from the gods to Sejun.
“Vice Chairman Theo, thanks. Good job.”
“Puhuhut. That’s right, meow! I, Vice Chairman Theo, worked hard, meow! Be very grateful, meow!”
“Yeah.”
Sejun patted Theo’s head in praise as he basked in the recognition.
“Grave~nim, here are the Divine Relics.”
Sejun handed over the eight Divine Relics he received from Theo to Grave.
– Gwahahaha. Thank you.
With that, two of the Tower’s growth conditions were instantly fulfilled.
‘As for the rest…’
Sejun pondered how to fulfill the remaining conditions.
If he took Orik around and trained him to be an A-rank Tower Farmer, that would be one.
“Why didn’t the fertility increase when I have the Kidney Beans of Soil Fertility?”
There had to be something interfering, just like in the other towers.
If he could just eliminate that obstacle, reaching 50% fertility should be more than possible, likely surpassing it, making two conditions fulfilled in total.
That would bring the count of fulfilled growth conditions to five.
“The Great Achievements… I can definitely achieve two more, so that’s covered, but exceeding that is uncertain…”
After a rough calculation, Sejun realized he was still short by two growth conditions.
The rest would have to be resolved by going to the Brown Tower.
“Guys, gather around.”
Sejun called his companions to prepare for departure.
“Puhuhut. Gathered, meow!”
Theo was already clinging to Sejun’s lap long before he called.
Kueng!
[Mom, Cuengi is heading out!]
Chu
Cuengi, who had been enjoying the warmth in Pink-fur’s embrace, gave her a kiss before flying over to Sejun.
And then,
Kihihit. Kking!
[Hehe! Butler! Let’s hurry up and go!]
The Blackie Family came running, holding a sling bag to carry themselves in.
Once everyone had gathered,
“Alright, we’re off.”
Sejun bid farewell to the Tower residents and set off for the Brown Tower.
…
..
.
“Kelkelkel. Sejun~nim, welcome!”
Upon arrival, Sejun was greeted by Orik, the Brown Tower’s Tower Farmer.
“Yeah. Did you find out what I asked you to?”
“Kelkelkel. Yes. But there are no monsters or phenomena disrupting fertility in our Brown Tower.”
“Really?”
Then why wasn’t the fertility increasing?
Sejun pondered in confusion.
At that moment,
“Kelkelkel. Sejun~nim, our Red Goblin Tribe has prepared a feast for you on the 77th floor. Let’s go together. Here is the land deed for the 77th floor.”
“Huhuhu. Shall we?”
Sejun chuckled as he accepted the land deed Orik handed him.
He had regretted not getting to rest in the Golden Tower, but it seemed like he could take a break here.
However,
“W-what is this smell?!”
“Kelkelkel. This is the traditional cuisine of our Red Goblin Tribe.”
Just as Orik proudly introduced the food, that hope was completely shattered.
Sejun then remembered, the Red Goblin Tribe ate even normal food after letting it rot.
On top of that, he recalled the ominous feeling he had earlier…
[Your Talent: C-rank Poison Resistance attempts to resist.]
[Resistance failed.]
[You have been poisoned by an A-rank Poison.]
[Life force decreases by 0.5% every second.]
[Due to exposure to strong poison, your Talent: C-rank Poison Resistance has been upgraded to C+ rank Poison Resistance.]
He wasn’t wrong. Though his talent strengthened, he wasn’t happy at all.
“G-Green onion!”
“Puhuhut. Here it is, meow!”
Puk.
The kind-hearted Theo shoved a Detoxifying Green Onion into Sejun’s mouth.
Crunch. Crunch.
Sejun hurriedly chewed the green onion to detoxify himself.
Ah. I’d rather go home and eat the food Aileen makes.
Just as Sejun was overwhelmed with the desire to go home,
Kueng!
[This is not food!]
The cry of Cuengi, who was greatly disappointed after thinking he would eat something delicious, was heard.
Even Cuengi, the glutton who ate almost everything, was rejecting it. No, calling this “food” was a mistake. It was food waste.
“This won’t do. Grave~nim…”
Just as Sejun was about to tell Grave that he wouldn’t accept any requests unless the Red Goblin Tribe’s traditional cooking was banned,
“What?!”
Sejun witnessed a shocking sight.
The Red Goblins were touching food with their hands, then touching their feet, scratching their butts, picking their noses, and then grabbing the food again to eat.
“Grave~nim, add weekly hygiene education to the list too…”
If they wanted the Brown Tower to grow into a Great Tower, Sejun made it a condition that the Red Goblin Tribe’s traditional cooking be banned and that they receive hygiene education once a week.
A short while later,
Under the stern command of the Great Brown Dragon, the Red Goblins hurriedly cleaned up the food and attended Sejun’s hygiene class.
Of course, Sejun wasn’t an expert in hygiene education, so he wasn’t the best teacher.
But I’m still a hundred times better than them.
The Red Goblins’ hygiene awareness was so atrocious that anyone from Earth could have come and taught them, and it wouldn’t have been strange.
“Huh?! What’s wrong with eating something that fell on the ground?!”
“Why do we have to eat it within three seconds?!”
They were so shocked that even the three-second rule, where food is supposedly safe to eat if picked up within three seconds, felt like a culture shock to them.
After the basic hygiene lesson was completed,
Puk.Puk.
[Your job experience increases slightly.]
[Your proficiency in Magic Seed Sowing (Master) increases slightly.]
…
..
.
“Kelkelkel. It’s nice working together with you, Sejun~nim.”
“Orik, instead of moving your mouth, move your body.”
“Kelkelkel. But I can talk while moving.”
“Just shut up and work!”
“Kelkelkel. Then you should say it like that from the start.”
Sejun, accompanied by the sneaky and irritating Orik, planted the Kidney Beans of Soil Fertility in the soil.
By training Orik to become an A-rank Tower Farmer and increasing fertility at the same time, it was killing two birds with one stone.
After about an hour, when nearly 150,000 sqaure meters of kidney bean fields had been cultivated,
“Grave~nim, has the fertility increased?”
Sejun asked Grave.
“Really?”
So roughly 0.1% per 30,000 sqaure meters… If they cultivated another 3 million square meters…
It would take some time, but it was definitely achievable.
But why hasn’t anyone done this before?
As Sejun pondered,
“What?!”
The fertility had decreased. Worse, it had dropped below what it was before planting the beans.
No way. Why is the fertility decreasing?!
An inexplicable phenomenon.
“It’s time for Detective Sherlock Sejun to step in.”
Sejun spoke in a serious voice while putting an elegant red pipe with smoke billowing from it in his mouth.
It was a gift from Ramter for helping with the growth of the Red Tower. Its name, [Flame Devourer].
Inside the pipe was a Fire Seed that created the essence of flames, allowing it to absorb all fire-attribute attacks. It was a three-star item.
As Sejun’s detective act began,
“Puhuhut. Then, the great assistant of Detective Sherlock Sejun, Theoson, will also step in, meow!”
Slurp. Slurp. Slurp.
Theo licked the end of his pipe, which was filled with Churu.
Kueng!
[Hehehe. Detective Cunan is stepping in too!]
Cuengi also bit down on a pipe filled with honey and declared enthusiastically.
And then,
Kihihit. Kking!
[Hehe! Butler! Detective Kapang is on the case too!]
Blackie, holding an empty pipe in his mouth, shouted as well.
Originally, the pipe had been filled with pieces of roasted and dried sweet potato, but as soon as they received it, the Blackie Family had devoured them all.
When Sejun received the Flame Devourer from Ramter,
“I, Vice Chairman Theo, want the same thing as Chairman Park, meow!”
Kueng!
Kking!
Everyone wanted a pipe just like Sejun’s.
“Ramter~nim…”
Sejun asked Ramter to make pipes that had the same shape and color but no actual abilities. He then filled them with things his companions liked.
And so, with their pipes in their mouths, Sejun and his party set out to find the cause of the declining fertility.
They started by investigating the area around the Red Goblin village.
“What’s that smell?”
Soon, they noticed something suspicious. A terrible stench was coming from the stream flowing beside the village.
“Is there something upstream? Detective Cunan, let’s fly.”
Kueng!
Using Cuengi’s telekinesis, Sejun flew toward the upper reaches of the stream.
“What the hell is this?!”
104.28.193.250
A massive pile of rotting food waste came into view. Or rather, it should be called the Red Goblins’ food storage.
No wonder the fertility was low…
With such an enormous amount of rotting food waste, it would have been stranger if the fertility had remained high.
In the end, the Red Goblins were the main culprits behind the decline in fertility.
“How should we deal with this?”
Sejun pondered for a moment.
Bubble, bubble.
Then, he noticed bubbles rising from the stagnant water near the food waste pile.
Gases were escaping from the fermentation of the rotting food.
“I should just blow it up.”
Snap.
Sejun snapped his fingers to create a flame and ignite the waste dump.
Fwoosh.
But the fire was immediately extinguished.
Instead, the Flame Devourer, which had absorbed Sejun’s fire, glowed red on the surface.
“Oh.”
Right, it absorbs fire.
Sejun stored the Flame Devourer in his Void Storage and,
Snap.
Created another flame.
Whoosh.
He lit a piece of firewood and threw it into the waste dump.
And then,
Boom!
A fiery explosion erupted.
Kaboom!
This was followed by a massive secondary explosion.
The first explosion was from the gases on the surface. The second was from the gases trapped underground.
Thud, thud, thud.
Chunks of rotting food waste were blasted in every direction by the force of the explosion.
Kueng!
Of course, Sejun was protected by Cuengi’s telekinesis, so he was safe.
“Huhuhut. Case cl-”
Just as Sejun thought the job was done,
-How dare you destroy my home?!!!
A small dung-colored orb shot out from the pile of rotting food waste.
“……”
Cuengi, you wanna eat that?
Sejun turned to Cuengi.
Shake. Shake.
Kueng! Kueng! Kueng!
[No way! Don’t want to eat that! That’s disgusting!]
Cuengi vigorously shook his head.
“Yeah, I guess that’s a no…”
The stench was unbearable.
“Alright, then Kkabi can eat it.”
Sharalang?!
Kkabi was visibly horrified at Sejun’s words.
“What? You use the power of decay, so you’re similar to that thing, right?”
Sharalang! Sharalang!
[No way! That thing and I are on completely different levels! Completely different!]
Kkabi vehemently protested Sejun’s statement.
Then,
Kking?! Kking!
[Kkabi, did you just raise your voice at our butler?! Guys, hold Kkabi’s mouth open!]
Sharalang! Sharalang!
[Nooo! Just kill me instead!]
Blackie, enraged, forced Kkabi’s mouth open, just like when Sejun had made him drink the Great Growth Elixir.
This was why you need to be mindful of their behavior in front of the others.
Thus, within Sejun’s family, it was decided that Kkabi would eat Dicain.
-You bastards! How dare you mock me?!
Pooooof!
Dicain, enraged, released a putrid stench in all directions. A visible yellow miasma spread outward.
And then,
“Ugh! I can’t take this! Cuengi, just get rid of it!”
Kueng!
Boom!
[You have gained 70 billion experience points, 50% of the experience points Advanced Herbalist Park Cuengi acquired.]
Dicain was struck by Cuengi’s Thunderbolt Staff and was completely annihilated.
As soon as Dicain, the source of the foul stench, disappeared, the fertility of the Brown Tower began rising rapidly, even though Sejun hadn’t done anything.
Two of the Great Tower growth conditions had been fulfilled.
“Huhuhut. Case closed.”
With a smug expression, Sejun declared the resolution of the incident.
Then,
“Vice Chairman Theo, let’s start recruiting employees.”
“Puhuhut. Understood, meow!”
Sejun began working on achieving a Great Achievement.
This will take some time, right?
Since Sejun Company wasn’t well-known in the Brown Tower, he assumed the process would take a while.
However,
“Was it you?! The bastard who destroyed our food storage?!”
“Kill him!”
“Don’t let him live!”
Residents from various floors of the Brown Tower began swarming toward him in anger.
It turned out that the place Sejun had blown up wasn’t just the Red Goblin Tribe’s storage, it was a communal food warehouse.
“Huhuhu. Guys, start hiring employees.”
Seeing how riled up they were over food, Sejun figured they’d be excellent eaters.
A short while later,
The Black Tower’s full-time employee network and the Brown Tower’s full-time employee network merged into one.
*****
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