Chapter 79
TL: Hanguk
Sejun decided to make a proper canal since he was at it.
And
"Okay, first, we're going to raise the fountain so we can stack bricks underneath."
As the first construction task, he decided to raise the height of the fountain where the flow of water started. Because the thrill... no, the acceleration when going down would allow the water to be sent further away.
However, to do that, he had to lift a giant fountain with a diameter of 100 meters first.
'I need the help of Kaiser or Anton.'
"Um..."
Sejun spoke to the Black Dragon statue.
-What is it...
The hoarse voice of the annoyed Kaiser came.
'It's a relief.'
Honestly, it was easier to talk to Kaiser than Anton. For Sejun, there was a sure-win card to get Kaiser's help easily.
"Sir Kaiser, don't you want to talk to Aileen?"
-You insolent, Sejun! How dare you think the Great Black Dragon, Kaiser Pritani, would ask you for help?!
Kaiser's furious voice came in response to Sejun's words.
"That's not it. I have a favor to ask, and if you do it, I will solve the problem that bothers you, Sir Kaiser, on my own."
-Ahem...is that so? Then let's hear what you have to ask.
Although it was a sly trick, but it worked on Kaiser.
"Could you lift the fountain, please?"
-Hahaha. All right.
Creak.
As soon as Kaiser's voice ended, the fountain rose about 10 meters in the air.
"Alright, let's start the work!"
Eummu!
At Sejun's command, the Black Minotaurs began stacking mud bricks.
And
"Aileen."
Sejun called out to Aileen to solve Kaiser's problem.
[The Tower's Administrator asks what's the matter.]
"How about we have some honey jelly and talk?"
First, he improved Aileen's mood with sweet food.
[The Tower's Administrator is pleased with the sweetness of the honey jelly.]
So, Sejun made Aileen's mood better and started to discuss the main topic.
"Aileen, could you please start talking to Sir Kaiser now?"
[The Tower's Administrator says she's still upset with grandfather for taking her chance to shine.]
"Aileen, why do you want to shine by appraising items?"
[The Tower's Administrator says it's... to show you her greatness.]
"Then, you don't need to shine."
[The Tower's Administrator asks what you mean.]
"Because I already know how great you, Aileen, are."
[......]
"Aileen?"
Aileen disappeared again.
However,
-Hahahahaha!
Judging by Kaiser's laughter, it seemed like Aileen was talking with Kaiser.
***
pat pat pat
"Run faster, meow!"
Theo was urging his companions. He was in a great hurry.
'I need to finish the trade and get back to Sejun, meow!'
Sejun's lap was in danger. At first, Iona, who seemed indifferent, letting him let his guard down, eventually she occupied Sejun's lap.
'Iona is a cunning hamster wizard, meow!'
Thinking about Iona on Sejun's lap when he woke up, Theo got angry again.
And
"I can't forgive this, meow! Speed up, meow!"
Theo's speed increased as much as his anger.
"Huff huff. Representative Theo..."
"Let's take a break..."
Only the interns were exhausted because of that.
Under Theo's lead, the group ran non-stop towards the 38th floor of the tower.
***
Sejun, who soothed Aileen, who was upset with Kaiser, helped the gray rabbits and plastered mud between the mud bricks piled up by the black minotaurs.
As such, it was almost lunchtime by the time they finished laying a layer of bricks.
"I should prepare lunch."
When Sejun went to the cave to get the ingredients for lunch,
[Master! I missed you!]
Flamie greeted Sejun enthusiastically by waving its leaves. More than half of Flamie's leaves, which used the flames of purification and protection, had turned green again.
Thanks to the divine power emanating from the Divine stone, Flamie's leaves seemed to recover faster.
Sejun patted Flamie's leaves and went to the pond. In the pond, there were hundreds of piranhas hunted by Black Rabbit and Cuengi.
They had been catching more piranhas as they had to give grilled fish as a daily ration to the guards who protect the blue carp of Granier village on the 75th floor of the tower.
Just then,
Splash.
Kruong!
Cuengi came out of the water with a giant fish.
And then,
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Black Rabbit was busy hitting the head of the giant fish.
"Wow..."
Sejun was speechless when he saw the name of the underwater monster.
[Tuna]
Clap, clap, clap.
"Guys, well done!"
Sejun applauded and praised Black Rabbit and Cuengi.
A little while later,
"Let's eat!"
When mealtime came,
Munch munch!
The black minotaurs moved to the green onion field to eat green onion leaves and,
Gulp!
Mother Crimson Giant Bear drank SeP's soup in the large pot.
And then,
"Today's lunch is tuna sashimi."
Sejun began to cut up the tuna and make sashimi. However, Sejun, who had only ever eaten tuna sushi once, didn't have the skill to slice different parts of the fish for sashimi, so he just thinly sliced the thickest belly part.
"Let's taste it."
When Sejun put the red tuna sashimi in his mouth,
"Mm..."
He felt a deep oily flavor.
Swish.
The tuna sashimi melted in his mouth before Sejun could fully savor it.
"Wow!"
"......"
All the animals were staring at him. Was it that delicious?
Shhhh.
Sejun hurriedly started to slice the area where he had eaten. He wanted to share the joy he felt with the animals.
"Here you go."
Sejun put two pieces of sashimi on a wooden plate and gave it to the animals.
Squeak!
Squeak!
Squeak!
Kroeung!
The animals' reaction to eating tuna sashimi was excellent.
"Good! Next, let's go for the back meat!"
Feeling confident, Sejun, who felt like he had become a sushi chef, sliced the back meat of the tuna this time.
Squeak!
Squeak!
Squeak!
Kroeung!
Again, the reaction was good.
"Next is the tail meat!"
"The side rib meat!"
"The head meat!"
Sejun, who didn't know much about sashimi, picked up pieces of sashimi at random and gave them to the animals.
However
Squeak..
Squeak!
Squeak!
As they kept eating only tuna, the reaction of the animals gradually weakened due to the greasiness of the tuna.
Kroeung!
Except for Cuengi
Grrr!
Cuengi was shoveling sashimi into his mouth, asking if it was okay to eat when the rabbits next to him were not eating.
Thus, the tuna was left with almost only bones.
Smack smack.
Except for Cuengi, who was still trying to satisfy his appetite, everyone else was patting their stomachs and seemed satisfied with their fullness.
"It's too greasy."
After eating something so oily, he wanted something refreshing. And he had saved something for times like this.
"Let's eat pineapple!"
Sejun brought out five cans of pineapple from the storage. He had saved these pineapples to eat with the rabbits, and even though the pineapple crown had been taken off, it was still fresh because Iona had put preservation magic on it.
Squeak!
Kroeung!
The black rabbit and Cuengi, who had already tasted pineapple before, were excited. They instinctively knew that it would be great to eat it now.
And then,
Squeak?
Squeak?
Following the reactions of the black rabbit and Cuengi, the other rabbits also began to become curious.
Slice Slice
As Sejun put a piece of pineapple on each plate,
Squeak
The eyes of the rabbits who had eaten the pineapple widened. The sour taste of the pineapple neatly washed away the lingering oil in their mouths, followed by a sweet taste.
Squawk. Squawk.
The rabbits quickly ate all the pineapple and licked the pineapple juice off their hands cleanly.
After such a perfect lunch had ended, and about two hours had passed,
"Sir Sejun, we have arrived."
Borori, who had delivered the Sturdy Blade Onion Leaves and SeP's soup to the 67th floor of the tower and returned after collecting the corpse of the Red Locusts, greeted Sejun.
"You've worked hard. How is the 67th floor?"
"We initially struggled when the pattern of the Red Locust's changed, but it has stabilized again with the Lizardmen Warriors being reinforced from the Lizardman Kingdom on the 69th floor."
"That's good to hear. But why are those like that?"
Sejun asked, looking at the bodies of the dead Red Locusts pouring out of the cat interns' carts. Many of the dead Red Locusts had a mixture of blue in their their head area.
"I'm not sure. The Red Locusts have been changing like that recently."
Borori replied, tilting his head.
At that moment,
-That's the Red Locust regressing to a Blue Locust. It's evidence that the population of Red Locusts is nearing 5 billion.
The black dragon statue, which had come down to the ground unnoticed, spoke as it looked at the corpse of the Red Locust with a mix of blue.
"Regressing?"
-Yes. They regress when their numbers decrease and evolve when they increase.
"So if their numbers decrease further, will they regress again?"
-That's right. If the number drops below 3 billion, they transform into Yellow Locusts.
"Ah."
-Just hold on a little longer. It'll be easier to fight. When they regress to Blue Locusts, they become smaller and weaker.
"I see."
-Aileen, did you know this?
Kaiser asked Aileen.
-What?! You didn't know?! Didn't I tell you to pay attention to the alarm!
Kaiser began to scold Aileen for not knowing this information in advance.
But,
-No... I didn't shout...
-Aileen~!
[The Tower's administrator says she's upset because her grandfather yelled at her, and she won't talk to him anymore.]
It hasn't been an hour since Sejun made them reconcile, and their conversation was cut off again.
"Borori, once you go down, pass on the information you just heard to the Lizardman Warrior. It will be helpful."
"Yes. I understand."
After finishing his conversation with Borori, Sejun began to stack bricks again. His goal was to stack the bricks up to 10 layers within 5 days.
***
"We've arrived, meow!"
Theo arrived on the 38th floor of the tower after 35 hours.
"The wolves rest, and the interns follow me, meow!"
"Yes..."
The cat interns replied with almost dying voices. If the wolves hadn't carried the interns in the middle, they wouldn't have been able to come this far.
"You guys don't know much yet. Just watch for today, meow!"
Theo arrived at the hunter's camp, cautioning the cat interns.
"This is the place that I created and only I trade, meow!"
Theo entered the camp with pride, boasting to the interns.
Then,
"Huh?"
Theo noticed something strange. Wild boar wandering merchants were trading with hunters at his trading post.
"What, meow?!"
Theo was furious at the wild boar wandering merchants who had invaded his territory.
And,
"Out of the way, meow!"
Theo went up to the leader of the wild boar wandering merchants and shouted.
"Who are you?"
"I'm Theo, a intermediate wandering merchant, meow! And this is my trading post, meow! Move aside, meow!"
"Hmph! You're just an intermediate wandering merchant! I am Utata, an advanced wandering merchant under the leadership of Tariq, an elite wandering merchant! Just go away."
Utata dismissively responded to Theo's words. This was a place where hunters had made their own camp and a market had formed. Such places were rare, so Utata had no intention of leaving.
"Did you just ignore me, meow?!"
Theo was furious that someone would ignore him, the subordinate of the Great Black Dragon and the deadly yellow cat.
However, he didn't solve it with strength. A wandering merchant fights in a wandering merchant's way.
And then,
"Attention, humans! From today, I will not sell my goods to any hunter who trades with this wild boar wandering merchant, meow!"
Theo knew exactly what his weapon was. Theo's weapon was Sejun's crops, which couldn't be found anywhere else and had special effects.
"Puhahaha! Even if you do, it's only your loss! My goods are..."
Utata, who was laughing at Theo's words, was taken aback when he saw the hunters who had been trading with him suddenly stop and leave en masse at Theo's words.
"Puhuhut. See, meow? This is my area, meow! Get lost, meow!"
Theo looked at Utata and laughed.
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