Well, for now.
I smiled slightly at Uncle Dusik’s words.
“I’ll accept your kindness gratefully.”
“Right. Then I’m off. Enjoy eating that.”
“Ah, Uncle!”
I grabbed Uncle Dusik’s wrist before he could leave the Tea house.
Then, I spoke to Uncle Dusik as he slowly looked back at me.
“Please help me move that to my Home.”
I’ve been fooled once, but I won’t be fooled twice.
Since I’m out of touch with Yue right now, I’d have to move it entirely by myself, and I can’t do that.
Uncle Dusik was caught and pestered by me until he eventually had to help move the cow.
As a side note, the beef was delicious.
And the next day.
I could feel the atmosphere of the village had changed strangely.
“Is it for sure that Dusik’s Rice Paddy came back to life?”
“It seemed certain. What kind of medicine did he use?”
“That wasn’t all. The rice plants just became fresh.”
The topic coming from the mouths of the elders gathered at the Tea house converged into one.
Uncle Dusik’s Rice Paddy.
Since it was a small neighborhood, rumors spread quickly.
And it didn’t take long for the rumors to be confirmed as truth.
“This won’t do. I’ll have to shake that fellow Dusik and ask him.”
“Oh, why go that far?”
“No, I’m curious. What did he do behind our backs without us knowing?”
“Well, that’s true, but…”
“It’s not just there that has problems right now. Keeping his mouth shut after taking it all for himself means there’s something going on. I have to go see.”
The inside of the Tea house became a bit noisy, but I still learned one thing.
“It’s not just Uncle Dusik’s Rice Paddy.”
Until now, I hadn’t paid much attention to the elders’ conversations.
Because the stories that came and went were just about families living in the city or the drama they watched yesterday.
However, listening now, I could feel that the crop situation in all of Ha-hyeon County was not good.
‘Uncle Dusik is going to be quite stressed.’
I wonder if more of his hair will fall out, even though his hair loss is already progressing severely.
Still, even if his head becomes a bald mountain, Uncle will not talk about me.
Because Uncle is the type of man who does what he sets his mind to.
He doesn’t even mention things he can’t or won’t do.
“Uncle, Uncle.”
“Hmm? Naru, when did you get here?”
“Just now. There’s something I want to ask you, Uncle.”
Naru, who had returned from the Spirit Realm at some point.
As I met Naru’s eye level, Naru whispered softly and asked.
“How did you do it?”
“Ah, Uncle Dusik’s Rice Paddy?”
“Yes.”
Naru had said that trying to revive a Rice Paddy overnight could end up harming everyone.
But since I pulled it off, she seemed quite curious.
“Were you very curious?”
“Hmm… a little. I asked other Spirits, but they said they didn’t know either.”
“By other Spirits, do you mean the grass Spirits you mentioned before?”
“That’s right.”
To have done something even those children didn’t know. I think I know how much Naru must have been agonizing over it before speaking up.
I smiled, stroked Naru’s head, and shared the secret.
“I completely reset the ground.”
“Re…set?”
“Well, how should I put it. You said a lot of bad things had accumulated there, right? Whether it’s chemicals, fertilizer, or energy.”
“That’s right.”
“I removed all of them.”
It’s easiest to think of it as having erased them with an eraser.
Naru blinked and asked.
“How?”
“I borrowed some of Yue’s and our Naru’s power.”
After saying that, I took out a Moon fragment from my pocket and showed it to her.
Compared to when I received it from Yue, more than 1/3 of the Moon fragment had been consumed.
It was because I had ground up quite a lot to make the medicine to spray on Uncle Dusik’s Rice Paddy this time.
Naru understood. However, she didn’t understand.
“My power… when? I’ve never contributed my power.”
“You helped me at first. You sprinkled power onto the rice plants.”
“Yes.”
Naru used the power she had to add a little more vitality to the rice plants.
It was a task on the level of attaching a respirator, but that small thing was a big help to me.
“Among the various powers Yue possesses, there’s also a power related to death. The problem was how to manifest it.”
The energy of the Moon was a complex energy.
Sometimes it contained the power of comfort, rest, and consolation, but sometimes it also contained the power of death and eternal rest.
It was my job to adjust the ratio of these effects with other ingredients.
“I scattered that power into the soil and water. So that it would completely kill off the bad things.”
“…Then the rice plants would have died too… Ah!”
“Naru’s power helped.”
The power Naru had scattered protected the rice plants from the energy of the Moon.
That’s why the rice plants could survive without dying.
“This task was quite difficult for me too. I had to erase only the filth of the soil and water without harming the plants or animals.”
“So you didn’t perform a purification?”
“I didn’t think that would work. I believed that for deeply rooted problems, digging them out and erasing them was the priority. Fortunately, it was completely resolved.”
“Huh? Could it have failed?”
“Well… if Grandfather came back to life?”
Then everything I did would be unnecessary.
In fact, it should be seen as an unconditional success.
Naru listened to my whole story and asked seriously again.
“How did you think of such a method?”
“Well… I knew when I first went to see the Rice Paddy with Naru. It would be one of two things.”
The fact that rice can’t grow is either because the nutrients in the soil have dried up or because there are too many nutrients.
If it was because the nutrients had dried up, they should have revived considerably when Naru gave them power.
But since they didn’t, I thought it was the opposite.
“Bad things can just be removed like this.”
“…Uncle, you’re truly amazing.”
“No. More importantly, how was this event seen in the Spirit Realm?”
The influence of this place reaches the Spirit Realm as well.
I asked because I knew that fact.
“There’s no big talk. After all, the Spirit Realm looks at the entire Human Realm. This is just a very, very small place.”
“That’s true too.”
From the Spirit Realm’s perspective, a jungle like the Amazon would probably be a hotter spot.
Thinking that made me chuckle.
“Still, since things worked out well, everything will gradually get better.”
Since Uncle Dusik’s Rice Paddy is resolved, there’s no immediate problem.
That was my conclusion.
***
“I’m tired to death.”
“What’s with these people, constantly visiting while leaving their own rice paddies and fields alone?”
The Hyun siblings, who visited at night, poured out their complaints with gloomy faces.
The content of their complaints was one thing.
That people had been coming to The Field since morning, prying into every little detail.
“Uncle Dusik’s Rice Paddy changed, so why did they go to you?”
“It’s not just Uncle Dusik’s Rice Paddy; our Field is doing well too.”
“It’s because we’re the only ones who’ve had a big change recently. They came to ask if we knew anything.”
“The problem is they come one person every hour… I couldn’t even work properly today.”
Hyun-woong and Hyun-seo waved their hands, telling me not to even mention it.
Seeing that those two are like this, Uncle Dusik must have been pestered quite a bit too.
If anything, it would be more, definitely not less.
I wonder if I was too hasty.
Would it have been the right way to just slowly improve the condition of the Rice Paddy?
“Hey, hey.”
“…Uh, what?”
“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”
While I was having various thoughts internally, Hyun-woong took a sip of the Tea in front of him and spoke.
“Uncle Dusik probably said something similar, but we’ll never let anything harm you.”
“It’ll be resolved well. So just wait.”
“Still, it seems like you’ll go through quite a bit of trouble.”
“If the Rice Paddy and The Field hit the jackpot just for our ears being a bit itchy, it’s worth listening to, right?”
“Of course, of course.”
The Hyun siblings spoke exaggeratedly so that I wouldn’t feel burdened.
It’s not wrong, but I’m just grateful for every bit of their consideration.
“Alright, if you say so, let’s leave it at that.”
“What do you mean, ‘leave it at that’?”
“Leaving it at that is just leaving it at that. Anyway, let me know if it gets noisier. I’ll try to do something about it.”
“Forget it.”
Hyun-seo spoke decisively to my words.
I was a bit surprised because those short two words came out without a moment’s hesitation.
“We’ve received so much help from you, if we can’t even handle this, how can we look at your face in the future? We’re not that shameless.”
“Yeah. So you just stay still.”
“Even if you tell me to stay still…”
“Enough, we’re off. We’re tired and need to rest early.”
“…Alright, okay. Go safely.”
Thus, the Hyun siblings staggered out of the Tea house.
As I watched them leave, Si-woo, who was organizing the Warehouse, came out.
“Did your friends leave?”
“Ah, yes. They seemed very tired.”
Thinking about it, that’s true.
Normally, Hyun-woong would be making a fuss to check if Si-woo was there and try to look good, but today he was just quiet.
‘I hope it doesn’t last long.’
I thought that I wished those guys were at least a little less tired.
But life is such that it doesn’t always flow as one desires.
***
“…It’s not easy.”
A week passed after Uncle Dusik’s Rice Paddy changed.
And during that week, the story of Uncle Dusik’s Rice Paddy never failed to come up from people’s mouths.
And more often and more loudly than before.
“That fellow Dusik, didn’t he put some strange medicine in that Rice Paddy?”
“What is that medicine?”
“Who knows, he probably got it secretly from somewhere. I heard he drinks with some doctor kids somewhere.”
“Then is he connected to the FBI or something?”
“F-B… what? This old man is using twisted words. Is he showing off that he’s educated or something?”
“Hey man. That’s not what’s important right now.”
…At this rate, it wouldn’t be strange if rumors spread that Uncle Dusik is an alien.
As I was shaking my head, Uncle Dusik, the protagonist of the rumors, made his appearance at the Tea house.
“Chansung, give me some cold water.”
“Ah, Uncle. Cold water? What about Tea?”
“Ah, later. Ugh, because of these old folks, I won’t live out my natural life.”
Uncle Dusik, frowning deeply, glanced at the other elders in the Tea house.
Those eyes were like a tiger’s, so I felt like I knew what had happened over the past week.
The elders stealthily avoiding his gaze also played a part in understanding the situation.
I said a word while setting the cold water down in front of Uncle Dusik.
“Don’t be like that even in our Tea house. Are you trying to ruin a Tea house that already has low sales?”
“How could I? Ah, I feel alive now.”
“You’re very busy lately, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. I’m dying, really.”
Uncle Dusik stuck out his tongue and pretended to die.
He seemed to have been pestered quite a bit.
“Still, since the Rice Paddy is reviving, I feel like I could fly. Do you know that feeling?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Well, what would a fellow who’s never even weeded a Rice Paddy know?”
“Gosh, you’re speaking quite heartlessly.”
Uncle Dusik chuckled and stood up again.
“Are you leaving already?”
“Yeah. I haven’t been able to go to the Rice Paddy because of those elders lately. Farming is something that turns upside down if you leave it for even a day, ugh.”
“I told you not to do that in the Tea house.”
“Alright, alright. I’m going.”
Uncle Dusik put the money for the cold water on the table and left briskly.
Watching that, a laugh just naturally escaped me.
There’s only one reason why Uncle Dusik went out of his way to come here.
To show that he’s fine right now, so not to worry.
It’s a sort of performance to show that he’s handling things well, lest I suffer from guilt.
‘Still, seeing that his voice is still loud and clear, it seems he’s navigating through it well.’
I felt trust from the appearance he showed for a moment.
My worries were definitely eased as well.
Still.
“Elders.”
“Yes?”
“If you keep spreading strange rumors, I won’t give you Dessert anymore.”
“No, Chansung, it’s not like we’re doing that…”
“Understand?”
I can at least say a word to the elders who come to the Tea house.
The elders rolled their eyes around and then showed a gesture of surrender.
‘I understand the elders’ hearts too, so I can’t say much more.’
I just hope this topic dies down quickly.
Waiting for that seemed like the best course of action.
***
Two weeks passed since then.
As time passed, instead of dying down, the topic felt like it was burning even more.
At the same time, anxiety began to seep into the faces of the warm and kind elders.
“This… it wouldn’t be the influence of the soil too, would it?”
I thought it might be unlikely, but it could be possible.
Because I don’t know where the affairs of Ha-hyeon County begin or end.
‘Will it be okay?’
After spending a day where worries and doubts bloomed again, the next day came.
The talk about Uncle Dusik’s Rice Paddy disappeared from Ha-hyeon County.
As if someone had sprayed medicine on it.