Chapter 51: Erosion Zone

-Not for any big reason. I suppose it’s because I’m a bit isolated, and I’m curious about where people live. I intend to run various experiments in the Erosion Zone. If you find a place with many people burdensome, you can exclude such locations.

"Hmm……."

Park Ki-beom’s expression dimmed.
As if anticipated, a note from Go Nam-tae arrived immediately.

-If you aren't keen on it, it’s fine to refuse. I was just curious, that’s all.

The moment he saw that, Park Ki-beom nodded.

"That's fine!"
"Guild Master!"
"Park Ki-beom!"

Park Ki-beom raised a hand to stop Jeong Sang-myeong and Ji Yul-geon, who were calling out to him, and asked.

"What do I need to do?"

Go Nam-tae immediately sent the object that would serve as the medium for the coordinates.
It was a bowl-shaped cup, slightly larger than a fist.

Go Nam-tae, who had been in high spirits while making it, had painted lotus flowers, frogs, and cranes on it, incorporating a landscape painting that exuded a luxurious charm.
Park Seong-yeon picked up the cup and shook his head from side to side.

"Uncle, we can’t just put this anywhere, can we? It will 100 percent draw attention."

Park Ki-beom asked with a surprised look.

"Don't tell me, you even know how to make pottery!"
-It’s not quite pottery yet, more like an earthenware level.

It looked too mesmerizing, with the color of the night sky, for it to be called mere earthenware.

-I will only use it once when opening the door for the first time, so you can retrieve it and use it later. It’s weak, but it has detoxification and purification abilities.

Park Seong-yeon’s phone rang.

-Seong-yeon, give the one I’m sending now to your uncle. That one has slightly better performance.

Park Ki-beom’s eyes widened as he opened the box that was passed over shortly after.

"Uncle, that’s a gift for you!"

Park Ki-beom stared at the door—the crack—with his mouth wide open.

"No, t-to do something like this……!"

Before Park Ki-beom could even offer his thanks, the door closed.
Park Ki-beom’s eyes wavered as he looked into the box again.
Ji Yul-geon poked his head in and shouted.

"Wow, is this carved from jewelry?"

Just as Ji Yul-geon said, the box contained bowls that shone like jewels.
There were seven cups resembling bowls larger than a palm, and seven smaller cups that fit in one hand.
Each cup was engraved with the Sasin-su and the Ten Symbols of Longevity.

Gulp!

Everyone’s Adam’s apples bobbed in a similar fashion.
Ji Yul-geon grabbed Park Ki-beom’s hand and shouted desperately.

"We’re having a drink today, right?"
"I told you I have nothing for you!"
"Are you really going to keep being this stingy……!"

Park Seong-yeon and Lucian’s eyes met again.
Without a word, the two took out tofu to set the table and brought out the best liquor.

-Seong-yeon, I’ll give you a few more bowls later. Use them temporarily. I’ll swap them for better ones later.

Clatter!

Lucian looked at him with strange eyes as he dropped his chopsticks.

"A-it’s nothing."

It was clear to anyone that 'something' had happened to Park Seong-yeon, but fortunately, he was out of the focus of Park Ki-beom and Ji Yul-geon.
They were busy pouring drinks into the jewel-like cups and eating the warm tofu.
Ji Yul-geon’s voice rose again after putting a piece of tofu in his mouth.

"……Hey, you heartless jerk, you ate this all by yourself!"
"Would you call me if it were you?"
"No."
"Damn you!"

In high spirits, the two middle-aged men composed two shijo poems as a reply and sent them to Go Nam-tae.





A new invasion hole has opened for the boss.

***

Danhong chattered.

-Park Seong-yeon talks too much. We should call him a chatterbox!

Go Nam-tae agreed.
Park Seong-yeon, who had seemed cautious and polite at first, began to show intimacy aggressively the moment he felt better.
It was very fortunate that they were not meeting in person.

"It’s a good thing Guild Master Park Ki-beom likes tofu, right?"
-There is no one who would dislike the Boss's tofu! But he seems to like rice cakes a little more!

It was truly an answer worthy of a rice cake.
Park Ki-beom liked everything without discrimination: rice cakes, tofu, watermelons…….
Park Seong-yeon had secretly told him that Park Ki-beom waited with bated breath for the time the tofu arrived.
It was worth the effort of sending 'service' so diligently.
Thanks to that, he had gained 3 peepholes.

However, the labyrinth that had appeared in his hometown weighed heavily on his mind.

"Toto, can’t you get rid of the labyrinth?"
**[It is possible.]**
**[It will disappear if you conquer the top floor boss of the labyrinth.]**
"The final boss? ……Me?"

Toto continued his explanation to the dumbfounded Go Nam-tae.

**[The top floor of each labyrinth is not the 100th floor.]**
"What? ……Ah!"

Go Nam-tae sighed.
He had heard stories, very occasionally, that a labyrinth had disappeared even though they hadn't reached the 50th floor.
It had remained a world mystery because it closed even though there were floors above that.

"Then are the labyrinths sent by the boss of each floor?"
**[It could be, or it might not be.]**

It was a riddle-like answer.

"How does a labyrinth form if it’s not?"

**[They can move when the core of each floor operates or by being controlled by an upper floor.]**
**[Even if it is controlled by an upper floor, the boss is the one in charge of the core. Therefore, if you conquer the boss, that labyrinth will disappear.]**

Go Nam-tae learned yet another secret of the labyrinth.
It was a secret that naturally had to be kept.

"Then how many floors should I consider the labyrinth in my hometown to be?"
**[I estimate around the 70th floor.]**
**[This is only an estimate of the floor of the boss in charge of the core; it is impossible to know which floor's influence it received.]**
"So it means at least the 70th floor or higher."

It was a floor number that was so distant it didn't even make sense, but as a 100th-floor boss, it was an incredibly lower floor.
Of course, there was no way Go Nam-tae, the absolute ruler of his room, could deal with a 70th-floor boss.
But Go Nam-tae’s consciousness began to expand.

"Toto, did you say I could open cracks inside the labyrinth too?"
**[Yes, that is correct.]**
**[Then that means I can open them on other floors, right?]**
**[There is a possibility.]**
**[But the probability of it being random is almost zero.]**
"I’m not relying on that kind of probability either."

Hadn't he already asked Park Ki-beom for a favor?
He thought it would work if he just expanded on that.

Start somewhere in the labyrinth, the 50th floor, 52nd floor, and then the next…….
Couldn't he just have them come up step by step?
The fact that humanity had reached the 50th floor over 100 years didn't bother him much.
He felt like it would work.
No, he had to do it.

'Still, not up to the 100th floor.'

Maybe…… up to the 99th floor?
Wouldn't it be perfect to sign a peace treaty around there?

Go Nam-tae grinned.
Then, a shrieking sound rang out.

-Boss, you are smiling strangely! You look evil!

***Whoosh!***

One vine coiled around Danhong’s body and wrapped her up with leaves.

-Gasp, gag! Heung-bok, what are you doing! ……Fairies must only tell the truth! ……It’s true! The Boss is……. Argh!

They were fellows who played amusingly.
Go Nam-tae, whose mouth corners turned up quite a bit more, turned away, pretending not to know.

"I’ll make you something really delicious today. Let’s go!"
-I, I want to go too!

The red beans planted in the vegetable patch were ripening red.

***

"A strong and good morning……."

Go Nam-tae greeted the morning, staggering.

*Jerk! A guilty conscience!*

Every time he gave such a listless morning greeting, the creatures would look at each other, not knowing what to do.
As expected, what Go Nam-tae uttered was just as predicted.

"I had a strange dream."

The dream was ruminated for a moment in Go Nam-tae’s blank eyes.

In his dream, his delicate and gentle kin had consistently turned a bit rough and fierce.
But this time, even the chicks born not long ago joined in.
The protagonists of this dream were those very chicks.

What Danhong had described as a "chirp" had been painted realistically in the dream.
Only, the opponent was not an earthworm.

They were monsters the size of mountains, creatures with wings that he saw quite often in his dreams.
Such fellows were even wearing iron armor.
To make matters worse, hundreds of them, not just the few from before, came swarming in.
The chicks stood in front of such monsters.

It was a situation like a mouse in front of an elephant, but surprisingly, they could not cross the chicks' defensive line.
The even bigger anomaly was what followed.
Something flew in at the high screams of the chicks and began to pierce them.

At first, they looked like spears, but if one looked closely, they resembled thorns.
Every single one of the fellows hit by the thorn spears had their bodies ripped to shreds.

Not a single one survived.
He could accept it up to that point.
What Go Nam-tae found the most difficult was the cleanup that followed.

It was that even the creatures that blew a breeze while splashing water droplets or the young, small white furballs were deployed to the scene.
The blood-soaked appearance of the creatures made his morning depressing.

But today, there was something that bothered him.

-Boss, did you have a stomachache in your dream?

Danhong asked while placing her hand on Go Nam-tae’s forehead.
Among his kin, there would be no one to follow this fellow in being erratic.
Come to think of it, Danhong was not in the dream.
Go Nam-tae replied with a smile.

"A big fellow with horns appeared in my dream."
-Ah, is it a bad fellow?
"I don't know. He just kept hiding behind a tree."
-Was the fellow hiding scary?
"No, it’s not that……. The fellow was holding flowers. Looking at the atmosphere, it seemed like he was trying to give them to me."
-Yikes, that gives me goosebumps!

Danhong really understood Go Nam-tae’s feelings well.
Danhong asked again.

-Boss, what will you do if that fellow really brings flowers?

For a moment, Go Nam-tae’s eyes flashed.

"That remaining half-horn on his head—I’ll have to snap it off for good."

***

*Tremble.*

Barnak had been shivering and holding his breath for hours already.

When he arrived, a scene similar to the previous one was unfolding.
It seemed only Paraem’s servants had come this time.
Hundreds of winged creatures were swarming in.

Standing in front of them was a fluffy mass of down that looked as if it would blow away with a nasal snort.

-Argh! These things aren't even enough to clean my teeth!
'No, you shouldn't ignore them like that…….'

Before Barnak’s thought could finish, the downy fluff rushed in.

***Swish! Chirp!***

One of the leading monsters fell with its chest pierced.
As expected, they were the servants of the domain owner.

-Destroy those first!

Paraem’s servants shouted, but the result was obvious.

***Swish! Chirp!***

Each time they collided, a corpse with a giant hole lay rolling on the floor.
There were some that held on, but they didn't last long.

*Peep peep!*

When the mass of downy fluff shouted, this time, black shining thorn spears flew in.

***Whoosh! Boom!***

The creature pierced by the giant thorn spear was torn into thousands of pieces just like that.
Those that grazed the thorns also exploded and fell similarly.

The foam that flowed from the mouths of the corpses that at least kept their form melted the grass and dirt black.

*Pop!*

The sound of blood droplets added to the tragic space of blood was cheerful.
……The battle was over.

*Beep beep! Thud thud!*

Shortly after, cleaning began as if it were routine.

As the dead began to be dragged away, the inside of the stream surged noisily.
It would be a big mistake to underestimate it as a small stream. A terrifying predator also lived inside it.

Barnak thought.
What was scarier than the fight was this cleanup scene.
He would rather face a battlefield where a million troops were charging than meet the doom of entering that stream.

Barnak took out the box he had carefully brought.
Inside the box was a gift his boss had told him to deliver to the owner of the domain.
It happened to be jewelry resembling flowers.

However, Barnak could not dare to meet the owner of this place in person.
With trembling hands, he placed the box under a tree.

At that moment, Go Nam-tae was muttering.

"That remaining half-horn on his head—I’ll have to snap it off for good."

At that moment, Barnak, feeling a tingling sensation on top of his head, clutched his half-broken horn and ran away just like that.