Chapter 7: The Companion’s Foraging

“Are you not going to answer?”

“Hmm. If I don’t answer, maybe they’ll give up?”

Dohee was in Paris on an official request from France. Since it was an official guild matter, she couldn’t just abandon it and return home on a whim.

If I ignore it like this, maybe it’ll be okay? Maybe it’ll just fizzle out? With such thoughts, I ignored the incoming calls.

“Aren’t you overreacting?”

“What, man?”

“They’re probably calling because they’re worried. Is there really a need to avoid it like that?”

“Well, if it was just because they were worried, I would have answered.”

“Then just answer.”

“Dohee isn’t calling because she’s worried. She’s calling to scold me.”

“You did give her a reason to scold you.”

“Even so, I don’t feel like getting scolded.”

At that moment, the call ended. Oh, finally gave up? The fleeting thought was far too naive. Dohee had only given up on calling.

Now she had started sending messages. Setting notifications to vibrate was a mistake. No matter how long the smartphone vibrated, it showed no signs of stopping.

[Big brother.]

[How can you not answer your sister’s calls? That’s so mean.]

[I know you’re looking at this.]

[Because you’re holding your phone the whole time playing games.]

[You must be playing the game again. Growing trees.]

“This ghost-like…”

[Who are you calling a ghost?]

“W-What?”

Startled, I looked at Assistant Manager Lee Seonghun. More precisely, I looked at the smartphone in front of him. Could it be that he had come here in cahoots with Dohee…?

Noticing my suspicion, Assistant Manager Lee picked up his phone. His smartphone was clean. It was neither in a call nor sending a message.

Buzz, buzz. The phone kept vibrating.

[Big brother, I think you’re mistaken.]

[I’m not going to be in Paris forever.]

[I’m coming back to Korea next week.]

[Can you handle this now?]

“What? No way! Why are you coming back already?”

[I thought you’d react like this.]

“Why does this keep turning into a conversation?”

I expected the messages to be one-sided, but it kept turning into a conversation. That was terrifying. If I had known it would become this kind of back-and-forth, I might as well have just answered the call.

I regret it now, like I just made things worse. But I still couldn’t answer now.

She’d be angry to the core.

“Assistant Manager Lee.”

“Yes?”

“Smartphones used to have batteries.”

“Why are you suddenly talking about batteries?”

In fact, the automatic charging function for smartphones had only existed for about 30-40 years by now.

Before that, there was no technology to recharge smartphones using human mana. So old smartphones used to shut down when people forgot to charge them. That was something I could only envy.

“I wish smartphones still had batteries now.”

Then I could say the phone had died, so I didn’t know about the calls. I could at least make the excuse that I saw the messages too late.

It’s pathetic, how I’m trying to escape reality because I’m afraid of my little sister.

[Big brother, don’t escape reality.]

“Then why does it keep turning into a conversation?!”

Now I was so scared I thought I might cry. Did she get some skill that lets her hear me even from far away in France?

Please, let that not be true. Assistant Manager Lee sighed deeply and said to me.

“That’s why I told you to answer the phone.”

“Shut up!”

Why did this irritating guy have to come and annoy me with a single word?

The phone finally stopped vibrating after thirty minutes. I carefully picked up the smartphone, which I had placed face down, and checked the screen. Dohee’s last message was still displayed.

[Are you okay?]

After the nagging ended, there was a message laced with worry.

I survived.

I let out a sigh of relief, thinking I wouldn’t have to worry until next week. Then I launched [World Tree Growing].

Confirming the sprout appearing on the screen, I tapped the screen again.

“Are you going to sit there all day?”

“How long have you even been here to already want to leave?”

“What exactly did you come here to do every second?”

I asked back to Assistant Manager Lee, who was deflecting my questions with more questions. He was about to say something, then closed his mouth. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

That was an action to calm himself down after getting irritated. Why did he come to see me, especially after taking a day off because of last night? Or rather, how did he even know I was here?

“I came to check and make a proposal.”

That unexpected answer was quite interesting. Check and propose?

“What are you checking and what are you proposing?”

“First, I’ll check.”

“Go ahead.”

“Team leader, your body has returned to normal, right?”

“Huh? That’s a weird thing to ask. Why the sudden question about my body?”

“I saw everything last night.”

Saw everything?

I tilted my head, looking at Assistant Manager Lee. The face looking at me reminded me of how I had passed out last night.

“You passed out.”

The image of me fainting, crushed under the mana pressure when the mana generator shut down, was still vivid. Even in that hectic situation, he had roughly checked on me.

Assistant Manager Lee raised his arm and massaged the area under his nape.

“I woke up because my back hurt.”

“My back? Why suddenly the back?”

Frowning, I recalled what had happened last night. After the mana generator shut down, he had collapsed near the door due to pain. Seeing that, I had gone outside stepping on him to check properly.

Huh…? Stepping on him?

…That was me.

I had stepped on his back when I went outside the building.

And that woke him up?

“When I was fully conscious, you were fighting the enemy.”

Fighting, huh. Could that really be called fighting?

With my heart stabbed, my head smashed, and my intestines spilled outside, I was just barely standing without dying.

“You might have been pretending.”

Lee Jaewook and Kim Sangcheol truly believed I was faking it. Seo Jihyuk also came to me under that misunderstanding. But Assistant Manager Lee shook his head.

“I’ve known you for a year now. Don’t you think I could tell if it was fake or not?”

“Hmm. Well, whatever. So? Is the check over?”

“No. There’s more to check.”

Then why ask if my abilities had returned…?

Ah, I think I understand what Assistant Manager Lee really wanted to confirm.

It’s rare for someone to regain abilities after getting severely injured and having to retire as a hunter. It only happens if they successfully complete endless rehabilitation training or consume a precious and expensive elixir.

For example, the ‘World Tree Fruit.’

“You said you ate the World Tree Fruit last night… That was real, right? Or even if it wasn’t, it was some kind of elixir… right?”

Hmm. What should I do? Is it okay to tell the truth?

Lying would keep things simple, but… I couldn’t bring myself to dismiss it with a lie. Assistant Manager Lee’s expression was too desperate.

“I told you, it’s real.”

“I knew it! That! How did you get it?”

With an expression of desperation I had never seen before, Assistant Manager Lee asked urgently. Like me, he was a hunter who retired and became a clerical worker.

I could understand why he looked like that. He probably wanted to recover his body.

“You can’t get it anymore.”

“Aaah…”

Assistant Manager Lee’s shoulders slumped in disappointment. Even someone annoying like him looked pitiful like that.

“Hey, it’s okay—”

“Ah! What a waste. I was going to sell it.”

“……”

“If I could keep getting them, I was going to sell them everywhere! I even lost sleep planning the business…”

Phew. I’d forgotten what kind of person Lee Seonghun was.

‘Even if it’s the real fruit, why would you eat it?’

‘You should sell it. That precious thing could easily fetch billions.’

His words from yesterday echoed in my ears. I had worried for nothing.

“You know the chairman of the Iltae Group, Woo Chansung?”

Assistant Manager Lee started babbling on his own.

“He’s buying up elixirs. He even formed an expedition team led by his son.”

“Why form an expedition team to get elixirs? Is someone sick?”

“Are you crazy? I put a lot of stocks in that company. It can’t fail. The one who needs the elixirs is his daughter.”

“If she’s sick, she should see a healer or doctor. Why look for elixirs? Also, if you got that information, you should’ve reported it to me. We could connect it with Dohee in the executive meeting—”

“It’s useless. His daughter’s not sick or cursed.”

Assistant Manager Lee waved his hands dismissively. She wasn’t sick or cursed. She needed elixirs instead of a healer or doctor.

That hardly made sense.

“Jelmyeokjeung…?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Jelmyeokjeung is a disease where excessive yin energy obstructs the flow of mana. It cannot be cured with healing skills or modern medicine.

The only cure is to take an elixir like the World Tree Fruit to regulate the yin energy. But elixirs are as hard to find as something blessed by the heavens. When I said it was the World Tree Fruit, Assistant Manager Lee didn’t dismiss it as nonsense for no reason.

“Wait, you said they’re forming an expedition team?”

Forming an expedition team meant they knew where the elixir was. They wouldn’t organize one without knowing the location. Had there been news of a new elixir discovery lately?

“You must have heard of it too, team leader. ‘Woo Damhwa’ from Hongyurung Gate.”

“Crazy!”

I was so shocked I paused tapping the screen. What Assistant Manager Lee said was beyond anything I expected.

Woo Damhwa of Hongyurung Gate? Woo Damhwa was a legendary flower known as an elixir. Consuming it would definitely cure Jelmyeokjeung.

The problem was Hongyurung Gate itself. The place was rated A+ because of extreme cold and poison. Even though the monsters there were only B-rank.

“Is Chairman Woo Chansung sane? Isn’t he crazy?”

“Right. You think so too, team leader?”

“Of course!”

There was a reason the cold and poisonous mist alone earned it an A+ rating. Even A-rank hunters without resistance couldn’t last an hour there.

Even if they were lucky enough to form an expedition team of hunters with resistance, they still had to find Woo Damhwa somewhere in that vast place. And even if they got lucky and found it quickly, there was one big problem left.

Woo Damhwa was an unharvestable flower.

“How do you even harvest that?”

Nine years ago, Woo Damhwa became famous due to an expedition by the ‘Bio Guild,’ ranked in Korea’s top ten, and the farming-specialized ‘Palmes Guild.’ They explored the gate while setting up wards that repelled cold and poison and eventually found Woo Damhwa.

But they couldn’t harvest the precious flower. With A-rank gathering skills, they couldn’t even touch it. Harvesting Woo Damhwa required S-rank gathering skills.

The only person in Korea with that skill was Grandmother Park Bokja. The problem was she had passed away twenty years ago.

“That’s what Chairman Woo is looking for. Someone who can harvest it.”

Calling it forming an expedition team was just wishful thinking.

There was no way someone with S-rank gathering skills would suddenly appear.

“So that’s why you came to find me. To see if I could get the fruit again.”

“Is that even possible? The World Tree’s not some roadside tree.”

It wasn’t a roadside tree, but it was on my smartphone. My tiny companion on the screen shivered as it received mana.

“Huh? Companion?”

“What? Say again?”

I immediately whispered “character window.”

“What are you saying? I can’t hear you.”

“Ah, quiet down a bit!”

“What?”

Ignoring Assistant Manager Lee’s disapproving gaze, I clicked on the titles glowing faintly blue on the character window. A message describing the titles appeared instantly.

[Companion of the World Tree—Acquired in recognition of being the first human to grow the World Tree.]

[Effect—Never tires while on the earth. Natural gathering success rate increased.]

[Equipped effect—(Unlock conditions not met, the World Tree must grow more.)]

Title effect: Natural gathering success rate increased.

“This is it…!”