Chapter 70: I Won’t Let You Die

Ji Sang-wook’s dumbfounded face came into view.

He just stared at me, his mouth hanging open like an idiot.

I guess he never imagined I’d say, “No, I don’t want to.”

He must’ve thought, since things were bad between us, I’d just go along with it.

“What the heck? Isn’t that guy Lee Tae-chun’s friend?”

“He is. I heard they’ve been close since they were kids.”

“Then why is he acting like that?”

I could feel the crowd behind me stir.

They must have expected I’d agree to Ji Sang-wook’s request.

From what they were saying, it seemed they thought I’d accept for reasons different from his.

Apparently, they thought I’d answer like Lee Tae-chun would.

“Fine, I’ll do as you wish.”

Or,

“Don’t worry, I’ll remember your end for you.”

They must’ve thought I’d spout off lines like that.

It was only natural people misunderstood.

After all, Tae-chun and I were known to be close friends.

They must’ve assumed I valued things like chivalry and knightly honor too.

But that wasn’t true at all.

Unlike Tae-chun, I wasn’t the sort of person anyone would call a “knight.”

I looked at the dumbfounded guy and spoke.

“I’ve got something to ask you. Will you die easily for me?”

“Ask me… something?”

“Yeah, man.”

“What could you want to ask me?”

“SiTop TV. The guy who uploaded that video—he’s your friend, right?”

I’d used the World Tree’s Morning Dew just to ask this.

I barely got him back to his senses, and now he’s begging me to kill him?

Does he think I’m joking around or something? As if I’d ever go along with that.

“…He’s my friend. But wait, are you telling me you came all the way here just to ask about that? From Seoul to Jeju Island?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly it. Where’s that bastard now?”

“……”

“Hey, where is he? Why aren’t you answering?”

I raised my right index finger to hurry him along.

Ji Sang-wook flinched and stared at my finger.

It was almost funny.

The same guy who just asked me to kill him was now afraid of my finger.

Is getting killed okay, but getting hit isn’t?

That can’t be it.

He only wants to die because he doesn’t want to live like this.

It’s not that he actually wants to die.

“Leave him alone. He only uploaded that video because of me.”

“I’ll handle that. Just tell me where he is.”

“……”

“Don’t want to say?”

Ji Sang-wook clammed up.

Even in this state, he still wanted to keep loyalty to his friend.

“Alright, then. I’ll make you want to talk.”

“What? What are you—mmph!”

I reached out with my right hand and grabbed his face tight.

Maybe because of how he looked, he reminded me of a cat with its muzzle clamped shut.

He wasn’t exactly cat-sized, though.

With his mouth blocked, he panicked and raised both forepaws, shoving at my arm.

Apparently, his transformation hadn’t just been cosmetic. There was real strength in those paws.

Not that it mattered—my arm was protected by the Bark Skin skill.

If it had been before pruning, I might’ve been in trouble.

But after pruning, my physical abilities had leveled up.

Even if Ji Sang-wook had become a monster with demonic power, I could still overpower him with ease.

I pushed my right hand, still gripping his face, downward.

Naturally, his body lowered too.

“Hey, stay still, will you? You’re giving me a headache.”

“Mm—mmph!”

When I squeezed, a painful groan came from Ji Sang-wook’s mouth.

His frantic kicking only got more intense.

But it didn’t last long.

Soon, he just pressed his forepaws onto my arm and endured.

I watched his face scrunch up in pain and used my skill.

“Roots of the World Tree.”

My right hand instantly morphed into tree roots.

Five long roots snaked out and wrapped around his entire body.

I could feel the beastly texture through the right hand coiled around him.

I hadn’t noticed when hunting the Red Manticore.

I never expected I’d still be able to feel things as if it were my own hand, even when it looked like a tree root.

But it was still my hand, after all, moving by my will.

So I just decided to think of what I was holding as a beast’s body, not a man’s.

Which was true, anyway.

“Mmmph! Mmph mmph mmph!”

“What?”

“Mm! Mmph!”

He rolled his eyes frantically.

With his face trapped in my grip, he couldn’t move his head—only his eyes.

He kept mumbling through his sealed lips, but I had no idea what he was saying.

If I had to guess, he was probably asking me to let him go.

I ignored him. I had no intention of making things easier for him.

Instead, I started draining the energy from his body.

“Gasp! My body—?”

“He’s shrinking!”

“Energy Drain?”

“Idiot, if it was that skill, his body wouldn’t be shrinking!”

“You’re right. So what skill is that?”

I could hear surprised voices behind me.

Ji Sang-wook’s body was shrinking as it was bound by my hand.

Energy Drain?

Close enough, I guess.

“Huh?”

A black smoke began to seep from his shrinking body.

Is that—?

[The World Tree Sapling reports it senses demonic energy.]

[It warns the caretaker not to let it escape.]

My guess was right.

The black smoke was demonic energy leaking out from his body.

Clearly, it was trying to escape, not wanting to be absorbed by me.

“Who said you could?”

I scoffed and tightened my grip on my right hand.

Blue mana flowed into the tree roots.

Like turning a vacuum cleaner from low to medium, then from medium to high, the amount I sucked in increased dramatically.

The black smoke that had been floating up into the air seemed to rewind, streaming back into his body.

Then it poured into my right hand.

I could feel the demonic energy.

It felt as if I were grabbing something sticky and clinging.

It wasn’t like touching a slime or a toy liquid monster.

It was more like holding liquefied tar—a revolting sensation.

“Wow, that’s a lot.”

Come to think of it, it was only natural.

The Crowd types would become at least twice as strong when they transformed.

When Ji Sang-wook became a monster, he’d gained power beyond a B-rank hunter.

That power was now in my right hand.

That disgusting, tar-like energy.

“It’ll take some time to purify this.”

“Huff, huff…”

Ji Sang-wook panted, drained of strength.

Though he’d shrunk, he still had the body of a beast.

He looked up at my right hand.

My right hand was still in root form, purifying the demonic energy.

“M-my power…”

“Don’t worry. It’ll come back after you rest.”

I’d drained all his energy, but I hadn’t taken the mana from his heart.

If I had, he’d be shriveled up and dead by now, like that Red Manticore.

Ji Sang-wook gave a small, bitter laugh at my words.

“Wouldn’t have mattered if you’d taken it all. I just asked you to kill me, didn’t I?”

“Hearing that, I do feel a bit better.”

“What?”

“Roots of the World Tree.”

I activated the skill again.

My right hand was still purifying the demonic energy.

This time, my left hand transformed into tree roots.

He saw that and asked in alarm.

“Now what are you—”

“It’s going to hurt more than before.”

“What?”

“Don’t worry, you won’t die. I’ve already done it once.”

“What are you even—ahhhhh!”

I stabbed my left, root-formed hand into Ji Sang-wook’s forehead.

He stopped questioning and started howling in pain.

I wasn’t using the Roots of the World Tree again to suck up his remaining energy.

On the contrary.

I was injecting my own mana, the World Tree’s mana, into him.

Just like I’d done for the Bee Man, I intended to keep flooding him with World Tree mana until the monstrous body shed away and a human body regrew.

In short, I was trying to turn Ji Sang-wook back into a human.

“Ugh! Uuuuugh!”

“What’s he doing now?”

“Ugh! Why torture him at this point?”

“If you’re going to do that, just kill him already!”

But the others didn’t know that.

To them, it must have looked like I was torturing Ji Sang-wook.

Especially since he was howling in agony.

I was grateful I could use the Roots of the World Tree.

If I hadn’t learned this skill, I’d have had to do pruning to transfer mana.

Yeah.

That would’ve meant pulling off a chunk of my own arm and jamming it into some part of Ji Sang-wook’s body.

A blue light burst from Ji Sang-wook’s body.

After a few seconds, the light faded.

“Wait, Ji Sang-wook’s body changed!”

“Ugh, I told you he was shrinking earlier.”

“No, not that, idiot! Look!”

“Look at what… huh?”

From behind, I heard people exclaim in shock.

They must’ve been watching Ji Sang-wook’s body transform.

Now he was gaunt, but fully human.

Not a trace of that Black Manticore-like body remained.

Thankfully, he was lying on his stomach so nothing important was exposed.

“Alright, now…”

I was about to question Ji Sang-wook.

I trailed off because he’d fainted.

Guess the pain of transforming back in his right mind was too much for him.

The Bee Man had endured it without fainting, but…

Though, he did beg me to kill him like a madman.

“Seriously, now that I think about it, this pisses me off.”

I did all the hard work, so why’s he the one fainting like this?

Some people have done this twice and still came out fine.

I suspect I might have to do it again, too.

Because of mana overload.

When the sapling grew into a young tree, it suffered mana overload, which I had to solve through pruning.

If the sapling grows even more in its young tree state and gains more leaves, mana overload is bound to happen again.

And then I’ll have to prune again.

“Hey, wake up.”

I felt a surge of annoyance.

To express that, I stomped on Ji Sang-wook’s head.

He soon came to.

Dazed and groggy, Ji Sang-wook saw me and scrambled up.

Thanks to that, I saw something I really didn’t want to see.

“Ah, crap.”

I almost swore.

I quickly raised my hand to cover that area.

“…Uhh?”

Ji Sang-wook made a strange noise.

He instinctively sat up at the sight of me, but his eyes were still glazed.

He didn’t seem to understand what had happened yet.

Made sense, since he’d just woken up from fainting.

I pointed downward and spoke.

“Hurry up and get a hold of yourself—and cover that up.”

“Cover what—?”

He followed my hand, lowering his head.

After a moment, his head snapped back up.

His eyes were wide as saucers as he looked at me.

“My body—my body…!”

“Yeah. You’re back to normal. Now—”

“Baek Do-woon!”

He suddenly called my name.

Then he pressed his head to the ground.

“Thank you! Thank you so much!”

“No need for gratitude. I just did it because I want something from you too.”

At that, he jerked his head up and looked at me.

His tearful face made it seem like he’d grant any request.

Finally, we could have a proper conversation.

“What is it? Whatever it is, I’ll do it!”

“SiTop TV.”

“Huh? What did you just say?”

“SiTop TV. Where’s that guy now?”

“……”

“I’ve been asking since earlier—why won’t you answer me?”

Ji Sang-wook stared up at me, mouth agape.

Seriously, quit just staring and answer me already.

[Quest Notification!]

[You have fought and defeated a Follower of the Demonkind. (5/10)]

[Current rewards – 2 Leaves of the Previous World Tree, Previous World Tree Sap.]

An alert window popped up, blocking Ji Sang-wook’s dazed face.

The demonic, revolting energy in my right hand had been completely purified.

Apparently, Ji Sang-wook was also considered a Follower of the Demonkind.

Maybe it was worth hunting down more guys like him if I wanted to clear the quest?

Thinking that, I dismissed the quest window.

Immediately, a bluish message appeared.

[The mana you gained from using Roots of the World Tree this time is 221,020.]

[Only 90% left until your first “Fruit.”]

Fruit? 90%?

What’s that supposed to mean?