Chapter 123 – Did He Already Flee

“Pyak!”

Ppyok! Ppyok! Ppyok!

Every time the black rabbit pounded the dough with the hammer, the stickiness grew stronger, and the dough began to gloss.

“Good job.”

While the black rabbit was preparing the dough, Se-jun began to prepare to pull the Garae-tteok.

“Cuengi, cut this for me.”

“Cueng!”

Rip.

Cuengi tore the outer skin of the Fire Ant Worker, which even the poison honey bee’s stinger could not penetrate easily, as lightly as tearing paper.

And,

“Iona, connect this.”

“Yes!”

He had Iona connect the outer skin Cuengi tore using attachment magic, creating a cone-shaped funnel with a small hole at the end. Now, if he just put the dough inside the funnel and pressed with force, delicious Garae-tteok would be made.

At that moment,

“Pyak!”

The black rabbit called Se-jun, saying the dough seemed to be ready.

“Really? Then shall we try making just one row first?”

Se-jun tore off a portion of the still-hot rice dough and put it into the manual Garae-tteok machine.

“Cuengi, press slowly and gently.”

This time, without making a mistake, he gave the command adjusted to the level of the Cuengi compressor.

“Cueng!”

Squeeze.

As Cuengi gently pressed the dough with weak force at Se-jun’s words,

Stream.

The milky-white Garae-tteok began to slowly come out of the tip of the cone-shaped funnel as the dough was pressed.

“Shall we see how it is?”

As Se-jun cut off the end of the newly pulled Garae-tteok,

[You have completed Slightly Chewy Garae-tteok.]

[The proficiency of Cooking Lv. 4 increases slightly.]

[Due to the effect of Cooking Lv. 4, the taste and effect of Slightly Chewy Garae-tteok increase slightly.]

A message stating that the Garae-tteok was completed appeared.

“Slightly Chewy Garae-tteok?”

Slightly chewy? At the strange name, Se-jun checked the options of the dish first before eating.

[Slightly Chewy Garae-tteok]

Under the leadership of a skilled cook, the dough made with the highest quality rice flour was pressed with strong pressure and pulled long.

The pounding of a clumsy rice cake artisan has very slightly enhanced the chewiness of the Garae-tteok.

Cook: Tower Farmer Park Se-jun, King of the Red Ribbon Kingdom Black Rabbit (Clumsy Rice Cake Artisan)

Expiration Date: 10 days

Grade: C+

The fact that the black rabbit had become the king of the Red Ribbon Kingdom was not very strange, since Bbubbu had become the queen of the Red Ribbon Kingdom.

However,

“Clumsy Rice Cake Artisan?”

“Pyak…”

At Se-jun’s words, the black rabbit made a troubled expression. Actually, when the black rabbit awakened, it had awakened two jobs at the same time.

One was Warrior, and the other was Rice Cake Artisan.

The black rabbit had wanted to be a warrior, and since the environment at the time was not one to make rice cakes, it had naturally paid no attention to the rice cake artisan job at all.

“What? You’ve been catching monsters with such a good rice cake mallet all this time?”

‘No wonder there was a satisfying, sticky feeling when hitting monsters…’

As expected, its feeling was correct. The black rabbit’s hammer was a rice cake mallet. To think it was letting such talent rot!

Although Se-jun did not know it, among the black rabbit’s maternal ancestors, there was Ppuk-ppuk, who had created the artifact: Wealth-Swallowing Rice Dough. In other words, the black rabbit was a descendant of Ppuk-ppuk, born with a rice cake spoon in its mouth.

“Cuengi, follow me!”

Se-jun called Cuengi and hurriedly ran to the kitchen. Black Rabbit, I will nurture your talent!

“Cuengi, prepare the pot!”

“Cueng!”

Cuengi brought a large pot in front of Se-jun.

And,

[Artifact: The Wealth-Swallowing Rice Dough swallows 100 Tower Coins and produces 50 kg of highest-grade rice flour.]

Se-jun began to produce rice flour.

Swoosh.

Fine rice flour poured into the large pot. After pouring the rice flour ten times in that manner, 100 Tower Coins at a time, the large pot was almost full.

“Load it up here.”

“Cueng!”

Cuengi lifted the large pot easily and put it into Se-jun’s sub-space warehouse.

And when they came back outside,

“Hello! We’re back.”

“President Theo, we’re here.”

The two intern cats, who had just arrived, greeted Se-jun and Theo.

“Huh?! Have you not seen the black rabbit?”

“Ah! We just ran into Black Rabbit-nim on our way. He was going down in a hurry.”

“Did he already flee?!”

Anticipating Se-jun’s reaction, the black rabbit seemed to have quickly packed the carrot seeds and run away.

(Se-jun-nim, shall I chase Black Rabbit hyung-nim?)

The golden bat, who would betray even its brother without hesitation for Se-jun’s sake, asked. To catch up with the black rabbit, one needed speed like the golden bat’s.

“It’s fine. Even if he runs, he’ll just be on the 55th floor of the tower.”

‘Black Rabbit, no matter how much you run, you are in your uncle’s palm anyway. Hehehe.’

Se-jun laughed like a villain. The black rabbit did not know that Se-jun could put in and take out items from the treasure warehouse on the 55th floor of the tower.

“I will put this into the treasure warehouse.”

[Releasing 1 large pot containing 500 kg of highest-grade rice flour from the Red Ribbon Kingdom’s treasure warehouse.]

The work arrived before the black rabbit and waited for its owner.

“Let’s taste the Garae-tteok first.”

Se-jun picked up the Garae-tteok he had cut earlier and put it into his mouth.

“Oh!”

It was crazy! The dough was so chewy that no matter how much he chewed, the elasticity did not fade. As expected, the black rabbit’s pounding was needed for delicious rice cakes.

Cuengi stared at Se-jun with desperate eyes, as if asking if it was done.

Nod.

Since Se-jun was still chewing the Garae-tteok, instead of answering, he nodded and this time cut the Garae-tteok to the length of a hand span and put it into Cuengi’s mouth.

However,

“Cueng!”

Even before chewing, Cuengi shook his head.

“Why? Is something wrong?”

Se-jun was taken aback by the reaction of Cuengi, who usually ate even spoiled food, claiming it was delicious.

“Cueng! Cueng!”

At Se-jun’s words, he shook his head again and pointed to his snack pouch, as if saying no, and that the honey was missing.

“Ah! You want it dipped in honey?”

Se-jun took out honey from Cuengi’s snack pouch, dipped the Garae-tteok deep into it, pulled it out, and put it into Cuengi’s mouth.

“Cueng!”

Only then did Cuengi nod his head.

“Let’s pull the Garae-tteok now.”

Since Iona had cast a spell to keep the temperature of the dough from dropping, the state of the dough remained the same.

“Cueng!”

Cuengi put in all the remaining dough and began pulling the Garae-tteok in earnest.

However, when the work was finished, the remaining Garae-tteok was only about 3 meters. The rest disappeared as soon as it came out because it was given to the rabbits and the dragons.

Of course, about 90% of the pulled Garae-tteok went into Cuengi’s stomach as soon as it came out. It felt like he understood why people said Garae-tteok was most delicious when eaten right after being pulled. As expected, food was most delicious when eaten right after it was made.

‘Next time, I should make Baekseolgi. If I put sweet potato in the middle…’

While Se-jun was creating the recipe for the next rice cake he would make,

“How much did we sell this time, meow?!”

Theo asked the interns about the sales at the 38th-floor camp of the tower.

While delivering the Sturdy Blade Green Onions to the Earth Defense Force, the interns were filling the remaining space in their bundles with Magical Cherry Tomatoes and selling them to hunters via auction.

Since there were too many Magical Cherry Tomatoes currently produced on Se-jun’s farm, there would be no place to store them unless they kept selling them like this.

So, they decided to completely entrust the sale of low-priced Magical Cherry Tomatoes to the interns and have Theo’s bundle focus only on selling high-priced crops.

“We sold 5,000 cherry tomatoes and earned 6,000 Tower Coins.”

Since the price per cherry tomato was 1.9 Tower Coins when Theo last held an auction, it had dropped by almost 40%.

It was not like Theo’s infrequent visits; now that the interns were selling Magical Cherry Tomatoes once every two to three days, the rarity of the cherry tomatoes fell, and the price declined.

Still, thanks to the effect of boosting vitality when eaten daily and its image as a diet product since it was the first of Se-jun’s crops introduced to Earth, the number of buyers steadily increased, making the price drop slower than expected.

And,

“Here it is.”

The interns brought the Churu and seasonings they had obtained from humans.

“Good job, meow!”

Theo gave 1% of the money the interns brought as an incentive. It was Se-jun’s farm policy.

“President Theo! Thank you!”

“Thank you!”

The interns who received the incentives were greatly pleased. They used these incentives to upgrade their bundles and receive even more incentives. Lately, this was the interns’ happiness.

The cat interns had completely forgotten the idea of paying back their debt to shorten their contract period.

“But was there no word that they found the wooden board I sent to Tae-jun-nim?”

“Yes. They say there wasn’t.”

“Really?”

Se-jun was disappointed by the answer. He thought that at least one person would contact him for 10 million won, but… because the world was so scary lately, people’s suspicion had become too severe.

“Indeed, even I wouldn’t contact them.”

If he himself picked up a business card on the street that said, ‘If you contact this number, I will give you 10 million won,’ he would probably not believe it at first.

“I must change the method.”

Se-jun decided to think about it a bit more, went to the field, and started farming. Since he was full after eating Garae-tteok, he wanted to move his body.

***

“Heave-ho!”

Se-jun got up lightly by himself for the first time in a while,

Scritch.

Drawing a line on the wall, he started the morning of his 282nd day of distress.

“It is a bit empty without the kids.”

Theo and Iona went down the tower again yesterday. Theo went to sell crops and receive reports on the Earth Defense Force’s performance, and Iona went because she suddenly received a contact from the Mage Association.

Thanks to that, Se-jun came out of the house, feeling relieved and empty at the same time.

“Cueng!”

“Bat-bat!”

When Se-jun came outside, Cuengi and the golden bat welcomed him. Fortunately, having the two of them made the emptiness feel less severe.

“Cueng!”

Pat, pat.

Upon seeing Se-jun, Cuengi patted his stomach first. I’m hungry-da-yo!

“Alright. Let’s eat.”

Se-jun took Cuengi and the golden bat to the kitchen and reheated the grilled fish left over from making grilled fish for Theo yesterday.

“Cueng!”

Although it was what he usually ate, Cuengi ate it deliciously as if it were a new dish.

And,

Suck, suck.

The golden bat, who liked fruit, sucked the cherry tomato juice.

After finishing breakfast like that, they went to the field.

“Ppi-ik!”

“Kke-ek!”

They saw the rabbits and mushroom ants farming together in harmony. The rabbits rode on the backs of the mushroom ants, harvesting cherry tomatoes by sharing the work: the mushroom ants taking charge of the bottom, and the rabbits taking charge of the top.

As the number of mushroom ants increased, the farm was run well without any problems even without Se-jun.

At that moment,

“Kuu-ung!”

The roar of the mother Crimson Giant Bear, Pink Fur, was heard.

“Did they invade again?”

Lately, fire ants flocked in groups of 100,000 like this once in a while. It seemed like it was to reclaim their slaves.

“Guys, let’s go!”

“Cueng!”

“Bat-bat!”

When Se-jun and the animals ran to where Pink Fur was,

“Kuu-uh-ung!”

Thud!

Pink Fur struck the ground lightly, knocking out the ants that were larger than the Fire Ant Workers with a shockwave. It was to make it easier for Se-jun to hunt.

The fire ants, which were 1.5 times larger than the Fire Ant Workers, were Fire Ant Warriors with sharp mandibles and thick legs.

“Thank you. Create Dark Clouds.”

Se-jun expressed his gratitude to Pink Fur and created dark clouds, setting up to eat the prepared feast.

And just as he was about to make it rain,

Splash!

Water was sprayed toward the Fire Ant Warriors.

-Hmph! Save your mana! That way, you can catch even one more.

The Black Dragon statue spat water from its mouth.

“Kaiser-nim, thank you.”

-Ahem. Then later, sweet potato Baekseolgi…

He had an ulterior motive.

“Thunder Throw!”

“Thunder Throw!”

“Thunder Throw!”

Thanks to that, Se-jun, who saved mana by skipping the rainmaking process, dropped blue lightning bundles on the Fire Ant Warriors three times in a row.

Boom!

[You have defeated a Fire Ant Warrior.]

[You have gained 1,500 experience points.]

…

..

.

[You have leveled up.]

Se-jun defeated 5,000 out of the 100,000 ants and leveled up.

“Kuu-ung!”

Thud!

The rest were handled by Pink Fur and,

“Cueng!”

Thud!

Cuengi.

-Tsk, tsk, tsk. What will we use that for…

Kaiser clicked his tongue without realizing it.