Chapter 71 – Badugi’s Growth Spurt

Hee-na pulled up a chair and patted it. Hee-won shrugged his shoulders at Hee-na.

“Honestly, I ran to you as soon as I woke up, so I don’t know the situation well either.”

“Isn’t there any explanation in the system description window?”

As she pressed him, Hee-won narrowed his eyes and stared into thin air.

“Hmm… It seems like there isn’t… No, wait, there is something written here.”

“What does it say?”

“It’s not like an insurance policy, so why did they write it in such tiny letters? Did they lack space? It’s killing my eyes.”

Hee-na waited quietly until her brother finished reading the explanation. In the meantime, she slowly drank the glass of water she had poured.

“I finished reading it. It was Badugi’s growth log. It says that because he consumed a large amount of high-quality nutrients, his growth period arrived early.”

“Did you feed Badugi something behind my back?”

“No. I only gave him eggshells occasionally, that’s all…”

Hee-na was astonished as she recalled Badugi’s appetite.

“How many cartons of eggs did you feed him behind my back?”

Hee-won quickly shook his hands.

“No, no. I didn’t touch the groceries. The groceries are your responsibility.”

As the Homemaker, all the groceries in the house were under Hee-na’s jurisdiction. Hee-won followed that rule very well.

“Then how did he grow this big?”

“He ate a bunch of bugs last time. I think it’s because of that.”

Hee-won slumped down on the chair he had pulled out.

“Apparently, he ate so much back then that it took several days to fully digest. And last night, he finished digesting everything he ate and shot up like this.”

That explanation was quite convincing.

“Well, he did eat an incredible amount back then…”

Badugi had devoured an amount of bugs that was dozens, no, hundreds of times his own body size.

‘I wondered where it all went, but it went to his size.’

Perhaps because he was in his growth phase, he seemed to grow as soon as he ate and digested.

“Then what do we do with him? Keep him in the house like this?”

“Are you thinking of putting him outside?”

At her brother’s question, Hee-na pointed at Badugi.

“He grew so tall that his head touches the ceiling. He’s cramped like this, so how can we keep him inside?”

Sssss.

As soon as she spoke, Badugi flexibly bent his stem to lower his height. It was as if he was emphasizing that he was not that big.

“He’s just tall, but he’s still like a baby. What if something happens to him if he stays in the dangerous outside?”

Badugi. Will be lonely.

Following Hee-won, Osaek-i also took Badugi’s side.

Hee-na did not agree with that idea, but her brother’s attitude was too firm, so she decided to back down for now.

“Fine. Instead, Badugi must not run around the house like before. Now that he’s grown so big, if he does that, all the household furniture will be smashed to pieces.”

Then, Badugi raised a leaf as if saluting. It seemed to mean that he understood and would obey the homeowner’s order.

When he was small, his running around in all directions felt childish, but now, somehow, he seemed to have become a bit mature.

“Yes. Good boy. If you behave, I’ll let you keep staying in the house.”

She was reaching out to pet Badugi when it happened.

The system window blinked in front of Hee-na’s eyes with a chiming sound. It was a quest.

“Cooperative… Quest?”

On top of that, it was a quest with a name she was seeing for the first time, called ‘Cooperative Quest’.

“Huh? A quest? Something popped up in front of my eyes too.”

Hee-won, also dumbfounded, read through the window in front of him.

“For the next growth phase, cooperation with another user is required. Find the target and request help… Target name: Lee Hee-na, Grade C Homemaker… This is you, isn’t it?”

As if responding to Hee-won’s voice, the quest details began to appear one by one in front of their eyes.

“What is this?”

Hee-na narrowed eyes and read the ten quest items listed in a long column.

“Walking… Badugi… in the dungeon?”

As always, the system was spouting unbelievable nonsense.

Telling her to walk Badugi, who wasn’t even a dog, and beyond the safe zone of ‘Home Sweet Home’ at that!

It was absolute nonsense.

‘And walking through a dungeon at that? Doing something so dangerous? I absolutely can’t!’

Just as she was about to flatly ignore the quest.

Additional items appeared in the air with a clicking noise.

Unbelievable words hammered into her eyes.

‘Permanent loss of Home Sweet Home skill?’

Flustered, Hee-na’s eyebrows trembled slightly.

“Surely the cooperative quest isn’t about going for a walk with Badugi? In a dungeon, at that?”

Since he had guessed correctly, she nodded blankly.

“Your guess is correct, Oppa.”

“No, isn’t this quest way too dangerous?”

At that, Hee-won crossed his arms and assumed a serious expression.

“This is too much. You could be put in danger.”

He shook his head. No matter how important Badugi’s growth was, it was not as important as Hee-na’s safety.

Just as Hee-na worried terribly about Hee-won, Hee-won also cherished Hee-na deeply. He could never push her into such a dangerous situation.

Of course, Hee-na, who was the one who had to perform the quest, also did not want to walk into such danger herself.

However, she could not simply ignore the quest. Hee-na read the words floating in front of her with a slightly dazed expression.

“But… there’s a problem. This quest has a time limit.”

Hee-won responded firmly.

“Ignore it. Badugi is cute enough as he is.”

“But… they say that if I don’t complete the quest within the period, the ‘Home Sweet Home’ skill will be permanently lost.”

The one who reacted first to the explanation was, as expected, the property manager Osaek-i.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Only one choice!

Active support for the homeowner’s dungeon walk!

Osaek-i was extremely shocked by those words and reacted very strongly.

Waving his two antennae combatively, he actively demanded that Hee-na diligently proceed with the quest.

She understood. Osaek-i was the property manager, and if ‘Home Sweet Home’ disappeared, Osaek-i might disappear along with it.

Guarantee the snail’s survival rights

Seeing him talk about survival rights, it seemed certain that the ‘Home Sweet Home’ skill was directly connected to Osaek-i’s existence.

“But Osaek-i, what if I go out to a dungeon and die? Won’t the skill be lost anyway?”

At Hee-na’s point, Osaek-i’s antennae shook in confusion.

…Correct. Skill is lost even upon the homeowner’s death.

Homeowner = weak → probability of death inside dungeon is extremely high → probability of skill loss is extremely high.

If quest is not completed → skill loss.

Dead end.

@.@

It seemed Osaek-i had only just realized it then.

The fact that Hee-na had a high probability of dying while performing the quest, and if so, the skill would naturally be lost, causing him to disappear too.

However, even if she did not perform the quest due to the danger, the situation was no different. Because the skill would be lost as a penalty for failing to complete the quest.

She was trapped in a corner.

If Osaek-i had human-like eyes, they surely would have been spinning round and round like that emoticon.

“Oh, my aching head.”

Thanks to this shocking quest content, Hee-na’s mind also spun round and round.

“Why on earth is the system doing this? Do you have some kind of grudge against me?”

Hee-na pointed her finger at the empty air.

At times, it would make her wonder by giving unbelievably easy quests, and now it was forcing an impossibly difficult and dangerous quest upon her.

She could not fathom its intentions at all.