Chapter 41

"Help."

"Whoa, you scared me."

"Please help me."

"Could you stop coming to me every time you receive a gift you don't know what to do with, Curator Yu Seongun?"

"This one was given to me, so I cannot even share it with anyone else."

Bi Sabeol answered cheerfully at Yu Seongun's sudden arrival.

"Then shouldn't you simply ask whether you may share it?"

"So that is the only way after all."

"Have you tried this gift?"

"I ate about three at home before coming here."

Yu Seongun nodded.

"They were delicious."

"Ah, when you put it like that, I'm suddenly tempted too."

"Please wait until I ask Jio and return."

"If you won't even let me eat it, why on earth did you bring it to me?"

"Because it was obvious I would be in a difficult position if anyone else saw it."

"Ah, for vault storage..."

Bi Sabeol gave a bitter smile.

"As I thought, our employees have too cynical a side."

"Don't people say you were the one who gathered them all?"

"Even so, who normally uses their Guild Master as a vault? None of you treasure me enough."

"Who created this atmosphere? And now you are whining about it?"

"So, what is the effect?"

"You are changing the subject."

After thinking for a moment, Yu Seongun rubbed the back of his neck.

"It is said to be excellent for recovering from injuries and restoring the immune system, but I have not sustained such an injury yet, so I have not seen that effect. However..."

"However?"

"I do feel as if my eyes have grown a little clearer."

"Your eyes grew clearer?"

Even after the world had become like this, medical technology related to eyesight had been slow to develop. Worn-out optic nerves were, by nature, less and less likely to recover as time passed. In that sense, the effect Yu Seongun described sounded quite interesting.

"Is that a definite effect?"

"That is how it feels to me. If someone else eats it as well, we will have a comparison group, so we should be able to analyze the effects in more detail."

"Then you will need to get Jio's permission first. You should have asked when you received the gift. With Jio's personality, I doubt he would flatly refuse."

"Not only should you not make such assumptions about a Root entity, but I had also just pulled an all-nighter at the time, so I was out of it as well. I saw fish-shaped bread and went to pass some along to him. How was I supposed to know I would receive a gift like this?"

"If you are that tired, how about eating the cookies you received last time?"

"I finished them long ago."

Yu Seongun had become a slave to caffeine again.

"The fruit syrup you received before... It certainly looked nothing like that, but in any case, what did the other employees think of the fruit syrup?"

"The response was very good. They also looked confused. First of all, the greatest advantage of the water-vein honey, the part that says it 'restores a human's physical abilities to their limit'..."

"No matter how much you say they did not see the description, they must have felt something with their bodies, so it would be suspicious."

Bi Sabeol asked with a smile.

"Would you like to have a cup of fruit tea before you go?"

"... Please."

Yu Seongun, who was on the verge of death by overwork, needed recovery.

After drinking fruit tea with a rich, soup-like savoriness, Yu Seongun let out a small sigh. It really was delicious, but consuming something this tremendous merely to recover from fatigue made him feel needlessly skeptical.

"It would be a great help if we took it into a dungeon. I think it would have a meaningful effect on the change in mortality rate too."

"That is true."

"But if we actually took it in, that would cause another huge uproar."

"That is also true."

"... It is a problem when a Root entity is too benevolent."

It was a new realization.

"So the employees did not get suspicious? They must have felt something was strange."

"They were all curious about the source of the fruit syrup, but they did not ask me again. I did say it was something I purchased at auction, but the general reaction was that that alone did not explain it."

"So what did you tell them?"

"What do you mean, what did I tell them? No one asked, so I did not say anything either. Our employees truly hate getting involved in complicated matters."

"There is no office worker who enjoys extra work."

"Honestly, everyone is so cold."

Bi Sabeol said as he drank his own portion of fruit tea.

"Still, it seemed there were not many who guessed it was a 'fragment of a work.'"

A "fragment of a work" was a kind of idiom used within Collector, referring to an object, blessing, or curse given to a Curator by a work trapped in Bi Sabeol's gallery.

"After all, almost no one would think there was a work that gave food as a gift..."

"So that is how it is after all."

Among the works gathered inside Bi Sabeol's gallery, quite a few had a sense of self. Depending on how refined that self was, a high-level Curator would be put in charge, and the Curator managed the work while paying attention to the bond between them.

So once in a very, very rare while, in an extremely unusual case, a Curator like this would receive a "fragment."

"Usually, they give objects."

"Food is an object too, if you think of it as one."

"I mean things more like jewelry, paintings, or weapons."

"That is true, most of the time."

There was no way there would be another work that had developed a taste for cooking like Jio.

"Is cooking Jio's only hobby?"

"No, as I told you before, he also enjoys drawing."

"And those drawings become passages or living creatures."

"Correct."

"Then what would happen if he drew a landscape?"

"..."

Yu Seongun's face crumpled like crushed foil.

"I am resting right now, so please do not make me anxious."

"It was not that grand of a topic."

"It was something whose possibility I had roughly guessed, but I do not want to think about it right now."

"Poor thing..."

"Even if my superior calls me poor, what is that if not sarcasm?"

At the sight of his subordinate worn down by fatigue, Bi Sabeol smiled and nodded.

"I am simply curious. Jio can create anything through drawings, so I only became interested in what would happen if it were a landscape."

"Perhaps he could create another world."

"Like a dungeon?"

"..."

"Wonderful."

Bi Sabeol stroked his chin and spoke.

"According to quite a few night guards who witnessed it, Jio is said to travel through a certain landscape painting."

"That is a little different from what I heard. Not a portrait, but a landscape?"

"It seems that when Jio is inside, it is a portrait, and when he is outside, it is a landscape. It looks quite convenient, does it not?"

"That is seriously a headache..."

"They say the work hanging in the hallway disappears around sunrise, so it seems certain that it can be used for travel as well."

"But was that not something we had already guessed?"

"So what I am curious about is this: if he can move through paintings to places that already exist..."

If so.

"Could Jio also move to other dungeons?"

"..."

"I am curious."

"That is..."

Yu Seongun frowned.

"I think that is a somewhat dangerous thought."

"Did it sound that way?"

"I do not know exactly what part of Jio you saw, Guild Master, but from my position, with my poor eyesight, yes."

"Jio has already toured outside under Curator Yu Seongun's guidance."

"I did agree to that as well, but what you are saying now means we should try expanding Jio's range of activity."

It felt unsettling.

"The reason I show Jio more goodwill than I would to a work... Of course, I have no excuse either. But this is the nature of Gardeners. It is something engraved into the soul."

That was what Gardeners were like.

They did not feel threats as threats, and they could not think of cruelty as cruel. To those who tended gardens, Root entities were objects to be cared for.

"I said this when I accepted your offer and signed my employment contract, Guild Master, and I truly have said it over and over, but Gardeners are not on humanity's side."

Because they were born human and had cultivated gardens, they wished for both to coexist. It was inevitable that Yu Seongun would be captivated by Jio, who seemed to be an existence very close to the Root.

Because one could not survive as a Gardener without being obsessed with the Root. It was an ancient preference that could not change and must not change.

"But you are a complete human, Guild Master. If I am not being thorough as a Curator, you need to point that out and correct me."

"..."

"Guild Master, you allow your own work far too... much. It would not be strange for me to be worried about that."

Bi Sabeol smiled.

"Was that not the same principle that allowed Mr. Yu Seongun to use me as a vault?"

"... I know I am in no position to say anything, since I have received large and small favors several times thanks to your favoritism, Guild Master."

All members of Collector were Bi Sabeol's collections.

Both his almost pathetic show of weakness and his excessive goodwill originated from Bi Sabeol's irrational desire to collect. Bi Sabeol loved all of his collections.

"Even so, I think using the world as an experimental table for your own work will bring a great backlash later."

"A backlash."

"Every time an out-of-standard work like Jio appeared, Guild Master, you behaved this way."

"How did I behave?"

"You acted as if it did not matter at all how the world broke, or how many people died, as long as you could understand and appreciate your own work."

"You saw that well."

Bi Sabeol nodded.

"That is why I hired Curators to manage things on their own in my place while I was busy appreciating them."

"..."

It was a disgustingly irresponsible thing to say, but it was also not wrong, so Yu Seongun let out a sigh.

"If even I, a Gardener, am taking humanity's side like this, then it means this is truly serious."

"I thought I was restraining myself in my own way, but if Mr. Yu Seongun says that much, it seems I was excessive."

Bi Sabeol's eyes curved distinctly.

"But are you not curious?"

Those were the eyes of someone who had no intention of hiding his own greed in the slightest.

"I am curious what kind of existence my work is. I am very curious how diligent a young man Jio is, whether he can kill people, and if he kills them, how many he will kill and how."

"..."

"Jio is a painter. He is also a portrait. He has a personality that avoids friction. He knows himself as a twenty-nine-year-old young man. How will he blend in among people? How will he react if he has an unpleasant experience? I am curious how he will change if he realizes he is a work."

"..."

"To speak honestly, I do not care what happens to the world because of Jio. It angers me if my work is damaged because of stupid people, but I am not afraid of works fighting one another, getting hurt, and burning away."

That was Bi Sabeol's honest greed.

"Have you ever heard that the higher one's rank becomes, the further one departs from humanity?"

"... It is a famous story. Tales about how inhuman Hunters classified as S-class are popular, after all."

"It is very embarrassing to claim with physical abilities as unimpressive as these, but I would like you to understand that I am also S-class."

He was close to inhuman.

"I wish this world were beautiful and serene enough for me to cherish. Do you not agree?"

"..."

Yu Seongun's face twisted with fatigue after hearing such an absurd remark straight to his face.

"... Ordinary people do not factor in the possibility of mass slaughter just because the world is not beautiful or serene, Guild Master..."

"That is all because their view of the world is narrow. To put it more plainly, even if the world ended because of my work, that would only be something that was going to happen anyway."

"The Association President should have heard those words. Is Bi Sabeol's gallery not the only place trusted with dangerous-grade objects by the Association, which has strict regulations on them?"

"I am sure you said that knowing this, but that person does not particularly trust me either. It is just that the Association President lacks the time and resources to manage everything personally, and I happened to be the only lesser evil willing to take charge of the dangerous works that increase with each passing day."

Bi Sabeol had obtained the autonomy of his gallery for one reason.

Because he half-shared the work of the government and the Association.

"So the Association President does not trust me at all. That person simply needed a space and manpower that would steadily provide the minimum level of management."

"... For all that distrust, the Association has somehow not seized the works from you. Thinking back as a former researcher there, it was certain the Association coveted your gallery, Guild Master..."

"That is why life is all about timing. If I had opened this gallery just ten years later, do you think the Association would have let me off this much?"

Bi Sabeol's face brightened as though he had heard an amusing comedy routine.

"In the current world, Bi Sabeol's gallery is very famous. Compared to the Association, where only quiet research, analysis, and control are carried out, it has far more performance, it is more stimulating, and it is easily revealed to the public."

"..."

"On top of that, what I manage is a gallery. Customers may come, and those customers may buy works. The Association cannot suppress this historic gallery, which has customers who support me."

Bi Sabeol's face filled with dramatic sorrow.

"Ah, truly... When I think of the works that must be locked inside the Association, tears blur my vision. I wonder how harshly they are being treated just to cling to life."

"... That..."

"In addition, when I think of the humiliation and pain my precious, delicate works would suffer at an Association research lab, I can never hand them over. A work contains a soul."

"Ah, yes..."

From Yu Seongun's position as a former research team leader at the Association, it was enough to drive him insane, but since he was currently working under Bi Sabeol and receiving conveniences from him, he decided to let it pass for now.

"So you have no intention of restraining yourself?"

"I am restraining myself sufficiently, so I have no idea what more I am supposed to restrain."

"This really is the demon king's castle."

There was no telling what kind of catastrophe would occur if something erupted even once.

"If an accident happens even once, it will truly explode properly. You know that, do you not?"

"That is why I include hazard pay for the Curators, is it not?"

"That was not what I was asking whether you knew. Korea could be erased from the map."

"That would be truly frightening. I trust our Curators will handle things well before that happens."

"What an irresponsible director. I would like you to be aware that this is your gallery."

Bi Sabeol's gallery was more stimulating and open than the Association's research lab, but it was also that much less safe.

'To begin with, if those dangerous and sensitive works need to be managed safely... slightly stronger control would be necessary.'

This place had only the bare minimum of control and a large quantity of works. It was the exact opposite of the Association's research labs.

Bi Sabeol loved his works, and he managed them with love. One of the basic requirements demanded of the Curators here was to "build a strong bond with the work."

"..."

As expected, the current Earth was being maintained in far too precarious a state.

'Even if it is an unavoidable situation because this is the point when every system collapsed once and is being rebuilt...'

Everything was running solely on the mercy of a small number of strong individuals on Earth.

'If even one person goes astray, there will truly be chaos, but fortunately, no such disaster has happened yet.'

He thought it was amazing they had managed to hold out.

"... We will try to work harder. On matters related to Jio as well."

"In that sense, do you have any intention of helping Jio make a new friend? He must be lonely alone."

"Do you no longer even feel like dressing this up as a noble cause? It is clear everything I just said went in one ear and out the other."

At this point, Yu Seongun wondered if Jio being bid on by Bi Sabeol instead of the Association President was fate too.

"..."

Well, to be fair.

As someone who had become a Gardener, Yu Seongun himself was quite the ridiculous man for welcoming this work-friendly opinion of Bi Sabeol's.

He nodded.

"I will ask him once."

He had been planning to go speak with Jio at dawn anyway.

Adding one question to that would probably be fine.

* * *

At that time, Jio.

"I tried making a few."

"Mm?"

A few?

"Yes, it is a bit much."

"Mm?"

A bit?

"Yes, Dad got carried away. I was so excited that I could not handle myself."

"Gurgle."

"I will reflect on my actions."

He had handed over about five kilograms of sausage to Yu Seongun, but even after that, five kilograms of sausage still remained.

"Since I dried them once in the sun, they will not rot if I store them in the ice shed, but..."

"Grr?"

"As I said earlier, I was too excited, and I have been neglecting the water birds' nests lately, so I wanted to give them a present. As in, let us not eat it all ourselves and share it with everyone."

"Gururururururuk."

"I knew you would like that too."

The heaping pile of grilled sausages was so plentiful that it looked like a small hill.

Even so, it was smaller than all the water birds that lived in this forest, but what use were things like differences in perspective? It did not change the fact that the amount was excessively large.

But Jio was steadfast.

"Try this one first. I thought you would dislike spicy things, so I made this one mild."

He was excited. It would have been enjoyable even if he had made sausages by hand with ordinary ingredients, but this was food made with fantasy ingredients, was it not?

"This is sausage made with Arum, Ravn walnut, and vinegar. I ground in a little Milky Way Mary too. Honestly, it is too mild for my taste, but... I thought you would like it."

"Gurgle."

"That absolutely did not mean I would not eat it."

For the first time in a while, Jio set up a table outside the cabin and finished preparing a meal.

On the table were rice freshly cooked in an iron cauldron, Baibamnil with its poison removed and seasoned like greens, and warm handmade sausages roasted in the oven as if fried, filled with plenty of juices.

"I will grill some later and take them to the water birds' nests. I set the table so we could taste them first, so let us eat slowly and stop by the nests later. Do you agree, my son?"

"Gurrr."

"As expected, you truly are my son."

Seo Jio put a long, uncut sausage into his mouth and nodded inwardly.

'... For someone like me who likes strong flavors, it might feel a little bland. Honestly, it is a bit plain, but it is seasoned properly, so it is good to eat with rice.'

Perhaps because the sausage, briefly dried in the sun, had been grilled once, the outside was very crisp.

At the same time, the casing made from intestines he had cleaned himself was somehow savory and chewy, yet soft enough not to resist his teeth. It was a texture where crispness, chewiness, and softness coexisted.

"Hm..."

SNAP!

"Ah, hot."

The filling inside overflowed with meat juices.

The fragrance of wood seeped gently into the roof of his mouth. The sausage, freshly baked in the oven where a wood fire had been blazing, was warm enough to be a little hot, and the sweet yet somehow sticky meat juices firmly trapped inside the casing soaked his mouth.

Warm.

"..."

Delicious.

'... It did turn out mild, but the aroma is good after all.'

He had reduced the amount of salt as much as possible to bring out the flavor of the meat itself and added various complex aromas to encourage its compatibility with the original meat as much as he could. The result was the sausage before him.

The combination of Ravn walnut, which matched the faint nutty aroma unique to deer meat, unified the sausage's flavor.

In addition, the sharp aroma of Arum hidden deep below, and the vinegar made from the candy-trap tree fruit above it, gently yet clearly asserted themselves.

'Now that I am eating it, it is better than I expected. I thought it would be very bland.'

It also went well with the faint bitterness from the vinegar itself and the deep smoked aroma of the firewood used to grill the sausage.

The sausage itself was good, and the cooking method was excellent.

"I think adding the vinegar was especially good."

"Mrr?"

"Is it because it is naturally fermented fruit vinegar? It has a subtle sweetness, and the acidity and bitterness cut through the greasiness without being sharp... They go really well together."

Next was the sausage made exclusively for Jio himself.

SNAP!

"..."

The moment he ate the red sausage, stimulation struck his taste buds.

'My mouth is burning.'

There was a heat that somehow wrapped stickily around his tongue.

'The aftertaste is not that long. It is a very smooth and clean spiciness.'

The sausage made for him contained every ingredient he had found this time.

Milky Way Mary, with its clean aroma that seemed to combine chili and pepper, and Weeping Hem, which gave off a strong spiciness while also producing a subtle, heavy sweet scent.

Arum, with its ginger scent that gathered all the miscellaneous aromas mixed here and there into one, and Ravn walnut, which lightly covered it with a steady, soft, deep aroma.

And finally, candy-trap tree vinegar, which added sharp sourness in places to give variation to the flavor...

"..."

Had he overdone it a little?

"Still, the taste is fine."

"Mm."

"It would be all right for you to try a taste instead of avoiding it."

"Mm, mm, mm..."

"If you hate it, then there is nothing I can do."

Regardless of Honey's opinion as he avoided the sausage with a spicy aroma, it suited Jio's mouth very well. It felt as if the emptiness in his stomach from all this time had been completely relieved.

It was the feeling of downing a whole ginseng chicken soup in one go, or stepping into a boiling hot bath, or going straight to a Korean sauna with a sweet rice punch in hand and sweating buckets while sipping slushy sweet rice punch through a straw. That fullness that filled exactly what had been lacking.

"Nice."

Happiness was not far away.

'I was worried because these were ingredients I was using for the first time, but it turned out better than I expected.'

It was a sausage he had made with spiciness as the concept, but overall, the subtle sweetness and the fat wrapped around all the meat made the heat very clean.

With spicy food, if it was cleanly spicy, it had to be considered more than ninety percent successful.

"It was worth developing my sense for cooking. This is when Grandma's touch comes in handy."

"Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm..."

"Dad did not make it wrong. Our tastes are just a little different."

At this level, it was a very delicious spiciness.

Seo Jio, a man who knew good food, enjoyed chicken feet too. Usually, when spicy chicken feet were so hot they were hard to eat, he dipped them in oil sauce or drank a sweet drink with them.

Then he could eat with a much calmer mind, like an intellectual. The sausage he had made this time was in the same vein.

'The taste and aroma themselves are generally spicy and sharp, but Weeping Hem had an underlying subtle sweetness to begin with. On top of that, Ravn walnut has the soft sweetness unique to nuts. And that goes without saying for the vinegar naturally made by the candy-trap tree, which is said to bear very sweet fruit...'

When the spice flavor seemed too strong, a soft aroma pressed it down. When it seemed too spicy, the deer fat he had added a little generously washed the pain from his tongue like silk.

When that fat made it seem too greasy, the vinegar sharply asserted its presence and settled his queasy stomach.

Overall, the balance was good.

'The role of Arum, which binds these flavors and aromas tangled together so complexly that they could feel excessive into one sticky whole, is also huge. It is far more effective than I expected.'

Even while chewing the food in his mouth, Jio planned a new dish.

"When I make something by throwing in all sorts of things, adding Arum should drastically improve the quality of the dish."

"Mm...?"

"I will make it less spicy than this next time. You seem to have some aversion to spicy aromas."

Arum bound all the spices, which were leaping in every direction and flaunting their individuality, into one place. Its stickiness was so effective that even while experiencing such a complex flavor, he did not feel it was burdensome at all.

'Besides, I paid attention to the texture of this sausage too.'

Jio nodded.

"It has a decent chew to it too, does it not?"

"Gurrr."

"Right, it is good, is it not? Changing the size of the meat grains definitely made the chew much more varied. I should think about what to do with the texture next time I make it too."

"Mrr, mrr..."

"I always think this, but I like that mold does not grow in this forest."

If that had not been the case, he could not even have dreamed of this work.

'I also used actual intestines with high moisture for the casing... It would have been lucky if they had not rotted during the work.'

If the grains of meat were different, air would form inside the casing, and mold would be more likely to grow through those gaps. At least, all the sausages Jio had made until now had gone through that process.

'Weak-willed bastards.'

If you are true pork, should you not withstand a little mold through sheer fighting spirit?

"Hmm."

In any case, thanks to that, even the texture of this sausage was excellent.

The meat he had already mashed until soft like porridge touched one corner of his mouth even before he chewed and delighted his tongue, while the lumpy pieces of meat gave off a pleasant springiness and bounced under his teeth.

'The juices are flowing too... And the intestine casing has a texture better than I imagined.'

Perhaps because the intestines were so plump, it felt like chewing thin beef small intestines.

The intestines he had cleaned in advance had no unpleasant smell at all, and had both the chewiness and savoriness unique to offal.

On top of that, because they had been roasted in the oven, the outer skin was crisp like a cracker, while the inside of the casing was still sticky. He could also feel the faint bitterness unique to nuts.

"..."

Jio murmured.

"I think this is good."

He wanted to live like this forever.

Peacefully.