Player Farming in the Dragon’s Lair - Chapter 59

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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59
“Soil Leveling!”
Crunch!
A thin channel of water connected the lakeside to the edge of the paddy field.
If he dug too wide, the water would come pouring down all at once, so at first he worked carefully, keeping it narrow and shallow.
A moment later.
Splash.
The water from the lake began to flow slowly through the channel and into the paddy. The transparent water soaked the bottom, pooling in the lower areas.
What had only been muddy earth at first now took on the appearance of a proper rice paddy as the water settled in.
Splash-splash.
Lee Woo-jin tamped down the channel entrance with soil to regulate the flow and prevent too much water from rushing in.
Then he waded into the paddy himself and stomped the bottom once more with his feet. As water and soil mixed, the ground became softer and more compact.
“Good. This should do it, don’t you think?”
Water pooled shallowly, not quite reaching his ankles.
It looked adequate for a small experimental plot.
Lee Woo-jin stepped back and surveyed the paddy he’d made with his own hands.
A modest little plot nestled by the lakeside.
“Heh. What do you think?”
(……) Thumbs up!
Lee Woo-jin chuckled. Now there was only one thing left.
Waiting for the seeds to sprout and the seedlings to grow.
“Once the seedbed is ready, the next step is transplanting.”
.
.
.
In the afternoon, he decided to have roasted sweet potatoes as a snack.
Crackle, pop!
The firewood was burning steadily.
Sweet potatoes nestled among the tangled kindling were being roasted.
Crackle, pop!
– Chirp! (So exciting!)
The Dungeon Rat stood on Lee Woo-jin’s lap, mesmerized by the flames and grinning from ear to ear. He’d summoned it to show it the taste of roasted sweet potatoes for the first time.
“Done.”
[You have prepared a Roasted Sweet Potato through Cooking.]
[Your Cooking Lv. 5 proficiency has increased slightly.]
[Roasted Sweet Potato]
– Grade: C
– Effects
– Taste Bonus +30%
– Upon consumption, permanently increases Strength +0.01
– Description: A sweet potato roasted with the Tower’s power. Still warm.
He used a thick branch to pull the roasted sweet potatoes from the flames.
The potato skins were charred black from the direct heat.
After letting them cool slightly, he picked one up with his bare hands.
It was hot, naturally, but not hot enough to cause a burn.
[Your Fire Resistance Lv. 2 proficiency has increased.]
[You have acquired Fire Resistance Lv. 3.]
He split the roasted sweet potato in half with his hands.
White steam rose in wisps, and the distinctive honeyed aroma of roasted sweet potato drifted past his nose.
“I’ll have the first bite.”
Bite.
The flesh inside was slightly moist.
Still hot, he blew on it and let it cool in his mouth.
After blowing several times, it cooled enough to swallow.
Gulp.
“Mmm. Delicious!”
“Me, me too! I want some too, meow!”
“Heh. Just wait. I’ll serve the gods first.”
[The God of Adventure comes rushing over with a whoosh to receive an offering.]
Lee Woo-jin placed five roasted sweet potatoes on a plate and handed them to the God of Adventure. Roasted sweet potatoes were a favorite snack of the gods.
Next came Kkamangi’s share.
And the Doppelgänger’s.
“And here’s one for you, Dungeon Rat.”
Lee Woo-jin divided the Dungeon Rat’s portion into smaller pieces on a wooden plate, then blew on them to cool them down.
– Squeak! (Yum, yum, yum!)
The Dungeon Rat seized a fat chunk and began eating with eager little gulps, its cheeks puffing up like balloons, eyes crinkling with joy and mouth stretched wide in a grin.
[You have consumed a Roasted Sweet Potato. Strength permanently increased by 0.01.]
[You have consumed a Roasted Sweet Potato. Permanently…….]
They sat huddled together, savoring the sweetness of their rest.
[A Trap-type Crossbow has been installed in the Dungeon.]
[A Trap-type Rolling Stone has been installed in the Dungeon.]
[A Dungeon…….]
“Huh?”
Notifications suddenly flashed before his eyes.
Recently, Lee Woo-jin had obtained a Land Document from a Dungeon that an elite-rank Witch named Eldora had abandoned, transferring its Ownership to himself. Since then, system messages concerning the Dungeon had begun appearing.
After a previous message about someone breaching the Dungeon, nothing else had happened, so he’d let it slip from his mind—until now, these notifications arrived for the first time.
Traps had been installed.
Lee Woo-jin relayed this news to the Dungeon Rat.
The rat, cheeks still bulging with sweet potato, swallowed hastily in one gulp, then chirped a reply.
– Squeak! (The Witch has come back!)
– Squeak. (She must’ve ordered the Dungeon Rats to set the traps.)
Dungeon Rats were, after all, Familiars of Witches.
The Witches seemed to employ the rats as their trap specialists within Dungeons.
“But why? It’s an abandoned Dungeon—why would she bother coming back to set traps?”
– Squeak. (It’s probably because of the Land Document.)
– Squeak. (The Witch I served, Eldora, is elite-rank. Elite-ranks especially have fierce pride.)
– Squeak. (Even if it’s an abandoned Dungeon, she’s furious you took the Land Document from it. Most other Witches would just let it go and say nothing.)
And there was the most crucial fact.
– Squeak. (If another Witch installs traps—or monsters—in a Dungeon with none, after ten days pass, the Ownership transfers to the Witch who set the traps.)
“What? There’s such a rule?”
Lee Woo-jin let out a low hum, considering.
Should he just leave it alone?
He didn’t really need a Dungeon anyway.
And he had no intention of picking a fight with Eldora directly.
Or so he thought, when—
“Rat, can you pinpoint the exact locations of the traps in the Dungeon?”
– Squeak. (Easy.)
– Squeak. (With these goggles, mapping the Dungeon is simple.)
The Dungeon Rat gestured toward the small-sized Mini Goggles it wore.
– Squeak? (But why are you asking that?)
A gleam flashed across Lee Woo-jin’s eyes.
“Let’s take those traps for ourselves.”
* * *
“Hurry, move faster, damn it!”
– Squeak, squeak. (M, master. This is killing us.)
– Squeak? (Could you possibly let us rest for just a moment?)
“What? Do you have a death wish?”
– Squeak! (Eeeek!)
– Squeak! (W, we’ll move, we’ll move!)
Eldora, an elite-rank Witch.
Her eyes burned with seething fury.
No matter that it was an abandoned place—how dare some mere Adventurer seize a Dungeon that belonged to her?
A message had appeared to Eldora not long ago.
[The Ownership of the Abandoned Dungeon has been transferred as follows.]
– Previous Owner: Eldora
– New Owner: Lee Woo-jin
It was obvious, but there was no Witch by the name of Lee Woo-jin.
This could only be an Adventurer.
Had it been another Witch, she might have laughed and dismissed it with,
‘Well, if you need to recycle an abandoned Dungeon, so be it. Hehehehe!’ and moved on. But an Adventurer? That was a different matter entirely.
If word reached the ears of other Witches that an Adventurer had stripped her of the dungeon’s ownership, Eldora would be so mortified she might fall ill from shame.
‘That can never happen. Not ever.’
First, she had to kill this Adventurer called Lee Woo-jin.
Kill him and retrieve the Land Document.
Problem solved.
Simple.
But that simple problem didn’t resolve itself immediately.
Lee Woo-jin never showed his face in the dungeon.
Left with no choice, Eldora found another way.
It was to install traps.
The trap-installation notification would go to Lee Woo-jin.
Two possibilities then presented themselves.
First: Lee Woo-jin would return to the dungeon to verify the situation.
Second: Lee Woo-jin would never set foot in the dungeon again.
The second was far more likely than the first.
Once she laid traps in an empty dungeon, the Adventurer would have no way of knowing that after ten days, the trap-setter would claim ownership.
From an Adventurer’s perspective, there was no reason to visit a dungeon offering no reward,
especially one crawling with traps.
Which meant what, exactly?
The Adventurer Lee Woo-jin would never return to this dungeon.
‘It’s irritating, but there’s nothing for it.’
After ten days passed, she’d claim ownership back.
And she’d keep the traps in place permanently.
That would settle the matter.
“You there! Can’t you lay those traps properly?”
– Chirp, chirp-squeak. (Y-yes, understood.)
Gurgle.
The filthy Dungeon Rats.
Their hungry bellies were growling.
Eldora sighed heavily and produced a hard, moldy crust of bread—the kind that looked like it had been lying around for months.
She crumbled it down to crumb-sized pieces with her fingernail and scattered it across the floor.
“Eat this and finish up quickly. I’ll be back in an hour to check.”
With that, she departed.
The Dungeon Rats shuffled forward and began gathering the bread crumbs from the ground.
Thump.
– Chirp. (This is really too harsh…….)
– Chirp! (She piles the work on thick and gives us scraps like this!)
But the Dungeon Rats couldn’t voice their complaints directly.
They knew what happened to Dungeon Rats who did.
This dungeon itself was proof.
– Chirp. (We have to endure it.)
– Chirp? (Right. We should be grateful she feeds us anything at all.)
An hour passed.
By then, thirty traps had been installed throughout the dungeon.
Exactly one hour later, Eldora returned to inspect the traps, and she clucked her tongue in disapproval.
“Dismissed.”
Bang!
The Dungeon Rats were unsummoned.
All this trouble over one trivial Adventurer—what a nuisance it was.
Eldora had no doubt that in ten days the dungeon’s ownership would revert to her, and she glided away on her broomstick without a care.
* * *
That dawn.
Three in the morning, the blue moon hanging high in the sky, the witching hour.
Woo-jin’s eyes opened softly.
Kkamangi was asleep in her box so soundly she wouldn’t wake if someone carried her away, and the Doppelgänger’s eyes met his.
“Keep resting. I’m going to check on the dungeon.”
(…….) A nod.
The Doppelgänger lay back down.
Bang!
– Chirp? (Heading out?)
“Yeah.”
I checked the Land Document to confirm there was no one inside the Abandoned Dungeon.
Only thirty traps were installed—clearly marked in the count.
[Abandoned Dungeon]
– Monsters: 0
– Traps: 30
Dungeon Rat gathered up the tools.
A Player Farming in a Dragon’s Lair (Serial)
Author │ Gaebyek S
Publisher │ Kim Ju-hyung
Publishing House │ J Plus Media Co., Ltd.
Marketing │ Han Jae-hyuk
Address │ 401 Ace Techno Tower 8th, 11 Digital-ro 33-gil, Guro-gu, Seoul (Guro-dong)
Email │ [email protected]
Website │ www.jayplemedia.com
ⓒGaebyek S 2026
※This work is published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. in accordance with a contract with the copyright holder. Without permission from the company and author, the content may not be used in any form or by any means.
Violation of this may result in criminal and civil legal liability.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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