Player Farming in the Dragon’s Lair - Chapter 74

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

74
Day 44 in the Tower.
“One, two! One, two!”
Morning, in that dim hour when dawn was just breaking through.
Woo-jin and his companions performed their morning exercises beneath the open ceiling, sunlight filtering down between the gaps.
Once the final breathing exercises were done, they made a simple breakfast.
Fresh cherry tomatoes and roasted potatoes.
Cherry tomatoes, listed among the world’s superfoods, were said to be excellent eaten first thing in the morning.
Pop!
[Consuming a Tower-Blessed Mana Cherry Tomato permanently increases Mana by 0.02.]
[Consuming a Tower-Blessed Mana Cherry Tomato…….]
He ate ten of the cherry tomatoes.
Replenishing moisture while boosting mana in one go.
Next came the roasted potatoes.
With each bite, the fluffy, fragrant potato seemed to melt softly on his tongue.
[Consuming a Roasted Potato permanently increases all Resistance by 0.01.]
As the saying goes, a Korean should never skip breakfast.
When he worked in the corporate world, he’d often skipped breakfast, but here in the Tower, he made sure to eat properly every single day.
His gaze drifted.
Woo-jin’s eyes turned toward the Bean Field.
The soybeans he’d planted four days ago had already shot up to nearly waist height.
When they first sprouted, they’d been a tender green.
Now the pods hanging from each stalk had turned a light brown, completely dried out.
The withered pods looked as though they’d rustle at the slightest touch.
Moving closer, he saw most of the leaves had yellowed and drooped, some already fallen to the ground below.
Woo-jin crouched down and plucked a pod.
The outside was completely dry, but inside it felt full. The beans were properly mature.
It resembled the soybeans at harvest time pictured in the home gardening manual he’d read.
He grasped one of the pods on the stem and twisted it gently.
Snap.
The pod came away cleanly.
Opening it with his fingernail, he found the inside lined with plump, pale soybean kernels.
[You have harvested a Tower Skill Bean.]
[Harvesting Lv. 6 proficiency rises slightly.]
[Tower Skill Bean]
– Grade: C
– Effect: Upon consumption, for 30 minutes randomly boosts one of your possessed Skills by one level.
– Description: A Tower Skill Bean cultivated by someone. Eating it might raise your Skill level.
Woo-jin’s eyes widened slightly at the unexpected effect.
He picked one bean and popped it straight into his mouth.
It had the characteristic nutty flavor of beans, crunching between his teeth.
[Consuming a Tower Skill Bean has raised Fire Resistance Lv. 4 by one level for 30 minutes.]
So that’s how it works.
The randomness was a bit disappointing, but getting a Skill level boost at all was an enormous buff.
Woo-jin immediately threw himself into harvesting the Skill Beans alongside his Doppelgänger.
Fwip-fwip-fwip!
[Harvesting Lv. 6 proficiency rises slightly.]
[Harvesting Lv. 6 proficiency…….]
.
.
.
Skill Beans lay neatly stacked in a wooden box.
Kkamangi nudged a single Skill Bean that had rolled to the ground with her paw.
Tap.
Then she popped it into her mouth and crunched it down like kibble.
“How is it?”
“Tasty, nyaa!”
Woo-jin gave a few Skill Beans to the Doppelgänger and Dungeon Rat as well. The Doppelgänger ate his silently, while the Dungeon Rat took to them immediately, stuffing several in at once and munching away with puffed cheeks.
– Chirp! (Boss, this is totally my thing!)
Perhaps it was the rodent in her.
It seems he has a taste for nuts and such.
Lee Woo-jin made a mental note to provide more of them going forward, and he divided some among the Deities as well.
The Deities’ reaction was lukewarm at best.
The common opinion was that they were “pleasantly nutty.”
‘There are things I could make with these……’
If you add them when cooking rice, you get bean rice.
It certainly seemed nutritious, but the problem was that Lee Woo-jin didn’t particularly enjoy bean rice.
“Have you ever actually made Meju?”
“What’s Meju?”
“It’s something like a fermented brick made from beans, and you can use it to make soy sauce, soybean paste, red chili paste, and all sorts of things like that.”
Making Meju wasn’t an easy task for an ordinary person.
There was no opportunity to do it, and no real reason to bother.
In fact, the reason he’d even considered planting soybeans was to make Meju first, then use it to create variations like soybean paste, soy sauce, red chili paste, and so on.
‘I’ve already scraped together instructions on how to make it, anyway.’
【Making Meju from Soybeans】
It was material he’d scraped from several blogs.
In truth, the method wasn’t particularly difficult.
Even the ingredients were simple.
Soybeans.
Water.
Rice straw.
He had all of it.
The rice straw was stacked up in one corner from harvesting rice, and there was plenty of it.
First, you wash the beans in water several times.
Then he took out the Black Mithril Cauldron.
He dumped the beans into the cauldron along with water.
Whoosh!
[The Deity of Order watches with interest.]
He brought over some kindling, lit a fire, and set the Black Mithril Cauldron on top of it.
Next, he began stirring the beans with a wooden spatula while steam rose steadily, stirring occasionally so they wouldn’t burn. As he continued to boil them, the beans began to turn brown.
Thud.
Thud.
When he applied slight pressure with the wooden spatula, they began to crumble easily.
After cooking them a bit longer, he extinguished the fire and mashed them thoroughly inside the Black Mithril Cauldron with the wooden spatula.
‘I’ll need a Meju mold.’
Right there, Lee Woo-jin took out a length of log and crafted a Meju mold.
He transformed the Dark Moon into the form of a short sword and carved the wood into a rectangular mold.
“Doppelgänger, would you bring over some rice straw and lay it down on the bottom here?”
(……) *nod!*
Meanwhile, Lee Woo-jin packed the boiled and mashed beans firmly into the Meju mold with a wooden ladle.
One, two, three…… a total of ten lumps of boiled beans were completed.
Now, if he laid them on the rice straw to cool and let them ferment, the Meju would be finished.
A simpler task than he’d expected.
“They really do look like bricks!”
“Ha. They do.”
The Meju was finished.
But he still had plenty of beans left.
As Lee Woo-jin was considering whether to make more Meju, tofu suddenly came to mind.
It was delicious eaten plain, and equally delicious grilled.
Most importantly, it was wonderful in stews and soups.
He should make tofu as well.
“I need to rest for a bit. My shoulder’s getting stiff from stirring the spatula constantly.”
At Lee Woo-jin’s words, Kkamangi bounded over and hopped onto his shoulder.
“Woo-jin, let me give you a massage!”
She began kneading his shoulder firmly with her pink jelly-like paw pads.
He’d thought a cat’s massage would be powerless, but it was surprisingly soothing.
“Oh, you’re pretty good at this?”
Just then, an apple appeared in front of Lee Woo-jin with a soft tap.
[World Tree Recovery Apple]
– Grade: A
– Effect: Upon consumption, immediately recovers 30% of health and mana.
– Description: An apple borne by the World Tree in its youth. Brimming with vitality.
– Th… Wo… Rec…….
“Thank you.”
The World Tree had grown to roughly Woo-jin’s height.
Given time, it would tower even higher.
And clustered along one side hung apples in abundance.
Daily watering had clearly borne fruit.
Crunch!
Cool and sweet, the apple bursting with juice.
One bite flooded his mouth with nectar.
[You have consumed a World Tree Recovery Apple. Health and mana are immediately restored by 30 percent.]
Somehow his shoulder felt completely healed.
* * *
Elsewhere on the Continent.
【The Calamity Cult】
Eldora, a high-ranking witch, entered the Sanctuary.
In the elegantly furnished Sanctuary sat a snow-white rabbit.
Whoosh.
“You called for me, Master?”
“Indeed I did, yes.”
The rabbit’s true identity was Rabbit, the Cult Master of the Calamity Cult.
Rabbit sprang from the chair and bounded over to the bookshelf, retrieving a single volume.
It was an SS-grade item.
The Apocalypse Prophecy Book.
To the Calamity Cult, it was a sacred text.
The reason was simple.
The Prophecy Book was intimately connected to Calamity itself.
“Some time ago, something appeared in the Prophecy Book, yes.”
“Yes, it was that the First Calamity would arrive, yes?”
“Precisely! Our new age approaches, yes! To welcome the birth of our Calamities, we must gather Dark Magic Stones without fail, must we not, yes? Surely everything is proceeding smoothly, yes?”
Eldora flinched at the question.
Because something had gone awry recently.
Among the dungeons she managed.
A dungeon deemed no longer necessary had been outright seized by some Adventurer.
“Why the long face, yes? You look troubled, yes?”
“Ah, hehe. It’s nothing, really. Yes, everything is proceeding smoothly, absolutely.”
She had dispatched Dungeon Rats to reinstall the traps, and in just two more days, the dungeon’s ownership would return to her.
‘Soon now.’
The First Calamity.
Death Fungus.
She didn’t know exactly where it would emerge.
But fungal growth, once it begins, spreads endlessly.
Somewhere in the Tower, the Death Fungus would surely dye all living things in its shadow of death, absorbing their power as dark mana.
When that happened, the Tower would be finished.
Unless, of course, the World Tree stood in its way.
But the World Tree had been dead in all but name for ages, brought low by the Calamities.
There was no one in the Tower who could stop the Death Fungus.
“Squeak, squeak?!”
“What is it, Master?”
“Something is wrong! The passage about the First Calamity in the Prophecy Book has vanished, yes!”
Eldora blinked.
That shouldn’t be possible.
She moved to Rabbit’s side and examined the Apocalypse Prophecy Book together with him.
But the very page where the passage “The First Calamity shall arrive” had been written was now sealed shut.
“C-could something have happened, yes?”
Eldora shook her head.
“I don’t think so, Master. My sense is that the First Calamity has already arrived, and so that passage is no longer needed, yes?”
“That’s it, yes! Eldora is truly a clever witch, yes! The Death Fungus has already manifested in the Tower, yes!”
Rabbit let out a sinister laugh.
“Squeak-squeak-squeak. The tower is finally finished! I must rush to report this joyous news to the Apostles!”
A Player Farming in Dragon’s Lair (Serialized)
Author │ Gaebyek S
Publisher │ Kim Joo-hyung
Published by │ J Plus Media Co., Ltd.
Marketing │ Han Jae-hyuk
Address │ 401, Ace Techno Tower 8th Building, 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. The content may not be used in any form or by any means without permission from the publisher and author.
Violation of this may result in criminal and civil legal liability.

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