Player Farming in the Dragon’s Lair - Chapter 83

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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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83
Fundamentally, Apostles could sustain themselves without consuming food or water. The primordial force that maintained their bodies and souls was Dark Magic.
For that reason.
Rabbit had never once witnessed any Apostle eating or drinking anything.
[Tower’s Blessed Mana Cherry Tomato]
– Rank: C+
– Effects
– Upon consumption: Permanently +0.01 Mana (+0.01)
– Upon consumption: +10% Mana recovery speed for 10 minutes (+10%)
– Description: A cherry tomato from the Tower, cultivated by someone. Eating it will temporarily increase your Mana recovery speed and your Mana seems destined to rise. Blessed, its flavor and effect have doubled.
‘A cherry tomato? What on earth is that?’
It was a food that granted buffs.
But for Buer, the option seemed barely useful.
It didn’t appear he was eating it for the buff effect—so what was the real reason?
In any case.
What mattered was.
“Buer! Are you all right?!”
Swallowing the cherry tomato in his mouth,
Buer exhaled a long, heavy sigh.
“It was all meaningless.”
“W-what do you mean?”
“Lee Woo-jin. He’s an Adventurer, isn’t that what you said?”
“That’s correct. According to Eldora, Lee Woo-jin is an Adventurer.”
Buer shook his head.
“No. He is a god.”
“S-squeaky?!”
A god.
If he were a god, then wouldn’t he be the absolute ruler of the Tower?
Rabbit was suddenly seized by panic at the assertion “Lee Woo-jin equals god.”
“His outward appearance was that of an ordinary Adventurer, no more than a freshly awakened novice—yet in truth he was a god. When you think about it, the mere fact that someone so seemingly weak walked around the Tower in the first place is unreasonable.”
“B-but I don’t understand what you’re saying. What exactly happened?”
Buer recounted everything that had transpired since his arrival here, without the slightest embellishment or artifice.
How Amwol had appeared and bound him.
How, after that, Woo-jin had appeared and given him Steamed Corn, Warm Tea, and cherry tomatoes.
And finally.
“The First Calamity, the Death Fungus, died and became a Calamity Stone. Lee Woo-jin had it in his possession. He showed it to me.”
“Gasp!”
Rabbit clamped his mouth shut in shock.
No wonder a page hadn’t appeared in the Book of Apocalyptic Prophecy.
The First Calamity had died and become a Calamity Stone!
“At that moment, I concluded: Lee Woo-jin must be a god. There’s no other possibility. Because if that weren’t the case, I’d have to accept that an Adventurer commanded Amwol as his subordinate and slew a Calamity—does that sound remotely plausible to you?”
Certainly such a thing could never occur.
Rabbit, who had observed Adventurers over countless ages.
The same held true for Apostles.
Yet even the Adventurers heralded as “strongest” had perished in the Witches’ Dungeon, a place far below even an Apostle or a Calamity.
For someone of overwhelming power to suddenly appear—someone neither they nor anyone else knew of—was impossible.
“Let’s grant that the Calamity was plausible. Say he obtained excellent items and miraculous skills unknown even to us, and managed to topple the Calamity. Fine, that’s conceivable. But Amwol is different. Do you know why Amwol suddenly vanished when the continent nearly perished?”
“I-I heard it was because Amwol harbored ambitions beyond his station as an Apostle. That’s why he was stripped of his power and sealed away, isn’t it?”
Buer nodded.
“Precisely. Yet Amwol has broken free from his seal and moves about freely. Could he truly do that without divine permission?”
“……!”
Thump-thump!
Rabbit’s eyes widened in shock, his mouth falling open.
Now that he thought about it—that made sense!
“You’re right, this Adventurer Lee Woo-jin—no, he really must be a god!”
“Heh-heh. There’s one more crucial point, though.”
“What is it?”
Buer held up the cherry tomato he’d been eating.
Rabbit tilted his head. Why was he showing him that again?
“This is food that Lee Woo-jin gave to me today.”
“……?”
What was he getting at?
Rabbit blinked, looking uncertain, so Buer elaborated.
“If there were someone you didn’t mind losing, would you go to the trouble of bringing him food?”
“Ah!”
“Heh. Now you understand.”
Crunch, crunch.
He finished the last of the Tower’s Blessed Mana Cherry Tomatoes.
After swallowing, Buer continued.
“I believe Lee Woo-jin is testing my loyalty. And I shall naturally offer him my absolute service from this moment forward. It’s an opportunity I won’t squander.”
* * *
Miso paste aging to perfection.
Crops flourishing in lush abundance.
Having stumbled into an unexpected rural farming life on the 99th Floor Dragon Lair, Woo-jin was beginning to understand why people spoke of wanting to escape to the countryside and tend small gardens.
Born and raised in the city, Woo-jin had never harbored any real desire for rural living—he’d always assumed it would be nothing but inconvenience.
The city’s abundant infrastructure!
Cultural life!
Electricity, running water systems!
Yet there was a different, quieter happiness in farming.
Planting seeds, watering them, watching shoots emerge.
That tiny seed’s transformation into a full-grown vegetable that brought joy to the table—the whole sequence seemed to enrich the soul.
“Woo-jin.”
“Yeah?”
“Could you spare a Churu, nyaa?”
“Well, I’ve got plenty of—”
Woo-jin reached into his Subspace Backpack for a Churu stick, then stopped short. Now that he looked, Kkamangi had nearly doubled in size since the day they first met.
‘What’s with this chubby cat?’
Once small and cute.
Now he looked like some sort of crime boss from a feline organization.
And lately he’d been phoning in his morning exercises!
Come to think of it, he used to give Kkamangi maybe one Churu a day—but these days he was feeding him three or four without a second thought.
“No. One Churu per day, max.”
“Nya, nyaa?!”
Shock.
Kkamangi, however, had no choice but to accept it.
Churu was something Woo-jin brought back from Earth, and throwing a fit wouldn’t earn him any more.
“How about something else instead?”
At that, Kkamangi’s ears perked up.
Woo-jin had brought corn.
“Steamed corn, nyaa?! That sounds good too, nyaa!”
“Not steamed corn this time. Something different.”
A snack between lunch and dinner.
As Woo-jin began preparing something, the gods’ interest awakened.
Crack, crackle!
He started stripping the kernels from the cob into a wooden bowl.
Doppelganger sat beside him, helping with the kernel-stripping work.
[The God of Dominion asks what you intend to do with that.]
“I’m going to make popcorn.”
[The God of Adventure grins widely and asks what popcorn is.]
“It’s fried corn kernels.”
Popcorn—the thing Woo-jin bought one tub of every time he went to the cinema.
Usually he went for half-and-half popcorn.
A savory-salty original mixed with sweet caramel-coated kernels—the perfect sweet-and-salty pairing.
Thud.
He retrieved a stone pan of indeterminate origin and placed it over the fire.
Using a gas burner to ignite a few pieces of straw, he placed them in the woodpile to kindle the flames.
Whoosh!
Heat rose as the pan began to warm.
From the Magic Seasoning Basket he pulled a bottle of Olive Oil and poured it generously into the pan.
During his self-catering days in Korea, he’d grudged every drop of cheap soybean oil—but here, he could splurge on expensive olive oil without a care in the world.
Anyway.
I poured the corn kernels I’d separated earlier into the frying pan and immediately covered it with a lid.
Pop.
Pop-pop-pop!
As time passed, I heard the kernels bursting and popping inside the pan. Each time they crackled—pop, pop!—Kkamangi’s whole body bounced in rhythm.
“I can hear them popping inside!”
“It’s fine, it’s fine. That’s how it’s supposed to be.”
Once the popping sounds began to fade, I opened the pan lid to check inside.
(…) A surprise!
“Is this really corn?!”
The tiny corn kernels I’d added—so few they seemed sparse compared to the pan’s size—had puffed up dramatically and now filled it to the brim.
[You have made Popcorn through Cooking.]
[The proficiency of Cooking Lv. 7 increases slightly.]
[Popcorn]
– Grade: C
– Effects
– Taste Bonus +30%
– Upon consumption, Agility increases by 5 for 60 minutes
– Description: Made by deep-frying the Tower’s Agility Corn in Olive Oil. It’s warm and crispy.
[The God of Adventure is startled and asks if this is really the same corn from before.]
“Just a moment. There’s one more thing.”
I transferred the popcorn from the pan into a wooden bowl.
Then I added Olive Oil to the pan again.
This time with sugar added.
The sugar melted in the warm Olive Oil, creating a caramel sauce.
Now I added a bit more Olive Oil to it.
Then I added corn kernels again and covered the lid.
Again, the familiar pop-pop, pop! sounds came from inside the pan.
[You have made Caramel Popcorn through Cooking.]
[The proficiency of Cooking Lv. 7 increases slightly.]
[Caramel Popcorn]
– Grade: C
– Effects
– Taste Bonus +30%
– Upon consumption, Agility increases by 5 for 60 minutes
– Description: Made by deep-frying the Tower’s Agility Corn in Olive Oil. It’s warm and crispy.
Popcorn thoroughly coated in rich brown caramel sauce.
Lee Woo-jin chuckled softly as he transferred the popcorn into a wooden bowl.
“All right, let’s eat!”
[The God of Adventure takes the bowls of popcorn and heads to where the other gods are.]
They taste the regular popcorn first.
It crunches and crackles between their teeth, a savory flavor blooming across the palate.
“This is seriously delicious!”
(…) Nod, nod!
Now they try the Caramel Popcorn.
They pick out three pieces heavily coated with caramel sauce.
Popping them into their mouth all at once, they chew contentedly as the sweetness spreads.
“Mmm, that’s delicious.”
[The God of Adventure keeps feeding it to his mouth without pause, laughing that it’s the most delicious snack.]
[The God of Fate thanks you for making such a delicious snack.]
Day 48 since arriving at the Tower.
Making popcorn as a snack and eating it.
A Player Farming in the Dragon Lair (Ongoing)
Author │ Gae-byeok S
Publisher │ Kim Ju-hyung
Published by │ J Plus Media Co., Ltd.
Marketing │ Han Jae-hyeok
Address │ 401, Ace Techno Tower 8, 11 Digital-ro 33-gil, Guro-gu, Seoul (Guro-dong)
Email │ [email protected]
Website │ www.jayplemedia.com
ⓒ Genesis S2026
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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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