Farming in the Tower Alone [EN]: Chapter 47

When Sejun announced his plan to find the Ox King, the boss of the 99th floor of the tower,

Squawk!

Kooeng!

The Black Rabbit and Kooeng stepped forward, declaring, “We’ll protect you!”

Then Sejun turned to Theo.

“President Theo, get ready,” Sejun said.

“What? Am I going too?” Theo, the baggage handler, looked surprised, realizing he was being told to go on a business trip.

“Lead the way,” Sejun instructed.

Moo!

At Sejun’s command, Woochun-sam and Woochun-sa eagerly took the lead.

However,

Thud. Thud.

“Hey! Wait up! How can you run so fast?!” Sejun exclaimed.

In a blink of an eye, Woochun-sam and Woochun-sa quickly disappeared into the distance.

“Great Black Dragon, I will serve you,” Elka said, kneeling before Sejun. The other wolves prepared to carry the Black Rabbit and Theo on their backs.

But,

Kooeng! Kooeng!

Kooeng was quickly grabbed by his mother, the Crimson Giant Bear. A mother bear couldn’t send her baby to a dangerous place like the Ox King’s territory.

“Kooeng, it’s too dangerous. You need to stay here,” Sejun said gently.

Kooeeeeng!

Leaving behind the cries of Kooeng, who desperately wanted to follow, Sejun, Theo, and the Black Rabbit rode the wolves towards the waypoint guarded by the Ox King.

Tap tap tap tap.

The wolves moved incredibly fast, reaching speeds of almost 70km/h.

Whoosh.

The vast wasteland blurred past Sejun’s eyes as he rode the wolf.

How long had they been running? Before he knew it, the endless wasteland gave way to red soil. ‘Is it mud?’ Sejun wondered. ‘This reminds me of mud bricks.’

“If I make bricks, I can build a building,” Sejun mused, considering the possibilities. Then he noticed something.

“Huh?!”

In the distance, over a thousand Black Minotaurs were visible.

But,

“What are they doing?”

The Black Minotaurs were gathering mud and putting it in their mouths.

“Is that why they get so excited when they see grass?” Sejun wondered, suddenly feeling sorry for the Black Minotaurs. Maybe there’s something in the mud they need?

Moo-uh!

Woo-il hurriedly went to inform the Ox King.

“What’s going on?” The Ox King, who had been sleeping in front of the waypoint, opened his eyes and asked groggily.

“Woochun-sam and Woochun-sa have returned!”

“What?! Woochun-sam?!”

Thud!

The Ox King, upon hearing that Woochun-sam, who had ignored his orders and was out flirting, had returned, jumped to his feet.

“Where is he?!” he demanded.

“But they brought an outsider with them.”

“Outsider? Bring them all to me.”

“Yes, sir!”

Thus, Sejun and his group, guided by Woo-il, found themselves facing the Ox King, along with Woochun-sam and Woochun-sa.

Next to the Ox King, a red bone club and a pure white horn were stuck in the ground.

Then Sejun noticed something else.

“That must be the waypoint,” Sejun said, looking at the red crystal behind the Ox King.

Moo?

“He’s asking why you came here,” Theo translated.

“Tell him I came to receive compensation for what happened three days ago,” Sejun replied.

“Okay! Ox King, he says he’s here to get compensation for what happened three days ago!” Theo confidently conveyed Sejun’s words to the Ox King. He had nothing to fear, since he was a subordinate of the Great Black Dragon, the deadly yellow cat.

‘Puhuhu. This will be a wonderful scene in my biography,’ Theo thought, imagining the story he would tell later.

Moo-uh-uh!

The Ox King was furious at Sejun’s confident demand for compensation.

“Hic. Hic.”

Theo, startled by the Ox King’s roar, started hiccuping.

“Calm down, Theo,” Sejun said, stroking Theo’s head to reassure him. Then, he approached the Ox King.

Thump.

He placed his hand on the Ox King’s leg and said, “I heard that Black Minotaurs are honorable warriors, but I guess that’s just an old story. You don’t seem to feel any shame for what you did, and you’re just getting angry… So, is it okay if I tell your subordinates that their leader stole someone else’s food, huh?”

As Sejun finished speaking and was about to remove his hand,

Moo!

[Wait!]

The Ox King urgently grabbed Sejun’s arm.

‘I knew it,’ Sejun thought.

Forcibly suppressing a smile, Sejun asked in an indifferent voice, “What is it?”

Moo! Moo. Moo…

[I am a great warrior of the Black Minotaurs, and I value honor! I was planning to find you later and compensate you for the grass I ate last time…]

As the Ox King began to offer compensation,

“Wait! I’ll decide what compensation I receive. First, I want to use the waypoint as compensation,” Sejun interrupted, stating his desired compensation.

Moo?

[The waypoint, you say?]

“What do you think?” Sejun asked.

The Ox King paused for a moment, considering Sejun’s words.

Moo. Moo…

[Okay. I allow it. Although it doesn’t seem very useful to you…]

The Ox King stepped aside, allowing Sejun to approach the waypoint.

“Got it!” Sejun exclaimed, not hearing the Ox King’s last words as he eagerly approached the red crystal.

“Finally…” Sejun placed his hand on the red crystal floating in the air.

[The 99th floor waypoint has been saved.]

[Loading saved waypoints from other floors.]

[There are no saved waypoints other than the 99th floor, so you cannot move to another floor.]

“What?!” Sejun exclaimed in disbelief.

Since Sejun had started on the 99th floor, he had no other saved waypoints. There was nowhere else for him to go.

Usually, other hunters start from the 1st floor and climb the tower after activating the waypoint on the 1st floor.

And generally, when you save a waypoint, a portal to the next floor appears.

This was possible regardless of whether they defeated the boss. There were many floors where the boss’s location and the waypoint’s location were different.

But he had never heard of a portal going down. Since you could go down using the waypoint, there was no reason to do so.

While Sejun was feeling disappointed,

Moo.

The Ox King, relieved to have protected his precious weapon, felt a sense of relief. The Ox King valued his honor, and he had been prepared to offer Sejun the red bone, his precious weapon, as compensation for protecting his honor as a great warrior.

The red bone was a club that had turned red after absorbing the blood of countless monsters, and it was a legendary item. It was one of only three legendary items in the tower.

The opportunity to obtain a legendary club was lost because of a waypoint that he couldn’t even use. Of course, even if Sejun had obtained it, it wouldn’t have been a good thing because it had the effect of turning its wielder into a blood-crazed madman if they couldn’t control it.

“The next compensation…” Sejun said.

Sejun demanded a few more things from the Ox King as compensation.

When Sejun looked at Theo, Theo pulled out a pile of green onions from his luggage, creating a small mountain.

“This is a gift to build a good relationship in the future,” Theo announced.

It was called a gift, but it was more of a way to promote green onions to the Black Minotaurs than a genuine gift. It was a way of saying, ‘We have something like this, so come and work with us if you’re interested.’

Gulp.

The Ox King swallowed as he looked at the green onions. It seemed like he had already found one worker.

Three days had passed since meeting the Ox King.

In the meantime, a few things had happened. The biggest news was that his wife rabbit was pregnant again, thanks to the grilled eel.

“Things have been strange since I sent the baby rabbits to the den of the first generation… I’ll have to see what happens if I give you grilled eel next time,” Sejun grumbled, feeling sulky for no real reason.

And through the deal with the Ox King, the entire wasteland area was recognized as Sejun’s land, and 10 Black Minotaurs came to work on Sejun’s land every day to reclaim the wasteland.

According to Woochun-sam, the competition among the Black Minotaurs to come here every day was fierce.

“Well, they’ve been eating mud every day…” Sejun muttered.

Lastly, Sejun had obtained one more cocoon of the Poisonous Honeybee Queen yesterday, making it possible to have a beehive with three barracks.

“By the way, everything will be okay soon, right?” Sejun wondered.

Sejun looked at the ground field and recalled what had happened about a month ago.

When the ground field was destroyed by Woochun-sam during the Blue Moon, Sejun was in trouble.

“If this keeps happening, there’s no point in planting crops in the ground field,” Sejun thought.

If he was lucky and no monsters came during the Blue Moon, it would be fine, but if even one monster came and made a mess of the field, all the farming would be in vain.

Since there was nothing he could do about it, Sejun even considered giving up on the ground field.

At that time,

[The tower’s administrator says to leave it to her if you’re worried about the monsters running wild during the Blue Moon.]

“Leave it to you? What are you going to do?” Sejun asked.

[The tower’s administrator asks, boasting, if you haven’t seen her subdue the monsters during the Blue Moon.]

“Ah…”

Come to think of it, there was a time when the monsters became quiet when the Black Dragon appeared when Sejun was stranded and it was the first Blue Moon. That was Aileen.

“Okay. Then I’ll trust you, Aileen,” Sejun said.

[The tower’s administrator tells you to trust her and plant a lot of crops.]

He trusted Aileen’s words and worked hard to plant crops, but he was a little uneasy as the Blue Moon approached.

“Will it be okay?” Sejun wondered.

Since he had decided to trust her, Sejun decided to trust Aileen until the end.

The Crimson Giant Mole and the Black Minotaurs didn’t come today because of the Blue Moon.

And the wolves had gone down to the lower floor last night, saying they didn’t want to cause any damage.

“Is it because the big guys are gone? It feels empty,” Sejun said, looking at the wide field.

At that time,

Chomp chomp chomp.

“What’s empty?! The deadly yellow cat President Theo is here!” Theo, who was sitting on Sejun’s lap and resting while eating Churu, tapped Sejun’s chest with his front paws to show his presence.

“Okay. You’re here… Sorry,” Sejun said.

Where did he learn such rhetoric… Sejun quickly stroked Theo’s back and soothed him. He needed Theo’s help because he had to finish work early to prepare for the Blue Moon today.

So, they hurried to finish work, and everyone prepared for the Blue Moon.

Sejun turned off the lights and eliminated any smells, the rabbits went into their burrow, and the poisonous honeybees went into the hive and blocked the entrance.

Then,

“See you in the morning!” Theo said, before disappearing into his luggage.

When everyone went into their homes, the cave became terribly quiet.

“It’s cold,” Sejun said.

It wasn’t that cold, but Sejun felt a chill, perhaps due to loneliness, and covered himself with a blanket.

A little later, the Blue Moon rose, casting an eerie glow over the land.

“Hehe. Humans should only trust the Great Black Dragon, Aileen Britannia,” Aileen said to herself.

Aileen was excited at the thought of helping the human.

Not long ago, Aileen had celebrated the 200th day of the human’s residency in the tower, to whom she was indebted, by putting all the elixirs in the warehouse with gratitude and apology, and stirring a soup for the weak human’s health for several hours.

But,

“Cooking wasn’t my thing,” Aileen admitted.

Honestly, cooking was too hard.

Aileen was worried about what to do if the human said it was too delicious and asked her to make more, but the human knew her hardship and didn’t ask her to make more.

Moreover, the human even asked her not to make it again from now on.

“Hehe. What a thoughtful human, worrying about me so much,” Aileen thought, misinterpreting Sejun’s concern for his own well-being as concern for her.

Aileen moved to the rooftop of the tower’s administrator’s space while thinking about the thoughtful human.

There, a cylindrical device, about 5 meters in diameter and 1 meter thick, stood like a giant searchlight.

“Krrng. Krrng. Krrng.”

Squeak. Squeak.

Aileen hummed and diligently wiped the front of the cylinder, which had a Black Dragon painted on it.

After a while, the surroundings turned bluish as the Blue Moon rose.

“Hehe. Is it time for me to step up?” Aileen asked.

Click.

When Aileen pressed the switch on the side of the cylindrical object,

Flash!

Light burst from the cylinder, projecting a bat signal onto the moon. The Black Dragon drawn on the front of the cylinder began to move, and its shadow soared across the sky where the Blue Moon had risen.

As the shadow of the Black Dragon reached the highest point in the sky,

Koo-ahng!

Aileen cried loudly from behind the cylinder.

Koo-ahng-!

The cylinder amplified Aileen’s voice with magic, spreading it throughout the 99th floor of the tower.

This cylinder was a magical tool made by Aileen’s grandfather, Kaiser Britannia, for his granddaughter. It was an item created for his granddaughter, who could not leave the administrator’s space, to use when it was difficult to manage the tower.

“Hehe. The humans will think that’s me, right?” Aileen looked proudly at the Black Dragon floating in the sky and cried out again.

Koo-ahng-!

The roar of the Great Black Dragon calmed the monsters on the 99th floor of the tower who had gone mad due to the Blue Moon.