Farming In The Tower Alone [EN]: Chapter 115

A thin man with white hair, Kelion looked older without his front teeth. He looked at the purplish soup carefully. “Is this… really supposed to be delicious?” he wondered aloud.

*Slurp.*

Kelion took a small sip.

Wow!

Kelion’s eyes opened wide. Delicious! The sweet taste and smell of potato filled his mouth.

*There’s meat in here too.*

The meat, locust meat that had been cooked for a long time, was so soft it was easy to chew.

Gulp.

Kelion swallowed the soup, enjoying the taste. A warm feeling went down his throat, filling his belly with comforting heat.

“Kha!”

He finished the soup quickly. “Can I have another bowl?”

Kelion quickly moved the white dragon statue to make more soup appear.

“Meow, meow, meow.”

Sejun finished his breakfast and then saw Theo clinging to his leg.

Plink.

He picked a ripe, magic cherry tomato.

48,792 more times until the job quest is complete.

Job experience slightly increases.

Proficiency in Harvesting Lv. 5 slightly increases.

You have gained 30 experience.

While carefully picking cherry tomatoes to finish his job quest,

Kweeeeng!

Kkuengi cried loudly from the kitchen.

“Huh?! What’s wrong?”

Sejun had left Kkuengi sleeping after the soup. Now, hearing Kkuengi’s cry, he wondered what was wrong and hurried back.

As Sejun entered the kitchen,

Kweeeeng!

He saw Kkuengi holding an empty pot, crying sadly.

“Kkuengi, what’s wrong?”

Kweeng!

[The soup disappeared after I woke up!]

“Didn’t you eat it in your sleep?”

Sejun had seen Kkuengi eat in his sleep before, so he thought it might be that.

Kweeng! Kweeeeng!

[No, I didn’t! I didn’t eat it!]

Kkuengi was annoyed by what Sejun said.

“You didn’t?”

Kweeng! Kweeeeng!

[Yes! The dragon grandfathers must have stolen it!]

Kkuengi was probably right. If it were the dragons, they could have done it. Dragons were very picky about food, but they pretended not to be. They were too proud to admit they liked something.

“Alright, wait a minute, I’ll make more soup. Here, eat this for now.” Sejun used his skill, “Crop Gigantification.”

Sejun used his skill on a sweet potato, making it a giant sweet potato, and gave it to Kkuengi.

Crunch.

Kkueng!

[Delicious!]

Kkuengi, eating the sweet potato, quickly smiled happily.

“Alright. Eat a lot.”

Sejun stroked Kkuengi’s head and took out purple locust meat from his subspace warehouse again.

“Puhuhu. Is it my turn?”

Theo pulled out his claws to cut the meat.

However,

“No. Theo doesn’t need to do it anymore. Golden Bat, please cut this.”

(Yes!)

Flap. Flap.

The golden bat, which had been flying around Sejun, quickly flew over when Sejun called and began to cut the meat.

“What?! Am I not needed anymore? I can cut meat well!”

Theo complained to Sejun. It wasn’t something he particularly enjoyed, but being told he couldn’t do it made him angry.

“Alright. Then Theo, peel the potatoes.”

“Understood!”

Sejun poured about 1000 potatoes in front of Theo.

The potato skins can be easily washed off with water later.

“Meow?! This is too many?!”

Theo didn’t want to work when there were too many potatoes to peel.

However,

“Don’t want to do it? Then I’ll have the Golden Bat do it…”

“No! I’ll do it!”

He didn’t want to lose the job.

Scritch. Scritch.

At Sejun’s words, Theo waved his front paws and hurriedly began to peel the potatoes. Because he was greedy, Theo was doing unnecessary work and entering potato-peeling hell himself.

While Theo was peeling potatoes,

“Sejun, I’ve cut everything!”

The preparation of the soup ingredients was complete.

Splash. Splash.

The ingredients were thrown into three large pots. Now, he just needed to let it boil and then add the right amount of seasoning.

And then,

He took out the antlion’s exoskeleton from his subspace warehouse. Because it was metal, the antlion exoskeleton would make a great potato grater.

“President Theo, please make some holes in this.”

“Understood.”

Pop pop pop.

Theo’s claws pierced through the antlion’s exoskeleton, creating the holes Sejun wanted.

“How is it? Good holes, right?”

Theo, tired of peeling potatoes, subtly clung to Sejun’s knee, showing off.

*I knew it.*

Sejun smiled, held Theo on his lap, and began to grate 100 potatoes that Theo had peeled.

Scrape.

The potatoes were grated through the holes Theo made, and the grated potatoes fell below.

“Good. It grates well.”

“Of course, I made it!”

“Yeah.”

“Then give me Churu for doing a good job!”

“No. I don’t have a free hand right now. I’ll give it to you later.”

Theo was a cat who was never humble and always asked for things at the wrong time. He grated potatoes while the soup cooked.

And then,

“Kkuengi, please squeeze this.”

Sejun handed the grated potato mixture to Kkuengi. Taking out the water was important to make the potato pancakes crispy outside and soft inside.

Kkueng!

At Sejun’s request, Kkuengi lightly squeezed the potato mixture and applied force.

Drip.

The water was removed from the potato pancake mixture. It became a dry mixture, almost like it had been dried out completely.

“Keep squeezing like that.”

Kkueng!

Sejun asked Kkuengi to keep squeezing the potatoes and went to season the soup, which was now purple and boiling.

A moment later,

[You have completed the Purplish Sweet Potato Soup.]

[Cooking Lv. 4 proficiency slightly increases.]

The soup was complete.

“Here you go.”

Sejun gave Kkuengi soup. Then, he carefully poured away the water Kkuengi had squeezed out of the potatoes. He kept the white starch at the bottom and added it back to the potato mixture. Now, all that was left was to fry it.

At that moment,

“Ahem,” one dragon said. “It’s already lunchtime. Kelion, shall we have a bowl of soup?”

“Hmm hmm. Shall we? Oh my! Kaiser, we timed it perfectly!”

The two dragon statues, who had been waiting for the soup to finish, flew over, pretending they just happened to be there for lunch.

“I thought dragons didn’t eat much? And didn’t you say you only liked roasted sweet potatoes?”

Sejun asked, looking at Kaiser. Kaiser had said dragons don’t get hungry and don’t eat much. But it had only been a few hours since they last ate! This was suspicious, Sejun thought.

“Did you like the soup?”

…

The two dragons avoided answering Sejun’s question, looking elsewhere. Sejun was certain that the culprits who stole Kkuengi’s soup were the two dragons in front of him.

“Here you go. Don’t steal the kids’ food for no reason.”

Sejun said, ladling soup and giving it to the two dragons.

“Ahem!”

“Hmm! Hmm!”

Embarrassed, the dragons cleared their throats and quickly drank the soup.

After giving soup to the dragons, Sejun gave soup to the rabbits who came for lunch. Then, he started making potato pancakes, heating up the frying pan. He didn’t have cooking oil, but he had saved fat from the eels he caught.

Swish.

Sejun brought his hand close to the frying pan to check if it was heated properly.

Okay.

Once the pan was hot,

Flick.

Sejun threw a thumb-sized piece of eel fat into the frying pan.

Sssssss.

The fat melted quickly in the hot pan, turning to liquid oil.

Squeak?

Squeaa?

Squeak?

The rabbits’ ears perked up at the sound of the fat melting, making a savory smell.

“Good.”

Sejun scooped up a big spoonful of potato mixture and dropped it onto the hot pan.

Sssssss.

He pressed down on the potato mixture with the ladle as it sizzled in the pan, spreading it into a thin circle.

When one side was golden brown,

“Right,” Sejun said.

He flicked his wrist and flipped the potato pancake.

Thwack.

The pancake flipped easily and landed perfectly back in the pan.

“Heh,” Sejun chuckled, pleased he’d flipped the pancake so well.

Squeak!

Squeaa!

Squeak!

The rabbits called Sejun from behind, holding their bowls.

“Huh? Ah, you want to try it? Just a moment.”

Sejun put the potato pancake on a large plate and tore the potato pancake with chopsticks.

Glug. Glug. Glug.

He poured three big spoonfuls of honey into a small bowl.

“You can eat it like this, or dip it in honey when it’s a little cooler. It tastes even better that way.”

Sejun showed the rabbits how to eat the potato pancake.

Sssssss.

He added more eel oil to the pan and started making the next one. He fried about ten potato pancakes. The rabbits ate until they were full and then went back to work. Only Kkuengi remained, happily dipping potato pancakes in honey.

Kkueng!

Kkuengi dipped a whole potato pancake in honey, took a big bite, and waved his arms in joy.

“Is it that delicious?”

Kkueng!

Kkuengi nodded his head strongly. Seeing how much Kkuengi enjoyed it, Sejun wanted to try one too.

“I should try one too.”

Drizzle drizzle drizzle.

Sejun took out a bottle of a new sauce Theo had found. He poured the dark liquid into a small dish. It was soy sauce.

Chop chop chop.

He chopped a hot Cheongyang chili pepper and mixed it in. This would make the soy sauce spicy and cut through any greasiness of the potato pancakes.

“Hehehe. Time to eat!” Sejun said, picking up a piece of potato pancake with chopsticks and dipping it in the spicy soy sauce.

“What’s that?”

“What’s it made of?”

The two dragons, who had finished the soup, showed interest in the potato pancakes. Even though dragons were fussy eaters, they were curious enough to try Sejun’s new food.

While Sejun, Kkuengi, and the dragons enjoyed their potato pancakes, far away on floor 55 of the tower…

While Iona fought Grid, the wolves, black rabbits, and Ppyu Ppyu defeated the guards around the mansion. As soon as Kelion left for the 99th floor, the magic barrier around the mansion vanished, and the dragon tooth soldiers crumbled to dust.

Because of this, they easily took over the mansion. Grid’s mansion was filled with glittering treasures. The warehouse overflowed with piles of crops.

Looking at all this wealth, Iona understood again how greedy Grid was.

“We’ll ask Sejun what to do with all this later,” Iona said. “Seal!”

Iona used magic to seal the mansion, then went outside to free the rabbits in the nearby villages.

The boars tried to fight back, but they were just lazy guards who looked after the rabbits on the farm. Iona and her animal companions were too strong for them.

As they freed rabbits from village after village, their group grew to 300. Grid had captured even more rabbits than they thought.

“Magic, attack! Bombardment!”

Iona cast her spell, and thousands of magic missiles rained down on the boars at the front lines. She used a weaker spell so she wouldn’t damage the crops.

“Drive out the boars!”

“Defeat the enemy!”

The Black Wolf tribe and the Silver Wolf tribe rushed towards the collapsed defense line.

Squeak!

Black rabbits with hammers and slave rabbits with farming tools rode on the backs of the wolves. These were the rabbits they had freed on floor 55.

The rabbits moved slowly at first, still weak from being slaves, but they were eager to help fight the boars.

As the fight went on, the boars started running away to other floors. They were defeated and wouldn’t attack floor 55 again.

And so, 100 years after the Red Ribbon Kingdom fell, its flag flew again on floor 55. News of the kingdom’s return began to spread to other floors of the tower.