Farming in the Tower Alone [EN]: Chapter 123

*Pyak!*

*Pyok! Pyok! Pyok!* The rhythmic pounding of the rice cake mallet echoed in the small kitchen. Each time the Black Rabbit brought the heavy wooden mallet down on the dough, its texture changed, becoming smoother and shinier, reflecting the light like polished pearl.

“Perfect, Black Rabbit! You’re doing wonderfully,” Sejun praised, watching the rabbit’s focused movements. “The dough looks amazing.”

While the Black Rabbit continued to work the rice dough, Sejun turned to prepare for the next step: shaping the *garae-tteok*, a long, white Korean rice cake, into its traditional form.

“Kkueng, can you cut this for me?”

Kkueng!

Rip!

Kkueng lightly tore the hard shell of a fire ant, which even the poison stings of venomous honeybees couldn’t easily penetrate, as if it were paper.

And then,

“Iona, attach this for me.”

“Yes!”

He instructed Iona to use adhesion magic to connect the torn exoskeleton pieces, creating a cone-shaped funnel with a small hole at the end. Now, all they had to do was put the dough inside the funnel and press down to make delicious garae-tteok.

Just then,

Pyak!

The Black Rabbit called Sejun, indicating that the dough was ready.

“Is it really ready already? Wow, you’re fast! Then shall we make just one strand for now?”

Sejun tore off a portion of the still-warm rice dough and placed it into the simple machine to make rice cakes.

“Kkueng, gently press it slowly.”

Kkueng!

Squeeze.

At Sejun’s words, Kkueng gently pressed the dough with a light force, and then—

Swish.

The dough was pressed and slowly began to extrude from the end of the cone-shaped funnel, forming a milky-white garae-tteok.

“Shall we see how it is?”

Sejun cut off the end of the freshly extruded garae-tteok, and then—

[You have completed Slightly Chewy Garae-tteok.]

[Cooking Lv. 4 proficiency slightly increases.]

[Due to the effects of Cooking Lv. 4, the taste and effects of Slightly Chewy Garae-tteok are slightly enhanced.]

A message appeared indicating that the garae-tteok was complete.

“Slightly Chewy Garae-tteok?”

Slightly chewy, he said? Sejun checked the food’s options before tasting it, due to the strange name.

[Slightly Chewy Garae-tteok]

Dough made from the finest rice flour under the skillful direction of a chef, pressed with strong pressure and extruded into a long shape.

The clumsy pounding of a rice cake artisan has slightly enhanced the chewiness of the garae-tteok.

Chef: Top Farmer Park Sejun, Red Ribbon Kingdom’s King Black Rabbit (Clumsy Rice Cake Artisan)

Expiration Date: 10 days

Grade: C+

The Black Rabbit had become the King of the Red Ribbon Kingdom. Since Bbyu-Bbyu had become the Queen of the Red Ribbon Kingdom, it wasn’t that strange.

However,

“Clumsy Rice Cake Artisan?”

Pyak…

The Black Rabbit wore a troubled expression at Sejun’s words. In fact, the Black Rabbit had awakened two professions simultaneously upon awakening.

One was a warrior, and the other was a rice cake artisan.

The Black Rabbit had wanted to become a warrior, and since the environment at the time wasn’t conducive to making rice cakes, he naturally hadn’t paid any attention to the rice cake artisan profession.

“What? You’ve been catching monsters with this amazing rice cake mallet until now?”

‘No wonder it felt so satisfying when I hit the monsters…’

His feeling was right after all. The Black Rabbit’s hammer was a rice cake mallet. To think that such talent was being wasted?!

Sejun didn’t know, but among the Black Rabbit’s maternal ancestors was Bbook-Bbook, who had created the relic: Rice Cake Dough that Swallows Wealth. In other words, the Black Rabbit was a descendant of Bbook-Bbook. A rice cake silver spoon, in its own way.

“Kkueng, follow me!”

Sejun called Kkueng and hurriedly ran to the kitchen. Black Rabbit, I will nurture your talent!

“Kkueng, prepare the pot!”

Kkueng!

Kkueng brought a large pot to Sejun.

And then,

[Relic: Rice Cake Dough that Swallows Wealth swallows 100 coins and produces 50kg of the finest rice flour.]

Sejun began producing rice flour.

Swish.

Fine rice flour poured into the large pot. After pouring rice flour 10 times, each time with 100 coins, the large pot was almost full.

“Put it here.”

Kkueng!

Kkueng lifted the large pot and placed it into Sejun’s magical storage.

And as he came back outside,

“Hello! We’re back.”

“President Theo, we’re here.”

The two intern cats who had just arrived greeted Sejun and Theo.

“Huh?! Black Rabbit, didn’t you see him?”

“Ah! I ran into Black Rabbit-nim on the way here. He was hurrying down?”

“He already ran away?!”

It seemed that the Black Rabbit, anticipating Sejun’s reaction, had hurriedly packed his carrot seeds and fled.

(Sejun-nim, shall we chase after Black Rabbit hyung-nim?)

The Golden Bat, who would betray even his hyung for Sejun, asked. To catch up with the Black Rabbit, one needed the speed of the Golden Bat.

Sejun chuckled. ‘That rabbit is always running away from something.’

“It’s okay. He can only run to the 55th floor.”

‘Black Rabbit, no matter how far you run, you’re still in your uncle’s palm. Hehehe.’

Sejun laughed like a villain. The Black Rabbit didn’t know that Sejun could put things into and take them out of the storage room on the 55th floor.

“I’ll put this in the storage room.”

[One large pot containing 500kg of the finest rice flour is shipped from the Red Ribbon Kingdom’s storage room.]

The work arrived before the Black Rabbit, waiting for its master.

“Let’s taste the garae-tteok first.”

Sejun picked up the garae-tteok he had cut earlier and put it in his mouth.

“Oh, amazing! This is so chewy and delicious!”

Amazing! The dough was so chewy that its elasticity didn’t diminish even after chewing and chewing. As expected, the Black Rabbit’s rice cake pounding was necessary for delicious rice cakes.

Kkueng?

Kkueng looked at Sejun with pleading eyes. Is Daddy done?

Nod.

Sejun was still chewing the garae-tteok, so he nodded instead of answering, and this time, he cut the garae-tteok into a hand-span length and put it in Kkueng’s mouth.

However,

Kkueng!

Kkueng shook his head even before chewing.

“Why? Is something wrong?”

Sejun was taken aback by Kkueng’s reaction, who would eat even spoiled food and say it was delicious.

Kkueng! Kkueng!

Kkueng shook his head again at Sejun’s words and pointed to his snack pouch. Not good! Honey is missing!

“Ah! You want me to dip it in honey?”

Sejun took out honey from Kkueng’s snack pouch, dipped the garae-tteok thoroughly, and put it in Kkueng’s mouth.

Kkueng!

Only then did Kkueng nod.

“Now, let’s extrude the garae-tteok.”

Iona had cast a spell to prevent the dough’s temperature from dropping, so the dough’s condition remained the same.

Kkueng!

Kkueng put in all the remaining dough and began extruding the garae-tteok in earnest.

However, after the work was finished, the remaining garae-tteok was about 3 meters long. The rest disappeared as soon as it came out, as it was given to the rabbits and dragons.

Of course, about 90% of the extruded garae-tteok went straight into Kkueng’s stomach as soon as it came out. He could understand why garae-tteok tasted best when freshly made. As expected, food tasted best when freshly made.

‘Next time, I should make *baekseolgi*, another type of Korean rice cake, fluffy and white. If I put sweet potatoes in the middle…’

While Sejun was creating a recipe for the rice cake he would make next,

“How much did you sell this time?!”

Theo asked the interns about the sales at the 38th floor camp.

The interns were delivering sturdy *scallion swords*, strong scallions shaped like swords, to the Earth Defense Force, the group protecting the tower, and filling the remaining space in their bundles with *magic cherry tomatoes*, which were small, red, and gave people energy, which they auctioned off to the hunters.

Currently, the magic cherry tomatoes produced on Sejun’s farm were so abundant that there was no place to store them if they weren’t continuously sold like this.

So, he completely entrusted the sale of the cheap magic cherry tomatoes to the interns, and Theo decided to focus only on selling high-priced crops.

“We sold 5,000 cherry tomatoes and earned 6,000 coins.”

When Theo last auctioned them off, the price per cherry tomato was 1.9 coins, so it had dropped by almost 40%.

Unlike Theo, who came infrequently, the interns were selling magic cherry tomatoes every 2-3 days, causing the scarcity of cherry tomatoes to decrease and the price to drop.

Nevertheless, the rate of price decline was slower than expected, thanks to the effect of boosting vitality when eaten daily and the image as a diet product, as it was the first of Sejun’s crops to be introduced to Earth, leading to a steady increase in buyers.

And then,

“Here it is.”

The interns brought the creamy cat snacks and seasonings they had obtained from the humans.

“Excellent work, interns! *Meow!* You’ve brought in a good profit today!”

Theo gave 1% of the money the interns brought as an incentive. It was Sejun Farm’s policy.

“Thank you, President Theo!”

“Thank you!”

The interns who received the incentive were greatly pleased. They would use this incentive to upgrade their bundles and receive more incentives. This was the interns’ happiness these days.

The cat interns had completely forgotten about the idea of reducing their contract period by repaying their debt.

“But didn’t Tae-joon say he found the wooden plank I sent?”

“No. He says he didn’t.”

“Really?”

Sejun was disappointed by the answer. He thought that with 10 million won, at least one person would contact him… The world was so scary these days that people’s suspicions had become too severe.

“Well, I wouldn’t contact him either.”

Come to think of it, even he wouldn’t believe it if he found a business card on the street that said, ‘If you contact this number, I will give you 10 million won.’

“I need to change the method.”

Sejun sighed. ‘Maybe 10 million won isn’t enough to get people to trust a stranger these days.’ He felt a little sad that people were so suspicious.

Sejun decided to think about it more and went to the field to start farming. After eating the garae-tteok, he felt full and wanted to move his body.

Sejun got up lightly after a long time alone, and then—

Scratch.

He marked a line on the wall, starting the morning of his 282nd day of being stranded.

The house felt too quiet without Theo’s bossy meows and Iona’s cheerful spells. Sejun missed their noise.

“It feels empty without the kids.”

Theo and Iona had gone down the tower again yesterday. Theo was to sell the crops and receive reports on the Earth Defense Force’s performance, and Iona had suddenly received a call from the Mage Association, a group of magic users.

Thanks to this, Sejun felt coolness and emptiness at the same time as he came out of the house.

Kkueng!

Bat bat!

As Sejun came outside, Kkueng and the Golden Bat greeted Sejun. Fortunately, the emptiness was lessened with the two of them around.

Kkueng!

Tap. Tap.

Kkueng patted his belly as soon as he saw Sejun. Hungry!

“Okay. Let’s eat.”

Sejun took Kkueng and the Golden Bat to the kitchen and warmed up the leftover grilled fish from the grilled fish he had made for Theo yesterday.

Kkueng!

Although it was something he ate regularly, Kkueng ate it as deliciously as if it were a new dish.

And then,

Slurp slurp.

The Golden Bat, who liked fruit, sucked on the cherry tomato juice.

The farm was a lively green, with rows of tall cherry tomato plants heavy with red fruit. Mushroom ants, like tiny farmers, hurried around the base of the plants.

After finishing breakfast and going to the field,

Chirp!

Squeak!

Rabbits and mushroom ants were seen farming harmoniously in the field. The rabbits were riding on the backs of the mushroom ants, with the mushroom ants taking care of the bottom and the rabbits taking care of the top, harvesting cherry tomatoes.

As the number of mushroom ants increased, the farm was operating smoothly without any problems even without Sejun.

Suddenly, a deep rumble shook the ground. It wasn’t the usual farm noises.

Just then,

Kuoong!

The roar of the large pink bear was heard.

“Did they invade again?”

These days, fire ants were swarming in groups of 100,000 like this once in a while. It seemed they were trying to reclaim their slaves.

“Let’s go, kids!”

Kkueng!

Bat bat!

As Sejun and the animals ran to where the pink fur was,

Kuoong!

Thud!

The pink fur lightly struck the ground, stunning ants larger than the fire ant workers with the shockwave. It was for Sejun to hunt more easily.

The fire ant warriors were huge, bigger than Sejun’s hand, with sharp jaws that clicked menacingly and thick legs that stomped on the ground.

“Thank you. Make a rain cloud.”

Sejun expressed his gratitude to the pink fur and created a rain cloud, setting the stage to eat the prepared meal.

And as he was about to make it rain,

Splash!

Water was sprayed towards the fire ant warriors.

-Hmph! Save your magic power! That way, you can catch even one more.

The black dragon statue spat water from its mouth.

“Thank you, Kaiser-nim.”

-Ahem. Then later, sweet potato baekseolgi…

He had ulterior motives.

Sejun used his magic, throwing bolts of blue lightning – *Thunder Throw!* *Thunder Throw!* *Thunder Throw!*

Kwa-gwang! Blue lightning crackled from Sejun’s hands, striking the fire ants with a loud *Kwa-gwang!* The air smelled of burnt ants and ozone.

[You have defeated a fire ant warrior.]

[You have gained 1500 experience.]

…

..

.

[You have leveled up.]

Sejun leveled up after defeating 5,000 out of 100,000 fire ants.

Kuoong!

Thud!

The rest were taken care of by Pink Fur and

Kkueng!

Thud!

Kkueng.

-Tsk tsk tsk. What to use that for…

Kaiser clicked his tongue without realizing it.