Farming in the Tower Alone [EN]: Chapter 35

Theo hummed to himself, tail twitching with excitement. “Meow, must hurry, meow!” He stepped out of the dimly lit passage that linked the 60th and 50th floors. “The humans are waiting, and D-grade cherry tomatoes won’t sell themselves, meow!”

Picking up his pace, Theo hurried down the next passage towards the 40th floor. The air in the tunnel smelled faintly of dust and old stone, but Theo barely noticed, his mind already on the Tower Coins he hoped to earn.

“Is that him?”

As Theo disappeared, three silver wolves emerged from their hiding place. They were from the Silver Wolf tribe, who usually worked as free mercenaries in the Tower to earn a living.

They were hired by Grid, a major landowner on the 55th floor, to find a stolen item: a simple straw hat. It was just a simple straw hat, the kind you could buy anywhere.

They didn’t know why Landowner Grid wanted such an ordinary straw hat, but it didn’t matter. They were mercenaries who worked for money.

The only clue their tribe had found was that a fence had passed the straw hat, along with other stolen goods, to a blacksmith in the shop district on the 75th floor.

Following that lead, one of the blacksmith’s employees remembered who had bought the straw hat.

“A wandering cat merchant with yellow fur bought it from the raffle corner.”

So, they had been tracking wandering cat merchants with yellow fur. After finding out that Theo would be here, they waited for him.

“Chief Elka, what should we do?”

“Keep following him for now.”

They were mercenaries. But, there was an agreement. The Free Mercenary Association and the Wandering Merchant Association agreed that mercenaries could use the merchant passages if they paid.

So, the three silver wolves followed Theo into the merchant passage.

Then,

“Why are the Silver Wolf tribe here?”

Zeras, who had also been waiting to follow Theo, hurried into the merchant passage as well.

Theo, unaware that he was being followed, headed towards the 38th floor, where the humans were waiting.

Day 186 of being stranded.

Sejun ate lunch, took a nap on the surface with the black rabbit and baby bear, and then went down into the cave.

Then,

Scritch.

While he was harvesting cherry tomatoes, cutting the stems,

Squeak.

Squeaaak.

The husband rabbit came with the scythe rabbit and pointed to the cornfield. The corn stalks were lush with only green stalks left after the corn harvest.

“What about the cornfield?”

Sejun didn’t know if the corn would grow again like the cherry tomatoes, or if he had to cut it down and replant, so he had left the corn stalks alone.

Squeaaak!

The scythe rabbit went to the cornfield and showed how to cut the base of the corn stalks.

“Oh, do I have to cut this down?”

Squeak.

The husband rabbit nodded. It seemed he had to cut them down and replant.

So, Sejun finished harvesting the cherry tomatoes and cut down the corn stalks.

Scritch. Scritch.

Sejun tied the cut corn stalks with rope and moved them to the surface. These days, he had been using the Paeonia suffruticosa leaves and cherry tomato branches to cover the area around where he planted crops.

The reason was to keep moisture from evaporating in the sunlight. This meant he didn’t need to water as often and could do other things.

“Pull!”

Squeak! Squeak! Squeak!

The baby bear pulled up the bundles of 40 corn stalks each. In total, he moved 139 corn stalks to the surface in 4 trips.

Sejun carefully spread the corn stalks on the field where he had planted peanuts, making sure not to cover the planted parts. The remaining corn stalks were spread widely on the prepared field.

When the work was finished,

Koo-errrr.

The mother Crimson Giant Bear came to pick up the baby bear.

Squeak!

The baby bear waved at Sejun from on top of the mother Crimson Giant Bear’s head.

“Goodbye! See you tomorrow.”

Sejun waved back at the baby bear, went down into the cave, finished the remaining work, and went to bed.

The next morning.

Koo-errrr.

Unlike usual, it was the mother Crimson Giant Bear, not the baby bear, who woke Sejun up.

“Ugh… what’s wrong?”

[The Tower’s administrator reports that the Crimson Giant Bear has detected traces of other monsters around the cave.]

Eileen answered Sejun’s question instead.

“Other monsters?”

Even if he didn’t know, the rabbits with their sensitive hearing had been quiet all night…

[The Tower’s administrator reports that the Crimson Giant Bear believes they are horned creatures.]

“Horned creatures?”

As soon as Sejun heard the word ‘horns,’ he wondered if it was the monster that had made several 7-meter-deep pits during the Blue Moon.

“Then it’s serious…”

Sejun went up to the surface to look around. Fortunately, they hadn’t ruined the fields like before.

Instead,

“Huh?!”

The corn stalks and other things that had been covering the fields were all gone.

Woo Cheonsam was wandering around, looking for tasty grass under King Uma’s orders.

At that moment,

Sniff sniff.

A fragrant smell came from somewhere.

“What is this?”

Woo Cheonsam carefully entered the wasteland area. This was a useless area where no one claimed territory.

But because it wasn’t anyone’s territory, all monsters could pass through, so he had to be careful. Even now, the scent of red fur was strong, as if someone had passed by recently.

Woo Cheonsam walked quietly, making no sound, and arrived at the place where the fragrant smell was coming from.

Seeing the fragrant grass scattered on the ground, he picked it up carefully.

“The boss will praise me.”

Woo Cheonsam returned to his area with his hands full of grass.

So, all the corn stalks, Paeonia suffruticosa leaves, and cherry tomato branches that Sejun had spread out to keep moisture from evaporating were stolen.

Koo-errrr!

The mother Crimson Giant Bear told Sejun about the monster and went out to patrol. Today, she would focus her patrol on the direction where the horned creatures were.

As the mother Crimson Giant Bear left, Sejun frowned, scratching his head. ‘Why would someone want old corn stalks?’ he wondered, feeling a little uneasy.

“Let’s just consider it fortunate for now.”

He wondered why the monster had taken the corn stalks and other things that were laid on the ground, but he decided to be happy that no one was hurt.

But there was no guarantee that it would be the same next time, so he needed to prepare.

“I still need the power to protect myself.”

The first thing Sejun thought of was the Poison Honeybees. He wanted to increase their number to protect the area.

The number of Poison Honeybees in the cave was growing fast, now over 200. It was still hard to fight even one monster, but if it kept growing, it would be enough to scare them.

Thinking that, Sejun went to the rock where the rope was tied and stood in front of the Poison Honeybee Queen’s cocoon.

Today was the day the Poison Honeybee Queen would hatch. The description said it would see the first being it saw after hatching as its master, so Sejun planned to rest from farming and wait here until it was done.

Sejun carefully opened the Paeonia suffruticosa leaves covering the pit where the Poison Honeybee Queen’s cocoon was and looked inside.

Rustle. Rustle.

The Poison Honeybee Queen was trying to get out of the cocoon.

“Hang in there.”

Sejun quietly cheered for the Poison Honeybee Queen and closed the Paeonia suffruticosa leaves.

Sejun made sure no one was around and quietly ate roasted sweet potato slices with coffee so he wouldn’t bother the Poison Honeybee Queen, waiting for it to end.

He also prepared honey and cherry tomato branches with flowers in case the Poison Honeybee Queen was hungry after hatching.

How long had Sejun been waiting?

Whirr. Whirr.

Sejun heard the faint sound of wings flapping from inside the pit where the Poison Honeybee Queen’s cocoon was.

“Could it be?!”

Sejun slightly lifted the Paeonia suffruticosa leaves.

Whirr. Whirr.

The Poison Honeybee Queen slowly flew up from the pit and looked at Sejun.

[You have successfully hatched the Poison Honeybee Queen’s cocoon.]

[The newly born Poison Honeybee Queen has successfully recognized you as her master.]

[His Beekeeping skill improved a lot and went up to level 3!]

Whirr. Whirr.

The Poison Honeybee Queen rubbed her body against Sejun’s hand, showing her love.

Then, as if she was hungry, she went to the cherry tomato flower and began to drink the nectar.

“Eat a lot.”

The Poison Honeybee Queen, who would protect the cave, drank nectar and got her strength back.

“This was abandoned in the wasteland?”

“Yes, Boss.”

“Well done.”

“Thank you!”

Woo Cheonsam was very happy with King Uma’s praise.

Crunch crunch.

King Uma chewed on the grass that Woo Cheonsam had brought and was surprised. It was all sweet and tender.

Such grass was left in the wasteland. He wanted to send his men to take over the whole wasteland, but there was too little grass to do that.

The amount of grass in front of King Uma was only one-tenth of what Sejun had stolen. The rest…

“Burp. I’m sorry, Boss.”

Woo Cheonsam burped and apologized to King Uma. Woo Cheonsam, who was hungry while bringing the grass, had eaten it until he was full. Because of that, King Uma did not send his men to the wasteland.

“Woo Cheonsam, go back to the wasteland and bring more of this grass.”

“Yes! Boss!”

Under King Uma’s orders, Woo Cheonsam left for the wasteland again. Of course, since he was full, he thought he should go somewhere quiet and take a nap first.

Tower 38th floor.

It had been 5 days since the hunters had been waiting for Theo. Most of them had given up and left, leaving only two teams who really needed the magic cherry tomatoes.

“Could he have gone to another floor?”

“No. There might be a problem with the goods.”

As they were thinking about why Theo wasn’t coming,

“Humans, I have arrived, meow!”

Theo appeared.

“He’s here!”

“Theo! Finally! We were starting to think you weren’t coming. What took you so long?”

Theo had been expecting many humans to cheer for the new D-grade magic cherry tomatoes he was about to show, but his ears drooped at the smaller number of humans.

“No. Everyone wanted to come, but they thought you might be uncomfortable, so we only came after a lottery.”

“Is that so, meow? You don’t have to do that from now on, meow.”

Theo’s ears perked up again at Kim Dong-soo’s words.

“Okay.”

Kim Dong-soo unknowingly told a white lie for this poor cat.

‘Why did I do that?’

Kim Dong-soo couldn’t understand why he did that. Seeing Theo disappointed, he wanted to cheer him up somehow.

As Kim Dong-soo, unaware that he was becoming a butler, was trying to understand his actions,

“The magic cherry tomatoes I’m selling today are special, meow!”

“I know. That’s why we came to buy special cherry tomatoes.”

“No, meow! This time it’s even more special, meow! It’s a D-grade magic cherry tomato, meow!”

“Wow! D-grade for real?! Let me see those options!”

The eyes of the hunters, who initially thought it was Theo’s antics, changed. The higher the grade in the Tower, the better the effect. The hunters thought they had done well to wait.

“Can I see the options?”

“I want to see too!”

“Me too!”

The hunters rushed to Theo to see the options for the D-grade magic cherry tomatoes.

“Humans! Form a line, meow!”

Theo lined up the hunters and let them check the options for the magic cherry tomatoes one by one.

“It’s really D-grade.”

“It breaks down 20g of fat?”

“The magic power increase has also risen to 0.2.”

“The expiration date is 60 days.”

When the hunters had checked all the options,

“Today, I will sell a total of 2000, 400 each, through auction, meow.”

Theo announced the start of the auction.

“70 Tower Coins for 400!”

“90 Tower Coins for 400!”

With two bids, the price of D-grade magic cherry tomatoes quickly went over 0.2 Tower Coins.

The hunters bid high prices without thinking about the money. D-grade magic cherry tomatoes were items that had never been sold before. Because they were so rare, this deal could definitely make more than double the profit.

The price went up fast, and D-grade magic cherry tomatoes were sold for about 0.3 Tower Coins each.

“Sold out, meow!”

Theo sold 2000 D-grade magic cherry tomatoes and got a total of 612 Tower Coins, making over 1000 Tower Coins in sales.

Theo purred, feeling very pleased with himself. Finally, he was becoming a mid-sized wandering merchant. He didn’t have to be scared of Park Sejun anymore. He couldn’t wait to see what tomorrow would bring.