Chapter 10: The Miracle That Wild Species Bloom (2)
‘What exactly is this thing called chuño?’
Zephyros, the Demon Lord’s adjutant, narrowed his eyes. Then he looked over at his liege, who was squatting beside the compost field.
‘He’s making chuño… from wild potatoes, as a taste test?’
Chuño.
It was a name he had never heard before.
He had no idea what it even looked like.
From the way his liege spoke, he could at least guess that it was some kind of food.
‘…Does something like that really… exist…?’
Doubt crept in.
It wasn’t easy to believe.
Honestly, everything his liege had been doing lately felt that way.
‘He’s become so kind. The complete opposite of when he used to handle everything with terror. Of course, his face and the air around him are still terrifying as ever… but still…’
He had grown kind.
That was how he treated Zephyros now.
Even more so when he interacted with lower-ranking demons.
If it had been the Credos of the past?
Just seeing a low-ranking demon fidget in his presence would’ve led to them being slaughtered on the spot and turned into a puddle of blood. That was the Demon Lord. The rightful ruler who reigned at the pinnacle of all demons. The one who governed the Abandoned Land. Such actions were his natural right and authority.
But now, it was different.
Unthinkable in the past.
The sight of the Demon Lord squatting on the ground like this, carefully spreading wild potatoes over the soil… it was something Zephyros would never have imagined.
“……”
Zephyros turned his gaze to the side.
He saw the lower-ranking demons, clearly at a loss at the Demon Lord’s unexpected… initiative(?). They all looked deeply uneasy. Probably worried that at any moment, the Demon Lord might suddenly tear them to pieces and kill them.
Or perhaps…
‘It might be, like me, that they just don’t believe in this chuño thing at all.’
Honestly, it wasn’t convincing.
That wild plant tuber which the Demon Lord called a wild potato—that was not food. It wasn’t even edible to begin with.
Even swallowing just a few pieces would cause severe abdominal pain, and sometimes even death. It was nothing more than a useless, poisonous weed.
‘But… will doing all this really work?’
Zephyros narrowed his eyes even further as he observed his liege. On closer look, the Demon Lord wasn’t just tossing the wild potatoes around. He was carefully arranging them, spacing them out evenly, making sure they didn’t overlap or touch one another, paying close attention to detail.
Perhaps that was why.
Why Zephyros, without even realizing it, opened his mouth. Forgetting, for a moment, his role of recording every word and action of his liege. And daring to ask a question outright.
"Lord, may I dare ask what it is you're doing right now?"
"Yeah. It's fine. You can see, can't you? I'm laying out potatoes."
Thankfully, his lord didn't get angry.
Rather, he responded with an indifferent, unconcerned expression, as if it was nothing of note.
"This way, the water drains out of them better."
"Water… you say?"
"Yeah. It's complicated to explain. But doing this gets rid of the poison."
"Are you saying the poison will disappear?"
"Mm. If I leave them like this for a good while?"
"……"
Zephyros was at a loss for words for a moment.
But only for a moment.
In the end, he couldn’t hold back and responded with a question of his own.
"So you're saying… you're drying them in the sun?"
"Yeah. That’s half right."
"But if you do that, they’ll freeze at night."
"Yeah. Excellent. You got the other half."
"…Excuse me?"
Zephyros's eyebrows twitched once more.
"But Lord, if you dry them under the sun during the day, and then freeze them at night, and then thaw them in the sunlight again during the day, and repeat that… those potatoes, won't they become a complete mess?"
"That's right. They'll be a total mess."
"……"
"That's the point."
"……"
"Do I seem strange to you?"
"Yes. You are strange."
"Good. At least you’re not lying."
"……"
In the end, Zephyros shut his mouth, and Kim Jangcheol simply held a meaningful smile.
And indeed, several days passed.
To be precise, five suns rose and five moons set. During that time, the wild potatoes repeatedly froze at night and thawed during the day, becoming a complete mess—soft and mushy.
Thanks to that, the expressions of Zephyros and the lower-ranking demons at the compost field grew increasingly twisted and tangled as well.
It was simply too hard to believe.
The very idea of eating something like that felt overwhelmingly unrealistic. At times, it even felt like a cruel joke.
"……"
Yet his lord still wore the same calm expression.
Zephyros began to feel a twinge of anxiety.
An intuition that things were starting to turn dangerous.
He could feel it through his whole body—the growing discontent rapidly spreading among the lower-ranking demons.
‘…This is dangerous.’
Even if his lord was powerful.
Even if he held the authority of the Demon Lord.
If all the demons of the Abandoned Land were to rise up against him?
Then the story would change.
‘If the Four Great Demon Generals turn against him with public support on their side… then even he might not be able to withstand it.’
Baal, who had shown loyalty to his lord recently, was uncertain.
But the other three?
If Asurat, Hartok, and Sirgi all raised their banners in rebellion? And if the vast majority of the lower-ranking demons in the Abandoned Land rallied behind them and rose up as one?
Even his lord would fall.
"……"
He hoped such a calamity would never come to pass. And yet, why did it feel like hope kept slipping further and further away?
Staring at the wild potatoes that had turned into limp, shapeless wrecks, Zephyros let out a sigh without realizing it.
And in his heart, he wished.
That his lord truly had a viable plan. That he would somehow turn those pitiful-looking potatoes into something marvelous, putting everyone’s unease to rest as nothing more than needless worry.
…Was it around that time?
“Baal, summoned by the Demon Lord, has arrived!”
An abrupt, thunderous shout pierced through his eardrums.
Sure enough, when he turned his head, Baal’s massive frame came thundering this way.
“Good. You’re right on time,” said his lord, welcoming Baal.
Then, he gestured with his chin toward the limp, wretched potatoes.
“Baal, you see that?”
“I see it!”
“Yeah, good. Step on it.”
“...Bwuh?”
“Step on it.”
“...Baal doesn’t want to step in poop!”
“Tsk, it’s not poop, okay? It’s potato.”
“But it looks like the poop you left yesterday!”
“I don’t poop like that!”
“Still don’t wanna!”
“Tch. It’s not poop. It’s a potato. Food. And I even went through the trouble of moving it onto a rock so it wouldn’t get dirty with soil when you stomp on it, right?”
“Baal doesn’t know anything about rocks! Why does Baal have to stomp it anyway?!”
“Because that way, we can eat it without pain and it’ll taste good?”
“…Does that mean Baal gets hit if he doesn’t stomp?”
“No, that’s not what I meant.”
“Baal doesn’t understand!”
“Tch, then listen up.”
Kim Jangcheol took a deep breath in.
He briefly wetted his lips with a smack.
Then his tongue slammed on the gas pedal.
“Wild potatoes contain an alkaloid glycoside called solanine. It’s a biological toxin the potato produces to protect itself from predators. If a 70-kilogram adult ingests just 210 to 420 milligrams of it, there’s a 50% chance of death—in other words, a 50% chance of getting career counseling from King Yeomra in the afterlife.”
“…Buh?”
“So we need to get rid of the poison. But solanine is stored in the vacuoles inside the potato’s cells. So when you thoroughly mash and crush the potatoes by stomping them, the cell walls break, and the solanine seeps out along with the vacuole’s fluid. Then if you dry that under the sun again? The toxicity completely evaporates. Got it?”
“…Baal’s head is exploding!”
“Want me to make it explode even more?”
“Baal is sorry!”
"Then shall we stomp?"
"Baal will stomp!"
Thud! Thud! Thud!
With his complexion slightly pale for some reason, Baal quickly sprang into action. He began stomping on the wild potatoes in a frantic rush.
Kwaaang! Kwojip!
A full-body stomping by Baal!
...reduced the potatoes to nano-sized pulp. The cell walls and vacuoles burst, and the solanine toxin oozed out in every direction, completely and thoroughly.
Watching that scene, the corners of Kim Jangcheol’s lips?
Curved into a bright, beaming smile.
‘Oh, he’s doing great!’
The more he watched, the more pleased he felt.
At the same time, a sense of relief washed over him.
‘It's a blessing that this region around the Demon Lord’s Castle—Chavín de Huántar—has a climate so similar to the highlands of Central Andes.’
He had been lucky.
Thanks to that, he could remove the toxins from the wild potatoes using the exact traditional methods that ancient Andean natives had employed.
‘The highlands near Lake Titicaca in the Andes have those ridiculous temperature swings. Freezing cold at night, then summer-like heat during the day.’
Which meant that at night, the potatoes would freeze solid.
And during the day, they’d melt gently under the sun.
Just by laying the potatoes out and letting them go through that process, they could be reduced to soft, mushy wrecks.
Then if you gave them a good stomping?
The potato tissues would easily collapse, breaking the cell walls, and the solanine would leave this bitter world behind, evaporating into the far-off heavens while doing the Seven-Star Eel Ascension Dance—a time-honored principle!
‘Phew, long live the potato.’
Kim Jangcheol accelerated the solanine evaporation process. He had the potatoes that Baal had stomped and mashed go through several more cycles of freezing, thawing, and drying. He stomped them again, froze and thawed them once more. And finally, he dried them to a crisp.
At last, it was complete.
"Yes. This is the very first chuño of the Abandoned Land."
"……"
"And now, I shall have you taste this historic chuño."
"……"
One hundred pieces of chuño lay before Kim Jangcheol!
The expressions of the lower-ranking demons watching them twisted subtly with reluctant dread.
And no wonder.
The chuño looked utterly pathetic.
‘You want us to… eat that?’
‘Taste test? This is a taste test?’
‘That just… looks like dried poop…’
‘I think my armpit would taste better than that…’
At a glance, it looked absolutely inedible. Frankly, licking a roadside pebble like a piece of candy seemed more delightful than putting that in their mouths.
And they all knew one thing.
‘That stuff’s made from poisonous plants anyway.’
‘Then the poison must still be in there.’
‘I saw it. Right before Lord Baal started stomping on that stuff… he ran straight through the compost field.’
‘With his feet covered in compost… he stepped on that… uuuugh… oorgh…’
‘Still… if we don’t eat it… he’ll probably kill us, right?’
‘But… I really, really don’t want to eat it…’
‘If I’m going to writhe in agony from something both tasteless and toxic and die anyway… maybe it’d be better to just die quickly at the hands of an enraged Demon Lord.’
Everyone’s thoughts became tangled.
Turmoil crept into their eyes.
A taste test, he said.
But no part of them wanted to go through with it.
Of course, Kim Jangcheol wasn’t oblivious to the unease that showed on the lower-ranking demons’ faces.
‘These little punks…’
Yet, he didn’t feel angry.
All it did was remind him—of himself, one day, long ago, sitting before a meal he didn’t want to eat.
"……"
How old had he been then—twelve?
There was a day when he had desperately wanted pizza.
All his friends had tried it. He was the only one who hadn’t. He wanted it so badly.
So he begged.
He pestered his grandmother.
The grandmother who had raised him alone lost her temper. She scolded him—said they didn’t have money for things like that. Told him he could eat all the pizza he wanted once he studied hard and got into college.
He cried after hearing that.
Clutched his pillow and wept all night from the sorrow.
And then—was it the very next day?
It was his birthday. When he came home after school, he found his grandmother waiting with a warm pizza she’d made herself.
At first, he was thrilled.
Then, disappointment set in.
Because the pizza was… strange.
What was on the plate looked nothing like the pizza he had imagined.
It was more like a pan-fried wheat pancake, topped with chopped scallions, egg yolk, and peppers… who in the world would call that a pizza?
It was absurd.
But soon, he understood.
When he saw the crumpled, obviously picked-up-from-somewhere pizza flyer lying next to the dining table.
‘Back then… my grandmother…’
She had no idea what pizza really was. And yet, because her grandson said he wanted it. And because it happened to be his birthday. She had tried her very best to make something like a pizza.
She brought that flyer home and gave it some thought.
Based on what she understood.
Doing the best she could to make it resemble the real thing.
To bring even the smallest smile to the face of her grandson, who had spent the night crying under the blanket.
She had even burned her fingers while pan-frying that pizza-like pancake.
"……"
Why did that memory suddenly come back to him now?
Why was it that the memory came flooding back—the day he held back tears, smiled brightly, and ate his grandmother’s tasteless “pizza pancake” as if it were the best thing in the world?
‘Yeah… you guys must be feeling something similar.’
That childish sense of disappointment upon seeing the strange-looking pizza for the first time.
That bewilderment and letdown.
They were probably feeling the same now.
Kim Jangcheol smiled warmly as he looked at the lower-ranking demons. And then, echoing the words his grandmother had once spoken so gently to him on his twelfth birthday, he opened his mouth and said:
“There's not much, but eat up and enjoy it.”
“……!”
The pupils of the lower-ranking demons shook to the rhythm of a 16-bit jajinmori drumbeat. And they all felt a sudden chill ripple down their sixth vertebra.
They had… realized(?).
‘…Eat up and enjoy it even though there’s not much?’
That meant…
‘He doesn’t care how we feel. Doesn’t want to hear complaints. If we don’t act like we’re enjoying it, something horrific beyond imagination will happen to us—is that it?’
That’s exactly it.
No doubt about it.
Seeing the Demon Lord’s terrifying, satisfied smile as he looked at them confirmed it completely!
“……!”
A blaring warning alarm went off in every lower-ranking demon’s mind—bee-yoong, bee-yoong.
And from that moment on…
A primal fear—one that struck at the very root of survival instinct—overwhelmed any aversion they had to the bizarre dish. All hands moved at the speed of light. They grabbed the dried-up chuño. They dipped it in the salt container Kim Jangcheol had gestured to with a glance. They brought it to their mouths.
They chewed.
Pwasak?
“……Huh?”
In that instant, all the lower-ranking demons felt it.
A sensation none of them had expected—an explosion of nutty, salty deliciousness racing across the taste buds like a turbo-charged rice harvester drifting through the rice paddies, in a full symphonic harmony of flavor waves crashing through a gourmet-tuned orchestra of delight.
And then, alongside that...
…Ding-dong!
[Some members of your Demon Lord’s forces are experiencing an intense, flavorful happiness.]
[First Happy Point has been accumulated!]
A delightfully satisfying message began to vividly fill Kim Jangcheol’s view.