Chapter 17: A Sprout Raised by Beatings Grows Beautiful (1)
By the way, where was Aged Kimchi, and what was he doing?
What if he suddenly stormed in out of nowhere?
If that happened, he would really turn into a pile of red-blood cell seasoned meat chunks in one go.
Nah, no way.
The invasion of the human realm had been halted, so that kind of thing shouldn’t happen.
Hopefully not.
Really hope not.
‘Phew.’
A fleeting thought.
A worry proportional to the curiosity.
Kim Jangcheol almost let out a quiet sigh... but swallowed it down. Then he raised his head. Darkness. Beneath the dim sky of midnight, the outline of a large building came into view.
It was a potato storage.
“……”
Right.
He was in the middle of an ambush.
The purpose of this ambush was…
[Do you really think they’ll come?]
At some point, Zephyros had come up beside him and held out his notebook. On one edge of the stark white page, his question was written. Doubt about whether ‘they’ would really come.
Kim Jangcheol gave him a slight nod.
‘Of course.’
They would come.
They had to.
The Agricultural Corps had been founded.
They had provocatively shown off.
They’d gathered around Pikamir, who had become the second lightning rod, and happily chewed on chuño with the most blissful expressions on their faces. It was a blatant performance to emphasize how their food situation would only improve from here on out.
Thanks to that, the First Star Lord must have been getting pretty anxious.
‘He must’ve started realizing that, contrary to his expectations, our farming wouldn’t fail so easily.’
And that holing up in a cliffside like now would be pointless too.
So now, he’d start sending his subordinates.
Most likely, their target would be…
‘Here. The potato storage.’
Kim Jangcheol motioned toward the storage with his eyes.
Zephyros quickly scribbled something in his notebook.
[So you mean, they’ll think ruining the painstakingly gathered potatoes could wreck our farming?]
‘Yeah.’
That was certain.
There was nowhere else to strike.
The potato field?
They hadn’t even planted potatoes there yet anyway.
By now, even the First Star Lord would’ve realized that plowing that place up would be meaningless. So the only viable target for a terror attack was the potatoes in the storage.
‘All we have to do is smash the guys who come to carry out that attack.’
And after that, they’d plant the potatoes.
Just to show the First Star Lord.
They only had to plant them.
“……”
When would the potato sprouts emerge?
As Kim Jangcheol was going over the plan, he let out a quiet sigh without realizing. The potatoes still hadn’t sprouted, even though a good amount of time had passed since harvesting. That worry resurfaced in his mind.
‘…The potato sprouts are slower to come up than I thought.’
They needed to sprout before they could be planted.
In truth, potato tubers couldn’t be planted right after being dug up. It was due to a characteristic of potatoes called dormancy.
‘The potato tubers were giggling happily underground. But one day, violent Demons dug up the earth and forcibly pulled the potatoes out. The potatoes were so shocked. They fainted and fell into a deep sleep. They waited for the day that a prince would wake them with a sweet kiss… No, for the day their dormancy would end.’
…Would that explanation do?
Put simply, potatoes harvested from the ground go into shock. All their biological rhythms come to a halt. They fall asleep.
That was dormancy.
During that time, no matter how ideal the conditions, sprouts wouldn’t grow. Even if planted in soil, it was the same. So they couldn’t be planted—and shouldn’t be.
Right now, the wild potatoes stacked high in the storage were in that state.
“……”
He had originally expected that the dormancy would naturally be broken during the tilling process. The timing had been planned around that.
But unexpectedly, Kim Jangcheol ended up finishing the tilling for free, and at record speed—leaving him with a whole new headache.
‘Tsk... The tilling's done, so why can't I plant!’
It was frustrating, deeply frustrating.
Of course, he was making efforts to break the dormancy of the potatoes early. At regular intervals, he stuffed the Demon Corps members into the storage and made them do squats.
Thanks to that, the temperature in the storage had risen to about 23℃—nice and warm. It was a temperature conducive to accelerating the end of dormancy.
‘Honestly, if we stored them at around 4℃ for two to three weeks and then moved them to a warm and dark place, dormancy would break even faster.’
Unfortunately, that method was not an option.
The Cold Monarch, Sirgi of the Four Great Demon Generals, who wielded blades of ice—
She had refused to serve as the storage’s air conditioner(?).
‘……’
He couldn’t just smack her around either.
If he did and she got pissed and decided to team up with Hartok, they’d come after him—and he wouldn’t be able to handle that.
‘For the time being, I should avoid any direct confrontations with the Four Great Demon Generals as much as possible.’
Play it safe.
Live long and quietly.
Kim Jangcheol reaffirmed his resolution to himself. At least until he was strong enough to take on and defeat a tag team of two Demon Generals on his own, he would lay low. He would even hold back on releasing Asurat until then.
…Or so he thought, when—
Shrrk, shrrrrk...
‘Hm?’
He saw something writhing near the storage. Soon, multiple pale, translucent silhouettes began gathering toward the storage.
At the same time, Zephyros quickly scribbled in his notebook with sharp strokes.
[Looks like they’re here!]
‘…Yeah, I see them too.’
Kim Jangcheol narrowed his eyes.
Then he saw them clearly.
Pale forms packed tightly around the storage. Just watching them gave off an eerie chill. Their forms gradually became clearer.
‘They’ve got… three heads?’
It was certain.
Their bodies looked like typical(?) ghosts, but they each had three heads. Seeing that didn’t make him shudder—
It actually made him feel oddly delighted.
‘These guys… aren’t they the Triple-Faced Ghosts, the elite mobs of the First Star Corps?’
Kim Jangcheol smiled without realizing it.
They weren’t strangers.
No, they were extremely familiar enemies.
He’d run into them so many times while playing Paladin of Blood, the game that made up this world.
‘They’re the First Star Lord’s favorite elite troops—basically his royal guards.’
There were exactly 108 of them.
They had ghostly traits, and their three heads made them an utter pain to deal with. They had no blind spots in their vision and reacted to almost every attack in real time. On top of that, unless all three heads were hit at the same time, they took no damage—an infuriating trait.
And that wasn’t all.
Their health pool and attack power were immense. They always moved in a pack of 108. Was there any way to pick them off individually? None. That’s why, the first time you faced them, it felt impossible to even come up with a strategy.
‘…But it’s different now.’
The smile deepened on Kim Jangcheol’s lips.
Triple-Faced Ghosts or not, they were just mobs to him now.
And the fact that the First Star Lord had gone so far as to send his personal guards, the Triple-Faced Ghosts, was welcome news. If General Pikamir, who had launched the tilling terror attack earlier, was the First Star Lord’s right hand, then these Triple-Faced Ghosts were basically his left.
‘That means he’s really starting to panic.’
The Demon Corps’ provocation had worked even better than expected.
Feeling an odd sense of pride, Kim Jangcheol looked around. Then he signaled Zephyros, the Black Boulder Tyrant Baal, and the members of the Demon Corps with his eyes.
‘Begin the operation.’
Everyone who received the signal moved just as planned.
The Demon Corps soldiers quietly took action under the command of Zephyros and Baal. They surrounded the potato storage without leaving a single gap.
Then Kim Jangcheol moved alone.
Toward the potato storage.
He approached it.
Opened the door.
Entered the storage.
And naturally, closed the door behind him.
Drrrk, clack.
“……”
He saw the Triple-Faced Ghosts who had already passed through the walls and entered earlier. They were just about to crush the piled-up potatoes.
“All units. Freeze.”
“……!”
The Triple-Faced Ghosts flinched.
They turned toward him.
And the moment they recognized who he was—
“C-Credos?”
“……The Demon Lord?”
Their eyes widened.
They were probably flustered.
They couldn’t have imagined they’d be discovered the moment they snuck into the storage. Let alone that they’d run into the Demon Lord himself, not some low-rank demon, but the one in charge.
Well, it didn’t matter.
Either way, they were going down here. Today, the First Star Lord would lose not only his trusted general, but also his elite royal guard.
“You guys… do you know something?”
Kim Jangcheol spoke slowly.
“I don’t really do ‘giving up.’ I push through—consistently, tenaciously. Fighting patiently, step by step… that’s the foundation of farming.”
“……What?”
The Triple-Faced Ghosts tilted their heads in confusion.
What nonsense was this Demon Lord suddenly spouting? They couldn’t understand a thing.
But Kim Jangcheol didn’t care.
“In other words—”
His hand moved slowly.
“Patience…”
…Click!
His hand secured the bolt on the storage door. But he didn’t stop there.
“Is what…”
Click…!
He locked the latch at the top of the door.
“Makes a farmer.”
…Clank!
The final lock at the bottom gave a heavy metallic sound.
Three layers of locks sealed the storage.
Inside this now perfectly closed space, Kim Jangcheol's eyes gleamed strangely as he faced the 108 Triple-Faced Ghosts.
“Starting with you, I’m going to weed out the foundation of the First Star Lord—like spraying pesticide and pulling weeds—step by step. Until he collapses completely.”
“……Huh?”
The look of confusion vanished from the Triple-Faced Ghosts’ faces.
They finally understood the situation.
Apparently, the Demon Lord had set a trap.
Apparently, he intended to catch them.
But it seemed he didn’t understand their traits very well.
‘Does he really think he’s trapped us just by locking the door?’
‘Ridiculous… kuhuhuhu!’
The more they realized what was happening, the more laughter bubbled up.
The now-confident Triple-Faced Ghosts all made their bodies go faint and began to float up. And all 108 thought the same thing at once.
‘…Then let’s toy with him!’
No matter how strong the Demon Lord was, if he didn’t understand their traits, he wouldn’t be able to catch them all. At best, he’d flail about killing a few during a messy game of tag.
‘We’re ghosts!’
‘We can pass through walls, ceilings—anything!’
‘You think you can catch us?’
‘Just try it, if you can! Kukuk!’
They just had to hit and run.
While the Demon Lord wasted effort catching a few of them, the rest would destroy the potatoes. That would fulfill their master's will. The day would come when everyone on this land would starve to death. When all would wander the pit of death with them—a joyous moment would arrive!
‘Kahahahak!’
The now translucent 108 Triple-Faced Ghosts scattered into the air in chaos.
Some toward the walls.
Others into the ceiling.
They seeped into every corner of the storage as if mocking the Demon Lord.
But then it happened.
‘…Huh? What’s that smell?’
One of the ghosts that had passed into a wall stopped.
A faint metallic stench wafted from the wall.
Looking closely, they saw dark red stains smeared all over the walls and ceiling. It was something they hadn’t noticed earlier—too focused on the potatoes during the infiltration.
‘Is this…?’
‘Blood…?’
‘Could it be… the Demon Lord’s?’
It was unmistakable.
A late realization.
A chill crept in.
In that moment, Kim Jangcheol placed a hand on the storage wall. A fierce smile played on his lips. He sensed the blood he had thoroughly smeared across the walls and ceiling inside the storage.
“I told you.”
His wild smile deepened.
His eyes glinted in anticipation of a violent harvest.
“Starting with you… I’m weeding everything out.”
…Pzzzt-!
At the moment Kim Jangcheol released his magic—
The blood sprayed across the walls and ceiling burst with a fierce spark, just like pesticide.