Chapter 9: The Miracle That Wild Species Bloom (1)
It hurt.
Who was it that once claimed pain was a noble sensation? Who dared to call pain an inevitable, shameful joy?
If the person who said such nonsense were to appear before him now?
With the thought of mincing them up with his serrated blade to teach them what real pain felt like, the Four Great Demon Generals’ Blood Prince, Asurat, squinted his eyes open. No—he flared his nostrils.
And exactly 0.1 seconds later, he deeply regretted that decision.
‘...Damn... it!’
The moment he opened his nasal intake valves, his olfactory nerves were assaulted by a brutal 108-hit spike combo of aged compost stench! A vibrational pre-hug of ammonia extract, so concentrated it reeked, stung, and felt like dying!
‘Guh... guh—ghrk!’
Overwhelmed in an instant by an olfactory terror—or perhaps the agony of suffocation(?)—he had to face reality.
The place he was tied up, made into a living lightning rod...
It was the very heart of a compost maturation site!
“......”
He no longer wanted to breathe.
To spend all day, 24 hours straight, inhaling nothing but the stench of compost. At this point, not just his tears and snot, but even his sweat and pores felt permanently tainted with this godforsaken musty smell.
At this rate, getting hit by that bastard Credos’ Bloody Lightning might be better. At least he could endure that somehow with his naturally powerful regenerative abilities.
But this smell?
That was beyond help!
Forget recovery.
The more pain he felt, the more sensitive he became.
If he had to live like this, he'd rather be picking bean sprouts out of an elephant's rear end! At least he wouldn’t be hungry doing that!
‘Grrrrgh, just... kill me... or—gack, gaggh!’
Or at the very least, give him a plug for his nostrils!
Sure, he lost.
Sure, he failed in his rebellion.
But wasn’t this too cruel?
Unwittingly, Asurat swallowed his sorrow. His tearful eyes flashed. And with a heart packed tight with resentment and regret, fury and remorse, he glared in one direction.
There stood Credos.
Since when, he wasn’t sure.
That damned Demon Lord was talking with some lower-ranked demons. And that conversation was currently stabbing mercilessly at Asurat’s eardrums.
“See the flower blooming at your feet?”
asked Kim Jangcheol.
The lower demon nodded in response.
“Try pulling it out.”
“...Excuse me?”
“Pull it out.”
“……”
At Kim Jangcheol’s command, the lower-ranked demon hesitantly moved. He carefully grasped the stem of the purple flower blooming at his feet.
“Gently, so the stem in the soil doesn’t break.”
“Y-Yes, sir.”
The lower demon's hands became more cautious. If he accidentally tore the roots, he might incur the Demon Lord’s wrath. In that case, not even a corpse would remain.
“……”
However, part of the lower demon felt pathetic about the situation.
He couldn’t help it.
The plant he was digging up under the Demon Lord’s orders—no, the weed—was something he recognized all too well.
‘This is...’
In truth, it was a completely useless weed.
It wasn’t edible, and even if someone forced themselves to eat it, it was nothing more than a poisonous plant that would only cause trouble.
...Rustle.
By the time the lower demon’s hands were thoroughly caked in dirt, the part hidden beneath the soil, under the purple flower, was finally revealed.
A lump slightly smaller than a ping-pong ball.
A cluster of wild potatoes had formed on a tuber.
‘Just as I thought.’
Disappointment crept into the lower demon’s gaze as he held up the stem. The other demon laborers around him were no different.
They, too, felt the same disheartened disappointment.
‘The Demon Lord talked so grandly about snacks and meal tickets, but the source of it all... is just this...’
It was disappointing.
In truth, there wasn’t a single demon here who didn’t know about wild potatoes. No—if you lived in the Abandoned Land, it was something everyone knew.
That this was nothing more than a poisonous plant no one could eat.
That it was better off not existing at all.
‘When I was a kid... I was so hungry I dug up a few of these to eat and almost died.’
The lower demon stared bitterly at the wild potato tuber in his hand. A reckless attempt from his childhood. The pain he had to endure back then remained vivid to this day.
And he had been one of the lucky ones. There had been plenty of demon children his age who’d died after eating these.
‘And now... he wants to farm these?’
Was that really the Demon Lord’s plan?
Did he halt the invasion of the human realm for this?
Just to plant this kind of poisonous weed?
Did he work them to the bone for this?
“……”
The lower demon barely suppressed the sigh that was about to escape. If the terrifying Demon Lord weren’t standing right there in front of him? He probably wouldn’t have just sighed—he might’ve spat curses too.
He was disappointed.
A bleak future lay ahead of him.
A Demon Lord who would drive all demons down the path of destruction just to plant and grow poisonous weeds. Credos—the Demon Lord—who didn’t even seem to realize just how foolish and reckless his decision was.
I...
We...
My child...
What were we supposed to believe in now?
‘Should I just abandon the Abandoned Land... and flee to human territory?’
But then they’d just end up as prey for the humans and meet a brutal end. Still, in some ways, even that seemed like a better option.
At least they could die with something in their stomachs. At least they could taste some roadside grass or small fruit before death.
Here, in this place where even clean water was hard to find, where they breathed in the stench of rotting compost, raising poisonous weeds with no hope in sight—only to eventually starve, collapse, and die—at least that fate could be avoided.
“...Haa.”
In the end, the lower-ranked demon couldn’t endure the mounting disappointment and despair. A quiet sigh slipped from his lips before he realized.
Yet Kim Jangcheol remained unbothered.
Even though he clearly saw the immense disappointment on the face of the lower demon holding the wild potato in his hand, and on all the others as well—he was calm.
No—he even seemed to wear a slight bitter smile as he watched them all.
‘Tsk tsk. If I leave them like this, someone’s going to cry. Cry, for real.’
But...
‘That won’t happen.’
Kim Jangcheol was confident.
Since when?
From the very beginning.
From the day he entered the body of Demon Lord Credos, at the Hall of Destruction where the ceremonial departure had been held—he had seen them. The small, humble flowers blooming shyly in the corners of the vast hall. The purple wild potato flowers.
It was the moment he recognized them.
A massive puzzle had clicked into place inside his mind.
‘That’s Solanum stenotomum... the wild potato species closest to the original, first successfully domesticated in the highlands of the Andes.’
He was certain, even upon second glance.
But not only were they present in the Hall of Destruction, they could also be seen all around the Demon Lord’s castle. And yet, there were no signs of anyone plucking or harvesting them.
That realization told him everything.
The demons of the Abandoned Land didn’t know how to remove the toxicity from wild potatoes. They hadn’t acquired the detoxification technique used by the Quechuas who lived in the highlands around Lake Titicaca in Central South America.
That was why they didn’t know these could be eaten.
‘But... I can.’
With the knowledge he possessed.
If he could make proper use of it—
Then it was entirely possible.
He believed he could do it.
A light of hope had begun to shine.
Moreover, the climate of this place was practically perfect for carrying out his plan.
‘No matter how I look at it, this place is way too similar to the Andean highlands.’
It was something he had already started suspecting little by little while playing the game.
The Demon Lord Credos.
His stronghold—the Demon Lord’s Castle.
Chavín de Huántar.
To reach the deepest part of the Abandoned Land?
You had to clear all the other regions. Only then, by climbing a map filled with endless ridgelines, could you finally enter the Demon Lord’s Castle area.
He had seen the shifting landscapes during that process in the game’s visuals. That gave him an idea. And after entering the Demon Lord’s body, he could feel it firsthand.
‘This area around the Demon Lord’s Castle is the highest elevation in all the Abandoned Land. Rough estimate—around 4,000 meters above sea level. And it’s incredibly dry. Probably only about 20% humidity. On top of that, the temperature difference between day and night is massive. During the day it’s slightly hot, well over 20 degrees Celsius, but at night, it easily drops to minus 10.’
The skin-cracking dryness!
The temperature swings that felt like bouncing between boiling and freezing baths!
In short, a brutal highland climate—one of the worst kinds!
But that was exactly what made it so similar to the area around Lake Titicaca in the Central Andes. And this hellish climate was also the very weapon he intended to use.
‘...Just like the Quechuas, who wisely made use of this kind of extreme weather.’
Kim Jangcheol raised his head.
He looked at the demons.
They were still struggling to hide their disappointment.
“...Starting now, all of you.”
He addressed them.
“Bring me 100 more of these.”
“Huh?”
“Start.”
A short and firm command!
The rule of the demons—when ordered, they obey!
Though they hesitated, the lower demons began to move immediately at the Demon Lord’s words. They carefully went around, digging up the wild potato stems.
Thanks to that, they were able to gather 100 stems in no time.
“You’ve all done well.”
Not a single one smiled at the praise. They still showed full expressions of despair and gloom at the idea of cultivating wild potatoes.
But that didn’t matter.
Soon enough, their despair would turn to hope.
He would make sure of it.
“And I’m sure all of you are worried.”
“......”
Was it because his words were unexpected?
A few lower-ranked demons looked up at him with puzzled expressions.
He gave them a faint smile.
“You’re probably all thinking it. Wondering if I’ve lost my mind—planting a poisonous weed no one can even eat. Thinking the Demon Lord’s finally gone insane. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes.”
“Who just answered?”
“...I’m sorry.”
Zephyros raised his hand with an awkward expression.
Kim Jangcheol gently ignored him.
Then he continued speaking.
“I understand exactly how all of you feel. That’s why. I want to show you that the wild potato we’re about to cultivate is, in fact, a crop you can eat. And personally, I prefer showing over explaining.”
“……”
Showing?
What did he mean?
Was he going to force-feed it to them until they were on the brink of death, make them chew it down while shouting, ‘I’m happy!’? Was he planning to train them all with some sort of deranged ‘experience’ like that?
Everyone listening to the Demon Lord involuntarily flinched at the fourth cervical vertebra, imagining the very plausible scenario.
Then it happened.
“And so, starting now, we’ll be spending a rewarding time making chuño as a tasting trial from these wild potatoes.”
Kim Jangcheol’s voice rang out.
The miracle of the wild potato, developed by the ancient people of the Andes.
The first step toward solving the famine in the Abandoned Land—a miracle that would, in the future, turn him into a Happy Point tycoon, thanks to a legendary, delicious processed food. Furthermore, it would become a specialty product of the Abandoned Land that would achieve explosive success in the human realm. The era of chuño production had officially been declared.
And far off in the distance, the living lightning rod Asurat, tears welling up in his eyes, thought to himself:
Whatever the hell chuño is, can you just let me go already, for f***’s sake?