47
Dojin stood by the window holding a mug filled with freshly brewed coffee.
It’s black water that I normally wouldn’t even think about drinking, but I was curious because my new house had a coffee machine and coffee capsules, so I tried it.
Dojin savored the slightly sour aroma and took a sip of the hot coffee.
And I enjoyed the view outside the window, a view I could never see from my shabby one-room apartment, and thought about it.
‘I must never drink it again.’
Dojin spat the coffee he had in his mouth back into the cup and slurped it down, shaking off even the faint bitterness that remained.
“People drink this because it’s so good. It’s just bitter, sour, and astringent.”
Dojin furrowed his brow without any hesitation.
But that was only for a moment.
As soon as he turned around, his expression relaxed.
Looking at the view of the luxurious officetel, which was incomparable to the shabby studio apartment I had been living in until yesterday, naturally made me feel better.
Dojin thought back to the process of moving into this officetel while throwing away the trash drink that tasted like mop water in the sink.
‘Was that already three days ago?’
Three days ago, Dojin found a woman collapsed in front of his house, and it was his exclusive manager.
Dojin’s memories of her personal details and impressions were roughly as follows.
My name is Cheon Ji-hyeon. I am 22 years old.
Notable characteristics included excessive sincerity, aversion to being labeled as incompetent, and an extreme obsession with regular employment.
You could tell how sincere he was and how pathologically he hated not being able to complete the tasks he was given from above just by the fact that Dojin didn’t answer his phone or come out when he knocked on the door, so he brought a long padded coat and squatted in front of the door until 1 AM to wait.
A person who hides out until dawn just to show you the prepared accommodations and ask if you like them and if there is anything you would like to see prepared.
From Dojin’s perspective, it was a good thing that the person he had hired as his manager was a hard worker, but he felt like it was a bit too much.
Tiring-
While I was thinking about this and that and taking out milk to drink instead of coffee, my smartphone rang.
Dojin, who always turned off his smartphone when he didn’t have to use it due to a habit from his previous life, just kept it on these days.
After leaving one person outside until 1 a.m., the smartphone was turned off and the capsule was set to not notify anyone except for physical stimuli.
[Dojin, I think I can finish preparing the video this afternoon. I’ll send it to you after editing it, so can you confirm it for me? I think it’ll be around 6 PM. And I also need to decide how to upload the video.]
The sender was Cheon Ji-hyeon.
Information about the videos to be uploaded to Dojin’s newly created YouTube channel.
I asked when the activity would start and gave them the video source, but it seemed like an editor was there and doing something.
‘But we talked about this last night… … ?’
I had a feeling that this person had a disease that would kill him if he didn’t complete his assigned task within 24 hours.
‘Is this what you call A-class?’
Dojin seemed to see a system message before his eyes.
[I got a Grade A slave!]
-same.
It was an impression that I didn’t need to convey because it would be rude to me.
Dojin replied that he was busy so he should just take care of it and started his day’s work.
It was obvious what had to be done.
It’s a game.
* * *
If you travel for a full day past the Horkon Marsh where Dojin had been hunting for three weeks, you will reach a place called the Marzia Viscounty.
Marzia was a fairly large city for a countship.
Since the surrounding mana concentration was low and there was no chance of strong monsters being born, it was chosen as a base city for traveling merchants, and naturally people and money flocked to it.
Merchants who came from other cities, city people who solicited them, and beauties who smiled brightly and tempted them all.
Little children selling flowers were swarming around, and adventurers escorting merchants were gathered in groups of three or four, chatting noisily.
Although the Marzia Viscountess had such a lively appearance, this liveliness was very unfamiliar to Dojin.
This was because the Marzia Viscounty he saw did not look like this. The name it was given to in the first place was different.
At that time, this place was called
‘A place like this… … .’
When I see people living their lives chattering away, I feel a chill in my heart.
Soon this city will turn into a land of death.
The pristine walls surrounding the city will be covered in unidentifiable black bushes, and the city’s interior will become a land of ghastly corpses and ghosts.
The reason… Dojin didn’t know exactly.
It wasn’t just Dojin.
Even in my previous life, no one knew how this city was erased and turned into a level 70 hunting ground overnight.
There were just a lot of speculations going around.
“Adventurer, adventurer! Could you please buy me just one flower? If you give me just one silver, I can buy bread for my little brothers!”
It was a white flower that woke Dojin from his deep thoughts.
Dojin saw a girl holding out a white wildflower.
Her trembling eyes and hands clearly showed the fear she had for Dojin.
The girl’s visible fear was far from a vague mixture of longing and fear for the wizard.
If I had to pick one, it was a specific fear that had basis in experience.
Dojin guessed that it might be a fear of ‘adventurers’.
You’ve probably been through or seen through some tough times with some tough guys.
Still, the fact that he gave me the flower must mean that he really wanted it.
The seemingly easy-going guests were quickly taken over by large, older kids, so it seemed they had no choice but to challenge an adventurer dressed as a wizard who no one paid attention to.
Dojin smiled brightly and showed his face to the frightened girl, making her feel at ease.
“How much would it cost to buy all the flowers you have?”
——————
faqwiki.us
Join our Discord for new chapter updates!
https://discord.com/invite/xr7SxG5T6V
——————
“1, 1 silver!”
Perhaps it was because of the tension. The girl didn’t seem to hear what Dojin said properly.
“One flower costs one silver, but if you buy the whole basket, it’s only one silver?”
“Ba, a basket? Are you talking about this one I have?”
“Yeah. How much is all those flowers?”
The girl’s eyes grew wide as if she couldn’t believe it.
However, as expected of a mother who sells flowers to support her younger siblings, the girl did not miss the opportunity that came her way.
“8 silver, oh, no! Just give me 5 silver!”
A girl who calls out loudly but then immediately lowers the price in case Dojin doesn’t buy it.
Dojin, who saw that, silently took out 10 gold coins and put them in the girl’s hand.
Be careful not to let others see it.
Dojin gave a shushing warning to the girl who opened her mouth in surprise.
“Don’t be upset. Go buy something delicious to eat with your siblings. I think one flower would be enough, so I’ll just take this.”
As he said that, it was the moment when the girl was about to accept the wildflower he had initially offered.
The black spot on her excessively thin wrist caught Dojin’s eye.
Dojin felt his blood run cold.
“Whoa!”
The girl screamed in surprise when Dojin suddenly grabbed her wrist.
For a moment, everyone’s attention turned to him, but after a while, he clicked his tongue and turned his head away.
When he saw the shabby girl, he thought to himself, “She must have been caught pickpocketing,” and tried to ignore her.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
The girl, who had lived as an underdog since the moment she was born, apologized without even knowing what was going on.
“Hey, when did this spot appear?”
“Hey, this is it?”
Dojin nodded to the girl who asked with tearful eyes.
“Ugh, that, that started a few days ago… Well, I don’t know… … .”
“You have to think about it. Try to remember as precisely as possible when it happened and what happened around that time.”
The girl, who was intimidated by Dojin’s intense gaze, forcibly recalled the memory of when she had discovered the black spot.
I’m sure it was a lucky day back then too.
Yes, I remember just now, when I was lucky enough to sell a whole basket of flowers at once.
At dusk, when all the other children had gone home, a kind-looking priest appeared and offered her some flowers, and she was able to sell all the remaining flowers.
With that money, I was able to buy bread and soup and feed my younger brother and sister, who I hadn’t seen in a long time.
And then, as I was filling my stomach with the soup my siblings had left over that day, I discovered a black spot.
“I, I saw it a week ago… no, uh, about ten days ago… I, I don’t have an infectious disease! I’m really fine and I’m not sick!”
There was some misunderstanding, but the girl pleaded with them not to throw her out of the city as she did not have an infectious disease.
Only after calming her down was Dojin able to hear about what had happened the day the girl discovered the black spot.
“…he was wearing a priest’s robe with black flowers on a pure white cloth.”
Dojin thought as he looked at the girl nodding her head while sobbing.
As expected, and.
Priests who serve Saint Bella wear pure white vestments with patterns symbolizing light engraved in gold thread.
Even though they were both white priests, those who engraved black mist flowers on top of them were not serving the star of creation, but the star of destruction.
‘Have the Cult of Destruction been on the move since then?’
And the black spot on the girl’s wrist was something like a signature spell used by the Cult of Destruction.
For two weeks, it only appears as a small spot, but after two weeks, the spots start to grow explosively, causing unimaginable pain. The end, of course, is death.
‘I think it was called ‘the flower of rest’.’
The order names are also f*cking stupid.
Dojin consciously suppressed the unpleasant memories related to the Destruction Cult coming to mind.
I don’t have a single good memory of being associated with those guys.
Thinking about it will only hinder you from making a cool-headed judgment.
Dojin let go of the girl’s wrist.
The girl’s wrists were almost bruised, perhaps because she had unconsciously applied force.
Dojin, who saw that, took out a healing potion and holy water from his inventory.
“sorry.”
“… … ?”
The girl just rolled her eyes, as if she still didn’t understand what was going on.
But for Dojin, it was something he couldn’t explain in detail.
‘You’re not a good man, but a dog who belongs to the group to destroy the world.’
The best I could do right now was to just heal my bruised wrist with a healing potion and remove the curse the priest of the Cult of Destruction had placed on me by sprinkling holy water on me.
The only good thing was that the “Flower of Rest” was a minor spell that could be removed by just sprinkling holy water.
“Okay, that’s enough.”
“Oh, it’s gone… … !”
The girl, who had been watching Dojin with anxious eyes, touched her own clean wrist.
Judging from the fact that her face brightened up a little, it seems that she herself was quite concerned about her spots. Judging from the mention of something about an infectious disease, it seemed like she was anxious about that.
“I guess it wasn’t what I was worried about. That’s a relief.”
Dojin smiled and lied to reassure the girl.
Then he took out ten more gold coins and put them in the basket the girl had dropped, covered it with flowers and returned it to her.
“Buy something delicious and go home early today. Take good care of your younger siblings. And… if possible, it would be good to rest for a few days.”
The girl took what she received hesitantly, seeing Dojin become kind again.
“Oh, thank you. Thank you so much.”
The girl bowed her head and ran, holding the basket to her chest.
After looking back at Dojin a few times, he suddenly disappeared into an alley somewhere.
At that moment, the expression on Dojin’s face gradually disappeared as he no longer had to face the girl.
‘I guess I’ll have to look into it a bit more.’
If there were priests of the Cult of Destruction here, it was certain that they were connected to the disaster that would come to this city.
So from now on, I had to figure out what they were up to.
‘Honestly, I don’t know if I can stop it or not right now… but I guess I’ll have to give it a try.’
Dojin decided to start by looking for that damned priest from the Church of Destruction that the girl had seen.
