Fruit Syrup and Drought Jars

“…….”

The moment he woke, Ji-oh spoke.

“…Fruit tea….”

He wanted a warm, sweet cup of fruit tea.

“Let’s make fruit syrup.”

And just like that, the day’s content was decided.

Making fruit syrup wasn’t particularly difficult. All it took were thoroughly sterilized tools prepared with care, fruit that had grown up on affection, and an equal measure of sugar.

Well—sugar in such a quantity that you’d look at it and think, “Ah, this is how you get diabetes.”

And most fruit could be turned into syrup. As long as the flavors complemented each other, using two or more kinds of fruit was perfectly fine.

“…….”

The first fruit Ji-oh settled on was the Mangdung Fruit.

“But this alone would just be too sweet.”

If there were flavors essential to a successful fruit syrup—essentially sugar-water steeped in the character of the fruit itself—the first was sourness, and the second was bitterness.

Sugar alone was already enough to make the tongue ache with sweetness; throw in another sweet fruit on top of that, and all you had was canned fruit. Ji-oh had learned that lesson the hard way after once steeping syrup with overripe, honey-sweet tangerines.

“That was tasty in its own way, though.”

But what Ji-oh wanted now was a fruit tea built on sweetness, edged with sourness, and finished with a bitter note.

It wasn’t a particularly complicated profile.

“I’ll need a sour, bitter fruit to pair with the Mangdung Fruit.”

The combination he had most often made in the real world was strawberry and lemon.

Strawberries weren’t entirely without acidity, but overall they were soft and sweet. Lemons, by contrast, had sour flesh and bitter peel, and that combination used to give the strawberries’ one-note sweetness real depth.

This time would be similar.

“The Mangdung Fruit has some sourness, but it’s still on the sweet side.”

And that sweetness was so dense that pairing it with something as sharp as a lemon, or as astringent as a citron, seemed ideal. A fruit syrup with that kind of layered flavor was especially satisfying when drunk as a warm tea.

“Honey.”

“Kkurrr.”

“Let’s go.”

With the golden water bird perched on his shoulder, Ji-oh set out on his adventure with quiet confidence.

He spoke to Honey, who had already relocated into the basket.

“I could just paint a lemon or a citron into existence if I wanted to, but everything that comes out that way ends up tasting only so-so… Harvesting it myself is better.”

“Kkuruuk?”

“It’s better for my own satisfaction, and better for the fruit syrup we’ll make later. If I’m going to do this, I’d rather use the unusual fruit that grows in this forest than something mild.”

Ji-oh could draw food into being. But for some strange reason, every ingredient and dish created that way came out somehow bland.

Fine enough when he just wanted something to chew on, but nothing he wanted to put into a carefully made recipe. Swearing on the honor of his grandmother—who had been the village’s greatest gourmand—Ji-oh vowed he would produce a fruit syrup worthy of a fantasy world.

“Thinking about it that way, farming doesn’t seem like such a bad idea either.”

“Kkeuk.”

“Speaking as a man who is essentially a Gangwon-do new potato, this soil looks excellent for farming. The weather is always mild spring, but it isn’t as if the wind never blows. It doesn’t rain, but the earth stays moist, and there are streams everywhere. It’s a solid environment for watering, too.”

“Kkuuuk….”

“We don’t have seeds or seedlings, but I could probably get help with that from Mr. Yu Seong-un. To receive something through the painting I’d have to offer something in return, but I can spare that much easily enough….”

A human life with unlimited content guaranteed had this onion-like appeal. Even when it seemed empty, if you just squeezed hard enough, something always came out.

“Good.”

Excellent. Wasn’t this kind of freedom the greatest joy of unemployment?

“Crops grown by these hands of mine—hands steeped in the spirit of a Gangwon-do mountain village—could hardly turn out bad. Right?”

“Kkurrrrrr.”

“It really does feel like I’ve taken up country living. I should have settled into a peaceful, sun-warmed life like this much earlier….”

Seo Ji-oh thought of his hometown, where he had been able to touch every kind of nature as a child.

“Even as a kid I liked helping out with this and that. The elders always had so many different things going that I got to try beekeeping, dig for wild ginseng, run into a wild boar….”

“Kkeureuk?”

“I’m not talking about poaching. We literally just ran into each other, and no one got hurt or killed, and we parted ways just fine. I think I met it thanks to someone who used to roam the mountains collecting mushrooms and ginseng.”

There wasn’t a single household without a kitchen garden, and some people raised a few chickens, ducks, or quail on the side. He remembered the pleasure of making cheese from fresh milk brought over from an acquaintance’s ranch a few connections removed, or simply stirring honey into it and drinking it straight.

Ji-oh was a man who had tried almost everything a human being could do on the land.

“There’s no way someone like me couldn’t manage a little farming.”

Grandmother, please watch over me.

“In the name of our village, I will prove my talent.”

“Kkeureong?”

“I was taught you’re not supposed to stake your own name on things like this.”

His grandmother’s iron rule had been that if you really thought you couldn’t manage something, you should pawn an elder’s name instead.

“Of course, I don’t think she meant it for occasions like this.”

Interpretation was a personal freedom.

“So what seeds should I ask for….”

“Kkurr?”

“…Potatoes, sweet potatoes, and corn are non-negotiable.”

Ji-oh’s verbal floodgates opened.

“There’s a reason those are the world’s classic famine crops—best to grow them just in case. And I’d like to grow radishes, too. Especially when the sprouts are still as tender as new shoots—you pull them, mix them with rice, sauce, and oil, and it’s just that good.”

“Kkeureuk, kkurrr.”

“Pumpkin? Pumpkin’s great. Big old winter squash is perfect for porridge, small sweet pumpkins are delicious simply boiled and drizzled with honey, and long, plump summer squash makes soup nicely savory and filling. You know a thing or two, don’t you.”

There was plenty more that came to mind.

“Lettuce, maybe?”

“Kkung-kkung-kkung….”

“It’s better than you’d think. Easy to grow, and once the leaves are nice you just tear them off, add rice and sauce, and a whole meal disappears. Or something like bok choy—great when you simmer it in a clear broth.”

“Kkuruuk.”

“Peas would be fine, too. Ah, cherry tomatoes… I like those as well. A proper kitchen garden is required by law to have at least one tomato plant.”

Having said that much, Ji-oh looked down at the basket in his hands.

“…….”

“Kkurr.”

“Aha.”

There was Honey, spilled across the bottom of the basket like a liquid monster.

“Right.”

It was cute, so that settled it.

Honey was, first and foremost, a bird that held gems. The jewels filling the basket—where golden liquid lapped like thick honey water—were quite a pleasure to look at. With company like that, he probably wouldn’t get bored.

Still chattering through his farming plans, Ji-oh soon stopped in front of a particular tree.

“Ah….”

A pitch-black tree.

A tree made of obsidian.

“…….”

Ji-oh blinked twice at the description that had appeared on its own.

“Did I use too much obsidian paint last time?”

Creating a habitat for the water birds had consumed a considerable amount of powdered obsidian. It was a material he used often whenever he wanted a transparent quality like water or glass, so harvesting some while he was here would be useful.

Ji-oh hunted through the basket for a chisel and hammer. They were tools that had nothing to do with the word “foraging,” but for harvesting a Starflower Tree, there were no better assistants.

“Wake up, son. That lazy look of yours is very cute, but Dad has work to do.”

“Kkurrrrreuk.”

“This isn’t even your kind of thing. Hand it over. That’s it.”

Gently coaxing Honey, who had been playing with the tools, until he got them back, Ji-oh set the basket on the ground and approached the obsidian tree. He touched a branch, checking its temperature and moisture.

A faint warmth, proof that it was alive, and sap flowing between it like blood.

“Probably….”

Ji-oh searched among them for a dead branch.

“This one.”

An oddly chilling aura clung to it; rather than glittering, it only reflected light with a hard edge, and not the slightest sense of moisture remained in the solid wood.

He fretted along the boundary to confirm it, then brought the chisel and hammer close.

Then—tap, tap.

“…….”

Ching…!

“Done.”

The obsidian branch broke free with a clear, ringing note.

A living branch could never be taken this easily. It was far too hard, and sticky sap inside tangled and clung together, so even if you tried to smash it, it refused to shatter cleanly.

Obsidian that hard is inconvenient when you’re making paint, too.

A living branch with sludge-like sap running through it was also difficult to reduce to a clean powder. Unless the goal was to fashion a sharp blade or arrowhead, or to extract the sap itself, it was always better to pick out the dead branches whenever possible.

“And that’s better for the tree as well.”

Even if this was an obsidian tree with a glass-like structure, it was still very much alive. It was a tree that produced flowers fine enough to serve as excellent medicine; removing its dead branches would only make things more comfortable from the tree’s point of view.

Careful not to let the weakened dead wood shatter into dust, Ji-oh broke the long branch into pieces. Every fragment of obsidian, holding the cold radiance of stars in a night sky, disappeared into Honey’s belly inside the basket.

“You’re keeping them?”

“Kkurrrrrrrr!”

“All right, then. Let’s do that.”

As if it were already stockpiling an independence fund—well, it was a bird that lit up for gems either way. Such an incarnation of greed, so poorly matched to that clear, innocent face.

If it’s a sparkling rock, it can’t help itself.

It would rather cause trouble than ever be the one taken advantage of. Ji-oh lifted his gaze back to the Starflower Tree.

“…….”

The tree was a dense black that reflected sunlight as sharply as a mirror.

It was a cold black you might expect to find only on a snow mountain where the flakes never stopped falling—and yet, perhaps because it was alive, it harmonized beautifully with a spring landscape thick with living flowers and grass. From time to time a forest butterfly, a shape of pure light, settled on it.

After admiring the sharp, solid tree for a long while, Ji-oh set his feet moving again.

“…I need to find fruit.”

“Kkyu-reuk.”

“I hope there’s something good.”

Fortunately, it wasn’t long before Ji-oh found a fruit that suited him perfectly.

“A nutritional supplement, huh.”

That part was deeply interesting in itself.

“…Sour and bitter, you say?”

More than anything, that was what drew him.

There’s no mention of poison, so eating it raw shouldn’t be a real problem—but just how sour and bitter does it have to be for them to provide a separate method for eating it sweet?

He plucked a fruit with brave resolve.

It was exactly the size of a Korean tangerine; the peel was a little firmer, but the overall shape was the same. Aside from the fact that the flesh inside was a thick honey-yellow, it was identical to a tangerine in every way.

Sniffing the tart scent, Ji-oh bit into one without hesitation.

“…….”

Gulp.

Ji-oh swallowed the fruit with stoic composure.

“…….”

“Kku, kkuru… kkururu….”

“Yeah.”

At Honey’s tense reaction, Ji-oh nodded with his usual flat expression. The facial muscles that had long since atrophied were not about to surrender to a trial of this scale, confined as it was to the tongue alone.

“Sour and bitter.”

It was a flavor that made him understand why the alchemy method was nothing more than “process into an edible form and consume.”

Even the death poisons of history were probably sweeter than this.

The shock was enough to make his mind reel.

Clinging to his fading reason, he managed to register that the texture was firmer than a tangerine’s and the juice rather scarce—but next to that astonishing taste, neither detail was particularly important. He spent a while just breathing.

“…….”

And yet somehow he couldn’t bring himself to dislike it. Ji-oh found his confidence restored.

“At this level, it won’t lose to the sweetness of Mangdung Fruit.”

Honey, sharing the basket, fled in open disgust. The taste was clearly too traumatic for a creature of pure sweetness to endure.

(To be continued)