Forest's Entrails

"Help."

"Whoa—you startled me."

"Please help me."

"Would you stop coming to me every time you receive an awkward gift, Curator Yu Seong-un?"

"This one was given to me, so I can't even share it with anyone else."

Bi Sa-beol answered cheerfully at Yu Seong-un's sudden intrusion.

"Then why not just ask if you can share it?"

"I guess that's really the only option left."

"Have you tried this gift yet?"

"I ate about three at home before coming."

Yu Seong-un nodded.

"They were delicious."

"Ah, now that you say that, I'm suddenly craving some myself."

"Wait until I go ask Ji-oh."

"If you're not even going to let me eat any, why bring them to me in the first place?"

"If they fell into anyone else's hands, my position would become painfully awkward."

"Ah… so I'm the vault, then."

Bi Sa-beol smiled bitterly.

"Our employees really are far too cynical."

"Aren't you the one who gathered them all yourself?"

"Even so, who treats their guild leader like a safe? None of you cherish me nearly enough."

"And who created this atmosphere in the first place, only to play the victim now?"

"So how are the effects?"

"Changing the subject, I see."

After a brief pause, Yu Seong-un rubbed the back of his neck.

"It claims to be excellent for injury recovery and immunity, but I haven't had any injuries yet, so I haven't felt that part. However…"

"However?"

"My eyes feel a little clearer."

"Your eyes feel clearer?"

Even in this world, medical technology related to eyesight had advanced slowly. Worn-out optic nerves only deteriorated further with time. In that sense, the effect Yu Seong-un described sounded rather intriguing.

"Is it a definite effect?"

"As far as I can tell, yes. If others eat them too, we'll have a comparison group and can analyze the effects more precisely."

"Then we'll need Ji-oh's permission first. You should have asked when you received the gift. Knowing his personality, I doubt he'd have flatly refused."

"We shouldn't casually pin down the nature of a being of the Source like that. Besides, I'd just finished an all-nighter and wasn't thinking straight. I only went over because I spotted some bungeoppang and wanted to pass a few along—who could have guessed I'd end up with a gift like this?"

"If you're that exhausted, how about the cookies you received last time?"

"I finished those ages ago."

Yu Seong-un had once again become a slave to caffeine.

"What about the fruit preserves you received before… they may not look anything like fruit preserves, but anyway, how have the other employees reacted?"

"The reactions were excellent. And a little confused. The greatest advantage of the honey from the water veins—restoring a human's physical abilities to their absolute limit—is…"

"Even if they never read the description, they would have felt it in their bodies, so of course they'd be suspicious."

Bi Sa-beol smiled as he asked,

"Care for a cup of fruit tea before you go?"

"…Please."

Yu Seong-un, on the verge of death by overwork, needed the recovery.

After drinking the fruit tea—rich with a soup-like savoriness—Yu Seong-un let out a small sigh. It truly was delicious, yet the thought of consuming something this extraordinary merely to recover from fatigue filled him with a vague sense of guilt.

"Taking these into a dungeon would be a tremendous help. It would meaningfully affect mortality rates as well."

"That's true."

"But if we actually did that, the uproar would only grow larger."

"Also true."

"…A being of the Source being too generous is a problem in itself."

A new realization.

"So the employees didn't grow suspicious? They must have felt something was off."

"Everyone was curious about the source of the fruit preserves, yet no one asked me again. I told them I'd bought them at auction, but of course that alone didn't satisfy them."

"So what did you say?"

"What was I supposed to say? No one asked, so I didn't tell. Our employees absolutely hate getting involved in complicated matters."

"No office worker enjoys overtime."

"Everyone's so cold-hearted, I swear."

Bi Sa-beol sipped his own fruit tea as he spoke.

"Still, very few people seem to suspect it's a 'Fragment of a Work.'"

"Fragment of a Work" was a sort of in-house term used within the Collector Guild, referring to objects, blessings, or curses that a piece confined in Bi Sa-beol's gallery bestowed upon its curator.

"After all, almost no one imagines a work that would gift food in the first place…"

"I suppose not."

Among the works gathered in Bi Sa-beol's gallery, a fair number possessed self-awareness. Depending on how sophisticated that self was, a high-level curator would be assigned, carefully managing the bond between themselves and the work.

And so, very occasionally—extraordinarily rarely—a curator would receive a "fragment" like this.

"Usually they give objects."

"Food is technically an object as well."

"They tend to give jewelry, paintings, weapons—things of that nature."

"Yes, for the most part."

There was no reason to expect another work that had developed a taste for cooking the way Ji-oh had.

"Is cooking Ji-oh's only hobby?"

"No. As I've mentioned before, he also enjoys painting."

"And those paintings become passages or living creatures."

"Correct."

"Then what would happen if he painted a landscape?"

"……"

Yu Seong-un's face crumpled like a ball of foil.

"I'm on break right now—please don't make me anxious."

"It wasn't that serious a thought."

"I've vaguely considered the possibility, but I don't want to think about it right now."

"How pitiful…"

"When a boss calls his subordinate pitiful, it's nothing but sarcasm, isn't it?"

At the sight of his exhaustion-soaked subordinate, Bi Sa-beol laughed and nodded.

"I'm simply curious. Since Ji-oh can create anything through painting, I found myself wondering what would happen if it became a landscape."

"He might create an entirely different world."

"Like a dungeon?"

"……"

"Fascinating."

Bi Sa-beol stroked his chin as he spoke.

"According to quite a few night guards who've witnessed it, Ji-oh travels through some kind of landscape painting."

"That's a little different from what I heard. Not a portrait, but a landscape?"

"Apparently when Ji-oh is inside it becomes a portrait, and when he's outside it becomes a landscape. Quite convenient, isn't it?"

"That's honestly insane…"

"They say the work hanging in the corridor disappears around sunrise, so it seems certain he can use it for travel as well."

"But hadn't we already guessed that much?"

"Which is why I'm curious—if he can move to places that already exist through a painting…"

Then.

"Could Ji-oh travel to other dungeons as well?"

"……"

"I wonder."

"That…"

Yu Seong-un frowned.

"That sounds like a rather dangerous idea."

"Does it?"

"I don't know exactly what Guild Leader has seen of Ji-oh, but from the perspective of someone whose eyes aren't particularly good, yes."

"Ji-oh has already toured the outside world under Curator Yu Seong-un's guidance."

"I agreed to that, yes, but what you're saying now is that we should expand Ji-oh's range of activity even further."

It felt unsettling.

"The fact that I show Ji-oh goodwill beyond that of a mere work… of course I have no excuse. But this is a gardener's nature. Something carved into the soul."

That was simply how gardeners were.

They did not feel threats as threats, nor cruelty as cruelty. To those who tended gardens, a being of the Source was something to be cared for.

"I told you this when I signed the employment contract under your proposal, Guild Leader—I've said it again and again—gardeners are not on humanity's side."

Born human yet having cultivated gardens, they wished for both to coexist. It was inevitable that Yu Seong-un would be drawn to Ji-oh, who appeared so close to the Source.

Without reaching toward the Source, one could not survive as a gardener. An ancient preference that could not change, and must not change.

"But you, Guild Leader, are a complete human being. If I am not thorough enough as a curator, you ought to point it out and correct me."

"……"

"You allow your works far too much… freedom. It wouldn't be strange for that to worry me."

Bi Sa-beol laughed.

"Isn't the reason Curator Yu can use me as a vault based on the same principle?"

"…Thanks to your favoritism I've received help large and small many times, so I know I'm in no position to speak."

Every guild member of the Collector Guild was one of Bi Sa-beol's collectibles.

The weak, almost pitiful side he showed and the excessive goodwill he bestowed all stemmed from Bi Sa-beol's irrational collector's desire. He loved every single one of his collectibles.

"Even so, treating the world as a testing ground for your works will bring severe consequences later."

"Consequences, you say."

"Whenever a work beyond specifications like Ji-oh appears, Guild Leader has always behaved this way."

"How have I behaved?"

"As if it didn't matter how the world fell apart or how many died, so long as you could understand and appreciate your own work."

"You've observed well."

Bi Sa-beol nodded.

"That's why I hired curators—so they could manage things for me while I'm busy appreciating."

"……"

It was an utterly irresponsible statement, yet not incorrect, so Yu Seong-un sighed.

"If even I, a gardener, am taking humanity's side this much, the situation is truly serious."

"I thought I was restraining myself reasonably well, but if Curator Yu is saying that, then I suppose I have gone too far."

Bi Sa-beol's eyes curved clearly.

"But aren't you curious?"

Those were the eyes of a man who had not the slightest intention of hiding his greed.

"I am curious about what kind of being my work truly is. How upright a young man Ji-oh is, whether he can kill people, and if he can, how much and in what manner he would kill them—I'm extremely curious."

"……"

"Ji-oh is a painter. He is also a portrait. He has a personality that avoids friction. He knows himself as a twenty-nine-year-old young man. How will he mingle among people? How will he react if he has an unpleasant experience? How will he change if he realizes he is a work of art? That is what I want to know."

"……"

"To be honest, I don't care what happens to the world because of Ji-oh. It angers me when foolish people damage my work, but I am not afraid of my works wounding one another and burning away as they fight."

That was Bi Sa-beol's honest desire.

"Have you heard the saying that the higher the rank, the further one drifts from humanity?"

"…It's a famous story. Tales about how inhuman S-rank hunters are remain quite popular."

"It's rather embarrassing to claim with this unimpressive physique, but I would like you to understand that I, too, am S-rank."

He was close to the inhuman.

"If only this world were beautiful and elegant enough for me to treasure it. Don't you think?"

"……"

Yu Seong-un's face twisted with fatigue at the absurd statement delivered to his face.

"…Ordinary people don't even entertain the possibility of mass slaughter just because the world isn't beautiful or elegant, Guild Leader…"

"That's simply because their field of vision is narrow. To put it more bluntly, even if the world were destroyed by my work, it would only be something that was going to happen anyway."

"The Association President should have heard this. Isn't Bi Sa-beol's gallery the only place the Association, with its strict regulations on dangerous-grade items, entrusts with any confidence?"

"I know that, but that man doesn't particularly trust me either. It's simply that he lacks the time and resources to manage everything himself, and day by day more dangerous works appear—I was merely the least of the available evils who could take them."

Because he shared roughly half the government's and Association's workload. For that single reason, Bi Sa-beol had obtained the gallery's autonomy.

"So the Association President trusts me no more than he distrusts me. He simply needed a space and staff that would provide the bare minimum of consistent management."

"…Despite that distrust, the Association has somehow managed not to seize the works. As a former researcher there, I recall clearly how much the Association coveted your gallery…"

"That's why they say life is all about timing. If I had opened this gallery even ten years later, do you think the Association would have been this lenient?"

Bi Sa-beol's face brightened as if he had just heard an amusing comedy routine.

"Bi Sa-beol's gallery is extremely famous in the world right now. Far more performative, stimulating, and easily visible to the public than the Association, where only quiet research, analysis, and control take place."

"……"

"And what I manage is a gallery. Customers may come, and those customers may buy works. The Association cannot suppress a historic gallery that has patrons who support me."

Bi Sa-beol's face grew dramatically sorrowful.

"Ah, truly… when I think of the works locked away inside the Association, tears well up. How harshly must they be treated just to survive."

"…That…"

"And when I think of the humiliation and pain my precious, fragile works would suffer in the Association's research labs, I simply cannot hand them over. Works contain souls, you know."

"Ah, yes…"

To Yu Seong-un, who had once been a research team leader at the Association, it was enough to drive him mad—but since he now worked under Bi Sa-beol and enjoyed various conveniences, he decided to let it pass for now.

"So you have no intention of restraining yourself?"

"I believe I'm already restraining myself quite enough. I don't know what more I'm supposed to hold back."

"This is the Demon King Castle."

There was no way of knowing what kind of catastrophe would erupt once things went wrong.

"When an accident happens, it will be a proper one. You know that, right?"

"That's why we include life insurance for the curators, isn't it?"

"That wasn't the question. Korea could be erased from the map."

"How terrifying. I trust our curators will handle things well before it comes to that."

"Have you ever seen such an irresponsible gallery director? I wish you would remember that this is your own gallery."

Bi Sa-beol's gallery was more stimulating and open than the Association's research labs, but correspondingly less safe.

If one were truly going to manage those dangerous, sensitive works safely… a little stronger control would be necessary.

This place operated under the bare minimum of control with sheer volume. It was the complete opposite of the Association's research facilities.

Bi Sa-beol loved his works, and he managed them with love. One of the basic requirements demanded of the curators here was "to build a strong bond with the works."

"……"

The present Earth was being maintained far too precariously.

Even if it's an inevitable situation, given that every system once collapsed and is now being rebuilt…

Everything was turning solely on the mercy of a handful of the powerful on Earth.

If even one of them goes off the rails, true chaos will erupt—yet fortunately no such disaster has occurred so far.

Somehow they were holding on.

"…We'll work even harder. Including matters related to Ji-oh."

"In that spirit, do you have any intention of helping Ji-oh make new friends? It must be lonely being alone."

"You're not even going to bother wrapping it in a grand cause anymore? Clearly you let everything I just said go in one ear and out the other."

At this point, it almost felt like destiny that Ji-oh had been auctioned not to the Association President but to Bi Sa-beol.

"……"

Well, honestly.

As a gardener, Yu Seong-un himself was a ridiculous person for welcoming Bi Sa-beol's work-friendly opinions.

He nodded.

"I'll ask him once."

He had been planning to go talk with Ji-oh this dawn anyway.

Adding one more question should be fine.

At that same hour, Ji-oh.

"I made a few."

"Kkung?"

A few?

"Yeah, it's a bit much, isn't it."

"Kkung?"

A little?

"Yeah, Dad got carried away. I got so excited I couldn't even handle myself."

"Kkureuk."

"I'll reflect on it."

He had handed Yu Seong-un roughly five kilograms of sausage, yet five kilograms still remained.

"I dried them once in the sun, so if I store them in the ice warehouse they shouldn't spoil, but…"

"Kkurrr?"

"Like I said earlier, I got too excited, and also I've been neglecting the water birds' nests, so I wanted to give them a gift. The idea was that we shouldn't eat them all ourselves—we should share."

"Kkurururururururuk."

"I knew you'd like that."

The mountain of grilled sausages was so abundant it looked like a small hill.

Even so it was smaller than the entire population of water birds living in this forest, but what did perspective matter? The fact that the quantity was excessive remained the same.

Yet Ji-oh remained undaunted.

"Try this one first. I made it mild because I figured you wouldn't like spicy food."

He was excited. Even if he had made sausages from ordinary ingredients, he would have enjoyed it—but this was food made with fantasy ingredients, was it not?

"This one has arum, raven walnut, and vinegar. I also ground in a little Galaxy Merry. Honestly it's a bit too mild for my taste… but I thought you'd like it."

"Kkururuk."

"That absolutely doesn't mean I'm not going to eat any myself."

For the first time in a while, Seo Ji-oh set a table outside the cabin and finished preparing the meal.

On the table sat freshly cooked rice from a cauldron, baibamneul blanched of its toxins and seasoned like namul, and warm homemade sausages fried and roasted in the oven until they were bursting with juices.

"I'll grill some later and take them to the water birds' nests. First I set the table so we could taste them ourselves, so let's eat slowly and stop by the nests afterward. Agreed, son?"

"Kkurrreuk."

"You really are my son."

Seo Ji-oh put an uncut, long sausage into his mouth and nodded inwardly.

…Someone who likes intense flavors like me might find it a little bland. Honestly it's a bit plain, but the seasoning is just right so it goes well with rice.

The sausage, briefly dried in the sun and then grilled once, had an extremely crispy exterior.

Yet the casing, made by personally cleaning the intestines, was somehow savory and chewy, while remaining soft enough not to resist the teeth. Crispness, chewiness, and tenderness coexisted in a single texture.

"Mm…"

Crunch!

"Ah, hot."

The filling inside overflowed with juices.

A subtle woody fragrance seeped into the roof of his mouth. The sausage, just roasted over a roaring wood fire in the hearth, was hot enough to be slightly too hot, and the sweet yet somehow sticky juices that had been tightly sealed inside the casing soaked his mouth.

Warm.

"……"

And delicious.

…I made it mild, but the aroma is still excellent.

He had reduced the salt as much as possible to draw out the meat's natural flavor, then added diverse yet complex fragrances to heighten its harmony with the original meat. The result was this sausage.

The combination of the deer meat's subtle nutty scent with raven walnut unified the sausage's flavor.

Moreover, the sharp aroma of arum hidden deep beneath and the vinegar from Candy Trap Tree fruit above it asserted themselves gently yet clearly.

Eating it now, it's better than I expected. I thought it would be terribly plain.

It also paired well with the faint bitterness of the vinegar itself and the deep smoky fragrance of the campfire wood used to grill the sausage.

The sausage was good, and the cooking method was excellent as well.

"Especially the vinegar—I think I used it well."

"Kkuk?"

"Maybe because it's naturally fermented fruit vinegar? There's a subtle sweetness, and this sourness and bitterness that cut the greasiness without being too sharp… they really go well together."

Next was the sausage he had made exclusively for himself.

Crunch!

"……"

The red sausage stimulated his taste buds the moment he bit into it.

My mouth is burning.

There was a heat that somehow clung stickily around the tongue.

The aftertaste doesn't linger long. It's a very soft, clean spiciness.

The sausage made for him alone contained every ingredient he had found this time.

Galaxy Merry, with its clean fragrance like a blend of chili and pepper; Weeping Fringe, which produced a strong heat yet carried a mysterious, heavy sweetness; arum with its ginger-like scent that bound all the jumbled aromas into one; raven walnut that gently covered it with a mild, deep fragrance; and finally Candy Trap Tree vinegar adding sharp sourness here and there to create variation in the flavor…

"……"

Maybe a little too much.

"Still, the taste is fine."

"Kkung."

"You don't have to avoid it—you could at least try a bite."

"Kkung kkung kkung…"

"If you don't want to, nothing I can do."

Regardless of Honey's opinion as he avoided the spicy-smelling sausage, it suited Ji-oh's palate perfectly. The slight emptiness he had been feeling was instantly filled.

It was the same feeling as downing a whole bowl of samgyetang in one go, or plunging into a boiling hot spring, or heading straight to a jjimjilbang with a cup of sikhye and sucking the half-frozen drink through a straw while sweating profusely. That sense of fullness that precisely filled what had been lacking.

"Nice."

Happiness was not far away.

I was worried because they were new ingredients, but it turned out better than I expected.

Although the concept had been spiciness, the overall subtle sweetness and the fat that coated the entire meat made the heat extremely clean.

With spicy food, if the heat itself was clean, that alone counted as over ninety percent success.

"All that time sharpening my cooking instincts paid off. This is when you put a grandmother's hand taste to use."

"Kkung kkung kkung kkung kkung…"

"It's not that Dad made it wrong—our tastes are just a little different."

At this level, it was a delicious kind of spicy.

Flavor expert Seo Ji-oh could even enjoy chicken feet. When dakbal was too spicy, people usually dipped it in oil sauce or drank something sweet alongside it.

Then one could eat it with a calmer heart, like a civilized person. The sausage he made this time followed the same principle.

The taste and aroma themselves are overall spicy and sharp, but Weeping Fringe already had a subtle sweetness underneath. Raven walnut has the soft sweetness unique to nuts as well. And the vinegar naturally produced by Candy Trap Tree, which bears extremely sweet fruit, goes without saying…

When the spice flavors felt too strong, the soft aromas pressed them down. When it seemed too spicy, the generous amount of deer fat he had added washed the tongue's pain away like silk.

When that fat threatened to feel greasy, the vinegar asserted its presence with a sharp tang and settled the queasy stomach.

Overall the balance was excellent.

Arum's role in tightly binding the overly complex tangle of tastes and aromas into one is also huge. The effect is far better than I anticipated.

Even while chewing the food in his mouth, Ji-oh began conceiving a new dish.

"When I'm throwing all sorts of random things together, adding arum will really raise the quality of the dish."

"Kkung…?"

"Next time I'll make it less spicy for you. You seem to have an aversion to spicy scents."

Arum had gathered all the spices that had been flying off in every direction, each flaunting its own personality, and bound them into one place. The stickiness was so effective that even while tasting such a complex flavor, he felt no burden at all.

Besides, I paid attention to the texture of this sausage as well.

Ji-oh nodded.

"There's a decent chew to it, don't you think?"

"Kkurreuk."

"Right? It's good, isn't it? Varying the size of the meat grains definitely made the texture much more interesting. Next time I make them I should think carefully about texture again."

"Kkuk kkuk…"

"I always think this, but I love that mold never grows in this forest."

Without that, this entire project would have been impossible.

I even used actual intestines with high moisture content for the casing… just hoping they wouldn't spoil during the process was already a lot.

When the meat grains differ in size, air pockets form inside the casing, and through those gaps mold is more likely to appear. At least all the sausages Ji-oh had made until now had gone through that process.

Spineless bastards, the lot of them.

If you were true pork, you ought to endure a little mold through sheer willpower.

"Hmm."

Thanks to that, even the texture of this sausage was excellent.

The meat he had already mashed soft as porridge touched a corner of his mouth before he even chewed, delighting his tongue, while the uneven chunks of meat bounced cheerfully against his teeth with a pleasant spring.

Juices flowing freely… and the intestine casing has a better texture than I imagined.

Perhaps because the intestines had been so plump, it felt exactly like chewing thin gopchang.

The intestines he had cleaned in advance had not a single trace of off-smell, and carried both the chewiness and savoriness unique to organ meats.

Moreover, grilled in the hearth, the outer skin was crisp like a cookie while the inside of the casing remained sticky. There was even a faint bitterness unique to nuts.

"……"

Ji-oh murmured.

"I think this is good."

He wanted to live like this forever.

Peacefully.

To be continued.