NOVEL NEXT Chapter 30.1
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Let’s Cultivate Potatoes!
That night.
As soon as it was midnight, Haruki quietly entered the dungeon without putting on his mask.
What he was about to do wasn’t against the law, but it wasn’t exactly commendable either.
And so—while he didn’t really want to use it, he activated Conceal.
His presence was so thin that even security cameras would overlook him. And it was like this, that Haruki went down to the fourth floor of the dungeon and searched for monsters.
It did not take him long to discover the monster he was looking for.
“…Heh.”
Haruki grinned mischievously.
Slowly and quietly, he approached.
As his presence was too thin, the monster did not realize that Haruki was there.
And so before the monster noticed, he reached out with his right hand—and pulled out the stalk of potatoes.
Once they came out of the ground, the once firm stalk suddenly grew limp.
The unused potatoes were stuck onto the roots.
And in the center of the roots, was the parent potato, which beat like a heart.
He had brought his weapons, just in case. But he might not need them…
Haruki used his concealment skills to pull out and abduct—no, take them back with him out of the dungeon.
There was an empty room that was filled with planters that he had prepared, and Haruki carefully filled each with the potato stalk he had brought from the dungeon.
He had bought these planters from the closest hardware store after he had finished hunting.
Of course, he had also bought soil and fertilizer as well.
Haruki had gotten the idea to mass-produce the monster potatoes after Karen had talked about growing them in his house.
It was not forbidden by law to take monsters from the dungeon and bring them back home.
If it was forbidden, then there would be the issue of differentiating a dead monster and one that was alive. It could be quite a problem.
Especially since there were bone monsters on the central floors. After all, they were just bones. So humanity was currently incapable of defining what it meant to be alive.
Besides, it would greatly inconvenience the scholars who were studying living monsters.
If it was forbidden by law, it would disturb the development of these fields of research.
That being said, it did not change the fact that such actions caused great worry to the general public.
And it was because of this, that Haruki killed his presence so that no one would find him. And he brought back the monsters in secret.
He put his bag down in the corner of the room and took out the many stalks of potatoes he had gathered.
The area was surrounded by a net, in case the potatoes went wild and started shooting everywhere.
He took them and carefully planted each one into the planters.
There were ten abducted—no, delicately escorted monsters in all.
And they were all quite limp after having been so rigorously pulled out.
Haruki watered them, but it had no effect.
“Hmm…”
He saw that the monsters showed no signs of getting well. And so he returned to his room and turned on his computer.
Apparently, the necessary fertilizer to grow potatoes was mainly plant and wood ash and also bio-organic fertilizer. He had already done his research and bought these, so they were mixed in with the soil
“So, there’s no problem with the dirt.”
He checked a few other websites about growing potatoes and confirmed that he had done nothing wrong in that regard.
“…Maybe I’ll give them some sunlight and see what happens.”
Maybe the sunlight would help them.
Haruki persuaded himself of this and fell asleep.
The next day, Haruki got up much earlier than usual.
He could not stop thinking about the potatoes he had planted the previous night.
Just in case, he got out of his pajamas and put on his armor. Then he headed for the room with the planters.
What he saw there was hard to imagine. But the potatoes looked even more wilted than they had last night.
The stems were dry and wrinkled and could not even stand.
The tips of the leaves had become brown and were so parched that they looked like they would crumble if he touched them.
“Ah…”
Haruki was speechless as he fell to his knees.
He felt like he had just witnessed the death of his own children.
Tears filled his eyes.
He began to inspect the dried-up stalks.
When he looked inside the soil, he saw that the potatoes themselves were wrinkled up.
The plants had been absorbing the nutrients from the potatoes instead of the soil.
“Maybe it has to be soil from the dungeon after all… Hmm?”
As he continued his inspection, he found one that looked like it was still alive.
Haruki immediately looked closer and inspected the leaves.
There was no pulse. However, there was still moisture within the stalk.
“It’s alive!”
That being said, there was nothing that Haruki could do.
He did not know what it was that they needed…
“I’m sorry. I can’t help you guys…”
Haruki’s eyes welled up with tears and he sniffed loudly.
He had stolen so many potatoes and cut them down after they fired at him. But all of that past was gone from his head now.
“….!?”