Chapter 11: Divine Tree (2)
"Hmm."
"At first glance, it doesn’t look bad."
"It seems fine."
"……."
Of course, it wasn’t fine.
"Nonsense! How can you say that after seeing what happened?"
"Haha."
"This isn’t something to laugh about!"
Fortunately, the Divine Tree that had been raised again was intact. The Divine Tree, that is.
What had changed was the land where the Divine Tree had fallen. More precisely, it was the entire area surrounding the café I had bought that was the problem.
When the Divine Tree fell, its divine energy spread and soaked into the land.
The blue light had faded, but the land was no longer just ordinary ground like before. A warm, indescribable energy kept radiating from it like a shimmering mirage.
"Won’t it get better with time?"
"Look over there. The divine energy from the tree is still seeping into the ground. It has already merged completely. Now this place is no different from the Divine Tree itself! Ah, I’ve lived too long. To be fooled by someone who left Shinan and caused this mess."
Huh? What’s that?
"Hey! Where are you going, in the middle of our talk!"
Ignoring the Gumiho Elder’s nagging for a moment, I approached the Divine Tree and gently swept the ground with my hand.
Then, all sorts of hidden seeds began to sprout green shoots from beneath the soil. The more I caressed the ground, the faster they grew — it was like watching growth speed in a documentary.
"Hooo! They sprout instantly! Even bamboo doesn’t grow this fast!"
"Did you know about this?"
"No. I just saw some unfamiliar plants growing and decided to try touching it."
"Huh, amazing. To think the land touched by divine energy would have such powers."
"I want to try too!"
-Smack, smack.
"Hmph, it’s not working for me."
"Same here, it doesn’t work for me either."
"What?"
The Gumiho Elder and Director Baek Mahyeon were the same. No matter how much they stroked the ground, nothing sprouted.
"Looks like I’m the only one who can do it."
"That can’t be! You’re the one among us with the weakest divine power."
"The Divine Tree must have recognized its landowner!"
"Tsk, say something that makes sense."
"Well, maybe it saw the land register when it fell."
Now wasn’t the time to be amazed at the growing sprouts.
After all, the plan to pull this thing out and move it to Mount Gyeryong had ended in failure.
On top of that, the Divine Tree’s energy had seeped into the land.
Clearly, if we did anything more here, the situation would only worsen.
"First, we need to clean up the surroundings. It’s morning now, and more people are around."
"Huh? Where are you going?"
As I gathered the shovels and headed toward the car, the Gumiho Elder called after me.
"It’s morning. I have to go to work."
"After all this mess, you’re heading to work?"
"For me, being late to work is a bigger problem."
"You need to clean this up before you go! This mess started with you!"
"That’s why I’m leaving it as it is. I know now not to touch it further. I’m not thrilled about it, though."
Honestly, I wanted to just saw the thing down, but I couldn’t bring myself to say that out loud.
"Then the rest of you can wrap things up. Please take care of things, all three of you. The café key is under the flowerpot over there."
"Ah, but still……."
Leaving the stunned Gumiho Elder behind, I quickly got into the car.
In situations like this, the first to leave is usually the winner.
A slightly uneasy victory, but what can you do?
Housework is housework, and going to work is going to work.
"He’s gone."
"Huh, that brat probably doesn’t even realize how serious this is. That’s why he’s so carefree."
"Why didn’t you stop him and explain?"
"Ah, I was going to! But he wasn’t exactly wrong, was he? We should’ve figured it out when he first suggested uprooting it. Tsk! I keep getting fooled by that snake tongue of his. Is that the power of Shinan too?"
The insane suggestion to move the Divine Tree had sounded quite convincing when it came out of Jinseong’s mouth.
But with time to think, the idea of touching one of the only two Divine Trees left in the world was clearly unacceptable — a major incident that could shake both the mortal and celestial realms.
"The café owner is truly something!"
"That wasn’t a compliment!"
"He’s insane! Insane, I tell you!"
The Gumiho mercilessly pulled on the raccoon dog’s cheek, who had proudly placed its front paws on its waist like it had been praised.
"You’d think someone so calculating would be more cautious. But he’s so bold. Tsk, looks like you’ll have to suffer again today."
"Huh? Me?"
Baek Mahyeon was startled to suddenly be declared the one to suffer.
"Who else? In the end, we’re the ones stuck here guarding the Divine Tree until that brat comes back. Ugh, my joints. Take the kids and go turn on the stove in the café."
"I want to sit too! And I’m hungry!"
"Hah, so it’s come to this."
Baek Mahyeon finally realized his situation and looked troubled.
A lone café building in the middle of an empty field.
The agents wore shabby clothes to look like laborers, but that didn’t make them any less conspicuous.
No matter what excuse was given, this gathering of people was enough to draw the attention of passing cars.
And with only the minimum staff left, it was clear his own workload wouldn’t be light.
"Aish, if I knew this would happen, I’d have asked for coffee. I’ve been getting the short end of the stick since dawn."
"So what do we do now? The café owner didn’t seem to have a clear plan either."
"Why wouldn’t that brat have a plan? He tossed it to us, so now we’re the plan. Let’s just stay and guard this place today. We can’t exactly leave it unattended."
And so, the three of them gathered around the crackling wood stove inside the café.
The tongs busy flipping sweet potatoes on top of the stove, of course, belonged to Director Baek Mahyeon.
The company I arrived at for work was the same as always.
A few emails from some diligent — or perhaps overtime-exhausted — department staff, and a neatly prepared stack of documents, just as I’d expected, helped push thoughts of the Divine Tree out of my mind.
"Assistant Manager Kim, did you get the RFP from Samjung Construction? What do you think?"
"Yes, I’ve almost finished checking it. I’ve also listed separately the items to be added to the proposal."
"Already? I told you to just skim it. You finished the whole thing in a day?"
The manager, who had been walking around thumping his back with an acupressure stick, took a seat in the empty chair to look through the documents I had prepared.
“Wow, as expected from our department’s ace. We could just hand this straight to the proposal team. The feasibility review will be a free pass.”
“But this one might be a bit of a pain.”
“Huh? Why? Are they asking us to introduce some new security solution like last time?”
“No. The project cost is quite high, so we can just submit it saying it’s acceptable, but they want a feature linked to VR. We’ll have to check with the dev team if it’s doable. This isn’t a field we have any reference for.”
“Don’t just go by what’s in the report. You know, right? Manager Park from Development Team 3 makes a huge fuss over everything. Just casually ask the team under him. If our ace, Assistant Manager Kim, goes in, we’ll get a perfect estimate.”
“I don’t know how to do that kind of thing.”
“Argh! That Park guy spends the whole meeting saying it can’t be done, there’ll be problems, and so on.”
“And that’s why Development Team 3 never messes up a project.”
“You just can’t let me win, huh. Back in my day, if it didn’t work, we made it work…”
I’d already heard that story countless times. It had been a while since I heard it outside a drinking session, though.
Our department manager was a former special forces soldier, with a colorful history of rescuing several major projects from collapse during his early days at the company with his typically brash military mindset.
Of course, contrary to those achievements, he was also the person most at odds with our Strategic Planning team — the team that should be most sensitive to business trends.
He was a textbook example of a stuck-in-the-past manager who went around every day saying things like “Back in my day” or “These MZ generation kids…” while barely knowing any of the actual work.
The reason someone like that still held his position wasn’t because the company was dumb.
It was because he was fiercely loyal to his people — a benevolent leader surrounded by capable folks. Like Manager Lee, who went to the development team at my request.
“Let Jinseong go already. I just came back from Team 3.”
“Really? Manager Lee? Then I don’t have to worry, right? Sauna today?”
“What are you saying? You’re coming with me to the 2nd-floor meeting room now.”
“Huh? Didn’t you say it was handled?”
“I went to schedule a meeting with Team 3. Team Leader Park Jongsang was there too.”
“That guy’s impossible!”
“Making the impossible possible is your job, boss. Come on, let’s go. We’re late.”
“Wait, wait. Assistant Manager Kim, you come too! After the meeting, let’s grab a drink at the barbecue place nearby.”
“Jinseong’s been working hard all day checking that proposal request. If it were us, we’d be pulling four all-nighters. Just the two of us will go. Jinseong, sneak out before six if you can. Got it?”
“Thank you.”
“Hey, it’s not that I really want to drink. I just thought I’d give some advice since you moved…”
“Yes yes, save the advice for later. Let’s go. The later we run the meeting, the more Team 3 will love it, right?”
“Anyway, let’s grab a drink during the week. It’s on me, so don’t worry about the team budget. Hey, stop pushing! I’ll end up rolling down to the second floor.”
Thanks to the seasoned Manager Lee, I was about to get off work early today. Not that I had much to do anyway, since it was a quiet season.
-Ketalk. Ketalk.
Huh?
Just as I was about to enter official slacking-off time with work done, a Ketalk notification popped up.
[Baek Mahyeon: Not hungly? There’s goguma here.]
[Baek Mahyeon: (photo)]
[Baek Mahyeon: Tastey. Still this much left.]
[Baek Mahyeon: (photo)]
[Baek Mahyeon: Just now Gumiho ate one, so reduced now.]
The sender was Director Baek Mahyeon.
Judging by the content, it was clearly Sani who had sent it. There were so many typos — he must have forced his way into learning how to use a phone again.
Below the awkward sentences were photos of sweet potatoes piled appetizingly on top of a stove.
They must’ve brought them along as a meal or snack.
I’d been so busy working that I hadn’t even thought to check if the people guarding the Divine Tree at the café had anything to eat.
There probably wasn’t even anything in the fridge.
Realizing this, I quickly replied.
[Me: If you haven’t had dinner yet, I’ll bring some.]
[Baek Mahyeon: Ddongkatsu is it?!]
[Me: No, something tastier. I’ll get there around 7. Let them know.]
[Baek Mahyeon: Aaarrughhh!]
No need to worry about the menu.
Soil where plants grow the moment you sweep it, and a warmly blazing wood stove.
With those two, there’s a guaranteed dish that’ll taste amazing.