Chapter 12: Divine Tree (3)
Thanks to getting off work early, I arrived home right at 7 after grocery shopping at the mart.
Inside the brightly lit café, three of them were sitting side by side just like in the photo.
“I’m back.”
“The owner of the café has arrived!”
“My neck nearly stretched out from waiting. One causes the mess, and another cleans it up?”
“So I brought all this to treat you.”
“Ooooh! That’s a lot of stuff!”
I pulled out the raccoon dog who was practically diving into the shopping bag and dumped the ingredients onto the table.
“Hm? Why are you dumping it all here instead of taking it to the kitchen?”
“Because I’m cooking here today.”
“On the stove?”
“It sets the mood, doesn’t it?”
Honestly, it was a silly idea.
Food tastes the same once it’s in your mouth, so if you think about it, it doesn’t matter where or how it’s made—a meal kit you just heat up would’ve been the answer.
But serving food wasn’t about efficiency.
Especially when I thought of a menu after seeing the old stove in my aged café, whose origin and age were unclear—it wasn’t going to be that kind of meal.
It would be a more vivid and stimulating dish.
“I want to eat it right away!”
“I’ll have it ready soon. Just wait a little.”
There wasn’t much to prepare.
Since I had already studied the sauce recipe at work, I didn’t need the elaborate help from last time.
Plus, these days, marts sold neatly trimmed vegetables.
Onions, carrots, and green onions just needed a quick wash and chop.
For the sauce, mixing gochujang with a suitable amount of red pepper powder, sesame oil, soy sauce, mirin, sugar, and minced garlic until it had a sweet scent was enough.
It was the royal road recipe of spicy stir-fried pork that was easy to make but could have many flavors.
The spicy stir-fried pork I made following the recipe I’d studied was nearly done and placed back on the stove in a large frying pan.
“Oh ho, it’s meat.”
“It’s not just any meat. It’s pork belly! Do you know how expensive pork belly is these days? Almost like beef.”
As the name suggests, spicy stir-fried pork usually doesn’t use high-quality meat. It’s a dish made with front leg or hind leg cuts, or meat that’s slightly smelly or has poor texture—covered up with seasoning.
But with pork belly, it’s a whole different story.
Even just grilled with salt and pepper, pork belly is delicious. Adding seasoning makes it a luxurious dish.
Just like kimbap with truffle or crackers topped with caviar.
–Sizzleee.
As expected of a wood-burning stove.
Once I threw in a bundle of well-dried firewood, the firepower—impossible with oil or electric heaters—quickly heated the pan.
Only one ingredient remained.
“Hm? Where are you going in the middle of cooking?”
“Just going to check the garden.”
I quietly handed the cooking chopsticks I was using to stir the spicy pork to Director Baek Mahyeon.
“You have a garden?”
“Not exactly, but kind of, haha.”
“You rascal, that bag… don’t tell me?”
The sharp-eyed Elder Gumiho seemed to realize what I was up to.
Because I kept dodging the questions with half-truths, it only made things more suspicious.
“Well, it’s not like I’m committing a crime, right?”
“Are you really saying that? Not only did you spread divine power into the ground, but now you’re planning to grow leafy greens with it?!”
That’s right.
What I was sneaking off with was not seedlings, but seeds I had bought from the gardening section of the mart. A “Leafy Green Seed Assortment” pack, to be exact.
I had already practiced the magical trick of making those seeds instantly sprout into edible greens that morning.
The only hurdle was the tiny guilt of using the fallen energy from the Divine Tree I had knocked over.
“It can’t get worse than this. Besides, if plants start growing, we might learn if the divine power gets used up and returns the land to normal, right?”
“Well, even so, this is a bit…”
Persuasion is all about momentum.
When you speak with confidence, it’s game over the moment your opponent starts to hesitate.
So once again, we stood in front of the Divine Tree—with slightly greedy hearts.
There was no need to scatter too many seeds. If I got greedy and ended up with leftovers, I’d be forced to eat ssambap at every meal—a tragedy.
–Ssshh. Ssshh.
Worried that Elder Gumiho might start nagging again, I quickly tore open the packet and took out a pinch of seeds.
“All of that turns into vegetables? There are many kinds!”
“They’re all leafy greens. I never knew there were so many until today.”
I had occasionally seen a wide variety of greens at barbecue restaurants, but like most men, I always thought of vegetables as something to eat a few bites of when meat felt greasy.
But once I opened the packets and placed them in my hand, they looked like spices mixed with all sorts of seasonings.
“Well then, let’s plant them.”
Since we had already confirmed the power of the divine-infused soil, there was no need for a hoe.
I simply dug a long scoop of the soft dirt with my hand and poured all the seeds I had in one go.
Then I gently brushed the thinly covered soil with my hand.
“Ha, really. The more I see it, the more amazing it is.”
“They’re like squirming earthworms!”
The roots tangled, sprouting seed leaves, and soon the leaves dropped as the stems extended—it really looked like earthworms, just as the raccoon dog said.
I brushed away the soil a few more times like that.
As expected, the leafy greens—whose names I couldn’t even remember—soon grew to an edible size.
They were vegetables grown in a truly pollution-free garden without concern for pests, fertilizers, or pesticides.
Just like the seeds, their appearances were all different, looking like a beautifully arranged little garden.
It was almost a shame to pick them.
“Has the divine power in the ground decreased?”
“Don’t talk nonsense. It hasn’t changed a bit.”
Elder Gumiho, who sniffed between the lush vegetables and touched the soil and greens for a while, seemed a bit disappointed with her inspection.
“That’s unfortunate. If the divine power had decreased, we could’ve grown a bunch of fruit trees.”
“Tsk! If you’re going to lie, at least change your expression.”
“Haha.”
Of course, I’m not disappointed.
Whether the divine power decreased or not, my desire to grow loads of fruits—now priced like gold—remained unchanged.
“The meat must be done now. Let’s go pick some.”
With six hands, the task was done quickly.
In less than five minutes, the basket was full of leafy greens, and the café was already filled with the savory smell of spicy stir-fried pork.
“Looks like you succeeded.”
“Don’t even get me started. I was tricked by that rascal again.”
“I didn’t trick you.”
“Why are con artists always so shamelessly confident, both in the Joseon era and now, not missing a single word?”
“That’s why we ended up with such a hearty meal, right? Let’s eat.”
“It’s a feast!”
Maybe not a grand feast, but it was definitely a hearty dinner that sparked the appetite.
Instant rice warmed in the microwave, spicy stir-fried pork made with pork belly, and leafy greens grown with divine power.
For a dinner made by a grown man, it was quite a decent spread, wasn’t it?
Without needing to say who went first, we each layered several leafy greens together and barely managed to stuff them into our mouths.
“Mmmph! It’s divine!”
“Ugh! Don’t spray it everywhere, you fool! Swallow first before talking.”
“I was worried, but it turned out edible. That’s a relief.”
It’s a bit weird to say about something I made, but it was really delicious.
The only flaw was that the sauce was made haphazardly, so I couldn’t guarantee the same taste if I made it again.
Also, the place we ate strangely whetted the appetite.
The spicy pork cooked not on a burner, but on the old wood-burning stove, sizzled over the softly dying embers.
With the main dish on the stove, we awkwardly ate while holding our rice bowls from our seats, which was oddly nice.
It added a kind of shabby fun, like drinking yogurt from the bottle upside down as a child.
“Still, what are we going to do now? With the Divine Tree pouring its energy into this land, someone has to stay and guard it.”
Once we were full enough, worries naturally floated to the surface. The very reason the three of us hadn’t left and were having dinner this late at night.
“I’ll stay and guard it! I’ll go back and forth from Mount Gyeryong and keep eating this spicy pork!”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You already leave Mount Gyeryong too often. It’s better if I stay…”
“No, thank you.”
“What?!”
Of course not.
Guarding the Divine Tree basically meant staying at the café 24/7.
Sure, at first, I had no choice, but I had no intention of cohabiting with guests who should leave once business was over.
Even putting everything else aside, asking me to guard the Divine Tree was a debt.
I hated loans so much I moved from one rented place to another, so I definitely didn’t want to live carrying a debt with no end in sight.
Besides, Elder Gumiho had a strong tendency to expect extravagant treatment when she helped with something. If she guarded the Divine Tree, she would surely lord over me like a noble.
“Jinseong, do you have something in mind?”
“For now, I’m thinking of trying this.”
I opened my phone and turned the screen toward them.
On the screen, a “Work-from-Home Application Form” was awaiting approval.
“I’ll still need to go in twice a week for meetings, but it’s better than being away all day, right?”
“If you just tell us the days you’ll be out, things will be much easier for us.”
It wasn’t quite a solution—more of a plan B.
Given the nature of our department, communication was crucial, so normally a request like this wouldn’t be approved.
But meetings only work if the other party is present too.
Most of the development team worked from home, so our department usually handled business via video meetings.
On top of that, my workload varied clearly between seasons and off-seasons, so the chance of approval was high.
If I, with the ring, worked from the café, I could act as security, meaning Elder Gumiho and the raccoon dog wouldn’t need to visit.
That also applied to the NIS agents who almost had to pose as customers to guard the place.
“Hmph, how boring. I thought I’d have to worry about this longer.”
“Still, I can’t be tied to the Divine Tree until I grow old and die. We have to keep trying new things.”
“That’s right! Next time, let’s try pumpkin instead of leafy greens!”
“Not that kind of trying!”
And just like Elder Gumiho said, the problem was resolved rather anticlimactically.
“Sniffle, sniffle…”
Damn, I had just fallen asleep.
The childish crying that echoed in the deep night no longer scared me—I was already vaccinated, so to speak.
The raccoon dog was here again.
He had eaten so much that his belly had bloated, and of course, he was suffering from indigestion.
I grabbed some digestive medicine from the cabinet and headed to the kitchen, where the crying was coming from.
“See? I told you not to overeat or you’d get sick. You even had two bowls of ri—”
It wasn’t the raccoon dog who was crying.
It was a young girl who looked about four years old. A blonde, foreign girl at that.
“Waaah! It’s spicy! Too spicy!”
Unbelievable. Who is it this time?
Thankfully, the answer was easy to guess.
The leaves draped over her instead of clothes were exactly the same as the ones on the Divine Tree sprouting in the yard. Even the faint aura she emitted.
She must be the Divine Tree—or something born from it.