novelHow Long Was I Out?! Part I
| ← Ch.048 | Ch.050 → |
"Oh, come on! Give me something other than grapes!" I yelled at the tree in frustration. I wanted to eat something else, but I could only get at its grapes.
I had no idea where I was. The only things in front of me were a shack that could fit around twenty people, and a tree as tall as a high-rise apartment.
Every time I tried to leave, I always ended up in front of the shack and tree. No matter which direction I ran to, sooner or later, I was back at the shack. The tree was so damn big, it never left my sight. If I ran with the tree to my back, I would see the tree in front of me again in an instant.
This repeated time and time again until I finally gave up. I adapted, soon, to this never-changing place.
"You've got other stuff growing on you, so let me have them. Why do you always keep giving me grapes?" I kicked the tree's massive trunk, but there wasn't as much as a vibration. The tree stood still.
"Bah!"
The giant tree bore four kinds of fruit: the plump, juicy and sweet grapes that I had been eating, bright red apples, oranges that looked very sweet and refreshing, and white radishes. There really were small radish-looking fruits growing on the tree!
"I know radishes aren't fruit, but if they're growing like apples and oranges...I guess they're fruits now."
It was obviously a weird tree; as a weird tree, it wouldn't be weird for it to bear cabbages or potatoes.
"Anyway, give me something else to eat. It's always grapes. Besides, there are only a few more grapes left." There were different amount of the tree's fruits (I'm calling them fruits because they're growing from this tree). Oranges were the most abundant, than the radishes, than the apples, and finally the grapes.
At first, I thought that this was some legendary tree that grew Rank 10 grapes, Rank 8-9 apples, Rank 7 oranges, and common Rank 1-3 radishes. It looked like that when grapes were the fewest and oranges and radishes were the most abundant.
"Yeah, right! I must be going crazy. What fruits can be items?"
I bent over to pick up a grape that fell from the tree and shoved it into my mouth.
"Still, they taste amazing." I've been eating these grapes for so long, but they still tasted delectable.
Every time I ate one, the pulp's texture almost reminded me of beef and a single drop of the juice permeated sweetness and a refreshing feeling throughout my body.
"Tsk. It's good and all, but I'm eating like one a day." In the beginning, I wanted to eat more of them and tried to climb the tree, but the bark was so slippery I only managed a few feet off the ground.
I had to climb at least two kilometers to get to the lowest fruits, but the more I tried to go up, the more it felt like gravity pulled at me. It was like some invisible hand had me by the leg and every time I took a step up, the harder it pulled. I couldn't make it more than 100 meters before having to give up.
"Eating one of these a day fills me up and quenches my thirst for the whole day, though, " I sighed to myself.
I sat on the tree's smallest outcropping root. It was the smallest visible root, but it was still taller than me.
"How many days has it been?" I had counted my days since I got here, but I lost count after five hundred days. Every day was the same, with nothing else to do. I thought that I might as well train if I was stuck here and made a whole commotion by myself. I took out my greatsword and swung it around me, I did push-ups and sprinted here and there and all sorts of work-outs. I didn't want my body to become all rusty.
"But all I can do is sleep." There was no point to do anything. Nothing in this place changed.
Nothing changed and nothing regressed. If I swung my sword a million times to get better at it, the next day it was the same. If I slept for a hundred days in a row, my body was still the same.
"Am I dead or alive? Someone tell me what's going on!" I didn't need to go to the bathroom, either. The first week I was alarmed when I didn't feel the need to, but after a month and a year, I just accepted it. I thought that if I was already stuck in this weird place in the first place, going to the bathroom was least of my worries.
"I sure can sleep well, though, " I yawned. My eyelids grew heavy and let myself drift off to sleep.
At first, I did everything I could to fight off the sleep, but it was impossible. I couldn't resist for more than a second. I fell asleep at around the same time every day, and slept for at least twenty hours a day.
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I woke up the next day and ate a grape that dropped from the tree.
"I wonder if time is still flowing in the real world, too, " I asked myself. I assumed about a thousand days had passed.
"Open inventory!"
[-3505 golden rings
-High grade health potions x5
-Shining high grade potions x2
-Bread x5
-Beverage x5
-Orb of Vitality
-Orc Champion's Unexpectedly Durable Greatsword
-Money case, ring case, notebook, pen
-Luggage carrier
-Danhari's Locked Treasure Chest
-Remaining slots x0]
"I'm positive the culprit is Danhari's Treasure Chest..." It was the only thing out of place.
"Danhari's insomnia has to have something to do with me sleeping all the time."
I reached into my inventory to take out the treasure chest.
[Danhari's Locked Treasure Chest cannot be taken out at this time. ]
"Damn it!" It was the same situation as before. Ever since I ended up here, I had not been able to take out the treasure chest.
This wasn't the only problem. I reached in again and took out the Orb of Vitality.
After the five hundredth day, I didn't take it out without purpose. I could use the accumulated VIT points on the orb to calculate how many days had passed!
"Item check!"
=====
[Orb of Vitality (Rank 8)
The Orb of Vitality is one of the 5 Orbs in existence. Once this item comes into your possession, the Orb is bound to you. The Orb collects 1 VIT point a day, starting on the day you obtain the Orb.
There is no limit to how much Vitality the Orb can collect. When you consume the Orb, the Vitality points the Orb collected will be added to your total VIT stat.
- Bind on pickup.
- The Orb of Vitality will dissolve once consumed. Once consumed, the collected Vitality is transferred to the consumer.
- While the Orb is in your possession, Health regenerates by 500 per tick.
- Current Vitality collected: 1, 116 (+1, 111 to be added)]
====== There was something going on with the Orb of Vitality. The Orb had 5 points collected before I ended up in this place. After that, the Orb somewhat functioned like normal. Every day, I took it out to check and the points went up by 1 each time. But next to it, another point was added with the description that it was going to be added later. "I can't make heads or tails of this. The Orb is collecting two points a day, pretty much. Why?" I asked myself but there was no one else around to answer for me. "One thousand, one hundred and eleven days! Damn, that's a lot of days." Three years had come and gone. It didn't feel like it as I had slept through most of it. I didn't really do anything while I was awake, either. There weren't even monsters. I just lay there, eating the grapes that dropped from the tree. That was all I did here. "Huh, I'm sleepy already." <nowiki>---------------------------------------------------------------
As Lee Jiwon fell asleep against the tree trunk, the Orb of Vitality gained another VIT point as another day passed. The Orb now had 1, 117 points. As soon as the counter changed, an orange fell from the tree and collided with the Orb.
Lee Jiwon hadn't left his inventory open, but the orange made a beeline for the Orb. As the orange made contact with the Orb, the orange disappeared in a flash of light and the Orb shone with a bright orange light before settling down.
The (+1, 111 to be added) changed to (+1, 112 to be added). The Orb stayed still as if nothing had happened.
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It had been 1, 494 days since Lee Jiwon had fallen asleep. Four years and thirty-four days had passed, but Lee Jiwon made no sign of awakening anytime soon.
Song Haein ruefully watched him sleep.
"I guess I just have to come here if I want to find you."
Song Haein didn't say anything as her brother entered the room from behind her. Their relationship wasn't like the way it was before.
Song Haein wanted to keep a good relationship with her oldest and only brother, but she had to be careful around him as his position in the guild plummeted when he got rid of his Unrivaled skill.
"Now you're going to outright ignore your brother. I suppose you can, since you're the best Unrivaled out there and everyone can rely on you now, right?"
"If I reply, I'm arrogant. If I don't, then I'm ignoring you. I just don't know what you want anymore. Don't you feel embarrassed when you see your kids at home?"
Before he became a deva, the 37-year old Song Haechang was married and had three kids; two sons and a daughter. Before the Earth changed, Song Haechang wasn't really the best dad, but did his best for his kids. He played with his kids when they asked and was home often enough to eat with them. But since he erased his Unrivaled skill, he had lost interest in them.
"Why are you bringing them up now?"
"They're your kids, and my niece and nephews. Do you have any idea how hard your wife has it right now? It's been six months since she last went out hunting. She had to give up on leveling because she's afraid of what you might think!"
Once you became a deva, the only thing you had to think about was getting stronger, that way you weren't pushed around by anyone else. That was the way this system worked, and nobody had any idea what was waiting at the end.
There were more realistic reasons to get stronger, but the end goal was the same. To get stronger! Anyone related to the Sunbin Guild had to get stronger. There might be a time when they had to fight for the guild.
"Why is that my fault?"
"Why do you care about others getting stronger? You're plenty strong, too. I know you can do it. Don't focus on others and focus on yourself. You don't need to compare yourself to other people!"
"Shut up!" Song Haechang screamed. His face had grown red at what his sister told him."You! You'll never understand me!"
"I know you can do it. We're family."
"I said, shut up!" Song Haechang answered Song Haein's pleading with cold rage. After glaring at her for a while, he turned to leave.
"The guild master is calling you!" He hadn't forgotten why he had come here in the first place, and coldly informed Song Haein.
After Song Haechang removed his Unrivaled skill, he no longer used familial terms. Instead he called his grandfather and father by their guild titles only.
"You must be happy. You get to follow them to America now." Song Haechang knew why the guild master was calling for Song Haein.
The Sunbin Guild had become one of the world's strongest guilds, and had been invited by the Shire Guild, the strongest guild in America.
It was an invitation to raid one of America's mid-grade dungeon bosses. The Shire Guild offered fifty million golden rings in compensation if the Sunbin Guild brought Song Haein along. The Shire Guild had its own main tanker, but wanted another experienced one just in case things went wrong.
Song Haein had already become someone that foreign powers were willing to pay fifty million gr to come to their countries.
If Song Haein travelled to these countries for fifty million golden rings per visit, she could increase the value of the Sunbin Group and would become the pride and joy of the Sunbin Guild.
Guild master Song Daechul knew better than to lose out on this chance and promoted it all around. There was no better way to boost the guild members' pride!
This was to be Song Haein's first foreign expedition, and the Shire Guild decided to invite the Sunbin Guild's guild master and vice-master along. The two guilds' relationship wasn't going to end with the expedition, and the Shire Guild wanted to forge an alliance as well. The Sunbin Guild decided to take fifty of its most elite devas along on the expedition, as it wanted to show the extent of its true power.
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When Song Haein left Lee Jiwon's room, Song Haechang soon came back in. The room was one of Sunbin Guild's few special treatment rooms.
"You really piss me off!" Song Haechang and Lee Jiwon had never met before, let alone passed by each other. But Song Haechang really disliked the fact that Lee Jiwon ever existed. He didn't like the fact that Song Haein, who he was also beginning to hate, took special care of Lee Jiwon.
If it were up to him, Song Haechang would have slit Lee Jiwon's throat right then and there. He wanted to see Song Haein's furious or wretched reaction.
"If only it weren't for the guild master!" If it was just Song Haein, he would have, but she wasn't the only one caring for Lee Jiwon. Song Daechul kept constant tabs on Lee Jiwon as well.
He had already fallen out of favor with the guild master. If he ever laid a hand on Lee Jiwon, Song Haechang could get permanently cut off from the guild.
"Lucky bastard. But one of these days, I'll cut you up and send you to Song Haein." Song Haechang hated Lee Jiwon like he was the dog of someone Song Haechang hated.
Lee Jiwon was someone he couldn't touch; someone who was constantly looked after by two of the guild's strongest people. Song Haechang felt an anger that could not be relieved towards him.
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As Song Haechang left the room, neither he nor anyone else noticed that Lee Jiwon's finger twitched slightly.
Lee Jiwon had been asleep for 1, 494 days. Four years and thirty four days had passed. The Rank 10 Sleepy Trainer was on its last two points of its third form.
No one knew that there were only two grapes left on the tree.
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