Ch.5151. The Second Logout

Time passed quickly.

[Day 20]

The logout cooldown had reset, and I continued farming in the Corrupted Forest from morning until evening every day.

It was a period where I understood why department stores have no windows and keep their lights bright all day, and why casinos remain dark around the clock.

The fog of the Corrupted Forest, where you can’t even gauge what time it is unless you check regularly, wears people down.

If I hadn’t been a 10-year veteran of farming worlds, users farming here would probably have given up halfway or desperately wanted to defeat the ogre and leave as quickly as possible.

No. I felt similarly.

I’m human too, after all.

Being trapped in this boring, stifling place farming all day makes even my hands and feet tremble with restlessness.

“Ah… no matter how I think about it, it’s such a waste.”

In reality, corrupted resources don’t have much use right now.

When you add corrupted resources to crafting that uses basic resources, they do change things slightly by adding corrupted energy, but nothing becomes particularly special or significantly better. They’re just resources taking up space.

But my instinct told me they would definitely be useful somewhere, and more importantly, there were many additional things I could obtain while farming in the Corrupted Forest.

First, the sound of cutting trees and mining rocks attracts monsters.

Even within this Corrupted Forest, the territories of different monsters seemed to be divided. In the area I entered yesterday, gray wolves appeared periodically, along with various naturally growing herbs, plants, fruits, berries, and quite a few corrupted seeds.

I needed to check how these would grow when planted.

Since I didn’t know if they would grow in non-corrupted soil, I had asked for a small corner of the garden to plant them. If the seeds could grow even without corrupted soil, it could be a significant help with our ongoing seed supply issues.

Not only that, but the resources here were of higher grade.

Since this was an A-rank dungeon, most resources were naturally B to A grade. Even if the corrupted resources turned out to be useless with fancy names just taking up storage space, the B+ grade wood, weeds, and stones could be used in crafting up to at least level 3 biomes.

In a way, I was doing future work in advance.

I wanted to farm until the Corrupted Forest was completely mined into plains, but I could already feel after about four days of farming that I didn’t have much time left.

The intervals between monster appearances were getting shorter.

At first, gray wolves would appear after hearing sounds nearby, but they started appearing more frequently. By the third day, the gray wolves had disappeared, replaced by waves of various other monsters.

This wasn’t a good sign.

With monsters swarming like this, there was nothing preventing the Corrupted Ogre from appearing.

It’s a forest, but strictly speaking, it’s a dungeon.

At the end of a dungeon is a boss, and no group would welcome an intruder who comes to the dungeon, avoids challenging the boss, and just harvests resources.

I probably couldn’t just keep harvesting resources as I pleased.

Since a battle with the ogre seemed imminent, I decided to leave and come back later.

“Are you all prepared?”

“There’s so much… I’ve packed everything though.”

Once again, I used the PP box I brought to carry things out.

Most of it was crops planted by Kim Sujeong and resources I had gathered from the Corrupted Forest.

Even excluding the corrupted basic resources, there was so much that just sorting through the sellable items took quite some time.

Well, it didn’t have the same impact as the first logout.

That’s normal.

Breaking through impossible odds to get that glass stone was beyond beginner’s luck.

Instead, this time there were many medium-sized wins rather than one big jackpot.

“Jihyun unnie will be so happy.”

I had promised to provide Jihyun with healing herbs continuously.

But this time, I couldn’t get healing herb seeds because we hadn’t been able to restore the village. To make up for it, I farmed diligently in the Corrupted Forest.

I asked Lulu if the previous owner had stashed away more healing herb seeds, but she said no, so I had to work harder.

I found many seeds, including healing herb seeds.

Combining what I gathered over four days, there were probably 20-30 of them.

I thought that would be enough to at least save face, if not match my initial offering.

The day before we planned to log out.

Just as I was thinking the ogre might appear any time now, I ventured deeper into the forest to farm and discovered something.

Even from a distance, it looked special.

It was a place with a small stream I hadn’t seen before in the Corrupted Forest, and there was a patch of cultivated land without the usual wild weeds, trees, or stones.

The red color visible among them, so out of place in the Corrupted Forest, made my heart race.

As I approached cautiously, I saw it was a field of healing herbs.

Like a red wave.

The red berries swaying in the wind were truly beautiful.

A red hue that didn’t belong in this murky forest.

Of course, the healing herbs had also absorbed chaotic energy, giving them a somewhat murky red color, but that made them look even more beautiful to my eyes.

I carefully picked them one by one.

Not a single leaf.

Not a single berry was damaged.

As a result, I was able to collect three times more berries and leaves than what the previous owner had left behind during my first logout.

This alone made farming in the Corrupted Forest worthwhile.

“Have a good trip, Master! Miss Sujeong!”

“Lulu… are you sure you don’t want to come?”

“No! I need to guard this place! You promised to take me later, Master.”

Just like with login, you can take one person with you when logging out.

I wondered if Lulu could come out too and was tempted to experiment, but Lulu refused.

Rather than refusing, she said there was no need to go right now.

“Alright. Just guard the house. I’ll show you around when things settle down.”

Earth isn’t Lulu’s homeland, and her reason for wanting to go was simply because it’s her master’s dimension and she thought there would be lots of food to try. There was no need to leave the farm empty for such reasons.

We needed someone to manage the goblins and oversee the farm work while I was gone.

Sujeong had offered to do it herself so Lulu could experience Earth, but they ended up compromising without too much drama.

“Then Lulu, I’ll bring you something really delicious when I come back.”

“Thank you!”

Sujeong has a lot to do.

Besides managing the farm here, she’ll be handling the real-world tasks of delivering the items to my dad and negotiating prices.

She’s essentially a manager.

Having directly experienced the rift dimension and knowing how difficult it is to obtain resources, she should manage things more responsibly.

So I gave her clear motivation.

“I’ll give you 10%. Do your best.”

“…Really? Is it okay to give me that much?”

10% is genuinely generous.

Considering I earned nearly 300 million won during my last logout, she would receive 30 million.

If something like a glass stone appeared, that would be almost enough for an apartment in Seoul.

Seeing Sujeong’s eyes filled with emotion as she understood the value, she seemed trustworthy.

Those eyes crazed for money.

Eyes filled with determination to squeeze every penny, family or not.

I packed my belongings into my belt and logged out.

“I’ll be back.”

[Logout!]

——————-

“Ugh. The air is really bad.”

As soon as Sujeong logged out, she said exactly what I had said last time.

This was unavoidable.

It wasn’t just my perception; the air itself was truly different.

“The house feels strange.”

She seems to be experiencing the same emotions I felt.

Just one week.

Compared to the home we’ve lived in our entire lives, it’s really nothing, but somehow this place feels unfamiliar.

In my case, this has long been just “mom’s house” to me.

“Well, what’s strange about it? It’s mom’s house.”

“…You shouldn’t be saying that.”

While it’s mom’s house for Sujeong too, the rift dimension isn’t your house, you idiot.

“Mom! We’re back!”

Mom was startled when we emerged from my room door rather than the front entrance.

“What? Were you two home?”

“Huh? No. We just got here.”

Fortunately, this time she had a worried expression but said she hadn’t filed a report.

“I was so worried when you didn’t come home for a week without any contact.”

“Mom, you don’t need to worry anymore. Oppa is really amazing.”

“Still, you always need to be careful. Make sure you eat properly.”

“Yes, yes. Where’s Dad?”

“He’s getting ready to go to work.”

When Dad came out to the living room,

Sujeong stopped him with a serious expression.

“Father. No. Boss.”

“…What’s wrong with her?”

“As Kim Suhyun’s representative and manager of Suhyun Company, I need to discuss business with you, so let’s go to work together today.”

“…”

I ignored Dad’s bewildered look at me.

It seemed I had hired a good employee.