Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Episode 13: The Divine Tree (4)

Why she had come in here, and why she had been secretly eating the spicy stir-fried pork I had left for breakfast, among other things.

I had a mountain of questions, but the child was in no condition to have a conversation.

She was streaming tears and snot while frantically fanning her tongue, so it did not seem like I would get any answers no matter what I asked.

“Here, hold this in your mouth first. Don’t swallow it.”

Ice water was only a temporary measure when you ate something spicy. The painful part was the tongue, not the stomach.

I needed something that would soothe her tongue.

For the first time in a while, I opened the recipe notebook I had kept in the cupboard.

Suddenly, the moment had come to introduce a new menu item.

『Milk

Three spoonfuls of powder + half a spoonful of honey + water』

Among the menu items I had skimmed over before, the drink I decided to serve today was this milk.

I had paid attention to it because I wondered, ‘What kind of recipe could milk possibly need when all you have to do is heat it up and serve it?’

Surprisingly, the milk made at the coffeehouse contained powdered milk! Judging by it, it seemed to be in the same vein as the milk you got from vending machines.

And on top of that, honey was added to push the sweetness even higher, so how could it possibly taste bad?

Of course, right now this was not a drink being served for flavor, but more like an emergency remedy.

I put water on in the electric kettle and took a sack labeled sweetened whole milk powder out of the cupboard. As befitted a sterilized product, the expiration date still had plenty of time left until next year.

When I opened the sack, a rich, fragrant, savory powdered-milk smell wafted out.

Then I added a generous amount of powdered milk and honey to an excessively thick glass cup and mixed them together with moderately heated water.

-Clink. Clink.

The sound of the old glass cup and teaspoon striking each other broke the stillness of the pre-dawn night.

“It might be hot, so drink slowly.”

I replaced the glass of water in front of the child, who had practically been soaking her tongue in the cold water, with the coffeehouse milk.

After gulping down the milk several times in succession, the child finally collapsed onto the floor with an expression that said she could live again.

“Phew.”

“Feeling better now?”

“I thought I was going to die.”

“How did you get in here?”

That was what I was most curious about. It was an old building, but security was fairly thorough in its own way.

Various sensors and alarms provided by the National Intelligence Service had been installed in every corner of the windows and doors.

On top of that, each window had a thick double frame and newly installed locks, so if someone really wanted to get in, they would have to break a window.

No matter how much I looked around, I could not see any window I had forgotten to close or that had been brok—

“Like this!”

While I was looking over the windows just in case, her voice suddenly came from far below.

When I instinctively looked down, my thoughts came to a halt because the child had become tiny.

Tiny.

No, she had already been small because she was a child, but now she was far too small.

About the size of my palm.

And as if that were not enough, the child kept shrinking until she became about the size of a bean.

“If I keep getting smaller like this, I can come in through the gap under that door!”

“Right. I didn’t think of that.”

“Hehe.”

Apparently deciding she had shown me enough, the child returned to her original size and diligently sipped the remaining milk.

I should contact Director Baek Mahyeon again, shouldn’t I?

No.

Once was enough for calling him in the middle of the night and making him rush over.

This child, who seemed like some kind of spirit of the Divine Tree, did not look particularly dangerous, so I decided to let it go for today.

She was only a child, after all.

Though she probably was not really a child.

“Do you have somewhere to stay tonight?”

“Hmm, I don’t know. Today is my first day.”

“Your first day?”

“Having a body like this! I suddenly have arms and legs, and also...”

The question had been a little stupid.

Whether she had been born from the Divine Tree or was the Divine Tree itself, the tree had only risen in the empty lot beside my house the day before yesterday.

Unwillingly, I even knew this child’s exact date of birth, and perhaps her exact time of birth as well.

I stopped the vague worries circling inside my head.

Now that I thought about it, probing further into what I wanted to know made me feel like I was interrogating a little child, and I did not like that.

Besides, it had already happened.

Just like the Divine Tree had grown, this child had appeared.

Then I had to do what I could.

“Let’s sleep for now and talk again tomorrow. Your stomach feels okay, right?”

“Yes! After drinking this, it’s not spicy at all anymore! I think I could eat more!”

“I’ll make it less spicy next time. It’s late today, so let’s sleep.”

Unfortunately, my house only had one bed.

I laid the child down on the bed, covered her with the blanket, then took the spare bedding and went back down to the coffeehouse.

So the day I finally slept down here had come after all.

Things had been so hectic lately that I had forgotten for a while.

One item on my bucket list had been taking a long nap sprawled out on one of the chairs in this coffeehouse.

I had never dreamed I would end up doing it in the middle of the night after having my perfectly good bed taken away, lying there like a husband after losing an argument with his wife.

“Upsy-daisy.”

I did not know whether “the comfort of an unfamiliar place” was really the right phrase, but I felt like I finally understood a little why people willingly left perfectly good houses behind to go camping or sleep in their cars.

Once I actually lay down, it did not feel bad at all.

There was nothing I could do about my legs sticking awkwardly out past the end of the two-person sofa, but once I added the little stool from beside the stove, it became a decent enough place to sleep.

I had meant to lie there watching the backlog of MeTube videos I had accumulated until I drifted off, but the cozy bedding quickly blurred my consciousness.

And so another chaotic day came to an end.

_____________

Early the next morning, a luxury sedan hurried into the National Intelligence Service headquarters.

-Screech.

The sedan, which had been driving at an excessive speed, did not stop until it had passed the agency motto stone engraved with, ‘We work in the shadows and aim for the light,’ and reached the parking lot.

If a luxury sedan like this had arrived at another government complex, employees would normally have poured out to provide protocol assistance, but this was a place where everyone had to cover one another’s eyes and ears.

Even though one of the agency’s top officials had arrived, the only vehicles scattered around belonged to employees on night duty, and there was no one waiting outside for ceremonial reception.

“You’re here.”

“Were you waiting outside in this cold?”

Baek Mahyeon gave a small bow in morning greeting to the nine-tailed fox, who appeared before him along with a faint gust of wind.

The nine-tailed fox patted Baek Mahyeon on the shoulder and got into the car.

“Let us go. If we dawdle, that fellow will start lecturing us again about being late or whatever. Hm? Why are you smiling?”

“It’s nothing. Please get in.”

Only a month ago, Baek Mahyeon would have considered this impossible.

To witness the nine-tailed fox Elder not only taking someone else’s feelings into consideration, but also grumbling while doing what he was told.

Especially Jinseong, who had personally handed the Elder a shovel while they were trying to move the Divine Tree and urged him to dig properly, had seemed practically divine himself.

And the days when Baek Mahyeon went to meet Jinseong had become rather enjoyable for him as well.

His circumstances were far too different from those of his seniors, who had merely collected plaques as director-level officials while waiting for the day they could retire.

“Oof, my aching bones. Still, starting next week, we won’t have to make this kind of fuss at the crack of dawn anymore.”

“That’s a relief. I thought we would have to keep guarding the coffeehouse until Jinseong got off work like this.”

“Tsk, tsk. That is why I told you to stop suffering needlessly and make your subordinates do it.”

“We cannot increase the personnel assigned to R-class operations after moving from Namsan. Besides, the other employees lose consciousness just from looking into your eyes, Elder, so they cannot even serve as drivers.”

“Heh heh. One makes one’s own fate, whether it is a life of leisure and comfort or a life of working like an ox. That is why a gray-haired fellow like you is suffering at the crack of dawn.”

“You are going the same way as I am, Elder.”

“Ahem. I am going to drink coffee! How is that the same as you going there on government business?”

The nine-tailed fox raised his voice only after belatedly realizing that despite teasing Baek Mahyeon about his troublesome fate, he himself was in the same situation.

“Damn. Ever since I acquired a taste for that coffeehouse’s coffee, there has been no end to the troublesome things.”

“We did not expect a Divine Tree to appear either. I do have to report it to my superiors, but I’m worried.”

‘Truly. I don’t even know how I’m supposed to report this to the upper ranks.’

The Divine Tree on Mount Gyeryong was also classified as R-grade confidential information.

Even within the National Intelligence Service, access to R-grade secrets was restricted to only a small number of employees, and only two people in the Republic of Korea could view them in full: the Director of the National Intelligence Service and that director’s direct superior, the president.

However, even the president, as head of state, left a record whenever accessing R-grade secrets, so they could not be viewed out of mere personal curiosity.

Just as politicians habitually made excuses like ‘I didn’t know’ or ‘We only had one meal together’ when problems arose, even a simple access record like that could become a fatal weakness.

Of course, when something happened that could literally overturn heaven and earth like this, a report naturally had to be made.

As far as Baek Mahyeon knew, this was the first incident since the Blue House UFO incident of 1976 in which R-grade confidential information had to go directly to the ears of the upper leadership.

But instead of offering comfort for his difficult situation, the nine-tailed fox poured oil on the fire.

“The Divine Tree is not the problem.”

“Then what is the problem? I cannot even begin to guess.”

Whenever the nine-tailed fox had something he wanted to teach, he had a small habit of deliberately waiting until someone asked before beginning his explanation.

Seasoned Baek Mahyeon always volunteered to play the role of the favored top disciple at times like this.

“If you throw a stone into a well, the things at the bottom of the well see only the falling stone. They do not even know there was someone who threw it, do they? Just like you and me. If that happens, misunderstandings will inevitably deepen.”

“You mean we should inform them about Jinseong’s existence?”

“What, were you planning to leave him out and report only that a Divine Tree had appeared? Think about everything that has happened since that fellow appeared. Have we managed to clean up a single thing with our own power? If something else happens later that is beyond what we can handle, there will surely come a moment when we need the strength of those above us. Tsk. And yet while we suffer through all this, that fellow remains carefree as ever.”

Forget cleaning anything up.

They barely had enough strength to devote everything merely to understanding what was happening.

‘He is right. The National Intelligence Service, the Elder, and even the mountain god of Mount Gyeryong are all doing everything they can, and yet...’

Meanwhile, Jinseong had not only held the operation of the coffeehouse hostage in exchange for operating expenses, but had also left the security of the Divine Tree to them.

And on top of that, he had calmly started taking advantage of the situation.

They had now reached the point where he was wrapping spicy stir-fried pork in vegetables grown with divine power and eating them.

“The reason superiors exist is so you can hand them problems you cannot clean up yourself. Remember that if you ever intend to sit in such a position one day.”

“You are saying dreadful things again. I have told you repeatedly that once I retire, I intend to move somewhere in the countryside and spend my days tending a vegetable garden.”

“Heh heh.”

“Why are you laughing again?”

“Nothing. The light has changed. Drive.”

The futile wish voiced by Baek Mahyeon, a man fated to work like an ox, did little to stop the faint laughter of the nine-tailed fox whose insight ran deep.

Watching the nine-tailed fox through the rearview mirror, Baek Mahyeon’s lips also quietly curled upward again.

He belatedly realized why the Elder was laughing.

Because his own situation and the Elder’s were not really all that different.

Neither of them had even the slightest idea what was happening right now at the coffeehouse they were heading toward.

For each of them, it was a happy commute.