"Haaah!"
I opened my eyes with the sensation of my heart dropping.
My vision had suddenly spun, and I’d collapsed on the spot. Like Ermia had said at the very end, it seemed mana exhaustion had hit me.
Even without Ermia saying anything, I could tell instinctively.
The dizzy sensation was exactly the same as what I’d felt when exchanging large quantities in the [Mana Market].
But...
Leaving that aside, where the hell am I?
I thought I’d heard they were moving me to the infirmary, but the scenery around me now was nothing like a place meant for treatment.
It was definitely somewhere familiar, somewhere I’d seen before, and I squeezed my freshly awakened mind to rummage through my memories.
"Ah, CosXco?"
A scene familiar to Koreans as CosXco, or perhaps TraXders.
Of course, this place probably wasn’t one of those branded marts, but it was certainly very similar.
A giant warehouse-style store piled high with bulk food ingredients.
I’d collapsed on the street in front of the academy, only to suddenly wake up in a bizarre place.
For a moment I wondered if I’d been kidnapped again, but this time the feeling was a little different.
It was hard to explain in words, but the peculiar strangeness given off by the air and atmosphere of this warehouse.
This was my dream, made to look like a warehouse-style store.
I must have been tired lately.
Now I was even having lucid dreams, of all things.
Even after realizing it was a dream, I didn’t wake up, so there was nothing I could do about it.
Since things had turned out this way,
"No way I can pass up looking around a mart."
I might as well enjoy browsing a mart to my heart’s content for the first time in ages.
If I were to rank my favorite places in the world, marts would personally make the top three.
Especially a warehouse-style mega-mart. It was as fun and exciting a place as LotX World, if you asked me.
With my steps feeling a little lighter, I began wandering all over the warehouse.
Starting from the far left were vegetables, fresh ingredients, dairy products, livestock products, and so on.
As expected of a huge warehouse with no end in sight, it was stocked with every kind of food ingredient imaginable.
Wow, I really can’t see the end. What kind of store is this big?
At this size, it was practically on the level of an American cornfield sprayed by airplane.
Figuring I’d wake up eventually if I just took my time looking around, I began browsing the nearest sections one by one.
But the more I looked around, the more a certain sense of déjà vu flickered in my mind.
And when I reached the sauce section, that déjà vu turned into certainty.
Unlike the vegetable and fresh ingredient sections, which had quite a variety, these shelves were filled only with specific sauces.
Those sauces started with soy sauce, gochujang, and doenjang, then tomato sauce, ketchup, mayonnaise, and even the Isaac Toast sauce.
They were all sauces I had made, displayed endlessly on the shelves.
Shiver—!
A cold chill ran from my toes all the way to the crown of my head.
At that sight, which went beyond strange and into outright bizarre, I immediately ran toward the next section.
But in the next section, and the section after that as well...
All the products on display were food ingredients I had made or used, things registered as items in the [Mana Market].
Which meant.
This place was not just a dream, but the inside of an ability whose identity I still did not know. The [Mana Market].
"Status window, status window..!!"
Like someone possessed by something foul, I called for the status window again and again.
But for the first time since coming to this other world, the status window did not answer my call.
Since I was already inside the [Mana Market], the view before my eyes showed no reaction and no change at all.
If I thought about it, every single object visible to me right now could be called the status window.
I felt the incomprehensible terror I had experienced when I touched the World Tree in Nuardel.
A mere fragment of power too vast for a single human to endure, that unknown nature, made me shudder.
If there was anything unusual compared to usual, was it because of the mana exhaustion?
Was that what had caused me to enter this [Mana Market]?
Was I truly the only one in this endlessly vast place?
No. Calm down. I need to get a grip.
The real me must have collapsed from mana exhaustion and been carried to the infirmary.
It was possible that I really had entered the [Mana Market] due to some transcendent power.
Or maybe the vague and faint suspicion I’d had about the status window ever since Nuardel.
The suspicion hidden in my subconscious had swollen up and was showing me this dream.
And the way to determine which of those two possibilities was correct was—
Back then, the registration of the World Tree item had been rejected, but a remnant of failure remained in the system.
The thing that occupied one slot among the registered items in broken text, 「□계■□□□ 」.
If this place was the [Mana Market], where the items I had registered were waiting to be exchanged, then that item written in broken text should be here too.
The identity of that item, which I had not been able to even begin to guess.
Depending on what form it took, the truth of this place would be decided.
Fear poured over me, like watching an endless documentary about the depths of space.
My legs had long since begun trembling, and cold sweat ran down my forehead.
Even so, I frantically searched the other sections.
Before long, a refreshing scent I had smelled many times brushed past my nose.
The distinctive scent of World Tree sap and leaves.
The item with the broken text was probably in the same section as those.
Since I had tried registering it together with the sap and leaves.
As I smelled that fresh fragrance, my mind, which had been on the verge of panic, cleared a little.
Passing by shelves covered in World Tree sap and leaves, I rolled my eyes around, searching for the item in broken text.
Leaves and bottles of sap were lined up so densely they almost created an optical illusion.
Among them, there had to be something with a clearly different form.
‘Huh, what’s this?’
Between the green leaves and the pale light-green sap, there was a dull grayish-brown lump.
The obviously suspicious lumps, like the other goods, filled the shelves and were piled up across a vast area.
They were lumps the size of kidney bean seeds magnified tenfold.
In the middle of their gently oval shape was the distinctive white hilum seen on plant seeds.
Their size was oddly enormous, but their structure itself was not very different from that of an ordinary seed.
Without hesitation, I reached out toward the giant seed.
Whatever it was, I felt like I’d only be able to confirm its identity by touching it and inspecting it from all angles.
But at that moment.
Behind me, to my left, to my right, above my head? Below?
I didn’t know. I couldn’t pinpoint the source of the sound.
A gentle and soft voice, surging in from every direction in the literal sense, filled my ears.
[You are not ready yet.]
"What! Who are you—no, who might you be!!"
[Still, I shall pay you for reaching this far.]
I didn’t know what kind of being was firing off unprecedented telepathy like this, but it was definitely stronger than me.
I reflexively swallowed back the casual speech that had slipped out.
Whether I did or not, that warm voice was not conversing with me, but simply delivering the message it wished to convey.
[Return and do your best. 요□■■ of the □계.]
And in the brief gap between closing my eyes and opening them again.
"Jinwoo!! Are you awake? How do you feel? Are you all right?"
"Ahh... CosXco, TraXders..."
"Seeing as you’re talking nonsense, you must be a bit confused. A textbook symptom of mana exhaustion."
"Really? Phew, that’s a relief."
I was lying on a soft, fluffy bed.
Eilenna, her ears drooping as she fidgeted anxiously, and Ermia’s faces appeared vertically in my field of vision.
The [Mana Market] that looked like a large warehouse store. Had that really been a dream?
Thump, thump...
My heart, as if I had just finished sprinting at full speed, was slowly lowering its rapidly heightened beat.
My back was also unpleasantly damp with cold sweat.
If someone called it a nightmare, it was a state I could easily accept as just a dream and move on.
However, I still had a way to prove that it was not merely some absurd dream.
The payment that mysterious voice had said it would give me.
As for what that payment was, the status window probably knew better than I did.
‘Status window.’
=====
Name: Kang Jinwoo (35)
Race: Human
Traits: [Hand Taste Lv.Max], [Cold Resistance Lv.3], [Flame Resistance Lv.7]
Skills: [Mana Market Lv.2], [Beginner Spirit Arts Lv.Max]
=====
This time, the status window answered my call properly.
But this basic information was not what I wanted to see.
I immediately opened the item list of the [Mana Market].
▲
「World Tree Leaves」
「World Tree Sap」
「World Tree Seed (Exchange Unavailable)」
「???」
「???」
▼
‘The text... is intact.’
The item name that had previously been so garbled I couldn’t read it.
But now, it clearly showed its name.
Those fist-sized grayish-brown lumps I had discovered.
They were none other than World Tree seeds.
Seeing the words “Exchange Unavailable” made me think of what the voice had said about me not being ready yet.
Then that meant someday, I would be able to obtain World Tree seeds too.
At this point, the hypothesis “World Tree = The Giving Tree” was becoming certain.
What kind of tree has its leaves, sap, and even seeds all treated as ingredients?
Were elves a group of mad vegetarians worshiping a giant vegetable?
I carefully examined it to see if there were any other anomalies, but there were no other changes to the status window.
Other than the fact that, despite collapsing from mana exhaustion, my physical condition felt strangely good.
"Ugh. So, how long was I asleep?"
"Not that long. It’s evening now, so about four hours?"
"That really is just a nap. I feel refreshed."
Whoosh, whoosh—!
I sprang my upper body upright from where I’d been lying and loosened up by rotating my arms.
It felt as if all the fatigue that had built up in my shoulders and legs had been blown away.
My body felt refreshed and extremely light.
Was this included in that payment? Not bad.
Just as I was about to get out of bed and stand with both feet on the ground.
Eilenna grabbed my shoulders with both hands and shoved me right back down onto the bed.
Thud, flop—!
"Krgh, Lady Eilenna?"
"No! Rest a little longer before getting up. Really, do you know how shocked I was? If you were low on mana, you should have said something!"
"I’m sorry. I thought I could barely make it. I failed this time, so next time I’ll successfully walk the tightrope."
"Next time? Haa... Why are men really like this? You idiot."
A man’s trait: pushing things to the absolute limit until he finally breaks.
But even after breaking, he gets put back together and tries again. That is a man.
You collapsed on the stone floor and almost got seriously hurt, what kind of fool uses up all his mana to the very end, and so on.
After delivering a gentle scolding to me, Eilenna eventually let out a deep sigh.
"Though she may be worrying a bit too much, this elf is right. If mana exhaustion goes wrong, the mana pathways can be severed completely."
"Ah, is that so?"
"Yeah. But even taking that into account, the elf was overprotective. Saying things like you needed to drink World Tree sap right away, or that she should XX you and XX you herself..."
"Aaaaah!!! Kyaaaah!!"
Mm, Eilenna really had made quite a fuss.
Still, even so, “XX you and XX you” was a bit much.
I couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud, so the filter in my brain automatically censored it.
"Anyway, there’s nothing seriously wrong. Your depleted mana has fully recovered too..."
"Huh, seriously?"
Normally, if I used a lot of mana, I had to sleep for at least half a day, or up to a full day if I wanted to be safe, before it recovered completely.
The only thing that came to mind was that mysterious voice.
Maybe when it sent me back to reality, it also filled up all my mana. That would be why my condition was this good too.
"Yes. Well, you’d know better than I would, wouldn’t you?"
"Pardon? What do you mean..."
"Don’t play innocent. Do you think the title of the empire’s greatest mage is a joke?"
But suddenly, Ermia’s attitude turned serious.
Like a detective interrogating a criminal in a noir film, she thrust her deep blue eyes toward me.
"Increasing the mana capacity of an archmage at my level is never easy. Even if I drank a whole bowl of elixir, it might not rise at all, and yet when I ate the toast you made... my mana capacity increased. Only a little, but still."
I strongly felt as though my tail had been stepped on.
Not only was it difficult to refute her, it didn’t seem like Ermia was finished speaking.
When I continued to remain silent, Ermia drove in the wedge.
"You’re not an ordinary chef, are you?"
"That’s right, Jinwoo. Tell us honestly."
Even Eilenna, who had been quietly listening beside us, joined Ermia’s interrogation.
A sealed infirmary.
The empire’s greatest mage, and an elf whose attachment seemed a little severe.
It seemed... I had ended up in a situation I would not be able to escape from easily.