Chapter 3. Abandoned Farm (1)
***
“Ah, Dad?”
On the small photo frame on the desk, there was a picture just like the one Hae-jun carried around in his wallet, of his smiling mother, father, and himself standing side by side.
It was his father’s. This was definitely his father’s space.
He searched the room thoroughly, but he couldn’t find any other traces of his father.
Hae-jun’s curiosity grew.
Why did his father leave home? Why did he open a store here? When and why did he disappear? He was so curious.
‘I’ll stay here for now until I find out why.’
He didn’t have anywhere to go right away since he had just left the goshiwon today.
He wanted to stay here for a few days and find more clues about his father.
He had been thinking about traveling around scenic places to clear his head, but now he thought it was a good thing.
As long as he didn’t sell it to anyone, he could use it as his lodging for the time being. Hae-jun made up his mind, got up from his seat, and stretched his arms.
“I should clean up first.”
He dusted off the shelves and tables covered in dust and swept the floor. He soaked a mop and wiped the floor, which had turned white from the dust that had settled on it. As he wiped away the accumulated dust, his complicated mind became a little clearer.
“Let’s think simply. This place was passed down to me by my father, and since it’s been empty for five years, no one will come looking for it. I’ll stay here for a few days and look for clues about my father.”
After he finished cleaning the inside of the store, he was soaked in sweat.
“Whew… It’s hot. I’ll stop here for today. I’ll clean up the yard tomorrow and take a shower first.”
Hae-jun went into the room that he assumed his father had used, carrying his suitcase.
He thought he would use this room while he stayed here.
“Where are my underwear?”
Hae-jun took out a towel and underwear from his suitcase and opened the old closet door to put his things away. There were several pieces of clothing hanging inside that he assumed belonged to his father. As he was pushing the clothes to one side,
“Huh? What’s this? …There’s another door in the closet!”
The old wooden closet took up one side of the wall.
Surprisingly, there was another door inside.
It was hidden by the clothes, so he hadn’t noticed it, but when he moved all the hangers, it was definitely a door. To be exact, it wasn’t that there was another door in the closet, but that someone had deliberately hidden the door in the wall with the closet.
Thud-
He pushed the closet to the side with his body.
Sure enough, the wooden closet was empty on one side in the shape of the letter ‘ㄷ’, and the door was on the wall.
This place itself was a store renovated from an old house, so most of it was old and worn out, but this door looked much older than that. It was a very old door that looked like it belonged in a European museum.
‘But the keyhole…’
Hae-jun, who had been examining the door, took out his father’s inheritance, the key, from his pocket.
“I finally found a keyhole that fits.”
He pushed the key into the hole.
Swish-
The key turned smoothly without any resistance.
Click-
Hae-jun took a deep breath and pushed the door open with force.
The tightly closed door opened with a creaking sound.
“Haah, it opened. But what is it? There’s nothing here.”
There was a deep, dark passageway beyond the door with nothing visible, as if it was an ‘endless dark tunnel.’
“Where does this passage lead to? Outside the building? …Or a warehouse?”
There is usually a warehouse in a restaurant to store food.
This is an employee-only area, so it’s not strange to have a warehouse.
‘But in such a gloomy place?’
Hae-jun, who was filled with suspicion, narrowed his eyes and recalled the situation when he was cleaning the kitchen.
It was empty, but there was definitely a refrigerator in the corner of the kitchen, and there was also a space suitable for storing food next to it and empty shelves.
‘Then that means this isn’t the way to the food warehouse, so where does this passage lead to?’
Hae-jun pondered for a moment, then put his hand on the wall and took a step into the passage.
Maybe the reason his father disappeared was related to this passage. Maybe he fell through the passage and died. If that was the case, as his son, he had to recover his body. He hoped that wouldn’t be the case, but if it was…
It’s a wall. As he walked, thinking about this and that, he reached a dead end.
He was carefully feeling around with his hands when suddenly, Hae-jun’s body was sucked into the blocked wall.
“Ugh!”
A bright light.
His vision suddenly became bright, and Hae-jun hurriedly covered his eyes with his hands from the unexpected bright light.
“What the heck?…”
He couldn’t open his eyes, but a completely different sensation from before enveloped his body warmly.
He could feel the fresh air and hear the birds chirping. The pungent and musty smell that lingered in the passageway disappeared, and the scent of soil and trees wafted in the air.
He carefully opened his tightly shut eyes and saw an unfamiliar landscape.
“…Wh, where is this? Is it the backyard of the store? But it’s too much to say that…”
It was an unfamiliar sight that didn’t look like South Korea.
Instead of the familiar pine trees, ginkgo trees, and maple trees, exotic trees formed a huge forest.
Hae-jun looked around in surprise, then turned around to look at the passage he had come out of. A naturally formed cave. An artificial stone wall with unknown characters written on it was built around it to create an entrance.
“What, what is this? A hallucination? Could I have been warped to another world?”
He thought of the settings he often saw in fantasy novels or games.
“Or am I dead?”
He had lost his memory of the accident, but he wondered if he had died in a sudden accident while walking through the passage and had come to the afterlife. He chuckled at the thought.
“What kind of delusion am I having?”
Maybe it was a dream.
He had been cleaning his father’s inherited store diligently, and he was so exhausted that he went to bed without even washing up.
He thought that it would be nice to go on a trip to a scenic place like this in the morning, and it was being recreated as a dream in his mind… Hae-jun decided to think that way.
“That’s right, it’s a dream. They say wild camping is popular these days… Well, the scenery is nice. Since I’ll be in bed when I open my eyes anyway, why don’t I enjoy nature in my dream?”
Convinced that it was a dream, Hae-jun decided to enjoy this moment comfortably.
A cool breeze was blowing, and the birds were chirping beautifully. The temperature was just right, and the sunshine was perfect for a walk.
Hae-jun, who had been cooped up in a gosiwon room for three years to study for the civil service exam, might have wanted this kind of healing.
“Let’s walk for a bit.”
He started walking along a small path that only one person could barely pass through.
The rustling wind and the warm sunlight coming through the branches. The soft feeling of the dirt path enveloping his feet as he walked.
All of his senses were vivid, even for a dream. That’s why he thought, ‘Could it be real?’ again, but it was too absurd to be real.
‘But I still don’t think it’s a dream. Even so, it’s more realistic to be in a dream than to be transported to a fantasy world.’
As he walked, lost in thought, the path soon came to an end, and a small basin-shaped space appeared at the end of the path.
“What’s that?”
He ran over, curious.
There was an open space that looked to be about 100 pyeong. [T/N: 1 pyeong ~= 35.6 sq. foot]
“That passageway earlier. Was it just a passageway connected to the backyard of the store?…”
Since it was connected to the restaurant, it wasn’t unnatural to have a garden.
Maybe they grew vegetables here?
“But a farm like this in the middle of Seoul.”
Usually, these kinds of farms are located on the outskirts where land is cheap.
It’s not just about the money, but because developers wouldn’t leave this kind of gold mine alone.
Hae-jun looked around the open space curiously.
A wooden fence was set up around the 100-pyeong open space, marking the area, and there was a small wooden shack in one corner. Next to it were a field where crops had rotted because they hadn’t been taken care of, a barn, and a well that had been left unattended.
Hae-jun walked towards the shack.
Around it were wooden boxes, bags of fertilizer
of fertilizer, and oak barrels that looked like they were used to store expensive liquor. And,
[Charles' Farm]
It said on the sign.
‘Charles? …It’s a foreign name. Why did they give it this name?’
Hae-jun, who had been looking around, opened the door to the shack. It had been used as a warehouse, so the inside was cluttered with farming tools and sacks of unknown purpose.
Hae-jun bent down and opened a sack that was half full.
“What is it? What kind of seeds are these?”
Grains that looked like unpolished rice.
He picked up a handful and examined them carefully, but Hae-jun, who had no knowledge of farming, had no idea.
‘My father must have grown crops in the garden while using this place as a warehouse.’
He put the seeds back in the sack and walked out of the warehouse.
There were also bags and boxes of unknown purpose scattered there. He just cleaned up the messy things a little.
Thud-
A round seed fell out of one of the boxes.
All the plants on the farm had withered and twisted, but that seed was strangely full of life. Hae-jun wondered if it was alive, so he planted the seed in the ground.
“Water… Oh, it’s over there.”
He saw a well next to the warehouse.
He went closer and saw that the pulley was broken. He barely lowered the bucket and scooped up some water to sprinkle around the seed.
Hae-jun dusted off his hands after planting the seed, stood up, and stretched his back. The sunlight was still warm, and the wind was blowing coolly, ruffling Hae-jun’s hair.
Hae-jun, who had been looking around leisurely, approached the boundary of the fence.
The sky was clear without a single cloud, but beyond the fence, it was filled with hazy fog.
“That’s strange. Wait, I can’t see any buildings either.”
Although faint, he could see trees and rocks through the fog, but there were no houses or buildings that should have been there.
“What is this place? It’s getting stranger the more I look at it.”
It was a space that aroused his curiosity more and more he looked at it.
As Hae-jun’s curiosity grew, he felt a strange energy behind him.
“What the?! …Huh.”
The ground near where he had planted the seed began to glow green and sprout. At that moment, a translucent window like a hologram suddenly appeared in front of Hae-jun’s eyes.
[A ‘foreigner’ has appeared on the farm through the dimensional gate.]
[Collecting information on the ‘foreigner’ who visited the abandoned farm.]
“Eek!”
He was so surprised by the strange phenomenon that he took a step back,
Thud-
And bumped into something soft yet huge.
He turned around and saw that fog was blocking him. He approached the fog again and tried to push his body through it, but it was like a huge jelly wall was barricading him, and he couldn’t go any further.
“What the heck!”
[Information gathering in progress…]
[5%… 20%… 50%…]
[Analyzing information on the ‘foreigner’ Cha Hae-jun.]
[Information analysis in progress…]
‘Information? What information? And a foreigner? What the heck are you talking about?’
The numbers on the holograms went up quickly.
Only then did Hae-jun realize that something was seriously wrong.
He should have been suspicious when he couldn’t see any buildings. This isn’t the real world. But it’s not a dream either. This is…
[Analysis complete]
[Synchronizing information on ‘Cha Hae-jun’ who crossed dimensions]
*
[Cha Hae-jun] Lv.1
Age: 25
Title: One who crossed dimensions
Occupation: -
Experience: 0(0%)
Stamina: 10/10
Skills: 0
Fame: 0
*
“Huh!”
This place is a space in a completely different dimension from the real world.
Read ahead by supporting me on Ko-fi. Access 5 advance chapters with the Beginner Chef Tier ($10) or 10 advance chapters with Intermediate Chef Tier($18)
For every $15 collected on Ko-fi, I will release an extra chapter.
Choose your tier by clicking the 'Support me' button!
Rate and review this novel on NU to help people find this novel. Bonus chapters upon reaching specific milestones.
Happy reading!