"Alright!” Jung shouted. “All of you will go to the left side of the clearing and eat there. You see the big dumb cow munching weed like an idiot? That is where you should be today. Don’t worry, the owl will protect you from predators. Now go!”
The group of chickens looking at Jung bobbed their heads and started clucking as they busily went to the direction he indicated. Every month or so, except the winter season, Jung made the chickens stay in a specific part of their land. Jung used them to control the pests in the area since those birds eat almost anything that they can put in their beaks. The chickens’ natural behavior to scratch, peck, and forage actually helps the land by aerating the soil and keeping it soft for the water to absorb. Also, their droppings enriched the soil as nutrient-rich fertilizers. Jung had been using them for years as handy backup fertilizers for his garden all year round.
A couple of years ago, Jung built them their own chicken coop to protect them from the environment and other predators. And he also used that coop to control their movements by simply carrying it around to the part of their land he wanted them to forage in.
But ever since Jung received the “Animal Whisperer” skill, he has somehow been able to give the animals in their land some basic commands, like telling them where to forage. And so he didn’t need to carry the chicken coop with him anymore. That freed him from expanding the chicken coop by building a second wing for it, and thus they are able to expand how many chickens they can keep around. The supply of eggs and occasional meat was a very important part of their diet. In fact, Jung didn’t know it, but his family was actually one of the very few people in town who had a steady diet of meat. A small one, sure, but still a steady nutrient source they could rely on throughout the year.
Jung nodded to himself with satisfaction, then turned and froze. Both his parents were watching him with an incredulous look on their faces, 10 feet away from him.
“How the hell did you do that?” Hyusil demanded.
Jung blinked. He hesitated and then blinked again. “Aaah…” he said intelligently. “Well, you just have to show them who is boss! Then they follow you. Everyone can do that.”
“No, they don’t,” Jin Ae, his mother, said bluntly, her arms across her chest. “I’ve been dealing with chickens all my life, and the best I can do is shoo them away. And the moment you are away, they come back and ruin your garden.”
She leaned over her son, who is looking guiltier and guiltier every second. “I heard you tell them not to touch the garden last month, and not one of those little critters has touched them ever since. Not one leaf of cabbage.”
“Even the cow follows you these day! I’ve watched that cow get born, and she never moves where I want him to move. I need two people to pull her to that barn that very first day!” Hyusil added.
Then Hyusil’s eyes turned to the haughty bird on top of the barn. Jung Hee is the only one who can feed that ... thing. Hyusil surely doesn’t want to. The damn animal scared him. He was going home one night when the giant owl swooped down near the edges of the trees, right next to him. The owl grabbed a big ass rabbit hidding in the folliage. Hyusil stared at it for a while as it devoured the damn prey. Feeding that thing? Fuck that. He has a son to do that crap.
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And Jung continued feeding it scraps, and now it is that big. Hell, Hyusil thought with a grumble. If it continues to grow like that, within a year, Jung can ride that creature into battle!
“Uhmmm…” Jung said. “Maybe I’m just much more polite than you guys? And that’s why they like me better?”
Jin Ae raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying we are not polite people?”
Heeek! Jung thought. Then he noticed a half-hidden egg in the vicinity. “Oh look! An egg! I remember I still haven't picked up the eggs for today! Actually, I still have a lot of chores to do! Gotta go!” he said, and escaped quickly.
Jin Ae's mouth slowly smiled. Chickens following their son’s commands is a nice trick, but it is still funnier to stress out the boy every now and then. But the smile in her face slowly left her as she turned to her husband. “Did you hear about the multipurpose hall being built to the east side of town?” she asked.
Hyusil grunted. “Heard about it? Half of my people will go work there after the planting season is over. They are offering wages slightly above the minimum wage, so I can't stop them.”
“I don’t care about the others. It’s their body, their life. They can think for themselves. But I don’t want the boy to work there.”
Hyusil stared at his wife with understanding and sadness. “We can’t protect the boy forever, Jin Ae. Sooner or later, he will need to be exposed to our world and how unfair it is. He will need to work for the party, one way or another, and be exposed to the reality of life.”
"Maybe, but I want to shield him from that reality for as long as I can," she murmured, her tired eyes bored into him. "Do not let him work for the commissariat."
Hyusil gave her a weary sigh of his own. “I will try,” he said simply. “I promised.”
*****
After escaping from his parents, Jung grabbed all the eggs he could see and placed them in the egg basket in their kitchen. He wasn’t sure if it was his animal husbandry skills or his observation skills that made it easy for him to find the dropped eggs despite the abundant vegetation in the ground.
Once that is done, he went ahead and did the laundry, hung the clean clothes on the cloth wires, and then proceeded to return the cow back to his barn. The chicken remained in the general area.
Once he finished, he asked permission from his parents to go to town. Jin Ae shooed him away distractedly.
But Jung didn’t go to town. Instead, he veered deeper into the forest. Normally it would take 3 to 4 hours to reach his destination, but Jung reached it in 30 minutes at his current top speed. He stopped in the middle of a clearing, with a cave entrance at the base of a cliff on one side.
Jung discovered this place when he was 12 or so, and when he received the massive fallout from the completed quest from the plant, Jung felt that this is a good place to plant and spread his first mystery plant. With his careful management, the plant thrives and spreads like wildfire. It has already spread away from the cave and covered the entire clearing. There are probably over 1200 flowers in the area. Every now and then, Jung detached several of the flowers and relocated them somewhere inside the vast forest. Jung decided a long time ago to spread the flower to make it harder to go extinct, and for now, he is able to remember all the places where he planted them so that he can visit them and care for them if needed. Jung estimates that there are now 2500 of the plants all over the forest.
Jung frowned to himself as he kneeled down and unearthed a few more of the plants to be replanted somewhere else. Come to think of it, he thought. I haven’t given this plant a name just yet.
He always thought of the plant simply as “the mystery plant.” But when he received a similar quest for another plant, he started calling the first plant "mystery plant 1" and the second plant "mystery plant 2.”
Now mystery plant 1 is thriving in the forest, and mystery plant 2 is still planted in the garden and well protected. Jung already extracted some seeds and artificially fertilized them by himself. The seeds are growing in his nursery. Their growth is slow, but for now, Jung finds them to be healthy. Once the system acknowledges that he has regrown the plants by himself and ten of them have matured properly, he also plans to spread them in the forest so that they too will thrive.
Jung scratched his chin. "Hmm, what name should I give that plant?”
It was not as if he had a particular interest in it. Although Jung can appreciate beautiful things, he is a practical young man who doesn’t dwell on the sentimentality of things like flowers or nature. So the first name that came to his mind was acceptable to him immediately, and a name was chosen for the plant with quick finality.
Mystery Plant 1 is now called Violet Drop. Basically, it grows even in the darkness of night and holds a lot of water within its petals.
Mystery plant 2 will have to wait since he feels he doesn’t know everything about it just yet.
So Jung grabbed a couple of the violet drop flowers and chose a random direction. He ran in that direction for an hour before he found a clearing and planted the new flower in a relatively good topsoil. Jung then placed several wooden branches into a sort of foundational tripod tent to give it more protection as it grows on its own.
Finished with his task, Jung decided to go home.