## Chapter 183 – Crumbs
“I’m really sorry to bother you so late. Something came up that I absolutely had to report…”
“It’s alright, I was planning to see you tomorrow anyway, so this works out.”
I enter Min-jung’s apartment, which looks quite expensive, as she opens the door to greet me. Min-jung had called me, her voice calm but a little more hurried than usual, asking me to come to this apartment. I was planning to wait for Chae-yoon and Seo-hee at Seo-hee’s house, drinking with Iran noona, but this is probably for the best. I was going to visit Min-jung tomorrow anyway.
I left Iria with Iran noona for now and came to the address Min-jung sent, but…
“…Looks like you always live this neatly.”
I look around the impeccably organized apartment, everything in its place, and enter the living room. Rather than feeling lived-in, the stiff interior clearly reflects the owner’s personality.
“Anyway, what do you need to report? I don’t remember giving any orders after that.”
“Well, I decided it would be best for you to see it in person…”
Did something complicated happen? Min-jung turns to me with a confused expression. She leads me through the spacious living room and stops in front of a door.
I look back and forth between the door and Min-jung, and she nods without a word. …I guess she wants me to open it. What on earth is behind this door that’s making Min-jung so flustered? A strange tension hangs in the air as I slowly reach for the doorknob.
I carefully grip the doorknob, trying not to make any noise, and as I apply pressure, the door opens with a soft creak of the hinges, revealing darkness inside.
“…This is…”
And a sweet scent wafts from inside the room. The fragrant smell of flowers and a sweet smell like boiling thick honey. An aroma too alien to be a room freshener. As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I begin to see something wriggling inside the room.
It’s a woman’s figure, but with a large flower on her head. It was Jiyou, lifting her blank gaze to look at my face, obscured by the light from the living room.
But something is different…
“Ugh…♡ Haa… Ungh♡”
It was a woman, caught in Jiyou’s arms, moaning with intoxicated eyes. Jiyou was restraining the woman with vines extending from her back and extracting slender tendrils like Chae-yoon, inserting them into the woman’s ear and pouring something into her.
The flower on her head has grown much larger than before, and she manipulates the vines like limbs…
“…What on earth happened? And who is that woman?”
Unable to understand what I’m seeing, I turn to Min-jung. In just a short time, about two or three days, the flower has grown larger than a human head, and now Jiyou is holding a woman I’ve never met, doing something to her.
Min-jung glances at the incomprehensible scene in the room and calmly begins to explain.
“After receiving the order from Chan-woo-nim to protect this woman, ‘Seo Jiyou,’ I returned to Seoul and placed Seo Jiyou in this sunny room, continuously feeding her water and Chan-woo-nim’s semen. Even after observing her, she only stared blankly at the sun, showing no signs of intelligence… But while I wasn’t watching, she came out of the room, grabbed a woman living on the same floor, and has been like this ever since.”
“…Since when has this been happening? You should have told me right away.”
“Well… this abnormality started just this evening at 6 PM.”
“…Huh? Just this evening?”
“Yes, after identifying the woman being held by Seo Jiyou, I contacted you immediately.”
…It suddenly happened this evening? The flower grew that big too? Min-jung wouldn’t have been careless in her management, so what went wrong?
“…I’m really sorry. I tried to confirm the abnormality right away, but I couldn’t figure it out on my own, so I had no choice but to contact you.”
“No, it’s okay. In the first place, I didn’t know much about ‘flowerpots’ either…”
Now that it’s come to this, it’s a problem we can slowly figure out from now on. I crack my knuckles and carefully step into the room.
I deliberately lower my posture as if dealing with a wary wild animal, but Jiyou recognizes me and cranes her neck even further than before to look at me. …She doesn’t seem to be wary or trying to attack, so I guess it’s okay. I can move more boldly.
“….”
I straighten up and stride towards Jiyou, stopping right in front of her. Then, to examine the situation and Jiyou’s condition in detail, I kneel down on one knee.
“…♡”
“Whoa…”
She stretches her neck towards my hand, which is slowly approaching her, and brings her face to it. Jiyou rubs her cheek against my hand like a puppy showing affection to its owner. She definitely doesn’t seem to have any hostility towards me. I can move more aggressively.
I summon green energy to my eyes and hands and examine and touch Jiyou here and there. Her nutritional state is normal, and her skin’s texture and luster don’t seem abnormal either…
Even the large flower bud, which seems the most abnormal, is fine. Rather, the flower is full of nutrients, and Jiyou’s movements are lively, unlike before.
“…This feels like it’s growing well.”
The flower’s color is more vibrant and brighter than when it first bloomed. It wasn’t that something was wrong with Jiyou, but that it was a normal part of her growth.
“Then this woman…”
Now that it’s been confirmed that there’s nothing wrong with Jiyou, it’s this woman’s turn. I shift my gaze to the woman being held and having something injected into her. First, I examine the woman’s condition. Her brainwaves are a little erratic, but other than that, she’s normal. Her heart is beating like crazy, and she’s extremely excited, which is a little concerning, but…
That’s all I can figure out right now. To find out more, I need to know what Jiyou is injecting…
“…Um, could you… pull this out of this woman for a moment…?”
“…Ugh! Ugh!”
I tentatively ask, hoping that Jiyou, who strangely follows me well, would listen, but I’m flatly rejected. Jiyou shakes her head from side to side and gestures at me.
…Does she want to say something?
“…Wait, just a… little bit? Wait, she says?”
“…Okay♡”
I roughly guess Jiyou’s thoughts, which can’t be read even with green energy. Wait, what is she waiting for… I look at the woman being held with that thought in mind.
“Ungh?!♡ Ohoohok!♡”
“What, what is it.”
Suddenly, the woman starts jumping and moaning intensely. The woman, convulsing violently, starts scattering urine on the floor. Startled by the seizure-like writhing, I briefly hesitate and take a step back, at which point Jiyou’s tendril is pulled out of the woman’s ear.
“……….”
“What…”
At the same time, the woman’s body, which had been going crazy until just now, slumps. Jiyou, watching the scene with satisfaction, comes back to me as if she’s finished her task and pushes her head into my hand, wanting me to stroke her.
I can’t bring myself to refuse, so I pretend to stroke her and examine the fallen woman. What is this, the brainwaves that had been fluctuating wildly have stabilized. In an instant. And the woman slowly starts to prop herself up from the floor. What on earth is happening?
“…Increase… flower… seeds… must increase… new woman… offer…”
The woman, like a zombie, keeps muttering strange words and tries to leave the room with faltering steps. Just as the woman completely passes through the doorway, Min-jung, who was standing outside the door, knocks her unconscious.
“…Chan-woo-nim, this woman is…”
“I need to examine her now, to see what’s wrong.”
I approach the woman Min-jung is holding and use green energy again to examine her body. Her body is no different from an ordinary human. But something in her head. This thing that Jiyou injected into this woman’s brain with her tendrils… ‘Powder?’ Something in the form of fine powder…
“Is this ‘pollen’?”
“Okay!♡”
Jiyou’s excited voice is heard from inside the room as I mutter to myself. Pollen produced by the flowerpot and a human injected with it… Is this perhaps like a flower and a bee? The flower gives nectar to the bee, and the bee spreads pollen on its body, helping the flower reproduce in a symbiotic relationship.
But this flower’s method of reproduction uses the body of a human woman, so this is…
This pollen is not for reproduction. It’s a powder that causes hallucinations, impairs intelligence, and has an addictiveness that surpasses the drugs that Seo-hee and I created. Moreover, this woman’s body has been modified to emit that dangerous powder.
Could this be bait to lure ‘new women’ here? The words the woman muttered earlier flash through my mind. ‘New woman… offer…’
“…You’re doing this for me?”
“….♡”
Seeing Jiyou quietly nodding and smiling, I finally realize the role of the flowerpot. They choose their prey after growing to a certain extent. That prey would be beautiful women who are worth offering to the ‘king.’
They steal the women’s cognitive abilities with pollen, making them addicted and dependent. They exploit the weakened minds to brainwash them into bringing new women. And if they implant petals into those women, they can quickly increase the number of their kind.
“…I’ve created something more amazing than I thought.”
“Chan-woo-nim, then…”
“Yeah, it’s okay to leave it as is. But I can’t keep her in such a narrow place anymore. Move her to a suitably spacious and sunny place and check on her condition regularly.”
“Yes, I understand.”
I was worried that it might be something dangerous, but fortunately, it seems like there’s nothing to worry about. Still…
“But don’t do it too indiscriminately. I appreciate the thought, but too much is also a problem.”
“…Hmph…♡”
I go into the room and gently stroke Jiyou’s head as much as possible and ask her. I don’t know if she understood, but I’ve asked Min-jung to monitor her, so this won’t happen again.
Then this problem is solved, so let’s get to the main point.
“Min-jung noona, there’s one more thing I need to ask.”
“Yes, anything.”
“Jung Ah-woon’s former residence before she went into hiding. Where is it?”
