Chapter 9: One Hour

The hood slid off his head the moment his boots touched the grass.

He felt it go, and there was nothing he could do about it.

For a month the only face on this floor had been his own, in the stream, and he had stopped looking at that.

Bom turned around with the pot in her arms and looked at him.

He let her, because the only other choice was to run, and there was nowhere on the floor to run to.

The stone by the stream lit behind her.

[Visitor: one hour.]

She read it over her shoulder and looked back at him.

"You're younger than your voice," she said.

"My voice is the Tower's," Gyu-ho said.

"Your tooth's chipped."

"Tractor hitch," he said. "I was eleven."

She set the pot down beside the stone, then the saw, then the nails.

The stone took the light out of the air and wrote on its face.

[Term met. 3,100 XP.]

Brass began to rattle into the hollow in its side, more coins than he had ever seen, until they heaped over the lip.

Bom watched them land for a beat longer than he expected.

Then she looked away at the rows, and he noticed the look without knowing what to make of it.

The stone lit again.

[Level 4. Perilla seed, three hundred coins.]

A window opened in front of his eyes, where only he could see it.

[Ju Gyu-ho. Seller of an unlisted floor. Day 32.]

[Sow, Level 4. XP: 10,850 of 17,700.]

[Health: 60 of 100. Stamina: 35 of 100.]

[Hunger: mild. Thirst: none.]

[Coins: 9,320. Lots per Market: 3.]

Three lots a Saturday now, and a seed that cost thirty million won apiece.

"Perilla," Bom read off the stone. "What does it do?"

"I don't know yet," he said.

"You'll find out on Saturday," she said. "So will every guild in Korea."

He coughed, and it went on longer than he wanted, bent over with one hand on the stone.

When he straightened up, she was frowning at him.

"You sound like a raider back from floor 11," she said.

"The frost came on Monday," he said. "I had my tomatoes out."

She looked past him at the field.

The light was sinking toward dusk, and the rows along the stream stood dark and heavy.

The near tomato row was black, its vines slumped over their poles.

The second row stood green behind it, because he had pulled long grass over it every night since.

Then came the peppers, at two heights, the watered half a hand taller and a deeper red.

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