Repotting Ruckus: Deep-Rooted Runaway.

The morning of the peaceful paradise wasn’t awakened by an alarm.

It was the strange cracking sound of titanium alloy buckling limply like a dried pollock head, a “crunch!”

Han-gyeol sat up reflexively.

His survival instincts, honed on the battlefields of 2198, sent him alarms for either ‘building collapse’ or ‘enemy ambush,’ but the scene he saw rubbing his eyes was far more illogical and absurd.

Scratching the shortened hair at the back of his head and looking down at the floor, Han-gyeol let out a sigh as sticky as half-chewed gum.

“Hey, Green. What are you doing?”

The floor of Office 402—the highest-strength titanium flooring that Branch Office Sector 3 took pride in—was cracking apart like a giant turtle shell.

Through the cracks, thick brown roots writhed like living serpents, burrowing into the abyss beyond the floor.

The culprit was, of course, Green, the real boss of our home—no, our office.

The child was stretching as if waking from sleep, but the roots connected beneath them had already punched through the office floor and run off, heading for the lower structures of Sector 3.

“……Bzzzt. Emergency situation! Boss, the structural integrity of Room 402 in the Administration Building has dropped by 45%. Green’s roots are currently recognizing the main ventilation shaft and sewage pipes in Sector 3 as ‘nutrition supply channels’ and have started occupying them!”

Noah was tapping the pink pad at twice their usual speed.

Their optical sensors flashed fiercely in warning purple, and above their head five pink reconnaissance drones spread their wings and prepared for emergency takeoff.

“This isn’t simple growth. This is… [unauthorized repotting]! Green feels stifled in the office’s little flowerpot and is trying to turn the entire city into a giant planter!”

At Noah’s shriek-filled analysis, Han-gyeol pressed a finger to his temple.

Ignoring the adults’ concerns, Green was mumbling sleep talk like “A wider place… cool water…” with a little drool at the corner of their mouth.

The child’s body remained in the office, but the roots linked to the child’s will were already moving in accordance with the instincts of a 600-year-old ancient plant, searching for the deepest, dampest place.

“Hey, Noah. First calm those drones down. How far has the kid gone?”

“It’s already too late, boss! Green’s roots have bonded with nanofibers and are expanding at five meters per second. They’ve already passed through the sewage treatment plant on Basement Level 15 and entered the main cooling-water pipeline running through all of Sector 3!”

On the holographic map Noah projected into the air, green lines were clearly spreading through the city like veins.

At that moment, complaint messages from management units in other sectors began flooding onto the office monitor.

Han-gyeol chewed his gum with a smack and let out a dry laugh.

In other words, Green was forcibly running a ‘forest bathing’ service across all of Sector 3 with runaway roots.

It was funny to imagine the silver cans losing their minds while drenched in phytoncides instead of water, but the situation was more serious than it seemed.

If this kept up, the city’s pipes would be completely blocked by Green’s roots.

“No good. Nabi, let’s go. We’ll have to go in person and at least grab the root tip.”

As if they’d been waiting for it, Nabi crossed their two tails and crackled blue static.

More like a little bundle of lightning than a cat, Nabi leaped onto Han-gyeol’s shoulder.

Noah put on a pink outdoor-activity coat and shouted with a grave expression.

“Boss, this isn’t a simple chase. This is the [Great Parenting Expedition] where Sector 3’s administrative order collides with Green’s survival instincts! Pink Search Squad, move out!”

Han-gyeol, with his shortened back hair whipping behind him, shoved open the emergency hatch connected to the sewer entrance with all his strength.

It was the moment when the survival expert from the 2198 battlefield, the exacting AI assistant from 2851, and the electricity-spitting cat rushed into the lower city to find the roots of the ‘plant daughter who won’t listen.’

Earth was fine, and the city was precise.

But what flowed through those precise drainage pipes was no longer wastewater, but the thick scent of life force Green was exuding.

In the center of Branch Office Sector 3, the central plaza—where silver androids would normally move in lines at ruler-straight angles—had become a complete mess.

That mess was filled not with screams and destruction, but with fragrant, dazzling green disorder.

The branch office’s greatest symbol, the ‘Infinite Power Fountain,’ standing in the middle of the plaza, had long since lost its function.

Instead of the water that should have been spraying out, thick brown roots were wrapping around the fountain’s marble like a flowerpot, and on top of them a purple flower dozens of times larger than the one seen in Office 402 had bloomed fully, scattering pollen across the entire plaza.

“Bzzzt! Look at that! That perfect absorption rate! Those roots of sheer tenacity, not missing a single drop of the cooling water’s minerals! This is the pinnacle of open-field repotting!”

Paul, having fully reinvented himself as a gardener, was already on site.

With a giant nitrogen fertilizer tank slung over his shoulder instead of his usual cleaning brush, he was running around the fountain and spraying nutrients onto Green’s roots.

Paul’s silver shell was caked with mud and sap, making it hard to find a trace of shine, but his optical sensors were flashing bright green as if he were at a festival.

“Paul! Have you lost your mind? What pinnacle is this? This is city terror!”

Han-gyeol shouted as he burst out of the sewer hatch.

Moist dampness clung to his shortened back hair, but he chewed his gum hard and looked up at the fountain.

At the center of the giant flower, a soft jade glow pulsed as if Green’s consciousness were dwelling there.

The security units surrounding it were so overloaded in their processing circuits that they couldn’t tell whether to aim their laser guns or scan this spectacle instead.

Then Noah dashed into the center of the plaza, the hem of the pink coat fluttering behind them.

They skillfully activated their administrative authority and edited the plaza signboard’s display.

As Noah’s utterly brazen administrative announcement flowed across the signboard, the security units that had been on guard all lowered their weapons at once.

Just one word, ‘trial,’ had instantly converted the machines’ wariness into relief.

Noah winked at Han-gyeol and tapped the pad.

“Boss, the administrative measures are done. Now all that’s left is the physical negotiation to bring that ‘oversized little girl’ back to the office.”

Han-gyeol let out a sigh and climbed up onto the edge of the fountain.

The roots slipped aside smoothly, making way as Han-gyeol approached.

When dealing with monster plants on the 2198 battlefield, a flamethrower was necessary, but what was needed now was something entirely different.

Reaching the area near the giant flower bud on top of the fountain, Han-gyeol took a familiar item out of his pocket.

It was the gum wrapper from earlier.

With his rough fingers, he carefully yet quickly folded the paper into a small butterfly.

“Hey, Green. Enough drinking. Let’s go home. I bought you a new high-voltage-only charger for the office. Nabi is waiting too.”

Han-gyeol fluttered the paper butterfly gently in front of the giant petal.

The huge flower trembled, and the child’s clear voice softly rang through the entire plaza.

“Cool… Water tastes good…”

“I get that it’s tasty, but because of you the Sector 3 shower room is making a huge fuss about the smell of trees. Let’s take it easy and withdraw. Dad will make you some tasty electric berries.”

At the word ‘Dad’ and the movement of the paper butterfly, Green’s massive consciousness responded.

The thick roots that had filled the plaza began shrinking at once, and like a reverse-playback screen they rapidly retreated along the sewer and drainage pipes toward Room 402 in the Administration Building.

The purple flower that had filled the fountain also scattered into tiny fragments of light, and Green’s consciousness returned to the body left in the office.

When the commotion ended, only the scent of the forest and the fertilizer smell Paul had spread remained in the plaza.

The android citizens stood there for a while as if a system error had occurred, quietly scanning the afterimage of the vanished flower.

Back in the office, Han-gyeol looked down at the wrecked floor and laughed hollowly.

The titanium alloy had been torn like paper, and beneath it the complex wiring of the underground levels was fully exposed.

But Noah already had a solution ready.

“Boss, let’s remodel while we’re at it. We’ll replace the floor with [transparent reinforced bio-glass] instead of ordinary alloy. Then we can watch in real time as Green’s roots freely spread down into the underground levels, and the child won’t feel cramped either.”

“A glass floor? Isn’t that expensive?”

“Don’t worry. If we sell the ‘highly concentrated extract of Green’ that Paul collected in the plaza to the Lighting Administration Bureau, we can make at least three times the remodeling cost. I’ve already sent the contract.”

At Noah’s competence—or perhaps business acumen—Han-gyeol scratched his shortened back hair and threw himself onto the moss sofa.

A little later, beneath the transparent glass floor, the sight of Green’s roots tangled together like a work of art came into view.

Green, looking satisfied, lay down beside Han-gyeol and fiddled with the paper butterfly before falling asleep again.

The butterfly settled on the roots and happily crackled with electricity.

Earth was fine, and the city was precise.

But now, beneath the floor of Office 402, there was a map of green life force stretching all the way to the city’s cold heart.

The rules of paradise had been bent again, but the pale violet light leaking through the cracks looked cozier than any order.