“......I just got something incredible.”
I looked at the flower settled on my right hand—
the Nepenthes—and muttered.
“To think I’d end up with a tattoo I’ve never had in my life.”
At first it clearly looked like an ordinary flower.
But now that it had chosen parasitism, driving its thorns into my body,
the Nepenthes looked like a tattoo in the shape of a thorny vine.
I’ve never had a tattoo in my life,
so it felt a little awkward, but—
[Trait — ‘Soul-Melting Poison — Nepenthes’ activates.]
When I triggered the trait,
a clear liquid seeped from the tattoo.
It looked ordinary—
no special color or scent—
but,
“It’s a powerful weapon.”
Of all the poisons I’ve seen so far,
this was unquestionably the strongest.
I’d met monsters that wielded poison a few times,
but most of those could be treated by a priest or healer.
This one, though—
I could tell at a glance.
It wasn’t even comparable to poison on that level.
“I happened to befriend her when she was weakened,
and the moment she recovered a bit,
she blooms a plant like this.”
Alraune’s potential—
it might be on a level far beyond what I’d imagined.
“To hand me something like this just because it’s been a while.”
Which made a thought pop up.
“Maybe I should’ve visited more often?”
Then I might have gotten a few more good things.
......Is that too scummy a thought?
****
Anyway,
once again I let the tree roots cradle me and carried me out of the forest in comfort.
“You’re back, Sergeant.”
“Yeah.”
“So then, do we head back to Vimana now too?”
Since we were here,
I’d dropped by to see a friend—Alraune.
“No. Let’s stop by one more place.”
“Sir?”
Come to think of it,
I have one more friend nearby.
Grin.
“The 423rd Battalion. It’s close from here.”
“......Ah!”
We’d been too busy to swing by.
A unit in the mountains that was basically our starting point.
There—
my only classmate was stationed.
****
In the past,
I remember the time we left the 423rd Battalion and first descended to the surface.
A grueling fight.
With no normal way out, I had to spam the debuff [Special Sauce],
and even that wasn’t enough—I arrived topside passed out.
But—
now that quite a bit of time has passed since then—
[War Chef’s Courage-Filled]
“Screeeeech!!!”
“Die, you maggot-like bastards!”
the story was a little different.
The climb up the mountain was by no means easy.
But our unit’s combat power was on a different tier than back then.
The combat vehicles mulched monsters as they climbed,
and anything particularly strong, the soldiers stepped up and cut down.
“Haven’t been on this road in a while.”
“No kidding.”
It hasn’t even been a year since we came down from the mountain,
but somehow this road felt deeply familiar.
“I’d been thinking it was about time we dropped by the 423rd Battalion anyway.”
About ten remained at the 423rd including Taejun.
We’d left a decent amount of preserved rations when we departed,
but—
“Yeah, we’ve left them alone a bit too long.”
There’s a reason why the road that was such hell going down was relatively easy going up.
We’d spent that much time growing stronger.
And the soldiers who stayed at the 423rd had spent that same long time buried in this range.
More than once I’d thought we should swing by,
but we were so busy that every time I went “let’s stop in—” some new incident blew up, and the timing never worked.
With winter finally here,
we’d cut down external ops and shifted to internal management.
Which meant we finally had the bandwidth to handle this side too.
“They’re probably running low on food around now.”
Not only that—
our production crews’ level had gone up a lot in the meantime,
but the soldiers at the 423rd hadn’t enjoyed any of that.
They’d still be wearing gear made by Lee Sanga back when she wasn’t even level 10.
“And even that would just be armor—their weapons are still store-bought, I bet.”
Even if Taejun’s “astrology” lets him sniff out a major crisis in advance,
it’s still unstable in various ways.
They were effectively left on their own.
As guild leader, I couldn’t not worry.
“This time I’ll get them properly spec’d up.”
Right now my [Shadow Veil]
was stuffed with supplies to hand over to them.
After a few engagements as we climbed,
we soon reached the highest peak of the range—
the entrance to the 423rd Battalion.
But......
“......”
“Uh... what do you even call that.”
One of the soldiers who saw the entrance
murmured in a dazed voice,
“Did our unit always look like that?”
“......No. Not a chance.”
When we left,
the 423rd had looked like a plain, slightly bleak, ordinary military base.
But now—
“......What are those gaudy tassels even.”
“And what are those talismans?”
Rather than a military base......
yeah.
“......A shaman’s house?”
It had turned into a fortune-teller’s den.
And
from inside that den—
“You’re here, Youngjun.”
A fortune-teller in a uniform—
Sergeant Park Taejun, in a wheelchair, came out to greet us with a genial chuckle.
We hadn’t sent word we were visiting,
but it was like he knew we’d be arriving around now.
“Welcome back to the unit.”
****
It’d been a while.
As I went inside, I looked around at the surroundings.
“Barracks...... that’s the supply section building. Facilities section building......”
Judging by the layout,
this was definitely the unit we knew, right?
“Hey. Taejun.”
“Mm?”
“Sorry to lead with a question the moment I see your face after so long, but...... what on earth happened here?”
“Haha. The scenery did change a bit, didn’t it?”
Unlike when we were still in the mountains,
time had passed, and maybe he’d grown used to the wheelchair—
Sergeant Park Taejun rolled along without issue as he guided us.
“Even though these paths are pretty rough, look how smoothly he moves.”
How to put it—
Taejun felt ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) quite different from a few months ago.
Less like an ordinary conscript in his early twenties and more like—
a veteran shaman who’s been around for decades,
or a mountain-dwelling ascetic immortal.
“A bit? This is way beyond a bit.”
“I’ll admit, even I think I went a little overboard.”
All sorts of gaudy tassels and talismans,
and on the walls here and there were inscribed something—pictures or letters I couldn’t place.
On the once-plain paths stood stone cairns stacked from big rocks.
“Like something you’d see at a historical site......”
They’d been holed up in the range for a long time.
Come to think of it, they’d been stuck on base for months with no leave.
They’d only have had bland preserved rations to eat.
Uh.
Could it be—
“Did the stress make you lose your marbles—”
“What did you say?”
“Obviously not, right? Hahaha......”
“......”
Sergeant Park Taejun looked at me like I was unbelievable.
Anyway.
If it wasn’t stress-induced erratic behavior,
then there had to be a reason for this scenery.
“Well, isn’t it obvious.”
“......?”
“I did it for my ability.”
Thankfully,
it wasn’t that the soldiers had gone off the deep end.
“You’re saying those flashy decorations and stone cairns help your ability?”
“Yeah.”
Sergeant Park Taejun’s class is [Astrologer].
A job that reads the course of the stars to divine the future.
“When you recommended ‘Shaman’ as my nickname, honestly I was a bit speechless.”
“Heh-heh. It fits you, though.”
“Well, you weren’t wrong. In essence, there isn’t much difference from a shaman.”
These trappings you’d see in a shaman’s house—
they must also have a positive effect for him.
“I hadn’t planned to go this far, but it ended up that way.”
“Hm? Then how did it get like this?”
“Already forgot? The Green Manes tribe.”
“Ah......”
Right.
The Green Manes tribe we’d been at war with not long ago.
Among them
were “shamans” who read the stars, much like him.
“He had to face those shamans in a spiritual duel all on his own.”
He hadn’t said so at the time, so I hadn’t known,
but judging by this scenery—
“that’s a pretty brutal amount of work for a mere ten-odd soldiers.”
While we weren’t looking,
fierce battles must have played out here too.
“Geographically I had the advantage. Closest spot to the stars around here. But they were craftily experienced. And numerous. Which meant......”
“You had to bring in other methods?”
“All those decorations are an arrangement meaningful to astrology.”
Hearing that,
the flashy trappings did look a little different.
“Just so you know, by the way—”
Out of curiosity I started to reach for a rock on one cairn,
and Taejun immediately stopped me.
“If you mess up even one thing, it’ll be a real, real headache.”
“Ahem.”
“I get that it looks intriguing. But it’s best not to touch anything if you can help it.”
Chatting like that,
we moved inward, taking in the unit’s changed landscape.
After a few minutes of walking,
as we neared our destination—
“The other buildings were the mild ones, huh.”
In the distance,
a place decorated far more extravagantly than any other building came into view.
The reason our unit existed,
set on the highest peak in this lofty range.
No—thing.
“The Radar Section.”
The old hand of the Radar Section—
the very place where Taejun had worked.
“Good grief. What did you do to this place?”
“I told you. It was all necessary.”
I asked in disbelief,
and Sergeant Park Taejun calmly smoothed a hand over the Radar Section’s building.
“Youngjun. What do you think of when you hear ‘radar’?”
“Huh?”
A sudden question.
It caught me a little off guard, but—
“Let’s see. Something that scans the surroundings and senses danger?”
“Not the strict definition, but correct. Even if it isn’t you, most people would have a similar image.”
Figuring it meant something, I answered,
and Taejun nodded with a light smile.
“Something that scans the surroundings and senses danger. That shared concept exists across humanity, and yet it’s recognized as something special.”
“......”
“Chances are, I became an Astrologer because I was the soldier who handled this radar.”
Like how I was a cook because I’d been a cook.
Like how Staff Sergeant Lee Minjae, a signalman, awakened magic of the waves.
A Radar Section soldier who communicated with the satellites floating in space,
scanned the surroundings, and sensed danger—
Sergeant Park Taejun
became an Astrologer who communed with the stars.
“And as such...... this is the best place to exercise my ability.”
“That so.”
“The radar itself is half a relic now, sure. But it’s decent enough to use for amplifying my ability.”
Come to think of it,
thanks to him holing up here and suffering,
our unit faced far fewer crises.
“You must’ve gone through a lot to wield your ability here.”
“What’s there to complain about. That’s military life.”
I had a lot on my mind.
By the time we went down to the surface, our unit had a hundred Awakened.
We were already pretty strong,
but the enemies on the surface were often stronger than that.
If not for his help—
no.
If not for him and the others volunteering to stay in this range and suffer—
“it wouldn’t have been strange if our unit had been wiped out long ago.”
So—
I spoke to the soldiers with genuine feeling.
“Thank you.”
A belated thanks—
one I probably should have said long ago.
