Kwooooooooom!
A palm-sized bone knife.
That bone knife pierced the monster’s shoulder while producing a huge sonic boom unfit for its size.
-Kruoooooooork!!!
A monster that boasted enormous body size and muscle of tremendous density.
That monster began to writhe in pain.
"Go, good lord."
"It is barely visible, so how does it have that kind of power...!?"
A fist-sized hole suddenly opened in its shoulder.
Of course it would be excruciating.
The soldiers who had been preparing for battle as well
were aghast at the sight.
However...
"Hmm. As expected, even if I leverage the weapon’s traits, there is a limit."
The monster screamed and writhed in pain.
The fact that it is screaming means,
in other words, it did not die.
"As expected... it is not an offensive skill."
[Assistant Chef], as the name says,
is originally a skill to assist a chef.
I am the strange one for being a chef who only fights.
This case as well is me trying to force a perfectly fine cooking skill into combat use.
Even if I mobilize every trick, it is not enough to kill a monster in a single blow.
But well.
It does not matter much.
"That will be only for a moment anyway."
Even though its body burst and blew apart,
the monsters somehow survived and burned with fighting spirit while looking at me.
-Gr... ruk...?
Their bodies
collapsed on their own.
I did not kill them in one blow,
but it does not matter much.
Through that large wound that formed,
into that wide wounded area,
[Nepenthes’s Ultra-Poison]
that melts even the soul,
a powerful toxin seeped in.
-Kru... uh... ugh...
Thud...
Not long after shrieking in painful screams,
the monster slowly lost strength and fell.
"..."
The soldiers were aghast at that sight,
but this was only the beginning.
Kwoooom!
Thud!
The [Sound Kitchen Knife] kept swimming through the air and intercepting the enemies.
-Krr... ruk.
Every time that charging sound rang out once,
one monster fell.
"...the monsters that had occupied the military bases."
"Falling that simply...?"
On the soldiers’ faces as they looked at me,
astonishment began to show.
After a few more bouts of such fighting,
the powerful monsters that once belonged to the corps we had been part of,
the 12th Corps that they decimated...
before the [Legion]’s barrage,
disappeared like dust.
****
"With this, the last one!"
"Screeeech!"
A monster that had been freed from a military base,
the last of them fell by a soldier’s hand.
"Huff... huff...!"
"Everyone, good work!"
The exhausted soldiers exhaled rough breaths.
There were also soldiers who had suffered serious injuries and were receiving treatment from medics.
In this subjugation,
my [Assistant Chef] did play quite a showy role,
"but that is only the most showy when seen from the outside."
In terms of substance, it is not that outstanding.
Every other unit member also took part in the °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° fight.
Naturally,
the actual credit goes far more to the other unit members.
"Huff... what on earth was all this suddenly."
"Indeed. We barely managed to block it thanks to the Corps Commander, but... what a slog, truly."
After all the battles were wrapped up,
the soldiers, catching their breath and surveying the surroundings, muttered like that.
In fact,
with the sudden appearance of monsters and a sudden subjugation,
the soldiers had no room for other thoughts in that urgent situation.
However,
now that the battle had been wrapped up to a certain extent,
"...hmm."
"Sergeant Shin?"
I felt the unit members’ gazes turn toward me.
Gazes full of the question
of what on earth this is.
However...
even if they look at me like that,
"It is a pity, but there is nothing I can tell you right now."
"I, is that so."
"I do not know well, but that means it is classified for now."
When I shook my head and spoke with a serious expression,
the soldiers stepped back a pace as if they understood.
I appreciate the understanding,
"but that is not it."
Classified, my foot.
I cannot answer because I do not know either.
I also have no sense at all
of what situation this is.
All I did was, flustered by the sudden assault, cook for that Taejun bastard.
That said, it would be too much to pretend I know nothing at all...
since through orders via guild message I already did this and that to respond.
It did not look like something I could gloss over easily.
So what I chose was precisely
to act as if I know something, but do not say it.
In other words,
putting on airs.
"Ah. There is one thing I can tell you."
"Sir?"
However...
"Earlier you asked what kind of slog this is, did you not?"
"I did say something like that."
In reality I know little about this situation,
and I am in a situation where I am only putting on airs,
but even so,
there was one fact I could know for certain.
A grin.
"That slog will not be pure pointless slog."
"...?"
The soldiers looked at me with perplexed expressions.
Leaving those gazes behind,
I walked forward without a word.
Step...
Treading over the corpses of monsters,
I kept walking toward the direction the monsters had appeared from.
The place
they had originally occupied.
[Warning!]
[No Entry]
"See that?"
A sign in a familiar font
appeared before our eyes.
[Military Area]
[Entry Prohibited]
Written in a rough red font.
Slightly unfamiliar to others,
but something that cannot help but be familiar to us.
"...Ah!"
As if they finally caught on to what I was trying to say,
the watching soldiers opened their mouths wide.
All manner of strategic materiel.
Powerful weaponry.
Located at a strategic chokepoint, of course,
a place that is equipped with every kind of defensive works.
"Military base."
If not for the sudden surprise attack,
no matter how powerful the monsters,
it is the core of humanity’s force that they would never have easily pierced.
In other words,
"it is sweet."
There was a honey pot sitting there
with not a single monster guarding it.
****
After the subjugation of the monsters was over,
our unit moved into the cleanup work.
"Thanks to the subjugation finishing quickly, fortunately it seems there are no wounded."
"There are some soldiers injured in the subjugation, but not at a serious level."
Counter picks through that Taejun bastard’s astrology.
The effect was considerable.
Even though so many monsters had been released, we succeeded in subjugation with minimal damage.
And
we, who had succeeded in subjugation, moved into settling
the military bases that the monsters had originally occupied.
"It seems there are no survivors."
"Hu."
On the chance there might be, we searched each military base thoroughly,
but there were no living soldiers.
If there were those who survived, they would be outside the military bases.
"It cannot be helped. Are the other tasks I ordered going well?"
"Yes. We are collecting dog tags as much as possible to identify them, and for bases where remains remain we are also preparing funerals."
"Good."
They are people who would have been precious family to someone.
Even if death could not be avoided,
"the closing should be done properly."
By collecting the dog tags, we will be able to identify all the soldiers who died.
Someday,
someone may find their names and come find us.
It will be quite a hard task to deliver the obituary to them,
but since we are probably the only soldiers left to the end,
delivering that as well is a duty we will have to shoulder.
Once that somewhat gloomy talk was wrapped up to a degree,
what came next
was news that was fairly pleasant.
"A, an enormous quantity of supplies!"
"Bullets, all kinds of hardware... combat rations...? We do not need this, so pass it along. Anyway!"
The engineers’ leader,
Corporal Lee Gongu, shouted with a face full of smiles.
"The most important thing is that we have secured an enormous amount of fuel!"
He was so excited
that spit flew from his mouth as he babbled.
"I do not know well, but do military bases usually hold a lot of fuel?"
"They do, very much so!"
Since the 423rd Battalion I had served in was such a small-scale unit,
fuel was only for operating tanks.
We stored not a small amount, but not so much you could call it a lot either.
However,
ground units must also hold fuel to operate those very tanks.
"At this level we will have leeway to operate tanks for a while. Ah, of course since they are such fuel-guzzling monsters, it will be hard to use them with abandon."
"Oh..."
It was good that we had finally obtained them,
but the tanks that we could not properly operate because they guzzled too much fuel.
Fuel at a level that will allow full operation of those tanks.
"We also captured dozens of those very tanks. That is not all. Just rifles alone are roughly..."
And
besides that, all manner of firearms that countless military bases had held.
Even resources like ammunition and grenades.
Monsters that suddenly raided military bases one day and occupied them.
Those bastards were certainly strong,
but for such strong bastards to appear in those places...
there was a definite reason.
"To suppress humanity’s force."
Some malice that desires the ruin of humanity.
That malice took the histories, weapons, and resources of the military bases
and sought to separate them from humans.
However,
those monsters were all released at once and left the military bases they had been guarding.
If we had failed to subjugate those monsters,
it would have been a true cataclysm,
"but that is the story if we could not stop it."
A phrase like what if does not fly at all in the military.
We subjugated those monsters.
This time, the military bases from which monsters were freed.
Their number is more than ten.
Naturally,
everything that had been in those military bases became ours,
and in an instant,
we got the same effect as subjugating at least ten or more military bases.
"Heh... hehehe. Hehehe..."
"Is it that good."
It was such a quantity
that the engineers who manage engines of war
could not wipe the smiles from their lips.
"Minjae?"
Besides...
that was not all.
"How is it? Think it will work?"
"Hmm... give me a moment."
Sergeant Lee Minjae.
A soldier who recently succeeded in promoting to the class [Mage of Waves].
After he fiddled with the machine for quite a while,
he soon nodded and said,
"It seems it will probably be possible."
"...I knew it."
In most military bases,
there exists a communications network that allows bases to contact each other without going through other relay stations.
Given the nature of infantry units that must fight while moving through many places,
there are many cases where they have to communicate in the field.
In fact,
this communications system was the true power of military bases in the time when civilization was alive.
"Even our unit by itself was a weak unit."
A radar unit holed up deep in the mountains.
We managed the important facility called radar,
but due to the location it is extremely difficult to station much force.
Therefore,
near our radar unit there were various combat units positioned that could intercept enemies approaching our unit.
Our radar unit, while being protected by such combat units,
had the role of grasping enemy approaches through the radar,
and the military bases built at key points in each region,
by exchanging communications and cooperating organically,
were able to solidify control over the relevant region.
After the day of ruin,
the communications network all became useless,
"but since I have done it once, I think I can do it a second time as well."
Sergeant Lee Minjae
was the one who could revive that very communications network.
"The problem is that I will become insanely busy."
After realizing that the first radio broadcast had been wrapped up successfully,
our unit was trying to attempt additional broadcasts in ways that foreigners could understand,
in English, Chinese, Japanese, and so on.
Conveying various information necessary for survival would be a bonus.
It is natural that Minjae, the core of that radio broadcast, would become incredibly busy.
"Heh heh. Me as well, and you too, suffering a lot in our last years."
"Well... it is something I like to do."
I will make him suffer a bit,
but it is that important a task.
After Sergeant Lee Minjae heads this time to each military base we secured,
he will amplify the waves coming out of those places.
If he can revive communications between military bases,
"then without relying on guild messages that only squad leaders can send... an organic linkage across multiple regions becomes possible."
Unlike now where we barely hold the city of Chuncheon and the area near the Ammunition Battalion,
we will be able to make the key points in this area firmly into the legion’s domain.
Compared to the past it will inevitably be a bit more inconvenient and rough in form,
but within Gangwon Province we might be able to revive long-distance communications.
"When I first heard the story that monsters had been released, I did break into a cold sweat."
A vast malice whose identity we still cannot know.
Even going so far as to bind powerful monsters,
the power it wanted to prevent from falling into human hands.
"Humanity’s... true violence."
In the past,
the very power that had been gathered under the name of the 12th Corps in the time when civilization was whole
was trying to be rebuilt under the name of the [Iron Legion].
