“Feels like it has been a while since I saw this.”
“Tell me about it.”
Lee Changsu.
Leader of the guild called Avengers.
A powerhouse on a level similar to the officers in our unit.
We still had frequent dealings with his guild, the Avengers.
Along with Myohyangsa Temple, they boasted the largest power bloc in this region.
However.
It had been quite a long time since their leader, Changsu, had come to see us in person.
“Nice to see you after a while.”
“Ha. I have been busy with all sorts of things.”
So that was the reason.
He had not had much leeway as a guildmaster.
Honestly I am the weird one.
I offload most tasks onto Lieutenant Kim, that is all.
Normally a guildmaster should be extremely busy.
Thank you, Lieutenant Kim.
Please keep working hard, just like now.
“...I understand you are an important person.”
Still.
Being glad to see him is one thing.
Business is another.
“We are in a meeting right now. How about you come back a little later.”
Corporal Seo Suhyeok said that blankly.
He is a guy who awakened a measure of camaraderie through my cooking.
But that was only toward fellow unit members.
If it was others in the unit,
he often regarded those who had fought alongside us as comrades even if they were not Legionnaires.
Corporal Seo Suhyeok’s standards were rather strict.
He was moderate only because the man before us was the leader of a friendly force.
He did not seem to like the fact that our meeting had been interrupted.
“Mm. About that meeting content.”
“?”
Awakened bodies grow stronger by the day.
Now that he had picked up proper gear while cooperating with the Legion,
Changsu’s ability level was similar to that of our unit’s officers.
“I did not mean to listen, but I caught a little.”
That physical ability
applied to hearing as well.
“You are openly crossing the line.”
At Changsu’s words,
Seo Suhyeok’s eyes on him sharpened.
“Eavesdropping on someone else’s meeting.”
“I know. I am sorry about that part.”
“If you are sorry, then get out n—”
“It seems to overlap with my reason for coming.”
...Huh?
At the words that suddenly made no sense,
I tilted my head and looked at Changsu.
“What you are curious about.”
Then
he scratched his head and opened his mouth.
“Maybe I can help solve it.”
****
After we wrapped the meeting to a point,
the officers and I began to follow behind Changsu to somewhere.
“The last dungeon boss. Do you remember.”
With his spear slung over his shoulder, Changsu guided us somewhere.
He glanced back at us and asked that.
Dungeon boss.
“You mean the pope.”
“Right. For a while the only thing I could think about was wanting to kill that thing. But...”
The Pope of Dasmur.
Changsu and I had witnessed the pope’s death with our own eyes.
We had even exchanged a few words with the pope.
“In the end, those things were just victims of this world too.”
“...”
That,
I knew well too.
Those mermen had gone through what we went through, in their own world.
They were crushed miserably.
They were nothing but refugees, a handful of survivors who fled.
Because I experienced it directly.
I glanced at his face.
I could see a bit of a shadow fall across Changsu’s face as he led us.
“Do you regret killing the pope.”
“...As if. I still do not think exterminating those fish was wrong. If we had not killed them, someday we would have ended up drowned. But.”
Changsu’s guild.
The Avengers had a slightly different character from our guild.
Our guild actively pushes territorial seizures.
Grow power, expand territory.
The Legion focuses on stabilizing the power secured that way.
The reason was simple.
We do not know why the world ended up like this.
“The System is urging us to conduct conquest.”
If we followed that path,
we believed the answer would come someday.
Meanwhile,
they grew their power and numbers,
but showed no interest in “conquest.”
Unless our guild asked for help, they did not carry out any activities for occupation at all.
“It would be too unsatisfying to end it with just those things.”
True to the name Avengers,
their goal was a single thing.
Vengeance.
“Find the cause that made this world like this and take revenge.”
Those who made the world like this,
the cause that took our precious people.
They did not stop at hunting monsters that had simply killed people.
They dug deeper.
That was Changsu and the humans who followed him.
The Avengers.
“But, well. You know. Even if you try to find the cause that made the world like this, it is the kind of question with no answer.”
“That is true.”
“So we went looking for those who might know.”
“...Those who might know?”
What was he talking about now.
Even our guild has top-level information in this region.
Not only was the Legion’s influence itself substantial,
we continually exchanged with a merchant who had Information Gathering.
We continually collected surrounding intel through a spirit user and a shaman.
A problem our guild did not know.
He had gone looking for those who might know it.
“There is no way there would be people who know that...”
“Huh? Ah. I do not think I explained properly. Of course, there would not be humans who know what you do not.”
At last,
where Changsu led us was
a small shed-like building outside the city.
“Humans, you see.”
“...Sir?”
When we opened the door and went in,
what was inside was
“...Grrk.”
Glistening green skin.
Beastlike sounds.
A gaunt yet massive form.
“So we came to this thing.”
“...”
At that shape,
the gazes of me and the unit members fixed on Changsu.
“You crazy bastard.”
A soldier who already looked askance at Changsu.
Corporal Seo Suhyeok raised his rifle and shouted.
“Do you know how hard we worked to secure this as a safe zone.”
“H, hey. Calm down for now.”
“If you brought that inside...”
Unless my eyes were wrong,
that green skin was certainly
“a monster...!?”
The Green Manes tribe.
The very monsters we had been at war with until recently.
****
“I said calm down first.”
“You must not know me well. I am calmer now than ever.”
“You are pointing a gun at a person and saying that...”
Seo Suhyeok had his muzzle on Changsu.
His gaze and his tone were both sharp enough to cut,
but what he said was not exactly a lie.
Corporal Seo Suhyeok did not show much emotion by nature.
Even now there was a high chance he was fairly calm.
But that did not mean it was a good thing.
Even without being excited,
very composed and cool-headed,
he was ready to shoot Changsu in the head.
“C, Chef. Can’t you do something about this man...”
As things came to this,
Changsu turned his eyes toward me and asked for help.
But...
“Suhyeok.”
“Yes. Corporal Seo Suhyeok.”
“Watch him so he does not do anything strange, and even if you shoot, do not kill.”
“Loyalty.”
Unfortunately,
I could not take Changsu’s side either.
“Chef...!”
No, to be honest,
Corporal Seo Suhyeok’s stance made much more sense.
Even I, who trusted Changsu, was a little thrown by this.
Of course,
he is not the type to fire blindly.
Even if he shoots, he will move only after checking with me.
“W, what...”
“Be quiet. We do not want to lose a friendly guild either.”
As the muzzle pointed at him,
Changsu raised both hands meekly to show he had no intention to resist.
“...Hoo. All right. But understand this much, I did not come to do anything bad.”
Confirming that,
I studied the monster sitting in the corner.
[Ingredient Appraisal (Enhanced)]
Then
a trait activated.
[Green Manes Orc Shaman]
[Freshness - Upper Middle]
The Green Manes tribe.
Until just recently,
they had been constantly at war with us.
Alive.
No.
Strictly speaking.
Only alive.
The monster looked like it had taken severe wounds.
It breathed roughly with both eyes shut.
Not only that.
Its entire body was wrapped tight in thick iron chains.
A gag made of iron and wrapped in assorted cloths was in its mouth.
“Gr... hff...”
It exhaled rough breaths while bound.
Given its scrawny body, I had already guessed.
It was not a warrior but a shaman.
“A shaman.”
Compared to the warriors, it was rare to face one directly.
But that did not mean there was no grudge.
“They said these were the ones who handled humans as slaves.”
Such a monster was now,
alive /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ in front of me.
“Ha.”
Other than Ariella, whom I had made a vassal,
there had never been a case like this.
To be honest,
it did not feel good.
“Mr. Changsu.”
And
the man who had dragged this thing here was that man.
“You are going to have to explain exactly how this happened.”
****
“...I intended to explain.”
Sensing that there was a bit of anger in my gaze,
Changsu spoke cautiously.
When I gave a slight signal,
I saw Corporal Seo Suhyeok lower his muzzle a little.
Seeing that, Changsu muttered in disbelief.
“...We started out on friendly terms from the beginning. I guess I did not realize. You people have a more savage side than I thought.”
Changsu looked at us with wide eyes.
I shrugged lightly and answered.
“Well. In a world like this, who survives by always taking it easy.”
“Sigh. Of course. I am only now realizing I underestimated you.”
Perhaps he had been quite overwhelmed by Seo Suhyeok’s pressure.
Wiping away the cold sweat running down, Changsu caught his breath and began to explain.
“Ahem. As you know, after helping you and winning the fight against these things last time, we did not immediately withdraw from the front.”
“I had heard that.”
When the first snow fell and we realized winter was coming,
we pulled back slightly from the front to put our house in order.
Taejun’s [Astrology] also said that was right.
As the guild grew,
there was a lot to prepare for the winter.
“We needed to prepare for winter too, but we had more slack than expected.”
However,
compared to the Legion or Myohyangsa Temple, Changsu’s guild was small,
so they seemed to have had some freedom in that kind of power-organization aspect.
“To be honest, that was only possible thanks to your help.”
“Well. We were properly compensated, so it is not a problem.”
“Anyway. With a little leeway even in winter, we went out to hunt monsters every day. At first we just thought to do some leveling. Compared to you, our guild members’ stats are lacking.”
“So what are you trying to say.”
“As we kept fighting, we found some among them who could speak Korean. Very rare, but still.”
“...Ah.”
Ones who could speak Korean.
We knew such monsters existed.
Ariella in my shadow,
and the goblins who had occupied the Inje County Office, both spoke Korean fairly fluently.
And surely.
There were Green Manes who had learned Korean to handle humans as slaves.
Monsters from another world existed with whom we could communicate.
And their purpose.
Given that their purpose was to find out why monsters had appeared in our world,
if you thought about the purpose of their activities,
there was only one choice.
“You tried to capture some alive.”
“Mm. Not easy.”
Monsters from another world.
Asking those monsters directly what we wanted to know.
