A contract tangled up with a demon.
For those contractors to become free, we have to get rid of that [Contract] skill.
And to do that,
‘we have to change their job.’
Also,
as for successful cases of changing a job,
so far I had seen
exactly two.
One was Ariella.
Those who became her vassals held only the [Vampire Knight] line of skills and traits.
And the other—
“Th... that’s insane...!”
She couldn’t say it to my face;
the white-haired soldier muttered it from the corner like that.
‘Lee Hyunjin.’
She devoured a monster and, at the end of it, became a monster herself.
When she became a monster, her species itself was no longer human,
so of course she didn’t have a job at all then, but—
“Anyway, let me ask you one thing.”
“...Yes?”
“What did you say your original job was?”
“...That was...”
Before becoming a monster,
the job she had was—
“It was a job called Defensive Trooper.”
Fairly ordinary.
We had a few in our unit too.
‘If I remember °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° right, it was a job Awakened from the military police track—mostly?’
A job specialized in tanking, suppression,
and guarding an area.
Her day job had been police officer,
so for this slapdash system, you could call it a decently fitting assignment.
But as for her,
after all kinds of twists and turns...
and a little bit of painful time,
[Ingredient Appraisal (Enhanced)]
[Primate — Human]
the one who had once turned into a monster became human again,
and in that process—
[Awakened: Lee Hyunjin]
[Job: Abnormal Appetite Lv.11]
her job changed as well.
All the traits and skills she’d originally had were wiped,
and now she had exactly one trait.
[Trait]
[Gluttony]
She could use the traits and skills of whatever she ate as-is,
and by eating an enemy she also gained a temporary increase to her stats...
‘An absolutely busted trait.’
Even I had to click my tongue at how broken it was.
It was similar to [Absolute Palate], which ranked among the strongest in my own set of skills,
but in a few respects her trait even had the edge.
Anyway, after going through all that,
even though we’d been too busy for proper research into the trait,
her rank was just ordinary soldier,
but her combat power was at the squad-leader tier...
no, beyond that,
she’d been performing on the level of the captains like Lee Minjae, Jeon Gwangil, and Seo Suhyeok.
And
that had made me think one thing.
‘No matter how you look at it, that job is busted.’
She only has one trait,
but that trait is so broken.
In Hyunjin’s specific case,
the remaining stats from when she’d been a monster had a big impact on combat power too,
but more than ninety percent of her effectiveness in battle came from that trait.
‘Normally, even if you learn some job is busted, it’s meaningless.’
Jobs are determined at random to begin with.
Knowing a job is busted doesn’t let you do anything about it.
There is a degree of tendency,
but that’s all.
Even I know the job of Chef is quite powerful,
but despite how many people must have cooked in real life, the only Chef I’ve met so far is myself.
Training people into a specific job is impossible...
or it would be.
But this job
might be a little different.
‘The manufacturing process is very clear.’
You capture an Abnormal Appetite,
put it through a little bit of painful dissection,
and by turning it back into a human, you obtain the job.
If so,
‘couldn’t we intentionally increase the numbers...?’
That thought
did cross my mind for a moment.
Of course,
back then it stayed a plan on paper.
Becoming an Abnormal Appetite is not easy.
And the process of turning it back into a human is...
Shiver, shiver, shiver...
“T-to think you mean to... do that again...”
“...”
“Y-you should just kill them instead. If I think about going through that again—ugh...”
...a little?
Painful.
‘She did say it was enough to turn her hair white, so.’
To be honest, even now.
If our eyes meet in passing, her legs buckle and she goes down more often than not.
For someone who gets PTSD the moment she sees me to musters the courage to cast a nay vote like this—
‘It’s a bit much to experiment on ordinary soldiers.’
However,
the contractors are a little different.
‘They’re not ordinary soldiers, and they themselves just said they want to change jobs.’
If that’s the case—
the busted-job copy project that was about to be shelved quietly
deserves a reboot, doesn’t it.
Granted, the prototype of that project,
Lee Hyunjin, looked like she was dead set against it,
but her rank is just a lowly soldier.
And I’m the Corps Commander.
‘Yeah~ and so what.’
As for her opinion,
I can coolly ignore it and proceed.
“Just wait.”
Your juniors.
I’ll make them soon.
****
With Lee Hyunjin pale as a sheet,
I somehow calmed her down,
and—
“Well now. They even had a mess hall.”
I went through the buildings they’d been using,
and found the one that had a kitchen.
‘So they’d been cooking for themselves, more or less.’
They’re humans too in the end.
They had to eat something; the mess bore a lot of signs of use.
Once I got there—
well.
What else would a chef do in a place like this?
Whoosh...
Immediately,
I started cooking.
“I don’t know yet what those guys’ palates are like, but.”
I planned to make it with everything I had.
We’d knocked them out a little quickly, so I didn’t even know what they liked.
If so,
the food to make for that kind of crowd is—
‘something most people usually like, right?’
And
after a long stretch of cooking in the army,
there’s one thing I learned.
[The dish is complete!]
[War Chef’s All-Out Cutlet of Severe Hunger]
People who dislike cutlet
are rare.
“Go stick one in the mouth of each person we’ve confined.”
“Yes.”
They’re out cold,
so they won’t taste it,
but if it’s between their teeth they’ll chew in their sleep and it’ll go down.
Then the effect will apply.
“Just in case, let me be clear: absolutely do not eat it yourselves.”
“Sir? Why is that.”
“Why? Because—”
That dish
was one I made with everything I had.
[of Severe Hunger—]
“It’s an appetite booster.”
****
[Severe Hunger]
You could roughly guess the effect.
In the past, when we went to subjugate Ariella,
I’d tasted the effect of [Severe Thirst].
From what I felt then,
‘...even your reason doesn’t last long.’
If you eat that dish,
you’ll be so hungry
you won’t care what it is as long as it’s edible nearby.
That’s why I confined them each to separate rooms.
If I’d locked them all in one room,
...they’d have
eaten one another.
“Everyone, here’s an order.”
“Yes!”
“Clear out.”
“...Sir?”
At my order,
the soldiers looked puzzled.
“Clear out?”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“Literally.”
Regardless,
I decided to give the order I’d intended from the start.
“Leave two squads to establish a temporary post nearby. Everyone else, return to Vimana.”
“Sir, what is this all of a sudden—!”
“The ones staying are the same. Establish a temporary post, but get as far from this building as you can.”
At that,
the soldiers shook their heads as if it made no sense.
“Do you mean you’ll stay alone, Commander?”
“I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but a monster could show up from anywhere—staying alone?”
“...That’s exactly why I’m staying alone.”
“Sir?”
“Anyway.”
Given my position,
the soldiers don’t love it when I act solo,
but—
“Every soldier except me, move out until this building is out of sight.”
“E-even if you say that...”
“That’s an order.”
“...!”
To be frank,
I’ve already done a lot of solo work.
“When a senior talks, you don’t answer?”
“...Loyalty.”
“Heh heh. Good.”
I’m sorry it’s a bit heavy-handed,
but there’s a reason it has to be.
Even though I’m human,
I went to town sucking Ariella’s blood.
Even knowing they’ll become monsters if they eat monster flesh,
they’ll eat the monsters’ corpses.
And
if that happens...
‘well, things will get a little wild.’
After sending out all the soldiers,
I stayed alone in the building where the contractors were confined.
It was a corridor-style apartment building,
and right in the middle was a little playground-like space where you could see the entrances of the other apartment blocks.
“Heave-ho.”
I pitched a quick tent there,
set a chair in front of it,
and settled in to kill time.
‘Bored—guess I’ll catch up on prepping ingredients I put off and wait.’
Killing time by trimming ingredients I’d stored in the [Shadow Veil],
or making combat rations and the like.
And then,
after about three days—
—...grrrrk.
“Oh? Is it starting?”
In the area that had been so quiet,
sounds like monsters’ cries began to ring out.
****
—Kruuuaaa...
—Kweeegh
“So it took about three days. Faster than I expected.”
It had taken a considerable time for Hyunjin to become a monster.
The amount of monster meat you had to eat to become a monster was quite a lot.
Even so, to get a reaction this fast—
...smirk.
“My dish must have been pretty tasty, huh?”
What I fed them—the [Chef’s Special Sauce]
and the effect of [Severe Hunger], no doubt.
They must have,
literally,
eaten monster corpses until they were about to burst.
Once you start swallowing monsters like that,
that’s enough.
Even if the [Severe Hunger] effect wears off,
having ingested that much monster,
‘they won’t have any thought left that they must not eat monster flesh anyway.’
When the monsters’ sounds reached me,
I rose from the chair and started stretching.
“All right, then...”
Checking when they become perfect monsters—
that isn’t hard.
Abnormal Appetites are all monsters of immense strength.
Once they become monsters,
then soon—
KWHOOOOM!
“Oh!”
Batter up.
Entrance.
“Someth... to ead...!”
Just as I expected.
The buildings sealed with iron reinforced by the mana of the [Ley-Line],
a hulking monster burst through the wall of one such building and appeared.
“Someth... to ead, now...! Or else...!”
“It’s been a while. That idiot way of talking.”
Flesh swelled to a grotesque degree,
a hideous form with human and monster mixed,
a monster that had ceased to be human
charged at me and bellowed.
“You at leas... now!”
Thoom!!!
An enormous mass rushed at me at shocking speed.
‘These Abnormal Appetites... are incredibly strong.’
When an ordinary human became an Abnormal Appetite,
Gwangjin, who’d been leading the raiders at the time,
handily beat a coordinated assault from Gwangil and the rest of the unit.
‘And Lee Hyunjin, who was an Awakened, was worse than that.’
Even though nearly a hundred vampires fought with everything they had,
a considerable portion of the vampire force turned to dust.
‘The over one hundred contractors here... at least in level and stats, they were decent.’
If all of them became Abnormal Appetites,
they’d be far weaker than Hyunjin no matter what,
but compared to the first Abnormal Appetite I met,
Gwangjin, they’d be far stronger.
‘And there are over a hundred of those monsters...’
That was the first reason I pulled the troops back.
If we fought monsters like that,
even for our unit there would inevitably be casualties.
So—
tap, tap.
“What are you doing, get out here already.”
Monsters powerful enough that even an extermination would obviously cost us dearly.
A mission more dangerous than purging the demon’s minions.
For this kind of operation...
—Hah, it’s only at times like this that it’s our turn.
you deploy a force
you can afford to lose.
“So you have a complaint?”
—Wouldn’t it be a lie to say no? And a vassal can’t lie to her Master.
Crawling out of the shadow,
the vampire was suddenly at my side.
—Instead... I think the direction of the complaint may be a little different.
“Hm?”
The Vampire Baron
smiled with a cold curve.
—We were just hoping you’d call us a little more often.
“Haha. That’s a fair thing to sulk about.”
Last time,
in the battle to subdue Lee Hyunjin, she had to lose a lot of vassals.
She was pretty vexed about it.
“Please look forward to it.”
“Hm?”
“This battle will be a little different from last time.”
And as she said,
this time the shape would be a little different.
[Vampire Baron]
A rank so awkward you could barely call it nobility—she’d been a quasi-baron,
but after that battle,
she managed to be promoted to the threshold you could call true nobility... Baron.
And after that, same story.
Fighting the Green Manes tribe, she’d absorbed their blood in large quantities.
I could feel a power of a different order than before,
a potent magic.
At this rate...
hm.
“Feels like you’re not far from the next promotion.”
“Exactly.”
If so—
watching the distance close as the monster lunged at me,
I asked casually,
“How about the blood from those things?”
“Heh heh...”
As she smiled a blood-scented smile,
the change began.
“I’d say it will be more than enough.”
By now, the sun had set.
Relying on a single lamp at the slapdash tent I’d made,
my shadow began to stretch long.
“...To the Master... of our Master.”
“Loyalty.”
My shadow stretched until it covered the whole area,
and within it,
pairs of eyes burning red began to reveal themselves one by one.
—Grrrr...
Shapes stepped out of the lengthened shadow.
Once, they had been nothing but criminals deemed irredeemable,
—but to the Master of our Master, loyalty!
—Kuwaaaagh!!!
and of course the Green Manes tribe,
and many kinds of near-humanoid monsters.
Creatures that had once been enemies of humanity
pledged loyalty to me and formed up for battle.
“Now...”
With a pair of chef’s knives in my hands,
[Old-Pattern Sashimi Knife] and [Black Chinese Cleaver] gripped however,
I stepped one pace ahead and spoke.
“Let’s begin the cooking.”
At my words—
—Victory or death!
—Kruoooooar!
“Glory to the Master of our Master!”
“Kkiieeeek!”
An army of red eyes that didn’t care whether the forms were monster or human.
They moved to exterminate the monsters...
no.
to cook.
