KWA-AAAANG!
The last battle with the Green Manes tribe.
Ariella lost many troops there.
However.
Recovering the lost numbers was not all that difficult.
“Because I heard from Borjin that the Green Manes were in chaos.”
They were the sort who, normally, shouldn’t have been hit twice by the same vampire raid.
But those bastards were so busy with their civil war.
They were left so defenseless they were getting stripped not only by vampires but even by Changsu’s guild.
It was a short time.
But Ariella was able to refill her forces considerably.
Among them were—
“Spirit of Blood!”
Powerful shamans,
whose contracts had shifted to a slightly different target.
“What a fun prey!”
“I’ll take just one bite, and present the rest to the Master of our Master!”
“Kruo-ohhhhh!”
And proud warriors as well.
They were deployed in numbers.
“They were busy fighting among themselves, sure.”
But by becoming Ariella’s vassals,
these monsters stopped the civil war and showed a united front.
Seen like this,
the synergy between the two groups was quite outstanding.
Fighting together toward a single objective, their links were good.
“That is cohesion. That is solidarity!”
And besides that,
[Vampire Honmar]
[Vampire......]
there were monsters whose forms were close to human.
Those were now eligible to become vassals under Ariella.
That meant quite a lot.
“When Awakened gather, they get strong because multiple jobs generate synergy.”
But Ariella’s soldiers were a little different.
Vampires as a species are powerful, penalties and all, but that’s it.
Because their traits and skills are rather monotonous,
it had been hard to see synergy from diversity.
Not anymore.
“Monsters each have different features.”
From body size,
to fighting style,
to techniques passed down among their kind.
They don’t have as much diversity as ordinary Awakened,
but even so,
the various features of multiple monsters created synergy.
“Mu—munch......”
“Tsk. A paltry pig dares to come close.”
Pshuk!
When Ariella’s nails lengthened and sliced his artery,
a massive slab of flesh that should have had tremendous power, even for a hastily born Abnormal Appetite,
thud—
collapsed to the floor
with disappointing ease.
“Huhu...... huhuhuhu!”
Having subdued a single monster,
the blonde vampire shouted with glee.
“This is the true power of the nobility!”
“Indeed, my lady!”
“Glory to the great master......!”
Watching that,
I muttered inwardly.
“They’re having the time of their lives.”
Unlike last time when they struggled,
this time they were subduing Abnormal Appetites quite smoothly.
I get why they’re in a good mood,
but—
“I get that you’re excited.”
“Such paltry pigs are unworthy of the glorious Nobles of the Night...... huh?”
“It’s not over yet, you idiot.”
Sorry to rain on their parade,
but it couldn’t be helped.
Because—
KWA-AAAAAAANG!!!
“See. More are coming.”
The battle
was not over yet.
Somewhere else, a wall burst outward,
and a monster came flying out from there.
In other words—
“Batter number two steps up.”
“......Well, those we can swat aside easily enou—”
Even with a second monster appearing,
there was still leisure on Ariella’s face.
But—
KWA-ANG......!
Puh-buh-bum......!
“Looks like batters three and four are coming out together.”
“......No time to get bored. Good.”
Her expression
grew a bit more serious.
Kuuuuum!
Puh-ung.......
......
......
“Five, six, seven, eight. Hm. Sorry.”
“......”
“I can’t even be bothered to count them all.”
After a little longer,
the already pale vampire’s face went paper white.
“By the way.”
Abnormal Appetites kept bursting through buildings.
There were at least several dozen of them.
“You did say you could swat those easily, didn’t you?”
“......”
“I’m trusting you?”
“............”
Ariella stood there with her mouth open, at a loss for words,
staring vacantly at the Abnormal Appetites.
This was one reason I had pulled the soldiers back.
No matter how powerful a monster is,
one by one they’re easy enough to handle.
“Grrrr......”
“Food......”
But we were talking about monsters numbering around a hundred in total.
If we brought in the Legion’s tanks and self-propelled guns,
if we threw every bit of firepower at them, it wouldn’t be hard to exterminate them.
The problem was—
“Right now we need to subdue them.”
Subduing and exterminating are worlds apart in difficulty.
We couldn’t know how much damage we might take.
Those Abnormal Appetites had been human, after all.
I couldn’t check their abilities with the [Combat Power Meter],
but by feel, each one had the strength of a green-grade monster.
Not long ago,
they were like the monsters I had to struggle against because the matchup was poor.
About the same level as the Barghast.
“......My lady?”
“Hm?”
Realizing how strong they were,
Ariella glanced at me to test my mood.
“Um...... no matter what, with just us it’s a little......”
“Just now you looked confident. Why the sudden change?”
“......”
“Heh heh...... I’m kidding.”
Given the matchups,
even I would have had to struggle.
“As if I’d leave it all to you.”
On the other hand,
“Dealing with those guys......”
when the matchup is good,
they can be easier than the average monster wandering the roadside.
[An Adversary Quest is activated!]
[While the quest is in progress, your combat abilities are doubled only when facing the Adversary.]
[These adversaries were artificially made. To prevent abuse, no quest rewards will be given.]
“This is my specialty.”
I packed strong power into the twin knives in my hands,
and in the air, a variety of cooking tools held by [Assistant Chef] rose and floated.
[You have consumed a dish!]
[The effect of Absolute Palate activates!]
[Active dish effects — 4]
“Even so, a hundred might be a bit much, huh?”
Well, what can you do.
My job is a chef,
but cooking
is a pretty grueling line of work......!
[Sound Kitchen Knife]
[Mud Horn’s Charge]
KWA-AAAAAAANG!!!
A small kitchen knife exploded forth toward the enemy, signaling the true start of the battle,
[Martial Art — Food reacts to the dish’s effect.]
and I
threw my body after that knife.
****
Then.
How much time passed?
“Keuh.......”
Feeling something surge up inside,
I spat out the rush in a hurry.
Ptooey!
“......”
Dark red blood splattered across the floor.
My Legion dress uniform was torn here and there, barely clinging on in scraps,
and blue bruises and red bloodstains covered me head to toe.
“I’m dying here, damn it......”
I was barely, barely on my feet,
but to be ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) honest,
I almost wished I could die and be done with it.
Thud—
Dragging my exhausted body, I headed for a wall in the corner,
sat down there, and took deep breaths.
“Huff, huff.”
Air pulled in by my breathing pumped my heart,
and blood began to circulate through my veins.
Srrrk......
The vampire’s blood running through me
forced my body to recover.
“Huuuuuu......”
Hurts like hell,
but the wounds, at least, weren’t something to worry about.
“This blood performs quite well.”
If I died, it would all be for nothing,
but so long as I’m alive,
this creature’s blood will heal most wounds within an hour.
The real problem lay elsewhere.
Creak, creak......
As if rust had gotten into my joints,
my body felt heavy and wouldn’t move properly.
“......Side effects of overcooking myself.”
It was a fight where I had to go all out, so it couldn’t be helped,
but I had pushed my body to the limit while under four dish effects.
“Feels like a vicious full-body flu......”
My body was far too heavy.
The one bit of luck was—
“I’m still better off than they are.”
Catching my breath,
I looked around.
“Hurts hurts hurts hurts hurts......”
“S-spa-re m—e......”
“Hurts, hurts, stop i—t, food......”
They were restrained at the razor edge of death,
groaning in pain.
Compared to them, I had it a little better, didn’t I.
“......Time to check if it worked.”
I steadied my breathing and observed them closely.
What if I was wrong?
I had a bit of worry,
but—
[The trait ‘Chef’s Eyes’ activates.]
[Humankind — Abnormal Appetite]
As expected!
I could confirm it had gone as I intended.
“The job is gone.”
They’re humankind,
but not human?
“Abnormal Appetite...... is judged a monster, not an Awakened.”
Thanks to that,
their job itself had vanished.
Just like with Lee Hyunjin I’d seen before.
“Heh heh...... damn, that was backbreaking.”
The job was gone.
Their traits and skills were gone.
In other words—
“The contract with the demon should be gone too.”
[Divine power senses an external entity.]
[An external entity takes notice of you.]
As if to prove my thought,
that presence I had felt in the air—
[The external entity fades away.]
I felt it slowly disappear.
It was a thing that had to use complicated methods like contractors to interfere with the world.
Now that those contractors had all lost their jobs and disappeared—
[He will not forget this.]
It couldn’t even look down on this place,
and had no choice but to withdraw.
“What do I care if he won’t forget.”
The slightly unsettling system message irked me,
but I decided to ignore it.
There’s nothing easier than a guy saying, “We’ll see about that.”
“Ah, it hurts......”
In any case,
though there was no longer any risk of their heads exploding at a demon’s whim,
it was also true they didn’t look better off than before.
So—
“Ugh......”
Time to move on to the next step.
I forced my heavy body up
and grabbed a kitchen knife.
“Get up, you lot.”
“Mas—Master of our Master......”
“He gave the order!”
I kicked the vampires who had collapsed like the dead to rouse them,
and moved on to the next task.
“W-what...... are you...... going to do......”
If you could call it lucky—
they had become monsters only recently,
so even though cases as strong-willed as Lee Hyunjin were rare, they retained some reason.
Whether that was lucky, I wasn’t sure.
It might actually have been better
if they had no reason at all.
“I did think about feeding you some anesthetic dish......”
“Wha......?”
I stepped up to the restrained ones
and brought the knife to their bodies.
“But your senior didn’t get that privilege.”
“Gruk......?”
“And I still don’t know you well enough.”
Branding them with a certain amount of fear
might actually be more useful.
This was
the second reason I had told the soldiers to pull back as much as possible.
“It’s true there’s a case to be made you were wronged, but it’s also true you did evil......”
And well—
this isn’t the kind of scene
you show other soldiers.
“Consider it punishment.”
“S-sto—p......!”
“Take it.”
Slice—
Because their flesh was mixed with that of monsters,
their meat had become closer to monster than human.
That flesh
was cleanly shaved away.
****
“This side is finished.”
“Same here, for now.”
Ariella, who had been busy draining the monsters’ blood, reported in,
and I wiped the sweat from my brow as I answered.
“Kk...... huk......”
A hundred or so......
No—about a hundred Abnormal Appetites.
We had finished prepping every last one.
They were groaning in pain.
Then next was—
“Time to feed them.”
Cooking wasn’t difficult.
If there was a problem, it was the numbers.
“A lot of food was consumed when I turned Lee Hyunjin back into a human.”
Nearly a hundred.
I wondered if what I had stacked in the shadow would be enough,
but—
there was no need to worry.
Fortunately,
though my body was in bad shape, I still had mana left.
I cooked not only the ingredients inside the shadow
but also all the fresh ingredients lying around nearby,
the ones I had just now finished prepping,
then laid my hands over them and murmured,
“Five Loaves and Two Fish.”
So overwhelming was the quantity of food
that even the block of buildings destroyed by the battle wasn’t enough space.
It filled the surroundings.
“Obey the order of the Master of our Master!”
“Feed them, feed them!”
The vampires crammed
the finished dishes into the contractors’ mouths in a rush.
“......I’m going to drop dead.”
The painful,
grueling work continued without stop.
Even with my talent for [Mass Cooking],
I felt the mana in my body running dry from repeated use of Five Loaves and Two Fish.
My condition had been the worst ever since the battle ended.
A fatigue that made me feel I would black out.
I wanted to ditch the cooking and collapse right then,
but—
“Whoa there...... can’t do that.”
I clenched my teeth
and held on somehow.
After I had been cooking for a good while,
“Why...... why......?”
one of the monsters who had been devouring the dishes mindlessly
opened his mouth at me.
From among the Abnormal Appetites we had subdued,
he had been notably strong.
“You could just kill us, so why? Why go to such trouble...... only to give us pain?”
“Huh?”
“Did we commit a sin so great? Is it such a great sin to try to save even a few more of humankind......!”
His swollen mass of flesh.
I couldn’t even imagine his shape when he had been human,
though I could guess enough.
“Looks like you’re the leader.”
He had withstood my dish effects with willpower.
He still had reason in the midst of this pain.
“It’s not that you’re being punished for your sin.”
“W-what......?”
“If I wanted to punish you for wrongdoing, I’d do as you said—kill you and be done. I’m not some sadistic pervert.”
He was impressive,
but I had the feeling
he was misunderstanding something.
“The reason I’m doing this...... is actually simple.”
“......?”
“Because I’m pissed.”
“Gruk...... pi—ssed?”
That demon.
What it’s doing ticks me off.
As I kept trimming meat and stir-frying,
I cut him a sidelong glance and tossed him a rough answer.
“So...... I do want to stick it to him at least once.”
Arrogantly
toying with humankind.
What’s the best way
to land a blow on a creature like that?
“Return the humans who were his prey?”
Not bad,
but it’s lacking.
“He said he’ll descend to the surface someday. When he does, we go all-out and exterminate him?”
That works too,
but still leaves me unsatisfied.
“So here’s what I’m thinking.”
A being that toyed with humans.
The biggest shot I can feed that bastard
is this thing
I’m about to do now.
[Caution!!!]
[It is impossible to return one who has left the path of humanity.]
The message appeared before my eyes.
A now-familiar line followed.
[Do you still wish to attempt it?]
The moment I saw it,
I knew by instinct.
“If this were before, it would have been absolutely impossible.”
I had turned Lee Hyunjin back into a human,
but that was one person.
“This time it’s over a hundred.”
Turning all of them back into humans.
No matter how great my cooking is,
it’s close to impossible.
Right.
If it were the old me, it would have been impossible.
[Divine power: 5]
Not long ago, my Divine power had been only 2.
Now that value
had more than doubled, reaching the number 5.
When did it jump this much......
Probably
“when I stole Taejun’s achievement.”
Unlike before,
my Divine power had skyrocketed.
Compared to my other stats, 5 was miserably low,
but I was certain.
“I’ll attempt it.”
[‘5’ worth of Divine power makes the impossible possible.]
That effect
would be beyond imagination.
