“Sergeant Shin, you’re back—huh?”
After the subjugation of the Demon Contractors ended,
I came to after fainting, and the contractors...
No.
By now they were the ones who had become “Demon Hunters,” and they were carrying me back to Chuncheon.
Naturally, once I came to my senses, I led them and we returned to base.
“Those guys are...?”
“Th-the ones who contracted with the demon...”
Demon Contractors.
When the ones who had fought our unit came back in one piece,
“Is this okay?”
“Yeah. I’ve more or less settled the problem, so no need to worry.”
“...Mm, even if you say so.”
Plenty of soldiers were wary.
We had been trading blows only a few days ago.
Suspicion was natural.
But—
“You’ll see. Hey.”
Whip!
The contractors walking behind me—
I lifted an arm toward them a little roughly.
“H-hiieeek!!!”
“S-spare—!”
The contractors flinched and crouched, badly spooked.
Watching a crowd of over a hundred people shrink all at once was quite a sight.
“See?”
“...I-I did see that, but.”
“What is this, high school tough-guy routine...”
I could feel the soldiers were a bit nonplussed.
Anyway,
they fear me this much.
They won’t be able to scheme anything weird for a while.
‘I’ll keep feeding them my dishes; if anyone turns into a problem, I’ll handle it then.’
To begin with,
when I fainted, they tried to bring me back to the base without a word of complaint.
I could trust them to a degree.
And besides...
‘If they eat my food and fight alongside us, camaraderie will grow.’
For now it might look a bit suspicious.
But it was only a matter of time either way.
I didn’t think much of it,
but the soldiers seemed to see it differently.
“Weren’t those guys bound to the demon by contract, unable to escape?”
“I was there then; one guy’s head exploded the instant he tried to break free.”
“...And you brought guys like that back in one piece?”
It had been dangerous in several ways.
And since there were brutal scenes involved,
we’d kept it as far from the other soldiers as possible so they wouldn’t see.
“As expected of Sergeant Shin...”
“I mean, I honestly have no clue what method you even used this time.”
Some of them
started looking at me with bright, shining eyes.
‘...All I did was prep them and then feed them.’
...Hm?
Or not?
Come to think of it, the “prep” part wasn’t exactly normal.
Anyway, like that—
“New recruits, incoming~”
A large influx of “new soldiers” entered the unit.
Someday, when it descends to the surface,
to stab that thing—
a very sharp weapon.
That sort of thing.
Once the subjugation and the cleanup for the contractors had reached a certain point,
“Well then...”
“Back to your jobs, everyone~”
our unit returned to our usual tasks.
****
No—strictly speaking,
the work changed a little.
‘We’d planned to focus on internal maintenance through the winter.’
It was still only the start of winter.
Whether to call this a good thing...
Internal clean-up of the unit.
Securing public order in the surrounding area, etc.
The internal maintenance we’d planned to do over winter...
“Looks like we’re entering the wrap-up phase, Youngjun.”
“Well, it’s not a huge unit to begin with...”
When you think about it,
it wasn’t something that required that long anyway.
There was a separate reason we’d planned to switch to internal maintenance for winter.
Rather than it being urgently needed,
‘Because of the nature of a brutal winter, even our people couldn’t move easily.’
Even if we wanted to operate outside, the danger level got too high.
So we had to stick to safe areas...
“That’s become “until recently,” though.”
Just like Minjae said,
not anymore.
The trigger was simple.
[Astrologer: Hm. So, a conquest of that area.]
Our unit’s astrologer.
He started working in earnest.
The danger of operating outside in a brutal winter—
in the end it comes from not knowing “whether it’ll go well.”
[Astrologer: I checked whether it’s good or bad fortune. It comes up good.]
[Chef: ...Oh.]
If you’re given confidence that it will go well,
there’s no need to hold back activity.
“Astrologer, busted OP...”
Sergeant Park Taejun’s astrology had already been strong.
And he’d smashed his limits once through my dish not long ago.
As if that weren’t enough, someone who had learned astrology of another world—
he received the know-how of the Green Manes’ astrology from Borjin.
In terms of levels, jumping by around 10 in one go wouldn’t be wrong—an explosive growth.
Meanwhile, our unit had also secured resources from multiple military units.
We could fully operate gear useful for expeditions, like tanks.
As a result—
“Hongcheon County Conquest Company. Requesting to sortie!”
“Go on.”
Our unit
could resume active outside operations.
[A personal message has arrived.]
On top of that,
it wasn’t just that we could sortie.
[Astrologer: Hongcheon County. Dangerous, yes, but not hopeless.]
[Chef: Yeah, yeah. Hit me with the problem.]
[Astrologer: Mm... something that stings, sometimes kindles fire... with soft scales.]
[Chef: Ah. Sounds like Minjae.]
Useful intel for the subjugation force.
Things to watch for in the area to be subjugated.
[Astrologer: Hm? Is that so? Anyway. If you go to northern Hongcheon, you’ll find discarded blades honed razor-sharp; remove those first and then...]
[Chef: Sir, the difficulty is too high...]
It was still riddles to solve,
but—
‘Well... you get used to it with practice!’
Solve the quiz and you get the reward of your unit’s operation succeeding.
It had a quietly addictive fun to it.
And
these messages only ever arrived as personal messages.
‘So I should use it as my achievement fuel, as expected.’
If I deciphered the secretly obtained messages somehow
and passed them on to the soldiers...
“We’re heading out!”
“Right.”
the soldiers would sortie,
“Reporting back.”
“Oh, you’re back. Good work.”
“It wasn’t even work, really. We followed what you said, Sergeant Shin, and the subjugation wrapped up easily.”
“An insane strategy...”
“Honestly, are you sure you’re not a top-class commander rather than a chef?”
they’d return with the operation successfully done.
‘...This is actually kind of a burden.’
All I did was repeat what Taejun told me.
It was a bit burdensome to be praised like that,
but Taejun himself told me to do it this way.
Can’t be helped.
Anyway—thanks to that,
even though the big battle of subjugating the contractors was over,
our unit...
“The next squad to take the operation is...”
“Report says 3rd Company that went out is on the way back!”
“Pyeongchang County isn’t occupied yet, so if we’re going to push an expedition, we need to secure the supply lines first...”
was having a very busy time.
And after a few days like that—
[You have succeeded in an occupation!]
[You have gained control over the territory ‘Small City (1) — Hongcheon’ in region ROK.17.]
we occupied Hongcheon County,
and succeeded in taking a quarter of Gangwon-do.
“Oh...”
Truly, hail the astrologer.
[Astrologer: Well, this is only something that’s possible within this region.]
[Chef: Hm? Yeah?]
[Astrologer: Because right now I’m occupying the highest mountain range in Gangwon-do.]
It was obvious if you think about it,
but that didn’t mean Taejun’s ability was some omnipotent thing.
[Astrologer: At least within Gangwon-do I can keep producing results on this level...]
[Chef: But not to this degree elsewhere?]
[Astrologer: The farther away, the worse the accuracy. In that sense... you could say, while we’re trapped in Gangwon-do, this is my prime.]
Still,
at least within Gangwon-do the ability had tremendous effect.
And we couldn’t escape from here right now anyway.
So it wasn’t a meaningful limitation.
‘If we go in already knowing how to crack each occupation zone like this...’
not just other areas,
but occupying all of Gangwon-do felt only a matter of time.
****
And—
while the soldiers were fighting busily like that,
what I was doing was...
“This way.”
“If the map’s right, soon...”
Chuncheon City, which we’d occupied before.
We were heading west from there.
With Taejun’s ability enhanced,
we’d launched in earnest into the conquest of Gangwon-do.
One of the reasons we decided to do that was precisely—
‘Because we still can’t get out of Gangwon-do.’
The black wall blocking the province’s outer rim.
Because we couldn’t get past that wall, we had no choice but to make conquering Gangwon-do the first objective.
And—
after the contractors’ subjugation ended and, thanks to Taejun’s power, the surrounding-area subjugations began to proceed smoothly,
the thing I decided I should do first
was related to that reason.
Right.
Where I was heading now was precisely that...
“You’ll start to see the Wall of Black Heat.”
wall.
When we first headed for the outskirts of Gangwon-do,
there wasn’t anything to see, particularly.
But once we got within a certain distance—
“...It’s getting hot.”
“Everyone take off your parkas.”
At some point,
the ambient temperature had shot up.
It wasn’t our imagination.
‘From here... there’s no snow.’
It was winter in Gangwon-do.
They said this winter was colder than usual.
And public services that might melt snow weren’t operating.
Except for our guild’s domain, nearly all of Gangwon-do was buried under a thick layer of snow.
But here,
it looked fine, as if all the snow had melted.
‘Means we’re almost there.’
Sure enough,
from the moment we started to feel the heat,
as we walked a little farther...
“...!?”
“W-what!?”
I could tell I was startled,
and so were the soldiers heading for the wall with me.
No wonder—
“That wall...”
In the sky that had been fine just now,
suddenly there appeared something like a wall stretching to the end of the universe.
‘Feels like you reached the edge of the map in a game...’
I’d heard from the vampires that it was like this,
but experiencing it myself was still disconcerting.
A wall that only became visible once you came close.
As the wall became visible,
the heat we felt around us increased further.
“Ghh...”
Sure enough,
a few soldiers were sweating and dropping to their knees.
“S-sorry, corps commander.”
“We can’t... any farther...”
“Right. Rest.”
Even vampires, whose stats were higher than humans’,
had said the heat was painful.
‘Vampires have regeneration, so... they could force their way closer somehow.’
I was stronger than those vampires at the time,
but my unit were ordinary humans with no regeneration.
For them, approaching any farther was impossible.
“We’ll follow a bit farther.”
At least,
the higher-level soldiers who were squad-leader tier seemed to have some leeway.
They could follow me.
After we walked quite a while more,
finally—
“We’re here.”
we reached
the wall that had locked us in.
Up close,
the heat was murderous.
“Urgh.”
Even the higher-level squad leaders couldn’t approach any closer.
But
call it luck—
I was...
a bit different.
[Advanced Flame Affinity]
[A chef is bound to fire from his origin.]
“As expected of Sergeant Shin...”
“So this much doesn’t bother you.”
It would be a lie to say it didn’t bother me,
but thanks to the trait’s effect,
I had a bit more leeway than others.
Leaving behind the soldiers who couldn’t approach any farther,
I went all the way up to the wall.
“...Hm.”
Once I came within arm’s reach,
I could see the wall’s look a bit more clearly.
“Rather than a physical wall... it’s like black fire.”
From a distance I hadn’t noticed,
but the black ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) flames were burning constantly, blocking everything that approached.
‘The vampires told me this part.’
And
I had a separate reason to come here myself.
When the vampires said there was a wall of heat here,
on the off chance,
I wondered if a certain possibility might exist.
“Hmm. Mmm.”
Now that I was up close,
I grew confident in the thought I’d been uncertain about.
“As I thought. So that’s what it is.”
Decision made,
I took out Combat Rations from my pocket and put them in my mouth.
[Active dish effects — 4]
Four kinds of Combat Rations vanished into my mouth in an instant.
“...?”
“Sergeant Shin?”
The soldiers watching
looked at me, puzzled, as I suddenly started chewing down food.
Ignoring their looks,
“Medic.”
“...Yes. Private Sa Eijun.”
“Get a healing skill ready.”
“...Sir?”
After ordering the medic,
I immediately rolled up one sleeve of my uniform and...
Sssk.
stretched out my arm
and shoved it into the wall.
Fwooooooosh!!!
A fierce blaze.
The sound of flesh burning rang out.
“Gyaaaaah!!!”
The agony of my arm being seared alive
forced a scream out of me.
“...!!!”
“H-holy—”
“Sergeant Shin!!!”
At my pained scream,
I heard the soldiers panic.
“What are you doing!?”
“Ghh, can’t get any closer because of the heat...!”
But
even as tears pricked my eyes from the pain, I thought:
‘I was right...!’
I yanked the hand I’d shoved into the wall back out,
staggered backward in a rush, and ran to the soldiers behind.
“Huff... huff...”
“S-Sergeant Shin!”
“Are you all right!”
Soldiers hurried toward me.
“Huff, for now I’m fine.”
“H-how can you say that.”
Their eyes
went to my hand.
“With burns that severe, how can you be...!?”
“It’s completely charred! What were you thinking!”
They were right.
The burns were bad.
The least burned parts were grotesquely reddened and warped,
and the worst-burned parts were charred black.
“Haha... ghh. Honestly, it hurts like hell.”
Honestly, it really, really hurt.
Enough to draw tears.
It’d been—what, since the time I blew up the ammo depot at the Ammunition Battalion, maybe,
that I’d felt pain this bad.
But—
“It didn’t turn to powder and vanish...”
“...Sir?”
Looking down at my burned hand, I thought:
The vampires said when they shoved a hand in there, it turned straight to powder.
But I was different.
Srrrk...
The burns were awful,
but the vampire blood running through my body
was healing the damaged hand.
“P-please move!”
Then
the medic’s healing skill hit,
and though the pace was slow, my arm began returning to normal.
‘I even figured it might burn to powder and vanish.’
With Ariella’s blood,
I gambled that it would regenerate somehow.
And...
the gamble paid off.
“Why in the world did you do that?”
“Heh heh... I wanted to check something.”
“Check?”
Maybe because the pain had spiked my adrenaline,
I kept chuckling.
No wonder—
if I wasn’t mistaken...
“When I put my hand in,”
“...?”
“at the very tip, where I pushed deepest... the heat felt weaker.”
“What does that—”
“It might just be my imagination, but I even felt a coolness.”
A wall of black flames that blasted out tremendous heat.
But—
‘its thickness is by no means great.’
Because it’s viciously hot,
unless you’re me—with top-tier unit stats and Flame Affinity—
you can’t even approach.
‘But I’m different.’
[Traits]
[Advanced Flame Affinity]
[Active dish effects — 4]
[Trait — Intermediate Flame Resistance]
[Trait — Intermediate Flame Tolerance]
[Trait — Lower-Grade Elemental Resistance]
[Trait — Intermediate Cold Skin]
I could be sure.
That wall which locked us in
and blocked me from going home—
“We might be able to pass through.”
I, at least,
might be able to cross it.
