THOOOOOOM...
THOOM...
Far below.
From the “sky” of the shaft, the sound of shells cascading downward rolled up.
All the monsters had already been hunted out; only silence remained in the vast underground mine.
That silence shattered as the shells screamed down, ripping the air.
“It started.”
Up top, the engineers followed my order.
The bombardment commenced.
Pushing back against the flood of will pouring into me, I peered down into the depths.
Maybe thanks to the vampire blood thickening in me—
Even in this deep darkness, I could make out the hazy silhouette of that mass of flesh.
And the shells streaking toward it.
‘Those shells are built to pop their lids and spill contents the moment they touch the target.’
But—
Call it unexpected.
—It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts.
That will—so dense and vicious it melted even our protective suits made to endure miasma—
As the shells drove toward the heart of that field—
zzzzzzzzzt...
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
They were enhanced, sure, by the power of Legion’s Energy,
and with the production team’s accumulated know-how, they’d have built in miasma resistance too.
Yet the shells’ outer skins
were visibly dissolving in the miasma.
‘I crawled into that?’
No matter how robust their resistances,
there was no way any shell could endure miasma like that.
‘Why I insisted on building a cannon and firing.’
If this were an ordinary space,
I could’ve just cooked and dropped the dish—done.
Gravity down here didn’t seem strong, but it existed.
Accuracy would be the only issue.
If we pinned the drop point and released,
it would have fallen straight onto the target below.
The problem was that miasma.
‘If it drifted down leisurely, it’d melt away before it ever made contact.’
A nonsense miasma that melts gear with built-in resistance.
Knowing even shells wouldn’t withstand it,
before the surface could be completely eaten away,
I ordered a cannon with maximum range and velocity,
so the payload would reach the target as fast as possible.
‘And even that isn’t enough, huh?’
Even with all that,
the shells, fired with beautiful muzzle energy, reached just shy of impact—
and all of them melted away.
‘No—wrong.’
Even so,
I didn’t panic.
‘That’s enough.’
From the start,
I wasn’t trying to hit with the shells.
Pssssshhh...
PAPAPAPAK!
The instant the miasma melted the shell skins,
the food inside burst outward in every direction.
That torrent of shells had shoved the overfull miasma back, and
in that brief moment while the near-vacuum held,
without a chance for the miasma to smear it,
the dishes rained across the enormous mass of flesh.
‘...If I want to clear this mine’s miasma, I have to resolve that lump of flesh somehow.’
There was one hitch.
‘It doesn’t have a mouth.’
No—
It didn’t just lack a mouth.
No teeth to chew with.
No tongue to taste with.
No intestines for food to pass, no stomach to dissolve and absorb it.
‘For a chef, you could call that a hard counter.’
Right. Ordinarily,
no matter how hotshot a chef I am,
to something that can’t eat,
my cooking should have no effect at all.
But—
That’s the old story.
‘Not anymore.’
The food that burst from the shells—
the moment those dishes touched the flesh—
[The trait effect applied to the dish activates.]
[Forced Feeding]
The trait I had woven into the dishes
took hold.
[As many kinds of guests exist as there are living beings in the world!]
[Among them are those who—be it due to illness, loss of body parts, or other reasons—cannot eat on their own.]
[But no matter how sick the patient, to refill energy for treatment, they still must eat!]
[Food given in such times is called forced feeding.]
Originally,
forced feeding is a measure for those in a severe state—
unable to eat on their own.
That is,
meant for patients—sure, but—
‘If you think of that thing as unable to eat and missing a lot of body parts...’
Well then—
Close enough to a patient, isn’t it!
And the chef’s secret art to feed such patients—
[It is grueling, arduous work.]
[Yet a chef who has reached the realm can perform forced feeding as easily as breathing!]
Is this:
[Even if the target does not place the dish in their mouth, a meal is still possible.]
[Even if the target lacks the bodily organs to ingest, a meal is still possible.]
[If the dish comes into contact with the target’s body, the dish’s taste and effects apply to the target.]
Even if the target doesn’t eat,
so long as the dish touches the body, it counts as eaten—
‘A busted trait...’
An absurdly overpowered,
cheat of a trait.
****
FWOOOOM...
Watching the shells continue to pour down,
I kept descending.
The thick emotions I’d felt before
again washed over my face.
Even if my regeneration and resistance had risen since then—
the emotions were still painful.
Piercing through all of it—
[A Divinity Who Could Not Properly Die — Morzan]
“Your brother’s here.”
I
stood again before a god’s remains.
—It... hurts
—Why only me
—Why
A will that melted even the Griddle Plate reinforced by Kkamang’s mana in an instant.
As I stepped into the densest place of that will,
a tidal wave of feelings crashed down.
“...Hff!”
And
as I accepted that will, I thought:
‘It must have hurt.’
I’ve never been in the same position as this thing.
How so-called normal gods feel about their creations—
I don’t exactly know.
‘But at least... the gods I know let their children escape.’
Those beings called gods
cherished their children.
So did this one.
No—judging from what I felt inside its will—
‘This one, more than anyone,’
cherished its children.
What it created and treasured—
when it saw the warped civilization they had built,
the pain it must have felt—
it was hard even to imagine.
“Washing away your grudges myself... that’ll be a bit much.”
The Dwarven were already annihilated.
And the Outer-Cosmos entity that erased this one—
we have no hope of approaching that with what we are now.
I couldn’t release those grudges directly.
But—
“I think I can still unravel the piled-up feelings.”
Honestly,
I was a little uncertain too.
I trust my skill as a chef, but—
‘Even fallen to this state... it’s still a god.’
Whether my cooking would reach a being like that,
I couldn’t say.
‘If that’s to work, you’d probably need to be a Chef of Dasmur.’
A Chef of Dasmur, at a realm beyond mine.
Someone like that might just make a dish to move even a god.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t there yet.
Even so,
it was worth the attempt.
And the basis for thinking it might work...
wasn’t absent.
‘This one ended up like this before the world’s residents had even truly built a civilization.’
On Earth’s scale—what, the chipped-stone age?
Its design was near-perfect,
but the designer itself
was devoured in an early, early phase by an outside invasion.
It was an age when civilization hadn’t properly blossomed.
Which means—
“It was also an age when cuisine hadn’t developed.”
Unlike the Pope, whose palate was so high my dishes wouldn’t land,
this god beneath us—
more exalted than any Pope—
had a very high chance of never having properly eaten real cuisine.
Extremely high.
‘It’s doable.’
So then—
[War Chef’s All-Out ... for a Specific Being—]
[War Chef’s All-Out ... for a Specific Being—]
Dishes into which I poured
everything I could muster.
And into them—
[Special Sauce of Calm Emotion]
[Special Sauce of Stable Emotion]
[Special Sauce of Happy Emotion]
Emotions thicker even than that dense will—
I decided to load those in and smother it.
[The effect of Trait — Forced Feeding activates.]
Ordinarily,
a dish’s effects wouldn’t trigger unless you put it directly in the mouth.
But
the [Chef] class I hold
carries unlimited possibility—even that is possible.
Tuk.
Punching through the miasma void the shells made,
one dish touched the flesh’s skin.
[The target does not possess an oral cavity for ingesting food.]
[Substitute Oral Cavity — Utilizing skin pores.]
In place of the mouth that should have taken in food,
the dish seeped through the pores across its skin—
[The target does not possess digestive organs for digesting food.]
[Skipping the digestive process; commencing cellular absorption.]
And in place of a stomach that should digest and grant effects,
the mana packed in the dishes melted directly into each and every cell making up its whole body.
‘A power to somehow feed, and digest, even what cannot eat.’
The basic structure resembles the IV drips used in hospitals.
As the skill description says,
this trait is fundamentally for patients who can’t eat.
The difference being—
‘Unlike IVs that supply only minimal nutrition, this is made of real dishes!’
Of course,
because a patient is a patient, it wasn’t a process that came easy.
[Warning!]
[Interfering with a portion of a mighty divinity is an extremely high-difficulty task.]
[In particular, it is impossible to interfere with the emotions of a being whose rank is far beyond your own.]
As I watched the food melt in and seep into the cells,
warning windows rose before my eyes.
True enough—
the dishes were melting in,
but—
—It hurts, why, I won’t forgive, why only me.
the volume of emotion it exuded didn’t change.
A being of high rank to begin with—
even mangled as it is,
there’s no way I could meddle with its emotions. That’s the point.
If there was one piece of good news—
“Well, unlike with the Pope, it’s not that the palate’s too high for my dish to take effect, right?”
The effects weren’t applying,
but that didn’t mean my cooking was beneath its palate.
[‘8’ of Divine power makes the impossible possible.]
In that case—
there is a way.
[Warning!]
[If your attempt fails, you will lose all Divine power you have accrued.]
[Even so, will you attempt—]
“I will.”
Gray light poured out of me,
and I wrapped the raining dishes
around the flesh, gently.
****
—It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts
Devoured alive by an external enemy.
The ghastly pain it had been forced to endure.
But then—
as my dishes, blended with my Divine power, fell in a wave—
[The calm emotion contained in the dishes soothes the target’s pain!]
—It... hu... rts?
That endless pain,
under the sudden flood of ‘calm’
began to quietly subside.
—Whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhy
The grievance of having suffered the unthinkable.
That lamenting grief it had been voicing—
[The stable emotion contained in the dishes lulls the target’s grief.]
—...Huh?
Buried under the continuing fall of ‘stability,’
it began to sink deep.
And then—
—I won’t forgive I won’t forgive I won’t forgive I won’t forgive I won’t forgive I won’t forgive I won’t forgive
The being that could do nothing but hate and resent all the world.
That vicious will of hatred—
[The extreme happiness contained in the dishes lulls the target’s hatred!]
A far, far denser
happiness born of delicious cuisine—
—It... tastes... good...
Little by little,
it dissolved it without a trace.
‘Emotions you could never smother with a single dish.’
But even now—
FWOOOOOM...
up there,
the dishes I made were still raining down.
‘Buff effects don’t stack, but emotions aren’t buffs.’
No matter how furious, how pained, how resentful you are—
when it comes to draining off built-up stress,
“there’s nothing like good food.”
If there’s too much stress
to solve with one meal—
‘then you just keep feeding until it’s gone.’
I can understand
how sad and how anguished you were.
I do understand, but—
“Because of that... your other children kept suffering.”
If not for your miasma,
the slaves trapped here—
they’d still have suffered for not being able to die,
but they wouldn’t have suffered worse in that miasma.
The slaves in pain, I sent on completely.
Now only one thing remains.
“If you go, it ends.”
A death that came out of nowhere.
And the warped civilization you saw after death.
At that sight, in rage and hatred, you couldn’t choose a proper death.
But—
that was a long, long time ago.
So now—
‘Rest... and close your eyes.’
It’s time.
I will give you
a clean, regretless end.
—It... hu... rts?
—Why... wh... ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) a...?
—I won’t forg... g... o... o... d...
Sssss...
The will like needles stabbing my whole body,
vicious and agonizing—
that will
‘melts... and vanishes.’
As it faded,
the pain from the miasma that had been pricking my skin
dwindled too.
****
And so—
how long passed?
—ding.
[Magic Youth: Youngjun...! Did the operation succeed?]
[Tailor: C-Commander!]
The soldiers waiting near the Gate’s mouth—
a guild message came from them.
[Tailor: The miasma... it’s starting to disappear!]
The miasma had vanished.
The mine’s miasma was the product of dead monsters mixed with the will of ‘Morzan.’
Give the monsters a proper death,
neutralize ‘Morzan’s’ will—
and the miasma it had spawned dissipated as well.
I clenched a fist and shouted inwardly.
‘Success...!’
That was the plan.
Now that the miasma was gone,
it should be safe to move within the mine.
‘We should be able to mine Mana Stones to fill Vimana.’
We could take this now-safe underground
and mine it out with the engineers—
[Magic Youth: No, it’s not just that...!]
That’s what
I thought—
“...Huh?”
The will that had been the same as the ambient miasma—
as it was purified,
an unanticipated change occurred.
The miasma that had been invading through every pore vanished,
and what filled the surroundings was—
“What is this.”
Something I’d never felt in my life—
an absurdly dense concentration of—
“Mana...?”
In that instant,
a trait triggered.
[Ingredient Appraisal (Enhanced)]
[The Pain, Grief, and Resentment of One Who Could Not Properly Die]
The will that had filled this place.
I’d thought it was nothing but an emission of emotion.
But—
it wasn’t.
‘Right... if you think about it, of course.’
No matter how strong an emotion,
as a mere emotion,
it can’t effect a change this massive in its surroundings.
[‘The Pain, Grief, and Resentment of One Who Could Not Properly Die’ begins to mutate.]
[The warped will regains its original form.]
The reason that will could affect the world so profoundly—
was simple.
‘Because there was an original form potent enough to act on its surroundings!’
When I opened this Gate,
I asked the [Gate Summon Ticket] for exactly one thing.
‘As much mana as possible.’
And—
it seems the ticket granted that wish very literally.
[Infinite Mana of the Lord of Magi, Morzan (New!)]
What had filled this underground wasn’t originally miasma.
Even long after the Dwarven built their grand magi civilization, what still remained was—
[The chief god of the Great World of Magi, Morzan—one who bore endless mana.]
[It is the infinite, unending mana borne by Morzan, the Lord of Magi.]
Infinite,
titanic mana.
[A god born as the master of a world endowed with endless mana, Morzan.]
[By a unique authority no other divinity possessed, he was born with ceaseless, mighty mana.]
[Even if, for some reason, his divinity were driven to near-annihilation—]
[Even if 99% of infinite mana is lost, infinite is still infinite!]
[The infinite mana, warped by distorted will, has regained its true identity.]
That infinite mana, twisted by its master’s death
and transformed into vicious miasma—
[Magic Youth: From underground... an enormous amount of mana is rising!]
[Marksman Section Leader: Sergeant Shin. Don’t tell me this was your aim?]
“Holy...”
That endless power
had returned to its original form.
