[1. ‘Guild Message’ is blocked.]
[2. The enhancement effect of ‘Absolute Palate (Enhanced)’ will not activate while you are outside your region.]
[3. If the fact of inter-regional movement becomes known to humans in the destination region, a penalty will be imposed.]
Three penalties,
and—
[Return to your origin region, or survive until regional protection ends. (0/1)]
[Reward: Scaled according to the influence you exert in the destination region.]
one quest.
Seeing that, I thought:
“This is about the level that makes it worth doing.”
Just looking at the penalties made me feel stifled,
but from what I’ve experienced so far,
this world really does make people roll in the mud like dogs,
and yet the price for rolling like that
has always been paid in full.
“Huge penalties—but if I survive despite them... the reward will be tremendous.”
If there’s a problem,
it’s that the reward scales with the influence I exert.
Meaning I can’t just hide somewhere and run out the clock for a payout.
And then—
Heh.
“I wasn’t planning to hide in the first place, so it’s fine, isn’t it?”
No matter how excellent a chef I am, I’m still one person.
There are limits to what I can do alone.
Conveniently,
my goal is to make contact with the humans in Gyeonggi Province and help them.
In that case—
“I already planned to do it; they just stapled a reward to it.”
If I influence many people,
that will return as a bigger reward.
I now had one more reason to help the people here.
Perhaps—
“Maybe the ‘System’ is aiming for exactly that and gave me this quest.”
So,
after checking both the penalties and the quest,
I lifted my head and looked around.
By the way—
“What I felt when I first put my hand in wasn’t a mistake.”
When I first stuck my hand into that burning wall,
I’d felt a cool chill at its far side.
At the time—what was it—
isn’t there that thing where a severe burn can feel cold instead?
I just chalked it up to something like that and moved on.
Looking now,
it hadn’t been a mistake.
“What is this supposed to be?”
From the wall at my back, there was unmistakable, tremendous heat.
I’m sure there’s no real difference between the heat on the face I crossed and this side.
The ground close to the wall didn’t look that strange.
Right in front of the wall no tree could grow because of the fierce heat,
but within about a hundred meters nearby, ordinary vegetation was growing.
The problem:
despite the wall spewing out tremendous heat,
“there’s land within a hundred meters where normal vegetation grows.”
That means there’s something that cancels out that heat,
and indeed, beyond that—
“an enormous blizzard...”
A fierce blizzard was raging.
With snow piled deep across the surrounding area,
it was hard to even tell what this region had originally been.
To call it a mere weather pattern...
“Gangwon Province was actually in better shape.”
You’ve got to be kidding me.
A world buried in snow—
if I were to see something like that,
I figured it would be in Gangwon, the northernmost part of Korea.
Who would’ve thought
Gyeonggi Province would look like this.
I frowned and thought:
“Some kind of dungeon-ization?”
Plainly abnormal.
At least there was one relief:
to cross the wall, while stacking fire resistance through dishes,
I’d also taken—
[Active dish effects — High-Grade Attribute Resistance]
—the [Attribute Resistance] as well.
“For now, I can manage.”
A cold so brutal you could never endure it in just underwear.
The only reason the pain wasn’t greater was thanks to that.
“So then... what now?”
I’d earned penalties by moving regions,
and I’d confirmed the environment here.
Next up—
“I need to check the cards I have.”
Thinking that,
I opened my mouth wide and—
Ptoo.
Right before crossing the wall,
I spat out what I’d been holding in my mouth.
“Ugh, that was a chore not to swallow.”
I guess I should call it fortunate I didn’t swallow it when I passed through the wall.
Keeping this in my mouth meant I couldn’t even talk—that was hell all its own.
Looking down,
I saw what I’d spat out:
two very small items, as small as they had to be to fit in my mouth,
one in each cheek as I crossed.
One was a small round case,
and the other a single small bead.
I picked up the little case roughly,
then looked the other way.
“The case I won’t need immediately.”
What I needed to check at once
was the bead.
No—
to be precise—
“Hey.”
[Ingredient Appraisal (Enhanced)]
[Legion’s Droplet]
“You still alive?”
—the [Core].
When I spoke to it,
the minute gelatinous substances lingering around the core gathered and made a mouth-shape,
“Yes, my Lord.”
and answered.
Legion’s Droplet.
In other words,
the being that had become my vassal under the fortress spirit Vimanar.
The reason I’d brought it was,
obvious as it is,
because there are hard limits on what a supporter like me can do alone.
“I need to bring as much fighting power over as possible.”
Thus,
I decided to make a few gambles.
The first gamble was this guy.
“The heat that wall throws off is definitely insane.”
Anything ordinary should burn the instant it touches it.
Even those flame-resistant uniforms got reduced to ash in short order, so enough said.
But if there’s exactly one place that won’t burn—
as has now been proven—
“it’s only my body.”
So,
what fighting power could I transport inside my body?
A core, small enough to fit in my mouth—
I clenched it between my teeth and leaped the wall.
“Besides, it said it could increase its number by itself.”
Even if this one disappeared,
the other [Droplets] remaining at home base would replenish the number on their own.
A gamble with little to lose.
“Good that you’re alive. Report your current condition.”
Now that it had worked, the payoff was big.
“As expected, most of the body aside from the core evaporated from the heat.”
“Tch.”
Obvious as it was,
even though I stuffed it inside a body wrapped tight in all kinds of resistances,
that overwhelming heat didn’t vanish.
The two parts that made up the Droplet’s body:
the core, and the slime-like spirit-flesh around it—
the spirit-flesh couldn’t endure and vanished.
“That can regenerate with time, right?”
“Yes. But unfortunately, meaningful mimicry will be difficult at present. To produce my original performance, I will likely need a fairly long recovery period.”
Well, I’d half expected that.
Nothing to be done; we’ll move on.
“What about the link to the fortress spirit... Vimanar, the main body?”
“Severed.”
The Droplet had been hacked at the core by Vimanar,
affiliated to the fortress and made to act according to Vimanar’s mode of thought—
but each droplet was its own individual.
“The loss of the link is regrettable... but I expect no problem with the activity of this individual unit.”
“I see.”
Whatever else,
I simply couldn’t use it right away.
“Which means the first gamble counts as a success.”
And the second gamble—
unlike the first,
was one that would hurt to lose...
With a slight tension,
I looked down at my feet.
And a moment later,
I realized one thing.
“So the second gamble... isn’t a total failure?”
Not a jackpot,
but not a bust either.
“That’s enough for situational awareness.”
I stood and checked my surroundings.
“If I go that way I’ll freeze to death.”
Right now it was at least warm thanks to the wall at my back,
but to operate properly I’d have to walk into that snow.
And I was down to bare skin with only underwear.
“Shop window.”
Somehow getting to my feet,
I moved my hand—still in pain because the regeneration wasn’t finished—to open the shop.
[Point Shop]
“...Now that I think about it, it feels like it’s been ages since I browsed anything here.”
At some point I’d used only equipment made by the unit,
so aside from buying stat potions, I’d had little use for the shop.
[Buy: Winter Outer Garment — 30 pt.]
[Buy: Winter Top — 20 pt.]
[Buy: Winter Bottoms — 20 pt.]
With the uniform all destroyed,
there was nothing more useful to a bare body flung into this cold than that.
But—
...crinkle.
“...?”
As I bundled into the clothes,
there was a sound from far off.
“Ah.”
Because of the severe burns,
my skin across my body was half charred.
Thanks to that,
my senses were duller than usual.
So there was one thing I hadn’t noticed:
—Grrrrrk...
—Ssssk...
an enormous mass of presences
in the area around me.
“...Point Shop.”
I reopened the Point Shop I’d closed,
and—
[Buy: Kitchen Chef’s Knife — 10 pt.]
[Buy: Kitchen Chef’s Knife — 10 pt.]
[Buy: Kitchen Chef’s Knife — 10 pt.]
Buying items,
I tried to keep my head as cool as possible.
“Mm. If I assess the situation coldly—”
Since awakening,
my unit mates had never once left my side,
always fighting with me.
“...are on the far side of that wall.”
The powerful thing that had let me put out at least one man’s worth of combat power—
the enhancement effect of [Absolute Palate].
“...is unusable due to the penalty, right?”
And,
from over there—
—grrrrrrk—
a beast’s cry like it hadn’t eaten in days
rolled out, murderous.
In other words,
to summarize my current situation—
“...Am I not completely screwed?”
Thoroughly.
“Is there never an easy way...”
Still,
from the moment I crossed the wall,
I’d never thought things would go smoothly.
Nothing to be done.
Besides...
“I also happened to pick ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ up one handy trait for exactly this sort of time.”
Gripping the knife,
I stared into the snow-drowned, dark forest and said,
“My first debut match in another region.”
WHOOM!
“Well then, let’s give it a shot.”
A massive shape
lunged at me,
and as I watched it—
[Trait — Field Cookery]
—I activated the trait.
****
[Trait — Field Cookery]
[Meals and cooking are essential to sustain life.]
[In any environment, even amid dire war! Cooking had to be done.]
[Some lords sought to solve this through combat rations,]
[while others came up with the inhumane notion of sending chefs along to battle!]
[Chefs who joined the battlefield under that notion specialized in cooking activity carried out in extreme field conditions.]
[The proficiency and speed of all cooking acts performed on the battlefield increase drastically.]
[All dishes made on the battlefield receive a bonus.]
The trait, Field Cookery.
When I first got this trait, what I thought was—
“It’ll probably be less useful than it sounds.”
Field cookery.
It sounds plausible,
but—
“combat rations already cover that.”
With rations you can eat anywhere, anytime.
As long as I had those,
I had no reason to cook in the field.
But
there was one thing I realized later:
my class is Chef.
And
no matter what type the trait is—
“any trait that grants a bonus to a [cooking act] is bound to be broken!”
A monster shaped like a wolf charged at me.
When I looked at it,
the trait triggered.
[‘Chef’s Eyes’ activates.]
[Advanced Culinary Secret — ‘Insight into Butchering Grisvelk’ acquired.]
A butchering method rose in my mind.
Following that path—
[Skill — Assistant Chef activates.]
[Martial Art — ‘Food’ activates.]
—kitchen chef’s knives bought from the shop floated into the air and hurtled forward at tremendous speed,
and I leapt in after them, holding two more knives.
[Martial Art — Food] presented the muscle movements suited to one whose body contained mana,
and following those movements exactly,
the “kitchen knives” raced in to butcher the target.
And—
“[Butchering] is, in the end, a step in cooking.”
Meaning—
[Trait — Field Cookery activates.]
[The proficiency and speed of all cooking acts performed on the battlefield increase drastically.]
Into the blades as they swung,
the power of the trait flowed.
