“This man, Park Junggu! I will humbly acknowledge my defeat!”
“......”
I’d said we should hold the meeting after he recovered his strength.
And in fact, the moment Park Junggu finished recovering,
someone came to fetch me to the conference room.
Even so,
I did feel truly sorry toward that man Junggu—old enough to be my uncle—
and I’d thought it would be hard for our relationship to be any good going forward.
“In times like these, strength is everything! The overwhelming might you showed, sir...! Truly, it was moving itself!”
What greeted me the moment I stepped into the conference room
was Park Junggu’s face, eyes shining bright.
“...No, I mean—everything else aside.”
After being shattered so thoroughly like that,
how could he approach the opponent this way?
Honestly, it was puzzling—but
the real question was elsewhere.
“What’s with calling me ‘sir’?”
If you had to say, he was closer in age to my father than to me.
And this man was calling me “sir.”
“Now that the old civilization has essentially collapsed... isn’t this a world where only strength matters?”
“Riiight... so? What exactly is with that ‘sir’?”
And
the reason turned out to be simpler than I expected.
“If this is a world where the strong become the top, then of course you serve the strong as ‘sir’!”
“......”
I was so dumbfounded I asked,
“Then what about the other two leaders—since they’re weaker than you in combat, are they your subordinates?”
“Hm... in fighting prowess they certainly fall short of me. But in other abilities, they’re my equals or ahead in parts, so it’s right to say we’re on equal terms.”
A man older than me calling me “sir.”
It looked merely ridiculous,
but when I thought about it,
it didn’t seem like something to brush off lightly.
This guy can’t be the only one thinking like that.
Even in our Legion, squad leader posts were given only to the strong.
As time goes on...
level will decide status more than anything else.
This man already seemed like the type who prized strength,
so he’d just embraced that thinking a little faster than others.
And in truth, just as he said,
it was also true this world was becoming one centered on the power of the Awakened.
An era where strength directly decided who was above and who was below—
To think that less than a year after civilization fell, that’s what the world had become—
I did feel a little bitter.
“That’s a bit too much pressure, so I’d rather you didn’t.”
“...Is that so? In that case, understood.”
When I said that with the bitterness folded in,
Junggu ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) seemed not to get it, but soon nodded.
“At any rate—should I call you Youngjun, then? I saw your skill well. If you’ve built up strength to that degree... we should assume you’ve stacked up a lot of experience inside that Inhuman Demon Realm, different from ours.”
In any case—
by appearing to crush Junggu with an overwhelming gap in ability,
I’d managed to have my sincerity confirmed by the “Shaman,” Han Iseo,
have that sincerity verified by the “Druid,” Gang Jaeho, and show them I could help this group,
and prove to the “Barbarian,” Park Junggu, that I had sufficient prowess.
The three leaders who ran this Northern Branch—
I’d succeeded in being acknowledged by all of them.
“From what I heard speaking with Iseo, you don’t seem to have any intent to harm us... So if you have advice for our group from the experience you’ve built up, please offer it anytime.”
“Yes. Let’s do that.”
At last,
I had—this group called the Northern Branch—
only now, truly managed to join up.
I was able to join it
with the role of an adviser.
****
Having thus
won a degree of recognition from all the leader-class figures—
“First, may I look around inside a bit more?”
“Mm, as much as you like.”
At last,
I could move freely throughout the group’s interior.
The reason I’d tried to make contact with a friendly survivor faction
was to set up a base where I could properly use my ability.
I went straight to—
“Where’s the kitchen?”
“The kitchen?”
—the kitchen.
Then
Gang Jaeho tilted his head and said,
“Come to think of it, I heard it from Iseo last time, but... why are you looking for the kitchen?”
I’d mentioned looking for the kitchen the first time I met Han Iseo,
but I hadn’t yet explained the reason.
“Ah, well...”
And
I hesitated a bit here.
Mm. Should I just be honest and admit I’m going to cook?
If “cook” got found out too quickly,
it could raise problems about how I’d survived in that Monsterland.
But right now, after overwhelming Junggu, I’d more or less proved my ability.
If I just insisted I was “a cook who happens to be this strong,”
maybe that would fly?
That thought crossed my mind—
“Mm. I can more or less guess.”
But—
“Youngjun is probably an assassin-line Awakened.”
The one who cut into the conversation was
“Yet when he fought me, he didn’t use what an assassin would naturally use.”
“Junggu?”
—the man who commanded this branch’s warriors, Park Junggu.
“What he ‘would naturally use,’ you say.”
At Junggu’s words,
Han Iseo and Gang Jaeho looked at each other, then said:
“...He didn’t use that many abilities at all when he fought you, did he?”
“Exactly.”
“...Ahem, well, that’s true, but still.”
His face reddened a little;
clearing his throat, Park Junggu continued,
“That just shows how big the skill gap is. I get it. But my guess is there are abilities he chose not to use, and there are abilities he couldn’t use.”
“What would those be?”
“Well, what would an assassin bring to bear in combat?”
As if it were obvious,
Junggu folded his arms and said,
“Poison.”
“......!”
At that,
Gang Jaeho and Han Iseo’s mouths fell open.
“Poison...!”
“I know poison has a bad image, but if you’re an assassin-line Awakened, it’s something you naturally handle.”
He looked at me and said,
“You probably need an environment where you can make dangerous stuff like that. A kitchen—where you can use fire, where there are all sorts of bowls and pots—would fit that use perfectly. Am I right?”
At those words,
I thought for a moment, then nodded.
“Well... something like that.”
“Knew it.”
Junggu nodded, pleased to have hit his mark.
Strictly speaking, it wasn’t correct—
Judging by how Han Iseo reacted when I asked, folks here probably think if you eat monsters you become a monster.
At least so long as there wasn’t a cook like me in these parts,
explaining and getting them to accept that you could cook and eat monsters was far too difficult a process.
Rather than go through that right now,
it was better to settle for the easy explanation.
“Along those lines, I’d like to get some monster corpses if possible. There seemed to be a good pile in that storage.”
“Monster corpses... I suppose that’s for making those poison-like things.”
“Ah—strictly speaking, not poison... You saw how I restored the land’s vitality, right?”
“Ah, yes.”
Since it had to do with him,
Gang Jaeho nodded with interest and said,
“I still can’t understand how that was even possible—practically a miracle... and you’re saying that was, perhaps...?”
“Yes. I said I needed ingredients, didn’t I? Think of the monster corpses as those ingredients.”
“......”
At that,
Gang Jaeho’s gaze sharpened a little.
“By any chance... are you making offerings of monster corpses to draw on some evil power, or—”
“......”
“......”
“......”
“S-sorry. I’ve got a bit of a suspicion problem.”
When I stared at him like I couldn’t believe it,
only then did Gang Jaeho redden and offer an excuse.
“In any case, it’s absolutely not anything like that, so don’t worry too much.”
“Mm, understood. It’s just—materials like hide and teeth are being saved up for the production classes... If you were trying to use those as well, it would get complicated.”
“Oh, I don’t need those. If you bring the corpses, I can actually prep the material portions and send them along.”
“If you’d do that much... Mm, all right. I’ll make sure you can go in and out of that storage freely.”
In the end,
like that,
[The War Cook’s utmost—]
I
was able to secure a considerable amount of combat rations.
Whew...! I can finally breathe a little easier.
I used to have a massive store of combat rations in my shadow,
but most of that had been left behind at the fortress, and what I brought “just in case” all burned to nothing when I crossed the Wall.
The ingredients in the storage were starting to feel like they were running out... I was pretty uneasy.
Besides the things I made into combat rations right away,
I prepped everything production classes could use, then stashed a mountain of meat in my shadow.
If push came to shove, I could use that to make real dishes.
At any rate, that secures a kitchen and ingredients.
Feeding them my cooking right now would be difficult.
If I suddenly told them to eat monster meat—
“Eat a monster’s meat and become a monster? You bastard...! You were a monster stooge all along!”
—along with that thought,
I could lose all the trust I’d built in one shot.
But, well—
how I’d leverage cooking could be something I thought through gradually.
Worst case, I could use [Force-Feeding] to inject buffs.
Having secured the kitchen and ingredients to a degree,
the next thing to do was—
“Know your customers.”
I’d succeeded in getting the leaders to acknowledge me,
but I’d only received the recognition of those three.
On the way to the dining hall,
I recalled a conversation I’d had with Park Junggu.
—The looks... they’re still not exactly warm, are they.
—Haha... there’ll be folks with hard feelings about how I beat you like a dog.
People’s gazes as they moved about nearby weren’t warm,
and to that, Junggu had said—
—Well, don’t be too down. The truth is, those chilly looks aren’t only for you.
—Huh? They aren’t?
—Life’s rough on the whole... so it’s hard for folks to look kindly at one another.
—......
Those ordinary members
who were looking at me with hard eyes.
If anything, they’ll be the real customers for my cooking.
So I—
at the people sending me those chilly looks—
“...Ha-ha, hello there?”
I approached them trying to seem as friendly as possible.
People wary of me.
It wouldn’t be easy to befriend them,
but I wasn’t without confidence.
After all—
the easiest way to win people over
is with food.
****
“By any chance, do you know where Youngjun is right now?”
A few days after Shin Youngjun joined the group,
the Northern Branch’s shaman,
Han Iseo, went out to look for him.
“Ah, you mean the new guy who joined. What do you need him for?”
“I think the thing you asked for last time can be done, so I wanted to let him know that—and I’d like to consult about what’s next.”
He’d joined,
but life was busy enough just to survive.
For the past few days,
he’d merely joined as a member of the group,
and he hadn’t done anything particularly active.
Still... with someone that capable joining, we can’t just leave him idle.
Privately,
she nurtured the hope
that the man might be able to solve the bleak situation they were in.
She knew it was shameless to hope he’d fix this harsh environment—
But he said he came to help us...!
Surely she could allow herself a little hope.
Having wrapped up the busier tasks as fast as she could,
she was just about to consult him in earnest now.
Perfect timing. The thing he asked for before is ready, so I can start with that... He’s probably still awkward with the members, so I’ll introduce him properly...
Thinking that,
she went straight to find Shin Youngjun, but...
“Y-young man Youngjun. Could I get one more of that thing you gave me before...?”
...Huh?
Not only were there hard looks for outsiders,
even among insiders the atmosphere wasn’t exactly good.
But there—around that outsider,
Sergeant Shin Youngjun...
“No, ma’am! Please wait your turn!”
“Uncle Youngjun, I was first...”
“P-please, me first...!”
—an enormous number of members were gathered,
calling his name.
What on earth is this...?
There was a hint of frenzy to it.
Seeing that,
No way?
a troubling thought sprouted in Han Iseo’s mind.
