Shin Youngjun’s lodging.
On the faces of every single person going in and out of that place...
“Are they... smiling?”
Since the world turned into this, I hadn’t seen it once.
There were bright, innocent smiles resting there.
“Huh, huhuhu...”
“Since the world went to hell like this... have I... ever felt this good...?”
In a strangely hazy tone.
They said that as they dispersed.
And after them—
“I told you, I’m first in line, didn’t I?”
“You little punk, I know for a fact you already got one last time—just let me have yours...!”
The people hoping to get into that lodging.
They were even bickering because they wanted to get inside a little faster.
“No, it can’t be.”
Seeing that bizarre sight—
Only one thought rose up.
“If Captain Junggu’s logic is right, then Youngjun is probably an assassin-line job.”
And what is an assassin best at handling?
Poisons and all sorts of drugs.
“...He definitely didn’t lie. But.”
The man inside there hadn’t lied to her.
Her ability had verified it clearly.
He wasn’t here to harm this group, far from it—
He’d said he came to help.
However—
“If he believes that to be the truth...”
If he believes his actions will help this group—
Even if, to others, those actions look like something that would drive the group to ruin,
The statement “I came to help” would not be a lie.
In this world—
There exist madmen who, in other people’s eyes, do the worst things...
While believing those things are good.
“N-No...!”
The worst-case imagination
began to seize Han Iseo’s mind.
****
“Y-Youngjun...!”
People who could become customers of my cooking.
While I was in the middle of some ‘work’ to make friends with them—
“Oh? You’re here.”
The group’s shaman,
Han Iseo, came looking for me.
“Just a moment. I’m in the middle of something.”
I was sorry she’d come all the way here,
but I had to keep doing what I was doing.
“Huuuuh...”
“How do you feel?”
“R-Really, I feel really good... Of everything I’ve felt lately, this is honestly the best sensation...”
“Heh heh. I’m glad it felt good.”
“Can I... can I come again, next time...?”
“Haha, as much as you like. I’m not going anywhere, so don’t worry.”
At that—
I watched Han Iseo’s face go pale.
“...Youngjun!”
“Yes?”
With a bloodless face,
she snapped at me in a sharp voice.
“What on earth do you think you’re doing?”
“Eh? Ah. This? Well, how should I put it. I just wanted to get friendly with people.”
I didn’t know why she was so pale and angry,
but I answered openly.
“From what I’ve heard, the atmosphere among the people in this group is a bit chilly, and everyone’s faces are dark... In the end, it’s because life is harsh and there’s no room to breathe.”
“That’s true. So what does this have to do with that?”
“So... I’ve been helping them forget how harsh life is for a bit.”
“...!”
At those words,
the face that had already gone pale turned even paler, and—
“I trusted you...!”
She cried out in shock,
pulled some unknown fan and knife-like thing from her chest, and—
“Since I’m the one who argued we should trust you... I should be the one to take responsibility.”
Behind her back,
something blurry began to take shape.
“I don’t know what you’re planning to do here... I don’t even think I can win...! But I will not just let this—!”
“What do you mean, ‘what I’m planning to do’?”
Watching that,
I spoke, a bit dumbfounded.
“It’s just a massage.”
“...Pardon?”
Even the wavering shape behind her back
looked like it was making a dumbfounded face.
****
“I see... I think I understand what kind of misunderstanding you had.”
After I sent everyone away,
I stayed with Han Iseo and started to talk.
“So, how should I put it... you thought I was spraying some kind of drug...”
“...”
“That’s what you suspected, right?”
“Y-Yes.”
I frowned at that face and answered.
“Am I insane?”
“...”
“What gain would there be in doing that? No, even if I were to do it, I’d do it in secret. Why would I do it openly like this?”
“T-That’s true...?”
She reddened, embarrassed,
then asked in a small voice,
“T-Then why do something like this at all?”
“I told you. I wanted to get friendly with the people here.”
The people in this group are, in the end, those who will become my customers.
I wanted to blend properly into this group by getting friendly with them, but—
“...No time for it.”
Because life was harsh,
people had no room to breathe, and they tended to be prickly toward outsiders.
If that were all,
I could have kept approaching them warmly until they opened their hearts.
But—
“A scary-looking guy...”
“Ah, a ‘guy,’ seriously...”
It was truly nothing but unfair, but—
“My first impression... has a bit of a grim feel, apparently.”
Getting friendly the ordinary way was quite a distant prospect.
Even if it was possible, it would take a long time.
So—
I decided to take extraordinary measures.
Of course,
given what I can do, that naturally meant—
“Cooking.”
Putting something into a person’s mouth—
That’s not possible unless you’re genuinely close.
So I—
—If you’re willing to be a little trusting, how about a massage?
In that way,
I approached people, and—
[Force-Feeding]
[If a dish comes into contact with the target’s body, the target can perceive the dish’s flavor and effects.]
[A War Cook’s comforting emotion—]
Like that—
by feeding them through the skin,
I began the work of bringing a bit of calm to their barren hearts.
“Don’t eat it—let your skin have it... that kind of vibe.”
Anyway—
I hadn’t done anything strange in the process.
“I tried to go up and talk to people... but their faces were full of fatigue. Many looked mentally unstable... It didn’t look like a situation where I could just walk up and chat.”
“...People have been a bit like that lately.”
“It’s not a boast, but if I apply my ability a different way, I can soothe those feelings a bit. Through this massage, I brought a little comfort to their hearts.”
“Then... their expressions?”
“That’s—what should I call it—something like a side effect. It’s not the effect I aimed for, but.”
She’s probably activating her truth-reading skill right now,
but I could speak with a clear conscience.
“When I use this ability, they get a ‘feeling like they just ate something unbelievably delicious.’”
“Excuse me?”
“What I was aiming for was the comfort of emotion... but the ‘delicious’ feeling comes along no matter what when I use this ability. Their tangled hearts settle, and they feel like they ate something tasty, so of course they feel good.”
“...There isn’t anything like addiction?”
“There isn’t. If there were, would they have gone home right away the moment I said that was it for today?”
The people who’d been waiting, when I said I was done for today,
expressed regret but went home quickly.
“...If I did it with that intention, I could make them addicted.”
If I kept feeding them the dish of ‘searing happiness,’
a person wouldn’t be able to bear the emptiness when that happiness wasn’t there.
That naturally produces an effect close to addiction, but—
“I didn’t aim for anything that strong.”
What I gave was really only enough to bring emotional calm.
With effects at this level, that won’t happen.
“...I get that there wasn’t malice. But why do something like this at all?”
“Mm...”
I thought for a moment,
then opened my mouth.
“There are about two reasons.”
“Two?”
“Did you know? Grandma Choonja—the one I just massaged last—is quite old, but her favorite food, surprisingly, is the hamburger.”
“...What?”
“Unexpected, right?”
She looked puzzled at the sudden statement.
“Sunghoon can’t eat foods with strong aromas. And Jakyung has lactose intolerance, so she can’t have dairy.”
“...What does that...”
“I was just curious about those people. We’re going to be living together for a while.”
“...”
Those people will be the customers of my cooking.
I wanted to understand them in more detail.
“Like I did with my unit.”
My power—
the more closely I understand the other party, the stronger it becomes.
“Then the second one is...”
“This one’s actually nothing special. Ahem.”
I scratched my head and answered.
“It’s just... even if life is hard for everyone, it feels a bit of a waste to live all dried up.”
“...”
“I figured it’d be nice if, even in a world like this, we could live a little more comfortably.”
Hearing me,
she stared at me, mouth slightly open, for a moment,
then—
“...It’s the truth.”
she said with a sigh.
“...I misunderstood. I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s fine. Given the circumstances, it was a misunderstanding you could have made.”
It was a bit embarrassing,
but at this level it was a little incident we could laugh off.
“Speaking of which... I actually have one question, too.”
“Yes?”
And then—
I dropped my smile and asked seriously.
“When I asked people, this is what I felt... The situation around us is worse than I thought.”
“...That’s true.”
“And because the situation is bad, the mental state of the group members isn’t good either. To be honest...”
As I talked with them,
I became certain.
Even though I’d tried, through cooking, to bring them some emotional calm
and worked to get friendly—
“Everyone’s under much more mental strain than I expected.”
The reason was easy to guess.
Because the outside environment had turned that vicious.
The stress would be worse than in our Gangwon region.
“I even found myself thinking, ‘How is a group in this state even functioning...?’”
“...”
I’d been the head of a fairly large guild,
and even there, mental-health management of people had been almost entirely my domain.
From that experience—
with the mental state of people in this region,
it wouldn’t be strange if the group wasn’t functioning properly.
And yet—
this group was operating relatively normally.
“How did you manage it? Did you three leaders who run the group display some kind of god-touched leadership or something like that...?”
“No. I wish that were the case.”
At my words,
she answered, sounding a bit abashed.
“...Mm. It’s not really my place to explain that part.”
“?”
“The truth is, there was another reason I came to find you. I think it’ll make sense if we go over there.”
At that,
I tilted my head and asked,
“Come to think of it, I haven’t asked why you came.”
“The truth is, I felt bad that we let you join our group and then basically left you alone for a few days... so I wanted to look after you a little.”
“Don’t worry about it. In those few days, I got friendly with people—worked out for me.”
“I’m glad you think so. Anyway, the reason I came... was because of the thing you asked about last time.”
“...?”
She stood up,
stepped out of the building, and said,
“Would you follow me? I’ll explain.”
****
“The truth is... until not too long ago, things weren’t this bad.”
Once we stepped outside,
Han Iseo started explaining as she headed somewhere.
“Everyone made an effort to stick together and survive. We were all ‘let’s do this’ together. There were people who went against the mood, but that ‘Chair’ took care of them.”
Her gaze
turned toward beyond the Wall.
“I think it was around October. The blizzards got that fierce... the outside turned into an environment that’s hard to move around in at all.”
“...”
“As you know, after that, all of our guild’s elites vanished at once... so people had reason to despair.”
Up to here—that was, in fact, something I’d more or less anticipated.
What I wondered was how, despite that, the group could still be functioning like this.
Maybe—
these three leaders really were astounding leaders,
and even while people’s mental states were splitting apart like that, they somehow managed to lead them—
“That reason is over there.”
Following her words, I turned my head.
I saw a building set up in the center of the group.
“Do you remember what you asked me last time?”
“Asked? About what?”
If it was the request to find people,
I’d already found everyone in the area and even visited them myself.
So I wondered what she meant...
“You asked if you could listen to the radio for a bit, didn’t you?”
“...Ah.”
At that,
I remembered I had made that request.
“I told you then, too. It would absolutely be worth it for you to listen at ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ least once...”
And then—
as we stepped into the building she’d guided me to—
Murmur murmur...
“...What is all this?”
An incredible number—
pretty much what looked like the bulk of the group’s headcount was packed inside there, and—
—ZZZT...
In the very center,
a big radio sat.
—Good day...
From it—
—We are... the Legion...
a crackling voice
began to leak out.
