“It’s been a while! Youngjun!”
“Haha, you’ve been doing all right?”
The Awakeners from the Eastern Branch and Northern Branch as well
each arrived at Southern Base, leading their own forces.
‘There are more of them than I thought.’
If I set aside the fact that the forces I’d brought from Central Branch were weaker than I would have liked,
then just adding up the fighting power from the four branches,
we had to be over a thousand people.
Obviously, though,
this operation still had more than enough chance of ending in failure.
And even if the operation succeeded, every person from every branch would still have to protect their own skin and keep living during the operation itself.
So what they’d brought here were the surplus troops—
everyone left over after each branch and its affiliated groups kept the minimum needed to defend their own turf.
‘And even among those, they probably handpicked only the proper combat-class Awakeners. For the number to still be this big...’
The environment in Gyeonggi Province had only recently nosedived into the extreme.
Before that, monsters had been swarming toward the Demon Realm side, so there were actually fewer monsters in human territory.
In the very early days after Doomsday, it had been an environment that was, if anything, favorable to humans.
Which meant there were more survivors left than you’d think.
‘This region doesn’t just have potential—it’s overflowing with it.’
Whether these people survived or died here
would have a huge impact on whether humans in the Republic of Korea could keep surviving at all.
Anyway.
I looked at the Northern Branch leaders and said,
“I didn’t think all three of you would come.”
“Well, it just sort of turned out that way.”
Unlike the other branches, which had left at least one leader-level person behind at their home bases,
Northern Branch had all three of its leaders participating in this operation.
‘In Gyeonggi Province, these are the people you could most reasonably call my forces.’
Right now I was technically in a cooperative relationship with Jo Beomseok of Southern Branch,
but if I had to say I “belonged” to a branch, it would obviously be Northern Branch.
The fact that all of them had come here for this made me feel a solid, reassuring weight at my back.
“Normally, when something like this happens, it’s Iseo who stays behind at the branch,”
one of them said,
“but I heard this time you specifically asked us to bring her along too, Youngjun.”
“Ah. So that’s why.”
Especially for this upcoming assault.
The method I intended to use there...
“Well, I came because you said you needed me,” Han Iseo said,
“but I’m not combat-class, so I’m not sure if I’ll be of any help.”
“You’ll probably be useful,” I said.
“Mm, well. If you say so, Youngjun, I guess that’s how it is!”
Most of what I had in mind
was tied to the people of Northern Branch anyway.
And that wasn’t just true of the leaders.
The forces they’d brought were, in principle, combat-class Awakeners who operated around the Northern region.
“You... so you were here after all!”
Among them were some familiar faces.
They spotted me and walked over with bright smiles.
“Hey, hey, you heard, right!?”
“Hongsu, our Hongsu...!”
“Yes, yes, I heard too.”
They were the people who belonged to a group that operated near Northern Branch—
Private Jang Hongsu’s parents.
“Hongsu... was alive!”
They grabbed my shoulders, faces overflowing with joy.
And I knew exactly why.
‘I’d been thinking about this since the very first time we met.’
Hongsu was alive and serving as a member of my unit.
But in this kind of world, his parents had found it hard to truly believe their son was still alive.
In that case—
‘Wouldn’t it be enough if they heard his voice directly?’
That was what I’d thought.
Back then, I’d been too caught up in the immediate situation with his parents to follow that idea through.
But right now, I was constantly taking the “Calm Emotion” dish.
“I told you, didn’t I? That if you waited, something good might happen.”
“I never thought those words would actually come true...”
When I came up with the operation to move this Association using Legion’s radio,
I sent the Legion a message asking them to let Private Jang Hongsu be the one to explain things over the broadcast.
“Up until then, I’d honestly given up.”
“Thanks to you, we were able to hold on to hope. Really, thank you!”
I was the one who’d told them
not to give up hope because their son might still be alive.
At the same time—
“You said you were from the same unit as Hongsu, right?”
“If you ever need anything, just say the word! We’ll help you with whatever we can.”
because I was one of the very few people left in this world who knew their son,
the two of them showed me an enormous amount of goodwill.
Yeah.
And as far as I was concerned, that goodwill was nothing but welcome.
[Lv. 12 Lower Water Mage]
[Lv. 14 Lower Wind Mage]
I looked at their Jobs,
and grinned.
“You just promised to help me... You said that, right?”
“...Uh?”
*****
Just like that,
once the people from each branch had joined up at Southern Base—
“Then, we’ll begin the operation meeting immediately.”
right away,
Yunseong from Central Branch took on the role of facilitator and the operation meeting began.
The meeting kicked off as soon as each branch’s forces had arrived, without even giving people time to properly unpack.
‘With supplies this tight, they don’t want to waste a second.’
When you gather this many people in one place, the rate of resource consumption is terrifying.
We had a Druid with us, so we’d be able to secure some amount of food,
but even that wouldn’t be enough to completely fill everyone’s stomachs.
We needed to launch the operation as quickly as possible.
“First, I think we need to go back over the reasons the previous assault failed.”
Maybe it was because he used to be a career soldier.
The first person to speak up at the operation meeting was Jo Beomseok.
“I know it’s a bit late to say this now, but I had quite a few criticisms of that assault method.”
“Criticisms?” someone asked.
“First of all, the part where they tried to settle everything in a short time frame.”
He spread a map out in front of him as he spoke.
“Even if it was better than now, there was still a serious amount of blizzard, and the temperature was low. The closer they got to the Source of the Cold, the worse that would’ve gotten. They didn’t know what the enemy even was, and the environment was against them on top of that. And they took all their forces out there to settle things in one go?”
“...”
“I opposed the Association Chair’s plan not because I thought the assault itself was unnecessary, but because I thought that particular operation was fantasy.”
At those words,
the Eastern Branch’s architect, Kim Jongdu, let out a sigh and said,
“The Chair had his own reasons too. At the time, we’d already poured a lot of supplies into assaulting that Demon Realm Gate... and with that assault failing, if we didn’t solve this environmental problem in a short period of time, more than half the Association would’ve starved to death.”
“Mm. That’s true.”
...Huh?
“Is that actually true?” I muttered.
“Mm? It is,” Jo Beomseok said. “It’s not like I agreed to that operation without thinking.”
At what the architect said,
I turned my head slightly
and whispered a question to the Northern Branch leaders.
“Thanks to you, we’re better off than most, Youngjun, but the food shortage is still bad, right?” one of them said.
“Right now things are a little better because most of Central Branch’s people went missing, and thanks to Legion’s radio we’ve had our Awakener numbers go up,” another added. “Back then... things were worse. That’s why he tried to reach a conclusion as fast as possible.”
“Wow...”
Not too long ago, I’d been muttering to myself, wondering if the Chair was just some reckless amateur when it came to strategy.
Turns out he’d had his reasons.
“The fortunate part is that our situation is better now than it was then,”
Jo Beomseok said, bringing his pen down onto the map.
He drew several X marks in the region near where we believed the Source of the Cold to be.
“What are those marks?”
“Heh. I didn’t think you’d be the one to ask that, Jongdu.”
“Sir?”
“These places. You’ve been to all of them,” he said.
“...Ah!”
Jongdu stared at the X marks, thought for a moment,
and then his jaw dropped open.
“...The Walls we built back then!”
“Exactly.”
As the others looked on in confusion,
Jo Beomseok calmly began to explain.
“As you all know, this extreme blizzard only started not too long ago. Even before that, the area around the Demon Realm wasn’t a place humans could live, but after winter began, Southern lost an even larger area of land.”
On the outskirts of Gyeonggi Province,
the Demon Realm had always been a monster-infested zone where humans couldn’t live.
But Southern Branch °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° had lost even more territory than the Demon Realm itself.
The reason was simple.
“As the cold intensified, most of the people operating near that side moved up closer to this branch.”
The closer you got to the Source of the Cold,
the harsher the cold became.
“Then what are these places?” someone asked.
“Before the cold got this bad, there were groups that operated even out near those areas. Those are the locations where Jongdu built them forward strongholds back then.”
“...Ah!”
“People abandoned them, but the Walls are still there. They’ve become too cold to be good places to live... but they’re still safe strongholds.”
His gaze sharpened.
“I recommend we retake those strongholds one by one and conduct a steady, stable assault.”
*****
With Jo Beomseok taking the lead, we laid out multiple operation plans,
and after a slew of other discussions,
“Then we’ll have General Jo serve as the commander of the expeditionary force.”
“Mm. It’s a heavy responsibility, but I’ll do my best.”
only after we’d reached the conclusion
that Jo Beomseok would take command of the expeditionary force
did the first operation meeting finally wrap up.
‘As expected. You don’t get a general’s title for nothing.’
From where I was sitting, the plans Jo Beomseok presented were nearly flawless.
Even Lieutenant Kim had shown excellent ability in drafting operations after he got his Commander-type Job.
So it was hardly strange that Jo Beomseok—who had originally been a better soldier than Kim—
would put out plans that felt this solid.
It was only natural that someone like him would end up serving as the commanding officer.
The meeting had gone... fairly smoothly.
But.
‘Mm.’
As the meeting ended, I looked over the faces of the people filing out.
Those faces were...
“They don’t look particularly bright,” I murmured.
“Of course they don’t,”
came a reply.
“...Sir?”
I’d just meant to talk to myself,
but the person who answered me was Jo Beomseok.
“Most of them think this operation has a high chance of failing.”
Apparently he’d already been on his way to talk to me,
and happened to overhear my muttering as he arrived.
“What do you mean, ‘of course they don’t’? It’s not like the operation itself looks bad,” I said.
“Of course it doesn’t. We came up with these plans after finishing the traitor hunt and wringing every last bit of brainpower out of all the group members.”
Having my mutter answered caught me a little off guard,
but since it’d come to this, I decided I might as well ask the thing I’d been curious about.
“If the operations themselves aren’t the issue, then why...?”
“Our strength,” he said.
“Our strength?”
At that,
Jo Beomseok let out a sigh.
“Nobody who was there saw with their own eyes how the Association Chair’s assault failed... so they don’t know exactly how much fighting power is required. But what is certain is that the forces we have here are lacking compared to back then.”
“We have quite a lot of people, though.”
“In terms of headcount, we have several times more than the Chair had for his assault. But an Awakener’s power isn’t determined by numbers alone.”
Mm.
He wasn’t wrong.
Our unit’s push for an elite force had been for that exact reason.
“We’re weaker than we were then, so we’re trying to make up for it with tactics... But even so, it’s hard for anyone to have real confidence.”
“...I see.”
Facing a powerful enemy.
But the strength on your side is so insufficient that it’s hard to feel sure about anything... huh.
“In that case, how about this?” I said.
“Mm?”
Fortunately or unfortunately,
I’d gone through situations like that more than a few times.
So there was one thing that came to mind.
“What if we retake a military base... and use their equipment?”
“Hah... You can’t be serious.”
But in response to my suggestion,
Jo Beomseok’s reaction was quite firm.
“That’s impossible.”
Hm... Impossible, huh.
Isn’t that the kind of thing you only know once you try?
