“Optimal in liquid form...! What the hell is that supposed to mean!”
“Think about it, it’s not that weird, is it?”
Like that,
the rote-learning session began.
“In the first place, it’s just an ingredient that happens to solidify, so you’ve only ever used it in solid form. But as an ingredient for cooking, it’s way more often used as a liquid, isn’t it? When you cook, you usually melt it on purpose.”
“But, Senior... people spread pig fat on bread too.”
“Is this pig fat? It’s monster fat oil.”
“...”
Howard still had a face that said this was hard to swallow,
but I spoke firmly.
“I’m not telling you to think that way about every other ingredient. Just think of this animal oil from monsters as being in its optimal state only when it’s liquid.”
Howard spoke with a doubtful look.
“And just because I believe that, this ability is going to change?”
“Of course. The one doing the cooking is the chef.”
The moment I started recognizing literally everything as ingredients,
my Skills really did start applying to all things.
‘This guy’s just got a more rigid head than mine, that’s all.’
The moment he changes his own concept of cooking,
that Skill will change in accordance.
“Damn it.”
Howard clawed at his hair like his head was a mess,
then, like he’d made up his mind, opened his mouth.
“If you’re telling me to do it, Senior, I don’t really have a choice, do I.”
“...!”
“You’re right. Oil rendered from monster fat is an ingredient I’ve never seen before anyway... That makes the disconnect a bit less severe. I’ll give it a try.”
And in the end, like that,
[Animal Oil of Mixed Magic Power (Managed)]
[Freshness: Optimal (Locked)]
[An ingredient that has received an Intermediate Chef’s [Ingredient Management].]
[As long as the chef in charge of managing this ingredient is alive, this ingredient will always be maintained in its optimal state.]
[No matter how much time passes, it will not solidify, it will not rot in any environment, its quality will not deteriorate, and any quality degradation caused by external interference will also be slowed to an extreme degree.]
what sat in front of my eyes
was a gently rippling, grayish-white oil.
*****
“See? You can do it.”
“...It’s real.”
Even though he’d done it himself,
Howard stared at the state of the oil with eyes that said he couldn’t believe it.
“To think... just changing what I believe would change things this much.”
Up until now, he’d probably only been using that Trait in the literal sense of extending shelf life.
Then, by changing how he thought, the effect of the Skill itself had changed.
‘He probably realized at least a little bit about the potential of chefs too.’
Maybe,
this would speed up how quickly he accepted my other teachings.
“But...”
Howard looked at the animal oil that now rippled at room temperature,
then looked at me and said,
“With this amount, you won’t be able to run a single vehicle for long, let alone a tank.”
“Hm? Well, yeah, obviously.”
“Didn’t you say you were collecting this oil not for cooking, but to run tanks?”
His admiration for his own ability only lasted a moment.
Howard still shook his head.
“If you collect oil like this, even the fat from thousands, tens of thousands of monster corpses won’t be enough.”
Well, sure.
It was a perfectly reasonable concern.
“Don’t worry about that.”
I did this because I already had the rest thought through.
“Anyway, you just render the fat from the monsters we bring in into oil like this. I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Don’t worry, you say... There’s absolutely no way you can move tanks like this...”
“Absolutely no way, huh.”
Heh.
At those words,
I answered with a light laugh.
“As expected. You still have a lot to learn.”
“...?”
“Saying something’s impossible... You don’t know anything about the potential of [Chefs], do you?”
And then,
“Let me show you.”
the oil Howard had finished,
the oil that had received [Management].
“What real [Cooking] is.”
I placed my hand on top of it and spoke in a small voice.
“[Five Loaves and Two Fish]”
In the small, shabby kitchen,
a dazzling light descended.
“...Huh?”
And beneath that light,
the miracle from an old myth was reproduced.
*****
“Haa...”
In a room in the Southern Branch dormitories,
a man let out a sigh loaded with dissatisfaction.
“...I get how you feel, but there’s nothing we can do, Jongdu.”
“I know there’s nothing we can do... but even so!”
The middle-aged man with him was trying, in his way, to calm him down,
but
“The fact ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) that we have to carry out such a dangerous operation...!”
his words weren’t much help.
The man sighing was Kim Jongdu.
An [Architect] Awakener of Eastern Branch,
and
[Heo Yunchang]
[Intermediate Spearman Lv.26]
the man trying to soothe him
was also one of the three leaders of Eastern Branch and the one in charge of its combat power.
“If you were that unhappy, you should’ve dug in your heels and opposed it hard at the meeting in Central.”
“I was going to! But.”
Jongdu ran a hand down his face.
“When the Legion’s message came in like that, it wasn’t the kind of atmosphere where I could do anything alone.”
“...Well, I was shocked too when I heard it.”
Even though they were way off in Gangwon Province,
the Legion was exerting a huge amount of influence on the survival of the humans in Gyeonggi Province.
Once they sent a message, the Association’s stance immediately flipped to launching an assault.
“They could just hold out inside the Walls...!”
He looked at the Southern Branch Wall.
Among the Walls he’d built, it was the tallest one aside from the Central Branch Wall and the Eastern Branch Wall where he stayed.
On top of it sat artillery batteries retaken from military units.
‘The gear General Jo Beomseok obtained while assaulting military bases.’
Jo Beomseok had gotten a variety of equipment by assaulting military bases,
but he’d heard that most of it had ended up gathering dust in storage because they didn’t have the resources to actually operate it.
However,
those fixed-position artillery batteries were different.
‘They said they don’t have oil, but shells and munitions are plentiful.’
It was the reason people said Southern Branch was the strongest aside from Central,
and especially in terms of defense, some even said it was better than Central.
“With gear like that and my Wall, if we go on the defensive, we can hold out somehow!”
The operation had been decided,
but the more time passed, the stronger Jongdu’s anxiety grew.
“So what then? Should we just go back to Eastern Branch?”
“Hah, don’t mock me.”
“I’m not mocking you.”
The man holding the spear,
Heo Yunchang, spoke in a flat tone.
“You know, right? I might be confident in my fighting skills in my own way, but I’m not some battle maniac like that Junggu from Northern Branch. The Chair is missing now, so there’s no need to follow the Association’s will either. There’s no need for us to fight a battle that doesn’t benefit us.”
“...”
“Let them carry out the assault, and we go back and just defend our own base. It’s not like we’re some other group. Our group has you, Jongdu. Even if those monster bastards suddenly flip and attack us, whatever. We can just keep repairing the Wall and hole up... until the Legion comes to help, right?”
SCHWING—
He lifted his spear in one hand as he spoke.
“I might not be the strongest warrior in the Association, but when it comes to defense, that’s exactly what a spearman like me specializes in.”
At those words,
Jongdu thought for a while, then sighed and said,
“...It’s not that I’m against the assault.”
If the Legion had sent a message over it,
then launching this assault was probably the right move.
He wasn’t trying to just spit out opposition for the sake of it.
The thing making him uneasy lay elsewhere.
“The problem is going on the offensive with this level of strength.”
“Hm.”
In particular,
when he took in at a glance the troops that had been scraped together from each branch,
his anxiety swelled even more.
“There isn’t a single person as strong as the Chair was. And the only ones you could even compare to the executives are you and Junggu.”
“Mm, I’m a little behind Junggu, but yeah, anyway.”
“At least I know the Awakeners of Southern Branch are experts at large-scale battles. I know that, but...”
“Well, compared to the forces that went on the assault with the Chair back then, we’re nowhere near enough.”
And
the Source of the Cold was exactly the place where even that Chair had failed to conquer.
“So? Are we heading back or not.”
In the end,
they had to make a choice.
“I’ll leave the decision to you, Jongdu. I might know how to fight, but you’re the core of our group.”
“...”
“You don’t have to worry about whether it’s a waste to come this far and turn back. Everyone here thinks staying alive is what matters most. If that choice makes it even a little easier to survive, we can accept wasting a trip.”
At those words,
Jongdu couldn’t answer easily and fell into 고민.
‘If we’re thinking purely about surviving... heading back gives us better odds.’
With the current strength, the odds of the expedition failing were overwhelmingly high.
Even if they ended up dying later when the cold grew worse,
they’d live longer than if they died from the expedition failing.
But...
‘Going back now... would mean betraying the Association.’
Even if the operation was going in a different direction from his opinion,
it meant betraying the other groups who had fought at their side.
The survival of the group he led,
and loyalty to the other groups.
He was struggling between those two choices when—
RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE...
“...!?”
From somewhere,
a mysterious vibration began to roar.
*****
“W-What is that vibration?”
“...In times like this, what else could cause a vibration like that?”
At that sound,
the man in front of Jongdu gripped his spear and spoke.
“It’s got to be monsters.”
“...!”
“Sorry, but it looks like our time to decide just got a lot shorter.”
The spearman looked down at Jongdu with a flat expression.
“If we just try to head back to Eastern now, the people here will try to stop us. If this vibration is from a monster attack... then using the confusion from that attack to slip away might be the best option.”
“...!...”
“Hurry up and decide, Jongdu. Are we heading back like this... or fighting alongside them.”
“What kind of bullshit is that!”
At those words,
Jongdu answered like it wasn’t even worth thinking about.
“Of course we fight together!”
“...You realize your stance is way different from a moment ago, right?”
“What I was agonizing over was whether to join the expedition or not!”
An expedition where the odds of failure were high.
Whether or not they took part in that was something to agonize over, but—
“Even if we end up not joining the operation and just leave... for this battle, it’s right to fight together.”
in a situation where fellow humans were under attack,
there simply was no option not to help.
“I was thinking about going back because the odds of our people dying were high if we joined the operation. But if we’re not joining the operation and it’s just that we’re under monster attack... then we have to fight with them.”
“Even if it makes things more annoying later if we decide to go back?”
He too
grabbed his weapon, a hammer, and stood up.
“Then I’ll just have to cling to their pant legs and beg them to let us go home.”
Heh.
“Well, if that’s what you say, Jongdu.”
At that,
the man with the spear chuckled lightly, stepped out the door, and shouted,
“Warriors of Eastern!”
“Yes!”
“Everyone, prepare for battle!”
The Eastern Branch Awakeners who were gathered in one dormitory
quickly grabbed their weapons and streamed out of the building.
“Boss! Did you feel that vibration?”
“Yeah. It’s probably large monsters approaching.”
Tension spread across the Awakeners’ faces.
“Large monsters... How should we respond?”
“It’d be nice if we could go straight out to hunt them down, but unfortunately, this isn’t Eastern Branch.”
He turned his head toward the central area of Southern Branch—
toward the place where Jo Beomseok and the other Southern leaders would be.
“The defense system here is different from Eastern Branch. For now, everyone stays ready for battle and waits. The fighting will be directed by the expedition commander, General Jo Beomseok.”
“Yes!”
“We’ll respond flexibly according to his orders.”
And then,
just as they were about to see how Southern Branch reacted and respond in kind...
“You can put your weapons down.”
“...?”
The very man
who should have been giving the orders—
“General Jo?”
Jo Beomseok
walked up beside them at an unhurried pace and spoke.
“You’re telling us to put our weapons down.”
“What does that... Is that an order?”
“An order? Don’t make it sound so grand.”
While the warriors of Eastern Branch looked flustered,
Jo Beomseok gave a small laugh and said,
“You’ll see just by looking.”
RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE...
As an enormous vibration shook the air,
the people of Eastern Branch witnessed an unbelievable sight.
With a THOOOOM...
the great Wall that Kim Jongdu had personally built,
“You opened the Wall...!”
“Has he lost his mind!”
they saw the gate of that Wall open.
Given the circumstances, a monster attack was almost certain.
In a situation like that,
the gates of the Wall had opened.
“You, don’t tell me.”
The people of Eastern Branch, aghast,
pointed the weapons in their hands at Jo Beomseok.
Most of the Association’s remaining forces were gathered here.
In other words,
the moment the forces here were lost,
it would be no exaggeration to say humanity in Gyeonggi Province was finished.
‘He opened the Wall!’
Given that, Southern Branch’s actions could only be seen as an intention to annihilate humankind.
The people of Eastern Branch could only be appalled.
“Well, to be honest, I still have trouble believing it myself.”
“...?”
“I fully understand why you’re panicking.”
Hands still clasped behind his back,
he let out a sigh and shook his head.
“No matter how hard it might be to pull off an assault with our current strength. To have it resolved like that.”
“By that, you mean...”
“I can’t even imagine how something like that is possible either.”
Resolved.
‘...By who? And what exactly got resolved?’
As they were thrown into confusion by those thoughts—
from beyond the huge Wall gate that had swung wide open,
a blizzard came roaring in with tremendous force,
and through the darkened visibility beyond that curtain of snow,
they saw shapes approaching the inside of the Wall.
“In any case, I came to you because I had a favor to ask.”
“...”
“I heard that even though those things are already sturdy, it still might not be enough.”
The moment all the Awakeners successfully identified what those shapes were,
their jaws dropped.
“Jongdu, I’d like you to use your skills to reinforce those things and make them sturdier. Can you help with that?”
At those words,
Kim Jongdu looked at the objects lined up in front of him and
“Uh... Y-Yeah.”
could only nod blankly.
And no wonder.
Because for humans who’d lived in the twenty-first century, they were stronger than anything else—
they were practically the very symbol of human firepower.
“Got it.”
Dozens of tanks and armored vehicles
were drawn up in formation right in front of their eyes.
