“You did well, General.”
“...Do well, my ass.”
When I walked up,
Jo Beomseok let out a sigh and spoke.
“I’d planned to safely seize the bodies of the old assault team while at the same time tearing apart their proposal and boosting our side’s morale, but...”
Their bodies were fundamentally human bodies.
To capture them safely without major wounds, fighters of that caliber had to step in.
Jo Beomseok had intended not only to buy that much time,
but also to show them the sight of us toying with the enemy.
“Instead I ended up failing. I racked my brains over it and it still felt like total shit.”
Up until the moment Jo Beomseok shot down the enemy’s proposal, the Expedition’s morale hadn’t been bad.
They had tried to leave after planting fear in our side.
If things had ended there, we would have had to fight while clutching that fear.
If things went wrong, that fear could have dragged in a huge crisis.
“Come on, in the end it worked out, didn’t it?”
“That’s thanks to you.”
That danger only lasted for a moment.
The instant I saw those bastards trying to leave—
Han Iseo!
Y-Yes!?”
That! Make them visible!
I hurriedly called Han Iseo
and exposed their forms to the entire Expedition.
Their souls look pathetically unimpressive in their true form.
Aside from the leaders, no one had seen the true appearance of those souls before.
Now most of the Expedition had seared those spirit-bodies into their eyes.
And I didn’t stop there.
After I threw blades at those souls,
[Trait – ‘Soul Cuisine Initiate’]
I even went as far as to process them myself.
“Right now the Expedition seems to think everything they said was nothing but bluffing. That much is a relief.”
Even the ones who had felt fear at their undying nature
ended up thinking,
What the hell? Weren’t they actually just pathetic nobodies?
“Hoo. I was warned so hard that I had to do this well... but doing it well is tough. I’m sorry.”
“Well, at this level you’re doing pretty well.”
“Hearing that from the one who cleaned up everything alone doesn’t exactly comfort me, though...”
Jo Beomseok let out another sigh.
“To be honest...”
He hesitated for a moment,
then looked off into the distance and said,
“I think the odds I would have fallen for their proposal were high.”
Jo Beomseok was a competent commander in his own right.
He probably could have quickly spotted the trap inside their proposal even on his own.
But.
“They said they’d bring my grandson back to life...”
The one exception was the part about bringing Jo Jun back.
If Jo Jun had died and they had said they could bring him back to life,
the odds were high that Jo Beomseok would have lost his reason and believed them.
“If that brat Jun had really died, that is.”
...But well.
Obviously,
‘What if~’ hypotheticals don’t mean anything in the army.
“They’re talking about bringing back someone who isn’t even dead—what the hell are they saying, right?”
“Heh...”
Apparently they had only been given the report that Captain Jo Jun had been shot.
Granted, it was a powerful enough attack that under normal circumstances would mean one hundred percent death.
Jo Beomseok’s dogshit trolling...
No, rather,
combined with his all-out order to save his grandson,
and my [Ingredient Management (Degraded)] on top of that,
Jo Jun had somehow managed to survive,
and while he hadn’t regained consciousness, he was still hanging on to his life—
that much, they had no way of knowing.
“On the contrary, I bet everyone became convinced of this: there’s no traitor in the Expedition.”
“That’s true.”
“If there were, they would never have made such an absurd proposal. Not only did we confirm there’s no internal traitor, we also learned their intelligence network isn’t as strong as we thought.”
In the end,
that conversation had ended up benefiting us.
“They’re nobodies with nothing, just sitting there bluffing!”
As a result—
“You hear that? They said they’d save Captain Jo Jun.”
“Even I could do that, if it’s about saving someone who’s already alive. As long as he’s breathing, that’s all you need, right?”
The fact that those bastards tried to deceive us with that so-called proposal,
and the fact that the soul that had acted so relaxed got processed in a single stroke,
meant—
“They acted like they were something great, but they didn’t know jack, did they?”
“PFFT...!”
Despite being threatening spiritual entities,
the enemy had become the Expedition’s laughingstock,
and our side’s morale soared through the roof.
*****
“Unless they attack first, the battle is scheduled for tomorrow.”
“Yes, that seems right.”
The enemy’s main base was within visible distance,
but we didn’t charge in immediately.
We’d been pushing hard all the way here, so we needed a night to straighten out our lines.
So only the leaders of each branch gathered like this to hold a meeting.
“Thanks to you, Youngjun, our morale is at its peak right now. I’m not sure we’ve ever had it this high even after we were united as the Association.”
“I don’t know if it’s thanks to me or not, but hey, it’s a good thing.”
“Kahahah. That’s true. But...”
Park Junggu, who’d been talking in high spirits,
and all the other leaders looked at me with slightly uneasy eyes.
“I just don’t know if we can actually beat that number of monsters.”
“Mm.”
Our morale was overflowing for the moment,
but the number of enemies we’d glimpsed was undeniably enormous.
“On top of that, aren’t they spiritual beings? Even if we kill the flesh, unless we have some special method like you, they’ll just switch to another body and show up again.”
“That’s right.”
“You...”
The commander, Jo Beomseok, hesitated for a moment,
then looked at me with a tense expression and asked,
“Do you think we have a chance of winning?”
At that anxious gaze,
I gave a short laugh and answered.
“One thing’s for sure: if the commander talks with that kind of lack of confidence, even things that could work out won’t.”
“I know that too. That’s why I’m only saying it in front of people I can trust like this.”
“Hmm... the numbers.”
I also
roughly ran through the number we’d seen in my head,
then shrugged.
“Well, yeah, that was a bit over the line.”
“You...?”
“Honestly, I expected about half of that, but it really was too many. To the point I wondered why they hadn’t just conquered all of Gyeonggi Province already.”
At my words, the leaders all made dumbfounded faces.
But I spoke without hesitation.
“Still, what can we do? If we don’t, we’re the ones who die.”
“...Hoo, that’s true, but.”
Everyone still spoke with a worried air.
“Whatever else, the problem is we can’t hit their true bodies.”
“Exactly. We’re already outnumbered, and that difference is just too big...”
“Ah, don’t worry about that.”
I’d come up with quite a few methods in my own way to deal with those bastards.
One was to make use of Han Iseo.
But.
That’s a method we can only use once, so we have to save it as much as possible.
And.
The second method was...
“That guy will take care of everything.”
“...?”
When I pointed my finger behind me,
behind me, the tent flap opened.
“Hey, senior.”
A certain chef
walked in, frowning.
“You called me over, but... why did you call me?”
*****
“You’re...”
“Howard?”
The people who saw him spoke in surprise.
Some of the leaders
were only now realizing he was part of this Expedition at all.
And
they asked in a tone that held no malice at all,
“Why is a chef in such an important meeting...?”
The lack of malice was obvious,
but underneath it was a statement grounded in the belief he didn’t deserve to be in a place like this.
At those words, I saw Howard’s expression crease slightly.
In truth,
he had wanted to stay in Central Branch, but he’d been dragged along here because of me.
“...Haha.”
He was obviously feeling like crap,
but unlike Yunseong, who’d been around his level,
everyone here was at the very top of their respective groups.
“That’s... true,”
Howard said, grinding his teeth,
veins standing out on his forehead as he forced that smile.
“...Youngjun, didn’t you say you had a way to exterminate those monsters?”
“Yeah.”
“...A chef, huh.”
Jo Beomseok frowned and said,
“I vaguely understand which part of a chef you saw potential in.”
“Hm? You do?”
“Yes. The common perception is that a chef is a production Job, but in truth it’s a large-scale, wide-area buffer-type Job, isn’t it? And the efficiency isn’t bad either...”
At those words, several leaders widened their eyes in surprise.
“Huh? Really?”
“Chefs are buffers?”
“I knew they could give buffs, but I thought it wasn’t at any meaningful level.”
The veins on Howard’s head bulged even thicker,
but Jo Beomseok continued calmly.
“In the right environment, the buffs from the dishes he makes are quite usable. Central Branch was able to stabilize the surrounding area faster than other regions largely thanks to him.”
“Huhhh.”
“I hear he also helped make it possible to resupply fuel for the tanks. It’s true the Job has more potential than public opinion gives it credit for.”
Unlike the others,
Jo Beomseok had some grasp of the potential chefs possessed.
“But that’s as far as it goes.”
Just like he said,
that was apparently the limit.
“They have no inherent combat ability, so the moment you drag one onto the battlefield, all you’re doing is adding another piece of dead weight that doesn’t help in a fight.”
“...”
“On the battlefield, not in a kitchen, it’s hard to even make proper dishes, so the buffs that were decent enough will weaken in an instant.”
“...”
“There’s a reason the previous Chair’s assault team didn’t take him along. If you’re pursuing complete stabilization of a territory in a somewhat secure environment, he’s a fairly efficient buffer, but this isn’t the kind of Job you use on an expedition like this. Even if he somehow spreads buffs around, you can’t be sure the gains outweigh the loss of having one more burden inside the formation.”
“H-heh, heh...!”
He acknowledged what there was to acknowledge,
but in the end, he was saying a chef was useless.
“Senior, I... I really can’t take this anymore...”
In this situation where he was being openly dismissed,
the veins on Howard’s forehead were about to pop.
“Well, I can see why you’d think that.”
I slung an arm around his shoulders as I spoke.
“Even so, I’ve got it all thought out. Just leave it to us.”
“...Hoo. I don’t think it’ll mean much, though.”
“We can find that out later.”
From the start,
dividing up operations is something for the smart people to do.
“I’ve got something to do with this guy, so we’ll take our leave first.”
I wasn’t the leader of any particular group,
and I didn’t have any particular talent for drawing up operations, so I didn’t really belong in a meeting like this.
I took Howard and left the tent.
*****
We left the tent where the meeting had been held
and headed for a corner of the Expedition’s camp.
Once there was no one around—
“No, what the f—...!”
a rough curse burst from Howard’s mouth.
“Uaaaaaaaaagh!!! These fucking bas—...!”
“Why’re you getting so worked up, junior? You don’t do that in front of your senior.”
“Do you look like someone who wouldn’t be pissed, then, senior!?”
At that, I thought for a moment.
He’d been suddenly called over by his senior,
shoved without warning into a group of top brass, and ended up being insulted with,
Isn’t this bastard completely useless? Why’d they even bring him?
“Yeah, I guess that would piss you off.”
He hadn’t done anything wrong, but out of nowhere he’d been treated like some incompetent loser.
Of course he’d be furious.
If it were me, I’d blow my top too, probably.
“...So why did you call me, senior?”
Howard was still breathing hard with anger,
but he ran a hand down his face and spoke.
“Don’t tell me you called me just to humiliate me like that. Are you trying to straighten out your junior because he’s been a little cocky?”
“C’mon, I’m not that kind of guy.”
He was trying in his own way to act like that wasn’t it,
but behind that anger I could feel just how depressed Howard was.
I do feel a little bad, though.
Obviously,
I’d expected this sort of thing to happen from the moment I called him into that room.
Even so, there was one reason I went out of my way to do it.
“I thought you needed to feel it properly at least once too.”
“What? Feel what?”
“What it’s like to be a chef.”
I spoke as I walked ahead, passing by him as he stopped in confusion.
“Not long after I first met the people here, I learned something. These people treat the Job of chef like absolute trash.”
“...Yeah, that’s true.”
At my words,
Howard lowered his head and spoke like it couldn’t be helped.
“But it’s not just chefs. People who craft equipment have gotten treated a little better recently, but... most production Jobs are in the same situation as me.”
“That so?”
“I heard Eastern Branch, where one of the leaders is a production Job, was a bit better off... but from what I saw today, that doesn’t seem to be the case either.”
As I kept walking without answering,
Howard spoke in a voice that lacked confidence.
“S-still, chefs are better off.”
“...”
“Production Jobs related to food production are treated relatively well. I can’t directly produce food myself, but... I can cook with ingredients you normally couldn’t eat. So compared to really minor production Jobs, I’m treated better than they are...”
“So.”
Without stopping my steps,
I spoke toward Howard following behind me.
“Are you satisfied with that?”
“...Huh?”
He stopped walking,
and I turned around and spoke.
“Your Job’s getting treated like ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) absolute garbage, and you just brush it off with, ‘Well, other production Jobs have it just as bad,’ or, ‘Chefs are still better off than most’?”
“...”
“Are you really satisfied with that crap?”
At my words,
Howard hung his head low, speechless for a moment.
“Haha... What kind of obvious thing are you even asking, senior?”
Then,
his whole body shaking, he spoke.
“There’s no way... I could ever be satisfied with that.”
