A handgun.
If you pull out this weapon in the world before the Doomsday,
ninety-nine out of a hundred ordinary people would immediately lose the will to resist.
The size of the hole a handgun could make in a human body was never that big,
but even with that small hole, a human being is a creature that dies.
But unfortunately.
“That’s a tasteless joke.”
In the world after the Doomsday,
the standing a handgun held had shrunk quite a bit.
“Well, for some reason you look like you can’t make use of combat Skills. If so, something like a handgun—some long-range means of attack—would be nice to have.”
The hulking old man in armor advanced toward me with a strange hint of anger in his expression.
I leveled the handgun’s muzzle at the Chair,
and—
BANG!
Without hesitation,
I pulled the trigger.
“But!”
And in response to that shot,
the Chair merely held his gauntlet out into the bullet’s path, calmly.
TING!
The bullet hit the gauntlet and bounced away, powerless.
“An Awakener at an ordinary level might not know, but an Awakener at your level would.”
“.......”
“That we can now resist modern firearms just fine.”
“......Yeah, it does look that way.”
Just as he said.
Back in the day, even if you were an Awakener, it was standard that you couldn’t beat a gun,
but once you pass level 30, the story changes a little.
‘It’s not a gun fired by a [Shooter], and it’s not even a rifle, it’s a handgun.’
It doesn’t even have to be someone at my level or that old man’s.
Even someone like Park Junggu...... no, someone like Yunseong,
wouldn’t have to fear small firearms like a handgun very much.
“The movement you showed was beautiful. Since you said you wouldn’t give up, I expected you to show me something more interesting! But.”
Disappointment settled thickly around the old man’s eyes.
“Is a handgun really all it is.”
Sure.
A handgun isn’t exactly a very useful weapon in this world now.
“A person shouldn’t only try to see the downsides.”
“What?”
But.
It did have a few upsides.
‘It’s definitely a downside that the firepower is too weak.’
Against an enemy with even slightly better defense, you can’t deal damage at all.
But.
Because of that, you gain something too.
With a handgun in one hand,
and a kitchen knife in the other,
I took a stance and said.
“Since it’s such low firepower...... even though it’s an attack you can easily avoid, there are cases where people deliberately take it.”
“......?”
Yeah.
Just like how that Chair saw my handgun’s muzzle and still didn’t dodge, choosing to bat it away.
“......Wait.”
That moment,
“Th-this is...... what the hell.......”
The old man who had just shown an unbelievable feat—batting away a bullet with a human body—
“Y-you...... what did you do to me.”
“Mm, who knows? What could I have done.”
“Don’t play dumb!”
The old man’s face......
knit sharply.
“When the victory is this certain.......”
As if flustered, he staggered,
then stared down at his own hand as he spoke.
“This is.”
The old man raised his head,
and on that face was an emotion that didn’t fit the situation at all.
“This defeat feeling ruling my head...... what is it!”
[Thick Defeat]
was clinging to him.
“I told you. I prepared a lot.”
“......!”
At those words,
the hulking old man muttered in a furious voice.
“So you weren’t serious until now......!”
“I’ll declare one thing in advance. Old man, you.......”
I aimed the handgun at the old man’s face and said,
“You’re going to beg me to just kill you.”
*****
The abilities I had been mobilizing in battle were three.
[Martial Art – Cuisine]
[Field Cooking]
And [Rampage]
Even those three were definitely strong,
but they weren’t enough to bring down that old man.
And.......
If the buff I put on myself isn’t enough.
Then there’s one next method to consider.
‘Debuffs.’
CLICK.
In the middle of a long fight,
when I pointed the muzzle at the old man,
“......Tch!”
The armored giant who had been charging me with terrifying momentum
moved to avoid the muzzle’s line.
But it’s hard for momentum once built to vanish,
and even if you move to avoid the muzzle with that kind of speed,
the path you move along can’t help but become predictable.
[Advanced Dagger Mastery (Enhanced)]
KAAANG!
“Annoying tricks......!”
Just by bringing my blade into that path,
I could deliver an attack that armor couldn’t dodge.
‘No matter how strong an Awakener is, dodging a gun is difficult.’
Of course.
It’s only difficult to dodge—whether you fear it is another matter entirely.
As Awakeners rise in level, there are plenty of cases where they endure bullets even after being hit.
Especially if you’re wearing special-looking armor like that old man.
You could even do an absurd feat like using the armor’s surface to deflect bullets.
But.
‘In the first place, I’m not firing this bullet to deal damage.’
In the past.
An entity I hunted to supply magic power to the Vimana.
[Morjan]
To deal with it, I once asked the engineers to manufacture a massive cannon.
The cannon’s purpose was simple.
Not to attack the enemy,
but—
‘To make the shell’s contents touch the enemy’s body.’
Once that shell hit the enemy,
the contents inside spilled out,
[Force-Feeding]
and those contents flowed straight into the target,
treated as if they had eaten my dish.
And.
‘This...... is something you could absolutely use in combat too, isn’t it?’
That massive cannon and shell built to face Morjan.
In truth, what mattered most among them was the shell.
And.
BANG!
What I did was miniaturize that shell to the level of a handgun bullet.
That was this bullet.
Not long ago,
one of the weapons the Legion delivered to me after succeeding in making a small bag with flame resistance.
[Legion-Made Custom Special-Purpose Handgun]
[In exchange for taking heavy penalties on the ammunition’s firepower, this is a special-purpose handgun focused on speed and accuracy correction!]
[When equipped, you gain Trait – ‘Lowest-Grade Marksmanship (Degraded)’.]
The handgun itself
was only a tool to give me, someone who isn’t even a [Shooter], halfway-decent shooting ability.
The real thing was this.
[Legion-Made Custom Special-Purpose Ammunition]
[In exchange for losing most of its lethality, this is ammunition specialized for special purposes.]
[If the bullet hits an enemy, the contents inside the bullet rapidly burst out and adhere to the target’s body.]
This bullet doesn’t only contain gunpowder.
If you open the small cap on the front of the bullet, there’s a tiny compartment,
and inside it.......
[Joint Course Meal Filled with the Lifeblood of an Intermediate Chef and War Cook]
No.
A dish.
[War Cook’s Devotion-Infused Thick Defeat-Tinged Junk Food Set]
Yeah.
A dish that has [Force-Feeding] on it,
so that the moment it merely touches your body, you’re forced to consume it!
‘The amount of dish I can put inside a bullet is small.’
That much.
Even though it’s a dish made with care, the amount of debuff it can give isn’t enormous.
‘A dish’s effect applies only one per person.’
Giving a debuff with this small amount of dish,
in some ways, might be a loss.
But.......
‘Not when it comes to emotions.’
Emotions from [Special Sauce] stack to some extent.
Last time, in General Jo Beomseok’s case, I had too little combat ration prepared, so it was impossible to stack enough dishes to properly calm him.
But this time, I came prepared from the start to face that old man.
Even if the amount is small, if that small emotion stacks,
then no matter how strong someone is, they have no choice but to lower their weapon!
BANG!
And.
The effect was certain.
“......It really is irritating!”
That old man, too, seemed to catch on,
and he was trying to avoid my handgun bullets no matter what.
KAAANG!
Once I could restrict his movement path to a certain degree through the handgun,
it became easier to predict where his sword strikes would come down.
Holding the dagger in a reverse grip, I blocked the predicted line,
kept distance from the old man charging at me, and aimed the handgun again.
‘Well, I can’t win with just this.’
The difference this handgun created is definitely big.
But if you ask whether it’s enough to bring down someone that strong, it isn’t.
‘Now that he’s on guard, it’s gotten harder to stack emotions too.’
I should be grateful I landed the first shot at all.
It’s huge that he now feels burdened by this handgun, but the battle situation is still unfavorable for me.
But.
This still wasn’t all the means I’d hidden.
KAAANG!
The old man’s greatsword swung at me,
and when I somehow managed to block it,
that big motion of swinging the greatsword
created an opening.
Into that opening.
[Assistant Chef]
SLLK.......
“What—!”
The kitchen [N O V E L I G H T] knives stored inside my shadow burst out,
lunging for the gaps in his armor.
“Disgusting tricks!”
His posture had definitely collapsed,
but he snapped his shoulder pauldron hard, batting away the kitchen knives targeting the armor gaps.
Because of that,
my kitchen knives couldn’t pierce the armor,
but—
HISSS.......
“......So you weren’t hiding just one or two tricks.”
He couldn’t bat away the transparent liquid coating those knives.
The hulking old man whose face I still hadn’t even seen.
The armor protecting that body began to melt.
[Soul-Melting Poison – Nepenthes]
No matter how powerful the armor is,
Gyeonggi’s producers were behind compared to our unit’s producers.
‘Even our unit’s producers only barely managed to secure resistance to poison recently.’
And even then.
Resistance to poison at the level of [Nepenthes]—even our unit still didn’t have it.
SSSSSSS.......
“You going to be okay, old man?”
Because of the poison dripping from my dagger,
the pauldron protecting the old man’s shoulder melted completely away.
“You might really end up with bullet holes now.”
If the armor melts away,
then even if the power has been lowered, I could still deal damage with my handgun.
That old man would have to check my handgun more seriously.
‘Good. At this point, I can fight while saving the next move—’
Thinking that,
I was smearing [Nepenthes] onto the dagger in my hand when—
right then.
“......Huh?”
The armor melting from [Nepenthes].
The contents inside it started to show.
And.......
“What the hell are you.”
When I saw inside,
I couldn’t help but frown.
Because inside the armor that had been revealed,
“.......”
what was in there wasn’t an ordinary old man’s body,
and it wasn’t a tough warrior’s body either.
“Are you even alive?”
A pale old man’s body, mangled to pieces,
trapped inside ice.
“......So you saw it.”
More than a living human,
it looked like a corpse that froze to death long ago was moving.
*****
‘What the hell is that.’
A body locked in ice, its whole body carved up.
Like those monsters, it could move freely even inside the ice,
but that pallor didn’t look like a living human.
“So you saw it.”
When the old man realized I’d seen inside his armor,
he spoke in a strangely sorrowful voice.
“Then there’s no need to hide it anymore.”
As he said that, he removed his helmet.
And what appeared was—
‘......What the hell is that.’
Just like that body,
torn, burned, and pierced all over,
a face no different from a hideous corpse.
“Ugh.”
The shape I had hated and feared so much.
A dead human’s flesh was there.
“You look pretty startled.”
“.......”
“You don’t need to be that startled. Even like this, I’m in fairly good shape.”
Seeing a corpse-like figure speaking normally,
I felt an overwhelming sense of wrongness.
“How did you...... end up like that.”
“It was fairly recent.”
With a face lacking confidence,
the old man put the helmet back on his head and continued.
“You said you’ve heard a lot about me. What did you hear?”
“That you were a great figure who united the Association’s people, and that you were incredibly strong.”
“Right. I also believed that evaluation was correct. I thought that at my level...... I was strong enough to rule even in this ruined world.”
With the helmet back on, it was hard to read his expression,
but I could roughly imagine what kind of face he was making with that torn, ground-away face.
“It was a delusion.”
“.......”
From the mouths of the people of Gyeonggi Province, the Chair was practically a living myth.
A man who cut down every mighty enemy with that greatsword,
and made any hardship and adversity submit beneath his feet.
“The first time that delusion shattered was when I went to that Inhuman Demon Realm.”
The first collapse of that “Chair myth”
came out of the story of that Demon Realm assault.
“I met a monster that looked like a giant lion. It resembled beasts we know well, so I thought we could win easily. But...... while that lion clamped three of my men in its jaws and vanished, my blade did nothing but leave a scratch on its hide.”
“.......”
“I brought the exhausted members toward the water. I meant to rest briefly near the waterline...... and then a huge snake burst out of the water, swallowed my men in a single bite, and vanished. It was so fast that only after that huge thing disappeared did I realize an attack had happened.”
“.......”
“There was also a giant, grotesque bird that flew in the sky. Its wings were half torn, so I thought if I tore the rest with my blade, I could make it crash to the ground...... but can you believe it? Not its claws, not its teeth. Just its feathers—my armor was sliced apart like paper.”
The Chair is definitely strong.
Among humans, strong enough to be counted.
But.
“Still, I tried not to give up. Deep in the Inhuman Demon Realm, I saw a beast with black fur howl at us.”
“.......”
“And when I felt the magic power contained in it...... all I could do was run away in disgrace.”
In this world,
monsters existed in abundance that could deal with even a strong man like that lightly.
‘Even just counting the monsters our unit encountered.’
The monster our unit had to abandon its first engagement against, Maek, the one that eats steel.
The Noble of the Night, who built an army of hundreds of vampires despite being unable to move outside.
Alraune, the Queen of the Forest, who bloomed green-magic monsters herself once her power recovered.
The Pope of the Deep Ones, who drove hundreds of Awakeners into a corner underwater even after taking Minjae’s divine punishment head-on.
The Green-Maned Great Warrior, who overwhelmed our unit members even while unable to exert full power due to the aftermath of a seal.
And even Seo Hwan, the beastman who had martial arts strong enough to massacre our unit members alone if we hadn’t had Blackie and Ariella, even though he was trapped inside a Gate himself.
When I looked with the [Combat Power Gauge],
monsters whose magic power shone blue.
‘The only reason we could take them down was because, for some reason, they were weakened, or they were in a state where they couldn’t exert their full power.’
If they could exert all their power,
me, Private First Class Jeon Gwangil, Private First Class Seo Suhyeok, and even Sergeant Lee Minjae—
no matter what Awakeners I know at this point,
none of us could bring those existences down alone.
And from that standpoint,
‘Gyeonggi Province’s environment favored humans. It wasn’t even comparable to Gangwon Province.’
Because those powerful monsters
had all been driven into the Inhuman Demon Realm.
Unlike us, who had to assault them to survive no matter what,
in this Gyeonggi Province, all those out-of-spec monsters had been driven into the Inhuman Demon Realm,
and the Chair could build strength without even knowing such monsters existed.
But if you ask whether that’s purely an advantage.
It isn’t.
“When I met such an existence for the first time...... the pride I’d built up was smashed to pieces.”
The power he faced too late
would have forced him into despair.
“After that, I headed southwest. I said it was to resolve the very cause of the cold since I failed the Demon Realm assault...... but in truth, it was an excuse.”
“An excuse?”
“Truth is, I didn’t care about resolving the cause itself. What I needed was prey I could hunt to recover my shattered pride.”
A human who falls into despair.
To escape that despair, such humans sometimes do reckless things.
If he resolved the cold that covered Gyeonggi Province, he thought the failure in the Inhuman Demon Realm would be smoothed over.
But...... it was a delusion.
“But in the end, I realized it late.”
In most cases,
those humans only realize it after it’s too late.
“The premise was wrong from the start. The monsters of the Inhuman Demon Realm fled the cold and went into the Inhuman Demon Realm...... so why did I think the source of this cold would be weaker than the Inhuman Demon Realm.”
“......What?”
The despair he had fallen into.
That despair had the shape of a swamp.
“I saw inside that veil. I saw the existences lurking within.......”
The more you struggle to escape that despair,
the faster your body sinks deeper into the swamp.
Through the gap in the helmet, deep fear settled in his eyes.
Fear he hadn’t shown even when recalling the monsters of the Inhuman Demon Realm.
“.......”
I looked past the old man.
The Black Curtain he stood guarding like a gatekeeper.
‘......A fragment of a ruined world.’
The Gate.
Gangsan had seen what was inside it.
“And only then did I understand clearly.”
“What?”
“That humanity can never overcome this Doomsday...... can never defeat the monsters that have covered this world!”
At those words,
I frowned and asked.
“Those wounds on your body. Did what’s in there do that to you.”
“Hm? Ah, these wounds?”
As if he hadn’t expected me to point them out,
the old man spoke, a little surprised.
“Ah. Right. That must’ve been why you were startled too. Yeah. That makes sense.......”
“......?”
“You asked if the ones inside gave me these wounds? No. After seeing them...... I was too afraid to ever go into that veil again. These wounds are...... how should I put it.”
The old man made a bitter smile.
“Something like the result of trying to recover pride that got broken twice...... and failing at even that.”
“......?”
“I don’t want to talk about this any more. It’s shameful.”
He shook his head,
then looked at me again and said.
“You want to bring me down and go into that veil behind me.”
“......For now, yeah.”
“I have a duty to stop you, but regardless of that duty, I want to discourage you from going in there.”
“Why.”
“Because you’ll end up despairing like I did.”
The corpse-like face trapped in ice twisted strangely.
He was probably making a bitter smile.
“I thought I was strong. After that pride was broken again and again...... I ended up thinking that the strength a human builds is meaningless.”
From the Black Curtain behind him,
a tremendous cold gale surged.
“Truth is, you were the fourth.”
“The fourth?”
“The fourth to utterly smash my pride as the strongest Awakener!”
Fourth.
The Inhuman Demon Realm, and the cold—
‘If I’m the fourth, then who was the third?’
Before I could even dwell on it,
a strange phenomenon began unfolding before my eyes.
“I tried to stand that pride back up until the very end...... but after you’ve been made to look like this four times, it’s about time to give up.”
The gaps in the broken armor
were filled by pure white ice.
“I’ve decided not to cling to useless pride anymore.”
“You bastard...... don’t tell me.”
Up until just now, Gangsan,
as an Awakener,
had only used human strength.
“You’re deciding to become a monster?”
“I’m deciding to throw away useless pride.”
From his body,
a cold so severe it made your bones ache began to pour out.
