The Military Chef of a Ruined World

“......Then make it work.”

A voice echoed out from within the dust cloud.

The moment they heard it, the same thought flashed through everyone’s minds.

'That wasn’t the woman’s voice just now!'

And if that was the case—

There was no need to think any further.

BANG!

“Enemy!”

Several believers lunged forward.

Brave men and women charging straight into the dust to eliminate the intruders hidden inside.

However—

A moment later—

CRRRRUNCH.......

As the dust slowly cleared—

What appeared within it was—

“Ghk.......”

“L-let...... go.......”

An enormous giant.

And in each of its hands—

A believer dangled by the throat.

Men who had once served as the Cardinal’s direct forces, and now belonged to the Pope’s personal guard.

Even among awakened individuals, they had been considered elites.

Yet that giant held the two believers by the neck like nothing more than toys.

“......Cardinal.”

“Yes, Your Holiness.”

Watching the sight before him—

The Pope spoke to the old man beside him.

“While I withdrew from the front lines, was the surface defensive line breached?”

“That is impossible. Your Holiness’s blessings have already been distributed sufficiently among our forces. No matter how powerful the Legion’s army may be, there is no chance our sacred army could have been defeated in such a short span of time.”

“Then.”

The Pope frowned slightly.

And looked toward the figures still hidden in the dust.

“How are they here?”

Standing there—

Were soldiers wearing ash-gray uniforms.

A rough-looking man crackling with lightning.

A cold-faced soldier scanning the surroundings with a firearm in hand.

A woman whose eyes shimmered with watery blue light.

And behind them—

A warrior so massive he overshadowed everyone else present.

“Everyone......!”

“Sorry we’re late.”

From behind them—

Lee Sanga hurried over after helping the subdued beastkin regroup.

The Legion’s five officers had gathered together.

“Huu...... all personnel, prepare for operation.”

Then—

The man wrapped in flickering lightning, Sergeant Lee Minjae, inhaled deeply and spoke.

“Target confirmed. One enemy ahead.”

At those words—

The five soldiers slowly began advancing.

“Mission objective. Complete suppression and incapacitation of the target.”

And then—

CRRRRZZZZT.......

A massive surge of blue lightning erupted from his body.

“Operation name...... Mutiny!”

BOOOOOOM!!!

“Commence operation.”

Together with a deafening thunderclap—

The battle began.

***

A gigantic bolt of blue lightning shot toward the Pope.

However—

“......How dare you!”

There were those who stepped forward to intercept it.

The old man gripping the sword at his waist launched himself forward with a furious roar.

BOOOOM!!!

The Cardinal—

Along with the Pope’s guards following behind him—

Unleashed torrents of magic and slashes simultaneously.

As the power of countless awakened converged together—

Even that massive lightning strike was neutralized.

“Subdue those who seek to harm His Holiness!”

As the soldiers moved—

The Cardinal and the believers moved as well.

Their objective was the Pope.

The man who had already performed countless miracles despite having completed his coronation only recently.

There was no way they could allow someone like that to be taken from them.

CLAAANG!

Then at that moment—

Several figures stepped directly into their path.

“......Sorry, but.”

The believers frowned as they looked at them.

“We’d appreciate it if you didn’t ignore us.”

“......!”

The beastkin.

They had already been subdued by the Pope and the believers.

“You bastards.......”

The Cardinal glared at them through gritted teeth.

Though they had escaped during the chaos—

Their injuries were still severe.

“If you had quietly stayed down, we would have allowed you to die peacefully and without pain.”

The believers had already consumed foods specifically designed to counter the beastkin.

Their condition.

Their compatibility advantages.

Everything favored the believers.

'Originally, we intended to leave once the mission was complete.......'

But now—

Their thoughts had changed slightly.

There were two reasons for that.

The first—

Their gazes shifted toward the corridor where the fierce battle had taken place.

The corpses of beasts lay there rotting.

Among all the beings they had encountered after falling into this world—

Those creatures had felt the closest to their own kind.

And those same creatures had given their lives to stand beside these humans.

The ones here had created such creatures.

Made them suffer.

Even if these believers were not directly responsible—

That did not erase the anger inside them.

And the second reason—

—Then what about them? Can you promise they’ll be treated properly too?

At first, they had believed this was merely a conflict between human factions.

Something they had no reason to interfere with.

Once their debt had been repaid, they had intended to quietly return to being uninvolved observers and spend the remainder of their lives in peace.

—I don’t want to lie to the Legion soldiers.

But separately from that—

'How irritating.'

No matter which side survived here—

The beastkin knew the ending would ultimately be meaningless.

Just like it had been for them.

Eventually, they too would fail to withstand the approaching destruction and perish.

That was why they had tried to cut themselves off from all worldly affairs.

'Even so.'

At the very least—

They wanted the side that survived until the very brink of that inevitable destruction—

To be the side they liked even a little more.

SHFFFT.......

The five beastkin shifted positions and took their places.

The formation that had endured even against countless abnormal eaters.

“Khk......!”

“Your Holiness! Please hold on a little longer!”

The Cardinal and the believers—

Found themselves halted by the beastkin formation.

And during that brief opening—

CRRRRK.......

“Hup.......”

The soldier who had toyed with two believers as though they were dolls—

Began radiating black-red energy across his massive frame.

BOOOOM!!!

Corporal Jeon Gwangil’s fist exploded forward wrapped in crimson-black aura.

A razor-sharp strike refined through the power of [Martial Arts].

And—

As the Pope evaded the blow, he thought to himself—

'This one too.......'

His gaze shifted toward the soldiers behind him.

'......They’re covered in injuries.'

The soldiers who had suddenly emerged from the dust.

Every one of them was covered in countless small wounds.

Even the combat uniforms made by Lee Sanga had been torn apart in multiple places.

Only after seeing that—

Did he finally realize how they had managed to reach this place.

There had been no brilliant strategy.

No clever trick.

'They forced their way through the Church’s defensive line with raw power.'

The believers’ defensive lines had undoubtedly remained intact.

However—

Wars in this era differed from wars of the past.

This was no longer an age where trained humans fought using standardized weapons.

This was an era where individual humans could grow endlessly stronger.

A battlefield dominated by monstrous outliers who could not even be compared to ordinary people.

Against such overwhelmingly powerful individuals—

Defensive lines created by normal soldiers lost much of their meaning.

After all, one could simply endure the enemy attacks and break straight through.

......Of course.

That was far from easy.

'......One wrong move and they could have died.'

There was a reason the Legion had advanced together as an army first.

No matter how powerful someone was, once dropped into the center of enemy territory, attacks would come from all directions.

No matter how powerful someone was, once dropped into the center of enemy territory, attacks would come from all directions.

Unless someone possessed enough transcendent power to erase armies instantly—

A forced breakthrough like this inevitably required tremendous risk.

'And yet they still chose such a dangerous method.'

The Pope’s expression darkened slightly.

They seemed to have succeeded through sheer force—

But if anything had gone wrong......

SPOT!

SPOT!

However—

While his attention lingered on the soldiers’ injuries—

“......Huh?”

A faint heat suddenly brushed against his cheek.

The Pope blankly raised a hand toward his face.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking about.”

As he slowly pulled his hand away—

Something sticky clung to his fingers.

“But if you let your guard down, things can get dangerous.”

“......!”

Hot blood.

Hot blood—

Was running down from his cheek.

***

The wound had already healed.

But the crimson liquid clearly proved the injury had existed.

The moment he saw the blood, the Pope could not hide his shock.

It was true his attention had been distracted by the soldiers’ injuries.

But even so—

That meant Corporal Jeon Gwangil’s fist had grazed his face.

'How?'

The Pope immediately discarded his thoughts and moved.

Calling it a graze sounded mild—

But the attack had brushed across his face.

If it had been even slightly faster......

It might have landed directly.

It was not that he had underestimated Corporal Jeon Gwangil’s strength.

Simply—

The current Pope had consumed four different cooking effects centered around [Berserk], even at the cost of permanent bodily damage.

And despite being in such a state—

An attack had still reached him.

'There’s something here!'

This was not normal.

'Something I don’t know about!'

BANG!

The Pope immediately stepped backward.

His combat style always began with understanding the enemy.

He had assumed these were soldiers he already knew and believed he could suppress them quickly using the information already available to him.

But now that assumption had been shattered—

Identifying the discrepancy became the highest priority.

However—

The instant he retreated—

CRRRRZZZZT!!!

Blue lightning exploded across the surroundings.

“Hup......!”

Behind Corporal Jeon Gwangil—

Lightning surged from Sergeant Lee Minjae’s body.

[Supreme Lightning]

And in his hand—

Was a gigantic spear of lightning.

The very spear that some battlefields had begun calling divine punishment—

RUMBLE!

Shot forward together with Sergeant Lee Minjae’s throw.

And surged ahead at literal lightning speed.

'I can’t dodge it.'

In that split second—

The Pope instinctively realized that while airborne from evading the previous attack, he would not be able to avoid the lightning spear.

......If he could not avoid it—

[Assistant Chef].

There was only one option.

FWAAAAASH!

Daggers burst from within his robes.

Beautifully decorated blades—

Yet each one perfectly copied the wielder’s stats.

In the past, they had only copied raw stats without any skills, making them relatively unimpressive weapons.

But the daggers emerging from the Pope’s robes now were different.

CRRRRZZZZT......!

The blades tore through the air itself as they shot forward at terrifying speed.

Several of them collided directly with the incoming lightning.

The lightning was undeniably fast and powerful—

But ultimately, it still traveled in a straight line.

Its trajectory was too simple.

CRRRRZZZZT!!!

The instant the blades touched the lightning—

The massive electrical current gathered into the floating metal daggers acting as conductors.

And once the current no longer had a path through the air—

The straight lightning bolt split apart into countless branches.

BOOOOOM!!!

The intense plasma created by the scattered lightning flooded the surroundings.

The Pope narrowed his eyes against the overwhelming brightness.

'Even without support from Bimana...... how did he cast magic on this scale in such a short amount of time?'

Had it struck directly, even he would have struggled to remain unharmed.

It had not even been a minute since the first lightning strike had been neutralized by the guards.

The first attack could at least be explained as preparation made while advancing here.

But casting another spell of this magnitude so quickly—

Was difficult to comprehend.

CRACKLE.......

Some of the scattered plasma lightning struck his body—

But that level of damage was still tolerable.

The Pope immediately tried to move again.

However—

JZZZT.......

A sudden numbness spread through his body.

A chilling sensation crawled across his entire frame.

As though parts of his nervous system had been severed.

Then—

“I’m not an idiot either.”

The man who had launched the lightning—

Sergeant Lee Minjae—

Began speaking toward him.

“Youngjun, I never thought a lightning spear at that level would actually take you down.”

The Pope tried moving his fingers—

But his body no longer responded properly, feeling foreign and unnatural.

“Still...... not every spell has to be used for destruction.”

He attempted to steady himself—

But his legs staggered.

Even trying to maintain his balance became difficult as his numbed body refused to obey him.

“The human body moves through tiny electrical signals. Minuscule neural impulses transmitted through the nervous system.”

“.......”

“And the amount of electricity involved is surprisingly small. Which also means...... it only takes a tiny amount of electricity to interfere with those signals.”

Only then did the Pope realize it.

The man speaking to him—

Sergeant Lee Minjae—

No......

“Put simply.”

Was—

“I added a little ‘noise’...... to your body’s signals.”

[Wizard of Electromagnetic Waves].