Chapter 29

The Officers’ Quarters (1)

“I’m sorry!”

The guy shouted loudly and bowed his head. The soldiers standing behind him also lowered their heads along with him.

‘What is this, what happened?’

Did these guys mess something up behind my back?

I stared at them blankly, not understanding the situation, when the guy with his head bowed opened his mouth.

“W-when you, Sergeant Shin, were inside the trailer…”

“Yeah?”

“We… talked badly about you, Sergeant Shin.”

Ah.

So that’s what this was about.

“We knew you contributed with the combat rations, but we thought it wasn’t right for you to stay out of the fight.”

“Even though, thinking about the performance of the combat rations, you were actually making the biggest contribution even at that time.”

“We only found out later. That you were inside the trailer in preparation for when the monsters would swarm in.”

Among them, one soldier who looked like a mage continued, there was a hint of admiration in his eyes.

“We heard that when you collapsed, Sergeant Shin, it was due to mana depletion.”

“Yeah… That seems about right.”

“Mana depletion itself is something mages experience sometimes, but… most people can’t use skills anymore once the headache hits. I’ve never seen someone keep using skills until they passed out.”

“We basically survived thanks to you. And yet we were badmouthing you behind your back…”

“It just didn’t feel right, so we came to apologize.”

So that’s why they came in a whole group.

These must’ve been the soldiers Minjae hyung mentioned back in the trailer, the ones who were dissatisfied.

I snorted.

“Yeah, I get it.”

Honestly, I probably would’ve thought the same. No matter how big someone’s actual contribution is, if you don’t see them in action, it doesn’t really hit home.

If you’re struggling and fighting next to your comrades, and someone is pulling back on their own, it’s only natural to feel bad about it.

“…No, even so. You little brats talking behind a senior’s back!?”

“Eek!”

I playfully put the soldier at the front in a headlock.

If you’re going to badmouth someone, you should at least take this much.

“I’m kidding. You did well, idiot.”

“Yes?”

I released the headlock and spoke.

“Honestly, I ended up becoming the guild master somehow, but I’m not even sure I’m the right person for it.”

“Ah…”

“If you guys had just blindly praised me, I probably wouldn’t have been able to do this.”

That was the truth.

As far as I was concerned, I wasn’t some amazing guy.

‘Until recently, I was just an ordinary soldier counting down the days to discharge. How amazing could I possibly be?’

This time, yeah, I really was trying to find a way to be useful in battle.

You could say I was unfairly misunderstood. But if there were no wary looks from others, maybe one day I really would’ve messed up.

I might’ve gotten drunk on the position of guild master and tried to take all the benefits for myself.

I can’t confidently say that, if that temptation came, I’d be able to reject it without hesitation.

“So. Keep doubting me.”

“…!”

“Whether that guy is really doing well. Whether he’s about to make a wrong decision. I want you to keep checking.”

That way, the guild can be led better and that way, my chances of surviving go up too.

“Still. We’re really sorry.”

“Hey, I already said I forgive you, okay? You keep apologizing and now I’m the one feeling bad.”

I joked about badmouthing and all that, but…Well, badmouthing your seniors happens.

When I was the youngest, I talked trash about my seniors all the time too. Honestly, I probably got badmouthed by my juniors back when I was a cook as well.

‘Ah. Come to think of it…There was one thing that had been bothering me. Since the soldiers were all gathered anyway.’

“If you’re really sorry. Do me a favor.”

“A favor? We’ll do anything you ask!”

Seems like they really meant it.

Luckily, they answered with a lot of enthusiasm.

“I know you’re all exhausted, so sorry about this. But can you gather up the monster corpses hunted nearby?”

This was what had been bothering me, monster corpses are resources.

The meat becomes food, and the hides become materials for equipment.

‘Honestly, even the meat we threw at the monsters earlier feels like such a waste. If we don’t collect the other monsters too, I’ll die of frustration.’

We needed to secure as much fresh food as possible before the corpses started rotting.

I felt bad giving this order when everyone was exhausted, but.

“Ah. That’s what you meant. Understood!”

“Actually, Corporal Jeon already took a few soldiers and started working on it. We’ll join them.”

‘What?’

“Gwang-il?”

Before I even gave the order, they had already started working.

I leaned my head out the old farmhouse window and glanced outside.

—Sergeant Jeon, even so, you don’t have to carry three at a time by yourself…

—You’ll collapse at this rate.

—I’m doing it because I can, so don’t worry about it. More importantly, that trailer over there is already full. Can you call over an ice mage?

—..Yes, sir!

Outside the window, Corporal Jeon was hauling monster corpses into the trailer.

A few soldiers were following him.

The battle had just ended. Everyone should’ve been completely drained.

“So how long has that guy been doing that?”

“Corporal Jeon started working as soon as the fighting was wrapped up. He said that in this battle, he didn’t manage to do anything and only caused you trouble, Sergeant Shin… The other warrior squad soldiers couldn’t just watch their leader working alone, so they rested just a little and then joined him.”

Securing monster corpses was definitely necessary, but stepping up like that when you’re exhausted is never easy.

‘Yeah, that guy’s always been like that.’

No wonder he used to be the ace of the facilities unit. Even back when we were in the unit, he was the kind of guy who stepped up for the hard work.

“Then we’ll go join them too.”

“Yeah. Thanks for the hard work.”

“Yes, sir. Rest well, sir! Loyalty!”

The soldiers I asked for help soon went outside to help Gwang-il.

‘I should make sure to give those guys something extra later.’

I want to help right now too, but honestly, even staying awake is tough.

I’ll take another nap and think about it later.

* * *

Sergeant Park Taejun, who awakened as a 『Celestial Observer』, recommended that we head west.

For the record, he said he didn’t even know why himself. According to his fortune reading, there was more luck gathered that way?

I don’t really know much about luck and all that, but there was a clear advantage to choosing the west.

‘It’s wider. And more familiar to us.’

After dragging myself through another nap due to mana depletion, I came out of the farmhouse once I had recovered somewhat.

“By the way. What happened to the old couple who owned this place?”

“Not sure. When we arrived, there was no one here. They probably evacuated somewhere when everything went down.”

“Hm.”

The farmhouse we sometimes came down to for civil support. It felt a little unsettling that the couple who owned it were nowhere to be seen.

Still, it gave us a place to rest for the night, so maybe it was something to be grateful for.

After finishing that thought, I scanned the surrounding scenery. Since it was a farmhouse we’d pass by right after coming down from the base, and we’d come here for civil support as well, the area itself was fairly familiar to me.

“If we go that way, it leads toward the downtown area. And when we went to the firing range, it was that way, right?”

“That’s right.”

I couldn’t say I knew the place like the back of my hand, but it was familiar enough.

That would be the advantage of heading west.

I left the unit behind for a moment and walked toward the nearby fields.

Pretty wide farmland…If it was this big, then maybe.

『There is insufficient space required for summoning.』

“Tsk.”

The result was absurd to me.

‘What kind of nonsense is it that I can’t use an item I finally obtained because it’s too big?’

『Mobile Fortress Vimana』

At first, I thought it’d be about the size of a giant tank. When I couldn’t summon it even in our unit’s parade ground, I figured it might really be fortress-sized, just like the name implied. But…

‘It’s even bigger than that.’

It was a bit absurd, but at the same time, it was exciting.

There’s a basic principle in games. The harder something is to use, the more powerful its performance tends to be.

If this thing is this hard to use, just how strong would it be once I can actually use it?

‘Well. At the rate things are going, that’ll be a long way off.’

A little while later.

“Be careful not to drop it.”

“The power’s out, so it should be fine, but still, just in case…”

“Leave it to me! I told you, didn’t I? My specialty is climbing trees, sir.”

A group of soldiers, myself included, had gathered near a utility pole by the farmhouse.

“Up we go.”

One of the soldiers clung to the utility pole with binoculars in one hand.

That guy…I heard his awakened class was a thief or something. He’d always been pretty nimble, from what I remembered. He said tree-climbing was his specialty, and sure enough, he scrambled up the utility pole and perched himself at the top.

“Let’s see.”

Perched on top of the pole, he brought the binoculars up to his eyes.

“How is it!”

“Do you see anything!”

We shouted from below, but he trailed off without answering.

A moment later.

He looked down and shouted.

“Sergeant Shin!”

“What?!”

“Are we going in there!?”

“Nothing’s decided yet! Why?!”

“If we are! I want to oppose it!”

“What?”

Sliding down.

The soldier slid down the pole and came back down to the ground.

His face looked a little pale.

“Oppose it? What do you mean?”

“I mean exactly what I said, sir.”

He spoke as if he were shuddering.

“Going in there would be suicide.”

He began describing what he had seen. Since we couldn’t see it ourselves and were only hearing it secondhand, it was hard to imagine clearly, but there was one thing that was certain.

“This is serious.”

“Inje County, where we used to go out on leave. Looks like it’s turned into a complete inhuman hellscape.”

If you follow the mountain range down west, you arrive in Inje County. Most of the survivors who joined our unit, including Squad Leader Lee Sang-ah, were from Inje County.

It was also part of our unit’s leave area. That place had now turned into something close to hell.

“Hm. I did hear it was like that when we talked to the survivors.”

“I had my own expectations before looking, but it was worse than I imagined.”

Basically, monsters see humans as prey. And the place where the most prey gathers is the city.

To monsters, it probably looks like an all-you-can-eat buffet. So countless monsters gather to hunt the humans packed together there, and the chaos caused by those monsters draws in even more monsters.

The humans killed by monsters rise again as zombies. That’s how a perfectly normal city turns into hell.

“What are you planning to do? Going in there is a bit…”

“That’s impossible.”

Nearly a hundred awakened fighters.

I do think we’re a pretty strong force. But…

‘Urban warfare has too many variables.’

Some people compare it to modern siege warfare.

The side that goes in is overwhelmingly disadvantaged. The city buildings restrict our vision and firepower. On top of that, the entire city is overflowing with monsters and zombies.

Every single building becomes something we have to be wary of, not knowing what might jump out from inside.

“Maybe if we’d built up more strength, but right now, the wounded aren’t even fully treated. The two healers are already at their limit just covering what they can. If more people get injured, we’ll inevitably start seeing deaths.”

“Then what will you do?”

At the soldier’s question, I fell into brief thought.

‘We can’t just stay here forever anyway. If we’re going to move…’

There was one place that stood out in my mind.

“Let’s go to the officers’ quarters.”

“The officers’ quarters, sir.”

On the outskirts of Inje County, in the most remote area. Not far from here, there’s our unit’s officers’ quarters.

Our unit is a first-grade remote unit, one that takes hours to reach even by car. For the soldiers living on base, that’s one thing, but for officers who commute, it’s far too isolated from society. That’s why the officers’ quarters were built.

It’s also called BOQ…It’s not only for officers, either. Our unit members also stay one night in the soldiers’ lounge at the quarters before and after leave. That’s the standard routine before heading out on leave or returning. Every time, the soldiers complained about how far it was from any lively area.

— “How is there not even a single convenience store near the officers’ quarters?”

— “Why is there just one building plopped down in the middle of nowhere?”

Those kinds of complaints. But…

“Right now, that’s actually perfect.”

“I see. That’s the reason.”

“Being far from dangerous downtown areas is good. And having just one building in the middle of nowhere is terrain that works in our favor.”

Now that we’re down on the ground, the most important thing is securing a base of operations.

The officers’ quarters should serve as a decent base.

“Then I’ll look into the route to the officers’ quarters.”

“Drivers often live in the officers’ quarters too. Tell everyone who knows the way to speak up.”

And so, our unit’s next destination was set as the officers’ quarters.

As the soldiers discussed the routes to the quarters,

I was thinking something else to myself.

‘The officers’ quarters are a good base, that’s true.’

But actually, that wasn’t the only reason I chose them as our destination.

I didn’t bother telling the soldiers, but some of them were probably thinking the same thing as me.

As I said before, the officers’ quarters were where unit members and officers stayed before and after leave.

‘On the day the world ended, those people would’ve been at the officers’ quarters.’

Even if they didn’t fight monsters alongside us, they were still members of the same unit.

What happened to them…We needed to find out.