Chapter 10

. Just How Big Is It?

“Kuh… huh…”

All the strength drained out of my body, and my head was spinning, a sickly sweet taste crept up in my mouth.

“I… I won…”

No joke, I really thought I was going to die.

I’d fought lizards enough times to be somewhat used to them, but their leader, the chieftain, was different. Its tough scales couldn’t be cut even with blade strikes backed by my ‘Low-Grade Dagger Mastery,’ and its strength was so overwhelming that it took three warrior-type Awakeners, including Gwang-il, just to barely hold their own.

We were already outnumbered to begin with, and with three people stuck on the chieftain, the burden on the other Awakeners only grew heavier.

‘And even knowing the weak point, we couldn’t make use of it.’

The lizards’ weak point was their left armpit. More precisely, you had to stab upward from below there and cut the blood vessel near the heart. But that chieftain bastard was about 2.5 meters tall, and even its armpit was close to 2 meters off the ground.

Even if you somehow managed to stab it, you’d have to strike upward to sever the blood vessel, so unless you were around the same size, it wasn’t a weak point at all.

If the soldiers and marksman-type Awakeners who managed to break free from the ‘Fear’ effect hadn’t joined the fight and taken care of the other lizards, we would’ve been the ones lying around as corpses.

“Medic! Hurry!”

“Ah, no. What am I supposed to do about something like this…”

“You’re the medic! If these people die, are you going to take responsibility?!”

‘…At this rate, some of us might end up as corpses too.’

We won the battle thanks to the reinforcements from the other soldiers and marksmen, but since it wasn’t a favorable fight to begin with, there were casualties. Every single Awakener who took part in the battle was injured to some degree.

If we were lucky, most of them wouldn’t die. The problem was that some of them weren’t that lucky.

“Han-il, Daewon…”

Both of them were warrior-type Awakeners.

More precisely, they were the two who had fought the chieftain alongside Gwang-il.

‘The guys who stepped up to fight in the most dangerous spot.’

Han-il had been sent flying by the chieftain’s body slam and smashed into a wall, unconscious and bleeding from the mouth.

Daewon had his abdomen torn open by the chieftain’s sharp claws, his intestines threatening to spill out.

‘If guys like this die… no one’s going to step up next time.’

We had to save them, no matter what.

“Medic… your name was Eui-jun, right…”

“S-Sergeant Shin Young-jun? No, I’m a physical therapy major, so even if you tell me to treat this kind of thing…”

“It’s not that… ha, I’m too tired to even explain. Just follow me.”

I was so exhausted that I wanted to collapse right then and there.

Still, I forced myself to keep my wits about me and move my body. The place we headed to was where the lizards’ corpses were scattered.

“Not this one… not this either… ah, found it.”

Because of the chieftain’s Fear, long-range attacks hadn’t worked very well, but a few of the lizards had been incapacitated by the marksman Awakeners before they could close the distance. Among them were some that were no longer combat-capable but still barely alive.

What I was looking for was one of those barely-alive monsters.

“Hey, this one’s still alive… With this knife, there, you know the weak point? Stab there…”

I handed my sashimi knife to the medic and collapsed onto the ground with a thud.

I really couldn’t move anymore. The guy who took the knife hesitated for a moment, then, trembling, approached the dying monster and drove the blade into its weak point.

‘If my guess is right, this should work…’

I was a cook who had Awakened as a chef. The marksman Awakeners were, for the most part, guys who had originally been good at shooting. In other words, the jobs granted through Awakening weren’t completely random, but seemed to follow certain rules.

‘If this world really has turned into a game, then there’s no way that kind of job class wouldn’t exist.’

As if to prove my prediction right, the medic holding the knife let out a cheer.

“I-It worked! It says I’m a Novice Healer! I even have a healing skill!”

“Good, then go take care of Daewon and Han-il…”

Now I could finally rest a bit.

“Uh, but this healing skill is single-target, and the cooldown is a whole day…”

“…Didn’t we have a chaplain in our unit?”

That was how it happened, a healer and a priest…Two ‘healer-type’ Awakeners joined us.

* * *

The next day.

When I opened my eyes, I was staring at an unfamiliar ceiling.

“The barracks, huh.”

I think I passed out after collapsing among the lizard corpses, so it seemed the other soldiers had carried me here.

“Man, I slept w, guh, aaaargh.”

The moment I tried to lift my body, intense pain surged through me from head to toe.

After such a brutal fight, it felt like every muscle in my body was cramped.

“Hey, Young-jun. You okay?”

“I’m not okay…”

As I screamed in pain, Sergeant Lee Minjae came in with another soldier.

“Jungsu, this guy’s about to die. Heal him.”

“Yes, sir.”

At Minjae’s words, the soldier beside him clasped his hands as if in prayer and muttered something.

“O God…”

A white glow rose from his hands and settled over my body. And with it, the pain washed away as if it had never been there.

‘So this guy’s the chaplain.’

“Haha, ‘O God,’ huh. I’ve done this a few times already, but it still feels awkward.”

Private Shin Jungsu, the chaplain, said with an embarrassed smile.

“Really? Even as a chaplain, you’re not used to it?”

“Ah, I’m Buddhist.”

“…”

“And for the record, I’m not a Buddhist studies major or a monk. I’m just a third-generation Buddhist by family tradition, and when I said that, the admin officer assigned me as a chaplain. I was surprised myself when I Awakened as a priest even though I’m Buddhist and not a monk. Haha.”

This ‘game’ job-change system seemed pretty sloppy. But hey, it saved my life, so I guess I couldn’t complain.

“Still, doesn’t it bother you, religiously speaking?”

“If you get picky about it, I’ve already broken the no-killing precept anyway. If I think of it as playing a game, I don’t dwell on it too much. And if saving people like this counts as saving sentient beings, then maybe that’s practicing the Dharma in its own way. Hahaha.”

He was a pretty optimistic Buddhist…

“Anyway, you did great, Young-jun. We pretty much won that fight thanks to you.”

After the chaplain, no, the priest, left, Minjae hyung said that to me.

“And you saw the log too, right?”

I knew exactly which log he was talking about.

“The occupation thing?”

“Yeah. Looks like we’ve occupied this mountain range.”

“A mountain range? Our unit’s just sitting on one single peak in the range, aren’t we?”

Our unit was stationed in the middle of a rugged mountain range in Gangwon Province. Our actual base area probably didn’t even make up 1% of the entire range.

“Well, I guess the system doesn’t require you to have troops spread out across the whole range or anything.”

Minjae hyung explained it like this.

“It’s not like we’re just on some random peak. We’re on the highest peak in the range.”

“Hm.”

“If there’s any faction spread throughout the whole mountain range, it’d be those lizards. But the criteria for occupation probably aren’t that simple. Symbolic locations in the region. Who controls those probably matters too.”

Thinking about it that way, it kind of made sense.

We had defeated the lizards scattered across the mountain range. And we occupied the most symbolic location in the range. Those two things together made us the occupiers.

“That’s not the only good news.”

“Huh?”

“Even if I don’t know all the details, the enemies must’ve taken heavy losses in that battle yesterday. The fact that we, the ones holding the symbolic location, gained the occupation rights over them, who are spread across the region, means their losses were significant. And if that’s the case…”

Minjae hyung said with an excited look on his flushed face.

“We might even be able to try a counteroffensive.”

“No, that’s not happening.”

Yesterday’s battle.

Even with various circumstances involved, we’d had the terrain advantage. There’s a huge difference between defending with prepared lines and trying to break through those lines. And even in that defensive situation, we’d almost been wiped out.

“Of course, you’re not wrong. But our number of Awakeners is increasing, right? And if we factor in the buff you showed yesterday, I don’t think a counteroffensive would be impossible.”

“Ah, don’t count on that buff.”

“What?”

Sure, the reason we won last night’s fight was largely thanks to the insane buff effects from the dishes I’d made. But there was no way I could pull off that level of cooking again easily.

“The dishes I gave to the Awakeners back then. Each one took at least four hours, some up to seven hours, to make.”

“Mm.”

I threw in all the high-quality ingredients the cooks had gathered.

Individually researched each Awakener’s tastes in detail. And poured several hours of care into every single dish, that was the only reason those buffs were possible.

“I only managed it because I was preparing in advance, worried that that giant lizard might attack. If you tell me to do it again, the first problem is that I won’t even have ingredients of that quality. And if the number of Awakeners increases, it’ll be even more impossible.”

“Hm… then…”

“Normal-level buffs are doable, but even with that, if we fought a battle like yesterday again, we’d lose for sure. And that was in a defensive battle. A counteroffensive would be…”

“Impossible, huh. Can’t be helped.”

Unless we somehow secure a steady supply of high-quality ingredients.

Judging by the characteristics of the cooking skills I’d researched in various ways, buffs on that level wouldn’t be possible for quite some time.

“Then the next thing to talk about is… the top-ranked reward.”

“Oh! That. So what did we end up getting?”

『Major Region – This is the first ‘occupation’ by humans belonging to the ROK.』

『Achievement unlocked! – From here to there, it’s all my land』

『1st place reward has been granted.』

It was the same kind of achievement message we’d seen when we first formed a five-person Awakener ‘party.’

Back then, we’d placed third, but this time, we were first. And the achievement itself wasn’t something small like forming a party, it was occupying a region.

The reward had to be insane, right?

“It’s hard to explain, so it’d be better if you just see it yourself.”

“Huh? What did we get?”

At Minjae hyung’s words, I opened the log and clicked on the 1st place reward.

『You may choose one of the following rewards.』

1. Invitation of Duke Balarak

2. Mobile Fortress Vimana

3. Key of Nebuchadnezzar

4. Call of the Deep Sea

5. Path of Ascension

6. Scripture of Defying Heaven

7. Broken Straight Sword

“…What is all this?”

Invitation of Duke Balarak? Who the hell is that?

Broken Straight Sword? What am I supposed to do with that?

“That’s why we haven’t chosen yet either. They don’t even tell us what they’re for, let alone give proper explanations.”

When I looked more closely, there were description windows, but…

『Broken Straight Sword』

『It is a broken straight sword.』

『Call of the Deep Sea』

『You receive the call of the deep sea.』

They were like that, which was the problem.

“So I was thinking. I want you to pick this for us.”

“Huh?”

Minjae hyung said it with a serious expression.

“Would it really change anything if I pick it?”

“Without any information, it’s a gamble no matter what we choose. But still, I think I’d feel better if you chose it. The others won’t have any complaints either if we say you picked.”

Even if you say that, I don’t know anything either…

‘Hmm…’

“Then let’s go with that one, Mobile Fortress Vimana.”

“Reason?”

“At least you can kind of guess what it does from the name? If it’s a moving fortress, maybe something like a giant tank will come out.”

“Do we even need a tank?”

“Maybe not right now, but I feel like we’ll need it soon.”

As the one in charge of managing the unit’s food supplies, there was one thing I could be certain about.

‘Before long, the day will come when we have to abandon the unit and move.’

When that happens, that mobile-whatever might come in handy.

“If you’ve got a reason, that’s good enough. Then our reward is number 2.”

『Reward – You have selected Mobile Fortress Vimana.』

『Summoning authority for Vimana has been granted to ‘Shin Young-jun.’』

“Summoning authority, huh. Want to try using it?”

We decided to test the reward out in the open space in front of the barracks.

“Summon Vimana.”

『The space required for summoning is insufficient.』

“Huh, it says there’s not enough space.”

“The area in front of the barracks is kind of small. Let’s try the futsal field out front.”

『The space required for summoning is insufficient.』

“Here too?”

“Let’s go to the parade ground. Ours is pretty big for a unit our size.”

『The space required for summoning is insufficient.』

“…”

“…”

Just how big is this thing…?