Chapter 3

『Lowest-Grade Cooking Secret – ‘Insight into Primate Butchering’』

They said “Chef’s Eye” only triggers on ingredients. So the fact it triggered on those guys means…

“…”

While I was staring at the message in disbelief, I could feel eyes on me from around.

When I looked over, a few soldiers were giving me a wary look.

‘What the hell.’

Is it because everyone else is standing guard with rifles and I’m bare-handed? Or can they see that “primate butchery” message too?

Thankfully, if you can call it that, but it was neither.

“Sergeant Shin?”

“Uh, yeah, what?”

“Your appearance is, uh…”

What’s wrong with me? I looked down at myself.

I was a complete mess.

My face was disgustingly slick with the oil splashed around in the cafeteria and the monster’s blood, and my navy cook’s uniform had been soaked through and turned a dark red because of that thing’s blood. The sashimi knife in one hand had chunks of the monster’s flesh stuck all over it.

‘This isn’t a horror movie.’

Of course they’d look at me like that if I’m walking around like this.

‘Can’t do it right now, but I should wash up when I get the chance.’

More than that, what really bothered me was…

“What happened to you guys?”

I looked like hell too, but the guys gathered here didn’t look normal either. Pale, bloodless faces everywhere, and in the corner I could even see soldiers trembling like crazy.

The guy who spoke to me looked relatively okay, maybe he had a strong mentality. But if you looked closely, he was shaking a little all over.

“We…”

From his rough explanation, it wasn’t much different from what I expected. Since it was the weekend, they were killing time with small talk while watching TV, but then the TV suddenly died, so they were smacking it around to see what was wrong.

Right then, monsters smashed through the windows and stormed in.

A lot of people died. The survivors somehow grabbed guns from the weapons locker and ran to the ammo depot.

They restocked and fought.

“Normally the key to the weapon storage has to be kept at HQ, but our unit didn’t care about stuff like that.”

“A half-ass unit being lucky for once, huh.”

The weapons-locker key that was supposed to be kept at HQ was in the barracks, and the ammo-depot key was in the ammo clerk’s uniform pocket, apparently.

Usually we’d curse like, ‘Is this even the army?’

But if the keys had been far away, even more people would’ve died.

‘Should I call that lucky…?’

“Th-then, Sergeant Shin, how was it on your side? Where are the rest of the cooks…?”

After finishing his story, he opened his mouth cautiously.

“Everyone’s dead except me.”

“I-I’m sorry.”

“Hey, it’s not like you need to apologize.”

‘My junior, Junhyuk…And the youngest, Yunshu.’

‘They were good kids.’

Junhyuk was an ace, came from a cooking background, worked the mess hall well, and had a friendly personality. And Yongjun, even if he was a bit slow and not great at the job, he was genuinely kind.

When we were working the mess hall, sure, as a senior I’d scold them and bark at them sometimes. But they weren’t kids who deserved to die like this.

‘…So it really is just me left.’

Maybe because I’d relaxed once I thought, for now, I survived, only now did it really hit me.

I got gloomy for no reason and stared blankly up at the sky, when a soldier from deeper inside the ammo depot walked over toward me.

“Sergeant Shin. Lieutenant Kim says to come over for a moment.”

“Me? Why me?”

“He didn’t only call you, he said to count heads by section, and have all the most senior guys from each section come.”

“Ah, right. It’s the weekend, so there aren’t many officers on base. He’ll want to hear the soldiers’ opinions too.”

Normally, in an emergency like this, the officers would exchange opinions first and then pass it down to the soldiers. But today, when everything happened, it was the weekend. There aren’t many officers left on base, so he’s probably trying to take soldiers’ input too.

“…It’s not just ‘not many,’ sir.”

“Huh?”

“There were five officers on base today. Except for Lieutenant Kim, they all died.”

The more he spoke, the darker the soldier’s complexion became.

‘Even the officers.’

I don’t know what the hell is happening, but one thing’s clear: the situation is bad. Some soldiers were slumped in the corner, hugging their knees and sobbing, and a few had completely lost it, mouths hanging open as they stared at empty air.

‘Damn it…’

When I headed to where Lieutenant Kim had called us, I saw that a few unit members had already arrived before me. And sitting among them was a man.

“Young-jun, you’re here? Sit there.”

Lieutenant Kim Hyeon-seok.

He spoke with a face so pale it looked like all the blood had drained out.

“L-let’s sit down and talk first.”

He was forcing himself to look calm.

* * *

Lieutenant Kim.

His first impression isn’t that bad. No, if anything, you could say he gives a favorable impression.

He’s young, fairly tall, and his face is sturdy enough to look trustworthy. A lot of people get fooled by that look and try to get close to him at first.

‘But once you get to know him, he’s unbelievably bad at his job and only greedy…’

A trash officer.

At first I even cooked for him, trying to get on his good side.

Then later, every time a bad menu came out, he’d go, ‘Young-jun, make me something else later,’ and started placing orders, made my jaw drop.

And…

‘This guy is the highest-ranking person in our unit right now.’

I could feel a headache coming on, but I sat down without showing it.

Soon, the senior soldiers from other sections started filing in one by one.

“Transport section, Seongho’s here? Wasn’t the most senior guy Jun-gyo?”

“Ah, well. Sergeant Kim Jun-gyo died… I mean, passed away.”

“Uh, uh? Yeah. Right.”

Lieutenant Kim swallowed his words awkwardly.

‘Why would you ask that right now… what are you going to do about the mood.’

Among the most senior soldiers from each section gathered here, about half weren’t originally the most senior.

The original most senior guys were dead, or so shocked by the sudden incident that they weren’t in their right minds. Only the soldiers who were still holding it together enough to function had gathered here. But…

“Uuurgh…”

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck…”

One guy throwing up, probably remembering someone dying. Another clutching his head, repeating curses in a small voice. Most of the guys sitting here were only barely clinging to sanity. They looked like they were a step away from going crazy. Even me, thinking all this, couldn’t get the image of my juniors being torn apart out of my head.

“Ahem. Then let’s start with a headcount. Tell me what you found when you checked your section.”

Even so…To survive, we need to understand the situation and align everyone’s opinions.

After the senior soldiers mostly gathered, the meeting began.

“Transport section has ten.”

“Radar section has seven…”

“Cook section has one left.”

As I answered too, I listened closely to the numbers the other soldiers reported.

What I learned from the results was pretty shocking.

‘About a hundred survivors.’

As a cook, I know exactly how many people eat in our unit.

The number of people eating is the number of people on base, and as far as I remember, on a weekend, the number of people staying on base should be a bit over 200.

‘Almost half are dead.’

I expected a lot of casualties. But not this much…

“May I make a report as well?”

The one raising his hand was Sergeant Lee Minjae from comms. He’s only one class above me, so we call each other brother these days.

While most soldiers were panicking, Minjae hyung looked relatively composed. Come to think of it, he was the last one to arrive at this meeting too.

“Before coming here, I checked with my juniors, and it looks like we’ve lost contact with the outside.”

“What?”

“Regular calls all show no service, and the emergency contact network is completely dead too. TV, radio, everything. Intranet and military frequencies… we tried every communication method we could, but it seems like everything’s been cut.”

‘What?’

‘What the…’

‘Is this bullshit?’

I wasn’t the only one thrown off by the sudden news. I could feel the other soldiers around me start murmuring too.

“A-are you saying we can’t contact the outside at all?”

“What is that, did the North set off an EMP or something?”

“No. Even if an EMP goes off, the military’s supposed to have shielding and stuff! Why the hell…!?”

The confusion that had already been faintly spreading among the gathered soldiers, they still had a tiny bit of reason left that was holding it back, but the news that contact was cut became the spark, and chaos began to spread rapidly.

“Damn it, are we all going to die here!?”

“If we can’t contact outside, then my family…”

As the soldiers fell into panic and shouted, they soon turned their eyes to Lieutenant Kim.

“Lieutenant Kim… What do we do now?”

When people get anxious, they look for something to lean on.

The only officer left on base. In other words, our unit’s commander at this moment: Lieutenant Kim.

Deep down, I also wanted him, the only officer left, to calm the chaos and give clear, cold instructions.

If there was at least a clear objective for what we needed to do, maybe the soldiers’ anxiety would ease a little. but…

“W-well. I don’t really…”

Clear instructions, my ass. Expecting that from Lieutenant Kim was asking too much.

“…If you don’t know, then what the hell are we supposed to do!”

“Hiiik!”

“H-hey! Calm down!”

They barely held back one enraged soldier who tried to lunge at Lieutenant Kim, and the chaos only grew worse.

Then, Lieutenant Kim, who’d been holding his head, suddenly opened his mouth like he’d remembered something.

“R-right. You said contact’s cut, yeah? Then shouldn’t we send a few soldiers to the higher unit and try to make contact? We need orders from above to do anything, don’t we?”

“…Wouldn’t that be dangerous?”

Sorry, but the one who threw cold water on that idea was me. Our unit is a radar base in a high-altitude area at 1,400 meters above sea level. It’s a Grade-1 remote posting, takes an hour just to reach the base from the mountain entrance.

“Even if we take a car, it’s an hour just to get down the mountain, and it’d take two hours to reach the higher unit. If monsters attack during that time—”

There’s no way comms are down for no reason.

If we send people out just to contact the higher unit, they might never come back. It might be safer to stay grouped with unit members who have guns.

That was my view.

“It’ll be dangerous… b-but it’s necessary! We’ll only take volunteers, let’s do it that way.”

Lieutenant Kim didn’t look like he had any intention of giving up on contacting the higher unit.

‘…He just doesn’t want to be the one holding the reins.’

In a normal situation, maybe. But this is a situation where monsters are attacking humans.

If he takes control of the decision-making and makes a wrong call, the backlash will be enormous.

I can understand not wanting that responsibility, sure…

‘But that’s not how a commander should act.’

Me and a few others who still had some judgment left were wearing uneasy expressions. But if the officer says so, we can’t exactly refuse.

In the end, it was decided: gather volunteers and send them to the higher unit.

“Good, good… Then until we can contact the higher unit, the principle is we stay on base… Young-jun, how much food do we have left?”

At the question pointed at me, I hurriedly worked my brain and answered.

“Uh, since supplies came in on Friday, we’ve got about five days’ worth on the standard meal plan, and we also have about six weeks’ worth of emergency rations. Considering the reduced headcount, we’ve probably got about two months’ worth.”

“Really? Okay, then food’s fine. How about ammo?”

Another soldier answered that.

“At last week’s live-fire training we used all the blank rounds, so all we have left is the combat ammo we keep stocked. It’s not a tiny amount, but if there’s no resupply…”

“So it’s not much. Still, if no more monsters show up, won’t it be fine?”

“Sure, but if they start showing up again, doesn’t that become a huge problem?”

After that, more and more talk went back and forth. How to deal with any remaining monsters inside the base right now. What to do about electricity and water. How to defend the base until the higher unit contacts us.

‘Maybe because we have a goal now, wait for the higher unit’s contact.’

Once an immediate objective appeared, the soldiers who’d been panicking could hold themselves together enough for the meeting to continue.

“Then we’ll do that, and everything else… well, we’ll handle it as it comes!”

…Not exactly inspiring.

“Alright, then. Dismissed.”

When it seemed like the talk was mostly done, Lieutenant Kim stood up. Other soldiers nodded and started pushing their chairs back, except me.

‘Huh?’

The meeting ends like this? Didn’t we skip the most important topic?

“Sir, aren’t you going to talk about awakening?”

“?”

I raised my hand and spoke, and everyone looked at me like I was talking nonsense.

‘What, am I the weird one?’

I killed a monster and got some weird power.

I naturally assumed we’d talk about it, so I waited, but not only did it never come up, they didn’t even look like they knew what awakening was.

“You all said you hunted monsters, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. We managed to arm ourselves with guns and hunted them. So what?”

What is this? Am I the only awakened one here?

I definitely awakened the moment I hunted a monster.

‘…Either awakening happens randomly, or the problem is that they hunted with guns.’

What matters is that they don’t know about awakening.

If that’s the case…

“Alright. I have something to show you.”

I stood up, pulled out the knife still stained with blood.

I could feel eyes on the knife, but I ignored it.

Then I looked at the table in front of me. A plain wooden table with nothing special about it.

‘This will work.’

Ever since I sat down here, I’d had a strange intuition that it would.

‘Like the feel of slicing vegetables.’

I put the kitchen knife against the table and pushed it forward—Sshk!

Slice!

A sashimi knife with no special features, except for the blood. That sashimi knife cut through the solid wooden table like it was radish.

“Are you insane…?”

“W-what is that…”

Everyone around stared at me in shock.

It’s not a chainsaw…Of course they’d be shocked if a normal kitchen knife just split a wooden table.

There’s only one reason something like this is possible.

『Trait : Lowest-Grade Dagger Mastery』

‘This is lowest-grade?’

That sensation from earlier, when I lightly pierced through the monster’s flesh and now, cutting wood as easily as slicing radish.

‘Even lifelong sword masters might never manage this.’

If this is lowest-grade, then how strong are mid-grade and high-grade?

Looking at the unit members staring at me in disbelief, I continued.

“After killing the monster that came into the cafeteria, I went through something called awakening, and now I can do this.”

Then I pointed at Lieutenant Kim with the hand holding the sashimi knife.

“You said earlier, if more monsters show up, we’ll run out of ammo, right?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Then the top priority of what we need to do is this.”

Like how if you don’t have bread you eat cake instead.

No ammo?

Then make an army that can fight without ammo.

I recalled the message that had appeared before my eyes right after awakening.

『World Event – Faction War is in progress.』

We survive by sticking together!

Try forming a faction, or joining one. Those who build up a faction the fastest might receive a special perk!

‘That’s right.’

‘I’m going to survive. I’m going to finish my service safely and open my restaurant.’

‘To survive, I need to band together.’

‘You guys, I’ll feed you.’

‘I have to feed this group.’

“We’re going to turn the entire unit into awakened ones.”