Chapter 738: Supply Contract Established

The human brain follows the instincts of a living being.

Engraved there must have been the instinct to prioritize one’s own survival.

An insect follows the instincts carved into it by its creators.

Engraved there must have been the process of destroying every other life.

Even so.

That guy.

'Made the decision first.'

A path where its own death was practically certain.

A path that went against the will of its creators...... it had chosen that path on its own.

'The system only responded after that guy made its decision.'

Pfft.

Inside, a hollow laugh burst out of me.

“A cowardly little nobody?”

“......?”

That guy’s evaluation of itself.

When I heard it, I really had no choice but to burst out laughing.

'There’s only so much bullshit I can listen to.'

That thing was just a lunatic.

A lunatic who made a judgment no normal mind could possibly make.

And.

'The kind I like.'

That kind of lunatic.

Slide.

“About what you said earlier.”

I pushed the dagger I had been drawing back into its sheath.

Then, releasing my grip from the handle, I said,

“You said there were other conditions the living would probably like, right?”

At those words of mine.

The guy widened its eyes and spoke.

“Surely.”

“......Well, let’s at least hear what there is first.”

Liking the guy was one thing.

But if we were going to make a deal.

Shouldn’t I at least take what I could while doing it?

“Does that mean you will consider the deal positively?”

“For now. But I’m not saying I accept yet.”

“Is that because of the conditions after all?”

“Ah, well, that’s part of it.”

I stepped a little away from the wary goblin guy.

Then turned my head and looked behind me.

“Because I’m not the one who decides whether this works out.”

What had happened in this city had been an extremely dangerous battle.

If we were thinking with common sense, the right thing to do would be to retreat without looking back.

Just as, when that prince fought the Sword Demon, running away had been the rationally correct decision.

But.

“You heard the general idea, didn’t you?”

Unfortunately.

The ones who did crazy things there...... or rather.

The crazy things I liked.

Were not limited to this guy alone.

“......Those people.”

The Legion soldiers.

They had returned.

***

The prince stared blankly at the Legion soldiers.

It was easy to tell what it was thinking.

'It hasn’t been long since the battle ended.'

If the people who had left the city had returned after seeing the battle wrapping up, they could not have come back this quickly.

In other words.

'They moved the hostages somewhere safe and came straight back.'

The battle taking place here.

Even after seeing its scale and danger.

They had moved without hesitation toward the place where their Corps Commander was.

And.

I looked toward the middle of those soldiers.

The two chefs among the Legion soldiers.

And.

Howard pushed the other one forward.

“You decide.”

“Me?”

A little kid in shabby clothes, with soot all over her face.

Right.

I was not the one who would decide whether this worked out.

'That kid is.'

What the prince wanted was not merely to endure one generation with my help.

Even in the distant future, when I might be gone.

All of its kind had to break away from the design of the beings that created them.

A method that would allow them to survive for a long time instead of heading toward a destiny of destruction.

For that.

They needed a recipe that would let them feed themselves on this land.

'Creating the recipe itself isn’t the problem.'

Howard was an orthodox chef.

His skills were even more focused on “cooking” itself than mine, as I was a military cook.

Honestly, I was only acting like his senior because of the level difference.

If we were talking about cooking skill at the same level, even I would not be a match for him.

And.

[Skill List]

[Recipe Creation]

Since he was that kind of guy.

Naturally, he also possessed a skill for creating recipes.

'And I can borrow one of my disciple’s traits through my skill.'

If Howard and I were there.

Creating a new recipe itself would not be difficult.

What mattered more than that was.

[Extreme Survival Cooking]

In the end.

The nutrients those zombies needed came from ingredients that did not exist on this land.

And the power that could make those ingredients obtainable belonged to that little kid.

So the key was whether that kid would cooperate or not.

“I see. So it depends on that child.”

And.

The prince, looking at Doyun, gave a bitter smile.

“Then it will not be easy.”

That made sense.

That little kid...... Doyun had been stubbornly refusing the zombies’ requests for cooperation this whole time.

In truth, that refusal had been so stubborn that even if she had been harmed midway through, or perhaps executed, there would have been nothing to say.

If these guys had not been the type who never intended to dispose of the hostages from the start.

She could already have been in terrible shape, and there would have been nothing strange about it.

“......That hatred is something even I can understand.”

And the reason she had made such a dangerous refusal.

Was first because of the other humans who had been with her.

The ones who had killed them were none other than the zombies.

But.

After hearing the prince’s words, I thought to myself.

'That’s something we need to think about a little more.'

I looked at the little kid and slightly opened my mouth.

Then the taste of “emotion” entered my mouth.

That taste was.......

Probably a little different from what the prince was thinking.

'That isn’t the only reason this kid refused to cooperate.'

Anger was certainly a powerful driving force.

But, fortunately, if that was the right way to put it.

This kid was not a chef who was being dragged around by that anger.

“......This is different from what I heard at first.”

“......?”

That anger was the surface-level reason.

The real reason was separate.

There were people who lived lives where starving to death was taken for granted.

No, perhaps those who did not live that way were actually the minority.

Even so, someone had called that starving death “something like that.”

Someone had described themselves dying from such a thing as if it were unfair.

As if something that many people experienced was something they alone should not have had to experience.

That selfish attitude.

That was the true cause of the kid’s anger.

......But if that was the cause.

'You hid way too much, mister.'

If he had not hidden it.

This conversation.

Might have been settled before I ever arrived.

“.......”

Doyun looked at the prince.

The dried-out body.

The original body might not have looked bad, but that thin, emaciated body made it easy to imagine what kind of life it must have lived even before being parasitized.

To Doyun, that appearance seemed familiar instead.

Next, she looked around.

A fierce battlefield.

No matter how much the Legion soldiers and I had run around helping the hostages.

Originally, it would have been nearly impossible for all of the hostages here to survive.

It had only been possible because the zombies following that prince had protected them.

On top of that.

At the end, the prince had suffered heavy damage while using its strength to save the hostages.

“......Acting like they’re the only ones who are unfortunate.”

And.

There was only one conclusion that could be drawn here.

“I guess that wasn’t it.”

These guys.

They intended to live together with others.

And that.

—When those guys stop thinking they’re the only ones especially unfortunate. When they realize they aren’t the only ones suffering, and try to help with other people’s pain...... then maybe I’ll be able to help them too.

Was something that matched the condition this kid had said herself.

“......To be honest, I was bluffing a little too.”

“......?”

“I did refuse partly because I didn’t like corpses asking me for something, but the truth is...... I don’t even know what a recipe is. So there’s a high chance I won’t be able to do what you’re asking, but.......”

The kid let out a sigh and said,

“......I’ll try.”

“......!”

With this.

The recipe delivery contract was established.

***

After that.

We were able to move around the city a little more freely.

“We’ll take the hostages with us.”

“Take care.”

“Loyalty, loyalty.”

Only a few soldiers took the hostages and returned first.

The rest decided to stay in the city for a while for now.

Because we had agreed to create a recipe.

And.

The first thing we did after accepting that proposal was.

“We need to wash them first.”

We were chefs.

And what was the thing a chef had to prioritize above all else?

'Cleanliness.'

Those guys had deliberately stayed in this city.

I had wondered why zombies would stay in a city.

But once I found out, the reason was simple.

'They probably settled here with cooperation with humans in mind from the start.'

That thing was someone who had decided to live together with the lives of this land.

'Judging by the atmosphere, it seems like a lot happened over the month or more after it made that decision.......'

It had probably spent an incredibly dense period of time.

And, as a result, reached the conclusion that it would stay here.

Thanks to that, the city’s basic functions still remained.

Compared to how our Seoul had been smashed to pieces, it did hurt my pride a bit that another country’s capital was still intact.

But this was probably possible because it had not been a place with a population as dense as Seoul.

“Ah, then please leave that part to me.”

“To you, Jeong Sua? Ah, is it because you can use Banguli?”

“......No. That’s not it.”

And.

There was one thing I learned during that process.

“......You were a girl?”

“Hm? Well, of course.”

To begin with, it was hard to tell boys and girls apart when they were kids.

And since her face had been covered in soot, I had not been able to tell whether she was a boy or a girl.

“Senior...... that is a bit too much.”

“I know, right? When she’s this pretty.”

“.......”

Anyway!

After that, we went straight into cooking.

Fortunately, there were places in the city where kitchen facilities still remained.

'First, teach her cooking.'

In the end, this recipe creation depended on this kid’s ability.

So she needed to improve her cooking skill.

And.

[Trait - Master]

[If there is a disciple who has gained enlightenment through your teaching, you become able to use one trait or skill possessed by one of them in a “degraded” form.]

If I succeeded in giving her an enlightenment.

I would also be able to use her skill.

I thought that would help me complete this request.

And.

As I taught her cooking, I was able to realize one thing.

“......Senior, this kid.”

“Mm. I know too.”

Disciple...... was not quite the right word, but.

I had exchanged teachings with another chef before.

I had also taught cooking to my juniors in the army.

Some people absorbed instruction well.

Some people were strangely slow to learn.

Cases where someone had already learned before and cases where someone had learned nothing at all were different as well.

“......To a chilling degree.”

And.

In this kid’s case.

“She knows absolutely nothing.”

“Wha, whaaat......!”

Among them.

She undoubtedly belonged to the category that could be called the worst.

***

“No matter what, how can someone called a chef not even know the basic way to cut?”

“Trying to cut vegetables with the knife you used on meat is also kind of.......”

“What the hell is putting the eggshells in like that?”

“Confusing salt and sugar? Was that something that could happen in real life?”

Howard and I.

Two chefs had stuck to her and guided her through cooking.

“U-ughgh.......”

But the little kid...... Doyun’s cooking skill was too disastrous.

No, well.

There could be plenty of things she did not know.

She could make mistakes too.

That was why the process of learning from someone else existed.

Right, if she did not know, we just had to teach her.

The bigger problem was.

'It doesn’t seem like she has much talent either.......'

Her speed of learning.

Was not particularly fast either.

This kid was the third chef I had met.

One of the chefs, who were already rare enough in this world.

'......And yet she’s at this level.'

Me, and Howard.

When there had only been the two of us, I had not really questioned it.

I was a chef and, at the same time, a soldier, someone in a position to supply cooking to the military.

That was why I had the talent for “large-scale cooking.”

Howard was a veteran chef.

When it came to the concept of a real chef, he had both tremendous talent and experience.

But this kid.

'How did she awaken as a chef......?'

To the point that question came to mind.

She had neither knowledge of cooking nor talent for it.

Calling someone a chef as an awakened made it sound grand.

But in truth, the profession of chef was not that rare in the world.

Even in the Legion, there were quite a few soldiers who had formerly been chefs.

Not just at the level of small self-run businesses, either. There were a considerable number who had truly studied cooking professionally.

But most of them had not awakened as chefs.

Because of that, I had wondered whether the conditions for becoming a chef were quite difficult.

Most awakened people did awaken according to their talents or dispositions, after all.

But looking at this kid made me question that.

'......The number of chefs is strangely small.'

The people who had not awakened as chefs.

Many of them did not think they had more talent in other fields than in cooking.

Most of them wondered why they had awakened as some other profession instead of as chefs.

'And yet someone like this can awaken as a chef.'

The third chef I had met.

Looking at her.

'......Chef, huh.'

Once again.

Doubts about this profession called chef took root in me.