The Cook of a Perished World - Chapter 16

Episode 16 Preparation

There are two main ways to increase ability levels in the game.

Fixed number increase and percentage increase.

‘As a token, the fixed value has increased.’

The fixed value increase is more effective the lower the basic ability of the buff target.

Conversely, the percentage increase has a greater effect the higher the basic ability of the buff target.

And Lieutenant Kim’s ability that has just been awakened is…

‘Percentage increase!’

If the badge instantly raises the abilities of the still weak unit members to a usable level.

Lieutenant Kim’s ‘lowest level command’ will become more effective as the unit’s members’ abilities increase.

There….

‘The two buffs usually show synergy.’

Percent increase buffs are calculated including buffs with fixed numerical increases.

Lieutenant Kim’s ability is like giving wings to our unit, which has already secured a fixed stat increase buff through badges.

That wasn’t all.

[Achievement: A Taste That Can’t Be Escaped.]

[Successful in completely controlling a person through cooking.]

[This is one of the greatest achievements a chef can achieve.] [

As an achievement reward, [Top Ingredients: Arlong’s] Heart] is provided.]

[Experience points are acquired in large quantities.]

[Apprentice Chef lv. You have reached level 10.]

[You will be promoted.]

[Apprentice Chef lv. 10 → Junior Chef lv. 1]

Achievement achieved.

And Apprentice Chef lv. 10.

“I heard it didn’t increase from 9 to death.”

It was a car that was puzzled by the level that had not risen for a while.

However, looking at the job I was promoted to as soon as I hit 10, I understand.

‘Because promotion battles are usually intense.’

I must have leveled up, so I checked to see if there was any change in my abilities as a junior chef.

First, increase your basic abilities.

This was there every time I leveled up, but it changed slightly.

‘The stat that used to increase by 1 for each level up has increased by 2.’

Is it because he was promoted?

Stats seemed to increase as the level increased.

That’s not all.

[Minimum cooking skill → Minor cooking skill]

[Minimum fire resistance → Minor fire resistance]

.

.

.

‘All the lowest level characteristics have been changed to low level characteristics.’

Many characteristics I had.

Lowest level dagger skill, lowest level cooking skill, etc.

All characteristics changed from lowest level to low level.

Traits that showed master-level abilities in the field even at the lowest level.

I heard that those characteristics have grown one level further, so I couldn’t even guess to what extent.

And finally….

[Skill – Combat Ration (new)]

[Unfortunately, in life, situations arise where you cannot eat a proper meal.]

[Soldiers participating in battle are a representative example! Research into improving the taste of combat rations that can be consumed in the field for the sake of soldier morale has been a major task for leaders of all military powers.] [If they find you, they will be itching to

recruit you somehow!]

[Preserved combat rations Manufacturing of rations becomes possible.]

[Combat rations have slightly lower performance compared to regular meals, but they have a long expiration date and can be consumed with high calories even with small-sized foods, making them easy to carry. Guaranteed taste, of course!]

Combat rations.

The same name as the item that Lieutenant Kim suffered after eating and said it was not tasty.

“Well, if the battle intensifies, it will be difficult to feed every soldier.”

The combat rations made with this skill are of a different quality from the combat rations of regular military units.

Although it is somewhat inferior to the regular meal, it has the effect of increasing ability levels.

The taste is also guaranteed depending on the skill of the chef.

“not bad.”

I think this skill can be quite useful.

What is important is that we have achieved meaningful growth in our own way.

And that he succeeded in subduing Lieutenant Kim.

If so, next.

“Sergeant Shin Young-jun. Slowly…”

“Yes. “This side is just about ready.”

Survivors who came to visit the unit.

I’m ready to talk to them.

* * *

“Lieutenant Kim. “I’m sure you understood what I said, right?”

“I leave all the conversations to the soldiers and I just nod in the background… I understand, no. i get it.”

Lieutenant Kim, who completely surrendered after eating my cooking, is now completely obedient to my commands.

The unit members were surprised to see Lieutenant Kim who had suddenly become mellow and wondered what he had done.

“Be careful with polite language.”

“Uhm, I understand….”

Although I was recognized as a leader by my unit members.

First of all, the highest commander of our unit is Lieutenant Kim.

Therefore, it was decided that Lieutenant Kim would act as the representative of our unit in external activities.

It would seem more believable to outsiders for Lieutenant Kim, who has a fairly worthy title of lieutenant, to step forward rather than me, a cook sergeant.

In fact, it’s because they lack work skills and are insincere.

Looking at his appearance, Lieutenant Kim appears to be a decent soldier. He is good at talking and working, but he is good at politics.

Anyway, Lieutenant Kim is not satisfied with anything other than my cooking, so there is no need to worry about him doing strange things on his own.

‘That habit of constantly trying to show respect to a single soldier. It would be great if only that could happen.’

In any case, this was Lieutenant Kim’s first external work after such a forced reform.

A place for dialogue with survivors.

‘If you say it’s a place for conversation, it looks warm.’

My soldiers and I decided to treat this conversation as a verbal battle.

‘There may be some among them who will harm us.’

Survivors running away from monsters.

Although they are clearly victims and weak.

That doesn’t mean they are good or trustworthy people.

‘You have to hide your claws.’

According to the message Taejun left behind, for some reason we are in a situation where we have to hide our abilities from them.

So the strategy we need to take in this conversation is simple.

‘As little information about our allies as possible and as much information about them as possible.’

With that in mind, I made a brave decision and entered the prepared room.

“hello. “This is Sergeant Lee Min-jae, who is in charge of this meeting.”

“Not Lieutenant Kim?”

“The lieutenant will also participate in the meeting. However, they said that it would be better for us, who are in charge of field work, to consult with the survivors rather than the lieutenant who is in charge of command.”

“Ah yes.”

First of all, it was Minjae who decided to represent Among Us.

He is the most highly educated person in our unit, and he is intelligent and speaks well.

Minjae hyung tried to put me forward as the leader, but when I gave him orders with leader authority, he eventually accepted and became the representative.

‘I accepted the position of leader, but I have no intention of taking on all the troublesome work. By the way…’

I asked them to select representatives who could participate in this conversation.

If you talk to all 20 or more survivors, it can get complicated as the number of people increases.

On our side, there was one senior soldier from each department, including Lieutenant Kim and Min Jae.

And over there, five men and women participated.

‘Did one person from each dormitory come out?’

The entire third floor of our dormitory was given over to us, and five people were assigned to each room.

In the meantime, people who were close to each other could share the same room, so it seemed like they had designated one representative for each room.

I looked around to see if there was a man among them who had asked me ‘what battalion’ our unit was in, but unfortunately he didn’t seem to be present.

“Hmph, I don’t know if I can communicate with regular soldiers.”

“The soldiers gathered here are the most senior soldiers in each department in charge of the unit’s practical affairs, so if you have any questions or wishes, please feel free to let us know.”

“Tsk, I’m just curious… so I’ll just ask one question.”

Indeed, some people pointed out that Lieutenant Kim did not appear as a representative as we had expected.

A middle-aged man with a rather large stature and a scary appearance.

Even though his face was like that, his sitting posture was strangely grumpy, so he didn’t seem like a very good-looking person.

“Why did it take three days to hold this meeting?”

“…As you are exhausted from the long flight, we wanted to give you time to rest and talk about things to share at the meeting and time to decide on a representative, and we are also busy with the work of the unit…” “So, we are taking a backseat because of other work

. “Was it you?”

The man’s attitude was so arrogant that it couldn’t be seen that he had come to entrust his body.

‘Sometimes there are people like this.’

If you think of yourself as a master of soldiers because your taxes are used to pay soldiers’ salaries.

The man in front of me also seemed to be that kind of person.

“It’s not like that.”

“If it’s not like that, then what!”

“Mr. Park Kwon-chang!”

The man called Park Kwon-chang tried to argue as if he would not miss a point to find fault with.

Another survivor’s voice interrupted his words.

It was a young woman who first asked to speak to us.

“These are people who took time out of their busy schedule. “I understand your dissatisfaction, but I think it would be better for you to stay still for now.”

“…Hmph, I understand.”

The man named Park Kwon-chang seemed, to put it in a good way, to have a tough personality, but to put it in a bad way, he seemed like a very cruel person.

He appears to be a little dissatisfied but accepts the fact that someone else interrupted him mid-sentence.

Through that appearance, I was able to see who the real representative of the survivors was.

‘Honestly, I couldn’t even imagine it when I saw what it looked like.’

That woman looks to be in her mid-20s at most.

He is the leader of the survivor group.

“sorry. “Mr. Kwon Chang has a rather fiery personality.”

“no. It is true that there is a problem on our side. But as I said, there was no bad intention…”

“I understand. This is the situation. It’s probably something that can’t be helped. My name is Lee Sang-ah. “I worked at a small tailor shop before this incident occurred.”

Fortunately, unlike Park Kwon-chang, Lee Sang-ah, who appears to be the representative, had a somewhat gentle attitude.

“Then you said you have something you want to say to us, but before that… can you explain how you arrived at our unit?”

“Lieutenant?”

“yes. I feel bad saying this, but our unit is located in a fairly remote location. “I think we need to know how you came to run away to a place like this.”

“Ah yes.”

That’s not really a lie.

Our unit is located deep in the mountains.

A first-class remote area unit that takes an hour to drive down the mountain to the city.

Because it is so isolated from society, it is so remote and inaccessible that soldiers are given additional leave as consolation.

We need to know how we ended up in this place.

“First of all… as you all know, about two weeks ago now. Suddenly monsters appeared. At the same time, all means of communication such as the Internet, TV, and telephone were cut off.”

“Yes.”

It seems that the situation when the monster appeared was similar to ours.

“As time passes and people who are attacked by various monsters, and even attacked by monsters, wake up as zombies… “There was great confusion.”

Well, we were really confused too.

.

.

.

uh?

‘It’s definitely similar, but I heard something different?’

zombie.

Didn’t you say zombies?

“Zombie?”

Perhaps I was the only one who thought that way, but I heard another senior soldier sitting next to me say that without thinking.

‘Hey man!’

I know it’s embarrassing, but

You shouldn’t show such surprise…!

“yes. Are there any problems with zombies?”

Minjae hurriedly stepped forward to try to resolve the issue.

“Oh no. “We don’t use the word zombie in our unit.”

“Hmm… But no matter how you look at it, it looks like a zombie… So what do we call it here?”

“…I call him Walker.”

Well, there was a drama that called zombies that way.

“aha. I guess there are a lot of people who like dramas. I also enjoyed watching that drama. “Then would it be better if we called ourselves walkers too?”

“no. Now that I think about it, I think the word zombie is more accurate. “We will try to match it.”

“Yes, anyway, that’s how it happened-”

It was a somewhat awkward excuse, but fortunately it passed without any suspicion.

The senior soldier, who had opened his mouth in surprise, lowered his head and kept his mouth shut as if he was sorry.

‘It seemed like the situation was similar to our unit. It’s a little different, not a lot different.’

Lee Sang-ah’s story continued.

To summarize, the story grew to the size it is now by joining other survivors who ran away from monsters and zombies.

While wandering around looking for a safe place, one of the survivors told him, ‘Now that I think about it, there is a military base on the mountain near here.’

“That’s me.”

The person who said that was Gumyeon.

I’m sure someone else will sing it.

‘Grandpa Park?’

When the survivors were guided to the dormitory.

A strict-looking old man who complained that young soldiers were using the lower floors and survivors were being forced to the third floor.

“I have a friend who works in construction. He told me that he went to work at a military base and that the base was in the neighborhood where I live. “All I heard was that there was a military base deep in the mountains.”

“Since we were at a loss anyway, we talked about going to the unit that Grandfather Park mentioned, and that’s how we ended up here.”

There is nothing particularly strange about it.

However, from the perspective of our unit members, there were a few things that bothered them.

‘First of all, zombies.’

Our unit’s original capacity was about 300 people.

Among them, excluding soldiers who are on leave, there are about 200 soldiers permanently residing in the unit.

On the day the monsters attacked, half of them were killed by the monsters.

Among them, not a single soldier became a zombie.

‘The unit members have called this situation an apocalypse, but they have never called it a zombie apocalypse.’

It’s natural because no zombies came out of the unit.

They say that on the ground, when people die, they wake up as zombies, but that didn’t happen in our unit.

That wasn’t the only thing that was puzzling.

‘Various monsters.’

The only ones that attacked our unit were a group of Lizards.

However, according to Lee Sang-ah’s explanation, all kinds of monsters appeared and ran rampant in the city below the mountain.

The only problem was the number of zombies, so a strong man could deal with them, but there was no way to deal with some monsters without a gun.

This part was still possible to guess to some extent.

‘Because this mountain range was the territory of the Lizards before we took over the territory.’

Lizards are also monsters that easily tear apart humans without guns.

I think a group of lizards may have occupied the mountain range and chased away other monsters.

If you don’t know its weaknesses, it’s a powerful monster with no way to break through its hard scales.

And finally.

“Excuse me, but last time I saw it, it seemed like the only weapon I saw was a gun or at least a knife, and at most it was an iron pipe.”

“yes.”

“How did you get through those monsters and zombies?”

“I thought you were going to ask that question.”

Lee Sang-ah said that, then took a deep breath for a moment and continued speaking with a nervous expression on her face.

“It may be hard to believe, but… I have awakened my supernatural powers.”

It seemed like he had prepared himself and opened his mouth.

This is what we expected.

After all, there can be no awakening.

“Out of the 25 of us, I am the only one who has awakened.”

“yes?”

To the point where we wonder if we are the bad guys for trying to hide the awakened.

A woman who freely spreads her power.

“Thanks to that superpower, I was able to overcome the zombies and come here.”

“….”

“As expected, it won’t be easy to believe.”

We looked a little embarrassed at the way they revealed their power so easily.

She must have thought that we didn’t believe in supernatural powers, so she put her hand into her arms and pulled out something.

The object she took out in both hands was scissors.

Two scissors that can be held with one hand, but are quite large compared to ordinary scissors.

Wouldn’t it be about 40 centimeters long?

“These are cutting scissors. “I use them when repairing things like curtains, so they’re quite a bit bigger than regular scissors.”

“Oh, I see.”

“And hmm. “Please excuse me.”

She said that and held the scissors to the wooden desk we were sitting at.

Then…

snip.

Scissors for lightly cutting wooden desks.

It was quite a surreal sight, though.

‘…The situation feels somewhat familiar.’

When I proved the existence of awakening by chopping up a wooden desk with a kitchen knife.

It’s similar in many ways to back then.

“I was working at the tailor shop like always, when the store was attacked by humans who didn’t look alive at all…. I stabbed the zombie’s head with these scissors, and a message appeared saying that I had awakened as a seamstress, and I gained various abilities. Thanks to this, I was able to cut off a zombie’s head with a single flick of a pair of scissors.”

“That’s amazing… Is Mr. Ivory the only one with such abilities?”

Although the survivors were honest about the Awakened.

It seemed like Minjae was trying to keep a secret attitude about our side’s awakening.

“yes. I woke up as soon as I killed the zombie, but other people didn’t. “I heard that the awakened person I met when I encountered another group of survivors also became awakened after killing a zombie, but I don’t know the exact conditions.”

‘Are zombies different from lizards?’

The Lizard could successfully awaken with a 100% probability as long as the condition of killing it at close range was met.

However, for some reason, it seems that sometimes zombies succeed in awakening even when killed, and sometimes they do not.

Because of this, it is said that in the group of 25 survivors, Lee Sang-ah was the only one who awakened, and the rest moved under Lee Sang-ah’s protection.

This is why she became the leader of the survivor group.

‘But…’

Lee Sang-ah freely revealed that she was the only awakened member of the group.

With that ability, she extends a helping hand to others.

He doesn’t seem like a particularly bad person.

However, Taejun’s words clearly imply that there is someone here who can harm us.

I don’t think those who aren’t awakened can cause much harm.

Above all, the man who asked me what my job was.

I can be sure because he said he similarly asked several soldiers about their jobs after that.

That question was a question that took the question of awakening very much into account.

So…is there one answer?

‘I’m hiding it.’

Inside this.

There are awakened people who hide their identities.