Chapter 831: Slave Contract

[Force-Feeding]

The bad food I had made.

A dish boasting an extreme taste, but precisely because of that, a taste that corrupted even the soul.

That dish melted into its body.

Then.

-No...... no.

Huge and powerful.

But because it did not possess a soul capable of handling that power, it was a monster with the worst possible efficiency.

Its body.

-My, my power......!

FWAAAAASH!!!

Began collapsing at a tremendous speed.

“......Huh?”

“W-What is that.”

Confused voices escaped from the mouths of those watching the scene.

The Legion members seemed to have a rough idea of what had happened.

But to those who knew nothing about my cooking, it must have looked as though that monster’s body had begun collapsing the moment I appeared.

Unfortunately, I did not have the leisure to explain in detail what was happening right now.

Having fallen from the sky, I calmly tightened my grip on the Chinese knife in my hand.

And then.

SHWAAAAK-!

Its body, which was breaking apart.

I cut into that body.

No.......

[Chef’s Eyes]

[‘Insight into How to Prepare Nergalon of Proliferation’]

I began to [prepare] its body.

And as I did, I thought.

‘These were originally techniques that relied on the System as well.’

But.

I deliberately alternated between swinging my knife once with the System’s assistance and once using only my own strength.

Because there was something I had wanted to test after returning to this land and reconnecting with the System.

And the result...... was more or less what I had expected.

‘Using it without the System’s help...... is stronger.’

It was only natural.

The System’s assistance was certainly convenient and allowed the awakened to become stronger quickly.

But when it came to the finer details of technique, it often fell behind beings from other worlds who had trained for their entire lives.

From the very beginning, power wielded with someone else’s assistance rather than something one had personally mastered was bound to have limitations.

‘Not anymore.’

And...... no matter how great the System might be.

The skills and traits I handled.

Those belonged to the field of ‘cooking’.

‘It can’t be better than me!’

When it came to anything related to cooking, not even the System could be better than me.

SHWAAAAK!

SHWAAAAAAK!

The flesh had become endlessly soft and pliable.

With every cut of my knife, great chunks of that amorphous gelatinous mass were prepared and fell away.

“My God.......”

“H-How is he doing that to something so huge.......”

The technique I had learned was [Dagger Proficiency].

As its name implied, the reach of my knife was extremely short.

The actual area I could cut should have been absurdly small, and yet every swing of my knife created a severed surface hundreds of meters across.

I was not using anything like sword energy to actually cut through that entire area.

Well, I could probably do something like that now...... but there was an easier method.

‘Just cut the connected parts.’

That was what excellent [preparation] meant.

Rather than expending tremendous strength to cut through the whole thing, it meant cutting only the absolute minimum necessary points with extreme efficiency.

A skilled chef knew that when looking at a piece of meat, cutting through just one tiny, thin tendon could allow an entire section to be separated with ease.

-No.......

FWAAAAAAAAASH!!!

And so.

With each and every movement of my knife, huge chunks of its flesh were sliced away.

The enormous mana it had devoured from this land.

Those masses of mana crashed down onto the earth, disconnected from the main body, and melted back into the land.

-I cannot fall apart like this.

Then.

From this enormous colony.

From countless amorphous monsters, sobbing voices rang out simultaneously.

-All the power I gathered. I only needed a little more, just a little more.

And from that creature, I could taste several ‘flavors’.

Endless greed.

A desire to rise higher while swallowing everything in existence.

An utterly foolish obsession to reach its goal by endlessly compensating with sheer quantity if the rank of its soul was insufficient.

-If only I had devoured this entire world, I would never have been defeated by someone like this.

And...... lastly.

-It cannot end like this. So.......

For the sake of achieving that goal.

A willingness to stop at absolutely nothing.......

-I will offer it.

The taste of a rotten dish so revolting it made me sick.

-I will offer this world!!!

And so.

When the dying monster looked up at the sky and shouted.

BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

As though answering its call.

The sky trembled.

***

“......Tch.”

A sudden change in the air.

Sensing that change, I frowned and looked up at the sky even as I continued cutting through the monster’s body.

-All I covet is the land of this world! But there are many other things in this world besides that!

To most of the other soldiers, it would probably have looked like nothing more than a slightly overcast sky.

But to me.

And to those with special eyes, like Sergeant Park Taejun, who should be stationed atop the mountain of the 423rd Battalion, an entirely different sight was visible.

-Everything else!

An enormous eye.

-The sky, the air, the clouds, space, time...... everything in this world that I cannot turn into mana!

Something was looking down at this place and conversing with the monster.

-I will offer them! I will offer all of them to you! So...... give me power!

And.

I quickly guessed the identity behind that gaze.

It was not a demon.

They were beings who had something to protect.

Beings who possessed worlds of their own and invaded other worlds in order to prevent the destruction that would someday come for theirs.

After noticing my existence, they had withdrawn from this world.

Because the scale of the fate I carried was more than they could handle.

Because they had worlds they needed to protect, they could not afford to make an enemy of someone like me.

But.......

=It is insufficient.=

There were also beings ‘outside’ who had nothing left to protect.

Those who had lost their own worlds.

Those who possessed the rank of transcendence, yet for some reason had lost the space in which they could remain.

Because they belonged to no world, they had no choice but to remain out there...... in the dark and cold void.

=Everything in this world that you spoke of. And.......=

The beings outside.

=Offer your existence.=

I could feel the endless cold and loneliness at the far reaches of that void.

And if they were beings who remained in a place like that.......

If they were beings with nothing left to lose.

=Then it shall be as you desire, my apostle.=

Even the enormous fate carried by someone like me.

Could not become a reason for those desperate to escape that void to fear me.

FWAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!!!

They had recognized my existence, and yet still sought to intervene in this land.

The power of a being from outside...... burrowed into this land.

Those who had achieved transcendence possessed such an immense rank that they could not easily descend into a small world.

And so, what they needed in order to interfere with the surface was a medium.

But...... that medium did not necessarily have to be something born in this land.

FLASH!

For one very brief instant.

Truly only an instant, light shining from beyond the universe covered this continent.

It lasted no longer than the instant of a camera flash.

But the change it caused was anything but small.

‘......They disappeared.’

The amorphous monsters that had filled this vast country.

Every monster that had stretched all the way to the horizon had vanished, leaving behind only the deeply gouged land they had eaten away.

No, to be precise, not all of them had disappeared.

-Haha.......

......One remained.

-I feel...... incredibly refreshed.

In the place where those countless monsters had once been.

An amorphous monster shaped like a slightly tall human was standing there.

***

The being that had appeared before me.

Its slime-like texture was the same as before, but its size had shrunk to a level incomparable to what it had been.

The enormous body that had seemed tall enough to nearly reach the clouds was now only about the size of a somewhat tall human.

But...... just because its size had decreased did not mean its power had weakened.

With my current vision, I could see what was contained inside that small body.

Until just moments ago, they had filled this entire continent.

The amorphous monsters that had vanished in an instant when that brief light covered the surface.

Those monsters had not disappeared.

‘They’re inside it.’

Compressed within that small body.

They had achieved complete unity.

-Ahh.......

Normally, that thing’s feeble soul should never have been capable of containing that much power.

In the first place, when I first encountered it, the copies it had absorbed made up less than one-tenth of those spread throughout this country.

Even that had already been too much for its soul to handle, causing it to collapse, yet now it had absorbed every last one of its copies.

-This is the realm I dreamed...... of reaching.

Naturally...... this was not something it could have accomplished through its own power.

-There was such an easy path all along. Why did I refuse it until now, why did I insist on taking the long way around.......

It wore an ecstatic expression, seemingly overwhelmed with satisfaction by the power it now possessed.

But...... how should I put it.

‘I think I know.’

I thought I understood why it had not taken the easy path.

Why it had refused until now and chosen to take the long way around.......

‘That thing’s soul.’

I could see its soul.

Even if it had been endlessly weak compared to its body, and filled with greed far beyond what it deserved.

It had undeniably been one unique soul of its own.

But...... not anymore.

GRIIIIIP.......

An enormous hand flickering with an ominous purple light.

Was gripping that soul.

‘Its soul was taken.’

The power flowing from that hand was strengthening its soul.

But at the same time, the hand held it tightly enough that it could never escape.

‘So this is...... a deal with the beings outside.’

The beings outside coveted the chance to enter this world and become its rulers.

There was no way creatures like that would simply overlook a monster that intended to devour this land and turn it into its own power.

That thing had offered everything except the land it intended to consume.

But the being outside that had made the deal with it wanted to make the creature that would devour that land its own as well.

In other words, the creature had effectively volunteered to become a slave in order to survive.

Perhaps the [Matron of Regretful Ones] had been among the gentler beings outside.

The actions of those who truly coveted this world felt fundamentally different from what the Matron had shown me.

“I hate dying too, but...... in your case, it might actually have been better to just die as you were. You did something foolish.”

-Foolish? I was nothing more than an incomplete existence, and now I have finally become complete. If anything, I feel as though I was incredibly foolish for not choosing this path until now.

“......Well, if you’re happy with it, I don’t particularly have anything to say.”

Just as Mirinae had said in the past.

Perhaps this was not necessarily such a terrible thing for that creature personally.

It had already been on the verge of death.

If it could survive and gain tremendous power even at the cost of having its soul taken by another being.......

I did not like it, but there was nothing strange about someone being satisfied with that arrangement.

“But shouldn’t we finish what we started?”

Right.

Whether that thing was satisfied or not, whether it had grown stronger than before or not.

None of that mattered much to me.

What mattered was.

“You’re getting a beating.”

While the rightful successors of this world were still here, it had traded away this land as part of a bargain.

All that meant was that I now had even more reason to punish it.

-You still dare say that!

FWAAAAASH!!!

Enraged, it launched itself forward and swung its fist.

It shot past me at tremendous speed.

I felt as though a flash of light had streaked directly before my eyes.

I barely managed to twist my head aside and avoid it.

Even so, the shock felt as though my neck might be twisted a full 180 degrees.

My head turned slightly from the impact, and I looked behind me.

‘The clouds.......’

The clouds visible in the distant sky had been split in half.

It had not manipulated laws like Avaritia.

This had happened purely according to the physical laws of this world.

It had not even attacked the sky directly.

The mere aftermath of its attack had been enough to distort the weather itself.

BOOOOOOOM!!!

And after that.

It continued unleashing attack after attack toward me.

FWAAAAASH!!!

It was impossible for me to see its attacks and dodge them either.

I could only evade them by relying on my foresight...... my ‘intuition’.

‘Ah, seriously.’

Until just moments ago, it had merely possessed great power while feeling clumsy in how it used it.

Now it was different.

It was controlling that enormous power perfectly.

From the beginning, it had only lacked sufficient rank; the sheer amount of power it possessed had always been tremendous.

Now that a being from outside had forcibly supplemented the rank its soul lacked.

There was no way someone like me, who was not even a combat class, could defeat this thing alone.

‘Figures. I was wondering why an enemy I could actually beat by myself had shown up for once.’

But fortunately, perhaps.

Even though it was such a powerful enemy, I did not particularly feel any sense of crisis.

‘Then, let’s see.......’

After all, my class was Chef.

I was a support class, not a combat class.

‘What kind of dishes will today’s guests like.’

Within my field of vision as I dodged its attacks.

There were unfamiliar awakened staring at this transcendent battle in shock.......

New guests had taken their seats.