Chapter 35

“Bring the wounded over here!” “Han-il is badly injured. Treat him first.”

“Got it!”

Once outside the warehouse, we retreated to a nearby safe location.

Two healers rushed over to treat the wounded.

In the meantime, other squad members sat down on the ground to catch their breath.

“What’s our plan?”

As I took a moment to catch my breath,

Sergeant Min-jae approached me and asked.

“The monster is stronger than we anticipated.”

Min-jae spoke while looking towards the warehouse.

“Indeed, it seems challenging to subdue with our current strength.”

Gwang-il chimed in, supporting Min-jae’s statement.

“I propose a retreat.”

“A retreat?”

“It’s to facilitate easier planning for future operations by securing resources. It’s not immediately necessary. We don’t need to incur unnecessary losses.”

Min-jae suggested the retreat.

He wasn’t entirely wrong.

What about your eyes? You can figure out the enemy’s weakness just by observing them, right?

“Judging from Young-joon’s silence, perhaps his skill didn’t work?”

“No, it did.”

As he said.

My skill, “Chef’s Eyes,” reveals some of the target’s handling methods and characteristics.

With this skill, I’ve identified many monsters’ weaknesses.

“I’ve also figured out what type of monster it is.”

“Really? Then, couldn’t we use that information to formulate a new strategy?”

“I’d like to do that too, but this time might be a bit difficult.”

“Difficult?”

The skill certainly worked.

However, the information obtained in this manner.

[Junior Grade Cooking Secret – Enlightenment of Mac Preparation]

[Mac” is a type of creature with a sturdy exterior that protects its fragile body by surrounding itself with nearby objects]

[The handling method is quite simple. Remove the shell first, then cut the flesh inside into bite-sized pieces]

That’s what it says.

The monster’s name is ‘Mac’.

Its core is weak, but it protects itself by surrounding itself with nearby objects.

“It’s probably similar to a hermit crab.”

Perhaps that dark energy-like thing is its main body.

It merely took on the form of a giant bear using the metal objects lying around.

Its body is extremely vulnerable.

But the problem is the creature’s weakness.

How to handle it…

“Remove the shell somehow and cut it into bite-sized pieces.”

“….”

The soldiers, hearing my words, looked at me with blank expressions.

It’s a monster that even the buffed-up soldiers couldn’t harm.

The shell.

In other words, removing the steel covering its body.

“Can that be counted as a weakness?”

If we had the strength for that, would we be struggling like this?

If we could remove the steel covering its body, we could have just beaten it to death.

‘I shouldn’t misunderstand my abilities…’

Chef’s Insight is a skill that reveals handling methods for ingredients.

To be precise, it doesn’t reveal strategies or weaknesses.

In most cases, the handling method and the weaknesses matched.

So far, I’ve used it effectively to identify weaknesses.

“But there are rare cases when it doesn’t.”

“Then, is retreat still the answer…?”

The other leaders all seemed to lean towards retreat.

As Min-jae said earlier,

Resource acquisition isn’t essential.

The cost of this operation isn’t too high.

Moreover, there should be other metal warehouses elsewhere.

Retreating seems like the right choice.

But…

One thing that’s holding me back is, “I can’t just turn back, even if it makes me angry.”

Furthermore, there’s one thing that bothers me.

“That guy. At first, I thought it was just a monster made of scrap metal.”

“Hmm?”

“Like, why iron? You know what I mean.”

Not all monsters are necessarily living beings. Some could be machines made of iron or something similar. Such monsters could exist.

“So, I was wondering why it rejected my cooking.”

If it were such a monster, I could understand why it wouldn’t eat the meat I threw at it.

If it’s a creature that doesn’t need to consume food in the first place, cooking wouldn’t matter.

But that wasn’t the case.

“Based on my skill’s analysis, it seems to be an organic being for now. If that’s the case, it would need to eat something. So why did it refuse my cooking?”

Actually, this is one of the main reasons why I hesitated to retreat.

A monster that rejects my cooking.

I feel like I need to understand the reason behind it to move on.

And then it happened.

“It would need to eat something….”

“Huh?”

I heard Corporal Lee Gong-woo’s voice.

He seemed to be mumbling something softly.

“Gong-woo? Do you have any guesses?”

“Well? Um, it’s nothing special, really.”

“Anything will do, just tell me. Even if it’s not particularly helpful.”

As I pressed him, he finally spoke cautiously.

“Well… you know those metal pieces lying around inside the warehouse?”

Finally, Corporal Lee Gong-woo cautiously opened his mouth.

“Some of them seemed to have traces, as if something had gnawed on them.”

“Gnawed on them?”

“Yes. Some of the intact metal pieces seemed to have been nibbled away, little by little.”

Hearing Corporal Lee Min-jae’s words, Sergeant Lee Min-jae said, “Could it be rust or something like that?”

“Hmm, probably not. Engineers have a basic characteristic of material identification. From that perspective, those traces are definitely not something that typically occurs.”

“It would be fascinating if it were true.”

“But it probably won’t be much help, right?”

According to the other members of the squad it wasn’t particularly helpful.

Even Corporal Lee Gong-woo, who brought it up, seemed to share the sentiment.

But my thoughts differed.

Traces like something had gnawed on them.

“That’s it.”

“Huh?”

“I think I might have been mistaken all along.”

After all, that thing wasn’t human; it was a monster. So, if that’s the case…

It rejected the meat because it wasn’t a suitable food…!

“It eats iron.”

It’s like serving meat dishes to a vegetarian and then getting angry because they didn’t eat it.

It’s absurd that someone claiming to be a chef wouldn’t even consider this basic possibility.

“So, it rejected my cooking because of that.”

“Now that I think about it, there’s no contradiction like this.

Confidently, I shouted towards the resting soldiers.

“Hong-su! Are you there?”

“Lance Corporal Hong-su, Sir!”

The soldier I called was Lance Corporal Jang Hong-su.

His occupation was that of a fire mage.

“Can you make a fire here?”

“Um…? Oh. Uh, yes, I can.”

With his help, we lit a small fire on the ground.

Then, I took out a small pan from my military bag and placed it on top.

From the same bag, I retrieved another item: a small glass bottle containing a yellow liquid.

“What are you planning to do, Young-joon?”

People asked, surprised by my sudden actions.

I casually replied, “Well, they say everything tastes better when fried, even shoes.”

So, I thought…

“If frying shoes makes them taste better, what about frying metal sheets?”

“…Wil that even taste good?”

The soldiers asked incredulously.

“Well, I don’t know?”

I’ve never tried eating a fried metal sheet.

It’s just a thought, a “might as well give it a try” kind of thing.

“I don’t know if it’ll work, but we’re dealing with a monster that’s hard to defeat in combat, right?”

“That’s true.”

“So, we might as well try something before retreating. After all, there’s nothing to lose at this point.”

“Hmm… That’s also true.”

Before long, all the soldiers gathered around started to watch my cooking.

“Well, the problem lies in the ingredients.”

“Oh, if it’s about that…”

The monster appeared after I gave the order to retrieve materials.

“Here it is.”

“It was rolling on the ground, so it’s a bit dirty.”

As soon as the order was given, soldiers picked up items rolling on the ground. Among them, one relatively clean item was chosen and thoroughly washed.

“Let’s see… the temperature should be about right.”

Meanwhile, Lance Corporal Jang Hong-sou continued to raise the temperature of the oil.

Since there was no worry about the ingredients burning, it just needed to reach a suitable temperature.

Carefully, I placed the clean metal sheet (iron plate) into the oil.

Splish.

There was no typical sizzling sound when you put something into hot oil because we didn’t coat it with batter.

“Is it even appropriate to call this frying?”

But then again, coating it with batter seemed pointless. Would a monster that doesn’t even eat meat be attracted to breadcrumbs?

Ultimately, all I could do was to maintain the appearance of “cooking” as much as possible. There was probably a low chance of success, but it was worth a try. After all, there was nothing to lose at this point.

“… ”

Amidst the silence, everyone’s attention was focused on the metal sheet floating in the oil.

After some time passed…

“I think this should do.”

I used tongs to remove the metal sheet from the oil.

A metal sheet soaked in oil.

And then I brushed my finger lightly on it.

“Chef’s Special Sauce” was sprinkled on the metal sheet.

“Well, it’s finished… but.”

“Hmm.”

“It doesn’t look like anything has changed.”

The finished fried metal sheet.

It only seemed to have gained a bit more shine on the surface.

It just looked like a metal sheet soaked in oil.

“Is it a failure?”

“Well, it can’t be helped.”

“There’s also a metal store near the military headquarters. It’s risky, but maybe we can use that later—”

While everyone seemed to be anticipating failure,

Ding!

“No.”

“Huh?”

Along with the familiar sound, messages appeared before my eyes.

[The dish has been completed]

[Deep-fried metal sheet filled with a sense of defat of a Junior Chef]

[It has become an alloy dish mixed with magic, providing a deeper flavor]

[This is a pretty simple dish. The effect is slightly reduced]

Grin.

“It’s a success.”

“…!”

Messages filled my vision.

Information about the completion of the dish flowed into my mind. Sᴇaʀᴄh the N0vᴇlFire(.)nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.

Since it was a dish prepared by me, it obviously contained several buffs in it.

But those weren’t important.

What mattered was one thing: This greasy metal sheet was recognized as a dish!

[This is a dish that goes beyond the concept of existing cuisine.]

But the messages didn’t end there.

[For the very first time in human history, a new horizon in cooking has been discovered!]

[Many chefs fail to realize the limits of cooking]

[That limit is none other than the limitation of ingredients!]

[No matter how skilled a chef is, attempting to cook with ingredients considered inedible is extremely rare]

[The endless potential of cooking has been overshadowed by small biases]

[Many great chefs have been trapped by these limits, unable to progress to the next level, only to despair]

[But not you]

[A reward will be given to those who are ahead of others]

[Reward: The limitation on ingredients disappears]

“…?”

It seemed like a grand message, yet the reward was just one line.

“What does it mean that the limitation disappears?”

As I pondered the meaning of the reward…

“Oh my…”

Someone exclaimed in awe.

Turning my gaze in that direction, I saw Corporal Lee Gong-woo.

He was staring intently at the metal sheet I was holding.

“Corporal Lee Gong-woo?”

“Do you sense something different?”

“Huh? Oh, uh…”

It seemed I wasn’t the only one who heard his amazement. Some soldiers also began to question Corporal Lee Gong-woo.

After being lost in thought, he finally responded.

“Well… as I mentioned earlier, engineers like us have a characteristic called ‘material identification.'”

Material identification, huh? It’s probably a similar characteristic to my ‘ingredient identification.’ Like how I can discern ingredients, he probably can discern materials.

“Based on that, that metal sheet…”

Corporal Lee Gong-woo continued, his expression showing disbelief.

“It seems like an entirely different item from the metal sheet before that went into the oil.”

“Entirely different?”

The soldiers’ expressions lightened upon hearing his response. Their gaze turned to the metal sheet in my hand.

Outwardly, it just seemed like a slightly wrinkled metal sheet.

“Wait a minute.”

Could it be?

“So, did it become a sturdier metal sheet?”

If that’s the case…

With this ability, if I could enhance all materials…

“Huh? No, it didn’t.”

“Oh.”

“It seems like its efficiency as a material actually decreased. It’s practically unusable now.”

“Oh, I see.”

I wondered if I could reinforce the metal sheet with my cooking, but contrary to expectations, it seemed impossible.

“This is not something to just overlook! The fact that a substance changes just by being put in and taken out of oil? There’s no other word for it but a miracle! Maybe it’s possible because of the Sergeant’s profession, but really…”

His astonishment seemed to be limited to that aspect.

Excitedly, he began to explain how unbelievable it was. Of course, it wasn’t helpful from my perspective. I let his words go in one ear and out from the other.

“Is it important?”

After all, it wasn’t a dish meant to aim for that aspect in the first place. As long as it fulfilled its role as a dish, that was enough.

Handing the completed dish to the soldiers, I said, “This should be fed to the monster.”

“Is it the debuff food you showed us last time?”

By the way, most soldiers still didn’t know that my cooking could stir emotions. Since it’s not a desirable ability that should be known publicly.

So, thanks to that soldiers had some peculiar misunderstandings.

The food I fed to monsters when we descended the mountain.

They understood it as debuff food.

“To be honest, I’m not even sure if it can be considered food.”

“It’s food. Well, also a debuff food.”

Since the results were similar, I decided to leave the misunderstanding as it was.

Regardless, the dish was completed.

So…

“Let’s begin the operation.”

***

Thunk…

We stepped back into the warehouse, but this time with fewer soldiers than before.

Most of the group consisted of shield warriors with outstanding defensive capabilities.

Since we deemed direct assault impossible, only warriors with exceptional defensive abilities were brought along as a precaution.

“This…”

“It’s back to its original state.”

Upon re-entering the warehouse, we saw the scattered metal pieces on the floor.

Apart from the rearrangement, it was a mess just like when we first arrived.

“I was wondering why it was such a mess when we first arrived.”

A monster that gathers materials and forms a gigantic form when it discovers an enemy.

But does that form itself consume power?

After repelling the enemy, the gathered materials seemed to scatter randomly.

We stood near the entrance, scrutinizing the interior of the warehouse.

“Where’s its main body?”

“Hmm. Can’t see it.”

What we needed to find was the monster’s main body, the black shadow that manipulated the metal pieces. But could it be buried somewhere, hiding?

No matter how much we searched, it was nowhere to be found.

“Seems like it’ll only show itself when we approach a bit more.”

“It will likely assume the same giant monster form as before.”

Ideally, I wanted to ascertain its location in this state. But it seemed difficult.

“Well, we can’t do anything about it then.”

I confidently stepped forward.

As we took a few more steps into the warehouse…

Grrrr…

“There it is!”

The vibration sound, that we had already heard once, resonated again.

It seemed the sound came from the vibrating materials.

Accompanying the sound was the spreading black shadow throughout the warehouse.

Warriors raised their shields, guarding against the floating metal pieces.

“Stay cautious, everyone!”

“Even if we fail, we must protect Sergeant Shin.”

The warriors assumed a defensive stance, protecting me.

From the perspective of someone who was being protected, it was quite reassuring.

Within this protection, I closely observed the black shadow.

Particularly, I focused on the center of the shadow.

Where the shadow condensed the most.

That place was surrounded by hardware, as if to protect it from external enemies.

“Is it there?”

That was probably where the monster’s main body was located.

Observing the almost completed form of the giant monster…

I gripped the metal sheet I brought along.

The gleaming metal sheet, shimmering with oiliness.

The heat still lingered, scorching hot.

If it weren’t for my fire-resistance, my hands might have suffered.

Yet, there was a reason I brought the metal sheet in such a heated state.

“It’s best to eat it warm for better flavor.”

With the metal sheet gripped firmly in my right hand, I formed an L-shape by extending my left hand forward.

It was a throwing stance I learned, reminiscent of a grenade throw.

I’ve never tried baseball before, and this was the only thing that I knew about it.

“Throw!”

Unlike in training, this time the target wasn’t the enemy’s base but the area near the monster’s main body.

The shimmering metal sheet sliced through the air.

As I observed it, I thought, “Last time, you attacked my food mercilessly, didn’t you?”

Thanks to that, my pride took a hit.

But this time it was different.

The metal sheet fell around the monster’s main body.

The black shadow homed in on the spot where the metal sheet landed.

Thud.

The shadow adhered to the metal sheet.

The metal sheet, guided by the shadow, was drawn towards the presumed location of the main body.

“There it is!”

Confirming the sight, I shouted to the soldiers, “Retreat!”

“Fall back, fall back!”

“Mission accomplished, everyone, retreat!”

The objective was achieved.

Without hesitation, I turned and fled along with the soldiers.

Glancing back, I saw the monster observing us with a somewhat bewildered expression.

Was it due to mood swings?

“Do you want to fight?”

The soldiers were brought along just in case.

Combat wasn’t part of the plan from the start.

Before the fully formed monster could attack us, we completed our retreat.

From a distance, the monster watched us and the soldiers, still in the warehouse.

We knew it wouldn’t pursue us.

“We’ve managed to evade somehow.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way.”

The monster likely saw the warehouse’s metal as both a protective shell and a source of sustenance.

The warehouse, overflowing with metal, was the perfect sanctuary for it.

There was a possibility of someone looting the food if left unguarded.

There was no need for the monster to pursue invaders who retreated, considering humans were inedible and useless for it.

“We somehow managed to shake it off.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way.”

After completely escaping from the area of the monster, the soldiers spoke.

The soldiers were anxious about whether the operation would go well.

Although we succeeded in delivering the dish.

In the end, the operation could only succeed if it ate the dish, and the effect takes place properly.

I understand their worries.

I shrugged my shoulders and said, “It’ll be fine.”

“Really?”

Unlike the anxious soldiers,

I was confident that it would go well.

“You seem very confident that it will go well.”

“How can you speak with such confidence?”

“Huh? Well….”

To the soldiers’ question,

My answer was simple.

Because I have faith that it will succeed.

“Who do you think made the dish.”

“Oh.”

Of course, it will turn out well.

And

My belief was not wrong.

“Mmm… Mm….”

What’s this?

Looking at it like this,

“It’s pretty cute, isn’t it?”

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Translator: One Force

TL Note:

This is the first additional chapter of the day (For NU 30 votes milestone completion)

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