The Wicked Superior
Why are they looking at me like that?
I had been wondering about the stares pouring toward me, until I belatedly realized my reaction had been far from normal. A man had just died right in front of me, and I had stayed far too calm.
What now?
Meursault had said I could act on impulse if I wanted, but that didn’t mean I was supposed to behave like a psychopath.
Should I pretend to be shocked, even if it’s late?
I wasn’t exactly confident in my acting skills…
“Ah, I was just so startled. That was really terrifying.”
“…….”
Judging by how the officers’ faces only grew darker, my performance had clearly fallen flat. In their eyes we must have looked like nothing more than a pair of psychopath father and son. From their expressions alone I could tell that if they made it out of the officers’ meeting alive, they would go around calling the commander’s son a complete, raving lunatic.
In that case, I might as well lean into it. My acting ability was nowhere near good enough to salvage my image now. Better to leave a strong first impression so these officer uncles would know how to behave around me from now on.
“Mother told me a great deal about all of you,” I said, smiling brightly.
A few of the more timid officers jolted in their seats. Probably because my face was still covered in blood.
“Starting from this side… You’re Uncle Yosef, right? I heard you looked after Mother a lot. And next to you, Uncle Luigi.”
I went down the line of the pro-Haydam officers one by one, meeting each of their eyes as I continued the greetings.
“They said you were an incredible marksman. Has Uncle Franz gotten married yet? Mother always said she was so grateful to Uncle Orland for being such a good listener whenever she needed advice. And…”
When I turned toward the pro-Daphne side, my gaze locked with the faction’s leader, who was watching me with a complicated expression.
“Uncle Anton may look cold on the outside, but Mother said he truly loves this zone more than anyone. I heard Uncle Max is on great terms with the regular soldiers. And Uncle Batom, who was supposedly the most honest man of all… ah, he passed away. Mother also wondered whether Uncle Radu’s child had grown a lot. I’m so happy to finally meet all of you after only hearing the stories.”
I clasped my hands together and spoke as if I were genuinely delighted.
“I know everything about you gentlemen—your families, your relatives, even the dogs you keep in the yard and the neighbors next door! So please take good care of me from now on, all right?”
I finished with a polite smile directed at them. The fingertips of the pro-Daphne officers began to twitch faintly. I couldn’t quite understand why the pro-Haydam officers’ faces had gone pale as well.
Inside the regular soldiers’ barracks.
“Hey, you hear about it?”
“Hear about what?”
“Yesterday at the officers’ meeting, Major General Meursault shot Lieutenant General Batom dead.”
“What?”
Private Talula, who had been sprawled out on his bunk looking uninterested, sat up and asked,
“So what happened to Major General Meursault? Insubordination’s a serious crime.”
“They put him under house arrest.”
“He shot his superior and only got house arrest?”
“Well… Lieutenant General Batom did kind of have it coming.”
“What the hell does a guy have to do to get shot by his subordinate and still be the one who was in the wrong? And at an officers’ meeting, no less. His Excellency must’ve been right there.”
Apparently deciding this was no longer something to shout about, the soldier who had started the conversation lowered his voice.
“From what I heard, they forgave him for being rude, but he didn’t even say a single word of thanks, so Major General Meursault shot him.”
“What? He shot a guy because his superior didn’t thank him? Is he a psychopath?”
“Ah, it wasn’t that he didn’t thank Meursault. He didn’t thank His Excellency’s son.”
“Yeah, okay, that deserved a bullet.”
The moment the target became the commander’s son, Private Talula’s attitude flipped completely.
“Batom never could tell the difference between being honest and being an asshole. I wanted to shoot him a few times myself. Wait, His Excellency had a son?”
“Apparently so. He’s been married to Lady Daphne for over ten years—it’d be weirder if there wasn’t one.”
“There were rumors he was raising the kid in secret because it was still too young and dangerous. Guess those were true.”
“Yeah, but the son’s even more of a monster.”
“Why?”
“He’s only like ten years old, and when someone got shot dead right in front of him, all he cared about was the blood that splattered on his face.”
“What? Bullshit. He was probably just too shocked to react.”
“There’s more, you dumbass. After that he started smiling all bright with his face covered in blood and calling out every single one of their names, one by one. Like he was saying, ‘I know everything about you, so don’t you dare fuck around.’”
“Holy shit, that’s terrifying… Where’d you even hear this?”
“Lieutenant General Max spilled the whole thing the second he got back from the meeting.”
“That guy’s still got the loosest mouth. He’s gonna get shot by Meursault one of these days.”
“Oh yeah, and starting next month they’re gonna call the boy soldiers over once a month to have a meal together.”
“All of a sudden?”
“Apparently the young master said he wanted to eat with kids his own age.”
“Already building his own people? If that’s the case, this kid’s no ordinary monster.”
“That’s what I’m saying. Not ordinary at all. Hey! Assa!”
The senior soldier looked toward the back of the barracks and called out teasingly to his junior.
“What’re you gonna do? Starting next month you’ve gotta eat with the psychopath young master.”
“…….”
At those words, Assa—who had been cleaning his rifle at the back of the barracks—Darling Outsider, also known as CornerDwellingWife, simply smirked.
So that guy made a move just to meet me.
Since he had succeeded in the illegitimate-son route just as planned, now all that remained for him was to escape this godforsaken barracks and climb higher.
But will Tibalom actually keep his promise to me?
CornerDwellingWife, who still had no idea that Tibalom was Dopamine Addict, felt honestly a little uneasy. The deal had been that as long as he wasn’t completely useless, he would be brought to the mansion and given a position as a close aide…
“Hey, this bastard doesn’t even give his rank and name when a senior calls him—he just sits there grinning?”
“Ah, for real, this useless piece of shit. Come get hit.”
“Ack, I’m sorry, sir!!”
Darling Outsider.
Because, just as Dopamine Addict had predicted, he was indeed completely useless.
“—That is the current state of the rumors circulating about Lord Haydam within the zone.”
After hearing Meursault report the rumors about me, I was more than a little shocked.
“When you put it like that, I really do sound like a psychopath.”
“It isn’t exactly wrong.”
Meursault, who would tell the truth even on his deathbed, replied.
“Smiling and reciting everyone’s personal details while a man dies in front of you is not, by any reasonable standard, normal.”
“Hey, by any reasonable standard the guy who just whipped out a gun and shot someone is even less normal.”
Even at my retort, Meursault only gave a quiet snort of laughter.
“Still, how did you think to react that way in the moment?”
Apparently Meursault had realized that my behavior at the officers’ meeting had been calculated.
“To be honest, I expected you to be scared out of your wits, young master. Part of me even wanted to see that.”
This bastard?
“Meursault, you were the one who told me not to let myself be looked down on.”
At my answer a deep smile settled on Meursault’s lips. For a second it almost looked like he was proud of me.
“You’re right. You did well. Even if the rumor that Lord Haydam is a psychopath is spreading through the zone, His Excellency was extremely pleased, so please don’t worry.”
“Are you sure I really don’t have to worry about that?”
For the record, I had started speaking casually to Meursault. I still had no rank, so I had to use polite speech in front of others, but he had said it was fine to speak comfortably when it was just the two of us. Not Meursault—my father had said that.
“But… you did that on purpose, right?”
“Did what, sir?”
“Shooting Batom right there. Because you committed insubordination, the sudden public reveal of the commander’s son got completely buried.”
Exactly. Under normal circumstances I would have spent quite a while as the subject of every gossip session as the “illegitimate son.” But the very moment my existence was announced, a major general had summarily executed a lieutenant general. Compared to some hidden child of the commander that no one had any reason to care about, a shooting between superiors they had seen every day until yesterday was bound to be the far juicier topic.
Neither the commander nor Meursault had said anything to me, but there must have been an agreement between them. An agreement that if anyone was rude to me in that place, Meursault was free to shoot them dead. Meursault’s reputation would take a hit from this, but what mattered to him wasn’t reputation—it was making me the commander’s successor so that Daphne could be free.
Meursault looked at me with renewed admiration.
“I thought it even in the meeting hall… you have excellent political instincts.”
Well, it was only natural. I hadn’t been the commander of this zone just once or twice.
“Don’t ever do that again.”
“You needn’t worry about that either. The matter had already been discussed with His Excellency.”
“No, Meursault.”
He seemed to think I was saying this out of concern for him, but that was overthinking it. There was only one reason I was telling Meursault never to do that again.
“Those people are going to be my soldiers someday. I don’t want to lose even one of them.”
“…You were thinking about that?”
Judging by the words alone it must have sounded deeply moving, because Meursault looked at me with an unprecedentedly emotional expression. I had simply been thinking that labor was precious.
“Come to think of it, you’ll be having dinner with children your own age?”
“That’s right.”
“What can I do to assist you?”
I hadn’t even requested it, and the commander hadn’t ordered it, yet he was already asking what needed to be done. He was treating me more favorably than before. Then again, for an NPC whose ultimate life goal was creating a family, the fact that I valued human life must have been welcome.
In any case, if Meursault helped, the work would become much easier. Taejeong was assisting me inside the mansion, but right now just learning the household duties seemed to be overwhelming for him, so this worked out perfectly.
“I’m going to prepare the dinner dishes myself.”
“Cooking… A classic method of winning people’s hearts.”
Meursault’s analysis that cooking was a classic way to win hearts was perfectly accurate. Most people interpret someone who gives them food as a person who is well-disposed toward them, and they in turn develop goodwill. And if that person doesn’t merely provide food but personally cooks and prepares it? And if that person is of a far higher rank? Then they begin to feel they are being respected. Just as feeling goodwill leads to liking someone, feeling respected leads them to respect the other in return.
What I needed most right now was not “obedience” but “respect.” So that when those children grew up and heard about the Second Apocalypse, they would not doubt my orders or feel they were unreasonable. Meursault didn’t know about the Second Apocalypse, but he at least understood that what I needed immediately was “people,” so he seemed to approve of the cooking approach.
“Then what should I do first? Selecting the menu? Assisting with the cooking?”
I smiled at the eagerly questioning Meursault and answered,
“Hunting.”
“…Pardon?”
I looked toward the wall beyond which alien monsters swarmed and declared cheerfully,
“Let’s start with hunting.”
“…So we’re beginning with procuring the ingredients. Understood.”
Meursault seemed to be answering through gritted teeth, but I ignored it. There was a reason we had to go out to the outer perimeter and hunt this time.