I Became a Walking Supply Depot

I headed for my temporary quarters on the first floor of the ruined hotel building.

Calling it quarters was generous—a single field cot unrolled in the corner of a half-collapsed lobby was the extent of it. But with a roof overhead, it was more than I deserved right now.

Thud.

The moment I sank onto the bed, the accumulated exhaustion crashed over me. Strong Mind was holding the line, but the body's limits were another matter entirely.

'Touch of Attunement.'

"Whew…."

I used the skill to smother the pain and fatigue, and only then did my head begin to clear. At the same time, something felt different—a delicate flow of mana I could sense with strange precision.

'Something really has changed.'

When I'd first acquired this skill, the sensation had amounted to little more than a vague glimpse of mana currents. Now it was something else entirely.

"Hngh…."

The mana running through my body—my veins, even my neural pathways—painted themselves across my mind like transparent plumbing.

It was so refined that I could even make out the faint, feeble trickle of something like muddy water through a gutter. The mana flow of an ordinary person. A non-awakened civilian.

'…Wait. Could I?'

Curiosity got the better of me. I raised the skill's output a notch and began prodding at that narrow little channel.

'A little deeper… go deeper.'

Kugugu.

A faint resistance met my fingertips. Like clearing a blocked meridian.

The power of Reconstruction, the defining trait of Lv. 2, was going to work on the hopelessly clogged circuits of my own body.

Crack—!

"Hah!"

A searing heat surged from deep in my lower abdomen, racing up my spine and into my skull. At the same moment, I felt the sluggish current of that muddy water briefly accelerate.

'Don't tell me….'

I stared blankly down at my own palm.

Magic power—or mana. The force that this world's mages were born with, or else earned through years of grueling training.

I had always assumed I had no talent for it. But that sensation just now had been unmistakable.

The way I had attuned Serafina's body, forcibly unclogging her mana circuits—if I poured this skill into my own body continuously, with surgical precision? If I could forcibly renovate my own choked capillaries, widening them into ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠proper channels?

'Artificial mana awakening.'

It wasn't impossible. Where others spent their whole lives grinding to open their paths, all I had to do was drive an excavator through mine.

My heart began to pound. It felt as though the fatigue had been scrubbed away entirely.

If I could pull this off, my options would multiply exponentially. Beyond mere martial strength—

Then it came.

As if the system had been waiting, notifications began to cascade down.

Ding—

Ding!

I'd been worried I might not level up, but the fear turned out to be needless. Annihilating an entire tank battalion was apparently no ordinary feat after all.

Still, there was no time to savor it. I immediately brought up the skill selection window. There was something more urgent than celebrating a level up.

'This one. It has to be this one.'

I chose option 1—Material Conversion—without hesitation.

Until a few hours ago it had been a pie in the sky, nothing but a pretty pear painted on a wall for someone like me, who had no mana to spend. But the situation had turned one hundred and eighty degrees.

Now that I knew Touch of Attunement could awaken my own body, the skill was no longer a useless ornament. The ability to self-supply ammunition and food on the battlefield was, quite literally, a cheat code.

Ding—

The system window spat out a warning message. I'd expected as much.

'If the road doesn't exist, you build it.'

I sat up on the cot and took a deep breath. My body was loose and slack with released tension, but my mind was sharper than it had ever been.

'Touch of Attunement.'

I brought the index finger of my right hand to the inside of my left wrist, right where the pulse beat.

I honed the energy flow to a point like a drill bit and drove it into my own meager trickle of mana.

Ripples spread through a river.

"Uuugh—!"

I swallowed back a scream by force.

It hurt. Far worse than I'd imagined—like a red-hot iron pick scraping across a nerve bundle.

"Hah, hah…."

Cold sweat poured from my forehead like rain. But I didn't stop.

'Just a little more, a little more—!'

Like demolishing a dam that had been jammed shut, I forced open every last cramped channel, one by one.

Pop. Pop-pop.

Something inside me snapped. And in the gap it left behind, a true current was born. My pathetic, barely-there mana refined itself and began to circulate in a proper form at last.

Shaaaaa.

It worked.

With trembling hands ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I looked around the room. A broken shard of brick lying among the rubble caught my eye.

I picked it up.

'Material Conversion.'

The mana in my body drained out like an ebbing tide. Whether it was because the skill was only Lv. 1 or because my circuits had just been cut open, the efficiency was a disaster. A wave of weakness left my whole body slack.

But.

Clack.

Where the brick shard ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had been, something cold and metallic now rested in my palm.

"Ha… hahaha…."

I laughed like a madman.

Dirt had become bullets.

*

Several hours passed.

"Hah, hah…."

I gulped down ragged breaths, barely managing to collapse onto the bed. My skull felt like it was splitting open, and every blood vessel in my body seemed to be screaming.

But I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. Because I could see the results spread across the floor.

Things that, mere hours ago, had been loose stones and lumps of cement. Now they were 88mm armor-piercing shells, 7.92mm rifle cartridges, even high-calorie combat rations—everything I'd needed most, transformed.

I picked up one of the ration bars. A rectangular block wrapped in crude foil. Peeling it back carefully, I found a dark brown solid inside. I gave it a sniff—and, remarkably, it smelled like cheap cocoa.

'Is this actually safe to eat?'

Not that I was about to dig a hole in my stomach and turn back into soil halfway down. Hesitation lasted only a moment; I screwed my eyes shut and bit into the block.

Chomp, chomp.

"…!"

Dry and bitter, yes—but there was an unmistakable sweetness underneath. The moment it hit my stomach, warmth spread through me and I could feel the calories doing their work.

"Holy hell. It actually works."

With a hollow laugh, I shoved the rest of the bar into my mouth.

Eat dirt and stone, kill the enemy with scrap metal.

I had become a walking supply depot. Mass production was out of the question with my mana capacity, and there was a twenty-four-hour limit on everything—but on a battlefield, a single day is the difference between life and death.

Besides, if I kept widening my mana circuits with Touch of Attunement, then someday—someday—I might be able to single-handedly supply an entire artillery battalion with ammunition.

'This is enough. No—more than enough.'

I stroked the 88mm AP shell I'd hidden under the bed. There was nothing in the world more reassuring than the touch of cold metal.

Then it came.

A frantic voice sounded outside the door.

"Captain! Captain! You have to come at once!"

So it was time for the Republican dogs to come crawling back.

"Captain! Enemy main force observed two kilometers to the front!"

I swept the products off the floor and stuffed them into my gear. Twenty-four hours. Before these things ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠reverted to scrap metal and dirt, I would have to drive every last one of them into the enemy's heart.

"On my way."

I answered shortly and stepped out of my quarters.

Night had already fallen outside. But the sky over Rosenheim blazed as bright as noon—lit up by the flares the enemy had fired and the flashes of an artillery barrage already hammering down from afar.

Kugugugung!

The earth shuddered. This was a different order of magnitude from the tank guns earlier.

"150mm howitzers! They've brought up their artillery in earnest!"

I activated Minimap. Red dots filled my vision to the brim. The vanguard earlier had clearly been nothing but a taste—the real red tide was rolling over the horizon.

When I strode into the bunker command post, sure enough, Brigadier General Dietrich was practically sprawled across the operations map.

"D-did you hear the report? Two divisions. An infantry division behind the armored one! This is… this is impossible to hold."

His voice trembled. Fair enough—ordering one brigade to stop two divisions was a suicide mission on its face.

But my calculator was running different numbers.

'Nowhere to run.'

Retreat from here meant open ground—a free meal for armor. Hunkering down in the ruins of this shattered city and bristling like a hedgehog was far more likely to keep us alive.

"Brigadier General."

I drew a line across the map in red pen.

"They're in a hurry. The whole point of a war of maneuver is speed. If they fail to take Rosenheim, their supply lines stretch and their advance stalls."

"As if anyone doesn't know that! But we're out of ammunition, out of men—"

"Then we buy time. Until they exhaust themselves trying to bypass us, or until reinforcements arrive."

I looked around the room. The staff officers stood frozen in terror.

'Charming Speechcraft.'

"We've already made a miracle once tonight. The night is on our side—tanks are as good as blind in the dark."

I put every ounce of conviction into my voice.

"Rosenheim is no longer a city. It's one enormous rat trap."