The Adjutants' Secret Conversations
A private community accessible only to elite adjutants serving in the Korean military.
Operating primarily under anonymity, the board was a place where military personnel could trade idle gossip, vent about the frustrations of the job, and — most valuably — share information that actually helped against the Abysses. Real-time chat between adjutants was available as well, and because the whole thing ran on a dedicated server with airtight security, it had become a space where countless conversations that no soldier would dare speak aloud in uniform flowed freely.
And right now…
In a place already flooded with posts and chatter on any ordinary day, one particular document had gone up. Uploaded with the original author's consent, it boasted a quality that effortlessly surpassed every Abyss-related archive ever posted to the board — and it was setting the adjutant community ablaze.
A compendium left behind by a former adjutant who had already been discharged. As the elite adjutants — the so-called cream of the prestigious universities — worked through its contents, all they could do was marvel.
Even those who prided themselves on perfectionism had no choice but to acknowledge the material in full. Reading through content so precise and thorough that it casually mocked everything they had studied and researched on their own, they felt their confidence shrink a little — and at the same time, a deep curiosity began to take hold about the person who had produced something of this caliber.
Even as they marveled at the contents of the archive, the adjutants' attention turned toward a sharper curiosity: who exactly was the person who had created something this extraordinary — and what were they doing now?
On that point, the user who had uploaded the document answered based on what he knew.
Absorbing the additional details that had come through an adjutant attached to an administrative unit, the community's admiration for the figure in question only deepened.
Ordinarily, watching someone excel would naturally breed a little jealousy. But that only applied when the other person felt vaguely within reach. Faced with someone operating on a level so overwhelming it was simply untouchable, the only natural response was awe and reverence.
On top of that, the man himself had possessed this kind of ability and still been stuck in a garbage guild, grinding himself down until he was discharged. Jealousy didn't even enter the picture — pity and respect were the only feelings that made sense. Most of the adjutants felt a sharp pang of regret, convinced that if he had simply been assigned to any halfway competent guild, he could have completely flipped the stagnant war situation they were stuck in now.
And as a bonus, the torrent of abuse directed at Lee Sena — already despised for her previous repulsive behavior, and now for failing to recognize talent of this magnitude and throwing it away — only intensified.
Among adjutants who saw the battlefield with their own eyes and felt it on their skin, the clumsy propaganda campaigns leaked from the upper ranks of the military didn't land even a little. They may have become adjutants because of policies Lee Jaemin had pushed through, but any sense of gratitude toward the man had vanished long ago. A significant number of them held deeply negative views of Vice Minister Lee Jaemin — and of the generals in the military's upper echelons who clustered around him — given how thoroughly entangled he was in one filthy scheme after another, this latest disaster included.
They simply couldn't say so out loud. That was the nature of the military: you did not openly defy the people above you.
And so, as they once again aired their dissatisfaction, their anger, and a thin thread of hope about the bitter reality they were living in —
The moment the meaning of those words sank in, a brief silence settled over the chat.
Then, a little carefully, the adjutants started posting again.
Someone with the highest possible skill. Someone who had racked up the greatest achievements even while suffering under the worst superior imaginable. Someone who, even after being driven out, was still producing military results so impressive that admiration came unbidden.
From the perspective of fellow adjutants, he was a person who automatically inspired awe and reverence — and the simple fact that they would be fighting alongside him already had several of them openly showing their excitement.
And at that very moment —
The man who had, without even knowing it, become the object of so many people's admiration…
Adjutant Lee Jinhyun was boarding an airship bound for Hamhung, together with the hunters of Dreamouth.