Chapter 273: Combat Review is Mandatory.
Chapter 273: Combat Review is Mandatory.
The two who had lost consciousness didn't wake up even by lunchtime, so I ended up having a meal with beings that weren't exactly human.
Lin and Un-ho.
Two small entities sat atop the dining table, eschewing the chairs.
"A Food Ingredient Generator... You've managed to acquire something quite useful."
As she spoke, Lin ate a salad of Blue Leaves, skillfully produced using the generator.
The color was enough to kill anyone's appetite, yet she ate it without hesitation.
As I stared at her...
Unlike Un-ho, who was ravenously tearing into some meat, Lin seemed to notice my gaze.
She looked up.
"Does something bother you?"
I considered brushing it off with my usual indifference, but then I remembered I had things to discuss. I decided to keep the conversation going.
"Well, it’s just... the color of that salad is a bit much."
I’d seen plants of that color occasionally during my time in the Magic Kingdom.
But because that place was strangely similar to our world, most salads there consisted of green vegetables.
In fact, I’d seen far weirder food on the Demon Train.
Things like rainbow-colored glowing fruits or transparent plants.
That made me even more curious as to why she was eating that so diligently.
From what I’d observed traveling through various worlds on the Demon Train, there were worlds that—for reasons unknown—shared similar sensibilities and tastes, with only a few exceptions.
The Magic Kingdom and our world fell into the same category. So, assuming our culinary sensibilities were similar, that cobalt-colored salad was definitely an "odd" food.
Even in the Magic Kingdom, I’d seen people occasionally chew on those Blue Leaves, but I’d never seen anyone shovel them down in such quantities. I’d tried them myself once, too.
The verdict on those Blue Leaves was the same for me, Un-ho, and Al’shel.
Subtle. That was the word.
You’d think, how bad can a vegetable taste?
It wasn't that it tasted bad, per se; it just had a very peculiar flavor.
A level of bitterness that even I could perceive.
If it tasted bitter to my ruined tongue, it should have been absolutely inedible to anyone else.
Whether it was a magical bitterness or not, the leaves were something Un-ho and Al’shel had described as having a similar taste.
In other words, it was an ingredient that could stimulate the appetite if used as a garnish or in small amounts in a salad, but it wasn't something you’d eat as a main dish.
Lin seemed to catch onto my long-winded internal questioning of her taste immediately.
"I understand. It doesn't look particularly appetizing to me, either."
She gave the perfect answer to my unspoken question.
However, that answer didn't explain everything.
Just as the question 'Then why are you eating it?' was about to leave my lips...
"However, it is necessary to consume it. This vegetable contains components required for suppression."
"Suppression of what...?"
Before the words could fully leave my mouth, something flashed through my mind.
Something Lin would feel the need to speak about in such a roundabout way.
Blood and Flesh.
Lin’s older sister, Lina, was also part of the Guardian Corps.
I didn't know if Blood and Flesh was hereditary.
But even if it wasn't to the same extent as Lina, Lin likely possessed a significant concentration of it.
"It seems you understand what I mean. And for the record, it has a unique charm once you get used to it. I missed it so much during my dispatch that it’s almost a shame."
Hmm. Is that so?
I reached out with my spoon from the fried rice I was eating, scooped a bit of Lin’s salad, and scattered it over the meat on Un-ho’s plate.
Lin frowned slightly at having her salad touched, but her expression quickly softened as she realized my intention.
Of course, Un-ho, who had suddenly received a gift of greenery, stopped tearing at his meat and looked up in confusion.
"Huh? What’s this?"
"Eat it regularly from now on. Even a little bit is fine. Those blue things."
"I don't wanna, they're bitter."
"Are you a child? Don't be a picky eater. It’s good for you, so just shove it in."
Of course, if Un-ho actually listened to what I said, my thirty years of life would have been a lot less stressful.
Watching Un-ho naturally pick out the cobalt leaves, I felt a sudden urge to cram them down his throat.
I suppressed that urge as best I could and fell into silent thought.
How can I get him to eat that?
Should I chop it up finely and put it on the meat?
The problem was that the cobalt blue was too conspicuous.
A plant that retained its color even when finely chopped or crushed.
Surely the color wouldn't bleed out if I soaked it in water, right?
I pondered it for a moment but decided to think about it later.
Seeing as Lin mentioned she hadn't eaten it in a while, it didn't seem like skipping it would cause immediate problems.
It was probably more like a health supplement.
More importantly, I needed to continue the conversation.
"Lin."
"Yes?"
"I met your sister. She seemed to be doing well."
"That is to be expected. Did she have any specific message for me?"
Hmm.
"Nothing in particular."
"I see. I shall be satisfied simply knowing she is alive. My sister was always blunt and a woman of few words."
...Blunt?
She started chatting excitedly the moment your name came up, though?
Is she the stern father type who freezes up when actually facing the person they care about?
She’s a woman, but that’s the best analogy.
Regardless, we weren't close enough for me to go into the nitty-gritty of her family affairs.
Since that was just an icebreaker, I decided to move on.
"Right, well, being alive is the best news. On that note, there’s something I want to ask. What exactly happened while I was gone?"
This was the important part.
What on earth happened to make my disciples power up like that?
I expected them to grow quickly, but not that quickly.
I could understand that kind of growth if some terrifying enemy had descended and they had to get stronger or die.
But I’d already confirmed that no such major incident had occurred during the past month.
At most, an A-Rank monster had appeared somewhere and caused a few casualties. Just the usual news.
"If you mean something special, yes, there was."
"Ho. What was it?"
Contrary to my expectations, Lin opened her mouth to speak, so I pushed my fried rice aside and prepared to listen.
"It is something I could tell you. However, it would be better to hear it from the parties involved."
Betraying my anticipation, Lin glanced somewhere and went back to devouring her salad.
As if she didn't want to have a long conversation with me.
...I still can't get through to this one.
No matter how I try to strike up a conversation, it always gets cut short, whether by her or by me.
So, I gave up on trying to talk and picked up my bowl to dump the cold fried rice into the sink.
"Ugh... my head hurts."
"Here, take this medicine. You don't need water, just swallow it."
I heard the voices of my two disciples behind me.
They woke up faster than I thought.
I tossed the food waste into the disposal and turned around.
I was greeted by the sight of my two disciples in a sorry state.
Baek Si-hyun was clutching her head and leaning on Han A-bin.
Han A-bin was soothing her, pushing a yellow capsule into Si-hyun’s mouth.
Seeing that, it finally sank in that I was truly home.
The usual sight.
Baek Si-hyun doing something stupid and Han A-bin cleaning up after her.
I filled a cup with water and handed it to them.
"Ah, thank you."
"Th-thank youuu."
They both took it quietly.
Baek Si-hyun downed the water in one go, slammed the cup onto the table with a satisfied "Kyah!", and slumped over.
Han A-bin quietly held her cup and sat at the table.
Since the two of them were seated, I followed suit.
"You two, are you up for a talk?"
"I'm fine, but I'm not sure about Si-hyun."
"I'm f-f-f-fine... ugh..."
Could someone slumped over and making weird noises really be called "fine"?
...Well, whatever. Talking won't kill her.
"Right. Then... first, let's do a combat review of the sparring match from earlier."
"...Not about the Otherworld?"
"Did I say I was going to the Otherworld? Just how far did the rumors spread? Well, I can tell you about that whenever. As I've said many times, if we don't do the combat review immediately, it'll slip from your mind."
I tapped the table with my finger.
A signal to focus.
"Uuuugh. Uhhh. Uuuuugh. Uh."
Baek Si-hyun groaned in rhythm with my finger taps, but that was proof her senses were still functioning.
"First, in order of attack, Baek Si-hyun. You switched from volley fire to off-beat firing. Any particular reason?"
As I’d thought earlier, volley fire has its own advantages.
One: It requires less control, so the pure firepower is overwhelming.
Two: If The Enemy’s defensive capability can't handle a volley, then that in itself is a lethal attack, so there’s no need for fancy tricks.
Therefore, striking with an off-beat rhythm to prevent The Enemy from timing their defense isn't a normal part of the growth process; it’s a method used by assassins specialized in anti-personnel combat.
It might work on Mutants who can be neutralized in a single blow.
But for the monsters and beasts with overwhelming physical bodies that Heroes usually face, there’s no real gain in such subtle timing adjustments.
The primary method is to land dozens of hits rather than trying to land one perfect strike.
That’s why I hadn't taught Baek Si-hyun that method.
Yet, she had walked that path on her own.
There had to be a reason.
I leaned in to listen.
"Ugh, that... the Black Marauder’s side... the helper... that's why... I lost."
...What is she talking about?
Even I tilted my head at her nonsensical words.
I waited for her to continue.
"Sigh... I'll explain. While she was fighting Black Marauder, bullets started flying from somewhere she couldn't identify. Si-hyun tried to deflect them by getting into a rhythm, but at some point, the timing of the incoming shots shifted. The moment her footing faltered, two shots hit her in succession, and she said that's how she lost."
"Th-that's right..."
Ah.
Chong So-rim must have supported Yumil.
Come to think of it, that’s exactly the kind of method Chong So-rim would use.
Her goal was to put a bullet in the head of a kid who didn't act like a Hero, so it wasn't surprising she’d learned those kinds of tricks.
And Si-hyun was influenced by that and changed her attack style. That was it.
However, there seemed to be one problem.
"Baek Si-hyun. Can your control capability actually handle that?"
No matter how I looked at it, her current state seemed to be the result of her brain short-circuiting.
"That's fine... That's a different issue... Mas'er."
...Maybe I should talk to her later.
I was having even less of a conversation with her than I was with Lin.
"I was worried about that too, but she says it's not a big deal. It looks like off-beat firing at a glance, but she actually programmed a code into her brain to fire semi-automatically."
"Huh? What? Code?"
Did I hear that right?
"Don't mind it. I didn't understand it either, but once she got into actual combat, she could do volley fire, off-beat, sequential fire... she could even do random patterns."
No, what the hell.
She achieved that in less than a month?
The act of embedding code into the brain wasn't particularly strange.
The Management Bureau had the technology to engrave such things, like the brain-stop function or the translation function embedded in my own head.
The problem was that writing such protocols was incredibly difficult.
The standard procedure involved dozens of experts predicting side effects or brain overload and making minute adjustments. She did that by herself in a month?
I always forgot because of her usual behavior, but she really was a genius.
Sigh.
I couldn't even begin to predict her anymore; all I could do was sigh.
"Then, if weapon control isn't the issue, why is she like this?"
"You saw it. That technique where she summons electrical clones. That's why."
Ah, right, there was that too.
But it was a bit strange for her to end up like this just because of that.
"Didn't she use that for maybe two or three seconds at most? And she's wiped out because of that?"
"Overcloooooock."
"It hasn't been optimized yet, so her current brain capacity isn't enough to control it. She says she momentarily pulled in everything—Cognitive Acceleration, sensory enhancement, precognition, calculation partitioning, and whatever else."
What exactly is she doing?
Psychokinesis, Lightning Magic, weapon summoning.
I thought she only used those three, but she was using every single thing she had.
That’s why her brain fried from the overload the moment she used it.
The problem was that even after pulling all that in, she hadn't secured enough control for the clones to perform precision tasks; they could only manage a simple charge.
"I see why you told her not to use it, A-bin. No matter how good the performance is, it's no good if she ends up like this."
It was the exact same problem as Area Control.
The potential for growth was sky-high, but for now, it was a defective product because she lacked the power to achieve it.
However, considering she eventually solved the issues with Area Control over time, this would likely improve as well. For now, though, it was a mess.
"Ah. That didn't matter. Knowing Si-hyun’s personality, she doesn't even consider that a penalty."
"Then why did you stop her?"
Aside from the grogginess from the two or three seconds of overload, it didn't seem like a particularly problematic technique.
"Well... you saw it."
"Saw what?"
"The... the appearance of the clones..."
The appearance of the clones?
I took a moment to recall the sparring match.
They were simplified since they were made of lightning, but there were five clones that looked more or less like Baek Si-hyun.
"There wasn't anything particularly special about them?"
"...The clothes."
"What?"
I hadn't heard her because she spoke too softly, so I asked again.
"The clothes! The clothes! They come out completely naked!"
A-bin shouted, her face turning bright red.
I thought back again.
Lightning clones with female bodies.
Right, they didn't have clothes.
But still.
"Is that really a problem?"
It wasn't like they were intricately sculpted; they were basically just smooth mannequins.
Isn't it weirder to make a fuss about clothes on something like that?
To be blunt, it would be a waste of control and calculation power.
However, Han A-bin seemed to think differently.
Her already red face grew even redder as she raised her voice.
"It's a huge problem! A grown girl, no matter how simplified it is, just putting her body out there like that..."
"Overprotectiiiiiive..."
"Si-hyun! You need to be more careful. What if someone takes a picture and it ends up on the internet?"
"I'll have to... check the reactions..."
"SI-HYUUUUUN!"
A-bin’s loud voice filled the once-quiet Dining Hall.
It seemed to be a delicate issue that I didn't quite understand, so I had no intention of interfering.
But there was one problem.
"A-bin. More importantly, it's your turn for the review..."
I spoke up tentatively.
"I'm sorry, Senior! I need to give Si-hyun a lecture first!"
An infinite pressure radiated from my disciple.
"Right. Go ahead."
Left with no choice, I took a drink out of the fridge and started sipping it quietly.
Praying that the lecture would end quickly.