Barbed Wire
Somehow, I managed to finish every last scrap of work within a single week.
Time attack… this shit was genuinely brutal…….
Burnout had me wanting to die.
Ah. And I properly made that safety inspector eat stew through his nose.
I loaded it with so much pepper he seemed absolutely delighted.
As expected—in a fantasy world, pepper is a straight-up cheat code.
"Ahh. This is what they call pepper."
"Little brother. What are you doing sprinkling pepper all over the meat?"
"I was just rediscovering why pepper became the iconic symbol of the Age of Exploration."
"Ahh. Spices were insanely expensive back then, yeah."
I was making a complete spectacle of myself over dinner with Rize noona.
For the record, Rize noona was a meat-worshipping zealot.
Meaning she was the kind of picky eater who wouldn't even pick up her spoon unless there was a meat dish on the table.
Which is why any meal shared with her was a full-blown carnivore festival.
Well, I liked meat too, but…….
Still, a man needs fresh vegetables every now and then.
Eat nothing but meat and it gets sickening in its own way.
Unfortunately, the moment any green vegetable appeared on the table, Rize noona would have a full-blown episode, so I made do with garlic instead.
"Otto."
"Hm?"
"That's raw garlic, isn't it……?"
"Yeah?"
"Doesn't it burn?"
"It does?"
"Then why are you eating it raw……?"
"It tastes great with meat."
"Eugh."
Ahh. This is what it means to be Korean.
We ate garlic and mugwort and became human, after all.
"Honestly. You've always been ridiculously good with spicy food, even as a kid."
"Have I?"
When I was little they told me to be careful with spicy stuff, so I barely touched any.
Did I actually eat anything spicy back then?
"You used to gobble down anything with pepper and paprika in it since you were a baby."
"Huh?"
We're talking about spicy food—why are pepper and paprika entering the chat.
"Why pepper and paprika?"
"They're spicy."
"Huh?"
"What."
"Pepper and paprika are spicy?"
"Uh, yeah?"
"Pepper and paprika have… heat in them?"
"Huh?"
Somehow the conversation was completely failing to mesh.
What the hell. Did I just get hit with a common-sense rewrite?
"Neither of those is actually a spicy ingredient, though……?"
"Ah, well, paprika loses the heat once you cook it. But you used to eat food dusted with paprika powder just fine too."
Apparently Rize noona was an absolute spice wimp of legendary proportions.
Well, that was possible.
Having a strong body didn't automatically mean your tongue was forged of steel.
Even a Swordmaster had a soft little tongue, huh.
I'd have to remember that if I ever ended up fighting Rize noona.
Garlic juice straight to the tongue!
"……Otto. You're thinking something weird right now, aren't you."
"Hm? No. I was just thinking your tongue looks really soft and squishy."
"Uh? Uh……. I… see?"
"Mm-hm."
Rize noona, who had been enthusiastically tearing into a whole steak, suddenly coated her knife in sword qi and sliced the meat into tiny pieces.
Then she popped a little morsel into her mouth and started chewing with tiny, careful bites without ever opening her lips.
Did she suddenly lose her appetite?
Well, that could happen.
I swiped one of the pieces she'd cut and popped it into my own mouth.
Nom. Being sliced with sword qi made it taste even better somehow.
"Why are you stealing other people's meat?"
"Stolen food always tastes better."
"Honestly."
"Your adorable little brother is eating it for you, so you should be grateful."
"Adorable my ass. You slippery little snake."
"What. You sulking just because I took a bit of meat?"
"That's not—"
"There, there. I'll give you some of mine, so stop being mad."
"……Nom."
I stabbed a piece of my steak and fed it straight into her mouth.
She chewed for a second, then her face scrunched up.
"Ugh. How much pepper did you put on this."
"A little… a lot?"
Pepper pepper pepper…….
No. That wasn't it.
I'd been thinking about the nose-stew and accidentally dumped half the shaker on it.
Ahh. This is what they call pepper steak.
A traditional dish from Age-of-Exploration France.
Of course, since I wasn't French, I scraped most of the pepper off and ate it anyway.
Mm. Tasty.
"Alright! Little brother! Meal's over, so let's hurry home!"
"This is home."
"A warrior's home is the battlefield!"
"I'm not a warrior, though?"
"Oh? Then it's hellish training until you become one—"
"I am a fully prepared warrior!"
"Good boy."
Ha. Life.
How was there not even a single moment to rest.
I don't wanna work…….
"Ah, yes. You're from Lothringen, correct?"
"Yes, yes."
"I've heard from the Vice Minister. He said we'd be giving you every convenience regarding military contracts……."
Uh, is that something you're allowed to say out loud like that?
"Well, I'll review it positively for now. However, this is a matter of soldiers' lives. Just because the Vice Minister is vouching for you doesn't mean we can ignore procedure and shove the entire contract your way."
"Ah, of course. That's only natural."
The Defense Procurement Policy Chief spoke in a firm, uncompromising voice.
His attitude bordered on rude, and yet…….
That very fact made him trustworthy.
At the very least, it meant he wasn't the type to play games with people's lives.
Obviously you shouldn't use defective equipment.
If he just rubber-stamped everything because his boss told him to?
I'd have felt uneasy on my end instead.
And since I was already here, it would honestly be better if the whole venture crashed and burned spectacularly.
That way my workload wouldn't increase.
If I somehow pulled off another massive success this time…….
"From now on, all defense-industry cooperation with the Ministry of National Defense and Security will be your responsibility."
"Excuse me? Mine?"
"Yes. I've already put everything under your name."
"KRAAAAAAAGH!"
Something like that happening wouldn't even be surprising.
Please, for the love of everything, let this fail.
Well, nothing special was going to happen anyway.
I was only here to play salesman this time.
My role was simply to lend the weight of being "the man who saved the Vice Minister's life."
In other words, I had zero room to meddle in actual management.
No matter how brilliantly you sold something, that didn't magically improve the quality of military goods.
"I'll be in your care, Chief."
I beamed and held out my hand.
Smiles, at least, I could sell all day long.
"I simply regret that I cannot offer only pleasant words to the man who saved the Vice Minister's life."
"Human lives come first—that's obvious. I understand completely. The rest is something we'll prove with performance."
"I look forward to it."
"Haha."
Well, the demonstration itself was something Noona would handle anyway.
This time for sure, I was going to finish fast and go rest.
"Ohh."
"Is this your first time seeing the Boundary Zone in person?"
The Boundary Zone. Simply put, a natural national border.
Except it wasn't divided by mountain ranges or rivers.
"It's as if the ground itself is alive……."
"Yes. Everything beyond the Boundary Zone is corrupted land."
The earth was writhing.
No—I wasn't even sure you could still call that "earth."
It looked more like the skin of some enormous violet giant.
At any rate, it seemed far closer to organic matter than mineral.
"This area is especially dense with monster colonies, which makes it perfect for weapon demonstrations. Because the colonies compete with each other, mana is scarce, so powerful monsters rarely appear—yet the sheer numbers are enormous."
"Ahh."
So it was a low-level hunting ground, basically.
"That's why there's no barbed wire or anything, I guess."
"Pardon? Barbed wire?"
"Yes. I just assumed a border region like this would naturally have barbed wire installed."
"Hmm. What makes you think that?"
"Huh? Uh, isn't that just common sense?"
"Hmm……."
Did I just say something weird?
Well, I knew absolutely nothing about military affairs, so…….
Did he really need to look at me with such a serious face……?
I was just a civilian who'd been dragged along…….
Hmm. Hmmm. Hmmmmmm.
Then again, if someone who was supposedly in charge of military procurement started spouting things only a clueless civilian would say, it would be hard to trust them.
Wait. Then wasn't this actually an opportunity?
If I said something stupid and the sales pitch failed completely, Father would never make me do sales work again.
Oh.
Not bad at all?
"What sort of barbed wire are you referring to?"
"Well, there are all kinds, right? Usually concertina wire, but you can also lay it out like netting, and for longer stretches you can just use it in place of a fence."
Maybe the Defense Procurement Chief was bored too.
While Noona was running the demonstration, he kept striking up conversation with me the whole time.
He's chatty for a military type, huh?
Well, that worked out great for me.
It was the perfect chance to advertise that I was a civilian who knew nothing whatsoever about the military.
And it wasn't even hard.
After all, I really was a civilian who knew nothing!
"Hmm. I see. Certainly, if used that way, even large monsters would get their legs tangled and lose mobility……. It might actually be more advantageous against large monsters than small ones……."
"Pardon?"
"Ah, I was just thinking about tactics."
"Ahh."
Must be a soldier thing.
Even while talking with me, he kept muttering to himself and chewing over various tactical applications. Did you have to be this dedicated just to become Defense Procurement Policy Chief?
Well, he wasn't a simple bureaucrat—he was military.
"Ah. Looks like the demonstration is over."
"Hm? Already?"
"It's not 'already,' is it? We've been standing here for hours."
"Ah……. Right."
Apparently chatting had made him lose all track of time.
"Otto-ssi."
"Yes? Yes."
"Would you consider becoming an external advisor to our Ministry of National Defense and Security?"
"Pardon?"
"And I would also like to purchase large quantities of that barbed wire of yours."
"Pardon?"
"Ah. If you need time or additional budget to secure production facilities, our side will accommodate you as much as possible, so please don't worry."
"Pardon?"
Uh, what exactly about the barbed wire now?
"Ahh. So in this world, barbed wire has never been used for military purposes."
Fuck.