Puuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuung!!!

“Kh—cough...!”

One of Rashir’s knights—its body swelled up grotesquely—

and then it was annihilated in a massive explosion.

From that violent shockwave—

some of Ariella’s retainers near it turned to ash and vanished, and some were flung far away after taking lethal injuries.

“What—!?”

Even I couldn’t help being startled by that enormous blast.

But.

Even if I was thrown off for a second at first, I didn’t think it was all that strange.

‘I’ve never seen vampires explode... but those guys are put together the same way we are.’

They injected noble blood into monsters in this land that were worth using—

and turned them into vampires.

Their traits changed a lot when they became vampires, but at the same time, in most cases, the traits they originally had as their own species still remained.

That explosion, too—

if I thought of it as a trait the monster originally had, it was something I could accept to a point.

“Ghk... rgh...!”

Yeah.

As long as it was something that only happened to that one bastard.

“Brother...?”

“What the hell is this, all of a sudden!”

All across the battlefield,

Rashir’s knights’ bodies began swelling grotesquely.

And then—

“KRWAAAGH!!!”

“Kgh!”

The monsters, bloated to nearly twice their original size, started tearing through the battlefield with ridiculous strength.

‘Crazy—what the hell is that now?!’

At a glance, it did look similar to when they used brute strength.

When they used brute strength, their muscles did swell up a lot.

But...

I could tell instinctively.

‘That’s different.’

If brute strength was just certain muscles swelling a bit—

these things had swollen all over, growing to nearly twice their original size.

A grotesquely enlarged form, so huge their own armor was even buckling and crushing.

More than anything—

right now, I’d temporarily borrowed the trait called [Mental Language].

I could understand what they were saying.

And the voices I heard...

“Ah... ah... it hurts...”

“Help...”

Nothing but voices moaning in pain.

‘So they didn’t choose that?’

And then—

in that moment—

“Ghk, ah... aaagh...!”

“...!”

One of those grotesquely swollen monsters charged straight at me.

I’d burned a lot of mana already, so if I could help it, I didn’t want to join the fight—

but because I was trying to confirm this sudden anomaly, I’d let an enemy get close, and my response came too late.

Slice—

That said.

It’s not like I could tell an enemy rushing me, “I’m not feeling great, so let’s call it even.”

I swung [Dokgogu Style] and cut into it.

And then—

PSSHHHHHHK!!!

“Kgh—!?”

Blood poured out of the cut with enormous pressure.

Feeling that force, I couldn’t help but be horrified.

‘My combat uniform tore...?!’

Right now, thanks to Ariella’s shadow covering my appearance, the clothes I had on looked like those “knights’” outfits—

but what it actually was, was the combat uniform Squad Leader Lee Sanga had made for me.

A masterpiece—top-tier gear—made by her at the extreme limit of level 29, working together with other production types.

And that uniform had been torn.

...From nothing but the pressure of spraying blood!

‘It’s not a water jet...!’

They say ultra-high-pressure liquid can even cut metal.

The blood that thing sprayed had that kind of pressure.

And then—

I looked at the blood on my body.

‘Weird mana...’

There wasn’t much blood on me.

But in that blood, a strange mana I’d never felt even once was swirling.

And then—

‘This is dangerous!’

The instant I sensed that mana, I immediately swung my blade and cut away the skin where that blood had landed.

SCHK—!!!

With a brief stab of pain, my skin peeled away far too easily.

In that moment, I saw it.

Ziiiiing....

The blood that had been on my skin—

the strange mana mixed in with it gave off an ominous glow—

KWA-A-A-A-A-A-A-AANG!!!

“Kgh...!”

Centered on that blood, it detonated, blasting out tremendous heat.

***

“Damn it, what the hell...!”

Because I sensed something was off and cut my skin away immediately, I managed not to get caught in the blast—

but I stared at the spot where I’d been standing a second ago and broke into a cold sweat.

“...Clean. Real clean.”

The ground where the explosion had gone off—

had been carved out into a neat, spherical cavity by the blast.

Firepower strong enough to turn everything around it into nothing.

If that had gone off while it was stuck to my body...

just imagining it was terrifying.

“My knight!”

As I stood there, hair rising on end, staring at that scene—

I heard someone calling me.

“This situation is not normal. Come here!”

Ariella seemed to have noticed the anomaly too.

Frowning hard, she was watching the flow of the battle.

As I responded to her call, I turned my eyes to the battlefield she was looking at—

and I couldn’t help being shocked by what was spread out in front of me.

‘Oh, for God’s sake.’

This was a battlefield where we’d clearly been overwhelmingly ahead.

Even if the enemy had more numbers—

in terms of troop quality, Ariella’s retainers were far superior.

But...

“Gwaaagh...!”

“This bastard—what kind of strength—khk!?”

Countless knights, grotesquely swollen.

The power they had now wasn’t even comparable to before.

They were shoving our retainers back indiscriminately with insane speed and strength.

Ariella’s retainers were barely escaping through [Mistform], but they didn’t even dare try to answer that force.

Even if one retainer managed to slip into a shadow and strike an enemy from behind—

Ziiiiing....

Puuuuuuuuuuuuung!!!

“Kh—cough...!”

The corpse of the enemy that died like that blew apart in a massive explosion.

Since the one who attacked had no choice but to be close to the body, they couldn’t avoid the blast.

-KRWA-A-A-A-A-A-AH!!!

At least the great beasts with formidable strength were holding the line against the enemy.

Since they were monsters that had been intelligent even before becoming vampires, they were avoiding the explosions while sweeping the battlefield.

But—

‘The other retainers who should be backing them up are getting washed away without any strength...’

No matter how powerful those monsters were, if they were thrown into enemy lines without forces to support them, in the end they’d have no choice but to get hunted down # Nоvеlight # by sheer numbers.

They were holding for now, but it wouldn’t last long.

“...That.”

And then—

watching the enemies who were shoving our side back with sheer power, I muttered in a small voice.

“...This feels kind of familiar.”

“What are you saying...! Fall back to somewhere safe, first!”

Ariella grabbed me, trying to get me to a place as safe as possible—

but even as she dragged me, I couldn’t take my eyes off the battlefield.

Because—

‘That pressure from the blood back then.’

For blood to spray out with that kind of pressure from just a shallow cut, it meant the blood vessels inside that body were being crushed under extreme pressure from the start.

That’s why just making a tiny hole was enough for it to burst out with that kind of force.

The stronger the pressure in the vessels became, the faster the blood circulating through the body would move.

The blood flow itself was becoming unbelievably fast.

‘And that...’

I knew that phenomenon.

No—more accurately—

I’d experienced it.

“It’s like my berserk state...”

That power that ruined my body back in Gyeonggi Province.

It was the same mechanism as [Berserk State].

‘The source of vampires’ power is that blood.’

By forcing that blood to circulate at a speed the body couldn’t endure, it gave even an ordinary cook like me enough strength to perform.

I knew just how incredible that effect was, because I’d lived it myself.

But.

Power always comes with a price.

‘A fatal penalty...’

I couldn’t escape suffering severe aftereffects as the price of berserk state.

When Luca saw my body back then, it considered me something like a talking corpse.

And me—

since I’d had those aftereffects healed by Luca with my own hands, I could roughly estimate just how severe the penalty caused by berserk state was.

‘Their blood flow is dozens of times faster than when I used berserk state.’

If you spun blood at that speed—

no matter how strong a vampire’s recovery was—

‘They won’t last half a day.’

From the moment they used that power, those bastards had less than twelve hours left to live.

‘And the knights with that power didn’t even know what was happening—they were just suffering.’

Unlike my berserk state, where I’d braced myself for side effects to a point, this meant that power wasn’t something the knights chose with their own will.

“For a momentary boost like this... you’re telling them to offer up their lives?”

And then—

if that was the case, the sight of those knights exploding over there, too—

I could understand the intent stuffed inside it.

“They were going to die anyway, so blow their bodies up and take down as many enemies as you can... is that it?”

Whether it was forced on them or chosen—

knights are people who serve their master even by offering up their lives.

From the moment they entered under a noble, those knights effectively became that noble’s vassals.

But—

that scene wasn’t how you treated vassals.

‘They’re using them as tools.’

Using someone who pledged loyalty, like a disposable tool you burn through without a second thought.

“...Maybe I’m not one to talk.”

I, too, had made criminals and monsters into Ariella’s retainers.

If my life was in danger, I was prepared to use them to get out of that crisis.

But still.

“That’s... a bit much.”

Those retainers...

people who wanted to offer their lives for me—

I didn’t use them like disposable goods.

“I’m pissed.”

That filthy scene—

was making me angry.

***

“Whether you’re angry or not—!”

Ariella spoke as if she was suffocating with frustration.

“It’s dangerous right now, so I’m telling you we need to go somewhere safe!”

“...”

“I understand your anger, but it’s not like you have a solution.”

Ariella stared at the enemies as she spoke.

“It’s infuriating, but those bastards seem pretty strong right now. If we keep fighting like this, we’ll lose. And... if we lose, everything ends.”

“The loser gets everything taken...”

“That’s what a blood duel is.”

Yeah.

Separate from the anger boiling in me—

the abnormal phenomenon happening to them right now was a huge problem purely because it was our crisis.

“At least the one lucky thing is, if you’re right and they’re doomed to die within half a day, then it’s not as if we have no method. We just have to endure until then.”

“Endure, huh.”

“Of course it won’t be easy, but...”

At her words,

I looked toward the enemy lines.

“No matter how I look at it, they don’t seem like they’re going to let us off that easy.”

“...That’s true. But.”

If all that happened was that they got stronger, maybe.

But those bastards were triggering a powerful explosion when they died.

Trying to avoid those explosions meant our formation would inevitably collapse.

Even if we tried to play defense, the odds wouldn’t be great.

“But there’s no other way right now...!”

Even as she said it, Ariella—

as if it bruised her pride—had her fists clenched tight.

She was the type with strong pride in the retainers she commanded.

Admitting inferiority wouldn’t feel good.

But—

“If we go into a war of attrition like that in the first place, then even if we win, most of the retainers will be wiped out.”

“...”

“Even if we win and take everything they have. Their forces are on a timer now. By the time they become ours, they’ll be corpses.”

We’d fight our asses off, bet our chances on a defensive battle that wasn’t even likely—

and even if we won, we’d gain jack shit, and instead we’d lose most of our own forces.

“That’s... not it.”

And...

how do I put it.

“It just doesn’t sit right with me.”

“...?”

What kind of inefficiency is that.

That kind of handling isn’t how I do things.

“If anything, this works out. I’d just finished prepping it, and I was a little disappointed I might not get to use it.”

I shoved my hand into the shadow—

then pulled out something that was inside there, and spoke.

“That is...”

“Starting now, I’m going to teach that noble bastard.”

[Servant’s Blood Sausage Soup Filled with a Hero-Grade Chef’s Sincerity and a Retainer’s Mana]

“How to handle knights.”