I Became an Officer in Another World in Just 5 Minutes - Chapter 80

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 80

“I’d like to take it with me if I could, but I can’t do that during a mission.”

Lieutenant Garen said with a regretful voice as he threw the bellflower onto the ground.

“Lieutenant Garen, you’re still young, so you don’t need herbs like that, do you?”

“What? Haha! That’s right.”

At the flattery that hit the mark, Lieutenant Garen laughed heartily and put his hand on my shoulder.

“The Captain knows a thing or two. If you train your body regularly, you don’t need to rely on herbs like that unless you get quite old.”

“That’s absolutely right.”

I’m not sure if there’s any correlation with physical training, but well, it would help a little, wouldn’t it?

“More importantly, except for the first day, there haven’t been any particularly dangerous situations and things have been smooth.”

“It’s really fortunate, isn’t it?”

Unlike the initially expected difficulty of the mission, there hadn’t been any life-threatening level combat since the first day.

‘At most, there were about ten of them.’

Including today, we had achieved the result of destroying a total of nine magical devices.

“I don’t know what the unit price is, but we must have cost them at least a year’s operating expenses for one division.”

“It definitely exceeds that.”

Just twenty people causing damage equivalent to one division’s operating costs?

This is truly tremendous efficiency that should be recorded in history.

‘In terms of battle, this is a great victory.’

Victory doesn’t necessarily mean expanding territory.

‘Rather, this kind of economic damage would be more painful.’

Honestly, having a bit more land doesn’t immediately produce anything, does it?

It just feels good.

‘But financial damage hits you directly.’

It doesn’t take even a second to feel the impact.

“This is really thrilling. Don’t you think so?”

“Yes… well, it is quite thrilling.”

I hate to admit it, but honestly, the exhilaration that comes with destroying each one is indescribable.

“Found one. The sun will set soon, so let’s just destroy this one and withdraw for today.”

Lieutenant Orpia, who was walking at the front, found another magical device installed by the enemy.

“With this one, that makes ten. May I try destroying this one myself?”

“Go ahead.”

Lieutenant Orpia readily accepted Lieutenant Garen’s request.

“Phew, it’s ridiculously huge.”

Lieutenant Garen, standing before the massive magical device, drew his sword.

“Wouldn’t it be better to use this?”

Seeing this, Lieutenant Orpia tried to hand him a dagger made of mana stone, but he didn’t need it.

“My sword is sufficient. It’s just breaking a lump of stone.”

“Uh… yes.”

Lieutenant Orpia wasn’t the type to ask twice, so she immediately put the dagger away.

‘He could chip his blade if he’s not careful, why is he acting like this?’

Although it doesn’t have circuits carved to increase hardness, it’s still fundamentally much harder than stone.

‘Well, he’ll manage on his own.’

Since he was someone I didn’t need to worry about, I quietly watched from behind.

And shortly after.

Lieutenant Garen put his strength into it and struck down on the mana stone.

Crack!

“Crazy.”

Unlike before when we had only scratched them, the magical device was completely split in two.

The upper part slid down like skiing and fell to the ground.

“As expected of the Company Commander! You’re incredible.”

“Wow, that was really a clean strike!”

The Special Forces members admiring from behind.

Even from their perspective, it seemed to be an incredibly impressive level.

‘There was no need to go that far, but anyway, that’s insane.’

Lieutenant Orpia, who was watching from the side, also looked somewhat surprised.

“I heard you were skilled, but you’re amazing.”

“Hehe, not at all. As a man, as Special Forces, one should be able to do at least this much.”

He spoke as if it was nothing, but his shoulders had already risen to the sky.

‘No matter how I look at it, it seems like he just wanted to show off his skills, but I must be mistaken, right?’

Putting aside unnecessary thoughts, I examined the cross-section of the mana stone that Lieutenant Garen had just split in two.

‘I could tell from his movements, but this is really art.’

When I ran my hand over it once, it was clean without a single rough spot.

“Really, how does he do it?”

Humans aren’t machines, so it was hard to understand how he could achieve such precision.

“Captain, what do you mean by how?”

While I was staring as if mesmerized, Lieutenant Garen spoke to me from behind.

“Yes…? It’s nothing.”

I hurriedly removed my hand from the cross-section, but he was very experienced when it came to swords.

“Haha! That strike must have been surprising.”

“Yes… yes. You were truly amazing.”

I nodded and strongly agreed.

“Captain, you can do it too with effort. Since we’re on the topic, do you know what’s most important when cutting such hard objects?”

“The most important thing? Isn’t it strength?”

I answered without much thought to what seemed like a very easy question.

But unfortunately, that wasn’t the answer he wanted.

“Wrong. Strength is obvious, but what’s important is uniformity. I thought you knew since you were touching the cross-section, but apparently not.”

“I thought strength was a bit more important.”

Whether it’s a sword or whatever, you need strength to swing it first, don’t you?

‘And if you lack technique, you can just overwhelm with superior strength.’

You can’t overwhelm with technique alone, but strength would make it possible.

“That would be true if Captain were doing bare-handed combat. But don’t you use a sword?”

“That’s correct.”

“But imagine if you only had strength without uniformity. What do you think would have happened?”

“Hmm.”

I ran a quick simulation in my head.

‘If I mindlessly swing a sword at that thing.’

There’s one result that comes to mind.

“The blade would have broken.”

“You understand well. That’s why uniformity is more important.”

“Ah…”

Since it wasn’t a complicated or difficult explanation, I could understand immediately.

‘Certainly from that perspective, technique would be more important.’

I was completely convinced while simultaneously feeling my lack of knowledge.

“Especially when cutting something this hard, you need near-perfect uniformity.”

He pointed with his eyes to the cross-section of the mana stone.

“I’ve also been training with a scarecrow recently to achieve uniformity.”

Impressed by his profound teaching, words I shouldn’t have said came out of my mouth without me realizing.

“Oh? I didn’t know you were working on such fundamentals. You should have told me earlier.”

“Yes…?”

“I’ll personally oversee you after regular training. It’s going to be a very enjoyable time.”

Lieutenant Garen was telling me to stay until evening, even though I’m already training with the Special Forces.

This is exactly why I wanted to keep it hidden.

‘Damn it, my mouth is the problem. My mouth.’

I should just sew this mouth shut.

Every time I open it, it just causes problems.

“Ha…haha, I already have evening training, and if we add more on top of that, wouldn’t you be too tired?”

“Since the Captain isn’t in Special Forces, we can’t be together for long, so I should take care of you when opportunities like this arise. Don’t you think?”

His words were so touchingly moving that I couldn’t refuse.

‘It’s maddeningly grateful yet sad.’

I understand this logically.

At the point where Hamus told me to figure it out myself, Lieutenant Garen’s teachings are as precious as rain during a drought.

But if people could mechanically follow rational judgments, wouldn’t all students be Seoul National University students?

“Then… though it’s shameless of me, I’ll gratefully accept your guidance.”

“Haha! I’m doing this because I want to, so don’t feel too burdened. But can’t you transfer out of Intelligence? No matter how I look at it, the Captain would fit better with our side.”

Lieutenant Garen was still subtly probing, not having given up on me yet.

But fortunately, Lieutenant Orpia was nearby.

“Captain Paran belongs to Intelligence until the moment he dies, so don’t covet him.”

She was protecting me with a smile, but for some reason I felt sad.

‘I’d rather just be a civilian when I die.’

No, I want to be a civilian starting tomorrow.

“I see. That’s truly regrettable. There’s no other talent like this.”

Lieutenant Garen looked at me with obvious desire.

“I agree with that. Captain Paran is quite special indeed. Anyway, let’s head back for today…”

Whirrrrr.

Just as Lieutenant Orpia was about to mention withdrawal, the tracking magical device in her hand activated with a sound.

“Huh? Why is this…”

Lieutenant Orpia’s voice was flustered.

Though she was the first to notice something was wrong, the others didn’t need much time either.

“Wasn’t it not working just a moment ago?”

“Yes. The direction is also changing slightly, so it seems like… they’re installing or moving it.”

When the content everyone had been expecting was spoken aloud, the atmosphere instantly became quiet.

And simultaneously, all eyes focused on the mouth of Lieutenant Garen, who was leading the Special Forces.

“Hmm, let’s pursue them. The quality of our forces is obvious, and their numbers probably aren’t that many.”

I agreed with that assessment too.

After all, the Gork Mountains are Empire territory, so it’s impossible for them to bring in large-scale forces.

And our combat power?

I guarantee we’ll absolutely crush them.

“What do you think?”

After Lieutenant Garen made his initial judgment, he asked Lieutenant Orpia.

“I think the same way. I’ve been curious about many things anyway, so if we do this well, it could be an opportunity.”

An immediate answer without even a moment’s hesitation.

Actually, when movement has been detected so clearly like this, running away out of fear would be impossible.

‘Right, let’s give it a try. With Special Forces brothers on both sides, what is there to fear?’

Compared to the hardships I’ve experienced so far, this place is no different from a greenhouse.

“If we fall behind in speed, the tracking magical device will stop working, so let’s move quickly.”

After Lieutenant Garen stated his opinion, he turned his gaze to the platoon members.

“We’re going to encounter those Adits now, so raise your alertness. Don’t get caught by blind attacks.”

“Yes!!”

Everything from their voices to the atmosphere changed in an instant.

‘How fierce.’

I also began the pursuit while trying my best to blend in with their atmosphere.

*    *    *

“It looks like they moved this way. Hmm.”

Lieutenant Ricardo examined the traces remaining on the ground as he walked step by step.

And Robin was watching him with a look of disdain.

“The numbers seem quite large. This would be over fifty.”

“Fifty my ass, at most it wouldn’t exceed thirty.”

The moment Robin couldn’t stand it anymore and interjected, Ricardo’s face crumpled.

“What reason do you have for such confidence?”

“I’d like to ask the opposite. Where exactly should I look to come up with such an absurd number as fifty?”

“Just answer the question I asked. When did I give you the right to ask questions?”

Robin shook his head at Ricardo’s appearance of raising his hackles and charging forward.

“Looking at the path they came, there were consistently just over twenty traces remaining. No need for further explanation, right?”

There were several more solid pieces of evidence, but he didn’t bother mentioning them.

It would definitely become troublesome.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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