The Military Chef of a Ruined World

Due to the aftermath of the fierce battle.

Even the single enormous continent that had existed on the surface was torn into several pieces.

If even the continent was like that.

There was no way the living creatures on the surface could avoid its aftermath.

Lives that should originally have rooted themselves on the surface and continued their descendants.

Most of them died in misery.

Not individuals that had lived on the surface.

But species that had existed on the surface.

Those species themselves vanished forever without leaving a single survivor behind.

More than 95% of all species met eternal extinction.

Morzan’s battle with the invader had ended comparatively quickly.

Even if civilization on the surface had been destroyed once, and it had become a world different from the one Morzan had dreamed of.

Many lives survived and were able to continue into the next civilization.

But not this fight.

If this fight continued.

This planet itself would become a barren star where not a single life could survive.

And.

This battlefield was the land of the owner of this memory.

There was no one who would not feel rage while watching their own world become a battlefield and be destroyed.

The owner of the memory resisted the invader in extreme fury.

But even so.

Kuuung.......

Before long.

That body collapsed.

A battle that had lasted tens of thousands of years.

At the end of that battle.

Earth’s master ultimately lost.

***

When the body of the memory’s owner collapsed.

The invader began approaching that master.

—@!#$*&^#

The enormous beast approached while conveying incomprehensible words.

Craack—.

Its mouth opened.

The world is ruled by the law of the strong devouring the weak.

The strong eating the weak.

Surviving by eating someone, and being eaten by someone else.

That itself was the way of the world.

However.

The owner of the memory looked around the surface while collapsed.

Only after its face had been driven into the ground did it see the scenery that had not been visible when looking down from on high.

Tall conifers.

Lives trembling in fear and dying beneath their shadows.

Even while the long battle had left the world devastated.

An extremely small number of lives were still continuing to live.

Beneath the shadows of trees, deep inside caves, in wetlands that could cool their bodies from the scorching heat.

Beings who had barely survived by hiding in such places.

But.

Lives with large bodies and strong power could not survive by such means.

Only those that were small and weak.

And therefore did not need much energy to survive, had barely endured.

Beings far too fragile.

In this destroyed world, they would have no choice but to lose their lives before long.

Even if a small number survived.

It was obvious without needing to see what end a world that had lost its protector would meet.

Was that why?

'At this rate, this cannot continue.'

The thought lodged in its mind.

Was not fear of death.

Nor anything like a desire to live.

'Even if I vanish.'

In a situation where it was obvious what would happen to those lives.

'At this rate.'

It could not be eaten like this.......

Crunch!

***

With the crunch as the final sound.

The scenery before his eyes darkened.

It was...... not very difficult to know why.

'Its head was eaten.'

This memory was created by the owner of the memory.

The owner’s memory contained no scenery after that point.

It had become unable to see its surroundings.

Gurgle.......

However.

Perhaps that body had not entirely vanished.

There were things he could feel around him.

Something incredibly enormous.

It seemed to be painfully twisting its body, as if trying to digest what it had just swallowed.

Shin Youngjun felt the presence of that something and thought.

'It’s changing.'

Perhaps because it thought it was beside an already-dead corpse.

The invader did not seem to care about revealing its energy.

Though he could not see it.

Shin Youngjun instinctively...... no.

The divine power that had begun melting into his body several years ago.

His experience handling and materializing that divine power for a long time.

Through that sensation, he could tell.

'An energy...... similar to the owner of this memory.'

Only then.

Even while glimpsing this memory.

Shin Youngjun realized why he had been unable to know its name. freewebnøvel.coɱ

'Its name was devoured.'

What that monster had just devoured.

Was not only the head of the owner of this memory.

It was something closer to conceptual than physical.

The name the owner of the memory had been born with.

The thing that defined and determined itself.

For beings who could be called transcendents, something that could be called the very identity of their existence itself.

'Divine name.'

That monster devoured that name.

And was digesting it as its own.

Rustle.......

Once that digestion ended.

As if it had no interest in the remaining body.

That invader.

Stagger.......

Dragged its wounded body.

And began withdrawing beyond the world with difficult movements.

And.

Watching that, Shin Youngjun thought.

'Why?'

When he had seen it in Morzan’s memories.

He had thought it was simply a beast-like being that devoured everything without discrimination.

Even when it had eaten Morzan and left behind the scraps of its flesh.

He had assumed that was simply because it had eaten enough to be full.

But.

'A battle against a powerful enemy strong enough to wound it.'

The owner of this memory had continued fighting that invader for over ten thousand years.

Which meant that even for that invader, the owner of this memory had not been an opponent it could easily defeat.

Just because a beast prioritizes survival does not mean it is foolish.

Rather, wild beasts often display intelligence beyond imagination.

One example of that is.

'It would risk injury in a hunt meant only for eating......?'

When a fight might end in one’s own defeat or fatal injury.

If the situation is not absolutely necessary, one avoids it.

If the purpose is merely to fill one’s stomach, there is no reason to risk injury.

On top of that.

'It ate only the name.'

He could still feel it now.

The body of the owner of this memory was merely lying there, having lost its head, twitching.

It was a contrast to when the invader had eaten most of Morzan’s body.

In other words.

That thing had not been trying to devour the owner of this memory to fill its stomach.

'It was aiming only for the name......!'

Shin Youngjun was able to realize one fact.

An enormous monster that had seemed like some kind of disaster.

But that was no disaster.

With a clear purpose.

It accepted the risk of great injury, or even its own death, as it devoured its target.

A being closer to a hunter.

***

That invader was not a being that simply repeated the act of devouring prey.

It was a being that continued hunting with some purpose.

What that purpose was.

What divine name the owner of this memory had possessed.

Why it had gone out of its way to come to this world and devour that name.

He could not know any of it.

All Shin Youngjun could know was simply this.

For transcendents, the moment they lost the name that defined their existence.

What remained was nothing but a nameless body.

'......Like this.'

In other words.

'So this is how it died.'

The being he had searched for so desperately.

The protector of this world had met its end like that.

That miserable fact was all there was.

Clench.......

It felt unjust.

And rage surged up inside him.

However, this memory was only a memory.

No matter how much rage he felt over something in the past, he could not change what had already happened.

That fact made him even more furious, and he had no choice but to clench his fist tightly.

But then.

'......?'

Suddenly.

He realized one thing.

A scenery that was only black.

This being had clearly met death.

If so, the memory should have ended as well.

Yet for some reason.

This memory was still continuing.

And.

Before long, he understood why.

Crackle.......

An empty body that had lost its name, with only its form remaining.

He felt the sensation of a change occurring in that body.

It did not know what its own name had been.

It remembered only faintly what its surroundings looked like.

Because of its noise-filled vision, it did not know what the being that had killed it was.

Yes, to begin with.

This memory was not the memory of this world’s protector.

It was the memory of that body.

He recalled a being he had seen in Luca’s memories in the past.

A god of healing once called by the name Serajin.

That one, too, had lost its name, and only its body remained.

But what was carved into that body was only the desire it had last held—to live.

That was why.

That being had continued its wretched life while devouring the people it had cherished.

This body was a little different.

—At this rate, this cannot continue.

What remained in that body.

Was not the painful thought Morzan had held.

Nor the desire to live that Serajin had held.

—At this rate.

A world that would vanish miserably after it disappeared.

Worry and concern for that world.

Was that why?

Crackle crackle......!

The body that had lost its name and had only an empty shell remaining.

That body split into countless pieces.

Paang......!

And then.

That fragmented body spread out across the entire world.

Thud.

The pieces of that shell that had scattered in every direction eventually fell to the ground.

The pieces that touched the ground rotted and decayed over time, melting into the earth.

—Therefore.

A land of death where indelible wounds had been carved by a long war.

And that had become so desolate that life could no longer live there.

—Eat.

Into that land.

The body of a great being began to melt.

***

Even if it had lost its name.

That did not mean even the power remaining in its body disappeared.

Hadn’t even a single piece of Morzan’s flesh contained power that could only be described as infinite?

Saraaak.......

The fragments of that body melted into the earth.

Using them as nutrients.

The wounded land began recovering its strength.

As the fertility of the land began to recover.

A small seed lodged deep within the earth.

A seed that had been dying because it could not receive nutrients, barely opened its eyes.

Saaak.

That seed.

Began sucking in and eating the nutrients of the land.

......Pop.

The seed that had eaten the nutrients of the earth grew and sprouted.

It broke through the dry ground and pushed up a single small shoot.

The shoot grew steadily and became a small plant.

Then, above that plant.

Tap.

A small insect flew in and landed.

An insect that had been fleeing from the light in the devastated world.

Before long, that insect was able to realize that this plant not only created shade, but also contained vitality.

And.

Rustle.

The dying insect ate a leaf.

The insect spent a long time eating leaves, regained its strength, and flew into the sky.

It found a mate and bore children.

And.

When the child born that way spread its wings to travel the world.

Pak.

A small amphibian hiding in the shade stretched out its tongue.

And ate that insect.

Pak.

A beast larger than it ate that amphibian.

And, after time passed.

Thud.......

A beast whose lifespan had ended collapsed.

Its corpse rotted and became nutrients for the earth.

The dying land ate that corpse and regained vitality.

And.

Pop.

A seed that ate the nutrients of that land.

Its shoot broke through the ground.

Eating.

Being eaten.

Eating.

Being eaten.

To some, it might feel cruel.

But it was something possible only for the living.

The proper cycle of life continued.

That cycle continued on without ever breaking.

And.

That memory, too.

From the great god to the dry land, to the dying seed, to the small insect.

Continued to be passed down.

'......I was mistaken.'

And.

After countless generations passed that way.

When hundreds of millions...... perhaps billions of years had gone by.

'......This memory is not the memory of that enormous being.'

That memory.

Led to a small building on one peninsula, in a corner of the shattered land.

“It’s a boy.”

“Then, as we thought before.”

The memory that had begun from that distant place.

That life force passed through billions of years.

“Let’s call him Youngjun.”

To a small child who had just been born.

'It’s my memory.'

All the way to that body.

It had continued down.