The Military Chef of a Ruined World

Chapter 72.1

In a small building in a corner of the 73rd Ammunition Depot.

“It’s meaningless to capture me,” the vampire bound to the chair said.

Since it was confirmed that even after turning into mist, it couldn’t escape the sealed building, we had turned the small building into a makeshift prison to hold the vampire.

There was no need to waste time, so I decided to immediately begin interrogating the creature.

“Your kind may want something, but you won’t get anything from me. Unlike you spineless lowlifes, our loyalty to our Queen can never be broken.”

“Is that so.”

Of course, I had no intention of resorting to brutal violence.

That would be rather frightening.

[Lizard Steak of Honest Emotions Infused with blood of an Intermediate Chef]

“Just try it, it’s delicious.”

“Urghh…!”

A lightly seared lizard steak, still oozing with blood.

I cut it into pieces and shoved it into the vampire’s mouth.

The taste must have been quite moving.

“If you have any questions, feel free to ask…”

The vampire quickly became “honest.”

I decided to ask it everything I was curious about.

“You said your ‘profession’ or ‘race’ is vampire, is that the same as the bloodsucking vampires I’m familiar with?”

“We are not exactly the same as the vampires in stories, but in the sense of being bloodsuckers, that would be accurate…”

“Did you infiltrate the large northern survivor group? Or was it…”

“That group itself was created by us vampires.”

I had suspected that maybe the northern group was normal, and only a small number of vampires had infiltrated it.

But it seems that was not the case.

“I assume the rumors circulating among the survivors were also started by you.”

“Correct. Since regular food has lost its meaning to us, beings superior to humans, we planned to lure in the useless humans as livestock to sustain ourselves and expand our ranks.”

Expand their ranks.

“So, can you turn humans into vampires by draining their blood? Was Park Cheol-gon also bitten by you?”

“That is impossible for us.”

“What?”

“Our ruler is the Queen… she is a noble, born different from us human origin vampires. Only those nobles who can have ‘kin’ have the privilege of turning others into vampires. All of us, including myself, are her kin.”

A noble of non-human origin.

In other words, a ‘monster’.

A monster with the ability to awaken humans.

“Are you not discontent with being her kin?”

“Discontent? Hardly!”

The vampire showed an unusually strong reaction to my question, its eyes shimmering with fervor as it spoke.

“I was once terrified of being devoured by monsters! But now I’ve been granted power!”

“…So, you’ve traded your humanity for this power? And from what you’ve said, it seems you didn’t even choose to become a vampire willingly.”

“I feel only infinite gratitude for the Queen’s grace. I’m sure all her other kin share the same thoughts.”

As someone using [Special Sauce], I shouldn’t be the one to say this, but it seems their minds have been remodeled to a certain degree upon becoming kin.

‘Turning them back into humans… will probably be difficult.’

I asked several other questions after that.

“Why don’t you immediately assimilate all the survivors? Because there is a limit to the number of kin the Queen can create in a day.”

“We turn the suitable survivors into kin and feed the rest to our kin to help them grow stronger.”

“Those originally gifted in combat grow much faster. You said you’re a special force, so with time, you’d become powerful kin quickly.”

Feeling I had learned the gist of what I needed to know, I asked one final question.

“Your scale. Weaknesses. The information you think is needed to subjugate you. I’d like you to tell me everything.”

“…We can gain strength through blood-sucking, but if we can’t do it regularly, our strength actually decreases. The moment we step into sunlight, our abilities drop significantly. Our strength has become quite weak, and it seems the Queen is experiencing great pain.”

The part about weaknesses was roughly what I expected.

The reason you came to find us at night must have been because of that.

“The headquarters is a huge cave-type bunker in the north.”

“…A bunker?”

“Yes. It looks like they’ve renovated a mine. I’m not sure who made it and for what purpose, but there were some weapons and food stockpiled. They must have spread rumors among the survivors, right?”

The rumor about clearing out the bunker and securing a lot of food and weapons.

I had to listen to that.

“So that rumor wasn’t a lie?”

“The people of this era are more suspicious than you think. Deceiving and putting others in danger for a single meal is nothing to them. Since the bait itself was a lie, there were no humans who would’ve fallen for it. Most were still skeptical of us until they actually confirmed the interior of the bunker.”

I thought the rumor itself was a lie since they are vampires.

But that part turned out to be true, huh.

The more shocking part was what came next.

“The scale… about 300 who have awakened as vampires.”

“What?”

“The Queen can increase her kin by five per day. The number will keep growing until there are no more survivors nearby. The bunker has already been fortified as well. …I don’t know how to attack there. Maybe if someone brought a tank, who knows?”

As I was surprised by the larger than expected scale,

the one speaking without me asking anything continued.

“Wantae hyung, whom you guys killed was one of the Queen’s cherished kin. The Queen must have been greatly angered. As soon as she deems, she has enough kin, she will come here to subjugate you.”

“Hmm.”

“It’ll be too late to regret by then. Even now, if you surrender, you might be accepted as kin by the Queen. But if you don’t surrender… you’ll be writhing in agony without even the chance to become kin, begging to be killed instead.”

“Seems like I’ve heard everything I was curious about. Thanks for telling me so kindly.”

As I left the interrogation building, I thought.

‘Our guild’s awakened members are just over 150 now.’

While the other side has 300 vampires.

Increasing by 5 per day.

And their headquarters, the fortified bunker.

Hmm…

That’s not going to be easy to beat, is it?

“Vampires, huh…”

“It’s already shocking that dead people turn into zombies. Now there are even worse things out there.”

I shared the information I gathered from the interrogation with my squad members.

“But the more shocking part is…”

“That scale, right?”

300 awakened ones, increasing by 5 every day.

Hearing that, everyone was stunned.

“Just when we thought we could finally live a bit more comfortably, they don’t even give us a moment’s rest.”

“It’s a good thing Shin Sergeant went to check them out. If we had just focused on growing slowly within the squad…”

“There’s no way we can keep up with their growth rate. A confrontation was inevitable.”

And we would’ve been the losing side.