Master Smith Under Ministry of National Defense

Master Smith Under Ministry of National Defense

145 – Gift

Having received the agreement from his teammates to follow his command for the next 2 minutes, Lucas immediately initiated the battle.

At that moment, the members of Group C could feel with their entire bodies how an ordinary person, not even an Awakener, could confidently claim to resolve the entire situation within 2 minutes.

[New movement target designated. Forced movement to the specified coordinates.]

[Target for elimination is moving to the designated coordinates. Rendezvous in 10 seconds. Prepare for long-range attack.]

[Auto-tracking mine system installation complete. Moving to the next installation location.]

[Support weapon supply completed at position C7. Move to the location and exchange weapons.]

He didn’t just give movement orders; he calculated in his mind which targets needed to be eliminated, which ones needed to be lured, and where to station specific equipment.

[Move again!? If I attack now, I can take them all down… Ahhh! Forced movement again!!]

[What, you want me to jump in there?! Are you telling me to die?!]

[There’s nothing there, why are you telling me to go that way?!]

During the first minute of the battle, the members of Group C, who had agreed to leave everything to Lucas, voiced all sorts of complaints.

They were ordered to move away from enemies they could take down with a single attack, to jump into completely disadvantageous situations and take hits, and to move to seemingly nonsensical locations.

As chess pieces, they couldn’t grasp the overall battlefield situation, and thus couldn’t understand Lucas’s initial strategy.

However, Lucas ignored all their complaints and forcibly moved the team members, who were trying to take down even one more enemy, to the positions he desired.

“You promised to follow my command absolutely for 2 minutes, right? I’ll listen to all complaints after the 2 minutes are up. For now, please move as I instruct.”

[Even so, you should at least give us understandable orders…]

“Since I have your agreement, I can forcibly control you for the duration, so I won’t listen to complaints. At least not for the remaining 1 minute.”

With that, Lucas refocused on his goal.

He held 9 chess pieces in his hand.

He aimed to utilize them to the fullest, to create the most perfect ‘picture’ he envisioned.

That picture was his own foolproof pattern, used in countless chess games.

‘Checkmate.’

With just 30 seconds left in the operation time, Lucas finally completed the picture he had been trying to create, a small smile forming on his lips.

Then, he addressed his teammates, who were exhausted from following his incomprehensible continuous orders.

“We will start the counterattack now. Knights to D6. Take down the giant monster moving to join its subordinates.”

[You told us to leave it alone earlier, and now you want us to take it down? Its subordinates will swarm us on the way.]

[Huh? Those subordinates are following me right now.]

“Move to D3, and the Rook on standby will handle the small fry. Leave it to them and move straight to C8. There’s a lone boss waiting there.”

In speed chess, there are often cases where one declares defeat despite having many pieces left to fight with.

This happens when, no matter what move you make, you realize you can’t escape the opponent’s pre-set strategy and concede the game, acknowledging that you’ve already fallen into their trap.

It’s the worst situation where every move you make leads to the opponent’s victory.

In the short span of 1 minute and 30 seconds, the picture Lucas had created forced an overwhelming ‘defeat’ upon the opponent.

“Boss eliminated! Wow! It’s completely weak when separated from its subordinates!”

[Move to D2 immediately. You need to take down the boss there.]

Before Lucas took command, Group C had been struggling in a very disadvantageous situation.

When they charged at the melee combat-type mock monsters, the long-range type monsters would snipe from afar. When they tried to snipe the long-range monsters, numerous low-grade monsters blocked the shooting path.

However, the picture Lucas had drawn fundamentally blocked such strategies of the monsters.

In the path where the boss moved to join its subordinates, a team member specialized in area attacks waited to annihilate the low-grade monsters. On the way to attack the long-range type Awakeners, a melee combat specialist was waiting.

Every time the opponent chose a new strategy to turn the tide in their favor, that strategy was blocked by Lucas’s pre-prepared counter-strategy.

It was a nearly perfect checkmate, leading to defeat no matter what move the opponent made.

Myung-jun, who was watching the battle through the cameras installed throughout the building from the situation room, couldn’t help but exclaim in admiration at Lucas’s near-miraculous command control.

“No matter how advanced the new equipment developed by the senior is, this is almost monstrous.”

Soo-jeong, who was watching the battle with a satisfied expression alongside Myung-jun, spoke.

“Right? Even during the mock battle while explaining the equipment, it was quite impressive. He achieved an almost perfect victory against the AI commander I created.”

“Hmm… I never thought that being good at chess could be this helpful in actual combat.”

“It’s similar but a bit different. The talent that Lucas Gauthier possesses isn’t just about being good at chess.”

“What do you mean?”

Hearing Myung-jun’s question, Soo-jeong smiled and took out her smartphone.

She then displayed a holographic monitor in the air for Myung-jun to see.

“This is the enhancement kit included in CHESS, right?”

“Yes. Each one has specs that match the symbolic position, and they can be operated independently like robots or equipped by party members to be used as support equipment. And this is the operation manual for each piece of equipment.”

Pointing to the densely written document that was almost impossible to read, Soo-jeong continued.

“That man, Lucas, read all this content just once and understood it completely. He grasped the optimal operation methods for each part even better than I, the designer, did. In fact, all I wanted from him was to understand the basic characteristics of the equipment, but in that short time, he figured out how to manually adjust the equipment and fine-tune it to match the abilities of the team members.”

Hearing Soo-jeong’s words, Myung-jun couldn’t help but look surprised.

Of course, having the level of ability Soo-jeong mentioned wasn’t impossible, but it was a story limited to ‘Awakeners.’

Myung-jun had heard stories about Awakeners with the rare class ‘Commander,’ which was even rarer than Moon Hee-cheol’s rare class ‘Puppet Master’.

These Awakeners had the ability to lead any team to near annihilation of monster legions with just their command skills.

However, the man named Lucas, who was commanding the members of Group C in front of Myung-jun, was demonstrating a level of command ability similar to that of an Awakener with the ‘Commander’ class, without any Awakening abilities.

As Myung-jun pondered, ‘How is that possible?’ Keeper spoke to him.

‘He is probably a human with a gift, just like you and Han Soo-jeong.’

‘A gift?’

‘Just as you have the ability of Attribute Transformation separate from your job, and your girlfriend Han Soo-jeong designed and created all sorts of inventions even before becoming an Awakener, there are a very few humans who possess innate abilities before Awakening and obtaining a job. And if my intuition is correct, the gift that man Lucas possesses is the <Tactics> gift.’

‘Tactics sounds like it relates to strategy, but what exactly is that gift?’

‘It’s a gift that allows one to instinctively recognize the given environment and conditions, as well as the shortest path to victory. From what I hear, that man seems to have only used that ability in chess, but a true gift holder would have the talent to beat a world champion in the most complex board game in the world, even if they were handed the manual and told to play right away.’

‘Isn’t that basically a cheat?’

‘Most gifts are at a cheat level of ability. Your <Attribute Transformation> and Han Soo-jeong’s <Fountain of Knowledge> would also seem like cheat-level abilities to others. It’s quite remarkable how many people blessed with gifts gather around you.’

‘Are there others besides me and Senior?’

Keeper spoke.

Among the people Myung-jun had met since his regression, there were a total of five confirmed gift holders, including himself.

Myung-jun, Soo-jeong, Byung-tae, Ah-rin, and finally, Lucas Gauthier, who was currently being tested.

Listening to Keeper’s explanation, Myung-jun asked.

‘Wait, Byung-tae has a gift? Not Ho-chang?’

Surprised by the fact that Ho-chang, who was strong enough to face Awakeners even before his own Awakening, was not a gift holder, Myung-jun asked, and Keeper replied.

‘Yes. Lee Ho-chang is definitely not a gift holder. Park Byung-tae, however, is. I don’t know all the gifts, but I can definitely distinguish those who have one.’

‘Byung-tae’s ability must be related to driving or piloting, right?’

‘Correct. If my guess is right, he likely has the <Driver> gift, which grants an immense proficiency bonus in handling all kinds of vehicles. But gifts aren’t something to worry too much about. Like the <Tactics> class Awakeners in your memory, the class received during Awakening is more important than the pre-existing gift. Gifts are just bonuses.’

Keeper, who had been watching the monitor through Myung-jun’s eyes, quietly added.

‘Well, even as a bonus, that level of performance is practically overpowered.’

As Keeper said, there was now only one boss left in front of the Group C members who had been fighting on the screen.

The boss, surrounded by 9 Awakeners wearing equipment that blinked with red lights as if the battery was running out.

At that moment, the 3 minutes granted to Lucas came to an end.

[The operation time of the support equipment has been exhausted. Disabling forced command mode.]

As the auxiliary equipment, which had helped them clear out the numerous monsters in just 30 seconds, began to detach from the team members’ bodies one by one, Lucas’s trembling voice echoed in the ears of the Group C members.

[I am… done here… The king… is in your hands…]

The team members realized.

Lucas’s near-miraculous control and command abilities were not given without cost.

Managing the positions and abilities of over a hundred monsters and nine team members with different specs, while keeping all their locations, abilities, personalities, and limits in mind without allowing even a second of error, was an immense burden.

And Lucas accomplished all of this with the body of an ordinary person, not an Awakener.

His final words carried the heavy burden that had been placed on his mind and body.

“Thank you for your hard work. At first, I couldn’t understand what you were trying to do, but in the end, I could see it all. The picture you wanted to paint, Lucas.”

“It was almost like you had the ability to see the future. Please rest well. You’ve done your part; the rest is up to us.”

“Even if we enter the academy later, I hope to be in the same group as you, Lucas. Those last 30 seconds felt like I was a god.”

They knew that if Lucas had wanted, he could have taken down even the strongest monsters within the remaining time.

However, Lucas deliberately left the most powerful boss for last.

He wanted to give his teammates, who had faithfully followed his commands and entrusted him with those 2 minutes, the opportunity to shine with all their might.

This was Lucas’s way of showing consideration, allowing his teammates to fully demonstrate their abilities in this test, which was meant to assess their ‘admission qualifications.’

Sensing this, Luthando clenched his fists and made a loud noise, as if he had been waiting for this moment.

– Bang! –

Then, he shouted at the giant mechanical monster in front of him.

“Earlier, you had fun pushing us around with your numbers, didn’t you? Now it’s your turn to get beaten by our numbers!”

“Let’s see if you can handle all nine of us attacking at once!”

“Crush it! Kill it! Smash it to pieces!”

Watching the nine Awakeners approach the monster with fiery determination, Soo-jeong muttered.

“Ugh, that thing is really expensive…”

Her face showed an expression as if she was already seeing the future of the mechanical monster being utterly destroyed.

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