Chapter 106: Seongnam Encounter Battle

[Translator – Aren]

I had never been to Seongnam in my life.

I didn’t work in IT over inPangyo, there wasn’t anything there I particularly wanted to do for fun, and I didn’t have family or acquaintances living there, so that was only natural. I’d always figured that if I were to go that far, I might as well just go to Seoul or Suwon instead.

And yet somehow, this year alone, I, a resident of Gyeonggi, had ended up coming to Seongnam twice.

I felt like I’d heard people call Seongnam a great city to live in right up until 2027, but the residential environment I saw below the helicopter in 2028 was completely devastated.

One side of the roads that had originally been built for ordinary traffic was filled with marching infantry, while tanks and armored vehicles on track moved along the other. Parks that had once been planted with trees and grass were now packed tight with K9 self-propelled howitzers and towed artillery positions, their massive barrels rising into the air.

Like the regular grunts from the blockade line usually did, soldiers were searching every alley in two-person teams, which stood out to me. The civilians we happened to spot were busy trembling, dropping to their knees, and raising their hands.

This was a place where, the first time we came here, they had opened up on a group of refugees with flamethrowers right off the bat.

Fortunately, we were still some distance from the very front, so apparently they weren’t immediately setting civilians on fire anymore. Of course, watching soldiers point their rifles at them while half-suspecting they might be monsters made it obvious just how precarious Seongnam had become.

One thing that had changed since the last time I saw Seongnam, though, was the swarm of quadcopter drones buzzing around loudly enough to almost rival the helicopter rotors.

They flew lower than our helicopter, squeezing through the gaps between all kinds of buildings, either pointing gun barrels downward or openly exposing the shells hanging beneath them.

There was something about looking down at the front edge of the blockade line without any fog in the way that sent a thrill straight through my knee.

I counted how many drone formations were flying around. 4 drones to a formation, and there were at least 6, 7, 8…easily more than ten groups. I clicked my tongue in amazement.

"There are way more drones than when we came here the first time, aren’t there? No, didn’t we basically see none at all back then?”

"There’s a limit to how long you can hold the line by grinding through manpower. Besides, modern warfare in the 21st century shifted toward unmanned drones a long time ago.”

Lee Sejun raised one corner of his mouth with smug confidence as he looked out through the helicopter window.

Lee Sejun. Exactly the kind of guy who, despite failing to secure a long-term service contract, still loved puffing himself up and showing off whenever military topics came up just because he used to be an NCO. Apparently he still had enough patriotic pride left in the Republic of Korea that was practically already dead to look pleased with himself.

"They might be a little less flexible than people, but when it comes to killing, they’re definitely better at it. There’s a reason the military protected Gyeonggi Province even at the cost of 10 million people in Seoul.”

"Why Gyeonggi?”

"Jemin-ssi… Did you seriously not know why they locked up the people of Gyeonggi under this thing called the second blockade line? The semiconductor factories that drive the Republic of Korea. The biggest one is in Pyeongtaek. That’s also why the Korean-US Combined Command was established there. They were desperate to preserve Gyeonggi’s infrastructure so those semiconductors could be fed straight into drone production."

"Seriously???”

I had assumed maintaining infrastructure for the blockade itself was the whole point, so this was the first time I learned that infrastructure for drones was part of it too.

And I felt an absolutely vicious wave of irritation at the fact that Lee Sejun knew something I didn’t.

How dare some testosterone-overproducing sergeant who spent every damn day singing about wanting to become a pretty TS anime girl know more than this Great Archmage Baek Jemin?

Lee Sejun…not an easy man to deal with indeed.

If it ever looked like his magic stage was going to surpass mine, I’d have to smack him in the back of the head without hesitation.

While Lee Sejun and I kept chatting about the military like that, the rest of the Supreme Archmages remained silent under the tension. Then, among them, Go Ryeoha’s muttering, she had done little but quietly mumble to herself up until now, suddenly came through especially clearly.

"...People are dying, and you’re all okay with that?”

"Hmm?”

Lee Sejun twisted his brows and looked over, but Go Ryeoha still had her face buried in her knees.

Still curled up like that, Go Ryeoha murmured.

"I really do hate those soldiers…but while we’re eating, sleeping, and talking, they’re dying out there.”

People lacking in sensitivity would probably narrow their eyes at this point and start arguing.

Hey, you damn asshole.

You euthanized those non-wizard dregs because they were doing nothing but eating food, and you think you’re in any position to say that?

But thanks to my astonishing empathy and intellect, I understood people from all sorts of walks of life, so I was able to answer in a gentle tone.

"The Yellow Bandage Straggler said it himself. People outside the blockade line don't see the soldiers holding the line as human anyway, so they just curse them out and shit. They don’t care whether the soldiers get eaten by monsters or not. It’s your duty, so go march into a deathtrap, that kind of thing. You can't just condemn that as selfishness. They’re wise people who know how to make life easy. Not my problem. That's how you free yourself from every tragedy and misfortune in the world. Why should I care? If the people lounging around in the rear and living the easy life don’t give a shit whether soldiers die or not, why should I? I’m telling you, ditch that good-girl complex already, Tsk.”

If I personally took responsibility for every misfortune and tragedy in the world, life would just become miserable.

Seen from that perspective, Go Ryeoha was a case of having way too much of a sense of responsibility.

What exactly was wrong with us eating, sleeping, shitting, laughing, and researching magic while soldiers were dying?

It wasn’t our decision, and if anything, it was proof that we were considered more valuable than soldiers’ lives.

Besides, we were personally heading out to hunt monsters and Seoul wizards, which made us far more moral than the civilians in the rear who never even showed their faces at the blockade line and just got angry demanding that soldiers go find civilians for them.

Of course, I still had to endure the furious glares of the zealot duo.

"Baek Jemin, you little shit, listen to the way you talk.”

"Jemin-ssi. You’ve fallen for the devil’s whispers again.”

I was used to it by now, so I just ignored them.

Meanwhile, the helicopter began to descend.

As the cabin rattled violently, Hamza mumbled some kind of prayer under his breath.

I turned my head slightly and looked out through the helicopter window.

Seongnam City Hall.

The grounds were so broad that you could almost mistake them for a clean, well-maintained park. The building itself looked sleek too, like they’d spent a fair bit of money on it.

The difference from peacetime was that all those neatly maintained roads and parking lots were now occupied by military vehicles and infantry radiating a murderous air.

I wondered whether there would even be room to land, but apparently they were used to transporting important personnel by helicopter, because one corner of the parking lot had been cleared out as a makeshift helipad.

Then, as the helicopter gradually descended and the people, trees, buildings, vehicles, and everything else that had looked like miniatures began to feel life-sized again.

The pastor cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention.

"Everyone, check your gear, and let’s repeat how the teams are being divided before we go. We won’t have time to run around like headless chickens once we land.”

The pastor reminded us of the short briefing he had given during the roughly 10-minute helicopter ride.

The mission objective was to infiltrate an elementary school near Namhansanseong Entrance Station in northern Seongnam and kill the Yellow-Bandage Straggler along with his faction.

Since heavy resistance and combat were expected, the military would also deploy special forces and frontline units to draw the enemy’s attention, while Aphorism was expected to make aggressive use of magic to infiltrate and break through.

Now that it had been confirmed that the Yellow-Bandage Straggler could use Inverted Ears-branch magic to guide monster hordes to some extent, staggering losses among frontline soldiers were inevitable.

So there had been some payoff to the Korean-US Combined Command keeping us Supreme Archmages overnight while grinding soldiers into the meat grinder.

Command probably would have preferred to drag the fighting out a little longer if they could, but once they confirmed that the Yellow-Bandage Straggler was an Inverted Ears-branch wizard who forced people to defect, they may have decided they could no longer afford to delay deploying us.

On that point, Command and Pastor Park Yohan had reached the same conclusion.

"It’s highly likely they’re planning to put out bait and launch a diversion. We need to split into teams."

The first person to object was Lee Sejun.

"You want to limit the infiltration team to 3 people? And Go Ryeoha-ssi isn’t even in a stable mental state right now. That means you’re effectively proposing we split into groups of 2 and 3. Pastor, even if you’re worried about a diversion, I think we should trust the military and send all 6 of us in.”

"I think both options are dangerous…”

Hamza’s Dogma-type magic, [Angel’s Intuition], chiming in from the side, was absolutely no help.

It was magic that only helped avoid the worst possible outcome, and its effect had weakened even further because we were outside the fog.

A prophecy that both options seemed like the worst was useless as hell, so in the end the pastor continued with his fairly convincing argument.

"We’ve confirmed four officers, and if two of them are staying near the elementary school, do you think the other two are just sitting around doing nothing? They're either lying in ambush or they’ll hear the shared intel and move to surround us. We need wizard forces available to keep them in check when that happens.”

"That’s why I’m saying we should trust the military…”

"If we leave it to the military, how long do you think kids who aren’t even wizards are going to hold out? How many of them do you think will die?”

Apparently I was the only one thinking stuff like, If a bunch of useless non-wizards die shooting guns, isn’t that practically a good death?

While Shin Nain read my thoughts and shot me a look of contempt, Lee Sejun awkwardly turned his head away.

Pastor Park Yohan clicked his tongue at Lee Sejun and calmly scolded him.

"Lee Sejun, you said you wanted to repay your debt to the country. You can’t turn around and tell young kids dragged into the military to throw away their lives like blades of grass. Don’t let Baek Jemin rub off on you.”

"I’m young too…”

"You, you brat!”

The pastor snapped at him in reflex, but then he remembered Lee Sejun’s age, rolled his eyes around for a moment, and trailed off.

"Then you should’ve grown to look your age.”

-Clunk!

The helicopter landed.

That brought the noisy briefing to an end.

"Hey, wait. Listen before you get out!”

"We don’t have time, so let’s just get off first.”

I threw the helicopter door open and stepped out first, and everyone else followed me down.

Pastor Park Yohan didn’t seem like the type, but surprisingly enough, he was a democratic sort of person. The way he wasted time convincing everyone one by one until they agreed made it obvious he really wasn’t cut out for the military.

If I left things to the pastor, we’d just keep arguing until all my dopamine wore off, so I decided it was time for me, the mediator, to step in.

"Pastor, Shin Nain, and I infiltrate. Lee Sejun, Hamza, and Go Ryeoha help the military intercept or repel any other wizards who try to surround us or attack the troops. Anyone got a problem with that?”

Hamza’s hand shot up immediately, and he clearly stated his objection.

"If the purpose is to watch out for ambushes or encirclement, I think Nain-ssi should stay behind with me.”

"Hamza, you little shit. You just want Nain-ssi’s detection abilities around so you can avoid danger, don’t you?”

"!"

My overwhelming words of power instantly shut Hamza up.

I wasn’t about to hand over Shin Nian, the human sonar detector, just so Hamza could coast safely in the rear. Ever since the military hospital in Anyang, I had learned the hard way that bringing Shin Nain along made things far more convenient, even if it meant giving up Lee Sejun or Go Ryeoha.

If we lacked firepower, we could still wriggle our way around that problem, but if we couldn’t identify the enemy, we’d be dead before we even had a chance to wriggle.

Conversely, if we knew the enemy’s position for certain, then prioritizing firepower was the right call.

I raised my index finger, pointed at each of the Supreme Archmages one by one, then gave short, simple, clear instructions.

"Shin Nian is our detection specialist for identifying danger. Pastor comes with us, helps the frontline units on-site withdraw, and counters Yellow-Bandage’s bullshit with propaganda of our own. Lee Sejun and Go Ryeoha help the rear units and use their firepower to keep enemy wizards in check. Hamza provides medical support and uses his ability to pinpoint which parts of the defensive line are in danger. Everyone got their roles?”

They all stared at me with their mouths hanging open like idiots, so I clicked my tongue and pulled the gas mask out from my clothes.

Even Go Ryeoha lifted her head slightly to sneak a look at me.

"What’re you looking at?”

"No…Jemin-ssi…couldn’t you act like this normally as well?”

I snorted at Hamza’s words now that he had broken his silence.

The raw-rubber smell peculiar to the newer anti-fog gas masks was already stabbing into my nostrils.

Hmm~ that smell. Washing and drying it properly had really paid off. The rubber smell was squeaky clean.

I put the gas mask on, then drew a few breaths through the filter to check its condition.

-Haaah, huff—.

Condition good.

Because Go Ryeoha was in such bad shape, she hadn’t been able to restore the Enchantment, so the Hebrew script on my poncho had already run out. But honestly, I liked it better this way.

A wizard in a poncho covered in red lettering.

Even I had to admit, the look went fucking hard.

I fiddled with the selector on my custom AR-15, adjusted the sling, then checked whether the combat knife was properly seated and whether I had brought both grenades. Only after going over everything could I finally answer Hamza.

"What am I normally like?”

"Uh..."

"I’ll make sure to hear your answer when we get back. Let’s go, fanatic zealot duo. We’re short on time. Of course, if you step in front of me, I’ll shoot you.”

Leaving Hamza’s silent scream behind me, I strode forward proudly.

There were plenty of eyes turning toward us after we got off the helicopter. With Seongnam City Hall practically serving as the front line, the killing intent coming off the blockade line soldiers was no joke either. If I’d run into men with eyes like those back when the world was still normal, I would’ve assumed each of them had stabbed 4 or 5 people and dumped the bodies somewhere.

It was terrifying enough to make the insides of my thighs tingle, but fortunately, the blockade line soldiers weren’t hostile toward us Supreme Archmages.

They wore orange armbands strung with dog tags, marking them as veterans of the blockade line.

To make the armbands clearly visible, they lowered their rifles or shifted their slings over their shoulders, then gave me crisp salutes every time I passed. I couldn’t make out any of their expressions at all beneath their CBRN protective suits and gas masks.

Instead, whenever the soldiers moved their arms, the dog tags hanging densely from the armbands knocked against each other with a loud metallic clatter.

-Clink, clink.

The sound of colliding dog tags followed my footsteps.

Soldiers marching in formation in perfect ranks and files, soldiers standing guard with flamethrowers and shotguns, soldiers loading supplies onto vehicles, even officers wearing rank insignia, if they had one of those dog-tag armbands, every single one stopped whatever they were doing and saluted.

-Clink, clink—

In place of little bells, it was dog tags that rang.

And crushing the clinking sound of those dog tags was another set of footsteps that started following mine.

"Baek Jemin, what was that about shooting us? Was that supposed to be a joke to lighten the mood?”

"No, Pastor. Jemin-ssi is fully prepared to shoot you.”

I rolled my eyes slightly and saw that Shin Nain and Pastor Park Yohan had both finished preparing as well.

Ponchos and gas masks. Firearms and belts, ammunition pouches, grenades, and canteens.

Outfits suitably testosterone-filled for us Supreme Archmages.

The difference was in how they had customized their ponchos.

It wasn’t just the Ancient Hebrew enchantments.

Shin Nain’s poncho was densely covered in red crosses, while the pastor had a single passage written across it.

"Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you?”

"James 4:7."

Pastor Park Yohan spoke through the distinctive breathing sound through his gas mask.

"Isn’t it the perfect verse for people like us, fighting devilish monsters so we can remain human? What do you think, Baek Jemin?”

"I’m not too keen on the first part, but I like the second.”

"At last, spirituality has taken root in you as well, Jemin-ssi. Amen.”

Shin Nain’s bullshit came rushing in so fast that I shut my mouth.

I was at a total loss for words.

I started walking again and looked toward northern Seongnam, where the Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes and his group were said to be launching their offensive.

There, a pale cloud was rising.

A storm cloud hanging impossibly close to the ground.

The fog had settled in.

Because I knew what that meant, my steps grew heavier every time we passed between saluting soldiers. Whenever the soldiers parted to either side and raised their hands as our trio passed, my shoulders rose unconsciously with pride.

And the more my shoulders rose, the more something seemed to settle heavily on my chest.

-Clink, clink—.

The dog tags hanging from these armbands were the price paid to maintain the blockade line. Traces of the camaraderie they had shared, believing one another human when no one else would.

Collecting the dog tags of comrades devoured by monsters wouldn’t save their souls.

But I, Baek Jemin, man among men, may have been a rational and logical human being, but even I knew when something was inappropriate to say.

Instead, I stepped onto the asphalt with heavier feet and nudged my selector.

-Click.

At that same moment, a broad road right beside Seongnam City Hall opened up before us.

It was a wasteland.

The blackened stumps of roadside trees scattered sparsely along either side of the road were enough to tell me what had happened there. Countless humans and monsters had tangled together and burned to death in this place, and now our trio advanced through what remained.

-Step, step.

Thankfully, the three people gathered here were among the sharper members of the Supreme Archmages.

It was a relief that I didn’t have to explain why we were deliberately moving on foot from Seongnam City Hall instead of taking a vehicle.

If Lee Sejun had been here, that idiot who somehow knew the military inside and out while still being a dumbass, he probably would’ve suggested we just climb into an armored vehicle, blast away its cannon, and bulldoze straight through.

That was when Shin Nain let out a dry laugh, slipped his rifle off its sling, and took it in both hands.

-Clack.

With the distinctive metallic sound of the rifle’s mechanisms locking together, Shin Nain spoke.

"Come on. We’ve fought wizards a few times now. You think I’d still be that stupid? If they throw a chunk of concrete or a piece of rebar at the vehicle and crush it, you’re disabled on the spot. Even if the hull itself stays intact, once they limit your mobility, that’s the end of it.”

"Right?”

"Shin Nain, Baek Jemin. Enough nonsense. Move your feet.”

The pastor cut in.

Normally I would’ve brushed him off for pulling another zealot move or acting like an old fart, but this time his words landed heavily.

"We’ve had our day off. Kids are dying out there.”

At that, Shin Nain put on the headset hanging around his neck and pulled up his hood. It looked like his Detection Mode was flipped on.

I reset my mindset too and got ready to work my tongue inside my mouth.

In the middle of the long road, just the three of us kept moving forward, each gripping our firearms tightly.

And the closer the fog got, the more the distant sounds of gunfire and artillery began to tremble faintly through the soles of my feet.

The fight was getting closer.

-Huuuff—.

I let out a short, deep breath and sorted out my thoughts.

I’m an insignificant human being.

My life and desires exist only for myself, and my abilities are already barely enough just to keep my own life afloat. Someone like me can’t take responsibility for other people’s fates and lives.

But I couldn’t exactly let valuable EXP go to waste.

If we happened to run into monsters along the way, I’d kill as many as I could within the limits of my ammunition.

*t*t*

The blockade line used Seongnam City Hall as the dividing point separating the northern combat zone.

After we passed along the highway-like road, we came to a broad intersection, and that was where the anomalous phenomena began.  

The moment we entered the combat zone, an unpleasant burst of static leaked from the walkie-talkie the pastor was carrying.

The noise was so thick it sounded like a television that had lost its signal, as though it might blow out the walkie-talkie’s speaker.

The pastor responded immediately by removing the battery.

-Click.

"You two take your batteries out too. You remember the department store at Jangji Station, right? Just turning the power off isn’t enough.”

"Phones these days have built-in batteries, though.”

"My goodness~. You brought your phone? Leave it somewhere before I stomp on it and crush it.”

Easy for him to say.

What the hell was even left of a modern person if you took away their phone?

But then the whole disaster at the Jangji Station department store came back to me, and I changed my mind.

I still got chills remembering all the walkie-talkies going off at once while the Dubai Chewy Witch ran around slaughtering soldiers. Walkie-talkies with removable batteries were one thing, but against modern phones with sealed batteries, that kind of trick was way too dangerous.

The pastor was right.

I immediately pulled the smartphone that had been with me for half my life out of my inner pocket, along with the talisman the Poodle shaman had given me. I wrapped the talisman snugly around the smartphone, carefully set it down by the side of the road, and came back.

The pastor looked over at me in confusion.

"What are you doing?”

"I put some clothes on my phone.”

Shin Nain, on the other hand, used a much more reliable method.

-Crunch!

He dropped his phone on the ground, then brought the butt of his rifle down on it and smashed it to pieces. Even Pastor Park apparently hadn’t expected him to go that far, because his mouth fell open in shock.

"Nain, what are you going to do without a phone?”

"One who is truly devoted listens to the Word of the Lord and seeks comfort from the paltry products of technological civilization. The comfort of the righteous lies only in the Lord’s embrace.”

"They would have absolutely adored you at the prayer retreat.”

Thanks to that, we avoided one of the sinister detection methods the Seoul wizards used through spell phones.

We had quickly neutralized one extremely creepy and meticulous means of locating people, making even powered-off phones ring to determine their position. From there, our journey as the fanatic zealot duo and the Supreme Archmage truly began.

The ominous signs didn’t end with the strange interference.

Left alone at the intersection, it didn’t take us long to come across abandoned armored vehicles and tanks scattered across the road. At first, I couldn’t understand why such sturdy vehicles had been abandoned, and I was just tilting my head in confusion when…

-Tap, tap.

Shin Nain tapped his headset and mouthed something silently. A telepathy signal.

While the pastor raised his rifle and kept watch in all directions, Shin Nain and I, being both Ears-branch wizards, quickly exchanged information.

'Jemin-ssi. There’s a faint layer of fog here. And I’ve figured out how they neutralized the vehicles.'

At that, I lowered my gaze and opened my eyes wide. Sure enough, a faint layer of fog had settled across the road, only about as high as the insoles in my shoes. If you weren’t paying close attention, you could easily mistake it for concrete dust or paint residue.

More importantly, what did he mean by how they neutralized them?

No matter how strong monsters were, surely they couldn’t punch through tanks or armored vehicles.

And even though I knew next to nothing about the military, this was the Republic of Korea, a country obsessed with CBRN preparedness.

There was no way they would’ve given monsters an opening to just pop the hatch and crawl straight inside.

But the instant I heard Shin Nain’s telepathic message, that complacent assumption shattered.

'I told you I believe the Yellow-Bandage Straggler’s Inverted Ears-branch magic involves hypnosis, suggestion, and cognitive breakdown.'

No way?

'It looks like he either encouraged exposed crewmen and officers over communications to break the seal, climb out, and defect…or manipulated them so they couldn’t even form the thought that they were helping monsters infiltrate, then made them open the hatches themselves.'

Only then did details I’d overlooked because I wasn't a tank operator start jumping out at me.

The armored personnel carriers, Humvees, and tanks were all no longer fully sealed. One door or another had been left open, windows had been rolled down as though someone had opened breathing holes, and in some cases, judging from the disgusting bodily fluids smeared along the gun barrels, something had apparently crawled in through the barrels themselves.

A chill and a surge of heat rose together somewhere inside my chest.

Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes.

That bastard had obviously spent a great deal of thought on how to neutralize armored forces, one of the biggest threats he could face in the field. This went far beyond simply fighting them. He’d designed his tactics thoroughly with the express purpose of targeting the military and bringing it down.

Creativity through magic.

Anti-wizard tactics that even made use of monsters.

Even before the long-range killing, the way this bastard thought was vicious enough that we couldn’t leave him alive.

The pastor seemed to have noticed something as well, because he glanced over at us and asked,

"Shin Nain, find something?”

"Yes."

Shin Nain gave the pastor a very brief summary.

"He hypnotized them and made it so the monsters could infiltrate the armored vehicles.”

"May God strike them down."

The pastor answered curtly.

The three of us continued forward through the abandoned vehicles, following the traces left behind by the military that had once been here.

If monsters had infiltrated all the way inside the vehicles, there was a good chance some were still lurking inside of them, so naturally our steps became even more cautious.

Then, suddenly, Shin Nain stopped in front of an eerie-looking tank.

Its hatch was closed, but disgusting traces of slime remained around the end of its gun barrel.

Just as I wondered whether this guy was standing there admiring the pride of Korean defense exports, Shin Nain slowly closed his eyes behind the lenses of his gas mask.

"There are no Amalgams or Predator Spines here. We don’t need to worry about being ambushed.”

"But didn’t you say there were monsters inside?”

The pastor, who still hadn’t realized it, asked again, but I didn’t bother enlightening him.

Because the form of the Human Slimes we had encountered at Jangji Station came to mind.

They were slow as hell and weak, but difficult to kill, making fighting them nothing but a pointless endeavor. Still, considering they were monsters that had taken over Seoul’s water and sewage systems, it wasn’t hard to imagine that they had infiltrated using their liquid-like nature.

It was obvious what kind of end the soldiers inside those tanks had met.

-Huuuuuff—.

The sounds of deep breathing overlapped.

So thoroughly that there was no point trying to tell whose was whose.

Shin Nain opened his eyes again, both fear and anger were visible within them.

"Prepare to take cover."

It was only one sentence, but that was enough.

If Shin Nain said something was dangerous, then it was dangerous. If he started saying there was something there, then there was something there.

The pastor and I briefly exchanged glances, then scanned our surroundings for vehicles that looked sturdy enough to use as cover. We stopped inching forward and lowered our bodies slightly as we did.

Shin Nain remained standing exactly where he was.

Like a lightning rod standing alone, waiting to be struck.

For a while, the three of us remained silent in the middle of the broad road littered with abandoned military vehicles, armored carriers, and tanks.

The pastor and I subtly shifted our feet against the pavement, ready to break into a spring, while Shin Nain stood alone doing whatever the hell he was planning to do.

And finally.

Along with the sound of someone tapping a microphone came the high-pitched screeeech— of cheap speakers.

Speakers positioned throughout the abandoned buildings all around us came alive at once, making it difficult to pinpoint the source.

[Huff, huff.]

We heard someone blowing into the microphone.

A quick, chattering voice with a deliberately obnoxious, taunting edge rang out across the empty road.

[I was wondering what was going on when you suddenly stopped halfway over. You’re not carrying any separate communications equipment either.]

That was when Shin Nain’s telepathy reached me.

'Jemin-ssi. Prepare Eyes-branch, Stage 2, [Cognitive Distortion] at 100%.'

I started to roll my tongue inside my mouth, then stopped and prepared to bite down instead.

There was something Shin Nain wanted out of this strange standoff.

And since he was incomparably better than me at detection, I trusted him and followed his lead.

That was when one of the speakers somewhere let out a shriek.

-Screeeeeech~!!!

[Huff, huff. Aah, sorry. I thought maybe you couldn’t hear me, so I messed up while adjusting the volume. Anyway, can you hear me? Or not?]

No one answered.

The three of us remained in our respective positions, fully prepared, watching out for the owner of the voice coming through the speakers.

An Inverted Alteration-type Ears-branch wizard at Stage 3 under the Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes.

[Tsk. Judging by the mood you guys are giving off, you’re not here to defect. And you’re not ordinary soldiers either.]

We heard the Yellow-Bandage Straggler click his tongue.

[Fire!]

Now.

Without a moment’s hesitation, I bit down on my tongue.

-Crunch!

A sharp pain traveled up from the root of my tongue, making my spine shiver involuntarily, and I felt tears pour out uncontrollably and run down my cheeks.

My pain was absolute.

The pain of others was insignificant.

And because only my pain was absolute, it stretched on and on without end…

Eyes-branch, Stage 2, [Cognitive Distortion].

The world slowed almost to a standstill.

I straightened up and looked around.

It was an ambush.

Gun barrels were emerging from every direction.

Soldiers wrapped in white bandages appeared from the shadows beyond shattered windows and leveled their weapons at us. Others rose from piles of garbage in the alleyways, aiming as they came up.

Farther away, one soldier had set up a machine gun on its bipod, linked ammunition belt feeding into it, and was bringing it to bear on us.

Slowly, but unmistakably.

But everything was sluggish.

Compared to the enemy fingers resting on their triggers, I could stand up, look around, tilt my neck, and then slowly walk over to Shin Nain faster than they could move.

Only I could move freely within time.

I grabbed Shin Nain by the back of the neck and forcibly yanked him down into a lower stance. If reality were a little more accommodating, I would’ve loved to strike a bunch of poses and shout, ‘You're already dead,’ but unfortunately reality was pathetic.

My eyelids had started twitching uncontrollably, so I couldn’t afford to waste any more time trying to look cool.

I forced Shin Nain flat, then dropped to one knee and aimed my rifle at the enemies.

Without the support of Eyes-branch, Stage 1, there was a good chance I wouldn’t hit properly.

But if even one round landed, I’d come out ahead.

-Click.

Every time I pulled the trigger, the world wrapped however it pleased.

The trigger I pulled set off a tiny explosion, producing smoke and muzzle flash as the firing pin struck and sent the round flying, but the instant the bullet left the barrel, it slowed almost to a stop.

Only the things touching my hands were allowed to flow freely, while anything trapped within my perception hardened rigidly in place.

My perception twisted the world however it pleased, kneading and violating reality itself.

The experience I had accumulated and the knowledge I had built up over time led me toward a higher level of understanding.

At this very moment, as I pulled the trigger to kill another human being, I took one step closer to the mysteries of magic and its true intent.

What humanity defines is the world.

Then only what I, a human, perceive is the world.

This was the true power of Eyes-branch magic, symbolizing human perception and a human-centered view of the world.

How could power this arrogant ever manifest in those who serve a god?

I felt a profound, bone-deep exhilaration.

I was...

Drawing closer to omnipotence!

The instant that exhilaration weighed down on my eyelids, my cry of triumph rang out as gunfire instead.

-Blink.

-Ratatatatatatata!!!

Gunfire poured down and overlapped, rounds streaking past us.

Ricochets shrieked ominously against concrete and rebar, while the acrid stink of gunpowder and a piercing ring tore at my eardrums. With time flowing one-sidedly, casualties occurred just as one-sidedly.

I saw soldiers crumple with little thuds, bursting into clouds of blood.

Of course, most of them never even registered the bullets that had suddenly sprayed toward them. The unlucky soldier who was killed happened to be the machine gunner. Machine gunners were supposedly the first ones to die in war anyway.

Even so, the barrage was practically an encirclement-and-annihilation firing pattern.

The murderous rounds dug into the asphalt and ricocheted wildly enough to tear through our ponchos.

But even though blood burst out and the places where bullets grazed us brined and split open, none of us suffered a fatal wound.

Shin Nain, who had been forced prone, immediately corrected his grip on his rifle and poured suppressive fire toward the direction the gunshots were coming from.

-Ratatatatatat!!!

I grabbed Shin Nain by the back of the neck and dragged him along while pulling the trigger more or less at random.

It was miraculous.

I was dragging someone by the neck through the middle of a hail of bullets, and even when ricochets tore through my clothes, none of them actually buried themselves in me. And our luck didn’t end there.

Beyond the deafening, vicious cracks of ricocheting bullets came the overlapping buzz of something like a swarm of hornets.

With bullets raining everywhere and tinnitus busy shredding my ears, ordinary human shouts were completely inaudible, but when I strained my ears just in case, Shin Nain's telepathy came through perfectly clear.

'Korean military drones from Drone Command. Take cover!'

Someone grabbed my shoulder as we moved.

When I checked, the pastor was staring wide-eyed and seemed to be shouting something, but the explosion that followed made all of us duck before I could hear him.

-Booooooom!!!!

Shards of broken glass came raining down onto the road, and I could hear them through the vibrations traveling into my body where it touched the pavement. As a piercing beeeeeep of tinnitus tore through my skull, the first thing I heard was Shin Nain’s telepathy.

'They’re retreating…’

And sure enough, the first thing we came through clearly was the Yellow-Bandage Straggler’s voice over the speakers.

[Lissen, Lissen. If you keep up these hostilities, we’ll guide even more monster hordes over here too. 55 Unit on-site, fall back. Don't pursue us. If you chase us, this ceasefire is over too. You know we’re cutting you some slack, right? Let’s show each other a little humanity.]

Of course, there was no way the drones were going to listen.

Why the hell would a military this pissed off obey anything some Seoul wizard told them?

The problem was that the enemy wasn’t using mere words. He was using magic.

I felt a strange discomfort in my heart, like someone was poking at it with a needle to see how I’d react.

Only after the ringing in my ears started to fade and the sounds of gunfire and people shouting came back did I fully understand the situation.

We were hiding behind an armored vehicle.

Me, Shin Nain, and the pastor.

All three of us had avoided fatal injuries.

Shin Nain and I were bleeding a little from scrapes and grazes, but nowhere near enough to worry about blood loss.

I wished Hamza were here, but he wasn’t the kind of talent you threw into a battlefield this intense.

He was too useful but fragile as a sunfish, so we had to use him carefully.

Meanwhile, it looked like the Korean army drones were hunting down the 55 Unit members who had been lying in ambush. Gunfire kept erupting, and a few drones went down, but trying to shoot down a drone with a peashooter was hard even for an expert marksman.

On top of that, they seemed to be operating suicide drones as well. Buildings kept bursting apart, and the sound of glass shards and concrete dust raining down came more often than an actual downpour.

With the drones and the 55 Unit fighting each other, the best thing we could do was stay behind cover and catch our breath.

-Huff, huff—.

Once I had sucked in enough air, my head finally cleared.

"Shin Nain, you crazy bastard. You couldn’t detect this?”

Shin Nain pulled up his gas mask, spat out saliva tinged slightly with blood, and answered.

"Human Slimes. Do you remember me telling you what those monsters sound like?”

"No. Don’t remember.”

"The true nature of those monsters is tens of trillions of cells that have each acquired autonomy. Tens of trillions of tiny voices are all screaming that they’re hungry at the same time. When not just one but several of them are mixed together inside a hard metal tank, even calling them ‘many’ feels ridiculous…’enormous’ is a better word for it.”

That was when the pastor sucked in a sharp breath.

"It’s a tactic for sniping Ears-branch wizards.”

"Sniping?”

"They know Ears-branch wizards detect through sound, so they deliberately force them to burn through massive amounts of concentration and mental stamina, then ambush them while they’re overloaded."

Ordinary specialist soldiers wouldn’t be able to deal with this.

Even if they used radar or heartbeat sensors, even if they brought in elite scouts, it would still be difficult because this was magic that broke the person rather than the equipment. Unless you built Skynet to fight them, non-wizard forces were basically incapable of resisting it.

"Damn it.”

The gunfire was starting to die down.

As the drones buzzed noisily overhead, the 55 Unit soldiers’ resistance continued only sporadically before fading away. The pursuit had properly begun.

Yellow-Bandage Straggler, meanwhile. clocked his tongue and burst out laughing.

[Pyeongtaek finally sent some proper guys this time. You’re people who’ve actually thought seriously about magic. Low-level trash or non-wizards could never show a response like that.]

Then his voice suddenly turned cold.

[You’re Aphorism. There’s no other wizard force in the military besides you that could counter us this damn well.]

-Click.

With that, the broadcast cut off.

In the middle of the road, now fallen completely silent, the three of us spent a while catching our breath before putting our gas masks back on, readjusting our stances.

I looked at how badly the hem of my poncho had been shredded, noticed the cuts scattered across it and the patches of exposed skin beneath, and reflected on just how wise my choice had been.

"Good thing I brought the pastor along.”

"Baek Jemin. Can’t I walk a flower-strewn path for once, huh? I’m already drowning in missionary work. Do I really have to get into gunfights too?”

"Pastor. With Jemin-ssi’s state of mind, do you honestly think he could properly cooperate with the soldiers still left around here?”

The pastor fell silent in the face of Shin Nain’s unpleasant question.

And so we looked around once more.

Corpses sprawled by windows, a chunk of flesh flung far away, a blackened blast crater, glass shards crunching underfoot with concrete dust, armored vehicles and cars coated in a pale layer of debris, fog risen to the height of our insoles, buildings abandoned and desolate…

-Clack.

Once again, I was the first to step forward.

"Well, that solves the capital-region housing crisis.”

"Jemin-ssi, you see? I was right when I said we should cleanse Seoul with a nuclear bomb.”

"I don’t know why every potential youth-group leader at our church acts like Seoul's been smeared with honey. Kids, the provinces are nice too! Live there long enough and you stop noticing the inconveniences!”

Our objectives remained unchanged as we walked on, idly kicking present shell casings out of our way.

Noble heroism died the moment it broke, but human greed raised its head proudly even in the most hopeless places.

I didn’t concern myself with the military that was surely moving frantically somewhere through this abandoned city.

We should simply do our best.

Kill the wizards, destroy their remains, and plunder everything they accumulated. Their knowledge, their experiences, and even their stages.

"Jemin-ssi, I’m entering this holy battle to crush the power of Satan and his demons.”

"Let’s save some people too, alright? If you’re the only one left alive, who’s going to clap for you?”

"Ah, shit. Fine.”

Even as I readjusted my grip on my rifle and kept watch in all directions, the grin leaking out from inside my gas mask never disappeared.

Taking the opinions of these goodman fanatic zealot duo fully into account, I revised our objective slightly.

As long as we fought monsters, we would remain human.

Even if we weren’t noble, exalted, heroic humans…

As humans, we advanced into this hell.