Chapter 108: Low-Level Wizard Doping

[Translator – Aren]

The three of us Supreme Archmages soon came upon an enormous, open facility.

A broad parking lot and a huge building that was unusually low and sprawling for something in Korea. With almost no fog around, we had been able to vaguely make it out before even leaving the alleyways, but once we got within about a block, we knew for sure.

Is that some kind of baseball stadium?”

"Looks like theSeongnam Sports Complex."

"The capital metropolitan area really is nice to live in. They’ve even got huge sports facilities like this.”

After hearing Shin Nain and the pastor fill in the details, we turned to walk towards it.

Seongnam Sports Complex still bore obvious traces of having once been used by the military. Sandbags were piled up and abandoned around every entrance alongside discarded ammunition boxes. Maybe they had used it as something like a helicopter landing zone or a place to assemble troops?

Unfortunately, we didn’t have the luxury of searching inside Seongnam Sports Complex.

The ground shook.

A heavy vibration traveled up through the soles of my feet, gripping the flesh of my thighs, then seemed to gently knock against my pelvis and hip bones as it made the hem of my poncho tremble. I didn’t need magic or any advanced sensors to know what it was.

The shelling had begun.

Then a sharp sound that seemed to delicately slice across my eardrums cut through the sky over Seongnam.

-Fiiiiiiiiioooooommm—.

An artillery shell.

A shell was slicing through the wind overhead.

Naturally, all three of us looked toward the sky.

Of course, we couldn’t actually see the shell flying, but some ridiculous part of us hoped it had split the clouds apart as it passed.

Thanks to that, we were made to realize just how terrifying modern weapon systems, born and perfected for the purpose of killing, really were.

-Boom.

The ground shook again.

I unconsciously stepped backward to brace myself, and even though there wasn’t a breath of wind, I could clearly feel the weight of my poncho hem rippling around me. Explosives meant to demolish concrete buildings somewhere out there were raining down from the sky.

At the same time, the buzzing of what sounded like a swarm of hornets cut through the impacts of artillery.

"Drones."

"I know. You don’t have to tell me.”

I stared up at the sky, feeling slightly hollow.

The artillery barrage had apparently been the signal. Drones hidden between the buildings began rising into the air. Countless quadcopters centered around the subway stations flew out with gun barrels glinting beneath them, and even larger drones with blunt, airplane-like bodies appeared in the distance.

Seeing in real life something I had only ever watched on YouTube or Twitter videos sent all kinds of worries flooding through my head.

They were pouring in drones, the supposed crown jewel of cutting-edge warfare, so could the enemy even survive? What if they all kicked the bucket? What if my precious remains got blown apart by suicide drones? What about my chance to level up?

That was when a different kind of noise rang through the air.

Not artillery, nor the buzzing of drones, but a human voice carried through loudspeakers.

[Advance north along Sanseong! Civilians and separated soldiers are to hold position and do not approach! Anyone approaching will be shot! We will not conduct rescue operations!]

The ground shook once more.

This time it wasn't the aftershock from artillery. The pounding footsteps of troops, along with the weight of armored vehicles rolling on wheels and tracks, hammered against the ground and sent dust cascading down around the stadium.

But something else was what made the three of us Supreme Archmages tense up.

[All civilians in northern Seongnam, prepare for CBRN conditions! Chemical munitions will be deployed in 3 minutes!]

Inhaling tear gas was apparently something pretty much everyone who’s served in the military experienced at least once.

During CBRN training, the chin strap on my gas mask had been so worn out that it wouldn’t tighten properly, so I still vividly remember gulping down all that tear gas and bawling with tears and snot streaming down my face. But there was no way the chemical rounds they were about to drop this time would be something as harmless as tear gas.

I hurriedly took off my gas mask and checked its condition.

I had no idea how long the effects of Hand-branch, Stage 2, [Enchant] would last. Just in case, I drew my combat knife and cut my left hand.

-Slice!

Using the blood that flowed out, I quickly wrote the word [Purify] across the gas mask.

When I put the gas mask back on, the raw-rubber smell mixed with the metallic stench of blood and became absolutely revolting, but it was still a hundred or even a thousand times better than inhaling chemical agents likeVX and choking to death.

I held out my left hand, blood dripping from it, toward Shin Nain and the pastor as well.

"Gas mask."

"Here you go.”

"Please."

I inscribed [Purify] onto each one.

Since we were short on time, I decided to erase the cut on my hand with Eyes-branch, Stage 3, [Cognitive Dissonance].

Of course, the price came quickly.

When I closed my eyes and opened them again, I felt pressure in one eye rise abnormally.

My eye was definitely open, but it stung a bit, and even when I tried to focus hard, everything looked strangely blurred.

Even lifting the eyelid brought a sharp sting that almost felt cold, and when I alternated opening each eye and turning my head around just to make sure, it became obvious.

The vision in my right eye had deteriorated.

When I kept only my right eye open and shook my head from side to side, I could feel my brain, trying to correct my vision based on memory, throbbing painfully in protest.

It was only a temporary price, but I couldn’t ignore it.

It was a good thing I’d learned to shoot with both eyes open.

Once the three of us Supreme Archmages finished preparing, we exchanged quick glances and started moving.

We headed toward the road in front of the apartment buildings below the sports complex, while the surviving military unit advanced up the road, shouting through loudspeakers.

[Chemical rounds incoming! Gas, gas, gas!]

The loudspeaker faded into the distance.

There was only so much a single person could perceive on a battlefield.

All we could do was raise our rifles, shoulder them or keep them aimed, and move faster than usual. Every now and then, we saw unidentified smoke rising beyond the apartment buildings and corpses charred black while leaning against exterior walls.

After crossing the area around the sports complex and entering the low-rise apartment district, abandoned vehicles and piles of trash greeted us.

I glanced toward Shin Nain, and he gave me a thumbs-up, a signal indicating everything was fine. Apparently he was using hand signals for the pastor’s sake, since he couldn't use telepathy. Rather than complaining, I focused my mind.

Then, the instant I stepped on a snack wrapper that fluttered down from a pile of trash…

From inside a darkened room beyond the window frame of one of the apartments, I heard someone suck in a startled breath.

-Clack.

I reflexively raised my rifle and aimed the muzzle toward it.

At that moment, Shin Nain grabbed the barrel of my rifle.

"Normal person."

A normal person.

Shin Nain said it was a normal person.

With the world ending, could you really still call someone who hadn’t awakened magic a normal person?

As someone who remembered just how unforgiving society had been before 2028, I found the phrase ‘normal person’ laughable.

People used to call you dead weight if you couldn’t work and a social orphan if you didn’t. I have no idea why they suddenly became so kind and considerate toward people who couldn’t use magic.

If you still hadn’t learned magic, you weren’t a normal person. You were a non-wizard.

Put your hand on your heart and think about the kind of stuff people in this country used to say about those without ability.

In a country where people living on welfare were mocked as parasites, if you couldn’t even learn magic and couldn’t even clap for me properly, then you were non-wizard trash.

Whether it was because you lacked talent, lacked guts, or had a shitty environment…as if anyone ever used to care about excuses like that.

I lowered my muzzle and examined the dark room the sound had come from. The window glass looked like it had shattered long ago. Sharp shards of glass were scattered across the alleyway below.

Two thoughts came to my mind.

With protection that bad, they’d inhale the gas and die.

Since they were still alive, the gas hadn’t spread to this area yet.

Which meant the filter canisters on our gas masks, enhanced with the [Purify] Enchantment, were still operating at 100%.

I clicked my tongue and made a suggestion to Shin Nain and the pastor.

"From now on, let’s call them non-wizards instead of normal people.”

"Why? What’s the problem, Baek Jemin?”

"I’m a normal person too.”

I returned to formation and followed Shin Nain again.

In a battle against wizards, having Shin Nain, who excelled at detection, take the lead was far better than having me lead. Shin Nain detected danger, I improvised responses, and we received Pastor Park Yohan’s luck buff from [Redemptive Conviction].

I’d put the team together without much thought, but it was actually pretty good.

We might run into a lack of firepower against monsters, but people died when they got shot, so whoever found the other side first had an overwhelming advantage.

It didn’t take long for Shin Nain to prove his worth.

If an Ears-branch wizard’s stage were higher than yours, they could read your mind.

And Shin Nain, the highest-stage Ears-branch wizard among those outside the blockade line, warned us the instant he detected any sign of life within range. While we were moving through an alley between the low-rise buildings, he stopped, raised his left fist, and spoke quickly but clearly.

"55 Unit.”

We instinctively lowered our stances and scanned all directions.

The windows of the darkened apartment buildings, the railings of exterior stairways poured in concrete, the rooftops, the interiors of abandoned vehicles.

...I swept through everything quickly, concentrating on my left eye instead of the shaking vision in my right as my eyes darted around.

Only one thought repeated itself overwhelmingly inside my head.

Strategic distribution of pain. Allocate it properly within the limits of what I could endure.

So I didn’t use Tongue-branch magic and only activated Eyes-branch, Stage 1, [Future in 10 Seconds]. The Gangnam group were lunatics who used monsters tactically and strategically. Of course I needed to prepare for the possibility of a monster attack.

Considering they had even devised ambush tactics using Human Slimes to neutralize Ears-branch wizards, there might be several more countermeasures waiting for us.

While I swept the surroundings, the pastor half-crouched behind a vehicle and quietly recited a short prayer.

He spoke so softly, almost muttering, that I couldn't make it out properly.

All of that took maybe a few seconds.

Shin Nain, our human detector, slung his rifle over his shoulder, adjusted his headset, let the cross-covered poncho flutter around him, then turned toward us.

"They’re planning to strike the military unit advancing up Sanseong. They couldn’t pursue us, since they lost our trail. With their manpower stretched thin, they’re prioritizing an attack on the regular army for now.”

"What about the military’s special forces?”

"They seem to be around, but if they made it obvious enough for us to know where they were, they wouldn’t really be special forces, now would they?”

It was such a perfect answer to a stupid question that I couldn’t even argue.

That was when the pastor raised his head.

"The military is moving to draw attention in our place. We need to move too. If we’re late, those kids are going to die.”

"We could also take the safer route with no risk. If we let the military force Yellow-Bandage and Velcro to reveal their magic first, it’ll be easier for us to deal with them.”

"Jemin-ssi. Conversely, there could be people like that demon in ski goggles who sacrifice others. The enemy knows far more than we do. We’re in no position to play mind games with them.”

Help the military: 2.

Use the military as bait to learn more information: 1.

I clicked my tongue inwardly, but at the same time I knew Shin Nain had a point.

If learning things by spending human lives only gave the enemy even more breathing room, then there was no point. Besides, getting shot hurt like hell for me too. If all of us could shoot guns, then it made sense to help the professional non-wizards who specialized in shooting and secure a numerical advantage.

"Alright. We’re a democracy, right? Let’s go with the democratic choice.”

The decision was made.

Shin Nain slipped his rifle off its sling again and took it in his hands, while the pastor slowly rose from his position.

And just as I raised my rifle and pulled it in toward my body, the pastor tapped me on the shoulder a couple of times and spoke in a serious voice.

"Baek Jemin. What matters in a person isn't talent but what they accomplish. And there’s no greater achievement than saving another person’s life. Even a single human life contains free will and the breath of the Lord.”

I chuckled at those words and answered.

"We’re going to shoot people dead, so what’s the point of thinking about saving lives?”

"They’re kids who’ve already fallen for the devil’s temptation. I’d like to give them a chance to repent, but too many other lives are at stake, so there’s no helping it. If it were up to me, I’d save them too…but you need to know the difference between what you want to do and what you can do, Baek Jemin.”

"Yeah, yeah. Save the sermon for later.

I was a filthy, ugly human being, but at the very least I didn’t justify my killing with some grand and glorious cause.

That was the biggest difference between this fanatic zealot duo, wrapped tight in their own sense of mission, and me, Baek Jemin, selfishly driven by greed.

The pastor clicked his tongue and turned away, while Shin Nain merely glanced back, shrugged, and faced forward again.

And so the pursuit by our Supreme Archmage trio began.

The hems of our ponchos swayed every time we passed through another alley in the villa district. Whenever I felt eyes on us and swung my muzzle toward them, all that greeted us was the shadow of an empty room beyond some window. Over the sound of our breathing through our gas mask filters came the soundless breaths of people quietly sobbing.

Then we began to hear ragged gasping.

We had entered an area where the gas had spread.

We realized the horrifying truth of the situation because of the chilling sounds echoing from a nearby intersection we happened to pass.

I could picture it from the sound alone.

Someone coughing and choking because swelling bloody foam had filled their throats, trying to shove their fingers down their own mouths but unable to even do that as their limbs thrashed violently and knocked over stacked objects with loud crashes.

What did that person look like as they writhed beneath the fallen objects, slowly going still?

A man? A woman? An elder? Middle-aged? A child?

I didn’t know.

What I did know was that they were dead.

The pastor’s steps faltered for a moment.

I didn’t touch him or snap him out of it with words.

Instead, I let out one deep breath.

-Huuuff—

A short burst of the distinctive gas mask breathing sounded, and the pastor tightened his grip on his K2.

Shin Nain had already noticed the pastor’s steps faltering and had slowed his pace.

"Shin Nain"

"Yes."

"You don’t need to worry about me. Let’s go.”

"Hehe…Yes."

When the pastor tightened his grip on the K2 again and strode forward forcefully, our group’s pace began to quicken rapidly.

And the moment a convenience store came into view after we passed a church, Shin Nain raised his left hand and flashed a V-sign.

"Pastor and I will move together. Jemin-ssi, go inside the villas and advance alongside us while using your Holy Alteration Battle Arts to neutralize the interiors and nearby rooftops.”

We’re splitting up even more?

I was dumbfounded, but when I focused my mind just in case, Shin Nain's telepathy came through clearly.

'They have Ears-branch wizards too. Ears-branch magic can only hear the thoughts of wizards at a lower stage than the user. They can’t hear either me or you, Jemin-ssi. Of course, assuming they can hear the pastor’s thoughts the same way I can, then the pastor is the only one they’ll be able to detect.’

Can we really pull off a diversion with so few people?

'The 55 Unit’s side doesn’t have many people either. And once gunfire breaks out, our side's drones will come to investigate. If they want to avoid exposure to drones and artillery, they have to strike quickly, inflict damage in a short engagement, then withdraw and constantly change positions. Even without magic, the military is an organization built to kill. Once the military establishes control, Holy Alteration Battle Arts practitioners at higher stages like us will be able to move around and overwhelm them. And since you and I can communicate through telepathy like this, coordinating the situation will be much easier.'

Got it.

We would turn the tables on the bastards who had been using magic to launch one-sided ambushes and ambush them one-sidedly instead.

As a Great Archmage who acquired all five branches, I would operate as a one-man squad, hunting down their ambush positions and striking them, while Shin Nain and Pastor Park Yohan acted as bait and advanced while identifying where the enemy was hiding.

Ultimately, by deliberately creating gunfights and drawing the military’s attention, we would force the enemy to either face the hammer coming down on them or pull their line back.

I readjusted my grip on my rifle.

-Clack!

"I’m off to farm some remains.”

The Supreme Archmages split up once again.

Fanatic zealot duo / me.

But there was nothing to fear just because I was moving alone. Shin Nain had thought this through quite well.

After all, to the enemy, someone as versatile as me, a Great Archmage who learned all five branches, would be a walking disaster!

From here on, I was alone.

Leaving the pastor and Shin Nain behind as they mumble something or whatever, I headed toward a nearby building without hesitation, aimed my rifle at the glass door, and pulled the trigger. It had been wrapped tightly in chains and sealed shut, but that didn’t matter.

-Bang!

No matter how sturdy a glass door was, if it wasn’t made from reinforced glass, a bullet would punch straight through it.

After smashing the now-ruined glass door a few times with my rifle’s butt and clearing it away nicely, I slipped inside in one swift motion.

If whoever sees the other first wins, then I had an overwhelming advantage.

I rolled my tongue around inside my mouth.

Target, 55 Unit, 5 minutes, path.

With no fog around, I could feel tiny capillaries in my eyes popping one after another, but it was bearable.

A level of fatigue like staying up for 36 hours straight, plus strained eyes, was still much better than before, when bright light alone would make tears stream down my face.

The problem was that instead of red footprints, I saw something else.

For a moment, a bright beam flickered like a hallucination, then turned crimson as though it had been dipped in blood and stuck itself directly onto reality. That crimson fluorescent line began running along the walls and stairs like painted road markings.

Did it change?

If it did, then why?

For now I followed the beam while pulling the AR-15 tight against my body.

The line followed the gaps between tiles and squeezed its way up between pipes fixed to the walls, glowing like fluorescent paint. The blood-red line sparkled almost cutely, like it was filled with tiny stars, which made the whole thing damn bizarre.

But the effect was clear.

When I followed it all the way up, I found a rooftop door sitting slightly ajar. The strange red light continued through the gap beyond it.

I stopped and thought for a moment.

For someone heading into a gunfight, I really lacked [Enchants].

But with chemical munitions already deployed in this area, cutting myself open right now could have some very obvious consequences.

If I were a non-wizard soldier, I would’ve had no choice but to risk my life and charge in.

But the 55 Unit trusted in the effectiveness of magic and hadn't prepared themselves properly, and I wasn’t some non-wizard who couldn’t use magic. I switched the selector to safe, slung the rifle over my shoulder, and drew my combat knife.

I would make a cut on my left hand.

-Slash!

Blood ran down.

With my blood-soaked left hand, the first thing I did was write bloody letters across my poncho.

The blood-written Hand-branch, Stage 2, [Enchant] I inscribed was [Bulletproof].

On my combat boots, I wrote [Silence].

Lastly, I erased the wound with Eyes-branch, Stage 3, [Cognitive Dissonance].

In exchange for removing the cut from my left hand, the vision in my right eye grew dim and blurry, though I could still handle it.

All I had to do was avoid taking any more serious injuries. And the way to avoid getting injured was to overwhelm the enemy completely and win.

Of course, while I was taking my sweet time with all that, the enemy beyond the rooftop door seemed to have noticed me.

The strange silence was proof.

The gas mask breathing that had been quite audible until just moments ago had stopped.

With the bizarre red light flickering beneath me, I sheathed the combat knife again and tucked the AR-15 into my right armpit.

Then I grabbed the hem of my poncho with my left hand and lifted it up, lowered my stance, and pushed the door open with my body weight.

-Creeeeaaak—.

As the hinges shrieked loudly, I dropped to one knee.

I had once watched someone get shredded by machine-gun fire right in front of me.

I knew painfully well that the human body could never withstand bullets. If hundreds of rounds per minute came flying in to tear my body apart, then according to humanity’s common sense, I was supposed to obediently be shredded into pieces.

But now, I held a strange, unshakable conviction.

Even if what was waiting for me wasn’t a machine gun, I was certain that ordinary rifle rounds wouldn’t be able to do much to me.

I would survive.

Through magic!

-Ratatatatatatat!!!!

The moment the door swung fully open, bullets poured in.

Tiny projectiles packed with the tremendous kinetic energy produced by gunpowder hammered away ceaselessly.

Not at my body, but against my poncho.

The poncho enchanted with [Bulletproof] didn’t tear or get punched through by the rounds. Instead, it rippled and shoved backward as though heavy stones were pelting it.

Because I had raised my left arm to shield my face, I could examine the poncho closely, and in the blink of an eye, dozens of bulging impact marks appeared across it.

The cracking bursts of bullets striking the poncho deafened my ears.

-Piiiieeeeep—

The piercing sound of tinnitus rang out.

Some rounds hit my left arm as well, and I could feel bruises blooming beneath the skin.

And finally, I heard the sound I had been waiting for.

-Clack.

The sound of metal failing to catch.

-Clack, clack, clack.

At that moment, I lowered my left arm and rested it across my knee.

Only then did I finally see the flustered 55 Unit soldiers through the lenses of my gas mask. With his ammunition spent, the 55 Unit soldier was hurriedly changing magazines. Apparently he either didn’t know about Hand-branch, Stage 2, [Enchant], or this was his first time encountering it.

Of course, I’d given him plenty of chances.

If I waited until he emptied an entire 30-round magazine, that practically made me a saint.

-Clack!

This time, the metallic sound came from me.

I rested the AR-15 across my left arm almost like a firing support and aimed at the soldier through the red-dot sight. My index finger had been on the trigger long ago. At the click of my selector turning, the 55 Unit soldier hurriedly lowered his weapon.

-Clatter!

"Wait...!"

"I’ll only fire one shot.”

The heavy recoil traveled up into my shoulder.

Only after the guy with a hole punched through his chest crumpled to the ground did I stand up. You could say I’d wasted time, but I’d learned that the [Bulletproof] enchantment was far more useful than I expected, so it was worth it.

Then Shin Nain’s telepathy reached me.

'Jemin-ssi. Can we move?’

Yeah.

Let’s go.

I grabbed a couple of magazines and a grenade from the 55 Unit soldier’s corpse, stuffed them into my belt and pouches, and walked across the rooftop.

Beyond the winds churned by artillery fire, beneath a Seongnam sky dotted with wandering drones, naturally the hem of my poncho fluttered around me. The weather was starting to warm up, and I could feel sweat building, but there was nothing I could do about it. Not with gas already deployed and no way to take off my mask.

But I felt a certain conviction.

My magic had temporarily become stronger.

Eyes-branch, Stage 3, [Cognitive Dissonance] was one thing, but Hand-branch, Stage 2, [Enchant] had become absurdly effective as well, and there was no reason Eyes-branch, Stage 1, [Cognitive Expansion] should have suddenly changed either.

And on top of that, the sky was completely clear with no fog at all. There was no way the penalties should be this mild.

There was only one possible cause.

I had destroyed the remains of a low-level Heart-branch wizard.

Destroying the remains of a lower-level wizard couldn’t raise my stage, but it could apparently dope me.

If I were doped… Could I get a taste of Heart-branch, Stage 2, [Physical Enhancement], too?

I licked away the bead of sweat running down my philtrum inside the gas mask.

Salty.

It was filthy bodily waste, but thanks to it, my head cleared instantly.

This was doable.

I stopped in front of the rooftop railing and looked toward the building on the next block over.

The temporary doping I had gained by destroying the remains of a low-level wizard filled me with limitless confidence.

Of course, it wasn’t the real Heart-branch, Stage 2, so there would obviously be limits, but I wasn’t trying to do anything that impressive.

How frustrating had it been watching Lee Sejun all this time?

Sometimes I couldn’t help lamenting how he could do so little with all that strength he had.

Hit things really damn hard? Carry a ridiculously big gun?

There was a far more efficient way to use that strength, but Lee Sejun was a soldier through and through, so it had never occurred to him.

-Clack.

With the rifle tucked under my arm, I backed up several steps.

Rooftop to rooftop.

We were about 5 to 6 stories up, so if I fell, it was obviously going to hurt like hell.

The gap was about as wide as a 1.5-lane road too, so if I tried this with the half-assed leg strength of a human, I’d turn into Human Slime.

But I was a wizard.

Above the sky shaken by artillery, beneath drones crossing the sky, amid gunfire and the choking breaths of people dying from gas, I stood at the highest point of this hell with the hem of my poncho fluttering around me.

-Huuuff.

I stepped forward.

My breathing through the gas mask had gone quiet and deep.

-Huuuff—

The walk became a run.

I planted a foot on the railing to launch myself and jumped.

I was in the sky.

Without wings, suspended for only a few endlessly short seconds.

Below my flailing feet, as though I were walking through the air, I could see Shin Nain and the pastor weaving between abandoned vehicles. They were in combat. Muzzle flashes flickered as they fired toward somewhere out of my sight.

And then the space beneath my feet was replaced by solid concrete.

-Thud!

I rolled a little.

The rifle dug into my shoulder and left it aching slightly, but for someone who lived with burning pain in his left hand half the time anyway, this was manageable enough.

The tiny tears in my eyes were because I was sad about all the people dying. Shit.

I got to my feet and focused.

Shin Nain’s telepathy was hammering against my mind like spam mail.

'Jemin-ssi, taekwondo gym! 3rd floor!’

I turned and readjusted my grip on the rifle.

This was insane.

Even I had to admit I looked damn awesome.

A wizard sprinting across rooftops with his poncho streaming behind him as he answered his allies’ call. There was no way I could endure this without getting drunk on being a Supreme Archmage.

But the high faded a little the moment I spotted the machine gunner on the 3rd floor threshold, bipod deployed, firing controlled bursts.

The fact that the bastard was managing barrel heat instead of spraying wildly meant he absolutely had to die.

-Clack!

I dropped to one knee in a fluid motion, took position, and aimed.

That was when the bizarre red beam flickered and settled into the red-dot sight. Eyes-branch, Stage 1, strengthened once through Tongue-branch magic and then boosted again by the doping, was absurdly efficient. Like augmented reality, an aiming point was painted over reality itself, telling me exactly where to shoot.

No need for zeroing or sight alignments.

The aiming point accounted for every tiny difference that would occur while I steadied my breathing and rested my finger on the trigger. With something like this, I barely even needed optics.

Then, the moment the machine gunner’s forehead settled inside the crosshair, I muttered briefly.

"One shot!”

-Bang!

Heavy recoil pushed into me as a single casting rolled away.

A spray of blood burst from the man’s head. The 55 Unit assigned Heart-branch wizards as machine gunners. I checked whether there was an assistant gunner around to reload and feed the belt and spotted someone realizing they were being sniped and throwing a poncho over themselves.

A magic symbol.

A tactic similar to one the Human-skin Tapeworm had used.

By wrapping themselves in a poncho inscribed with an Ears-branch magic symbol, the assistant gunner was trying to neutralize any potential sniper.

But that was pointless.

I had all five branches. Cheap tricks like that didn’t work on me.

I smoothly pulled the trigger one more time.

-Bang!

Another casing rolled away.

The soldier wrapped in the magic-symbol poncho twitched, collapsed, and died.

'The 55 Unit is pulling back because they think there’s a sniper. Drones incoming. They won’t distinguish between friend or foe!’

Just grab the pastor and get the hell out.

After sending the telepathic reply to Shin Nain, I looked toward the approaching drones in the distance, then suddenly threw myself over the rooftop railing.

It was to reach the next rooftop and to lose the drones.

-Thud!

Other than a slight ache in my knees, I wasn’t injured at all.

This was insane.

Even just getting a taste of Heart-branch, Stage 2, felt damn incredible…!

'Jemin-ssi, I’ll send you telepathic messages every 2 minutes. Use it to measure the range and move accordingly.’

Okay.

I had to admit it. Shin Nain was smart.

But when it came to actually using magic, I was still one step ahead.

Grinning, I readjusted my grip on the rifle, slipped toward the building stairwell to avoid the drones, and rolled my eyes around.

I was chasing after the bizarre, glittering red trail.

I clicked my tongue in regret.

If only collecting low-level wizard remains were easier, I’d carry them around with me.

I had no idea how long the doping would last, but I needed to squeeze every last drop out of it!

The moment I made that decision, I started moving again.

Shin Nain would head toward wherever the enemy was, and the pastor would follow him, so all I had to do was head toward wherever the enemy was too.

Right now, the Supreme Archmages were specialists of magic.

Supreme.

That name was no longer an empty boast!