Chapter 119: Who Needs Utility When You’ve Got Firepower?

[Translator – Aren]

Night is dark.

That was the thought that came to me as I looked out over the city from the rooftop of a villa before dawn had broken. Right. Night is supposed to be dark. It had been that way for billions of years, at least. Humanity hadn’t even had 200 years of being able to fully enjoy the night.

At least the positions set up above Moran Station kept the area around the intersection brightly lit.

The military had lowered shutters over every entrance leading into the underground passageways and stacked sandbags in front of them, while armored vehicles and vehicle barricades had been placed on the overpass, along with tents. It looked like the people on top of the overpass would stop traffic and issue warnings while those below prepared to respond.

Down below, there were anti-tank obstacles as well, along with machine-gun positions made from stacked sandbags and aimed down the road.

The troops stationed there weren’t exactly few in number either.

Close to 30 people were standing guard even at this hour, relying on vehicle headlights and searchlights.

The fact that they’d dragged cables all the way out to connect communications equipment, antennas that looked like radar, and all sorts of heavy detection gear made it obvious they considered Moran Station a strategic point. Looking more closely, I saw that they hadn’t actually closed every underground passageway. Exactly two had been left open.

Just looking down from the rooftop of a nearby villa, I could already tell how much effort had gone into fortifying Moran Station.

If I included the troops stationed inside the subway station itself, there had to be at least 200 people deployed around Moran Station. Maybe far more than that had been stationed there in preparation for the blockade line collapsing.

The problem was that their level of alertness was insanely high.

If we just walked past, it looked like we’d get shot to death by our own people.

I belatedly rummaged around for my phone to contact them, then froze. Throwing it away on purpose because I wanted a new one had already come back to bite me.

In the end, I turned and looked at Lee Sejun and Go Ryeoha.

I couldn’t exactly shout at them, so I roughly jabbed a finger toward the left.

But Lee Sejun just cupped a hand around his ear when he saw my gesture, while Go Ryeoha merely shrugged.

I never realized not having an Ears-branch wizard around could be this inconvenient.

Then again, relying on technology had its limits too. Carrying communications equipment around made it easier for the 66 Society to locate us using their sorcery.

In the end, I took another deep breath and had no choice but to jump across the villa rooftops.

Left foot.

The street I’d been looking down at from the roof of the 4-story villa seemed to stretch out beneath me.

Right foot.

In two steps, I reached the railing at the edge of the rooftop.

I planted my foot on the railing and launched myself forward.

Judging by the distance, the alley was about one lane wide.

For a brief moment, a dizzying sensation of weightlessness wrapped around my entire body.

The terrifying feeling of having nothing supporting me threw off my breathing.

But by the third step, my foot was already landing on the rooftop of another villa.

There was barely any shift in my weight.

I could feel the muscles in my legs absorbing my weight with the elasticity of springs.

The body awakened by Heart-branch, Stage 2 [Physical Enhancement] was overwhelming. There was no need for me to roll.

I didn’t get thrown forward because I couldn’t overcome my own momentum either.

The soles of my combat boots landed lightly on the green plastic rooftop.

The only sound from my landing was the hem of my poncho shifting.

-Rustle.

Something began to boil up inside my chest.

If the magic I’d used until now had been somewhat unintuitive and complicated, Heart-branch magic was incredibly straightforward. Exhilaration surged through me alongside the pride of knowing this was only natural.

You’re worth it, magic.

When I cry out in pain, you give me exactly what I’m owed.

Fairer than any god, Buddha, or justice itself!

With my tension even more heightened, I rejoined them in no time.

I moved so fast that even the sound of my breathing through the gas mask seemed to split apart.

The only backlash was my heart pounding with overwhelming excitement.

-Rustle.

I landed lightly beside Go Ryeoha.

Switching between running and walking was so effortless that it felt like I was strolling down a well-paved sidewalk.

Lee Sejun was the only exception.

Then again, that was only natural for a guy who’d come loaded down with ammo boxes strapped all over an A-frame military backpack.

-Clank!

Lee Sejun’s landing itself was loud, but the metallic rattling of the ammunition belt connected to the ammo box was even louder. Lee Sejun, Go Ryeoha, and I gathered together on one rooftop and looked at each other.

Lee Sejun was the first to blink and ask.

His voice, filtered through the gas mask, sounded slightly excited.

"Jemin-ssi, what is it?”

"I was trying to tell you we should go around.”

"I knew this would happen the moment you threw your phone away, Jemin-ssi.”

-Swish!

I didn’t particularly want to catch whatever Lee Sejun was throwing, but I figured if someone was giving me something, I might as well take it, so I raised my left hand.

Until it hit my poncho and rolled across the rooftop instead.

-Thump...

I looked down to see what had fallen at my feet. It was a military walkie-talkie.

It had been painted yellow so it would be easy to find at night. A small but thoughtful touch.

And one more thing.

Looking down at the walkie-talkie Lee Sejun had thrown, I quickly assessed the situation.

Covering one eye with the patch had ruined my normal depth perception. I could apparently jump between villa rooftops, but there was a slight disconnect between what I perceived and what I actually sensed, throwing off my aim.

It was nice being able to distinguish low-level wizards with the [Identification] eye patch, but… the price of [Cognitive Dissonance] is certain.

There was no easy way around it.

Even though I’d given the [Identification] eye patch a function that let me see through my closed eyelid, my impaired vision hadn’t returned.

Even with the blurred vision from my right eye overlapping the normal vision from my left, I was starting to see double.

I couldn’t afford to make my position easy to track on top of that.

Hadn’t I already experienced tactics where the enemy located and attacked us through military radios and communications?

More importantly…

I didn’t want anything Lee Sejun gave me.

-Crunch!

"...What are you doing?”

"I’ll just match my pace to yours. Let’s go.”

As I strode ahead with confidence, I heard the hairy former staff sergeant grumbling behind me.

"Seriously. Jemin-ssi, would you have reacted like that if I were a cute girl?”

"Yeah."

I already knew all about Lee Sejun’s ugly inner thoughts thanks to the backlash of Ears-branch magic.

Lee Sejun.

Living proof that people need to work on their insiders just as much as their appearance.

Then Go Ryeoha burst into bright, cheerful laughter and asked.

"Hubae-nim! What if it was me? Would you have stepped on it even if I gave it to you?”

"Jemin-ssi.”

"Sejun. Some things are decided the moment you’re born.”

If Baek Jemin, the man, had simply been born absurdly handsome, I wouldn’t have spent 28 years single either. And since Lee Sejun had been born with an old-looking face packed full of testosterone, there was no escaping his fate.

While we carried on with that peaceful little conversation, we reached the edge of the villa rooftop.

Our voices naturally grew quieter.

It was time to follow the trail of the drones that had disappeared into the dark night sky.

I stepped forward first.

I could feel the weight of my poncho being swept by the wind and hear that fabric brushing against itself beneath my hood. Through the lenses of my gas mask, the world looked dizzyingly high and extraordinary.

Every time I jumped, the ground trembling at the bottom edge of my vision made my heart flutter.

Every unfamiliar sight I caught while leaping across villa rooftops reminded me what kind of being I had become.

-Huuuff—.

Even the sound of my breathing through the gas mask was being swept away by the wind.

-Huff, huff, huff—.

Beneath the faint, tingling shadows of dawn right before daybreak, the city shook endlessly below my feet.

Around the point where the searchlights no longer reached, we arrived at a stretch between two elevated roads. No one said anything, but we all instinctively felt this was the best place to cross.

It was roughly 10 lanes wide.

The asphalt was torn up here and there, but I couldn’t even imagine how many cars must have passed through when it was still intact.

With the buildings split apart by the broad road between them, I moved first.

I pride myself on moving like a leopard.

Instead of jumping straight down from 4 stories and doing another stylish hero landing, I chose efficiency. I needed a running start to cross into northern Seongnam, the urban area north of Moran Station.

I jumped down from the roof of a building that looked like it probably had a café on the first floor.

Non-wizard Baek Jemin would’ve been flattened on impact, but Great Archmage Baek Jemin had entered the realm of superhumans long ago.

I landed lightly.

My foot came down on top of a streetlight pole beside the guardrail dividing the lanes.

Even more surprising was that landing on the streetlight didn’t send some violent impact through me.

My arm strength and upper body didn’t seem to have increased all that much, but the power in my lower body and its ability to absorb impacts were on another level. My sense of balance was too. The difference between my two eyes was so severe that if I didn’t concentrate, I’d start seeing double.

Naturally, my depth perception was still slightly misaligned.

But even while standing atop the streetlight, with the hem of my poncho fluttering as I looked around, I remained perfectly upright without the slightest wobble.

Without hesitation, I jumped toward the next streetlight.

Lightly.

With a single leap, I cleared 4 lanes.

The streetlights should’ve been weakened by everything they’d been through, but since I stepped on top of the pole instead of the obviously fragile part holding the light, there was no problem. If I could step across streetlights this easily, there was no more reason to hesitate.

I jumped once more and crossed the 10-lane road in only three leaps.

No one who can fly wants to crawl along the ground.

The moment I landed, I threw myself back into the gap between buildings.

Then I bounced back and forth through the gap, kicking off the opposite walls over and over.

7 footprints.

7 steps were all I needed to reach the roof of a 6-story building.

-Rustle.

This time, there was a sound.

It came from my poncho brushing against the K2 slung over my shoulder.

There was no loud impact from the landing, though.

I rolled my shoulders for no reason, shook out my hands, and titled my head a little. That was when it really sank in.

Superhuman.

I turned around to see how the other two superhumans were doing.

-Thud!

Lee Sejun was brute force incarnate.

And because it was brute force, it was simple and powerful.

He just dropped and landed, just ran across, then simply drove his fingers into the outer wall of the building and hauled himself upward in huge bounds.

Go Ryeoha, on the other hand, was a little different.

She flung herself forward with a whoosh, spun once in midair, then jumped again.

The moment I saw it, cold sweat streamed down my back.

Double jump.

The instant I understood what I was looking at, jealousy bordering on murderous intent surged up inside of me.

Fucking hell.

How the hell was she flying around like that with something so cool and efficient? Could one of Go Ryeoha’s spells really do that?

I started with my eyes wide open, unable to accept it, and spotted strange marks left on the street light.

There were crushed handprints on the lamp housing and the top of the pole, as though someone had grabbed them with great force.

Only then did I realize a certain spell’s application I’d never even imagined.

Hand-branch, Stage 3.

[Telekinesis]!

I was trembling.

I never even imagined Hand-branch magic could be used like this…!

That was when I heard them land.

-Thud.

While I stood there trembling, Lee Sejun and Go Ryeoha apparently reached the rooftop I’d climbed onto as well.

Lee Sejun checked the ammunition belt on his machine gun, while Go Ryeoha looked at me from her kneeling position, making a show of dusting off her hands.

"Hooh. Jemin-ssi, you’re adapting to Heart-branch, Stage 2 pretty quickly.”

"Hubae-nim, we might actually be an incredible team!”

These damn bastards.

Acting all innocent and friendly with each other. Disgusting.

I looked back at the two of them and lightly bit down on my lower lip.

But the operation came first.

A truly capable person doesn’t ruin a job just because they want attention.

People recognize you when you do more than your part no matter the situation!

-Huuuuuuff…

I took a deep breath, regained my composure, and looked over the northern city.

North of the building we’d reached, beyond a small neighborhood of villas, I could see a park filled with bare trees whose new shoots had only just begun to sprout. The problem was that the fog grew considerably thicker starting from the park.

I could even see the fog creeping down the slope at the edge of the park.

There were monsters inside the park.

Of course, it wasn’t as though there was no fog anywhere else. The farther north I looked, the more the gaps between buildings and the alleys filled with thick fog. The backlash from magic would be greatly reduced there, but that also meant there would be just as many monsters.

Detection using Ears-branch magic probably wouldn’t be much use.

My aptitude for Ears-branch magic was too poor to properly distinguish species or distance anyway. Things weren’t desperate enough for me to endure the disgusting backlash of hearing Lee Sejun’s inner thoughts.

Here, like the smart Eyes-branch wizard I was, I’d locate where the monsters were and…

"Sejun-ssi, I’m getting ready!”

"I’m already standing by, Ryeoha-ssi.”

-Clink.

With the faint sound of the ammunition belt connected to the machine gun brushing against itself, Lee Sejun took position.

He hooked his left leg over the railing and rested the machine gun on that knee

His right index finger rested on the trigger while his left arm pressed firmly down over the barrel.

Go Ryeoha held up three fingers toward Lee Sejun and waved them slightly.

"Ooone."

"Ammunition belt, clear!”

One of Go Ryeoha’s fingers folded down.

Then faint, strange cries began to reach my ears.

I recognized it immediately.

The Dogma-type magic of shamanism, [Spirit Sight].

[Spirit Sight] was a double-edged sword that distinguished monsters from humans but also provoked a powerful hostile response from monsters.

It was a double-edged sword, but…

I quietly moved closer to the railing.

"Two."

"Feed clear."

Keeping my distance from both Go Ryeoha and Lee Sejun, I looked down over the villa neighborhood where the fog was rising.

-Thud, thud, thud…

From every direction came the sounds of metal doors being scratched and floors, ceilings, and walls being pounded.

If I’d lived down there, the noise between floors would’ve driven me insane.

Remembering [Spirit Sight], I also quietly focused on my [Identification] eye patch.

I wanted to see whether it could distinguish not just non-wizards from wizards, but humans from monsters as well, and whether the effects and functions granted by Hand-branch, Stage 2 [Enchant] could change depending on how they were interpreted.

Around then, Go Ryeoha folded down her last finger.

"Three! Clang, clang~"

Windows shattered all at once.

The ripping crash of metal doors buckling under the weight crushed through the air. Beneath abandoned cars in thepiloti-style villa parking lots, and behind curtained windows, blood-red shadows tangled and writhed.

-Squirm, squirm.

The villa blocks vomited out all kinds of monsters as though spewing them through their windows.

Most of them were Amalgams I’d grown used to by now, but there were also dozens of Predator Spines crawling up the walls and fleeing to the rooftops to escape the fog. I could even see Human Slimes dropping from windows, wobbling like pudding the instant they sank into the fog, then dragging themselves toward the sewers.

But once the hail of bullets came pouring down, no matter how grotesque the monsters looked, the result was the same for all of them.

-Ratata, ratatata!

The gunfire was loud enough to leave my ears ringing.

Like the former soldier he was, Lee Sejun fired the machine gun in controlled bursts, and monsters popped like balloons everywhere the bullets passed. The moment I saw one explode and spew fog instead of blood, I realized what he’d done.

Lee Sejun.

Looks like he’d meticulously coated the bullets with Hand-branch, Stage 1 [Blood of the Right Hand] sometime in the meantime.

He really is a reliable teammate when he actually focuses on fighting…

That was around when Go Ryeoha called out to me.

"Hubae-nim, catch!”

-Swish!

This time, I opened my eye wide and caught it in one go.

For a moment, the machine gun let out a dull scraping sound.

Well, it didn’t matter what Lee Sejun was doing.

I checked what she’d thrown me. It was a grenade

Well, yeah. Relaying on Sejun’s machine gun alone would be a little much.

-Ping—.

The sound of the pin coming free was refreshingly crisp.

Nothing beat this for clearing out filth.

I was a Heart-branch wizard as well now.

I hurled it with all my strength toward a cluster of monsters.

Just like Lee Sejun’s bullets, my grenade should tear straight through the monsters. It had to.

Even if my aptitude for Heart-branch magic was low, there was no way I couldn’t copy something Lee Sejun had done…

-Ting!

I blinked.

The grenade had struck the skull of a Predator Spine perched on an Amalgam’s head and bounced away.

Shit...

Fine. At least my throwing accuracy had improved.

The blast came with a tremor that traveled up through my feet and gently rattled my insides.

I could clearly hear chunks of flesh shredded by fragments splattering against the outer wall.

Even though I’d inscribed [Purification] on my gas mask, the stench of blood and piss was thick enough to seep through.

I swear on Lee Sejun’s balls, this time I really hadn't possessed myself.

The reeking piss smell was coming from 6 floors below, from the horde of monsters charging through the fog. More precisely from the corpses. Monsters torn apart by the grenade were dying as they leaked bodily fluids reeking of rotten eggs and pungent urine.

The overwhelming majority of them were Amalgams.

Their heads had burst from the blast pressure, leaving them dripping fluids like bloody pus, but one relatively intact Amalgam corpse gave me a rough look at what their bodies were like inside. It made it easy to understand why monsters like the Blood Web had been classified as a subspecies of Amalgams.

From the fused head that formed the Amalgam’s main body, capillaries as thin as hair spread into a dense web and burrowed deep into the human body. At a glance they wrapped layer after layer around critical parts of the nervous system like the spine. Trying to separate them surgically would mean risking spinal paralysis.

Judging by the way those blood vessels writhed, they would probably burrow into another victim’s flesh just like that Blood Web I’d encountered beneath Suwon Station.

If the main body plastered itself to the ceiling and put distance between itself and the human body, it was a Blood Web. If it clung tightly to a human body and stayed there in its damp, sticky form, it was an Amalgam.

Whether or not they had eaten a wizard seemed to be a trait that drastically changed the behavioral pattern of quite a few monsters.

Was the rotten smell and stench of piss…because they’d been exposed to the fog for too long?

Had they grown mold from staying somewhere damp for so long?

Could these fuckers get moldy too?

...If there really was mold that ate monsters, would it even be something from this world?

While I was lost in these pointless thoughts, the gunfire stopped.

-Clack!

As the slightly heated barrel cooled, Lee Sejun pulled an ammo box out of his backpack with one hand.

He expertly swapped out the ammo box as he spoke.

"Clean sweep."

"Excellent, Sejun-ssi! Let’s move on to the next one!”

"No. We’ve made enough noise that the 55 Unit should start moving soon. Even if they’re hiding, they’ll have no choice but to react once we get close enough. The more noise we make like this, the more monsters will move south, and the faster they'll do it. No matter how well they can control monsters, ordinary non-wizard troops and 55 Unit soldiers won’t be able to move around easily under those conditions.”

Once he finished replacing the ammo box, Lee Sejun stood up and proudly displayed the words written across the chest on his poncho.

A Man’s Duty is Devotion to the Nation.

Lee Sejun looked at Go Ryeoha and me, then spoke with complete seriousness.

"Since each of us can pull our own weight, let’s spread out and coordinate from separate positions. Jemin-ssi is an Ears-branch wizard, so if necessary, he can read our thoughts. We should be able to count on timely support from him."

I had to read Lee Sejun’s thoughts while I wasn’t even suffering from the backlash?

I really hated the idea of that.

But I, Baek Jemin, was an adult burdened with social responsibility, so I nodded.

"Okay. Everyone to your positions. See you soon.”

Whatever, I could just not listen.

Maybe Lee Sejun would come to his senses after taking a few bullets in the shoulder.

Without hesitation, I turned and leaped eastward.

I planned to head straight north along the main road.

The thrill of leaping across rooftops of different heights and hopping over street lights was exhilarating.

Right foot.

With a single step, I could cross from one end of a rooftop to the other without even getting winded.

Left foot.

With one leap, I could clear 3 lanes without any trouble.

The ground beneath the soles of my boots would suddenly vanish.

And every time it did, my poncho would inevitably billow in the wind.

Even my steps when I landed on rooftops were light.

No legs snapping because they couldn’t withstand the impact, nor concrete cracking apart beneath me.

I was as quick, stealthy, and graceful as a drain fly, lightly touching down on a bathroom tile before taking off again.

But no matter how graceful a drain fly is, humans still want to kill it.

Just as I landed lightly on the slate roof of a building with a convenience store…

-Beeep—.

The monsters hadn‘t even noticed me, yet somewhere in an alley between the villas came the distinctive signal tone of a walkie-talkie.

After a brief silence, I heard someone whispering.

If I’d been a non-wizard, no matter how hard I strained my ears, I probably would've caught nothing more than the faint sound of breathing. But now that I knew someone was communicating nearby, there was no way they could escape my detection.

I rolled my tongue around inside my mouth.

Ears-branch, Stage 2 [Mind Reading].

Hear the thoughts of other people within a 100-meter radius.

"Augh…”

I let out a groan.

My tongue was being sliced up, drip, drip, drip, and blood started seeping out.

It genuinely felt like it was being cut apart, and I had to hold back the urge to just burst into tears.

But Ears-branch magic was powerful, and once I activated it at 100%, I could grasp the situation in detail.

-Whisper, whisper, whisper…

Meaningless murmurs grew louder and drifted in until I began hearing the thoughts I wanted to hear.

'Those explosions and gunshots just now. A search party? They sounded pretty close. Those assholes up top. Can't they just let us pull out? Ah, shit… Everyone north of Moran Station is already gone, so what the hell do they expect us to find? Fucking inhuman bastards. Zhe monsters and the assholes who were trapped in Seoul, both.'

'Look at that bastard getting nervous too. Can't blame him after they suddenly started acting weak. I mean, they were acting like they were going to kill everyone, then halfway down toward Seongnam City Hall they turned around and ran back north of Moran Station? Did we back the wrong side? Should I run? But I'm probably already marked as a deserter…’

I had become a human radar.

With Ears-branch magic running at 100%, the volume adjusted automatically whenever I turned my head. Louder when I looked left, quieter when I looked right. The difference was obvious enough that even someone completely ignorant would notice it.

When there was a person in the direction I was looking who was producing those thoughts, the sound grew louder.

Combined with the Heart-branch, I was basically a walking human detector.

I leaped across rooftops, landed lightly, then swept my gaze around once and gauged the changes in volume.

The search area steadily narrowed.

At last, I figured out where the two 55 Unit soldiers were hiding.

The 2nd floor of an old villa painted red near the slope.

I could hear the thoughts of two 55 Unit soldiers coming from beyond a small bathroom window.

'I don’t hear anything. Are they gone? The search party couldn’t have made it this far, right?’

'Hah. This asshole’s boring as hell to talk to. Not like anyone’s coming while we’re stuck in here anyway. Ah, fuck this.’

I shut off the Ears-branch magic at 100% right there.

Keeping it active any longer would only make the backlash I had to endure later more brutal.

Instead of the bathroom window, I found a larger window, confirmed there were no security bars, then threw myself forward again.

-Rustle.

The instant I landed on top of the outdoor AC unit beside the window frame, exhilaration surged through me.

My life had changed.

Because of Heart-branch, Stage 2 [Physical Enhancement].

I should’ve started exercising ages ago.

If your body is strong, there’s no need to waste time thinking.

-Slide!

I opened the window.

Beyond the swaying curtain, I saw one soldier sitting cross-legged with his chin propped on his hand and another sprawled out asleep on the sofa. The moment they saw me, their eyes visibly went wide.

"Huh?"

"Wha..."

I held up a palm toward the two idiots who were already about to make a fuss.

-Stop.

The moment they understood what I meant, the soldiers clammed up with incredible speed.

Their movements were awkward, like they couldn’t decide whether they should straighten their posture or not.

I swept over them once with the [Identification] eye patch.

No magic symbols appeared.

They were both non-wizards.

There was no way these guys were higher-level than me, so they were definitely non-wizards.

Tsk.

Clicking my tongue, I kindly introduced myself.

"Nice to meet you. I’m Great Archmage Baek Jemin, wielder of all 5 branches.”

"Uh..."

The soldier who’d been darting his eyes around finally started blinking.

Then he glanced at me with his face gone completely pale.

"5... you have all 5 branches?”

"Loyalty!”

One of them immediately shot to his feet and saluted.

Only then did the guy who’d been sitting there with his chin propped up scrambled to his feet as well.

"L-Loyalty!”

"Yeah. Sit down, both of you. I’m not here to give you trouble."

55 Unit.

Judging by that military discipline, they really were elite troops worthy of going up against special forces.

Outside, if I said I had all 5 branches, people would just stare at me like I was spouting bullshit. These guys, though, snapped into rigid posture and saluted the moment I told them.

When I ordered them to sit, they obeyed without question, though I could clearly see them sneaking glances at me and trying to read my mood.

They still couldn’t exactly disobey, so as they cautiously started lowering themselves abc down, I raised my palm again.

"Wait a moment."

"Loyalty!”

"You guys aren’t wizards, right?”

"N-No, sir. We’re not!”

He shook his head so violently he was practically spitting.

The other one did the same.

They clearly knew how the remains of low-level wizards were used and what fate awaited them.

I put on a disappointed expression and nodded for no reason.

"Ah…I see. Then never mind. Sit."

"We’re not!”

"If you’re loud, the monsters will come. Keep your voices down.”

"We’re not…”

These bastards. Haven’t they realized I’m the enemy?

"You know I’m with the Korean Armed Forces, right?”

"Yes!"

"Then why are you greeting me with such perfect military formality?"

"W-We were taught that a wizard of such a high Stage must be respected wherever they are.”

Phew.

Maybe life in the 66 Society wouldn’t be so bad.

Should I think about switching sides after I squeeze some experience points out of them first?

I idly rubbed the chin strap of my gas mask and asked a few more questions.

"From what I heard earlier, it sounds like you’ve been rounding up the people who were still left in northern Seongnam.”

"You…you heard…”

"That’s correct!”

The quicker-witted one answered briefly and firmly, sweat running down his face.

I nodded along and asked,

"Why are you taking them? To perform that master-disciple ritual, turn them into apprentices, and dump your backlash onto them?”

For a non-wizard to be useful, there were only 2 options. Either they were damn good with a gun, or they could serve as a backlash sponge.

Anyone who could shoot would’ve been put in the 55 Unit, so if they wanted to wring every last bit of use out of non-wizards who couldn’t even shoot, they must’ve recycled them like this.

The two soldiers couldn’t answer my question. They just froze stiff and let tears stream silently.

"Guys. Now that you’ve met me and talked to me, things won’t end well for you even if you go back to the Gangnam group. And after everything you’ve done, things won’t end well if you try crawling back to the Korean Armed Forces now either. You know that, right?”

The guy who’d been sitting with his chin propped up burst into tears.

He cried so hard that bubbles of snot formed under his nose, yet he never even thought about raising his gun and shooting me.

There was no way he’d act like this unless they’d been taught down to their bones that resisting a wizard was impossible.

Humans will usually try defying even an overwhelmingly powerful opponent at least once.

The military holding the blockade line right now was proof of that.

But these guys were different.

I hadn’t even told them the full extent of my Stage, and I was an enemy wizard on top of that, yet they had completely given up on resisting.

-Clack.

I loosened the sling and readjusted my K2 as I spoke.

"Turn around and kneel, and Ill make it quick. I’ll take your dog tags with me. If your families are still in Gyeonggi Province, I’ll get them out.”

The one who’d been sobbing lowered his head.

The quick-witted soldier who’d answered me so firmly was the first to move.

He turned around, knelt, and spoke in a choked voice.

"My family lived inJongno, Seoul."

I pulled the trigger.

The dark room flashed, casting the shadow of a man shooting another person.

When the blood sprayed, the remaining soldier dropped straight to his knees and even pissed himself.

I thought he was going to beg me to spare him.

"O-One shot…”

I pulled the trigger again.

Maybe because I’d hunted monsters in all kinds of environments, learned marksmanship, and killed people by now, both of them died cleanly.

I snapped the dog tags off the necks of the two dead soldiers and tucked them inside my poncho, into a pocket of my combat uniform.

Corporal Jeong Sinil. Private Lee Gihwan.

I sent each of them off with a single bullet, so I hoped they’d made it to God or Buddha or wherever.

I switched the rifle’s selector back to safe, slung it over my shoulder, and continued searching the bodies.

I needed one, so I took a walkie-talkie.

I’d clipped it to a pocket of my combat uniform, and while I had no idea what level of communications security the 55 Unit used, I had Ears-branch magic at 100%.

...as long as I was willing to endure the backlash.

Beyond the billowing curtain, I could see the still-dark night sky through the balcony window I’d opened.

That was when the signal tone sounded.

-Beeeep—.

[04:37, Stage 4 wizard spotted. Moving north. 04:37. Stage 4 wizard spotted. Moving north.]

At first glance, the voice sounded calm.

But I understood what they meant even before using Ears-branch magic at 100%.

[Apprentice expenditure not authorized. Retreat!]

-Boom—.

A heavy explosion sounded from beyond the densely packed villas lining the slope. It was weaker than military artillery but far too frequent to be the grenades we’d brought.

-Boom, boom, boom.

I tucked the walkie-talkie into the pocket on my chest, straightened my poncho, and jumped up onto the balcony railing.

Leaping from street lights to rooftops, I moved through the city, where the night sky and fog seemed to split the world between them. The moment I reached the man road, I heard terrifying gunfire.

-Brrrrrrrrrt!

Lee Sejun.

From the rooftop of an apartment building about 10 stories high across the road, muzzle flashes flickered as he swept away the monsters below. Then the gunfire stopped, apparently because he’d run out of ammunition. A moment later, something black dropped straight down.

-Thud!

Lee Sejun again.

He was perfectly fine even after falling from that height.

He tossed the empty ammo box onto the roadside and started striding forward.

The machine gun was basically dead weight now, but he still refused to let go of it. Very soldier-like.

I wondered where he was headed. Then I saw him walking toward an abandoned passenger car by the roadside.

But alone, that was going to be tough.

From the road to the north, toward Seoul, where the fog had grown much thicker, monsters were pouring out.

They were all Amalgams, but the way they were moving was unusual.

As if they had realized he was out of bullets, they came charging straight at him as if they had gone mad.

That was when Lee Sejun raised one knee.

He lifted it, then kicked the car.

-Bang!

The vibration I used to feel when artillery fired from a gun position reached my stomach in a much smaller, neatly portioned form.

With a single kick, the passenger car crumpled into a wreck and went flying.

Like an artillery shell.

The Amalgams’ heads vanished as though someone had erased them.

Only crushed corpses remained along the road, together with streaks of their characteristic blood-and-pus-like fluids.

Lee Sejun looked a little tired after that single kick, but not enough to stop him from pulling another ammo box from his backpack and reloading.

-Clack.

It was around then that I jumped down and leapt over to Lee Sejun.

"Where’s Master?"

"We split up the roles for now. I’ll handle the monsters for a bit.”

"Want help?”

At that, Lee Sejun raised his head and looked at me.

Lee Sejun stared at me through the lenses of his gas mask as if I were insane.

"You’re trying to steal my experience points, aren’t you?”

"What?"

"I know exactly what you’re doing, Jemin-ssi. I need to level up my Heart-branch magic too, so stay out of it!”

Lee Sejun was Captain Korea incarnate.

Rather than relying on anyone else’s help, he was taking the lead in defeating the monsters that had ravaged the Republic of Korea with his own strength.

Leaving me behind, Lee Sejun resolutely rose, strode forward with confidence, and opened fire with his machine gun.

From behind, he looked like the perfect soldier the Republic of Korea had always dreamed of.

Too bad he wasn’t a long-term soldier.

Fuck...

Ears-branch magic really was a curse.

Unable to bear looking at his back any longer, I threw myself into another alley.

Once again, I left footprints on the outer walls as I kicked back and forth between them, climbing until I landed lightly on the slate roof of an old villa.

And that was when I found out what had been causing the explosions.

Loud blasts were coming from roughly 2 blocks away.

This was my chance to see Go Ryeoha’s true combat strength.

I carefully closed the distance, leaping around as lightly as a drain fly flitting through the air.

These days, society was so harsh that if you watched a fight, people would demand to know why you hadn’t helped, so you had to be very careful about spectating.

The fighting was so loud that no one was paying attention to me, which let me flatten myself on the roof of a rooftop room atop an old villa.

There was a brief lull, so I rolled my shoulders, rubbed my hands together, and blinked a few times to moisten my eyes.

Good. Ready to watch.

Now it was time to see how Go Ryeoha fought.

Right then, on the roof of a villa about 5 stories tall, I spotted a 55 Unit soldier with a machine gun taking cover behind an outdoor AC unit. Other 55 Unit soldiers came scrambling up the stairs and began watching all directions from kneeling firing positions.

Then one of the bastards made eye contact with me.

He sure was an extremely, extremely unlucky soldier.

I immediately crouched down and turned my back to him.

The magic symbols drawn across my back must have done their job, because no bullets came flying my way.

By the time I raised my head again, it had started.

Go Ryeoha used Hand-branch, Stage 3 [Telekinesis], to swing and fly between power lines and utility poles like some savage in the jungle. She clearly hadn’t done this only once or twice before. Whenever the 55 Unit soldiers hurriedly took aim and opened fire or started pouring an entire wall of bullets at her, she covered herself with her poncho inscribed with [Bulletproof].

Gunfire rang out and spent casings poured down like rain.

Each time, Go Ryeoha slipped between buildings and through narrow alleyways, darting into cover as though she were gliding.

Repeated gunfire invariably meant someone had to reload at some point.

-Click.

The instant several soldiers dropped their magazines and hurried to replace them, Go Ryeoha sprang upward.

She shot up so quickly and abruptly that the 55 Unit reacted far too late.

Only the Heart-branch wizard carrying a machine gun managed to hurriedly raise his muzzle, but even that wasn’t enough to stop Go Ryeoha while she was wrapped in her [Bulletproof] poncho.

-Ratatatatatatatatata...

It was a desperate attack.

Still covered by the [Bulletproof] poncho, Go ryeoha curled up the moment she landed and raised her left arm, using her sleeve to block the bullets pouring toward her. Her mobility with [Telekinesis] was far greater than I’d imagined.

The soldiers hurriedly changed magazines and tried to maintain continuous fire by taking turns shooting.

That might have worked if Go Ryeoha were merely a Hands-branch wizard.

But the moment Go Ryeoha, still covered by her poncho, closed the distance in a single burst, their fate was sealed.

Go Ryeoha’s right hand, the one in the black leather glove, was already covered in blood. The moment I saw it, a shiver ran through me.

That black leather glove.

It was the glove with [Penetration] written on it.

Was she seriously planning to punch straight through them?!

But I understand a moment later.

I finally knew what had been causing those explosions.

-Booooom.

It exploded.

An explosion erupted from a human body, and nearly half the shoulder and upper torso were ripped away and shattered.

Go Ryeoha’s fist was completely unharmed, but the Heart-branch wizard she’d struck stared at his destroyed left arm and shoulder. The moment he heard what remained of his left arm, nothing more than a handful of blood and flesh, rained down to the ground, he collapsed.

-Patter, patter, patter.

A sudden shower poured down.

The kind of shower you’d never want falling on you scattered across the alley below.

But Go Ryeoha was already throwing herself toward her next opponent.

-Boom.

His head disappeared.

-Boom.

His abdomen burst apart, leaving nothing to connect his upper and lower body, and the two halves separated.

-Boom.

The gun exploded.

By the time I heard the primers in the ammunition popping from the blast, one soldier was already collapsing as blood sprayed in every direction.

Most of the 55 Unit soldiers who had tried to hold the rooftop were dead in the blink of an eye.

All except one.

Then something strange happened.

The outline of the soldier in a helmet, gas mask, and CBRN protective suit was swallowed by fog and suddenly changed into a completely different outfit.

A black beanie, a short-sleeved T-shirt over long underwear, cargo pants, work boots, and a face painted black.

"Huuff, huff.”

Hundred-Miles Eyes.

Hundred-Miles Eyes panted as he glanced nervously around him.

"Sh…Shit…”

Go Ryeoha’s only response to Hundred-Miles Eyes’ curse was to flick her right hand once.

The droplets of blood coating her black leather glove flew toward Hundred-Miles Eyes.

-Drip!

The moment Hundred-Miles Eyes saw the bloodstain on his T-shirt, even the black paint covering his face couldn’t hide his terror as he screamed.

"Aagh, agh!”

Hundred-Miles Eyes started clawing at his own clothes.

He thrashed on the ground after falling onto his backside, desperately trying to strip off the bloodstained shirt.

Go Ryeoha looked down at him, then raised her left hand.

"Squish, squish~"

"Huuuugh!”

Hundred-Miles Eyes sucked in a breath, then froze.

The outline of his face showed through the inside-out T-shirt covering his head.

Fear.

Hundred-Miles Eyes was completely overwhelmed by terror.

"Hehe. That’s not even my blood.”

"Hugh, kegh."

"Taking your clothes off didn’t help you escape, did it? You took away people who weren’t wizards, so you need to be punished. Right?”

"Egh, kegh. Kehegh."

"Squeeeeze~. Squeeze. Squeeeze~.”

At some point, I’d started covering both filters of my gas mask with my hands.

Very carefully, so I wouldn’t make a sound.

Hundred-Miles Eyes was flailing his hands through the air and thrashed around, while Go Ryeoha stood a short distance away, busy miming a squeezing motion with her hand.

"Do you want to pop in one go, or should I keep squishing you?”

-Thud, thud, thud…

Hundred-Miles Eyes started kicking wildly.

Go Ryeoha seemed dissatisfied and clenched her right hand into a fist.

"You’re not very springy, so this isn’t fun.”

-Step, step.

Hundred-Miles Eyes sagged limply as he tried to catch his breath, while Go Ryeoha approached with her fist clenched.

The moment the distance between them closed, Hundred-Miles Eyes threw himself over the railing without hesitation.

Without even letting out a scream or a groan.

He must have figured he could survive it since he had Heart-branch, Stage 2 as well.

But Go Ryeoha stood behind the railing with her poncho fluttering, then giggled as she slowly opened her right fist one finger at a time.

"Pop."

He exploded.

Where Hundred-Miles Eyes had thrown himself down, a freshly beating heart and a rolling eyeball stood out vividly red even through the fog. Both had magic symbols inscribed on them.

There was some rather messy, sticky blood splattered around them too but…

I stood up without another moment of hesitation.

-Whoosh!

Elegant footwork.

In an instant, I was right behind Go Ryeoha.

"Huh? Hubae-nim?”

"Master!”

And before she could say anything, I dropped flat to the ground and planted my forehead against it.

-Thud.

Never in my life had I performed such a perfect bow.

This was absolute reference from Baek Jemin, the human, casting aside everything he had, the kind even my own parents only ever received on New Year’s Day when they were giving me spending money.

I paused to catch my breath before forcing out words that didn’t come easily.

Only then did I finally manage to speak.

"If a Hand-branch wizard shows up, please give me their remains!”

Hand-branch magic.

I repent for ever daring to look down on it.

I want three-dimensional mobility too!!!!!