Chapter 125: Birth Secret

[Translator – Aren]

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When we entered the Seongnam military hospital, what awaited us were the sounds of people breaking down and sobbing.

The doctors were flipping through patient charts blankly, staring at the same pages over and over, while the nurses were busy wiping the tears streaming down their faces with the backs of their hands.

The hospitalized soldiers sat with deathly pale faces, heads bowed as their bodies rocked back and forth. Only a few officers who were still holding together were clutching walkie-talkies and shouting into them.

"What the fuck are you talking about? Fire more? Damn it, didn’t you see?! They’re all missing! Every single one!”

Lee Sejun, Go Ryeoha, and I walked past a sergeant who was clutching a walkie-talkie and practically screaming into it.

The sergeant didn’t even notice us.

His voice boomed loudly enough to shake the lobby. It was the human survival instinct refusing to accept that death had already become certain. The cry born from his will to live was unbearably bleak.

"You damn bastards. What do you mean, keep firing from here? What else is that supposed to mean except telling us to just fucking die?! He stopped two nukes already! We’re throwing everything at them. White phosphorus, submunitions, all of it. They just keep dodging, and nothing’s exploding! Those fucking bastards aren’t just standing there either, so how the hell are we supposed to stop them?!”

The dream cherished by 21st-century society. A world where every life was precious.

A beautiful and noble ideal, but in the end, it had only ever been a dream.

The dream humanity had refused to abandon even while condemning itself as hypocritical was popping like a bubble.

The difference between the people sitting behind desks making ruthless calculations and the people in the field who had been sentenced to death became painfully clear.

At that moment, I absentmindedly stopped walking and just stood there, captivated by a strange feeling.

"I’m telling you, the vehicles won’t move. Snipers? Damn it…the bullets deflect, you bastards! Can you not understand human language or something, you sycophants?! Damn, despicable bastards!”

Command’s judgment was ruthless.

Seongnam had already been breached once, making it a place where monsters and humans had to be identified and separated. Even just to prevent an infection outbreak, the first blockade line troops stationed in Seongnam had never been meant to rotate to the rear until they had defended the line and been completely exhausted.

Moreover, Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes’ goal was obvious.

Break through the blockade line and bring it down. Then kill everyone together.

At this rate, all Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes had to do was keep walking forward while periodically using magic, and the blockade line would collapse.

What if they fired everything they had, like nukes or whatever, to kill Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes?

The moment one of those bombs happened to go off, the soldiers defending the blockade line would die too.

Of course, power like this couldn’t last forever.

So even if it meant throwing every civilian and soldier in Seongnam into a human-wave assault, they would stop Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes.

Until he destroyed himself.

From Command’s perspective, everyone left in Seongnam was already as good as dead, so they had simply pronounced them dead.

But the people who were still alive and breathing couldn’t accept that.

I’m still breathing.

My heart’s still beating.

I want to live so badly I’m shedding tears, and yet I’m being ordered to die. Of course they couldn’t accept it.

Whether they could actually hit anything with their bullets or shells didn’t matter.

There was no way the sergeant didn’t understand the real meaning behind those orders, to stall for time and die, but he shouted anyway, his voice growing choked.

"Why the hell can't you understand what I’m saying?!!!”

In a hospital that divided the living from the dead, the scream of a man who had been sentenced to death echoed around.

Only then could I start walking again.

Seeing the ugly depths of society, its bare face, hidden all this time beneath the gold leaf people had layered over it with their laughter and smiles, made me feel strangely at home. An age where the human will to survive demanded the deaths of others, and those marked to die were condemned as sinners for refusing to sacrifice themselves.

We were undoubtedly in hell.

When I started walking again, Lee Sejun and Go Ryeoha, who had stopped to wait for me, followed behind. As I pushed the elevator button, and even as we rode it up, an eerie silence lingered.

In one corner of the elevator, a soldier leaned against the wall, tears streaming down his face as he sobbed silently.

-Ding.

The moment the elevator stopped and the 3 of us Supreme Archmages stepped out, the soldier leaning against the wall collapsed and slid to the floor.

Sitting there, his ass hitting the floor hard, he scrunched up his entire face, drool running between his puckered lips as he started kicking and thrashing like a little kid.

"Aaaaaaagh……Aaagh…”

Just before the elevator doors closed, I turned my head and looked at the soldier left inside.

He was stamping his feet so hard the elevator shook.

His mind had understood why he had to die, while his human will screamed that he didn’t want to. The clash between the two had torn his mind to pieces.

Like a child throwing a tantrum, the soldier stamped his feet, squeezed his eyes shut, and bawled.

"Ahuaaaah…Aaagh! Uwaah….Agaaagh..."

-Ding.

The doors closed.

For a moment, it felt as though the boundary between life and death had been divided by nothing more than a single elevator door. Still relying on my memory, I headed toward the hospital room where I had stayed before, and familiar voices happened to be clamoring loudly from inside.

"Islam, you son of a bitch. Weren’t you the one saying Jibril was Gabriel, stealing other people’s angels and all that? And now that it’s time to prove your faith, you’re trying to run off by yourself?”

"I wasn’t trying to run away by myself. I figured it out while relearning Korean lately. It’s what you call a strategic reverse charge.”

"I’ve never heard the phrase ‘reverse charge’ in my entire life. Check on Shin Nain. How is he?”

The moment I heard habitual deserter Hamza’s voice, my blood started boiling, but I swallowed it down through superhuman patience and all the affection I had built up for him over time.

I was still pissed as hell that he hadn’t said a single word about the Shitlings, but I was willing to generously forgive him if he agreed to a posthumous class change into holy relic.

With these kinds of thoughts running through my head, I slid open the hospital room door and went in.

-Rattle!

At the sudden opening of the door, Pastor Park Yohan and Hamza both turned to look our way.

Shin Nain was lying in bed, bound up tight and groaning weakly, so he didn’t even notice we had arrived.

Still, this was the arrival of the Great Archmage of 5 branches, Baek Jemin, and his followers.

There couldn’t possibly be more reassuring allies to have in this crisis.

The pastor realized that too and was the first to welcome us enthusiastically.

"Baek Jemin! I knew you’d still be alive. Our neighborhood youth-group leader, blessed by the Lord, isn’t the sort to go dying some miserable death somewhere. Of course not!”

Unable to contain his joy, the pastor came over to pat me on the shoulder, then suddenly froze.

"Why the hell do you smell like that?”

"Pastor. A battlefield is a harsh environment. I heard snipers will stay hidden in one spot for three days and nights to accomplish their objective and just relieve themselves right there.”

At my hint, the pastor subtly backed away and cleared his throat.

"Ahem, hmm. Uhm, right. Anyway, glad you’re safe, and Lee Sejun and Go Ryeoha-ssi…”

Lee Sejun and Go Ryeoha.

These two ordinary scrubs were nothing like me, who had regained my calm and composure.

Go Ryeoha looked completely defeated, her complexion pale and unfocused.

"The Society supported him way more than I expected. If the 66-Society backed him that heavily, we can’t stop him. He isn’t Stage 5, but at that level, he’s definitely not an ordinary Stage 4…”

This kind of frail, weak-willed Aphorism-like mindset was the problem.

At least Lee Sejun, who had been acting somewhat like a Supreme Archmage, was still holding himself together.

"Pastor. Haven’t the higher-ups figured anything out? Information gained during the fighting? The military can’t have just taken it lying down. There has to be some way. It can’t end like this.”

Lee Sejun was speaking much faster than usual.

He looked so desperate that even Hamza held out both palms to calm him down.

"Sejun-ssi, calm down. Korea’s already screwed anyway.”

"Who the hell stays calm while their country is collapsing?!”

-Thump, thump.

Lee Sejun pounded his chest with his fist and shouted, his voice slightly tinged with tears.

"There was plenty I hated about it. I was disappointed by it, and I resented it too, but it was still a place I had hopes for. There were more people who cursed me than understood me, but there were people who tried to understand me too. Whether I liked it or not, it was my country!”

"Lee Sejun.”

Even the pastor looked choked up, seeing Lee Sejun in a new light.

I was no exception.

I even quietly stepped aside to let Lee Sejun have the spotlight for once. At the same time, I couldn't help feeling a deep sadness and bitterness. Korea’s fortune as a nation hadn’t run dry yet, since Heaven had sent down Lee Sejun.

However, it seemed like even Heaven couldn’t hide the fact that the nation's fortune was getting worn down.

The cruel backlash of Ears-branch, Stage 1 [Mind Reading], which I had used to read Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes, hit me.

'Soft and fluffy, the 50 million Koreans who are supposed to be the first to see the new me and nadenade my head!!!'

Ah.

How could Heaven be so cruel as to put a defect in Captain Korea and send him down on a short-term contract?

My situation, having this short-term Captain Korea as a comrade, was more miserable than having Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes marching down here to kill everyone.

That was when Shin Nain, who had been groaning in pain, forced his mouth open.

"This filthy heart filled to the brim with jealousy…Don’t tell me, Sejun-ssi?”

-Flash.

Shin Nain’s eyes snapped open as he looked around.

And the moment he saw Lee Sejun, he let out an agonized groan.

"Uuugh."

"Shin Nain! Are you conscious?!”

"Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes… the price for Ears-branch Holy Alteration Battle Arts…”

As he was panting, trying his best to speak, I stepped forward and beat him to it.

"I already figured it out.”

"What? You did Jemin-ssi?”

"The backlash for Upright Ears-branch, Stage 4, Causal Arrangement is reliving the memory you regret most desperately, with all five senses and the exact emotions you felt at the time. Right?”

"How are you still sane after experiencing that penalty…after feeling Thousand-Miles Eyes’ memories…”

That was when the shock in Shin Nain’s eyes slowly turned into understanding.

"Well, I suppose anyone with the same lacking spiritual intelligence as Jemin-ssi, some beast who wouldn’t care whether their family died or not, would have no problem. If they were some animalistic piece of trash with no affection between parent and child, no human sense of shame, no compassion, and therefore no meaningful concept of good and evil, then yes, they wouldn’t have a problem enduring this penalty.”

"You fucking bastard. I cried because of my Mom too.”

"Impossible! I see. You demon, how dare you steal Jemin-ssi’s body? You fiend of Satan! Why would you target Jemin-ssi of all people?! He’s already far enough from the Lord!!!”

Watching him twist against his restraints while shouting that they had to ‘save Baek Jemin-ssi and perform an exorcism’ made it clear he was as crazy as ever.

Naturally, it was the pastor’s job to calm Shin Nain down.

He calmly patted Shin Nain and nodded with a resolute expression.

"Even beasts usually have affection for their parents and children. Baek Jemin is human too. You know he cherishes his parents dearly.”

"Lies! You've been fooled! You’ve seen Jemin-ssi block his parents’ numbers and only contact them when he feels like it, and you’re still defending him?!”

“Ahem. Kehem!”

I swear, these fanatic zealot duo bastards are going to irritate me to death.

After evacuating my parents overseas, I’d cut off family ties so I could pursue my dream of becoming a Great Archmage, then unblock their number and contact them whenever I got worried. What exactly was so wrong with that?

There’s an old saying that goes, 'No news is good news.’

In other words, I’m an excellent son who always brings my parents good news.

Of course, Shin Nain refused to acknowledge this.

"Lies! You just want to be comfortable by yourself!”

"You hear the truth and still refuse to face it. What use are your ears?!”

After confirming that neither side was ever going to budge, an unspoken truce took hold.

In the meantime, Hamza had scurried off and brought the doctor over. Apparently he’d slipped out while no one was paying attention and gone to fetch the doctor first. The doctor Hamza dragged in saw that Shin Nain had come back to his senses and asked in a quiet voice.

"Shin Nain-ssi, do you need a sedative?”

"No. I’m fine.”

"As your colleagues requested, we’ll remove the restraints. But please make sure this doesn’t happen again. Your thigh still needs treatment.”

The doctor’s calm, composed demeanor in a situation like this almost felt more chilling.

Before long, the doctor brought in medics and removed all the restraints binding Shin Nain. There was no human connection or concern in the process. Both the doctor’s and medics’ eyes were completely lifeless.

Colorless resignation, without even a trace of duty left in them.

The doctor and medics left just like that.

That was when static began leaking from the military hospital speakers.

The growing noise mixed together and began carrying the sound of people arguing somewhere.

We Supreme Archmages ignored it and got down to business.

And naturally, the Great Archmage Baek Jemin, who had remained the calmest and gathered the most information, played the lead role.

"I went and checked him out earlier. That bastard’s insane. Every time he uses magic, he vividly relives the memory of his family dying with all his senses and the exact emotions from back then, and he’s enduring it by passing the backlash onto other people. He’s prepared to destroy himself. No one can withstand that mentally. I’m certain of it. He’s a suicide attacker staying functional through his gear.”

Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes’ objective was to break through and collapse the blockade line.

His goal was for the monsters to pour out and destroy the entire Korean Peninsula along with everyone living on it.

Sure, they could keep dragging out humanity’s nukes and firing them at Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes until his magic finally ran out.

Because by then, the entire Korean Peninsula would be finished too.

If anyone still had the naive idea that a nuclear strike would only fuck up Seoul, China over there would happily unload its entire strategic nuclear arsenal and reduce the Korean Peninsula to ashes, wiping out life on it altogether.

If they didn’t even realize they were handing China the justification for the nuclear bombardment it had wanted, then honestly, it would be better for everyone if they were simply erased in nuclear fire along with Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes.

From China’s perspective, losing one general and having US and Korean troops on the blockade line slaughtered would be enough to bring about the nuclear bombardment they wanted. That was an incredibly cost-effective way to achieve their objective.

From humanity’s perspective, this might actually be better.

It was fucked up, but from the non-wizards’ perspective, China was right.

If non-wizards wanted to preserve their rights, they had to erase all 50 million Koreans with nuclear bombardment.

But I was a wizard.

I wasn’t going to die in a nuclear blast because of some non-wizard trash.

If their stance meant I had to get nuked and die too, if I had to suffer for their sake…

Then I’d defect to the 66 Society right now and survive even if it meant slaughtering every non-wizard except my family.

"Baek Jemin."

"Jemin-ssi.”

The pastor and Shin Nain.

The fanatic zealot duo had noticed the psychology underlying my thoughts and started nagging me, but this was one thing I would never compromise on.

If the world demanded altruism and sacrifice from me, then I would survive even if I had to wreck the entire world to do it.

I absolutely would.

Because I’m human!

"More importantly, he had some gear on him. A Cuneiform Grimoire, a coat covered in something called oracle-bone script, and prayer beads called something like Three True-Body Sarira. Do you know what those are?”

"A grimoire? The one we burned? He has one of those?”

"You were the one who burned it, Pastor.”

"Hey, you were the one who told me to burn it!”

Even as he said that, Pastor Park Yohan crossed his arms, stroked his beard, and fell into deep thought.

"True-Body Sarira…Sarira? It can’t be the same sari as in the extra noodles you put in ramen.¹ Come to think of it, I’ve heard those bald monks have something called Sarira…”

"Pastor. I’m concerned. Why are you taking an interest in the idols of heretics who claim life itself is suffering?”

"Shin Nain…You’re right. Baek Jemin, you little bastard, don’t ask me about things like that!”

The fanatic zealot duo. Those damn bastards.

The fanatic zealot pastor obviously had no idea and couldn’t answer, then jumped on Shin Nain’s comment as an excuse. I was just about to grind my teeth when…

Go Ryeoha, her usual bright smile wiped off of her face, rapidly waved her hands to get our attention, her eyelids trembling.

"I know what it is. Sarira are the little stone-like relics that come out when a highly cultivated Buddhist monk is cremated.”

Go Ryeoha jumped in and quickly told us what she knew.

"And True-Body Sarira are relics that came from the remains ofShakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism. They possess an incredible amount of spiritual power. Hubae-nim, are you sure you really saw Three True-Body Sarira?”

"Are they really that great?”

The idiot Lee Sejun asked the question for me.

It annoyed me, but it was a necessary question, so I kept my mouth shut and waited for the answer.

Who the hell was Shakyamuni? What made him so damn spiritually powerful?

Go Ryeoha caught the look in Lee Sejun’s and my eyes, then bounced in frustration as she shouted.

"Shakyamuni Buddha! The Buddha! In Christian terms, he’s like Jesus!”

"Shakyamuni was the Buddha?”

"What? He put three pieces of Buddha’s body in there?”

Lee Sejun and I were both startled at the same time, looked at each other at the same time, then sharply turned our heads away in mutual disgust and contempt.

Thankfully, we had been surprised for different reasons, so I barely managed to hide the fact that I hadn’t known Shakyamuni was the Buddha.

Come to think of it, I vaguely rememberedBuddha’s birthday being called Shakyamuni’s birthday.

I’d had no idea who that Shakyamuni person had been, but I’d just been grateful to him and moved on.²

So Shakyamuni was the Buddha?

"!"

Hamza and the fanatic zealot duo, however, reacted very differently.

"Shirk. Idolatry. It’s one of the acts the Quran warns against most strongly.”

"Well, looks like that Muhammad fellow had at least some sense. Tsk. I was wondering what these True-Body Sarira things were, turns out they’re idols!”

"Amen, amen. How utterly pathetic, the primitive beliefs of uncivilized people. Imagine being unable to believe without seeing.”

Hamza, that bastard, stuffed himself with pork belly and soju, yet somehow got dogmatic about things like this.

Was that why he was a Dogma-type wizard?

Unlike these people trapped in religious prejudice, I was open-minded and tolerant, so I decided to question Go Ryeoha further.

"So he can strengthen his magic because those prayer beads have Three True-Body Sarira embedded in them?”

"They’re probably Incantation-type objects. I have no idea where the 66 Society found True-Body Sarira, but if an object has that much symbolic meaning and spiritual standing, I can understand how his magic became that powerful.”

Apparently threading True-Body Sarira into prayer beads had created an item with power beyond imagination.

If it was basically like a cross with three pieces of Jesus’ bones embedded in it, just imagining it made my knees go weak. If something like that existed, I felt like merely showing it to a monster might crush it straight away.

I was about to ask something else, but…

At that moment, the conversation coming through the speakers beneath all that static drifted toward a subject that was impossible to ignore for us.

[So what, you can use magic, and that makes you special? What’s so fucking great about using magic? You Seoul bastards were eating well and living comfortably, then the moment we shut our eyes and crushed you to save 40 million people, you couldn’t take it and started throwing a goddamn tantrum, and now you call it revenge? You damn assholes. Hey, you bastards! You think you’re righteous or something?!]

Someone was lashing out.

They were pouring out bitter rage born from deep-seated resentment.

The entire military hospital, which until then had been filled only with sobbing and footsteps, fell silent.

Rough breathing leaked through the speakers.

Then came a hoarse voice, so ruined that it was impossible to tell the speaker’s age or sex, sounding like metal scraping against metal.

[No one.]

The vengeful ghost spoke.

[No one ever spoke of judgment.]

[Then…what the fuck is it? You’re just killing people because it’s fun?]

There was nothing but static for a few seconds.

At some point, we Supreme Archmages had all stopped where we were, mouths firmly shut as we listened. We could no longer ignore this broadcast that was likely forced to be shown to everyone by the Gangnam Group or the 66 Society.

Because the answer that came back was far colder than anything about judgment.

[We are demanding that you prove you are human.]

[What the hell does that have to do with…]

[We proved it. In Seoul, crawling with monsters, we learned magic, fought those monsters, and proved ourselves capable of resisting mutation. We distinguished humans from monsters and remained human. But you failed to learn magic and prove that you are human. And in an age where humans turn into monsters, failing to learn magic that can prove your humanity points to only one fact.]

Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes.

The man who was said to have risen from a local recruit to an officer of the 66 Society declared as such:

[You are monsters. Or monsters waiting to be born. Either way, you are not human.]

-Click.

The broadcast cut off.

It had been brief, but it made the position of the 66 Society and the Seoul wizards perfectly clear.

Only wizards were human.

If you couldn’t learn magic, you weren’t human.

I slowly turned my head toward the pastor. He gave a hollow laugh, took off his glasses, and began wiping them.

"Hah. Haha. Good grief.”

A vein bulged on the pastor’s forehead.

"Fine. At least they’re not claiming to be gods themselves, so there’s still some room for repentance.”

Meanwhile, Shin Nain, who had gotten up with Hamza’s help, groaned.

"Let’s go for now. At least they seem willing to talk to Holy Alteration Battle Arts practitioners. If he intends to destroy himself, then stalling for time should be effective. We can’t allow people who have yet to hear the Gospel to die.”

The fact that he still couldn’t drop the whole Holy Alteration Battle Arts stuff even now proved this bastard was genuinely insane as well.

Still, thanks to that, something heavy seemed to start boiling up inside everyone.

Go Ryeoha, who would smile confidently only to wilt and lose heart. Lee Sejun, who was an excellent soldier aside from his filthy inner thoughts. The pastor, whose rage meter was already at MAX. Shin Nain, forcing himself up despite his condition because innocent people had to be protected…

"No, no. We’ll die.”

Only Hamza shook his head, his face as pale as a corpse’s.

"If we go like this, every one of us is going to die.”

"No, Hamza. We finally got the whole dramatic last-stand atmosphere going, and you have to ruin it?”

I scolded Hamza.

At the same time, I subtly shuffled my feet and moved farther into the hospital room.

Fortunately, no one noticed yet.

If everyone dramatically declared they were going, then I would suddenly be struck by a severe worsening of my condition and have no choice but to remain in the ward.

That was when various loud footsteps overlapping with each other echoed from the hallway.

-Step, step.

Their wavering hearts came through in their footsteps. Fragile wills were barely managing to carry them forward. The irregular, ominous tapping against the hallway tiles made me tense for some reason.

Soon, soldiers opened the hospital room door and poured inside.

At the front was the soldier from the Reality Survival Command, wearing a mask and sunglasses, making him look like a black cotton swab. The same soldier who had been displeased with being called a non-wizard.

But Black Cotton Swab wasn’t the only one there.

Among the soldiers, a vaguely familiar curly-haired middle-aged woman somehow waddled forward on her short legs. Just as everyone was about to ask what this was about, Black Cotton Swab spoke first.

"Aphorism. Reality Survival Command has determined that it will be practically impossible to stop Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes from breaking through the Seongnam blockade line. At this rate, he will absolutely break through. The power of wizards is…desperately needed.”

At this critical moment, with the fate of the Korean Peninusla hanging in the balance, I made the most rational decision possible.

"Go Ryeoha-ssi here will do an excellent job. She’s a high-level wizard I practically regard as my master.”

"Hubae-nim!!!”

Go Ryeoha cried out, but I ignored her and stubbornly kept my head bowed.

I would’ve kept doing exactly that if I hadn’t heard what Black Cotton Swab said next.

"We’re currently transporting the provisionally named Human-skin Tapeworm corpse by helicopter. Estimated arrival is about 6 minutes. At Mister Anderson’s strong request, the magic symbols haven’t been damaged or harvested.”

"You mean…?”

"Command has determined that Baek Jemin-ssi’s advancement to Alteration-type, Stage 4 is essential. This decision was made after considering all the improvisation and performance you’ve shown during operations so far, along with your passionate willingness and attitude toward cooperating with the military.”

I couldn’t contain the overwhelming emotion surging through me and had no choice but to raise my head.

I could feel Go Ryeoha angrily poking the back of my neck from a distance within invisible hands made from Telekinesis, but that wasn’t important right now.

Anderson Makenford-ssi.

If you keep giving me this much, what are you going to have left…

At that moment, the curly-haired lady stepped in front of me and started smacking me hard on the back.

"Agh! Agh!”

"You brat, are you pretending not to know me just because it’s been a while?”

"Me? Know you, Miss?”

What was this curly-haired lady who looked like she’d be walking a dyed little poodle down the street talking about, suddenly smacking some stranger on the back…

"Poodle-noona!”

"What about the talisman I gave you? Did it work?”

"I’m not really sure.”

Thinking about it, when the soldiers disappeared at Bokjeong Station, they had probably been eaten by a Human-skin Tapeworm.

She’d said it was a talisman that warded off evil, so maybe it had helped me avoid encountering the Human-skin Tapeworm? It might sound like a forced interpretation, but I decided to give her some lip service.

"Come to think of it, I think it helped a lot.”

"I can see you calculating that answer in your head. Well, anyway, when’s your birthday?”

"Janurary 1st, 2028.”

"That doesn’t seem to be right…? No matter how I look at you, you weren’t born on January 1st. Are you sure you know your own birthday?”

That was when the Supreme Archmages, unable to listen any longer, interrupted.

"Jemin-ssi’s birthday isn’t January 1st. He’s talking nonsense.”

Lee Sejun was the first to stab into me.

“You little punk. Baek Jemin! Quite talking bullshit!”

"Jemin-ssi, birthdays aren’t something you can change just because you feel like it.”

Then the fanatic zealot duo each took a shot at me as well.

"Ma’am. You should probably point out the ‘2028’ part first.”

Apparently Hamza had never cared about my birthday at all.

"Hubae-nim~~~~~!!!!”

Go Ryeoha, still not done sulking, kept jabbing me from every direction with Hand-branch, Stage 3 [Telekinesis].

Then Poodle-noona started pounding my back like she was trying to kill me.

"You brat! Is this the time for jokes?! I need to read yoursaju, so tell me properly!”

"Agh, aagh! June 17th, 2000! Really, really!”

"I need yourFour Pillars, so tell me exactly when you were born!!!”

"Noon! Noon! Dammit, 12 o’clock!”

Only then was I finally released, gasping for breath.

Poodle-noona’s backsmacking skills were no joke. I had a feeling there was a perfectly clear handprint on my back.

More importantly, why the hell was she suddenly asking about my Four Pillars?

I was just starting to boil with indignation after getting smacked around when Black Cotton Swab tapped at his smartphone screen and said something to Poodle-noona.

"Looks like it isn’t the Four Pillars you’re looking for."

"No. If you go by the traditional calendar, the interpretation changes."

That was when Poodle-noona grabbed my cheek and pinched it hard.

"Jhat hurtsh."

"Right. There was a reason I thought you were pure yang. It starts with your Four Pillars.”

"Huh?"

-Tak!

With all the Supreme Archmages watching, Poodle-noona released my cheek and declared firmly.

"Gyeong-Jin, Im-O, Byeong-O, Gab-O."

"Noona, what are you talking about all of a sudden?”

"Yang Fire like the sun. An excess of fire, prone to conflict and roughness, but surprisingly capable of self-restraint. Strong intuition and spiritual sensitivity, enough to overwhelm evil spirits, ghostly energy, and yin energy with your own aura, making it difficult for ancestral spirits to approach you. And if you’re Gyeongjin, you’re a White Dragon. Of course your spiritual sensitivity would be strong!”

I was hearing the same kind of thing I’d heard when I visited a shaman once, years ago.

Was she calling me a vicious bastard who even steals all the food from my ancestor’s memorial table or something?

"It’s him. He’ll do! This guy is it! You have three instances of O, the 7th of the Twelve Earthly Branches. And you said there’s a pentagram engraved on your heart. 5³ points! Three of the seventh Earthly Branch, plus a fourth, the five that seeks seven. You’re the one who can wield the Four-Tiger Sword! You were born with Three Horses!”

But Poodle-noona practically bounced up and down as she shouted, then gave Black Cotton Swab an equally vicious smack on the back.

"Even if it’s only a Three-Tiger Sword, there's nobody else who could wield it but this guy!”

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¹사리= Sarira (written only Sari in Korean) 라면사리 = extra serving of noodles added to a dish (Ramyeon sari)

² To explain the original joke, there are a few ways that Korean’s call this day. One is 부처님 오신 날 (The Day when Buddha came), another is 석가탄신일 (Sakyamuni Buddha’s birthday) 석 here is read as Seok which is a Korean last name so Jemin thought it was Seok-ssi’s birthday, not caring who the hell that is.

³ Read O in sino-korean