Chapter 58: Roly Poly in Ski Goggles

[Translator – Aren]

If you asked who among us Supreme Archmages was the most thoroughly prepared, the answer would be Hamza.

While I was checking the messages on my spell phone, Hamza rummaged through his backpack, pulled out a USB cable and power bank, and handed them to me.

"Jemin-ssi, here’s a power bank. You should charge your spell phone.”

"Oh, thanks.”

The battery had been running a little low anyway.

Out here in this brutal Seoul, it was the only communication device that could receive valuable information from the locals. Naturally, I had to keep an eye on the battery. Under normal circumstances, we would have already left the church and continued on our way.

But there was a good reason for me to stay here exchanging messages with Kang Areum-noonim.

April 19th, 2028, 8:01 AM.

We were holed up inside the church’s multipurpose room, listening to the vivid sounds outside. The thing keeping us trapped inside was far more terrifying than the groans or screams of monsters.

-Whooooosh—

The heavy sound of something slicing through the air echoed from beyond the church’s outer walls. It sounded like the unmistakable roar of a fighter jet, except it seemed to be carving through the fog instead of wind.

Naturally, there was only one reason a fighter jet would be flying overhead.

Almost simultaneously with the engine noise, bombs began falling in earnest, shaking the ground and the walls around us. At least all the fluorescent lights in the ceiling had shattered long ago, so there was no danger of glass raining down on us.

Then came a deafening Brrrrrrt-sound. I wondered what it was until Lee Sejun casually explained.

"That’s aVulcan cannon. Sounds like they’re flying lower than I expected.”

"Aren’t modern fighter jets supposed to just fire missiles these days?”

The one who answered was Pastor Park Yohan, who was absentmindedly polishing his glasses with a troubled expression.

"Must be something airborne that’s interfering with the bombing.”

That was how we learned what the bombardment of Seoul actually sounded and looked like.

With the relentless explosions and the distant rumble of artillery providing background music, we quietly ate some simple canned food each. Using disposable forks or chopsticks, we practically drank down our cans of tuna. Lee Sejun even finished off every last drop of oil in the can.

Meanwhile, true to his by-the-book nature, Shin Nain quietly hummed a hymn while nibbling daintily.

"Sejun-ssi, let's eat a little more neatly. The Lord has blessed us with our daily bread. We shouldn’t waste it. Chew your food properly.”

"But I’m hungry."

"Tsk."

Meanwhile, Hamza was carefully examining every corner of his can to determine whether it was halal or not.

This was the same honorary Korean who happily ate pork and drank soju. Seeing him suddenly worrying about whether canned tuna was halal left me dumbfounded.

"Fish without scales are haram.”

"What about pork and soju?”

"They were offered without ill intent, and they’re delicious. Besides, I repent to Allah afterward, so it’s alright. And soju isn’t alcohol. It’s industrial alcohol, so it doesn’t count.”

Apparently, Hamza had his own standards.

The pastor clicked his tongue as he watched him.

"If you’re going to be like that, you might as well come to the church and drink some grape juice.”

"Apostasy is an unforgivable sin. Even if I fail to follow every part ofSharia and have to repent, I must never abandon Allah."

"Hah…I really think you'd be just fine if you believed in God instead.”

As an uninvolved third party, Allah and God both seemed equally terrifying to me, so I wisely kept my mouth shut.

I figured it was like the difference between North Koreans and South Koreans. Christianity and Islam were probably just different from each other like that. Anyway, I waited for another message from Kang Areum-noonim.

Meanwhile, our Supreme Archmages experienced firsthand how the Korean military was carrying out its bombardment.

First. The military’s bombardment was focused on flattening the outskirts and striking the monsters gathered along the front lines. Surprisingly, they almost never bombed deep inside Olympic Park. We barely heard the characteristic whistling sound of incoming artillery. Instead, the explosions sounded distant, echoing from far away.

Second. Most of the attacks inside Seoul were carried out by fighter aircraft rather than artillery batteries. It hadn’t been this intense even just yesterday. The arrival of UN forces and the deployment of the US 7th Fleet must have changed things. The combined air power of the Korean and US militaries had practically taken control of Seoul’s skies.

The roar of fighter jets and the thunder of bombs were louder than the monsters’ screams.

Third. The wasp-like buzzing of drones was far more frequent and much louder than we’d expected. Just like at Olympic Park, where they had engaged the Human-skin Jellyfish, sporadic gunfire accompanied the buzzing. The pastor focused on that detail and offered a theory.

"Looks like they’ve managed to set up a Wi-Fi network. The vanguard reconnaissance teams, I mean. You can’t operate drones without communications.”

"Wow. As expected of the special forces."

The five of us had barely managed to fight our way through. Meanwhile, the special forces were apparently advancing along subway Line 3 while installing a Wi-Fi network for drone operations.

The name ‘special forces’ fit them perfectly. We’d heard American and Korean special forces were conducting joint operations. Apparently that was true.

"They're probably laying down a Wi-Fi network as they move along Line 3. And there are major locations on that line too. Yongsan and the Nambu Bus Terminal. Places where the last military units remaining in Seoul were stationed. Even if they’ve already been looted, there could still be some infrastructure or surviving soldiers left there. And more importantly, there’s a good chance electricity is still running there. If there are any local survivor groups around there, those would be ideal places to establish bases.”

Originally, the regular army had probably intended to advance along Line 8, where there were fewer monsters and fewer survivor groups setting up wifi networks and building forward bases.

But after repeated disappearances, their manpower dwindled. Then they encountered the Dubai Sticky Witch, Jung Nari, at the department store near Jangji Station, and the whole operation stalled.

That was Pastor Park Yohan’s theory.

It struck me that the pastor really was thinking things through. If only he weren't the kind of evangelical pastor who tried to proselytize nonstop and called the Catholic Pope the Antichrist, he’d actually be a pretty decent guy. Life really did have a funny way of balancing things out.

Just then my spell phone vibrated again.

I set down my can of tuna and looked at the screen.

[Me: Wats ritual-type]

[Kang Areum: Are you trying to act cute?]

[Me: Typo]

[Kang Areum: You’re kind of different over text than you are in person, huh?]

[Me: ?]

Just because I’d left out a single letter because I was too lazy, she thought I was trying to act cute?

Never in my life had I imagined that Baek Jemin’s rugged masculinity could be misunderstood like this.

Still, after surviving four months in such a brutal environment, even something like this must have seemed cute to Kang Areum-noonim. Well, no harm done. She kindly explained everything to me after all.

Maybe she simply missed having a normal conversation with someone sane.

Despite her sharp jawline and solid, dependable build, she was an incredibly kind and gentle older sister figure.

[Kang Areum: You guys are complete newcomers, so I’m telling you this so you don’t go out there and die for nothing. I’m only telling you things that’d be fine to tell the soldiers outside, so don’t worry about me. This is all common knowledge in Seoul.]

As each new message arrived, I immediately shared it with the other Supreme Archmages.

After countless observations and independent research by survivors, the Seoul wizards had classified magic into four major types.

Incantation-type. Ritual-type. Alteration-type. Dogma-type.

The information about these types and understanding them was far more detailed and far more important than everything we’d spent months figuring out outside Seoul.

Kang Areum-noonim must have been genuinely busy, though. She only gave us a brief overview and explained the Ritual-type.

[Kang Areum: Looks like the military outside Seoul stole some of what we know, but if they don’t even know about the Ritual-type, then they’re a bunch of complete dumbasses. Listen carefully. Ritual-type magic borrows power by making contracts with transcendental beings that see humans as insignificant. The reason they’re so obsessed with human sacrifice is because, in most cases, the price of the contract is themselves. There’s something called Contract Progress. The moment it reaches 100%, the contractor meets a different kind of ruin depending on whatever they made the contract with.]

She also added that Ritual-type magic was the most mysterious, alien, and dangerous of all magic.

[Kang Areum: Once you perform the ritual and make a contract, you gain access to more spells by carrying out additional rituals as your Contract Progress increases. Someone like Ski Goggles probably has about 2 spells. One of them is stealth. Don’t fight him until you figure out all of them. And if you do run into him, pin him down and kill him. Stay alive, and we’ll meet again someday.]

[Me: Thanks, Noonim]

No reply came back. Still, wouldn’t Kang Areum rank in the top 10% of Seoul wizards when it came to basic human decency?

Maybe meeting Kang Areum-noonim had been thanks to the Dogma-type spell [Redemptive Conviction] that kept giving us abruptly good luck. Hamza sensed danger and helped us avoid it. The pastor brought us good fortune.

Their magic was more useful outside combat than during it.

Before entering Seoul, I might have thought that being a pure damage dealer would be far better.

But now, after spending 5 days here, I’d realized that combat ability alone wasn’t enough to survive.

Detection and survival came first.

Without combat power, living here was miserable, but with nothing except combat power, you simply wouldn’t survive. That was Seoul.

Seen from that perspective, Hamza’s and the pastor’s magic might have looked plain and unimpressive, but in countless subtle ways, they were invaluable.

After sharing the information, the other Supreme Archmages all nodded in agreement. The pastor looked especially relieved. He said it was the Lord’s grace that there were still people who hadn’t lost their humanity even in a place like this.

"Thank God there are still people of faith left in this place. Ritual-type magic…The people using it are heretics beyond any doubt.”

"Then they’re servants of the Devil that we warriors of Holy Alteration Battle Arts must strike down.”

Watching the pastor and Shin Nain burn with righteous zeal filled me with deep despair, but I’d gotten used to it by now.

I’d realized that here in Seoul… These lunatics shouting ‘Kill the heretics!’ were actually more reliable than soft-hearted fools who trembled and cried, asking stuff like, ‘How could anyone do this to another human being?’ It was a sad realization.

At least Hamza, the Muslim, was an incredibly sane person. And Lee Sejun, who ought to have been a fellow secularist, was somehow even worse than the religious zealots. There really was no one I could rely on.

Maybe the only person I could trust was myself in the end.

Thinking that, we stacked the empty cans in a corner and continued making preparations before setting out.

While loading rounds into the magazine I’d scratched up with my combat knife, I repeatedly coated the bullets with the blood from my right hand. Now that Lee Sejun had awakened Hand-branch magic as well, our efficiency had doubled. 

Enduring the burning pain in my hand, we each prepared two anti-monster magazines. We handed all three grenades back to Lee Sejun, confirmed that we only had two left in reserve, and kept checking the spell phone in case any new notifications arrived.

It wasn’t until afternoon that we finally left the church with the glass exterior.

Shin Nain, who had been sitting silently with his headset on, eyes closed, and arms folded, finally spoke up.

"The bombardment’s over.”

It was then that he tapped his headset and smiled.

"The monsters are still moving toward the front line. The sounds are getting farther away. Even the ones nearby.”

"Not exactly good news, but it does mean this is the best chance we’ve got to move deeper into Seoul.”

Lee Sejun hoisted his heavy backpack onto his shoulders.

The others shouldered their backpacks as well, letting out grunts as they got to their feet. I was no exception.

This was Seoul.

An alien ecosystem where monsters or Seoul wizards could appear at any moment. A place that was no longer a city for humans. Ordinary people like us Supreme Archmages were nothing more than outsiders here.

The longer you stayed in one place, the more dangerous it became.

April 19th, 2028, 1:12 PM.

Day 5 of our expedition.

The bombardment had stopped, so it was time for us to move again.

* * *

Waiting for us outside the glass-walled church were the corpses of a pack of Amalgams.

Except of the heads, which had melted together, the bodies were still completely human. The scene looked like the aftermath of a massacre. Did monsters simply ignore the smell of their own dead? Or had they run away out of fear?

Either way, it made Shin Nain’s words seem all the more believable.

When you walked through Seoul’s fog, you could hear monsters crying or laughing mockingly through human vocal cords. Even without Ear-branch magic, their voices reached our ears like echoes in a cave. Faint, but unmistakable.

Yet on today’s stroll through Seoul we didn’t hear a single one.

The fog was fairly dense as well. Visibility was roughly 50 meters. You could comfortably see about three city blocks ahead, which was a relief.

Ordinarily, the air would’ve been filled with the damp smell of fog and wet mildew. But thanks to the [Purification] enchantment I’d written onto the inside of my gas mask using Hand-branch, Stage 2, the air instead carried the fresh, dry scent of sunshine.

The monsters had gathered toward the front line at the first blockade. The fog was nice and thick, so we didn’t have to worry about magical backlash either.

On a day like this, everyone could smile in satisfaction.

The fact that even the cowardly Hamza let out a relieved sigh said everything.

Pastor Park Yohan looked at the thick fog, set aside one of his worries, and, for the first time in a while, led us onward with confidence.

"Come on, let’s go. Best of the Best. We’ve still got a long way to go.”

And so our Supreme Archmages formed up once more and continued north.

Not long after leaving the glass-walled church, another subway station came into view. Judging from the sign, it was calledMongchontoseong Station. Being a station close to Jamsil, it still had quite a few monsters left.

On top of that, after fighter jets had bombed the area all morning and artillery shells had landed here and there, a burning smell still drifted through the air.

If the odor was strong enough to get through a gas mask enchanted with Hand-branch, Stage 2 magic, I didn’t even want to imagine how unbearable it really was.

I immediately turned to Shin Nain.

"I thought you said all the monsters had gone to the front.”

"Normally there’d be about 5 times this many, Jemin-ssi.”

I activated Eyes-branch, Stage 1, 10-second foresight, cleared away the fog, and looked ahead.

The sight was even worse than I’d expected. The Amalgams wandering around the intersection near the subway station each consisted of dozens or even hundreds of fused human heads.

Personally, I’d been classifying anything with fewer than 10 heads as a Small Amalgam and anything with more than 50 heads as a Medium Amalgam.

Right now, there were 10 of those Medium Amalgams along with another 50 or 60 Small Amalgams that looked like they’d budded off from them. They wandered aimlessly around the intersection, crawling into abandoned vehicles while letting out low, pained groans.

And that wasn’t all.

14 Human-skin Jellyfish floated lazily through the sky, looking down at the Amalgams below. The fog was dense enough that they hadn’t noticed us. Instead, they seemed to be staring at the vaguely human-shaped Amalgams.

Well then. Might as well grant their wish.

Having identified the floating Human-skin Jellyfish, I dismissed Eyes-branch, Stage 1, pulled up my gas mask, and stuck out my tongue.

Tongue-branch, Stage 2, Desire Amplification.

The distorted faces that had been absentmindedly watching the Amalgams began filling with hunger. Their bloodshot eyes widened. Thick strings of drool dripped from the corners of mouths twisted open in silent screams, making their leathery skin glisten.

Unable to endure it any longer, one Human-skin Jellyfish fixed its gaze on a Small Amalgam. Then it spread its skin and tentacles and dove.

-Chomp!

The Small Amalgam was swallowed whole. Its many pairs of arms pounded against the Human-skin Jellyfish. Its legs kicked frantically before both monsters rolled across the ground together.

It was impossible to tell whether the grounds belonged to the Amalgam’s faces or the Human-skin Jellyfish’s.

At the same time my tongue began burning with a searing numbness, but I didn't hesitate. I repeated the same trick on several more Human-skin Jellyfish. The magical backlash hit me without fail.

-Splat!

My taste buds split apart as blood burst from them. It was the kind of pain you could never get used to.

Holding back the urge to burst into tears and sob out loud, I simply spat.

Only after seeing the dark blood stick to the pavement did I pull my tongue back in and put my gas mask back on.

By then, the Amalgams and the Human-skin Jellyfish were rolling around together in one tangled mess.

Mom, I don’t want this, get away, aaaaargh……

The dying words of those devoured by the Amalgams echoed once more from beneath the Human-skin Jellyfish’s skin.

The Human-skin Jellyfish wrapped their lip-lined suction tentacles around the Amalgams’ bodies, trying to steal their faces. Meanwhile, the Medium Amalgams that hadn’t been swallowed let their faces slide across their flesh, trying to steal the Human-skin Jellyfish’s faces instead.

Even we Supreme Archmages couldn't stop our legs from trembling at the sight. Monsters that retained grotesque remnants of human form, twisting together, trying to devour one another like something straight out of hell.

Lee Sejun fidgeted with the hand gripping his rifle and immediately swore. The others weren’t much different.

"Holy shit…”

"Oh, Allah. That’s disgusting. I think it’s even more disgusting than drinking only soju.”

"Baek Jemin, the results are amazing, but couldn’t you at least start moving before you stop to recover? While you’re collecting yourself, the rest of us have to listen to that stuff, louder than a movie theater sound system.”

"Pastor, this hurts like hell, you know?”

It felt like someone had scraped and sliced away every last taste bud with a knife before rubbing salt into the wounds. If someone could endure that and calmly keep walking, I’d be convinced they were already a monster.

Shin Nain seemed to understand my pain. He kept pounding his own chest with his fist.

For all his fanaticism, the guy was surprisingly empathetic.

He looked straight at me, tears welling in his eyes, while grinding his teeth so hard I was genuinely worried about his dental health.

"Jemin-ssi… I told you to warn us before you use it…”

"Wouldn’t it make more sense to praise me first for disabling dozens of monsters?”

South Korea was already a great country. It’d be even better if people learned to compliment someone before criticizing them.

Naturally, none of the Supreme Archmages could deny my contribution.

One way or another, thanks to Tongue-branch, Stage 2, we’d been able to pass safely through the intersection above Mongchontoseong Station.

We pushed onward through the dense fog with barely 50 meters of visibility, sweeping our rifles across our surroundings as we safely slipped past the monster horde.

Behind us, the monsters continued tangling themselves together, crying out ‘Don’t,’ ‘Help me,’ or ‘I don’t want to die,' which was just another part of everyday life in Seoul. I was starting to get used to it.

Still looking ahead, I threw a single comment over my shoulder at the Supreme Archmages trailing behind me with conflicted expressions.

"Carried.”

"Fuck…”

A 100% hard carry by the Archmage Baek Jemin.

Someone, clearly consumed by jealousy, grumbled under their breath, but I decided not to call them out. It was only natural for lesser people to envy greatness. A truly magnanimous man should overlook such things.

And so we continued onward without incident.

"Danger."

Hamza gave a warning.

"Three faces."

Shin Nain detected them.

"Okay."

Once I used Eyes-branch, Stage 1 to trace the red footprints marking where they’d be 10 seconds in the future, I estimated their positions and activated Tongue-branch, Stage 2 to amplify their hunger.

While sleep deprivation was powerful as well, there was a reason I always chose hunger. It made them kill each other.

At best, overwhelming sleepiness would just make them collapse where they stood.

Hunger, on the other hand, drove them to attack and devour one another, making it far more effective at thinning their numbers.

There were good reasons I never chose sexual desire or the urge to excrete as well.

Who knew what would happen if an Amalgam actually relieved itself? They barely had functioning metabolisms to begin with. For all I knew, it’d give birth to a Small Amalgam. As for sexual desire, monsters reproduced through humans. There was a good chance it’d just make them even more aggressive toward us.

More than anything, sexual desire was simply too unpredictable.

Lee Sejun and the pastor couldn’t contribute to detection or crowd control the way I could, but they stayed just as prepared. They remained tense, rifles aimed ahead, ready for any sudden emergency.

Our advance was smooth.

And yet I couldn’t help tilting my head, feeling like something was off.

"Baek Jemin, what’s wrong?”

"Something’s…Something’s weird.”

"What is?”

The pastor and Lee Sejun, who weren’t involved in detection, asked casually.

I struggled to explain the strange feeling before settling on the closest comparison I could think of.

"I’m tired? My legs feel kind of heavy?”

"Isn’t that because we’ve been fighting our way through monsters? Baek Jemin, you’ve been spamming that Tongue-branch magic this whole time.”

"Hmm. You think so?”

The pastor’s perfectly reasonable explanation made me hesitate.

But I’d once heard that intuition was really just pattern recognition. The brain stored countless similar experiences like a giant database, then triggered a feeling of déjà vu whenever it recognized a familiar situation.

Whenever I got this particular feeling, it was usually right before I mindlessly dumped money into cryptocurrency because US stocks were going up.

After getting burned once, I’d sworn never to touch crypto again. That strange instinct born from that painful memory helped me make my decision.

I pulled out my spell phone and checked the time first.

"Current Time, 1:34 PM."

-Tap.

After slipping the phone back into my pocket, I grabbed a random piece of trash from my jacket and dropped it onto the ground. It seemed like it was just a little ball of lint. Without hesitation, I plucked it off and tossed it onto the pavement before continuing forward.

Anyone who wanted to complain about littering was currently busy rubbing faces together somewhere.

Fortunately, we didn’t run into another monster pack. Other than the abandoned cars, the main roads outside the subway station were eerily deserted. It looked like Shin Nain had been right. The monsters really had been drawn toward the front lines.

But the sense of déjà vu I'd been feeling only grew stronger.

Finally unable to ignore it anymore, I raised a hand, stopping the Supreme Archmages behind me.

"Everyone, hold.”

"Hamza-ssi and Nain-ssi both seem fine, though. What’s wrong?”

I could see Lee Sejun blinking behind his gas mask lenses.

But my, Baek Jemin’s, ominous intuition never overlooked something that had even the slightest chance of screwing me over.

"Current time, 2:01 PM."

I slowly turned around.

The little ball of lint I’d thrown away was still perfectly visible. The fog should’ve limited visibility to about 50 meters. Yet the lint was at most 8 of my strides away.

No matter how cautiously and slowly we’d been moving, there was no way it should take 26 whole minutes to walk 8 steps. 

The moment that thought crossed my mind, I saw Shin Nain’s expression harden.

Then Hamza suddenly jolted in alarm and scrambled into the center of our group.

"Danger! Extreme danger!”

Swift and precise.

That was our Supreme Archmage’s motto.

Without anyone giving an order, we immediately formed a defensive circle.

Hamua crouched in the middle, trembling. The pastor, Shin Nain, Lee Sejun, and I surrounded him, raising our rifles as we scanned every direction.

It was then that Shin Nain forced out a strained whisper.

"The sounds…The sounds are different…”

Without hesitation, I rolled my tongue inside my mouth.

Target, kill, monster, 5 minutes, path, me.

The fog peeled away, revealing clusters of overlapping red footprints.

Where the swirling fog remained thick, monsters wouldn’t come. Where the fog cleared, those were the routes they’d take.

Kind enough to mark everything with red footprints, I fired at those places first.

-Ratata!

As spent casings clattered onto the pavement, a monster hit the ground.

An Amalgam. Three faces on a single body. It was scrawnier than I expected.

The instant my rifle sounded out, the other three each took their assigned sectors, dropping to one knee or adjusting their firing stance before opening fire. Gunshots thundered and brass rained across the ground. The monsters collapsed one after another without even managing a scream.

The horde consisted of nothing but Amalgams and Predator Spines.

Fortunately, we Supreme Archmages had already killed well over a hundred of both.

Unless it was one of those Amalgams that multiplied by splitting off heads, Predator Spines had their limits in open terrain, no matter how fast or agile they were. 

Because I was here. Baek Jemin, the Great Archmage with Eyes-branch, Stage 2.

Hunting Amalgams had become easy for all of us by now. In dense fog, if it looked even vaguely human, you shot its legs or torso first to stop it. Once it hit the ground, you finished it with a shot to the head and let its bodily fluids spill out.

But the fast, agile Predator Spines were difficult to track with the muzzle alone. So all I had to do was scrape my aching tongue against my front teeth……

Alteration-type, Eyes-branch, Stage 2.

My suffering stretched longer than any moment I had ever known.

The Predator Spines would freeze in place mid-charge, stiffening on the spot no matter what the hell they had been about to do. And a Predator Spine that couldn’t move was nothing more than a grotesque shooting target.

The Ears-branch wizard, Shin Nain, would instantly realize I’d used my magic and, true to form, calmly assume a textbook-perfect firing stance before picking off the immobilized Predator Spines one by one.

-Thud, thud...

I heard bullets shatter or punch straight through skulls several times.

Within the dense fog, the monster pack relentlessly converged on our exact position. Even so, there were only 11 Amalgams and 7 Predator Spines.

The skirmish ended quickly.

Oddly enough, we’d used more ammunition than usual. Lee Sejun frowned as he removed his magazine to inspect it.

"That’s weird. Why’d I burn through an entire magazine killing just this many?”

The pastor raised an eyebrow at that and looked around at the rest of us. 

Something seemed to be bothering him.

"I don’t know. I feel like I shoot about the same as always. What about you two, Jemin, Nain? Is it the same for you?”

"Yes. I also felt like the monsters were moving faster than usual.”

Unlike Shin Nain, who answered immediately, I raised a different concern.

"There’s something wrong with the Predator Spines.”

"Hm?”

"These guys normally lurk, waiting to ambush people. They only attack from hiding, or in places where they can cling to something. Indoor structures, thick cables, walls, and so on. They usually avoid open areas whenever they can.”

"Now that you mention it…”

The others had apparently felt the same unease but couldn’t quite put it into words.

To solve a mystery, you had to be willing to take risks. Without hesitation, I walked over to one of the Predator Spines with a rifle round lodged in its skull. Naturally, I kept my finger resting on the trigger.

Ready to bite my tongue and activate Eyes-branch, Stage 2 at a moment’s notice if anything happened, I approached the corpse. Up close, I spotted something I hadn’t been able to see from a distance.

The other Supreme Archmages didn’t follow me. Instead, they kept their distance and simply watched.

What a bunch of cowards. With attitudes like that, how were they ever supposed to uncover the deepest secrets of magic?

Our mindsets were fundamentally different.

"Jemin-ssi, did you find something?”

"I found something alright.”

I answered Shin Nain while kneeling beside the corpse for a closer look. When I reached out with my left hand and touched what looked like a cluster of bumps on the back of the creature's skull, I realized they weren’t bumps at all. They were carvings.

Something I learned in history class drifted back into my memory.

The earliest writing system. the stuff engraved into clay tablets.

Cuneiform.

I searched through my memory to find out whether Predator Spines always had something like this carved into their heads.

Come to think of it, these bastards thrashed around like lunatics unless you completely destroyed the skull.

There was always the chance they were just playing dead, so we’d usually kept our distance. This was the first time I’d ever gotten this close.

Then something about the corpse changed.

Almost the instant I touched the cuneiform, it crumbled away like ash.

Its remaining flesh and muscle, already as rotten as old rope, snapped apart piece by piece. For a brief moment I thought bone fragments had stuck to my hand before the entire body collapsed into a pile of ash and scattered into the fog.

Watching from a distance, even Hamza was so startled that he forgot his fear long enough to blurt out some stupid sounds.

"Huh? Huh?”

"Baek Jemin, what was that? Your right-hand magic?”

"No. I touched it with my left hand…”

The next to gather some courage was Shin Nain.

He approached the other Amalgams and Predator Spines to examine them himself and found the same cuneiform markings.

Every monster corpse whose cuneiform we discovered crumbled into ash before scattering into the fog without a trace.

"The Amalgams have cuneiform carved into the back of the neck, where the head joins the body, and down the middle of the back. The Predator Spines have it carved into the backs of their skulls, and unlike the previous monsters, they don’t leave a corpse behind. They disappear.”

“We never really examined monster corpses before, but this is the first time I’m hearing about cuneiform being on their bodies.”

The pastor rested his chin on one hand, deep in thought, when Shin Nain added another clue.

"More importantly, they sound different.”

"Sound different?”

"The thoughts monsters normally have… For example, Amalgams sound like complete discord, and Predator Spines sound like fingernails scraping a chalkboard. But these demons didn’t. They sounded like calm, peaceful classical music, which somehow made them even more ominous.”

"So they’re clearly different from the monsters we’ve seen before. If what Nain’s saying is right, doesn’t that mean somebody is controlling them? Like heretics commanding demons.”

That was when Hamza spoke up. Normally he obsessed over safety, so it seemed these strange clues brought out his intuition.

"I think, i-it’s that Ritual-type. Normally, if monsters are dangerous, the Angel tells me right away.”

"Yeah. Hamza’s magic isn’t working properly either. Even if our Muslim friend’s power somehow got weaker, it had been working reliably until now, so something’s definitely off. Baek Jemin, Shin Nain. Try looking again while thinking about that Ritual-type wizard, the one in the ski goggles.”

The pastor was right.

Until now it had only been a suspicion. At this point, I was almost certain. The only thing that I could think of that could make our movements so sluggish was Eyes-branch magic. The problem was figuring out where the bastard was watching us from…

Once you knew an enemy existed, finding them became much easier.

I rolled my tongue inside my mouth.

Target, Ski Goggle Wizard, 3 minutes, me.

If he really were an Eyes-branch wizard, he’d be watching us from a distance through binoculars while pulling strings. If I could clear away the fog and pinpoint his location, we’d win.

Thinking that, I scanned our surroundings.

The fog surged and peeled back again and again, beginning to indicate where Ski Goggles was. Once again, the greatness of Eyes-branch magic shone through. My gaze locked onto a single point.

The fog cleared.

Standing there was Hamza, trembling as he placed all his trust in us.

"Jemin-ssi?”

Ski Goggles.

That guy was a complete lunatic.

He wasn’t watching us from far away with binoculars. He was charging straight at us, a limb Predator Spine dangling from his hand.

He was already behind Hamua, closing in directly behind him without the slightest bit of hesitation.

A complete lunatic, seriously.

What kind of Eyes-branch wizard didn’t scout from afar and instead just rushed you head-on…?!

"Lord!"

The first to act was Shin Nain.

While I froze for a split second, he’d heard the thoughts racing through my mind. Without a moment’s hesitation, he aimed past Hamza’s shoulder.

There were no ordinary people here. Shin Nain was the kind of Supreme Archmage who wouldn’t hesitate even if our Muslim friend was right in the line of fire.

The instant Shin Nain pulled the trigger, before Hamza’s face even had time to turn deathly pale, the sound of sprinting footsteps split the air.

Bullets scattered everywhere.

And behind Hamza, I saw Lee Sejun flying through the air with his heavy backpack still on, throwing a flying kick.

I hurriedly raised my rifle and rolled my tongue inside my mouth.

Target, kill, Ski Goggles, 5 minutes, me.

If only the fog would clear…

"!"

The clearing fog instantly surged back.

Within the swirling mist, Ski Goggles’ movements as he charged at Hamza suddenly became bizarre.

He dodged the hastily fired bullets as though he’d expected them all along, slipping behind Hazma’s body for cover.

He even avoided Lee Sejun’s flying kick by awkwardly sidestepping at the last possible moment.

The thinning fog finally revealed the red footprints, but it also revealed the limitations. The red footprints that should have indicated his path kept appearing all around him without stopping.

There were at least three, maybe four possible routes at the same time.

The moment I chose one and aimed, the red footprints I was tracking vanished, replaced by a completely different set.

It didn’t matter how many times I tried. The same thing just kept happening.

While Shin Nain continuously tried to fire, Ski Goggles used Hamza like a pillar, weaving around him in strange, unnatural movements while barely avoiding every poncho and kick Lee Sejun threw.

-Whooosh—!

Lee Sejun’s punches sounded like a grinder tearing through the wind, yet Ski Goggles paid them no mind.

Without hesitation, he swung the Predator Spine around like a weapon.

But even then, Lee Sejun was still a Heart-branch wizard.

If I couldn’t shoot him, I’d leave him to Lee Sejun.

Our opponent was using Eyes-branch, Stage 1 to foresee the future and dodge.

I shouted in my head.

‘Shitmaster, don’t shoot him! Pin him down!’

Every time Ski Goggles awkwardly sidestepped around Hamza like he was using him as a post in the middle of the fog-covered road, my rifle tracked him.

My index finger rested on the trigger, but I didn’t fire.

Instead, I steadied my breathing, keeping the red-dot sight trained on him, moving only the muzzle so I could fire at any moment. Shin Nain caught on to what I was doing. At some point he’d also stopped trying to force shots and simply tracked Ski Goggles with his rifle.

If the red footprints disappeared the instant I aimed, then I’d just keep aiming.

Once I’d confirmed Sky Goggles had three or four possible escape routes, I left the path Shin Nain had covered alone and aimed at the others instead, erasing two sets of red footprints at a time.

I caught a glimpse of Hamza standing there, frozen stiff with terror, mouth hanging open, but this wasn’t the time to worry about that.

The distraction bought Lee Sejun the opening he needed.

By then, he’d gripped the sharp edge of his rifle’s barrel with his right hand, deliberately drawing blood, then smeared that blood evenly across his fist.

Lee Sejun, the human tank who had mastered Hand-branch, Stage 1 and Heart-branch, Stage 3, sneered at Ski Goggles as he tried to widen the distance.

"Let me show you the resolve of a man with a dream.”

A bee’s sting.

Lee Sejun moved with a speed no ordinary person should have been capable of.

As Shin Nain and I aimed, erasing the red-footprint paths one by one, the moment Lee Sejun closed the distance and threw a punch at Ski Goggles, three of the bastard’s escape routes disappeared at once.

Good. This would work.

The moment there was only one path left, I’d shoot. One clean kill shot.

The thought that Eyes-branch, Stage 3 was practically within reach made me unconsciously wet my dry lips with my tongue.

Then Ski Goggles started swinging the Predator Spine around.

The limp spinal tail whipped through the air each time he swung it.

A real tough guy might’ve punched through it, but Lee Sejun was a complete wuss.

"Uwah!?”

Afraid the blade-like spine might cut him, the ordinary mortal Lee Sejun instinctively stumbled backward.

Fortunately, because he’d thrown his right fist first while retreating, the Predator Spine’s tail shattered in a single blow.

The monster struck by his blood-coated fist literally exploded into pieces.

-Boom!

One punch reduced it to fine bone dust that mixed into the surrounding fog. But we’d lost our chance.

Countless new red-footprint paths spread out in every direction.

Just Shin Nain and I aiming wasn’t enough to erase all of them.

For a second I considered trusting Lee Sejun’s durability and firing anyway, but if Ski Goggles crippled him and then pulled some trick while he was down, we’d have no way to keep him in check.

Without hesitation, Ski Goggles threw himself backward and disappeared into the fog.

The visibility was 50 meters.

He’d escaped beyond that.

Just as I thought we’d lost him, Shin Nain shouted firmly.

"He knows Baek Jemin-ssi’s an Eyes-branch wizard. He'll definitely try to kill him to avoid being tracked. The fight isn’t over yet!”

That made sense. Eyes-branch wizards were excellent trackers. If you ran into one as an enemy, the logical move was to kill them immediately.

And that would be me.

"Lee Sejun, get back here for now. That blood fist of yours is seriously insane.”

"Hah…What a dirty fighter. Swinging a bladed weapon at someone who’s throwing punches.”

"Islam, stay close to me for now. You’ll have a better chance of surviving with my magic.”

"I-I-I’ll trust the Jesus guy for now.”

Looking disappointed, Lee Sejun strode back toward us.

At least now we knew one thing. His blood fist was overwhelmingly effective against monsters. Honestly, Lee Sejun probably didn’t even need a gun anymore. And with Hamza beside the pastor, I felt relatively at ease.

At that exact moment, as though to rebuke my complacency, Shin Nain shouted.

"Sky, monster!”

Shin Nain only ever spoke that briefly when things were truly urgent.

In that case, it was only right for me, the Eye-branch wizard, to handle the sky.

The Jellyfish bastards were just fodder that tore apart after taking a few bullets, so I started to leisurely raise my rifle…

That’s when I saw it.

Something I would’ve completely missed if I’d snapped my rifle upward too quickly.

It was the exact moment when the pastor turned his head to scold Hamza.

At that very moment, Hamza stood in front of the pastor, his face deathly pale, shoulders hunched as he struggled to catch his breath.

Behind them, Ski Goggles was charging straight at us.

An Amalgam’s severed head clutched in his right hand.

Guns were too slow in this situation.

And Ski Goggles was an Eyes-branch wizard as well.

That bastard, he wore ski goggles on purpose to hide where he was looking.

Even so, our eyes met.

He was an Alteration-type, Eyes-branch, Stage 3 wizard.

His realm surpassed mine.

At this rate I’d lose.

So I prepared myself for the pain.

I rolled my tongue inside my mouth.

This time, I wasn’t using it together with Eyes-branch, Stage 1’s future sight.

Target, stop, Ski Goggles, 2 minutes.

Thus, my suffering stretched longer than any moment I had ever known.......

-Crunch!

My tongue was crushed between my teeth.

At the exact same instant, my gaze collided with Ski Goggles’.

Our magic collided as well.

The pain was on an entirely different level from before.

It was like dripping molten candle wax directly onto your eyeballs. The burning wax landed on the surface of your eyes, searing them, then cooled and hardened, making them hurt all over again. That was what it felt like.

Even while biting down hard enough to mangle my tongue, I couldn’t suppress the scream forcing my mouth open.

No sound came out. I squeezed every last bit of air from my lungs, trying to force my vocal cords to cry out. But it hurt too much to scream, so I let out a groan reminiscent of a wounded beast, tears freely streaming down my face. It was better to let them flow than to have them pool on my eyelids and block my vision.

-Guwaaaa......

It hurt like hell.

-Hnggguuhhhh......

It felt as though someone were slowly chewing my eyeballs apart with their teeth.

-Hk, uuugh… Uuuuungh…

My body gave out first.

I stood there glaring with my eyes wide open, whimpering like a beast, yet strangely, the mind being seared by this agony only became clearer.

Eyes-branch, Stage 2 was magic that forced your own distorted perception of time onto your opponent.

Ski Goggles and I were forcing our own time upon each other.

The entire world froze. Only our eyes continued to meet and clash.

My instincts told me.

The 6th sense in me quietly whispered the price of this battle’s defeat.

The loser would pay horribly.

And the lower our realm compared to your opponent's, the more horrifying that price would be.

Seconds, minutes, hours…

The concept of time itself seemed to collapse. Even as my eyelids fought to close and my vision blurred beneath endless tears, I never lost sight of Ski Goggles. Only our eyes and our minds remained free.

After what felt both impossibly long and impossibly brief, the pain became unbearable.

It was as though hundreds of needles stabbed into both my eyes at once. Unable to endure another instant, I finally shut my eyes. The frozen time immediately released me. Only then did I realize the animal-like groans I’d been making had been my mind screaming.

"Aagh…Aaagh…”

When it hurt that much, you couldn’t even scream.

Tears streamed down my face as I staggered backward.

Ski Goggles.

Was that bastard okay? No, were my eyes okay?”

My legs trembled violently before giving out beneath me.

Even so, I forced my eyes open. A blinding flash stabbed into my eyeballs. I hadn’t gone blind. Thank God, my vision was still there. The blurry outlines were slowly coming back into focus. This effect was probably just temporary.

Even so, I couldn’t relax.

I was 100% certain.

If I hadn’t enhanced myself with Tongue-branch magic, both my eyes would’ve gone completely blind. I didn’t even know who had won.

One thing was certain, though. Ski Goggles had suffered from the backlash as well.

The bastard who’d been charging at us stumbled backward, whimpering like a wounded dog.

Only then did Hamza and the Pastor finally turn around. Both of them recoiled in shock, awkwardly stumbling backward before falling onto the ground.

And before either of them could even scream, Lee Sejun and Shin Nain moved.

"Hup!”

Shin Nain leveled his rifle, finger squeezing the trigger. Lee Sejun’s blood-soaked fist was already flying toward the enemy.

Against anyone else that would’ve been the end.

But Ski Goggles truly was an Eyes-branch, Stage 3 wizard. He recovered faster than I did.

The instant his gaze landed on Lee Sejun, the man who’d been moving like a bullet suddenly slowed to less than a crawl. Even a sloth would’ve looked fast beside him.

I raised my rifle too, but I was still suffering from the backlash.

My hands shook uncontrollably. The barrel wobbled everywhere like I had a severe tremor.

For a moment I considered using Eyes-branch magic again. Yeah, absolutely not.

If I used it one more time, I’d really go blind.

Not yet.

"Uwaaagh……?”

"Lee Sejun, what are you doing?!!!”

Even the pastor’s frustrated shout accomplished nothing.

Unlike the trembling Hamza, the pastor managed to aim his rifle, but the instant Ski Goggles brought both of them into his field of view, he slowed down too.

"Fiiiiiiiireeeeee alreeeeeeaaaaaaadddyyyyy....."

But our fearless fanatic, Shin Nain, was different.

-Ratatata!!!!

Ski Goggles’ body lurched sideways.

Gun smoke drifted lazily from the muzzle of Shin Nain’s rifle. He slowly exhaled the breath he’d been holding.

"Demon, return to Hell.”

I steeled myself as well.

Losing both eyes would be insane. I could live with it if it was just one eye, though. Even an incredible wizard like Odin only had one eye, didn’t he?

I rolled my mangled tongue inside my mouth once more.

Target, kill, monster, 1 minute, path.

Eyes-branch magic kindly compensated for my trembling hands, indicating an aiming point for me. It seemed to know I couldn’t shoulder my rifle properly, because the number of red footprints it projected was far greater than usual.

Still, against the jellyfish monsters diving from above, unleashing a hail of bullets was enough.

-Ratatata!

Spent casings rained to the ground, along with the Human-skin Jellyfish. They crashed onto the road with heavy thuds. 

It was an utterly surreal sight. Never in my life had I imagined I’d witness grotesque leather balloons plastered with countless human faces flailing helplessly as they fell from the sky.

This takes care of the Human-skin Jellyfish familiars diving from above.

That should have been the end.

But one red footprint still remained in my vision. The Amalgam head Ski Goggle’s was carrying. A chill ran down my spine.

My Eyes-branch, Stage 1 wasn’t showing living things.

It showed moving things.

And that thing was leaving red footprints.

It was heading straight for Lee Sejun, who was dragging Hamza and the pastor to safety.

I naturally raised my rifle.

The hands and arms that had been trembling settled into icy stillness the moment I rested my rifle across my knees while sitting on the ground. I saw Lee Sejun’s eyes blink behind his gas mask.

"Jemin-ssi?”

"Get down."

It was a good thing that Sejun was a coward.

The instant he heard ‘Get down,’ he dropped Hamza and the pastor without a second thought and flung himself flat onto the ground.

Thanks to that, I finally saw the one hiding behind him.

Ski Goggles.

That insane bastard was charging straight at us, swinging the severed Amalgam head.

Only then did I finally hear the spell he used for stealth. A language that should never have been pronounceable by human tongues was somehow rendered into human speech.

Halu Shen Hongshiyashen.

It was a string of meaningless sounds not found in any human language.

But while Ski Goggles chanted it, it became a spell. Stealth or not, that wasn’t going to stop a lead bullet.

Without hesitation, I pulled the trigger at the bloodstained gray long padded coat covering Ski Goggles.

-Bang.

Ski Goggles crumpled.

-Babang.

I heard a wet cough escape him.

Stomach, side, thigh.

No one survived those hits. He should’ve bled out, gasping for breath.

But Ski Goggles had survived Shin Nain’s bullets, and now he’d survived mine too. It looks like he had some kind of trick up his sleeve.

That was why I kept my eyes locked on him, watching for his reaction.

The kneeling Ski Goggles was no longer looking at me.

It looked like he’d closed his eyes behind those goggles of his.

And the moment he did, he stood back up.

The instant his body recovered, before any of us could fire again, he hurled the Amalgam head aside.

Then the bizarre wizard reached into the backpack slung over his shoulders and pulled out a metal stake.

It was the kind you’d use to pin down a tent.

Gripping it by the looped end like it was the pommel of a weapon, he wrapped his hand around the shaft where it had been tightly wound with bandages.

"You little bastards.”

His voice was completely shot.

The raspy, ruined voice of a man who’d smoked and drunk too much muffled beneath his face mask.

And now Ski Goggles was glaring at us with great fury.

"Because of you, my Contract Progress just jumped by over 15%.”

Lee Sejun crawled backward on all fours, staring in horror.

Hamza and the pastor crawled after him in much the same way. Their reactions weren’t much different.

"What…? Why isn’t he dead after getting shot?”

"It’s a jinn, a jinn. O Allah!”

"W-why won’t you die? You bastard! Get back to Hell already!”

The only reason Ski Goggles couldn’t charge us immediately was because of me and Shin Nain.

Without saying a word, the two of us kept our rifles trained on him.

Shin Nain had heard the same conclusion I’d reached as a fellow Eyes-branch wizard. We couldn’t aim for his head. He’d already be moving along whatever future kept his head alive.

It was a judgment born from understanding the tricks he’d used.

Upright Alteration-type, Eyes-branch, Stage 3 [Cognitive Dissonance].

By rejecting what had happened to his own body, he erased his injuries as though they’d never existed.

"That’s insane."

Shock? Fear?

The weak man trembling in agony was gone. Before me stood a fragment of the omnipotent power that could one day be mine. And at this very moment, that fragment was struggling against me.

I felt exhilaration.

At the thought of crushing Ski Goggles’ eyes and making that power my own!