Chapter 75: The Two Troublemakers Are Being Cautious

[Translator – Aren]

We Supreme Archmages worked to resume radio contact while keeping Go Ryeoha, our ticking time bomb, with us.

Of course, simply clicking the radio on wasn’t going to establish communications immediately.

Nor should it.

The 66-Society had repeatedly demonstrated that they could intercept even military radio transmissions, and openly starting a conversation just because our position had already been exposed was the kind of idiotic move even a dumbass like me could recognize.

Therefore, I proposed dividing the group.

We needed the right people to minimize the possibility of the 66-Society intercepting us, operate the military radio, and improve our luck.

"Go Ryeoha-ssi, Sejun-ssi, Hamza-ssi, and the pastor can stay here and work on restoring communications. Shin Nain and I will go to the student union cafeteria and have a brief conversation with the others.”

"What? Is that really necessary? I’m worried that meeting them while dressed in military uniforms might provoke them…”

The one who reacted instantly wasn’t one of the Supreme Archmages, but Go Ryeoha.

Looking like a rain-soaked puppy, Go Ryeoha turned her apprehensive eyes toward us and openly showed her concern.

At first glance, it looked as though she was worried about us, but the truth was different.

Those eyes were afraid that the thin veil of madness covering her mind would lift and force her to confront the truth again.

And naturally, if Go Ryeoha swallowed the red pill, her fragile mind would be torn to shreds.

Once the reason she had barely preserved through that shallow madness collapsed, I doubted she would even be capable of distinguishing friend from foe.

We Supreme Archmages could probably defeat Go Ryeoha, but even if we won, the cost would be far too high.

With our means of escape still unclear, picking a pointless fight and burning through all 300 remaining rounds was something only the dumbest bastard alive would do. Rather than spend 300 bullets returning Go Ryeoha to sanity, I decided to keep feeding her the blue pill.

Some people might believe that helping Go Ryeoha regain her sanity was important.

But the rational mind of this Great Archmage Baek Jemin sneered at such romantic nonsense.

Regardless of the fact that Go Ryeoha was a respectable sunbae as a wizard and excellent teacher who shared her knowledge freely, her sanity was not more important than the safety of the Supreme Archmages and 300 rounds of ammunition.

Hiding those thoughts, I put my gas mask back on and spoke.

"We can’t exactly leave without even greeting them. And I won’t be going alone. Nain-ssi will be with me.”

"Then I’ll come too. They’re rather rough people, so I’m worried.”

"Go Ryeoha-ssi, you need to stay here in case the radio breaks down. None of us knows how to handle machinery.”

"But still!”

Go Ryeoha’s shout was nearly a scream.

By then, her eyes had become faintly bloodshot.

Only after every Supreme Archmage turned to look at her at once did Go Ryeoha seem to realize how unnatural her reaction had been. She hesitated and took a step backward.

Looking dejected, she clasped both hands in front of her lower stomach. fidgeted with her fingers and lowered her head.

"...Can’t you just stay here with me?”

As expected, the pastor was the one who made an enormous fuss over the sight.

He pulled a handkerchief from inside his clothes, lifted his glasses, and dabbed around his eyes.

I wondered what he was doing, only to realize the pastor was wiping away tears that had already begun leaking out.

Unable to conceal his grief, the pastor even began silently sobbing.

"How much must this poor young thing have suffered…This is all because the adults failed her. Goodness. I’m a sinner before Ryeoha-ssi. A sinner.”

"Pastor. Would you be acting like this if it were Sejun-ssi?”

"Baek Jemin. Don’t compare things that have no business being compared. Is Sejun anything like Ryeoha-ssi? Men are supposed to go out of their way to suffer while they’re young!”

That was the moment Lee Sejun’s narrowed gaze, which had been directed at Go Ryeoha, snapped straight to the back of the pastor’s head.

It was practically a blazing look filled with vengeful desires, but I chose not to mention it.

That was when Shin Nain approached and tapped me on the shoulder.

When I turned around, Shin Nain tapped his headset several times with his index finger and tilted his head. That was a signal. I focused and connected to him through telepathy.

'Why are you insisting on going to the basement of the student union in person?'

Shin Nain. When you spoke with the dead, you specifically mentioned there had been 250 people.

But when Go Ryeoha first guided us down there, no matter how closely I looked, I only saw dozens of corpses. It’s possible the rest were buried somewhere else, but judging by Go Ryeoha’s condition, she probably never acknowledged that they had become corpses.

In that situation, would she really have buried them in secret somewhere?

Go Ryeoha, who was still placing fresh instant rice in front of corpses?

Even if we assume she offered the rice as food for the dead, that still doesn’t answer the most fundamental question.

There were clearly too few corpses compared with the figure of 250.

I need to count the bodies precisely and use my Past Vision to confirm how they were wiped out.

Shin Nain, the reason I specifically want you with me is so you can use Ears-branch, Stage 3 to estimate the exact time of their deaths.

'That makes sense. They may have died 2 months ago, but there were far too many suspicious details. I was already planning to ask for your help because my own Past Vision can only look a few hours into the past or one day at most, even if I accept the backlash. Besides, being dead doesn’t mean they’ll only tell the truth.’

You had already anticipated and guarded against that?

I clicked my tongue inwardly at Shin Nain’s thoughtfulness.

How had someone who appeared this intelligent failed to awaken Hand-branch magic?

The answer to that question came immediately.

'Human memory and perception are easily distorted. That is precisely why, instead of relying on humanity’s petty, worthless experience and sense, we must place our faith solely in the Lord. Only the Lord is the one true constant upon which humanity can rely in this vain and corrupt world, the sole eternal and undying truth.’

Ah~ For fuck’s sake~.

I immediately released my concentration and cut off the telepathic connection.

In the meantime, the pastor’s fussing had calmed Go Ryeoha’s instability considerably.

"I told you Baek Jemin was a candidate to lead our church’s youth group, didn’t I? He isn’t going over there just to say hello. In times like these, he needs to urge them even more strongly to believe in the Lord. The Lord’s missionaries are supposed to preach the gospel even when people curse and beat them.”

"Pastor…Even so…”

"If you keep holding him back like this, Ryeoha-ssi, you'll only make things harder for Baek Jemin. Hm? Of course we know how kindhearted you are. Goodness, how can someone have such a beautiful heart?!”

"Tsk."

"S-Sejun-ssi, please stop. It’s unpleasant to watch…”

Seeing Lee Sejun standing with his arms crossed, clicking his tongue as he glared at the pastor, while Hamza tried to restrain him, made my head throb. I decided to escape this tiresome environment as quickly as possible.

"In any case, we’ll be back.”

"I’ll go help Jemin-ssi as well.”

"Right. Jemin and Nain, you two go ahead. I’ll take excellent care of Ryeoha-ssi!”

And so, Shin Nain and I left the laboratory after entrusting Operation Blue Pull to the pastor and his embarrassing fussing.

As we climbed the stairs again, we spoke aloud this time.

"Let’s go, Shin Nain. You’re too stupid to awaken Hand-branch magic, unlike Lee Sejun.”

Shin Nain read my thoughts and calmly began laying out his own theory.

Putting aside the fact that Shin Nain was completely insane, one convenient thing about him was that he could receive information without making me wear out my mouth explaining it aloud. The fact that he was overflowing with usefulness despite being annoying only made him even more annoying.

"Jemin-ssi. The 66-Society probably didn’t tell Go Ryeoha-ssi everything. They may even have deliberately mixed in false information in preparation for a leak like this. Most of it is probably true, but the claim that aptitude for the Hand-branch corresponds to the practitioner’s intellectual ability is likely false. Innate talent may indeed be required, but that can’t be all there is to it. Magic that symbolizes humanity’s intellect couldn’t possibly rely on natural aptitude alone.”

"Then?"

"Human intelligence also includes education. And the drive to investigate. My guess is that the Hand-branch Holy Alteration Battle Arts are strongly influenced not only by the intellectual ability a person is born with but also by the individual practitioner’s intellectual curiosity. I suspect I failed to awaken the Hand-branch Holy Alteration Battle Arts because, having already realized the truth that is the Lord, I show no interest in corrupt worldly logic. And there is decisive evidence supporting this.”

I see… It was a fairly convincing and reasonable theory.

And since he claimed to have decisive evidence, I couldn’t help pricking up my ears.

As though sensing my interest, Shin Nain spoke with a resolute look through the lenses of his gas mask.

"It is impossible for my intellectual ability to be inferior to Sejun-ssi’s.”

"Sure."

As someone who possessed Hand-branch, Stage 2, and whose superior intellectual ability had been proven by magic itself, they looked like two acorns arguing over which one was taller.

* * *

Basement Level 1 of the student union building remained as desolate as ever.

I lifted my poncho and switched on the L-shaped light tucked into my chest pocket.

Click.

After the sound of machinery engaging, a brutally clear scene greeted us.

Tables abandoned in one corner, dust piled thickly across the floor, and footprints left as sharply defined as track through snow. There was also instant rice that hadn’t gone sour, apparently replaced whenever Go Ryeoha stopped by, and even 100g convenience store packets of kimchi swarming with flies, all plainly visible.

Shin Nain and I walked around the corpses.

The Supreme Archmages had just searched the place, so footprints were scattered everywhere. However, since Go Ryeoha was a woman, her feet were likely smaller than the men’s. Keeping that in mind as I examined the dusty cafeteria floor, I did indeed spot several slightly smaller footprints.

Around 250mm to 260mm.

They were oddly large for a woman’s footprints, but I had to account for the fact that combat boots were originally issued by the military. By the standards of the average adult man dragged into military service, they were still on the smaller side.

The instant Shin Nain read my thoughts and recognized Go Ryeoha’s footprints, he took action.

Eyes-branch, Stage 1 Past Vision might have seemed useless when it could only look back several hours, but every spell’s potential depended on the ability of the practitioner using it.

A little while later, Shin Nain rubbed his eyelids and identified them more precisely, pointing to each footprint one by one.

"These are Go Ryeoha’s footprints, excluding ours.”

"Okay."

Once the preliminary identification was complete, we followed only Go Ryeoha’s footprints.

After distinguishing them once, the difference between the footprints of the Supreme Archmages and Go Ryeoha became obvious.

The amount of dust accumulated over them was different.

In an underground space with little circulation of outside air, a single day’s worth of dust didn’t create a dramatic difference. Still, it was noticeable enough if one looked carefully.

Once we had identified Go Ryeoha’s footprints, we could estimate the exact number of corpses to some extent.

Go Ryeoha only paid attention to the corpses collapsed against the walls of the underground cafeteria. She had not approached the area that appeared to have been the kitchen. At the very least, the so-called survivors Go Ryeoha recognized had to consist entirely of the corpses visible out in the open.

Someone might ask what difference that made, but nothing could be further from the truth.

A credentialless, hopelessly stupid high-school-graduate loser like me could only survive in a brutally competitive society by noticing the moods of my bosses and the people around me through tiny, subtle details like these.

The reason we had identified and followed Go Ryeoha’s footprints was to determine the size of the survivor group she believed still existed.

"The time period Go Ryeoha’s madness recognizes, and the time recognized by the lingering thoughts left in the corpses. There’s no guarantee either one matches the actual time they were wiped out.”

"Of course."

After Shin Nain and I precisely mapped the area covered by Go Ryeoha’s footprints and the range of her movements, we counted the corpses she had been caring for.

The result was 58.

We had even shone the light over each corpse’s skeleton to distinguish the bodies of young children, just in case.

Compared with the figure 250 that Shin Nain had learned through [Hearing the Dying Words of the Dead], it was nowhere near enough.

So we decided to go further.

Disgusting and nauseating as it was, we decided to search the corpses one by one for their phones. Most would have run out of power, but if even one still worked, that would change everything.

In modern 21st-century society, a phone was practically synonymous with a person’s identity. If we could determine when the power had shut off, it would become easier to estimate when everyone had been wiped out.

That was when Shin Nain’s Ears-branch, Stage 3 proved useful.

"I’ll ask when they last touched their phones. However, their memories of the moment they died are too strong, so it may be difficult to obtain reliable testimony.”

"Ask all 58 of them. If all 250 were wiped out at once, the testimonies should cluster around a particular time.”

While Shin Nain spoke with each of them through Ears-branch, Stage 3, I took charge of searching for phones.

I used the tip of my combat knife to lift or cut through clothing stuck to rotten flesh.

Mutilating corpses or whatever else, uncovering the truth of what had happened at Konkuk University was more important than that.

We found around 14 phones that were still in relatively good condition. I tried switching them on just in case, but most were completely dead.

Still, I set them aside and even checked whether any were spell phones. Just then, Shin Nain finished questioning the dead and spoke with a heavy huff through his gas mask.

"I found 2 soldiers. They only admitted it after I used leading questions.”

"Anything unusual?”

"They remembered the date they joined the group. January 26th.”

Roughly 20 days after the Threshold Breach on January 6th, when Seoul and northern Gyeonggi had effectively been abandoned.

I was dying to know how they had survived, but something else was more important, so I pushed that question aside for later. The group had been wiped out no earlier than January 26th. What bothered me was that we hadn’t found the soldiers’ corpses when we were here with the pastor who possessed [Redemptive Conviction].

We hadn’t discovered the corpses while accompanied by the pastor and his absurdly lucky spell, but Shin Nain and I had found them as soon as we came alone.

That meant the discovery or clue was clearly disadvantageous to the survival of the Supreme Archmages, or would expose us to danger.

Shin Nain seemed to sense the same thing, which was probably why he had stopped digging any deeper.

"They probably didn’t have 250 people from the beginning. It makes more sense to treat that as their peak.”

"Or they may have started with 250 and gradually dwindled over time.”

That could mean Go Ryeoha slowly lost her mind until only 58 people remained, or that everyone except those 58 had vanished.

What was certain was that it would have taken time. Shin Nain and I both suspected there had been a sufficient buildup between the soldiers joining on January 26th and the conflict escalating.

Even if we accepted that all 250 had committed mass suicide after seeing what the military had done, hatred on that scale would still have needed time to erupt.

Before hostile public opinion had formed around the military survivors, there was no way all 250 people would have accepted the extreme conclusion that everyone should die together simply because they couldn’t identify who the soldiers were. Even If the children effectively had no say in the matter, deciding on mass death the moment the soldiers joined made no sense.

Regardless of how contrived or justified the mass suicide itself may have been, the key was estimating how many days it had taken for that hatred to steadily accumulate.

"Shin Nain. They couldn’t have fed 250 people three meals a day, right?”

"One meal per day would have been more realistic. Unless they temporarily increased the rations to raise morale.”

"Separate from Seoul being blanketed in fog, the fact that they were underground would have made it difficult to track the passage of time outside.”

"They also needed to conserve electricity. Assuming they only ran the generator at limited times, they may have treated each cycle of starting it, charging everything, and shutting it off as one day.”

"Check."

"Yes."

As irritating and unpleasant as it was, there were almost no Supreme Archmages whose thoughts aligned with mine as well as Shin Nain’s did. Hamza, maybe.

Having understood what we needed to determine, Shin Nain resumed the tedious but essential questioning through Ears-branch, Stage 3. Meanwhile, I idly fiddled with my combat knife and examined the piles of corpses.

At last, after his relentless questioning, we began to infer the exact time they had been wiped out.

"I believe they ate at least 10 meals, and as many as 15, after the soldiers joined them. The generator appears to have been started and shut down approximately 8 to 11 times.”

"Even if we assume Go Ryeoha temporarily increased the rations to reduce the survivors’ opposition, once we account for the number of times the generator was started, it must have been at least 6 days. Any longer than that would have wasted too many resources.”

"Go Ryeoha-ssi said herself that the 66-Society stopped supplying them 2 months ago. Since today is April 22nd, 2 months ago would place that around February. Considering that our estimated time of annihilation is at least 6 days after the military survivors joined on January 26th, it was likely sometime in early February.”

"And 6 days is already a conservative estimate. Giving ourselves more room, it was probably around 10.”

Shin Nain and I put our heads together and estimated when they had been wiped out.

Approximately 6 to 10 days after January 26th, 2028.

From there, I decided to choose February 5th, 2028.

"Jemin-ssi, do you have a basis for that?”

"I just picked it.”

I rolled my tongue around inside my mouth.

It was to adjust the performance of Eyes-branch, Stage 1 using Tongue-branch, Stage 1.

The past. February 5th, 2028. Me.

And in place of my left eye, whose vision remained faint, my right eye showed me the past.

It seemed my left eye still couldn’t see because the side effects of Eyes-branch, Stage 3 had yet to fade. I immediately closed it to avoid dizziness and focused on Past Vision.

Everything around me began rewinding as though a video were playing in reverse.

2 months.

As I replayed that span of time, a nauseating sensation surged through me, as though eyelids had sprouted along every fold of my brain and their lashes were scraping roughly between the soft brain cells. A revolting urge rose within me to tear open my skull at once and pluck out every last hair caught between its wrinkles.

But at the end of that discomfort, my right eye witnessed what had happened on February 5th, 2028.

There weren’t 250 people, but there were far more than 58. They had gathered beneath the dim lighting and were arguing fiercely among themselves. The 58 who now lay dead against the walls were alive and breathing with Past Vision, their faces twisting through every kind of expression.

Since this was mere Past Vision, I normally shouldn’t have been able to hear their voices.

However, as I watched their mouths move, my Ears-branch, Stage 1 resonated with them, converting their inner thoughts into something like subtitles and forcing the conversation directly into my mind.

It was a strange experience. There was no sound, yet I understood exactly what they were saying.

It felt like watching a silent film without even sound effects, except the script appeared fully written inside my head.

The first to speak were children clutching their parents’ pant legs and looking up anxiously, along with people relying on thick padded coats as they voiced their fears through gaunt, hollow cheeks.

-You want us to learn magic? You’re telling us to go out into the fog? Are you insane?

The ones garnered by that response were those who were somewhat armed.

They had wrapped layers of tape around tears in their padded coats and carried bloodstained crowbars or backpacks on their backs.

Some had rigid, splint-like objects taped around their left arms. Judging by the word [Durable] written in them, the splints were meant to function as shields rather than merely for treatment.

With turtlenecks pulled over their mouths or sunglasses hiding as much of their faces as possible, the armed people lost their tempers and shouted.

-The 66-Society already told us. Learn magic. Learn it even if it kills you!

-Do you even know there are monsters out in that fog? How is that any different from telling us to die?!

-And what, you think we can’t die? How long are we supposed to tolerate people who can’t even use magic sitting somewhere safe and doing nothing but eating our food?

-It’s not like they can learn just because they want to! You saw the children vomiting and convulsing too! Most of these people haven't even eaten properly all day. If they throw up what little they have, they’ll collapse from exhaustion and die. They'll die! People will die!

The armed people answered those desperate cries coldly.

-If you can’t learn it, you’re monsters anyway, you fucking bastards.

-R-Ryeoha-ssi! Do you really think Ryeoha-ssi would tolerate you acting like this?

-Go Ryeoha this, Go Ryeoha that… You fucking know she let soldiers in here. Is she out of her mind, increasing everyone's rations just to stop us from fighting the soldiers? And telling us not to make anyone remove their hats so we won’t know who the soldiers are, all because we shouldn’t fight our honorable soldiers? Does she have flowers growing in her head?

-We have no chance of surviving if we fight! We’ll… We’ll try harder too. Okay? Please…

-Hey. You soldier bastards, come out! If you have even a shred of conscience, get the fuck out here, you motherfuckers!

-They were only following orders too. They’re just kids. They’re trapped here with us!

-We have an Ears-branch wizard. We already know everything. You filthy fucking military bastards. We can tolerate people who are in the same situation as us, but why the fuck should we have to keep you alive too? Why should we accept that the bastards who shot our families and friends are still breathing in here? Stop hiding behind Go Ryeoha and come out here to explain yourselves!

It was unexpected, yet at the same time entirely predictable.

This had once been a group of 250 people. Go Ryeoha may have been the strongest wizard, but she couldn’t have been the only one. And the other wizards were fiercely opposed to accepting the military survivors.

The military survivors, meanwhile, couldn’t bring themselves to step forward.

They knew that if they were driven out, the monsters would begin hunting them again. Even as they swallowed tears of guilt, they still wanted to live. So they remained among the crowd with their hats pulled low, silently weeping.

Then, at some point, the wizards abruptly turned cold.

-Fine. You must be scared too. Rather than get eaten by monsters, you’d rather hide behind everyone else, Go Ryeoha included, and pretend to be weak.

-Wh-why are you suddenly…

That was when someone who clearly didn’t belong appeared among the wizards.

He was an elderly priest dressed in a black cassock, muttering prayers as he rolled the beads of a rosary between his fingers. The old priest straightened the white clerical collar of his cassock and stuck out his tongue.

Only the priest’s words reached me as an actual voice rather than as the script of a silent film.

His voice was slightly hoarse and scratchy, yet dignified, composed, and filled with gentle compassion. Because he still had his tongue stuck out, his pronunciation came out slightly slurred.

"Pleased to meet you. My name is Kang Peter, formerly of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seoul and part of the 66-Society.”

-A-a priest?

"Yes. In a situation where survival is difficult for anyone who is not a wizard, I understand why you wish to avoid suffering and have become consumed by fear. Not everyone can bear the cross. O ye little lambs. I understand your fear, and I will guide you so that you may safely knock upon the gates of heaven.”

Then blood burst from the old priest’s tongue, accompanied by a strange surge of power.

Since I had already destroyed the remains of the Dubai Sticky Witch and acquired her knowledge, I immediately realized what the old priest—Kang Peter—was doing.

Inverted Alteration-type, Tongue-branch, Stage 2.

[Emotion Overload].

The people who had been fiercely protesting only moments ago began to sag. 

Even the children who had been gripped by anxiety started nodding off as though sleepy. Deep resignations settled into the eyes of the ordinary non-wizards, and their heads drooped one after another. It was obvious which emotion he had amplified.

Despair.

Only after slowly surveying the people who looked ready to collapse beneath the weight of profound despair and resignation did Father Kang withdraw his tongue and give them a bitter smile.

"Rest peacefully, my poor little lambs. You are being murdered. Therefore, even without taking food or water to your lips, you will be able to enter the Lord’s embrace. Amen.”

The final thing Father Kang did was make the sign of the cross.

Together with the converted wizards, Father Kang led the other wizards out of the underground cafeteria.

Those left behind remained curled up against the walls, consumed by despair, and never put anything into their mouths again.

58 remained.

Every one of them was an ordinary non-wizard.

Deciding there was nothing more to see, I slowly closed my eyes.

Several seconds passed.

As I remained submerged beneath the darkness of my eyelids, Shin Nain’s voice reached me.

"Did you find anything, Jemin-ssi?”

When I opened my eyes again, I was back in reality.

Standing before the piled corpses of 58 people who had starved to death against the walls.

"I found a wizard from the 66-Society.”

Father Kang Peter.

A wizard belonging to the 66-Society who retained a human form despite using an Inverted Alteration-type Tongue. But that wasn’t all I had seen. Through this Past Vision, I had witnessed in brutal detail the kinds of conflict the groups inside Seoul had experienced.

In Seoul, where food shortages threatened everyone directly, learning magic through the symbols was dangerous because failure led straight to exhaustion.

It also gave me a rough idea of why the ordinary non-wizards had remained behind. Most Seoul wizards were apparently hardened lunatics who had learned magic while fully prepared to die from exhaustion.

I had never even considered it.

Yet belatedly, it also felt obvious. At last, I understood where the Seoul wizards’ instinctive hostility came from.

The ones who had awakened magic were people who had faced the threat of exhaustion and starvation and who had lost family members or acquaintances because of the military blockade.

Then that resentment combined with a sense of superiority that led them to look down on ordinary non-wizards.

I could tell that my understanding of the group known as Seoul wizards had deepened considerably.

Shin Nain must have read my thoughts as well, because he couldn’t continue speaking.

Apparently realizing what Father Kang Peter had done, Shin Nain spoke with his brow twisted into a fierce scowl.

"A shepherd must never abandon the flock, no matter the circumstances.”

"It might have been more merciful than dying of exhaustion while trying to learn magic or ending up eaten by monsters.”

"Jemin-ssi. That is a deeply, deeply misguided belief. When we return, you and I are going to perform a laying-on-of-hands prayer.”

"I’m so~ glad I’m not a fantastic zealot. I have absolutely no intention of doing any of that.”

I turned toward Shin Nain and spoke.

"Let’s go back.”

April 22nd, 2028, 6:18 PM.

Even after Shin Nain and I returned, radio communication could not be established immediately.

Had Go Ryeoha not explained the reason, we never would have known.

"The military only communicates in the mornings now, right before the bombardment. It feels more like a notification than an actual exchange, but…if you want to communicate without the 66-Society listening in, you’ll have to turn that timing against them. Among the survivors in Seoul, radioing the military is considered taboo because it’s practically the same as handing them your coordinates.”

"Hooh. As expected, our Ryeoha-ssi is so clever!”

The pastor’s Operation Blue Pill was proving to be a tremendous success.

Meanwhile, Shin Nain and I shared what we had discovered with the other Supreme Archmages.

The 66-Society had remained a hazy presence trailing behind us until now.

This was the first moment one of the wizards belonging to it had been identified.

Even Lee Sejun reluctantly nodded and praised what Shin Nain and I had uncovered.

“Merely confirming that this organization, which had seemed like some phantom, truly exists is already an enormous gain.”

Hamza nodded as well. though [Angel’s Intuition] warned him that this was dangerous.

"But…it’s dangerous. The 66-Society surpasses us in many aspects of magic. Sooner or later, they’ll realize we’ve picked up their trail.”

However, Shin Nain and I both knew it had been necessary.

"The Lord knowingly bore the cross and walked toward Golgotha, despite understanding the suffering that awaited Him. If we, who seek to follow Him, turn away out of fear of evil, then we are unworthy to call ourselves crusaders.”

"And now the military has one more reason to rescue us.”

I glanced toward Go Ryeoha and the pastor, who were chatting away in front of the radio, and spoke.

"We’re not planning to call it quits just because we get out of Seoul, are we? The Supreme Archmages will still have plenty to do once we’re outside.”

The Supreme Archmages coughed awkwardly, groaned, and hummed happily, but none of them objected.

Fighting was not everything.

The Supreme Archmages had to reign supreme in every respect.

And so, at 7:46 AM on April 23rd, 2028…

Day 8 of our expedition.

As Lee Sejun turned the radio dial, the familiar static began to emerge.

Then, from beyond the crackling noise, an exhausted voice announced the coming bombardment.

Go Ryeoha, Shin Nain, the pastor, Hamza, and Lee Sejun huddled together in front of the radio. Behind them, I, Baek Jemin, strode forward.

I tapped Lee Sejun on the shoulder and spoke.

"Sejun-ssi. Send the transmission.”

"Yes. Let’s see, current time, 07:48. Near latitude 37 north, longitude 177 west. We are Aphorism, the civilian operational unit deployed on a reconnaissance mission inside Seoul. I repeat. Current time, 07:48. Near latitude 37 north, longitude 177 west. We are Aphorism, the civilian operational unit deployed on a reconnaissance mission inside Seoul...."

The radio transmission or our escape from Seoul had begun.