Chapter 80: All Alive

[Translator – Aren]

There were only three rubber boats and five fully armed soldiers, but they could not have felt more reassuring.

I couldn’t remember how long it had been since we last met proper, normal human beings.

However, because of the weight of all the gear we were carrying, we had to distribute ourselves carefully.

With some grunts of effort, I boarded the boat with only one soldier before anyone else could.

"The fewer people, the better.”

“Since you boarded without any trouble, Jemin-ssi, it probably isn’t dangerous.”

Hamza replied and climbed into the same boat after me.

Whenever the boat rocked slightly beneath our weight, the rosaries, Buddhist prayer beads, pentagram necklaces, and other charms knotted around the handles and dangling everywhere clattered together like links of chains.

Then, the college girl in the black mask, Go Ryeoha, naturally stepped into my boat as though it were obvious she belonged there.

"Hmph! Haah, this feels like a dream. Are we really getting out?”

"Probably."

"Huh? Hubae-nim, your voice suddenly sounds so subdued."

"I’ve always sounded like this.”

Go Ryeoha drew her legs together and crouched down while staring at me.

Hamza had long since turned away as though he knew nothing and moved to sit beside the soldier handling the motor.

Perhaps a fog called Go Ryeoha was about to settle over my life.

That was the moment I realized the fog-shrouded Seoul had never been a place but a person.

Meanwhile, everyone else boarded the other two boats, and our final distribution ended up like this.

A. Me, Hamza, Go Ryeoha, and one soldier. 4 people total.

B. Pastor Park Yohan, Shin Nain, the soldier who had been using the radio, and one ordinary soldier. 4 people total.

C. Lee Sejun and two soldiers. 3 people total.

Lee Sejun counted as 2 people because the weight he carried alone was quite exceptional.

"This is the weight of the ammunition, so don’t comment on it.”

"Sejun-ssi, no one was planning to criticize your body weight, so please relax.”

While Shin Nain coldly shit down Lee Sejun’s tantrum from across the water, I found myself subjected to an attack I had never anticipated.

Go Ryeoha, who had been crouching and staring straight at me, began pointing at me with a small beckoning motion of her right index finger.

At first, I thought she might be pointing behind me, so I turned my head. I even deliberately shifted my position, rubbing my butt against the seat as I moved, but when her fingertip followed me, I had no choice but to give up.

"What is it, Master?”

“It’s been bothering me from the very beginning. I kept wondering why you felt strangely familiar.”

"Pardon?”

"Are you carrying something inside your clothes?”

What did she mean, carrying something?

Unable to hide my unease, I patted myself all over with both hands to check.

An L-shaped flashlight clipped to my chest, the Magic Crash Course booklet tucked inside, a bag of hardtack in my trouser pocket, a combat knife at my waist, my tactical belt, all the grenades dumped onto Lee Sejun, and four magazines in my ammunition pouches…

"Ah, right."

I had tucked a talisman into the innermost lining of my clothes, almost directly against my shirt.

Poodle-ahjumma had given it to me before we entered Seoul, going on about how expensive it was, but I had completely forgotten about it.

When I finally pulled it out, the talisman’s distinctive yellowed paper was filthy and dark with grime.

Because I had kept it in my innermost pocket, it appeared to have become wrinkled and soaked through with sweat.

Had I never noticed it, that would have been one thing, but now that I had, the thought of putting a filthy piece of paper back inside my clothes made me feel vaguely uncomfortable. Just then, Go Ryeoha clapped her hands.

"A Ghost-Repelling Talisman? You brought something that took quite a bit of work to make.”

"Come to think of it, Master, you said your family were shamans too.”

At that moment, a possibility suddenly flashed through my mind.

Could this talisman from Poodle-ahjumma be why Go Ryeoha felt such familiarity toward me? Seeing Poodle-ahjumma’s goodwill return as such vicious bad luck, she clearly wasn’t a very competent shaman.

Meanwhile, once the soldiers realized everyone was aboard, they restarted the motors.

"We’re going past Guri toNamyangju. Everyone, brace yourselves so you don’t fall out of the boats, and hold tightly to the handles.”

"Do monsters come out of the water?”

"We don’t know. Don’t ask. You there, the boat carrying two civilian operation unit members takes the lead. The fog is thick, so move carefully and don’t lose sight of one another!”

-Rumble, rumble, rumble, rumble...

As the overlapping sounds of walking tractors filled the air, the soldiers’ demeanor grew fiercer as well.

Hamza and I read the room and picked up the oars as we looked around at the orange rubber boats. It felt strangely surreal.

I had thought I would never ride in a rubber boat like this, barely more than a dinghy, unless a ship was sinking. Lire sure was full of surprises.

At least the soldier in our boat was relatively friendly. He thumped Hamza and me on the shoulders as we sat on either side holding the oars.

"You don't need to row. Please keep your weapons ready and watch all directions.”

"Yes, sir. Thank you for your hard work.”

The moment he said I didn’t need to row, I quickly put the oar down.

Hamza also tried to set his down discreetly, so I immediately reached out and stopped him.

"Hamza, you can't even shoot. Why are you trying to put down the oar? Just keep holding it.”

"Jemin-ssi, that’s mean.”

"Should I hold it instead? I may not look it, but I am a Heart-branch wizard!”

As though we had a prior agreement, Hamza and I fell silent and decided to focus on our respective roles.

I would hold my short-barreled AR-15 and watch our surroundings.

"What about me? What should I do?”

"Just sit there. It’s only natural for a disciple to serve his master."

"Ahaha, what’s this? So that’s how you feel, Hubae-nim?”

Go Ryeoha smiled with crescent-shaped eyes and even waved her hands dismissively, but the atmosphere was obvious to anyone who wasn’t a completely oblivious moron.

It was awkward.

The soldier handling the motor swept a glance over me, Hamza, and Go Ryeoha, then naturally looked away from her.

I tucked the Ghost-Repelling Talisman I had taken out back into my inner pocket and let out a deep sigh. Poodle-ahjumma had clearly said it would drive away ghosts and wicked things, yet something was seriously wrong.

Why was Go Ryeoha sitting in the same boat as me and showing so much interest in me?

Had she not sweet-talked me with promises of making gear, I would never have agreed to this…

While resentfully patting my magazine to make sure it was properly seated, our escape began in earnest.

The boats glided forward as the soldier in the lead boat, holding a radio receiver with a rigid expression, gestured for us to move.

"Hmph. Alright, let’s head back.”

"I’ll take it, Pastor.”

Boat B moved first.

Shin Nain used the oar to push the boat away in the pastor’s place, while one of the soldiers shouldered his rifle and aimed toward the riverside, which was blanketed in fog with visibility limited to 50 meters.

As the running motor growled, Boat B, carrying the pastor and Shin Nain, cut through the current and moved forward.

Watching from behind, the reality of it finally sank in.

We were really leaving Seoul.

I pulled the hood of my military poncho back over my head and felt strangely conflicted.

There was certainly relief at moving farther away from danger, but my disappointment at moving farther away from opportunities to learn magic was even greater.

Our boat A was next.

As the loud, crude rumble of the motor vibrated through the rubber of my gas mask, its nauseating smell mixed with the fishy odor of the water and stabbed at my nose.

I slowly shouldered my rifle and aimed in different parts of the fog, though inwardly I considered it pointless. If neither Hamza’s Dogma-type magic nor Shin Nain’s Ears-branch detection magic could function properly, then keeping watch with the naked eye would be meaningless.

I was merely playing along because I understood the soldiers’ paranoid vigilance.

Go Ryeoha sat curled up with her knees drawn together, calmly closing her eyes. Hamza rested his oar diagonally beside himself and glanced around in every direction. The soldier’s eyes trembled with anxiety.

The boat carried us all as it powerfully cut through the current, following the wake left behind by Boat B at the front. Even then, we had to remain close enough to identify it by sight, so we could not move as quickly as expected.

The soldiers probably wanted to race forward at full speed, but the environment covered in dense fog appeared to make that impossible.

I watched droplets of moisture gather on the lenses of my gas mask from the damp fog and the spray thrown up by the boat.

It was only when I instinctively raised my left hand to wipe them away that I realized just how tattered my hand had become.

After rubbing the water from the lens with my fingertips until it squeaked, I let out a dry laugh.

At last, I understood the words written in the journal left behind by one of the survivors when we first encountered the Teratoma. Only after looking at my left hand, stained by suffering, and realizing how much pain I had endured and how often I had endured it, could I grasp the meaning contained in those words.

Humanity could not win because it loved itself too much, was it?

My laughter quickly stopped.

I swept the droplets from the rubber of my gas mask and released a deep sigh.

That was certainly true.

Those who refused to suffer because they considered themselves too precious devolved into monsters.

Those who believed that, from the moment of birth, their mere existence possessed absolute value and deserved unconditional respect were destroyed.

Only those who believed in a god or who could sacrifice themselves for the sake of power.

Only those who realized that a human being possessed no value in and of itself and gained it only by accomplishing something or accepting sacrifice for something greater could survive and resist the monsters.

Those unable to accept pain became trapped inside monstrous bodies, standing at the threshold of eternity and begging for someone to kill them. Only those who willingly embraced suffering were given the chance to defy this hell.

In this hell, only those who were not blinded by love for themselves could resist.

Had the government of the Republic of Korea been excessively concerned with human rights, the Korean Peninsula would already have been destroyed.

Those who called the decision to kill 10 million people incompetent, demanding to know how it could possibly be considered capable governance, yet could offer no alternative beyond insisting that failing to save everyone was failure, would never have been able to stand against this grim reality.

I understood them.

And because I understood them, I also understood that they could not survive.

Such people were not stupid or foolish.

They didn’t want their own survival to remain within the realm of reason and rationality. They wanted it to exist as an absolute constant, and so they refused to accept the very situation and choice that demanded they brace themselves for pain in order to survive.

-Whooosh—.

By then, Boat C had caught up, and I could see Lee Sejun and the two soldiers aiming their rifles in every direction.

After leaving the riverside and passing a concrete bridge, the boats had begun accelerating.

As our boat rocked each time it struck a small wave, I slowly closed my eyes and smiled bitterly.

My choice had been right.

I was proud of the choice and decision I had made after realizing that pain endured for magic was itself salvation, a means of improving myself, and the only reward in this life that returned with absolute certainty in direct proportion to how much it hurt.

The my, Baek Jemin, the Great Archmage’s, dream truly had been the greatest choice of my life…

-Kragagagagagh!!!!

A violent, grinding noise.

Something was being ground apart.

Everyone turned toward Boat B, which had been traveling at the front.

One of the soldiers in Boat C, which had only just steadied itself after riding over a swelling wave, shouted.

"What is it? What’s happening over there?”

“Situation! Hold your fire! The risk of friendly fire is too high!”

The soldier who had been handling the radio was the first to adjust his rifle and aim beneath the surface.

-Bang, babang!

Spent casings repeatedly bounced away and rolled into the boat, but the situation did not improve.

The motor shrieked as though screaming in agony, and the radio operator could do nothing except spray bullets into the water around it.

At that moment, I instinctively activated Eyes-branch, Stage 1, as I adjusted my rifle.

I thought that if I stepped in, I could finish this quickly.

"J-Jemin-ssi.”

Hamza spoke belatedly in a trembling voice.

I didn’t need to hear the rest.

I was already seeing it.

To the naked eye, the water had looked clear and transparent.

People said the Han River was dirty, but compared to bloody water or sewage, it was incomparably clean.

But through Eyes-branch, Stage 1, the 10-second precognition that showed red footprints, the Han River looked very different.

The river was slowly turning red, like water with crimson paint spreading through it.

Very slowly, as though someone were adjusting each individual RGB value one pixel at a time with a slider.

That was when splashing bursts rang out.

-Splash! Splaaash!

"Begone, Satan!!!”

Shin Nain was striking the surface with his oar.

It had been a long time since I had seen him confront something with such desperate urgency and fanaticism.

The same problem appeared beneath the other boats.

-Thud!

I forcibly caught myself as my body lurched from the sudden impact.

Everyone was leaning dangerously to one side or nearly toppled over.

My stomach churned, but there was no time to hesitate.

When I hurriedly looked around, everyone was in the same situation.

Boat A, which we were riding, and Boat C, carrying Lee Sejun, both slowed to a crawl amid the same grinding noise.

We were clearly in the middle of the Han River, yet all three boats had become trapped side by side, unable to move an inch.

I had always been prone to motion sickness, so I sprawled flat against the boat in an attempt to reduce the nausea even slightly.

At that moment, my gaze caught the changes occurring in the symbols dangling from the boat’s handles.

The silver chain links forming the pentagram necklace rusted a vivid red as though they had decayed.

-Snap!

The pentagram cracked apart with a sharp noise and sank beneath the water along with the broken chain.

The rosaries and Buddhist prayer beads met the same fate.

-Clatter!

The knotted rosary broke apart, sending its beads rolling across the boat.

The lacquered Buddhist prayer beads mixed with the rolling rosary beads and plopped into the water.

You would have expected at least one of them to float, yet every single one sank deep beneath the surface and quickly vanished.

"Uwaaagh! Agh!”

Hamza was seized by panic and began striking the water with his oar, following Shin Nain’s example.

I heard droplets pattering down onto my hood.

Go Ryeoha, on the other hand, remained curled up and wiggled her feet as though nothing were wrong, idly flexing the Fire-spewing Hands.

"Hmmm…The Water energy is too strong, so the Fire-spewing Hands won’t work. There isn’t enough Fire energy to cause an explosion.”

With even guns proving useless, I hadn’t expected anything from them.

Still, her composure was almost chilling.

After being exposed to Seoul’s brutal environment for so long, her sense of danger appeared to have completely broken.

At that moment, an unexpected explosion thundered through the fog.

-Boooooooom!!!

When I turned toward the sound, a pillar of water surged into the air.

Le Seejun in Boat C was the culprit.

He rolled a grenade with the pin still inserted across his palm like a baseball and exhaled a short breath through his gas mask.

"It’s Odok!”

"What?”

"I saw it earlier! That thing is Odok!”

The grenade appeared to have worked.

The grinding around the motors diminished, and the boats began gathering speed again.

I saw Lee Sejun stagger, perch himself back on the edge of the boat, and tightly grip the grenade.

From that moment onward, command passed from the soldiers to us, the Supreme Archmages.

The instant he heard the name Odok, the pastor gestured toward us and shouted,

"Move! Before it traps us again!”

And the soldiers trusted their survival instincts more than the chain of command.

-Vroooom—!!!

I had never known rubber boats could move this quickly.

The dense fog particles whipped past us fast enough to be visible. Droplets gathered on my gas-mask lenses streamed sideways and flew off.

Naturally, the increased speed brought even worse motion sickness.

With impressive speed, I tore off my gas mask and immediately leaned my head over the water.

"Bleeeeeergh..."

"Aaagh! Jemin-ssi! Get up!!!”

I could feel Hamza grabbing me, pounding on my back, and shaking me around, but that didn’t work on someone suffering from severe motion sickness.

Clutching my rifle to my chest and feeling it dig painfully into me, I vomited up everything left in my stomach.

While I emptied myself out, an unexpected chase was unfolding in the middle of the Han River.

-Bang, babang…

Someone was firing at something approaching while hiding beneath the surface.

-Clunk!

My body, rocking along with the boat as it swayed over the waves, felt a vibration.

Lee Sejun must have pulled the pin and thrown another grenade.

But what made my ears prick up was the anxious voice of the soldier operating the motor and tiller.

"We should’ve arrived by now, so why..."

A flash of realization struck me.

Even through the dizziness, I rolled my eyes toward the boat’s handles and scanned them.

After endlessly coming loose and snapping apart, the pentagram necklaces, rosaries, and Buddhist prayer beads hanging from the handles had noticeably dwindled.

With the instinct of a herbivore seeing a predator for the first time, I understood.

The moment all of those broke, we would be trapped.

That was when something vibrated against my chest.

-Vrrrrt.

A vibration that had been absent for quite some time came from the inner pocket over my chest.

Even as I vomited and the world spun before my eyes, I groped at my chest with one hand.

My movements were more prolonged than when I experienced having one eye, more urgent than when I actually had one eye, and more desperate than when I had resigned myself to losing one.

At last, my fingers reached it.

-Vrrrt.

-Click.

A familiar name was waiting on the screen of the spellphone.

[Cheonghwi: Jemin-ssi. You must have been confused when I left without properly saying goodbye.]

From behind me, where I lay sprawled across the boat, I heard the radio operator shouting urgently.

A man confronted with something worse than he had prepared for, faced with an absurdity beyond anything he had imagined, was crying out desperately.

"Air support! Air support…Why did our signal suddenly…?!”

[Cheonghwi: But thanks to that, you must have gained one more reason to steel your resolve and enter Seoul.]

-KaTok.

Another message arrived.

[Cheonghwi: Now, I will give you the answer.]

The roar of the boat motor, gunfire, spent casings clattering down, grenades exploding beneath the water, and that familiar voice pursuing us ferociously through the current…

I slowly closed my eyes and was forced to dwell on the voice we had believed we had driven away.

It said it was hungry.

-KaTok.

The monster’s wail in a human voice overlapped with the calm voice composed of written words.

I opened my eyes again.

[Cheonghwi: The military cannot resolve this disaster. Magic is a path open to everyone, but not everyone can climb it to the very end. And I hope you, Jemin-ssi, will climb all the way.]

-Tap, tap!

I, Baek Jemin, said what needed to be said.

[Me: Bullshit]

[Cheonghwi: Throw the spell phone into the Han River. Then you should be able to escape the Mist of theOther Shore. You will also learn why the Han River must not be used.]

[Me: You’re trying to stop them from reverse-engineering the spell phone, aren’t you?]

[Cheonghwi: At the same time, I am ensuring that you and your companions leave safely. From now on, do not use the Han River. Escape obediently on foot. I hope we can meet next time.]

[Me: Next time?]

[Cheonghwi: I know you will return.]

-Clench.

I gripped the spellphone tightly and had to decide quickly.

The value the spellphone held. Escape.

My desire to investigate magic collided with the instinct telling me that none of it mattered if I failed to escape.

Even if it was not a genuine spell phone, there were mystics and scholars outside who could analyze its principles.

As long as I brought it out, we could exploit one of the 66-Society’s methods of communication.

As long as I brought it out…

-Splash!

A wave smacked me across the face.

The water reeked of fish, but it snapped me back to my senses.

I gave the spell phone one final kiss goodbye, then pushed myself upright.

"Jemin-ssi! Hurry up and use your Eyes-branch magic!”

Hamza’s frantic fussing.

"Hmm…Ahaha, Hubae-nim? What are you planning?”

Carrying Go Ryeoha’s laughter on my back, I thought.

Pain only held meaning while I remained alive.

The same was true of my magic.

The moment I died, my learning would end.

As long as I lived, I could continue learning.

My despair was not death itself, but the fact that death would prevent me from learning anything more.

The true source of my despair was a future sealed shut. The impossibility of advancing further.

I shouted to make a vow to myself.

"Seoul, I, Baek Jemin, will return!”

With that vow, I hurled the spell phone with all my strength.

"And when I do, I’ll plunder every scrap of knowledge buried here!”

I threw it with everything I had.

After even giving it a final farewell kiss, I had no lingering attachment to the spellphone.

That was when the screen of the airborne spell phone began shining even more brightly, blazing like a sunlamp.

The spellphone resembled a lantern, driving away the darkness of a gloomy forest or the stale air of a basement. Wherever it passed, the fog cleared away completely, revealing the surroundings with perfect clarity.

Then it touched the surface of the water.

-Splash!

Because I had kept my eyes fixed on the spell phone until the very end, I alone noticed the change.

The view beneath the surface, previously hidden under the dense fog, became clearly visible.

More precisely…

The truth beneath the water, which had been disguised through the mirror of the surface, was revealed.

The fish I had occasionally glimpsed were nowhere to be seen.

The Han River, where debris, branches, or at the very least garbage should have floated lazily along, became colored with a chilling, oppressive darkness.

There was none of the murky green characteristic of filthy, algae-covered water, none of the red associated with algal blooms or the danger shown by the red footprints, none of the yellow sunlight shimmering as it broke across the waves, and none of the rainbow scattering from fish scales rising near the surface.

The Han River beneath the fog was no longer anything ordinary.

With the surrounding fog cleared away and every trace of murkiness gone from the water, the river resembled the aphotic zone of the deep sea.

Absolute darkness, where not even a single ray of light could reach.

And yet an overwhelming void, so completely free of impurity that a single light could reveal hundreds of meters around it and several kilometers into the depths.

Strangely overgrown aquatic plants resembling hair, titledscallop-like eyes toward the falling spellphone.

The swimming Odoks followed the light of its screen, their five appendages undulating like tentacles as they descended deeper beneath the surface, into the aphotic depths below.

At the bottom of that deep sea, so transparent, clear, and dark that it distorted all sense of distance, even the wreckage of a downed fighter jet remained visible, if only as a tiny speck.

All manner of creatures that had remained invisible until now lay submerged within the deep sea beneath the fog.

Every animal that should have existed in Seoul had become waterlogged corpses, serving as food for a new ecosystem.

Dogs, birds, cats, guinea pigs, snakes…

Animals I knew well.

Things that belonged on Earth had been dragged into a deep-sea river that should never have existed and sacrificed to this bizarre new ecosystem.

Within the depths, so painfully transparent and cold, so clear that a single ray of light could illuminate everything, animals swallowed only recently were slowly sinking.

As they sank, they were torn apart and devoured.

The creatures that had fled from the fog were busy swimming through the Han River, tangling together countless animal corpses to increase their own mass.

Swarms of Human-skin Jellyfish that had once floated through the air now drifted together through the current, leaking bloody pus like ink and creating new waves beneath the water, while Odoks swam leisurely among them and chewed up whole handfuls of jellyfish at a time.

The centipedes that had once flown through the sky now swam through this new deep sea to the screams of humans composing their bodies, vibrating the deep-sea Han River as they followed the spell phone’s light with grotesque movements.

Among the monsters that had fled the fog and hidden themselves in the depths were enormous creatures whose identities I could not even begin to comprehend.

Something like a gigantic eel, so immense that even the light of the rapidly sinking spell phone could not illuminate its entire body, sensed the light and pulsed.

My heart beat in time with that pulse.

-Thump.

My heart cried out.

-Thump.

My own heart, no one else’s, made me regret being alive and forced me to recoil.

-Thud!

I fell backward onto my backside.

As I collapsed, I dragged both hands down my face, unable to believe my own eyes.

More cold sweat poured down my face than the fish-reeking Han River water soaking it.

At that moment, terrified cries filled with sheer ecstasy erupted behind me.

"It’s gone…That thing is gone!”

"Namyangju, Namyangju. This is the rescue team. Broke through the fog at 11:54. Broke through the fog at 11:54!”

The soldiers were the first to cheer, gasping for breath.

The Supreme Archmages stared fearfully as the fog gradually thinned, but when familiar artillery and gunfire rang out beneath the clear sky, joy returned to their faces.

-Rumble, rumble, rumble….

As we traveled upstream along the Han River to the sound of the motors, we spent some time blinking stupidly.

Only after quite a while did the reality of our escape finally sink in. We looked at one another and let out hollow laughter.

"He, hehehe..."

The pastor was the first to tear off his gas mask and look up at the sky.

Pastor Park Yohan slung his rifle over his shoulder and brought both hands together in prayer.

"Lord, we give You thanks. Through Your protection, we have survived.”

Shin Nain, who had been swinging the oar, collapsed into a seated position as though exhausted and joined the pastor’s prayer.

His headset had come off amid the chaos, but Shin Nain prayed with even greater desperation.

"Amen. Almighty Lord God, make me Your sword. Let me stand without the slightest doubt against the power of Satan and his demons, who seek to blaspheme Your divine authority..."

In Boat C, Lee Sejun flashed the soldiers a broad toothy grin and exchanged salutes with them.

"Loyalty! We survived thanks to all of you!”

"No, it was thanks to your civilian operation unit’s quick thinking. Loyalty!”

"Hahaha! We’re comrades, aren’t we?”

Only the atmosphere in our Boat A was completely fucked.

The sole soldier aboard kept glancing at me while quietly focusing on following the lead boat, while Go Ryeoha and Hamza stared at me with concern.

"Hubae-nim, we’re escaping now. Is there something worrying you?”

"Jemin-ssi, you don’t look well. Your pupils seem a little unfocused too. Let me run a quick checkup."

I firmly replied as Hamza waved a finger in front of my face.

"Hamza, stop flipping me off.”

"Hm. Cognitive function appears normal.”

"Hah!"

I clutched my throbbing head and forced the scene I had just witnessed from my mind.

Judging by everyone’s reactions, I seemed to be the only one who had seen it. In that case, there was no need to tell them.

I only had to focus on the best I could do and the goal I desired.

"Hamza, what time is it?”

"11:54, Jemin-ssi… We survived. Every one of us made it out alive!”

"Yeah. It still doesn’t feel real.”

When I glanced toward Go Ryeoha, she was also busy staring blankly up at the clear sky.

That was when her shoulder began to tremble.

She curled in on herself again but kept looking up at the sky as tears streamed silently down her face without a single sob. I shook my head and covered my face with my tattered left hand, feeling the heavy weight of the rifle gripped in my right.

A deep, heavy sigh slipped through the gaps between my fingers.

It was time to count what I had gained.

-Haaaaaah...

Our first expedition into Seoul had been far more desperate and brutal than we had expected and every bit as long and grueling a journey.

Shin Nain acquired Ears-branch, Stage 3, and Eyes-branch, Stage 1.

Lee Sejun acquired Heart-branch, Stage 3, and Hand-branch, Stage 1.

Pastor Park Yohan used his head to mediate various disputes and improved his marksmanship.

Hamza, as a former medical student and our pack mule, looked after us a great deal. His Dogma-type magic had clear limitations, but he supported us well in many areas.

We made contact with Go Ryeoha, leader of the Konkuk University survivor group, and escaped together.

We confirmed the existence of the 66-Society and gathered a large amount of related information on the magic system and unidentified species. We also confirmed Monk Cheonghwi’s involvement with the 66-Society.

I, Baek Jemin, acquired Eyes-branch, Stage 3, Ears-branch, Stage 1, Hand-branch, Stage 2, and Tongue-branch, Stage 2.

And...

The truth beneath the surface.

Should I call it the Han’s transformation into another realm? Its transformation into a deep sea?

No matter how deep the Han River was, it could never be that deep.

We had been mistaken.

Because bullets worked, and because artillery worked, we had vaguely assumed the situation could be resolved through physical force alone.

That if we launched a nuclear weapon, we could at least force a draw.

That thing was the end of the world.

And humanity’s end had begun here and now, of all places, in Seoul, Republic of Korea.

I alone had witnessed the truth, and I felt in my bones where the 66-Society’s confidence came from.

Then as artillery and gunfire gradually became clearer, and I heard desperate shouts between them, I removed my left hand from my face.

-Slip.

"A horde of Amalgams is approaching the Namyangju area? We just fucking got out of Seoul!”

"You want us to engage them? After all that?!”

I gripped my rifle and tilted my neck from side to side.

My tongue was sore from how much I had chewed it, making me frown as I looked around.

As the three boats traveled upstream along the Han River beneath the clear sky, heading toward a city shrouded in gunsmoke and flames, I looked at the Supreme Archmages divided among them and burst out laughing.

Maybe it really was true that seeing a bunch of hopeless bastards made you laugh before anything else.

"Supreme Archmages."

-Clack.

The rifle’s heavy metallic sound struck my ears, and my voice drew the attention of the other Supreme Archmages.

Pastor Park Yohan and Shin Nain, who had been praying.

"It's good to see you smiling, Baek Jemin.”

"...Heh. A smile worthy of a crusader of the Lord."

Lee Sejun, who had been smiling, saluting, and shaking hands with his fellow soldiers.

"Huh! Jemin-ssi, come to think of it, you were seasick, weren’t you?”

Hamza, who had burst into tears while squeaking his lower gas-mask lenses clean with his sleeves.

"I never want to go back there again, seriously…”

Even Go Ryeoha rubbed the corners of her eyes with her sleeve, then looked at me as though it were only natural, her eyes swollen bright red.

"Yes, Hubae-nim!”

"Master, you handle the Aphorim.”

"What?”

I remembered the principle I had established for myself.

Leave the shitty stuff to Aphorism.

"Anyway, once we land, let’s show them.”

Those who spend their lives hiding their claws die without ever revealing them.

I knew very well how to sell myself in the middle of this shitshow.

"What it means to have survived 11 days in Seoul.”

April 25th, 2028, 11:54 AM.

Day 11 of our expedition.

Every one of us Supreme Archmages survived.