Chapter 89: We. Must. Stop. It.

[Translator – Aren]

May 4th, 2028, 1:10 PM.

I switched off my authorized smartphone and took in the bleak scene beyond the reinforced glass. It was a soft, squishy room with an adorably cute design, every surface rounded off without a single sharp corner.

In other words, it looked like the sort of place little kids would love to bounce around and play in.

And inside it, Go Ryeoha, the historic 6th member of the Supreme Archmages, was laughing brightly as she bounced a rubber ball against the floor. She wore a tracksuit with sleeves loose enough to let her move comfortably.

"Bounce, bounce, bounce~"

The glass appeared to be tinted, so she apparently couldn’t see us from inside the room.

If someone ever caught me wearing such a radiant smile while bouncing a ball against the floor like that, I would choose murder to silence the witness out of sheer humiliation.

Go Ryeoha walked around the room with a beaming smile, as though she had forgotten every worry in the world or as though someone had scrubbed her brain spotless.

Before long, she seemed to grow bored of bouncing the ball around. She picked up a stuffed cat, squeezed it so tightly she looked ready to tear it apart, and wandered in circles, too busy laughing to do anything else.

That was when Shin Nain approached.

After speaking with the medical professional responsible for Go Ryeoha, he had received the relevant records and precautions before coming over.

Shin Nain stood beside me and watched Go Ryeoha’s childishly innocent behavior through the reinforced glass before speaking calmly.

"Command noticed that the pastor’s account didn’t match Go Ryeoha’s reaction, so they examined her carefully.”

Pastor Park Yohan believed that all the Konkuk University survivors had died while Go Ryeoha was away, and that was what he had testified.

But whenever you spoke with Go Ryeoha, you couldn’t help feeling a strange sense of dissonance beneath that bright ahahaha laughter. It was far too unnatural. The pastor had been too blinded by affection to notice it properly.

Among us Supreme Archmages, it seemed Shin Nain and I had been the first to unconsciously sense something unsettling about Go Ryeoha and reacted the most strongly to it.

Looking back, we had been the two who most persistently tried to dig into exactly what had happened to the Konkuk University survivors. Back then, we had been preoccupied with uncovering the truth about them and understanding what had driven Go Ryeoha insane. Things were different now.

Now, I thought I understood why she felt so alien to us. Why she set off our instincts.

"They’re not certain whether it comes from Hand-branch, Stage 3 or Stage 4, but they believe the backlash is emotional detachment.”

"Emotional detachment?"

"Perhaps depersonalzation would be more accurate. It makes the emotions you experience feel as though they belong to someone else, preventing you from perceiving them as real. They don’t know whether she can choose which emotions are affected, but command currently suspects that Go Ryeoha-ssi erased either her guilt or her fear.”

"So that was it.”

Shin Nain and I stood side by side, staring through the reinforced glass at Go Ryeoha as she laughed energetically and wandered around the playroom.

We Supreme Archmages felt fear.

We feared the grotesque, nauseating appearance of the monsters and the horrific deaths they would bring. Shin Nain and I went one step further. We feared the beginning of the eternity waiting for us beyond death.

It was only a conviction based on circumstantial evidence, so we had deliberately left out the part about the beginning of eternity when speaking to command.

Ordinary people would never believe it in the first place. And if they did, they would immediately take their own lives.

Who could endure an eternity trapped inside the body of a monster, retaining their sense of self while drowning in sensations forced upon them regardless of their will?

That was why we Supreme Archmages, especially Shin Nain and me, had a fundamental obsession buried deep within our minds. No matter how much delicious food we ate or how highly others praised us, we could never allow ourselves to be captured by monsters.

But Go Ryeoha possessed none of that fear-driven obsession.

She laughed and joked alongside us, yet there was no fear inside her. Because she was a human being without fear. She was empty.

Go Ryeoha’s unusually bubbly demeanor and sense of alienness stemmed from this.

That was why the Korean-US Combined Command in Pyeongteak concluded that it would be difficult to make active use of Go Ryeoha within the military.

She was certainly a strategic asset as a friendly high-ranking wizard from inside Seoul, but they couldn’t ignore concerns over her mental instability and the repercussions it might cause if she were formally integrated into the military supply and support system.

Of course, they could still use her if necessary, but they had reached the point where they would gladly hand her over if a better option existed.

"Great."

"Jemin-ssi."

"’Waaah, everyone died because I wasn’t good enough. I should've done better.’ You can comfort someone who says that till the end of time, and it still won’t help. It’ll only get on your nerves.”

Nothing was more exhausting and draining than listening to someone lament something that could never be undone.

I could only give a bitter smile at Go Ryeoha’s brightly smiling face beyond the reinforced glass.

"We’re not exactly in a position where we have the luxury of listening to someone bawl their eyes out. We’re already busy laughing, talking, eating, and collapsing into bed. How are we supposed to serve as someone’s emotional dumping ground too?”

"The path that would truly be best for Go Ryeoha is restoring the fear or guilt she discarded.”

"Who throws trash away carelessly these days? If Go Ryeoha-ssi buys an official emotional-waste bag, then I’ll serve as her emotional trash can.”

I thought of the people who would currently be raising a commotion in the Supreme Archmages’ barracks.

The pastor, carrying clothes racks around and calling them partitions to divide off a space for Go Ryeoha. Hamza, gathering women’s necessities and wondering what else she might need. Even Lee Sejun, sticking his lips out and grumbling as he moved her belongings.

Each of them was dreadful enough on their own, but putting them all together in one place somehow brought them full circle and made them even worse.

Still, even a garbage dump needs a single wild flower blooming within it to be beautiful.

And so, I, Baek Jemin, decided to bloom as a single fragrant, spotless dandelion within the garbage dump known as the Supreme Archmages.

"Let’s go. We’re taking Ryoeha-ssi with us.”

"You shall be forever proclaimed the king of all trash. Amen.”

Once we formally took custody of her and entered the playroom, Go Ryeoha, who had been rolling around on soft cushions for the first time in ages, saw us and opened her eyes wide.

"Hubae-nim! And…I  thought you were an ahjussi, but you’re actually an oppa?”

"Master, let’s go?”

"Huh? Go where?”

As Go Ryeoha blinked at us, I saw Shin Nain wearing a rare, complicated expression.

That was hardly the face to make in front of our resident item-crafting girl who could whip up just about anything.

I elbowed Shin Nain in the side and gave him a pointed look, then raised the corners of my mouth into a bright, hopeful smile.

"Go Ryeoha-ssi, you have been accepted into our group, the Supreme Archmages. Everyone is ready to welcome you, so let’s go.”

Go Ryeoha couldn’t respond immediately and simply stared blankly for a long while.

Then she sprang to her feet, her eyes sparkling, and burst into laughter.

"Ahaha... The Supreme Archmages? Hubae-nim, that was funny. Who would seriously come up with such a childish name?”

Had Go Ryeoha not been a wizard with exceptional talent for crafting items, she would already have been demoted back to Aphorism.

But Go Ryeoha wasn’t someone who could easily be replaced.

For one thing, command began treating us even better once she officially joined the Supreme Archmages.

Even Instructor Song, who had been teaching me marksmanship, mentioned it in passing.

"Mister Baek. I understand you have a connection with Anderson Makenford. I heard that he promised considerable financial support to the US Congress to strengthen the position of you and your companions. He appears especially encouraged by the news about your newest member.”

"Seriously?"

"I wouldn’t know for sure. All I can say is that tabloids report Anderson-ssi has recently been meeting frequently with various wealthy and ultra-elite figures. It probably isn’t all true, but perhaps it’s because he appears to have established a good relationship with you and become your direct sponsor?”

As a firearms instructor, Song Smith was an extremely valuable source who could tell us what was happening back home, in other words, the US, from a civilian perspective.

Of course, some degree of military influence was unavoidable, but he still gave us an idea of how we Supreme Archmages, were perceived by wealthy and various people in power.

Zizon¹ Archmages Best of the Best.

Apparently, people well versed in Korean affairs called us that because it had far more impact than the vague name Aphorism. On top of that, they had somehow obtained information about Hand-branch, Stage 4, and volunteer forces were reportedly being organized around the world following Go Ryeoha’s addition to our group.

Naturally, while they were called ‘volunteer forces,’ it was pretty obvious that their true objective was magic.

Instructor Song corrected my posture even more firmly as he warned me.

“ThePMCs and nominal civilians employed by conglomerates, wealthy elites, and rulers from various countries will be gunfighters on a completely different level from Korea’s conscripts. You have magic, Mister Baek, but you already understand that magic alone can’t accomplish everything. Learn how gunfighters act and understand their way of thinking, then use magic at the decisive moment and end the engagement overwhelmingly in your favor. You need to drill that kind of tactic into your head.”

"Command is going to allow people like that inside?”

“If it saves them the personnel and money required for exploring Seoul, they’ll turn a blind eye to a few rich people indulging their hobbies.”

May 7th, 2028, 10:46 AM.

Under Instructor Song Smith’s guidance, I occupied one lane of the shooting range, and with every gunshot, I gradually began to feel it.

The truth I had understood even more clearly after Go Ryeoha joined us.

People who were still slow to grasp the situation would fixate on the “Koeran-US” part of the Korean-US Combined Command and mistakenly believe Korea was still alive. They would insist that the Republic of Korea still breathed because local governments continued functioning and the Korean military still existed.

But living under the Korean-US Combined Command made the truth extremely simple.

Why was it called a combined command rather than an allied command?

Simple. Because the intentions and wishes of Koreans no longer had any influence whatsoever on the international community. Even the United States, supposedly our ally, no longer regarded Korea as an independent national entity.

The Korean military had been reduced to nothing more than a name. A force under the Korean-US Combined Command in Pyeongtaek that couldn’t even launch a nuclear strike and existed solely to maintain the blockade line for the benefit of the world’s ruling class.

Meanwhile, criticism of the government that had abandoned 10 million people in Seoul was intensifying around Incheon, and news arrived that a referendum would be held to replace the entire administration.

Accompanied, of course, by China’s immensely trustworthy declaration that it would neither interfere in the election nor intervene in Korea’s domestic affairs.

The Republic of Korea was already finished and gradually being dismantled.

Only those who refused to admit it remained.

Thankfully, that gave me an opportunity to crawl back into Seoul and plunder its knowledge.

Of course, if Go Ryeoha had merely been a trigger for all this, I would never have kept her among the Supreme Archmages.

By the time I returned to the barracks at 11:50 AM, the supplies we had ordered had already arrived by express delivery.

Go Ryeoha stood in the middle of it all, busily pointing at people and ordering them around.

All while using invisible hands to carry several boxes at once herself.

"Sejun-ahjussi, those are valuable, so don’t handle them so roughly!”

"Tsk!"

Lee Sejun carried several boxs at a time.

"Muslim-ssi, sort the items according to what’s written on this sheet!”

"My name is Hamza."

Hamza also frowned as he followed the note he had been given and moved various things around.

"Pastor, did you find the Bible verse?”

"Well, you see…I haven’t studied enough Hebrew yet…”

"Ahaha, that’s understandable! This isn’t a commonly used form of Hebrew!"

“Pastor, I’ll help you.”

"Oh, Nain.”

The pastor and Shin Nain were busy sitting at the table and leafing through the Bible.

I quietly edged backward and decided to take a walk around the camp instead.

And at 1:35 PM.

By the time I returned after roughly three laps around the camp, all the preparations were complete.

"Baek Jemin, you damn bastard. You came by earlier and just left?”

"Training to unlock Heart-branch magic takes priority for me.”

Leaving the pastor’s grumbling behind, we Supreme Archmages had to confront the ponchos and all manner of bizarre materials scattered throughout the barracks.

Intending to make active use of the knowledge on Incantation-type magic she had received through her contact with the 66-Society, Go Ryeoha placed her hands on her hips, cleared her throat importantly, and began explaining in a gentle voice.

"The 66-Society paid particular attention to ancient languages that possessed strong religious influence. One of them was Ancient Hebrew discovered in fragments of theBook of Numbers."

As she spoke, she pointed one by one at the small containers laid out before us.

"I’m going to inscribe useful phrases using the knowledge passed down to me by the Society. Considering its powerful religious influence and age as an ancient language, ink used in the production of Jewish Torah scrolls would probably work best.”

"That’s an awful lot of ingredients for ink.”

"It works better when you make it yourself! Come on, don't give me those dead-fish eyes. Let’s have a fun arts-and-crafts session~.”

And so began an arts-and-crafts class I had never asked for.

Making the ink supposedly used for Torah scrolls was incredibly tedious and horrible. The first step involved gathering some soot-blackened substance resembling oil or tar, then kneading it together withacacia sap and a single drop of honey.

We even had to add some strange substances calledgallnut extract.

Go Ryeoha possessed Hand-branch, Stage 3, Telekinesis, so she kneaded the mixture with invisible hands. The rest of the Supreme Archmages didn’t have that luxury.

Only after crushing and kneading it by hand for ages and shaping it into a cake-like lump did the damned ordeal finally end. My arms were aching just from making one tiny lump.

"Good work, everyone!”

"Haah, huff…We can’t use this immediately, can we?”

"That’s right. It needs to dry for a while first, so…”

Just as Shin Nain stared down at his hands while catching his breath, Go Ryeoha produced a neat-looking container with a confident smile.

"Tada! I asked them for a finished batch, and it actually arrived!”

"...”

That was when a note fluttered down along with Go Ryeoha’s smile, and Shin Nain picked it up.

"There’s an additional message from Anderson-ssi. He says he dearly wishes he could come but regrets that he’s too busy helping us all. Instead, he will devote his full efforts to obtaining heretical items like these, so he hopes we will rest assured and send him handwritten accounts of our various experiences. I suspect that may be a condition for his sponsorship.”

"Oh my, if Anderston-ssi is asking, naturally we should oblige.”

The pastor, who became infinitely generous and amiable in front of his financial backer, accepted the note with a broad grin.

Go Ryeoha was the culprit who had subjected us to this god-awful ordeal, but at least once the actual ritual began, she completely stripped away even her usual trace of laughter and became composed.

She dipped a brush into the Torah ink and began carefully drawing the strangely shaped letters across the back of the poncho laid out on the table.

Ancient Hebrew looked so bizarre at a glance that it naturally filled me with renewed respect forKing Sejong.

Every time the strange, ink-like substance spread across the poncho, I wondered whether it would actually set properly.

But as Go Ryeoha clenched her free hand into a fist and dug her fingernails hard into her palm, letting a small trickle of blood drop onto the floor while she wrote, strange changes began to follow.

The black ink seemed to ripple as though breathing, and each time Go Ryeoha inscribed a line and recited it aloud, the pastor responded.

יברכך יהוה וישמרך

Yevarechecha Adonai veyishmerecha. 

"May the Lord bless thee and keep thee."

יאר יהוה פניו אליך ויחנך

Ya’er Adonai panav elecha vichuneka.

"May the Lord shine his face toward thee, and be gracious unto thee."

ישא יהוה פניו אליך וישם לך שלום

Yisa Adonai panav elecha veyasem lecha shalom.

"May the Lord lift his face toward thee, and give thee peace."

When Go Ryeoha’s brush finally stopped, the carnage letters painted across the poncho didn’t run or wipe away easily despite its waterproof coating. It looked as though they had been printed onto it from the beginning.

Go Ryeoha wiped the beads of sweat that had gathered across her forehead and let out a relieved breath.

"Phew. These verses carry the meaning of warding off evil. The 66-Society didn’t explain exactly how they use them, but I thought they might at least help against monsters. Apparently they turn red when their effect is nearly exhausted, so bring them back when the lettering changes color!”

I stared at Go Ryeoha with my eyes wide open.

"Master, would you like a shoulder massage?”

If it meant getting even a few more lines inscribed onto my poncho, what did a man’s pride matter?

If Go Ryeoha kept producing incredible items like these, I would gladly take on the additional role of emotional dumping ground.

It was while we Supreme Archmages were enjoying such a warm and harmonious moment.

Everyone except Lee Sejun, who was busy clicking his tongue, was laughing together when the sound of a vehicle pulling up rang out and Captain Kim Howoon came running toward us.

"Aphorism, command is summoning you.”

The instant I heard that command had called for us, only one thought came to mind.

"Did sponsorship money arrive?”

"Major General Jeon would probably love nothing more than to shower you with sponsorship money if he could.”

I had wondered whether our bosses had showered the world’s greatest Archmage with donations.

But judging by Captain Kim Howoon’s expression, apparently not.

"Okay, wait a minute.”

"Jemin-ssi, I’m not joking. This is a genuine emergency.”

"We’re in an emergency too. Can’t you see we’re upgrading our gear?”

Under the blank stares of the Supreme Archmages, Captain Kim Howoon’s face alternated between flushing beet red and turning deathly pale before finally bleaching completely white.

"Haah… Fine, fuck it. Let’s wait then.”

*t*t*

May 7th, 2028, 3:01 PM.

The Supreme Archmages who answered command’s summons were I, Shin Nain, and Lee Sejun.

Go Ryeoha’s brushwork was so leisurely that only the three of us had finished having our ponchos enhanced.

Given my way, I would have covered every inch of the poncho in writing, but Captain Kim Howoon finally reached his limit and practically clung to my trouser leg in tears, so I had no choice but to give in.

Still, it seemed the fame of us Supreme Archmages had spread even among the American soldiers stationed in the situation room.

Both the former Korean military officers and the American soldiers could only blink stupidly as the three of us Supreme Archmages proudly entered with our ponchos fluttering behind us.

I naturally met their gazes and smiled in satisfaction.

"Shin Nain, tell me their reaction."

"Hmph. They’re wondering whether we’re really the people who answered the summons.”

"It’s understandable. This must be the shock of seeing the Supreme Archmages for the first time.”

While Shin Nain and I basked in the glory the Supreme Archmages had built, far above the common rabble, Lee Sejun alone pulled up his hood.

He tightened the drawstrings until his entire face was hidden, then muttered belatedly,

"You embarrassing bastards."

I had no idea who he thought he was talking to.

And so, the three of us approached Major General Jeon Minho inside the situation room, where he was already addressing his subordinate officers in a low voice.

The instant he saw us, his expression brightened, and he gestured toward seats that had clearly been prepared in a hurry.

"Aphorism. Please, sit.”

"No, we’re fine.”

Before I could answer, Shin Nain responded crisply.

Did this bastard think he was the protagonist here?

Despite the sideways glare I gave him, Shin Nain paid me no mind and continued in an even calmer, more composed voice.

"The situation appears urgent, and I assume this is a deployment request. We’ll listen while standing.”

"...Shin Nain-ssi. You’re rather different from what I’d heard.”

"Where the power of Satan and his demons surges forth is where I must prove my faith.”

Major General Jeon looked as though he had a lot to say. He stared at me as if demanding an explanation, but I remained silent.

Aphorism was, well…

Something like a cooperative without any particular leader, so none of the responsibility fell on me.

In the end, Major General Jeon, burdened with a more important mission, paced around while letting out several heavy sighs. Then he gestured for the nearby soldiers and officers not to listen before speaking.

"Haven’t you wondered why we aren’t censoring the media?”

"No. I like how sensational it is.”

"That’s precisely the reason. Censorship is already underway. You’re aware that the first blockade line is reaching its limit, right?”

"What?"

I recalled the foreign news articles I had read while eating ramen with Hamza.

Soldiers wearing dog-tag armbands who shot everyone, the collapse of democracy, people disappearing… Did the news have to be at least that extreme to satisfy the dopamine cravings of Koreans whose capital had already been destroyed by a monster catastrophe?

But the real dopamine hit was something else entirely.

Major General Jeon Minho discreetly pulled out a map of the Gyeonggi Province that had been hidden beneath a pile of documents and laid it down in front of us.

"Localized patches of fog have begun appearing.”

"Not ordinary fog?”

At those words, Lee Sejun opened his eyes wide and threw his hood back.

I understood what those words meant as well.

After observing the reactions of the three of us, Major General Jeon Minho finally spat out the truth the military had been desperately concealing.

"Breaches have begun appearing throughout the first blockade line. Aphorism’s cooperation is urgently needed to stabilize it.”

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¹지존 = Jijon → Zizon → Supreme