Chapter 23 - The Second Eye-Opening

Preparations to retake Suwon Station had been thorough.

Hmm. Rather than thorough, it would be more fitting to say we had done our best. Against these monsters, thoroughness probably meant nothing.

First Lieutenant Baek Han-seong had divided his thirty soldiers into three squads. Apparently anticipating a prolonged operation, he was even issuing detailed instructions to account for fatigue.

"Team Three rests for now. Teams One and Two, guard the stairs. Don't all stand watch at once. Two men keep their rifles shouldered and aimed for five minutes, while another two keep watch in all directions. After five minutes, switch roles. At ten minutes, the next four relieve you. Make up any shortage with men from Team Three."

As I watched from behind while Baek Han-seong impressed his orders on the soldiers, Lee Se-jun finally rose from his firing position. He seemed stiff, patting his shoulder as he gave his spot to another soldier.

The moment he came over, he rolled his neck and let out a sigh.

He looked at me and started to speak, only to turn abruptly toward someone else. Shin Na-in had slipped an earbud into one ear and was nodding with a pleased smile.

"Mr. Shin, what time is it?"

"Eleven forty."

"We've sunk hours into clearing just the first basement..."

At Shin Na-in's offhand reply, Lee Se-jun switched his rifle's selector to safe and slung it over his shoulder. Then, hollow-eyed with exhaustion, he fumbled in his trouser pocket and pulled out a bag of hardtack.

"You should all eat. I doubt they're bringing meals down here."

"Hmm."

I turned to look, and sure enough, no mess personnel seemed likely to come.

Major Kang Min-su had deployed additional soldiers and supplies upon receiving the report that the first-basement concourse was secured, but that was to bring down ammunition boxes, gas-mask filters, and the like.

Soldiers grunted as they dragged and laid communications cables and set up equipment. Among it were two small drones. Naturally, the three of us civilians simply watched them slog away from the ruins of a clothing store, its racks still lined up behind shattered windows.

I was much thirstier than I was hungry, so I took another sip from my canteen.

Lee Se-jun, on the other hand, was hungrier than he was thirsty. Without even thinking to wipe his sweat-soaked face, he tore open his hardtack and stuffed a handful into his mouth.

CRUNCH, CRUNCH.

The man certainly ate with gusto. Chewing with his cheeks puffed out like a hamster's, Lee Se-jun spotted the drones, swallowed, and spoke.

"Drones? Why are they only sending those in now?"

"They weren't planning to use them because flying underground is difficult. They also believed the blood agent would be lethal to the monsters."

"And now?"

"They know the second basement is a total shitshow. Sending soldiers in to get chewed up would only increase the number of monsters, so they're going to scout it first."

Who could have imagined the day would come when the soldiers of the Republic of Korea Armed Forces were considered so precious?

Anyway, putting my canteen away, I reviewed our entry into the first basement.

We had done our best, but our lack of professional training had still made us amateurish, reckless, and vulnerable. The ammunition load and the weight of our equipment had also been more burdensome than I expected.

Managing the weight of our gear was essential if we wanted to flee the monsters or control the distance between us. Yet simply pouring firepower into them wasn't an easy option either, with their bizarre biology and ambush tactics.

It wasn't as if I, an eighth-year reservist, had suddenly awakened incredible physical abilities. I wasn't accustomed to situations like this, either, so I fell behind more often than I expected.

Especially when it came to foresight.

I had been reminded yet again that Alteration-Type Eye—Stage One, which I understood to show me footprints ten seconds into the future, was far from perfect.

When we first engaged the predatory spine, I had trusted my foresight. I aimed at its footprints and fired, believing I could kill it quickly. But the backlash from magic was stronger than expected where the fog was thin...

And my suspicion that predatory spines could detect magic to some degree, just like Amalgams, was gradually becoming a conviction.

Amalgams feared my eyes. The moment I used magic, they fled in terror. The predatory spine, by contrast, was more proactive. It had specifically targeted what amounted to the gaps in my magic.

This foresight had a ten-second time lag.

I didn't watch those ten seconds fast-forward. I saw only what lay ten seconds ahead. I could keep watching from that point onward, but I couldn't see the process that led up to it.

So rather than thrashing around or hiding to escape my foresight, it had fooled it by exposing only parts that would take the least damage—or where being hit would accomplish nothing at all.

Then why hadn't it attacked Lee Se-jun, its chosen target, within those ten seconds? It must have sensed the flaw in my stage-one eye magic, or at least been half certain of it. Had it lacked the intelligence to think that far?

Just as my reflections reached that point, Shin Na-in removed his earbud and smiled at me.

"Mr. Baek, I know why that monster that sounds like fingernails scraping a blackboard didn't attack Mr. Lee right away."

"You've been reading my mind, haven't you?"

"I can't help it. I hear things just by being nearby."

After a brief moment's consideration, I decided to let it slide.

After all, I was the same inside and out, with a pure and transparent heart, unlike those people forever lying and scrambling to conceal things. I had nothing to be ashamed of under heaven, so what was there to hide?

Shin Na-in's expression turned peculiar.

"First, you're getting smacked."

After giving him a good whack on the back, I was able to hear his detailed explanation.

He made every possible fuss over the pain, then finally crossed himself and chuckled.

"These monsters' instincts are very simple. Hunger, the urge to reproduce. And strangely enough, paternal love? Maternal love? They have something like an instinct to protect other cursed creatures like themselves. There's this sorrow, desperation, and sense of injustice, as though a dying person were reaching out in one last struggle, digging their nails into a blackboard."

"Ugh, fuck."

The thought that such horrific monsters possessed instincts like paternal or maternal love sent a shiver down my spine.

But then I was thoroughly puzzled. What did that have to do with why the predatory spine hadn't taken Lee Se-jun out within ten seconds?

"Apparently it thought that the moment it parasitized Mr. Lee, you would mercilessly kill the parent, the offspring, and Mr. Lee, their host, all together. Even they recognized your noble hatred for the minions of Satan and his devils."

"Ghak, cough!"

Lee Se-jun, who was still eating hardtack, began coughing as though it had gone down the wrong way.

I gave him a pitying look, then found one of my rare points of agreement with Shin Na-in. I didn't know about noble, but the hatred was certainly there. Especially after having watched a few zombie and creature features.

Right. Shin Na-in had a better head on his shoulders about this sort of thing than I'd expected.

Just as I thought that, he added, his voice slightly excited and his smile joyful:

"Rather than trying to save those heretics, we should send them before the Lord before they commit greater sins, so they may be judged with at least a little leniency. That is true mercy. Mr. Baek, you've already embarked on the path of seeking faith."

"Haaah... fuck."

I wet my lips for no particular reason and shook my head.

Lee Se-jun had finally recovered after thumping his chest and was gulping from his canteen. I discreetly moved away from Shin Na-in and closer to Lee Se-jun before speaking.

"Cut the bullshit. Now that we've seen actual combat, I know what we're missing. Lights, more magazines, grenades for clearing enclosed spaces and rooms like these."

"The lack of firepower is a big issue. This magic is pretty subtle, too. Not a single fireball or lightning bolt."

Lee Se-jun agreed as he put his canteen away.

At least modern firearms had enough killing and suppressive power to make up the shortfall. Compared with some horrible apocalypse where we could do nothing without mana, weren't we better off, with more reason for hope, since we could simply shoot things dead?

The monsters we faced just happened to be a little more disgusting than familiar goblins and orcs.

"Why did we get those fucking bastards instead of cute little guys like goblins and orcs?"

For some reason, Lee Se-jun's grumbling really struck a chord.

A soldier who still looked young approached us and spoke cautiously.

"Operators, they're ready. The drones will go in at twelve thirty to scout the second basement, and they'd like you to come check the feed with them."

All three of us let out deep sighs without saying a word.

Lee Se-jun tipped even the hardtack crumbs into his mouth, dusted off his hands, and grabbed his rifle sling. Shin Na-in put away his earbud and crossed himself, while I closed my eyes and massaged my eyelids.

There was only one reason preparations were this thorough and everyone was doing their utmost.

I readied the gas mask I wasn't yet eager to put on and said,

"Let's go. Time to take down Madam Geulmun and the priest."

* * *

February 5, 2028. 12:31 p.m.

After measuring radio reception, two drone operators carefully sent the drones underground. With a hornet-like buzz, the quadcopters' rotors spun as they passed through the crumpled emergency shutter.

Soldiers remained on alert, their muzzles trained along either side of the drones' route, while the chemical-defense unit stayed back from the stairs, busy checking equipment.

The three of us, First Lieutenant Baek Han-seong, and Major Jang Sin-myeong stood with the communications soldiers in front of the hefty laptop that would display the drone feeds.

That laptop looked heavy enough to kill someone outright if you smacked them in the back of the head with it.

Watching the drone's view as it descended the stairs, Baek Han-seong raised his radio.

"This is Paldal One. Twelve thirty-one. Deploying two reconnaissance drones to the second basement. Objective: identify remaining creatures and potential threats."

["Received. Report any anomalies immediately."]

"Confirmed."

Beside him, Major Jang Sin-myeong stood with his arms folded and murmured in admiration.

"The world has certainly gotten better."

The question of whether it really had tickled the back of my throat, but I fought to keep it down.

Anyway, the drones, a legacy of that better world, certainly made scouting the second basement easier. We were told they even had thermal imaging so they could function despite the fog's severely limited visibility, which raised our hopes.

Baek Han-seong in particular seemed to have high expectations. His trembling voice held excitement rather than fear.

"Drone operators, maneuver carefully. This could be important evidence for inferring conditions inside Seoul. It's a chance to see how they behave away from the front lines, so examine everything. Don't miss a thing."

"Y-yes, sir..."

It was hardly surprising that the drone operator's shoulders looked even more burdened.

The drones entered the second basement by separate stairways and discovered fog deep enough to reach a person's thighs.

Baek Han-seong and Jang Sin-myeong turned their eyes toward the three of us.

"Can you detect anything through a monitor?"

Feeling my eyes burn, I tried to see whether I could view the feed ten seconds into the future. Shin Na-in waved his hands in refusal.

The result was unexpected.

Instead of either seeing nothing or seeing properly, I saw countless footprints appearing beyond the screen. The problem was that they covered everything—the ceiling, floor, walls, every object and background—making my foresight useless.

The resolution was so low that I couldn't even be certain it was ten seconds ahead.

I squeezed my eyes shut and massaged my eyelids as I answered.

"It says everything is dangerous. Footprints... The symbols I believe represent the monsters' movements are showing up everywhere."

"Does that mean the entire second basement is a monster den?"

"I can't be certain."

"What about you, Operator Shin Na-in?"

"I can hear the sounds themselves, but not through the monitor."

We decided to abandon detection through the monitor, on the assumption that its accuracy was poor.

Instead, the decision was made to rely on the drones' cameras, and we returned our attention to their feeds.

The drones captured the same shocking scene we had witnessed ourselves.

Two evacuation trains had derailed and crashed over the platform. Amid the tangled, crushed carriages were bloodstains darkened to a blackish brown, spent casings scattered everywhere, sections dented by blast pressure, and tiles torn from the walls.

Discolored firearms lay abandoned. Even the railings that had somehow survived were stained an ominous light brown by blood and traces of gas. Cables hanging from the ceiling like a hangman's rope sagged motionless. Between shattered advertising boards and flickering fluorescent lights, deep shadows repeatedly fell.

It looked as though everything was already over.

Jang Sin-myeong glanced at Baek Han-seong and asked,

"Why aren't the lights working properly here?"

"We believe the sudden impact and high voltage when the following train collided knocked them out. We've since successfully blasted the tracks near Hwaseo Station and retaken the substation, cutting power to the tracks, but..."

"This could be dangerous."

There wasn't much room for Amalgams to operate, but it was an ideal environment for predatory spines to lie in ambush.

Twisted objects and debris everywhere offered hiding places, and the incomplete lighting let them conceal themselves in the shadows. An attempt to retake it with ordinary soldiers would have resulted in mercilessly heavy casualties.

Baek Han-seong instructed the drone operators.

"Switch to thermal imaging. Don't go too deep. Stay near the entrance and look around slowly. Rotate three hundred sixty degrees."

"Yes, sir..."

"It's still muted, right? Turn the volume up a little."

"Are we allowed to turn it up?"

"Just a little."

The drone operator's voice trembled slightly, as though he too was nervous.

WHIRRR...

The sound of the drone's rotors leaked from the small speaker beside the monitor. Baek Han-seong worked his lips anxiously.

"The drones must be loud. Are they not reacting...?"

The thermal imaging showed no major problems either.

Almost nothing glowed bright red. Even the slightly yellow spots neither resembled monsters nor showed movement.

At a glance, everything seemed fine.

But Shin Na-in was still rubbing his earlobe with his left hand, frowning.

"I keep hearing the blackboard-scraping sound and a voice calling for the Lord. They're faint, but definitely there."

Jang Sin-myeong twisted his brows at that.

"Drone operators. Sweep the ceiling too."

"Yes, sir!"

The moment the drone gained altitude, we caught a strange sound amid its noise.

It was truly bizarre, unlike the mechanical noise we'd been hearing until then.

Baek Han-seong frowned and tilted his head.

"Get the noise cancellation working properly. We'll amplify it and listen."

At that moment, Shin Na-in reached out.

"Aagh!"

"..."

All Shin Na-in's earlier composure and steadfastness vanished. Eyes wide, he rushed over and muted the feed, shoving the drone operator aside.

Everyone was startled by the displaced operator and Shin Na-in's sudden action. Baek Han-seong flared up, about to confront him.

"Hey. I've been going easy on you because you're a civilian, and now you..."

Then the drone feed cut out.

FZZT.

There had been no grand warning or sign of any kind.

The battery wasn't low. It simply blinked off. Barely a few seconds later, the other drone's feed went black too.

None of us had expected that—not Baek Han-seong, who had been about to argue, not Lee Se-jun or me as we quietly watched, nor Jang Sin-myeong with his arms folded.

Only Shin Na-in stood with his eyes closed beneath hair plastered down by cold sweat, his hands clasped in quiet prayer.

"Almighty Lord God, let not the devil's voice lead me astray. Make me righteous, and use me according to Your will, that I may establish Your justice upon this earth..."

Jang Sin-myeong stroked his chin and looked at us.

"What is this?"

I jerked my chin toward Shin Na-in.

"He'll tell us when he's finished praying."

Just as I'd expected, Shin Na-in finished his prayer and looked around at us with greater resolve in his eyes.

"There lies the final fate of a heretic. It is a most dangerous adversary, and merely hearing its sound clouds the mind. I stopped it so those without faith would not be led astray."

I explained that in very simple, brief terms.

There was a monster down there that drove people mad with sound. After a short silence, Baek Han-seong went deathly pale, raised his radio, and checked his wristwatch.

"This is Paldal One. Twelve forty-eight. Communications lost with both advance reconnaissance drones. Suspected attack pattern differs from previously identified species."

["What?"]

"They say it seems to be sound."

["Sound, sound, sound..."]

A hint of confusion and fear came through the radio too.

After a silence, a parched voice struck our ears.

["... Rule of engagement five. Acquiring information takes top priority. Send in the civilian Operators to determine whether it's an identified or unidentified species, and cover their immediate withdrawal. Prepare to seal the area, just in case. Pull the equipment back out, except for ammunition."]

"..."

Baek Han-seong's eyelids trembled as he looked at the three of us.

I drew one last deep breath and let it out slowly.

Then, without hesitation, I put on my gas mask and breathed into the smell of rubber. Two sharp breaths.

Everything was working. Good.

Shin Na-in and Lee Se-jun were silently putting on their masks too.

"We'll take a few extra magazines each and another grenade apiece. If you have lights that fit in a pouch, we'd appreciate those too. Tactical lights, are they called?"

* * *

CRUNCH, CRUNCH.

The sound of our footsteps grinding down dust and fragments fallen from the shattered ceiling and walls covered the pounding of my pulse. We had handed over all our old magazines and taken five twenty-round magazines and two more grenades each.

Rather than asking whether we could use them all, we had come prepared to do exactly that.

As I passed the wrecked emergency shutter, I felt something strange.

I had reached the spot where Father Jeong Yong-hwan had recited his prayers and tried to help people.

At the place where I'd briefly hesitated while climbing the stairs to escape, I now stepped down without hesitation to enter.

Soon, beneath the flickering lights, I saw thick fog beyond shadows that clicked in and out like an old black-and-white camera. Without hesitation, I lifted my poncho slightly and switched on the L-shaped light tucked into my left breast pocket.

CLICK.

Mechanical clicks overlapped as everyone raised their rifles with heavy metallic sounds.

I was in the lead, and the sounds behind me said we weren't alone. Speech had given way to the gusting breaths peculiar to gas masks. My heart pulsed in time with our steps over gravel made from ceiling material, and our lights illuminated the layers of fog piled over dust and bloodstains.

Reaching the second basement, we faced the grotesquely crushed train on the platform and naturally spread our watch, aiming our muzzles in different directions.

A dead drone lay motionless before us. Overwhelmed by the atmosphere of the second basement and its flickering lights, we didn't even think of touching or retrieving it.

It wasn't just the drone. The little radio Lee Se-jun had brought began emitting nothing but static.

KZZT, KZZZT...

Without a word, Lee Se-jun tucked his rifle under his arm and turned the radio's volume down. Then he shouldered his rifle again and scanned our surroundings. Of course, Shin Na-in and I were much better at this kind of detection.

Alteration-Type Eye, Stage One.

Perhaps thanks to the thigh-deep fog, the backlash was mild. The burning in my eyeballs had diminished enough to feel almost refreshing, like mint toothpaste. In that state, I looked up at the ceiling—the source of our trouble.

The fog hadn't risen as far as the ceiling, but I could see things the camera lenses had failed to capture.

Until now, I had seen footprints through the fog, believing they represented the monsters' movements. That guess had indeed been correct, and it seemed to be correct this time too.

THUMP.

I could hear a pulse. It wasn't ours.

THUMP, THUMP...

Across the entire ceiling of the second basement, red capillaries lay tangled together, hidden in the shadows whenever the lights flickered. They surged with each beat of something else's pulse, connecting as they extended long threads like a mold spreading its hyphae.

My stomach churned.

Unable to keep looking up, I lowered my head. My vision spun for a moment, and a jolt that seemed to shake my brain left me barely able to hold back a retch.

"Urk, blegh."

Only after sour fluid rose to the root of my tongue did the nausea finally subside. Yet the foul taste and sickening smell lingering in my mouth wouldn't go away.

Worried that the inside of my mask would fill with the smell of vomit, I lifted it slightly, spat, and put it back on.

While I briefly pulled myself together, Shin Na-in, still keeping watch in all directions, asked quietly,

"Mr. Baek. What was that reaction?"

"Don't look up. There are things like blood vessels spreading across the ceiling like a net. They make you want to puke."

"Could that be...?"

At Lee Se-jun's question, I involuntarily thought of the Magic Crash Course booklet carefully tucked inside my clothes.

Magic script.

Yes, that certainly seemed to be it... The problem was that it felt like looking at a low-resolution, one-by-one pixel image, so I couldn't decipher it at all. What good was enduring the nausea and dizziness to stare at a single black dot?

"Let's keep moving for now."

The three of us cautiously advanced.

The wreckage of the train that had smashed over the platform severely restricted our movement, but there was still plenty of room on the opposite tracks.

Lee Se-jun and Shin Na-in, who had escaped this way, seemed to be reliving the experience. Their index fingers rested on their triggers.

Then we heard a sound entirely unlike the pulse.

GLUG, GLUG, GLUG...

Like a stream flowing through a very narrow crevice between rocks. Or water being poured from a plastic bottle into a glass.

We all held our breath and crouched at the sound.

We instinctively switched off our lights, too. Only after several minutes, once our eyes had adjusted to the dark, did we steel ourselves to look beyond the opposite tracks. My eyes warned me with red footprints stamped everywhere, but without looking, we couldn't know what was there. So I looked.

I saw a somewhat familiar figure.

A man stood there in a black cassock with its sleeves torn off.

But he had no head.

More precisely, only a tiny portion of his head remained.

All that was left was the underside of his jaw and a long protruding tongue, dripping cold saliva mixed with blood. Above it, a huge blood vessel extending from his spine reached the ceiling and spread its capillaries.

The man in the black cassock, the one who had lost his head, was alive and breathing, his tongue hanging limp as gurgling moans flowed from his throat.

Shin Na-in, Lee Se-jun, and I all stopped breathing before the pulse of that alien life.

But above that enormous blood vessel, in the hideous structure of tangled capillaries on the ceiling... there was something that caused dizziness, as though it were tearing through my brain and wringing out my insides.

A symbol formed by the tangled capillaries.

Two sets of five long strokes, crossing horizontally and vertically.

Forcing down the nausea rising inside me, I stared with my eyes wide open, saliva mixed with sour fluid dribbling between my lips.

It was magic.

At that moment, Shin Na-in tapped my shoulder.

"Run!"

When I lowered my gaze again, I instinctively adjusted my grip on the rifle and stepped backward.

The headless man in the black cassock had turned to face us. In the silence, even his gurgling moans had stopped. The huge, pulsing blood vessels contracted in an instant, staining patches of the ceiling crimson.

I saw the future.

The capillaries extending across the ceiling plunged straight down in an instant. Impaled by them, Lee Se-jun was dragged up to the ceiling and melted away. Shin Na-in barely dodged them, but was wounded.

And I changed the future.

I yanked Lee Se-jun back by the shoulder and grabbed Shin Na-in by the collar, hauling him toward me.

The capillaries blocked the path we had been about to take like a wall of flesh, writhing and pulsing through its tiny gaps.

"Retreat failed."

I quickly smacked both stunned men on the backs of their heads, then steeled myself to look up at the ceiling again.

"We'll kill it before we leave!"

I shoved both of them away at once.

Without hesitation, I readjusted my grip on my rifle and ran, searching for cover. The three of us naturally scattered, sprinting as we alternated our gaze between the ceiling and the way ahead.

Even the sour smell of nausea mingled with rubber and the breath pouring into my gas mask began to fade.

But our footsteps were drowned out by the moans of the one whose head had melted away, his limp tongue swaying with the immense blood vessel's pulse.

GLUG, GLUG, GLUG...

I crawled into a gap beneath the grotesquely crushed train. Only then did I look up at the ceiling. Like tentacles withdrawing in disappointment after failing to catch their prey, the capillaries that had plunged straight down slowly contracted and returned to the ceiling.

TAP, TAP.

The footsteps of the thing that had once been a priest began tapping between the tracks.

GLUG, GLUG, GLUG...

At that grotesque moaning, I tightened my hands on my rifle and made myself a promise.

I would not think of those moans as a voice calling for the Lord.