Chapter 43 - Department Store Mayhem

We Supreme Mages had concluded that the gunfire came from the department store thanks to our meticulous preparation.

There was Hamza, who said map reading was the first thing he had learned to adjust to life in a distant foreign country. And there was the legacy of Republic of Korea administration: a neighborhood map installed inside the station.

Those two things had made our glorious achievement possible.

"Right as soon as we leave Exit 3. It's fairly close."

Even with Hamza guiding us, though, finding the department store wasn't easy.

Seoul's fog was beyond imagination.

It needed no other adjective. Heavy. Just heavy.

The air was so damp and clammy that it felt as if the moisture were weighing down our ponchos and plastering them against our bodies. Hang your laundry on a clothesline in Seoul now, and even the mold would swell up and burst from all the water.

With every exhalation, beads of condensation formed inside my gas mask.

I felt the unpleasant sensation of droplets running down the rubber and wetting my lips. Still, I breathed in, breathed out, and kept walking, letting out all the world's worries and thrills along with my frustration at the oppressive air.

HOOO...

It was just as that distinctive gas-mask breathing mingled with the fog.

I was about to turn my head, wondering whether we were going the right way, when an ugly building came into view. The sight of its windows, smashed like broken teeth, and its exterior walls, deeply cracked by impacts, drew a groan from me.

Lee Se-jun, Shin Na-in, Hamza, and Pastor Park Yo-han came up behind me. All of them stopped dead before that menacing wreck.

Se-jun, standing beside me, was the first to look around.

"Wow... The department store's ruined, huh?"

The Republic of Korea was on the verge of going under, and this bastard was surprised that a department store had gone under.

The pastor and Na-in, on the other hand, nodded calmly, as if the inevitable had finally happened.

"They pursued luxury and pleasure instead of seeking the Lord. Of course this happened. Would it have happened if they'd spent their shopping money on tithes and offerings?"

"It seems He who punished with fire and water has chosen artillery shells this time. Though its outward appearance has become filthy, spiritually it has become cleaner."

"So this fog is steam for washing dishes?"

I put the brakes on Na-in, that shithead, before he could keep spouting nonsense forever.

Both he and the pastor turned to me. Even through their gas-mask lenses, their gazes felt uncomfortably intense.

"Just what I'd expect of you, Mr. Baek Je-min. Your steadfast faith, recognizing the fog as the Lord's dishwashing steam, puts me to shame."

"Je-min, Na-in isn't just saying that. You've got a biblical something. Come to church, and everything will go your way—everything! Huh? You've got the makings of a young adults' ministry leader!"

"I'll stick with nothing."

Forget these Christian fuckwits who called themselves Koreans. Look at Hamza.

Our Muslim friend, who seemed like he ought to be the most fanatical of the lot, was clicking his tongue in amazement and letting out little exclamations at the wrecked department store.

"All this destruction, and the building hasn't collapsed. Korean architecture really is amazing."

A true national-pride junkie finds something to get high on even in the direst moments.

Was Hamza actually the one among the Supreme Mages who loved the Republic of Korea most?

But this wasn't the time to get high on national pride and gawk at the department store. At this rate, we might loiter out front for days on end, then retreat because it was dangerous.

I, Baek Je-min, the only man in this deranged bunch with an unwavering sense of duty, had no choice but to restore discipline.

"Let's get into formation and go in. Hesitating here is just a waste of time."

I would take point.

With eye, tongue, and hand magic all at my disposal, I was the best at thinking on my feet. As a versatile point man, I could rightly be called the backbone of the Supreme Mages.

Na-in would detect approaching enemies and use past sight to gather information whenever we found signs of a fight.

With a mage likely to be present, striking first would matter most in combat. In that respect, his role was important—certainly no less important than anyone else's.

Hamza and the pastor would serve as the Supreme Mages' good-luck totems and assess danger through Angel's Intuition and Soteriological Conviction.

It was enough for Hamza to answer our questions and requests for advice. The pastor would assess the scene and deduce the enemy's intentions from the clues we gathered. We had assigned him that role in the hope that Soteriological Conviction might also help him reason through clues and arrive at the right answers.

Se-jun... Se-jun was just a pack mule and bodyguard.

Firepower specialist sounded cooler. Anyway, one more person who knew how to shoot could only help.

"Je-min, I feel like you've been a lot colder to me lately."

"I don't have any religious prejudices, but I do have a few about men who want to turn into pretty girls."

We formed up and cast aside the last of our hesitation.

As we slowly advanced, the upper floors emerged from the fog. They weren't in particularly good shape either. Concrete rubble lay piled nearby, apparently fallen from the shattered edges of the roof.

Despite the Jangji Station mage's record claiming the shells had deliberately missed the department store, it seemed the building had taken a few hits too.

Unlike the subway station, which still had power, the department store was pitch-black inside. The shadows within looked even more suffocating than the thick fog along the road.

Even our ancestors sticking their heads into hungry tigers' mouths couldn't have felt this uneasy.

An eerie silence seemed to weigh down even the fog in the shadows, making us Supreme Mages hesitate again despite our bold advance.

Faced with a stillness that seemed capable of stopping even our heartbeats, the pastor grumbled for no particular reason.

"Why the hell did they crawl into a place like that?"

Nobody answered.

He wasn't asking for an answer.

We couldn't tell where the entrance was, so we simply climbed carefully through a broken window. The slowly flowing wind and fog pushed at our backs.

Without thinking, I lifted my poncho and switched on the L-shaped tactical light clipped to my chest.

CLICK.

The mechanical click sounded unusually loud. It hadn't rung out this clearly even when we were following the subway tracks.

Like an echo shouted from a mountaintop, it sent a faint vibration through all the shadows of the department store, now emptied of both people and luxury goods.

But the tactical light was no help at all.

Unlike the roadside, the building's interior rarely received any wind, so the fog had accumulated in layers. All the beam caught was pale dust.

Perfect visibility for getting ambushed.

I immediately used Tongue, Stage One to put Eye, Stage One to work.

Target, department store mage, five minutes, route.

The fog swirled and cleared, laying bare the bleak interior of the department store. Abandoned display counters and mannequins stood silently in place. If I'd come here alone, I'd have pissed myself at the sight of those mannequins.

And they weren't arranged normally, either. They stood on either side of the stopped escalators or behind the display counters.

Seen through the fog, they would have looked exactly like people guarding the area and keeping watch.

Were the brooms and things in their hands meant to pass for guns or other weapons?

For now, the fact that my view had cleared under the conditions I'd set seemed to make it certain that a mage was nearby. I'd expected that anyway, so it wasn't much of a surprise.

What surprised me was the magical backlash.

"This could be dangerous."

"What? Why? Is something there?"

The pastor got a little worked up, so I calmly explained.

"Normally, when I use tongue magic, it splits open and bleeds like crazy, right?"

"Ugh, that's disgusting."

Se-jun recoiled and stepped away from me.

I'd deliberately shown him my tongue injuries from magical backlash a few times, and now he acted that revolted? I, Baek Je-min, might not be confident about my face, but I was confident my tongue was handsome. This was deeply offensive.

Still, I knew how to prioritize, so I put up with it.

"There's no backlash at all."

"Like us doctrinal types?"

"Yes."

Dense fog. Easy to operate outside.

Now I understood what that message meant. Apparently the fog was so thick that you could spam magic with few problems. It was basically an event period that let you use far stronger magic than usual.

Na-in adjusted his grip on his gun and stepped forward.

"I'd been hearing voices anyway. Good. I'll investigate, once we've taken cover."

He probably intended to sweep the whole place with past sight, starting at the entrance.

But I held out my palm to stop him first, tucking my short-barreled AR-15 under my arm.

"No. They'll detect us faster. It'll be quicker to find traces of the soldiers who came before us. Hamza, will we be in more danger the longer we delay?"

"... Yes. The angel says so."

It didn't take any elaborate reasoning.

There was a very high probability that this department store housed a local Seoul mage's hideout.

And judging by the gunfire and radio transmission, they'd already exchanged fire with the soldiers.

They might already have noticed our presence and detected us.

When I explained that caution was best, since this was our first time facing a mage as an enemy, Na-in seemed convinced.

"Tsk. Then I'll concentrate on listening."

He clicked his tongue and shot Hamza a look, but by this bastard's standards, that counted as acceptance.

* * *

The department store's interior was littered with broken glass and grains of dust.

That made moving quietly almost impossible.

No matter how carefully we stepped, we couldn't completely eliminate the sound of shards and grit colliding.

We weren't some elite special-forces veterans, and with the pressure bearing down on us, it was unavoidable.

CRUNCH, CRUNCH.

Even so, my heart tightened at every footstep.

The emotion called fear—or perhaps exhilaration—pricked my heart like needles, producing the contradictory sensations of cold, thrilling electricity, and heat. The only beating hearts belonged to the five of us.

The department store lobby, once a gathering place for the wealthiest people or those with the most dazzling dreams, now held only mannequins draped in stained, worn-out clothes.

Sometimes, as we pushed through the fog, we'd unexpectedly encounter a mannequin around a corner. My mind knew it was a mannequin, but my hands and feet suspected a monster and made me raise my gun first.

CLACK.

With that heavy metallic sound, I'd peer through the sight and realize it.

That wasn't a person, only a doll—a mannequin crudely imitating one.

Yet I still found it hard to lower my gun.

Still aiming at the mannequin, I asked Na-in,

"Any monsters?"

"None."

I was currently combining Tongue, Stage One and Eye, Stage One to maintain the conditions: target, department store mage, five minutes, route.

That made it impossible to foresee signs of monsters, such as red footprints. I had to rely entirely on Na-in's ear-branch magic.

The feeling of entrusting my life completely to someone else—and a shithead fanatic at that—was unbearably unpleasant and disempowering.

Absolute helplessness, born of the desperate dependence of having my life and survival rest entirely in someone else's hands rather than my own.

The others must have felt this all along.

It was anything but pleasant.

But the other four had also entrusted their lives to me as I tracked the mage.

Only after Na-in's assurance did I lower my gun and move on, keeping the muzzle slightly raised toward the cleared fog, along the route my eye magic indicated.

Either the department store mage had been roaming all over the fucking place, or I was still too inexperienced at adjusting eye magic through tongue magic. All I could see were traces, not the mage.

At some point, though, the fog stopped clearing properly and merely thinned.

"They must be nearby."

"Are your eyes fucked?"

"Hamza, that's a bit harsh."

"Are you blind with your eyes open?"

"Wait a second."

Did Seoul's mages have some way to interfere with magical detection? Or was my magic simply not advanced enough?

Knowing nothing meant the conclusions I could draw were pitifully limited. Frustrated, I spent a while looking around at the mannequins in all their bizarre poses, visible through the thin fog.

As we squeezed our way between the mannequins, Hamza caught his foot on the leg of one lying on the floor.

"Whoa!"

"Be careful. If you fall and hurt yourself, we can't even take you to a hospital."

Se-jun caught Hamza by the shoulder and pulled him upright before he fell. Instead of thanking him, Hamza flapped both hands and kept tapping at the leg caught against his foot.

"That's not it!"

"Hey, damn it. Even if it's a mannequin, don't kick it like that. It feels shitty."

"It's a person...!"

This guy, Hamza...

Had he been kicking it while knowing it was a human leg?

I swallowed reflexively.

As Se-jun also glanced over and backed away, Na-in pushed back his hood, exposing his headset.

He knelt before the person whose leg Hamza had been tapping with his foot and waved the fog aside, trying to inspect the body with his own eyes.

A name submerged in the thin fog emerged from his mouth.

"Army Sergeant Bang Gi-seong."

"A sergeant?"

"Man..."

Se-jun and I both shook our heads and let out deep sighs.

Even I, an eighth-year reservist dragged in by the mobilization order, had nearly gone mad at how unfair life was. A sergeant hauled into this mess might already have lost his mind.

The pastor, however, clicked his tongue and looked at us as if we were pathetic.

"Hey, young men. What's with the sighing? Of course a soldier should defend his country. Sergeant Bang did his job. If he went to church, he'll be knocking on heaven's door."

Bull-fucking-shit.

I knelt beside the remains of Sergeant Bang, who would presumably be knocking endlessly on heaven's door.

His body was equipped in entirely standard fashion. MOPP Level 4, with chemical-protective clothing and gloves all in place.

A small radio resembling a walkie-talkie was clipped to his chest. His right hand still held a K2C1 rifle, as if he'd kept pulling the trigger until the moment he died.

Just one thing.

Really, only one thing was missing.

When I properly examined the body that had been obscured by the fog, a cold sensation seemed to crawl up my spine.

There was no head.

More precisely, it had caved in with some of its mass missing, as if someone had hammered it hard, kneaded it, then snapped a piece off. I didn't know what Sergeant Bang Gi-seong had looked like alive, but I was certain he'd been more handsome than this.

"Na-in, check with past sight."

"You're telling me to watch Sergeant Bang Gi-seong lose his head, Je-min."

"We need to find out whether it was an Amalgam or some other monster."

"Whew... Nothing can compare~ to the Lord Jesus Christ~."

Na-in comforted himself by singing a hymn, then went quiet, apparently activating past sight.

Meanwhile, Se-jun and the pastor, unable to contain their curiosity, started dry-heaving. Wise Hamza had only tapped the leg and avoided looking at the head, sparing himself the ordeal.

"Urgh, urp. Ugh..."

"Ah... To think that I, a precious soul chosen by the Lord God, must live with the sight of such horrific things."

"Everyone, quiet. Na-in will tell us."

It was just as I was carefully examining our surroundings through the thin fog.

KRZZT...

The static coming from the walkie-talkie grew harsher. At first, everyone ignored it as ordinary radio interference.

KRRZZT... KRZZT...

But as the static became harsher and more frequent, we all began to feel something strange.

Laughter?

There was an odd breathing sound, like someone stifling snickers before pulling a prank. I wasn't the only one who thought so.

When I discreetly turned my head, Se-jun, Hamza, and the pastor were all darting their eyes around and exchanging glances, apparently thinking the same thing.

That was when Hamza's gaze hardened.

"It's dangerous. Very. Oh, my God..."

Without hesitation, I tapped the kneeling Na-in's shoulder.

"Shithead, get up. Let's move."

But the connection came through before Na-in could return to his senses.

A rather lovely voice rang clearly through the walkie-talkie's static. It was a little hoarse, as if its owner had been through some hardship, but it was a playful woman's voice that would probably sound beautiful singing.

["Hellooo~?"]

The moment he heard that lilting tone, Se-jun's eyes narrowed in a very peculiar way behind his gas-mask lenses.

"I can tell. That's the voice of a woman who's flaunted her natural beauty and coasted through her whole fucking life."

"This bastard's just making up whatever bullshit he wants because he's jealous."

"Jealous? Hmph. The pretty girl I dream of turning into isn't some flirtatious wench like that. She's a little lady so cute and lovable that anyone would want to give her a piece of candy and pat her head. I hope you won't misunderstand, Je-min."

Right now, the man named Lee Se-jun standing beside me scared me more than the voice coming from the walkie-talkie.

Thanks to him, my threshold for fear and disgust shot sky-high, making the woman on the radio feel insignificant by comparison. That was when she started chuckling.

["That soldier boy over there has a real talent for saying incredibly disgusting things with a straight face~."]

"How dare you denounce a person's pure, modest wish as disgusting...!"

["Anyway. You guys all seem to be mages, so why'd you become soldiers~? Mages should stick together~."]

Se-jun was furious, but none of the Supreme Mages took his side.

Instead, perhaps because the Seoul mage seemed friendlier than expected, the pastor cleared his throat and stepped toward the walkie-talkie.

"Young lady, may I ask your name? You seem surprisingly open to conversation. I'm not some weirdo. I'm Pastor Park Yo-han, and I devote myself to ministering at a newly founded church. If you don't mind, may I share the Lord's word with you?"

["Mister, are you insane?"]

"Yes, I understand. In times like these, seeking the Lord's word can be difficult. But..."

["Oh, fuck off. I don't go to church. Are you seriously crazy?"]

"Now, now. Young lady, keep this up and Satan will possess you. You'll be in serious trouble!"

This wasn't looking good.

I quietly moved beside Hamza.

He must have sensed negotiations were about to fall apart too, because the two of us naturally ended up shoulder to shoulder.

["Still, you guys have so much personality. You're pretty entertaining~."]

"Huh?"

["Want to travel together? You're different from those nasty soldiers who've trapped everyone in Seoul and want to kill them all. You're mages. Right~?"]

For a moment, I wondered whether I, the manly Baek Je-min, had found a chance to leave my right hand behind and welcome a new lover in this hell.

Then Na-in, who had been meticulously investigating Sergeant Bang Gi-seong's final moments through past sight, opened his eyes wide and snatched up the walkie-talkie.

"The military frequency."

["Hm?"]

"I know how you got it, you demonic bastard."

A brief silence followed. Everyone seemed flustered, realizing negotiations had collapsed.

But standing near Na-in, I guessed he had some reason. It had been a very long time since I'd seen him this enraged.

He hadn't been this angry since monk Wonhaeng restored his mental strength with Mantra Recitation and he raged that the monk had robbed him of a trial bestowed by the Lord.

After that short silence, the voice on the walkie-talkie burst into laughter.

The woman laughed for a long time before returning with a chilling reply.

["You're an eye user."]

CLICK.

The walkie-talkie went dead.

Na-in immediately hurled it to the floor and stomped on it.

CRUNCH!

His utter lack of hesitation left even the pastor at a loss.

"What happened, Na-in? Why all of a sudden..."

"That demonic bitch grafts herself onto people's heads and plunders them."

"...?"

As we blinked, wondering whether we'd misheard, Na-in spoke with his eyes wide from shock, rage, and fear.

"Dubai chewy humans. She latches onto people's heads like those demonic bastards. That's one of her spells."

* * *

RAT-TAT-TAT...

Gunfire echoed.

Inside the department store, with its lofty ceilings and wide-open spaces, the shots bounced and reverberated so much that it was hard to pinpoint their source.

But we Supreme Mages were moving toward those faint echoes.

Time passed with every step over the broken glass, and with every passing moment, sobbing screams rang out.

"Aaaaagh..."

Whenever Na-in heard them, he spoke in short, clear phrases, unlike his usual self.

"Human. Dead."

Opening the way at the front was my job.

Target, human, five minutes, route.

I climbed the stopped escalator, following the trail of the Korean soldiers who would have fled the Seoul mage.

As we followed the cleared fog, the distinctive signal tone of a walkie-talkie whispered coldly from somewhere beyond the fog-filled areas.

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP.

—Engaging. Please respond...

That voice wasn't communicating. It was the final moan of someone left alone. Gasping in terror, barely swallowing saliva and sobs, it belonged not to a soldier but to a young kid thrust before fear.

—Unable to engage...

CLANG, CLANG, CLANG, CLANG.

Our pounding footsteps shook the department store as we climbed the escalator.

I rolled my tongue inside my mouth and changed my vision.

Target, department store mage, five minutes, route.

The view split in two: places where the fog swirled and cleared, and places where it lay thick.

The department store's third floor.

Beyond a display counter where the fog was starting to clear, I saw a moving mass of concrete among the scattered mannequins.

As if realizing I'd seen it, the mass of concrete was hurled to the floor with a deafening crash.

Amid the dust cloud rising from the shattered concrete, a woman covered in dust and blood was waving wildly at us.

With a gun in her hand.

"Fuck."

I instantly clenched my left fist and slammed it into the escalator railing.

BANG!

I hit hard. My bones rang, and the burning pain from my lingering injury sliced all the way up to my shoulder.

At the same time, loud gunshots rang out clearly.

This time, something whistled through the air close beside us.

All the Supreme Mages, terrified or jolted by the sound, seemed to crouch awkwardly.

But crouching in the middle of an escalator would only get us all killed.

Reading my judgment, Na-in shouted something and began guiding the others.

And I, to stop the woman before me—the Seoul mage—slammed my left hand into the escalator railing again and again, trying to keep my eyes wide open for as long as possible.

BANG!

But the woman, who had missed because she'd fired from such a strange position, kept flicking her tongue even as she faltered.

BANG!

My eyes were trying to close.

Just before my eyelids dropped of their own accord, I threw myself aside.

Blink.