Chapter 56 - I Hear Your Voice

Only after catching our breath could we look around inside the church.

We hadn't noticed while running for our lives, but this church was far larger and wealthier than we'd expected. And since Seoul had been shrouded in fog for so long, several crosses had been erected outside to keep people from losing their way even in the thick mist.

That was what the cross we'd glimpsed on our way in was for.

When I looked outside again, I saw countless corpses strewn around the cross standing alone below the steps. I'd have plenty of opportunities to smell dead Amalgams in the future; I didn't feel like savoring the stench already, so I shut the door.

Now that I looked properly, the room we'd rushed into seemed to be a multipurpose room, not a sanctuary. Apart from the rather large cross hanging inside, the interior was plain and ordinary, unlike the building's exterior.

The thick fog concealed it, but the church's outer walls were clad in smooth glass windows. Enough to make me idly wonder whether the whole place had glittered with reflected sunlight on sunny days.

When I returned from checking outside and headed farther into the multipurpose room, Hamza and Lee Se-jun, who had been waiting, began carrying benches without a word.

"Heave-ho. Heave-ho."

"Let's block it up quickly and get some rest!"

Only after barricading the door with benches did we breathe a sigh of relief.

I had no idea how far we'd sprinted from Olympic Park. Running frantically had left us drenched in sweat, and the damp, humid fog kept our clothes from drying properly.

At least the fog was thinner in the multipurpose room with the cross, making it easier to breathe.

Time to take off the gas mask I'd put on to check outside. I pulled it up in one motion, gripped it in my left hand, set down my backpack, and plopped onto the floor.

Everyone else was just as exhausted.

The pastor knelt before the cross, hands neatly clasped in prayer, while Shin Na-in knelt behind him, murmuring responses. Basically, the pastor said something or other and Na-in said amen.

"We pray in gratitude for the Lord's work in guiding us to Your house. Lord, Lord, have mercy on us."

"Christ, Christ, have mercy on us."

Seeing them, Hamza quietly headed into a corner and rummaged through his backpack for a compass.

Seoul might be covered in fog, but apparently north, south, east, and west were still where they'd always been. Having roughly worked out his bearings, he turned and began prostrating himself.

"God is greatest. I bear witness that there is no god but God..."

I, Baek Je-min, had absolutely no religious prejudices, but the very first line of Hamza's prayer made me flinch.

Fortunately, Hamza wasn't brave enough to walk around strapped with explosives, so I quickly relaxed. I knew this was an ugly prejudice, but I thought someone merrily picking his way through monsters deserved a little understanding too.

I shuffled my butt along the floor, subtly putting some distance between Hamza and me.

Then I rummaged through my backpack and took out a packet of hardtack I'd been saving. My right palm still stung and burned, but hunger took priority.

RIP.

Tearing open the packet and popping one into my mouth made life worth living again. Crunching hardtack was for amateurs. I rested mine on my tongue and let my saliva slowly dissolve it.

Pro tip: let hardtack melt in your mouth and it's reasonably sweet and perfectly edible. No need for the little sugar candies that come with it.

SUCK, SUCK, SUCK, SUCK, SUCK...

After I'd spent a while sucking on my hardtack like a piece of candy, I felt a peculiar stare. I turned to find Lee Se-jun had stopped halfway through opening his own packet and was looking at me in disgust.

"What?"

"Je-min, who sucks on hardtack?"

"That's how you're supposed to eat it. Makes it last longer. It's a pro tip. Instead of crunching yours up, suck on them one at a time and you'll probably stay full longer."

"Gross. You're really showing your age."

"Listen, old man Se-jun. I look younger than you."

This little punk looked older than me, and he was attacking my age?

Still, being told I was showing my age just by eating hardtack felt strange.

Come to think of it, didn't today's active-duty soldiers hardly eat the stuff? Even back in my day, anyone who went out of his way to eat that shit was a weirdo.

Apparently things had gone a step further now, and they barely even issued it anymore. That was why we'd been able to bring so much along. Life really was unpredictable.

A few pieces of hardtack and another sip from my canteen, and I finally felt alive again.

Having soothed their mental exhaustion in their own ways, the Supreme Mages were gathering around me one by one.

The pastor unfolded one of the remaining folding chairs and sat down. Na-in stood blankly, brushing off various parts of his rain poncho. Hamza took a few hand warmers from his backpack, while Se-jun chewed hardtack by the handful.

Everyone had removed their gas masks and was either holding them or hanging them over their forearms.

"Baek Je-min, how are things outside?"

"I'm not sensing anything unusual. Maybe their eye mage is scanning the area too?"

My answer to the pastor's worried question came immediately.

All of us except Hamza were armed with guns, and we'd fired like mad to reach this church. Without that firepower, we'd never have broken through; sheer numbers would have swallowed us. That gave me reason to infer that the Seoul mages' firepower was somewhat limited.

Given the Republic of Korea's gun laws, the odds of them having firearms were extremely low.

If they did, they could only have looted them from military bases in Seoul.

So I suspected that rather than risk scouting in person, they generally had an eye mage investigate with something like clairvoyance whenever something unusual happened.

They probably distributed sorcery phones to survivors to find out about those unusual occurrences.

When I explained my thoughts, the pastor nodded calmly in agreement.

"That certainly sounds plausible. The question is whether we can detect it. Baek Je-min, Shin Na-in, Lee Se-jun—if someone using eye magic scans us, would you be able to feel it?"

"Now that we know the effects of alteration-type holy-war arts vary with the highest stage attained, I cannot guarantee it."

Na-in, whose level of advancement was among the lowest in our group, offered a cautious assessment.

Taking off his headset, he laid out his thoughts point by point.

"Considering how the burden of the holy-war arts decreases as the Lord's vapor thickens, the devil's spawn who have survived in Seoul for so long will surpass us in using them. However, since they have not immediately pinpointed us, I suspect there is a limit to how long they can keep watching, or to the magnification... for example, how closely they can look."

"Na-in, can't you hear anything?"

"Seoul is extremely noisy. It's difficult to distinguish individual sounds."

Without a clear idea of the enemy, the limits of Na-in's detection abilities were readily apparent.

He had reached Eye, Stage One and Ear, Stage Two.

This lunatic's Eye, Stage One let him see into the past, no more than a few hours back. Ear, Stage One let him hear human thoughts, and Ear, Stage Two let him hear monsters' thoughts.

His detection abilities were so peerless that they made us overlook his countless character flaws, but he was a little less clearly useful in actual combat.

Unlike Se-jun, who used his exceptional physical capabilities to deliver powerful firepower, Na-in did his best to back us up without hand signals or speech. Of course, he was by no means lacking as a detector, but there was no denying he lacked something decisive.

That was when Hamza handed me a hand warmer.

"Here, Je-min. You've been sweating a lot, and it's damp here. You might get cold pretty quickly."

"Uh... thanks."

I turned to see Se-jun already kneading one.

After giving the pastor and Na-in one each, Hamza offered his opinion.

"They probably won't immediately pursue us or try to make contact."

"Why? The Seoul mages hate soldiers."

Even Kang A-reum, a relatively friendly Seoul mage, had been utterly indifferent to news of the Korean soldiers murdered by Jeong Na-ri, the Dubai Chewy Witch.

It wouldn't be strange to assume that most people in Seoul shuddered with hatred at the mere mention of the military or government. So the claim that Seoul mages who'd mistaken us for soldiers wouldn't pursue us didn't add up.

Then Hamza offered a shift in perspective I hadn't considered.

"Our Aphorism—"

"Supreme Mages."

"Look at the Supreme Mages objectively. We all wear stinking ponchos and gas masks over combat uniforms or civilian clothes, carry guns, and haul military gear around. We have bombs. We use magic. And we come through shooting monsters dead or breaking through them."

Hamza humbly accepted my correction and tried to persuade us, smoothly adopting the name Supreme Mages.

"The people in Seoul will be shocked too. Wow, those guys are just breaking through hordes of monsters? They're shooting? They've got loads of bullets? Looks like they're using magic too—what do we do?"

"Speaking of which, how much ammunition do we have left?"

"Eighteen hundred rounds."

We really had used a lot.

Accounting for the ammunition we'd looted from the soldiers' bodies at the department store near Jangji Station, we'd used close to six hundred rounds this time. No wonder my barrel had gotten so hot.

Since it had occurred to me, I decided to listen while cleaning my gun. I removed the magazine, cleared the round from the chamber, and began disassembling it.

Time was precious in an environment this extreme.

Seeing me pull out the bolt assembly and pick up a cleaning rod, the pastor, Na-in, and Se-jun began cleaning their own weapons too. I fitted an oiled patch onto the rod and looked at Hamza as I wiped powder residue from the barrel.

"So the Seoul mages won't be able to attack us right away either?"

"I think they'll watch and follow us. They hate soldiers, after all."

"Our Muslim has a point."

Pastor Park Yo-han grunted as he cautiously examined his K2. He was being very careful not to pinch his fingers in the hinge.

"Mages gain more by hunting other mages. We know that too, don't we? I don't know how many survivors remain in Seoul, but they must have developed their own rivalries and political positions. If mages appear who have nothing to do with Seoul's internal affairs, whom they can kill without damaging their reputations here, I think they're likely to target them just to strengthen their own forces. We're in a very dangerous position."

"Pastor, that's awfully cynical. Don't you have to live in a bit of a rose-colored fantasy to become a pastor?"

Se-jun swallowed his hardtack and asked, sounding surprised.

The pastor scowled sharply at his remark, immediately irritated.

"You brat. It's only been a day or two since we saw that witch at the department store. If you've already forgotten, that's dementia. Dementia."

"That's the problem."

Hamza chimed in at just the right moment, fiddling with the turban beneath his hood.

"We don't know what kind of mage might come. We know too few kinds of magic. We should at least exchange the magic we know to broaden our range."

"We've got guns instead."

I tapped the AR-15 that First Lieutenant Shin Han-gi had so beautifully customized for me, though it was currently disassembled for cleaning.

Having a gun made an enormous difference. I didn't know what other magic would be like, but if it merely enhanced physical abilities, guns could make up for those limitations.

Then something extraordinary happened.

"Our Muslim is right."

"Pastor?"

Pastor Park Yo-han stroked the bluish stubble on his chin as he spoke.

He was supporting Hamza's argument. A Protestant pastor taking a Muslim's side? I blinked at this utterly unprecedented development, and the pastor adjusted his glasses and clicked his tongue.

"It's not as if we're talking about faith. What's with that look just because I agreed with an obvious point?"

"So what's your reasoning?"

"The other side will be wary of guns too. Magic may have all sorts of bizarre tricks. Guns, by comparison, are extremely powerful and straightforward, but everyone knows how dangerous they are, whether they're from Seoul or not."

Having finished cleaning, the pastor spoke as he reassembled his K2.

"Just like that department-store witch tore up concrete to use as a shield, they'll have some way of dealing with firearms, even if they use different branches of magic. There may be gun restrictions, but it's not as if the soldiers and police were unarmed, and some of them must have acquired guns. Of course they'd have thought about it. Eye mages or ear mages could detect our intent to attack and help their people stay concealed or behind cover, or make a racket to lure monsters in and force us to waste ammunition."

"Lure..."

Na-in narrowed his eyes. He'd apparently realized something.

Perhaps knowing Na-in had heard his thoughts, the pastor gave a faint chuckle and looked at us. Everyone caught his attitude: since the thought was already out, he might as well share it.

"They must have pulled similar tricks at the first cordon. I suspect the Seoul mages are responsible for monsters continually gathering at the front and attacking all along the first cordon. They're dividing the army's attention. Their aim wouldn't be to leave alongside the monsters, but to slip out unnoticed."

"Even if they can block the major roads and key cities, how are they covering the hills and surrounding areas?"

"Probably using drones."

Se-jun, who knew the most about military affairs, answered with a yawn.

"Anyway, they said they were abolishing Drone Command, but it's still around. All that effort to protect those brassholes' cushy jobs. They could've just approved my career-service application."

"Come to think of it, there's all this fuss about shortages of officers and NCOs these days. Why did you fail career-service selection, Se-jun?"

At that instant, Na-in shot me a resentful look.

Oops!

Regretting the question immediately, I waved my hands.

"No, don't tell me. You don't have to."

"Huh? Well, it's nothing much..."

"Then all the more reason not to tell me."

I was more than ninety percent certain he'd failed the screening because he'd babbled something like, Oh, I wanna turn into a cute girl, on a psychological questionnaire or to a counselor.

I resolved never to be curious about Lee Se-jun, the twenty-four-year-old man and former short-service staff sergeant, again.

For my own sake, if nobody else's.

"Anyway."

I tucked the hand warmer, now warm from kneading, against my chest, which had begun to cool.

Then I took out the Magic Crash Course booklet in its place.

"The point is, if we rely entirely on guns, enemies prepared for them could turn the tables and wreck us."

If guns alone weren't enough, we'd have to learn, wouldn't we?

Catching my obvious intent, Na-in reassembled the gun he'd laid on the bench, slung it over his shoulder, and dropped into a cross-legged seat.

"May the alteration-type holy-war arts guide my path."

Se-jun rubbed the gun oil off his hands onto his rain poncho.

"Let's work toward our dreams."

"What about you, Hamza? Pastor?"

"I'll pass."

The pastor remained skeptical about learning alteration-type magic.

That didn't mean he simply stared at his Bible all day, though. He accepted the map Hamza had brought, spread it on a bench, and examined it.

"I'll consider whether we should take the alleys or a major road, so you boys go ahead. You, Muslim, just recite your prayers. If you start learning alteration-type magic now, you might only weaken your doctrinal magic. Then we all die. Understand?"

"I'd like to be able to run away faster too. I want to learn the heart branch."

"That's why I'm telling you not to. You might run off on your own if you learn it."

I admired the pastor's foresight, even as I thought, Just as I suspected.

Hamza, you fucking bastard. I knew it.

You're sticking with doctrinal magic for life.

* * *

April 18, 2028, 10:12 p.m.

Safely protected by the barricade inside the multipurpose room, we spent some time resting and learning magic for a change.

Though there was some dry heaving and vomiting along the way.

In the end, each of us made meaningful progress.

Thanks to my rambling on about monk Cheong-hwi and the pastor's discussions of numerology, as well as Anderson Mackenford's long, long occult lectures, Se-jun and Na-in were able to advance too.

Even if their eyes made it painfully clear they found it fucking boring and awful.

I considered reviewing it all myself as I explained, but the thought of memorizing that entire endless discussion terrified me too, so I decided to cut it down a bit.

These were the results achieved by our alteration-type trio.

"Ear, Stage Three. This is..."

"What? What is it?"

"... I think they're the dead. Unlike living voices, they sound like echoes from far away. There's no life in them."

"Are you talking with them in real time?"

"No. The death cries they left behind. Their final thoughts as they died..."

Na-in had acquired Ear, Stage Three—presumably [Hearing the Death Cries of the Dead].

Normally, Na-in spoke crisply and decisively, but this time he kept trailing off. Eventually he put his headset back on, turned up the volume, and began singing a brave, bright, lively children's hymn.

"March forth, the Lord's army~. Shout! Brave army!"

He'd feel better after singing for a while.

I turned away, ignoring him, and saw Se-jun making a huge fuss.

"So this is the hand branch... Wow. Haven't I gotten ridiculously strong?"

Se-jun had acquired Hand Branch, Stage One, [Blood of the Right Hand].

I'd generously shared everything I'd realized while fighting our way here, allowing him to understand just how incredible Blood of the Right Hand was. It was knowledge his usual dull brain could never have reached on its own, so his amazement showed no sign of ending.

Already he was bobbing his shoulders and throwing mock jabs, swishing his fists through the air.

If that were all you saw, you'd feel pleased, as though watching an ambitious man delighted by his achievements and progress.

But there was the new branch of magic that I, Baek Je-min, had awakened.

Its horrible drawback whispered to me: whenever I wasn't concentrating, other people's thoughts came through randomly, completely unfiltered.

"Wow. If I just swing my fists while my right hand's bleeding, I could beat the crap out of everything!"

'I'd be just like a magical girl!'

"Hey, what the fuck was that pointless bit at the end?"

"Huh? What pointless bit?"

"Never mind. Forget it."

'Je-min's acting weird. Is he already jealous of my youth and ambitious dream?'

SMACK.

I covered my face with my palm and groaned.

Ear Branch, Stage One. Hearing sounds.

My side effect was hearing the thoughts of someone I really, really didn't want to hear.

And my first-stage ear magic was similar to Na-in's, but slightly different. When I concentrated, I heard something other than people's thoughts. You could call it a sound that distinguished hostility from goodwill.

From people who bore me no hostility, I heard quiet water, like a still surface. From people who were hostile toward me, I heard a gently babbling stream.

That let me discover who disliked me most.

Lee. Se. Jun.

The sound of that babbling stream told me instinctively.

I wondered whether he had any reason to dislike me. The moment I stopped using the magic, I learned why.

'It's always the person who least wants to become a girl who gets transformed... Je-min is far too dangerous a rival.'

SMACK.

Groaning inwardly, I thought:

Shin Na-in.

Had you been living with this kind of thing all along?

For today, just for this moment...

I decided to temporarily forget his disgraceful title of pants-shitting fanatic.