Chapter 71 - A Cheerful Heart

Go Ryeo-ha was a far friendlier mage than we had expected. She pulled her mask back up, smiled with her eyes, and beckoned with her right hand.

"You must've had a really hard time breaking through Olympic Bridge without the fog, right? Don't worry about the way there. I've cleared out plenty of them, so we'll be fine."

"Such firm faith in a young lady. Do you go to church, by any chance?"

"Ahaha. Church isn't really for me."

Seeing her answer with a smile even when the pastor tried to convert her, I wondered if she ranked in the top one percent of Seoul mages for personality. As if that weren't enough, she brushed the bloodstains off her clothes with her gloves and even offered, in a spirited voice:

"I'll show you the way. Only use your guns when you're in real danger, though. They come swarming."

With that, she turned sharply and strode confidently ahead.

As a man, I, Baek Je-min, decided to be completely honest with myself, without a single lie.

This was fucking great. Holy shit.

Watching her walk through this bleak, dreary fog, her ponytail swaying with stray hairs sticking out of it, made the corners of my mouth twitch all on their own. My cheeks were rising at this breath of freshness I hadn't encountered once in the past seven days.

But I wasn't watching Go Ryeo-ha just because she was pretty.

Grinning like an idiot aside, I glanced sidelong at Shin Na-in and raised my right hand in an OK sign. It was to establish telepathic contact through Stage One ear magic, [Mind Reading]. As perceptive as an ear mage should be, he caught my meaning.

'I'm listening, Je-min.'

'What level is Go Ryeo-ha?'

'I can't hear her. If she's learned alteration-type magic, she's at least Stage Four in one branch. Given how she killed that Amalgam with those strange gloves earlier, she may have some other defensive art.'

Stage Four. For a mage who practiced alteration-type magic, those were weighty words.

Eyes, ears, heart, hands, tongue.

Even the ear branch, which looked like the shittiest of the lot, boasted overwhelming efficiency when it came to Mind Reading and identifying monsters. What Stage Four might do for the heart branch, with its supreme efficiency, or the eye branch, with its supreme impact, was beyond imagining.

Of course, I was a bastard driven by instinct. I admit that even during this telepathic exchange, my gaze kept fixing on the shapely legs inside Go Ryeo-ha's tracksuit pants.

But lust wasn't my only desire as a man. Drawing on the burning curiosity of Baek Je-min, the man who dreamed of becoming an archmage, I barely managed to squeeze my eyes shut and ask:

'Shin Na-in. Do you think she's an ear mage?'

'... It's hard to say.'

After a moment's deliberation, I made my decision, even as I awkwardly lowered myself because my body was in lust's grip. It was a moving victory: the reason of Baek Je-min the human had overcome the lust of Baek Je-min the animal.

'Shitpants. Even if you detect something, keep it between us and don't react.'

'Wouldn't that destroy our trust with Ms. Go?'

'However friendly she is, she's still a Seoul mage. And if she uses a sorcery phone, she's probably had contact with the Society of 66. If she's an ear mage at a higher level than us, all our information will leak straight out, so there's no point meeting her to talk. We'd hand over whatever information she wanted and end up empty husks. Then we'd have a hard time resisting even if she suddenly turned hostile. We can't overlook how excessively abstract Hamza's doctrinal magic is, either.'

'We need to determine whether she's an ear mage at a higher level than us, advanced in some other branch, or neither of those and blocking ear magic with some strange trick. If we can make that judgment, our best option is to steer things into a fight.'

'I'll signal that heathen heretic.'

Saying that, Shin Na-in gently punched Hamza in the chest.

THUMP! THUMP!

"Ack!"

Hamza trembled and glared at Shin Na-in after being punched without warning, but Na-in seized the moment to whisper something to him. Hamza nodded reluctantly.

The other Supreme Mages looked back at the two of them, wondering what they were doing.

"Na-in. What are you doing?"

"Spreading the gospel."

"Oh! Come to think of it, yes. There's that saying about reading scripture into a cow's ear. It means even a cow will believe in the Lord if it hears the gospel."

"Je-min, is that really what it means?"

Lee Se-jun asked me doubtfully, so I gave him an honest answer.

"I don't know either. The pastor must be right."

While Shin Na-in, Hamza, and I were conspiring, Go Ryeo-ha, a few steps ahead, abruptly turned back toward us. Blinking above her mask, she raised a hand and waved it about.

"Is something going on, everyone?"

"No. Just something for us men to discuss."

"Hmm."

She looked suspicious. But it was precisely the sort of suspicion where you didn't have enough evidence, or even enough grounds for suspicion, to object. She raised her eyebrows at us, then returned her attention to leading the way.

And we Supreme Mages dutifully trailed after her.

Glancing back out of the corner of my eye, I saw Shin Na-in discreetly switch his selector to safe. Hamza's eyes darted anxiously about.

The pastor, oblivious, kept his muzzle raised and watched every direction. Lee Se-jun trudged after us with his brow furrowed, apparently unhappy about something.

Since the three Supreme Mages with detection abilities—Shin Na-in, Hamza, and I—were all slacking off together, all that remained was to watch Go Ryeo-ha's actions.

After we'd walked for several minutes, Shin Na-in's telepathy reached me.

'Heads. Two.'

The fog had thickened just then, too. Visibility was about fifty meters.

Go Ryeo-ha stopped her confident advance. I wondered if she'd detected them with ear magic, but I couldn't be certain yet. A Seoul mage would also know that monsters swarmed wherever the fog was thick.

I was narrowing my eyes, watching her through my gas-mask lenses, when it happened.

She turned toward us from where she'd stopped and gently waved, smiling with her eyes as if to reassure us, like an older sister looking after a young nephew.

"Wait here."

Shapes appeared beyond the pale fog. Two Amalgams, each of which had devoured more than a dozen people.

The way they ran with their arms hanging limp made it clear they were weakened by the fog. Yet of their dozen-odd pairs of arms, two pairs were wriggling their fingers in rippling motions.

Was that how they coped with their arms going numb?

I found myself more interested in the mechanism by which the fog weakened Amalgams. Before long, I realized paying attention to the Amalgams rather than Go Ryeo-ha had been the better choice.

Something seized a hand!

Unlike the limply dangling arms, one Amalgam hand that had somehow kept wriggling twisted grotesquely, as though someone had grabbed it tight.

The hand crumpled like a pig's hoof, and with a crushing sound, the imprint of a palm appeared. That was when a scream erupted from the single torn-open mouth beneath the jumble of faces.

"Aaaaaagh..."

Scream or no scream, the Amalgam's hand was ripped clean off.

My grandmother had been very good at wringing chickens' necks while she was alive, but this Amalgam's wrist was butchered with far greater professionalism.

CRACK!

Something invisible yanked one of the Amalgam's hands off in a single motion. It was such a beautiful extraction that torn tendons dangled from it. The neatly pulled-out bundles of nerves and blood vessels even looked like crabmeat slipped cleanly from its shell.

SPLAT!

The hand was flung to the ground.

The pastor hastily placed a finger on his trigger at the sight, but Shin Na-in silently caught his hand. They seemed to exchange an unspoken conversation. The pastor quietly lowered his muzzle and backed away from Go Ryeo-ha.

Then, in the instant her ponytail swung and briefly tapped her cropped puffer jacket, my eyes lost Go Ryeo-ha.

My ears heard her instead.

BAAANG!!!

The back of an Amalgam's head burst with a pattering sound. One punch swept its head away, spilling the disgusting pus inside. The headless Amalgam split apart and flew off like a cabbage with its root cut away.

The corpses that had been forcibly stuck together by their fused heads separated only once those heads were gone.

The other one was already crawling along the ground with all its legs torn out. As though someone had snapped the legs off an ant, the Amalgam had lost every one of its dozen-odd pairs. It writhed, pouring overlapping cries from its single mouth.

"Waaah, go away, get off, I can't kill you..."

It was still a monster. Despite those words, it doggedly crept toward her, stretching its melted faces like an amoeba.

Go Ryeo-ha stared down at the legless Amalgam, then began turning her gloves this way and that. The Amalgam writhed and crawled toward her while she stood before it examining her old, worn-out gloves.

Go Ryeo-ha clenched her fist tightly.

"What a waste."

With those words, she strode toward it, raised her foot over its head, and stomped down with all her strength.

CRUNCH!

And that was how the two Amalgams died.

Only then did Go Ryeo-ha turn toward us and smile with her eyes.

"I'll let you gentlemen off just this once."

I smacked my lips a few times. They had gone slightly dry.

Having been caught lying more than once or twice, I recognized it immediately. That peculiar reaction—there was no doubt about it.

She'd noticed that we'd deliberately abandoned detection duty.

Now that our intentions were exposed, there was only one option. Making excuses and playing dumb to the bitter end wasn't my style. When caught lying, wasn't taking your beating proudly the truly manly thing to do?

Of course, I prepared to crush my tongue between my teeth in case I really did get beaten. If necessary, I'd use Eye, Stage Two to freeze her, then shoot her dead.

It was plain as day that one blow from that fist would kill me with my brains spilling out, so I steeled myself and asked:

"Ms. Go. Have you learned ear magic?"

"What? ... Ohh."

She blinked, then burst out laughing behind her mask. She laughed for a long time, shaking off her bloodied right hand, before looking at us with laughter still filling her eyes.

"Maybe it's because you're innocent outsiders, but you're completely obvious. You don't need to be an ear mage to tell, you know?"

"We're obvious?"

"Of course. People here don't take that long when they betray someone."

At that moment, I felt a subtle pressure against my neck.

My heart thumped. My pulse struck an invisible touch. Something alien was gently pressing in from beyond my fatigues and rain poncho, against my springy aorta and soft skin.

It pressed, then pressed again.

Watching me, Go Ryeo-ha made a V with the right hand she'd been shaking off, flexed the fingers like pincers, and giggled.

The distance between us was unmistakable. At the very least, it was more than fifteen paces. Normally, it would have been natural to dismiss that gesture as unrelated.

But each time her index and middle fingers bent, the pressure on the back of my neck grew stronger. It kept squeezing...

She seemed to be pressing repeatedly to enjoy the soft, springy sensation, as though playing with a cat's paw pads. The problem was that it wasn't a cat's paw she was pressing, but the artery hidden inside my neck.

I raised a hand to knock away the invisible pressure, but she smiled with her eyes and flexed those two fingers once more.

The grip tightened sharply!

The jolt that hit me was the same one I'd felt when I'd had too much fucking caffeine and my shoulders seized up.

Shin Na-in. As awful as it was right now, I desperately needed to talk to Shin Na-in.

'Je-min.'

'What's Hamza saying?'

'He says we're not in danger yet.'

'Is that fucking angel slacking off on the job?'

As I hurled every curse imaginable inside my head, the pressure on the back of my neck suddenly vanished.

"So, are you coming with me? Or are we splitting up here?"

"And if we split up?"

"Squishy, squishy~."

Resting her left hand casually on her waist, Go Ryeo-ha raised her right hand and flexed it like pincers again. The result came back as pressure on my neck.

The difference was that this time, it wasn't fingers checking my pulse. I instinctively knew that the same grip that had twisted off the Amalgam's hand was now resting gently on the back of my neck.

It squeezed steadily...

That was when she took out her sorcery phone with her left hand. Still masked, she waved it energetically, giggling with smiling eyes.

"If you soldier gentlemen aren't going to talk to me, I don't really have a reason to keep you alive. The Society of 66. Do you still not know about them?"

"Hey! Hamza! You said we weren't in danger!"

Unable to take it anymore, I shouted, and Hamza answered meekly.

"H-he says we're still okay... Um... And..."

"And what!"

"Honestly, we picked the fight first..."

"Haa..."

Did this bastard Hamza not understand connections and favors? All he had to do was take my side a little, but he insisted on deciding who was right and wrong.

She was Stage Four, for fuck's sake. Eye candy aside, we had to size up our chances! We could get her remains! It'd be good if I leveled up!

Help me out here!!!

But even now, Aphorism seemed trapped by commonplace worldly morality and ethics, looking at me like I was trash. Especially the pastor.

"Je-min. Let's go. You deserve a good scolding."

* * *

A short while later, Aphorism and Go Ryeo-ha reached a dramatic compromise.

They agreed to make me, Supreme Mage Baek Je-min, a hostage.

As a result of that compromise, an invisible hand rested on the back of my neck, kneading it. The problem was that this touch was extraordinarily rough, bringing with it the pain of my blood vessels being pummeled open as though during a meridian massage.

I had no choice but to scream as I followed her with quick little steps.

"Aagh, ack..."

"Mr. Soldier, you're much softer than I expected. Your blood vessels are so springy, too. Squishy, squishy."

Go Ryeo-ha really was a Seoul mage after all. This lunatic was fondling a person's blood vessels because she liked how they felt when she pressed them.

Our fucking Aphorism, which had sold out Supreme Mage Baek Je-min, watched the scene warmly, as if it were a lovely sight.

"Baek Je-min, you brought this beating on yourself. What do you expect us to do?"

"Je-min. Honestly, that was hideously ugly of you. Falling for the devil's temptation to covet the remains of a perfectly innocent holy warrior. Let's pray together for a while."

"Treat the good with goodness. I think that holds true wherever you go."

Lee Se-jun was the only one on my side. Bringing up the rear with his arms crossed, he poured out reasonable, valid arguments.

"Everyone's blaming Je-min, but I think we should value his vigilance instead. That woman, Go Ryeo-ha, specifically targeted Je-min, an eye mage, rather than any of the others. She instantly identified the most threatening mage, the one who could immobilize her if necessary, and took him hostage. That tells me she's not someone we can judge lightly."

"Huh? Since when does Se-jun say such clever things?"

"It's not cleverness. It's caution. Just look at her. From that unfamiliar technique that fired little flames, to the precision with which she easily subdued Je-min and dispatched those monsters. In terms of combat strength alone, we might struggle against her even if we all attacked together. Entrusting Je-min's safety to someone like that puts us at an enormous disadvantage."

Every word was correct. Enough to make even Shin Na-in, who'd been reproaching me moments earlier, flinch. I too would have seen Se-jun in a new light, if the Stage One ear-magic penalty hadn't been active right now.

'As if being strong and wielding unique magic weren't enough, she's beautiful too. I can't even imagine how fucking easy she's had it in life.'

Shin Na-in's newfound regard for Se-jun instantly turned venomous. My neck ached too, not because of the invisible grip, but because of Lee Se-jun. It ached so much that I finally couldn't help asking:

"Se-jun. Come to think of it, why the hell is your dream to become some gender-swapped pretty girl?"

There was more than one way to coast through life. You could go back in time and invest in Bitcoin, read the future and win at gambling, or at the very least become a ridiculously handsome man and conquer show business. Why insist on becoming a gender-swapped pretty girl?

Nobody said anything, but I could feel them all pricking up their ears and wondering.

Go Ryeo-ha stopped walking too, turned toward us, and blinked.

"What's gender swapping?"

"Ah..."

So that was where her questions started.

I didn't have the courage to explain it and fumbled my words. The others in Aphorism seemed to feel the same, falling speechless and looking away. Only Lee Se-jun spoke, sinking into memories with bitterness in his eyes.

What he brought up was less a fond memory than a cold, heavy regret.

"Children left at orphanages, you see, learn first that love isn't given unconditionally. Even the sponsors prefer looking at pretty, cute children."

With those words, Lee Se-jun uncrossed his arms.

"That's all."

That softened Shin Na-in's venomous gaze a little. He even slowed down to walk beside Se-jun, patting his arm as he spoke.

"I wasn't able to hear the deepest part of your heart, Se-jun. I'm ashamed of myself."

"Na-in. Do you finally understand?"

"Of course. The unconditional love you long for—Jesus gives it freely. Come with me."

"Haa... Na-in! With Jesus, you have to go to church!"

"Na-in, try to comfort Se-jun properly. Now I see it. His heart must be empty for such strange ideas to have crept in."

"Yes, Pastor."

"Se-jun, Allah also promises paradise with seventy-two virgins."

"No! I want to become one!"

While Aphorism strengthened its bonds however the hell it pleased, my eyes met those of the blinking Go Ryeo-ha. Her eyes sparkled, and she seemed delighted.

"You soldier gentlemen are spirited. Usually, people who come to Seoul are too busy sobbing and begging to be saved."

"Ah... Yes... Well... That's us."

Not knowing what to say, I simply nodded. The corners of her eyes curved in a gentle smile.

"Everyone's going to be so happy to see you. It means the people outside care about the people inside!"

"It sounds like there are a lot of survivors."

"Yes! Though everyone's barely holding on."

"And the Society of 66?"

"Ah. We're not very close with them. Was it about two months ago? They started ignoring our requests for supplies around then. They do help survivors, but they abandon anyone who doesn't follow them, so I decided not to go out of my way to follow their policies either."

"That's a relief..."

I looked around with an uneasy expression and saw the unmistakable remains of burst-open monsters. Burned, torn apart, blown apart. The corpses killed in all sorts of ways made it clear that Go Ryeo-ha was one of Seoul's powerful mages. She must have answered the radio because she was confident, at least.

We picked our way through the fog under her guidance. Normally, monsters would have attacked us constantly, but walking over corpses killed by another mage felt incredibly strange.

"Is the Konkuk University campus safe?"

"Yes! I clean it up regularly. Survivors might come, after all."

The six of us chattered as we walked through the thick fog, yet somehow a chill ran down my spine. Was the reason I couldn't relax despite having such a powerful ally with us that she had me by the neck?

I continued this journey with that peculiar sense of unease.

Thanks to Go Ryeo-ha's help, we reached the Konkuk University campus safely. It was my first time there, so I wanted to look around, but the fog was so thick I couldn't make out anything properly except rotting weeds. The campus interior was utterly deserted too. After we walked a little farther, a large lake came into view.

Go Ryeo-ha spoke optimistically, sounding proud.

"The water here is clean, so it's fine. There are still water purifiers over by the student union building, too. Everyone's staying in its basement!"

The hand pressed, then pressed again!

Following the tug of the hand on my neck, I trailed after her, dangling like a cat held by the scruff.

After we'd walked for a while, the building called the student union came into view. Fitting for a place a high-school graduate like me would never set foot in his entire fucking life, it was huge and stood several stories tall, despite being a building for students.

So this was a university?

While I looked around at this unfamiliar world, Go Ryeo-ha waved and called brightly to the heavily bundled people crouching in the shadows beyond the barricade.

"Everyone! I'm back!"

With that spirited greeting and smiling eyes, she was the very picture of a cheerful college girl.

Of course, not everyone was as lively and spirited as she was. Being depressed was probably more normal, in fact. The guards in thick clothes hid in the shadows, maintaining intense vigilance and facing straight ahead without the slightest movement.

Wondering if they were wary of us, I instinctively activated Stage One ear magic.

... Silence.

If they'd felt hostility toward me, I would have heard the burbling of a stream. Since I heard nothing, they apparently weren't hostile to us.

It was a relief that not everyone in Seoul hated outsiders. Maybe the misunderstanding about us fully armed civilians had been cleared up.

Just as I inwardly sighed with relief, Go Ryeo-ha urged us onward.

"Everyone will be waiting on the first basement floor. Follow me!"

"My goodness. A young lady protecting people even in such difficult circumstances. It would be wonderful if you'd come to church."

"Hmph. You have no eye for people either, Pastor. It's all about looks, as usual."

"Se-jun. I told you to come to church, didn't I?"

"How about a mosque?"

"I don't want either!"

As the pastor marveled and praised her, Aphorism and Supreme Mage Baek Je-min were striding after Go Ryeo-ha when Shin Na-in tapped my shoulder from behind. I turned, and the look in his eyes behind his gas-mask lenses was anything but ordinary.

Without a word, he made some damned finger gestures, then gently rubbed his headset. I wondered why he was suddenly fucking around, but something felt strange.

A sudden bad feeling made me concentrate. Telepathy with this bastard always twisted my guts, but if I didn't do it, there was far too high a chance those guts would leave my body altogether.

'Je-min.'

'What?'

TAP, TAP.

Shin Na-in tapped his headset a few more times with his index finger. It looked so natural that, at a glance, it could have been an attempt to check whether the sound was working properly.

But his eyes were glancing past Aphorism's excited chatter toward the guards maintaining their ironclad watch in the shadows near the door.

'I can't hear the people's voices.'