Chapter 74 - Why My Heart Doesn’t Beat

I hadn’t lived all that long.

Twenty-eight years old. Awkwardly young to boast that I’d discovered anything profound, yet exactly the age where claiming I knew nothing would get me cursed out and asked what the hell I’d been doing all those years.

Besides, whenever I voiced an opinion, people judged me before they even heard it.

High-school equivalency diploma. Unemployed for two months after my company went under, then dragged in by the mobilization order in my eighth year as a reservist. Never scored over 400 on the TOEIC. Driver’s license gathering dust in a drawer.

You have no idea how unfair it felt to be treated like nonrecyclable trash over those few details.

But there was one truth even someone like me could state with confidence.

In modern, twenty-first-century society, no reward system compensates you for one hundred percent of your suffering. The notion that your reward will match the pain you endure is nothing more than an illusion born of wishful thinking.

Only magic grants almighty power in proportion to the pain I’ve suffered.

Only those willing to tear their own living flesh while weaving among monsters floundering in the eerily drifting fog can enjoy the reward called magic.

That was why I’d chosen Go Ryeo-ha as my master.

If this humiliation and despair, this inferiority and jealousy, were also pain on the road to magic, I could gladly bear them.

Why do people shed a few bitter tears when they’re in pain?

Because there’s no compensation. Give them enough financial healing to match the hurt, and they’ll smile through their tears.

That was exactly how I felt now.

While all the other Supreme Mages propped their chins on their hands and yawned widely with bored expressions, I alone listened to every last word of Go Ryeo-ha’s proud boasting.

“A disciple... That’s a little much. Hehe. How about being my junior?”

“Yes. Call me whatever you’re comfortable with.”

“My junior! Ahaha, you look older than me. Are you really sure I can call you that?”

“Of course.”

Still kneeling demurely, I straightened my back.

They say there’s no age limit on learning. That doesn’t mean talking down to someone younger and demanding their respect. It means learning from them even if you have to beg like a dog.

While adding a line or two to the grudge ledger in your heart until you’ve sucked out every last drop of value, of course.

That was how I, Baek Je-min, had survived at work, and that was how I intended to survive this time too.

“Baek Je-min, you little bastard. Wow. Do you seriously have no pride?”

“If my senior in magic is willing to teach me, why shouldn’t I be her junior?”

“Je-min. You really seem like a lunatic.”

Whether the pastor and Hamza clicked their tongues at me or not, my posture was already the very picture of reverence.

Even if I stabbed someone in the back later, I would show them the utmost respect while learning from them.

That was my approach to learning as Baek Je-min.

If disciples didn’t dream of surpassing their masters, how would scholarship ever advance?

Go Ryeo-ha was too busy looking down at me and giggling.

“All right, my junior! So, what would you like to know first?”

“First, I’d like to ask about the systems of magic you learned from the Society of 66. Before that, though, I’m the only one who knelt and volunteered to be your junior, so let’s kick the others out for a while.”

“Je-min! Don’t tell me this was your plan to get a date!”

Ignoring Lee Se-jun’s horrified voice, I pointed at Shin Na-in and gestured.

Quick on the uptake as ever, he pretended to put on his headset and immediately sent me a telepathic message.

‘I’m listening.’

I’m going to kick you out, so go talk to the corpses in the student cafeteria. Use Eye, Stage One’s past sight or Ear, Stage Three’s conversations with the dead, whatever works.

Take the pastor too, and let him see what’s going on.

‘Will that be all right? If the pastor knows the situation, he might not be able to act the way he did before.’

I have to stay with Go Ryeo-ha to learn magic anyway. If the pastor stays with her, he’ll just waste time trying to get her to church.

I’m not at full strength because of my injuries. While I pick up useful information, the rest of you should act independently, use the pastor’s luck to head off any unexpected trouble, and find helpful clues.

‘Understood.’

Accepting the plan, Shin Na-in began whispering to the others.

Lee Se-jun and Hamza understood at once, but persuading the pastor, who was utterly besotted with Go Ryeo-ha, took some time.

“You want to leave Baek Je-min alone with Ryeo-ha? Na-in, no matter how I look at it, that just doesn’t seem right. What did she do to deserve that? I feel like I’m sinning against the Lord.”

“Pastor, didn’t you think well of Je-min?”

“No, no. The Lord will rebuke me.”

“Let’s at least give Je-min one chance.”

“Haa... All right. Je-min deserves a chance too. Lord, please forgive me just this once.”

Their whispers behind me were loud enough to hear every word, and they made my blood boil. But having already knelt before Go Ryeo-ha, I wasn’t about to let something that trivial shake me.

I did write the Christian-nut duo’s names in enormous letters in my mental grudge ledger, though.

In any case, leadership of Operation Blue Pill had now passed to Shin Na-in.

He stood with the other Supreme Mages and smiled at Go Ryeo-ha.

“For religious and other reasons, we’d rather not listen. We’ll go meet the other survivors instead.”

“Uh... Really? Will you be okay? You’re wearing military uniforms... Why not just stay and listen?”

“No, thank you. The survivors should have a chance to pray with the pastor too.”

“Oh, then I’ll come with you!”

The bomb was trying to tag along of its own accord.

I narrowed my eyes and looked up at Go Ryeo-ha.

Apparently, she didn’t want us realizing that the survivors were dead. She was likely guarding against it unconsciously, afraid our discovery would force her to swallow the red pill.

I sprang up and blocked Go Ryeo-ha as she tried to follow the others.

“Huh?!”

“Ryeo-ha, you seem to keep putting pressure on the survivors. Is there something we’re not supposed to know?”

“N-no... It’s not that...”

“Then let’s talk about magic.”

Seizing the moment, Shin Na-in led the others out of the laboratory.

Realizing the die had been cast, Go Ryeo-ha’s eyes trembled. Then she abruptly broke into a radiant smile and nodded.

“Fine. But if they get beaten up for wearing military uniforms later, don’t blame me, okay?”

Only after hearing her answer could I finally relax.

Success.

Now I had less reason to worry about the likes of Lee Se-jun or Shin Na-in overtaking my level of attainment!

* * *

While the Supreme Mages investigated the corpses beneath the student union, I was able to obtain some important information from Go Ryeo-ha.

As the leader of the survivors who had been in contact with the Society of 66, she knew far more about certain matters, and in much greater detail, than A-reum did.

The Society of 66. The magic system. Unknown monsters.

Her testimony, point-by-point, is as follows—

First: the Society of 66.

“The Society of 66 appeared while the military was falling apart and monsters were running rampant everywhere. They distributed knowledge to survivors free of charge. I met them around January ninth, I think. They were especially knowledgeable about magic, mysticism, and sorcery, so they helped me a lot too.”

Outside Seoul, the point when the government lost its ability to suppress the monsters inside the city was called the ‘critical-threshold breach.’

Three days after that breach, all sorts of people reportedly appeared among Seoul’s civilians as they fled, hid, or screamed in terror of the monsters.

They showed people the magic script concealed in the fog and passed on knowledge only to those who had awakened magic. Rather than give a name for themselves, they answered only with an incantation.

Go Ryeo-ha had been one of those recipients.

Early in the crisis, civilians taking refuge at Konkuk University had rapidly swelled the survivor group to 250 people. There was no way the Society of 66 could have missed them.

On the day they promised her survival assistance and imparted their wealth of knowledge, Go Ryeo-ha had reportedly marveled at Society members effortlessly carrying loads weighing easily hundreds of kilograms.

With Seoul’s roads fucked up by dense fog and military sabotage intended to prevent evacuation, only the Society of 66’s heart-branch mages could transport that much material.

That was also when she learned about the incantation.

“66 to make 7, 55 to complete 66, humans seeking to make 55. That’s the incantation the Society of 66 recites. It’s a sort of code.”

“There seem to be slight variations.”

“Yes! Apparently, the incantation changes according to rank within the Society. But they made me uneasy, so I wasn’t especially close with them.”

It differed slightly from what I’d heard, but the broad context and most of the details were identical.

Not long after making contact with Go Ryeo-ha, the Society of 66 began interacting with survivor groups and gathering stranded civilians at their own bases.

There, they converted dead smartphones into sorcery phones for Seoul’s survivors, giving one to each group.

From then on, survival rates inside Seoul rose exponentially. That had been around January twenty-third.

“They were rather gloomy people, but they weren’t particularly bad. They stopped indiscriminate looting and murder, did everything they could to help people awaken as mages, and generously shared their knowledge of mysticism. Of course, there was a condition that we cooperate with the Society... But honestly, with the military having abandoned us, who would refuse?”

“Did they hunt soldiers?”

“Actually... The Society was more about finding and protecting surviving soldiers. That’s why the other mages and civilians were desperate to find and kill the soldiers before the Society noticed them.”

Every story Go Ryeo-ha told with her gentle gestures might have seemed insignificant, but they were immensely important.

Had I jumped too far ahead in assuming the Society of 66 opposed the military?

But I slowly shook my head. This could have been a measure to absorb the soldiers who’d survived inside Seoul into the Society.

It was clear from the outset that the Society of 66 was trying to breach the cordon surrounding Seoul.

If they were cooperating with the military, they wouldn’t have warned us through a sorcery-phone message that the military couldn’t help us.

Besides, they would have willingly shared information that was common knowledge inside Seoul. They were an organization capable of using sorcery phones, no less.

The Society of 66 was clearly withholding information on purpose.

But Go Ryeo-ha’s last contact with them had already been two months ago, and she herself insisted she had no close ties to the Society.

Unfortunately, that was everything she knew about the Society of 66.

Second: systems of magic.

Go Ryeo-ha displayed her gloves, gently waving her hands. They were dark red, with threads of five colors intricately intertwined. Pointing to them, she spoke brightly.

“These are called Fire Marquis Hands. I made them using the knowledge the Society gave me.”

“Is that sorcery-type magic, Master?”

“Ahaha, ‘senior’ is enough! And... yes. This is what the Society calls sorcery-type.”

“The Society?”

“Yes! Most of the information about magic inside Seoul comes from the Society of 66...”

Lowering her Fire Marquis Hands, Go Ryeo-ha chattered on.

My analysis of what she said suggested that the Society divided the knowledge it imparted strictly by rank.

Access to knowledge varied according to one’s position within a group and willingness to cooperate with the Society. As the leader of the Konkuk University campus, Go Ryeo-ha seemed to have been rated quite highly. Her shamanic bloodline had clearly earned her additional consideration and access to related sorcery knowledge.

Thanks to that, I was able to learn in detail about systems such as inverted alteration-type and ritual-type magic, whose very existence had been unknown outside Seoul.

“Listen carefully, my junior. Every mystical tradition and ritual, every act of sorcery and magic, requires a price. The orthodox principle is the law of equivalent exchange!”

“I’ve heard plenty about equivalent exchange.”

“Then this will be easy!”

Although her knowledge seemed to align with much of my speculation, there were many differences at crucial points.

Overall, Go Ryeo-ha’s details were far more thorough and internally consistent.

To summarize:

“Sorcery-type magic is something anyone can perform if they have knowledge, offerings, and inspiration. With these Fire Marquis Hands, for example, you align the Five Elements properties of your internal organs, weave circuits on the gloves with threads in the five directional colors, then borrow the name and power of the True Lord of Fire Virtue, our people’s own god of fire, to control fire energy. You use that to launch lumps of metal, such as lead or beads, belonging to metal, the element fire overcomes. They also use cinnabar made with sulfur. The principle is similar to a firearm, but it uses the overcoming relationships of the Five Elements. Its advantage is that the necessary materials can be supplied through alteration-type magic, making it easy to keep stocked.”

“Okay, cut, cut! I know you want to show off, but let me organize this first!”

“Oh... Hehehe.”

With Go Ryeo-ha smiling shyly, her eyes crinkling, I clicked my tongue and quickly organized what I’d learned.

The systems of magic disclosed and taught by the Society of 66 fell into four broad categories. They were distinguished as ‘types,’ meaning forms, because everything from their activation principles to their paths of development differed entirely.

These four types constituted the most basic framework defining magic.

1. Sorcery-type. The traditional occult practices we were familiar with.

It combined the mystical knowledge required for tasks such as drawing magic circles or choosing the proper time for a ritual with the offerings required by the practitioner to bring about the desired effect.

Familiar talismans, tarot cards, and pentagram necklaces were products of sorcery-type magic. With its extensive knowledge of mysticism, the Society of 66 employed much more varied and practical forms of it.

Items created through sorcery-type magic were classified as enchanted objects and guaranteed a certain level of performance regardless of the practitioner’s attainment or the type of magic they had learned.

Go Ryeo-ha’s Fire Marquis Hands—the gloves that launched projectiles with fire energy—were likewise products of sorcery-type magic, making them enchanted objects.

2. Doctrinal. Magic I had presumed borrowed from religious faith or worldviews.

I’d originally thought human belief functioned as a kind of lens, but the Society of 66’s detailed explanation, as relayed by Go Ryeo-ha, was much narrower than I’d expected.

“If it’s neither a transcendent being answering prayers nor an individual’s belief taking shape, what exactly is it?”

“Spiritual energy accumulated by people who believed in and followed a worldview systematized and established under the name of religion. Hmm... It’s complicated. To put it simply, maybe it borrows power from dead people’s beliefs about the afterlife? That’s why they call it doctrinal, not religious.”

The Society’s claim didn’t differ greatly from what I’d speculated.

According to Go Ryeo-ha, people within the Society of 66 sometimes used ‘doctrinal-type’ and ‘afterlife-type’ interchangeably, though ‘doctrinal-type’ was the more common term.

For example...

A Hindu could use only the power accumulated when people who believed in the Hindu worldview died. As that power affected the world through the practitioner, it took the Hindu form of doctrinal magic.

Naturally, since the spiritual energy of deceased believers had to accumulate, a relatively young faith or one with too few believers couldn’t produce its own distinct doctrinal magic. Its followers would instead use another, similar form of doctrinal magic.

Here, a fundamental distinction emerged between the doctrinal magic of monotheistic and polytheistic faiths. The exclusive faith of monotheistic traditions reportedly produced exceptionally powerful doctrinal magic, but imposed severe restrictions on using other types.

That was because believers held that miracles could occur only through their one god. The moment they tried to perform a miracle through any other means, their understanding of this world would be utterly fucked.

To compensate, they had to accept mystical traditions. Doing so made them indisputable heretics in the eyes of orthodox religious organizations, so clergy who wanted to use other magic had to resolve never to return to orthodoxy.

Surprisingly, there was reportedly doctrinal magic that denied the afterlife too.

“Materialists, was it? Something like the atheism they believed in in the Soviet Union. I can’t really tell the differences, but I heard they have doctrinal magic too.”

“Does it do anything?”

“Nothing much, but, hmm. Apparently it keeps machines from breaking down, makes guns almost never malfunction, and makes their shots hurt more. I remember a monk from the Society telling me about it with a smile.”

“Makes their shots hurt more?”

Wasn’t that ridiculously overpowered???

Deny the afterlife and salvation in exchange for shooting bullets that hurt like fucking hell?

... On second thought, maybe it was kind of shitty.

If all you got for accepting the nihilistic truth that death was the end was shots that hurt more, then yeah, it seemed pretty lousy.

3. Ritual-type.

According to Go Ryeo-ha, even the Society of 66 hadn’t properly explained this one.

They’d only told her it was incredibly dangerous and best left alone. If you had acquired ritual-type magic, you’d already paid an enormous price, so whenever you wielded it, you should commit yourself to killing your opponent.

Alteration-type.

The Society of 66 had also kept mostly silent about alteration-type magic, and Go Ryeo-ha seemed apologetic about that herself.

“I’ll teach you the magic I use instead! And some little bits of trivia while I’m at it. Come to think of it, what’s your attainment, my junior?”

“Eye, Stage Three.”

“Ooh! Eye magic! That’s seriously overpowered!”

“Hand, Stage Two. Ear, Stage One.”

“... What?”

“And Tongue, Stage Two. All upright.”

Go Ryeo-ha and I stared at each other for a while, both slowly blinking.

Then she spoke first.

“Eye, Stage Three, Hand, Stage Two, Ear, Stage One, and Tongue, Stage Two? That’s four branches.”

“Yes. Four branches.”

Tch. There it was.

The kind of humblebrag only someone born with a magic spoon in their mouth could pull off!

Watching someone who had doctrinal and sorcery-type magic, the heart branch, and even Hand, Stage Four make a fuss over four branches rubbed me the wrong way.

She should stop making such a fuss and spit out what she knew. Why all the theatrics...

“Oh my goodness. So that’s why.”

Go Ryeo-ha covered her mask with both hands, her eyes widening.

“Why what?”

“You were wearing military uniforms and even received air support. Normally, the Society of 66 and the other civilians would have no reason to let you live!”

“So you’re saying there’s some other reason?”

My gaze sharpened on its own as I glared at her. This time, she started bouncing around me in excitement.

“Of course!!! Almost nobody in the Society of 66 has four branches either! Even the officer I saw only had three!”

“Hmph.”

Was she trying to sway the steadfast heart of this man, Baek Je-min, with flattery I could hardly verify?

I folded my arms with the imposing presence of a great mountain and listened silently.

“Alteration-type magic follows an individual’s aptitude. And that aptitude is often directly linked to the practitioner’s life. If you consider the humanity each branch represents, you have incredible potential!”

Counting them off on her fingers, Go Ryeo-ha fussed and babbled for all she was worth.

“Eyes. Human cognition and distortion. The eye branch being your highest stage means you have a certain innate gift for perception and sensory ability.”

“Hmph! Then what about ears, hands, and tongues?”

“Hands manifest when someone has excellent intellectual ability, tongues when they’re highly adaptable, and ears when they have strong conviction about their own future! That’s usually how the humanity in alteration-type magic manifests.”

... Hmph.

Unable to hide the rising corners of my mouth, I had no choice but to unfold my arms.

Go Ryeo-ha. No wonder Lee Se-jun was wary of her.

Her skill with that silver tongue was no ordinary thing.

To show my respect for her eloquence, I uncrossed my arms and, unable to hide my twitching smile, decided to ask about the matter most pressing to me.

“Then can you tell me why the heart branch is the only one I can’t acquire, Master?”

Yes.

The final piece that would complete Archmage Baek Je-min.

If I got the heart branch, I wouldn’t have to put up with Lee Se-jun’s fucking bullshit anymore. I, Baek Je-min, could do everything myself. So why? Why was acquiring heart-branch magic so goddamn slow and hard?

For the first time, Go Ryeo-ha looked uncomfortable at my resentment-filled question.

“Ahaha... That’s probably...”

“Probably!”

I raised my voice, demanding a definite answer.

She surrendered. Her weak laughter trailed off, and she furtively turned her head away as she spoke.

“I’m guessing you didn’t usually exercise...”

“...”

Just then, footsteps sounded beyond the door again.

The pastor, Shin Na-in, Lee Se-jun, and Hamza had returned.

“We’re back. They’re all lovely people.”

The way Shin Na-in approached Go Ryeo-ha with a perfectly composed smile was worthy of a charming church guy.

I discreetly handed over the baton and stood beside the pastor.

He was looking at Go Ryeo-ha with an expression I could hardly describe. Normally, he would have been spouting off about heresy and demons, but now his eyes were brimming with pity and even tears. I couldn’t get used to it.

While Shin Na-in switched on his charming-church-guy mode and kept Go Ryeo-ha occupied, the rest of us Supreme Mages huddled together to talk.

“Did you hear what happened?”

“Oh dear... Our poor Ryeo-ha... Yes. I heard. Such a young girl...”

“Pastor, what if it had been Lee Se-jun instead of Go Ryeo-ha?”

“A big, dark soldier is supposed to protect people, isn’t he? He can’t go losing his head over something like that!”

I could feel Lee Se-jun’s eyes blazing, but I was reassured.

That garbage remark. This was definitely our pastor.

“What did you find?”

“Two months ago, people learned about the blockade. Go Ryeo-ha tried to persuade them to keep holding on, to get out, but...”

When Hamza couldn’t continue, Lee Se-jun spoke in a level voice.

“Apparently, a rumor spread that there were soldiers among the survivors. To prevent conflict within the group, Ryeo-ha kept their identities secret. Their haircuts could have given them away, so she wouldn’t even let them take off their hats.”

“...”

“So the civilians took pills while Ryeo-ha wasn’t looking.”

“Pills?”

“They said that if they couldn’t tell who the soldiers were, they should all die together.”

Hearing the truth about Konkuk University’s survivor group left me silent for a long while.

Was it enough to drive someone insane? Yes, it was.

But the most important issue lay elsewhere.

Whispering to the Supreme Mages, I discussed the value I’d assigned to Go Ryeo-ha.

“She knows a lot. An incredible amount. Even that short conversation taught me quite a bit.”

“Baek Je-min, what are you proposing?”

“I’d love to stay a few days, squeeze every last bit of information out of her, and ditch her if we can. The problem is, I don’t think the military will take any further risks to save us if we do.”

They couldn’t ignore us as survivors returning with a wealth of information, but without Go Ryeo-ha to cross-check it, they would keep regarding us with suspicion.

We needed to find out what the military intended.

Like it or not, the military was the only force with both the willingness and the capability to get us out of Seoul right now.

To do that... we needed to get our hands on the radio under the cloth behind that workbench.

“Let’s talk her around somehow and make contact.”

The Supreme Mages and the world outside Seoul.

The time had come to reconnect the two after their long separation.