Chapter 82 - Transport to the Rear

TING!

Shell casings bounced across the badly cracked asphalt road. With each shot, heavy recoil bore down on my collarbone, and acrid smoke drifted from the muzzle as it flashed with precarious light. Beyond the ceaseless gunfire, countless monsters were dying.

Not that they amounted to much compared with what we had seen in Seoul.

Amalgams with human heads fused together. Predatory spines made of nothing but skulls, backbones, and ribs that moved like centipede legs as they charged.

Here, I fired exclusively at the predatory spines. The magic I was using was Eye, Stage One, enhanced with Tongue, Stage One.

Outside the fog, the backlash from magic was greater, and the discomfort in my eyes and tongue was the worst of it. Perhaps it was because escaping Seoul had allowed me to relax: my tongue burned and throbbed, while my eyes felt so dry that my eyelids scraped across them.

Still, it was much, much easier to use than it had been in Suwon. Before, the dazzling light had made tears pour from my eyes. Now, they merely ached the way they would after about twenty-four hours without sleep.

Had reaching a higher level of magic reduced the backlash from lower-stage magic, even if only a little?

While I handled the predatory spines, Lee Se-jun, Shin Na-in, and Go Ryeo-ha each performed their own roles. A few sidelong glances showed me what a spectacle they all were.

Se-jun was in charge of firepower.

"Hmm. They're weak even outside the fog. Is it because they only just came out?"

With his enhanced physical abilities, Se-jun's shooting was practically laser-precise. He suppressed all the recoil through sheer strength, so every bullet seemed to be sucked straight into an Amalgam's head. Considering that he had been a combat-specialty staff sergeant in the military, his already superior marksmanship appeared to have combined with his physical abilities to make him a super soldier.

He was even using enhanced magazines enchanted with Hand, Stage One, [Blood of the Right Hand], giving him overwhelming destructive power as well.

Every shot from those enhanced rounds tore a chunk out of an Amalgam's head, sending it toppling over dead. The instant I saw that, I felt something boiling up inside me.

Na-in handled support and something akin to communications.

"Je-min, the pastor, Hamza, and all the soldiers have withdrawn. Let's fall back slowly."

"Right."

Na-in was the sort of bastard who calmly understood his place even amid chaos. His ear magic was so specialized for detection that his direct contribution to combat lagged behind, but he had an excellent head for applying it to compensate.

As unpleasant and irritating as it was, he was showing that by-the-book side of himself yet again.

While I took down predatory spines and Se-jun shot Amalgams dead, Na-in raised his muzzle and aimed at the monsters beyond the corpses.

There was no helping the steady stream slipping through. Whether the Amalgams were clever or stupid, they had learned to use the others ahead of them—and their corpses—as bullet shields.

Personally, I thought it was the former. The Amalgams had learned that, however powerful firearms were, the humans using them had limits.

Because they approached behind their own kind and their corpses, humans had no choice but to fire a few extra shots in anticipation of more monsters behind the bodies. We couldn't simply shoot each target at the right moment; pulling the trigger more often to hold them back meant we burned through ammunition far faster than expected.

That was when Na-in shone. While Se-jun and I poured on the firepower, he waited calmly with his rifle shouldered and his sights trained. The moment either of us rummaged through a magazine pouch to reload, he pulled the trigger without mercy.

"In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ! By Almighty God and His authority, I command: let Satan and the devil's servants be slain!"

RAT-TAT-TAT!

Firing away to the accompaniment of his noisy prayers, Na-in hit his targets eight or nine times out of ten, a born ace. The way he handled those running monsters was an art.

Of course, there was only so much he could do alone. Ryeo-ha, who had been fucking around for a while, rolled steel balls between her fingers and blinked.

She served strictly as our reserve. As befitted a mage who had survived Seoul, she had excellent combat instincts. Knowing that she couldn't match firearms in killing power, she quietly stayed tucked away behind us.

There was only one circumstance in which she stepped forward: when our curtain of fire thinned and looked ready to break. Then she swung an invisible hand to knock monsters away, or launched steel balls heated with Fire Marquis Hands to finish off those that slipped through.

"Fire of Li. Overcome metal. Away."

BANG!

I never thought I would live to see a ponytailed college girl in a black mask shatter a predatory spine's skull with a flick of her finger.

But my greatest gain was getting something of a look at the real Go Ryeo-ha. When I stole a glance while reloading, her eyes and expression were utterly impassive after launching a heated steel ball.

Behind her friendly demeanor and her attempts at a cheerful smile lay the face of a Seoul mage.

Ryeo-ha paid the monsters no mind as she killed them. There was no anger, irritation, sorrow, or sadness whatsoever, even though escaping Seoul itself seemed to stir emotions in her that were difficult to describe.

Chillingly, all her interest and attention were directed exclusively at us Supreme Mages. Even now, with monsters pouring out in a headlong rush toward the world beyond the fog.

That was why she had felt so unsettling.

I stole glances as I reloaded. Ryeo-ha's eyes roamed as she killed monsters. Our gazes met in midair.

Only then did a pale-pink smile blossom in her eyes over that impassive, colorless face.

"We've both been sizing each other up anyway, so there's nothing strange about it, right?"

I felt a sense of crisis.

Because Ryeo-ha was showing some remarkable interest or obsession? If something so trivial could make me feel threatened, I would never have aspired to the title of archmage.

Lee Se-jun. Shin Na-in. Go Ryeo-ha.

All three were putting on their own impressive displays before the soldiers who would be watching from the cordon. They were the culprits diminishing the importance and role of me, Baek Je-min—the one who supplied the "Supreme" in Supreme Mages—and making me look ordinary.

That was absolutely unacceptable.

Absolutely.

CLICK-CLACK.

As I finished reloading and slowly rose, Se-jun's reproach reached my ears.

"Je-min! How can you take over four seconds to reload all by yourself?"

"Ahh... I didn't want to show this off in a place like this."

"Je-min... Please stop fucking around and shoot!"

Was there anything sweeter than Se-jun's screams?

Listening to the overlapping gunshots, I slowly raised my left hand. It was time for my left-hand magic staff to shine again.

"Watch closely."

I dropped to my knees in one swift motion and slammed my left hand against the asphalt road, shouting,

"And tell your grandchildren's neighbors and relatives, too!"

Only my pain is exalted in this world.

Therefore, only my pain is absolute, and only my pain is long, so long.

"Tell them you saw the greatest archmage in the Republic of Korea!!!"

Upright Alteration-Type Eye, Stage Two.

[Cognitive Distortion].

The unpleasant sensation of eyelids sprouting inside my brain swept over me, but it was definitely milder than before. Previously, it had felt as if lashes growing from those eyelids were poking and rubbing between every fold of my brain. Now, it merely felt as though the closed lids were sitting there quietly.

Soon, a fitting result arrived in proportion to the searing pain shooting up through my left hand.

The monsters stopped dead, frozen in time with only their pupils trembling, waiting for a silent death. Se-jun and Na-in had experienced this before and immediately went into action.

BANG-BANG, RAT-TAT-TAT...

Another volley of gunshots rang out. Listening to it, I slowly closed my eyes.

A blink.

Only then did the monsters' screams reach me.

Before long, flames fell from the sky, briefly disturbing the fog. They couldn't erase it, but they would be enough to make the monsters inside suffer.

Watching, Na-in hummed a hymn before finally letting his eyes crinkle.

"Looks like they're dropping chemical shells."

"Will that work on Amalgams and predatory spines?"

"The environment isn't suitable for them to mutate into blood nets, and they use human bodies as they are. They'll die. Let's go, Je-min."

Na-in stepped back a few paces, yielding the lead to me. I was deeply moved.

He might be a shitting, Jesus-freak fanatic who hogged a toilet stall for nearly thirty minutes, but today I would remember him simply as Shin Na-in, the Supreme Mage at my side.

That was when Se-jun arbitrarily stepped in front of me.

"I thought we'd escaped, and then all this happened. Come on, everyone. Let's go!"

"Oh, honestly. You belong here, mister. Right here!"

"Huh? What? Why am I going to the back?"

Ryeo-ha's timely action dramatically altered Se-jun's fate. If she hadn't grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him behind me, the five Supreme Mages would have become me, Na-in, Hamza, the pastor, and Ryeo-ha.

Unaware that he had narrowly escaped permanent expulsion, Se-jun was busy tilting his head in confusion. But he had fought well until a moment ago, so I decided to forgive him this once.

Yes.

The happiest moment had finally arrived. For today alone, I would humbly pardon them all. Besides, I owed the comrades who had lived and shared everything with me for eleven days in Seoul at least a few words first.

I let out a deep sigh inside my gas mask. Its distinctive breathy sound echoed over the asphalt road.

"Hoooo..."

"Get in front of me and I'll shoot. Let's go."

THUD.

The sounds of combat boots overlapped. Countless shells and missiles fell behind us, creating a new hell, but the acrid wind blowing from our backs did nothing more than flutter the torn hems of our ponchos.

Huff, huff.

Our breathing through the gas masks was utterly untroubled. It was fitting for battle-hardened warriors who had just defeated dozens, hundreds of monsters. As the tension eased and the adrenaline drained away, crushing fatigue swept over us, but the sight of the soldiers drawing closer made us forget it for a while.

CLICK-CLACK.

I fiddled needlessly with my rifle, letting the breeze cool its heated barrel. Around then, we finally came face-to-face with the soldiers manning the cordon's machine-gun positions and trenches.

Their gaunt faces and blazing eyes turned toward us—soldiers holding out on psychiatric drugs, faith, and fear of death.

We crossed the rest of the bridge and reached the soldiers, where we found the pastor and Hamza waiting ahead of us, along with the five special forces soldiers.

The radio soldier's reaction was particularly novel. Again and again, he rubbed and touched his camouflage-painted face with his left hand, repeatedly opening his mouth only to close it again. Beside him, the pastor and Hamza were sighing in relief.

A moment later, the radio soldier swallowed hard, approached us, and politely offered his hand.

"Aphorism. You really are different. Thinking of the usual civilian Operators... I behaved somewhat rudely. I apologize."

"Not at all. Considering what Seoul is like, just entering it would have put you on edge. I understand."

I gladly took his offered hand and shook it.

For those who praised and admired me, I forgot old grudges. If someone slandered and criticized me, I forgot what I owed them, even if they were my parents.

Thanks to this flexible attitude of mine, relations between us Supreme Mages and the military were set to sail smoothly.

The other camouflage-painted soldiers reacted similarly. They seemed to feel complicated emotions they couldn't put into words as they looked at us. Comparing the pride built on decades of training with their actual contribution to the fighting apparently left them feeling wretched.

Only the ordinary soldiers reacted quite differently. While all of us Supreme Mages reunited and exchanged a little small talk with the special forces men, praise reached my ears—I was an ear mage, after all.

"Just four of them held them off..."

"Did he stop the monsters in their tracks just now? Seriously?"

"So civilian Operators have tiers too. Fuck."

As the murmuring among the soldiers grew louder, someone who looked like an officer appeared and bellowed,

"Enough, all of you! We've dropped chemical shells, so they won't be coming for a while. The bombardment will resume, so the relief shift gets combat rest, and the duty shift stays on watch!"

I wasn't the only one sneaking glances at those soldiers. Supreme Mage Shin Na-in watched alongside me with a pleased smile as they glanced our way and chattered excitedly.

He even removed his gas mask and flashed that silly grin I hadn't seen in some time.

"Je-min. Aren't you looking forward to the echoes of the gospel that we holy warriors will bring?"

"Heh heh heh..."

Of course I was, fuck.

I was going to shout at the top of my lungs in the mess hall. Wearing my poncho and showing off my two ragged hands, I intended to announce at least once that the archmage had arrived.

Then someone tapped us on the shoulders.

"Shin Na-in! Baek Je-min! Stop screwing around and get on."

"The vehicle's here already?"

"They say it was already here to pick us up. Let's go!"

Sure enough, he was right.

"It's a deuce-and-a-half?"

I climbed aboard anyway, but a prickling discomfort crept up through my neck. That was when Hamza asked,

"What would you rather ride in, Je-min, if not a deuce-and-a-half?"

"Something like a helicopter."

"You think helicopters are that easy to come by? Either way, I'm not getting in one. The Lord made people to live with their feet on the ground."

Judging by the pastor's adamant attitude, even if a helicopter had come, he would have kicked up such a fuss that we couldn't have boarded it. I nodded, deciding the deuce-and-a-half was better after all.

Five special forces soldiers, five Supreme Mages, and Aphorism's Go Ryeo-ha: eleven people.

With so many of us crammed aboard, it should have been noisy. But packed like bean sprouts in the rattling rear bed beneath a clear sky, with little danger for once, I began to feel my eyes closing.

"Khhhrrr..."

That bastard Se-jun was asleep already. Na-in had his eyes shut as though quietly praying, and I wondered if he slept like that.

"I'm not sleeping, Je-min."

"Don't use Mind Reading."

The pastor was leaning against the backrest, fast asleep and breathing heavily. Ryeo-ha had lowered her mask and was merely gazing blankly at the passing scenery.

Only then, little by little—ever so little by little—did it start to feel real, and my body grew impossibly heavy.

"Excuse me, soldier."

"Yes?"

"What time is it?"

April 25, 2028.

"It's 1:26 p.m."

"Are we going to Suwon?"

"Yes. It's supporting the first cordon and serving as the central hub of the second cordon right now."

"I'm going to get some sleep."

I closed my eyes and leaned forward, feeling myself nodding off. Yet in one corner of my mind, relief and regret were tangling together.

Expedition day eleven.

At last, our first reconnaissance of Seoul was complete.