Chapter 88 - The Most Productive Week of My Life

A week had passed since we Supreme Mages returned from Seoul. It was a week spent realizing just how thoroughly—and in what ways—the Republic of Korea had gone to shit, while each of us worked to strengthen our combat capabilities.

Of course, we weren't the only ones who had changed. As restricted information was released after the Seoul expedition, people's perceptions began to shift.

People who learned that magic was real couldn't begin to imagine what Seoul had become. Thinking only of monsters like Amalgams and predatory spines, they began letting greed overcome their fear. This was despite Skin-jellyfish, teratomas, Tadpole Bellies, lung trees, and Crunchers being moved into the identified-species category.

Surely there couldn't be that many? Even if all ten million people in Seoul had turned into monsters, months of shooting them dead would have thinned their numbers. As long as you didn't run into them, you'd be fine.

It was a ridiculously complacent way of thinking, but people genuinely thought that way. You could kill them with guns anyway, and all you had to do was avoid being spotted in the first place. With that mindset, countless people began going all in on magic.

But we Supreme Mages—the best of the best who had actually made it out of Seoul alive—knew better.

Magical knowledge? Obviously necessary.

Magic items? Fantastic to have.

But in terms of firepower, firearms were overwhelmingly superior. If you had a weapon that could kill an opponent in one shot without giving away anything about your magic, why wouldn't you use it? You were supposed to wield magic, not depend on it.

Anyone who considered magical knowledge the only thing that mattered and dismissed humanity's most powerful weapons would never survive Seoul. I could guarantee that, having gone so far as to inject morphine because of magical backlash. Pain could never be overcome. Human will meant nothing before it; only greater pain could drive it away. That was precisely why you had to offer up your pain more wisely and strategically.

So we had devoted the past week to shoring up our nonmagical capabilities. While the people inside Seoul fought relying solely on magic, we concentrated on devising tools and tactics to defeat monsters and improving our fundamentals—with a U.S. Army firearms instructor.

The instructor waiting for me at the firing range removed his sunglasses and politely offered his hand.

"A pleasure, Mr. Baek. I'm Song Smith, and I'll be your instructor."

Instructor Song Smith was an Asian man with small eyes and an impeccably courteous demeanor. Most importantly, though, his Korean pronunciation was fluent.

"Oh! You're Korean?"

"Hahaha. Third-generation Korean American. But I speak Korean fluently, so don't worry."

Fortunately, unlike the generals, this firearms instructor was of Korean descent and could speak Korean. This, too, had to be thanks to the command's active support and consideration. Their care showed in more little details than I'd expected.

After our handshake, Song grew quite serious and got straight to the point.

"Mr. Baek. You made it back alive entirely because of magic. You understand that, correct?"

"Yes. Magic was incredibly powerful. But its limits were clear, too."

Magic. It truly was an astonishing power, a goal worthy of staking my life—Baek Je-min's life—on. Unfortunately, reaching its pinnacle required making the utmost use of the environment and equipment available to me. Not only did magic always demand a price, but it admittedly left something to be desired in terms of imagination. At least, that was how I saw it, and Song thoroughly approved of my attitude.

"I was deeply impressed by your tactical thinking, Mr. Baek. Magic produces painful feedback, and attempting to overcome that with psychoactive drugs leads to a potentially fatal decline in judgment in an environment like Seoul, where you must contend with all manner of magic and monstrous ecosystems. Therefore, to use magic at the right place and time, you must also excel at responding with firearms..."

Song applauded, looking pleased.

"I do hope the others will join us sometime as well."

"Let's start with me."

The pastor and Shin Na-in were out evangelizing, Lee Se-jun was rummaging through the armory by himself, and Hamza had been summoned to headquarters. I was the only one with time to spare. Song smacked his lips in disappointment but began teaching me in earnest, and it was enough to make me glad I'd come.

He inspected my shooting stance, adjusted various parts of my body, and declared,

"Mr. Baek. Forget the way the Korean military taught you to shoulder a rifle for a moment."

"I hit every shot doing it this way, though?"

"Of course, I'm not saying it's bad. But that method seats the stock deep in your shoulder. It's excellent for precision fire at stationary targets, but burying the rifle in your shoulder slows torso rotation and sight alignment—a critical disadvantage. In your testimony about engaging a hostile mage, I understand you mentioned superhuman mobility."

Jeong Na-ri, the Dubai Chewy Witch. The moment I recalled the mage we'd first encountered at the department store by Jangji Station, I found myself nodding involuntarily and listening closely to Song.

"Mr. Baek, don't bury the rifle in your shoulder. Pull it toward your body's centerline. Bring both elbows down."

After several repetitions of awkwardly practicing the stance, he moved on to criticizing how I aimed.

"Don't close one eye. In the environment you've described inside Seoul, you need the widest possible field of view. Start by practicing opening the eye you close. Especially if you use eye magic, knowing how to aim with both eyes open will broaden your tactical options. Aiming with one eye is outdated. Let it go."

The method I'd used to improve my accuracy had been declared obsolete. It stung, but I decided to accept it for survival's sake and began practicing sight alignment with both eyes open. My left eyelid kept twitching out of habit, but every time it did, Song grabbed the barrel and shook it, forcing me to focus.

"Hold your position. Your stance."

"Mmm..."

"Good. Now let's try it with your gas mask on."

Once I put on the mask, he demanded an even stranger posture. I thought I'd been taught to use point shooting back in the military, but Song pinpointed things I'd never even considered, pressing firmly on the back of my neck as he did.

"Your head is too low. Mr. Baek, don't lower your head to plant your cheek on the stock. Raise the rifle and line it up with your jaw instead of your cheek. You should have learned this already. Don't twist your body to fit the rifle. Think of moving the rifle into your stance instead. Let's try again."

Getting chewed out by Song while learning to shoot wasn't all I did. My AR-15 and gas mask received equipment upgrades, too. Captain Kim Ho-un brought me a pristine new AR-15 and a latest-model gas mask, explaining all sorts of details. But I wasn't a military geek, so my rough summary went like this.

"So the gas mask won't fog up anymore?"

"Yes, well..."

"And isn't all I need to know that the rifle's been modified to resist moisture corrosion, you've added folding iron sights, and there's a low-powered light on the vertical grip to illuminate my footing?"

He was making a fuss over having me listen to every detail about some grip, what the receiver was made of instead of stainless steel, and whatever treatment it had undergone, so I cut him off. My reason for going out of my way to get a latest-model gas mask was simple: I didn't want to walk around Seoul with my face exposed, and a gas mask was the most plausible accessory. Besides, I could enchant it on the spot with Hand Stage Two, [Blood of the Left Hand], so it would be useful in all sorts of ways.

Between this and Lee Se-jun making a huge fuss over nerdy-ass names like Delta Force, soldiers apparently got the urge to chatter about the strangest things. Captain Kim protested, looking wounded by my reaction.

"Je-min, that's because you don't know how much military scrip this customized AR-15 for you would cost."

"You said this much was complimentary. Wasn't it free under the name of operational motivation?"

"I miss Se-jun. He would appreciate it. Why does he refuse to enlist? I understand he applied for long-term service selection."

"..."

I could have crushed Captain Kim's hopes by telling him about Lee Se-jun's depraved wish, but I chose not to. Spoiling someone else's hopes and expectations wasn't my hobby. I wanted Captain Kim Ho-un to go on living with his dream of Captain Korea.

Of course, some of our preparations straddled the boundary between magic and the nonmagical.

"Je-min! Just one more lap!"

"Hah, haaah. Fuck..."

I hated myself for being unable to argue even as Lee Se-jun, an unnecessarily healthy former NCO, dragged me out running. I believed exercise was bad for your health, yet here I was, following him along the roads of a U.S. military camp. The situation was so surreal that my vision swam.

That was when a few American soldiers who'd been laughing at the sight of us running came over in their shirts and joined in, jeering.

"Je-min! The Americans are running with us, too! Let's do another lap!"

"Hell yeah, let's do one more!"

"Hah, haaah... Fuck..."

If it weren't for awakening heart-branch magic, I would never have run. Just as we passed the barracks where we Supreme Mages were staying, the pastor and Shin Na-in waved at us with broad grins.

"Hey, Baek Je-min! Looking good!"

"You can rest, Je-min. You already have four branches of the holy-war arts."

I ground my teeth. Rest was absolutely not an option. Steadying my breathing, I ran after Lee Se-jun and the American soldiers, who were busy laughing.

Archmage Baek Je-min. I'd never worked this hard at living in my life!

* * *

Naturally, we hadn't spent all our time training. Hamza and I had spread a mat on the roof of a requisitioned building near the U.S. military camp in Pyeongtaek and were leisurely enjoying the warm afternoon sun.

An empty ammunition can served as our side table, with two cans of Spam and a container of kimchi on top. Beside it, Hamza was diligently cooking bubbling ramyeon, and it tasted phenomenal. Using the portable gas stove he'd brought, he seasoned it perfectly and even performed delicate tricks, lifting and lowering the noodles with his chopsticks.

"To make good ramyeon, you need to expose the noodles to air. That makes them chewier. Since I've added Spam, using a little less seasoning powder should make it just right."

He raised the ladle and served some broth into a little bowl, as rich as an ancestral household's treasured seed soy sauce. I took it and slurped, and an exclamation escaped me.

"Aaah!"

Hamza's ramyeon really was different. We kept picking up noodles with our chopsticks, blowing on them, and slurping them down. Why weren't we doing this at the U.S. camp? Because it was technically working hours, and we were slacking off under the command's protection.

As we ate ramyeon and crunched kimchi on the rooftop, tanks and soldiers moved menacingly through the alleys below us. Facing their gun barrels were citizens suddenly being forcibly evicted. One enraged middle-aged man shouted on everyone else's behalf.

"You bastards! Who the hell are you to throw us out of here?"

"This eviction is to secure the area around the camp. You may refuse, but if you fail to comply with evacuation instructions, you will automatically be treated as infected and shot dead in the event of any future incident."

"Is the military allowed to do this? You shot the people in Seoul dead, and now you're going to shoot us, too?"

In ordinary times, the soldiers would have been bowing their heads over and over. But soldiers who'd been through even one stint at the cordon came back thoroughly broken. Having survived the monsters' assaults long enough to rotate out, they freely revealed the murderous intent built from fear behind their gas masks.

CLICK.

The soldiers from the cordon raised their guns the moment the civilian took a step closer. Failing to sense their killing intent, however, he only raised his voice.

"Shoot! You fucking... Go on, shoot! I may not look it, but..."

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The first gunshot brought screams. But once there had been three or more, everyone clamped their mouths shut and stifled them. Amid choked, muffled sobs, the gunfire stopped, and acrid smoke drifted up to the roof.

I watched impassively, slurping and swallowing another mouthful of noodles. Only once the civilian was crawling like a bug, choking with pain from the bullet in his leg, did the soldiers lower their weapons. Apparently, they still weren't reckless enough to turn him into Swiss cheese.

As one soldier raised his walkie-talkie, a cold report came from ours beside the ammunition can.

["10:41. Subject shot for refusing instructions and attempting to approach military personnel. Confirmed to be an ordinary civilian."]

I picked up the walkie-talkie and looked at Hamza. Noticing my gaze, he slipped a piece of kimchi into his mouth and nodded.

"Nuffing."

"Confirmed. Nothing dangerous nearby yet."

BEEP-BEEP.

Once I finished the transmission and put down the walkie-talkie, the soldiers resumed moving. Civilian laborers jumped down from a truck to deal with the wounded man, while the tank brought out as a show of force began rolling elsewhere. The infantry roamed the area in teams of three, ready to mercilessly shoot dead any civilians who refused military instructions. Having realized what it meant that these soldiers came from the cordon, the civilians obeyed without a peep.

I put down my chopsticks and took a sip of the broth Hamza had served me, reveling in its spicy warmth.

"Aaaah."

Nothing beat doing something else while eating.

Naturally, I took out my phone—that marvel of twenty-first-century life, now approved for military use—and took in the world's news with my eyes. Obviously, with all this shit going on, portal sites and news outlets couldn't possibly be functioning normally. Even with what had to be heavy censorship underway, the picture of Korea painted by the internet and countless foreign news reports was dramatic.

[How Does the ROK–U.S. Joint Command Differ from the ROK–U.S. Combined Forces Command? Citizens Voice Fears of the Permanent Collapse of Local Self-Government and Democracy Under U.S. Military Rule and Permanent Martial Law.]

[Field Commanders Under Martial Law Command Attempt Extrajudicial Arrests of Citizens Opposing Mobilization and Martial Law... Whereabouts of Detained Citizens Unknown.]

[Continued Testimony of Atrocities by Soldiers from the Seoul Cordon... ROK–U.S. Joint Command Affiliate Declines Interview, Calling Such Incidents a Natural Consequence of Refusing Military Instructions Under Martial Law. Citizens Advised to Avoid Soldiers with Dog Tags Dangling from Their Armbands, Who Show No Hesitation in Killing Civilians.]

[Cordon Operations Command Under ROK–U.S. Joint Command Announces Strategic Redeployment to Secure Safe Zones and Prevent Infection in Gyeonggi. Amid Controversy Over Forced Evacuations, Statement "We Are at War" Sparks Uproar as a Hostile Remark Directed at Citizens Inside Seoul.]

[ROK–U.S. Joint Command Decides to Commission Reconnaissance and Exploration Inside Seoul Through Civilian Contracts... Are Civilians Trapped Within the Cordon Effectively Being Given No Other Choice?]

The last item to catch my attention was, naturally, the growing momentum behind reconnaissance and exploration inside Seoul. Blowing on my noodles, I asked Hamza,

"I hear loads of those fuckers have already charged into Seoul. Can they manage with the basic equipment they're issued?"

"They apparently went in without training or learning any particular knowledge. They said they could just shoot guns or learn magic anyway, so what was the point of all that preparation?"

"Tsk. Lives gone to waste."

Exactly what you'd expect from idiots who considered preparation and rest pointless and rushed after immediate gains. When the dopamine of instant riches or freedom burned you down to the marrow, you couldn't think straight with your life on the line, and you did stupid shit like that. Learning was a long game. They had become examples proving that people who approached magic expecting an easy ride would never amount to much.

With things in this state, restrictions on overseas communications also limited contact with my parents in the United States. Not that we had much to talk about even when I called. Still, now that I qualified to be called an archmage outside Seoul, I unblocked them for the first time in a while and contacted them. Little did I know their only son, calling after his triumphant return, would be greeted with abuse.

["Baek Je-min, you little bastard! Does it make any sense to hole up there because you want to become an archmage? Why did you block us? Do you want to see your mother collapse? I hear you can't eat, can't leave, and do nothing but fight over there! Are you eating properly?"]

"Dad, I'm eating well and doing fine. I'm cooking ramyeon right now."

["Things are good enough for you to cook ramyeon?"]

"Oh, of course."

Glancing down at the sobbing, evicted residents brushing past civilian laborers rushing in to clean up, I tapped my chopsticks together and lifted another mouthful of noodles.

"How's Mom?"

["They gave us resettlement money and a house, so what's there to do? It's near Koreatown, and she's already meeting people and enjoying herself. Even now, she's gone off to chatter with women who want to ask how things are in Korea. She'll kick up another fuss when she hears you called."]

"Is life okay over there?"

I crunched some kimchi, and Dad let out a deep sigh.

["Anywhere would be better than there. You called because you wanted to hear that, didn't you?"]

"That's my dad."

["Little bastard. If you don't come back in one piece, I'll whack your thighs with a baseball bat."]

"Have ten bats ready. I'm hanging up."

BEEP.

I met Hamza's eyes. He'd been quietly eating pieces of Spam throughout the call. With an awkward smile, he promptly offered me two pieces.

"They're cooked nicely."

"Yeah."

I was picking up the steaming Spam with my chopsticks and looking through my smartphone when my eyes happened upon familiar usernames greeting me with unfamiliar profiles. The young gamers who'd been taking a break from Discord. They'd once used anime girls or pictures of themselves making peace signs on trips as their profile images. Now, unlike the names I'd given them, every one of them was looking straight at me with an uncharacteristically stern, solemn, serious expression.

[GameSlave: Death Notice) April 23, 2028. My apologies if you knew him. We will not be accepting messages.]

[GamerBoy: 2003.08.21–2028.04.21]

I decided to put a bullet in them if we ever met again and was about to turn off my smartphone when Shin Na-in came up to the roof carrying grape juice and paper cups in both hands.

"Everyone, straighten up and get moving."

"Why?"

Couldn't he see we were busy killing time?

Na-in paid no attention. The bastard casually sat beside us, picked up a piece of Spam with his fingers, popped it into his mouth, and chewed. I was just considering giving him a sharp word when he spoke.

"They say Go Ryeo-ha's interrogation results are in."

"Did she spill the hand-branch magic?"

Go Ryeo-ha. That bitch had promised to make me a Four-Tiger Sword or some other amazing magic item, then freeloaded for an entire week because the military had detained her. If she'd been beside me, I'd have guilt-tripped the hell out of her and nagged her for my items. At last, I had a chance to pester Ryeo-ha, who'd been enjoying the military's lawful protection. First, though, came the information on hand-branch magic.

As if he'd read my expectations, Na-in poured grape juice into a paper cup, handed it to Hamza, and raised three fingers.

"Thank you, Na-in."

"The Lord's sacred blood. May His gospel reach even a heretic like you. Anyway, Je-min. Hand Stage Three is telekinesis."

"Telekinesis is only Stage Three? Then what's Stage Four?"

Recalling Ryeo-ha knocking monsters aside with invisible hands made me all the more curious. Why was an ability as fucking awesome as telekinesis only Stage Three?

As I blinked, wondering what Hand Stage Four might be, Na-in raised his little finger as well, making four.

"Hand Stage Four is material substitution."

While he held his hand up, I poured the grape juice he'd brought into a cup and asked,

"Material substitution? Can she turn whatever she touches into gold or something?"

"Apparently, she can transmute blood shed from her left hand into other substances, or use it to replace specific ingredients in sorcerous rituals."

CRUNCH!

I crushed the paper cup I'd filled with grape juice in my grip, my eyes wide. Then I felt a burning emotion well up from deep within my chest.

"Hamza, let's clean up."

"Huh? There's still plenty of ramyeon and kimchi left."

"You heartless bastard. Ryeo-ha's locked up, and you can still stomach ramyeon?"

"What?"

I hurriedly stood, wiped my mouth with my sleeve, and prepared to pack up. Then I turned to Na-in and firmly instructed him,

"You stop being snippy with Ryeo-ha, too. She had her reasons. Her reasons! Don't you know extreme circumstances exempt you from blame?"

"Je-min."

Regardless of Na-in's contemptuous gaze, I had already awakened to the spirit of tolerance and philanthropy. So what if someone was a little crazy and didn't quite fit in?

"Go Ryeo-ha was a Supreme Mage from the moment she was rescued at Konkuk University. We're going to protest at headquarters."

There was no way I was handing over a golden duck that could churn out magic items to the fucking military!