Chapter 92 - Sergeant Baek Je-min Is Dangerous

By the time we emerged from the studio-room lodging where the last monster had been, the fog had cleared completely.

All that remained were hideously ruined houses, bodies strewn everywhere, and the spent casings we had poured out without pause. Still, none of our Supreme Mages trio removed our gas masks or pushed back our hoods. Instead, we checked our weapons and took a moment to catch our breath.

CLICK-CLACK.

Chamber check. All clear.

HUFF, HUFF.

The distinctive sound of breathing through gas masks settled into a steady rhythm. Only then did Lee Se-jun's relieved voice break the heavy silence.

"Teratomas are creepy. Now they're grouping together to imitate people. And they even had heart-branch magic script."

Na-in and I exchanged a brief glance.

Se-jun still didn't know about the beginning of eternity.

Of course, so far it was only a theory Na-in and I had each arrived at independently. Neither of us had any desire to test it, so it would remain a hypothesis forever. Besides, if it actually proved true, an ordinary human would struggle to bear it.

The weight of that truth was brutally heavy.

The disgusting picture of teratoma biology taking shape in my mind didn't help.

With their poor mobility, teratomas controlled hosts rather than attempting to operate without them. So how did they multiply?

Personally, I suspected they either controlled human hosts just as they did animals, or turned their flesh into teratomas and scattered it. And since Na-in hadn't mentioned any human voices when the Taegeuk Cape Brigade met its end, the latter seemed more likely.

The weight of that horrifying truth pressed down on my head.

Those trapped in a monster's flesh experienced eternity. Apparently, they retained their sense of self and consciousness even when attacked by a monster like a teratoma, which scattered their bodies into pieces.

The subspecies we'd just fought, the teratoma colony, was one such case.

Se-jun merely clicked his tongue in disgust, but Na-in and I, who knew about the beginning of eternity, felt something entirely different. How long could a human mind endure being trapped in a monster's body, forced to shape itself out of monstrous flesh?

And worse still...

She had been pregnant.

"Shithead."

"Yes?"

"Why don't you have a smoke or something?"

I could guess why Na-in's obnoxious Christian zealotry had faded.

Ear, Stage Two allowed him to [hear monsters' thoughts]. From Ear, Stage Three onward, he could [converse with the remnants of the dead]. Worse, the penalty for his ear magic wasn't spontaneous and temporary like mine.

I'd forgotten, but his penalty was hearing thoughts whenever he got close.

He must have heard faint traces from the moment we set foot here. And when we entered the lodging to kill the teratoma colony, he would have heard every last bit.

The screams of a pregnant woman being devoured by teratomas.

The cries she must have let out when she felt, through her own flesh, the monster consuming the fetus in her womb.

The reason her human consciousness, persisting from the moment her body became a monster and was torn apart, desperately clung to that monstrous flesh.

He must even have heard the cries of the life already lost, which that consciousness trapped in eternity had tried to recreate by gathering the monster's flesh.

Hearing every last bit of that shit would drive anyone mad.

I was just wondering whether we ought to stick him with a shot of psychoactive drugs, like the soldiers on the cordon, before he lost his mind.

TAP, TAP.

Na-in tapped his headset and turned toward me.

"Je-min. I neither drink nor smoke. Nor will I stick a needle in my arm. Do you know why?"

His eyes held a handful of fear, and a passion that burned with that fear as its fuel.

"Because only by witnessing and feeling every evil committed by Satan's demons can the flames of righteous indignation burn in this clear mind. Je-min, I wish to sanctify this life. When the powers of evil spread terror, those who look away fall silent. But those who face it remember the blood shed from their wounds."

Rather than argue, I slung my rifle over my shoulder. A hundred words were worth less than a single action.

I thumped my fist against Na-in's chest a couple of times and stepped forward.

"Fine. Do that, at least."

There was probably some reason a bastard like him had awakened alteration-type magic instead of doctrinal magic, but I ignored it. I wasn't learning magic to play counselor and pry into every little detail.

There was something else worth being moved by.

I was grateful enough to cry that the usually clueless Se-jun had actually read the room and kept his mouth shut.

"What are you talking about so seriously?"

Look at him asking right away.

Thankfully, I hadn't needed to stay grateful for long.

"You don't need to know, Se-jun."

"You're being petty, so I'm not asking you. Na-in, what were you talking about?"

"Amazing grace~ How sweet the sound~ That saved a wretch like me~."

We began strolling down the village road, through the stink of blood and sickening rot. Our steps were lighter by the weight of all the bullets we'd fired.

Just then, we heard drones buzzing overhead, surveying the village beneath the newly clear sky. The troops stationed at the gas station near the entrance must have sent them to reconnoiter once the fog lifted.

I raised my left hand and waved at a buzzing drone.

After that wave, the moment I'd been waiting for finally arrived.

"All right, everyone. Look sharp. You know the drill?"

"What drill?"

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

Our relaxed postures stiffened back up.

My legs became unnecessarily rigid as I marched along. Somehow, I wanted even the motion of switching my rifle to safe to look professional. I deliberately let out a long breath through my gas mask, too.

The hems of our ponchos billowed with our quickening strides, making us stand out all the more in the motionless village.

Exactly three people were alive and breathing in this village.

Three people gripping their weapons, striding briskly in military boots, their gas masks still on and their poncho hoods pulled low.

Only those three survived, walking proudly through the village center, where both fog and cold had vanished, with still-hot barrels and muzzles smelling sharply of gunpowder lowered at their sides.

Me, Shin Na-in, and Lee Se-jun.

Whenever we passed through a scene of carnage where bullets had flown and flesh had sprayed, an indistinct murmur spread from beyond the road.

Instead of wind, the wasplike buzzing of drones battered our ears. Cracking shouts overlapped, and the sounds of engines hastily starting and wheels beginning to turn surged toward us like a tidal wave.

At the village entrance, I saw soldiers running toward us with rifles, along with one tank and two armored vehicles.

Dozens of soldiers emerged from the woods under drone cover, while the tank rolled along the road on its heavy tracks.

Then, at some point, the murmuring stopped.

They had seen us.

The soldiers with dog-tag armbands climbing out of the armored vehicles saw us, naturally parted to either side, and stood on ceremony. With their weapons slung over their shoulders, they saluted.

JINGLE, JINGLE.

Their overly vigorous salutes sent their dog tags clinking together, breaking the silence.

I turned my head without thinking and saw the two civilian Operators, a man and a woman who had been making a commotion behind the dog-tag soldiers, shivering.

My steps naturally stopped. Since Na-in and Se-jun couldn't get ahead of me, they had no choice but to stop too.

I turned to a soldier with a dog-tag armband.

"What did these two do to end up as civilian Operators?"

His eyes darted from side to side behind his gas-mask lenses before he lowered his saluting hand and answered.

"The man was arrested by military police for failing to comply with the mobilization order and is serving as a civilian Operator. The woman was required to serve as a civilian Operator on charges of spreading false rumors in Jeonju that the monsters were a hoax."

"There are mages outside this region too?"

"Of course not. They personally cover every expense, including aptitude testing near Seoul and the cost of ensuring their safety while awakening localized penetrative alteration activity. I consider it an excellent, sensible system."

The dog-tag-armband soldier looked down contemptuously at the two Operators, who crouched behind the armored vehicle in duck-walk position, trembling.

"It wouldn't be fair if we were the only ones fighting monsters from hell."

JINGLE, JINGLE.

The clinking dog tags sounded particularly intimidating.

After looking between the soldiers and the two Operators, I clicked my tongue and turned away.

A collaboration between ordinary men who hadn't awakened magic on the cordon and mediocrities who couldn't even appreciate the chance to learn it.

This was why the Republic of Korea had gone to shit.

Our trio quickened our pace, leaving behind the soldiers entering the village.

But they couldn't immediately advance into the village carpeted with corpses. Instead, countless eyes followed our retreating backs.

The occasional radio transmissions behind us spoke of what we'd accomplished.

["...16:16. Fog depth: Stage Zero."]

["The situation..."]

["...appears to be over..."]

Thank goodness I had my gas mask on. Otherwise, I couldn't have hidden my rising cheeks and twitching grin!

The footfalls of our trio grew more distinct as we retraced the steps of dozens of soldiers.

STEP, STEP, STEP...

Like salmon swimming upstream, we pushed against the crowd, leaving questions in our wake.

But. Still. How? Even so.

"'There were only three of them,' they say."

His heavy sighs over, Na-in said it proudly, grinning instead.

The alteration-type trio of the Supreme Mages arrived at the gas station, our steps carrying more weight thanks to Na-in's words yet landing more lightly.

The position was less crowded after sending so many soldiers into the village, but astonished cries filled the space they'd left, making it as noisy as ever.

The sweat-soaked major was pointing at his officers, not even thinking to wipe his glistening cheeks.

Then he noticed us approaching. His eyes widened, and without a word, he raised his hand in a crisp salute.

One action, rather than a hundred words.

He stopped pointing and chewing out his officers to give us a thoroughly respectful salute. The three of us each answered differently.

I brought my right index and middle fingers together and gave him a brief wave. Na-in, his rifle sling around his neck, pressed both hands together in prayer.

Only Se-jun stopped dead and returned a sharp, formal salute. Then, seeing Na-in and me heading for the helicopter, he hurried after us.

"Damn it, why didn't you return his salute properly? You're embarrassing the major."

"We're civilians. We don't have to return salutes."

"Amen."

RATTLE!

Only after opening the helicopter door and settling into a seat did I remove my gas mask.

"Whew."

After I exhaled a breath sweet with exhaustion, I found the pilot glancing back at me.

I gave him a firm thumbs-up.

Apparently, thumbs-up worked even across language barriers. The pilot shrugged, then returned the same gesture.

And so Na-in, Se-jun, and I were aboard the helicopter once more.

RATTLE!

As Se-jun closed the door and set down his machine gun, I spoke.

"Besides."

"Yes?"

"We're worth a hell of a lot more than a major now."

The helicopter's rotor began turning.

Amid the deafening noise and vibration, I naturally held my palm out to Na-in.

"What?"

"Black bag."

"Why do you suddenly want a bag?"

Suddenly?

Feeling the helicopter's shuddering vibrations through my whole body and the sour bile tickling my throat, I spoke slowly.

"I think I'm gonna puke."

May 7, 2028. 4:32 p.m.

When we returned to the U.S. military camp at the Pyeongtaek ROK–U.S. Joint Command, I climbed out holding a thick black plastic bag and felt the change in people's gazes.

All the doubtful looks asking, Are those people really the Supreme Mages? had vanished.

Only shock and awe remained.

At the head of the procession was the man himself, Baek Je-min, striding through the gusting wind after flinging open the helicopter door, a tightly knotted black plastic bag in hand.

Behind him came Shin Na-in, the shithead Christian fanatic, and Lee Se-jun, the former staff sergeant aspiring to become a beautiful girl through a gender swap.

We crossed asphalt and concrete with light steps, savoring the thought that the monster population must have shrunk by the number of bullets we'd fired.

Then I spotted Corporal Son Ga-in checking his wristwatch in the driver's seat of a van parked beside the road, and Captain Kim Ho-un on the phone. Kim had his phone wedged between his head and shoulder, scribbling furiously in a notebook.

"Yes, yes, I'm listening. Identified species: teratoma. Newly confirmed biological behavior. Estimated population: approximately sixty. Subspecies confirmed. Situation resolved following engagement. Operation duration..."

In the middle of his noisy phone conversation, Kim Ho-un stared blankly at us approaching and finished his sentence.

"...twenty-eight minutes."

* * *

Reality Survival Command, our financial backer, received the results of this engagement with great seriousness.

The information was important enough that Major General Jeon Min-ho called us down into the bunker again. That said, he wasn't alone this time.

Lieutenant General Royce Candler, the second commander of Reality Survival Command, was there.

The bald black man with the scar beside his mouth rose and applauded to welcome our alteration-type trio. Beside him, the sleepy-looking Brigadier General Thatcher and Major General Jeon Min-ho stood and applauded as well.

CLAP, CLAP, CLAP...

As we walked to our seats amid enthusiastic applause, he offered a handshake. I couldn't refuse.

Royce's grip this time wasn't painful, but it squeezed with considerable weight.

"Well done!"

Na-in handled most of the report.

With an English-speaking translator right there, there was no reason for me and my TOEIC score of four hundred to rack my brains. Out of consideration for us, he did give us a rough idea of what he was explaining.

His report went as follows.

1. The true biology of teratomas. They can use animals as hosts to compensate for their limited activity and mobility.

2. Discovery of a teratoma subspecies, the teratoma colony. The colony consciousness displayed the distinctive tendency to imitate a human appearance.

3. Heart-branch magic script was discovered on the subspecies.

Royce then posed all sorts of questions through Jeon Min-ho.

These were in Korean, so I understood them too.

"Was any infection of birds confirmed?"

"No. At least, we didn't find any."

Despite Na-in's firm answer, Royce, Thatcher, and Jeon murmured gravely among themselves.

I could plainly sense the slight unease in these steel-hard soldiers as their eyes narrowed.

After whispering for a long while, the generals seemed to reach a conclusion and moved on to other questions.

"What do you mean by attempting to imitate a human appearance?"

"Exactly what it sounds like. It was... copying a shape with a swollen belly, like a pregnant woman."

Na-in stumbled a little over his words, but fortunately finished properly.

We kept our theory about the beginning of eternity to ourselves again.

Knowing would only be horrifying. Hesitating to put bullets into them would merely prolong the suffering of those trapped in the monsters' flesh.

Jeon accepted the answer with a nod and moved on.

"This is actually the most concerning point."

He set down his file and planted a hand over his neat, composed face. Only after wiping his right hand down his face did he continue.

"You discovered heart-branch magic script that induces the awakening of localized penetrative alteration activity on the teratoma colony's body. Are you certain?"

"Yes. All three of us saw it. I turned away because it made me nauseous, but I believe Mr. Baek Je-min acquired the heart branch."

"Mr. Baek Je-min, is that true?"

I nodded proudly.

"Yes. I can use all five branches now."

"Five branches..."

Royce and Thatcher pressed their lips shut, despite looking eager to speak.

I thought they'd remembered Na-in could speak English and read minds, and were trying to avoid giving us any more information. A few seconds later, however, I realized I'd judged them far too uncharitably.

They weren't withholding information. They couldn't reach a conclusion.

Their confusion, lacking the criteria and material needed to make a judgment, was plain to see. Both glanced at each other, then tapped their index fingers against the table as if pressing Jeon for an answer.

Finally, Royce spoke to Jeon.

"All five disciplines. Anything notable on record?"

"Nothing, sir... He's the first."

Jeon answered while wiping sweat from his forehead.

At that answer, Royce furrowed his brow and turned to Thatcher.

"Can we get a medical workup on him? I want to know if there's any physiological change."

"If we don't have time, we'll make time, sir."

Thatcher stared at me with an anxious expression. Uncomfortable, I turned away and looked at Na-in instead.

The first thing I saw, though, was Se-jun over his shoulder, arms folded, openly clicking his tongue now that he'd been left out of the conversation.

Disgusted by the sight, I focused on Na-in all the more thoroughly.

"What'd they say?"

"You're the first person outside the cordon to have all five branches. They want to give you a medical exam."

"That's correct."

Jeon interjected, drawing our attention.

Royce and Thatcher had already readjusted their posture. Only Jeon continued speaking, barely managing to steady his trembling voice.

"As you're probably aware, Pyeongtaek has been conducting physical examinations of practitioners of localized penetrative alteration activity—people commonly called mages—to measure which parts of their bodies undergo changes."

"You have?"

That was news to me.

I wondered why I'd never heard of it, but Se-jun, still with his arms folded, cleared that up by chiming in.

"Je-min, I learned what Heart, Stage Two did after my medical exam in Pyeongtaek, remember?"

"Oh."

Apparently, I'd shoved it into a corner of my mind because it concerned Se-jun, the number-one person I didn't want to befriend.

Kindhearted Jeon sighed but explained anyway.

"We'll likely have to postpone it until the situation at the cordon stabilizes. Still, given that the Society of 66 also emphasized fifty-five, achieving all five branches surely means something. We ask for your cooperation. We'll actively provide anything you need. Captain Kim Ho-un will be assigned exclusively to you to assist you."

TAP, TAP.

The way he straightened his file told me the meeting was winding down.

Naturally, the generals and our Supreme Mages trio all rose. Another round of handshakes followed.

Royce was busy praising us, even widening his eyes and making a show of excitement. Thatcher, his eyelids lifted a little higher than usual, kept saying "Best" as he shook our hands too.

Then came Jeon's turn.

Just as I thought this would be another ordinary handshake, he suddenly pulled me into a hug and whispered in my ear.

"Je-min. Colonel Min asked me to do it, but I can't keep this up. The omitted reports from Suwon will be submitted. Including how you acquired your magic."

"Colonel Min?"

"The commander of the Suwon City Hall command post."

The face of the exhausted-looking colonel flashed through my mind—the one who had tossed me about seventy units of military scrip and promised to keep me from becoming a test subject.

Jeon kept whispering while making a show of heartily patting my back.

"Je-min. Do you know what's more horrifying than monsters trying to steal magic through magic script? The very fact that killing those monsters allows people to learn magic."

His dark insight continued.

He'd immediately grasped what might happen if killing a monster bearing magic script offered an easier way to acquire magic.

"People will start trying to bring those monsters to their employers. Je-min, we know just how vicious these creatures are. For the world's sake, they must not get out. We don't even need to look far. If some lunatic tries smuggling them into a city behind the lines, everyone struggling here is finished."

Horrifying as it was, I couldn't deny it.

Humans looked for opportunities even amid the apocalypse.

"So even if Command orders it, even if a private sponsor requests it, don't leave them alive. Kill every last one."

With those final words, he stepped away wearing a perfectly ordinary expression. Then he strode after Royce and Thatcher, who were already leaving the bunker.

I watched him go, a little bewildered, before letting out a chuckle.

Na-in and Se-jun, on the other hand, must have overheard him too. Their faces were deadly serious.

"Je-min, I don't think that was funny."

"No, think about it. It's ridiculous."

"Wasn't it a plausible prediction?"

"Not the prediction. The problem is telling me that. Honestly..."

I couldn't hide my twitching lips or shaking shoulders. What I'd thought was a laugh of disbelief quickly became genuine laughter.

Jeon Min-ho worried far, far too much.

After all...

"Is he crazy? Why would I give my magic to some other bastard?"

I was already pissed as hell that monsters were trying to steal magic. Now someone thought they could steal my magic just because they had money?

Those fuckers really would die.

I'd go kill them myself.

* * *

May 7, 2028. 7:14 p.m.

All six of us had gathered in the barracks provided for the Supreme Mages.

While Na-in, Se-jun, and I had cleared the teratomas in twenty-eight minutes, Ryeo-ha, Hamza, and the pastor had each been called away for noncombat duties and fulfilled their own roles.

We ladled bubbling ramyeon from a pot on a portable gas burner into our bowls, sharing everything from idle chatter to important information.

After slurping up a mouthful of tender, chewy noodles, I asked Ryeo-ha a question.

"You went to the armory? What were you doing there?"

"They said they plan to test whether enchanting a gun barrel can give a bullet an effect the moment it's fired. They showed interest in the Fire Marquis Hands too. Thanks to that, they promised additional food and medical supplies for the people at Konkuk University."

"Oh."

Right. She was still keeping up the premise that the Konkuk University people were alive.

I discreetly looked away from her and spotted Hamza using his chopsticks.

He crunched down on a hearty mouthful of kimchi, then started blabbing before I could ask.

"Munch, munch... They showed me a map and asked me to point out the most dangerous places. Later, they say they'll gather Muslims like me and form a separate organization to assess danger levels."

"Even if they gather Muslims, don't they still have to roll the dice in the fog? Where are they getting them?"

"Pakistan. Iran. Syria. Lebanon. Places like that. Offer U.S. citizenship and they'll come in droves."

"They'd come when the place is crawling with monsters? Why?"

"Je-min. Those places have a monster called poverty."

A place where people doing forced labor and begging to be let out mingled with people jumping in for a shot at U.S. citizenship.

Just what you'd expect from the wonderful-to-live-in Republic of Korea, reinventing itself as a racial melting pot.

The pastor, who should have been the loudest person here, was unusually quiet today. He was praying softly, savoring even a spoonful of ramyeon broth with reverence.

"As we warm our bodies with the daily bread You have bestowed, we beseech You, Christ: let Your children not lose their way amid tribulation..."

Pastor Park Yo-han had apparently been distributing relief supplies, guiding refugees pouring into Pyeongtaek, and maintaining order. Perhaps that was why he had so much on his mind.

Still, he hadn't missed the important information we'd shared. He clicked his chopsticks together and spoke.

"Two of the magic scripts. Hand and heart. Coincidentally, both branches are less affected by the fog. Considering the essence of alteration-type magic as well, I don't believe the monsters can steal magic."

"I'd like to hear your reasoning, Pastor."

Na-in set down his chopsticks and adopted an attentive posture. The pastor stirred the noodles in the pot and began.

"That damned monk, me, the information Je-min gained by destroying remains, and those mystic bastards in Pyeongtaek—we all say one thing in common. Alteration-type magic is connected to five, the number of humanity, and is magic meant to define what humanity actually is. It's a miracle activated by paying pain as its price. Have you ever wondered why such a miracle requires pain?"

"Because youth is supposed to hurt?"

Se-jun said it while picking up a piece of Spam.

I glared at him for taking the Spam, but he popped it into his mouth without a care.

"Se-jun isn't wrong. Humans are cunning creatures, and more often than not, they need pain to truly feel something. Meditation and disciplines meant to cultivate body and mind involve abstaining from food, fasting, or eating a simple diet, keeping proper posture, and burning incense. They focus you on contemplation rather than bodily pleasures. Prayer retreats were created to deepen the body and spirit. So why suffer, even to the point of scourging the flesh?"

The pastor calmly lifted noodles into his bowl.

"Because they want to become one with God. Because they want to knock on heaven's door. Because they hope to be filled with joy even after this life ends. Have you seen such yearning in the monsters? I've seen intelligence in them, but never that spirituality. They lack the most fundamental wish shared by all humans, so they won't be able to steal magic that pursues humanity."

"The most fundamental wish?"

"Eternity. The wish for this life to continue afterward."

His words reminded me of the beginning of eternity.

No human could have wished for an eternity trapped in monstrous flesh. The eternity he meant was probably closer to living and breathing forever in this very body.

Then did the monsters—those grotesque masses of flesh imprisoning human consciousness—want their own lives to continue forever?

It was a subject I'd never considered, and quite interesting. The argument the pastor offered next was pretty convincing too.

"I think they're stealing what the magic scripts symbolize rather than magic itself. I'll bring this up when the mystics gather later, but I'm telling our BOBs in advance."

"What they symbolize?"

"Look at the Amalgams. Those Dubai chewy humans. You don't remember the earliest report about them fleeing at the sound of a siren, do you? At first, all they could do was make human sounds and rub their faces together. But they're gradually becoming more intelligent. Even when we were escaping, they were."

SLURP!

He pushed his steamed-up glasses onto his forehead and slurped a mouthful of noodles.

"Then Je-min saw hand magic script beneath Suwon Station. And that blood net down there was classified as an Amalgam subspecies, officially called a neural-network-parasitic Amalgam. They figure it mutated to cling to the ceiling and escape the heavy gas when they sprayed it. I think otherwise. It evolved by eating mages. What does hand magic symbolize?"

He clicked his chopsticks together to draw our attention.

His theory was this.

The monsters couldn't steal magic through magic script, nor did they intend to. Instead, they were stealing scripts containing near-infinite meaning in order to understand humanity. That was why the blood net beneath Suwon Station had hand magic script despite having eaten Father Jeong Yong-hwan, an eye mage, and Madam Geulmun, an ordinary doctrinal mage.

"Ultimately, every mage does have an aptitude for all five branches. The five branches symbolize humanity, after all. The problem is that it's fucking difficult. So the more mages they eat, the more the monsters extract those different aptitudes the mages possess. They force out the related magic script."

Na-in's eyes narrowed.

"Extracting the script their species prefers..."

"And strengthening themselves. An update."

According to the pastor's theory, monsters hunted human mages to steal the potential those mages originally possessed.

Amalgams—head-fusion mimic beasts—stole humanity's intelligence, hand magic.

The more hand magic they stole, the more intelligent their movements and pack-hunting tactics became. A subspecies that ate mages evolved into Bloodcord Delta, the blood net.

Teratomas—parasitic malignant tumors—stole humanity's life, heart magic.

As they stole more heart magic, their vitality grew stronger. A subspecies that ate mages became a teratoma colony, gaining the ability to parasitize hosts other than humans.

The pastor even offered one hopeful conjecture.

"Therefore, the more we kill individuals that have eaten mages, the more stolen magic returns to humans, and they'll weaken back to their original state. ... Well? Sounds plausible, doesn't it?"

"What if they gather the scraps of magic ordinary non-mages have and make magic script from those?"

"Je-min. What do you mean, what if? We're supposed to protect people, you punk!"

My carefully aimed finishing blow had been blocked.

Then everyone began applauding.

"Excellent. I applaud your insight, Pastor."

Na-in was the first to give him a standing ovation. Se-jun blankly clapped along, Hamza glanced around before joining in, and Ryeo-ha laughed merrily and applauded with delight.

I found his smugness irritating, so I folded my arms instead of clapping. Still, I had to admit it was a pretty plausible, impressive line of reasoning.

Bleak, dark, and horrifying... yet hopeful.

Above all, I liked how simple and clear the conclusion was.

"So you're saying if I shoot them all dead and take it back, the magic is mine? Think it'll raise my level?"

"I don't know, you punk. Baek Je-min, just clap."

Pastor Park Yo-han.

His words and behavior befitted the leader of those obnoxious Christians who, over a decade ago, had glared murderously at little Baek Je-min for taking a thousand-won bill from the offering box.

Just look at how he immediately gave me shit for not applauding.