Chapter 95 - Dream Team, Nightmare Edition

The hospital in Anyang was larger than I had expected.

Large enough, at least, for the military to bring fourteen armored vehicles and eight tanks. The troops surrounding it on all four sides numbered several dozen on each side. That was probably what it took to deal with one enormous building shrouded in fog.

Having landed in the park, we could survey the military cordon around the hospital. Two or three tanks were stationed on each side, keeping a street's distance from the building with their main guns trained on it.

Four or five armored vehicles stood beside the tanks, their autocannons aimed menacingly. Soldiers hurried around them or caught their breath behind piled sandbags, their rifles resting on top.

Now that I had looked over our troops, I decided to inspect the Chinese volunteers parading farther over beneath their five-star red flag.

They marched in perfect step, singing something in Chinese as they escorted tanks on either side.

Their rigid posture, befitting men from the authoritarian Chinese People’s Liberation Army, offered a glimpse of training spent doing endless drill. My feelings toward their country weren't exactly warm, but as a soldier who had done his share of grinding toil, I clicked my tongue and offered them a little sympathy.

The frog-faced lieutenant colonel led us to a hospital annex.

This military hospital in central Anyang consisted of one large main building, a nearby parking lot, a funeral hall in the surrounding grounds, and two annexes standing side by side across a crosswalk.

We entered the first floor of Annex One. Even in the lobby, groans overlapped with the hurried footsteps of people running about.

The command-and-control room was on the second floor. Leaving behind soldiers busily carrying people and moving boxes, we entered a corner of a room packed neatly with cables and communications equipment. Only then did the frog lieutenant colonel turn to us.

"Aphorism, let me brief you on the situation here."

Between his explanation and the interjections from his staff, we were able to piece together the details.

May 6.

About two days ago, fog had appeared around Anyang. They had been on edge, but most of it dispersed like ordinary fog, putting them at ease at first. In several areas, however, it refused to clear. The hospital sitting squarely in the city center was one of them.

The hospital was engulfed in dense fog, communications with the outside were poor, and even the survivors inside who could be contacted had no clear grasp of the situation.

The frog lieutenant colonel scratched his cheek as he turned, one by one, through the documents a second lieutenant had handed him.

"The survivors we managed to contact were holding out in an eleventh-floor conference room with the door barricaded. They could barely hear screams or groans outside. Apparently someone started a fire, because the fire alarm went off, and they say they became trapped there while trying to escape."

"Oh my goodness. Wouldn't setting a fire kill everyone?"

Go Ryeo-ha covered her mouth with both hands as she chimed in. The frog lieutenant colonel shrugged.

"This was originally a tertiary hospital serving the surrounding region. It does have fire precautions. But it seems fire barriers came down, sprinklers activated, and so on, creating conditions that restricted movement inside. Based on previous cases, the military believes most survivors are holding out in isolated locations with their doors blocked and their phones switched off to prevent any sound from escaping."

Those were incredibly complicated, unsettling conditions.

I felt bad for the survivors inside, but it almost made me think we would be better off sweeping the whole place with gas. Now that we were near the dense fog, Hamza's doctrinal magic, [Angel's Intuition], apparently had become more accurate. His expression was rigid.

"It's dangerous. Je-min, it's really dangerous."

"How dangerous?"

"Extremely. Maybe even more than when we met the Seoul mages."

"You're saying it could be more dangerous than the Seoul mages?"

For a moment, I wondered whether the Seoul mages were being underestimated.

Jeong Na-ri, the Dubai Chewy Witch. An inverted mage who slurped up people's memories and experiences, wielded a concrete shield, and ran along walls.

Han Min-jun, Ski Goggles. As if commanding monsters through ritual-type magic weren't enough, he had shrugged off bullets with Eye Stage Three and used his monster servants for concealment and close combat.

If this place was more dangerous than those esteemed predecessors, was there something like the gaze monster inside?

I decided to ask the frog lieutenant colonel calmly and composedly.

"Didn't you recon the interior?"

"We did. We did, but..."

This was what he told us.

The military had learned that shoving people inside like complete idiots would only create more monsters, so they had sent drones. Even in the dense fog surrounding the roughly fifteen-story building, they flew drones to observe the exterior. Some even swept the hospital corridors floor by floor.

But the results of this cautious, meticulous drone reconnaissance had been disappointing.

"We found no monsters, corpses, or broken or damaged interior windows. Nor did we encounter the drone-disabling phenomenon that occurs near neural-network-parasitic Amalgams—the monster known as Bloodcord Delta or the blood net. We swept through with the drones, but apart from the fog filling it, there was genuinely nothing unusual inside the hospital. Up through the sixth floor, it was so clean that there weren't even signs of disorder beyond equipment and fixtures lying around."

"If there's nothing unusual, why is there fog?"

"We also believe the presence of fog means there must be monsters."

The ROK–U.S. Joint Command currently operated in three stages.

Stage One was the main force maintaining the cordon.

Stage Two was a mobile strike force organized to search for and eliminate monsters appearing inside the cordon, made up of non-mage soldiers with experience fighting monsters and mage specialist soldiers. When specialist soldiers were in short supply, Civilian Operators were requisitioned or enticed with military scrip, incorporated into the strike force, and deployed.

The final stage, Stage Three, was deploying us Supreme Mages.

The failure of the initial reconnaissance was a major reason this military hospital in Anyang had been escalated to Stage Three: deployment of the Supreme Mages.

One upright Eye Stage Two specialist soldier and two upright Ear Stage One specialist soldiers had gone in with some thirty troops—and disappeared.

They had thoroughly surveyed the exterior by drone and swept every inch up through the sixth floor. Worried about a possible ambush from the basement, they had even installed motion sensors near the stairs and blocked outside passageways with unmanned military robots to prevent anything getting out.

The frog lieutenant colonel let out a sigh that was almost a lament and set down the documents with an irritable jerk of his hand.

SLAP!

Having flung the papers onto the table, he spoke as if airing his grievances.

"Communications were normal through the third floor, but we lost contact with all of them as they went up to the fourth. They did report finding and killing specimens such as Amalgams and predatory spines. Nobody expected soldiers with combat experience to all disappear on the fourth floor—effectively to be wiped out."

"Can't you just gas it?"

Why the hell were they trying to send just three Supreme Mages into a place that dangerous?

Cleanly gassing the place, euthanizing the survivors, and quickly eliminating the monsters would be a far better decision. But apparently not everything in the world revolved around killing monsters.

The frog lieutenant colonel fluttered his thick lips and raised his eyebrows.

"Most of the people inside are medical personnel and soldiers. There is also sensitive equipment and infrastructure. We can't guarantee it won't be damaged during decontamination. And since this was a tertiary hospital, abandoning it would practically destroy the medical infrastructure southwest of Seoul. There are political reasons, too."

"What? Political?"

I wondered whether I had misheard.

The apocalypse was right on our doorstep and monsters had their jaws wide open. What fucking politics?

"Do you know what the ROK–China Combined Command did first, right after it was established? China and the United States are now locked in an international contest over command of the UN forces due to deploy soon. The United States has the advantage, but China is demanding full disclosure of information related to localized penetrative alteration activity and apparently joining other countries to steer public opinion. The ROK–U.S. Joint Command maintains that it cannot release the information for fear of social unrest on a global scale."

As he spoke, the frog lieutenant colonel stole a glance out the window.

Not at the hospital's fog-shrouded main building, but at the Chinese People’s Liberation Army troops marching proudly in the distance—volunteers in name only.

"Anyang is effectively a joint security area right now. If China expands its influence and takes over a hundred percent of security here, Pyeongtaek will be completely exposed."

"Come on, Mr. Soldier. We're all trying to stop the monsters, aren't we? Isn't it a good thing if they do it for us?"

Ryeo-ha answered with her eyes half-lidded, and the frog lieutenant colonel chuckled.

"True enough. Plenty of people would shake hands with the devil if he promised to stop those monster bastards."

Exactly. Relations might be painfully nasty, but if they stopped the monsters, weren't we all fellow humans?

If they were volunteering their bodies to become my experience points, old grudges were bound to melt away. With the country ruined, all that politics and diplomacy meant nothing beyond being a thorn in our side.

It was time to discuss practical matters.

"So, what, do we rappel from a helicopter onto the roof?"

"No. You can't."

"Why not?"

This time it was Hamza, not me, asking with wide eyes. Anyone who had reasonably concluded that clearing the building from top to bottom would be better would have thought the same.

But the frog lieutenant colonel pointed out our complacency.

"The fog is too thick for a helicopter to approach easily, and that hospital has no helipad."

"Don't all regional tertiary hospitals have one?"

"This is near Seoul."

The frog lieutenant colonel fluttered his lips again and grinned.

"Can't let helicopter noise crash the value of apartments people spent their whole lives paying for. Please enter on the first floor and work up to the roof. We believe there is no medical equipment in the basement, so we plan to flood it with gas."

Okay.

I had heard everything I needed.

SCRAPE!

As I stood up, my chair scraping back, Ryeo-ha and Hamza rose with me. Realizing we intended to leave immediately, the frog lieutenant colonel looked surprised.

"You're going already?"

I gave him a sloppy salute and answered.

"I've already spent plenty of time on this. Let's go, Teacher. Hamza, keep up."

"Don't worry, Mr. Soldier. We'll save them!"

"Je-min, couldn't I just stay here and handle communications?"

"Hamza."

Wisely, Hamza stopped spouting nonsense.

I was already fucking miserable at the prospect of doing all the hard work myself. If my Spam buddy Hamza left my side too, I might resort to drastic measures. I didn't know what shape Hamza would take as a sacred relic, but he would certainly find it less satisfactory than his current state of walking around on two legs.

The three of us left the annex, receiving bewildered looks and hesitant salutes from the soldiers we passed.

We wore the ponchos inscribed with ancient Hebrew that had now become the symbol of the Supreme Mages, slipped naturally into our gas masks, and breathed in heavy huffs. All except one person.

"Aaah. My junior, Mr. Muslim. How do I put on this gas mask?"

Go Ryeo-ha.

True to someone who had only just scraped into the Supreme Mages, she had even put her poncho on wrong. Instead of inserting her arms through the sleeves, she had tied it in front like a cape and was now fumbling about, inspecting the gas-mask straps.

"Teacher, didn't you serve in the military?"

Hamza reacted first. He looked at me as though I were pathetic.

"Je-min."

"I know."

I was giving her shit.

After some difficulty, Hamza explained how to put it on, and Ryeo-ha finally managed to wear her gas mask.

HUFF.

She gave a short exhale to test her breathing, then burst into giggles for some reason.

"It smells so strong!"

Fuck...

Turning away, I silently mulled over that exclamation and its countless implications.

"Let's go. Seriously."

At the approach to the main hospital building, we heard soldiers swallowing nervously.

Before the thick fog covering everything within ten meters of the building, we heard countless drones buzzing around it like a swarm of bees.

As I pushed through the fog, I switched on my weapon's low-powered light out of habit. Then, in front of the main entrance, the instant I saw broken windows and flickering fluorescent lights beyond the swirling fog, I released the safety.

CLICK.

"I'll handle basic detection with Eye, Stage One. Teacher, you draw out ambushers with spirit sight. We can't repeat that every time, so Hamza, check on your own before we open doors or turn corners. I'll take point, Hamza in the middle, Teacher at the rear."

When I briefly assigned our positions, Ryeo-ha opened her eyes wide.

"My junior, you sound so professional!"

"Je-min, I'm nervous."

"I know."

So was I.

Tucking my gun beneath my arm, I pulled out my phone and checked the screen.

6:02 p.m., May 8, 2028.

Couldn't we just come back tomorrow? It would be even worse after dark.

I decided to put that perfectly reasonable thought aside for a moment.

"Let's hurry and save everyone! Emergency rescue squad, move out!"

"Je-min... I really think I should just handle communications from the rear."

I held the button down, switched off my smartphone, and tucked it away.

This team was more horrifying than the prospect of nightfall.

CLACK.

Readjusting my grip on my gun, I stepped into the hospital without hesitation—into that strange space where fog drifted gently, mingled with dust.

* * *

The instant I entered the first-floor lobby, one thought came to mind.

I deliberately kept it to myself, but Hamza looked around and casually said it aloud.

"It's cleaner inside than I expected."

Please.

But Hamza wasn't the only oddball here.

Ryeo-ha drew a military bayonet, sliced across her right hand, surveyed the surroundings, and shouted loudly.

"Hello! Is anybody here?"

"Shh! Shhhhh... Ryeo-ha, please be quiet..."

"Mr. Muslim, you have to call loudly if you want to rescue people! Hello!"

...

Instead of replying, I simply scanned the surroundings with Eye, Stage One, looking ten seconds into the future.

If monsters moved in response to this racket, red footprints would appear or the fog would clear. At least trash mobs like Amalgams were likely to react, however carefully they were lying in ambush.

But Hamza was right. No red footprints appeared even ten seconds ahead. It was just as the frog lieutenant colonel had said.

Apparently there had been some fighting before the fourth floor. Was that why there were no monsters in the first-floor lobby?

If Shin Na-in were here, he would have hummed a hymn and given us estimates of the monsters' species, numbers, and locations. There was no chance of that with this team.

I was just wondering whether I would have to do Na-in's job as well when it happened.

CLATTER!

Objects fell in a corner of a room to the left of the main entrance.

I aimed my gun, but there were no new traces. The fog continued to drift serenely, and the dust beneath the flickering fluorescent lights neither stirred nor bore any marks.

Only the door to a large room on the left—what had probably been a consulting room—was slightly dented.

Was it inside? Had something really reacted to the noise?

I was making that assessment with my gun trained on the door when she spoke.

"My junior, I'll try getting another reaction."

Ryeo-ha gave a short huff behind her gas mask, apparently still unused to it.

I was wondering whether she would strike it with something like telekinesis when I suddenly remembered her doctrinal magic.

[Spirit Sight], the doctrinal magic said to be possessed by shamans.

Magic that could immediately distinguish the souls of monsters from those of humans...

And instantly provoke a monster's hostility.

BANG!

Dust fluttered over the uneven surface of the door.

When I activated Eye, Stage One again, previously invisible red footprints led out through the doorway, turning toward us. But once I had foreseen the next ten seconds, it was far too easy.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

All I had to do was wait for the door to break and the monster to burst out.

No matter how hideous a monster was, it was no match for a gun. I steadied my breathing, tucked my elbows firmly against my body, and raised my weapon to eye level. Whether it was an Amalgam or a predatory spine, a bullet would end it the moment it emerged.

I would show it the marksmanship that I, Baek Je-min, had honed like a true man.

I was making that resolve, my finger caressing the trigger, when it happened.

"First strike wins!"

CRRRUNCH!

The door was torn away with terrifying force, crushing the barricades blocking it from within.

But what left me feeling empty was the sight of the Amalgam stretching and tearing like mozzarella along with the ripped-out door.

An invisible hand tore off the head of the Amalgam that had been pounding on the door—a head composed of five mingled human faces. Pus-like bodily fluid streamed messily from it before it was flung to the floor with a wet thud.

Only then could the headless bodies separate and collapse individually.

As though the Amalgam itself found having its main body ripped away unfair and absurd, its faces twisted grotesquely as it flopped about and howled.

"No, no!"

"Urrrrr..."

"Daughter-in-law, don't cling to me. I'm exhausted."

Even that didn't last long.

SPLAT!

The Amalgam's severed head was crushed as though beneath a hydraulic press.

At the same time, pounding erupted from closed doors all over the first floor.

THUD. THUD. THUD.

I stared hollowly at the crushed Amalgam, then turned to Ryeo-ha.

"Ta-da, ta-da, ta-da! My junior! There were so many left!"

"Let's clear them out from the main entrance first."

"Quick, hurry outside!"

I trudged after the panicking Hamza.

Waiting at the main entrance, we picked off the monsters one by one as they broke through the first-floor doors, provoked by Ryeo-ha's [Spirit Sight]. Watching them get squashed by invisible hands made my heart ache.

Go Ryeo-ha, you intolerable bitch.

Who would have thought she could be so brutal toward beings that had once been human—monsters retaining human selves and consciousness?

But disheartened or not, I still had work to do.

I rolled my tongue inside my mouth.

Target, kill, monster, five minutes, path.

With a searing, gritty sensation in my eyes and my tongue splitting abruptly, I provided cover for Ryeo-ha.

Monsters such as Amalgams and predatory spines had become so pathetically weak that they couldn't even approach us.

The reason was that, unpleasant and horrifying as it was, pairing Ryeo-ha with me worked far better than I had imagined.

"Dad, what's happening?" "Your face looks a little stretched." "Doctor, there's something wrong with this patient!"

The instant the mingled faces of the Amalgams rushed at us, crying their last death cries, Ryeo-ha responded with the speed befitting a former Seoul mage.

WHAM!

As the number of monsters increased, Hand Stage Three, [Telekinesis], focused entirely on keeping them at a distance rather than killing them. She sent them flying as though backhanding them and swatted predatory spines to the ground as though brushing away mosquitoes.

Her right fist, soaked with Hand Stage One, [Blood of the Right Hand], was used not for close combat but in a way I had never imagined.

Her clenched right hand was full of bottle caps—bottle caps drenched in [Blood of the Right Hand]. She picked them out one at a time between her index and middle fingers and launched them at monsters that came within a certain distance.

Ordinarily, they would have lodged in the monsters' skin or bounced off hard skulls, greatly diminishing their effect.

That would have happened if she hadn't fired them fucking hard and fast with Heart Stage Two, [Enhanced Physical Abilities].

BOOOM!

The fog split. A monster burst apart with it.

I immediately aimed my gun.

BANG-BANG-BANG!

Casings flew. Monster fluids sprayed.

Neat holes appeared between the eyes of the bastards grinning after dodging Ryeo-ha's penetrating bottle caps.

Our coordination was better than I had expected.

Ryeo-ha kept the monsters from approaching and wiped them out with area attacks. I killed the ones she failed to knock away and cleaned up the trash mobs she had scattered.

Hamza was probably trembling right now, so there were effectively only two combatants.

Yet we were killing them more easily than when I fought with Shin Na-in and Lee Se-jun, even if our pace was a little slower.

That made it all the more unpleasant.

To describe it in more specific, vivid detail, the way everything clicked so perfectly into place felt fucking awful.

The combination of Ryeo-ha's Hand Stage One and Heart Stage Two amounted to a dedicated anti-monster hand cannon.

The sight of Amalgams swaying and losing their footing as they dodged bloody bottle caps bouncing off the floor was probably the most extraordinary thing I had seen in my few months as a mage.

This was where I came in.

The moment I noticed that Ryeo-ha's miniature artillery barrage had disrupted the monsters' formation, I aimed without hesitation at where they would reposition and pulled the trigger.

Eventually, when well over forty monsters had become corpses before us—when I saw Ryeo-ha stomping and grinding down one that was still writhing alive—only after she finished them off and turned to wave brightly at me, her voice muffled behind her gas mask, did I realize it.

"Whew. My junior, are you all right?"

"Teacher."

"Yes, my junior!"

Apart from certain aspects, Ryeo-ha was undoubtedly a dependable companion with reassuring combat strength and detection capabilities.

Why was I unhappy with a companion whose looks were pleasing despite her minor mental defects?

"Where's my Four-Tiger Sword?"

I hadn't gotten my loot.

When we entered the hospital again, the atmosphere among the three of us was terrible.

I had discovered that this bitch Go Ryeo-ha was a swindler worse than a rental-deposit scammer.

"My junior, it's not like I said I wouldn't make it for you."

"Ryeo-ha, be quiet."

Ryeo-ha whined as she used [Spirit Sight], while I grumbled and checked for red footprints with Alteration-Type Eye, Stage One.

Hamza glanced between us and occasionally pointed discreetly.

"Je-min, over there..."

When Hamza pointed, there was no need to deliberate. I raised my gun and aimed at the hospital room he indicated, and Ryeo-ha tore its door away with [Telekinesis] without being told.

Then Amalgams or predatory spines burst out, floundering through the fog like sweet crabmeat exposed beneath a shell.

These motherfucking trash-mob bastards.

Afraid that letting even one slip away would delay my advancement to the next level, I carefully shot each one with a single round.

All the shit Instructor Song Smith had given me was apparently paying off. I could kill them without using Eye, Stage One at a hundred percent, my muzzle lining up with their weak points as though drawn toward them.

And the monsters I had just shot were the last.

Watching the acrid gun smoke mingle with the fog, I made a show of blowing on the hot muzzle to cool it. My breaths were noisy after passing through the gas-mask filter.

HUFF. HUFF.

Ah, is that all you've got?

Humans can never overcome pain. They can only forget it through greater pain.

My decision to learn marksmanship so I could expend pain strategically had therefore proved correct.

Even after scouring every corner of the first floor and picking off the predatory spines hiding in toilet stalls, I was suffering very little pain.

I had used so little magic that I could fully feel the heat that normally rose through my left-hand staff.

If I had a Four-Tiger Sword too, I would be complete as both a ranged and melee damage dealer.

If only I had the Four-Tiger Sword.

"My junior..."

"Ryeo-ha. I told you to be quiet."

As I grumbled at her drawn-out words, Hamza cautiously approached and spoke.

"Je-min. She said she'll make one if you just wait until 2034."

"AAAH!!!"

When I lost control and shouted, Ryeo-ha interlaced her fingers and pretended to pray despite wearing a gas mask.

"But Je-min, a Four-Tiger Sword has to be forged in the year, month, day, and hour of the Tiger! How am I supposed to make one when 2028 isn't a Tiger year?"

"Ugh..."

I clutched the back of my neck.

This, this, this fucking bitch.

Apparently the Four-Tiger Sword wasn't called that because somebody had picked a vaguely cool-sounding name. It was forged in a Tiger year, Tiger month, Tiger day, and Tiger hour.

In other words, it was called a Four-Tiger Sword because it was forged when there were four Tigers.

The last such year, month, day, and hour had been in 2022, so the next cycle was 2034...!

Was this how victims of rental-deposit fraud felt?

For the sake of my teeth, I ground them only in my mind as I issued a stern warning.

"Don't speak. Stop running your mouths and just quietly do the mission. Mention that Four-Tiger Sword in front of me one more time and I'll really shoot you all dead."

"Yes, Je-min."

Hamza took the hint quickly and clamped his mouth shut.

"I'll make you something else. Okay?"

"Ryeo-ha. Stop."

"Okay."

Once Ryeo-ha shut up too, peace finally returned to my heart.

"We've cleared the first floor, so let's go up. The basement looks dangerous at a glance, and I don't want to go there."

"Yes, sir."

"Off we go!"

Taking point with Hamza and Ryeo-ha behind me made me feel like a genuine team leader.

They were going to gas the basement, so we decided not to bother with it and make our way steadily upward. Apparently all the survivors who could escape through the first floor had already done so. All that remained were the monsters lying in ambush in the lobby.

I wondered whether the claim that the strike force had cleared them out had been a lie, but the military had no reason to do that, so I shook my head.

There was only one most likely explanation.

Survivors had been eaten and come downstairs.

Resolving that we would have to clear the way again, I headed toward the emergency stairs. That was when it happened.

"Huh?"

At Hamza's voice, Ryeo-ha and I stopped in unison, as though we had agreed beforehand.

But Hamza was puzzled, not afraid. He had found traces of humans rather than sensed danger. As we approached, countless objects lay piled beneath the whitish fog.

Ryeo-ha frowned in surprise too and raised her right fist.

"Phones? Is it a graveyard?"

Apparently phone graveyards were something like a burial ritual for Seoul mages.

But when I bent my knees to inspect it, I reached a completely different conclusion. The ownerless phones beneath the fog were blinking or displaying dim screens with barely any battery charge remaining.

One more thing: the pile was irregular and untidy, as though they had been tossed down carelessly.

"It's not a graveyard."

I picked up a phone, tried the pattern lock a few times, and put it down.

None of the monsters we had seen so far had shown much interest in phones. At least, none had a habit of collecting them like this. Mages didn't go out of their way to loot phones, either.

There was only one possibility.

An unidentified species.

"Ryeo-ha, do you know anything about this?"

I asked her, since she was likely to know the most. Her voice grew serious too.

"No... I think it's a monster you don't often see even in Seoul."

There was no other choice.

Magic was an arcane art. Guns, artillery, and nuclear bombs were better at killing enemies spectacularly. Magic's true value lay in its tremendous utility in areas modern science could not readily handle.

I picked up the phone I had set down and rolled my tongue.

Phone, past, one day, all, me.

CLICK-CLICK-CLICK...

The scene shifted as though I were turning a camera's aperture or cycling lenses during an eye exam. Looking down at the heap of phones—not a phone graveyard—scattered before the emergency stairs, I concentrated on finding what changed.

The battery charge of the phone in my hand rose.

Phone screens that had gone black or pale became clear.

I couldn't hear their ringtones, but I saw hundreds of phones vibrate, pouring out their cries.

And I saw the names appearing on their screens.

[Mom] [Our Little Piggy] [Pa] [Tutoring Teacher] [Son]...

The calls never stopped.

The farther my eyes looked into the past, the farther back through time I traveled, the more the formerly dark screens lit the space before the black staircase like torches.

Like a star cluster gathered beneath a clear night sky, they illuminated their surroundings far more brightly than the flickering fluorescent lights.

The phones rubbed against each other and cried.

Then their numbers began to dwindle.

A phone slipped upward, sucked into the air.

Wondering whether I had seen wrong, I raised my head. It really was being sucked up into empty space.

Phones vanished upward one after another.

For an instant, I had the illusion that the heap was disappearing. If I hadn't remembered that I was watching the past in reverse, I would have been thoroughly bewildered.

Finally, twenty-four hours ago.

Even the phone I had been holding had vanished before I knew it.

The fluorescent lights were still working normally. What had changed was that there was nothing in front of the emergency stairs.

I rolled my tongue once more inside my mouth, tasting blood as it stung and ached.

Ten times speed. Play.

Such were magic's endless possibilities.

Without any recording equipment, I could investigate what had happened in the past.

Even playing at ten times speed, the space before the emergency stairs remained empty for a long while.

Then, at some point, a phone fell out of thin air.

THUNK.

At first, I couldn't understand it. Naturally.

It simply looked as though a phone had materialized in empty space and fallen.

Then phones began pouring down.

CLATTER.

Screens displaying all manner of names rubbed against one another. Their owners had vanished without a trace, leaving only the phones to huddle pitifully together, each showing a different name.

CLATTER-CLATTER-CLATTER!

Watching those cascading phones, I finally understood why they had seemed to materialize.

CLICK-CLICK-CLICK...

Playback ended.

I had to close my eyes as a heavy, aching pressure bore down inside them, as though I were being crushed beneath profound exhaustion.

"Je-min? Did you find it?"

"Yeah."

When I opened my eyes again, Hamza was in front of me, rummaging through his backpack, ready to take out the first-aid kit.

Ryeo-ha was surveying the surroundings with her fist clenched tightly.

Realizing I was investigating with magic, they had taken on medical-support and lookout duties respectively.

My key role in this operation was detection and reconnaissance.

Then I had to do my part too.