Chapter 96 - Monster Busters

The main building of this tertiary hospital in central Anyang was enormous, with thirteen floors aboveground and two basement levels. And with the cordon right on its doorstep, there must have been a considerable number of people here.

I tossed the phone I was holding onto the heap and stood up. Adjusting my grip on my gun, I first discarded the magazine I had emptied killing monsters earlier.

CLICK.

After changing magazines, my first order of business was to explain the details to Hamza and Go Ryeo-ha.

"The phones fell out of empty air, like they appeared from nowhere. I don't know if something swallowed them and spat them out, but let's proceed carefully. Of course, there's something we need to do first."

"Something we need to do?"

Hamza rose awkwardly and swallowed hard. Ryeo-ha turned her head slightly too, showing me her bright eyes through her gas-mask lenses.

I gestured with my chin at her bleeding right hand.

"We need to seal off all the other emergency stairs with Hand Stage One magic before we go up."

Hand Stage One, [Blood of the Right Hand], was magic that imposed humanity's common sense on monsters. And no one could call their bizarre biology and ecology sensible.

Seoul mages had survived their lack of firepower by doing things like coating baseball bats in [Blood of the Right Hand] and swinging them. Ryeo-ha, a Hand Stage Four mage, was no exception. As befitted a former Seoul mage, she was accustomed to pain, and she actually seemed delighted by the decision to use magic.

"Okay. I'll sprinkle some in front of this phone heap first."

"Not smear it on?"

"Hearing 'invisible mob' reminded me of a monster. If it's the one called the Transparent Veil, sprinkling it would be better."

SPLAT!

Ryeo-ha flicked her right hand, scattering drops of blood evenly around the door. It looked like a substantial amount of blood loss, but she showed no signs of shock or any other ill effects, perhaps because she was a heart mage.

This was the synergy between Heart Stage Two and Hand Stage One. Blood wasn't exactly gushing from her right hand. Still, an ordinary person would have been sobbing from the pain and stinging, and anemia wouldn't have been surprising either. She showed no sign of any of it.

Whereas Lee Se-jun used his heart magic to wield more powerful firearms or exploit his superior physical abilities, Ryeo-ha devoted hers entirely to supporting her magical powers.

Watching her briskly shake blood from her hand, Hamza let out a quiet groan and took a few steps toward me.

"Je-min, are you going to block every single one?"

"Hamza. That half-assed attitude is how you land yourself in a frustrating mess."

The monsters we faced were beings born to desecrate and hunt humans. Regardless of the theory that they retained human identities and consciousness, their bodies didn't so much regard humans as enemies as regard them as food.

Even without knowing their exact origins, we could identify ecological traits. As far as I could tell, monsters were fundamentally closer to parasites—parasites of every conceivable kind, using humans as hosts to grow and flourish.

In particular, as the only Supreme Mage who had witnessed the Han River turning into a deep sea, I had my own theory about why the Amalgams and predatory spines had been pushed down to the first floor.

Monsters cooperated when there were plenty of humans, their shared prey, to hunt. But contrary to what humanity thought, they were different species. When prey grew scarce, they ruthlessly exploited their size or ecological advantages to hunt other species. This was also consistent, to some extent, with the commander's account.

According to the frog lieutenant colonel, a mobile strike force consisting of thirty non-mage soldiers, one Eye Stage Two specialist soldier, and two Ear Stage One specialist soldiers had cleared the building through the third floor.

Yet this many monsters had turned up on the first floor again. They had even been hiding behind closed doors. Initially, I had thought it was an ambush, but now that the phone heap had alerted us to the invisible mob's existence, another possibility presented itself.

Every monster on the first floor had fled from the invisible mob.

I explained this reasoning while watching our surroundings with Eye, Stage One—the ability to see ten seconds into the future. My gun was already raised, covering the area.

Fog had spilled through the first floor's broken windows and risen to the ceiling. Without looking back, I spoke.

"We're being thorough. I don't want to get complacent against an unidentified species and choke on the consequences. Hamza, check the nearby passages and assess the danger."

"Je-min, please be like this all the time."

"?"

Meanwhile, Ryeo-ha finished sealing the entrances and approached, flexing her fingers.

"All done, junior."

"What do you know about the Transparent Veil?"

"It's such a rare monster... One never came to the Konkuk University area."

The Transparent Veil.

Its name was known among Seoul mages, but apparently its detailed ecology wasn't. Or perhaps Ryeo-ha's access to information was restricted because she wasn't a member of the Society of 66.

An unidentified species, then. It didn't change the fact that we had to fight without knowing what traits the monster possessed.

Clicking my tongue inwardly, I raised my left hand to get Hamza's and Ryeo-ha's attention.

"I'll take point. I'll stop at corners and doors, and Hamza will assess the danger. If we confirm a monster inside, Ryeo-ha will provoke it with [Spirit Sight] to draw it out or check its reaction. Once we're upstairs, we'll sprinkle [Blood of the Right Hand] to seal that entrance, clear our way across to the other stairs, seal those the same way, and go up."

I couldn't tolerate even a single variable.

"They said someone started a fire. I'm guessing they were trying to activate the sprinklers to locate the monster. We'll have Hamza grab a fire extinguisher when he finds one and spray it. If we need the sprinklers, I'll shoot them. Ryeo-ha, cover Hamza and restrict access with [Telekinesis]. You and I are the combat personnel, so Hamza, keep your phone on. No, wait. Did we get a radio?"

"Well, I grabbed a walkie-talkie. Before we came here."

Hamza was as well prepared as ever. Apparently, when he had whined about only having to handle communications, he'd already gotten a radio and planned to remain in the rear. I wanted to swing my gun toward him, but restrained myself because he was here with us now.

"Use the radio to contact the people outside and get drone support too. Even with the fog, they should be able to do something through the exterior windows. Let's go."

Hamza and Ryeo-ha, who had been blinking blankly, nodded and took up their respective roles.

"You looked really impressive just now, junior."

"Je-min, doesn't this mean I'm useless here after all?"

I let their worthless remarks go in one ear and out the other. I already had anger boiling inside me.

After getting scammed out of my deposit on that Four-Tiger Sword, this suited me just fine.

I would exterminate every last one of these monster scum with a ruthlessness beyond imagining.

* * *

The fire had started near the second-floor emergency stairs.

As soon as we opened the door, we found the wallpaper blackened all over. But the fire evidently hadn't lasted long; the affected area was very limited. The well-maintained fire-suppression systems must have kicked in before it could gain momentum.

The sprinklers seemed broken and no longer worked. Thick fog mingled with ash hung everywhere. My low-powered light was so useless for checking the ground that I switched it off to save the battery. Then the Supreme Mage and his tagalongs began their clearing routine in earnest.

"Sealed!"

Once Ryeo-ha scattered blood to prevent monsters from pouring through the stairwell entrance, we formed up: me on point, Hamza in the middle, and Ryeo-ha covering the flank and rear.

I needed to be ready to use Eye Stage Two, [Cognitive Distortion], at a moment's notice, so I couldn't keep Eye, Stage One running at 100% all the time.

Magic had a price, and that price was pain. Humans could never overcome pain; they could only drive it out with greater pain. Human will originated in the brain, and the will housed there could suffer irreversible damage from something as simple as drugs.

So instead of making the idiotic claim that I would overcome it through willpower, I adopted the attitude that I would accept pain when necessary. That attitude produced a three-stage reconnaissance routine.

Stage one: Whenever I spotted a door, intersection, or corner, I stopped and waited with my gun trained on it.

I halted outside a patient room with its door torn off, tucked my elbows tight against my torso, and took in my entire surroundings, constantly reminding myself to shoot with both eyes open. My index finger was already on the trigger, and the safety had been off since the first floor.

I had changed magazines too, giving me a total of thirty-one rounds including the one in the chamber. Fully combat-ready.

While I waited, Hamza did his part.

"Uh... Nothing. It's safe."

Stage two: Hamza assessed the danger with [Angel's Intuition].

Once he said it was all right, I lowered my muzzle slightly and stepped forward heel-first. In unconsciously adjusting my stance to keep it from collapsing as I walked, I had started leading with my heels.

As we passed the room, hospital beds shrouded in fog appeared at the edge of my vision through the empty doorframe. Beyond eerily swaying curtains, there was nothing on them but carelessly strewn blankets.

It was a bizarre scene without a bloodstain, or even a phone or piece of clothing. Then, when we reached a long corridor, I stopped again. Having Hamza check every single room would waste far too much time. It was time for another method.

"... I see one."

Stage three: Provoke them with Ryeo-ha's [Spirit Sight] and draw them out.

Her [Spirit Sight] was more effective at flushing out ambushers than detecting them. The hostility it provoked in monsters was beyond imagining. Even predatory spines that had been quietly holed up would smash through doors to rush out. Naturally, handling whatever emerged was my job.

One gunshot. One bullet.

A casing bounced off the floor with a cheerful clink as the predatory spine's skull shattered. Charging along the ceiling, it lost its head and fell, legs twitching before it died.

A clean, quick kill. Clicking my trigger was faster than having Ryeo-ha beat every trash mob to death individually.

"Junior, don't you look awfully smug right now?"

"That happens."

We encountered only about five predatory spines as we worked our way across the second floor.

On our way to the stairs on the opposite side, we sprinkled [Blood of the Right Hand] in front of the elevators too, just in case. Near the opposite entrance, we found a heap of watches instead of phones.

A look through past sight, using Eye, Stage One at 100% strengthened by tongue magic, confirmed that it was the work of the same kind of monster. Watches appeared out of empty air and pattered down, almost exactly as the phones had on the first floor.

"Did it spit them out because it couldn't eat them?"

"Ooh... It stings a little. Couldn't you sprinkle your blood this time, junior?"

"Ryeo-ha, I need to shoot."

The sheer audacity, talking that way to her scam victim.

Coldly rejecting her request, I set down the watch I was holding and turned toward Hamza. He happened to be trying to contact the troops outside on the walkie-talkie.

BEEP-BEEP.

The distinctive signal sounded, and Hamza reported without hesitation.

"This is Apho... Supreme Mages. Can you hear me?"

["Yes, we hear you. J-just a moment."]

The youthful voice floundered before giving way to the familiar voice of the frog lieutenant colonel.

["Maintain communications security. Aphorism, have you confirmed it?"]

Ryeo-ha and I kept our mouths shut and continued scattering blood at the entrance and watching our surroundings. With only two combat personnel, we couldn't let our guard down. Fortunately, Hamza was diplomatic enough despite his slightly awkward speech.

"Yes, yes. They say it's a Transparent Veil."

["Transparent?"]

"Je-min and Ryeo-ha both think it's an invisible monster. Can you see it with a drone or something?"

["Hey, Sergeant First Class Park. Didn't we use thermal imaging?"]

After a brief commotion, the frog lieutenant colonel spoke in a low, grave voice.

["Before deploying the mobile strike force, we brought drones close to the exterior windows and reconnoitered the interior through the sixth floor. Thermal imaging showed nothing unusual. Are you sure it's an invisible monster?"]

"Yes, uh... It i-is, right?"

Hamza looked at us helplessly for an answer. My eyes felt ready to pop out from trying to watch him in my peripheral vision, but I answered kindly.

"Yes. An invisible mob."

After deliberating, the frog lieutenant colonel made his decision.

["For now, I'll have the drone operators observe through the windows from outside. We'll send an interior reconnaissance drone too, but... please understand that it doesn't have much freedom of movement indoors."]

We weren't stupid enough to try to solve everything ourselves. You had to use everything available.

After finishing the second-floor sweep, Ryeo-ha, Hamza, and I headed up to the third. There, just as the frog lieutenant colonel had promised, a loud hornet-like buzzing began outside. Communications over the walkie-talkie went smoothly too.

BEEP-BEEP.

["This is drone control. Observing the third floor by drone. All clear."]

The soldier's voice was stiff with tension. A young man, thirty at the very oldest. Well, it made sense that younger people would be good at operating drones.

But drone observation proved far less accurate than we had expected. As soon as we sealed one third-floor stairwell entrance and moved toward the desk, Hamza began waving his hands frantically.

"No, no, no..."

The decision came swiftly.

"Back near the stair entrance we sealed."

"I'll use [Spirit Sight] once we're in position."

Instead of her usual bright, energetic demeanor, Ryeo-ha wore a markedly serious expression as she watched our surroundings.

With our backs to the stairwell entrance, where [Blood of the Right Hand] kept monsters from approaching, our Supreme Mage trio finished preparing to engage. Our roles were clear.

Ryeo-ha would provoke them with [Spirit Sight] while knocking approaching monsters back with [Telekinesis]. I would mow them down with my gun, ready to use Eye Stage Two if necessary. Lastly, Hamza would handle communications with the drone operators on the walkie-talkie.

Without a word, Ryeo-ha raised her left hand, three fingers extended. Then she began folding them down one by one.

Three.

The radio beeped.

Two.

Fog rose to around chest height.

Clutching the walkie-talkie tightly, Hamza spoke.

"This is A-Aphorism."

One.

"There's a fucking ton of them on the third floor!"

Along with his near-scream, the fog surged toward us.

The patient-room doors shattered all at once, and thunderous footsteps packed the corridor. All manner of bizarre screams and groans assaulted my eardrums, while joints of bone tapped out a rhythm on the hard floor.

Then the monsters charged us at the stairwell entrance. Amalgams and predatory spines.

The things that had made my legs tremble when we first met now felt almost welcome. Before they could let out their mood-ruining death cries, I raised my muzzle and aimed, reviewing Instructor Song Smith's lessons.

Elbows in. Gun up. Both eyes open. Hold it like you're pulling it toward you. Don't let your muzzle transitions lag.

I followed those teachings faithfully.

Muzzle flashes swallowed the dim fluorescent light in an instant. The booming gunshots battered my eardrums until my ears rang. Heavy recoil shook me as casings poured out. Through my gas-mask lenses, the fog repeatedly mingled with yellow pus and blood, then settled.

Now and then, the fog scattered and monsters went flying. Ryeo-ha's Hand Stage Three, [Telekinesis], was doing its job.

Hamza wasn't sitting idle either. Just as I began to sense my remaining rounds dwindling, a heavy magazine flew toward me.

"Je-min! Magazine!"

I caught it in my left hand. The weight nearly bent my wrist back, sending an even fiercer burning pain through it, but I endured it for the sake of looking cool.

It was time for that tactical reload Instructor Song Smith had taught me.

CLICK.

The now featherlight magazine dropped limply away. A heavy new one filled its place.

CLACK.

With that satisfying sound of parts locking together, my trigger finger felt lighter still.

Then monsters began dropping even when I wasn't shooting. I turned to see if it was Ryeo-ha, only to find her wide-eyed too.

"Junior, did you learn some magic I don't know about?"

The magic revealed itself with a buzzing sound. A noisy drone appeared above the bodies of the monsters thudding to the floor.

BEEP-BEEP.

["Aphorism, this is drone control. Withdrawing due to ammunition depletion. The exterior observation drones will accompany you upstairs."]

With that final transmission, the gun-equipped drone that had entered the building to support us disappeared serenely into the fog.

Drones were far more useless for reconnaissance than we had thought, and more useful in combat than we had expected. That conviction only strengthened as I waited for Hamza to rise awkwardly, then took point again.

We had just shot around twenty monsters dead—a mixed pack of Amalgams and predatory spines. More than twenty had been hiding on the third floor, and the drones hadn't spotted them. Closed doors, drawn curtains, and thick fog or not, this was beyond the pale.

"Don't they put thermal cameras on all the drones?"

"Je-min, thermal drones are expensive."

"Besides, junior, they said they couldn't find anything with thermal imaging earlier. I guess the interior reconnaissance drones don't use it. They'd have to look where walls and glass wouldn't block it, but maybe they're too expensive to send in recklessly."

Apparently, a world where bullets were worth more than money didn't make expensive things cheap.

Clicking my tongue only inwardly, I took these two idiots along to clear the third floor. Fortunately, the ones we had killed seemed to be the last. We checked everything, right down to the toilet stalls, without seeing another monster. There were operating rooms on the third floor too, but contrary to my expectation of blood everywhere, they were perfectly intact.

It was a strange place without corpses or discarded patient gowns. Seeing gowns neatly stacked on what I supposed were mobile shelves—carts of the sort used to deliver hospital meals—and in corners of storage rooms took it beyond strange and into grotesque.

I could accept that monsters had slurped up the bodies, but surely there ought to be some clothes...

More than anything, it bothered me that the monsters had shut the doors and hidden inside. Still, with nothing unusual to report, we had no choice but to move on with that unease lingering.

Things changed on the fourth floor.

The instant Ryeo-ha finished sealing the stairwell entrance with [Blood of the Right Hand], Hamza narrowed his eyes and pointed at the fog-covered desk.

"Nothing. There are no monsters on the fourth floor."

"Not trusting that for a second. Go get the fire extinguisher from the desk. I'll cover you."

While Hamza awkwardly brought over the extinguisher, I called on Ryeo-ha just in case. [Spirit Sight] produced a similar result. She tilted her head and looked around.

"Huh? They're not reacting. It really looks like there's nothing here."

"Can you see through walls with Spirit Sight?"

"No. But when monsters notice me using it, they come charging."

This was the first time being assured of safety had left me feeling rotten.

Just in case, I decided to keep Eye, Stage One active continuously. I couldn't trust the drones, couldn't trust Hamza, and certainly couldn't trust Ryeo-ha. Repeating the old saying that the only person you could trust in this world was yourself, I began searching.

The fourth floor felt more like a convalescent facility than a hospital ward. Outside was a neatly arranged little park with trees and benches.

Inside, we found a playroom for children. Forgetting she was even wearing a gas mask, Ryeo-ha pressed herself right up against the glass, utterly delighted.

"The kids here must've had so much fun."

"Those kids got hired by the horror theme park too, so let's cut the crap and move."

The fourth-floor outdoor park was blanketed in fog, making it no help at all for communications with the outside.

Fortunately, a few drones roaming outside spotted us and slowly approached. Buzzing through the fog, they circled us before leaving again.

BEEP-BEEP.

["Maintain communications security. This is drone control. Aphorism, signal strength is dropping as you ascend. The sixth floor is our limit."]

"I-is it a monster?"

At Hamza's trembling question, the drone operator answered tensely over the walkie-talkie.

["It's a property of the fog. Vertical communication is poor, while horizontal communication works relatively well. We'll cover you as far as we can."]

It looked as though our fourth-floor search would end without anything else unusual. There weren't just one or two stairwells, but four to facilitate evacuation. Sealing each one took an interminable amount of time—enough that it was starting to grow a little dim outside.

Then, just as Ryeo-ha sealed the last remaining staircase with blood and we were about to move, something caught my eye.

"Wait."

I raised a hand to get Hamza's and Ryeo-ha's attention.

Bloodstains. Despite monsters rampaging through this hospital, they had been hard to find, but now a trail led along the stairs. Oddly, it went up rather than down. They looked like individual drops rather than drag marks, so it seemed likely that someone injured had climbed under their own power.

I considered using past sight, then shook my head.

I had too many roles to handle. When that shitter Shin Na-in was around, he'd taken care of detection automatically. Now that I was doing it myself, I realized just how difficult it was. I was almost ashamed of my history of yelling at support players and calling them tools.

"Hamza, assess the danger. Pull the extinguisher pin and shake it."

"Y-yes!"

"Ryeo-ha, let's go."

"You'd do just fine living in Seoul, junior!"

The fifth floor.

There were no monsters here either. But Hamza's reaction was markedly different from the fourth floor.

"Uh, uhh... Uhhh...!"

White as a sheet, he flailed around, unable to decide where to point the extinguisher hose.

I checked with Eye, Stage One just in case, but there were no red footprints anywhere. Taking advantage of the thick fog, which reduced magical backlash, and judging that the danger seemed far greater, I kept Eye, Stage One running continuously despite the crushing pressure in my eyes. Still, nothing changed.

Even Ryeo-ha's [Spirit Sight] produced no meaningful change. But she seemed to have sensed something too; all trace of a smile vanished as she clenched her fists and surveyed our surroundings.

"Junior. We'd better move quickly."

"Okay."

I decided that while I'd doubt these two if they said it was safe, I'd trust them implicitly if they said it was dangerous.

The search and sweep went smoothly. While Hamza and Ryeo-ha watched our surroundings, I tested each door from the side, reaching over to turn the handle slightly instead of standing directly in front of it.

Again and again, I aimed my muzzle first, then kicked a door open. Every patient room was empty. Every nurses' station was empty. At some point, even the blood trail we had been following disappeared.

But at a three-way corridor junction, I spotted faint movement through the slats of the lowered blinds inside a conference room. A combat uniform was shifting ever so slightly.

A person.

But I wasn't about to stroll up and greet them like some brainless optimist just because I'd seen a human.

Ear Stage One, [Mind Reading].

For the first time in ages, I used ear magic.

My Mind Reading let me hear the sound of a babbling brook when someone harbored hostility. It was a shitty spell whose penalty had only ever let me hear Lee Se-jun's unwanted private thoughts, but it was useful for anticipating sudden actions from human survivors.

...

"Je-min, how is it?"

"I can't hear anything."

Ryeo-ha handled opening the door. She carefully turned the knob with [Telekinesis], while I heightened my vigilance and watched every direction. In broad spaces with multiple areas to cover, I stood guard. In corridors, Ryeo-ha, who excelled at close combat and holding enemies back, took that role.

It all happened seamlessly without a word, which made me feel absolutely horrible.

CREEEAK...

The door opened.

Ryeo-ha's eyes sparkled as she toyed with a bloodstained bottle cap between her index and middle fingers. Holding the extinguisher and sweating profusely, Hamza nodded.

Only then did I push my muzzle through the gap and storm inside.

"Hands up. Don't move."

No red footprints. Hamza had judged it safe. No reaction to Ryeo-ha's Spirit Sight either.

But the man could still be insane.

Keeping my gun trained on him, I watched through the red-dot sight as the soldier leaned against the wall, gasping for breath.

Here, the two idiots showed some sense. Hamza naturally approached the wounded soldier, knelt, and rummaged in his backpack. Ryeo-ha shut the door and used [Telekinesis] to drag chairs and tables over into a makeshift barricade.

Safe.

Only once I realized that did I lower my muzzle and lift my index finger slightly off the trigger.

"Hamza. How is he?"

Hamza rolled up the gasping soldier's sleeve, then spoke in a parched voice.

"He's been cut. No, stabbed too. He's bandaged, but I can see pus. He's burning up as well."

Ryeo-ha and I followed Hamza over to the soldier. Unlike ordinary troops, he wore an armband on his left arm. It had the same dangling dog tags, but the band itself was fluorescent orange. Only after seeing the small authorization card above his name tag did I identify him.

Staff Sergeant Jeong Sin-il. Specialist soldier.

Ryeo-ha crouched beside Hamza and spoke with twice her usual earnestness. Hamza had removed Staff Sergeant Jeong Sin-il's gas mask and was resting a hand on his sweat-soaked forehead.

"Mr. Muslim, can you save the soldier?"

"I think he'll need antibiotics. He's been left bandaged for a long time. I only brought cefotaxime."

Hamza withdrew his hand, rummaged out a first-aid kit, and took out disposable syringes sealed in plastic packs. He set clean gauze and disinfectant beside them. You had to give him credit for his preparedness.

Ryeo-ha expressed her faith in him in a tearful voice.

"Mr. Muslim, if you need anything, I'll make it for you."

"It's a hospital, so we should be able to find... What?"

Hamza broke off and turned, looking between Ryeo-ha and me. I reminded him of her hand magic.

"Hand Stage Four. [Material Transformation]."

"No... I know, but..."

He met her eyes, then spoke with one eye twitching.

"Ryeo-ha. Isn't making antibiotics out of blood unsanitary? Please just bring some."

"Mr. Muslim, what are you saying!"

Hamza and Ryeo-ha were about to argue for a reason I never could have imagined. I swiftly raised my muzzle to mediate.

"Unsanitary or not, we can't split up here. Either we shoot him dead or use Ryeo-ha's blood."

"Je-min, what are you even saying? Just because she can make gold out of human blood doesn't mean we can make antibiotics and inject them!"

Hamza, a former medical student, was courageous and principled in the strangest situations. Even with my gun raised.

A little taken aback by this display of manliness, I discreetly lowered my muzzle.

"We've come up five floors and found exactly one survivor, and he's not near any medical supplies. He's in a room right by a corridor junction. They deliberately herded him here. He's bait."

Unfortunate for Staff Sergeant Jeong Sin-il, but a ventilation hole between his eyebrows would be a much more comfortable, peaceful option.

As a valuable teaching aid demonstrating what happened to the remains of a low-level mage, he would also become one with me and live on.

But our Hamza vehemently opposed my personal recommendation and finally pulled out a disposable syringe. His hand trembled worse than a man over sixty's as he handed it to Ryeo-ha.

"Metronidazole. C6H9N3O3. Molecular weight 171.2. Can you do it?"

"I studied science too, you know?"

SLICE!

Without hesitation, Ryeo-ha cut her left hand with her military bayonet. The drops running down her palm were unmistakably vivid red.

But the moment a sensation as ticklish as a light breeze settled softly on my retinas, I saw her blood turn clear.

DRIP.

One drop entered the syringe.

"Here!"

"Je-min, if it looks like he's going to die, please shoot him."

Hamza accepted the syringe with trembling hands and administered the injection, grimacing as if he were murdering someone. For quite some time, he kept waving away the fog, taking out syringes with a clatter, and injecting drugs.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Staff Sergeant Jeong Sin-il did not die on the spot. After administering the injections, Hamza blinked his sweat-soaked eyelids behind his gas-mask lenses, snapped the syringe needle, and tossed it into a corner.

"If it works properly, it'll buy him some time."

"Mr. Muslim, you're the best!"

I approached Hamza too and held out my palm. With a hearty laugh, he laid his hand on mine.

Had this bastard lost his mind?

"What are you doing?"

"Huh?"

"Give me the walkie-talkie."

He handed it over. I immediately tried to make contact.

BEEP-BEEP.

"This is Aphorism. Survivor located. Staff Sergeant Jeong Sin-il, specialist soldier. Request identity confirmation."

Until just a moment ago, an answer would have come immediately. Through the fourth floor, they had responded promptly every time.

But despite my transmission, tens of seconds passed without a reply.

BEEP-BEEP!

"This is Aphorism."

"J-Je-min. Let me try."

Sensing something wrong, Hamza awkwardly reached out. Instead of giving it back, I set the walkie-talkie on the conference-room floor.

Just as I had suspected.

"It's the monster. I'll shoot the sprinklers, so Hamza, get ready with the extinguisher."

At last, the reason it had spat out the phones was clear.

This invisible mob reacted to communications—and could interfere with them.

* * *

Ryeo-ha dismantled the makeshift barricade blocking the conference-room door. Naturally. We had to get out.

As soon as we stepped outside, the three of us began preparing to catch the invisible mob. The one who did the most here was none other than me, Baek Je-min.

I rolled my tongue inside my mouth.

Target, monster, kill, five minutes, path.

If I shot the sprinklers to force them to spray, the already dense fog would grow even thicker. Shooting without eye magic would be impossible. But if I could see water running over it, I could shoot even an invisible mob.

I aimed at a ceiling sprinkler faintly visible through the still-thick fog.

"Firing."

A gunshot rang out. Water sprayed from the shattered sprinkler, splashing everywhere.

"I'll watch the floor, junior."

"Move calmly."

SHHHHHH.

Droplets ran down our ponchos under the untimely shower. And we had Hamza with his fire extinguisher.

He surveyed our surroundings with his teeth chattering. He wanted to throw the extinguisher away and flee at any moment, but he didn't.

Because I held the staff of courage that gave him heart. No companion was braver than Hamza, who knew he would change classes into a sacred relic the instant I swung my gun toward him.

PITTER-PATTER.

The sprinklers beat against our ponchos, and the sound of droplets striking them repeated over and over.

I could see my precious AR-15 getting soaked too, but the monster bastard mattered more right now. We had to discover what the invisible mob definitely lurking on the fifth floor looked like and how it hunted.

Ryeo-ha, Hamza, and I all shared that determination.

SPLASH.

A foot stepped into a puddle already collected on the tiles. Its surface rippled constantly under the incessant droplets.

Seeing that the fog still hadn't cleared, I raised my assessment of this invisible mob's danger even further. Even magic couldn't immediately see through it. It interfered with perception.

We reached the area outside the nurses' station, in front of the elevators, shooting every sprinkler we saw along the way.

Casings bounced away, broken sprinklers stubbornly spewed water, and the sounds of combat boots and droplets striking puddles echoed down the empty corridor. Abandoned patient beds and carts gave metallic pings under the spray as we passed them.

SHHHHHH...

The three of us stood back-to-back amid the still-pouring sprinklers.

The once-silent hospital interior now resounded with every kind of noise under the sudden downpour. The invisible mob's concealment was overwhelming. I realized just how shallow my plan to spot water running down it in the dense fog had been.

But my concentration, pushed to its absolute limit, gave me a chance to catch this monster moving.

"Go Ryeo-ha."

"Yes."

Doctrinal magic, [Spirit Sight].

Ryeo-ha's [Spirit Sight] wasn't a spell with flashy effects. It simply allowed her to find monsters. Here before the hospital elevators, with water accumulating in every form, ordinary non-mages would never have found it.

But the penalty and strength of [Spirit Sight] lay in provoking monsters—driving their hostility to its limit and making them act. That was its true value. It made even the most patient monster move, however slightly.

And magic, once you perceived something, displayed its proper effect as if a floodgate had opened.

It slid softly.

It moved.

My eyes didn't miss it. I aimed my muzzle at the ceiling. The fog was already clearing. Beyond the streams of water, red footprints began appearing in the swirling fog.

My index finger was already resting on the trigger.

BANG-BANG-BANG!!!

Blood splattered. Disgusting bodily fluids fell mixed with the rain.

At the same time, the monster clinging flat against the ceiling revealed itself. Its back shell looked sleek, like a centipede's—apart from the eyelids scattered across it and the eyeballs rolling wildly within.

But what fell after I shot it wasn't the whole monster.

SPLAT!

"Aaaaagh?!"

FSSSSSH!

Hamza discharged the extinguisher. Something broad and flat writhed desperately in the white powder.

"True Lord of Fire Virtue. Parting fire, overcome metal, go."

BOOOOM!

A glowing-red bottle cap pierced it.

But I had no choice but to aim at the ceiling far away instead of the fallen monster—in the direction it had fled.

"You fucking..."

Transparent Veil?

That name prettied it up way too fucking much.

I'd only glimpsed it, but I was certain. It was a subspecies of Skin-jellyfish.

A monster made of broad, flat segments. A monster that spread humans thin and flat, fluttering while stealing the functions of their internal organs, and rolled itself up to lie in ambush.

I would call this monster the Skin-tapeworm.