Chapter 23

The Second Opening of the Eyes

The preparations for reclaiming Suwon Station were thorough.

Mm. Rather than thorough, it would be more accurate to say we had done our best. Against these monsters, the word thorough simply didn't apply.

Lieutenant Baek Hanseong divided the thirty men under his command into three squads and directed them accordingly. Judging by the detailed instructions he was giving while accounting for fatigue, it seemed he had already assumed this would become a prolonged battle.

"Squad 3 rests first. Squads 1 and 2 secure the stairways. Don't have everyone standing watch at once. Two men shoulder their rifles and maintain aim for five minutes while the other two keep watch in all directions. After five minutes, switch roles. After ten minutes, rotate with the next four men. Any manpower shortages get filled from Squad 3 while they're resting."

As I watched Lieutenant Baek repeatedly remind the soldiers of their duties, Lee Sejun, who had been maintaining a firing position, finally stood up. Apparently stiff all over, he patted his shoulders and yielded his spot to another soldier.

The moment he came over, he rolled his neck and let out a sigh.

He looked at me and was about to say something, but suddenly turned his head toward someone else. Shin Nain had somehow put an earbud in one ear and was nodding along with a satisfied smile.

"Ms. Shin Nain, what time is it?"

"11:40."

"We spent how many damn hours breaking through Basement Level 1..."

At her indifferent reply, Lee Sejun switched his rifle's selector to safe and slung it over his shoulder. Then, with hollow eyes worn down by extreme fatigue, he rummaged through his pocket and pulled out a packet of hardtack.

"Everyone should eat. Doesn't look like any meals are making it all the way down here."

"Hmm."

Thinking about it, he was right. There was no way a field kitchen crew was coming down here.

Of course, after receiving the report that Basement Level 1's concourse had been secured, Major Kang Minsu had dispatched additional soldiers and supplies. Ammunition boxes and gas mask filters needed transporting, after all.

Soldiers groaned as they dragged communication cables into position and set up communications equipment. Among them were a couple of small drones. Meanwhile, we three civilians could only watch from the sidelines as they worked among the ruins of a clothing store, its display windows shattered and clothing racks scattered everywhere.

More than hunger, I was suffering from thirst, so I took another drink from my canteen.

Lee Sejun, on the other hand, was hungrier than thirsty. He didn't even think about wiping the sweat off his face as he tore open the hardtack package and stuffed a handful into his mouth.

Crunch. Crunch.

The guy really ate with gusto. His cheeks puffed out like a hamster's as he chewed noisily. Then he spotted the drones, swallowed, and spoke.

"Drones? Why are they only deploying them now?"

"They originally weren't planning to. Flying underground is difficult, and there was also the belief that the monsters would be highly vulnerable to blood agents."

"And now?"

"They know Basement Level 2 is a complete disaster zone. If they recklessly throw soldiers in there, they might only increase the monsters' numbers. So they want to assess the situation first."

Who could have imagined there would come a day when soldiers of the Republic of Korea Army would be considered this precious?

Anyway, as I put away my canteen, I reviewed our advance through Basement Level 1.

We'd done our best, but lacking proper training, our actions had been amateurish, reckless, and dangerous. The weight of ammunition and equipment had been far more oppressive than I'd expected.

If you wanted to flee from monsters or maintain distance, managing the weight of your gear was essential. Yet if you focused purely on firepower, the monsters countered with bizarre biology and ambush tactics.

It's not like a reservist in his eighth year suddenly awakened superhuman physical abilities. Nor was I accustomed to situations like this. I fell behind more often than I liked.

Especially when it came to foresight.

Once again, I was reminded that the Mutation-Type Eye — Stage 1, which I understood as seeing footprints ten seconds into the future, was far from perfect.

When I first fought the Devouring Spine, I'd trusted my foresight completely. I believed that by aiming at the footprints, I'd be able to kill it quickly. But in areas where the fog was thin, the recoil of magic was stronger than expected...

And my suspicion that Devouring Spines could sense magic to some extent, much like the Amalgams, was gradually becoming certainty.

The Amalgams feared my eyes. The moment I used magic, they panicked and fled.

The Devouring Spine was different. More proactive.

It deliberately targeted the flaws in my magic.

This foresight had a ten-second time lag.

I didn't watch the next ten seconds play out in fast-forward. I only saw exactly ten seconds ahead. After reaching that point, I could continue seeing further, but I couldn't observe the process of getting there.

So instead of desperately trying to evade my foresight or hide from it, the creature deceived it by exposing only parts of itself that either wouldn't matter if attacked or would suffer the least damage.

Then why hadn't it pounced on Lee Sejun within those ten seconds?

Surely it had sensed—or at least half-confirmed—the weakness in my Stage 1 eye magic. Was it simply not intelligent enough to reason that far?

Just as my thoughts reached that point, Shin Nain removed her earbud, looked at me, and smiled.

"Mr. Baek Jemin, I know why that monster that sounded like fingernails scraping a chalkboard didn't attack Mr. Lee Sejun right away."

"What, did you use mind reading?"

"I can't help it. When I'm close enough, I just hear things."

After a brief moment of thought, I decided to let it slide.

After all, my heart was pure and transparent, inside and out. Unlike people constantly lying and hiding things, I had nothing to be ashamed of beneath the heavens. What was there to conceal?

Shin Nain's expression immediately turned strange.

"First, let's start with me hitting you."

After smacking me once across the back, she finally began her explanation.

After dramatically exaggerating her own suffering for a while, she made the sign of the cross and giggled.

"The instincts of these monsters are surprisingly simple. Hunger. Reproductive urges. And strangely enough... paternal love? Maternal love? Some sort of protective instinct toward others of their cursed kind. There's this sense of desperation, resentment, and longing in them. Like a dying person making one final attempt to reach out, claws extended, scratching at a chalkboard."

"Ugh, fuck."

The thought that creatures that horrifying could possess instincts resembling parental love sent chills down my spine.

But it still didn't explain why that Devouring Spine hadn't killed Lee Sejun within ten seconds.

"When Mr. Lee Sejun became infected, it probably assumed you'd mercilessly kill the parent organism, the offspring organism, and even Mr. Lee Sejun himself before he could become a host. The monsters have realized the noble hatred you hold toward the minions of Satan."

"Cough! Cough!"

Lee Sejun, who had been eating hardtack, nearly choked to death.

I looked at him with pity before finding rare common ground with Shin Nain.

I didn't know about noble, but the hatred part was definitely true.

Especially after seeing enough zombie stories and creature horror fiction.

Yeah. For all her quirks, Shin Nain actually had her head screwed on straight in some areas.

Then, with a slightly excited voice and a smile of joy, she added:

"Sending heretics before the Lord to be judged before they commit even greater sins, allowing them to receive lighter judgment—that is true mercy. Mr. Baek Jemin, you've already begun your journey toward faith."

"Ahhh... fuck."

I licked my lips and shook my head.

By then, Lee Sejun had finally recovered from choking and was guzzling water from his canteen.

Quietly putting some distance between myself and Shin Nain, I moved closer to him.

"Cut the crap. Now that we've actually seen combat, we know what we're lacking. Lighting. More magazines. Grenades for clearing enclosed spaces like this."

"Firepower's definitely a problem. These magic abilities are weird too. No Fireballs, no Lightning Bolts, nothing straightforward."

Lee Sejun nodded in agreement as he put away his canteen.

At least modern firearms delivered enough killing power and suppression capability to compensate for our lack of magical firepower.

Compared to some nightmare apocalypse where you couldn't do anything without mana, wasn't our situation better? At least we could shoot things to death.

The monsters weren't goblins or orcs.

They were just far more disgusting.

"Our operations officers want everyone to verify the visual feed together."

At those words, all three of us let out deep sighs.

Lee Sejun dumped the last crumbs of hardtack into his mouth and grabbed his sling. Shin Nain organized her earbuds and made the sign of the cross. I closed my eyes and massaged my eyelids.

There was only one reason everyone was preparing so thoroughly and giving their all.

While getting my gas mask ready—a thing I still didn't want to wear—I said:

"Let's go. Time to beat up the Writing Bodhisattva and the priest."

"Why couldn't we get cute little guys like goblins and orcs? Why'd we have to get these fucked-up bastards instead?"

For once, Lee Sejun's grumbling resonated deeply with me.

At that moment, a young-faced soldier approached us cautiously.

"Operators, preparations are complete. The drones will be deployed at 12:30 to scout Basement Level 2."

***

February 5, 2028 — 12:31 PM

After checking signal reception strength, the two drone operators carefully sent their drones underground.

Bzzzzzz—

Accompanied by a sound like a giant hornet, the quadcopters spun their rotors and passed through a dented, twisted emergency shutter.

Soldiers maintaining security still aimed their rifles along both sides of the drones' route, while the CBRN unit busily inspected equipment at a safe distance from the stairwell.

In front of the rugged laptop displaying the drone feed stood the three of us, Lieutenant Baek Hanseong, Major Jang Sinmyeong, and several communications specialists.

The laptop looked heavy enough that you could kill someone by smashing them in the back of the head with it.

Watching the drone descend the stairwell through the monitor, Lieutenant Baek raised his radio.

"This is Paldal One. 12:31. Deploying two reconnaissance drones into Basement Level 2. Objective: identify surviving entities and potential threats."

[Received. Report immediately if any unusual activity is detected.]

"Understood."

Beside him, Major Jang Sinmyeong crossed his arms and let out a small chuckle.

"The world's gotten pretty amazing."

The words Has it really? nearly escaped my throat, but I managed to hold them back.

Still, there was no denying that thanks to drones—a product of that supposedly improved world—reconnaissance of Basement Level 2 had become far easier.

These models even had thermal imaging, allowing them to function despite the dense fog that severely restricted visibility.

Expectations were high.

Especially Lieutenant Baek's.

Excitement mixed with fear in his trembling voice.

"Drone operators. Handle this carefully. This could become crucial evidence for understanding what's happening throughout Seoul. It's a chance to observe how these things move in areas that aren't active battlefronts. Miss nothing."

"Y-Yes, sir..."

The burden on the drone operators' shoulders visibly increased.

Soon the drones entered Basement Level 2 through different stairwells.

There, they encountered fog reaching as high as a person's thighs.

At that point, Lieutenant Baek and Major Jang both turned toward the three of us.

"Can you detect anything through the monitor?"

Feeling my eyes burn, I attempted to use my ability to see ten seconds into the future through the video feed. Shin Nain immediately waved her hands.

The result was unexpected.

It wasn't a simple matter of either seeing something or seeing nothing.

Countless footprints appeared beyond the monitor screen.

The problem was that footprints covered everything—the floor, walls, ceiling, objects, backgrounds.

There were so many that the foresight became meaningless.

And the resolution was so poor that I couldn't even be sure I was seeing ten seconds ahead.

I squeezed my eyes shut and massaged my eyelids before answering.

"Everything looks dangerous. Footprints... those symbols I associate with monster movement are everywhere."

"Are you saying the entirety of Basement Level 2 is a monster nest?"

"I can't say for certain."

"And what about you, Operator Shin Nain?"

"I can hear sounds, but not through the monitor."

We concluded that detection through a screen was too unreliable to be useful.

Instead, we decided to rely entirely on the drone cameras and refocused our attention on the video feed.

What appeared on screen was exactly the shocking sight we'd witnessed before.

The two evacuation trains that had derailed and crashed into the platform.

Twisted, crushed train cars tangled together.

Dark brown bloodstains.

Spent shell casings scattered everywhere.

Sections crushed by overwhelming force.

Tiles ripped from the walls.

The king of this place lay sprawled across the ground, his firearm discolored and ruined. Even the railings that had somehow endured were stained an ominous reddish-brown by blood and traces of gas.

The cables hanging from the ceiling like execution ropes dangled limply without the slightest movement, while deep shadows repeatedly stretched between shattered advertisements and flickering fluorescent lights.

It looked as though everything had already ended.

Major Jang Sinmyeong glanced toward Lieutenant Baek Hanseong and asked,

"Why aren't the lights working properly down here?"

"We believe the impact and high voltage surge from the rear train's collision knocked them out. They successfully demolished the tracks near Hwaseo Station afterward and recaptured the substation, cutting power to the rails, but..."

"That seems dangerous."

There weren't many areas where Amalgams could operate, but it was the perfect environment for Devouring Spines to ambush prey.

Twisted debris and wreckage littered every corner, providing countless hiding spots. The lighting was incomplete, allowing them to conceal themselves within shadows.

Had ordinary soldiers attempted to retake this area, the casualties would have been catastrophic.

Lieutenant Baek turned to the drone operators.

"Switch to thermal imaging. Don't go too deep. Stay near the entrance and slowly scan the surroundings. Full 360-degree rotation."

"The audio's still muted, right? Turn the volume up a little."

"Are you sure?"

"Just a little."

The drone operator's voice trembled slightly from tension.

Bzzzz...

The sound of the drone's rotors emerged through the small speakers beside the monitor.

Lieutenant Baek nervously chewed at his lip.

"The drone's loud enough... Why isn't anything reacting...?"

Nothing appeared unusual on thermal imaging.

Very few areas glowed bright red. The occasional yellow spots neither resembled monsters nor showed any movement.

At first glance, everything seemed perfectly normal.

Yet Shin Nain continued rubbing her earlobe with her left hand, her expression tense.

"I can still hear the chalkboard-scratching sounds. And the voices calling for the Lord. Faint, but definitely there."

At those words, Major Jang frowned.

"Drone operator. Sweep the ceiling too."

"Yes, sir!"

The moment the drone gained altitude, we heard a strange sound mixed among the rotor noise.

It was completely different from the mechanical buzzing we'd been hearing.

Something genuinely unsettling.

Lieutenant Baek frowned.

"Fix the noise cancellation. Amplify it."

At that moment, Shin Nain suddenly reached out.

"Aah!"

The calm confidence she'd displayed until now vanished entirely.

With eyes opened wide in terror, she rushed forward and muted the audio immediately, shoving the drone operator aside.

Everyone froze at her sudden outburst.

Lieutenant Baek even looked ready to explode.

"Hey. Just because we've been treating you leniently as a civilian doesn't mean you can—"

At that moment, the drone feed cut out.

Click.

No warning.

No sign.

The battery wasn't low.

The screen simply died.

And only seconds later, the second drone's feed went dark as well.

Lieutenant Baek, who had been about to argue.

Lee Sejun and I, who had been silently observing.

Major Jang, standing with folded arms.

None of us had expected that outcome.

Only Shin Nain remained calm.

Eyes closed beneath sweat-dampened hair, she clasped her hands together and prayed.

"Almighty Lord God, do not allow the voice of the Devil to reach us. Make me righteous and use me according to Your will, that Your justice may be established upon this land..."

Major Jang stroked his chin and looked at us.

"What exactly is this?"

I pointed my chin toward Shin Nain.

"She'll explain after she's done praying."

As expected, after finishing her prayer, Shin Nain looked around with a far more resolute gaze.

"There is a fate reserved for heretics. A most dangerous adversary dwells below. Merely hearing its voice clouds the mind. I prevented those lacking faith from being led astray."

I translated her statement into simpler terms.

"There's a monster down there that drives people insane through sound."

Silence followed.

Then Lieutenant Baek's face turned deathly pale as he checked his watch and raised his radio.

"This is Paldal One. 12:48. Communications lost with both reconnaissance drones. Presumed attack pattern differs from previously identified species."

[What?]

"It appears to be sound-based."

[Sound... sound... sound...]

Even through the radio, anxiety and fear were palpable.

After a long silence, a dry voice answered.

[...Rule of Engagement Five. Intelligence gathering takes priority. Deploy the civilian operators to determine whether this is a known species or an unidentified one. Withdraw immediately after confirmation. Provide cover. Prepare containment measures just in case. Withdraw all equipment except ammunition.]

Lieutenant Baek's eyelids twitched as he looked toward the three of us.

I drew one final breath.

Hoo...

Without hesitation, I put on my gas mask and exhaled into it.

Fog.

Good condition.

Perfect.

Shin Nain and Lee Sejun silently donned theirs as well.

"We'll take a few extra magazines and another grenade each. If you have portable lights for our pouches, we'll take those too. Tactical lights, right?"

Crunch. Crunch.

The sound of our boots crushing dust and debris hidden beneath collapsed ceiling panels masked the pounding of our hearts.

We handed over our spent magazines and took five additional twenty-round magazines, along with two extra grenades each.

Not because we expected to use them all.

Because we intended to be prepared to use them all.

The moment we crossed the shattered emergency shutter, a strange feeling washed over me.

This was where Father Jeong Yonghwan had stood while reciting prayers and helping people.

The place where we had hesitated while climbing the stairs in our escape.

Now we descended those same stairs without a trace of hesitation.

Soon, beneath flickering lights and beyond shadows that clicked like the shutter of an old camera, thick fog came into view.

Without hesitation, I lifted the edge of my poncho and switched on the L-shaped light clipped inside my left chest pocket.

Click.

The sound of machinery locking into place echoed around us.

Everyone raised their weapons.

Heavy metal clacked.

The sounds behind me reminded me we were not alone.

Voices had been replaced by the muffled breathing unique to gas masks.

Our hearts pulsed in rhythm with the crunch of gravel made from shattered ceiling materials.

Our lights illuminated layers of fog piled atop dust and bloodstains.

When we finally reached Basement Level 2, the first thing we saw was the grotesquely crushed train resting on the platform.

Naturally, each of us covered a different direction.

The drone lay ahead of us, dead and motionless.

The atmosphere of the flickering underground station was so oppressive that none of us even considered retrieving it.

And it wasn't just the drone.

The handheld radio Lee Sejun carried had begun emitting nothing but static.

Kssssshh...

Kssshhh...

Without a word, Lee Sejun tucked his rifle beneath his arm and turned up the volume.

Then he shouldered it again and resumed scanning.

Still, when it came to detection, Shin Nain and I were far more capable.

Mutation-Type Eye — Stage 1.

Perhaps because the fog reached thigh height, the recoil was significantly weaker.

The burning sensation in my eyes was so faint it almost felt refreshing, like mint toothpaste.

In that state, I looked up toward the ceiling.

Though the fog didn't reach that high, I could finally see things the drone cameras hadn't captured.

Until now, I'd seen footprints beyond the fog.

I believed they represented monster movements.

That assumption had proven correct.

And it seemed correct once again.

Thump.

A heartbeat echoed through the darkness.

Not ours.

Thump-thump.

Across the entire ceiling of Basement Level 2, hidden within the shadows cast by flickering lights, countless crimson capillaries intertwined.

Each pulse caused them to writhe.

Like fungal mycelium spreading through damp earth, long strands extended and linked together.

My stomach churned.

I couldn't bear to keep looking.

I lowered my head immediately.

My vision spun.

A violent wave of dizziness shook my brain, and I barely suppressed the urge to vomit.

"Ugh... blegh."

Only after bile rose to the back of my tongue did the nausea finally subside.

Yet the metallic scent and sickening odor lingered.

Afraid of contaminating the inside of my gas mask with vomit, I lifted it slightly, spat, and put it back on.

While I recovered, Shin Nain quietly asked,

"Mr. Baek Jemin. What's with that reaction?"

"Don't look up. The ceiling's covered in blood vessels woven together like a net. Looking at them makes you want to throw up."

"Are those tentacles?"

At Lee Sejun's question, I instinctively remembered the magic lecture booklet tucked safely inside my coat.

Magic script.

Yes.

That was definitely what it looked like.

The problem was that the resolution was so low it felt like trying to decipher a one-pixel image.

Even after enduring the dizziness and nausea, all I could make out were black dots.

"Let's move."

The three of us advanced carefully.

The wreckage of the train covering the platform severely restricted movement, but the tracks on the opposite side remained relatively open.

Lee Sejun and Shin Nain, who had escaped through this route before, seemed particularly tense.

Their fingers hovered close to their triggers.

Then a sound reached us.

Not the heartbeat.

Something else.

Gurglegurglegurgle...

Like water flowing through a narrow crack in stone.

Or liquid being poured from a plastic bottle into a glass.

At the sound, we instinctively crouched.

We even turned off our lights.

After remaining motionless for several minutes and allowing our eyes to adapt to the darkness, we finally gathered the courage to peer across the tracks.

My eyes flooded with crimson footprints, warning me from every direction.

Yet if we refused to look, we would never know.

So I looked.

And saw something familiar.

A man wearing a black cassock with torn sleeves.

But he had no head.

More accurately, only a tiny fragment remained.

All that was left was the lower jaw.

A grotesquely elongated tongue dangled from it, dripping blood and cold saliva.

Above him, a massive blood vessel emerging from his spine stretched upward to the ceiling, spreading capillaries throughout the station.

The man in black.

The Headless One.

He lived.

He breathed.

A wet gurgling groan escaped from his throat as his tongue hung limply from his mouth.

Faced with such an unnatural pulse of life, Shin Nain, Lee Sejun, and I all stopped breathing.

Yet above that gigantic blood vessel...

Within the monstrous structure formed by countless intertwined capillaries...

There was something that felt as though it was tearing apart my brain and wringing out my insides.

A symbol.

A pattern formed by tangled capillaries.

Two sets of five elongated lines.

Crossing vertically and horizontally.

Swallowing my nausea by force, I widened my eyes.

Saliva mixed with bile dripped from the corners of my lips.

Magic.

At that moment, Shin Nain grabbed my shoulder.

"Run!"

I lowered my gaze immediately.

The headless priest had turned to face us.

Its gurgling groans had ceased.

Silence.

The enormous pulsing blood vessels contracted violently, staining the ceiling crimson.

Then I saw the future.

The capillaries spread across the ceiling suddenly shot downward.

Lee Sejun was impaled and dragged upward, dissolving into the ceiling.

Shin Nain barely escaped but suffered serious injuries.

And I changed the future.

I yanked Lee Sejun backward by the shoulder.

Grabbed Shin Nain by the collar and dragged her away.

The capillaries slammed down in front of us, forming a wall of flesh that blocked our path.

They writhed and pulsed within countless tiny gaps.

"Retreat failed."

I smacked both of their heads to snap them out of their shock.

Then I prepared myself to look at the ceiling again.

"We kill it and move!"

I shoved both of them away.

Without hesitation, I tightened my grip on my rifle and sprinted toward cover.

The three of us naturally scattered.

Running while constantly switching our attention between the ceiling and the area ahead.

The smell of rubber.

The acidic scent of vomit.

Even the sound of my own breathing beneath the gas mask began to fade.

Yet our footsteps were drowned out by the groan of the headless thing.

Its long tongue swayed beneath the gigantic pulsing blood vessel.

Grrrkkk...

Grrkkk...

I dove beneath the twisted wreckage of the train.

Only then did I dare glance upward again.

Like a disappointed predator withdrawing its tentacles after missing its prey, the capillaries that had speared downward slowly retracted back toward the ceiling.

Click.

Click.

The footsteps of what had once been a priest echoed across the tracks.

Grrkkk...

I tightened my grip on my rifle and made a silent vow.

I would not regard that grotesque groan as a voice calling out to the Lord.