Chapter 25

The Man Who Wanted to Be a Wizard

Sometimes, when faced with trials and suffering too harsh to bear, we seek God.

Even I, Baek Jemin—the kind of person who seems to live however he pleases beneath heaven and earth—was once dragged by my parents to visit shamans. It's only natural to chase after every possibility when you vaguely hope someone might have an answer to your life.

If there'd been a mosque at boot camp, I'd probably have believed in Allah too.

From what Hamza told me, apparently grilling pork is forgivable as long as you pray diligently.

Father Jeong Yonghwan and the Writing Bodhisattva probably possessed a far greater sense of purpose than I ever did.

The fact that they stood and fought these horrific monsters instead of running away meant they deserved respect.

And so I raised my rifle toward the priest monster writhing helplessly in the fog mixed with yellow smoke.

My hands throbbed.

Burned.

Stung.

I'd cut them.

Bitten them.

Used them as magical tools.

But if it was for someone who had saved my life, even briefly...

I could endure it.

A fragment of a prayer from boot camp surfaced in my mind.

"Our Father, who art in Heaven..."

Please don't leave leftovers. Scrape up all the scorched rice too.

Bang-bang!

Brass casings rolled across the floor.

Finally, the priest monster stopped struggling.

Lowering the rifle whose muzzle still emitted acrid smoke, I stared at the corpse with mixed emotions.

If the Father in Heaven was really coming to take him, then surely He ought to take the whole body instead of scooping out only the head.

I didn't know what kind of priest Jeong Yonghwan had been.

I didn't know why he had met such an ending.

But at least one person in this world sincerely mourned him.

The priest had done his best.

He had been human.

A human who had laughed, cried, loved, and suffered.

By then Lee Sejun had approached, rifle in hand, and silently watched the priest's final moments beside me.

He'd volunteered to recover the Writing Bodhisattva's remains, but apparently there wasn't much left to recover.

Two grenades had blown the thing apart.

"Why do the good people always die first like this?"

"Tragic, isn't it? But there's one silver lining for you, Sejun."

"What silver lining?"

"I'm still alive."

Lee Sejun fell silent.

I assumed he was overwhelmed by a profound sense of gratitude and awe, so I generously allowed him a moment to process it.

Meanwhile, I offered a brief prayer for the departed priest and the missing Writing Bodhisattva.

Hoooo...

The sound of breathing through a gas mask echoed softly.

Then footsteps descended from the platform stairs.

Lieutenant Baek Hanseong and his soldiers were finally moving in.

"Operators! Are you alright?"

Pushing through the fog, Lieutenant Baek and his men appeared.

They had come prepared.

Several soldiers, including the lieutenant, had mounted action cameras and lights onto their helmets worn over gas masks.

They scanned every direction.

Others formed a defensive perimeter from the stairway to the platform entrance, maintaining aimed firing positions.

Nearby, Shin Nain had regained much of her composure despite still looking somewhat pale.

She tapped her ear with a finger, pulled up the hood of her poncho, and approached us.

"Impressive. The chalkboard-scratching sounds are gone. How did you kill it?"

"Everyone played their part. Lee Sejun's grenade throw was so good we got one of them practically for free."

Honestly, I was relieved to have finally discovered Lee Sejun's true value.

Unlike Shin Nain and me, he wasn't especially gifted at detection.

He couldn't hear instincts or see ten seconds into the future.

But his stamina was absurd.

And the way he threw grenades...

Those things didn't arc.

They flew like guided missiles.

What does it mean when someone would make an excellent baseball player?

It means they're terrifyingly talented at throwing things designed to explode.

Privately, I was also grateful I hadn't awakened Heart-Type Magic.

Eye-Type and Hand-Type Magic sounded cool.

If I'd awakened something that amounted to "throw objects really hard and really far," I would've felt cheated.

Lee Sejun, however, seemed less concerned about whether his magic looked magical and more relieved that he'd actually contributed.

He let out a deep sigh and fiddled with his rifle's selector switch.

"Maybe it'd be better if I stayed in the back from now on and just threw grenades when people tell me to."

When we asked why he'd suddenly become stronger despite already being capable of sprinting full speed for thirty seconds without tiring, the answer was surprisingly simple.

Apparently, while hiding inside the tunnel, he'd opened the magic booklet inside the fog.

Somehow enduring the nausea, he'd awakened Stage 2 of Heart-Type Magic.

And according to him, it wasn't simply "throwing things really hard."

"It's more like... enhanced physical performance? My body responds instantly to what I want. Strength transfers properly. Everything feels sharper."

"So Heart-Type Magic is basically physical enhancement."

Shin Nain rubbed her chest thoughtfully.

I was about to add my own observations when I locked eyes with Lieutenant Baek.

The man looked exhausted.

His bloodshot eyes trembled slightly.

He clearly wanted to leave this horrifying station as soon as possible.

"Let's finish searching the area first. Looks like our lieutenant's about to die from stress."

"T-Thank you!"

For reconnaissance and detection work, Shin Nain was vastly superior to Lee Sejun.

She was a complete religious lunatic.

But she could perceive things even beyond my field of vision.

And her mental resilience was remarkable.

A dependable teammate.

Though because I was an honest man, I couldn't quite bring myself to say that out loud.

"Ms. Shin Nain, let's do detection together again. Calling you a poop-head earlier was simply a moment of excessive honesty under pressure."

"Mr. Baek Jemin. You know you've been calling me that since the moment I got out of the car at Suwon Station, right?"

Fortunately, the search of Basement Level 2 began before she could pursue the subject further.

Lieutenant Baek brought twenty soldiers from Squad Two and secured the area near the platform entrance.

They dragged cables inside and installed powerful searchlights.

The station brightened dramatically.

Action cameras recorded everything.

Soldiers with mounted lights scanned every corner.

Five-man teams spread out along the tracks.

Two soldiers covered distant approaches.

Three covered nearby areas.

Everyone remained alert for ambushes.

Eventually, after several soldiers recovered the fallen drones near the stairs, Lieutenant Baek requested a full report.

"Please explain the monster you encountered in as much detail as possible."

Without a word, I pointed toward the ceiling.

A searchlight followed my finger.

The dying blood-vessel network still clung there.

The withered web emitted faint red light as it slowly crumbled into powder.

Crack.

A fragment broke loose.

Lieutenant Baek jumped backward as blood dust drifted toward him.

His breathing became ragged.

Only then did I begin explaining while guiding him toward the priest's corpse hidden within the thinning fog.

"It used the operators' bodies like puppets. You know those crane machines? Like that. It manipulated corpses and used them to sing. Listening to the song caused extreme dizziness and vomiting, similar to looking at magical characters."

"You... think that's what attacked the drones through sound?"

"Probably."

The three of us took turns describing everything we'd witnessed.

The true body had been the blood-vessel network spread across the ceiling.

The headless human corpses served merely as puppets.

Destroying the connection rendered them inactive but didn't truly kill them.

And the fact that only the two operators previously devoured by Amalgams had become puppets suggested some unknown causal relationship.

As for how the creature fed and reproduced...

I had evidence.

Leading Lieutenant Baek away from the platform's center, we showed him something hidden beneath the debris and fog.

Torn civilian clothing.

Bloodstained combat uniforms.

Scattered remnants of people.

Looking down at them, I explained my theory.

"The creature attacks from above. Its blood vessels penetrate the victim's flesh and attempt to merge with their circulatory system. Once the fusion succeeds, it weaves a blood net around the target, drags them to the ceiling, and dissolves the body for consumption. When I hid beneath that crushed train, it spread such a dense web that the entire train looked like a giant chunk of meat."

"...What?"

"What's wrong?"

Lieutenant Baek wasn't the only one staring at me.

Lee Sejun and Shin Nain both looked horrified.

I frowned.

"Well... its blood vessels pierced my skin and tried to merge with my blood vessels..."

"AAAAAAAHHHH!"

Lieutenant Baek practically screamed.

He stumbled backward.

Dropped his rifle.

And sat down hard on the ground.

Through his gas mask, I could hear his breathing becoming increasingly frantic.

He looked at me like I was the monster.

Even Lee Sejun quietly moved behind the lieutenant.

Only Shin Nain smiled strangely and nodded.

"As expected of someone protected by God. Such unwavering courage before Satan's power. Though you're still an unbeliever, I should learn from you."

Several minutes later, and only after Shin Nain vouched for me, Lieutenant Baek finally regained enough composure to resume operations.

Still, he couldn't help issuing a warning.

"Mr. Baek Jemin. Even if you're fine for now, you'll be under observation for a while. After we finish clearing Suwon Station."

"Come on, what's the big deal—"

Then I stopped myself.

Honestly?

If somebody told me they'd rubbed cheeks with an Amalgam and were perfectly fine afterward...

I'd probably shoot first and ask questions later too.

And so the joint operation between us Supreme Archmages and the soldiers officially began.

Most of the monsters had already been dead for quite some time, but a handful of Amalgams and Devouring Spines remained hidden in sealed spaces and within the crushed train cars.

Fortunately, once Shin Nain managed to pull herself together, the extermination proceeded rapidly.

"Come forth, little army of Jesus~! Put Jesus! At the front!!!"

Shin Nain would hum hymns in a lazy, wavering voice, but the moment she sensed a monster, her tone would abruptly sharpen and she would signal us. Whenever combat became imminent, she would fall completely silent and allow the soldiers to take aim first.

Apparently she really could hear the voices inside other people's hearts, because her coordination was flawless.

Whenever Shin Nain stopped singing and pointed somewhere, I would raise my injured right hand and prepare Eye-Type Magic Stage 2.

After slathering the wound with enough antiseptic to feel like someone was repeatedly slapping my cheek with Albothyl and wrapping it tightly in bandages, a pleasant throbbing pain lingered beneath the skin. I could tell that the slightest shock would activate the spell immediately.

Soon enough, an Amalgam would reveal itself in response to movement.

Before it could flee in fear of my eyes, I'd simply clench my right fist and squeeze the wound once.

Just enough not to reopen it.

The lingering pain from my injured left hand and the antiseptic burning in my right already provided sufficient fuel.

That alone was enough.

The five-person Amalgam would freeze solid.

Moments later, it would be exposed to concentrated rifle fire.

Rat-tat-tat-tat!

An Amalgam's method of overcoming a firing line was simple.

It split apart and scattered.

But once we could stun it before it separated and target its weak point—the head—ordinary infantry squads suddenly found hunting them much easier.

Meanwhile, Shin Nain's detection abilities continued improving, making it easier to identify areas where Devouring Spines lay in ambush.

"Amalgams sound like different screams layered together without rhythm. The chalkboard-scratching sound seems to be the Devouring Spines. There's one hiding between the twisted seats in that crushed train car."

"So there's a Devouring Spine in there."

Lee Sejun rolled an unpinned grenade across his palm and narrowed his eyes.

Whenever a Devouring Spine's position was identified, everyone would create distance.

Lee Sejun would then take a grenade, pull the pin, cook it, and throw it.

The resulting explosion suppressed the monster before it could unleash one of its desperate counterattacks.

Everyone understood by this point.

This wasn't a war against humans.

It was a war against creatures that hunted humans.

And that meant we had to dismantle every aspect of their ecology and tactics without mercy.

February 5, 2028 — 5:43 PM

That was when the first cleansing operation of Suwon Station's Basement Level 2 finally concluded.

Putting away my cracked phone, I looked around.

The fog was finally lifting.

Only after seeing the mist gradually fade could our trio, Lieutenant Baek Hanseong, and the soldiers finally remove their gas masks.

Condensation rolled from the rubber interior of the masks and dripped from our chins.

Major Jang Sinmyeong's CBRN unit entered shortly afterward and began burning the corpses.

They even brought fire extinguishers in preparation for accidental fires.

Watching the bodies burn and release a nauseating smell, I took out my canteen again.

Shin Nain tilted hers over her face and washed off the grime.

Lee Sejun let out a long sigh.

I simply drank every remaining drop of water.

If this was only the second containment line...

Then I could imagine what conditions were like on the first containment line.

The Seoul Front.

***

February 12, 2028 — 12:01 AM

After returning from Suwon Station, what awaited me was an intense investigation.

Blindfolded.

Restrained.

Transported to some medical facility.

They subjected me to every test imaginable.

MRI scans.

CT scans.

Examinations I'd always avoided because they were annoying.

Then, just to make things even more ridiculous, they brought in some nameless shaman for verification.

Only after all of that was my innocence established.

I was human.

Officially and administratively human.

Only then was I allowed to return to the Suwon City Hall CP.

Immediately afterward, I was granted a private interview with Colonel Myeong Hal-ddeon.

The fact that they assigned Shin Hangi as my escort was probably intended as a courtesy.

Standing outside the meeting room, Shin Hangi smiled awkwardly.

"It's good news. Don't be nervous."

Inside the conference room sat only the colonel.

When he noticed me entering, he removed his cap, rubbed his thinning white hair, and sighed deeply.

Shin Hangi saluted and quietly closed the door behind him.

Then the colonel approached and handed me a small box.

"Civilian Operator Baek Jemin. First, I owe you an apology for the excessive scrutiny. The military prioritized verifying your condition rather than rewarding your achievements. As a result, your compensation has been delayed."

I blinked.

"Is this really the military?"

The thought came slightly later than the words.

The colonel snorted.

"The world's ending and nuclear warheads are pointed at us. Is it really surprising that the military changed?"

"Yes."

"Good grief."

He shoved the box against my chest.

"Fifty military credits. Forty for the successful recapture of Suwon Station's underground levels. Ten bonus credits for achieving it with minimal casualties."

Then he smiled faintly.

"I also omitted portions of your report."

"Omitted?"

"The report only mentions the magical symbol and the Hand-Type classification. It doesn't mention what the magic actually does. The symbol itself is bad enough. It looks like a simple chart until you realize it's a magical character. Then it makes people want to vomit. The administrative staff are having a terrible time."

When I asked why, the colonel finally turned back toward me.

His smile was weary.

The smile of a man crushed beneath reality.

"According to your report, Hand-Type Magic Stage 1 allows blood shed from the right hand to harm monsters."

"Correct."

"Desperate people will do anything. Just as the military has changed, there are plenty of people eager to study this mutation-based magic system. Whether for survival or for power."

The colonel winked.

"A week ago, nobody died because of you. A miracle, honestly. It's the first operation against those damned monsters that ended with zero fatalities."

His voice softened.

"So I'd like you to stay healthy for a very long time. If someone absolutely must become a laboratory rat, I don't want it to be the person saving my soldiers."

Then, like some neighborhood uncle, he waved casually.

"I've already told supply to set aside Spam, Richam, whatever you want. We'll take care of you. Let's get along."

"Heh..."

I smiled.

Then raised my injured right hand.

The colonel completely misunderstood.

"Oh? High five?"

Instead, I folded three fingers and raised only my index and middle fingers.

A V sign.

The colonel laughed even harder.

"Hahaha! What, you want a commemorative photo?"

"Twenty more military credits."

The laughter stopped instantly.

"..."

"I'll work hard. Pay me."

***

I'd learned a great deal at Suwon Station.

Destroying my left hand and right hand every battle wasn't sustainable.

My staff would break before the monsters did.

A truly great wizard doesn't rely solely on magic.

Just look at that gray wizard.

Thinking back on it, he spent far more time swinging a sword than casting lightning.

In other words:

Gear matters.

***

Pastor Park Yohan dropped a mountain of books onto the table and sat down beside me.

"Well, if it isn't Aphorism's biggest lunatic. Heard you got seventy military credits."

"Aphorism...?"

The name sounded vaguely familiar.

"Already got dementia? That's the name of our group."

"Pastor, no matter how I think about it, that name sucks."

"You wanna fight?"

After a brief exchange of insults, Pastor Park adjusted his glasses and tapped the stack of books.

"I heard you learned Hand-Type Magic."

"Yeah."

Originally, I'd considered pulling up the ladder behind me and preventing anyone else from learning it.

Then I realized I'd eventually have to fight entire hordes of monsters alone.

That changed my mind.

If other members of Aphorism learned Hand-Type Magic, maybe I wouldn't have to bleed all over the place by myself.

I was happily eating Spam and Richam at the cafeteria when the pastor continued.

"I went to Pyeongtaek recently. Met some mystical heretics. Had to listen to all kinds of disgusting forbidden knowledge. Occupational hazard."

"Ah... Father. Our Father..."

For a moment, I imagined an alternate timeline where Father Jeong Yonghwan had taken the pastor's place.

Father...

Why did you leave so soon?

"Why are you mourning a priest when we're talking about heretics who worship an Antichrist Pope?"

The pastor cleared his throat.

"Anyway. Including your Hand-Type Magic, there are currently four known magical systems. Eye. Ear. Hand. Heart."

Four.

"The American heretics in Pyeongtaek are fighting over two theories. One says there are only four systems corresponding to the four classical elements. The other says there are many more."

"Four elements? Fire, water, wind, earth?"

"Exactly."

He leaned closer and lowered his voice.

"A little too convenient, don't you think?"

I immediately frowned.

I was going to have to humor this old man until my wounds healed.

Then the pastor continued.

"But your Hand-Type Magic interests me for another reason."

I was simultaneously disgusted and curious.

Curiosity won.

"Go on."

"The right hand traditionally symbolizes divine authority. Order. God's power."

He pointed at my bandaged left hand.

"And the left hand—the one you've burned, bitten, shot, and abused in every possible way—is traditionally associated with ill omens. Witchcraft. Rituals. Things like that."

"..."

For once, I found myself completely speechless.