Chapter 27

Patriotism and Magic

For quite a while, the pastor, the monk, and I continued our discussion.

We debated what the magic symbols might mean from a numerological perspective, and what significance there was in the fact that blood drawn from my right hand had damaged a monster.

Before long, however, my enthusiasm began to fade.

The parts I'd been ignoring because I was so fixated on the possibility of twenty-five different spells started creeping back into my mind.

"Well, sure, it's an interesting theory that there might be twenty-five kinds of magic because the symbol looks like a 5×5 grid with twenty-five spaces. But aren't we reading way too much into a single hand-magic symbol?"

"That's true."

"Since imagining and verbally describing them seems safe enough, we should also investigate the symbols Shin Na-in and Lee Se-jun saw."

Pastor Park couldn't continue his sentence.

Right.

All of us knew there had been too many logical leaps.

At the time, everything had sounded plausible because we were forcing the pieces together, but once we cooled off and thought about it, the limitations became obvious.

The pastor had been especially excited about the part where blood from my right hand harmed a monster. He kept talking about divine authority and such. Looking at it now, he might actually have been the most mystical-minded among us.

Monk Cheonghwi quietly folded his hands and reflected on himself.

"Hmm. We may indeed have been too impatient. While wandering through uncertainty, we should be careful not to lose our footing. Yet merely because we saw a light in the distance, we nearly rushed toward it like moths to a flame. We became so obsessed with the meaning of numbers that we forgot these symbols were discovered alongside profoundly strange creatures and neglected to remain wary of their inherent danger."

"For now, let's forget about the right-hand, left-hand stuff. Won't those foreign geniuses who arrived in Pyeongtaek figure something out? This sort of bizarre nonsense seems more like their specialty than ours."

"Well, if that shaman they called the Writing Bodhisattva were still alive, he might've figured something out through numbers. People who make a living reading fortunes would probably see numerology and immediately have some revelation."

More than anything, we needed to determine whether the hand-lineage symbol truly possessed numerological significance.

Personally, I still wasn't convinced numerology was worth believing in.

I wasn't even sure it fit with humanity's occult traditions in the first place.

So we decided to avoid excessive speculation and focus on something else.

The intuition I'd experienced.

One notable thing was that neither the pastor nor the monk doubted my account.

"From what I've seen, you're obsessed with magic. But you're not the sort of guy who'd lie about something like this. We should filter what you say, sure, but not dismiss it."

"No matter how much a person deceives themselves, it is difficult to conceal their deepest desires."

Rather than focusing entirely on numbers, we decided to stop looking for meaning in the symbols themselves and instead examine the most reliable evidence available.

Magic.

The idea was simple: instead of a bunch of occult amateurs putting their heads together and reaching the wrong conclusion, we should think like people with real field experience and stick to what we actually knew.

"Baek Jemin. When you learned hand-lineage magic, you immediately had this intuition—this symbolizes human intelligence. Does everyone experience something like that when learning Modified Magic?"

"The eye lineage was similar. It just wasn't as obvious because the circumstances when I awakened it were... memorable."

Who could have guessed that Han Myeong-un, while standing watch with me, would end up mixed together with a kissing couple and some disgusting monster?

The first time I'd seen those creatures, my legs nearly gave out.

Even now, their appearance and biology remained horrifying.

If not for learning magic symbols, they were exactly the kind of monsters I'd never want to meet.

As we reminisced, the discussion gradually shifted toward the principles behind magic itself.

In doing so, the distinction between doctrine-based magic, which depended on religious belief, and Modified Magic, which relied on the human body, became much clearer.

"What? So all that stuff you were doing to your left hand wasn't just for concentration—it was actually a requirement to activate the spell?"

"Did you think I shot myself in the hand because I was bored?"

"Either way, you're insane!"

As Pastor Park shouted, Monk Cheonghwi rose from his seat and raised a calming hand.

"More importantly, was it the second-stage eye spell? The one that immobilizes a target caught within your vision. I find its activation principle fascinating. 'Time is relative, and because my suffering feels longest, I will share that time with you.' It is an extremely solipsistic..."

"Arrogant perspective," the pastor interrupted. "Exactly what you'd expect from a sorcerer."

He folded his arms and stared at me for a moment before shaking his head.

Ultimately, the three of us abandoned numerology and instead tried to infer what each lineage represented based on my firsthand experiences and intuition.

"I believe the hand lineage represents human intelligence. The hand was the beginning of humanity's rise as the dominant primate and remains its symbol. The idea that a proper human right hand can repel creatures that mock humanity itself seems fundamental to the spell's logic."

"Then the eye lineage..." Pastor Park frowned. "Perception? Sensory cognition? No, cognition itself.

As you mentioned before, vision dominates the way humans experience the world.

We see things.

Of the five senses, seeing is treated as something special.

It's the most reliable way we recognize reality.

And besides..."

"And besides?"

"I heard somewhere that the eyes are basically an extension of the brain. If cognition ultimately happens inside the mind, then eye-lineage magic is probably deeply connected to mental processes as well."

"Pastor, you're surprisingly scientific."

I genuinely hadn't expected that.

Moments ago, he'd been enthusiastically explaining how twenty-five became seven by adding two and five together.

Now he sounded perfectly rational.

"Boy, rationality is simply another way of describing the Lord's orderly design. The idea that humans evolved from monkeys is obvious nonsense because of the missing link. But studying the human form, which was modeled after the Lord, and examining the body He created can be considered an attempt to understand Him."

"Pastor, do you believe dinosaurs existed?"

"Of course I do. Their bones are right there. Do you know why they got hit by an asteroid and died? Because they didn't believe in the Lord."

For a moment, I wondered whether he might secretly be an amalgam in disguise.

Thankfully, he wasn't.

The pastor's explanation—that God had punished the world with rocks before moving on to fire and brimstone—began playing in the background like soothing music.

At that point, the monk and I exchanged glances.

"Benefactor, perhaps you should ask Shin Na-in and Lee Se-jun whether they experienced something similar. It doesn't sound as though you've spoken with them much."

Holding onto the entertaining but entirely unsubstantiated hope that there might be twenty-five kinds of magic, I decided to spend the rest of the day speaking with Shin Na-in and Lee Se-jun.

I found Shin Na-in wearing earphones, playing hymns on an electronic keyboard.

Apparently moved by his own performance, he was crying profusely.

A few moments later, he clasped his hands and began praying.

"Almighty Lord God... Speak but a single word, that I may repent for failing to demonstrate the pure devotion befitting one who pledged himself to Your service. Then I shall be healed."

"Hey. Poop-boy."

I placed a hand on his shoulder to drag him out of his spiritual trance.

After all, I'd spent twenty minutes waiting outside bathroom stalls while he listened to worship music through earphones and struggled to maintain control of his bowels.

That entitled me to interrupt twenty minutes of prayer.

Thus we finally managed to discuss the magic symbols.

"I'm surprised you've had a similar experience, Mr. Baek Jemin. If eyes represent cognition and hands represent intelligence, then I'll explain as thoroughly as possible the guidance the Lord grants through the ears."

"No thanks. Keep it short and simple. Just the important parts."

And so the first gathering of February 22, 2028 came to an end.

To his credit, Shin Na-in was surprisingly diligent when it came to things like this.

He genuinely summarized it as briefly as possible.

"Ears are a grand harmony. A melody that guides humanity... destiny ordained by the Lord would be the most fitting description.

Within that melody, even the voices inside people's hearts become part of the harmony.

Only the cries of monsters sound subtly out of tune."

It was an absolutely idiotic explanation.

But by Shin Na-in's standards, he had clearly made an effort, so I let it slide.

Since directly writing the magic symbols caused problems, we focused on describing them verbally and reconstructing them in our minds.

Thanks to that, I was finally beginning to grasp what the ear-lineage magic symbol looked like.

Patriotism and Magicism

The ear-lineage magic symbol consisted of a vertically elongated oval with four parallel horizontal lines crossing above it.

I casually compared it to the numerology theories we'd been discussing, but no matter how I looked at it, it had absolutely nothing to do with the number seven.

A laugh escaped me.

So much for that. It really had just been a bunch of excitement-fueled nonsense.

"I'm heading out, Poop-boy. Pray hard."

"Mr. Baek Jemin, why don't you sit and pray with me? The Lord seeks to save lost sheep. I strive to do the same."

"You paying military scrip?"

"How much would you like?"

He looked genuinely willing to pay.

I immediately started backing away.

Then something suddenly occurred to me, and I turned back toward Shin Na-in.

"Hey, Poop-boy. Come to think of it, Pastor Park doesn't make the sign of the cross. Why did you do it back then?"

"Back then...?"

"At Suwon Station. When you took the drone soldier's device."

Shin Na-in's expression instantly stiffened.

He looked as though he'd just murdered someone.

His face went pale, his eyes shook, and he couldn't meet my gaze.

Eventually, he let out a deep sigh.

"So you've discovered it."

The moment I heard that, a terrible premonition struck me and I instinctively stepped backward.

This bastard...

Had a monster gotten to him?

Had Father Jeong Yong-hwan taken over his body?

I was debating whether I should start screaming when Shin Na-in finally revealed the truth.

"The truth is, I completed the Catholic Confirmation sacrament. My baptismal name was Andrew Taegon. Looking back, it is deeply shameful."

"What? You?"

"Yes. I nearly lost the salvation found within the Church after falling for the deceitful schemes of the Antichrist Pope."

And thus Shin Na-in's dark secret came to light.

Born into a Catholic family and raised in the faith, he had once been a devout Catholic.

However, his anger at Catholicism's acceptance of ancestral rites and its tolerance toward shamanism and other religions eventually drove him to convert to Protestantism, which he considered the true form of Christianity.

"Salvation exists only within the Church. Knowing this, yet allowing people to be led astray by other religions—the Catholic Church is the greatest heresy of all, servants of the Antichrist!

And to think I still reflexively make the sign of the cross despite it not appearing anywhere in Scripture...! It is proof that my faith remains insufficient!"

"Yeah. Pray hard."

Leaving Shin Na-in behind, I went to find Lee Se-jun.

I found him sitting on the mattress in his quarters, cleaning his rifle.

He was currently running a cleaning rod through the barrel.

"Mr. Se-jun. Let me borrow the cleaning rod when you're done."

"Sure. The oil's over there. Help yourself."

Now that he'd gotten some proper civilian food in him, Lee Se-jun looked less like a sergeant and more like a relaxed neighbor from next door.

I sat down across from him and brought up the subject of magic symbols.

After explaining the discussions I'd been having with the pastor and the monk about what each lineage might symbolize, I asked whether he'd experienced any particular realization when learning heart-lineage magic.

Lee Se-jun stopped cleaning the rifle.

He tapped the barrel with his oil-stained fingers and tilted his head.

After visibly struggling to find the words, he finally spoke.

"The heart is... life. Maybe existence itself.

The magic symbol was just a circle with a single line drawn through it.

There was one horizontal line inside the circle.

That was basically it."

"You saw it in the fog too, right? After it changed shape from whatever it was before. How'd you awaken the second stage?"

"When I was feeling utterly useless...

I opened the booklet on a whim, and the heart symbol happened to appear.

Then... how do I explain it..."

Lee Se-jun wasn't great at explaining things, but I got the gist.

Apparently he'd awakened the second stage while trapped in negative emotions and self-doubt.

That made me suspect Shin Na-in might also have reached Stage Two.

After all, hearing people's inner voices and hearing monsters' inner voices seemed like distinctly different abilities.

Unlike the eye lineage, however, both the ear and heart lineages didn't appear to undergo dramatic changes from stage to stage.

"Thanks, Mr. Se-jun. Learned a lot. Let me grab my rifle and I'll be back."

"Mr. Baek Jemin, aren't you just trying to avoid cleaning your own room?"

"If you go on missions with me, your survival rate goes up."

"Goddammit."

Despite grumbling, he let it slide.

Not every civilian operator spent their time helping soldiers fight monsters.

Some, like Pastor Park after his comfortable assignment in Pyeongtaek, could easily settle into rear-area support duties.

Yet Lee Se-jun was stubborn.

Even though monsters terrified him, he still seemed intent on volunteering for frontline missions.

A strange guy.

I returned with my standard-issue K2 and started cleaning it while chatting with him.

"Come to think of it, aren't there upgrade options for the K2? The version active-duty soldiers use. Is that what you've got?"

"Yep. I switched to a K2C1 ages ago. You're still using the old K2?"

"I was thinking about buying an American rifle, but they're expensive."

"Well, ammunition supply is the issue. American gun companies might hand things out as promotions, but those promotions could end whenever they feel like it. If you get used to it, you'll have trouble maintaining your supply. Better to stick with the standard ROK Army setup."

Apart from occasionally lacking tact, Lee Se-jun was one of the more reasonable members of our group of supreme wizards.

Pastor Park, the religious fanatic.

Monk Cheonghwi, so serene he felt difficult to approach.

Hamza, who disappeared whenever anyone looked away.

And Shin Na-in, the Poop-boy.

Compared to those colorful personalities, Lee Se-jun felt remarkably similar to me.

Especially in one regard.

Neither of us was particularly religious.

We were just ordinary people.

Which naturally led me to ask:

"Most people who fail to make a career in the military end up cursing the country. Why are you working so hard?"

"I was a welfare recipient."

Clack.

Lee Se-jun finished assembling his rifle.

After inspecting it while aiming at the ceiling, he raised an eyebrow and looked at me with a crooked grin.

"I grew up on government money.

Maybe the country never thought much about it.

Maybe they treated me like trash.

But I don't forget kindness.

A person ought to have loyalty, don't you think?"

"So you haven't forgotten that I saved your life either?"

"I remembered that. That's why I tolerated cleaning guns with you instead of making you clean your room."

This guy's accounting system was weird.

February 27, 2028 — 9:17 AM

The Supreme Wizards spent the following days reorganizing and preparing in our own ways.

The pastor returned to Pyeongtaek to continue investigating the occult with the Americans.

The monk headed to the medical ward to calm injured soldiers and those suffering from lingering trauma.

Hamza went to work with headquarters and somehow became a master of paperwork.

Meanwhile, the three of us from the Modified Magic group were assigned as a team and paid three military scrip per day each simply for remaining on standby.

Around that time, new faces began appearing at the Suwon City Hall Command Post.

Civilian operators.

They arrived under the guidance of Captain Kim Ho-un and Lieutenant Shin Han-gi.

The sight that greeted us while we lounged around the lobby was nothing short of shocking.

"What the hell is that? Why is he wearing the Korean flag like a cape?"

"What are you talking about? Who would wear the Korean flag like a—"

Lee Se-jun stopped mid-sentence.

He saw them too.

Four men and two women in their thirties and forties marched proudly through the entrance.

They had draped the Korean flag around their shoulders like cloaks.

The flags were covered with crosses near the trigrams.

It wasn't difficult to guess what religion they belonged to.

Only Shin Na-in welcomed them with a pleased smile.

"It seems the Lord's will has been fulfilled. Rather than arrogantly standing alone against evil, they have gathered their strength together. How reassuring."

At that moment, I felt immense relief.

Civilian operators apparently didn't need to get along with each other.

The feeling only intensified when Lieutenant Shin Han-gi noticed us and quietly whispered the organization's name.

[The Taegeuk Jesus Advent Eastern Academy Division]

The name alone sent chills down my spine.

I immediately looked away.

Lieutenant Shin Han-gi seemed to understand exactly what I was feeling.

"Don't worry. Headquarters won't assign different organizations to the same team."

Watching him walk away to show the Taegeuk Jesus Advent Eastern Academy Division around the military supply store, I was reminded once again just how precarious South Korea's situation had become.

Was the country really desperate enough to recruit people like that?

The thought cooled my fascination with magic almost instantly.

For the first time in a long while, reality hit me.

I stopped lounging around, stood up, and patted Shin Na-in and Lee Se-jun on the back.

"Gentlemen. Let's go."

"Huh? You, Mr. Baek Jemin?"

"Good heavens..."

"Yeah."

Instead of curiosity about magic, I spoke with what might have been the first genuine sense of national crisis I'd ever felt in my life.

"I suddenly feel extremely patriotic, so let's move. Now."