Chapter 30

The Cry of Childbirths and Recovery

The convoy of trucks carrying the mage candidates was headed toward Songpa-daero.

It was said to be one of the most thoroughly devastated areas among Seoul's outskirts, to the point that even reinforced concrete buildings had been almost completely destroyed. As a result, it was judged to have the lowest monster population and was designated as the route of entry into Seoul.

However, the interior of Seoul was a cursed zone where the fog was so dense that air support could not properly enter.

As the sound of helicopter rotors that had been audible until moments ago gradually faded away, the voice of the lead passenger echoed through the truck.

"Don't worry. We've already sent drones ahead for reconnaissance. They'll report back."

I didn't know whether that was true or not.

Still, before long, a buzzing sound like gigantic hornets filled the sky from all directions, so at least I figured he wasn't lying. If they weren't drones, then they were probably hornet-like monsters.

Silence settled over us for a while.

Coughing. Forced throat-clearing. Quiet prayers as people clung to their own faiths and religions.

Then Min Hyungjun, the deacon who was supposedly the leader of the Taegeuk Cloak Group, looked at us and gave a bitter smile.

"You're Shin Nain, the one who believes in God, right?"

"Yes, Deacon."

"Young people these days usually come to church to meet girls. It's rare to see someone this devout. Most people wouldn't willingly come to a terrible place like this."

"Not at all. Building a family is also God's will, to be fruitful and multiply."

"Huh. Your faith is something else, Mr. Shin."

At that, several of the middle-aged men and women from the Taegeuk Cloak Group joined in.

"Nain, you've got a nice face. Interested in meeting my daughter?"

"Oh my~. Lucky. If I had a daughter, I'd be setting you up too!"

"Nain, can you handle your liquor?"

This feeling...

It was familiar.

Back when a senior begged me to fill an empty seat at a department mixer because someone had canceled. I ended up sitting in a corner drinking and stuffing myself with side dishes all night. It wasn't until I got home that I realized I hadn't spoken to anyone.

Shin Nain seemed used to this kind of attention. He had even removed his gas mask and was chatting away cheerfully. Meanwhile, Lee Sejun came over and sat beside me with an unhappy expression.

"Jemin. Don't you find Shin Nain kind of annoying?"

"Why ask something so obvious?"

If someone annoys you for no reason, it just means you dislike them.

Trying to invent reasons afterward is cowardly.

I, Baek Jemin, a man who could live without laws, don't try to dig up reasons to justify hating someone else's existence.

Pretending to have a logical reason for an irrational feeling wasn't something a real man should do.

It simply meant there was now one more reason to dislike that obnoxious church fanatic Shin Nain.

"Sejun, when you already dislike someone, you'll use anything as an excuse to criticize them. If Shin Nain wasn't talking with the church people like that, you'd probably be saying, 'Look at that guy, even the church folks reject him.'"

"...Jemin, you're deeper than you look."

"So don't go searching for cowardly excuses. Just admit you don't like him."

"Actually, Jemin, I don't like you."

See?

He had absolutely no reason to dislike me, yet appearances were a terrifying thing.

I decided to make Lee Sejun a more rational and logical person.

Smack!

"Ow! What was that for!? Why'd you hit me on the back all of a sudden!?"

"Now you have a reason to dislike me. From now on, say you hate me because I hit you."

In the end, thanks to that church fanatic lunatic Shin Nain, our relationship with the Taegeuk Cloak Group became much smoother.

When I first saw people wearing the Korean flag like capes and covering them with crosses around the trigrams, I thought they were complete nutcases. But the way they chatted and made a fuss was exactly like ordinary church uncles and aunties.

Though I did wonder if it was really okay to be this loud while moving through such dense fog.

Still, Sejun and I, the driver, the lead passenger—everyone probably knew deep down.

The reason the Taegeuk Cloak Group kept talking was to forget their fear and tension.

The damp, cold fog carried a crushing humidity.

It felt like sinking into a dark abyss beneath the sea.

It was so oppressive that I felt if I stopped breathing for even a moment, I'd simply blow bubbles and die.

I didn't know what kind of experiences those church people had gone through.

Still, I doubted it was worse than what our Mutation Trio had experienced beneath Suwon Station.

Of course, I couldn't deny the fact that they had volunteered to come all the way here.

At the very least, their patriotism and faith seemed genuine.

It was funny.

When the world—when South Korea—was normal, these people only seemed ridiculous and full of flaws.

But now that monsters had appeared, I found myself looking for their good qualities.

That was when the truck stopped.

"Disembark! Visibility in the fog is under 100 meters. Let's check."

As the lead passenger got out, the rest of us followed.

The headlights of the armored vehicles and trucks at the front and rear illuminated floating ash and dust drifting through the dense fog.

The soldiers maintained distance while escorting—and monitoring—the mage candidates.

Between them, our group and the Taegeuk Cloak Group prepared to open the magic lecture booklets.

"Same precautions as before. Open them. If you're fine, report it."

Even the lead passenger's words had become extremely brief. It seemed he couldn't even force a smile anymore.

Everyone opened their booklets.

Mage candidates and actual mages alike immediately started retching.

I was no different.

I tried to learn Stage 1 of the Heart System on page five, but the only result was nausea.

"Urgh... fuck..."

Thinking back, I'd brute-forced my way this far without a proper theory.

Was magic impossible to learn now without an established framework? Without a target point?

Did I seriously have to believe nonsense like five times five equals twenty-five, then splitting twenty-five into two and five and adding them together to get seven?

Dozens of seconds passed as I endured the dizziness with my eyes closed.

When I opened them again, I had no choice but to acknowledge the relationship between the fog and magical success rates.

When visibility had been 200 meters, every single person had retched.

At 100 meters, six people were perfectly fine.

The monk.

The prisoner.

The curly-haired middle-aged woman.

An elderly man with a slightly bent back.

A sickly-looking middle-aged man.

After speaking with them, the lead passenger filled pages in his notebook and nodded.

"At this rate, I think we can just head back. We'll do a quick roll call and—"

"Captain. Wait a moment."

A soldier carrying a shotgun and wearing full chemical-protection gear raised his hand and approached.

The lead passenger and the soldier stepped aside and spoke privately.

That might have worked on ordinary people, but not on our Mutation Trio.

Even if he was a church fanatic bastard, Shin Nain had plenty of useful applications.

I nudged him in the side with my elbow, and he immediately began relaying their conversation in a whisper like a human radio.

"Some soldiers went missing."

"Isn't rescue strictly prohibited?"

"They're also saying several operator candidates seem to have disappeared."

That was serious.

The lead passenger seemed troubled as well; his sighs were audible even from here.

A few soldiers dying was a loss they could accept.

Painful, yes.

But better than getting everyone killed trying to save a handful.

The problem was the operator candidates—the mage candidates.

Even if they hadn't awakened magic yet, what if they were capable of becoming mages?

Furthermore, our Mutation Trio knew what happened when mages were eaten or used for reproduction by monsters.

They became something else.

The fates of Father Jeong Yonghwan and Bodhisattva Geulmun were still vivid in my memory.

The lead passenger appeared to be someone from the First Containment Line.

There was no way information about unidentified monster species hadn't been shared with the front lines.

If a mage's corpse could be reborn as a more powerful monster, what should they do?

After agonizing over it, he checked his analog wristwatch and sighed.

"Ten minutes. No more. It's too dangerous after that. Load all the operator candidates. Soldiers, take positions facing outward with your backs to the trucks and armored vehicles. We'll wait ten minutes for any stragglers to rejoin. Everyone maintain combat readiness."

Our Mutation Trio and the Taegeuk Cloak Group joined the soldiers in guarding the convoy.

There was no need to mention how useful Shin Nain's doctrinal magic, Soteriological Conviction, was for keeping soldiers alive.

The magic possessed by our Mutation Trio was also a great help.

Granted, Lee Sejun's Heart System was a bit underwhelming.

Even so, compared to ordinary soldiers, it was overwhelmingly superior.

Thirty seconds or thirty minutes—it didn't matter.

Judging from how tireless he remained even under extreme conditions, his combat endurance would be remarkable with the right mentality and equipment.

Moreover, thanks to the thick fog, magical backlash was almost nonexistent.

When I activated Stage 1 of the Mutation Eye System and used future sight ten seconds ahead, the only side effect was slight eye fatigue.

Like waking up somewhat refreshed despite not having slept well.

As the fog shifted, my range expanded enough that I could vaguely see red footprints beyond distant concrete ruins.

The footprints were nearly five hundred meters away.

Their owner was clearly wary of us.

After all, the footprints disappeared soon afterward.

"If there weren't monsters in this fog, I'd live here."

"And what about the mold?"

"Mold... didn't think of that."

Lee Sejun was full of energy as well.

Aside from his nervousness, his body was obviously in peak condition.

He kept bouncing on his feet, trying to burn off his excess stamina.

The one suffering most was Shin Nain.

With earbuds in his ears, he grimaced and rubbed his earlobes until they turned bright red.

I'd never seen him struggle like this before.

"Hngh... Lord..."

"Hey. Shin Nain. What's wrong with this guy?"

"Nain, can you see this? Want to study Chinese characters?"

Sejun waved his middle finger directly in front of Shin Nain's face.

Only after seeing Sejun's body language depicting the character for mountain did Shin Nain finally snap out of it.

Sweating heavily from the moisture in the fog, Shin Nain looked north with exhausted eyes.

"There are still people alive."

"..."

"They're all calling out to God. Some are angry. They're cursing the government and the military for abandoning them here."

"..."

"The more horrifying thing is... I can hear a baby crying nearby."

"A monster, obviously."

I said flatly while resting my finger on my rifle's trigger.

But Shin Nain merely exhaled a weak sigh.

"I can't tell the difference. It sounds exactly like a real baby. All I hear is a desperate cry to survive... nothing else..."

After saying that, he returned to his devout believer mode.

Tears streamed down his face as he recited some kind of prayer.

From what little I could make out, it sounded like some bizarre language—something like ali ali alashong—so I decided not to bother deciphering it.

Maybe I'd run it through an AI translator later.

But Lee Sejun didn't seem as composed as I was.

He swallowed hard before finally speaking.

"Jemin... if a baby appears right in front of us... are we supposed to treat it as a monster and shoot it?"

Someone else might have called that a difficult question and avoided answering.

But I already had something of an answer.

"Sejun, it probably won't look like the cute little thing we're imagining. Think about the Amalgam or the Devouring Spine. Look at all the monsters we've seen so far. None of them were cute enough to make you want to raise them instead of a cat."

"That's true, but..."

"They're kind monsters, really. The moment you see them, they give you a million reasons to hate them. You don't have to pretend to be smart and invent reasons to dislike them. Makes life easy."

If there was one flaw in their kindness, it was that every encounter made you want to piss and shit yourself.

It was while we continued standing guard, each occupied by our own thoughts, questions, and answers.

Beeeeeeep—

A noise like microphone feedback before a loudspeaker announcement washed over the entire convoy.

The mage candidates who had been whispering atop the trucks, the nervous soldiers scanning the surroundings, the Taegeuk Cloak Group, and even us Supreme Mages—all froze at once.

Crackle... crackle...

Static leaked from the small radios carried by the soldiers and the captain.

Just in case, I activated Stage 1 of the Mutation Eye System and scanned the surroundings.

Not a single red footprint appeared.

It wasn't an attack.

Though it certainly felt like a sign of something.

Before long, the ringing noise faded.

Then voices burst through the radios.

The first thing we heard was a baby's cry.

[Waaah... waaah...]

The moment I heard it, I pictured a tiny infant kicking its little arms and legs while crying.

An instinctive urge surged within me—the primal desire to protect something small, innocent, and helpless.

The second voices belonged to the missing soldiers and mage candidates.

[This is Sergeant Kim... Following the testimony of candidates who awakened auditory abilities, we tracked the sound and discovered actual survivors in what used to be a hospital. It's a baby... It looks like a group of refugees somehow hid it before trying to escape...]

[It's a baby. It's crying that it wants to live. God... there's a baby in a place like this...!]

Some people might have called it a miracle.

A final hope left behind by people who braved fear in order to protect a tiny life amidst a Seoul overrun by monsters and engulfed in dense fog.

A pure life surviving countless sacrifices and difficult decisions before finally reaching the outside world.

Many would have found that moving.

The members of the Taegeuk Cloak Group certainly did.

The moment they overheard the transmission, they began praying.

Unlike their usual behavior, their expressions were solemn and serious.

They weren't seminary graduates.

They looked ridiculous in their Taegeuk-flag capes.

Yet there was a reason they had volunteered to come to Seoul.

"Lord, only now do we understand why You led us here today. We finally comprehend that You who dwell in the darkest and lowest places wished for us to save the child abandoned in the most horrifying and twisted corner of this world..."

But there were also people who felt chills for an entirely different reason.

People like me.

Baek Jemin.

A baby survived in this hell?

Maybe it was possible.

Probability existed, after all.

Even if it were true that a group of refugees had sacrificed themselves to save a single infant, the question remained.

Did human life truly possess enough value to create a miracle like that?

Then the captain suddenly snatched up his radio and shouted.

"Hey! Sergeant Kim! You idiot! That's a monster! Leave it and get out of there!"

[Captain... are we really not allowed to save even one baby?]

"Hey! Hey, hey! Do you know the rules of engagement!? Get out! Run, damn it!"

But the transmission cut off.

The other side had clearly disconnected first.

Insubordination.

Something I never expected to witness in a place like this.

Even the captain looked shaken as he paced around while checking his analog wristwatch.

"Ten minutes... ten minutes."

Soon afterward, he appeared to contact headquarters.

The soldiers.

The candidates atop the trucks.

Us mages.

Everyone remained silent, waiting for his decision.

Eventually, he made one and approached us.

"Phenomenon believed to be caused by an unidentified entity detected within fog visibility under one hundred meters. According to Rule of Engagement Five—acquire information on conditions inside the fog as the highest priority—we are switching to a rapid reconnaissance mission for approximately thirty minutes."

An unidentified species.

Apparently, only us Supreme Mages truly understood the weight of those words.

The Taegeuk Cloak Group looked resolute, as though they would have tried to persuade the captain if he'd suggested retreating.

But we had already seen what unidentified species could do.

We couldn't help but tense up.

A completely new enemy.

The conditions weren't easy either.

"We'll assign one armored vehicle to the operators. We can't spare more than that because we still have to protect the transport convoy. Drone Command contacted us during reconnaissance. Apparently there's an old internal medicine clinic nearby. That's the most likely location."

"Can we really investigate everything in thirty minutes?"

"You operators can use localized mutation abilities, can't you? Gather whatever information you can from outside. If you enter the building, get in and out quickly. If you find Sergeant Kim, his squad, or the mage candidates dead, withdraw immediately. We don't even expect you to burn the bodies. If you identify the unknown species, great. But if survival looks unlikely, just run."

The captain then called several soldiers over.

Before long, they collected grenades from their gear and handed them to us.

"I heard civilian operators have to buy grenades with military vouchers. Take them. Blow up monsters with them. Or yourselves. Either way, they'll be useful."

"Captain, we Christians do not commit suicide. Even if it means dying while fighting."

Min Hyungjun accepted the grenade and answered firmly.

The captain quietly looked away and muttered,

"Honestly, suicide would probably be the better option."

February 29, 2028 — 2:45 PM

We had been crammed into a tiny armored vehicle and barely managed to crawl back out.

Maybe this was how Father Jeong Yonghwan or Han Myeongun felt when they were pressed against an Amalgam.

The operation began before I even had time to stretch my cramped body.

The convoy had stopped near Jangja Bridge.

The clinic was about four minutes away.

That left roughly twenty-six minutes.

As I looked around wondering whether this mission was even possible—

Bzzzz.

The sound of hornets echoed overhead.

At the same time, the radio the captain had given me crackled loudly.

[Conducting external drone reconnaissance. No abnormalities detected. Requesting detection support from your side.]

This was when I learned about the magic used by the Taegeuk Cloak Group.

Among the four middle-aged men and two women, Deacon Min Hyungjun and one of the women were Mutation-type mages.

The others were probably Doctrine-type.

Min Hyungjun had awakened a Heart mutation, while the woman possessed an Eye mutation.

Each was slightly different.

Min Hyungjun swung what looked like a mop handle as if it were a staff.

The force behind it was so powerful that the fog seemed to part slightly.

"Hmph. Nothing."

A close-combat strength mage?

The sharp-eyed woman frowned before clicking her tongue.

"Dangerous. Everything's red. This place is dangerous for sure."

Only then did I understand their team composition.

Min Hyungjun and the sharp-eyed woman handled combat and threat detection.

The other four supported them through the doctrine-based magic, Soteriological Conviction.

It was more professional than I'd expected.

Or perhaps the military had trained them into becoming that way.

I glanced at Lee Sejun.

"That look in your eyes is making me uncomfortable, Jemin."

Lee Sejun, this ordinary mortal.

As the spiritual pillar of the Supreme Mages, I couldn't tolerate Sejun falling behind.

Just as I resolved to help him level up—

Shin Nain removed one earbud and adjusted his gas mask.

"You figure out what the Taegeuk Cloak Group's abilities are?"

"The Taegeuk Cloak Group...? Ah, you mean the Taegeuk Jesus Advent Eastern Academy Society people."

Sejun and I put on our gas masks while listening to Shin Nain's analysis.

This mind-reading church fanatic was irritating, but his usefulness was undeniable.

"Deacon Min has temporary strength enhancement. Sister Jeong over there has danger detection."

"Can Sister Jeong see the future like I can?"

"Not quite. It seems more like she can identify dangerous areas without knowing exactly what's causing the danger. She never mentioned anything about time."

That gave me a rough idea.

The theory that nobody was using one hundred percent of their magical potential seemed increasingly likely.

Father Jeong Yonghwan's hypothesis sounded more convincing by the day.

Different aptitudes resulted in different manifestations.

I could see ten seconds into the future.

Father Jeong sensed heat.

Sister Jeong identified dangerous locations.

Maybe at full power, all of those abilities were aspects of the same thing.

Maybe aptitude didn't fundamentally change the magic itself—it only altered which part manifested.

Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed much time for deep contemplation.

With some regret, I pulled up my poncho hood, checked my weapon, and ran a hand over my bayonet handle.

Then I handed another grenade to Lee Sejun.

"Here, our throwing specialist. Take another one."

"You're treating me like a catapult."

He should've been grateful I'd found a role for him as a human siege weapon.

And, as always, the most useful person was Shin Nain.

After listening quietly for a moment, he suddenly spoke in a strained voice.

"The number of crying babies has increased."

"What?"

"I can't hear the soldiers or the mage candidates anymore. All I hear are babies crying."

His words stunned not only our Mutation Trio but the Taegeuk Cloak Group as well.

More babies?

I checked my gas mask straps one more time and laughed dryly.

"So that's the secret to solving the birth-rate crisis. Let's go."

We were madness opposing madness.

Absurdity confronting absurdity.

Before hell could spill into our world—

We marched into hell first.

We took the first step before even the Taegeuk Cloak Group.

Thirty-minute clear?

Easy as hell.

"Jemin, aren't you just addicted to dopamine?"

"A first-rate person finds enjoyment anywhere. If you can't avoid it, enjoy it. Isn't that the spirit of the Republic of Korea Army?"

"Bullshit..."

Together with the unusually silent Shin Nain, we entered the massive concrete tomb that had once been a hospital.

Hooo...

Hooo...

The echoes of our breathing inside our gas masks reverberated through the darkness.