Chapter 36
Guillotine Match
Most people showed little reaction when news spread that Monk Cheonghwi had disappeared.
Lee Sejun merely shrugged and yawned lazily.
“Maybe he went to the cafeteria first. I heard they’re serving stir-fried sausages this morning. Doesn’t seem like anything worth making a fuss over.”
“Then maybe he’s in his room?”
“If not the cafeteria, he’s probably praying somewhere. It doesn’t seem that serious.”
As it turned out, Cheonghwi wasn’t in the cafeteria either.
Only exhausted-looking soldiers carrying trays and duty personnel helping with meal distribution filled the place.
Then again, if he missed breakfast, that was his own problem.
It wasn’t like I had time to worry about a monk.
I’d been up all night from yesterday evening until this morning and was starving, so getting food came first.
I sat down with my tray and smiled contentedly at the stir-fried sausages, diced radish kimchi, and beef radish soup.
Now it was time to enjoy the privilege only I possessed.
I pulled out my precious luncheon meat.
“One spoonful of Richam. Nice.”
“Jemin, give me a spoonful too. I’m a Supreme Wizard.”
“Sure. Our Supreme Wizard Hamza gets a spoonful too.”
The side dishes were salty enough today, so I decided to save my Spam.
Hamza from Aphorism was normally a sneaky convert who tried to enjoy things alone without attracting attention.
But Supreme Wizard Hamza was different.
The Supreme Wizard Hamza was a cultivator patiently waiting for the perfect moment to be useful.
Such a man deserved a share of my precious Richam.
I finely chopped a spoonful into my rice and mixed it in.
Just as I was chewing contentedly, chaos erupted elsewhere.
The cafeteria doors slammed open.
A soldier wearing a helmet shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Assembly! Everyone assemble!”
“Even people who aren’t on the five-minute standby team?”
“Didn’t you hear me? Everyone!”
The sound of utensils being set down echoed throughout the cafeteria.
Annoyance immediately spread across the soldiers’ faces.
The Supreme Wizards could only click our tongues.
At least I was a civilian.
Pastor Park Yohan clicked his tongue as well and slurped down some soup.
“The kids have it rough.”
“That’s what youth is for. Suffering.”
“Jemin, you little punk. You’re young too. What are you talking about?”
“These days twenty-eight doesn’t even count as being in your twenties. Everyone calls me an Early Thirty.”
“If your age starts with a two, you’re still young!”
I used to think I was young too.
Then I met freshmen barely out of high school.
Every single one of them called me mister.
Feeling bitter, I scooped up some kimchi broth and drank it.
Instead, my thoughts drifted toward Hand Magic Stage Two.
Hand Magic Stage Two.
This was completely different from the previous magic.
Based on what I had learned, Stage Two resembled alchemy utilizing blood from the left hand.
It wasn’t a combat ability for killing monsters.
Instead, it functioned more like a rune.
If I wrote a word meaning sharp using blood from my left hand, the target would become sharper.
If I wrote tear, things would tear.
For example, if there was no salt and I wrote salty on a bowl of rice, it could actually taste salty.
Look at the possibilities.
How could I ever stop learning magic after discovering something like this?
Unfortunately, the commotion eventually caught up to us as well.
March 21, 2028 — 8:42 AM
Just as I was about to begin experimenting with Hand Magic Stage Two after breakfast, Captain Kim Houn and Lieutenant Shin Hangi arrived looking for us.
Both wore field gear and had unusually stiff expressions.
“Civilian Operator Monk Cheonghwi has disappeared. We request your cooperation.”
I occasionally found myself wondering what South Korea’s special forces were doing in the middle of all this.
I understood that special forces operated in secrecy.
Still, with monsters running rampant everywhere, surely they had to be doing something.
Now I finally found out.
March 21, 2028 — 9:20 AM
A group completely different from ordinary soldiers appeared at Suwon City Hall Command Post.
The roar of helicopters echoed overhead.
Soon afterward, heavily armed men began occupying the hallways throughout the building.
Sunglasses and goggles covering their eyes.
Balaclava masks straight out of an FPS game.
Weapons covered in attachments unlike the rifles carried by ordinary infantry.
Anyone could identify them at a glance.
Special forces.
I didn’t know which branch they belonged to, but the way they swept through City Hall was clearly no joke.
A few even carried shotguns.
Not one of them took their trigger finger near the trigger.
The announcements coming over the speakers sounded equally cold.
[Effective immediately, all personnel assigned to Suwon City Hall Command Headquarters are prohibited from moving without authorization. Follow your superior or senior soldier and maintain your current position until inspections are complete.]
After hearing the announcement, Captain Kim Houn and Lieutenant Shin Hangi gathered all the magicians together in one place.
At some point, quite a few magicians besides the Supreme Wizards had gathered in Suwon.
Most people imagined wizards as old men with robes and long beards.
The magicians gathered here were nothing like that.
A middle-aged woman with permed hair.
A man in a worn padded jacket and beanie who looked like he spent his evenings drinking makgeolli.
A horse-faced young man busy applying eye makeup while staring into a handheld mirror.
Including the missing Monk Cheonghwi and our own five-member Supreme Wizard team, there were twenty magicians in total.
Looking around at all the magicians gathered from southern Gyeonggi Province filled me with a strange sense of pride.
Every one of them had awakened magical power.
The dream of South Korea becoming a magical superpower was steadily becoming reality.
Yet Lee Sejun looked oddly disappointed.
“Sejun, why the face? Don’t they all look dependable?”
“No, it’s just...”
Even if they lacked the impact of the Taeguk Cloak Brigade, they were certainly memorable.
Honestly, I believed the Taeguk Cloak Brigade had been wiped out because they possessed hearts far too fragile for the current disaster.
In modern-day South Korea of 2028, if you wanted to call yourself a true believer, you needed enough conviction to shoot a baby-imitating monster while calling it the bastard child of heresy.
By those standards, the curly-haired auntie who looked like she walked dyed poodles and the beanie-wearing uncle who looked born to drink makgeolli inspired tremendous confidence.
“They look like the sort of people who could beat monsters to death. What’s bothering you?”
“Ah, damn it... Jemin, that’s not what I mean...”
Lee Sejun kept trailing off.
At that moment, Shin Nain removed an earbud and spoke calmly.
“Sejun is lamenting the fact that despite all these people being magicians, there isn’t a single beautiful maiden worthy of a magazine cover or even one top-ranked beauty from Gyeonggi Province among them.”
“There could be magic that turns people into cute girls!”
The adult magazine I had ordered from Lieutenant Shin Hangi was clearly going to bring me both wealth and opportunity.
As I smiled knowingly, Lee Sejun shook his head furiously.
“That’s not what I meant! I was thinking about the possibilities of magic!”
“Sejun, there’s no need to be embarrassed. Be fruitful and multiply. Even the Lord—”
The calm expression on Shin Nain’s face instantly froze.
I was startled.
The look of contempt he was directing at Lee Sejun was harsher than anything he had shown even to the Teratoma.
What on earth had he realized?
Even Lee Sejun raised his voice slightly under that icy stare.
“Mr. Shin Nain. Magic actually exists and works. Is it wrong to hope for something? Do you really have to look down on me like that? Am I asking for that much? It could happen...”
I pulled my poncho hood low and tightened the drawstrings, hiding my face.
While Shin Nain and Lee Sejun continued bickering, several special forces operators approached us.
Captain Kim Houn sighed heavily before speaking.
“Quiet. Inspection is beginning.”
The inspection process was simple.
Each person stepped forward, raised both arms, turned in a circle, and performed ten jumping motions in place.
At first glance, the special forces personnel dressed entirely in black appeared to be conducting the inspection carelessly.
Except for one thing.
Behind those goggles, their eyes never stopped watching our hands.
Even so, how could such a simple search possibly amount to an inspection?
Especially against magicians?
Judging by the bored expressions around me, I wasn’t the only one thinking that.
Many of the civilian operators gathered here had personally faced monsters before.
Some had even fought them head-on.
These were people whose thresholds for fear and tension had been forcibly raised.
Even if they felt intimidated by the special forces, they handled it far better than ordinary civilians would have.
One thing stood out, however.
Not a single special forces operator spoke.
Even though it should have been obvious that such precautions were useless against Ear-type magicians.
In the silence, only the occasional clatter of weapons could be heard.
After what felt like several dozen minutes, one of the black-clad operators lowered his rifle and turned his head directly toward our Supreme Wizards.
The special forces soldiers looked as though they had a great deal they wanted to say.
But they swallowed it all.
Then they simply turned away and continued on.
At the same time, a burst of static came from a radio.
Captain Kim Houn and Lieutenant Shin Hangi deliberately adjusted the volume and listened closely.
A few moments later, both men let out deep sighs and turned toward us.
“We’ll be escorting everyone to a conference room. Do not leave the sight of the special operations personnel.”
As he spoke, Captain Kim glanced through a nearby window.
The sky was perfectly clear.
The concrete buildings of Suwon gleamed beneath the sunlight.
Whether those flashes came from solar panels or from the lenses of distant sniper scopes, nobody could tell.
The twenty magicians gathered there followed Kim Houn and Shin Hangi under crushing pressure.
Special forces operators positioned throughout City Hall watched us constantly.
Their rifles weren’t raised.
But they looked fully prepared to fire the moment an order came down.
Walking beside Hamza, I lowered my voice.
“Hamza. Do you think they’d actually shoot?”
He turned pale immediately.
“What if somebody ran?”
“Don’t.”
He shook his head frantically.
Then, licking his dry lips, he added:
“But... running away might actually be safer.”
March 21, 2028 — 10:52 AM
The colonel’s opening statement, delivered before twenty civilian operators gathered inside the conference room, was simple.
Outside, special operations personnel stood guard instead of ordinary soldiers.
Inside, more operators were already positioned with fingers ready to move onto triggers.
The colonel got straight to the point.
“A monk known by the Dharma name Cheonghwi, who had been cooperating with the Joint Alteration Operations Group under the U.S.-ROK Combined Command’s Reality Survival Command, is believed to have defected.”
Defected.
The word sounded strange.
South Korea was fighting monsters, not another nation.
This wasn’t the sort of conflict where sides could easily be chosen.
If Korea fell, the entire world would become hell.
It was humanity versus monsters.
Most people seemed to share that sentiment.
Several frowned.
Others folded their arms and listened more carefully.
Only Shin Nain, who possessed Stage Two Ear Magic and Stage One Eye Magic, merely shrugged.
His expression said:
So it’s finally happened.
“The reason the military continues to defend Suwon and Suwon Station is because they are transportation hubs that cannot easily be sealed. There was even a point when the refugee train collision nearly broke through our defenses. Unfortunately, our concerns have become reality.”
The colonel continued.
“Despite parked trains, repeated demolitions, and chemical containment measures, Monk Cheonghwi appears to have escaped through underground passages.”
“But he was with Baek Jemin during the ritual,” Pastor Park interrupted. “The monk was definitely with him until at least 6:34 AM. How could he possibly—”
“Mr. Baek Jemin. Please explain your conversations with Monk Cheonghwi and the ritual you conducted.”
Based on testimonies from Pastor Park and others, I had become a key witness.
I explained everything calmly.
Or rather, everything except the occult details.
I simply stated that I had received assistance from Monk Cheonghwi while attempting a ritual intended to advance my Alteration Magic.
The moment the ritual ended, Cheonghwi vanished.
It seemed obvious that he possessed magic beyond the doctrinal category.
Otherwise, how could he have escaped without being detected?
How could he have disappeared so quickly?
For all I knew, what I had seen might not even have been real.
Naturally, the colonel didn’t fully believe me.
“...Convenient. Very convenient, Mr. Baek Jemin.”
Anyone would find the circumstances suspicious.
I could practically feel the special forces operators wanting to shoot me.
Yet I wasn’t worried.
Because I was absolutely certain they wouldn’t.
The colonel narrowed his eyes at me.
Suspicion was obvious.
But he couldn’t threaten me.
He couldn’t pressure me.
Most importantly—
He couldn’t kill me.
Because at that moment, I possessed the greatest variety of magical abilities in southern Gyeonggi Province.
And I was one of the few people willing to charge into the fog whenever necessary.
To a colonel trying desperately to save soldiers, and to me—a man obsessed with obtaining stronger and more diverse magic—we were bound by circumstance.
The weekly Spam and Richam rations were proof of that relationship.
The military simply couldn’t afford to eliminate me over suspicion alone.
If they removed me, someone else would die instead.
So the colonel eventually abandoned further interrogation.
Instead, he appealed to us.
After staring at me with bloodshot eyes for over ten seconds, he sighed and wet his lips.
“At present, the Combined Command is hoping for seasonal wind changes. However... due to the continued deterioration of the First Containment Line and mounting casualties, discussions regarding limited tactical nuclear strikes have begun.”
Three months had passed since the appearance of the fog and the abandonment of Seoul.
The colonel continued.
“Current military casualties have reached 13,631. We can no longer absorb additional losses indefinitely.”
Then he hesitated.
When he finally spoke again, everyone frowned.
“The military has identified the primary cause of these increasing casualties and repeated refugee influxes toward the First Containment Line.”
He paused.
“Survivor groups inside Seoul.”
“Wait, there are survivors?”
The man in the beanie spoke up.
“Actual people? Not monsters?”
Everyone reacted similarly.
One Amalgam or Devouring Spine was enough to make your skin crawl.
The idea that people still lived inside a Seoul where millions of such creatures had manifested sounded absurd.
Even our Supreme Wizards would never have believed it had we not explored Seoul’s outskirts ourselves.
And even then, after three months?
Expecting survivors to still be alive sounded insane.
Yet the colonel was contradicting that common sense.
“The decisive factor behind the collapse of the Yongin military position was not monsters alone. Reports indicate that many localized infiltrator-class Alteration users were present among the survivor population.”
He looked around the room.
“The military concealed this information for the sake of morale. We ask for your understanding.”
At last, the truth behind the First Containment Line began to emerge.
“The military believes the localized infiltrator-class Alteration users leading survivor groups inside Seoul are attempting to break through the containment line and escape.”
Repeated reconnaissance missions using American special forces and anti-fog drones had revealed one thing:
Those survivors hated the military.
They hated the government.
Evidence suggested they were deliberately luring monsters toward the containment line.
“They are focused on evacuating refugees from Seoul. And naturally...”
The colonel’s lips looked painfully dry.
He licked them repeatedly.
Eventually, he failed to continue.
Captain Kim Houn stepped forward instead.
“You and the Republic of Korea have successfully endured long enough for international support to become possible. China is now leaning toward volunteer deployments. A UN Security Council vote is expected soon.”
He exhaled deeply.
“Foreign volunteer forces or UN troops may arrive within approximately two months.”
Then came the real announcement.
“Because the survivor groups inside Seoul are expected to intensify their breakout attempts, all of you will be reassigned to assist in defending the First Containment Line.”
A war between ten million and forty million.
The room exploded into whispers.
“That’s insane.”
“Can’t we negotiate?”
“Wouldn’t Stage Two Ear Magicians solve this if they worked hard enough?”
Even Lee Sejun seemed to think so.
“Nain. If you put in some effort, couldn’t this all end peacefully?”
“No.”
Before Shin Nain could even answer, I remembered the diary I had found in the hospital where we encountered the Teratoma.
The diary of someone who swore revenge.
Someone willing to help monsters breach the containment line if necessary.
Outside Seoul remained relatively safe.
The containment line still held despite more than ten thousand military casualties.
Why?
Because they shot everything trying to come through.
I still vividly remembered the flamethrowers.
The artillery barrages.
The relentless slaughter of refugee groups approaching the perimeter.
Even communications from inside Seoul begging for bombardments to stop had been ignored.
Civilians approaching military transport vehicles were shot because they could not be distinguished from monsters.
Until the train-hijacking breakout attempt occurred, the final mission of the remaining military forces in Yongsan and the South Terminal had been simple:
Prevent evacuation.
In that situation, how could the survivors inside Seoul not have gone mad?
“But forty million people can’t die!”
Lee Sejun’s argument was entirely correct.
The problem was what sort of response you would get if you said that to someone trapped inside Seoul.
Someone being shelled.
Someone who had spent months surviving hell.
Right. I’ll die for forty million people.
I’ll stay here and be bombarded to death.
Would that really be their answer?
Pastor Park pretended to clean his glasses and sighed.
Shin Nain merely smirked.
Hamza silently prayed.
Pastor Park understood both sides.
So he quoted scripture.
“Love your enemies. If struck on the left cheek, offer the right. There’s a reason those teachings are difficult.”
He put his glasses back on and closed his eyes.
Shin Nain considered the words briefly.
Then he reopened his eyes, looked at Lee Sejun, and slid an earbud back into place.
“Some people could probably be negotiated with.”
He shrugged.
“But distinguishing them one by one isn’t how our military operates.”
Then he smiled.
“It was something supposedly said by servants of the Antichrist, the Pope. But it remains an effective principle.”
“Uh...”
“Kill them all. God will recognize His own. Amen.”
Yet my focus drifted elsewhere.
Not to the scale of the tragedy.
Not to the horror of it.
Did I feel sad?
Did I feel pity?
Unfortunately, no.
When the colonel finally concluded:
“Official policy is total elimination.”
A shiver ran down my spine.
Magic versus magic.
The realization that magicians could fight one another.
That fact thrilled me.