Chapter 45
The First Survivors
By the time the gunfire died down and the gunsmoke dissolved into the fog, the Supreme Mages gathered one by one in front of the Seoul Mage’s corpse.
The first to approach was Hamza. He muttered something in a foreign language, and all I could make out was some vague mention of Allah. Well, anyone who had actually seen and faced the Seoul Mage would probably react like that.
But Hamza had made a huge mistake.
He should've explained himself to us before apologizing to Allah.
I peeled off the little cat bandage on my left hand, now thoroughly soaked with the Seoul Mage’s blood, and tossed it away. Then I flicked my hand to shake the blood from my blade.
I only did it because the Seoul Mage’s blood felt disgusting, not because I was trying to threaten anyone, but Hamza's expression turned strange.
“So this bastard Hamza really did run off. Thought he'd disappeared for good, but he came back.”
“If that thing targets me, I die immediately. I had to intervene at the critical moment.”
Hamza actually made a fairly objective argument.
His real combat ability was pitiful. He would either be killed instantly or targeted later anyway. In that case, wasn't it better for him to stay out of sight until the decisive moment and then appear when he could be most useful, delivering whatever item the team needed?
If I'd heard that while my blood was boiling, I'd have told him to stop spewing bullshit.
But after successfully killing the Seoul Mage, I was in such a good mood that all I could do was nod.
While I was accepting Hamza's reasonable argument, Lee Sejun—the one who landed the finishing blow—checked the cylinder of his absurdly huge revolver and clicked his tongue.
“Those bullets are expensive. Already used two of them. But the effect is definitely worth it.”
“Give it here.”
If I'd known it was such an awesome weapon, I would've used the absurdly huge revolver too.
As someone who could do all sorts of things with my eyes, I firmly believed a badass weapon like that belonged in my hands. So I reached out and snatched the revolver from Lee Sejun.
The moment I grabbed it, I was shocked by how heavy it was.
“This thing weighs almost as much as a K2 rifle.”
“Come on, Jemin. Stop exaggerating. It's lighter than that. A K2 weighs around three to four kilograms. This is only about half that. The barrel's around eight inches, so maybe two kilograms?”
“You fired this one-handed and actually hit something?”
I humbly turned the gun upside down and handed the grip back to Lee Sejun.
This wasn't something anyone except a Stage 2 Heart Mage like him could use. And compared to the .38 revolver I'd tried at a shooting range before, this was on an entirely different level. It clearly required specialized training.
That bastard must've seriously trained with this thing back when he was at Suwon City Hall.
If a delicate intellectual like me tried firing it, I could already see my shoulder dislocating.
A person should know themselves better than anyone else.
Since I wasn't the type to cling to things I couldn't use, I bid the absurdly huge revolver a beautiful farewell.
That was when Pastor Park Yohan approached, clicking his tongue.
“What do you mean strong? It was five against one. Of course you should win.”
“Seriously, Pastor. If fights were decided by numbers alone, we should've gotten our asses kicked.”
“What nonsense are you talking about?”
“Don't you know how things work these days? If five people gang up on some mysterious woman, they usually get slaughtered instead. Look at us Supreme Mages. Every one of us is wearing a poncho and gas mask, faces completely hidden. Meanwhile the enemy's a woman walking around with her face fully exposed and smiling. That's a total team-wipe cliché.”
For the outdated pastor, I explained the modern version of horror movie and action movie clichés.
The dream of five heroes teaming up and winning died together with the Power Rangers.
Now, in the grim media landscape of the 21st century, the moment five heavily armed people hide their faces, they become prey for the one person confidently walking around with their face exposed.
Apparently a few words weren't enough to bridge the generational gap.
The pastor clicked his tongue again and walked toward the Seoul Mage's corpse.
“Baek Jemin, stop talking bullshit. Come see if there's anything worth salvaging.”
“I think we should destroy the walkie-talkie.”
Shin Nain, who had stayed out of the conversation while surveying the surroundings, let out a short sigh.
I was wondering why this fanatical lunatic looked so serious for once when he tapped his headset with a finger and spoke.
“Three soldiers. All critically wounded. They'll die soon. Let's burn the demon's corpse or take whatever we need, then go baptize them.”
“Baptize them?”
“They might want to repent and go to Heaven before they die.”
This crazy son of a bitch.
Yet Pastor Park nodded solemnly and pointed at the Seoul Mage's corpse.
“All of you, come take a look at this.”
“There's still something to see?”
I'd emptied at least two full magazines into the Seoul Mage trying to kill her.
Between the bullet wounds and grenade fragments, her body had been shredded and crushed to the point where only her legs still vaguely resembled a human being.
But I quickly understood why the pastor wanted us to look.
Beneath the ribs of the Devouring Spine, one organ had remained perfectly preserved.
A heart.
And on it was the Heart Magic symbol Lee Sejun had mentioned before.
A vertical line crossing the inside of a circle.
The symbol had been carved into the flesh like an engraving, making it easy to spot.
Lee Sejun handed the giant revolver to Hamza and frowned.
“It looks like the Heart Magic symbol... but it's slightly different from mine.”
“How?”
“The one I saw had a horizontal line, not a vertical one.”
At that moment, a thought occurred to me.
I turned my head, searching for the piece of tongue I'd cut from the Seoul Mage.
I didn't want to touch it with my hands, so I carefully speared it with the tip of my greatsword and lifted it up.
When I carried it over to the Supreme Mages gathered around the corpse, Pastor Park's eyes widened while Hamza made a gagging sound.
“Holy shit. Jemin, don't tell me you're planning to use that.”
“Bleeegh...”
“Use it? What the hell are you talking about?”
What exactly did these bastards think of me?
I hadn't brought the tongue because of some bizarre fetish.
I wanted to turn suspicion into certainty.
I gently shook the tongue free from my blade.
With a wet splat, the magic symbol engraved on it became visible.
But it was different from the version I knew.
The Tongue Magic symbol I'd seen before had a semicircle positioned below, like a bowl, with a vertical line rising from its center. Short horizontal lines branched out from the vertical line like twigs.
The symbol on the Seoul Mage's tongue was reversed.
The semicircle sat on top.
It was engraved near the root of the tongue so that when the tongue was fully extended, the symbol would appear upside down.
I thought that was a perfectly reasonable explanation.
Pastor Park simply frowned.
“Jemin, you're reaching. Maybe you just assumed the tongue root was the bottom. If it's an inverted version like this, there's no issue.”
“But the vertical line on the heart definitely feels like a true reversal.”
“There's something much more important!”
Just as the pastor and I were about to begin a one-minute debate, Hamza grimaced and looked over the three Mutation-Type members.
More specifically, us.
“You people learned magic too. And she developed magic symbols. Then... what about you?”
“When I got examined in Pyeongtaek, nobody mentioned anything like that.”
Lee Sejun immediately refuted the idea.
He'd undergone every medical test imaginable trying to determine the exact effects of Heart Magic.
I stuck my tongue out and waved it around.
“Bleeeeh?”
“Jemin, that's disgusting. Put it away.”
“Mmmbleh.”
“There's nothing there, so stop.”
Shin Nain was as prickly as ever.
In any case, despite Hamza's reasonable suspicion, none of us Mutation-Type users seemed to possess any visible markings.
Yet the Seoul Mage clearly had magic symbols engraved on her body.
What was the difference?
Click.
Shin Nain removed his magazine and checked his remaining rounds.
Then he spoke in an indifferent tone.
“Perhaps they appear after unbelievers die. Worshipping saints or venerating their remains is highly heretical, but there's nothing uniquely heretical about demon remains. It's only natural that we Mutation-Type crusaders differ from the offspring of demons.”
Filtering out the religious nonsense, there was actually a plausible theory underneath.
Maybe magic symbols only appeared on a mage's body after death, corresponding to the type of magic they had learned.
But was that all?
I needed confirmation.
Taking a deep breath, I made a decision.
“Sejun. Lift your foot.”
“Huh? Uh... okay.”
Slice. Slice.
I shoved my greatsword between the ribs of the Devouring Spine that had lived and died alongside the Seoul Mage.
Scraping and cutting, I extracted the heart.
Then I carefully placed it together with the severed tongue at Lee Sejun's feet.
“Now step on them.”
“Jemin. I'm really trying not to swear, but I think I'm about to. You want me to step on this?”
“Do I really need to give a long, boring intellectual explanation?”
“Baek Jemin, at least explain your reasoning.”
So I did.
If the remains left behind by dead mages possessed any kind of mystical value, then mages would be both the most dangerous and the most valuable beings imaginable.
At the moment it was only speculation, but the mere fact that magic symbols appeared on body parts after death was already supernatural enough.
And if there were people hunting mage remains, they wouldn't leave us alone after obtaining or keeping the Seoul Mage's remains.
They could pursue us specifically to take them.
The remains were probably useful.
But that was precisely why I didn't want to carry them.
“We don't know how to use them. We can't just hand them over to other mysterious Seoul Mages, and we can't carry around something whose effects we don't even understand. We have no idea what the average Seoul Mage is capable of. Rather than taking unnecessary risks, it's better to wait until we find records about this or meet friendly locals and then decide on a policy. Therefore, we destroy them.”
After my rational and intellectual explanation, the pastor narrowed his eyes.
“And your real reason?”
“Because I don't want to carry around the tongue and heart of someone who kissed people's heads and stole them while raising a Devouring Spine inside their skulls. Let's just smash the damn things.”
“Okay. You pass!”
Crunch!
The foot of Lee Sejun, a Stage 2 Heart Mage, crushed the heart and tongue like an industrial press.
A burst of fog hissed out.
Neither of us had expected that.
Startled, Lee Sejun jerked his foot back, but it was already over.
All that remained were footprints and mangled fragments, the magic symbols destroyed beyond recognition.
Meanwhile, the pastor collected the Seoul Mage's phone and a suitable notebook and handed them to Hamza.
Then he tossed the walkie-talkie beneath Lee Sejun's foot.
“Let's keep those for now. As for that, step on it one more time. Whether it's a curse or something else, using enemy equipment without thinking could backfire on us. These people are mystical cultists. There's no harm in being overly cautious.”
“Ugh.”
Crunch!
Only after the walkie-talkie was destroyed as well could we finally leave.
While we finished examining the Seoul Mage's body, Shin Nain delivered some bitter news.
“One soldier died. Let's just hope he attended church regularly.”
“Ah...”
The pastor sighed heavily.
I found myself sighing as well as I put my gas mask back on.
It was unfortunate.
But the man had already suffered fatal wounds. We weren't a rescue team, and even if we went to him, there was nothing we could do.
At least we had avenged him.
Under Shin Nain's guidance, we headed toward the soldiers who had survived until the very end.
The first soldier he led us to was crouched near the entrance to a restroom.
But he was practically already dead.
Apparently he had chosen to end his own life with his rifle. The barrel was still in his mouth, but because his hands had been shaking so badly when he pulled the trigger, the bullet had missed a fatal angle and failed to kill him instantly.
All that escaped from his blood-stained face was a ragged, rattling breath.
Shin Nain knelt before him, checked his pulse, and spoke.
“Corporal Hong Gisim. If you kill yourself, you can't go to Heaven. Did you attend church regularly?”
Gasp... gasp...
None of us could hear anything, but Shin Nain carried on the conversation by himself.
Nodding, Shin Nain racked his rifle once more.
Then he stood up and aimed the muzzle directly at Corporal Hong's head.
“Brother Hong Gisim. May you be allowed to knock upon Heaven's gate. Amen.”
Bang!
The ragged breathing stopped.
The trembling hands that had twitched until the very end finally went limp.
Without saying a word, Pastor Park approached the corpse, folded the soldier's hands together, and offered a brief prayer.
Meanwhile, Shin Nain switched his rifle's selector back to safe as the pungent smell of gunpowder drifted through the air.
Lee Sejun, Hamza, and I organized the soldier's weapon and collected the magazines, grenades, and gas-mask filters.
Lee Sejun went a step further and removed the dog tags hanging around the soldier's neck.
“Guess soldiers don't carry phones.”
“Sejun, if you start looting phones too, I'm gonna bite you.”
After the brief funeral ended, Shin Nain started walking again.
We followed him toward the final survivor.
***
The department store was packed with mannequins, clothing displays, and accessory stands from the first through fourth floors.
That was probably why the surviving soldiers had managed to hold out against the Seoul Mage, whose detection abilities were lacking.
Inside the fog, it was difficult to distinguish between mannequins and actual people.
It was fortunate that the Seoul Mage hadn't managed to absorb every surviving soldier.
If she had acquired more ammunition and become more proficient with firearms, the Supreme Mages might have been the ones wiped out instead.
Considering the unintended contribution those soldiers had made, this dark department store shrouded in fog was dangerous, but worth spending time in.
The final soldier was slumped beyond a cluster of mannequins near the emergency stairwell entrance.
The entrance itself had been blocked by a barricade made of display shelves and mannequins, which probably prevented him from getting inside.
The soldier was breathing heavily.
Even through his gas mask, the sound was clear from nearly twenty meters away.
Hoo... Hoo... Hoo...
This time, Hamza was the first to approach.
He knelt down, opened his backpack, and pulled out a first-aid kit, needles, and thread.
“Hamza, do you actually know emergency medicine?”
“I was a medical student in Pakistan.”
“You weren't studying dentistry or something, right?”
“Surgery.”
Regardless of the shocking revelation that migrant laborer Hamza had once been a medical student, it didn't look like the soldier could be saved.
Blood poured continuously through the fingers clutching his side.
Judging by the amount pooled around him, he'd been bleeding for a long time.
And it wasn't just his side.
Blood was flowing from his thigh as well.
The soldier didn't even seem aware of the wound there.
Or maybe he simply couldn't reach it.
Considering the Seoul Mage had been throwing chunks of concrete around, he had probably been hit by flying debris—or perhaps by a stray bullet.
Still, Hamza opened his medical kit and examined the wounds with a tourniquet in hand.
Though his expression was full of despair, his voice remained calm.
“Stay calm. I've studied medicine. You can survive.”
“M... my gas mask...”
Hamza quietly removed the soldier's gas mask.
Fate was cruel.
The moment the mask came off, I recognized his face.
“Why is Lieutenant Shin Hangi's driver here?”
“Lieutenant Shin? He's the driver's superior?”
Pastor Park looked confused.
Lee Sejun and Shin Nain also seemed to recognize him indirectly and wore strange expressions.
The driver's face had already turned deathly pale.
He didn't recognize my voice.
Honestly, we'd only passed each other a few times, so that was only natural.
But perhaps it was enough simply to meet someone who knew him.
His chest heaved as he began sobbing.
“I... volunteered...”
This was when our translator, the fanatical lunatic, proved useful.
In a calm voice, Shin Nain translated what the soldier was trying to say.
“He volunteered for the first forward reconnaissance force. Special forces alone weren't enough to secure a foothold, so they accepted volunteers from the military to enter Seoul. Priority was given to soldiers with family in the city or personal reasons to go inside.”
The soldier gasped for air.
Then he coughed and forced out a question while dry saliva dribbled from the corner of his mouth.
“M... my mother... in a place like this...”
“What's she doing in a place like this all alone...”
Without saying a word, Hamza continued trying to stop the bleeding.
But there wasn't enough equipment, supplies, or time to rekindle a life already fading away.
Shin Nain slowly closed his eyes and raised one hand.
A silent signal.
Dead.
I patted Hamza on the shoulder and helped him stand.
“Pray that Hell lowers the temperature a bit for him.”
“He's already lost too much blood. And the wound's in a terrible location. Even if we stopped the bleeding, we couldn't evacuate him. He would've died on the way back.”
“Yes.”
Even so, Hamza couldn't give up until he'd finished treating the wounds.
Only after completing every possible measure did he finally abandon hope.
He wiped his blood-soaked hands against his pants, reorganized the medical supplies, and packed them away.
Meanwhile, the pastor approached me.
“You knew him?”
“His name was Han Sukja's son. The driver who said his mother was in Seoul.”
“Amen. A righteous man who cared deeply for his family. He must have attended church in life.”
I realized that was the pastor's way of offering comfort and nodded.
It was certainly warmer than saying the man would burn in Hell for being an unbeliever.
Once again we collected the magazines and grenades.
And once again Lee Sejun took the dog tags.
***
There was a reason we were collecting ammunition so thoroughly.
“It took about two magazines per person to kill one Seoul Mage. How many rounds is that?”
“Roughly three hundred.”
“Damn. We used two hundred rounds fighting monsters when we first arrived, and another three hundred here. An eight-hundred-round ammo crate is already half gone after only two days?”
If I could find a way to sterilize it, using the blood on my right hand as a bullet-enhancing buff was starting to sound genuinely practical.
The denser the fog became, the more painfully obvious it was that we needed to share magic symbols and learn them one by one.
But since the day had already started spectacularly, we decided to spend it replenishing ammunition and recovering the dead.
We resolved to gather the fallen soldiers on the second floor of the department store.
We collected around twenty untouched thirty-round magazines.
Just in case, we also gathered two replacement gas masks and six filters.
The rifles themselves were too heavy to carry around, so instead we disassembled them and kept two bolt assemblies as spare parts.
Fortunately, thanks to our pack mule Lee Sejun's efforts, gathering the bodies didn't take long.
Eleven corpses.
Given the capacity of the vehicles they'd arrived in, there should have been more.
The problem was that neither Shin Nain's past-vision ability nor my tongue-and-eye magic combination could locate the missing soldiers.
“They must've been separated over an hour ago. Looks like they became isolated and were hunted down.”
“What about the officers?”
“One lieutenant and one sergeant major.”
As Shin Nain and I exchanged information, Lee Sejun interrupted with a sigh.
“You think they're still alive?”
“Who knows.”
We were standing inside a dark department store filled with thick fog.
Visibility had improved slightly, but it still barely extended twenty meters.
Even with tactical flashlights, the suspended particles reflected the beams and made it difficult to see.
Only I, with Eye Magic, could part the fog and glimpse tiny fragments of the silent ruins.
This place would become their grave.
“At least it's a sunny resting place.”
***
We returned to where the vehicles were parked.
The enormous gunfire had undoubtedly attracted monsters, yet no red footprints had appeared nearby.
Other mages could attack us as well.
Still, these were the first survivors we'd encountered inside Seoul.
Not locals, but members of the forward reconnaissance force who had entered before us.
We transferred fuel from the vehicle's reserve containers and poured it over the bodies.
I lit a match Hamza handed me.
Scratch... Scratch...
The tiny flame flickered weakly in the heavy fog.
Yet somehow it looked beautiful amid the filthy, suffocating mist.
I smiled as I carefully lowered the burning match onto the fuel-soaked pile of bodies.
“Anybody want to retreat?”
“Retreat? At this point it'd probably be better to just nuke us.”
“The magic would disappear. Not allowed.”
“Seriously. What would you even learn that stuff for?”
Lee Sejun laughed.
The pastor immediately scolded him.
“There is no retreat in a holy war.”
“Running away won't help.”
Shin Nain answered firmly.
Hamza sounded resigned as he added his thoughts.
Not a single person suggested retreating.
The Supreme Mages stood watching the burning bodies for a moment before turning our backs on the flames.
We intended to head to the upper floors of the department store.
They were frightened.
They said absurd things.
They harbored strange dreams.
But none of them talked about retreat.
Pastor Park gripped his K2 rifle and spoke.
“Burning them might attract more monsters. Let's clear the upper floors first. If it's safe, try learning that magic again. You all have the manuals, don't you?”
“If not, we'll write them down and share them.”
Rather than retreating, we set a course and moved forward.
Naturally.
If we'd given ourselves some pretentious, aphorism-like name, we might've already been crying and running home.
But we were the Supreme Mages.
We advance into Hell before Hell reaches us.
At that moment, Lee Sejun suddenly stopped.
“Hey, Jemin.”
“If this is another one of your TS cute-girl fantasies, I'm punching you.”
My prejudice against Lee Sejun was considerable.
Any man who wanted to cut off his dick just to coast through life deserved Baek Jemin's contempt.
But the moment I heard his next words, I was utterly stunned.
“I think my Heart Magic reached Stage 3.”
“What?!”
Don't tell me...
Did crushing the heart actually raise his Heart Magic level?
The Supreme Mages immediately revised their plans.
“To the Seoul Mage's corpse!”
“But we crushed the tongue.”
The pastor's complacent response made me click my tongue.
“Then we'll rip out the tongue root!”