Chapter 48
The Beginning of Eternity
Thanks to Hamza's Doctrine-Type Magic and the map provided by the military, we finally knew where we should be heading.
Konkuk University.
Even a country bumpkin like me had heard of it, which meant it had to be a good school, even if it wasn't quite on the SKY level.
It would've been nice if I were going there for college admissions.
Instead, I'd have to fight my way through every nightmare Seoul had to offer.
More importantly, I had a feeling we'd inevitably get stuck when it came time to cross the Han River.
There might be survivor groups living on the bridges.
There might be monsters hunting anyone trying to cross them.
Hell, there could even be some giant river monster living in the Han like something out of an old movie.
But monsters and local mages weren't our biggest concern.
Pastor Park pointed out something we'd completely forgotten.
“We've got to avoid getting bombed. Originally we were supposed to link up with the forward reconnaissance team, but everything's gone completely to hell.”
“Bombed?”
“You didn't see the fighter jets? They're probably flying above the fog layer and dropping bombs nonstop.”
Me.
Shin Nain.
Lee Sejun.
Hamza.
The four of us exchanged looks.
We'd been through so much in such a short time that we'd forgotten a simple fact.
We were currently inside Seoul.
A city under active bombardment.
The reason we'd spent hours hiding underground at Jangji Station before emerging was precisely to avoid artillery and airstrikes.
The pastor's loyal follower, Shin Nain, adjusted his headset and nodded.
“Yesterday, April 15th, when we entered Seoul, the deployment of UN forces was officially approved. The American president made a public announcement. The fighter wings still stationed around Suwon are almost certainly carrying out bombing operations as we speak.”
He continued.
“Given the limitations of the Korean military, the frequency has probably remained relatively low so far. Once foreign forces arrive, it will likely intensify.”
“The American carrier group too, right?”
“The Seventh Fleet.”
When I hesitated, Lee Sejun answered with unusual seriousness.
The childish fool who talked about poop and TS girls was nowhere to be seen.
Instead, he looked like an NCO waiting for a division commander's inspection.
Rubbing his rough stubble, he frowned.
“The arrival of the Seventh Fleet should've triggered China and Russia immediately. The fact that they haven't reacted strongly—and that Chinese forces occupied Ganghwa Island on April 3rd—suggests some sort of agreement was reached.”
“Oh right.”
I blinked.
“Our government basically doesn't exist anymore.”
“Not exactly. The Pyeongtaek US-ROK Combined Command inherited governmental authority.”
I'd completely forgotten.
The Korean president and administrative government had evacuated to Incheon.
Then Chinese forces effectively occupied Ganghwa Island.
To say they fell under Chinese influence was putting it politely.
In reality, their throat was being squeezed shut.
Fortunately, contingency plans had existed.
Authority had been transferred to the Pyeongtaek Combined Command.
For all practical purposes, the commander there was now the government of South Korea.
The real question was why China had tolerated the arrival of the Seventh Fleet.
Lee Sejun believed the first containment line had already been compromised.
“They blocked the major roads and railways with 150,000 troops, but there's no way they caught everyone escaping through forests and wilderness. We've already seen fog outbreaks in Gyeonggi Province before. It might be stable now, but the fact that it happened at all means containment was breached.”
Based on conversations he'd overheard in Suwon City Hall, the military's defensive strategy looked something like this.
First
The 150,000 soldiers maintaining the primary containment line represented South Korea's final genuine front-line force.
They consisted of:
- Capital Defense Command survivors.
- Units scraped together from the DMZ.
- Personnel involved in suppression operations inside Seoul.
Although casualties had already reduced them to roughly 140,000 troops, they remained obsessed with maintaining the perimeter because many had survived the initial breach.
Veterans, in other words.
Calling someone a veteran after only a month of fighting felt strange.
But apparently they'd seen enough horror to embrace a simple philosophy:
Shoot everything first. Ask questions never.
“Remember Park Sehyeok?”
Lee Sejun smirked.
“He was one of the mages who escaped Seoul during the initial breach.”
“Park Sehyeok?”
The name meant nothing to me.
Pastor Park clicked his tongue.
“The complainer who listened to heartbeats. The guy who tried to run away by himself and got machine-gunned by soldiers guarding Suwon Station.”
“Ahhhh.”
Now I remembered.
The guy who constantly looked like he'd troll the party.
Then somehow never did.
Until the very end.
When he actually tried to desert and got turned into Swiss cheese.
Second
Obviously, 150,000 soldiers couldn't seal an entire city of ten million people.
Especially when monsters and fog had already appeared outside Seoul before.
The military therefore assumed the first containment line had already been partially breached.
The true Maginot Line was the second containment line surrounding Gyeonggi Province.
That was why military scrip economies had been introduced.
Why refugee movement was restricted.
Why mages were being employed as mercenary-like civilian operators.
It was the reality we'd just left behind.
Lee Sejun went even further.
“The second containment line had roughly 247,000 personnel. Twenty-four thousand reservists, active-duty units pulled from Gangwon and Chungcheong, plus everything else they could scrape together.”
“Only 240,000? After a nationwide mobilization?”
“There are still martial law forces guarding the rear cities.”
He shrugged.
“Judging by deployment patterns, the higher-ups seem to be preparing for the possibility that some infected entities have already spread across the peninsula.”
If that was true...
Considering the nationwide uprisings that occurred on April 5th...
South Korea had crossed the red line long ago.
At that point, humanity really only had two choices.
Save Korea.
Or glass the peninsula.
Fortunately, containment still technically existed.
And more importantly—
There was magic.
Magic was the honey pot everyone wanted.
In Lee Sejun's opinion, that was probably why responsibility had been divided.
China handling the west and north.
The United States and South Korea handling the east and south.
Everyone wanted a piece of Seoul.
***
At that point Pastor Park tapped one of the red circles on the map.
“The mage. Goryeoha. What about her?”
Hamza frowned.
“I don't know.”
“You said she's dangerous?”
“I've never seen her face. Hard to judge.”
“The longer we wait, the worse it gets?”
“I don't know that either.”
“Damn it! Then why are you even here?”
That was the biggest weakness of Hamza's Doctrine-Type Magic.
[Angel's Intuition] could reliably steer you away from fatal mistakes.
But when multiple imperfect options existed, its usefulness dropped dramatically.
It could identify wrong answers.
Not necessarily the correct one.
In the end, all we could do was establish a rough plan.
Or rather, Pastor Park established one.
As usual.
“Bombing and shelling will only intensify as time passes.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“At this point, we can't expect to reunite with the reconnaissance force. Let's assume we've got about two weeks. We'll follow Line 8 above and below ground whenever possible.”
He pointed at the map.
“Conserve food. Scavenge locally whenever possible. Save water. And don't forget to check for monsters inside the water pipes.”
I raised another concern.
“The reconnaissance force was probably trying to contact Goryeoha too. What if the Seoul Mages already know we're planning to cross the Han River?”
After witnessing the abilities of Inverted Tongue Magic Stage 1, the possibility couldn't be ignored.
There was no way the Seoul Mage we'd killed had been the only one.
And she certainly wasn't the only person who'd consumed soldiers.
Even special forces with drone support would struggle against enemies like that.
If the Seoul Mages understood military objectives and operational plans, our situation became much more dangerous.
The pastor removed his glasses and sighed.
“What else can we do?”
He shrugged.
“We don't go looking for them. But if they come looking for us, we fight.”
April 16, 2028 — 8:46 PM
Still only the second day.
Night had fallen over Seoul.
I'd assumed the fog would make day and night indistinguishable.
I was wrong.
Hamza and I were patrolling the seventh floor of the department store, confirming it remained secure.
The complete lack of response to the enormous firefight and burning corpses bothered everyone.
It felt wrong.
Through shattered windows, the fog outside no longer looked gray.
It was black.
Not dark gray.
Not charcoal.
Black.
If Seoul outside was the deep ocean, then the interior of the department store resembled muddy water.
Fog particles drifted through the air like sediment.
Even tactical flashlights accomplished nothing.
Beyond a certain point, darkness ceased being an absence of light.
It became something tangible.
A substance.
Further patrols were pointless.
Maybe movement through electrified subway tunnels would still be possible.
But moving above ground at night?
That was suicide.
Hamza nodded repeatedly.
“Night more dangerous.”
“Because we can't see?”
“Because more dangerous things move around.”
Hamza possessed a remarkable talent for stating obvious facts with complete seriousness.
When we returned to camp, everyone was already inside their sleeping bags.
After the battle against the Seoul Mage, I was exhausted too.
The moment I removed my gas mask and set down my rifle, I crawled into my sleeping bag.
Pastor Park and Lee Sejun were already asleep.
Only Shin Nain remained awake.
Leaning against the barricade.
Reading a Bible.
Nodding quietly.
Softly humming a hymn.
“Do your job properly.”
“Soldier of Jesus~ driving back Satan's forces~”
“Good grief.”
I wasn't expecting an answer anyway.
I pulled up the zipper of my sleeping bag.
Zzzzip.
It was damp, dark, and utterly miserable.
But once we confirmed it was safe, we didn't need soft beds anymore.
Baek Jemin had grown up.
Until the age of twenty-seven, I was the kind of coward who loved horror movies but always ended up calling his mother afterward because he got scared.
Maybe my testosterone had finally kicked in.
Now I could sleep soundly beside piles of corpses and monsters in the middle of Seoul.
The moment I closed my eyes, I felt myself slipping into unconsciousness.
A lot had happened.
It was only our second day.
As I drifted off, I thought back on everything we'd experienced.
The soldiers who vanished the moment we arrived.
The hundred or so monsters we'd killed breaking through the subway station.
Discovering what happened to the survivors of Jangji Station.
Fighting the Seoul Mage.
Cremating fallen soldiers.
Baek Jemin was really living a full life.
...
“Jemin!”
...Someone was shaking me.
I didn't even know whose voice it was.
My eyelids felt too heavy to lift.
I forced my tongue to move.
“Ah... It's your turn for last watch today.”
“I'm on last watch. More importantly, wake up! Everyone's awake!”
The whisper sounded familiar.
Hamza?
I forced my eyes open.
Pastor Park's hair was sticking up everywhere.
Lee Sejun's eyes were bloodshot.
Both of them were flattened against the floor behind the barricade made of dining tables.
The sight instantly cleared my head.
Without even thinking, I reached for the zipper of my sleeping bag.
If Hamza hadn't immediately grabbed my wrist, I would've opened it fully.
His face had gone deathly pale.
Slowly, he raised a finger.
Shhh.
Then he carefully began lowering the zipper himself.
Millimeter by millimeter.
As though even that tiny sound might attract attention.
The last traces of sleep vanished.
A headache flared from being awakened so suddenly, but I clenched my teeth.
This wasn't the time to complain about headaches.
Once the opening was large enough, I slid out of the sleeping bag like a cockroach escaping from under a rock.
The first thing I grabbed was my rifle.
Click.
The cold weight of steel immediately calmed my racing heart.
I finally understood why people loved guns.
Congratulations.
You have been promoted.
My short-barreled AR-15 was now officially the secondary wife behind my lawful spouse, the Right Hand.
Clutching the rifle, I crawled over and took position beside Lee Sejun and Pastor Park.
Only then did I realize someone was missing.
Where was Shin Nain?
He'd been assigned first watch.
Why had Hamza woken me instead?
The answer was beneath Hamza.
At first I thought Hamza was sitting on his sleeping bag.
Then I realized it was Shin Nain.
For one brief moment I wondered whether Hamza had finally declared jihad against Christians.
That theory immediately died when I saw Shin Nain's face.
I'd only seen Shin Nain truly lose his composure twice.
The first time was when Monk Wonhaeng restored his sanity through Buddhist chants.
The second was when he learned the true nature of the Dubai Sticky Witch's magic.
And now...
I was seeing something I'd never witnessed before.
Shin Nain was terrified.
His lips were pale blue.
His pupils had shrunk.
Foamy saliva dripped from the corner of his mouth.
Sweat-soaked hair clung to his cheeks.
He wore his headset so tightly it looked painful.
And he was praying without pause.
“Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven...”
He was gone.
Completely gone.
Hamza sat directly on top of him, pinning him down while pressing himself against the barricade.
When he noticed me looking, he pressed a finger against his lips again.
Shhhhh.
At this point I genuinely wondered whether this was some kind of prank.
Then my pocket vibrated.
Bzzzt.
Every head turned instantly.
Pastor Park looked ready to kill me.
Lee Sejun glared with bloodshot eyes.
Hamza flailed silently.
Shin Nain squeezed his eyes shut.
Meanwhile, I calmly soothed the Supreme Mages.
“Let's stay positive. Inner peace.”
“Positive? Inner peace? Baek Jemin. Do you want to die?”
“Shouldn't you first appreciate that I'm considerate enough to keep it on vibrate?”
While speaking, I pulled out the phone.
My own phone was already switched off.
The vibrating device was the dark-blue phone.
The one from the pile of abandoned phones.
The strange phone that received messages despite having no signal and no internet.
A new message had arrived.
Songpa side stimulated. Evacuate or hide.
Instead of reading it aloud, I simply showed everyone the screen.
The battery wasn't removable, so turning it off was the best I could do.
The information remained frustratingly vague.
Still...
Judging from Hamza's reaction.
Judging from Shin Nain's complete breakdown.
This was not a normal warning.
And then Hamza whispered.
“It's coming.”
At that moment I instinctively curled inward.
I hugged my rifle and shrank behind the barricade.
Normally curiosity would've gotten the better of me.
This time I felt none.
Not even a trace.
The fog retreated.
A heavy, low wind slipped through the gaps in the barricade and brushed my hair.
The mist drifting through the seventh floor was pushed aside by something immense.
Shadows layered themselves atop shadows.
And then—
I felt a gaze.
Not fear.
Not exactly.
Something beyond fear.
The kind of despair a mountaineer might feel while falling into a glacier crevasse.
The resignation of prey staring into a starving tiger's eyes.
Only infinitely worse.
An absolute instinct crushed our ability to breathe.
A person falling from a cliff can still reach for the light.
They can scream.
Pray.
Close their eyes.
But whoever was noticed by this thing...
Would not even be granted death.
Before my mind understood anything, my muscles reacted.
They contracted.
Locked.
My body knew before I did.
Breathe less.
Slow your heart.
Survive.
Thump.
The sound of my own heartbeat suddenly became hateful.
Thump. Thump.
If I'd been capable of reaching into my chest and stopping my heart before being discovered, I would've done it.
Every day I'd spent living and breathing as Baek Jemin suddenly felt like a curse.
Pain flooded my body.
Not because I was injured.
Because something deeper than pain was descending upon all of us.
If death is possible, choose death.
That thought emerged naturally.
The gaze swept through the department store.
If all I'd felt was hunger, I would've understood.
I'd simply be prey.
But this wasn't predation.
It was something else.
The gaze felt like someone casually reaching into an opened bag of snacks they'd forgotten about.
Searching for leftover crumbs.
It felt like a person handing you an expired cream bun and then expecting gratitude.
Careless.
Greedy.
Arrogant.
Hungry.
The thing beyond the barricade.
The thing staring through my back.
It was a colossal existence swimming through the abyss of Seoul.
Something for which nuclear fire itself might not guarantee destruction.
Something moving through the black fog beyond the shattered windows.
Buildings were cans.
Humans were snacks.
Pets.
Food.
Extensions of itself.
Nausea surged.
My organs spasmed.
My body grew cold.
My teeth chattered uncontrollably.
Inside my head, the magic symbols I'd learned—
Eye.
Tongue.
Hand.
All began flickering.
Each one burned like a branding iron.
The only thing holding my collapsing body together was pain.
The symbols flashed behind my eyes.
Phantom agony tore through my skull.
Tears streamed down my face.
Acid filled my throat.
It felt like someone had wrapped my brain in rough plastic and was slowly grinding it back and forth.
Like an eyelid had appeared inside my skull, blinking against the surface of my brain.
Yet somehow—
That pain kept me alive.
The agony prevented my body from shutting down completely.
And then...
The gaze moved on.
When I finally managed to open my eyes, I saw it.
Far across the seventh floor.
A sickly yellow light.
Like a lighthouse shining through the fog.
That was the gaze.
That impossible eye piercing through the mist.
I understood instantly.
Not through knowledge.
Not through magic.
Through instinct.
The same instinct that tells you fire burns.
Only older.
Deeper.
More fundamental.
If that gaze finds you, it is over.
We remained frozen long after it passed.
No breathing.
No movement.
Hearts barely beating.
Realistically, it couldn't have lasted more than thirty seconds.
Humans die without oxygen.
Eventually the gaze drifted away.
The displaced fog flowed back into place.
Something enormous swam onward through the mist.
Only then did we breathe again.
“Haah... Hah...”
Lee Sejun's gasp was the loudest.
At that point none of us cared about making noise.
We were too busy remembering how to breathe.
Pain burned through every inch of my body.
Eventually Pastor Park collapsed against the floor and muttered:
“Two weeks? Forget that. We move as fast as possible.”
“Lord, forgive me for contemplating suicide.”
The moment the pastor sighed, Shin Nain burst into tears and made the sign of the cross.
A distinctly Catholic gesture.
Normally he'd never reveal something like that.
Right now he clearly didn't care.
Hamza was gasping for breath too.
“Hah... Hah...”
I wasn't much better.
I kept wiping tears and drool from my face with my sleeve.
Then suddenly—
A memory surfaced.
The underground chambers beneath Suwon Station.
Father Jeong Yonghwan.
The Bodhisattva.
Their ruined voices.
Their torn tongues.
The apocalyptic song they had sung.
And finally...
I understood the meaning of that single word.
Shin Nain heard the realization inside my mind.
His shoulders twitched.
At last we both understood why Father Jeong Yonghwan had continued calling out to God even after becoming a monster.
“Lord... so that was it...”
Eternity.
True horror is not the end.
It is the beginning of eternity.
A forever from which death offers no escape.
An endless age where even suicide cannot save you.
The eternal reign of fear.
The endless years spent screaming within a monstrous body.
That...
Was horror.
Shin Nain and I looked at one another.
Then both turned away.
Refusing to meet each other's eyes.
Because we'd reached the same conclusion.
The monsters might still possess human minds.
And that was a possibility neither of us wanted to share with the others.
So we kept it between ourselves.
A secret.
And perhaps the most terrifying one we'd discovered since entering Seoul.