Chapter 49

Seoul 2028

Once everyone had woken up, not a single person crawled back into their sleeping bag.

Everyone was too busy wondering what exactly that existence was—the owner of those pale yellow eyes that pierced through and pushed aside the fog.

I was organizing my thoughts about what kind of monster the owner of that gaze might be. If it was something with feet, it should have at least made heavy thudding sounds, but there had been no such signs at all. We only realized something was approaching when the fog itself began to part.

Without realizing it, I had subconsciously thought of it as swimming through a deep sea on land. Looking back, that description fit surprisingly well. Something that large should never have been able to move without causing vibrations or making noise. We hadn't heard wingbeats either.

Then how exactly had it moved?

I didn't know.

Neither did the other Archmages.

One thing was certain: even the Seoul Mages avoided that monster and hid from it. Pastor Park Yo-han removed his glasses and rubbed his eyelids.

"If you're not in a room on the surface surrounded by some seriously thick walls, it'd be best to head underground."

"Agreed."

I had a feeling the survivors at Jangji Station had been so reluctant to go above ground because of that unidentified monster.

We tried to go back to sleep, but of course that was impossible.

More accurately, we were exhausted enough that our eyelids kept drooping shut, but sleep refused to come while our minds remained fully alert.

Everyone leaned against a wall or sat behind the barricade with their eyes closed, doing nothing but breathing. Normally Shin Na-in or Lee Se-jun would have been spouting nonsense and making the atmosphere a little livelier, but this time was different.

Just as you instinctively know you'll die if a flying blade hits you, we needed to understand why we felt so certain that taking that gaze head-on meant the end.

I muttered aloud, not really expecting an answer.

"Was that an unidentified species too?"

Unexpectedly, Hamza replied.

Curled up with his eyes closed, he answered quietly.

"I don't know. It's only been about three months since the military pulled out of here. It could've appeared during that time."

"True. Things got this bad in only four months. That's possible."

People kept calling Seoul another world or hell itself, but it had never felt as real as it did today.

Maybe, deep down, I still thought Seoul was human territory.

Seeing concrete ruins collapsed by artillery fire had made me think, People used to live here too, and that had unconsciously reassured me.

No.

More than that, I think I believed a draw was still possible.

The containment line breaks? Monsters overflow? Fine. Just reset the entire Korean Peninsula with nuclear weapons.

That simple, brutally straightforward mindset had drawn a psychological line in the sand.

It's okay if I fail. Everything can just get nuked and die.

But now, feeling the cold weight of the rifle cradled in my arms, a chilling thought surfaced.

What if there are monsters that survive nuclear weapons?

Right now, nuclear weapons were humanity's last hope.

Not some ultimate final battle weapon, but the ultimate measure of whether humanity's physical force meant anything at all.

The expectation that a nuclear strike will end everything was what prevented human civilization from collapsing under fear.

If the nukes wiped out all the monsters, it would be a happy ending.

Sure, fifty million Koreans would vanish in nuclear fire, but the remaining 7.95 billion people would survive.

But if monsters survived even after being hit by nukes...

...

...then I needed to learn magic.

The magical symbols that had blazed through my mind when that gaze targeted us still felt vivid.

Magic was a ladder that might reach omnipotence.

And it was our only means of survival.

As time passed, the difference between those who could use magic and those who couldn't would only become more obvious.

With those thoughts in mind, I spent the time resting with my eyes closed.

The sound of wind slipping through broken windows.

The rustling of sleeping bags.

The growling of empty stomachs.

Eventually, my eyelids began to itch slightly.

When I opened my eyes, the pitch-black fog of the night had turned faintly gray.

I still couldn't see farther than the tip of my nose, though.

"Anyone asleep?"

"Nope."

Lee Se-jun answered with a lazy yawn, while Shin Na-in adjusted her headset. Her complexion had improved a little.

After everything we'd experienced during the night, everyone looked exhausted.

There was one miracle cure for situations like this.

People needed something to focus on.

And luckily, we had exactly that.

When I pulled out the booklet and pen I'd carefully brought along, everyone stared at me strangely.

"What?"

"Baek Je-min... this isn't the time for jokes."

"Let's just cram magical symbols into our heads while the fog's thick. Everyone's exhausted anyway. I doubt proper scouting is possible right now."

"Doesn't looking at those make you dizzy?"

The pastor still seemed uninterested, but the other three clearly agreed with me.

Lee Se-jun, whose eyes always lit up at rewards.

Shin Na-in, who never stopped talking about modified holy rituals.

Even Hamza.

All of them accepted the magic lecture booklet in hopes of learning even one more branch of modified magic.

We each drew the magical symbols we knew and showed them to one another.

And, naturally, we threw up.

"Uwaaaagh..."

I failed to acquire the Heart and Ear branches.

Still, the side effects were definitely better than before.

Normally, trying to study them outside left me dizzy for thirty minutes while feeling as though needles were repeatedly stabbing my brain.

This time, I only ended up vomiting a little.

If I kept at it somewhere with dense fog, I felt like I could learn them.

I really felt like I could...

Pastor Park Yo-han clicked his tongue and patted my shoulder.

"You noticed that monster this morning, right? The reason other monsters aren't coming around might be because of that thing. Staying in one place is dangerous."

"Urgh... damn it. If I could just get the Heart branch, I'd be satisfied."

"Kid, this is only our third day. Isn't wanting that much after three days a bit greedy?"

"Pastor, getting carried is the trend these days, okay? Compared to everyone else, we're practically old-school hard workers."

Just look at all the stories set in worlds with strange phenomena like this.

People either had status windows or ancient talents that let them level up just by breathing.

Meanwhile, we Archmages were painstakingly learning things one symbol at a time while vomiting our guts out.

Lee Se-jun and Shin Na-in immediately agreed.

"Isn't this just like working out?"

"Promising easy power is a trick devils love to use. I prefer holy rituals that grant strength through trials and suffering."

"You people are unbelievable. What about Islam?"

"Bleeegh..."

The pastor had thought Hamza might share our mindset, but Hamza was still too busy retching.

The three of us who practiced modified magic had long since figured out how to vomit without getting any on our clothes.

But Hamza, a doctrinal mage, was sprawled against the barricade and gagging miserably.

Once again, it proved that doctrinal mages had a much harder time learning modified magical symbols.

Still, Hamza being incapacitated turned out to be unexpectedly convenient.

Normally, he would've been the first to get up and organize everyone for departure.

Instead, our porter was completely out of commission, forcing us to take a longer break.

So we focused on maintenance while waiting for him to recover.

First came packing our sleeping bags and organizing our gear.

We opened cans and preserved foods scavenged from the seventh floor of the department store and ate them instead of a proper meal.

Unfortunately, there wasn't any Spam or Luncheon Meat left.

A real shame.

People were always busy frying them, but Spam and luncheon meat tasted perfectly fine straight out of the can.

Everyone else looked at me like I was insane.

The pastor raised an eyebrow while eating canned tuna with chopsticks he'd wiped clean using tissues.

"You eat ham raw too? You're supposed to cook that."

"It really is fine."

"I never said it'd kill you."

He sounded utterly disappointed.

Honestly, it felt unfair, but I didn't feel like arguing.

Ham tasted good uncooked.

Maybe this was how people who liked raw fish felt whenever someone told them to eat grilled fish instead.

Meanwhile, Lee Se-jun calmly placed some tuna on top of a cracker.

"Yeah, ham would probably taste good on this."

"Right? I wonder if any's left somewhere."

It was an offhand comment, but it unexpectedly became a secondary goal.

The main reason I, Baek Je-min, came to Seoul was to learn magic.

The mission of preventing nuclear weapons from falling on Korea belonged to the soldiers.

Honestly, at this point, part of me thought maybe dropping a nuke wouldn't be the worst idea.

The problem was that the rest of the world wouldn't stop at just Seoul.

Only nuke Seoul? Why not the entire peninsula? You're already launching nukes. Why not wipe everything out while you're at it?

It was such a logical reaction that arguing against it was difficult.

If foreign countries saw the list of monsters we'd encountered, there'd probably be protests demanding to know why nobody had launched nukes already.

Against a backdrop that extreme, setting a tiny goal like finding ham for our meals somehow made me laugh.

Once the fear of imminent death faded, all that remained was a craving for salty rice and canned ham.

Hamza, looking pale and exhausted, frowned at me.

"Mr. Je-min. Why are you smiling?"

"Because I want ham."

I answered while chewing on canned yellow peaches.

I remembered the can of Spam Lieutenant Shin Han-gi had given me before I entered Seoul.

But I decided to save it.

With outdoor activity so restricted, Spam was valuable.

Therefore, I was going to eat it secretly by myself.

As I made that vow, another vibration buzzed.

Bzzzz.

I pulled the black-and-blue phone from my pocket and showed it to the Archmages.

"Look at this. I definitely turned it off, but it keeps turning itself back on."

After making it clear this wasn't my fault, I checked the screen.

As expected.

A message from an unknown source arrived with a KaTalk notification sound.

[Fog thinning. Non-mages are strictly prohibited from outdoor activity. Exercise caution regarding rooftops and the sky.]

The moment I showed it to everyone, the pastor reacted first.

"I thought the fog reduces magical backlash. Then why are non-mages forbidden from going outside?"

"The Seoul Mages have been here for four months. They obviously know a lot more than we do," I said. "The problem is they rarely seem friendly."

Lee Se-jun scratched his beard and shrugged.

The messages were written under the assumption that Seoul Mages already knew what they meant, making them difficult for outsiders to understand.

I thought only rural areas had strong local gatekeeping.

Turns out Seoul had its own version too.

Around then, the sound of heavy artillery began to echo through the distance.

Fortunately, it wasn't happening near us.

The artillery barrage was targeting the south—the direction we'd come from. Instead, strange moans and cries flowed along the roads like an outgoing tide.

Shin Na-in stared out the window and quietly nodded.

"Looks like they're heading toward the front lines."

"The soldiers on the first line have it rough."

April 17, 2028, 7:35 AM.

Day 3 of the expedition.

Shaken by the vibrations of the bombardment and avoiding the ceiling that kept shedding dust, we packed our gear. After checking our equipment and making sure our gas masks were still in good condition, we set out once more.

Our immediate goal was to reach Konkuk University and establish contact with the friendly mage known as Goryeoha.

To accomplish that, we decided to alternate between surface and underground travel while monitoring conditions along Subway Line 8.

Since artillery fire was ongoing and monster movements had been confirmed, we chose not to head out recklessly. Instead, we searched the outlet mall connected to the department store.

Other than the electronics section, however, everything had either already been looted or was useless.

A few AA batteries were the only worthwhile find.

Afterward, we consulted a department store map and headed toward the subway.

As expected of such a large department store, it was connected to a nearby station through underground passageways.

At Jangji Station, we'd been too busy dealing with that Human Slime and trying to assess surface conditions to investigate properly. But if we could reach subway stations through department store underground passages, it would be extremely useful.

Unfortunately, that plan was abandoned the moment we approached the passageway.

"Shh."

Hamza, who had been walking quietly, raised a hand.

Hamza might not know the right answer, but he had an uncanny talent for identifying wrong ones. The fact that he was signaling us before saying anything was a very bad sign.

Instead of heading underground, we stopped near the basement entrance on the first floor and waited for Shin Na-in's detection magic.

Fortunately, the monsters kindly spared Shin Na-in the effort of conducting a lengthy search with her Second-Stage Ear Magic.

A familiar sound echoed upward from the stairs leading underground.

Click-click-click-click-click...

An excruciatingly familiar noise.

The military called it Amalgam Subspecies Blood Thread Delta.

We called it something simpler.

Bloodweb.

A monster that devoured mages, turned them into puppets, and launched mental attacks.

Its upper jaw missing, tongue hanging limply out, it constantly produced that bizarre sound as it struggled to force words through the hole where its vocal cords should have been.

The noise echoed through the underground spaces.

Since it hadn't come up to the first floor, it seemed content to nest underground.

Now I understood why there hadn't been any proper survivor groups in such a massive department store, and why there had only been a single Seoul Mage here.

With artillery fire and monster hordes limiting surface travel, ordinary survivors and mediocre mages couldn't break through a Bloodweb's territory.

The military unit that had reached the department store near Jangji Station had probably discovered the Bloodweb too and chosen to force their way across the surface instead.

Could we fight it?

Sure.

But it would be a gigantic pain in the ass and incredibly dangerous.

When I glanced at Lee Se-jun and Shin Na-in, they immediately gave up on the idea.

Only the Pastor and Hamza, who had never seen one before, looked confused.

"Our Best of the Best has to retreat from something like that?"

"It's dangerous, sure, but... can three of you really not handle it?"

The comments practically challenged the pride of the Archmages.

We ignored them.

Unless there were guaranteed magical symbols to obtain, it wasn't a monster worth seeking out.

"It controls dead mages like puppets and uses mental attacks. For some reason it can jam drones too. I don't think it's worth risking ourselves just to travel underground."

"Huh... Then all we can do is hope they weren't good people. You shouldn't pray too often for hellfire to become cooler."

"Why?"

Personally, I thought cooler hellfire sounded great. A nice warm sauna.

The Pastor and Shin Na-in clearly disagreed.

"People get thrown in there to suffer. What's the point if it's lukewarm? Harsh punishment is important!"

"This is the proper attitude of a Christian. People are already being given ample opportunities. The Antichrist Pope merely pretends otherwise!"

Until we were sure the artillery wouldn't shift toward us, moving around wasn't easy.

So we spent the spare time visiting the pile of burned corpses and paying our respects.

Naturally, we didn't neglect weapon maintenance either.

As we cleaned carbon residue from our rifles, we stood before the soldiers' bodies and yawned lazily.

It wasn't until 10:11 AM that we became convinced the bombardment was staying far away.

After offering a brief prayer over the burned bodies, Pastor Park Yo-han adjusted his rifle sling.

"Let's move."

Clack. Clack.

Nobody had to say anything.

The formation assembled naturally.

Our formation had already proven itself.

There was no hesitation as we departed the department store near Jangji Station.

Our footsteps marched into the gray fog, drowning out the distant screams and heavy artillery.

Only then did we understand what "thin fog" really meant.

Inside the building it had been too dark to notice, but once outside the increase in visibility was obvious.

Normally visibility barely reached ten meters, sometimes dropping below five.

Today it looked closer to two hundred.

We could even see traffic lights several blocks away.

Lee Se-jun looked around and unconsciously sighed in admiration.

"People really are meant to live somewhere clear."

The one who immediately poured cold water on our newfound optimism was Hamza.

Even though I secretly agreed with Lee Se-jun, Hamza calmly stated the truth.

"Se-jun, you've been gaslit. This isn't clear weather."

"If I can see way farther than yesterday, it's clear enough."

Still, everyone seemed noticeably less tense.

This was certainly better than navigating fog so dense you couldn't see a step ahead.

In fact, it was difficult to understand the phone message warning non-mages not to go outside.

If anything, thinner fog should have made non-mages more useful.

Yet the message said the exact opposite.

Maybe the mages had simply invented rules like that to exercise authority over ordinary civilians.

As speculation filled our minds, we moved along roads littered with shell craters and collapsed concrete.

That was when we heard a loud buzzing.

Looking up, we spotted a drone flying noisily overhead.

The Pastor immediately sounded pleased.

"Oh. Looks like the military hasn't forgotten about us."

The age of AI and drones.

For the first time in a while, we looked up at the relatively clear sky and cheered silently for the brave drone.

That lasted until something black emerged from the fog.

It was still far away, impossible to identify clearly.

At first glance, it looked like a giant black plastic bag fluttering in the air.

Its size was considerable.

Even from this distance, despite appearing crumpled, it was clearly visible.

It had to be at least as large as a hundred-liter garbage bag.

Had there only been one, we might have dismissed it as floating debris.

But there wasn't just one.

As soon as the first appeared, more giant plastic-bag-like shapes drifted lazily from the fog.

Realizing something was wrong, all of us quietly hid behind roadside obstacles without needing to exchange a word.

We crawled beneath the rubble of a collapsed building and continued observing the sky.

Buuuuung—

The drone's buzzing continued for a while.

Then a strange sound interrupted it.

Hup!

The buzzing suddenly became muffled.

Something heavy fell to the ground.

Unable to determine what had happened from sound alone, I looked at Hamza and Shin Na-in.

Unfortunately, with the thinner fog weakening magical reactions, neither produced useful results.

"It seems dangerous..."

Hamza's doctrinal magic had become even more vague.

"It appears to be a monster."

"A monster... apparently?"

"I can't hear details clearly, but it isn't human."

Shin Na-in's Second-Stage Ear Magic had similarly lost much of its precision.

In the end, the safest way to identify it was to use my Stage-One Tongue Magic to fully enhance my Stage-One Eye Magic.

One minute.

Past.

Road.

Road near the Jangji Station department store.

The backlash struck immediately.

It felt as though my taste buds split apart with an audible tearing sound.

The wounds on my tongue had only recently healed, and reopening them brought tears to my eyes.

My eyes felt even worse—dry, scratchy, as though someone were gently rubbing them with dried plastic or a sponge.

Yet the moment I saw what my magic revealed, I forgot the pain.

A monster had attacked the drone.

It floated through the sky like a jellyfish, trailing countless microscopic tendrils.

The instant something touched those tendrils, it wrapped around the target like a sack.

The creatures appeared to move in groups, though their sizes varied.

By Seoul standards, it was almost a normal-looking monster.

Except, like every monster born in Seoul, it was a little too creative.

It was a jellyfish made of human skin.

Slightly translucent human skin.

Human skin covered in eyes.

Human skin with fingers and feet protruding from random places.

A writhing mass of countless human hides stitched together into a floating jellyfish.

Victims' faces hung from its surface in stretched and crumpled patches.

Some eye sockets were empty.

Others still contained eyes.

Those eyes constantly rolled around as the jellyfish changed direction, scanning below and to either side.

Then one of them spotted the brave drone.

The moment the drone touched a tendril, the jellyfish engulfed it like a wrapping cloth.

The drone was swallowed and crashed.

After landing, the jellyfish pulsed and expanded repeatedly.

Eventually it seemed to realize the drone wasn't a human and lazily regurgitated it.

The faces embedded in its skin twisted in agony while their eyes rolled endlessly.

Then the jellyfish drifted back toward its flock.

And my spell ended.

Naturally, my stomach wasn't strong enough to witness something like that and remain unaffected.

I immediately pulled up my gas mask.

"Blegh!"

After enough practice, even vomiting becomes a skill.

Short and forceful.

One burst.

Rinse with water.

Spit again.

Drink some lukewarm water from the canteen.

Then face the impatient Archmages.

The Pastor and Lee Se-jun were the most desperate.

"You saw it and reacted like that? Baek Je-min, what kind of monster is it?"

"Mr. Je-min, stop keeping it to yourself and tell us already!"

Only Shin Na-in remained calm.

She had already guessed the answer from my expression.

Hamza, meanwhile, had started quietly reciting prayers under his breath.

For the first time, I began worrying about the fate of the advance military units.

Could even special forces survive in a place like this?

How was I supposed to describe that thing?

After a long moment of thought, I settled on a single term.

"Skin Jellyfish."

April 17, 2028. Before dawn.

We had encountered a colossal being that cast pale yellow gazes through the fog.

And now, at 10:28 AM on April 17, 2028.

Day 3 of the expedition.

We encountered one of the previously unknown unidentified species.

A swarm of creatures we tentatively designated:

Skin Jellyfish.

They drifted through thin banks of fog, swimming through the air before suddenly lunging forward and swallowing their prey whole.

A horde of monsters made entirely from human skin.