Chapter 116: Social Responsibility

[Translator – Aren]

The first thing I did after arriving at Seongnam City Hall was look for the military doctor.

The field commander was away at an operations meeting, so the military doctor listened to my report instead.

The military doctor was wearing a helmet and lazily yawning as he fiddled with the arm of his glasses, but apparently he’d heard something over the radio because he stared closely at my eye.

"Baek Jemin-ssi. You were prescribed an eye patch, right?"

"Yes."

"Then why are you wearing it over your right eye instead of your left?”

"Because I can’t see out of it, so I should keep it closed, right?”

"Hmm. Well, it’s not bad or anything, but you said that eye’s going to recover, right? Then you need to use it if you want it to recover faster.”

The moment I heard that, I felt some resistance bubbling up in me.

Was this some medical version of that grit-based logic where you had to keep using your shoulder to get better at baseball?

"If using it makes it heal, why prescribe medicine?”

"Have you ever heard of rehabilitation therapy? Anyway, if it makes you unbearably dizzy, that’s one thing, but normally, try covering your left eye and using your right. I don’t know how magic works, but if you’re confident it’ll recover, that’ll probably be better. And…I was told there’s also some suspicion of acid reflux. I doubt you’ll have much access to them anyway, but just in case, avoid caffeine and acidic drinks.”

"Can’t I drink cola?”

"No."

"What about Coke Zero?”

The military doctor clasped his hands together and let out an incredulous chuckle.

"Baek Jemin-ssi. Coke has a slightly acidic taste, right? No, more importantly, it’s carbonated, right?”

"Yes. It is."

"And the Korean word for carbonation has the character for ‘acid’¹ in it, right?”

"Yes. It does."

The military doctor nodded sleepily with a languid look and waved me away.

I, Baek Jemin.

As a man of character who generously could let things slide as long as the healers knew how to heal properly, I obediently accepted the order to leave.

People with skills deserved respect.

The problem is non-wizards with skills that weren’t particularly important, or ones whose sheer physical repulsiveness crossed the line.

The moment I stepped out of the infirmary where the military doctor was staying, I saw some familiar yet unwelcome faces.

"Hubae-nim! It's only been a few days, but covering one eye like that sure makes you look kind ofchuuni, you know?”

Go Ryeoha, who apparently was doing better since I last saw her, waved her hand lightly and smiled at me with those dead-fish eyes of hers.

"Jemin-ssi. Were you injured? If you’d exercised a little more consistently in your everyday life, you would’ve had a much easier time controlling your body.”

Lee Sejun stood there with his arms crossed, staring at me like I was pathetic, his face aged enough to pass for a staff sergeant.

I had once thought those two were like oil and water.

I thought they could never mix, so they’d either clash every time or split apart and treat each other like complete strangers.

Only now did I realize just how complacent and mundane that assumption had been.

"Looks like we’ve all got things to talk about, so let’s move somewhere else first.”

And so began the uncomfortable journey of the Supreme Archmages and the Shitblings

The Shitblings marched ahead energetically, saying they’d show me where they were staying, while I followed behind with extremely complicated feelings.

"Women kind of have no choice but to stay in Seoul, right? Usually we’re more sensitive to trends and things like that.”

"I thought living outside the capital would offer a better quality of life, but I suppose it’s very different…”

Every time I heard those two talking, it was so horrifying that I had to look away.

I was glad I’d turned off Ears-branch, Stage 1 long ago.

The moment those two started carrying on about being ‘siblings,’ I cut it off. Definitely the right call.

The backlash still hadn’t kicked in yet, but the fact that it could come at random only made me more tense.

At the end of my lonely struggle, we finally arrived.

The room Lee Sejun and Go Ryeoha were staying in had originally been used as a storage room. Lee Sejun had simply been given a partitioned-off space outside, while Go Ryeoha had the entire storage room to herself.

"Tada! I’m using it as a makeshift workshop right now!”

"Jemin-ssi. Why aren’t you coming in?”

This was my first time entering a woman’s room since becoming an adult, and I never expected to feel this indifferent about it.

Beyond indifferent…this was on the level of horror and injustice.

I finally got the chance to enter a pretty girl’s room, only to find myself dragging my feet.

Reluctantly, I followed them inside.

There was that peculiar atmosphere you only got in a woman’s room, but since they hadn’t finished clearing out the old storage space all that long ago, it still felt kind of cluttered.

Lee Sejun had put up a partition right outside the storage room to make himself a private space, so everything inside belonged to Go Ryeoha. In the meantime, she’d apparently farmed clothes from all over the place and piled them up in heaps.

Only then did I notice that Go Ryeoha’s outfit was a little different from before.

Out of everything she’d gathered, she had picked something clean and practical but still showed off her leg line. A healthy, energetic, sporty outfit. The moment she noticed me looking, the corners of her eyes lifted and she held up a hand.

"Ah, you noticed. This was the thing I wanted to do most once I got out of Seoul. Change clothes!”

I decided to skip everything else and get straight to the point.

"So why did you two get so close?”

"Jemin-ssi. You almost sound unhappy that the two of us became friends.”

"Huh? Hubae-nim, are you jealous?”

If anyone was supposed to be jealous, it should’ve been Lee Sejun standing there with his arms crossed, not me.

He seemed to realize what I was getting at too. He raised an eyebrow, slowly uncrossed his arms, then turned toward Go Ryeoha and pulled one corner of his mouth into a confident expression.

"Ryeoha-ssi. It seems Jemin-ssi is suspicious of our new bond.”

"Aha! Of course he would be. He doesn’t know about the new relationship Sejun-ssi and I formed. Siblings!”

"What the hell are you on about with shitblings?”

I’d honestly rather the two of them just date.

I’m someone with a negative bias against office romances, yet I was ready to drop to my knees and beg them to please just have a normal, healthy relationship instead.

But no matter how I looked at it, that was clearly not where this was going.

Like the Heart-branch wizards they were, Lee Sejun and Go Ryeoha crossed their arms together at tremendous speed.

-Bang!

A sharp crack of displaced air struck my ears as the two of them grinned brightly.

"Love you have to earn through devotion is just begging. I want to be loved just for breathing!"

"Attention I get for being pretty isn't real recognition. I want to be recognized for my effort and contributions!”

"We acknowledge each other, and sometimes we bicker, but!”

"We’re friendly rivals who cheer each other on! Friends! Sworn siblings!”

Ah.…..

I covered my one still-intact eye with my left hand.

But I didn’t have enough hands to cover my ears too.

"That’s why we’re Siblings!”

"We’ll explain to you how the two of us managed to become close, Jemin-ssi. All the twists and turns we went through.”

Go Ryeoha would excitedly ramble on, and Lee Sejun would calmly organize everything she said. It was even worse than sermon time with the fanatic zealot duo.

I didn’t want to listen, so I squeezed my eyes shut, shook my head, and tried to cover my ears, but it was useless. I was already starting to miss the pastor and Shin Nain, but even that was nothing compared to what came next.

The real misery was the backlash, which had grown stronger along with my Stage.

Now that I had advanced to Ears-branch, Stage 2, the backlash from Ears-branch magic had become stronger than before as well.

'Go Ryeoha. I’m jealous. I’m insanely jealous. If you were born looking like that, you should’ve just coasted through life. Why are you smart too, and why do you work so hard…?! Pretty people aren’t allowed to be smart and hardworking too!!!’

"Aaaagh! Stop!”

I dropped to my knees.

The Great Archmage Baek Jemin dropped to his knees and begged.

But the price of magic was cruel and merciless.

The principle of mysticism was equivalent exchange.

Magic demanded a price worthy of something one could call a miracle, and whether that price was paid upfront or afterward, it always came back at 100%.

'Absolutely not. I’m going to comfort Ryeoha-ssi and cheer her up. I can’t let her mope around, earn sympathy from everyone, and get comforted by whoever she wants. She already draws everyone’s attention just by standing there…! I have to stop it. I need to tell her she doesn’t have to try, that she’s already good enough as she is, and keep her from working hard.’

"Aagh! Aaaaagh!”

'I’ll corrupt her. I, Lee Sejun, will thoroughly cultivate your masculinity so that men who start rutting the second they see a pretty face won’t feel even a shred of sexual attraction toward you. For that… I can pretend we get along as much as necessary. Siblings? Siblings are born to fight. Go Ryeoha… Go Ryeoha! I’ll even make your beauty fade. I swear!!!’

"Huaaaaah…Huaaaaagh…!”

I lowered my head.

Even with my eyes squeezed shut, tears streamed through the gaps between my eyelids.

Shin Nain, you damn lunatic.

How the hell did you survive listening to this shit 24/7…?!

This was on a completely different level from physical pain.

The mental agony of having people’s ugly inner thoughts, stripped bare of manners, social norms, and morality, shoved straight into my head without a single filter was beyond imagination. I almost resented my own intelligence for being capable of understanding the words.

I sobbed at the sheer shock of having the goodness of humanity itself seemingly denied before me. I wailed, crying my heart out.

Humans… Can humans really be this filthy and vicious?!

Only then did the backlash from Ears-branch magic disappear, and I could finally hear their actual voices again.

"Jemin-ssi… Were you that moved by the origins of us Siblings and the new bond we’ve created?”

"Hubae-nim…Sniff… I never knew you’d support us this much…”

I lifted my eye patch and wiped away the tears with the back of my hand.

The mental pain and emotional shock had left such a massive aftereffect that even breathing felt difficult.

"Huff, hah."

I focused on catching my breath first.

Some dry spit had collected around my mouth, so I wiped that off with the sleeve of my poncho too.

I wanted to unleash an entire bowlful of curses right then and there, but the dizziness and tears clouding my vision had left me barely able to think. Instead, resentment surged toward someone who wasn’t even there.

Hamza, you fucking bastard.

You should’ve gritted your teeth and endured it.

He definitely noticed something was off and caught at least a glimpse of those screwed-up thoughts this guy was having.

The bastard was number one among the Supreme Archamages when it came to reading the room.

If he had any conscience at all, shouldn’t he have taken the hit for me on the day I ended up one-eyed?

But if I stayed like this, there was no telling when the Ears-branch magic penalty would activate again.

I quickly pulled myself together and rose from where I’d been kneeling.

Following the doctor’s advice, I switched the eye patch over to my left eye. Walking through that blurry, washed-out vision was the surest way to not have to look at Lee Sejun’s disgusting face.

Then I turned to Lee Sejun and Go Ryeoha and said,

"I couldn’t hear you properly when you explained it out loud. Write it down and bring it to me!”

*t*t*

May 17th, 2028, 2:44 PM.

Soldiers grunted as they carried partitions over and set up a space for me in one corner of Seongnam City Hall.

"Take care.”

"Loyalty! You take care too, civilian Operator, sir.”

I was very much a civilian, yet the soldiers still gave me crisp salutes before leaving.

Anyway, thanks to them, I could sit down on a folding cot like aRakuraku bed and organize my thoughts. So much had happened that I needed some time to sit and reflect, to properly digest everything I’d experienced.

First, I had to go over what I’d lacked in the previous battle.

I’d been thinking about this ever since I was stuck in the hospital, so it was easy to list the problems. I folded down the fingers of my right hand one by one as I quickly sorted through them.

Insufficient ammunition tracking, limits in firearm proficiency, using magic too often beyond my limits, focusing too much on flashy effects and failing to use magic calmly and efficiently, poor use of appropriate magic in close combat…

All those problems boiled down to the exact same thing.

Lack of combat experience.

That couldn’t be helped. The gap in practical skill and combat ability between Seoul wizards and outside wizards was inevitable. Unlike us, who had grown like flowers in a greenhouse, the Seoul wizards had grown rapidly in the hellscape of Seoul by devouring one another like poisonous creatures in a jar.

The best way to overcome that was simply to crush them with a higher Stage of magic…

I could also feel that their attitude toward the backlash was different.

Second. How wizards viewed the backlash and paying the price.

The knowledge I gained from destroying Yellow-Bandage Straggler’s remains hinted at a lot of things.

Especially the fact that Yellow-Bandage had been a wizard who feared the backlash so much that he only trained and used Inverted Ears-branch, Stage 1.

How should I put it?

It felt unpleasant, like they were sullying the greatness of magic.

The existence of master-disciple rituals that let them dump their price onto disciples was one thing, and refusing to sue powerful magic to the end because they feared the penalty was another. Their own lives were the most precious thing in the world to them, yet they still wouldn’t offer those lives up for magic.

How could anyone receive the blessing of magic with such a complacent mindset?

Still, I needed to know about the tricks these second- and third-rate idiots used. No matter how horrifying or vile the knowledge was, if it was something I could use, then knowing it would benefit me.

And finally, third.

"......"

I was looking at the written incident reports Lee Sejun and Go Ryeoha had submitted side by side.

Lee Sejun’s handwriting was calm and clear, with the neat, squared look you’d expect from a soldier. Go Ryeoha’s looked almost scribbled, but whenever she wrote punctuation marks, they had a soft, rounded feel to them.

According to the incident reports the two of them submitted, the story of the Siblings was simpler than I expected.

Go Ryeoha kept acting depressed, so soldiers started glancing her way, then coming over to comfort her without saying much or bringing her food. Even the officers started sidling over.

Lee Sejun glared them down and chased them off, then took it upon himself to encourage Go Ryeoha and become her emotional pillar.

According to Lee Sejun:

-I understand wanting to break down. You were carrying far too heavy a burden. But were you always like this from the beginning?

-Ahjussi...

-I want us all to live together. I want us all to laugh together. I want those people to smile as much as the effort I put in. Those simple wishes are the most powerful force there is. You’ve forgotten that, Go Ryeoha-ssi- You only did it because you wanted to. You have no responsibility.

Something about that felt strangely off.

The more I went back and forth between their incident reports, the clearer that feeling became.

-Doesn’t Jemin-ssi say it all the time too? No, countless people have said it since long ago. Those who do not work shall not eat. When everyone’s in danger, expecting equal treatment while eating supplies brought back by people who risked their lives makes no sense.

-B-but they might just be scared.

-Ryeoha-ssi! You deserve to be loved just for being there. You don’t need to do anything for anyone!

-...Sejun-ssi. I’m touched. It’s been so long since anyone said something that warm to me…!

-Grab.

I covered my eyepatch with one hand.

Lee Sejun, you son of a….

You didn’t fix her. You just warped her in a different direction.

I was suppressing the urge to groan and tear up the incident reports when…

I forced my hand back down, opened my eye, and let the papers flutter in front of me. That was when I noticed a tiny line Lee Sejun had written at the very end of his report.

-Jemin-ssi. I think the Seoul wizards are afraid of Ryeoha-ssi. They’ve pulled back four times the moment they spotted her. There’s a reason for it. I want to find out what it is. What do you think?

Reading that line from Lee Sejun threw me into conflict.

Both the reason of Great Archmage Baek Jemon and the consciousness of non-wizard Baek Jemin told me it was a reasonable decision. If there was something going on with Go Ryeoha, then as a Supreme Archmage, I had both the right and the duty to take the lead in finding out what it was.

But.

But…

Baek Jemin, the human screamed.

I don’t want to go with them, fuck.

But I was an adult.

I was someone who carried social responsibility, someone who couldn’t turn his back on reason just because he didn’t like something.

"Haah."

-Crumple!

Instead of tearing up the incident reports, I crushed them in my hands and stomped on them as hard as I could.

Only after stomping on them 12 times did the dark cloud hanging over my mind finally disappear.

Fine. Let’s do this.

Better to face your difficulties as early as possible, I guess.

*t*t*

May 17th, 2028, 6:36 PM.

That was when I met the field commander at Seongnam City Hall.

I’d gone to propose a deeply patriotic operation. Form a trio of Supreme Archmages, hunt down the Seoul wizards hiding in northern Seongnam, and wipe them out.

There, I was greeted by a familiar face.

A faint, wistful smile with eyes steeped in fear and exhaustion above it.

"Lieutenant Shin Hangi?”

"Aphorism. Good to see you.”

Before I knew it, I was already shaking hands with Lieutenant Shin Hangi.

Only after we finished shaking hands and let go did Shin Hangi point at his rank insignia with his index finger and smile.

"Also, I skipped a few ranks and got a special promotion, so I’m a major now. Fast promotion, right?”

Looks like the military’s rank bottleneck had been blown wide open.

I didn't know what a special promotion normally signified, but promotions this extreme always came with a price. I offered considerable condolences to Major ShinHangi, who was apparently stuck in Seongnam.

Major Shin Hangi said self-deprecatingly that he’d frequently operated under the Reality Survival Command, knew a fair bit about magic, had experience handling civilian Operators, and since he’d already been assigned to Seongnam with no plans to rotate him to the rear anyway, they’d gone ahead and promoted him.

"Aphorim’s been doing pretty well lately. You’ve even got a former Seoul wizard over there, and thanks to you, things have been quiet for the past few days. The troops have gotten some sleep too.”

"I actually came to propose a reconnaissance and sweep operation. Looks like you send drones out to scout every day, so I’d like to go along on the next drone reconnaissance.”

"Weren't you injured, Baek Jemin-ssi? I heard one of your eyes…isn’t seeing very well?”

"If getting injured makes me useless, then I’m not a Supreme Archmage. I’d be Supreme Trash.”

Major Shin Hangi asked with an uneasy expression, and I smiled as I moved the eye patch from my left eye back to my right.

"I’ll show you what I can do, staking the honor of a first-rate, first-generation civilian Operator, so set the schedule."

I’d already fucked around for far too long.

Those two Heart-branch wizards were only pulling that kind of shit because they had too much time on their hands. I needed to work them hard enough that they couldn’t keep screwing around with this Siblings nonsense.

And for that, I would personally take responsibility for dragging the Shitblings all the way onto the battlefield.

This was the social responsibility of Great Archmage Baek Jemin.

Noblesse oblige. 

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¹산 = Acid; 탄산 = Carbonation