Chapter 122: Magic Junkie

[Translator – Aren]

The disheveled military doctor was the one who came to see me while I lay sprawled limply in the hospital bed.

The same military doctor who’d prescribed covering my good eye with an eye patch and taught me that carbonated drinks were acidic.

He’d come without his helmet, fully exposing his sporty, spiky crew cut, and apparently the barber at the Seongnam City Hall Command Point was absolutely terrible at his job.

I swore I would never get a haircut here.

The military doctor himself didn’t seem bothered by it in the slightest. He simply flipped through the chart and nodded calmly.

"Lack of electrolytes. We’re short on oral rehydration solutions right now, and you look to be in decent enough shape, so I won’t prescribe any. Just make sure you drink plenty of water on a regular basis, and you’ll recover quickly. And when you eat, avoid anything salty, spicy, or other irritating food.”

"What about Spam?”

“One more thing. No greasy food either.”

"What about kimchi?”

Spam. Fine. I already knew processed ham wasn’t good for you, so I could accept that much.

But telling a Koran to eat without kimchi was far too cruel, especially when the hospital food was so tasteless it made me gag. I looked at the military doctor, wondering if there might be some other way.

Of course, the military doctor could only let out a deep sigh.

"Baek Jemin-ssi.”

"Kimchi these days isn’t actually spicy anymore. It’s sweet.”

"You may eat kimchi made without chili powder, salt, or salted seafood. And here, your new authorized phone.”

"Wow. Thank you.”

"Haah. Just drink plenty of water. And get some rest, too.”

Then the military doctor started another nagging session.

Most of it went in one ear and out the other because I couldn’t really understand what he was talking about, but a few things did stick with me.

According to the military doctor, humans can never develop a tolerance to pain.

I was no exception.

Then how was Baek Jemin the human able to do it?

Apparently, whenever I sued magic or found myself in a situation where I needed to use it, my body seemed to release extremely high levels of adrenaline and dopamine. He wasn’t sure whether the cause was psychological, but his theory was that this allowed me to ignore some of the pain.

He also believed there were effects from post-traumatic stress disorder. My perception and thought process had become drastically faster, but in exchange I tired easily or became bored with everyday life.

The aftereffects of hyperarousal, one of the symptoms of PTSD. Damage to the brain’s reward system from the excessive adrenaline and dopamine released whenever I used magic or entered a situation where I needed to use it. And a belief that had grown even stronger after repeatedly and nonstop surviving mortal danger in genuinely dangerous situations.

A flood of incredibly difficult and technical terms came pouring out, but I understood the core points perfectly.

I, Baek Jemin, was a talent whose mind had been honed for the sake of magic.

"So basically, I fight while high on magic, right? How’d you even figure that out?”

"You had an examination at the headquarters, remember? It may have felt like they just ran you through it without much care, but they kept all the records. They’re sent to the military doctors at whatever until you go out. More importantly, you really have a gift for making everything sound crude and vulgar. Anyway, your phone’s been authorized, so stay put while you’re resting in the ward. If you think something’s wrong with your body, call someone.”

The military doctor picked up the chart and left the room.

At long last, I turned the new phone the military gave me around here and there, grinning to myself. I’d been too cheap to even pay for a screen replacement and had stubbornly carried my old phone around for more than 5 years, so getting a new one felt incredibly satisfying.

Fortunately, there weren’t any other patients in the room, which made it easy to laze around by myself.

-Tap, tap.

Perhaps because I’d moved my SIM card over, all my contacts had transferred over to this phone as well, and there were even some numbers I didn’t recognize.

After setting it up quickly, I yawned and checked the time.

May 19th, 2028. 1:12 PM.

It was a peaceful period, with Go Ryeoha and Lee Sejun busy punching each other in that clearing while calling themselves Siblings or whatever, the soldiers still standing guard, and the occasional sound of artillery in the distance.

If not now, there’d be no chance to have a serious conversation.

First I started calling one of the unknown numbers that had appeared in my contacts out of nowhere. I had no idea whether the cell towers were even still operating in times like these, but anyone reachable near the blockade line was bound to have some connections to the military.

Then a strange signal tone came through.

-Deep in the mountains, a little spring~ Who comes to drink from it~.

It was a nursery rhyme that seemed to be sung by a bunch of little kids gathered together in a group.

Around the time the song reached its second verse, a familiar voice flowed out of the receiver after a little click.

[Yes. This is Pastor Park Yoham of the Presbyterian Church of Korea. Are you a brother or a sister?]

"It’s me."

[What in the…? Baek Jemin?!]

His words were as rough as ever, but I could hear how happy he was to hear from me.

His voice sounded much brighter now that he’d been taking it easy in the rear. He was especially excited because it seemed the power of his Dogma-type magic, [Redemptive Conviction], was contributing somewhat to recovery as well.

[I know it can’t always be helped, but hurting people really doesn’t suit a pastor. On the other hand, at the hospital, you hear? They say that just comforting injured soldiers in body and mind and praying together with them makes them recover a bit faster than usual, and their condition actually is improving as well. Going out to do difficult and dangerous work is important, but isn’t taking care of the wounded important too?]

"Pastor. You need to look after us Supreme Archmages as well. We go into more dangerous places than those guys."

It sounded way too much like he was laying the groundwork for never entering Seoul with the Supreme Archmages again, so I quickly shut down that notion.

[Ahem. Mhmm. Kehem. You guys are…well. Hmm. You’re doing fine on your own, right?]

"There are plenty of sheep in Seoul, aren’t there? Right?”

[Kehem. Hmm. They looked more like goats to me.]

"Pastor."

[Oh, come on, Baek Jemin. Why are you suddenly clinging to me like this?]

"......"

The fanatic zealot duo constantly going on about demons and the Lord was pretty awful as well, but now that a sinister little private organization called the Siblings had formed, we needed balance.

Even someone with firm-as-iron reason like me could suffer a mental breakdown and end up shooting his own comrades.

Still, it was a good thing I’d called this number I didn’t recognize.

My meticulous habit of checking every contact and deleting it if it really belonged to a stranger had prevented the pastor from escaping.

More importantly, if I wanted to discuss something serious, I desperately needed the most senior elder among the Supreme Archmages.

I told him about the rumor Lee Sejun had heard while interacting with the officers at the Seongnam City Hall Command Point.

The rumor that the higher-ups had suddenly begun discussing the use of tactical nuclear weapons.

Most rumors were probably nothing more than gossip, but it was stupid to deny everything when there was clearly smoke coming from somewhere.

Especially in 2028, when everything was uncertain.

If word had spread all the way to the officers at the Seongnam City Hall Command Point, rather than just the US camp under the Korean-US Combined Command in Pyeongtaek, then it probably wasn't some baseless rumor.

Until now, wealthy Westerners obsessed with the occult had lobbied Congress and fought with all they had to stop it, while the United States had settled on maintaining the blockade line because their strong demands happened to align with several strategic goals. Under the lofty justification of finding a clue to resolving the crisis, enormous profits were moving behind the scenes.

Even China couldn’t launch a nuclear strike unilaterally and had been trying to sway international opinion first, so why were tactical nuclear strikes suddenly being discussed?

What? Despite the warnings from us Supreme Archmages, were they planning to use a nuke to thin out the stronger monsters all at once?

Nuclear weapons.

Humanity’s most powerful act of violence, capable of sentencing an entire city to death with a single blow.

Across tens of thousands of years of history and human perception, it would be hard to find a weapon more powerful or more symbolic.

And now that monsters had burst into the world, nuclear weapons were the final faith holding humanity and the international community together. The faith that no matter what kind of horrific horde came pouring out, setting off a nuke would solve it.

When I shared my thoughts and concerns over the phone, the pastor answered in a serious voice.

[I’m in the bathroom right now.]

"Do Christians have some tradition of singing hymns on the toilet and taking phone calls in there as well?”

[I already wiped everything while I was talking to you and even sprayed disinfectant, so quit your complaining. Baek Jemin, you little bastard. Do you think there are plenty of places around here where I can whisper on the phone when we’ve got this many wounded coming in?]

According to the pastor, the Seongnam military hospital was so crowded with patients and medical staff rushing around that there was nowhere suitable for an important conversation.

His main argument was that there were almost no places besides the bathroom stall where you could get even the bare minimum of privacy and anonymity. When he indignantly snapped at me about whether I had any idea how hard it was to find a cozy, enclosed palace meant for just one person, I quietly shut my mouth.

Still, true to his role as the Supreme Archmages’ greatest intellect and researcher, the pastor groaned to himself and shared some confidential information.

[Looks like the rumors are pretty much true. Everyone’s keeping quiet about it, but apparently something that was circulating among the medical staff here, like doctors and nurses, made its way over to your side too. Seems like it leaked from the US troops stationed in Seongnam.]

"Wait, they’re seriously going to use nukes?”

That meant burning up all the precious magic and knowledge still left in Seoul along with it.

For the 40 million Koreans outside, it was practically a death sentence.

If the Korean Peninsula lost its last remaining hope after everything had already gone to shit, the dream of becoming a 21st-century magical superpower, then there really would be nothing left.

Of course, that was still better than all of us being trapped inside monsters’ bodies…

That was when the pastor spoke again.

[Those Gangnam guys haven't been using drones as often as you expected, right? I heard there was a falling out with one of the backers further up the chain who’d been supplying them with drones.]

"Why?"

[Why do you think? What’s Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes been demanding? He wants every single person responsible for deciding on the blockade handed over to him. Apparently the Chinese replaced the government through a very democratic process and handed over the whole lot, but…the rumor is they couldn’t hand over the president.]

"How does that make any sense?”

Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes could remotely launch an instant-kill attack against non-wizards.

And you didn't even need to go that far. If you used Tongue-branch, Stage 2 [Desire Amplification] properly, you could probably deal with even powerful wizards. The fatal drawback was that it required so much concentration that it was difficult to combine with other magic.

There was a reason I, Baek Jemin, didn’t use it in close combat. I simply couldn’t.

It was hard to use unless you had the element of surprise or needed to stay hidden.

I could probably use [Cognitive Distortion] at 100% and then activate [Desire Amplification], but killing the enemy while time was slowed would be far more efficient. I didn’t really want to increase the amount of pain I would have to endure just to pioneer an idiotic new way of using it.

But that was only when fighting at close range or against another wizard.

No matter how much he was the president, there was no way some non-wizard whose face, name, and entire career were public knowledge could escape Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes’ killing curse. No. If anything, the president would be his highest-priority target, so he was probably constantly trying to locate him with magic.

An ordinary non-wizard couldn’t even escape his grasp.

And the way China put it, that they ‘couldn’t hand him over’ bothered me.

[That’s why everyone’s freaking out right now. Among the people who know what happened or not, it’s practically being treated as confirmed. Apparently the US military was trying to see if they could appease Thousand-Miles Eyes by handing over the now-useless president, so they traded some information about magic for information on the Incheon administration…]

There was something even more shocking than the part where the president, now that he was useless, was going to be offered up as a sacrifice to appease a wizard.

The Korean-US Combined Command in Pyeongtaek had been using both the carrot and the stick against the Gangnam group.

We Supreme Archmages were the stick.

By neutralizing the Seoul wizards and 55 Unit that the Gangnam group boasted about, we showed that the forces outside the blockade line weren’t losing when it came to magical warfare.

The carrot was handing over the people responsible for deciding on the blockade.

It was cowardly, but the idea was to dodge responsibility by saying they were the ones who had decided on the blockade, while we were merely maintaining it. They planned to offer up the president, ministers, whoever, as sacrifices to reduce Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes’ aggression and buy time.

But there was a fatal problem with that plan.

[The president never went to Incheon in the first place. It was a body double. No matter how crazy the president was, if he’d managed to get out of Seoul, do you really think he would’ve gone to North Korea or something? It makes more sense to assume he never got out.]

"Then…”

[The highest-ranking decision-maker behind the blockade, the one Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes has been searching for, was never outside the blockade line to begin with. It sounds crazy, but it's possible.]

"Why the hell didn’t he run?!”

[Who knows what the president was thinking?]

The pastor let out a bitter sigh before continuing.

[Of course, Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes took this as an attempt to deceive him. Apparently one of the Chinese military commanders was killed by his curse. Negotiations are impossible. His location is difficult to pinpoint. Monsters have begun moving south. The prevailing opinion now is that, even just to maintain the Seongnam blockade line, they need to wipe the area clean and collapse Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes’ forces and that dropping something on the level of a tactical nuke may be necessary to accomplish that.]

“......”

[They probably won’t deploy us Supreme Archmages for a while. They’ll rain down missiles and artillery to narrow down his location, then try to sweep the whole area clean. All we can do is pray.]

"What about Shin Nain? Can’t he recover quickly and join us?”

[He’s not a Heart-branch wizard. And I’ve heard some things, so let the kid rest, will you? You’ve already got Sejun and Ryeoha there. Why would you need more manpower?]

Those two were exactly why we needed more manpower. What a messed-up world this was.

After that bit of personal chatter, I heard that Shin Nain’s recovery was going well enough and ended the call.

It was a peaceful afternoon, with the sound of artillery pounding against the building and occasionally making even my hospital bed tremble.

I killed some time scrolling through news on my authorized phone.

But I couldn’t hide my unease.

The world was starting to move again.

In a very bad direction.