Chapter 130: The Man Insanely Devoted to Magic

[Translator – Aren]

When I was a kid, I used to squeeze my eyes shut after watching a scary movie.

It was that belief characteristic to children that if I couldn’t see something, it would just disappear.

Though the reason had changed, I was still doing the same damn thing even now at 30 years old.

I released Eyes-branch, Stage 2 [Cognitive Distortion] 100%, deciding it would be better to let the building collapse instead.

I’d force the enemy wizards to reveal their magic beneath the collapsing building. That was the best way to deal with these enemies that weren’t slowed by [Cognitive Distortion]. With this much of a gap in information, we’d have better odds if the whole palace just came crashing down on all of us.

That was what I’d thought…

Cold sweat ran down the back of my neck.

Something was wrong.

The hospital had been collapsing, rebar snapping and concrete pouring down, yet somehow it hadn’t completely caved in.

I couldn’t open my eyes again.

My heart throbbed anxiously as my eyelids trembled.

-Step.

Chunks of concrete scattered over the floor. Shards of glass from shattered light fixtures.

I could clearly hear footsteps approaching, calmly crushing the debris under their feet as though grinding trash into the floor.

-Huuff—.

Breathing through gas masks overlapped in my ears.

It wasn’t just mine.

Lee Sejun, the pastor, Go Ryeoha, Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes.

Everyone wearing a gas mask was breathing hard at the same time. The breathing of the Supreme Archmages and Siblings had grown slightly shaky and ragged with tension.

Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes’ breathing, on the other hand, was easy to recognize.

It was calm and composed, as if he’d known this would happen. Cool and quiet, like a single breeze blowing across a deserted reservoir in the dim dawn just before daybreak.

-Huuuff……

Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes wasn’t moving.

I could tell because that calm breathing through his gas mask wasn’t getting any closer.

The sound of footsteps approaching me wasn't hard like dress-shoe heels or combat-boot soles. They weren’t firm steps carrying the kind of unwavering killing intent or some great determination one could feel from a distance. They were heavy and solemn, like footsteps tapping across the marble flooring of an art museum.

They came closer without any hint of agitation, each step sounding steady and deliberate.

Not long after, a hand touched the lenses of my gas mask.

-Tap, tap.

My eyelids trembled. My eyelashes shook.

I still didn’t open my eyes.

Then, as everyone watched in silence, doing nothing but breathing, I heard the voice of a mild, embracing middle-aged man.

"Baek Jemin-ssi. Do you know what the greatest part of human intelligence is? Abstraction. The ability to deal with things that have no physical form is the greatness of human intellect and the spirituality bestowed upon us by God. Humanity proves its spirituality through its ability to believe in what cannot be seen.”

“...”

"But people today don't believe in what they cannot see. They believe that what they see is the truth. They've completely abandoned their spirituality. Even among wizards, it’s difficult to find exceptions. If they cannot confirm something with their own eyes, they call it lies, and if they can see it, they firmly believe it must be true…”

A hand settled over the hood of my poncho, on top of my head.

It felt almost weightless.

Placed there amid that heavy silence filled only with breathing, it almost made me imagine that I was inside a cathedral.

As though I were kneeling in prayer, receiving the laying on of hands from a priest.

But there were different kinds of reverence.

An unsettling silence that made you squirm to the point that you didn’t even want to sit in our chair. Prayers that sounded like meaningless babbling. All those rites and traditions that made it painfully clear I didn’t belong there.

I could sum up all those sensations in just one word.

Creepy.

An inexplicable sense of foreboding welled up, like passing an abandoned house with no sign of life in the middle of the countryside at night and finding yourself staring beneath its crumbling eaves.

Amid all that, Kang Peter spoke softly in his calm, subdued voice, as though giving me a lecture.

"Now, Upright Alteration-type Eyes-branch, Stage 2. Do you understand why [Cognitive Distortion], even with Tongue-branch magic added to it, didn’t work?"

I understood.

And because I understood, I felt maddeningly blasphemous, ominous, and horrifying enough to drive me insane.

It was an entirely different kind of horror from facing monsters.

-Tap, tap.

Kang Peter tapped the lens of my gas mask again, as though knocking on it.

Then he asked.

"Tell me the answer."

He sounded like a teacher checking my homework.

That attitude made him even creepier, and normally, I, Baek Jemin, the kind of man who’d never do his damn homework, wouldn’t have played along…but magical knowledge was on the line. So even with cold sweat pouring down my body, my eyelids trembling, and my hands and feet turning icy, I opened my mouth.

They say the student would always end up surpassing their master.

So what was wrong with learning from the master first and then killing them after?!

"Inverted Alteration-type, Eyes-branch. If Upright Alteration-type forces the caster’s perception onto things, then Inverted Alteration-type Eyes-branch must interfere with the other person’s perception. Because the Eyes-branch is just such a cheat.”

A glimpse of Hundred-Miles Eyes’ memories, the man Go Ryeoha had killed almost instantly, flashed through my mind.

For a moment, I regretted not destroying Hundred-Miles Eyes’ remains separately. Would stealing his knowledge have been easier that way? But I pushed aside that regret. If I hadn’t reached Stage 4, I wouldn’t even have been able to fight them in the first place.

A moment later, I heard applause.

-Thump, thump...

That didn’t sound quite like the applause I knew, though?

Fighting down the anxiety crawling through my veins, I slowly opened my eyes. Kang Peter was applauding with a satisfied expression. Except he wasn’t clapping with his hands.

"Human beings are truly deceitful creatures. Change your clothes and alter your appearance, and you can fool people as much as you like. Because they believe only what they see is true, they repeat one shallow inference after another. To those who have willingly abandoned the spirituality that once allowed them to deal with the formless, magic is nothing more than a technique. Those who regard magic as nothing but a technique can never understand it. To them, magic is merely a weapon for killing, a convenient way to kill monsters.”

Kang Peter.

He was still dressed in a tracksuit and sneakers, pounding the nuclear warhead marked with a bloody cross as though it were the other palm of his hands.

"O you who proved your humanity through the 5 branches. If you can believe and follow only what you can see, then how are you any different from a beast incapable of dealing with what cannot be seen?”

A chill ran through my body when I heard that question.

Not because I was pondering the philosophical meaning behind it or anything.

Beasts, spirituality, or whatever. I didn’t know or care about any of that bullshit.

I saw hunger in Father Kang Peter’s eyes.

-Taap, tap…

The madness in his eyes was so intense that it made him seem capable of even boiling his own child alive if it meant sating his hunger, like he was staring at a chunk of fish laid out on a cutting board, which made me step backwards.

"The price for Inverted Alteration-type magic is humanity and restraint. A return to the savage, bestial nature kept in check by commandments and taboos. And if something still remains after all that, then that is humanity made immortal. The goodness one was truly born with, and…”

-Bleeh—.

Father Kang Peter stuck out his tongue.

His tongue was long, already drenched in sticky saliva from his ravenous hunger.

-Tap, tatatap...

Only then did I realize it.

"Our Salvation."

This is a hallucination.

I mean, there’s no way I, Baek Jemin, would feel fear instead of excitement with the truth of magic right in front of me.

*t*t*

-Huuuuuuff……

When I sucked in a breath, I found myself standing on the 5th floor, surrounded by corpses. Everything looked normal. It was exactly the moment just before, when we’d been spouting bullshit after killing people to clear away that unpleasant feeling.

Pastor Park Yohan and Lee Sejun were walking ahead, while Go Ryeoha followed behind, humming to herself.

The only difference from the hallucination was that they turned around when they heard me suddenly taking in that much air.

The pastor, Lee Sejun, and Go Ryeoha, who had been walking ahead, blinked at me, and each threw in their little comment. Unlike the hallucination, this was reality.

"What? Baek Jemin? Why’re you suddenly sucking in air like that?”

"Jemin-ssi. This isn’t some pine forest pumping outphytoncides. All you’re going to inhale here is the stink of blood, so just stop.”

"Hubae-nim~. Even I think that’s a bit much.”

No.

This is a hallucination as well.

There’s no way I, Baek Jemin, would tolerate those bastards walking ahead of me whenever they pleased.

I’d have killed every last bastard who tried to walk ahead without my permission before they got the chance.

*t*t*

"Welcome to the 66 Society!”

Amid thunderous applause, the Seoul wizards from the Gangnam group were wearing cone-shaped party hats and blowing party horns.

Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes, still wearing his baseball cap and gas mask, patted me on the shoulder and nodded as if he were proud of me.

"Well done, Baek Jemin. To think you went out and killed every non-wizard outside the blockade line.”

A hallucination.

Sure, if some non-wizard refused to clap and acted like they were the shit, I’d kill them…

But there was no way I, Baek Jemin, would randomly hurt non-wizards who faithfully served as applause dispensers and praise machines.

*t*t*

"Jemin-ssi! Oohohoh, uhihi! I turned into a bishojo! At last, the Supreme Archmages finally have a real girl among us…”

The instant I saw the girl standing there triumphantly with her hands on her hips and her shoulders held high, I knew

A hallucination.

I, Baek Jemin, had firmly decided that the day Lee Sejun somehow managed to fulfill his vile dream, I’d kick him out of the Supreme Archmages.

*t*t*

"Jemin, congratulations. Guess we’ll be going together now?”

I turned my head toward the bright, clear voice.

Two elementary-school kids with featureless, pale faces, as though someone had rubbed their faces away with an eraser, were clapping for me.

Each child had a sheet of paper fluttering in their hands, and behind them stood my elementary-school homeroom teacher, smiling with satisfaction on her wrinkled face. 

"Your teacher finally gets to hold her head high again after all this time. I knew all three of you would make it into theGifted Education Center."

"Weren’t the test questions easier than you expected?”

"Not all of them. Number 28 was confusing, so that one took me some time. Ah, Jemin, what about you? Which one did you think was hardest?”

The school stood tall around a small fountain in the center like a magnificent fortress.

In the middle of it, I felt my body begin to tremble as I looked at the teacher and children sincerely congratulating me. Near the school rooftop, a banner proudly fluttered.

CONGARTU) Accepted into the Gifted Education Center (LATIONS

"......"

I lowered my head.

A hallucination.

I hadn’t passed.

Every question had been difficult.

I hadn’t even managed to solve half the questions on the Gifted Education Center exam.

Even so, when my friends asked which one had been hardest, I honestly told them the problem I’d struggled with most.

The young Baek Jemin remembered how bewildered his friends had looked after hearing his answer.

They were kind, good-hearted, considerate kids.

They were patient enough to keep trying to explain the solution in great detail for this dumbass who couldn’t understand it. And considerate enough to eventually shut their mouths as carefully as possible when they realized I still couldn’t.

That day, I naturally drifted away from my friends.

I wasn’t strong enough to go through the experience of them trying to explain things for my sake, then giving up, over and over again.

I walked away on my own because I’d learned that even friendship required intelligence and that innate intelligence was something effort could never overcome.

I was born a dumbass.

I, Baek Jemin, had already accepted that fact.

*t*t*

When I came to my senses, hot tears were streaming down my cheeks.

[Cognitive Distortion] was working properly.

Within infinitely slowed time, only Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes and Father Kang Peter could still move, however slowly. Even they were moving something close to 0.5x speed. Go Ryeoha and the other Supreme Archmages stood completely still.

The common factor was obvious.

Only Eyes-branch wizards could resist [Cognitive Distortion] to some degree. I immediately realize why I’d been trapped in hallucinations as well.

Father Kang Peter, clutching the nuclear warhead marked with a blood cross while meeting my eyes with me, was the cause.

Inverted Alteration-type, Eyes-branch.

I didn’t know what stage it was, but one of its spells was [Cognitive Revelation].

Magic that shows hallucinations to another person.

For Eyes-branch wizards who relied on what they could see, for humans, it was a deadly spell.

But...

I was crying so hard that everything in front of me looked blurry.

The tears were clear why [Cognitive Distortion] had been weakened even further.

So rather than try to hold them back and end up squeezing my eyes shut, I decided to just let them stream down while keeping my eyes open.

Even then, the best I could manage was not making a sound.

The pentagram engraved into my heart was glowing red-hot and searing my chest, but I was crying too hard to fully register it.

My tongue root, numb from being diced to pieces, the burning sensation crawling up my left hand, my trembling legs, my shaking eyelids trying to close, my bladder and the backs of my knees twisting from unbearable pain, even the fear that I might die…all of it faded into the background.

I vividly remembered the despair I’d felt that day.

The moment I faced the brutal reality that had been delicately wrapped in the word ‘equality.’ The moment I realized human beings were never truly equal. The moment I understood that even the intelligence humans praised as proof they stood above all other creatures had never actually been granted to every human being!

No matter how much I learned, I couldn't overcome it.

Even if I offered bone-crushing pain, I couldn’t obtain it.

I could narrow the gap, but I could never become equal to those people.

I’d been born without something more important than money.

I……

I’d been born robbed of even the possibility of seeing the world from a greater height.

I'd been born with just enough intelligence to recognize the cruelest truth of all. That such a possibility could have been mine.

Since pain could only be driven away by greater pain, I willingly recalled what I’d felt that day.

I deliberately dug out the resignation most deeply buried into my fading childhood memories and savored everything I’d felt that day.

You said we were equal, didn’t you? That we were all human? That all I had to do was study hard? Then why didn’t I pass? They told me I was smart at school too, so why are they and I so different? Would things have been different if I’d grown up in a better environment? Is it my parents’ fault? If not theirs, then whose fault is it? You’re saying it isn't anyone’s fault?

No. It’s my sin.

Mental suffering can be every bit as agonizing as physical pain.

My, Beak Jemin’s mind, had been tortured that day.

Effort will make your dreams come true.

For the sin of believing that half-assed phrase, I was made to experience that gap in the cruelest way possible.

That’s why I give everything to magic.

Because I want this power completely. The power that gives me ecstasy in proportion to the pain it demands from me!

At that moment, my tears stopped.

So did the trembling.

Avoiding Father Kang Peter’s eyes, I looked around.

Nothing had changed.

The hospital was collapsing, and Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes and Father Kang Peter were facing me together. Within [Cognitive Distortion] 100%, the pastor, Lee Sejun, and Go Ryeoha, none of whom had Eyes-branch magic, couldn’t do anything at all.

The only movement they could do was the slow rolling of their eyes.

Gangnam Thousand-Mils Eyes approached slowly, the Predator Spine with its skull torn off wrapped around his arm.

Father Kang Peter, dressed in his tracksuit, held out the nuclear warhead marked with a blood cross, smiling kindly as he opened his mouth and began sticking out his tongue.

If I released [Cognitive Distortion], the entire hospital would collapse.

Everyone among the Supreme Archmages except me would die, and so would all the non-wizard soldiers below. The moment the hospital completely came down, even with good luck on my side, I’d be seriously injured. More importantly, they held the initiative from the start. Even if I survived, I wouldn’t be able to escape Father Kang Peter.

If I released [Cognitive Distortion], those two Eyes-branch wizards would wait for the right moment to gang up on me.

Even now, Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes and Father Kang Peter were slowly moving forward. Sure, at this rate I could overwhelm them with my damn amazing speed, but there was no way those two, who knew far more about magic than I did, hadn’t prepared for that.

Especially now that I’d confirmed Inverted Alteration-type Eyes-branch magic focused on hallucinations. If he interfered at the most important moment, I’d be in trouble.

Magic was all about momentum.

If I was going to do this, I had to come at them fiercely and seize the initiative completely.

How could I possibly catch Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes, an Upright Alteration-type Ears-branch Stage 4 wizard, and Father Kang Peter, who was able to use Inverted Alteration-type magic, off guard?

What the hell could I, who had only just reached Stage 4, even do against those two?

My eyelids trembled.

I barely managed to keep them wide open and lifted my head, but [Cognitive Distortion] was approaching its limit.

The fact that I’d cried my eyes out and left them bloodshot was largely the reason why.

The effect of [Cogntive Distortion], which could normally slow time to a practical standstill, was gradually wearing off.

-Step.

Father Kang Peter’s footsteps grew faster.

-Clack.

Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes raised the tail end of the Predator Spine whip-sword.

-Tiing, ting…

As the sound of snapping rebar echoed slowly, as cracks spread through the floor and ceiling until the distinction between floors began to lose meaning, I remembered the vow I’d made when we first formed the Supreme Archmages.

The moment when Pastor Park Yohan had gone on about covenants and the importance of words before making us memorize them.

Back then I’d thought it was bullshit, but now I had no choice but to agree.

There was only one thing which I surpassed the 66 Society and the Soul wizards in. My sincere passion for magic.

Only I am absolutely precious and dignified in this world, so I would only offer up my own pain to satisfy magic.

I, Baek Jemin, will keep the covenant I made with myself.

Before [Cognitive Distortion] ended, I rolled my tongue inside my mouth.

I finally understood exactly what Stage 4 of Alteration-type magic was.

Overcoming was merely another name for denial, and I had been denying things to no end.

And yet I had never truly committed myself.

I’d sworn that I would gladly pay whatever price magic demanded, but somewhere in the back of my mind, I’d still been calculating the backlash and holding myself back. I couldn’t endure the pain. I’d surrendered to my weakness as a human being.

In denying the despair I felt that day, I’d almost kicked away the one ladder capable of leading me to ecstasy.

Upright Alteration-type, Eyes-branch, Stage 4.

[Cognitive Imposition] 100%.

—The collapsing hospital falls apart slowly.

In an instant, my vision filled with things like swarming black insects. Every time a flash of light blocked my sight, [Cognitive Distortion] nearly came undone. I forced all of that backlash onto one side.

Rather than let both eyes lose their function, I’d be better to just lose one.

Upright, Alteration-type, Eyes-branch, Stage 3.

[Cognitive Dissonance] 100%.

-Snap!

Something broke.

Something I’d valued more than anything throughout my life was gone forever.

Something hot and slick ran down one cheek.

My sense of depth collapsed, and a terrible sense of loss and fear came rushing over me.

Inside my gas mask, the smell of raw rubber gave way to the foul stench of blood.

But despite my anxiety and unease, despite the tears streaming down my face from that profound sense of loss, a refreshing sense of relief was blowing through one corner of my heart. Because even if everyone in the world had lied to me, I knew that at least I had been honest with myself.

And as I gently closed my eyelids, which could no longer hold out, I recalled my vow once more.

I will become a Great Archmage.

-Blink.

The ground gave way. The ceiling collapsed.

The hospital, which must have taken years of painstaking care to build, came crashing down to bury everyone alive.

Taut rebar and H-beams snapped or tore apart, tiles shattered, and concrete split with chilling cracks before coming apart for good. Screams whose owners I couldn’t identify blended together.

At that moment, the backlash from Ears-branch magic struck me.

Mother, ah, Lord, I didn’t even finish eating because of these bastards, did I really do something so wrong? I should’ve run, why me, if only it didn’t hurt……

-Screeeech!

The metal could no longer withstand the recoil and bounced away.

But I was still standing.

When I slowly opened my eyes again, I saw exactly what I’d intended.

The collapsing, shattering hospital was falling endlessly slowly, like clay dripping downward. Broken floors and ceilings, crumbled walls, and broken rebar tangled up together, forming slopes like slides in every direction.

I saw the pastor and Lee Sejun falling below.

Lee Sejun had the pastor in his arms as he slid down the collapsing fragments of the building like a slide, bouncing around and landing on his ass over and over again like a pinball. Even in the middle of all that, the pastor didn’t forget to shout.

Baek Jemin, when I see you later, you’re dead……

At that moment, unbearable hunger surged through me.

That was when the pentagram engraved into my heart began to burn hot as well.

My hunger suddenly reached its limit, and the strength went out of my legs.

More specifically, a stomach ache like I’d gone 18 hours without eating swept through me, draining the strength from my limbs.

Even as I trembled, I barely managed to step backward and hold my stance. On a wall titled nearly vertically, I saw two wizards. Father Kang Peter, dressed in his tracksuit, was speaking like a teacher to Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes, who was holding himself in place by driving the Predator Spine whip-sword into the wall.

"That’s the 5 branches. One who has proven their humanity can resist another’s magic as well. But what’s important is the attitude. He doesn’t hesitate to pay the price. To take [Cognitive Imposition] this far…”

-Boom!

Even as drool spilled from my mouth from hunger, I raised the Four-Tiger Sword.

The hospital, shattered and collapsed into pieces, was now drifting downward so slowly it seemed to float in midair.

There were plenty of places to step on amid the waterfall of concrete and rebar.

And in a chaotic melee like this, Heart-branch magic excelled.

It was the perfect environment to make full use of a Stage 4 wizard who had distinguished herself in chaotic urban combat. Go Ryeoha was already leaping around, aiming at Father Kang Peter and continuously firing something at him.

Each time an explosion rang out, my hunger eased a little.

It still wasn’t enough, so I acted.

-Huuff—.

Amid the rush of breathing through my gas mask, I licked the blood gathered around my lips with my tongue to ease my hunger. The disgusting metallic taste filled my mouth, but it was enough.

-Step.

This time, those were my footsteps.

Among the ruins of the collapsing hospital, I would hunt while stepping across falling rebar and concrete.

One of my eyes was worth that much.