Chapter 134: A Brutal Age

[Translator – Aren]

May 23rd, 2028, 9:19 AM.

We Supreme Archmages were undergoing follow-up examinations at the hospital. Each of us had suffered enough significant injuries and exhaustion that even transferring us to West Pyeontaek was difficult. The flood of incoming casualties meant there weren’t enough beds, but thanks to the achievements of the Supreme Archmages, we’d managed to keep our hospital room.

Of course, the one who had pushed his body the most and suffered the worst aftereffects was me, Baek Jemin.

My right eye had been permanently blinded, and walking around with it shut made me stand out, even if I wasn’t as bad off as the people missing arms and legs.

They were short on eye patches as well, so I hadn’t gotten one yet and was just keeping my eyelid closed. I could actually see everyone I passed flinched a bit.

Or was it because I’d finally washed up, changed clothes, and hand-washed my poncho for the first time in ages?

As I walked around, hugging my neatly folded poncho to my chest, Hamza poked his head out through the doorway of our room and waved.

"Jemin-ssi. The doctor is here to examine us."

"Isn’t it just a consultation? Where’s Shin Nain?”

"He went for rehabilitation on crutches. He’ll be back soon.”

"What’s that bastard doing getting off easy like that?”

When I grumbled, Hamza twisted his eyebrows and explained.

"He helped the Korean military track down the Gangnam group. He listened to the thoughts of one of the Seoul wizards and relayed them to the military. Without him, they couldn't have surrounded them that quickly.”

"Hmm. Got it. Let’s get checked.”

After playing human radar myself once, I’d realized somebody had to absolutely play that role.

It was plain, thankless work that didn’t really stand out, but without it you’d be absolutely screwed, so I accepted it.

Calling it ‘check’ sounded a little weird, but I just shrugged it off and went inside.

"Pastor, you’re not feeling uncomfortable anywhere else?"

"Well..."

"Let’s keep an eye on things for now. Your body may still be in shock, so you might not be feeling everything yet."

The doctor who had come to examine us Supreme Archmages was a dependable-looking man in his late 40s, with slicked-back hair held in place by a headband and sparse strands of gray mixed through it. Judging by the two nurses on either side of him, fidgeting with their hands, he must have been pretty prickly.

At this moment, Pastor Park Yohan was being examined.

The slick-haired doctor tapped his headband with his pen as he spoke.

"Fortunately, there are no major visible injuries. You have a slight fracture in your ankle and bruising in several places, so you’ll need to rest for a while. Given your age, recovery may take a bit longer.”

"Well, guess I’ll have to hole up for a while.”

Pastor Park Yohan grinned as if that didn’t bother him at all.

He shuffled over to the bed and flopped down, making the mattress sink. The pastor took off his glasses, set them on his chest, tucked an arm beneath his head, and closed his eyes. All while reciting a prayer just loud enough for us to hear.

"O Lord, even amid this tribulation, let this Park Yohan not lose his way…”

-Haah.

The slick-haired doctor let out a deep sigh and turned around, which was when our eyes met.

"According to the chart… Baek Jemin-ssi. Let’s take a look at your right eye. Could you sit down and carefully open it for me?”

"Can’t I just not open it?”

If I opened my eyelid and my eyeball poured out like yolk from a cracked egg, even the heart of Baek Jemin, man among men, might get a little startled.

A baseless optimism surged up inside me that maybe if I just left it shut and let it cook for a while, it would somehow sort itself out. But the reason and vow of this Great Archmage were breathing that feeble non-wizard mentality.

The slick-haired doctor’s subtle expressions as he sighed at me did the scolding on Great Archmage Baek Jemin’s behalf.

Are you still denying reality?

Didn’t you keep using magic even after learning that it demanded a price?

Did you think you alone would somehow get to ignore that price?

Who the hell do you think you are?

Don’t you understand that wizards are special because they wield powers different from others, not because they don’t have to pay a price?

If you don’t want to pay the price, you should’ve stayed a non-wizard.

If you don’t want to pay the price and learn magic, then whine about not wanting to die, throw a tantrum like a spoiled brat because you don’t want to lose anything, get trapped in eternity, and spend forever clinging to some salvation that may never come!

At that moment, even my feeble non-wizard mind had no choice but to submit.

My greatest despair wasn’t losing something. It was being unable to even challenge what lay ahead of me.

Seeing possibility but being unable to reach it, that was my true despair and my greatest fear. Because I knew being forced into helplessness was more horrifying than the fear of death, I finally let go of my last lingering attachment.

It’s just one damn eye.

It was time to pay the price for freely and creatively exploiting the cheat called Eyes-branch magic. I’d hyped it up as half the world and all that, but in the end, it was only one eye. Look around. Losing just one arm or leg counted as lucky. Hell, straight-up dying was practically seen as a good death in this age.

Most of them had been trapped in eternity without even leaving a corpse behind.

This is nothing.

It really is nothing. I’ve still got one perfectly good eye, don’t I?

I desperately tried to convince myself as the tears that welled up inside me flowed from my remaining eye.

My right eye.

With everyone dying around me, it really wasn’t much, but to me it had been half the world…

Now it was time to truly feel the price I’d paid.

"I’ll open it.”

"Just a second. I’m filling out your chart. Ah, you can open it first if you want to.”

While the doctor lowered his head toward the chart, I braced myself for my shattered eyeball to ooze out like a raw egg and pulled apart the eyelids stuck together by dried blood clinging to them like eye gunk. With a dry ripping sound, flakes of crusted blood scattered everywhere.

I felt hopeless.

My vision hadn’t returned. I couldn’t see a single thing out of it.

Permanent blindness.

The price of using Eyes-branch, Stage 3 [Cognitive Dissonance] to concentrate all the backlash I’d accumulated from Eyes-branch magic into a single eye was undeniable. It was exactly as my intuition had warned me the first time I used [Cognitive Dissonance]. Up to a certain point, I could recover from the backlash, but accumulating too much in too short a time wasn’t something I could endure, leading to permanent blindness.

Should I ask them to remove the eyeball and put something in the socket afterward?

I tried to wait calmly for whatever the doctor had to say, but I couldn’t stop my hands and feet from trembling. The path to magic was this painful and sublime. It was sad but also quite thrilling.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d devoted myself completely to one thing, so if anything, I welcomed every emotion I was feeling now.

Every time I took another step toward magic, I’d reflect on what I had discarded and realize something.

Magic was absolutely worth it. Just as I reaffirmed that resolve and finally let a smile appear on my lips, the doctor, who had been staring only at the chart while the nurses subtly looked away, turned toward me. He pulled a small light from his breast pocket as he did.

"Let’s take a look. This might be a bit bright, but bear with me…”

At that moment, the doctor’s eyes met mine.

And what followed was a completely unexpected reaction.

The calm-looking, slick-haired doctor’s legs suddenly gave out. His face went deathly pale, and he hurriedly shoved the chart into a nurse’s hands. He even covered his mouth and retched several times.

I was just about to walk over, wondering what the hell was wrong with him.

Then I heard the clicking of crutches from the hallway, followed by Shin Nain’s voice.

"Jemin-ssi, close your eye. And don’t turn around.”

"Why?"

My first reaction to Shin Nain’s words was annoyance.

They needed me to open my eye so they could examine it properly.

If it looked so damn horrific that the doctor nearly puked the moment he saw it, then I needed medical treatment fast. As a patient, I was simply displaying the ideal mindset of actively cooperating with the medical staff.

That was when a nurse. who’d turned toward me out of curiosity, met my gaze, and immediately threw up.

"Bleeeegh…”

"Damn it. I must be seriously fucked up. Hamza! Take a look!”

"Uwagh! Jemin-ssi, close your eye first!”

Only after the greatly startled Hamza tried to stop me and Shin Nan jabbed me hard in the back with one of his crutches did I finally come to my senses.

That was because Shin Nain, having figured out what was happening, spoke up first.

"Jemin-ssi. What do you get when a Holy Battle Arts practitioner dies?”

"Well, their remains…”

I realized it the moment I said it.

Setting aside Shin Nain’s stubborn insistence on calling wizards Holy Battle Arts practitioners, a body part imbued with magic, became remains when their wielder died. Then what happened to a body part whose function had stopped because it couldn’t withstand the backlash? What if the principle behind remains had nothing to do with whether the wielder was alive or dead in the first place?

I hurriedly looked around and held out my hand.

"Someone, give me a mirror!”

"Close your eye first.”

"Why the hell would I close it when I need it open to see it in the mirror?!”

The pastor was an exception. He was already sprawled across his bed, snoring.

There was no way Shin Nain, who’d just returned on crutches, had a mirror, and Hamza had fled from me and was already outside the room. That left only the retching nurse and doctor.

No.

There were still two people left in the rooms whom I didn’t particularly want to count as Supreme Archmages.

-Shhhhk!

The curtain was pulled aside, revealing Go Ryeoha. She had a towel wrapped around her head in place of a sleep mask. Apparently still suffering from the Tongue-branch magic penalty, she had her tongue hanging all the way out and was panting like an overheated dog.

"Hubae-nim! I’ll give you one, so be quiet!”

Apparently everyone got a bit irritable when they were in pain.

From behind the curtain across from her. Lee Sejun was groaning miserably.

"I’m hungry..."

In the midst of all that, I saw something floating through the air toward me.

It was a small pocket mirror originally meant for makeup. Apparently she’d used up all the cosmetics, since there wasn’t any powder rubbing off from it. It didn't seem like she actually carried it for makeup anymore. It was probably just useful for survival. A portable mirror that wouldn’t look suspicious.

After turning it over in my hands for a moment, I opened the lid without hesitation and met my own gaze in the mirror.

And there it was. My eye sitting firmly and sturdily in place.

From the outside, everything looked completely normal. The pupil, the iris, and even the blood vessels all seemed to be exactly where they should be.

However, when I examined it closely as a wizard, the result was different.

Inside the eye, faintly visible within the lens, something sat there like a bubble.

It was too solid and well-defined to be nothing more than blood that had leaked into the lens and clumped there.

A distorted square inside a triangle.

An Eyes-branch magic symbol was engraved over the black pupil, radiating an ominous, metallic blood-red glow.

It looked no different from ordinary remains.

At that moment, even my sense of loss vanished without a trace.

I closed my right eye again, looked around, struck a strange pose, and began laughing.

"Huhuhuhuh…Hahahahaha!”

Something I’d only been saying as a joke had become reality.

Filled to the brim with confidence, I sharply stared at Shin Nain as he stood on his crutches looking at me with contempt. The retching, the pained groans, the pastor’s snoring, and Go Ryeoha’s muttering as she tossed and turned irritably no longer mattered to me.

"From now on, we decide night watch during expeditions with staring contests.”

"Jemin-ssi…”

Shin Nain hesitated, then proposed a compromise.

"Then I’ll yield a bit as well. We’ll decide the first watch with rock-paper-scissors and the last watch with a staring contest.”

This vicious bastard.

In that brief moment, he’d figured out exactly what I meant, weighed the pros and cons, and come up with a compromise everyone could accept. And considering how everyone was exhausted and injured, he had some terrifyingly quick social instincts to propose a deal like that right now.

He’d exploited the fact that no matter how advantageous it was, I still wouldn’t want to stand both watches. He’d calculated that if he could convince me, the only other one who had awakened Ears-branch magic, then he could secure either the first or last watch for himself. That cold, calculating mind of his, seriously.

Among the Supreme Archmages, already filled with nothing but dangerous bastards, Shin Nain’s proposal was more than fair and just.

"Okay."

“A wise and righteous decision, Jemin-ssi.”

While my alliance with Shin Nain was being finalized to everyone’s complete indifference, the doctor also came to his senses.

Of course, he was still dizzy from the side effects of seeing the magic symbol, but he simply straightened his clothes and composed himself, making him seem like a proper professional.

"From what I’m hearing, if you…practitioners of Localized Invasive Structural Alteration phenomena are in this kind of condition, you need to tell us beforehand from now on. I have more than one or two people to look after. If something unexpected like this happens, it could put lives at risk.”

"It’s our first time seeing this happen as well. Sorry.”

"Haah. For now, the eyeball itself seems to be intact. Ugh…Get an additional examination later.”

The doctor contacted the front desk and called over a few medics to help support the nurses.

He also managed to stagger out of the room while groaning, and watching him go, I felt grateful. Thanks to him, I’d realized my right eye was still useful.

But learning about my right eye’s unexpected usefulness didn’t change everything.

First there was Hamza’s cowardly nature.

He, who’d fled to avoid my gaze, started sneaking back into the room the moment the doctor left with the others.

"Hamza. Why do you keep going in and out like that?”

"I want to stay outside too, but people keep staring at me.”

I felt a little betrayed.

So he hadn’t come back because he missed his dear comrades who’d bravely fought through dangerous regions and crises. His precious, familiar fellow Supreme Archmages. Sure, I was still deliberating the moment I could turn him into a holy relic the instant he tried to bolt, but you’d think he’d have developed at least some sense of camaraderie by now.

That was when Shin Nain sat down on his bed and lay back.

"So just because something never changes, even the most horrible things in the world can be forgiven.”

I ignored Shin Nain’s sudden comment and instead carefully folded up the pocket mirror in my hand and set it on the table beside Go Ryeoha’s bed.

-Tap.

"Thank you for letting me use it, Master.”

"You’re being loud. Be quiet, Hubae-nim.”

"Master, you sure are overreacting over a little bit of pain.”

Pain caused by the backlash of Tongue-branch magic? Instead of gritting your teeth through it, mix in the agony of your bladder twisting itself up, the humiliation of pissing yourself, and a good dose of social suffering, and it became a little more bearable.

What I got in return was a vicious glare from Go Ryeoha as she hooked a finger under her towel blindfold and pulled it down.

"Hubae-nim, I’m not in the mood for your jokes, so go away. You’re seriously number one when it comes to being annoying.”

"Hohohohoho.”

I turned away, cackling.

Go Ryeoha might have been better at dealing with people one-on-one, but when it came to purity in her devotion to magic, she’d clearly lost to me.

I lay down on my bed, still grinning, and caught Shin Nain looking at me like I was an idiot.

"Jemin-ssi, I think you’d look better just bawling because you lost an eye.”

"I like myself better when I’m smiling with confidence, though?”

"Isn’t that why the pastor went to take care of Go Ryeoha-ssi instead of you? YOu spent all evening yesterday complaining about that.”

"No. The pastor is just stuck with the values of his generation, so he only fusses over women…”

Thanks to Lee Sejun’s bullshit, my argument with Shin Nain immediately found its end.

Instead, Hamza, who had been sitting in a chair and rolling his eyes around, began whispering as though he’d been waiting for his chance.

"Then how about the matter of me getting an approved phone?”

"Oh? They approved you?”

"They recognized my cooperation and contributions, so I can make international calls now. But I heard they’re listening in because they’re worried I might talk about operations or the current situation.”

These days, apparently instead of secretly wiretapping you, people could just openly say, ‘We’re going to listen in on your calls as well,’ and you’d just accept it.

Still, Hamza proudly showed off this small happiness, saying it was better than the days when he had to peek over other people’s shoulders at their phones all the time. Without at least that much, everything he had to talk about would be gloomy and depressing anyway.

He even proudly showed off his smartphone screen, going on about how he could use those AI models people overseas bragged about and how there wasn’t even a data limit.

"It’s reassuring that I can get news from home with this.”

Hamza smiled contentedly for a change as he rapidly scrolled with his thumb, but perhaps because the IP address was in Korea, everything was being automatically translated by AI.

I had no idea what had happened to his YouTube algorithm, but under the section marked Breaking News, video titles from foreign YouTubers and international media outlets competing to cover the story appeared in slightly awkward Korean.

[South Korea Monster Crisis Collapsing into a New Phase… The Truth Hidden Behind Rumors of a Nuclear Launch]

[A Nuclear Weapon Was Fired at South Korea? OMG. Did They Really Launch a Nuke?]

[South Korea Monster Crisis: Nuclear Weapon Launched, but No Explosion Seen.]

[Shocking Rumors: They Launched a Nuke, but It Didn't Explode? What the Hell Is Happening in South Korea?]

"Ah, here it is. Curry from back home.Nihari is delicious.”

Hamza scrolled faster with his thumb, somewhat intentionally.

He made a big show of pulling upAl Jazeerareports about the Middle East and ordinary foreign vlogs and playing them for us. But after seeing the titles of the videos the algorithm had chosen to shove to the top, I couldn't concentrate. Even looking at delicious food didn’t make my mouth water.

In the end, I just pretended to smack my lips and lowered my head onto the pillow.

-Plop!

I had an authorized phone as well.

My old phone’s screen had been shattered ages ago, so I’d smashed it and gotten a new one while I had the chance.

I thought about browsing the internet with it, then just gave up.

It felt like I’d only find depressing shit.

Instead, I closed my eye and focused on the sounds.

Countless voices overlapped.

It hurts, save me, what the hell did I do to deserve this, are they seriously telling us to rescue people. I’m never getting out anyway, they’re telling us to go die again, of all things I’m allergic to penicillin, clear all the vehicles off the road already or the medical supplies can’t get through…

The moment I lost focus, the voices seeped into my ears. I furrowed my brows and desperately tried to ignore them.

That was why Shin Nain had casually given me this helpful tip.

"It gets a little better if you sing some hymns.”

"I’ll just stay miserable.”

I hated myself a little for understanding Shin Nain now, sitting there with his eyes closed and a headset on while calling out to the Lord.

But not listening to people’s thoughts didn’t exactly make things better.

-Ratatata.

I could hear gunfire faintly echoing in the distance.

-Fhweee.

That was the sound of shells cutting through the sky.

-Boom.

It was hard to tell whether that was an impact or a building finally giving out and collapsing.

Eventually, after a moment of deep thought, the voices inside people’s heads began reaching me again.

The only difference was that this time, something relatively useful was mixed in.

I focused my mind on it.

I didn’t even use Tongue-branch magic.

After concentrating for a while, the other voices faded until only one remained clear in my ears.

It was the voice of Black Cotton Swab from Reality Survival Command.

He didn’t seem to be making a report. He looked more like he was directing the scene while briefly lost in thought. What seeped through wasn’t so much tension as regret and emptiness.

'The Gangnam Group. About 10 days of fighting against a hostile wizard group. Confirmed strength, including the soldiers who defected, was 118. And yet our casualties are currently estimated at over 900. Retreat from the blockade line is unavoidable, and we even failed to recover one nuclear warhead. Worse, the troops who witness the wizards fighting each other are far more shaken.'

Deep resignation and fear were mixed into Black Cotton Swab’s thoughts.

'In just 10 days...'

I exhaled quietly.

Humanity had deployed its ultimate weapon against wizards, nuclear weapons. Tactical nukes, sure, but they’d dropped 2 of them. I didn’t know whether they'd taken measures specifically meant to counter magic. Some people might call it a rash decision. Others might scream that they should fire even more nukes.

But knowing that every one of those reactions was the desperate struggle of frightened non-wizards, the pitiful howl of a beast stripped of its claws and fangs, I couldn’t just condemn them either.

It was unfortunate.

If a wizard suddenly appeared in a city where people were living perfectly normal lives, would they nuke the city?

Beijing, New York, Tokyo, Paris, London…

Could they do it even if a wizard appeared in a megacity with millions of people living in it?

I didn’t think so.

And that was probably exactly what the Society was counting on.

People were already calling them insane for abandoning Seoul, a city of 10 million overrun by monsters. And now they even fired a nuke just to kill a single wizard?

They couldn’t bear the cost.

There was no way non-wizards who couldn’t even pay the price for magic could pay the price of sacrificing tens of millions of people just to oppose wizards.

Crying your eyes out because you lost one eye while people were dying all around you, that was what one called human weakness.

There was no one iron-willed enough anywhere capable of agreeing to the idea of all of them just dying together as long as they managed to stop wizards from ruling them.

I let out a long yawn and idly fiddled with my phone.

This wasn’t a war between wizards and non-wizards.

Those who could reach magic and those abandoned by magic.

A trial had begun to separate the two.

An age in which only non-wizards would scream and curse their fate.

The age was turning a direction all 8 billion humans on this planet didn’t want.