Chapter 41: The Subway Station’s End

[Translator – Aren]

If there was one silver lining about Jangji Station’s platform, it was that the area around the Phone Graveyard was relatively clean.

That was, aside from the messages written in chunks of flesh and dried blood. Of course it wasn’t exactly pleasant. It wasn’t exactly comforting either. If I had seen something like this back when the world was normal, I might’ve thrown up and shaken like a leaf.

But after roughly 4 months of this apocalypse, my threshold for shock had risen about as high as it could go.

After everything we’d witnessed, making a scene over some words written in blood would have meant we never should’ve entered Seoul in the first place.

Near the Phone Graveyard, we took a break and reorganized ourselves, using a toppled and broken vending machine as a makeshift bench.

Lee Sejun ripped open a bag of hardtack and stuffed handfuls into his mouth.

“Calling it a Phone Graveyard sounds kind of weird.”

"Sejun-ssi, how the hell are you still eating that hardtack right now?”

"Ah. Should I make ramen instead?"

Apparently, Lee Sejun had interpreted ‘How can you eat that right now?’ as ‘Why are you hogging all the hardtack?’

Thankfully, this was where Hamza, our all-purpose foreign worker, stepped in. Stopping Lee Sejun from digging through his rucksack, Hamza opened his own duffel bag. Inside was an impressive collection of supplies, ranging from a portable gas stove to lighters and other useful equipment.

"Ramen’s actually not very good in emergencies. It’s greasy, and it takes a lot of water to cook. Not ideal.”

"Seriously? I brought 5 packs.”

"Just crush it up and eat it dry. That might actually be better.”

"Then why’d you bring a gas stove?”

At my question, Hamza immediately puffed out his chest and shrugged.

"We don’t even know if Seoul’s water system still works properly. It could be contaminated. So we’ll boil water before drinking it.”

Pastor Park Yohan, meanwhile, was sitting nearby with a charging cable plugged into one of the phones, idly tapping the screen.

Without looking up, he casually tossed out the kind of question people ask when they don’t actually care about the answer and just want to keep a conversation going.

"Hey Islam. Where did you come from again? Pakistan? Isn’t that where people drink water from theGanges River? You guys boil the water too?”

"Hey, you Jesus freak.”

"Huh?"

"Are you South Koreans the same as North Koreans?”

It was the first time we’d ever seen Hamza genuinely furious.

According to Hamza, Pakistan and India had different religions and had spent generations hating each other’s guts. Comparing the two was enough to set a lot of people off. While not everyone felt that way, Hamza definitely fell into the former category.

Only Shin Nain remained completely unfazed. He simply raised an eyebrow.

"Why are they fighting anyway? India and Pakistan. They’re both heretical places that don’t believe in Jesus.”

"Seriously, if you came to Pakistan and talked like this, you could actually get executed.”

In the end, Hamza was the first one to surrender.

His expression practically screamed, ‘Why am I even trying to explain this to these idiots?’ Watching him, I finally realized something. Up until now, I’d kind of treated Hamza like a walking AI drone, but he was a person too.

I looked between the stove and the cooking pot and raised an eyebrow.

"Speaking of which, should we try collecting some water and boiling it?”

If we could source water locally, it’d make things much easier. It seemed like the perfect chance to see whether Hamza’s preparations would pay off.

"Absolutely not.”

That was until the pastor flatly shut it down while continuing to tap away at the phone screen.

"You’ve got to assume there was a reason these people were dumping their business right here beyond the platform doors, next to the tracks. Living alongside human waste because they didn’t want to walk up a single floor? Until we figure out what kind of pressure the survivors in Seoul were under or whether there’s something in those bathrooms we shouldn’t move recklessly.”

"They might’ve just been too lazy to move."

I said that while remembering a story from my middle school days, back when I was preparing for my GED. One of my friends had been at a PC café when he got into a crucial online match. Apparently, he decided he couldn’t afford to leave his seat, so he peed in his gaming chair and got thrown out.

It was around then that Shin Nain actually agreed with me for once.

"That’s horrifying.”

"Right?”

"The horrifying part is the possibility that you were that friend, Jemin-ssi.”

The bastard wasn’t agreeing with my argument but was digging through my memories without permission.

Despite violating someone’s privacy, Shin Nain somehow looked like he was the victim, biting his lower lip and glaring irritably. I honestly didn’t understand why he made such a big deal out of it. Sure, the downside of Ears-branch magic was hearing other people’s thoughts without any filter, but how terrible could it really be?

Naturally, I’d never once thought going to the bathroom was too much effort.

Back when online FPS team matches were all the rage, I’d gone to the restroom because I needed to pee, then washed my hands, and then, since I was already there, I’d decided to take a shower. After disappearing for 45 minutes, I’d returned to find my teammates cursing me out, but I had never, ever relieved myself in my chair.

Still, if there were monsters in the bathroom, that might change things.

"Well, whatever. Nothing else to do, so might as well clean our guns.”

"Ah, Jemin-ssi, clean mine as well.”

"You take care of your own rifle. That’s how a gun learns to love its owner.”

I immediately shut down Lee Sejun’s attempt to dump the work on me. Then I disassembled my rifle and pulled a cleaning rod and a small bottle of oil from my backpack.

If you neglected weapon maintenance and the gun decided to jam at the worst possible moment, you’d only have yourself to blame. I soaked a cloth in oil and began scrubbing away the powder residue. As I cleaned, a strange peace settled over Jangji Station.

Everyone had taken off their gas masks because breathing through them was exhausting. True to form, us members of Supreme Archmages looked completely at ease.

Hamza absentmindedly flicked a lighter open and closed while staring at the flame. Lee Sejun finished off his hardtack and shook every last crumb into his mouth. Shin Nain checked his music playlist while humming hymns under his breath. Pastor Park Yohan adjusted his glasses and poked through the phones left behind by people whose bodies hadn’t even remained.

Jangji Station felt like an ordinary subway station on a quiet weekday afternoon.

That is, if one could ignore the bloody handprints, the filthy clothes, the torn backpacks, the curses written in blood across the walls and floors, and the foul stench of human waste drifting through the gaps in the platform doors.

It was then that the pastor frowned slightly and grumbled.

"If you’ve got nothing to do, come help me look through these phones.”

"After I finish cleaning my rifle.”

Of course, my rifle maintenance was never truly finished.

For the sake of increasing the combat power of our Supreme Archmages, I chose to make a noble sacrifice. After reassembling my AR-15, I volunteered myself as an offering to the sacred cause of greater firepower.

With Shin Nain, Hamza, and Lee Sejun watching, I carefully poked the tip of my left index finger with the end of the bayonet.

The sensation sent chills racing up my spine. I squeezed my eyes shut and asked,

"Am I bleeding?”

When I cracked one eye open, all three of them were looking at me like I was an idiot.

Especially Shin Nain, who clicked his tongue and scolded me.

"Jemin-ssi. What happened to the guy who shot his own left hand and grabbed a red-hot rifle barrel with it?”

"That shit hurt like hell, so shut the fuck up.”

"And what happened to the fearless hero who endured that tentacle monster burrowing into his right arm and trying to connect its veins to his?”

"That didn’t hurt."

I absolutely hated doing it, but if it was for the sake of magic, then I could endure it, so I pressed a little harder.

-Prick.

As soon as a drop of blood welled up, all the whining from moments ago vanished, and my mind settled into calm focus. I, Baek Jemin, a true man among men, was the kind of person who would squirm, struggle, and do everything possible to avoid a syringe but once the needle actually went in, acted completely fine.

In that state, I looked at Hamza, Shin Nain, and Lee Sejun and calmly asked,

"One item, one enchantment effect. What do you want?”

Lee Sejun rested his chin on his hand and appeared to think seriously for a moment, then asked with complete sincerity,

"Jemin-ssi. Can you enchant something with invincibility, perfection ormunchkin? Maybe one-hit kill?”

"Try it."

My guess was that it was technically possible.

The problem was that whatever enchantment I created would likely apply to the user as well. A sharp sword cuts indiscriminately once it’s swung. It did not care whether it’s friend or foe.

If something like Invincible or One-Hit Killa actually worked, it would probably manifest as something ridiculous like ‘Unable to perceive hostility, therefore has no enemies and is invincible.’ Or ‘Everyone dies in one hit, including you.’

For all I knew, munchkin might not create an OP protagonist. It might literally turn someone into aMunchkin cat.

At least one-hit kill sounded somewhat useful, but at my current level, I could only inscribe a single word.

And the more characters that word contained, the weaker the effect became. Instead of one-hit kill, it might get downgraded into something like one-hundred-hit kill.

After explaining that vague, extreme effects were impractical and that straightforward enchantments with little room for interpretation were far more useful, disappointment spread across Lee Sejun’s face.

"That sucks.”

"It’s fine for enhancing something that’s already there. If I wrote 'one-hit kill' on a bullet, it’d probably do something.”

The problem was that we’d brought 2 ammo cans carrying 800 rounds each. If I wrote one-hit kill on 1600 bullets using my own blood, I’d collapse from anemia before the monsters got me.

Only after thoroughly explaining these limitations did I begin the actual enchantment.

I gave Hamza’s duffle bag [Durable]. I gave Shin Nain’s rifle [Clean]. and I gave Lee Sejun’s military backpack [Bulletproof]. None of them produced flashy, dramatic effects. Still, they were better than nothing.

Naturally, since there were no visible changes, everyone looked skeptical.

"Hmm. Isn’t this just a placebo?”

"I don’t know. It does make me feel better. A durable bag feels reassuring.”

"Being able to maintain firearm reliability even when you miss a cleaning cycle may be subtle, but it’s undeniably powerful. Truly, the Lord has blessed our holy crusade with these gifts.”

"Anyway, if any of you get the chance, learn Hand-branch magic. Then you can get the one-hit-kill effect Sejun wanted.”

According to the journal we found in the abandoned hospital, simply coating a baseball bat with the blood from one’s right hand was enough to fight monsters directly.

And we’d already seen proof when the Blood-cord Belta, the Amalgam subspecies that clung to ceilings like a web of veins, came into contact with blood from my right hand, it died as if poisoned. The damage potential was certainly impressive.

If we 'Supreme Archmages’ started enchanting bullets with Alteration-type, Hand-branch, Stage 1 magic using blood from the right hand, we’d be able to annihilate monsters with overwhelming firepower.

Pastor Park Yohan, however, wanted absolutely nothing to do with such enchantments. Then again, Hamza was a Muslim who drank soju with pork, and Shin Nain insisted on calling Alteration Magic ‘Holy Transformation Crusade Arts.’ 

They weren't exactly normal examples of religious devotion. Honestly, if you were a genuinely devout believer, shouldn’t your first reaction to someone writing enchantments in blood be horror?

Instead, the pastor handed us one of the dozens of phones he’d already examined, looking quite exhausted.

"I think I found something.”

Apparently, while we were busy cleaning weapons and handing out enchantments, he’d actually been doing productive work.

I gave my throbbing left index finger a few shakes, carefully wrapping the wound with a bandage Hamza handed me, and accepted the phone. Pastor Park Yohan watched the whole thing with visible disgust.

"I thought you were some hard-boiled badass. What’s with the kitty-cat bandage?”

"This place is filthy as hell, What if I get tetanus?””

As for why, out of all possible bandages, Hamza had chosen one covered in cartoon cats wasn't a question for me to answer.

Feeling everyone’s gaze turn toward him, Hamza clasped his hands together modestly and smiled with obvious satisfaction.

"Cats were beloved by the Prophet Muhammad. They are blessed creatures who will watch over our journey.”

"Did your Angel’s Intuition tell you that too?”

"No, Koreans call them 'fur angels,' right? It is a beautiful expression. We couldn’t bring a cat on this journey, so I chose cat bandages instead.”

I wisely kept my mouth shut. If Hamua learned that there also existed the term 'fur goblin,' he’d probably get incredibly angry.

So I simply smacked my lips and turned my attention to the phone Pastor Park Yohan had handed me. The owner had left behind a surprising number of notes in the default memo app.

Either they had a lot on their mind, or they’d had absolutely nothing else to do.

Either way, it seemed like there would be some useful clues in there, so I tapped the screen with my thumb.

*t*t*

* Artillery hit near the department store. Bastards. According to people who joined us through the subway tunnels, they’re targeting department stores and supermarkets first. A lot of people still don’t understand why, but anyone with half a brain can figure it out. Those sons of bitches. How the guck can they do this…?

* One of the kids came down with a fever. They’re burning up. We’re almost out of cold medicine.

* Jang Hansu from the noodle shop and Park Seokju the butcher volunteered to search for a pharmacy. Good men. I pulled them aside and told them that if they wanted to run, they should. I gave them a few cans of food, too.

* Why is it always the good people?

* I can hear them. Countless voices overlapping inside human bodies. It’s too late. They’re quarantining everyone returning from outside.

* It’s contagious. We got the order of events wrong.

* The military never intended to evacuate us. Honestly, I would’ve made the same decision. We herded them into the bathrooms.

* March 27th, 2028. Jangji Station survivors: 73 dead. Do not search for us.

*t*t*

April 15th, 2028, 10:14 PM.

That was the current time displayed on the phone containing the meaningful records.

Us Supreme Archmages silently put our gas masks back on and headed toward the first-floor restroom. As we climbed the stairs, we opened an emergency shutter access door. Whenever the darkness became too deep, we illuminated our surroundings with tactical flashlights or our phones.

Fortunately, the first underground level wasn’t in terrible condition. The ceiling had partially collapsed, leaving many fluorescent lights shattered. Still, power was somehow reaching the station. The hallway leading to the bathrooms remained illuminated.

And there, directly in front of the shared entrance to the men’s and women’s restrooms, lied the charred outline of a human body.

Burn marks covered the surrounding floor around it, with fuel containers tossed nearby that seemed to have melted and hardened into misshapen lumps around the corpse. At first I wondered if it might be a monster. I checked using Alteration-type, Eyes-branch, Stage 1 first, but I couldn’t detect the slightest movement.

I turned toward Shin Nain, who exhaled softly.

-Huuff—.

A moment later, he spoke in a subdued voice.

"I can hear bubbling sounds coming from inside the rest rooms. It sounds like someone speaking, but it’s too faint to make out the words.”

There was definitely something in there. In chilling silence, us Supreme Archmages stepped over the shattered, scorched floor, military boots crunching against debris. The burned human-shaped figure looked unmistakably like a corpse. No one dared to approach it. It looked so fragile that one wrong touch might cause it to collapse into ash.

As everyone gave it a wide berth, just as we were about to enter the restroom, a strange sound reached us.

-Pop.

It sounded like a bubble bursting in a pot of thick soup.

The instant I heard it, I activated Alteration-type, Eyes-branch, Stage 1 and scanned the area. That was how I spotted the tiny red footprints beneath the restroom tiles. Proof that a monster would appear in 10 seconds.

"Back up."

Everyone moved smoothly. After tangling with enough monsters, we’d gotten surprisingly good at this.

I stepped back as well, retreating until I stood right in front of the burned corpse. Then I raised my rifle and aimed at the red footprints. But what emerged wasn’t some grotesque monstrosity.

If anything, it was almost familiar.

A thick, flesh-colored mass, something between jelly and slime, dragged itself across the restroom floor. Its movement was painfully slow. Stickypseudopods stretched outward, gripping desperately at the cracks between tiles as it hauled its enormous, shapeless body forward.

It looked like a giant amoeba, but the pseudopods reaching into the tile seams resembled webbed human hands just enough to make my skin crawl.

Its flesh-colored body was streaked with pale layered patterns like geological strata. Every so often, bubbles formed on its surface and burst with wet little popping sounds.

The noteworthy feature was its eyes. Near the outer surface of the translucent flesh, clustered around the edges where the pseudopods extended, were human eyeballs without any eyelids. Just dead fish-white eyes staring in our direction.

There weren't just one or two, but dozens.

They were like the eyes lining a scallop shell. 

Surprisingly, Shin Nain was the only one who actually gagged.

"Uuugh, kgh!”

He yanked up his gas mask and exposed his mouth before turning toward the wall.

-Bleeegh…

Pastor Park Yohan, Sejun, Hamza, and I all kept our rifles trained on the thing. Nobody had the luxury of comforting him. Honestly, even if he weren’t throwing up, all of us were operating at about 500% anxiety right now.

Maybe because it was so painfully slow. Maybe because it had seen the guns pointed at it. Whatever the reason, the flesh-colored slime stopped advancing. Instead, the pale human eyes embedded along its edges rolled around frantically. Then it began slithering back into the restroom.

At that moment, Pastor Park Yohan groaned inside his gas mask.

"That’s probably the third identified species."

"That…what was it called again…?”

"Cellular Degenerative Colony Organism."

"But it had eyes."

Just as the flesh-colored slime split apart and disappeared into both the men’s and women’s restrooms, Shin Nain forced his gas mask back on and approached us.

His voice was hoarse from vomiting. 

"Freedom."

For a moment I frowned, wondering what the hell this idiot was talking about, but then he continued.

"Unlimited freedom not for humans, but for the things that make up a human being."

"..."

"Instead of the minimum order required to form a human being, they have granted limitless, chaotic freedom to every cell that makes up a human. They’re a hive. A human soul shattered into tens of trillions of pieces, turned into a monster that hunts other humans.”

-Crunch.

For the first time, Shin Nain ground his teeth as he stared into the restroom.

But he didn't dare approach. Instead, he kept swallowing, trying to soothe a throat raw from stomach acid.

I lifted the phone containing the records and continued reading.

Then I glanced at the burned corpse thathad probably once belonged to the phone’s owner. A bitter smile appeared on my face.

"If you were going to burn things, you should’ve burned those too instead of only burning yourself.”

This wasn’t my phone. It belonged to this person who had burned to death.

I powered it off again and gently placed it before the corpse.

Us Supreme Archmages held a brief moment of silence. Only after checking with future sight, past sight, and Shin Nain’s auditory detection magic did we finally reach a conclusion regarding the flesh-colored slime—the Freedom Hive.

"It’s weak."

It was slow. Bullets might be ineffective, but if it was submitted to a blast of crushing pressure or absorbed the blood from my right hand, it felt like it would simply die. Compared to Amalgams and Predator Spines, it was certainly sluggish. Its infectious nature wasn’t especially remarkable either, since most of the monsters were contagious in one way or another.

Though admittedly, this thing seemed to spread much more easily.

The real problem was its amorphous, slime-like nature. Hamza pointed at it and honestly admitted that the camping stove and pot he’d brought were probably useless.

"If that thing comes pouring out of a faucet when I turn on the water, I’ll pass out. I don’t think I could boil that and still drink it.”

"And if the military really gave up on Seoul because of these things…doesn’t that mean the entire sewer system is packed full of them?”

"Maybe they're weak to salt? Like shrinking from osmotic pressure if they get into seawater?”

"Hmm. Even aside from that, considering salt's traditional association with purification, they might actually weaken in higher salt concentrations. They may survive in sewers but get washed away in seawater. It’s an optimistic theory, but…it’s plausible enough to keep in mind.”

Pastor Park Yohan was already brainstorming ways to fight the creature.

He seemed hopeful that spraying it with saltwater or holy water might do meaningful damage. Personally, I thought soaking it in oil and setting it on fire would probably work pretty well too. 

However, we all agreed on one thing. If you burned it, you’d better burn it thoroughly. Even if parts of its body cooked away, it looked like the thing could simply smother the flames with the rest of itself.

Lee Sejun clicked his tongue and looked at the burned corpse.

"Seems like this guy roughly had the same idea.”

It seemed the phone owner had tried to herd the infected into the restroom and burn them before they could transform into those flesh-colored slimes. Yet somehow, they had failed. Only they themselves ended up burned to death.

We still didn’t know exactly how the infection worked, but judging from the fact that this person, likely an Ear-branch wizard, had burned to death while remaining fully human, we couldn’t help suspect that wizards possessed at least some resistance to the slime’s infection.

Pastor Park Yohan tapped his gas mask while studying the restroom entrance. Then he turned away.

"Since nobody physically blocked them in there, and those disgusting things still chase to stay inside the restroom, humidity might be important. And if too many infected people gather in one place, the mutation process could accelerate. For now, whenever we use water, the Muslim checks it first, and Shin Nain listens for anything suspicious. Only use it if both of them say its’s safe.”

"Are we staying here or heading back downstairs?”

At my question, Pastor Park Yohan shuddered and pointed down the stairwell.

"I’d rather sleep next to piles of crap and a graveyard than beside that monster. Let’s go back down”

All of us followed him downstairs. 

There were no prayers.

Only a strange silence, as though everyone were steeling their resolve.

Only Pastor Park Yohan eventually spoke up, releasing a long sigh.

"Let’s scout the surface tomorrow.”