Chapter 61: Today's Weather: Clear

[Translator – Aren]

As we crossed the bridge, we Supreme Archmages noticed a change.

The fog was beginning to thin.

What had been barely 100 meters of visibility gradually stretched to nearly 200. Traffic lights and road signs that had once disappeared completely into the fog now emerged as faint silhouettes.

Before everything had gone to hell, we would’ve welcomed a change like this.

As wizards, it only made us more tense. I could see Pastor Park Yohan and Shin Nain, our designated shooters, carefully watching the sky. Even Hamza seemed more nervous than usual. His breathing inside the gas mask had grown noticeably heavier.

-Huuff—. Huuff—.

The pastor noticed, so, relaxing his shoulders, he spoke up.

"Stay calm. The sun’s still up.”

"Yessir."

"And Islam. Stay close behind us.”

"Huuff…Y-yes."

Every so often our boots splashed through water or something much thicker. But we Supreme Archmages were real men. We didn’t concern ourselves with unpleasant things like that.

Instead, we were the sort who could feel a touch of melancholy at the sight of the deserted streets.

The moment we crossed the river, walking through the thinning fog, the first thing we happened upon was an empty schoolyard.

Even with visibility reaching roughly 200 meters, we couldn’t make out everything inside.

Still, as we slowly followed the sound barrier separating the road from the school grounds, we found fragments of the school’s name. 

Only the words "Middle School" remained. Lee Sejun stopped walking for a moment. Silently staring at the building, he opened and closed his fist a few times.

"It was a middle school."

"Islam, Nain. Check it out.”

Even through his gas mask, I could tell Hamza’s face had gone pale. He immediately shook his head.

Shin Nain tapped his headset with one finger, then turned away without a hint of hesitation.

"It’s dangerous."

"I can hear babies crying."

I immediately recognized the sound he was describing.

"Teratomas?”

"Most likely.”

"Come to think of it, what are Teratomas anyway?”

Pastor Park Yohan blinked. Only then did it hit me.

Now that I thought about it, the pastor and Hamza had spent most of the time safely in the rear. They’d never actually seen a Teratoma. Back in Olympic Park, we’d assumed we’d be facing Teratomas only for entirely different monsters to appear instead.

Things had gotten too hectic for me to explain.

We were completely exposed in fog with a visibility of nearly 200 meters.

"I’ll explain next time we stop. Let’s keep moving.”

A lot of older Koreans tend to call middle schoolers ‘babies.’ There was something painfully ironic about those babies having become creatures of darkness instead.

So we passed by the middle school now inhabited only by Teratomas.

The only trace left of the children who had once rushed through those gates in gym uniforms and school uniforms alike was the entrance. Where lively voices had once echoed, only cold, oppressive fog remained. None of us Supreme Archmages said goodbye to the children who had once been there.

By the time everyone had passed through the school gates with only Lee Sejun bringing up the rear, I caught a quiet sniffle behind me.

"Namu Amida Butus. Allah, Jesus, whoever it is, have mercy on them.”

To our right beyond the center line and the road, the outlines of an apartment complex slowly emerged through the fog.

The farther we went, the more signs of looting and chaos we found.

Storefront windows lay shattered, letting the wind whistle through. Brown, dried blood remained only as flaky dust scattered across towering piles of trash.

The strangest part was that there wasn’t a single human corpse in sight.

Maybe the monsters were making efficient use of the bodies. Or maybe the survivors were.  Either way, we couldn’t even judge how dangerous an area was by looking for corpses anymore. Even with the thinner fog, I still had to rely on magic.

Eventually, we came across an entire row of pharmacies across the street. Every last store front had its windows smashed in. I stopped and raised a hand.

"Let’s check before we move on.”

As the one leading the group, I regularly halted the group before intersections or densely packed alleyways. I needed Eyes-branch, Stage 1 to detect anything moving ahead.

This time was no different.

While I checked for the red footprints appearing in the fog, Hamza and Shin Nain carried out their own roles.

"It’s okay…for now.”

"There are monsters nearby, but they’re keeping their distance. They don't seem to have noticed us. Sounds like Predator Spines are lying in ambush, waiting for prey. I can hear that chalk-on-a-blackboard screeching.”

"Alright. Let’s move.”

In times like these, you had to even properly tap a stone bridge before crossing it.

And in Seoul, where closing your eyes could get your face, and the rest of you, ripped off, blind optimism was practically asking to be torn apart. Our approach to monster encounters had changed as well.

With ammunition becoming scarce, we had to be even more cautious.

If we ran into a small group, I’d use Tongue-branch, Stage 2 to send them into a cannibalistic frenzy. Whenever possible, we’d stay hidden behind cover and simply wait for them to pass through.

Fortunately, as we made our way past pharmacies surrounded by shattered glass, burn marks, and warped metal, we never had to fight directly.

There were noticeably fewer monsters.

We’d prepared ourselves for a city of 10 million where almost everyone had become monsters. Instead, their numbers were far lower than even our most pessimistic estimates. By now we understood why.

The hordes had been steadily moving toward the front lines, toward the outskirts of Seoul, for days.

The information Shin Nain had been gathering using his Ears-branch magic had been right all along.

But facts like that meant nothing to a terrified Hamza.

The moment we’d confirmed it was safe enough to continue, he spoke up in a timid voice.

"Uhm…Maybe we should turn back? What if we run out of bullets?”

"Hamza. You’ve been telling us for days the monsters are heading toward the front lines. If we turn around now, we’ll just run straight into the horde moving that way. What? You wanna burn through all our ammo, trying to break through that?”

I snapped at him, but the truth was I simply wasn’t in a good mood in general.

Knowing that Hamza’s Dogma-type magic, Angel’s Intuition, could only tell whether something was dangerous or not made it even worse.

The bastard wasn’t suggesting retreat because it was smart. He was suggesting it because going deeper was dangerous and staying outside was dangerous too. He just wanted out.

This was a guy who’d made it all the way to medical school in Pakistan.

There was no way someone like him didn’t realize what would happen if we turned around while the monsters were all migrating toward Seoul’s outskirts.

Running out of ammo, trying to fight through the very horde blocking our retreat just to resupply?

We’d fail to learn any new magic, waste our precious ammunition, and fail our objective and stake everything on the slim hope of escaping Seoul.

The only one willing to defend Hamza was the pastor.

"Things have gone way off the original plan.”

The pastor idly adjusted the filter on his gas mask, let out a short sigh, and brushed the dew from his poncho.

"The original idea was to advance step by step with the regular Army. We’d ride in vehicles alongside the infantry who aren’t wizards and secure one position at a time. Then they suddenly all vanished. Hell if I know what kind of monster did that.”

"So we really should’ve turned back..."

"If we had, we’d have entered Seoul a lot later. That was right when all the monsters started flooding toward the outer blockade line.”

It was Lee Sejun who shut Hamza’s nervous rambling down.

Even while watching our rear from the back of the formation, he reached over and gave Hamza’s shoulder a reassuring pat.

Shin Nain and I didn’t bother saying anything. We simply exchanged a glance and shrugged.

The guy had more than his fair share of problems, but on matters like this, we often ended up thinking alike. Annoying as hell, but what could you do?

What Shin Nain and I understood was why this half-baked suicide mission had happened in the first place.

We understood why the initial vanguard reconnaissance force and special operations units, both Korean and American, with regular soldiers assigned to secure footholds and why they had hastily thrown together a second reconnaissance team, us.

Though it was only a guess, I’d say I was almost certain.

The Army had already fought Seoul wizards.

The military wizards, the so-called specialists, probably weren’t there just to detect monsters. They were also there to direct the Army’s firepower against Seoul wizards trying to escape. 

There were probably still people slow on the uptake who thought, ‘Why not just take it slow? Build defense, receive supplies, and survive one step at a time?’ But after killing two Seoul wizards, I knew better.

Both the Army and the Seoul wizards knew the fog was spreading.

So why were the Seoul wizards deliberately herding monsters toward the blockade line?

The Army still had the cause and effect backwards. Even if they’d mixed up which came first, the correlation remained.

According to Kang Areum, if monsters spread, the fog would follow them.

What the Army believed was that when fog appeared, monsters would also appear.

On the other hand, the Seoul wizards understood that the fog would follow to wherever the monsters would go. So they focused on spreading monsters. The Army, thinking monsters simply emerged wherever the fog appeared, could never identify the real cause. And every mistake would put them another step behind.

The truly fatal part was that the Army probably had no idea how the Seoul wizards were spreading the fog. I didn’t know how they were luring entire monster hordes, but they definitely had a method. 

Maybe the initial vanguard reconnaissance force, the special operations teams that had headed toward Line 3, had figured out that much. Even then, it wouldn’t have turned an unfavorable battle into a favorable one.

Inside the fog, modern firearms suffered from limited visibility. Only wizards received the fog’s blessing. Only they could fight efficiently.

The Seoul wizards didn’t even have to sacrifice themselves to break through the blockade line.

As long as they could keep driving monsters toward the front, the modern military would slowly be worn down.

This was a death match.

A death match where Seoul wizards grew stronger far faster, overwhelmingly faster than everyone else.

The rules of this fight were so brutally simple, they were enough to make anyone without magic resent the world itself.

—Only wizards had a chance to fight and survive.

I let go of my irritation with Hamza. Instead, I decided to calm him down.

"Enough with the regrets. Come on, Hamza, you know trying to run will just get you killed.”

"Sniff…Seoul is awful…”

"That’s just what living away from home is like.”

Moved by the heartwarming camaraderie of the Supreme Archmages, Hamza finally managed to conquer his fear.

"Yes…The Angel says we have to keep moving forward.”

This bastard had definitely just wanted to bolt because he was scared.

Still, with Hamza finally settled down, the Supreme Archmages pressed onward.

The problem showed up right there.

Visibility in the fog had stretched to nearly 300 meters. The fog had thinned too much.

As a result, I could clearly make out a wide open lot and a massive building to the left of the road. To the right, past a line of trees, what looked like an apartment complex came into view. Worse, there wasn't a single alley or defensible hiding place anywhere between us and the bridge crossing the Han River.

Shin Nain’s expression hardened as he made a quick decision.

"Let’s head back to those pharmacies with the broken windows.”

"You hear something?”

"There are too many. We need to wait until the fog gets thicker.”

He didn’t have to explain what there were too many of.

April 19th, 2028, 5:47 PM.

Day 5 of our expedition.

We had no choice but to turn back. The Han River was probably right in front of us.

As we searched for somewhere narrow and easy to defend, cold sweat trickled down my back.

The fact that the fog was continuing to thin wasn’t a good sign.

To the Army outside the city, it might have looked like the perfect opportunity, though.