Chapter 64: When the Southeast Wind Blows

[Translator – Aren]

Seoul was always said to be cramped, but I’d never truly felt it until today.

Lee Sejun pulled back the poncho we’d hung over the window and nervously peered outside. That was when the deafening roar of aircraft tore across the sky, shaking the building. It didn’t stop after one pass. The noise just continued.

The thunder of artillery and the rumble of explosions struck our ears one after another.

The moment Lee Sejun let the poncho fall back into place and turned away from the window, we could hear the unmistakable sound of artillery shells slicing through the air, even from far away.

-Whooooosh…

Long ago, our ancestors must have heard arrows whistling toward their necks.

Perched atop fortress walls built over decades, they probably ate rice balls with dirt-stained hands while chatting about everyday things.

Hundreds of years later, we sat huddled beneath a reinforced concrete roof, listening to shells that might land on our heads at any moment.

Inside a building of steel and concrete, we quietly ate canned food with the dark blue spell phone placed in the middle of us, our ears pricked.

April 20th, 2028, 10:13 AM.

Day 6 of our expedition.

At this very moment, we sat beneath a shower of concrete dust, listening to the artillery barrage and airstrikes sweeping across all of Seoul.

Another video had arrived on the spell phone. Along with it came a news report and a brief explanation of the massive bombardment.

It was obvious to all of us.

Someone was using the spell phone to relay information from outside Seoul to those still trapped inside.

Pastor Park Yohan set his narrow-framed glasses on top of his head, poured bottled water over his dusty hands, and washed them as he spoke.

"Looks like someone’s inside Seoul who’s still able to communicate with the outside. Well, I guess that’s not impossible. We’ve already got these spell phones after all.”

The organization behind the spell phones might be far more structured and organized than we’d imagined.

We still knew very little about the power balance within Seoul. But we couldn’t stop thinking about the two groups whose existence had already been hinted at. Both seemed influential enough to have united the Seoul wizards or something close to it.

The faction controlling the spell phones.

And the group known as the 66-Society, whose name we’d learned from Ski Goggles’ memories.

Shin Nain, with his headset hanging around his neck, offered the most plausible theory.

"The people behind the spell phones also mentioned code phrases like ‘66 for the sake of 7’ and ‘55 for the sake of 66.’ While the exact wording differs, these phrases also appeared in the ritual Jemin-ssi underwent and in the incantation from Ski Goggles’ memories.”

The incantations weren’t identical in every way.

Still, when we pieced together all the scattered clues we’d gathered, a pattern was slowly beginning to emerge.

Pastor Park Yohan, who’d learned Western numerology while speaking with foreign occultists in Pyeongtaek, was the first to point out its shape.

"The incantations repeatedly mention ‘66 for the sake of 7’ and ‘55 in pursuit of 66.’ If 7 represents ascension or transcendence, the 7 Steps the Buddha took after his birth, or the symbolic perfection of the 7 Heavenly Virtues and 7 Deadly Sins in Christianity, then it’s a very significant number.”

"That’s way too pedantic. Give us the short version.”

At my brief suggestion, the pastor narrowed his eyes and shot me an annoyed look.

But after seeing the utterly disinterested expressions on Hamza, Lee Sejun, and Shin Nain, who had absolutely no interest in mysticism, he let out a sigh and gave us the simple version.

"In Western numerology, 5 is the number of humanity. As that monk said, it’s also connected to the Five Aggregates in Buddhism, the five elements that make up a human being. It even lines up with the 5 branches of Alteration-type magic. The problem lies with the number 6.”

-Boom.

The building shook once. Even though the shell had landed far away, out on the city’s outskirts.

The bombardment was so intense that even the little church building we were hiding in trembled. Amid the muffled but unmistakable thunder of artillery, like clubs pounding against heavy cloth, we put our heads together, trying to gather even the smallest fragment of truth.

The one thinking the hardest was Pastor Park Yohan.

Resting his left hand on his Bible, his brow furrowed with deep wrinkles, he slowly began to speak.

"Islam, Lee Sejun, Shin Nain, Baek Jemin. Do any of you remember the official name of Alteration-type magic?”

"Of course. It’s Holy Alteration Battle Arts."

"Eerm…what was it again? Anybody?”

"Jemin-ssi, why are you asking me? Hamza, do you know?”

"I’m a Dogma-type wizard.”

The conversation instantly turned into complete chaos. The pastor let out a long sigh.

"I figured as much. The official name is Self-Alteration Localized Intrusive Structural Alteration Phenomena. The important part is Self-Alteration.”

Since he’d spent so much time speaking with mystics and senior officers in the rear, the pastor knew more than the rest of us.

Back when the military and government had classified magic as Localized Intrusive Structural Alteration Phenomena their original distinction between Dogma-type magic and Alteration-type magic had been based on one simple question. Was the phenomenon brought about by faith or by the wizard themselves?

There was a reason he’d brought up the military’s official term, Self-Alteration-type magic. It was the groundwork for what he wanted to explain next.

Combining everything we’d learned, everything we’d seen and heard in Seoul, he’d reached a conclusion of his own.

"Maybe it was just an attempt to sound clinical, or maybe it’s terminology they adopted after exchanging information with Seoul wizards before people escaped. Either way, the phrase "self-alteration" contains a clue.”

The clue Pastor Park Yohan had identified lay in Alteration-type magic’s two methods of manifestation.

Upright Alteration-type. An arcane system that assigns the five elements believed to define humanity to five parts of the body in order to answer the question of what the essence of humanity was.

Inverted Alteration-type. An arcane system that denies those same five elements through those same five body parts on the belief that whatever remains afterward is humanity’s true essence.

Having concluded that 7 symbolized ascension or transcendence, the pastor finally began making substitutions.

"Let’s assume 7 means Ascension. And let’s substitute 55 with the 5 branches and 5 Stages of Alteration-type magic. Whether it’s upright or inverted Alteration, their core question is identical. What is humanity? What is it that allows us to call ourselves human? When our flesh is reduced to that of beasts when we’re confronted by blasphemous truths and monsters, what will let us remain human until the very end?”

According to the pastor’s interpretation, the two forms of Alteration-type magic were both questions.

Upright Alteration-type. If we preserve the five elements that symbolize humanity, can we remain human even surrounded by unspeakable horrors and monsters?

Inverted Alteration-type. Even if this body is corrupted, even if I lose everything I once believed made me human, is there still something left that can keep me human?

"55 isn’t just two numbers representing humanity stuck together. 25 is the number of the seeker. And as that monk said, it also represents the25 Forms of Rebirth, the 25 types of sentient beings undergoing reincarnation across 3 Realms and 6 Paths, in the Buddhist belief. From a numerological standpoint, this isn’t just some random code phrase.”

The pastor’s interpretation was as mystical as it was unconventional.

"I think 55 most likely symbolizes humanity or human beings themselves. It’s probably a code word for seekers, wizards pursuing Alteration-type magic.”

"Then what about 66?"

"We still don't have enough clues. But remember what I said earlier? The 3 Realms and 6 Paths. The place where all beings trapped in reincarnation dwell. 36, the result of 6 multiplied by 6. And you’ve all heard the phrase 6th sense, right?”

At that point, the pastor frowned in visible disgust.

"6 isn't humanity’s number. But it’s a number humanity must pass through to transcend itself. So 6 represents a realm humanity has yet to prove, but one it cannot help but yearn for. And every incarnation we’ve found so far treats 55 as the foundation upon which 66 is built.”

I hadn’t understood why the pastor looked so disturbed until I heard what came next.

"I think 66…may represent something akin to the soul or free will.”

"To think that those who wield Holy Alteration Battle Arts would dare covet the soul, a realm that belongs to God alone!”

For once Shin Nain’s eyes burned with genuine fury.

They could tolerate many things, but trying to trespass into the realm of the soul was where both he and the pastor drew an absolute line.

The soul belonged and should keep belonging to the realm of God, not wizards.

Whether it was possible or impossible didn’t matter. Attempting it at all was sinful and blasphemous.

All we'd done was scrape together a handful of scattered clues and build a theory from them. Yet even arriving at that theory seemed to disgust Pastor Park Yohan. He clicked his tongue in frustration as though ashamed of having followed that line of reasoning.

Shin Nain had gone even further. He was practically shouting that the number 66 itself should be erased from the world.

Even so, the pastor never stopped analyzing the 66-Society’s code phrase.

"If you want to catch heretics, you have to understand how heretics think.”

After substituting the meanings, we were finally able to guess what the incantations had originally meant.

Once we made the substitutions, everything became exceedingly clear. The vague phrases that had seemed so meaningless before suddenly revealed an unsettling pattern.

Before I realized it I was reciting the translated version aloud.

The incantation used in the ritual, the one I’d performed with Monk Cheonghwi’s support.

Replacing the numbers produced something disturbingly plausible.

"A soul for the sake of Ascension. Humanity in pursuit of the soul. Two hands of five fingers dreaming of humanity.”

In Alteration-type magic, the hands symbolized human intellect.

Human intellect dreaming of humanity.

That was the strange sentence we’d uncovered.

Lee Sejun rolled his eyes thoughtfully before gesturing.

"Then the incantation Ski Goggles received would be 'A soul for the sake of Ascension. Humanity in pursuit of the soul. A pair of eyes seeking to understand humanity,' right?”

That fit the pattern too.

In Alteration-type magic, the eyes symbolized human perception.

So the incantation basically meant 'perception seeking to understand humanity.'

If that was true, then the other incantations probably follow the same logic.

The pastor nodded.

"Judging by the fact that he already knew these incantations by heart, Monk Cheonghwi was probably connected to the 66-Society while he was still in Suwon. Or at least he was in contact with them. And think about what happened after he disappeared. The military immediately deployed those special forces in black uniforms. They even started talking about ‘defections.’ Doesn’t that paint a pretty clear picture?”

The pastor absently flexed the fingers of the hand resting on his Bible before lowering the glasses he’d been wearing on top of his head back onto his face.

"I think the government and the military are currently at war with a secret society rooted in Seoul. The 66-Society. And if they’re really the ones behind the spell phones, then most Seoul wizards are probably connected to them in one way or another. We’ve been inside Seoul for less than a week and already uncovered an enormous amount of information. If the government and military still haven’t figured all this out, that’s probably why.”

"Do you think the 66-Society is behind this entire disaster?”

Lee Sejun asked the question with unusual gravity. A side of him I have never seen before.

Normally he never shut up about wanting to become a TS anime girl and was oddly skittish about the most random things. But strip away all that nonsense, and he was still an orphan who’d grown up on government assistance and volunteered because he wanted to repay the country that had raised him.

If someone had deliberately unleashed these monsters on Seoul, he was the sort of man who’d feel genuine, righteous anger over it.

The pastor looked deeply moved seeing that side of Lee Sejun again. He quietly nodded.

"I don’t know if they’re the ones behind all of this, but they’re the group most likely to know the truth. The problem is that they’re probably hostile toward the outside world, and they almost certainly possess far more occult knowledge than we do.”

"But the 66-Society is a group of wizards. Why wouldn’t they warn people that thinning fog is dangerous? That just puts everyone at risk.”

Hamza posed a perfectly sensible and valid question.

He might have been a coward, but when it came to basic morality and common decency, our Islamic foreign worker’s moral compass always pointed true. That made it hard to dislike him. The rest of the Supreme Archmages, on the other hand, had already had our brains warped enough that we instinctively looked away or awkwardly fumbled for an answer.

Only Shin Nain smiled faintly and knowingly. Putting his headset back on, he answered in a gentle voice.

"Because the servants of evil don’t want everyone to survive.”

"What?"

"When the fog thins and the monsters are unleashed, when the soldiers carrying out the Lord’s holy mission finally fall, the servants of evil will be free to move as they please. The righteous obey God’s will. The wicked would rather die together with everyone else, charging at the innocent while their own bodies burn in the fires of Hell.”

For the first time, Hamza seemed to understand that vengeance itself could become a creed. His face darkened and he lowered his head.

My own conclusion was a little different, but not by much.

The 66-Society was an organization centered around wizards. Whatever their ultimate goal, they clearly wanted the blockade line to collapse. They didn’t want the monsters and the fog to remain a localized crisis confined to Seoul. At the very least, they seemed determined to let it spread across the entire Korean Peninsula.

The 66-Society could have shared information about the fog. About the monsters that appeared when it thinned. About the unidentified species.

But they hadn’t.

Thinking back on the hatred the Seoul wizards carried—The Dubai Stick Witch, Ski Goggles, and even Kang Areum-noonim, the friendliest among them—they all treated the military like absolute garbage. The conclusion was painfully obvious.

The Seoul wizards wanted the other 40 million Koreans to descend into Hell alongside them.

Perhaps they even wished the same fate upon the other 7.95 billion people who’d escaped this crisis.

The bombardment now raining down marked the true beginning of that conflict.

If the military knew even vaguely that the 66-Society existed, if they suspected one of its objectives was the collapse of the blockade line, then hesitation was no longer an option.

The military had already sealed off Seoul, using every brutal measure imaginable to save 40 million people.

They’d sacrificed a city of 10 million, thrown away the nation’s future, legitimacy, morality, and even the judgement of future generations, all to keep Seoul contained.

It had been a desperate attempt to prevent outcomes as catastrophic as nationwide infection or the nuclear annihilation of the Korean Peninsula.

And now, they were supposed to spare the lives of the very Seoul locals who were likely cooperating with a secret organization trying to tear that blockade line apart?

No one, no matter how ruthless, could simply ignore the weight of what had already been sacrificed.

By 2028, South Korea had already given up far too much.

Just then, the spell phone vibrated again.

-Bzzzzt.

We stopped speculating about the 66-Society and looked down at the phone beneath the concrete roof from which dust continued to rain down.

Another anonymous sender had forwarded another news report.

[Transmission complete.]

This time it was a compilation of foreign news broadcasts.

English, French, Japanese, Chinese… Reporters from around the world stood near Seoul’s blockade line, microphones in hand, headsets over their ears, with artillery batteries roaring behind them.

The footage cut rapidly between one foreign correspondent after another, their mouths moving frantically, their voices drowned out by smoke and bombardment. Finally, the screen settled on a Korean reporter.

[Approximately 4 months have passed since the outbreak of the infection crisis in Seoul. The Combined US-Korea Command has now authorized the unrestricted use of incendiary munitions, chemical weapons, and white phosphorus shells, previously limited due to concerns that seasonal winds could spread the contamination. Their stated objective is the complete elimination of the anomalous entities pouring out through Seoul’s outskirts. According to leaked information, the number of artillery shells fired over the past 3 days has already reached 50% of the military’s wartime stockpile. The goal is to once again reduce the entire outer perimeter of Seoul to scorched earth in order to secure the blockade line.]

Behind the reporter, soldiers wearing full CBRN protective suits hurried back and forth, hauling artillery shells without pause.

The soldiers ran frantically through their defensive positions. Some carried flamethrowers. Others sprinted alongside the troops armed with shotguns and assault rifles. Even from that distance, the hiss of breathing through gas masks was loud enough for the reporter’s microphone to pick up.

-Boom.

The moment another barrage landed, the church we’d taken refuge in trembled with it.

It was only a coincidence, but watching soldiers crouched besideself-propelled howitzers, hands clamped over their ears as smoke and propellant fumes billowed from the guns made it impossible not to feel that we were living through the very same moment.

[According to an anonymous ROK military official, conditions at the front have deteriorated to the point that the use ofABC weapons has become unavoidable. The military is now barely holding the line with air support from the US 7th Fleet as previously unidentified entities continue to pour out. Meanwhile, Chinese forces stationed on Ganghwa Island have reportedly advised the remaining military personnel, police, and civilian militias around Incheon to withdraw from the city and the western Islands.]

[As military casualties continue to rise sharply, civilians have begun speculating that martial law units stationed in rear-area cities are being redeployed to reinforce the blockade line. When asked about these rumors, officials declined to comment.]

[Some analysts believe this explains the unusually rapid approval of the UN peacekeeping deployment and the dispatch of the US carrier strike group. Meanwhile, the US Department of Defense estimates that more than 30 thousand South Korean soldiers have already become casualties while defending Seoul’s containment line…]

That was where the video ended.

But another anonymous message immediately followed.

[No signs of fog density recovering. Outside activities considered impossible. Remain concealed at all costs]

A heavy silence settled over the room.

Everyone absentmindedly rubbed their chins or quietly closed their eyes. Then, as expected, the first person to stand was the easily frightened Hamza. He headed toward the window, wanting to see the outside for himself, the sound of bombing ceaselessly continuing.

Pulling back the poncho we’d hung over the window, he looked out.

High-rise buildings collapsed into clouds of debris under the bombardment. Residential blocks shook violently, and cracks crept across their walls as chunks of concrete rained down. Fragments from who-knows-where hammered against abandoned cars and shattered windows with harsh metallic clangs.

But none of that was what Hamza was looking at.

I walked over and stopped beside him. He turned to face me, fear still lingering in his eyes, but he hadn’t broken. Despite everything, his determination to survive had hardened into something unshakable. Without saying a word, he simply pointed.

Following his finger, I saw the rooftop of a villa covered in green waterproof surfacing.

Rags hung from a clothesline there, fluttering in the wind.

Then, for the briefest of moments, the artillery and the deafening explosions let up.

And in that fleeting moment, Hamza softly spoke up.

"It’s a southeast wind.”

I patted him on the shoulder, signaling him to step back, then grabbed the edge of the tattered poncho covering the window.

The shelling was still far enough away that the glass remained intact, but there was no guarantee it’d stay that way. I lightly bit into my left hand.

It was time to sue Hand-branch, Stage 2 [Blood of the Left Hand].

With the blood from my left hand I slowly wrote a single word across the window.

[Sturdy].

I wasn’t sure it’d actually work, but it was better than doing nothing.

Once I’d confirmed the blood-red letters were there, I turned my gaze outside. The things I’d been avoiding were waiting for me beyond the glass. Shrapnel leaping skyward with every explosion. Shockwaves rippling through the city. Everything was visible in remarkable detail beyond the thinning fog. The fog was almost gone. Visibility had to be close to 1 kilometer.

And amid the crashing sounds of collapsing buildings, the thunder of artillery, the shriek of fighter jets outracing their own noise, and the explosions that followed, another sound echoed through it. Unsettling screams.

The agonized cries of something burning alive rang out clearly even amid this utter chaos.

I couldn’t see it yet, but I knew.

Silent death was advancing from the places we’d already passed, and flames that refused to die had begun to spread.

I lowered the poncho over the window again, covering the view, then returned to my spot.

Everyone wore bitter expressions as they faced this new turn of events. I dropped to the floor with a thud and let out a grin.

"We don’t have any communications equipment, do we?”

April 20th, 2028, 11:16 AM.

Day 6 of our expedition.

Beneath a sky scrubbed clean of fog, we waited for death to arrive riding on the southeast wind.

Beneath the white phosphorus smoke rising only to kill, we had no choice but to face another hellfire, one meant to burn away the hell that was the monsters’ flesh.

That is, if we simply sat there and waited.

None of us Supreme Archmages said it aloud, but we all understood. To destroy the apocalyptic horde millions of monsters strong, the ROK military would unleash every weapon they had without a moment’s hesitation. They might even start covering their fingers over the nuclear button.

They might have spared the special forces, but they’d probably assumed we’d failed.

There was only one way, a single way, for us Supreme Archmages to correct the military’s mistake.

We had to reach a friendly group inside Seoul and use whatever communications equipment they possessed to tell the military the truth. The spell phones belonged to the 66-Society. They wanted the blockade line to collapse. The moment we tried to pass information along, they’d notice, and they’d stop us.

Which left only this one option.

The Supreme Archmages looked at one another.

Hamza trembled as he instinctively tried to shake his head, only to realize he couldn’t lie about what his magic was telling him. He bit down hard on his lower lip.

Shin Nain, for some reason, was humming cheerfully to himself as he gave a small nod.

Lee Sejun, finally seeing a path forward, stopped his usual nonsense. With an unusually serious expression, he adjusted the sling on his rifle.

Pastor Park Yohan slipped his bible back into his backpack and let out a long, weary sigh.

As for me, standing before yet another trial meant to overcome death and ruin, I felt exhilarated.

Waiting for the fog to return while white phosphorus, incendiaries, or chemical agents drifted toward us on the southeast wind wasn’t our only choice. There was a far better one.

With communications cut off, there remained exactly one route left for contacting the military.

Wasn’t there a friendly group of local survivors waiting for us across the Han River and Konkuk University?

"O say we wait until tomorrow, then break through.”

While the fog was gone and the southeast wind was blowing…

At the very moment, no other Seoul wizard would ever think to attempt it.

That was when we’d cross the Han River.