Chapter 69: The World Through One Eye

[Translator – Aren]

The first thing we did after the fog rolled back into the city was find a place to hide.

That was the pastor’s decision after taking one look at the state we were in.

"This won’t work. If we try to run all the way to Konkuk University like this and run into monsters again, we’re finished.”

The pastor’s gaze settled on the inside of my gas mask, on my left eye.

"Baek Jemin. Can you keep going?”

"For now."

"Jemin's in no condition to pull the same stunts he did on the bridge. Jemin, stay beside Islam. Let’s find somewhere to rest and fast.”

As a result, our formation changed.

Shin Nain, with his Eyes-branch and Ears-branch magic, took point, scouting and detecting. Lee Sejun brought up the rear, serving as our strongest combat force to protect the group. Hamza supported me as we walked. The pastor followed behind Shin Nain.

Like that, we followed the elevated highway, passing between apartment complexes.

Fortunately, although Shin Nain rarely used Eyes-branch magic, [Past Vision], which allowed him to see scenes from several hours earlier, was far from useless.

As he walked ahead, Shin Nain occasionally raised his clenched left fist, even faster than Hamza could react, to signal us. Whenever we stopped in response to his hand signals, he would always give short, concise reports.

"Two Spines. They went over the guardrail beneath the overpass.”

"Nain-ssi, think they’ll come after us?”

Lee Sejun asked, his voice unusually serious. Shin Nain shook his head.

"They’re lying in ambush. I don’t see them nearby anymore. As long as we don’t go underneath the overpass, we should be fine.”

"They’re probably getting ready for the fog to roll in. Whether that's good or bad, who knows.”

With the pastor’s grumbling bringing the conversation to an end, we started walking again.

The real problem was me, Baek Jemin.

I’d boldly declared that I’d become Odin, but if living with one eye were easy, everyone and their dog would’ve sacrificed an eye. I thought I was walking perfectly straight, yet my body kept suddenly dropping downward.

It reminded me of all those news reports about Seoul’s sinkholes.

"Seoul’s roads are insane. They look perfectly fine, but my feet keep sinking.”

"Jemin-ssi, something’s off about you. You’ve been stumbling over and over since earlier.”

"Nah, I’m walking just fine, okay?”

I complained about Seoul’s roads, and somehow I was the problem?

Just as I opened my mouth to argue with Hamza, he beat me to it between ragged breaths.

"You lost one eye, so your depth perception is off.”

"..."

"Just don’t drop your combat knife. It’ll hurt if I get stabbed by it.”

I couldn't think of a single thing to say. All I could do was lean on Hamza.

He was right.

Living with one eye was a far harsher penalty than I’d imagined.

Hamza kept catching me whenever I stumbled because my warped sense of distance made me lose my footing.

And with every inch of my body wracked by pain, once I lost my balance, it was almost impossible to recover. The moment I swayed, dizziness washed over me strong enough to make me retch.

To make matters worse, now that Eyes-branch, Stage 3 [Cognitive Dissonance] had worn off, the vision in my right eye was starting to grow blurry as well.

The instant I realized that the heavy weight slowly pressing down on my shoulders was the warning sign of another wave of pain, I turned to Hamza.

"Can’t you give me another shot or morphine?”

"That’s far too dangerous. I’ve already given you more than I ever intended. No.”

Hamza explained kindly, even as he struggled to catch his breath.

Morphine wasn't something you were supposed to inject recklessly. He also mentioned that he had hoped that they would never have to use it. He had only brought it because he learned that Alteration-type magic demanded pain as its price, and he wanted to be available for emergency rescue under extreme conditions.

His guess was that [Congnitive Dissonance] rejecting the drug’s effects had probably spared me from suffering the full extent of its side effects.

Every so often Hamza would wave a finger in front of my face to check my condition.

"Jemin-ssi, how many fingers do you see?”

"One..."

"It’s the middle finger."

"You little shit.”

"You’re doing okay, Jemin-ssi.”

And so, I was dragged along while Hamza conducted his little experiments on me every now and then.

As my mind slowly drifted into a hazy fog, the only thing I could tell was that we were passing through a large intersection.

Then, just as the rising fog began swallowing even the faded remains of old flyers pasted to utility poles, I thought we were turning into an alley. Instead, I saw a tattered South Korean flag hanging from a building.

The pastor and Lee Sejun cleared away the crude barricade blocking the entrance. Then the pastor spoke up.

"Nain says it’s clear. We’ll stay here for now. Looks like Islam managed to bring a decent amount of medical supplies. Let’s check everyone over before we move.”

That was when Hamza reached toward the edge of my gas mask.

He was probably just trying to make it easier for me to breathe.

But I almost reflexively grabbed his wrist.

-Clench!

"Ouch!”

"Don’t."

The memories were brief but very vivid.

The eyeballs that had rained across my gas mask from the Amalgams. The Human-skin Jellyfish’s organs splattering against it. A single layer of plastic was all that had separated my skin from these monsters.

After everything that had happened today, I had absolutely no desire to take my gas mask off anywhere outside a safe shelter.

Hamza seemed to understand everything from that one phrase alone. He nodded firmly.

"Then take it off when you’re ready.”

"Yeah..."

During the brief commotion the pastor had been covering our rear.

Standing near the entrance, his rifle awkwardly shouldered, he carefully aimed down every alley the fog had begun to swallow before letting us inside. It seemed the pastor was finally getting used to Seoul.

Following Hamza upstairs to the second floor, we were greeted by traces of the people who had once lived there.

Clothes lay scattered everywhere, and sagging mattresses had been dragged out into the hallway. It looked as though survivors had either stayed here for a time before moving on or met with disaster. Unfortunately, they hadn’t left behind a single scrap of food.

We settled into a room at the very end of the corridor. The most isolated one and the one with the fewest windows.

Most of the furniture had already been dismantled, either for barricades or building materials. The room felt empty, but that also made it the perfect palace to unload all the gear we'd been carrying. Aside from the dust, it almost looked sanitary.

I was lowered into the farthest corner.

The moment I leaned against the wall and removed my gas mask, I finally let out a long breath.

Ssss, haaaah...

For a while, the room filled with nothing but the rustle of clothing as everyone set down their packs one by one.

Some began to pray, while others rummaged through their backpacks for bottled water. Amid it all, the pastor called out.

"Jemin."

"Yeah."

"Your left eye. Is it completely gone? How bad is it?”

At that, I raised my left hand. Touching my eye with a hand caked in blood and dirt felt like the fastest way to get an eye infection.

So, keeping my left eye shut, without touching my eyelid, I simply repeated the intuitive understanding the magic had implanted into my mind. I explained the penalty of Eyes-branch, Stage 3 [Cognitive Dissonance].

The pastor clocked his tongue. The price was more terrifying than he’d expected.

"So you force all the backlash from the magic into one eye, and the moment it’s permanently blinded, the other eye starts going blind too. Tsk. That’s downright heretical."

At that, Shin Nain, who had been quietly meditating with one ear pressed against his headset, slowly spoke.

"But considering the impossible movements you showed us… it truly was a miracle worthy of the Holy Alteration Battle Arts.”

"Yeah. Jemin, you suddenly started moving insanely fast.”

Lee Sejun chimed in, all while tearing open a packet of hardtack and stuffing it into his mouth.

Watching him noisily crunch away on hardtack that probably hadn’t been touched by even the slightest moisture was so typical of him.

Then, the more I thought about it, the more annoyed I became by his fake admiration.

"Hey. Says the guy who soccer-kicked a junked car without even putting spin on it and sent it flying into a monster.”

"Did I?”

Lee Sejun blinked innocently while shoving another piece of hardtack into his mouth. The sight was so infuriating that I had to look away.

Just then, Hamza held out a piece of spotless white cloth. It was so clean it almost glowed. I accepted it without thinking. Hamza mimed washing his face.

"Wipe your eye with that. I put disinfectant on it.”

"Oh…Right. Thanks, Hamza.”

Even if he stumbled over his words sometimes, Hamza was unbelievably well prepared.

The cloth felt cool. Almost as if it had gel on it. It made me realize he'd been worrying about my injury far more than I’d thought.

So it wasn’t just talk when he said he’d been a medical student in Pakistan.

Though why someone like him had come all the way to a foreign country just to haul bricks was still beyond me. Even so, having him here made me feel strangely reassured.

Just then, the pastor, who had been quietly watching me, spoke in a calm voice.

"Let’s give it one day. See if your eye recovers. We’re almost out of ammunition. It’ll be too dangerous if you can’t fight properly, Jemin. And…everyone here is exhausted, right?”

No one answered. That silence was answer enough.

Crossing the Han River beneath a bright blue sky without the fog that weakened the monsters had been absolute madness.

I’d never realized so clearly just how much harder it was to fight them without the fog.

But after we’d reached the shelter, caught our breath, and the [Cognitive Dissonance] Stage 3 spell finally wore off, the chaos raging through my senses gradually began to settle.

-Bzzzt.

My spell phone. Now that I noticed it, it seemed the thing had been vibrating nonstop inside my inner pocket.

My head had been such a complete mess that I hadn't even felt it. I reached into my pocket and got an unexpected result.

-Siwsh.

"Huh?"

My hand passed through empty air. It should’ve touched my pocket.

Panicking, I patted my chest. A bizarre disconnect hit me. My hand wasn’t landing where I knew it should. Instead, it was making contact slightly farther away. Slightly off.  

That was when Shin Nain, humming softly to himself, spoke up.

"I’m pretty sure it’ll be difficult for now. Jemin-ssi still hasn’t adjusted to judging distance with one eye.”

"Do you think it’ll recover, Jemin-ssi?”

It was the first time I’d ever seen Sejun sound genuinely worried.

That only irritated me more. After patting my chest a few more times, I finally started getting the hang of it.

It took more effort than I expected, but I managed to fish my spell phone out of my pocket. Even then, my thumb missed the screen several times before I finally managed to read it.

[Kang Areum: The people runningGangbuk and Gangnam are different.]

[Kang Areum: Gangbuk still has decent people. But once they find out you’re working with the military, they'll be on guard. Be careful.]

[Kang Areum: And don’t ever stay under direct sunlight that long again. That was seriously dangerous!]

Kang Areum-noonim looked like a square-jawed, clean-shaven bodybuilder, but she really had a kind heart.

I was about to reply to her concern when the signal quality dropped. Our conversation ended there.

Instead, I checked the anonymous messages.

[5 military survivors confirmed crossing the Han River.]

[Intercepted communications confirm the survivor group’s name: ‘Aphorism’.]

[Different from the soldiers operating around Line 3.]

[Strongly suspected that every member is a wizard.]

[There are concerns that the unusual military activity may involve anti-wizard kill teams operating with the assistance of cooperative wizards. Avoid reckless contact and unnecessary engagements.]

[Traced back to Kim Beomgi’s spell phone of Jangji Station. All direct communication with Kim Beomgi’s spell phone is prohibited.]

Countless messages flashed past one after another. Then one sentence caught my eye.

[Aphorism. The military cannot help you. We’ll leave the spell phone behind.]

-Thud.

I set the spell phone down, then slid it over toward the gathered Supreme Archmages.

It bumped lightly against the pastor’s foot before Shin Nain picked it up and read the messages aloud for everyone. After reading everything, the Supreme Archmages exchanged uneasy glances.

The first to speak was Shin Nain.

"The mention of the soldiers near Line 3 makes me think they’re paying close attention to that area.”

"There’s an extremely dangerous wizard in Gangnam. There’s a good chance they ran into that person.”

Hamza added, remembering how he’d previously categorized that area on the map using his Dogma-type spell [Angel’s Intuition].

Now that it had been confirmed that the special forces really had headed toward Line 3, I couldn’t help clicking my tongue, imagining the kind of danger they’d walked into.

"I’m just glad we didn’t follow them.”

While I was busy feeling relieved, Lee Sejun tilted his head, a little slower on the uptake than usual.

"More importantly, doesn’t it seem like these guys know we’re here?”

"Lee Sejun. They’re practically leaving the door open for us to defect.”

The pastor clicked his tongue. Arms folded, he sank deep into thought.

Only after letting out a long, weary groan did he finally voice his opinion.

"So, once they confirm someone’s a wizard, they’ll leave room for negotiations even though they’re ready to kill their own people? Doesn’t sound like they’re treating ordinary non-wizard people all that well.”

All of us Supreme Archmages already knew the story through the memories I’d inherited from Ski Goggles.

To him, ordinary people who weren’t wizards were nothing more than future monsters. Dead weight. He believed they should be actively sacrificed if only to reduce food consumption.

The real question was whether Ski Goggles’ way of thinking was shared across all of Seoul.

Shin Nain tapped his headset lightly before giving his opinion.

"I don’t know when that devil first started spouting nonsense like that, but even if Seoul’s power grid wasn’t completely shut down, whether for humanitarian reasons or simply to keep vital infrastructure running, the situation had already deteriorated this badly. They probably couldn’t make proper use of it anymore. And the government, while it was still alive, likely avoided cutting the electricity entirely so they could at least preserve the appearance of humanitarian responsibility."

"After locking 10 million people inside and shooting them?”

At my objection, Shin Nain answered calmly.

"If they’d sealed off the city and cut the power first, people would’ve discovered much sooner that they were being massacred. Anyone would’ve realized something was wrong. It likely would’ve sparked an even stronger backlash than simply blocking the roads. More importantly, the Threshold was breached so suddenly that they may not have had enough time to shut everything down.”

"Aah—.”

"The important point is that even if you gathered every survivor group inside Seoul, there probably wouldn't be more than a few hundred thousand people left. The Devil’s servants are merciless and hostile. Just look at those Teratomas, or those…Tadpole Belly colonies. Anyone whose faith wasn’t steadfast would find it almost impossible to venture outside.”

This was what Shin Nain was really trying to say.

In Seoul survival came down to one thing. Whether you were a wizard or not. Ordinary non-wizards could no longer survive without wizards protecting them. And if wizards were forced to shoulder the burden of people who couldn’t contribute to their own survival, how long could that arrangement possibly last without conflict? 

"The people using these spell phones seem to believe ordinary soldiers are useless. Crusaders who wield the Holy Alteration Battle Arts are a different matter, apparently. They understand perfectly well that Crusaders are the most useful and the most capable when it comes to fighting the Devil’s servants. The problem is that even though modern weapons are still proving effective, they remain openly hostile toward the military. Yet with us, who still rely on modern weapons to some extent, they’re strangely willing to keep dealing with us.”

I could finally see where Shin Nain was going with all this.

Hamza was the first to notice the underlying assumption. After all, he belonged to the very group the 66-Society looked down upon. Perhaps that was why he recognized their prejudice so quickly.

"Nain-ssi’s right. It’s almost as if they’ve already concluded that this is as far as modern weapons could take us.”

"Oh, come on. You’re getting carried away, Hamza-ssi. What are they going to do if somebody just launches a nuke?”

Lee Sejun chuckled. The pastor merely shrugged, though.

"Sejun. Then let me ask you the opposite. What if there’s a monster that survives a nuclear strike?”

"Huh?"

"I think I'm starting to understand what they’re after. They’re not so different from those people who make a living selling fear with theBook of Revelations.”

The pastor absentmindedly rubbed the arm of his thin-framed glasses.

"Those bastards are forcing the world’s leaders into a gamble. ‘Nukes? Go ahead and fire them, but if even one monster survives, you’re finished, you know?’ Something like that."

His hand was trembling.

I had a pretty good idea why. Fear. The fear of human civilization might never return to what it once was. That it might ever recover.

That fear finally found its voice in his slightly shaking tone.

"...Society only functions because everyone assumes that even if the military fails, nuclear weapons are the final answer. Nobody says it out loud, but everyone believes it. The only reason people haven’t completely panicked yet is because that final card hasn’t been played.”

"Pastor, so if they really did launch nukes, leveled the entire Korean Peninsula…and it still wasn’t enough…”

Even Lee Sejun was finally starting to understand. His expression slowly hardened.

The pastor quietly steadied his breathing and closed his eyes.

"It would trigger a panic that would sweep across all of humanity. After that, there’d be no stopping it. Society itself would collapse.”

Those vicious bastards.

The pastor rubbed a hand over his face, muttering words under his breath.

An uneasy silence settled over the room.

Part of it was because the scale of the discussion was so absurd that it was hard to believe. But another part couldn’t help but imagine it. What if, even after taking dozens of hydrogen bombs, a monster still survived? If that happened, it really would be over.

That was when the spell phone vibrated again.

-Bzzzt.

"Damn it. Who is it now?”

"Jemin. I’m tired of looking at that thing. Take it back.”

-Whoosh!

The spell phone skipped across the floor like a flat stone over water before coming to a stop in front of me.

Clicking my tongue, I picked it up, then I saw the name we’d been hoping for.

[Go Ryeoha: Hey, are you guys those soldiers?]

[Go Ryeoha: The 5 people who crossed the Han River over Olympic Bridge… Is that really you guys?]

I, Baek Jemin, Odin aspirant and Great Archmage, held up the message for the Supreme Archmages to see.

"Nukes or no nukes, let’s eat something, drink some water, and go meet our new friend.”

Come to think of it, this wasn’t the time to worry about humanity after a nuclear apocalypse.

Besides, if nukes really wiped everything clean, what would there be left to worry about?

Magic would disappear with them.

So before the nukes erased it, I needed to learn at least one more spell!