Chapter 91: A Chilling Truth

[Translator – Aren]

Walking through the fog was a lot like wading into deep water.

With every step, I could feel the surface rising, feel the cold, damp pressure bearing down against my neck and chest, and found myself unconsciously holding my breath.

It felt like pushing through muddy water gone cloudy after a loach had thrashed around and kicked up the sediment.

I moved my hand and switched on the low-power light attached to the custom AR-15 I had gotten for free.

Even little actions like this filled me with pride.

A little over a week of enduring Instructor Song Smith’s lessons had paid off, and I had gotten much better at handling firearm attachments. They were the sort of things an ordinary rifleman would barely ever use.

-Click.

I had learned during the last Seoul expedition that overly bright lights were useless in fog. No matter how much you increased the brightness, all you could see was the direction the fog particles were flowing. The fog obstructed the light like a natural wall.

So this low-power light was meant to illuminate the ground beneath our feet and guard against any possible ambush.

The disgusting behavior of the monsters was becoming more intelligent by the day, so we needed something to keep our attention on the area below our ankles, where people naturally tended to pay less attention.

At the same time, since we had to shoot anything that moved, I disengaged the safety as well.

-Click.

Selector to full-auto.

Once again, I took the lead.

I was the best suited for it since I could respond more flexibly than anyone else and, if necessary, stop monsters in their tracks with Eyes-branch, Stage 2. Detection and searching, however, were divided up somewhat.

The prince of eye-branch magic was an unpleasant pain that tormented the eyes and brain.

Because its backlash was as severe as its power was great, the best approach was to use it strategically and properly distribute the total amount of pain I could endure.

In this gray fog, the role of locating monsters and determining their type and numbers fell entirely to Shin Nain.

This was why I tolerated Shin Nain despite his identity as a fanatic Shitmaster zealot.

Shin Nain held the center position in our three-man Alteration-type Supreme Wizard formation and, like a human sonar, occasionally raised a hand to stop us.

Whenever the excessive fluttering of his poncho sounded from behind me, Lee Sejun and I would, as if by prior agreement, drop to one knee, scan all directions, and rest our index fingers on the triggers.

Then, an ominous silence would settle in without fail.

The sound of wind passing through the gaping windows of abandoned buildings echoed around us, along with the creak of doors that had not been properly shut, grinding away at their innocent hinges.

Only Shin Nain remained standing rigidly like an antenna, quietly singing a hymn.

“Joy to the world, the Lord is come~ Let earth receive her King~”

It was an eerie stillness.

The village submerged in fog lay beneath a silence heavier than that of a town drowned beneath a reservoir. People had still been living here only a few days ago, yet even the chirring of insects had stopped.

What grated on my nerves was the sound of the baby crying.

It would honestly have been much better if it had been shrieking loudly enough to burst my eardrums.

At some point, the baby's cries abruptly stopped.

Even the sobbing woman‘s voice lost its shape in the fog and vanished somewhere among the faintly swaying leaves and branches.

My breath swirled inside the rubber of the gas mask, mixed with sweat, and settled across my face.

Suppressing the impulse to pull the index finger resting on the trigger, I used Eyes-branch, Stage 1 to look 10 seconds into the future.

But no red footprints appeared, nor did the gently drifting fog clear away.

Nothing would attack us even 10 seconds from now.

I considered using Tongue-branch, Stage 1 to enhance Eyes-branch, Stage 1, but when it came to the efficiency of searching and detection, Shin Nain was far superior, so I held back for now. Instead, I simply recalled how the Teratoma had attacked us and steeled myself.

A monster that mimicked babies, the Teratoma.

They targeted humanity’s instinct to protect children, luring people in with whimpering cries and adorable appearances while bombarding them with mental attacks. That was the behavioral pattern of the Teratoma as we Supreme Archmages understood it.

Judging from how the cries had echoed earlier, we had definitely entered their effective range.

-Gulp.

I swallowed dryly and let out a short breath.

-Huuuuff—.

These damn monsters.

Had they realized their mental attacks didn’t work on us?

Even now, Shin Nain was lost in his hymn, singing the refrain.

"Let all the church arise and sing His praise~."

It was especially irritating to hear while I stared through the red-dot sight with both eyes wide open, just as Instructor Song Smith had badged me to do. An obvious thought rose up within me.

Was this bastard Shin Nain actually doing his job?

Then Shin Nain stopped singing and spoke quietly but clearly, in a voice only Lee Sejin and I could hear.

"It really is a case similar to the Tadpole bellies.”

"You can distinguish that with Ears-branch, Stage 3?”

"Nain-ssi, how can you tell?”

The moment Lee Sejun and I could no longer hold back and ask, a heavy metallic sound rang out.

-Clack.

Shin Nain shouldered his rifle and aimed into the fog.

"In an extreme environment like this, if someone who still has their senses intact hears a hymn, they should react emotionally, become startled, or at the very least focus on it out of uncertainty. But the woman we presumed was a survivor remained trapped in the same thoughts she had been having before. Either the pain is too overwhelming or she is in a state where maintaining her senses is difficult. I’ve decided to treat her as effectively dead or as someone who needs to be put out of her misery.”

"What if she just didn’t hear you?”

"If she can’t hear my hymn in a place this unnaturally quiet, then we should consider her condition equivalent to death already.”

Shin Nain’s answer came back instantly.

It made sense.

Lee Sejun and I stood back up and slowly swept our weapons around us. Thanks to Shin Nain’s judgment, we no longer had to cling to even the faint possibility of rescuing a survivor.

Find them and kill them all.

With that resolve, we passed the irrigation ditch and the rice paddies that were still being prepared for planting, then entered a two-lane road. A low guardrail and retaining wall stood along one side of the narrow road, while abandoned greenhouses sat empty and lifeless along the other.

There were also piles of illegally dumped trash, the kind you always saw near rural areas and that would probably end up being burned as firewood later.

Avoiding the trash piles, I moved toward the guardrail. Only then did I notice a small stream flowing lazily between the retaining wall and the road.

Just in case, I stood by the guardrail and watched it closely. It was ordinary water, flowing over gravel and pebbles.

Lee Sejun approached while aiming his machine gun this way and that.

"Jemin-ssi, did you find something?”

"No. Nothing much.”

"Shouldn’t it be a problem if there’s nothing?”

"Exactly."

Lee Sejun and I rejoined Shin Nain.

You might think we were being a little too relaxed, but after surviving a hellscape like Seoul once already, the atmosphere in this village was bizarre beyond anything. There were definitely monsters here. In particular, there was clearly a Teratoma, the kind we already knew well.

And apparently there was also some monster with a human host, similar to the Tadpole bellies.

Yet Shin Nain, who should have been better at this kind of detection than anyone else, was somehow coming up strangely empty.

In fact, by the time we approached him, Shin Nain was backing away while rapidly swinging his rifle toward the vaguely visible mountains.

Visibility through the fog was 150 m.

The three of us Supreme Archmages stood between the densely packed trees and mountains that seemed to surround the road. Lee Sejun and I couldn't help asking as we casually adjusted our grips on our weapons.

"Shitmaster, did you run out of juice or something?”

"Where’s the Teratoma?”

The moment we entered the fog, I had expected us to rush in with a whoosh! and gun everything down with a Ratatata! Instead, it was so quiet that I was starting to wonder whether this fog might just be a natural phenomenon rather than something caused by monsters.

But rather than getting annoyed at our mockery, Shin Nain hurriedly turned toward us and lowered his weapon.

"Inside a building."

Only then did I realize that, beyond the lenses of his gas mask, Shin Nain’s eyes were trembling in shock.

"We’re surrounded."

No further explanation was necessary.

I rolled my tongue inside my mouth.

Eyes-branch, Stage 1, enhanced through Tongue-branch, Stage 1.

Evasion, critical injury, path, 5 minutes, me.

The moment those individually separated words came together atop my tongue, my taste buds split apart. By the time the familiar stench of blood and metallic taste began filling the gaps between my teeth, I was already moving without hesitation toward the places where the fog cleared.

Then I moved my blood-soaked tongue and led the Supreme Archmages

"I’m taking the lead."

When I ran, Shin Nain followed. When Shin Nain followed, Lee Sejun strode after him.

That was when the entire village, silent until now, began wailing like a maternity ward.

-Waah, waah, waah…

The cries of babies echoed everywhere.

Today, for some reason, it was especially difficult to find a house with its front gate intact, its windows unbroken, its walls still standing straight, and both doors still attached. More importantly, strands of hair could be seen fluttering beneath the shadowy recesses of abandoned houses.

Having survived Seoul, we knew what that meant without needing to say it.

Monsters.

At that moment, all the sobbing babies cried out in chorus.

-Waaaaah!

Time was up. We couldn’t keep running any longer.

Without hesitation, I pulled the rifle closer toward my body. As I did, I rolled my tongue inside my mouth again.

Target, kill, monster, 5 minutes, path.

I could feel my eyes heating up. The backlash had lessened considerably, but it hadn’t disappeared.

Feeling a sharp sting like a bit of soapy water against my eyes, I stepped forward.

My destination was an abandoned house.

My poncho fluttered as I strode ahead. I deliberately didn’t run, keeping my breathing steady. I passed through the already-open front gate and stopped before a door hanging from shattered hinges.

Instead of shouldering the rifle, I pulled it in close and brought the muzzle up into my line of sight.

I aimed around the doorknob.

-Babang!

The moment I kicked the rolling shell casing aside with my foot, I saw Shin Nain moving toward the window. Lee Sejun had his back to us, aiming his machine gun toward the road.

They were a bunch of bastards, which somehow made it even more damn irritating that we worked this well together in a situation like this.

Grinding my teeth, I kicked the door.

-Bang!

The fog cleared. Red footprints were scattered chaotically across the floor.

And beyond the broken door, I saw a 2-year-old toddler waddling toward me.

"Dada..."

It was a baby with chubby cheeks, blinking tear-filled eyes and sucking its thumb like a pacifier as it tottered forward.

I aimed my rifle at the baby.

10 seconds into the future, the red footprints were standing right in front of my face.

-Bang!

The baby’s outer shell burst apart, sending the grotesquely tangled teeth, eyeballs, and clumps of hair packed inside it flying upward.

I didn’t pull the pin on my grenade.

Not because I held even the slightest hope, but because I needed to save it for where it would be most useful.

Instead, I desperately repeated what Instructor Song Smith had taught me.

All while watching the red footprints race around and the accumulated fog clear, drawing boundaries between areas with fog and areas without.

When stepping, put your weight down heel-first.

-Step, stepstep.

When rounding a corner, keep as much of your body concealed as possible and take it wide.

-Step, step...

The moment shards of glass and broken debris crunched beneath the heels of my combat boots, I grabbed the creaking doorknob.

Just as I was about to turn, some kind of instinct struck me.

The instant I twisted the knob and threw the door open, I let go.

After releasing it, I pressed my back flat against the hallway wall.

My backpack dug painfully into me, but my field of view mattered more than pain.

-Splat!

Something sprang through the open doorway.

A Teratoma, wrapped in a baby’s skin like dumpling dough, was plastered against the wall like minced meat. Beneath its wrinkled belly-skin, pale whitish eyeballs rolled around and stared at me.

Once again, I raised my rifle.

-Ratata!

The moment I pulled the trigger, the window shattered. Gunfire poured in from every direction.

I reset my stance and moved toward the living room, where Teratomas shredded by bullets were twitching as they died.

Shin Nain brushed the broken glass off the window frame with the barrel of his rifle, smoke still rising from it. then crossed over without hesitation.

Nobody said a word.

Shin Nain aimed his rifle out the window, while I switched my selector to safe and started moving every table and chair left in the living room toward the window frame.

Lee Sejun, who joined us a moment later, tossed his heated machine gun onto the sofa, tore the door off its hinges, and used it to block off the entrance hallway.

We all must have understood instinctively.

There weren’t enough obstacles to make a proper barricade. And at the same time, we all knew this was the best we could do.

I loosened the sling again, adjusted my grip on the rifle, switched the selector back to full-auto, and stuck my tongue out slightly.

I prepared Eyes-branch, Stage 2 in case they broke through.

If things went bad, I would unload Eyes-branch, Stage 2 [Cognitive Distortion], at 100% enhanced with Tongue-branch, Stage 1.

A chill ran down my spine as damp fog seeped through the gaps in the crude tower of chairs we had piled up in front of the window.

But my eyes were too busy staring at the familiar yet grotesque shapes shambling toward us through the dense fog within 100 meters. I was so focused that I forgot to even blink.

-Waah, waah, waah…

The cries of babies were still echoing.

But now that they were closer, I could hear the groans that had been buried beneath them.

-Wimper…Whine…

Dogs were groaning in pain beneath the baby cries.

-Snort, snort!

An ill-tempered wild boar was breathing heavily with difficulty. Something with antlers, whether a water deer or a regular deer, had also joined the procession.

The baby cries were coming from those animals.

-Waah, waah…

The places on their hides that should have been covered in fur were instead blanketed with human hair, human teeth, human eyes, and human noses, all of it breathing. Tiny clisted, webbed little hands had sprouted from them as well, flailing helplessly.

Pratsitism.

The Teratoma was not using its animal host for reproduction. It was using them as transport.

The infected animals naturally began surrounding the house we had taken shelter in. Some might call that intelligent behavior, but I thought it was simply the instinct of a parasite seeking a comfortable habitat.

Maybe this had always been part of their behavioral pattern.

Thinking of it as some human-shaped horsehair worm orcordyceps made it feel a little more familiar.

Then I heard breathing through a gas mask behind me.

-Huuuuuff—.

I glanced sideways and realized it was Lee Sejun. Passing through the gas mask filter just made his breathing sound even rougher.

Lee Sejun checked the ammunition belt, closed the cover again, and spoke.

-Clack.

"So that’s how they broke through the blockade line.”

Exactly what I was thinking.

Shin Nain, his eyes trembling slightly, made a suggestion.

"Jemin-ssi, Sejun-ssi. I think we should fortify this position with [Blood of the Right Hand] and hold out.”

"Haah~!"

I could only sigh at Shin Nain’s painfully ordinary suggestion.

This was exactly why I could never bring myself to like him.

Teratoma-infested animals were gathering around us by the second, and his idea was to fortify the position and hold out? If all we were going to do was request support and wait desperately for fire support until sheer numbers crushed us, then we might as well give up the title of Supreme Archmages.

"Then what do you suggest?”

"Shitmaster, what’s the motto of us Supreme Archmages?”

Before our faith breaks, we shall end them. Before fear bends us, we shall become fear. 

I clicked my tongue at Shin Nain, this crazy fanatic zealot who somehow still lacked the proper Supreme Archmage mindset, and told him,

"Change your mindset. We weren’t ambushed.”

I briefly lowered my rifle and drew my combat knife amid the baby cries growing more violent as the Teratomas closed in.

My right hand was already covered in uneven scars from scabbing over again and again after countless cuts, but with my left hand suffering from being used as a magic wand too, I could hardly let only my right hand take it easy.

-Slice!

Clenching my fist as though grabbing the blood spurting out, I bought the gas mask filter up to my bleeding knuckles and pretended to kiss it.

Hm~ That disgusting, fishy smell of blood.

Proof that my magic was activating.

As I smeared [Blood of the Right Hand] across my gas mask, I looked at Shin Nain, who was staring at me with a horrified expression, and said,

"We don’t have to go looking for them anymore.”

The moment I raised my rifle again, the assault began.

As the whimpering animals charged, Lee Sejun’s machine gun roared to life.

While I had been reassuring Shin Nain, Lee Sejun had mounted the machine gun on the window frame and was pressing the barrel down with his left hand.

That alone completely controlled the recoil.

-Ratatatatatatatatatatatata—!!!!

Shell casings poured out as the Teratomas burst apart. The poor animals were shredded along with them and screamed, but I ignored it.

I aimed toward the entrance and shot down the dogs charging through it while reassuring myself.

I, Baek Jemin, the human, had already grown up on the screams of tens of thousands of chickens.

If I started tearing up now just because a bunch of animals were crying in chorus, all the chickens roasted over hellfire would come complain to me.

-Ratata!

As shell casings rolled across the living-room floor, I shouted,

"Break through!”

I deliberately didn’t use Ears-branch magic. It was obvious Shin Nain would start bitching at me not to say something insane.

But I knew a magic phrase that could persuade Shin Nain.

"This is a chance for martyrdom."

"!!!"

One of our Supreme Alteration-type trio began burning with passion.

The ordinary man who had, unlike himself, been thinking rationally and reasonably until now awakened once more as a true Supreme Archmage.

-Ratata, ratatata!

As muzzle flashes drove back the fog, the man who had rediscovered his calling pulled his trigger with tears streaming down his face and confessed,

"Almighty Lord God, forgive my weakness.”

I glanced back without thinking and saw Shin Nain, who had been stricken with horror behind the lenses of his gas mask, now firing with tears pouring down his cheeks.

With every cycle of the bolt, he somehow grew even more devout.

"I repent for trying to hide like a coward before the Devil. Amen!”

Of course, there was still one person casually talking as though he were out for a stroll while firing a machine gun one-handed and crushing the recoil down with sheer strength.

As the ejected casings pounded against the floor, Lee Sejun voiced his concern over my swift intervention.

"Jemin-ssi, are you seriously making him insane again now that he finally started acting normal?”

"If Shin Nain comes to his senses, he’ll be handsome, smart, good with guns, considerate, and basically the perfect social butterfly, you know?”

"Fuck no. Absolutely not!”

From that moment on, our Supreme Alteration-type trio displayed astonishing teamwork and began pushing back against the monsters’ assault.

Lee Sejun poured out heavy firepower with the machine gun braced against the window frame, grinding the monsters down. Shin Nain took responsibility for covering Lee Sejun’s flank and rear.

And I, Baek Jemin, stepped out in front of the entrance with my gas mask coated in [Blood of the Right Hand] and the left sleeve of my poncho fluttering behind me.

The cut across my right hand, briefly numbed by adrenaline but now beginning to burn, and the lingering ache in my left hand crossed the pain threshold at just the right moment and met the perfect backdrop of dense fog.

And that wasn’t all.

Eyes-branch, Stage 3, Tongue-branch, Stage 2, Ears-branch, Stage 1, and Hand-branch. Stage 2. Magic spanning four branches. A poncho enhanced with Incantation-type knowledge originating from the Society. A sleek, customized AR-15. Even the marksmanship I had learned after more than a week of running around camp and getting chewed out by Instructor Song.

So, you know…

After preparing this much, wasn’t it only natural to want to use it?

If you learned something and obtained it, shouldn’t you put it to use?

If I died in pursuit of magic, that was fine.

If it meant reaching almighty power, I would crawl into the fog before a nuclear bomb could fall.

The moment I collided with my limits while pursuing magic, I would die without a single regret!

At that moment, the three of us, who had been halfheartedly pretending to be rational, became one again without exchanging a single word.

Madness against madness. 

Absurdity against absurdity.

If hell had encroached upon us, then deeper we would go!

-Clack.

I raised my rifle. An infected animal, a mutt, came charging toward me with a whimper.

-Bang!

Its head burst apart, and the Teratomas tangled into it were torn loose. The malignant tumors sprouting from its fur crawled along while imitating human babies, then shifted their clumps of hair toward me.

-Bang!

A shell casing rolled away as the monster collapsed. I kept striding forward, once again putting the marksmanship I had learned to use.

Most importantly, if the Teratoma had overcome its limitations by riding animal hosts, then I could turn the animals’ own desires against it. I moved my tongue around inside my mouth and chanted silently.

Upright Alteration-type, Tongue-branch, Stage 2

[Desire Amplificaiton] - Sleep.

-Crack!

The instant the papillae on my tongue split apart once again, the animals that had been charging ferociously began staggering and flailing. It didn’t matter how much the parasitic Teratomas inflicted pain or forcibly manipulated their neural signals.

-Waah...

While the Teratomas continued crying like babies, the exhausted animals couldn’t withstand the magically induced drowsiness. One after another, they dropped where they stood or struggled desperately to remain upright.

Only then were Lee Sejun and Shin Nain able to come outside as well.

-Claaaatter!

The moment he emerged, Lee Sejun changed magazines, while Shin Nain covered him and aimed at the animals still struggling to stay conscious.

-Bang, ratata!

As the animals dropped one after another, some of the Teratomas tore themselves free from their hosts with a wet rip. Naturally, there was no way an animal could survive having chunks of flesh forcibly ripped away like that.

For the animals falling asleep despite the dangling bones and tendons causing them agony, I raised my rifle and pulled the trigger.

And while I was at it, I shot the detached Teratomas dead as well.

Gunshots kept ringing out, muzzles glowed red-hot, gunsmoke scattered through the fog, and every time shell casings rolled across the cracked asphalt and lodged in the gaps, disgusting chunks of flesh burst apart with heavy thuds.

But apparently we hadn’t killed them all.

-Squeeeeaal!

I turned at the sound of a deafening boar cry and saw a mass of Teratomas clinging to a single wild boar. Its tusks had swollen into grotesqueosteosarcoma-like growth, and its entire face was covered in monsters imitating human babies to the point that its original eyes were almost impossible to find. 

-Ratatatatatatata!!!!

Lee Sejun’s machine gun tore into it without hesitation.

Half the animal was ripped away, but the tiny webbed baby hands created by the Teratomas linked together as though holding hands and forcibly stitched the wound shut.

The boar began charging in that state.

Even while limping, it gradually stopped making pig-like squeals and instead let out louder and louder baby cries.

Before long, they weren’t even cries anymore.

-Giggle…Kyaha….

The laughter of the Teratomas overlapped as it charged. Shin Nain was the first to grab Lee Sejun and pulled him aside while pouring bullets into it.

But the Teratomas weren’t aiming for Lee Sejun, nor were they aiming for Shin Nain.

"Jemin-ssi!”

Someone shouted urgently.

But at that moment, my head was filled with nothing but exhilarating dopamine. Was this how a matador felt standing before a bull with a red cape?

Even with a boar charging at me, its shape lost beneath human teeth, hair, eyeballs, and puss, my movements remained perfectly methodical.

-Thud.

I dropped to one knee.

Then I raised my left sleeve, stained with [Blood of the Right Hand], and lifted my left arm like a shield.

I braced the rifle over it.

-Clack.

As metal locked against metal, the boar opened its tangled maw.

Teratomas were clustered inside that mouth as well.

Swollen across the tongue, palate, and teeth, they grew innocent baby faces that stared toward me while reaching out with adorable little hands. The cries of human infants harmonized inside the boar’s mouth.

I pulled the trigger against that chorus.

-Bang!

As the boar began to collapse, the swollen tumors held its posture upright.

-Ratatata!

Other Teratomas swallowed the ones burst apart by bullets and laughed brightly.

-Ratatatatatatatatatatatatata!!!!

I wasn’t the only one firing.

Shin Nain had stopped protecting Lee Sejun and was now aiming at the boar as well, but even that was useless against the monster's overwhelming durability.

At that moment the rifle’s recoil felt like it would tear my shoulder out of its socket, I bit down on my tongue without hesitation.

-Crunch!

Amid the sharp, stinging pain and the tears streaming down my face, I filled them with exhilaration as I cast.

Because only I am precious in this world, only my pain is absolute.

While I suffer, even time itself shall suffer.

Upright Alteration-type, Eyes-branch, Stage 2 [Cognitive Distortion].

100%.

The wind died down. Sound subsided. Even the flowing fog hardened like brick.

Only I remained unaffected.

Even the gunsmoke rising from the muzzle drifted lazily as I stood up and rolled my aching right arm in a circle.

Then I switched the selector to semi-auto and changed magazines.

After reloading, I looked around. It was quite a sight.

The spent casings that had already ejected their bullets were floating through the air like clouds in the sky, only at a much lower altitude.

I tapped one casing lightly with my index finger.

It changed direction and began moving slowly. If everything in the world was playing at a fraction of normal speed while I remained at 1x speed, then the casing I flicked with my finger was moving at maybe 0.1x speed.

This was it.

I picked up the floating casings one by one and smeared them with [Blood of the Right Hand]. When I dug into the still-unclotted wound on my right hand, a sharp, throbbing pain sent tingling through my entire palm.

Then, remembering the old days when I used to play flicking games with stones, I tapped the bloodstained casings one after another. 

-Tap, tap, tap.

The casings that had been drifting downward without purpose changed direction and floated along at a crawl.

There were somewhat fewer of them than the dozens of bullets I had fired, but simply having something else moving alongside me made dopamine explode through my brain.

I couldn’t stop laughing.

This was why I was willing to crawl back into Seoul, into the fog, even if it meant cutting through monster hordes and risking a nuclear strike.

After finishing my little casing-flicking game, I finally turned my attention back to the boar charging at me and the Teratomas tangled across its body.

Within the slowed flow of time, the monsters imitating humans seemed to perceive the situation much faster than actual humans could. Their useless pale eyeballs and lumps of flesh swelled out like protrusions and flailed around.

Webbed baby hands began thrashing desperately, yet impossibly slowly.

Tears streamed from my eyes as the pain in them steadily intensified, and even as every kind of pain swept through my entire body, I laughed.

With this…

I could sweep up all the experience points.

-Blink.

I closed my eyes.

-Ratatatatat—!!!

The sound of experience points going up reached me with perfect clarity.

It was such a sweet sound that if I set it as my alarm, I could probably even become a Miracle Morning person. When I slowly opened my eyes again, all that remained was a handful of blood and gore where the creature had burst apart after being pierced through my dozens of bloodstained shell casings.

I dropped to one knee.

Of course, pain surged through my shoulder and arm as though someone were relentlessly stabbing them with needles, forcing me to swallow back a groan.

But even the groan couldn’t overpower my laughter.

Then something heavy climbed onto my back. I felt irritation rising.

Lee Sejun, this fucking bastard again?

"Sejun, fuck off and stop clinging to me…”

-Waah.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up instantly.

All the joy and exhilaration I had felt moments earlier vanished, and for an instant it felt as though my heart had frozen solid. As my blood vessels seemed to flash-freeze, I was just about to bite down on my tongue again.

-Kiiiiiiiing—-.

The sound seemed to pierce straight through my head.

Rather than clear, it was sharp. Rather than clean, eraser-like felt more fitting.

A sound like something forcibly scrubbing my brain clean.

When it ended, the heavy weight pressing down on my back was gone too.

I hurriedly got to my feet and spun around. All that remained was a handful of pitch-black ash.

I was standing there blankly, wondering what had just happened.

"Go Ryeoha-ssi’s enchantment definitely works.”

"Tsk. Isn't it useless if you don’t let your guard down?”

Lee Sejun came over while pouring water from his canteen over the overheated barrel of his machine gun to cool it, while Shin Nain approached after removing his magazine and checking the chamber.

"Did you see what happened?”

"One of the Hebrew characters written on your back turned red. I think it has a limited number of uses. The red color probably symbolizes corruption."

"What the hell were you two doing?”

At that, Lee Sejun shook the water off his hand and said,

"When you kill hundreds of monsters, one or two are bound to slip through.”

"Then shoot it!”

"I’m holding myself back because I’d start wanting to mow Jemin-ssi down along with it.”

"More importantly, Jemin-ssi, you must have felt it now. The Lord’s protection.”

Shin Nain didn’t miss the opportunity to proselytize.

A Teratoma had waited for an opening and climbed onto my back, and the Ancient Hebrew-enchanted +1 poncho had blocked it once, so therefore I should come to church. The Lord was real, and He had just saved me.

Of course, my answer was firm.

"If God really wanted to save me, He wouldn’t have sent me to the army.”

"What does that even mean?”

"On the day of my military physical, I prayed that if I got exempted, I’d start going to church. It didn’t work. I haven’t fully believed in Jesus since that day.”

If He had no intention of recruiting a talent like Baek Jemin, what was the point of going to church?

While Shin Nain stared at me in disbelief, Lee Sejun looked around and clicked his tongue.

"The fog’s clearing. But…it feels like there's still something left, right?”

We looked over the monster corpses strewn everywhere, then naturally turned toward Shin Nain and said,

"Let’s go. Time to kill the last one.”

Once upon a time.

The elderly people who lived in this village probably used to worry about things now and then but still spread out a mat by the roadside, drink soju, and playGo-Stop.

We looked down at thehwatu cards scattered along the little stream trickling beyond the roadside guardrail, then kept walking.

Once upon a time.

The country dogs in this village that barked whenever they saw a stranger probably used to race around energetically and wag their tails even while tied to their leashes.

We looked at the empty lease and doghouse, then kept walking.

Once upon a time.

There must have been someone who believed that no matter how hard life was, if they could just survive to the end, a better future would come.

We looked at the bloodstains, the broken baseball bat, and the trace of resistance of someone that had met a gruesome end, then kept walking.

Once upon a time.

There was a woman who, while everyone else evacuated, had no choice but to endure as she stroked her swollen belly, waiting for the child she was about to give birth to.

"Ugh, no, no.”

A mass of flesh stood before us, sobbing as it clutched a belly that grotesquely swelled and deflated as though breathing.

Its human lips were already gone.

The mutation was even more lethal than the Tadpole bellies.

No, in truth, it wasn’t even a mutation.

I knew the moment I saw it.

The mass of flesh didn’t even notice that we had arrived or that we were aiming our guns at it.

Now reduced to a colony made entirely of Teratomas, she was merely imitating the past in which she had been pregnant.

A human consciousness trapped inside the body of a monster was desperately imitating humanity, unable to let go of its human memories.

Every time the mass of flesh’s belly rose and fell, something became clearly visible.

A symbol that should have made us vomit the moment we saw it gleamed ominously, dyed blood-red.

Lee Sejun even lowered the muzzle of his machine gun without realizing it.

"A Heart-branch magic symbol?”

A chilling realization washed over me.

Shin Nain seemed to have reached the same conclusion, because he abruptly turned his head and murmured.

"Jemin-ssi. Hasn’t something like this happened before?”

Without saying a word, I raised my rifle.

This time, it was my turn.

I pulled the trigger again and again. The woman’s anguished cries rang out as she clutched at the body bursting apart beneath the bullets.

She failed after the scattering Teratomas, desperately gathering them back into her arms, and her scream as she tried to imitate the human body she once possessed cut through the dissipating fog.

I had to end it.

With only that thought in mind, I poured bullets into her without pause.

Before my eyes, the screams of a human gradually degraded into the cries of a monster. Then the grotesquely swollen belly of the colony released a hiss and expelled fog.

By the time I finally lowered my rifle, the fog had completely cleared.

Only the monster’s corpse and pools of blood remained.

Instinctively, I knew.

I felt a scorching heat cutting through my heart.

I had learned Heart-branch magic.

But the chilling truth we had just realized was far too enormous for me to feel any joy over that fact.

The Hand-branch magic symbol we had encountered beneath Suwon Station.

And now, the Heart-branch magic symbol we had encountered in this village.

Both had been found on monsters.

Even the usually dense Lee Sejun titled his head as though sensing that something was wrong.

Only Shin Nain and I faced one another and fell silent before this horrifying truth.

The monsters are learning from humans.

And.

They are trying to steal human magic.