Chapter 22

Descent Beneath Suwon Station (2)

Wearing a gas mask always made my skin feel strangely moist.

And, like Ttoli—the mutt at my grandmother's house whenever a dog biscuit appeared—I could feel drool threatening to spill from the corners of my mouth.

Ssslp.

I swallowed the saliva trying to leak out through my lips.

It was probably a conditioned reflex from CBRN training.

Back then, I'd spent enough time crying, snotting, and drooling to flood a small river.

I was pretty sure I'd even pissed myself a little during training.

Fortunately, that particular reflex hadn't carried over.

Squish.

After taking a short breath, I quickly surveyed the first-floor underground concourse.

Entering felt completely different from escaping.

The ominous red emergency lights that had flickered during our flight were gone.

In their place, bright white fluorescent lights illuminated everything.

As a result, we could clearly see the shattered glass, collapsed ceiling panels, and mountains of debris scattered across the station.

Still.

Letting our guard down was not an option.

Alteration Eye – Stage 1.

There wasn't any fog here, but I activated it anyway.

Who knew?

Maybe repeated use would accumulate some invisible experience points and strengthen it.

Besides, if I ever wanted to cheat at cards in Las Vegas someday, I'd need practice.

Of course, it also served as training for enduring the unpleasant backlash.

My eyes felt as if shampoo had gotten into them.

Burning.

Scraping.

Irritating.

One thing was certain.

The backlash was significantly worse outside the fog.

Thump. Thump.

Every heartbeat felt as though the tiny blood vessels spread throughout my eyes were wriggling.

How should I describe it?

As if my eyeballs were wrapped in an impossibly thin sheet of plastic.

Not smooth plastic.

Wrinkled plastic.

Something slightly rough and irritating pressed against the surface of my eyes.

In short—

It felt fucking awful.

Still, pain came in many varieties.

As a magician dedicated to studying magic, I intended to catalog every detail of these sensations.

At least one thing was better.

Unlike when I'd examined the roads above ground, my eyes weren't aching nearly as much.

The reason became obvious almost immediately.

Roads were filled with people and vehicles.

This ruined underground station was practically empty.

The fewer things there were to observe, the weaker the backlash became.

Inside the fog, backlash decreased dramatically.

Likewise, when the future remained relatively unchanged ten seconds ahead, backlash weakened further.

I scanned the area, checking how many footprints would appear ten seconds into the future.

Fortunately, the biochemical operation seemed to have worked.

No footprints appeared.

However, I remembered the briefing regarding Predatory Spines.

Creatures that were sensitive to light.

Creatures that hung from ceilings, pipes, and hidden crevices.

Creatures that preferred ambush.

A monster like that wouldn't necessarily charge the moment it sensed human presence.

It might patiently continue waiting ten seconds later.

I maintained my guard and shouldered my rifle.

Shin Nain and Lee Sejun watched different directions without relaxing their vigilance.

After roughly twenty seconds, no future footprints appeared near the concourse entrance.

"Shitboy. Hear anything? That guy Park Sehyeok kept hearing heartbeats."

"My faith was steadfast, perhaps. Or maybe it's the monsters' instincts. Either way, I started hearing those simple voices. That's why I survived."

"Stage Two Alteration Ear?"

"Probably. But I can't hear anything here. Maybe they're really dead."

I silently stored the information away while maintaining my burning eye magic.

Alteration Ear users heard sounds.

Park Sehyeok had heard heartbeats.

This lunatic Shin Nain had progressed from hearing people's inner voices to hearing the instinctive cries inside monsters' minds.

Whether it was real or not remained uncertain.

Still.

It seemed useful for detection.

Clank.

The three of us took the lead.

We could have sped up the search by treating Lieutenant Baek Hanseong and his thirty soldiers as disposable human detectors.

But they were people too.

People dragged into this nightmare just like us.

I didn't want to throw them recklessly into danger.

I, Baek Jemin, was a man who sought magical power.

Not someone who casually sacrificed human lives.

Unlike Shin Nain.

Thanks to that, the search of the B1 concourse progressed more slowly.

The officers above ground claimed the area had already been cleared after the biochemical operation.

Still, in a situation where monsters could appear at any moment, caution was simply common sense.

Lieutenant Baek and his soldiers only advanced into areas we had already checked, focusing on securing wide corridors and open spaces.

"The operators are better at detecting monsters. We'll focus on concentrating firepower. Stay sharp. If one of those things catches you, you'll be begging for death."

Following the lieutenant's warning, the soldiers stiffened and carefully rechecked every angle.

Our trio likewise avoided rushing ahead.

Instead, we worked alongside the soldiers, securing safe zones and eliminating potential threats.

Having consumed every horror movie, creature feature, and zombie cliché imaginable during my free time, I refused to tolerate sloppy cleanup work.

To reduce backlash, I only activated my eye magic around corners and doorways.

Combined with Shin Nain's auditory detection, our scouting became extremely thorough.

That preparation paid off in front of the women's restroom.

Normally, I wouldn't have gone anywhere near it.

But letting monsters ambush soldiers because of such laziness would have been idiotic.

We approached.

Then Shin Nain's voice changed.

"Sounds like fingernails scraping a chalkboard."

He pointed toward the restroom.

"Monster inside."

"How many?"

"One... but let's prepare for more than one, Mr. Baek Jemin."

Outside the restroom, no future footprints were visible.

Was an Amalgam hiding inside?

Or perhaps a Predatory Spine waiting somewhere unexpected?

The fact that something had survived two weeks of biochemical warfare was disturbing enough.

Humans were stubborn.

Apparently, monsters were too.

"Should we use a grenade?"

Enduring the backlash of my magic, I aimed my rifle at the entrance and asked the others.

Surprisingly, Lee Sejun spoke first.

Lacking detection abilities, he instead briefly explained his own heart-related alteration magic.

"I'll take point. Dangerous situations like this are exactly what my ability is for. Save the grenade until we know we need the firepower."

"That's pretty risky..."

"You've got future sight. Shin Nain's got monster radar. Someone has to enter first. Besides, we can't solve every problem with grenades."

"Fair point. Let's inform Lieutenant Baek first."

While Shin Nain and I covered the restroom entrance, Lee Sejun went to speak with Lieutenant Baek.

The lieutenant's expression hardened.

The idea that monsters had survived despite two weeks of chemical warfare clearly unsettled him.

He immediately barked another order.

"Assume monsters are still present on B1. Just because the lights are on doesn't mean it's safe. Check again for fog!"

Fog.

Monsters and fog always seemed to go together.

Yet the air in the concourse looked perfectly clear.

Had three days of ventilation removed the fog too?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

There was a strange haze clinging to the floor.

Only about five millimeters thick.

Too thin to confidently call fog.

Too thick to dismiss as dust.

Still.

If monsters were confirmed present, assuming it was fog seemed safest.

Preparations finished.

Shin Nain and I positioned ourselves at roughly forty-five-degree angles from the doorway.

Lee Sejun checked his rifle one last time.

Hooo.

Hooo.

The breath escaping his gas mask might have been his last.

Under fluorescent lights untouched by sunlight.

In a place where death might be preferable to whatever monsters intended.

Yet despite his fear, he stepped forward.

"Entering!"

At the same moment, Shin Nain and I moved.

But I possessed the advantage of future sight.

Lee immediately dropped low upon entering, clearing the line of fire behind him.

And over his back—

I saw footprints.

Red footprints.

Scattered wildly across the ceiling.

Familiar.

Instantly recognizable.

Amalgams moved much like sprinting humans.

This movement pattern wasn't human.

Predatory Spine.

Rather than aim for the body itself, I fired at the footprints.

Accuracy closer to suppressive fire than marksmanship.

But I wasn't ashamed.

Even a professional sharpshooter's aim would have gone to hell in this situation.

Bang! Bang-bang!

Brass casings rattled across the restroom tiles.

Ribs flashed across the red footprints.

For an instant, it looked like a giant white centipede racing across the ceiling.

Then I saw it clearly.

A skull.

Milky-white eyes.

A jaw hanging loose.

A tongue dangling out and dripping cold saliva.

It crawled across walls and ceilings with horrifying agility.

Honestly, I would've preferred hugging a real centipede.

The Predatory Spine twisted its elongated body.

Ribs scraped against walls.

It flowed through the restroom like a living nightmare.

Its eyes remained fixed on Lee Sejun.

Waiting.

Watching.

Fast.

The moment I fired at its projected path, I struck ribs instead of its head.

"AAAAAH!"

Lee panicked and opened fire as well.

But it hardly mattered.

The creature was faster than our rifles.

Its pale eyes never left him.

Its head twisted unnaturally, tracking every movement of Lee's shoulders and hands while it raced across walls and ceilings.

Ricochets erupted everywhere.

Spent brass rolled across the floor.

But none of us landed a meaningful hit.

Tatatatatat!

The sound of ribs striking concrete echoed through the restroom.

Cold sweat slid down my nose.

This wasn't normal.

It was unbelievably fast.

No.

Was speed really the correct way to describe it?

It was different from the Amalgams.

The Amalgams had feared my sight.

This thing...

It was deceiving it.

Holy shit...

Even when I aimed ahead of its future footprints and fired first, I still couldn't hit it properly.

At that moment, I immediately crouched and slammed my left hand against my knee.

Alteration Eye – Stage 2.

My suffering had grown longer and deeper than ever before—

"AAAAAGH!"

The creature had been racing across the mirror above the restroom sink.

Suddenly, it dropped onto the sink and convulsed helplessly, its pale eyes trembling violently.

Only then did we truly see it.

Not in briefing footage.

Not in photographs.

With our own eyes.

Even Lee Sejun, who had bravely volunteered to enter first, faltered at the sight.

But despite his lack of social skills, Lee knew exactly when to pull a trigger.

Without hesitation, he emptied the remainder of his magazine into the monster's head.

Bang. Bang. Bang-bang.

The gunfire only stopped because the trigger no longer did anything.

Click-click-click.

The instant I screamed, the Predatory Spine slid off the wall and crashed to the floor.

Burnt gunpowder drifted through the air.

The last casing from the chamber rolled away.

Yet Lee Sejun kept pulling the trigger.

Only then did I finally close my eyes.

Blink.

Have you ever seen a dead insect?

The way its legs continue twitching after death?

The Predatory Spine was the same.

Its mutated ribs scraped and clattered together.

Its tail whipped desperately.

As if it wanted to move.

As if it wanted to reproduce one final time before dying.

Like a flea or bedbug desperately attempting one last act of survival.

But Lee.

Shin Nain.

And I.

All maintained our distance.

Gradually, a pale pink fluid leaked across the sink basin and trickled into the drain.

Watching it flow made my appetite vanish instantly.

My hand rose unconsciously toward my face.

Jesus fucking Christ.

For a brief moment, I almost agreed with China's position.

The one advocating three one-megaton hydrogen bombs on Seoul followed by a nuclear cleansing of the entire Korean Peninsula.

If foreigners saw this thing, they'd probably start dancing directly on top of their nuclear launch buttons.

Hell.

They might even try exterminating Korean refugees afterward.

Out of all eight billion people and two hundred nations on Earth—

Why had these bastards appeared in Seoul?

If they absolutely had to emerge somewhere, why not Africa or somewhere equally doomed and get themselves nuked into oblivion?

Still.

I eventually found peace.

Right.

Nothing worthwhile was ever easy.

These were creatures I'd inevitably encounter again if I wanted to gain magical power.

Better to get used to them now.

Who knew?

Maybe if I saw enough of them, I'd eventually find them familiar.

Perhaps one day I'd be calling a Predatory Spine "Spiny" and walking it around on a leash.

Only then did I remember I was wearing leather gloves.

And a gas mask.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

Not because of magical backlash.

But because fully comprehending what kind of monster we'd just faced made me want to stop seeing things for a moment.

I removed my magazine and estimated the remaining rounds.

Eight left.

I'd burned through twelve rounds.

Honestly, considering I'd been half-panicked and firing semi-auto, that wasn't bad.

Though it was a little expensive for killing a single monster.

Today, I discovered I could move my trigger finger much faster than I'd ever imagined.

Still.

Eight rounds were too valuable to waste.

I reloaded.

Then I placed a hand on Lee Sejun's shoulder.

He was still pulling the trigger against an empty chamber.

I turned to Shin Nain.

"Mr. Shin Nain. Can you hear what Lee Sejun is thinking?"

Only then did Shin Nain seem to emerge from his daze.

He shook his head and checked his own magazine.

Judging by the smoke drifting from his barrel, he'd been firing wildly too.

All three of us had entered something close to a trance.

After a brief hesitation, he discarded his partially used magazine and inserted a fresh one.

Then he answered.

"Lee Sejun is thinking we should just start throwing grenades first next time."

"Hmm."

A reasonable conclusion.

Far better to waste a grenade than get your spine severed while trying to prove how capable you were.

***

After hearing our report, Lieutenant Baek Hanseong immediately contacted the surface.

Not long afterward, reinforcements arrived.

This time from the CBRN unit.

Their commander, Major Jang Sinmyeong, brought only around fifteen soldiers, but he clearly knew what he was doing.

"Operators and Lieutenant Baek's unit, maintain security. We brought flamethrowers. We'll incinerate the monster carcasses."

"Yes, sir!"

Sounded reasonable.

Better to burn them than risk becoming a host for one.

"Let's go, Mr. Lee. We'll report to Lieutenant Baek."

The search resumed.

Fortunately, no living monsters appeared afterward.

Not that the station was empty.

Plenty of corpses remained.

Most belonged to Amalgams.

Apparently the biochemical operation hadn't been entirely ineffective.

Many creatures had tried climbing to higher ground to escape the gas and ultimately suffocated together.

Their bodies lay tangled in corners, leaking yellowish fluids resembling vomit mixed with blood.

The sight made my stomach churn.

Even stranger were the fluorescent spots visible on preserved human limbs among the Amalgam remains.

Thanks to our magical detection abilities—and Lee Sejun's newfound paranoia after encountering the Predatory Spine—nothing unexpected occurred.

That was when I realized something.

The giant Amalgam that had chased me during our escape hadn't been alone.

One had been shredded by machine-gun fire.

One lay dead here.

And another...

The one that had eaten the priest.

"There should've been one more."

"How do you know that, Mr. Baek Jemin?"

Shin Nain asked.

Rather than acting mysterious or withholding information, I shared it freely with my fellow members of the Supreme Archmages.

"We haven't found the bodies of Geulmun Bosal or Father Jeong Yonghwan."

"They were both heretics."

"That's not the important part. Though... I guess it is for you."

Remembering Shin Nain's personal mission of resisting Satan's forces, I reconsidered.

Different things mattered to different people.

Regardless.

The first-floor concourse was finally secured.

Lieutenant Baek immediately stationed guards around the stairways leading to B2.

Major Jang and his CBRN personnel busied themselves with equipment and decontamination procedures.

Meanwhile, our trio remained near the staircase.

"Mr. Lee, you can relax your rifle for now."

"No. If I stop aiming, I think I'll lose my mind."

Lee Sejun had transformed into the perfect sentry.

Together with the soldiers, he stared down the staircase with terrifying intensity.

I considered telling him to take a break.

Then I remembered.

He was a Heart-type magician.

A man who could sprint at full speed for thirty seconds without tiring.

Perhaps having him on watch wasn't such a bad thing.

Several dozen minutes passed.

The smell of burning Amalgam corpses mixed with the hum of ventilation systems.

Eventually, Major Jang returned.

He had completed sprinkler inspections, fire-extinguisher checks, and all other fire-safety procedures.

Gathering Lieutenant Baek and our trio, he finally removed his gas mask.

Major Jang had an M-shaped receding hairline.

Still.

His features were handsome enough that, aside from a few signs of age, he looked like a perfectly respectable office worker.

"Phew... B1 is safe. Decontamination wasn't even necessary. You can operate here without gas masks."

"Thank you, sir!"

"Good work. More importantly..."

He looked at us.

"I hear you believe monsters are still present."

"Yes."

This time, I answered first.

My eyes never left the staircase.

The same escalator that Father Jeong Yonghwan and I had climbed during our escape.

Now we'd be descending it.

"There were two operators whose heads got eaten by Amalgams. Their bodies aren't here."

Lieutenant Baek visibly flinched.

Major Jang frowned and rubbed his clean-shaven jaw.

"Concerning. We used cyanogen chloride. The fact that anything survived..."

"Major, anything we should be careful about?"

"The ventilation process is complete, but be cautious in enclosed spaces. Blood agents may still remain. Those leather gloves..."

He paused.

"...Honestly, regulations say you shouldn't have them. But considering biological contamination from monsters, they're probably better than nothing."

After muttering to himself, he surveyed the shattered concourse.

"Set up a staging area here. Bring extra filters before heading down. I'll contact the surface and get more for everyone."

"Thank you, sir!"

Lieutenant Baek sounded noticeably relieved.

At least an expert had declared the first floor safe.

Finally, I removed my gas mask.

The first thing that greeted me was the stench of burning corpses.

"Mmm. Shame nobody burns with the scent of pine forests."

"Mr. Baek Jemin, please stop saying insane things."

"Mr. Lee, you should take yours off too."

"I'm fine."

The memory of the Predatory Spine had clearly scarred him.

He remained motionless.

If he didn't want to remove it, that was his business.

Shin Nain and I simply focused on breathing fresh air again.

The sensation of underground wind brushing against skin that had been trapped inside rubber felt strangely pleasant.

Then Shin Nain beckoned me over.

"I need to tell you something."

Immediately, I assumed the worst.

Had Lee Sejun finally decided to frag me?

Had he abandoned the sacred oath of the Supreme Archmages?

Maybe Shin Nain had overheard it with his ear magic.

Suspicious, I cautiously leaned closer.

The answer was something entirely different.

"Mr. Baek Jemin."

"What?"

"You said we never found the body."

"Yeah..."

"I can hear it."

"Hear what?"

Unlike my direct, transparent communication style, Shin Nain seemed determined to sound mysterious.

For a moment, I considered hitting him with my rifle stock.

Then I saw how serious he looked.

He leaned closer and whispered.

"Among all the chalkboard-scratching noises..."

His expression darkened.

"...I can hear someone calling for the Lord."

I immediately raised a hand, stopping him from saying anything else.

The priest was alive?

No.

That thought never even crossed my mind.

I'd seen his head melt away.

If he was still moving...

Then he wasn't a priest anymore.

He was a monster.

A sudden thirst seized me.

I grabbed my canteen and drank.

One gulp.

Two.

Three.

Only then did the dryness leave my mouth.

I lowered the canteen.

And quietly said:

"We were right to save the grenades."