Chapter 143: A Diligent Patriot

[Translator – Aren]

-Thud, thud.

The soles of my combat boots pushed off against the asphalt.

The road outside of the Pyeongtaek US camp.

I was out running alone, sweat pouring off my body. With cicadas already chirping away and overgrown weeds lining the road as I ran, all kinds of thoughts crossed my mind.

But the moment I spotted a group of soldiers marching in formation in the distance, I snapped back to my senses.

I forcibly put some strength into my legs, which had been flopping around like octopus tentacles, squared my drooping shoulders, wrung out my sweat-soaked shirt once, then pushed out my chest. And to give it my all, I asked myself a question.

Who am I?

A jobless bum, a young man whose life was ruined, a pathetic loser, a hot-blooded 21st-century filial son who can’t stand anyone badmouthing his parents for no reason…

Every one of those disgraceful labels was nothing but fabrication and slander from ordinary people incapable of recognizing my true worth. When I started running again with a resolve worthy of my grand ambitions, boundless pride surged up inside of me.

That was when the cold rationality of a Great Archmage whispered to me.

Baek Jemin. You know.

You know better than anyone why you’re here, running along the outer roads of the Pyeongtaek US military camp right now.

I deliberately forced down the twitching corners of my mouth, put on a serious expression, and focused only on my breathing as the blazing sun beat against my back. I subtly changed direction too. My target was the group of soldiers currently walking down the road in formation.

As I got closer, I could clearly make out their condition.

Korean soldiers in individual combat gear and helmets, marching with K2 rifles whose selectors were set to safe. Judging by the dog-tag armbands every one of them wore, they were soldiers from the blockade line. Perfect targets.

-Huff, huff.

My vision shifted with each short breath.

Eventually, the soldiers recognized me, and the change I had been waiting for happened.

At first, they blinked as if wondering who I was. Then their eyes widened all at once, and they snapped into a single line in perfect unison before saluting me.

-Snap!

The five soldiers, a mix of private first classes, corporals, and sergeants, looked at me with awe and emotion in their eyes.

"Loyalty!”

"Thank you for your hard work!”

"Huff, Haah." 

Panting hard, I passed them with a slight wave, greeting them as casually and coolly as possible.

I’d just checked off one of the things I’d wanted to do at least once before my life was over.

Hearing genuine cheers erupt behind me, I spurred myself onward, fueled by pride. Even the cold rationality of a Great Archmage was too busy congratulating itself on how perfectly today’s plan had worked.

And my overwhelming power ofmetacognition restored my sense of control over the situation.

Right. The reason I was using training as an excuse to run along the outer roads.

Some might keep coming up with simple ideas like, ‘Isn't he just trying to improve his aptitude for Heart-branch magic?’ or ‘Isn’t he doing this because he’s anxious?’ Both are wrong. There was far more to why I had deliberately chosen the perimeter road to make one huge lap around the camp.

It was to show people that I worked hard consistently even in my everyday life.

If I ran somewhere with too many people, they might accuse me of putting on a show. A heartwarming story only has impact when you build up the narrative somewhere no one can see, then reveal it later!

It was also a stroke of good luck that someone who was definitely not me had submitted an anonymous complaint strongly demanding tighter patrols along the camp’s outer perimeter.

Thanks to that, just running hard along the outer roads was enough to raise my reputation. Few things made me raise my shoulders more than soldiers saluting me whenever we crossed paths, looking at me with ever-growing respect.

That was the main reason. The second reason was to organize my thoughts.

Once the soldiers were far enough away and no longer watching anymore, I went back to flopping along as I sank into contemplation.

".....”

Ever since my childhood illusion that I was special shattered, there had been one principle firmly ingrained into me.

I, Baek Jemin, might be overwhelmingly better than the average person, but I wasn’t absolutely exceptional.

I desperately wanted to coast through life, and I definitely wanted to be special, but reality and ideals had to be kept separate. I was born with limitations. If I wanted to accomplish something, I had to work for it, and if I wanted outstanding results, I had to think things through.

The reason I was special was that I didn’t use being special as an excuse to neglect preparation.

There was one common mistake people exposed to strong doses of dopamine tended to make. The delusion that because they were special the usual standards wouldn’t apply to them.

You could find most of those people on stock-trading app communities or atKangwon Land.

Personally, I called it the exemption delusion. Honestly, people who only acted like that at casinos were the reasonable ones.

Seoul and the area around the blockade line in 2028 were places where you didn’t bet with money but with human lives, and what awaited you wasn’t a fortune but perhaps a fate of eternity, even more horrifying than death.

If you got blinded by loot, convinced yourself you were different, and charged in underprepared, you were unquestionably a goddamn moron. If you didn’t understand the value of your own life and believed being special would protect you from death, you might as well just jump off a skyscraper.

At least then you’d have the option of getting reincarnated in another world.

Jump into the blockade line and get eaten by a monster, and you were headed straight for eternity.

I was no exception.

A fate more miserable than death could come for me at any time, and I already knew very well that one’s magical realm didn’t guarantee absolute superiority.

There was no need to look far. The Seoul wizards the Supreme Archmages had hunted were perfect examples.

Their sincerity towards magic and their pursuit of it deserved respect, and their attempts to overcome the limits of their innate talent were almost sublime…but when it came to tactics and combat, they had a fatal weakness.

That was what had gotten me researching and thinking things through in my own way.

While the other Supreme Archmages devoted themselves to their respective tasks—civilian aid, researching magic, deciding whether to purify or destroy remains, supporting the blockade line, or cooperating with military research—I was handling reputation management and research at the same time.

-Thud, thud.

As I ran, I continued sorting through my thoughts.

Why had the Supreme Archmages with lower accomplishments in magic been able to defeat the relatively stronger Seoul wizards?

"Huff, huuff.”

The Seoul wizards were survivors.

Their priority was staying alive and avoiding danger, and they focused on fighting by unleashing their firepower only in extreme situations. For most of them, magic was a means of survival rather than an end in itself, so they were reluctant to pay its price, and their use of magic wasn’t particularly combat-oriented.

The Supreme Archmages, on the other hand, were raiders.

Backed by the infrastructure and productive capacity of civilized society, things the Seoul wizards could never enjoy, we received overwhelming firepower and supplies, which meant we barely had to worry about survival at all.

It also made a huge difference that we operated as a single concentrated force, struck when the enemy was scattered, and subdued them through the tried-and-true art of superior numbers before additional reinforcements could intervene.

In wizard terms, I suppose you’d call it a battle formation.

Just as Shaolin’s 108 Arhat Formation¹ was praised for being powerful rather than cussed them out for ganging up on people, the Supreme Archmage’s 5 or 6 Wizard Formation wasn't just ganging up on others. It was a profound and mighty battle formation.

Then was the Supreme Archmages’ use of formations the only reason we had overwhelmed the Seoul wizards?

That wasn’t it either.

-Trudge, trudge.

My running pace gradually began to slow.

The noises I hadn’t noticed while concentration slowly floated back into my awareness.

-Ratata... Bang…

The distinctive crackling noises of gunfire, like beans roasting in a pan, and the sharp smell of gunpowder filled the air. Hearing shots from beyond the parked vehicles sent a strange thrill through me as I braced my hands on my knees and let out a breath.

"Haah."

The shooting range.

Right on cue, the alarm I’d set began ringing loudly from my pocket.

-Bebebebebeeeep—.

I fumbled it out and checked the time displayed on the screen.

June 15th, 2028, 10:43 AM. 

Time to learn how to survive with one eye.

* * *

The area in front of the firing lanes was completely deserted. Which made sense, since this range was reserved for civilian Operators.

And there was still only one civilian Operator group allowed inside the Pyeongtaek US camp.

The Supreme Archmages.

Instructor Song Smith had basically become the Supreme Archmages’ personal firearms instructor.

Even so, he handed me a gun and repeatedly stressed his warning without the slightest hint of annoyance.

"Mister Baek, there’s something a lot of people overlook. They don’t understand why humans have two eyes.”

Instructor Song Smith explained as he secured the firearm to the firing lane with a cord.

"If you lose one eye, the first thing that inevitably follows is a loss of depth perception. And your brain has to allocate more resources to post-processing what you see. Mister Baek, the human brain is basically the same as a computer CPU. Running it at 100% isn't a good thing. You need to accept that there’s a difference between the absolute maximum and what you can sustain.”

"So running your brain at 120% is actually bad?”

"Oh…goddamn. Think of it like a gun barrel warping from heat if you fire too much.”

After securing the firearm to the lane, Instructor Song Smith handed me the unloaded gun and had me take my stance. Then he carefully checked each movement and explained everything step by step.

"The reason we delayed your firearms training, Mister Baek, was because you needed an adjustment period.”

According to Instructor Song Smith…

When a person suddenly loses sight in one eye, dizziness and disruption of their sense of balance can set in quickly. Even with the brain’sneuroplasticity, it still needs time to adapt. In my case, my sense of balance was sensitive enough that I suffered severe motion sickness, so the sudden sight loss may have affected me even more.

The important part was that I could now go about daily life with one eye, and that, both physically and psychologically, I had accepted that I could no longer rely on vision from my right eye.

"I’ll teach you under the assumption that you aren’t using LISA. First of all, Mister Baek, since your left eye is the one that still works, you’ll need to stay on the left side of the formation from now on.”

My right side was my blind spot.

I could detect threads with my heightened affinity for Ears-branch magic, and if necessary, I could use my right eye, which had become remains, to subdue people without affinity for Eyes-branch magic, but under normal circumstances I would still be slower in detecting danger coming from my right side.

So the advice was that I should always be positioned on the left side of the formation, with a teammate on my right to cover for me.

If that wasn’t possible, I should always keep a wall or some other obstacle on my right that I could use as a cover and that would block anyone from approaching from that direction.

I also learned footwork and the things I absolutely needed to keep in mind.

"When engaging an enemy, pull the firearm toward your right side, put your weight on your left foot and use it as a pivot, then move your right foot back. Think of it as turning your body sideways. Pull your neck and head to the right and keep your left eye facing straight ahead.”

-Skrrk—!

I could clearly hear tiny bits of gravel bouncing off my heel.

It was clumsy and awkward as hell, but I repeated the motion dozens of times under Instructor Song Smith’s stern gaze. Reducing my exposed side, looking at the target with my left eye, and aligning the gun.

"I told you to shoot with both eyes open, but since you’re ultimately aiming off one eye anyway, your shooting itself hasn't gotten that much worse. What matters is making absolutely sure you understand that losing your right eye has narrowed your field of vision. I’ll help you with that.”

Instructor Song Smith even stood firmly in front of me while I held my stance and threw a few mock jabs through the air.

He whipped his fist back and forth in front of my face, showing me exactly where the boundary lay.

It was a way of feeling out where the new blind spots in my vision began and how that differed from what my brain thought I could see. After throwing the jabs, he also stretched out a finger and tested whether I could judge if it would touch the space between my eyebrows.

"Mister Baek, how close do you think my finger is?”

"About 1 centimeter?”

"Good. Your depth perception has improved a lot.”

Only then was I finally allowed to stand in the firing lane and shoot.

Naturally, my accuracy was worse than when both my eyes worked fine. But there were definitely positive signs as well.

The shot group itself was still tightly clustered, which made it clear the main issue was zeroing.

As I pulled the trigger and fired, my body absorbed the recoil completely and let me maintain stable fire. That was encouraging.

Enough that even Instructor Song Smith gave me a thumbs-up after I finished shooting.

"I don’t know how horrific the battlefield you went through was, but your shooting itself has improved tremendously compared to before. That’s proof you’ve built up an incredible amount of combat experience. If both your eyes still worked, even becoming a sniper wouldn’t have been impossible for you.”

"I’m not joining the military.”

Telling me to become a military sniper was clearly an insult, but it also meant I was good with a gun, so I could more or less laugh it off.

* * *

Jun 16th.

That day, I met with Poodle-noona, the Pyeongtaek shaman, and Monk Wonhaeng for meditation meant to refine the sensory side of things.

Monk Wonhaeng quietly prayed with his palms together, creating an oddly solemn and peaceful atmosphere, while Poodle-noona and the Pyeongtaek shaman busily threw around advice, sitting beside me as I attempted to sit in the lotus position.

"Eightfold Yang. We read the reports on what you saw and felt while fighting. You seem exceptionally good at taking in your entire surroundings quickly through all five senses. Some of that comes from your natural intuition, but there’s an obvious downside to that as well. Your attention gets pulled in too many directions. You especially have a tendency to get overwhelmed by our senses and lose your grasp on the here and now.”

"Your senses are just too sharp. That’s separate from you being hopeless at actually using your body.”

With Monk Wonhaeng quietly praying rather than engaging in a Zen dialogue, the shamans continued giving me advice.

I sat cross-legged with my eyes closed, blocking out my vision first, and took some time to organize their advice in my head.

Sight, touch, smell, taste, and hearing.

Regardless of the fact that Alteration-type magic had no branch related to the nose, I tended to notice smells well even in the middle of combat. Poodle-noona repeatedly pointed out that this was both a powerful talent and a limitation.

"Eightfold Yang. Your spatial awareness is relatively weak. Even when you talk, you tend to focus on distinctive features of an object instead of explaining where that object is positioned. That kind of ambiguity is exactly what lets you wield power that hasn’t been neatly quantified and systematized.”

Apparently, they figured this was why my magic was inconsistent or why I sometimes overwhelmed opponents through sheer output.

Time and space.

Those two things are generally considered objective. They have clear units of measurement, so they can be standardized.

If your perception of time and space overwhelms your five senses, your magic becomes more stable and the price weakens, but its output drops. On the other hand, if your own five senses are dominant, your magic boasts greater output instead of always producing the exact same effect. The price is higher, too.

"Like she said, emphasizing your five senses isn’t all bad. But if you can consciously switch between the two, you could hide your strength from an opponent or, conversely, greatly amplify the effect when you launch a surprise attack. And I don’t just mean when it comes to killing karma. I think it’d be useful for reducing the overall price of magic too.”

"How do you know something like this?”

"You think there're only one or two civilian Operators around? They’ve all got places they’re put to work. Offer a few MPC and there are people lining up everywhere.”

Poodle-noona pounded her chest as she complained.

Thanks to her, I was once again reminded that we Supreme Archmages weren’t the test subjects. We were the ones who got to apply the results produced by those experiments. Eight. Let the low-level wizards do the hard work, I’ll just reap the benefits.

Those low-level noobs don’t want to enter the blockade line themselves anyway, so if their work helps the people willing to go in, that kills two birds with one stone.

"Now, Eightfold Yang. Describe what I put down on the floor here.”

"There’s a paper crane lying in front of your stocking-covered feet, Noona.”

"No. Use exact numbers. God, you're driving me insane. If numbers are too hard, use claps or something!”

"Uh…In a straight line, it’s about five claps away from me and half a clap away from Poodle-noona. I think it’s right in the middle of the room.”

This felt damn pointless, but they said it would improve how well I could use magic, so I reluctantly repeated this over and over.

Just as I was concentrating properly, Poodle-noona suddenly tapped me on the shoulder.

"I’m not done yet."

"What are you talking about? Keep going and we’re going to starve to death. Go eat.”

Only then did I realize several hours had flown by while I was concentrating.

Even so, my mind felt perfectly clear, which puzzled me until I saw Monk Wonhaeng smile and incline his head. The Buddhist Dogma-type magic was [Mantra Invocation], right?

I thought you had to recite a mantra, but apparently simply praying beside someone had an effect even without chanting one.

Maybe his realm had somehow risen as well.

Anyone who helped me with magic deserved my respect. 

I stood as well, pressed my palms together somewhat awkwardly, and willingly bowed to Monk Wonhaeng.

"Thank you, Monk Wonhaeng."

"If Baek Jemin-ssi can hold compassion in his heart, that is enough.”

* * *

And then, June 21st, 1:31 PM.

I had eaten and was sitting cross-legged on my bed, basking in the cool air-conditioned air. I was too busy ignoring whatever everyone else was doing and devoting myself solely to honing and training myself.

Then someone opened the door.

-Creak—.

I deliberately tried not to pay any attention to whoever it was, but the visitor went so far as to speak to me.

"Baek Jemin. Want to come do some community service? While we’re at it, we can check out the subway station atHwaseo too.”

"No."

I rejected him instantly.

The help of Great Archmage Baek Jemin wasn’t something just handed out for free. Tsk. Rather than teaching people a beggar’s mentality, truly helping them meant reminding them not to forget the harsh logic of capitalism.

That was what I had just vowed when…

"You’ve been filming those recruitment videos lately, right? People might not know much about magic, but apparently they want to see the young diligent patriot Baek Jemin.”

In that instant, I opened my eyes without a moment’s hesitation.

"Recently, since becoming a public figure, I’ve come to feel the need to contribute to society. We all have to live together in the end, right? I believe this is an opportunity to devote myself to the community.”

"Haah~. Fine. As long as that gets you moving. Come on, let’s go!”

_________________________________________________________________________

¹often shown as a large-scale defensive array of the Shaolin sect in wuxia made up of 108 monks