Chapter 145: Kicking Away The Ladder

[Translator – Aren]

Being an all-rounder is kind of a tricky thing.

If your hexagon falls just short in every stat, people call it a trash build. If the hexagon is completely filled out, you get buried in work and dragged everywhere. That was why I, a Great Archmage with a full hexagon, had gotten dragged along for the pastor’s community service work.

For that, I needed to be able to use Tongue-branch, Stage 1 freely.

-Shrrk—!

I wrapped the True-Body Sarira prayer beads even more tightly around my left arm, deactivated Tongue-branch, Stage 3 [Information Alteration], and returned to being a native Korean with a TOEIC score of 0. [Information Alteration] was fundamentally an on/off ability, a kind of active buff that remained active for as long as I endured the penalty of depersonalization.

It seemed like there might be some way to make the alteration permanent when used at 100%...but it would definitely demand an insane price.

Magic always demanded a price, and every attempt to shuffle that price around eventually came back to bite me. I’d used Eyes-branch, Stage 3 [Cognitive Dissonance] to concentrate the backlash from Eyes-branch, Stage 4 [Cognitive Imposition] into one eye. The result was the loss of sight in my right eye.

It seemed to recover up to a certain point, but once you crossed the limit the practitioner could bear, it took things away without a shred of mercy.

Now that I understood that, I had no choice but to be more careful about using magic.

Use it appropriately, at the right time and in the right place, to minimize resource expenditure.

A conclusion worthy of Baek Jemin, the full-hexagon Great Archmage. 

Of course, the pastor wasn’t particularly fond of the expression “Full Hexagon.”

"Full Hexagon? Fine, I’ll give you “full pentagon.” You've got all five branches, so sure. So where’s the 6th corner coming from?”

"My character."

"..."

The pastor looked like he’d bitten his tongue and was about to argue, but realizing it would just be a pointless argument, he shut his mouth.

The road was filled not with cars, but with all kinds of armed people walking around in groups. On one side of a crosswalk were soldiers ready to shoot someone at any moment. On the other were refugees sitting around with blank expressions, their hands moving meaninglessly.

The pastor and I walked down the road between them, heading out to provide civilian aid.

Along the way, I got a very clear idea of what the refugee concentration zone established near Hwaseo Station was like.

Following the pastor into an alley between the shops, I noticed a flyer pasted beside a utility pole. It stood at the entrance to a narrow alley between low-rise commercial buildings, with trash and waterlogged plastic bags strewn around.

My eyes drifted toward it without thinking. The moment they did, I naturally narrowed them.

It was a missing-children flyer.

Before January 2028, there probably would’ve been one or two children’s photos on it. Now a single flyer held notices for around 20 missing children. Their ages varied too, from kids just old enough to properly walk around on their own to older elementary-school kids.

One notable detail was the X drawn over the photos of several of the missing children. 

Unlike the printed flyer itself, these had obviously been drawn on by hand. The ends of the red ink that went over the edges of the photos ran down in streaks like bloody tears.

-Clatter, clatter.

I could clearly hear the refugees organizing their dishes. There was no crying or moaning. People whose world had collapsed and who had been driven out onto the streets sat beneath thick tents, wiping bowls with dry cloths.

A housewife with her disheveled hair tied back, a child sucking on a spoon while looking around with bright little eyes, and an elderly couple quietly clasping their hands and bowing their heads in prayer, even a man glaring around with hard, vicious eyes.

Some people would think the proper response to tragedy was to cry your heart out.

I’d met people who thought despair only counted if you screamed like an animal. Every last one of them was unbearably arrogant. Keeping my mouth shut, I slowly studied the missing-children flyer again.

One or two people going missing wasn’t a tragedy.

Anyone fragile and weak enough to scream over the reality of a young child being separated from their family and never seeing the light of the world again wouldn’t survive in this broken world.

Only then was I able to start walking again.

Pastor Park Yohan stood at the entrance to the trash-filled alley, putting on his gas mask as he asked,

"Baek Jemin, what took you so long?”

"I was looking at the pictures.”

"Pictures?”

The pastor’s gaze moved past my shoulder, landing on the flyer I’d been looking at.

His eyes trembled slightly, and a short prayer slipped out of his lips, followed by a sigh. There was no further conversation needed after that. The pastor and I naturally adjusted our groups on our guns and moved our index fingers closer to the triggers.

-Clack.

The distinctive metallic sound of firearms rang out almost cheerfully.

-Splash.

Our combat boots stomped through a puddle or stagnant, rotten water.

Fortunately, the alleys in the refugee concentration zone near Hwaseo Station were relatively straight and short. That meant there was less need to worry about ambushes. People huddled against the walls on sheets of plastic, their shoes off as they idly wiggled their toes, giving off a slightly rotten smell.

I also saw three neat-looking people standing around a closed trash-can lid, pouring water into clean paper cups. Though even looking neat couldn’t hide the stains and grime on their clothes.

A few of them glanced toward us, then turned their heads, as if they didn’t care anymore.

But I could clearly feel their eyes on us. One of them was even quite bold about it. A man in a dress shirt with several buttons torn off stood holding a paper cup of water, visibly debating whether to approach us.

Whatever scheme he was cooking up, it wasn’t going to work.

The backlash from Ears-branch, Stage 1 [Mind Reading] was almost constantly active. Normally, countless voices overlapped until they became meaningless noise, but once I focused, it finally gained some meaning, turning into true [Mind Reading]. 

I heard the thoughts of the man holding the paper cup.

'Get one civilian Operator hooked on drugs, and I can take his gun as collateral. A gun. As long as I have a gun, I can make something work.'

Looks like the only thing I could give that man was a bullet.

-Clack.

Fighting against the heavy weight of the gun, I aimed with my one good eye. The man who had been approaching with a friendly smile hurriedly waved both hands.

"N-No, I wasn't doing anything. It’s not what you’re thinking. It’s just that you looked like this was your first time here, and since you people work so hard, I just thought I’d do something nice…”

At the same time, his inner voice overlapped with his words.

'Fuck. Is he the kind of wizard who can read minds? I heard those guys are shit with guns…’

These damn non-wizard bastards.

I put my index finger on the trigger without hesitation.

Just then, the loud sound of breathing through a gas mask leaked out.

-Huuuff—.

It was the pastor.

The pastor had raised his gun as well and was warning the man in a low voice.

"I can send you to the Lord before you commit a sin. Just keep that in mind. You’re dressed like a respectable person, so what the hell is this?” 

"If one shot doesn’t get you to the Lord, don’t worry. I’ll shoot you three or four times if I have to. Choose whether you stop on your own or get express-delivered to the Lord’s side.”

The standoff continued for a moment.

The eyes of the non-wizard man in the dress shirt who had tried to serve me drugged water sharpened viciously, but when he saw the guns the two of us had aimed at him, fear flooded his face and he began backing away.

That was when I pulled the trigger.

-Bang!

The fleeing non-wizard collapsed forward, spraying blood.

I’d shot him right in the side. Even if it didn’t kill him instantly, without proper medical treatment, he’d die from the pain and blood loss. If he’d lived a decent life, maybe there'd be someone willing to save him. If he’d lived like a piece of shit, he’d just writhe around on top of that garbage heap until he died.

I turned my gun toward the others.

"Drink that water yourselves. Shoot yourselves up with every drug you’ve got. If you don’t, I shoot.”

"Baek Jemin."

"Pastor. I can hear everything.”

Not a single trace of remorse.

Even with a gun shoved in their faces, the voices of regret I heard were going in a completely unexpected direction.

'That fucking idiot just had to mess with the mind reader of all people!'

'Holy shit. This guy definitely has shot more than one or two people before!'

I didn’t think they’d committed some outstanding sin.

My mistake was expecting anything from humanity’s flimsy morality in the face of the absolute imperative of survival. And faced with the same absolute imperative of survival, I had no intention whatsoever of giving up my life or my strength for someone else.

Innocent civilians…

They weren’t innocent. They were guilty.

The mere fact that they'd thought about harming me was enough to make them unworthy of living.

"Guess you’re not doing it, huh?”

Gunshots rang out one after another.

The people crouched against the wall, clutched their heads, and ducked down. I put one bullet into the side or thigh of the guys who’d tried to drug me.

Only then did the non-wizards who’d been acting up without knowing their place let out short screams and started writhing.

"Huuff, hugh…M-Mom.”

"Kgh, kuuuurgh…Uhuugh…Uwaagh…”

The guys who hadn’t shown a single shred of remorse to the very end started crying for their mothers once they got shot.

Tears, snot, drool, piss, and blood streamed out of them as they clutched their wounds and flopped around weakly. I quickly used [Mind Reading] to check whether there were any other accomplices nearby. Fortunately, the three who’d been serving drugs from that trash-can lid they were using as a table were the only ones.

But what I saw next was worse than that.

I noticed it too late.

Disposable syringes and crudely made cigarette butts hidden among carelessly discarded plastic, scraps of tissues, and piles of cardboard caught my eye. Only then did I understand why the people around the alley hadn’t run even after hearing gunshots.

Drugs.

Human will had utterly surrendered before drugs. Their souls had been cast into another form of eternity.

An eternity not trapped in the flesh of monsters but in chemically induced pleasure.

Those trapped in that eternity didn’t care who fired a gun or who died.

The moment I realized that, I couldn’t bring myself to lower my gun.

The guy I’d shot while he was running was still breathing, but he was definitely in the process of dying. The two who’d just gone down after being shot in the thighs crawled around like insects, trying to get away. However, my disgust didn’t fade a smidge even as I saw their blood mingle with the rotten water.

Would just one bullet each really be enough?

It felt like even emptying an entire magazine into each of them wouldn’t be enough.

"Baek Jemin, stop.”

"They’re fucking scumbags spreading drugs around, though?”

The pastor’s expression twisted slightly, as though it pained him to put what he was thinking into words.

At that moment, I unconsciously used [Mind Reading] on the pastor. Just what could be so damn difficult to say that he had to groan over it like that? I had magic that could read other people’s minds, so what reason did I have to hesitate?

But the moment I heard what was going through the pastor’s head, I regretted it a little.

'Judging by the circumstances, this is happening with the military’s tacit approval. Too many people only want to run away from the monsters, and they need to stop the workforce from draining away if they want to keep the Gyeonggi region’s infrastructure running. The military is probably looking the other way while frontline troops trade combat drugs they receive with civilians for MPC or dollars. Even if they wanted to stop it, only the troops on the ground would get punished, and if the forces maintaining the blockade line were disciplined and pulled from the front, conscription would only grow harsher. On top of that, there are even rumors that some civilian Operators have gotten addicted to drugs and are carrying out expeditions into Seoul just so they can obtain them legally…’

Drugs. Drugs, huh…

I see. So that’s how it is.

I was genuinely amazed.

You coil call the secret weapon non-wizards came up with to control wizards who were difficult to keep in line. It was exactly what you’d expect from people who understood better than anyone that things like the human soul and human will mercilessly collapsed in the face of pain, fear, and chemically induced pleasure.

Even if a non-wizard rather than a wizard got hooked on drugs, they could just use the drugs as bait and shove them into the fog. Two birds with one stone. It would make collecting MPC and dollars easier as well. More importantly, it would make it easier to produce excellent personnel capable of effortlessly overcoming fear and suffering caused by monsters.

Only then was I finally able to take my index finger off the trigger.

My head throbbed slightly.

Of course, my sudden change in attitude made the pastor suspicious.

He looked mildly irritated at first but soon spoke, unable to hide his mixed feelings.

"Baek Jemin.  Did you just read my mind? Why the hell would you read something like that?”

"Ears-branch magic has some insanely harsh backlash. Let’s go.”

I didn’t want to read the thoughts of people who were dying.

And what I was supposed to do if the pastor’s suspicion turned out to be true

Someone had to be ground down at the blockade line. If someone wasn’t thrown to the monsters in everyone else’s palace, if someone didn’t fire their guns, then everyone would die. The 40 million surviving citizens and the rest of the world had sacrificed Seoul’s 10 million residents, and now they had simply chosen the soldiers on the blockade line as the next victims.

It was karma.

All this time, soldiers hadn't been people to civilians.

They were people burdened with the duty and mission of stopping monsters and saving their families, people expected to throw themselves into eternal terror willingly.

If that was the case, then soldiers had no obligation to see civilians as people either.

In the face of the monsters’ terror, sacrifice lost all meaning.

—I’m not going down alone.

It was an auditory hallucination.

The fact that it was only in my head made the back of my neck feel even colder. 

The surviving soldiers spoke in chorus with the voice of the Yellow-Bandage Straggler, who was now long dead.

—If you won’t pick up a gun yourselves, then I’ll stick a needle in you if I have to. You’re coming down into this hell with me.

My mouth went completely dry.

Karma coming full circle.

This alley was the result of that.

The pastor was the first to start walking again, turning away from the corpses that had already gone cold.

I slowly followed behind him.

Neither of us spoke for a while.

We merely passed swollen cardboard soaked through with water, scattered piles of trash, syringes hidden between waterlogged plastic bags sagged under their own weight, and all kinds of filthy plastic bottles.

-Crunch.

A disposable syringe was crushed beneath our combat boots.

The puddles of rotten water felt far more disgusting than they had just moments ago.

Even so, the pastor and I kept moving through the short alley, following the voices of people asking for help.

We passed people drooling, clutching at forearms covered by their sleeves as their toes twitched.

One of the refugees behind us called out in a warm voice.

"Yeongji… Dinner’s ready…”

-Clench. 

Without thinking, my grip tightened around the handle of my gun.

I strode forward even more forcefully.

-Splash.

Another stagnant puddle splattered its filth around.

Disgusting water, rather than blood, stained the hem of my poncho.

"...."

Hell.

There were no monsters, no fog, no demons, but I could say with certainty that this palace was hell.

And we were in that hell.

* * *

After that short but intense tour through hell, we emerged somewhere relatively normal.

We’d only passed through a single alley and come out onto another road, and yet the people here looked far more lively and energetic. While armed soldiers fiercely guarded the ration trucks and water trucks, an officer in a combat uniform shouted through a megaphone.

"We’ll verify MPC first! Anyone who worked aboveground at Hwaseo Station, move behind the water truck! Anyone who worked at the shopping mall, gather in front of me! Keep things orderly! Even in these difficult times, I expect to see our citizens conduct themselves without losing sight of who they are!”

Amid the murmur of voices, citizens who had made it through another exhausting day chatted with one another, laughter mixed into their conversation.

We’d only crossed a single alley, yet the palace suddenly had the bustling atmosphere of a marketplace. The contrast was almost stunning. 

That was when the pastor pointed ahead.

"Baek Jemin. Here.”

We passed civilians dressed in shabby clothes or bundled up in thick layers. Whenever I bumped into someone along the way, they would glare at me at first, only to take one look at what I was wearing and jump back in surprise.

After that happened two or three times, people eventually started moving out of our way on their own. Thanks to that, the pastor and I easily reached a low-rise commercial building with a crude cross made from pieces of slate fixed to the roof.

In front of it, people dressed in all kinds of clothes anxiously shifted from one foot to the other.

A makeshift church?

In front of the converted church building, people who looked like believers were busy reciting Bible verses and counseling those who had come seeking help.

Some church members laid people who had trouble moving down on mattresses and gave them basic first aid, while others poured hardtack into pots of vigorously boiling water and cooked it.

-Rattle, rattle…

I never thought I’d see hardtack boiled in water, but the people lined up with bowls seemed grateful even for that much, awkwardly reciting prayers so they could receive some hardtack porridge.

Every time a curly-haired old woman in a vest ladled out a serving of hardtack porridge, a chorus of voices would ring out.

"What matters is being thankful. Lord, thank you for giving us our daily bread. Repeat after me.”

"Lo…Lord. Thank you. Thank you for our daily bread…!” 

"That’s right. Just hold on to that gratitude. Next.”

But the people holding bowls weren’t the only ones there.

All kinds of people keeping their distance from the pot were busy pouring out their troubles to a flustered middle-aged man, almost as if they were pressuring him.

"Excuse me, when will Pastor Park be here?”

An elderly gentleman in a remarkably unwrinkled suit despite all the chaos glanced at his wristwatch.

"My child disappeared yesterday and still hasn’t come back! The soldiers and the other civilian Operators don’t seem to care, and her father…”

A woman in her mid-30s trembled as she ran a hand through her graying, disheveled hair.

"One of our coworkers disappeared three days ago. We’d like to find out whether he simply deserted or if he got caught up in some kind of incident.”

There was even a tough-looking man with a firearm slung over his shoulder, wearing the kind of fluorescent vest and hard hat you’d see at a construction site.

I subtly glanced over at the pastor.

Pastor Park Yohan noticed me looking and let out a little chuckle.

"What? We need someone to fill in while Shin Nain is off destroying the remains of Thousand-Miles Eyes so he can reach the next stage. There’s nobody better suited for it than you.”

"Shin Nain came here every day too?” 

"You didn’t know? He came out with me for community service every single day. What did you think we were doing?”

"Then what was all that about exploring the underground of Hwaseo Station?”

Shit. Did he trick me?

The moment I asked with a sour look on my face, the pastor’s eyes hardened.

"We haven’t searched that area for the missing people yet. A bunch of things happened in the meantime, and the military kept telling us there was no way in hell they’d let Shin Nain and me go somewhere that dangerous by ourselves.”

"But I’m okay?”

"Baek Jemin. You’re the strongest wizard the military can currently deploy. Our church youth group leader!”

-Hiss...

No matter how I looked at it, I felt like I was being used.

But my cold reason as a Great Archmage reached a decision.

There was only one reason these damn non-wizard rabble were throwing this kind of insane fit. They were desperately struggling to survive.

Their desire to get magic without earning it, the reason they were after wizard bone broth, and the reason they were willing to throw ethics and morality away all came down to one thing. Survival.

You dare challenge the mysteries of magic?

If they were going to see a Great Archmage as some level they could reach and start acting like this, then as a Great Archmage, I would firmly kick the ladder away behind me.

That way they’d never even think about learning magic.

Besides, there was one reason I absolutely refused to compromise on.

"Fine, I’ll be your youth group leader for the day.”

"Come on, it's not like you can just…What?”

-Clack.

I switched the firearm’s selector to safe for the moment, then turned to the pastor and said,

"I’ll show you what a Great Archmage can do.”

It wasn’t that I couldn’t help. I just hadn’t bothered. If I decided to do something, I absolutely got it done.

I’d make the whole damn world acknowledge that I was an even more badass hero than Shin Nain.

So the non-wizards could focus on their real job. Applauding me!