Chapter 151: Peeking At The Answer Sheet

[Translator – Aren]

The pastor and I had been wandering aimlessly along the subway tracks for about 10 minutes when we finally found a clue.

In the damp atmosphere, thick with the smell of wet earth unique to the underground, the constant splash of dripping water echoed around us nonstop. That was when we spotted something strange. I was the first to raise my left hand as a signal, to which the pastor soon stopped as well, catching his breath.

A shoe.

It couldn’t have been more than 200mm long. Too small even for an adult woman. A child’s shoe lay abandoned to the left of the rail, missing its pair. If anyone saw that and got excited because it was a sign of people, they deserved a hard smack against the back of their head.

-Huuuff—.

The breath leaking through my gas-mask filter didn’t hold a shred of excitement but only caution.

Naturally, our rifles swept in every direction. We raised our muzzles first to check whether something had snatched whoever was here from the ceiling, shone our L-shaped tactical lights into every corner around the cables in case something was hiding along the walls, and stared hard at the ground for anything that might have been left behind.

Ears-branch, Stage 2 [Hearing Monster Voices], picked up no thoughts at all, but that didn’t mean we could relax.

-Clack, clack.

The heavy metallic sounds rang out from time to time. Instead of continuing down the tracks, we stopped for a while and focused on watching our surroundings. Only then did we confirm that nothing was off. Even so, I had to take several deep breaths to calm my pounding pulse.

-Huuuuuuuff…

Once again, the pastor naturally covered my right side. I tucked my rifle under my arm, ready to fire at any moment, and approached the fallen child’s shoe. I bent my knees and examined it with my left hand, checking every part as closely as I could.

Instead of laces, it used Velcro to secure the ankle. Aside from the mud on the sole, its shape was still clearly defined, and there were no signs that the heel had been crushed down. It wasn’t an old shoe.

But it didn’t look like it had just come off either.

Its overall appearance aside, judging by the water stains and grime soaked into various parts of it, it had been lying there for more than several hours.

A trace left behind by the evacuees?

What bothered me was that we still haven't found any sign of survivors. People loved stories about little kids miraculously surviving in the middle of complete chaos, but in a disaster of this scale, a child without enough stamina or physical ability had almost no chance of surviving for long.

In the Republic of Korea of 2028, which looked like it had been completely ruined in barely a day, I could say with certainty that a child panicked enough to lose one shoe had a 0% chance of surviving alone.

The question was whether I should check with [Past Vision].

Was it worth spending the time to find out why only one shoe had been left behind? Whether the child’s fate would help us understand the situation wasn’t exactly clear. If we could save them, doing so would obviously be the right thing, but judging from how things were, we were also trapped.

After thinking it over for a moment, I quietly spoke so that only the pastor would be able to hear me.

"One child’s shoe. 170mm. I’m going to check things with Past Vision.”

"Got any idea when?”

"I’m going to set a cutoff. I’ll take a look, so please cover me.”

Before leaving the ventilation room, I’d excitedly followed my instincts and tried to piece together what was happening, but my instincts and actual deductions could differ. I’d learned that through repeated failures and mistakes, so rather than forcing things to fit my theories, I chose to search for concrete evidence.

I could only hope the child’s shoe would become that clue.

Trusting the True-Body Sarira prayer beads around my left arm, trusting the companion covering me, I approached the truth through the mysteries of magic.

Eyes-branch, Stage 1 [Cognitive Expansion] 100%.

October 20th, 2038, 11:30 PM. Surroundings. Me.

Along with the illusion of a camera aperture narrowing, countless filters layered themselves over my vision and blurred my sight.

I could also hear the phantom sound of someone endlessly pressing the shutter button on a film camera.

-Clickclickclick……

Then my vision cleared up again.

-Murmur, murmur.

Unintelligible voices mixed with the sound of breathing and reverberated through the tunnel.

The subway tracks were still completely dark, but now there were dozens of people there. Considering the disaster alert telling people to evacuate underground, that made complete sense. It was only natural that people driven out of the station would move along the tracks in search of somewhere safe.

But it was a different story when every last person on those tracks was wearing thick knits, padded jackets, or coats and carrying a gun.

People with their collars pulled up over their lower faces, masks covering even their noses, sunglasses or blacked-out safety goggles hiding their eyes filled the tracks. Between the backlash of those armed men, I could see children scurrying along with their heads bowed.

There were 14 armed men walking in formation around the children.

5 children were walking inside their formation.

At most, they looked like older elementary school kids to first-year middle schoolers. One short-haired middle schooler stood out in particular, walking with difficulty and growling like an animal, as if something had been shoved into their mouth. The other children were utterly docile, but there was one among them who caught my eye.

One shoe was missing. The child was limping, one foot bare, beside the subway tracks.

I stroked the single shoe that had been left behind, soaked in rotten water, and tried to memorize the limping child. A white hoodie, plump calves, a sole scraped raw and bleeding, a scalp that looked soft to the touch, with short hairs sprouting across it. They were at an age where it was difficult to even tell whether they were a girl or a boy.

At that moment, a familiar sound rang out.

-Ppamppam Ppa-pa-pam—.

It was thereveille bugle call.

Everyone flinched at the sound. One of the armed men in front pulled a phone from inside his clothes and raised his thumb as if telling the others to stay calm. A moment later, he hooked one finger under the neck of his turtleneck he’d pulled up over his lower face and tugged it down before speaking in a gravelly voice.

[Yes, yes. We’re on our way now. Right. These days, even when people go missing around there, everyone just looks the other way, so it’s easy.]

Even while he was on the phone, the other armed men remained on high alert.

For the Republic of Korea of 2038, a world that had collapsed in a single day, they were unusually well armed. The K2 rifles in their hands and the way they constantly watched their surroundings were far too disciplined for people whose world has fallen apart overnight. More than anything, the way they surrounded the children and guarded them so heavily was anything but normal.

Anyone could tell the children weren’t following them willingly.

Despite all that fierce vigilance, the man on the phone spoke smoothly and even laughed, like a shopkeeper dealing with a wealthy customer.

[Yes, that’s right. It’s not easy getting through this place, so plenty of people end up reaching out to us quietly. As for me, as long as my family’s safe and I get paid, that’s all I need. It’s no trouble at all.]

-Splash.

Barefoot stepped into a shallow puddle. Fortunately, it wasn’t one of the puddles crawling with those Unidentified Species. It was just filthy water mixed with whatever drinks someone had dumped there and probably piss.

The child who had lost one shoe was backing away with his bare foot, looking in my direction. The child’s eyes, which had been twisted into a tearful expression, widened into round circles, seeming surprised.

-Thump.

My heart jumped. 

Could they actually see me? Had the child in the past realized I was holding their shoe and somehow seen this future moment? Was this kid some kind of prophet?

Thousands of thoughts flashed through my mind in that moment.

[There they are!]

[Fire, fire!]

The sound of combat boots came from behind them.

Flashlight beams poured out from behind me, relentlessly sweeping across the children and the armed men. I’d been mistaken when I thought the child and I had made eye contact. What the child in the white hoodie, the one missing a shoe, had seen was the soldiers chasing them.

The sights and sounds had been so vivid that I’d gotten confused.

I was only watching what had happened. Someone in the past couldn’t possibly see me.

The instant the child’s eyes widened in surprise and faint hope flashed over their face, the man in the turtleneck put his smartphone back without any hesitation.

-Click.

[These fucking bastards. Protect the kids!]

Gunfire erupted. Ejected casings clattered against the ground. The children’s crying was swallowed by screams and goans. As the pounding of combat boots subsided and the armed men dropped one after another, chilling death cries began to echo.

Help me, save me, where are you, we evacuated here, please open the door…

One death cry gave birth to another. The soldiers had to make a choice. Before long, after one last bewildered shout, even the gunfire stopped completely. From the fading sound of combat boots, I could tell they hadn’t all been wiped out. The ventilation room. The pounding of soles against the ventilation room’s metal stairs joined the noise.

The soldiers who had chased them fled. They gave up on searching for and rescuing the children or subduing the armed men.

But by then, the footsteps of monster hordes drawn by the gunfire were already crushing down across the entire ceiling. The intact ceiling split apart with sharp cracks and began pouring water like drool running form an open mouth. The surviving armed men abandoned their comrades’ corpses, grabbed the children by the backs of their necks, and dragged them away.

The child in the white hoodie was roughly dragged along by the hood, feet flailing as they clutched their throat, coughing and choking.

Because the child was partially barefoot, I could clearly see their toes curling and uncurling as they flinched. On the dark tracks, only the monsters’ death cries, the children’s choking groans, and the armed men’s hurried footsteps remained.

I desperately moved my left eye around, burning anything that might serve as a clue into my memory.

The armed men’s corpses. The kidnapped children. The soldiers who had chased them. And the present, where only the shoe remained.

My head throbbed. [Hearing Monster Voices] had begun carrying even the voices of monsters inside the vision of the past to me. The price of its exceptional detection ability was just that detection. Ears-branch magic whispered without end, refusing to let humans escape into ignorance and oblivion.

The minds that had already shattered flickered and screamed like lunatics.

Swaying, swaying, wobbling, who keeps scraping me with their teeth, make it stop, disgusting but yaaay, even if my life is ruined you can still laugh, stop it don’t think whatever you want, my eyes are splitting my eyes are joining together, save me, what do I do the dermatologist is closed and I’m all sticky, ding-dong a package came and I signed for it, no, Mom I don’t have a mom so why isn’t Mom looking for Grandma…

I shut my eye.

-Blink.

"Uugh!”

Nausea surged up.

I’d dropped the child’s shoe long ago.

Only when I barely managed to keep my limbs from giving out and stood back up did I realize the pastor had been taking care of me. At some point, he’d removed my gas mask and had been gently patting my shoulder while asking me questions over and over.

The moment he saw that I’d come back to my senses, the pastor handed me the gas mask he was holding.

"Baek Jemin, you with me?”

I took my gas mask from him and immediately put it on, I was probably twice as fast as I’d ever been during CBRN training.

I would’ve rather suffocated than keep breathing without the gas mask.

-Huuuff.

After taking a few short breaths, I pulled the hood of my poncho down over my head as well.

Only then did I barely manage to answer.

"No."

-Clack.

I raised my rifle first. Only after shouldering it could I finally look back on myself.

A throbbing headache. My eardrums hurt so badly I wanted to dig my ears out. The back of my neck pulled so tight that my eyelids hurt. My trapezius muscles stiff and raised. My right index finger inexplicably wanting to hover near the trigger.

I carefully checked everything one by one. The puddles I’d avoided because I didn’t want to make eye contact with that Unidentified Species, beneath the cables along the wall, even the places the lights couldn’t properly reach.

Nothing.

The things that should’ve been there were gone. No corpses from the armed men, no guns they might have dropped. All that remained was a shallow puddle and the single child’s shoe lying at my feet.

But one thing was clear. A short but violent gunfight had happened here. The armed men, caught at a disadvantage in firepower with no proper cover, had gone down in great numbers. At least four of them must have died.

I didn’t know whether they’d returned fire properly, but they had pulled their triggers too.

I followed the traces and walked on. Before long, near the end of the tracks, beneath the cables running along the wall, I found dark sludge pooled like slush. I couldn’t tell whether it was a corpse or not. But inside the sludge, I saw something sparkling in the light of my L-shaped tactical light clipped to my chest.

It was filthy and disgusting, but as a Great Archmage with the strongest stomach around, I was willing to endure it.

I crouched down and slowly took my left hand off my rifle. Squelch. The sensation the sludge gave me was revolting beyond imagination. The wet squelching and foul stench assaulted both my hearing and my sense of smell, but the cold sensation against my fingertips made me perk up.

-Squelch.

I pinched it properly between my index and middle fingers.

It was a shell chasing, slightly dented but still holding its original shape. It was proof that what I’d seen had been real at least. It felt like I’d found an anchor to keep me grounded in this absurd phenomenon. With concrete physical evidence backing me up instead of just my instinct and assumptions, some of my confusion faded away.

When I finally stood back up, the pastor groaned and spoke.

"Ugh. You’re probably the only person who could look happy holding something like that.”

"What do you mean?”

The casing was valuable, so I slipped it into my chest pocket. Slip. For something I’d pulled out of disgusting sludge, it was surprisingly clean and well preserved. There were probably other casings left behind in there, but rummaging through that revolting shit once was more than enough.

Instead, we decided to take the single shoe left at the scene.

The pastor picked up the child’s shoe with a complicated expression, and only then did I notice he’d brought a sling bag under his poncho. He lifted it, opened the align bag, and solemnly placed the shoe inside. I paused for a moment.

-Ziiip!

Only after closing the zipper, lowering the poncho again, and standing up did the pastor meet my eyes.

-Clack.

We readjusted our grips on the rifles and continued to war forward.

The strange thing was that the farther we went along the tracks, the quieter it became…and the safer it felt. Just in case, I accepted the backlash and kept using Ears-branch, Stage 2 [Hearing Monster Voices], for as long as I could, switching it on and off at 30-second intervals while staying alert.

There were no monsters. Not even the armed men I had seen in my past vision.

The only things left on the tracks were trash and puddles where swarms of parasites splashed around. Since I couldn’t exactly shoot them one by one, I just ignored them and kept walking. Surprisingly, the journey remained completely safe.

Before long, the pastor and I even lowered our rifles.

Because at the end of the tracks, we could see a platform with its lights still working normally.

There was also the usual route map on the wall near the station. Since the trains obviously wouldn’t be running, exploring the tracks was easy enough. The pastor and I naturally stopped right beneath an arrow marked with unfamiliar words.

Shinbundang Line, Yeonghwa Station¹.

The pastor and I stood beneath the arrow and turned to exchange a look.

"Why is it so quiet?”

"If I knew that, I’d be the 66 Society, you little punk.”

Fair, I guess so.

The 66 Society seemed to have standards of its own, so they probably wouldn’t want to recruit some fanatic zealot pastor. We climbed the small ladder at the end of the tracks and first checked the situation on the Yeonghwa Station platform beyond the screen door.

Fortunately, there were still traces of people there.

The vending machine, seemingly smashed open by someone with a bat, held nothing inside of it anymore. A toppled trash can had spat out all kinds of filth onto the floor, and vivid red handprints remained on clothes abandoned around the stairs.

Of course, judging by the bloodstains dragged across the floor here and there, it wasn’t hard to guess how things had ended.

Either there hadn’t been any proper wizards among them, or there had been too few.

The problem was that there were no living people, and even if I used [Past Vision], it didn’t seem likely I’d find anything useful.

It would be one thing if there were some strange clue like the child’s shoe we’d found lying in the middle of the tracks earlier. But using [Past Vision] on a platform that obviously looked like it had suffered a monster attack would be no different from watching some gore-special documentary.

Just to be sure, I did use Eyes-branch, Stage 1, to look for shell casings, guns, traces of a resistance group, or anything else that might have rolled into some corner. I had the True-Body Sarira prayer beads, so I thought I might as well put them to use.

I cast the spell to see the signs.

Eyes-branch, Stage 1 [Cognitive Expansion] 100%.

Path, traces left by a survivor or wizard, from October 20th, 2038, to the present, October 21st, 2038, me.

The perfectly normal lights began to dim slightly. The sign wasn’t clear. I tapped the marble platform floor with my soles as I searched for whatever it was pointing toward, but all I found was a broken smartphone. The pastor followed me quietly for quite some time.

That was the entirety of the human traces left in this place.

The corpses were gone. Only bloodstains and trails of puss dragged up the stairs remained, while unopened snacks and chocolate lay scattered around with bottles with water still inside them.

I tucked my rifle under my arm again, bent my knees, and examined the smartphone that didn’t look all too unusual. It wasn’t even a rare clue. Phones were scattered all over the floor of Yeonghwa Station’s platform right now. And yet this one phone was the only thing the signs had pointed to, even if it was just faintly.

I’d clearly set the condition with Tongue-branch, Stage 1, to “survivor or wizard,” so if the signs were this faint…there was a good chance they were already dead or in a state where they were begging someone to kill them.

I picked up the smartphone with its shattered screen in my left hand and thought.

Should I look through its past?

That question immediately led to my ugly yet incredibly honest inner thoughts.

Would this broken phone show me information valuable enough to justify suffering to use past vision? How long was I supposed to keep chasing faint clues? Would doing this really let me set even one foot closer to the truth behind this insane phenomenon?

I had to avoid ruin and danger.

An obvious choice for any sane person…but was it still a principle I had to uphold after I’d already been thrown into grave danger?

I put the broken phone down.

My attention slowly drifted to another place.

The pastor flinched, took one step back, and shouted firmly.

"Baek Jemin. Don’t."

"..."

"Even I wavered once. This is temptation. The Devil’s temptation is cunning. It makes you forget your principles, forcing you to compromise like this. You must never touch it!”

At some point, I had risen to my feet.

At some point, I was standing face-to-face with the pastor.

Neither of us was aiming our guns at each other, but the pastor and I stood facing each other with two different kinds of humanity.

The pastor was an old-fashioned fanatic zealot bastard, but that was probably exactly why he had awakened Dogma-type magic. I don’t think his convictions were wrong. People should stay true to themselves. No matter what happens, they shouldn’t bend.

That was the purity people wanted. Innocence. Justice.

A choice absolutely necessary to prevent moral corruption and ruin.

But I…

I…

"Pastor, give me the Double-Semicircle Grimoire.”

"Baek Jemin!”

I held my empty left hand out toward the pastor, palm open.

Not to hold a gun or spill blood, but to obtain something else.

And to calm my trembling heart, to soothe the part of me already beginning to regret this, I silently recited the Supreme Archmage’s motto.

Madness against madness.

Absurdity against absurdity…

"I’m sick and tired of being the 66 Society’s damn errand boy. I think I’ll humor those assholes for once." 

We shall enter hell before it encroaches upon us.  

_________________________________________________________________________

¹not a station that exists right now. Was a historic Joseon-era post station in Suwon