Chapter 152: The Answer

[Translator – Aren]

Unlike Hwaseo Station on the Shinbundang Line, Yeonghwa Station had the tracks in the center, with platforms on either side.

Instead of going up to the concourse on Basement Level 1, the pastor and I decided to stay on this platform for a while. If anything happened, we could escape along the tracks, and more importantly, there was no water system here. At this point, water pipes were nothing but a risk factor for monsters to come bursting out of.

Judging by the records we’d recovered, the water system in Seoul in this world of 2038 must have been packed full of Human Slimes as well.

Fortunately, because the Republic of Korea of 2038 had collapsed in a single day, there were plenty of supplies people hadn’t had time to use up. Things like bottled water that was slightly dented or stained but still had clean water sloshing around inside. It wasn’t enough to wash with, but there was plenty for the two of us to drink for now.

For some reason, the density of monsters had also dropped to practically nothing, Ears-branch, Stage 2 [Hearing Monster Voices] still couldn’t detect any trace of them. My aptitude for Ears-branch magic might be worse than Shin Nain’s, but if I concentrated, I figured I should be able to hear things within about 50 meters of the subway station.

No survivors, monsters, bizarre wizards, or traces of our fellow Supreme Archmages.

All that remained were signs of resistance from people who had struggled in this ruined world. So the first thing the pastor and I did was rummage through the trash and clothes scattered across the platform and gather the supplies into one place. The edge of the platform near the tracks became our temporary campsite.

Under the bright lights, we set bottles of water down one by one in a corner protected by the screen door. We stacked up Honey Butter Almond boxes and calorie bars, like Class Time, while the pastor took off his poncho and busied himself packing emergency rations into his sling bag for later. 

But an ominous silence hung between us.

Our brief truce ended the moment I set down the last bottle of water.

-Crinkle.

The distinctive crunch of the plastic bottle shattered the silence between us. Me, setting down the water. The pastor, stuffing emergency rations like calorie bars into his sling bag. I looked down at him, and the pastor looked up at me.

His eyes were tangled with emotions too complicated for me to describe.

"Baek Jemin.”

A principled person is principled because he imposes his standards on others as well.

It isn’t easy to be just as strict with yourself as you are on everyone else. The pastor might be a fanatic zealot old fart, but even in an absurd situation like this, his determination to stick to a zero-tolerance, no-compromise principle was something I could respect.

In a world where compromise had become virtue, and uncompromising faith was bound to appear like a vice. But if you asked which side was purer, I’d give higher marks to the one that refused to compromise.

Maybe that kind of stubborn old-school mentality was exactly what separated Dogma-type wizards from Alteration-type wizards. I was beginning to vaguely understand why Shin Nain, the other half of the fanatic zealot duo. had failed to awaken to Dogma-type magic.

Shin Nain had compromised under the name of Holy Alteration Battle Arts, while the pastor would investigate heretical knowledge but never actually used it. Alteration-type magic completely distorted reality, while Dogma-type magic preserved reality and produced bizarre causality.

So a little conflict between us was inevitable.

The pastor desperately tried to talk me out of it, zipping up his sling bag and hiding the Double-Semicircle Grimoire stored deep inside of it.

"You’ve been so well-behaved lately, and now all of a sudden you’re showing interest in something this satanic? As far as I'm concerned, the Devil’s gotten into you. Baek Jemin…please, get a grip. Don’t tell me you fell for what that Cuneiform bastard told you? Fair? You call that fair? No. You’re throwing away humanity’s greatest possibility, the possibility of salvation! Look at how the people who used the Cuneiform Grimoire ended up. They turned into shoe disgusting things and still failed to get what they wanted in the end. That’s ruin! Failing to achieve what you wanted, then suffering forever as the price for being led astray by the Devil!”

-Huuuuff…

I breathed out through my gas-mask filter.

I could hear the sincerity in the pastor’s words.

I called him a fanatic zealot old fart from time to time, but I knew he genuinely cared about me. He was secretly pretty softhearted, so apparently he’d still look after me even if I didn’t go to church. Or maybe he just didn’t want to lose a prospective member of his congregation.

But knowing the truth about Eternity, there was no point in the pastor trying to persuade me.

Fouling to achieve what you wanted and suffer forever…

I decided to point something out because the pastor seemed to be misunderstanding something here.

"Pastor. That’s exactly why I’m going to use the grimoire.”

"You little punk! Weren’t you learning magic because you wanted people to recognize you and applaud you?!”

I won’t deny that accounted for about 67% of the reason.

But just because it accounted for an enormous share didn’t mean it was equally precious to me. People wanted money because money let them live comfortably and prosperously.

If you had plenty of money but your account was frozen for life and you had to die without spending a single cent, would you be happy just because you had money?

Recognition from others. That was important.

Applause. That was the god-given task granted to non-wizards, so of course it was important.

But would I be satisfied if that recognition and applause were handed to me unconditionally?

Absolutely not.

I wasn’t like that damn idiot Lee Sejun.

"Since you’ve got me wrong, Pastor, let me set some things straight here.”

The reason I threw myself into a Seoul overflowing with fog and monsters was more fundamental than that. The power that had brought me both fear and exhilaration, the desire to understand that power completely was the only thing that had brought me this far.

I had to seize all of it before the nukes came raining down.

The countless monsters that desecrated human flesh and minds, the Seoul wizards raising every kind of fucking hell imaginable, the Republic of Korea falling apart as we speak, the mobs of non-wizards losing their shit because the whole world had gone crazy, even this subway line claiming it that it was 2038 all of a sudden, doing nothing but confusing me. Every last one of those things.

There was only one reason I’d endured all this bullshit. To obtain magic.

Honestly, I like hearing non-wizards applaud me. It gave me a rush, made me puff out my chest, and if possible, I’d even like to save them. The reason I’d stopped obsessively scrutinizing everything for something off whenever anything happened was because I’d gotten far more generous.

These days, the non-wizards knew their place and gave me applause and respect, so I’d stopped being so suspicious of them.

But what if I had to weigh non-wizards against my achievements in magic?

Honestly, if non-wizards felt betrayed by me, I’d find that ridiculous. If they decided on their own that I was some kind of hero and believed I’d choose them, then they were living in a goddamn fantasy world.

Of course, if the non-wizards took my parents hostage, I’d have to think really damn hard about it.

But I’d still say there’s a slight chance I’d bury my parents with my own hands, tears in my eyes, then wipe out every non-wizard bastard who used my family as hostages, throw them into Eternity to suffer forever, and choose magic.

I’m a hero for myself alone.

No one gets to demand one-sided sacrifice from me.

I only make deals.

The applause and admiration of non-wizards are worth quite a bit to me, but far less than the non-wizards themselves seem to think.

I said it from the very beginning.

I would willingly challenge magic, and the moment I hit a wall I could never overcome, I'd smash my own head against the floor and die without a second thought.

If you thought that pure desire was a life, if you thought I’d gotten drunk on some cheap fame and ego boost and forgotten about it, if you thought a bit of applause from non-wizards could stop me!!!

"Then you never understood a single thing about the Great Archmage Baek Jemin to begin with.”

"Y-you…”

"Hand it over. I’m only letting you off because you’re a Supreme Archmage.”

It was an ultimatum.

If the pastor refused to hand it over to the very end, I’d kill him and take it away. The pastor was someone precious to me and an excellent companion, but if he stood in the way of my magic, I could shed a few tears and just turn him into a holy relic.

That was the resolve behind my words, and yet the pastor’s eyes were trembling far more than mine.

"You little punk, why are your hands shaking so damn much after saying all that then…?”

"My hands have always shaken pretty badly."

"Do you understand what it means to use that thing? You know it’s dangerous even if you don’t make a contract. You don’t even go to church, so Jesus won’t be able to save you.”

"I was already headed for hellfire anyway. Guess I’m just buying a ticket to another place.”

Honestly, I was freaking terrified.

The reason I was trembling had nothing to do with the thought that I might have to kill the pastor. It was an instinctive fear of ruin. I’d learned and experienced enough about Eternity, about being trapped inside a monster’s body, that the fear had faded a bit. Just the tiniest bit.

But would the ruin that came from facing some otherworldly being, some transcendent existence, really be the same as Eternity?

Would the ruin prepared by something inhuman really be no worse than eternal hellfire?

I’d never properly followed a religion or held any real faith, so when ruin came for me, there would be no one coming to save me. I’d spent my life entirely for my own pleasure, and in return, I stood completely exposed to ruin.

But.

Even so…

Not even my fear of ruin could overcome my longing and curiosity for magic.

Greed and curiosity were humanity’s cursed essence.

They were the nature I, Baek Hemin, had always possessed. The very essence of the human being called Baek Jemin.

They were my very humanity.

An awful instinct and essence, something I could never separate from myself even amid compassion and all the Five Desires and Seven Emotions, something far removed from enlightenment, beat in place of my terrified heart.

What flowed through my veins now wasn’t the blood chilled by fear but the chilling curiosity that wanted to see beyond the darkness the mad greed that wanted to adapt to the dark instead of fearing it.

"Baek Jemin. I can’t give it to you just because of curiosity.”

"Pastor. The absurd phenomenon has made one thing very clear. There’s a good chance the 66 Society didn’t originate in our world.”

The 66 Society. The organization I admired, and the organization I wanted to kill and loot, was overwhelmingly superior when it came to magical knowledge and understanding strange phenomena.

Even if all 8 billion people in my world devoted themselves to pursuing magic, it might easily take years to catch up to the 66 Society. And if the source of that knowledge wasn’t our world at all, but another world or some distant point in the future…then even dedicating my entire life might not be enough to reach the same level.

At this rate, there was no answer. 

I’d have to run myself ragged until those 66 Society fuckers decided to pass down more of their teachings.

Those who didn’t know the truth, those who didn’t understand magic, could never escape the board the 66 Society had laid out, no matter what their goals or responses were. Even if they shot the bastards dead.

If I couldn’t tell whether the knowledge the 66 Society handed out was true or false, valuable or worthless, then the information itself was nothing but useless.

To break a one-sided game, I had to gamble.

Just like the people who jumped into crypto during the great crypto craze hadn’t done it simply because they were stupid.

Every human being knows an uncomfortable truth.

If you want to change the course of your entire life in a single moment, you have to stake your entire life.

There was nothing wrong with living a spread, respectable life…

But my world wasn’t going to last until I became some hunched old geezer.

"Huuuuff…”

Only after hearing everything I had to say did the pastor finally open his sling bag again.

-Zzzzip!

The pastor turned the Double-Semicircle Grimoire over in his hands, examining its cover from different angles. Then he squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head away as he handed me the grimoire.

"If it starts feeling dangerous, at least shout ‘Amen.’ I’ll lay hands on you and pray.”

The moment I took the grimoire, I opened it.

-Rustle!

"Baek Jemin! You bastard!”

"No reaction. Seems like one of the more obedient ones.”

The first thought that passed through my mind was ‘As expected.’ Unlike the Cuneiform Grimoire, the Double-Semicircle Grimoire, bound in an ordinary leather cover, was extremely tame. It didn’t greedily demand someone’s hand either.

Instead, every single page was spotless, as if someone had just gone over them with an eraser.

The proof was in the pages themselves. Until moments ago, they had looked ready to crumble if I so much as rubbed my fingers over them, but the instant I opened the cover and spread the grimoire, they became sharp and stiff like freshly printed paper.

Apparently it was the type that didn’t kick up a fuss but also wouldn't reveal its contents unless you made a contract or contacted it through a dream.

I made up my mind.

"I’m going to get some sleep.”

I had the memory I’d stolen when I shattered the remains of Ski Goggles, so I had some idea of how to make contact with these Ritual-type grimoires.

If we were going to explore this place long-term, there would eventually come a point when we had to make sure the pastor got some sleep as well. So there was no harm in me getting a bit of sleep now. We cleaned up around our makeshift camp, then set up a place comfortable enough for me to sleep.

Fortunately, I, Baek Jemin, was such an awesome superhuman that even sitting on a pile of human corpses wouldn’t upset my stomach.

There were no garbage juices nor blood anywhere here, so this was practically paradise. Sure, for a proper expedition I’d bring a sleeping bag, but the fact that I could sleep soundly even like this was proof I was superhuman.

Still wearing my poncho, I lay down across the bench with the Double-Semicircle Grimoire as my pillow, and a smile slipped out before I knew it. Enough to make the pastor, who had finished clearing the area and was now gripping his rifle, frown hard.

"You’re smiling?”

"I’m thinking about how good I’m about to sleep.”

I closed my eyes and started trying to fall asleep.

I deliberately tensed and relaxed my limbs several times, then sank into my memories with a faint smile beneath my closed eyelids. Usually, whenever you look back on memories like this, the things that surface first were the most striking ones, beautiful or ugly.

-Dream.

I was no exception.

Before long, the sensation washed over me of lying belly-up on water, letting myself drift like a jellyfish. The water gently rippled around me at the perfect lukewarm temperature, neither cold nor hot.

-Promise.

Countless memories from Baek Jemin’s childhood all the way to the present surfaced and slipped past.

'Waaah!'

'Why is Jemin crying?'

'He says it’s his first time falling to 10th place in the whole school.’

'Isn’t the 10th still pretty high up?’

'He’s crying because he didn’t get 1st place.’

'Ah! What an ass.'

The shock of losing 1st place in the entire school for the first time after I’d never once lost it through 6th grade, all because of that damn Gifted Education Center rejection.

'Baek Jemin, why the hell are you studying?'

'What?'

'Wait…Hey. I thought you weren’t actually smart. Why are you still studying? Everyone knows your real level now. Still pretending to be some model student?’

The sneering face of the bastard who made me throw my first punch.

'Jemin, your grades…really dropped, huh?’

'That bastard Baek Jemin was always acting all high and mighty.'

'You don’t even need to study anymore, do you? Just quit and go play. Why’d you take all these notes? Damn loser.’

The voices of people who started giving me shit 24/7 after I was rejected from the Gifted Education Center.

'Oh my, Miss Baek, I’m sorry. Everyone’s just so busy these days…’

'No, it’s alright. I’m grateful you made the time.'

'I have to get back soon myself… And things at the foundation haven't been going very smoothly lately, so this is all we can give you.'

'Please don’t say that. Times are hard for everyone these days.'

The scholarship foundations that had praised me as some local prodigy, only to shut up the moment news of my rejection got out and started reducing or cutting off my scholarships.

My mother’s back as she stared numbly at the people who used to invite us to evening dinners, the people who used to make a fuss about taking even one photo with me, handing her one thin envelope and walking away…

But the person I hated most was myself.

I was a stupid dumbass who’d gotten full of himself, and yet in the end, I understood them. That was what made me find myself more disgusting and detestable than anyone else.

-Question.

All humans act according to need and self-interest.

I had simply stopped being useful.

There was no reason to resent anyone else.

The only being who could truly live solely for my sake, who could tell me that I was precious…

Was me.

-Answer.

-Haaaagh. 

I sucked in a sharp breath.

Before I knew it, I found myself standing in the middle of a shallow lake where gentle ripples spread across the surface. I looked around without thinking and found a familiar yet bizarre landscape stretching before me.

A sunset sky with clouds drifting across it. Beneath the water, a bumpy lakebed was visible through the water as clear and transparent as a gemstone. No mountains, no hills, only a horizon stretching endlessly onward.

At first, I thought I was just having some nonsensical dream.

But the moment I saw the gentle ripples spreading across the surface, I knew it wasn’t. The tiny ripples that should have spread outward in full circles in every direction had somehow been cut cleanly in half.

Semicircular ripples traveled in from beyond the horizon and collided with semicircular ripples coming from the opposite side, making a faint splash before dying away.

Only then did I see what the sky looked like beyond the gently drifting clouds.

It wasn’t blue. It was pitch-black.

Countless stars of bizarre colors crowded that black sky, ominously dimming and brightening again and again as though slowly blinking their eyelids.

The only thing separating the densely star-filled cosmos from the distant horizon was an endless stream of gray clouds drifting between them.

Standing on the shallow lake where endless semiciruclar waves kept overlapping, I grimaced at the burning pain I had only just noticed and raised my hand. The Hand-branch magic symbol, the distinctive magic square, was etched into the backs of my hands as scars, spilling bright-red blood.

And my hands were not the only things bleeding. Every kind of pain came rushing in. 

My right eye. Bloody tears burst from my dead eye and ran down through the gap in my eyelids.

My heart. My chest seared as if something had slit it open with a knife, and I doubled over before I could stop myself. My body just collapsed on its own. I couldn’t even scream or groan.

My ears. Something hot and sticky ran endlessly down the curves of my ears.

My tongue. The pain was so bad I almost wished I’d seared it with fire or swallowedAlbothyl, and it squeezed tears from my one remaining eye.

"Aghrrrrrrgh…”

A frothing gurgle escaped me. I couldn’t even scream or groan.

-Splash.

As my left calf sank beneath the surface, I collapsed forward. The best I could do was throw out both arms and brace myself against the bottom.

Apparently I wasn’t wearing my gas mask, because the moment I fell forward, drops of blood began dripping onto the water.

In a place where there had been nothing but semicircular ripples, my blood began raining down with a metallic stench.

-Drip, driiip.

Unable to endure it, I squeezed my eye shut.

At that moment, I was confused because I had no idea what I was supposed to do. Had it never intended to meet me? Or what the hell was I supposed to do here? What had I done with the Cuneiform Grimoire last time?

My memories were growing hazy.

Even the pain that had been the only thing keeping me grounded began sinking beneath a sense of comfort.

A pleasant drowsiness was washing over me, so soothing I wouldn’t have wanted to wake up even if someone burned me. Just how powerful did the urge to sleep have to be to overpower this searing pain…? Useless thoughts like that only spread more wildly through my head.

What had I originally come here to do?

Why was I here?

Such a nice temperature, lukewarm water…

....

-Sniff, sniff.

A pleasant smell drifted toward me.

No, calling it pleasant was a bit… The more I smelled it, the more it hurt. My whole body throbbed as if I’d been beaten black and blue, forcing my face to scrunch up. But it wasn’t disgusting either.

If anything, it smelled mysterious and fragrant, as though I were in some serene space. Despite the physical pain, the scent seemed to lighten something inside my chest.

Just breathing it in was washing away my accumulated exhaustion. My blurred vision even began to clear little by little.

That was when I saw something.

Apparently I’d been caught in such a sleepy haze that I didn’t even properly recognize what was before me. Right in front of my face as I lay braced against the ground, bleeding into the water, a single pink flower petal rested on the surface of the shallow lake.

I was sure I hadn’t seen any flowers…

At that moment, my mind snapped awake.

-Splash!

I pushed myself upright.

When I came to my senses, I found myself gasping for breath.

I raised my hands. They were spotless, without a single wound. I felt my face and ears, then stuck out my tongue to check it as well. Same thing. There wasn't a single wound on me anywhere. Even so, my heart was pounding violently as if I’d been sprinting nonstop until now.

The petal had fallen onto my left arm.

A few pink petals were caught between the beads of the True-Body Sarira prayer beads wrapped around my left arm, the ones I’d never taken off. My brow furrowed instantly. I wasn’t exactly the sentimental type who went around putting flowers on myself, right?

But there was something I had to do before figuring that out.

Humans can never fully comprehend the words of beings greater than themselves.

Only those with special qualifications are chosen to receive revelation. Hearing the words of a god isn't something just anyone gets to do. That belief exists in every culture. An idiot like me hadn’t been chosen by either fate or the gods, so I naturally had to cheat.

-Bleeeh—.

I stuck out my tongue.

With the True-Body Sarira prayer beads on, I could at least hope they would lessen the penalty, so I willingly invoked the spell.

Tongue-branch, Stage 2 [Degradation].

At that moment, an earthquake struck.

The surface of the water shook violently.

Even staying on my feet was difficult through the dizziness and motion sickness it caused me. I couldn’t put any real resistance and fell flat on my ass with a splash. My head hurt like hell, like a thorn was stabbing into the inside of my skull beneath the crown, and I clutched at it.

If I could, I wanted to smash my own head open.

If I could, I wanted to split my skull, dig through the inside with both hands, and pull out the thorn stabbing me from within.

A baseless certainty surged up with the nausea. The certainty that I’d be better off getting shot and left sprawled on the ground.

The stars blinked as if mocking me.

The drifting clouds whipped into a frenzy and came pouring down.

The shallow lake repeatedly dried up and filled again.

My dead eye came alive and breathed again on its own, then asked.

Baek Jemin. You don’t look so good.

"Uweeeeeeegh…”

Would puking in a dream even make me feel any better? 

The instant that question led to another, the vomiting stopped, replaced by countless visions flashing past me.

Baek Jemin sitting shamelessly with his legs crossed and idly crooking a finger. Baek Jemin staring up at the sky through a telescope in horror. Baek Jemin shot and writhing like an insect before finally going still. Baek Jemin jabbing a syringe into his forearm, drool dripping from his mouth beneath hollow eyes…

I screamed.

"No!”

These weren’t the visions I wanted.

"I’m not asking about my future or my ruin!”

-Cut.

The visions stopped.

Once again, the sunset sky, the gently drifting clouds, the calm surface, and the semicircular waves waited before me. Only a few fragrant flower petals floated around me.

It felt as if this entire scene was waiting for me to speak.

No, it probably really was.

A god doesn’t speak to something as insignificant as a human in human form, using human language.

"I came to find out what this world is, why it’s connected to our world through the subway, what the truth about magic is, why these monsters appeared, what the hell the 66 Society is, and where those bastards came from!”

I squeezed out the hem of my soaked poncho and stood back up.

Then the god swept away the sunset, scattered the clouds, and revealed a night sky filled with ominous starlight.

Tongue-branch, Stage 1 [Degradation] 100% helped me understand what this sign meant.

The blinking stars were decoded into human language.

The meanings contained in the trembling surface and the shapes of the rising clouds became letters one by one and hammered themselves into my head.

Faced with the overwhelming difference in scale, I realized just how insignificant humans were, and with every realization, I knew I was drawing closer to the truth.

The price the owner of the Double-Semicircle Grimoire wanted was memory.

The moment I made a contract and reached 100%, it would take every memory from me and reduce me to a mindless fool. Even the memory that I had once been human. To lose every last trace of intellect and wander with nothing but my body left. That was the ruin described by the Double-Semicircle Grimoire.

But the owner of the Double-Semicircle Grimoire said otherwise.

Humanity’s future has already ended.

Humanity has already been ruined.

Humanity’s struggle is nothing more than the thrashing of an animal already swallowed up to their throat, and every possibility of salvation humanity could ever have imagined or wished for is closing.

The frail human mind cannot bear the truth.

Because humans refuse to admit that they themselves aren’t special. 

The gods will turn five thoughts over in their minds as they look upon such humans, for an instant, and for eternity.

Caprice. Mockery. Contempt, Indifference. Curiosity.

Humans, humanity…

Must first abandon the expectation that the salvation prepared by a god will take the form they hoped for.

"..."

How ridiculous.

Before it, before that small piece of truth, I straightened myself again and answered.

"I never came here seeking salvation. I came to make a deal. Name the price for the answers to my questions!”

The clouds drifted away, and the stars hid themselves once more beyond the sunset.

A ripple traveled across the calm surface. A semicircular wave splashed against my combat boots and asked.

Even all of humanity wouldn’t be enough to pay the price.

The moment I understood, a disbelieving laugh escaped me.

-Hah.

What a ridiculous thing to say…

I answered with a sneer.

"All of humanity isn’t worth as much as my memory of taking a shit in a urinal. 8 billion, hundreds of billions, trillions of human lives and existences are worth less than a single second I’ve lived!”

I meant every word of that.

Only I am absolutely precious. There is no comparison to be made. Don’t you dare try to drive down my worth by putting other humans on the scale. 

Because I alone in this world am absolutely precious and priceless…

At that moment, the owner of the Double-Semicircle Grimoire asked. 

Even your parents? 

My heart skipped a beat, but I steadied myself and answered. 

"Of course.” 

They're only valuable because they’re my parents. If they were someone else’s parents, I wouldn’t give a damn whether they lived or died. 

The owner of the Double-Semicircle Grimoire fell silent for a while. 

A gentle breeze blew past, stirring the petals caught in the True-Body Sarira prayer beads. The petals fluttered weakly before drifting down onto the surface of the water. It seemed like some kind of sign, but I didn’t bother trying to figure it out.

All of my attention and concentration were fixed on the owner of the Double-Semicircle Grimoire.

At that moment, I felt a weight in my left hand. 

I lowered my head and found myself holding the Double-Semicircle Grimoire open. Ink began spreading across the crisp new pages, carving letters into them. As the letters appeared, the scenery around me began to change.

The owner of the grimoire had accepted me.

Was this a contract? Was my ruin now guaranteed?

Petty worries like that no longer mattered to me. I’d already decided long ago that if I could never reach magic, I would end my life without regret. My life had already been offered up as a burnt offering to magic.

I was desperate enough that I wanted to sacrifice the world myself before the world could end.

And at last, the first truth spread outward through letters and language, sound and scenery, crashing into me in full 4D.

Words I already knew blinked like lightbulbs, making their presence known.

The Mist of the Other Shore...

Disciples…

A phenomenon that strengthens magic and weakens monsters…

When the Other Shore rises…

The term “Other Shore” can refer in Buddhism to the realm reached after liberation, while in Japan it can also refer to the afterlife…

Humanity’s future has been taken away…

The fog is a sinister thing…

The words, phrases, and sentences that grew fainter toward the end came crashing down like lightning, drawing a single line between them.

Why is the fog called the Mist of the Other Shore? Why have there been no reports of these Disciples the 66 Society supposedly used, these non-wizards who bear the burden of magic in a wizard’s place? Why did the fog rise when Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes and his group attacked Seongnam and supposedly accepted Disciples? What does it mean for the Other Shore to rise? And why is the claim that humanity’s future was taken away connected specifically to the Other Shore?

All of those questions were forcibly linked together at once by the will of the grimoire’s owner. A thing I refused to call a god.

A truth that, had it come from a human, I would have doubted, looked away from, and denied to the bitter end came crashing down as a single vertical line.

-Thump!

It was practically a sentence being handed down.

My head rang, and tinnitus filled my ears.

"Ugh!"

Along with nausea, clues I had never even considered as clues connected into one.

The Other Shore. The word for the afterlife…refers to the future.

It’s the Other Shore because humanity’s future has already been devoured, because every possibility humanity possesses is being devoured. The afterlife. Just as death waits at the end of a person’s life, only eternity waits at the end of this world.

The Mist of the Other Shore. 

It’s humanity’s spiritual energy and manifests as a phenomenon. It’s practically no different from the soul itself. Yet it's not acknowledged as a soul. Because it could not use magic while alive. Instead, another wizard makes use of the power that soul once possessed.

Then how does the fog rise?

Disciples. The Mist of the Other Shore. Non-wizards and wizards. The fog is a sinister thing.

A word that connected all of them was forcibly thrust into my mind.

A sacrificial ritual that takes humanity’s potential and souls as collateral and forcibly reduces them into a more useful form.

Human sacrifice.

"Uweeeegh…”

A chilling possibility, a truth I wanted to deny, was forced upon me.

The owner of the Double-Semicircle Grimoire allowed neither ignorance nor oblivion. Because I had asked for it, it stripped salvation away from me. My ruin lay in knowing an undeniable truth.

As petals flustered down around me, I remained collapsed on the ground and faced the truth.

The Mist of the Other Shore was created by sacrificing all the worthless humanity that had lived in other worlds, other futures, other times.

The reason there were no survivors to be seen in the Seoul of 2038 was…

...because most of them had already been sacrificed.

However, what truly filled me with fear was not the sheer scale of the human sacrifice.

Billions.

Why classify billions of human beings by value, leave only the wizards, and sacrifice every last non-wizard?

The owner of the Double-Semicircle Grimoire, very kindly, tried to tell me that too.

But instinct told me. 

The moment I saw it, I would go insane.

I wouldn’t be able to function anymore.

Only then did I start backing away.

Then I turned around completely and ran.

-Splash, splash…

Only my footsteps echoed across the shallow lake.

But the owner of the Double-Semicircle Grimore was determined to honor the agreement to the very end. To fulfill my request, it would carry through even if I no longer wanted it to. They were just that fair.

I could only wish they weren’t.

-Aaaaagh…

I heard a scream from somewhere.

-Aagh, aaaagh!

I didn't take long to realize it was my own voice.

"Agh! Aagh! Aaaaaaaagh!”

Sight, hearing, touch, even the pain I’d once taken pride in, meant nothing.

Tears streamed from my one eye as I struggled above the endless horizon. The instinct that falling meant the end forced my unsteady legs to keep moving.

But all I felt was despairing certainty.

I couldn’t escape.

I couldn’t escape the truth I asked for with my own mouth.

Fear filled every part of me.

Then my nose caught a scent on its own.

It was slightly sweet, yet cool and refreshing enough to clear my head. It was hard to put into words. If I had to describe it, the only thing that came to mind was thePure Land those old men used to go on about.

My instincts made the decision in place of my terrified mind.

Follow the scent.

-Splash, splash, splash…

At some point, the water had begun to rise.

The shallow water that had barely reached my ankles was now up to my thighs. Things I didn’t want to see were reflected on the surface. I shut my eye completely.

I simply followed the scent.

Even as the water rose past my waist and turned into a current that tried to sweep me away…

I focused on nothing but the smell.

Then, the instant the water reached my face, my eye snapped open. 

"Baek Jemin! Snap out of it, you idiot!”

Cold. Wet.

Only then did I realize water had been pouring over my face. How? The pastor. It looked like the pastor had dumped three whole bottles of water over me. Crumpled PET bottles lay scattered nearby. Could this still be a hallucination?

Unable to shake the doubt, I looked around.

"Huuff, huuff…”

Yeonghwa Station on the Shinbundang Line.

It was still the same empty platform.

The only people there were me and the pastor.

I escaped.

How?

I tried to figure out what had caused it, tried to get up…but my legs wouldn’t support me, and I rolled off the bench.

-Thud!

"A-are you alright?”

"Ehnngh..."

It hurt.

But the relief of getting out safely was stronger than the pain. Fuck. I wasn't even sure I could cry this hard if my parents died. I covered my face with both hands and sobbed my eyes out.

The pastor said something while patting me on the back, but I couldn’t hear his voice.

I just stayed hunched over, covering my face as I kept crying.

I survived.

And…

I burst into tears at the fact that there were still truths left for me to learn. I cursed my curiosity, yet still couldn’t cast it aside.

Knowing might drive me insane.

And yet I still wanted to know.

Those contradictory feelings brought me ecstasy and terror and made me cry.

I curled up, laughing and crying at the same time.

Sobbing, gasping for breath, drool, snot, and tears spilling from me, I turned over what I had learned again and again.

Truth. Revelation. The Double-Semicircle Grimoire…

It had been more than worth making contact with.

At last, I stood on the same level as the 66 Society.