Chapter 164: The Diplomatic Genius’ Decisive Negotiations

I’d once used Lee Sejun as a guinea pig to test Tongue-branch, Stage 2 at 100%.

[Desire Amplification] at 100% was a spell that instantly sent every physiological urge essential to life into overdrive, incapacitating the target. Sleep, hunger, the need to relieve oneself, sexual desire…everything shot to its limit at once and rendered them helpless.

The downside was that, between the pain characteristic of Tongue-branch magic and the extreme concentration it demanded, it was difficult to use in a chaotic melee or close-quarters fight.

But when we had distance and held the initiative like we did now, it had one overwhelming advantage. It could bring the situation under control completely.

This was where my experimental spirit shone.

What would happen if, instead of exploding every physiological urge at once, I designated a specific one? With five firefighters and five Amalgams locked in a fierce fight with a fire engine between them, how could I suppress only the enemies without risking friendly fire?

So I chose sleep.

That was the right answer.

-Grrrk, Grrrrrk…

The compound eyes of the two Amalgams splitting apart on top of the fire engine were the first to waver. In the areas without eyelids, their eyes rolled back and exposed the whites. Some areas still had eyelids. Eyelids covered in wildly sprouting hair even forced themselves over parts of the compound eyes.

The Amalgams seized by sleepiness began to stagger. The corpses holding up their heavy heads in grotesque postures buckled under the weight, and with sharp cracks of breaking joints, the Amalgams began dropping one after another.

-Crrrack.

The woman’s body bearing the combined weight of several people in a completely improper posture was crushed in an instant like a mushroom stomped flat by a certain jumping plumber. The bodies connected to the Amalgam twitched weakly as though seizing, then all collapsed together.

The same went for the Amalgam near the fire engine, in the back of an abandoned vehicle, touching the wound where an axe had struck it.

The limbs of its attached corpses flopped around as it tried to stop the pus-like fluid leaking from the wound, until it finally collapsed, gripped by the fear of death and assaulted by every physiological urge at once. Come to think of it, saying it ‘dropped to its knees’ was far too human a description.

The corpses hanging from the Amalgam’s main body buckled beneath the weight, bending grotesquely as they collapsed.

-Craaack!

The three Amalgams within my sight were incapacitated just like that. The two on top of the fire engine rolled off while they were still in the middle of splitting. Fortunately, they toppled backward while resisting, so the firefighters were unharmed.

Of course, the firefighters weren’t spared from Tongue-branch, Stage 2 [Desire Amplification] at 100% either.

-Clang.

An axe fell. Its blade bounced off the ground with a loud clattering sound.

The firefighters couldn’t even manage to scream or groan. They just gagged as they dropped to their knees one by one. Magic didn’t distinguish friend from foe. I’d expected that. Besides, they’d taken [Desire Amplification] at 100% output. Even wizards wouldn’t be able to resist. The monsters had already demonstrated what that looked like.

A change came over the two Amalgams that had rolled behind the fire engine.

Urine and feces began leaking from the human bodies attached to the Amalgams. Their limbs flapped and convulsed like live fish pulled from water. Sticky, half-dried foam bubbled up from the mouths that had fused together and imitated human speech through human vocal cords.

-Kgh, coughcough, kuugh….

The firefighters were right there with them, either dropping to their knees or rolling around on the ground. The Amalgam that had been hanging back and probing from behind the vehicle scratched furiously at its own face, gouging claw marks beside the axe wound, but still couldn’t fight off the drowsiness and collapsed.

-Splat.

-Hssss……

Physiological urges erupted from the human bodies that had fallen into monstrous flesh and were effectively not much different from corpses. [Desire Amplification] was overwhelming. I could tell through Ears-branch, Stage 2 [Hearing Monster Voices].

Acute hypoglycemic shock. The need to piss so badly their bladders felt ready to burst, and the urge to shit until their assholes felt raw. Sexual desire that made them want to start thrusting at anything in reach. And sleepiness so overwhelming that even through all that suffering, they couldn’t force their closing eyelids back open.

The humans trapped in Eternity, the human selves mixed together into Amalgams, couldn’t resist those urges. Ordinary people with no grand convictions who had only wanted to live decent lives in this world reverted to animals in an instant.

'F-Food…’ ‘Aaagh! Hole, hole…Huh? No! Something else!’ ‘My stomach hurts, wanna thrust, ugh…what was my body again? I’m hungry. Aagh.’

What was really a sight was the reaction of the other two Amalgams.

The two hiding behind the fire engine somewhere outside my field of view, were terrified. I suddenly remembered the first Amalgam I had ever encountered. Back then, the Amalgam that had eaten that what’s-his-name had backed away warily under my gaze. Even as late as Suwon Station, they would lower themselves or hide behind cover to avoid my eyes.

At some point, these disgusting monsters had forgotten fear.

But now, the two Amalgams hiding behind the fire engine were feeling that fear again for the first time in ages. Through [Hearing Monster Voices], I could feel them wavering. Monster flesh and human selves alike cried out in unison.

Save me.

That inner voice rang out as the cry of a terrified beast.

-Grrrk….Kkuaaagh! Kkyaaaaaagh!

The monsters borrowing human vocal cords to scream the death cries of humans made their decision quickly.

-Bang!

I heard abandoned vehicles crumpling behind the fire engine.

They had fled in a direction outside my field of view.

Leaving behind the three members of their own kind that had already been exposed to my gaze. Only then did I feel the pain slicing into my tongue. Tears leaked from my eyes. Actually ‘leaked’ was underselling it. ‘Poured’ would’ve been more accurate.

My Great Archmage’s reason expressed some regret.

I’d experimented to see what would happen if I limited [Desire Amplification] at 100% to a single urge, and now I could make a decent guess. Every urge still exploded. But one was pushed far harder than the others to incapacitate the target. Prioritize sleep, and the target would piss and shit themselves, grow ravenously hungry, then pass out from exhaustion. If you took it head-on without any countermeasures, it was practically lethal.

If I could use this in the middle of a fight, it’d be insanely powerful…

-Triiickle.

Thin blood mixed with saliva pattered down onto the broken chunks of asphalt. Thank god the True-Body Sarira prayer beads substituted for [Degradation]. Trying to use something like [Desire Amplification] in the middle of a chaotic fight was insane. Anyone who could use something like this while actually fighting was either a lunatic or the ultimate master of body modification.

I braced myself on my trembling legs and squeezed my eyes shut.

"Fuck, this hurts so damn much…”

Thank god I’d taken off my gas mask.

After blood, sweat and tears started pooling inside a gas mask and mixing with the smell of raw rubber, it turned into pure stink. I had no reason to put up with that while operating, so I decided to break civic etiquette a little and dump it all over the street instead.

With my tongue hanging all the way out, blood dripping steadily from it and tears running down my cheeks, I dropped hard onto my ass.

-Thud.

"Ss, hah. Ssss—. Haaah—.”

I was sitting there breathing noisily when the others, who had been watching the majesty of my magic with bated breath, slowly came back to their senses. Once I’d calmed down enough to barely open my eyes, Lee Sejun was the first to speak up.

He detached his machine gun from its firing position, folded the bipod, and started giving me shit.

"Jemin-ssi. Everything else is fine, but why did you hit the firefighters with [Desire Amplification] at 100% as well?”

"I stopped the monsters. What more do you want?”

"Look over there."

I followed where Lee Sejun was waving his machine-gun barrel and saw the fire hose thrashing around wildly, causing a ton of noise. Seemed like the firefighters had dropped it after getting hit by [Desire Amplification].

-Shaaaaaaa—!

Watching the hose spray water everywhere, I casually checked it with [Hearing Monster Voices]. Thankfully, it didn’t contain any Human Slime. Apparently not every water main was contaminated. Or maybe if the concentration was low enough, they dissolved in the bleach during water treatment. Humans would probably start dissolving on the outside too if you soaked them in bleach, after all.

A monster that split off from a human would probably start feeling pain as well if you dumped a shitton of bleach on it. The problem was, it’d take forever…

But Lee Sejun’s nagging was downright mild compared to what came next.

The pastor came stomping toward me, clearly pissed off, raising his left fist as his whole body trembled.

"You damn heretic! Are you really going so far as to hurt even selfless and devoted people like firefighters?!”

"It’s not even our world…”

If the survivors here had made contact with the 66 Society, that was an even bigger problem. If they knew sacrifices were required to escape this place, then choosing some stranger from another world with no connection to them as the sacrifice so they could save their own people was the obvious choice aligned with human nature.

Firefighters were undoubtedly noble enough to deserve respect in any society, but if they knew about the 66 Society, were wizards, and weren’t from Supreme World then there were no exceptions.

But the pastor couldn’t understand my rational cruelty.

"That kind of selfish thinking is exactly what drives people away from the Lord, Baek Jemin!”

“Ah. I’ll be a heretic, then.”

Seriously, fuck this.

-Spit.

I spat out the blood pooling in my mouth, forced myself upright on my trembling legs, and looked around. Lee Sejun, the pastor, even Go Ryeoha were all staring at me like they wanted an explanation. I wondered what Go Ryeoha’s problem was and looked at her.

"Hubae-nim. You can’t just throw magic around at people for no reason. You might hurt innocent, good people!”

"Hss...."

I had a lot to say, but I swallowed down every single word.

Talking back to your master wasn’t proper etiquette for a disciple. Wasn’t preserving your master’s dignity the beautiful respect a disciple should show them? Using the fact that Go Ryeoha had hoarded non-wizards until she couldn’t handle it anymore, broke down crying, and asked Father Kang Peter to euthanize them for her as ammunition in a personal attack would leave irreversible scars.

On my precious body, that is.

Even if I wanted to openly pick a fight with her, something every bit as solid as Great Archmage Baek Jemin’s reason slammed on the brakes. I knew exactly what that something was, which only made me feel more miserable as I averted my eyes and backed down.

"What is it, Hubae-nim? If you have something to say, your master will listen.”

"No. It’s fine."

If only she weren’t so pretty, fuck…

I screamed inwardly in grief. Why the hell were men so weak to pretty women? Women were the same. They were more merciful to handsome men too. All I could do was lament.

Why did humans become this damn soft in front of beautiful people?!

That was when Lee Sejun quietly approached me..

"Jemin-ssi, judging by your expression, it appears you’ve finally reached the true essence behind the dream I pursue."

"Shut up.”

That was when I heard someone banging on metal.

-Clang, clang.

It was Sergeant Im Junho. He rapped the back of his hand against the car door twice to get our attention. Surprisingly, Sergeant Im Junho and his squad had seen straight through to the true intent behind my use of magic and even supported me.

The squad members remained silent, but they backed Sergeant Im up by subtly turning their heads and showing their interest.

"Just because they’re fighting monsters doesn't mean they’re on our side. And I get that you’re a civilian Operator, so it’s good to keep some flexibility in how you think, but what innocent civilians are there in a situation like this? If you don’t pick up a gun and fight, you're guilty.”

"They were fighting with axes over there, though? I guess when you’re the kind of people who shoot everyone trying to escape, bombed the areas around supermarkets so the survivors would starve, and shelled big facilities like stores whenever too many people gathered there, you just kill every civilian you see?”

Go Ryeoha glared at him viciously and snapped back, but Sergeant Im Junho wasn’t to be trifled with either.

Both of them, wearing gas masks, turned their faces toward each other and stared, neither willing to back down. Sergeant Im Junho proudly displayed his fluorescent armband as he spoke in a low voice.

"One more thing. If they’re outside our chain of command, we have to consider them enemies. It’s not like it was 10 years ago that a bunch of civilians formed a terrorist organization and raised absolute hell at Seongnam blockade line. My squad is grateful for your decision to neutralize an uncontrolled survivor group, Baek Jemin-ssi. Let’s go, boys. Aphorism, cover us.”

As if there were nothing more to say, Sergeant Im Junho led his squad toward the firefighters. The soldiers silently got to their feet and followed him, each glancing back at us of Aphorism a few times along the way.

Complicated emotions lingered in the soldiers’ eyes behind their gas mask lenses.

Too heavy to call envy, too dark to call admiration, too sharp to call reverence. Carrying emotions too tangled to define in a single word, the soldiers formed up, raised their muzzles, and approached the fallen firefighters.

-Clatter, clatter—.

The dog tags hanging from their dog-tag armbands knocked together.

And our Go Ryeoha was glaring at their backs like she wanted to kill them.

-Cleeench……

She balled both hands into fists.

The guilt of a college student who had swallowed red pill after red pill yet still wanted to turn away from the truth was twisting into anger. The backlash of my Ears-branch magic transmitted that changing thought process to me completely.

'If it hadn't been for those people…They could’ve just helped them escape. They didn’t have to kill every last one of them, but they did anyway. And now they’re standing there acting proud, saying killing everyone was the right thing to do.’

Whether it had truly been necessary or not didn’t matter.

Because what matters to humans isn't truth, justice, or rationality. It’s their own sense of injustice.

Hamza, trembling, moved in front of Go Ryeoha and spread both hands as though trying to calm a wild beast.

"Ryeoha-ssi. Relax. Everyone’s nerves are frayed because we got dragged into an unexpected situation. Instead of forcing a confrontation, let’s just keep our distance.”

"..."

The atmosphere among the Supreme Archmages was ready to explode as well.

Lee Sejun raised one eyebrow and put on an unreadable expression, but he couldn’t fool my Ears-branch magic. The backlash really was merciless.

'Go Ryeoha. Improving your image of soldiers has really become difficult. So this is where the divide was clear? Good. If I keep her away from ordinary soldiers like this, I can drive Go Ryeoha’s appeal to the opposite sex all the way down. The Siblings pursue equality through leveling downward. I’ve gained a useful clue.’

Fuck...

What a damn mess.

Still holding my rifle, I took several deep breaths, then calmly started walking after Sergeant Im Junho and his squad. After I’d taken a few steps, I heard the pastor going ballistic behind me.

"Hey! Baek Jemin! What are you doing?! Get back here!”

"What are you going to do standing around there? Follow me.”

There was nothing we could do about the clash between Go Ryeoha and Sergeant Im Junho.

The frontline troops were different from the rear-area commanders who at least knew how to apologize. Of course they were. Commanders weren’t the ones actually fighting. The frontline troops who had already fought life-and-death battles against monsters along the blockade line, on the other hand, had become far more extreme than I’d expected.

And I could understand their side as well.

Special operators like Sergeant Im Junho, along with other blockade-line soldiers, had been exposed to an environment where survival meant killing everything. The guys who tried to save people under those extreme conditions were now rubbing faces together and clawing desperately at the blockade line trying to break through.

With things like that, frontline soldiers and survivors from Seoul were never going to coexist peacefully.

Even so, since I knew exactly why Go Ryeoha was so ruthless about this, I made no attempt to hastily mediate the conflict.

Make peace through apologies and forgiveness?

I didn’t have flowers growing in my head like the idiots who spouted that kind of crap. Think about it with some basic common sense. The bastards who shot your family and friends dead to keep themselves safe apologize, so you forgive them and make peace? You’d have to be insane.

Of course, Go Ryeoha’s family apparently lived in Chuncheon, so they probably hadn’t died in Seoul, but plenty of her friends and classmates must have.

So knowing that something like that happened, an extremely rational person with basic common sense wouldn’t recklessly stick their nose into a grudge between these two sides.

I had exactly one thing to do.

Lee Sejun wore a troubled expression while secretly plotting something disgusting. Hamza was sweating buckets and waving his hands around, desperately trying to figure out how to smooth things over. The pastor watched the soldiers and Go Ryeoha in turn, his feelings visibly complicated.

Finally, I met Go Ryeoha’s gaze through the lenses of her gas mask as she stared at Sergeant Im Junho and his soldiers’ backs with bloodshot eyes, then spoke.

"Go Ryeoha."

"...Hubae-nim."

"I told you I’d kill you myself if you blindly defended non-wizards.”

I, Baek Jemin, am different from this world that does nothing but spout pretty lies.

Because I alone am absolutely precious in this world.

-Clack.

I made a show of raising my rifle threateningly, then tapped my closed right eyelid twice with my left hand as a warning.

"I never said anything about defending wizards, so I'll let this one slide. From now on, if you start defending wizards I’ve judged not to be allies, I’ll count that as hoarding too. Remember that well.”

I don’t care if everyone else in the world spouts lies.

At the very least, I will always keep the words and oaths that come out of my own mouth.

* * *

The five firefighters who had been resisting behind the fire engine became our admission tickets into the safety center.

The moment the other survivors inside saw the firefighters who had fallen into our hands, they raised the shutter themselves and unlocked the door. Sergeant Im Junho and his six squad members then yanked it open roughly and immediately shoved their muzzles inside.

-Hiiss, hisss.

Sergeant Im Junho breathed sharply through his gas mask filter and shouldered his K2 with his bandage-warped right hand.

-Clack.

"Drop your weapons. I’m only saying this once.”

"You..."

"If you want our help, disarm. We’re taking the lead in negotiations. I won’t say it twice.”

Dragging the firefighters in was our job.

Go Ryeoha had three, Lee Sejun had one, and I, Baek Jemin, had one.

While the pastor kept his gun up and watched our rear, Hamza set his weapon down and struggled to lower the shutter by himself.

-Rattle!

The slowly brightening outdoors disappeared from view, leaving only artificial light illuminating the inside of the fire safety center.

That was when we got a proper look at the survivors.

Holding one firefighter by the back of the neck with my left hand, I dragged him over and carefully set him down at Sergeant Im Junho’s feet. Then, pretending to leisurely raise my head, I quickly scanned the survivors.

13 people. 18 including the five firefighters.

More than I expected. Their composition was unfavorable as well.

There was one male student in a school uniform, acne on his forehead like he had only just entered middle school, along with eight firefighters in fluorescent vests glaring murderously at us.

Near the stairs by the entrance, an elderly couple came down groaning and leaning on a cane, supported by a nurse in a padded jacket with a perilla-leaf hairstyle. There was also a welder in suspenders who had come running with a wrench after hearing the commotion.

Skilled people were one thing, but manpower like a young kid or that frail old couple, who did nothing more than consume food and resources, was difficult to support for long in 5TB Phone World. Looking at the level of the monsters here, the fact that they were alive and being protected felt almost unnatural.

Using Ears-branch, Stage 1 [Mind Reading] to pick out anyone who seemed likely to be a wizard and figure out how their group functioned was easy enough.

Most of the firefighters were Heart-branch wizards. There were also two Hands-branch wizards among them, which was probably how they had managed to hold out this long. But knowing there was a limit to how much blood a human could lose, it made sense that they had actively pursued negotiations with Sergeant Im Junho.

'Was it a trap? These people are connected to wizards from the Society too?'

'They already won over the soldiers as well…!’

The rest were thinking obvious but pretty useless things like “What do we do?”, “They look dangers.”, and “I’m scared.”

I frowned and pressed the firefighters a bit harder, but there was no more meaningful information to obtain. Instead, I could infer something. They still didn’t know we were soldiers who had crossed over from another world, or that we came from Supreme world.

I could infer two more things.

One. The 66 Society had leaked information about the Mist of the Other Shore and sacrifices as a means of escape, but hadn’t revealed that it was possible to cross over in the opposite direction.

Two. The Republic of Korea in 5TB Phone World had completely failed at organized resistance led by government institutions, and there had been no coordinated military, police, and fire brigade response. At the very least, it was far behind Supreme World, where military, police, and firefighters had been jointly fighting Amalgams and Predator Spines and developing countermeasures ever since the fog first appeared in November 2027.

Addendum. The other side either knew nothing about Ears-branch magic, had never actually encountered it or had no experience dealing with a hostile Ears-branch wizard. There was apparently one Eyes-branch or Ears-branch wizard among the unconscious firefighters, but they didn’t seem to have been particularly hostile toward the other survivors.

The moment I finished assessing the situation, I relaxed my expression and smirked.

This was why magic was useful.

Idiots might shrug and say it was nothing special, but The ability to obtain clues from places the other side never expected was so overwhelmingly useful that even a dumbass could put his brain to work. How could anyone not get high on being a wizard?

I grabbed the chin strap and pulled up my gas mask, facing the survivors with a confident smile.

"Please forgive us for coming in a little aggressively. It looked like you had made contact with the 66 Society too, so we were cautious. Lee Sejun, Master. Please set those people down gently.”

"Aphorism, as the special operator here, I should…”

"Sergeant Im Junho. If you handle this, I think even negotiations that should usually go well are going to fall apart.”

Sergeant Im Junho, fully aware that he had zero talent for civil-affairs operations, shut his mouth.

Surprisingly, among the Supreme Archmages and Sergeant Im’s special operator squad, exactly one person stood out as the most diplomatic, rational, and reasonable negotiator.

A fine man by the name of Baek Jemin.

Lee Sejun and Go Ryeoha both looked displeased, but they lowered the firefighters they had brought while glaring at me.

"Tsk."

Whatever Lee Sejun was unhappy about, he clicked his tongue and set the firefighter tucked under his arm down a little roughly.

Go Ryeoha, on the other hand, used Hand-branch, Stage 3 [Telekinesis] to carefully lower the firefighters she had brought, laying them down one by one while glaring at me.

"Tsk."

They called themselves Siblings, and these bastards really were acting like a matching pair of assholes.

But since I was the one who had to display diplomatic skill, I kept my expression under control. That was when the pastor and Hamza, having lowered the shutter and checked that the door was locked, came over.

"Heretic. How exactly are you planning to persuade them? Just leave this to a pastor.”

"Jemin-ssi. I’m not expecting much, but you’re probably not dangerous, so I’ll trust you.”

"Haah."

I had no one to trust except Hamza.

I let out a sigh mixed with both relief and exhaustion, then decided to offer the most certain proposal I had for this negotiation.

"Let’s start with introductions. We’ll go first. I, Baek Jemin, am a five-branch Great Archmage who has reached Eyes-branch Stage 4, Ears-branch Stage 2, Hand-branch Stage 2, Tongue-branch Stage 3, and Heart-branch Stage 2. So if you resist, I’ll start by recovering your remains.”

You’ve improved, Baek Jemin.

Just like Master told me, I picked only kind and pretty words. 

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