Baek Seol-hwa (2)
Baek Seol-hwa hadn't always suffered from such disabilities. She was simply unlucky. Before the apocalypse, she had sturdy legs, a reasonably pretty face, and perfectly functional eyes. As an ordinary second-year middle schooler, she was going through her stormy puberty in her own way—but wasn't that something everyone experienced? Had there been no apocalypse, Baek Seol-hwa would have outgrown that awkward phase, looked back on it with embarrassment, and graduated middle school as a perfectly normal girl.
But as everyone knew, the apocalypse swept across the world. There was no safe place anywhere, and it brought a world where the law of the jungle reigned supreme. For an ordinary girl to survive in such a place, she had to awaken as an Awakener—and fortunately, Baek Seol-hwa did so early in the apocalypse.
However, to achieve that awakening, she lost so much.
"Seol-hwa! At least you survive!"
It was truly bad luck.
Baek Seol-hwa and her family only fully grasped the apocalypse when they were all heading out for work and school. And in the worst stroke of misfortune, they got isolated by a horde of zombies on the streets of Pohang.
Trapped amid the zombies, her parents fought desperately to save their beloved daughter, but they ultimately fell to the horde's overwhelming violence. Even so, to the very end, their maternal and paternal love gave them superhuman strength, guiding their daughter to safety. And that effort wasn't in vain.
"Die!"
You have awakened.
Having fled to safety, Baek Seol-hwa managed to hunt down a zombie that had nearly killed her parents. Its legs were shattered, its arms twisted unnaturally, but with a nearby piece of lumber, she smashed its skull.
With that successful zombie kill, Baek Seol-hwa awakened as an Awakener.
Name: Baek Seol-hwa | Race: Human | Gender: Female
Age: 14 | Alignment: Lawful Neutral | Level: 1
Trait: None | Job: None
Skills:Magic <Temperature> (Low Grade)
Through her awakening, she acquired a special magic. Unlike elemental mages who wielded various attributes, she was a specialized mage capable of a unique kind of spell: temperature.
"Flames!"
Temperature—the common measure of hot or cold. With this magic, Seol-hwa could intuitively sense or detect the internal temperatures of nearby living beings and manipulate the ambient air temperature.
Regrettably, she couldn't adjust a creature's internal temperature remotely, so strategies like spiking it to incinerate from within were impossible. However, she could rapidly heat the air, scatter mana as kindling, and trigger massive explosions in midair.
"Amazing, Seol-hwa!"
"Ahem!"
Yes, massive explosions. The flames from her magic unleashed tremendous firepower. The moment she cast, the temperature in the affected area skyrocketed, culminating in a sudden blast. The resulting mana flames burned with such ferocity that they melted zombie flesh or reduced it to ash in seconds. It was a power specialized for mass slaughter.
Moreover, it only required mana to boost the heat and serve as explosive fuel, making the cost-to-firepower ratio incredibly efficient for efficient killing.
In the early days, she wielded this ability aggressively, massacring zombie hordes. Her overwhelming might and grandeur drew countless people to follow her.
"Ehehehe. Is everyone okay!?"
"We're fine, Baek Seol-hwa!"
With her followers, Baek Seol-hwa established a camp at Pohang Airport. Survivors began relying on her, this young girl, as their leader.
This is my duty! It's the only thing I, who survived alone after losing Mom and Dad, can do!
Seeing them depend on her, she viewed it as her fate—having awakened after losing her parents. At the height of her emotional sensitivity as a young girl, she'd gained immense power, and people looked to her. Any pubescent girl in that situation would feel destined for greatness; otherwise, her emotions would seem off.
Thus, Baek Seol-hwa believed saving her followers was her obligation as a survivor. It was a form of PTSD—survivor's guilt, precisely. Her parents died, but she lived, so she mimicked the heroic archetype the masses craved.
Considering how Choi Yu-na, before meeting Bahamut, threw herself into healing others without regard for her own body, PTSD must be the most common mental affliction in this apocalypse.
"With Pohang Airport as our base, let's rescue survivors and reclaim Pohang!"
Ignoring her twisted heart, she projected the confident image the people wanted, saving survivors near the airport and collaborating with them. Her zombie-slaying prowess quickly spread her name from Pohang Airport across the city, drawing even more to her side.
But one question might arise: If her power relied on heating the air and igniting it with mana for explosions and flames, was her weakness rain, which would prevent ignition despite the heat?
Pohang's survivor community seriously debated her abilities, pondering such vulnerabilities. And sure enough, as raiders had begun appearing in Gyeongju, they now emerged in Pohang too.
"Damn it. That brat got lucky with a good power."
They envied her overwhelming strength and fame—a base jealousy. But the raiders believed they could take her down. Since her power stemmed from superheating air and adding mana fuel for blasts, rain cooling the air should weaken her mass-kill ability.
So they waited for rain in Pohang. When a downpour hit, they raided her camp.
"Wh-what is this?!"
"I-ice!?"
Baek Seol-hwa's magic was indeed temperature-based. But temperature wasn't just heat—was it? Cold was temperature too, and she commanded it.
Explosions and flames were mere side effects of her magic, not the core. For raiders who'd assumed that was all there was, it must have felt like the sky falling.
"Heh. You must be those raiders everyone's been whispering about?"
She bound them with merciless ice. By plummeting the air temperature and condensing moisture with mana, she created ice. Naturally, around the raiders—freezing them with frostbite or encasing them in icy restraints.
"R-run!"
"Not letting you go!"
She could even compress ice into spears and launch them. A versatile power usable in any situation, it proved her leadership at Pohang Airport single-handedly.
She was still young and lacked in politics or other areas, but her sheer dominance won admiration and loyalty.
By this point, Baek Seol-hwa should have been Pohang's strongest Awakener, a symbol like the city's three major camps. Yet when the Balhut Cult targeted Pohang, her name barely came up, her presence negligible.
Through Son Sang-hee, they learned of Pohang Airport's fate under Baek Seol-hwa—her camp annihilated before it could grow into a major force like the others.
And that matched what Son Sang-hee had said.
"Wh-what is that!?"
She was disastrously unlucky, becoming the first to face Pohang's initial variant zombie spider.
On her way to negotiate merging mid-sized camps into a large one, who could've predicted encountering a new variant? Worse, the spider zombie was a hard counter for her.
"Flames and explosions aren't working!"
Not only the spider but its webs resisted heat fiercely. Her firepower didn't ignite them; the tough carapace remained unscratched. It had evolved as a blatant counter.
Still, as Pohang's top Awakener, she quickly switched to cold upon realizing fire failed—but luck wasn't on her side.
"Ah. Aaaaagh!"
"Baek Seol-hwa!"
The Balhut Cult had learned of the spider's venomous spit from local ally Son Sang-hee beforehand. But for Baek Seol-hwa, this was first contact—no intel.
That information gap sealed her fate.
"It hurts. Hurts hurts hurts hurts hurts hurts hurts hurts hurts hurts hurts hurts hurts hurts hurts hurts hurts hurts!!!"
She dodged as best she could, but the spider's venom hit her face. The intense acid melted it in real time. Agonizing pain surged through her body from her face. The young girl had no endurance for it.
No anesthesia, just her face and eyes dissolving while fully conscious—she couldn't endure.
"Guh. Uh. Ah. Ack."
The venom seeped inward, wrecking her vocal cords. Her eyes melted, stealing her sight. Darkness absolute.
No voice from her throat. Overwhelming pain shattered her mind.
"Kkhhehek."
The variant spider wouldn't miss her writhing in agony. It seized her legs, slamming her into the ground repeatedly. Each impact mangled her spine.
Yet that pain triggered survival instincts, flooding her with adrenaline. Focus and pain tolerance surged. Despite the horror, she unleashed all her mana, aiming a massive ice spear to purify the spider's location.
Luckily, it was an early variant; even its durable carapace crumpled under the spear's mass.
"B-Baek Seol-hwa!"
"Sa. Sa. Ah. Ack."
But the cost of felling it was too high. Pohang Airport's linchpin was crippled beyond recovery. With multiple spiders and no Baek Seol-hwa, the camp couldn't hold.
Without their leader, it devolved into a mob. They tried electing a new one and forming a mega-camp to survive, but the spiders struck faster.
Unable to withstand the assault, Pohang Airport fell, survivors scattering.
The silver lining?
"Explosion ahead!"
"…! ……!"
Baek Seol-hwa survived the chaos remarkably.
Face and eyes melted, vocal cords gone, spine shattered, slammed repeatedly—any normal person would've died from shock or infection. Lucky or unlucky, her Awakener vitality kept her alive.
Alive, against all odds.
"Wow, Baek Seol-hwa as our magic wand? Total luck!"
"Heh, not missing her in the chaos was fortune indeed."
"……."
A peaceful death might've been mercy.
Now, she couldn't eat, move, or communicate without help. Eternal darkness enveloped her, isolated.
Other senses sharpened, especially hearing without sight. But her ears brought only despair.
"Right, if we use this wand well, we could be Pohang Airport's top Awakener."
"Great idea!"
Her rescuers treated her not as a person, but a tool—a powerful magic wand. They openly crushed her self-esteem, reminding her she couldn't survive alone in this apocalypse.
And it worked all too well.
"……."
Days ago a survivor camp leader, now reduced to a magic wand overnight. Her sky-high pride as a young girl plummeted; she realized she wasn't a storybook hero or protagonist, but a clown.
Self-esteem crashed. She accepted the role of magic wand the survivors demanded.
Yes, protagonists weren't for her. The young girl Baek Seol-hwa learned the world's cruelty to her bones.