40
Chapter 40
The state of the subway tracks wasn't exactly great.
Due to consecutive shellings and power cuts, there were areas of complete darkness. In such places, the only thing to rely on was the L-shaped light tucked into my chest.
This was actually why the national army had been trying to blow up or close the underground passages since the beginning of the crisis.
Narrow underground passages make it easy to project firepower, but conversely, once you're pushed back, it's easy to retreat in chaos. Moreover, the presence of Predatory Spines ambushing from the shadows of the ceilings and walls likely put a significant strain on the military's existing tactics.
Low training levels of conscripts, the durability and intelligent, alien movements of the monsters, and the sudden outbreak and expansion of the situation.
There are countless reasons.
The South Korean army is organized to fight humans, not monsters. An eight-man infantry rifle squad has to fight through panic and expend vast amounts of ammunition just to repel a single Amalgam.
But we, moving along the tracks now, are different.
Huuu—.
Shin Na-in exhaled deeply through his gas mask filter and tapped the headset under his hood. I sensed it was a signal. He, too, had started using concise words instead of unnecessary modifiers.
"Spines and Faces. Multiple. They're coming from the rear as well."
Hearing that, I took off my gas mask, hung it on my left arm, and tightened the strap in one go to keep it from slipping.
Looking at the gas mask fixed to my left forearm like an armband or epaulette, I felt a surge of excitement.
Then, I raised my gun and stuck out my tongue—bleh.
Target, monster, one minute, path.
I felt my tongue, which had felt numb, split open again and vomit blood, but perhaps because Seoul was buried in fog, the wound felt less severe.
I swallowed my tongue, gulping a mouthful of blood down my throat.
"Hamza and Pastor, stay low. Se-jun, get a grenade ready. Shit-head, take the legs of the Faces."
The words were short and crude, but we understood them perfectly.
A moment later, monsters with familiar shapes began to rush out from the light of the tactical light.
The most striking were the five-legged Amalgams, running with the body of a five-year-old child dangling from them like a lump on an old man's back. Since I already knew these monsters attacked human sensibilities, I wasn't as shaken.
We are the ones who overcame the Teratomas that mimicked babies.
The three of us Alteration-types had evolved into professional mages who knew how to feel anger and hatred instead of agitation and sadness.
Lee Se-jun, who used to tremble and scream unmanly, had changed the most. His fear having turned into rage, he muttered while pulling the pin of a grenade.
"These fucking bastards."
Bang!
At first, I thought I had accidentally pulled the trigger first, but I hadn't. One of the lump-Amalgam's legs had been blown open, and it was losing its balance.
Lee Se-jun of the Heart Line Stage 2 had thrown a dead-ball grenade.
At the clang of metal hitting the rails, we all instinctively crouched and turned our heads.
Beeeee—.
Along with a brief ringing in my ears, I heard something thudding down, but there was nothing to fear.
The only exception was the Predatory Spines; for those sprinting across the ceiling like spiders during the blast, I answered with my muzzle.
The sound of watermelons splitting echoed through the cavern, cutting through the ringing in my ears with the roar of gunfire.
Shin Na-in and Lee Se-jun also raised their guns, aiming in different directions and pulling their triggers without pause.
Whenever the distinct acrid smell of gunpowder and the sound of clattering shells hit my skin, the disgusting fluids of the monsters flowed across the floor. Of course, even now, there were monsters we couldn't let our guard down against.
While our attention was focused forward, the clicking sound of bones climbing the wall struck my eardrums.
In that moment, I bit my tongue, which was sore from stomatitis, and looked back.
Since my pain is longer and deeper than any other time.
"You saw me, didn't you!"
Three Predatory Spines, just about to jump from the wall, were caught in my sight.
Normally, they would have fixed their posture by digging mutated ribs—acting as legs—into the wall, but one that had just leaped could not. It slammed onto the ground with a splat, twitching as it tried to right itself.
Meanwhile, Shin Na-in, having finished off the monsters in front, turned and aimed his gun.
"Satanic demon, demon~! By the grace of the Lord~!"
Bang! Bang!
He's a total shit-head, but there's no doubt he was a textbook ace back in the army. That thought hit me as I watched the heads of two Predatory Spines clinging to the wall burst open.
They seemed a bit softer than actual human skulls, as they split apart with ease.
Meanwhile, Lee Se-jun raised his boot toward a Predatory Spine that was twitching helplessly on the ground.
"Hup!"
Crunch!
At first, I thought I'd misheard. It sounded exactly like a large, sturdy dog chewing through a chicken bone.
Lee Se-jun's combat boot was piercing right through the Predatory Spine's head. As if that wasn't enough, he raised his foot again and crushed the skull with a satisfying crunch, like a child dancing in the snow.
I kept my eyes wide open the whole time.
I was practically weeping, terrified that this idiot would let his guard down and get his own spine snapped.
Blink.
"Lee Se-jun, you piece of shit. Just shoot it. If it fights back while you're stomping it and your spine ends up like that, I'm not saving you."
"It's a waste of bullets."
"Right now, a porter is more precious than bullets."
"...Jemin."
Looking at Lee Se-jun's touched eyes, I gave a satisfied smile. He was the only one here who could carry two ammo cans without breaking a sweat.
It was around then that Shin Na-in approached, swapping out his magazine.
"Swap your magazines now. Also, there are more monsters than expected. Ammunition consumption is extreme. Se-jun isn't entirely wrong."
He certainly wasn't.
Our destination is Jangji Station. Normally, it would be a short trip, maybe five or ten minutes by subway, but we've already encountered two hordes of monsters. Not just one or two, but dozens of them.
Still, I didn't feel too bad about it.
Why?
Because we had Pastor Park Yo-han and Hamza looking at us as if we were complete lunatics.
Pastor Park Yo-han, in particular, seemed impressed by how we fought these terrifying monsters without a hint of hesitation or fear, and without taking a single scratch.
"Baek Jemin, who do you think you are, blabbing my internal monologues?"
"There are some things I can tell without needing to borrow the shit-head's ears."
The man Baek Jemin could sensitively distinguish between a look of praise and high regard and one of contempt and pity. If the Pastor usually thought I was 90% weird, I'd improved to about 75% now.
Furthermore, I had a great talent for distinguishing between sincere praise and superficial flattery, and what Hamza said this time was sincere.
"Amazing. No, truly amazing! Soldiers can't handle them like this!"
Hamza revealed that when he was at Suwon City Hall, he was called into the command center and used like a human error detector.
He also shared a minor detail: a single infantry rifle squad of about eight soldiers, if they didn't panic and positioned themselves perfectly, could kill Amalgams or Predatory Spines, but most of those capable soldiers were concentrated at the first Blockade Line.
I was delighted, knowing that Hamza provided such detailed information just to flatter us.
As expected, a foreign worker tempered in actual combat is also a master of social maneuvering.
However, I didn't claim all the credit for myself.
"Isn't this all because our Supreme Mages are so badass?"
Excluding the deserted Monk Cheong-hwi, the five of us here are probably the strongest among the mages outside of Seoul.
Shin Na-in, the detector: a fanatic who sings hymns for over twenty minutes in the bathroom to control his sphincter and rants about heretics, but gets the job done by the book.
Lee Se-jun, the all-purpose porter: looked plain and useless, but could blow a hole in a limb with a grenade and carry two 13kg ammo cans without a hint of exhaustion.
Hamza, who shared my Richam.
The Pastor, plotting away.
And finally, me, Baek Jemin, who needs no further adjectives.
We reorganized our ranks and headed toward Jangji Station.
"Aren't you swapping your magazine, Jemin?"
"I have about 14 rounds left. I'm going to empty the clip."
I decided to keep the gas mask on my arm like an armband until we reached Jangji Station.
Gulp, gulp, gulp...
I was busy swallowing the blood seeping from my tongue. It was just a whim, thinking the smell of blood might cling to the inside if I wore the mask.
Of course, it was still better than the foul stench that rose whenever we stepped through the fluids leaking from monster corpses.
Squish, squish.
"Ugh, this is disgusting."
Emptying the remaining rounds was easy.
Gurgle...
I aimed my muzzle at the lump Amalgam, which was still groaning.
"Mom, I can't breathe..."
The body of a five-year-old child flailed its arms, gesturing as if touching melted faces. It was as if it were searching for its own face, which was already gone.
I glanced at Shin Na-in just in case, and he let out a smirk.
"I don't hear a human voice."
"It's not calling for the Lord like Father Jeong Yong-hwan?"
"No."
Figures, damn it.
I pulled the trigger without hesitation.
***
What awaited us upon arrival at Jangji Station was household waste.
Crushed plastic bottles and snack bags strewn across the tracks, and flies swarming the smell of feces. Even a documentary about the world's worst slums would look cleaner than this.
I looked at Hamza to confirm safety before entering the new area, and he nodded with a stern face.
"It's safe."
Regardless of safety, Jangji Station was incredibly filthy and dirty.
The platform floor itself was clean, but stained clothes and torn bags were scattered everywhere; however, it was the bloodstains that immediately caught our eyes.
The reason I could tell they were bloodstains even though they had turned brown was because they were handprints.
Handprints, as if someone had been dragged, were stamped everywhere. Flies circled them, savoring the smell of rotten blood. The detector Shin Na-in checked with his Stage 1 eye, Past Sight, but found nothing.
Then again, anyone could see it had been far more than an hour.
Shin Na-in glanced over at me.
"Do you want to try, Jemin?"
"No."
The bloodstains had turned brown, and the trash looked old.
I'll pass on using my tongue magic to look into the past without knowing the exact time. I can enjoy the pain because I love magic, but I'm no monk enduring agony for trivial results.
It's obvious that some monster or crazy mage swept through and cleared everything; why would I endure pain just to confirm that?
While Lee Se-jun let out a small yawn, Pastor Park Yo-han looked around and exhaled a deep breath into his gas mask filter.
"Were they afraid to move above ground? They even relieved themselves near the tracks despite the restrooms being upstairs. Stay together, look around carefully, and see if they left any records."
"Who would leave a journal or record in a place this messy?"
The research journal we found last time was left by a mage with a strong experimental spirit; I didn't think a random group of survivors would do the same.
But the Pastor firmly scolded such narrow thinking.
"Listen, kid. How do people survive in Seoul without mages? Unless this place was wiped out immediately at the start, there must have been at least one magic-user. Likely the leader or a key figure. You can't rule out the possibility of them leaving notes on a phone or scribbling things down."
"I see..."
The guess that survivors, having secured minimal safety only to find themselves isolated by monsters, might have scribbled something out of boredom was quite plausible.
Perhaps some of the survivors of Jangji Station were among the two hordes of monsters we encountered on the way.
The Pastor mimicked cracking his neck and patted his K2 rifle.
"First, don't go toward the restrooms. Assume there was a reason they chose to relieve themselves near the tracks. Let's just search the platform."
And so, we Supreme Mages searched for any traces of survivors.
Then, a strange thought occurred to me. Was there a reason why those stained clothes were scattered haphazardly?
I nudged them aside with my toe and saw bloodstains that hadn't been fully wiped away. It seemed they had used the stained clothes like rags to clean up the blood splattered on the platform.
The other members cautiously moved the clothes aside, sighing while wrinkling their noses at the smell.
Only Lee Se-jun let out a forced, giddy laugh from inside his gas mask as a joke.
"Surely they didn't resort to cannibalism."
"With a department store right in front of them?"
"That's why I'm asking."
We Supreme Mages scanned the platform from end to end, examining a section of Jangji Station.
Whether by luck or misfortune.
At the far end of the platform, we encountered a peculiar space.
Melted candles, their wicks long spent, were left scattered.
In front of them lay phones with cracked screens or dead batteries, neatly arranged as if someone had organized them with care.
None of us could easily find the words before this place, where phones were being memorialized and prayed over instead of bodies.
Pastor Park Yo-han instinctively reached to adjust his glasses, then lowered his hand, remembering his gas mask.
There were roughly seventy phones.
In Jangji Station, where not a single corpse could be found, this was proof that at least seventy survivors had lived here.
On the surrounding walls, pillars, and floor, words written in rotten flesh and brown blood remained vivid.
[Kill them all, you fuckers]
[Why us? Why only me?]
[Unforgivable]
Huff, huff—.
There was no mystical power imbued in the writing. However, the resentment and curses within them resonated deeply with those of us from outside Seoul.
The Pastor let out a heavy sigh and turned to us.
"Find an outlet and see if we can charge these phones. Let's stay here for a while. I... need to say a few prayers."
Pastor Park Yo-han shrugged.
At that, Shin Na-in narrowed his eyes and asked.
"Pastor, it's unclear if these people even attended church; how can you speak of the gates of heaven?"
"What are you talking about? They're likely burning in hell, but I should pray for them to be burned gently out of mercy."
"As expected of the Pastor. I am ashamed of myself."
Hearing that, Lee Se-jun, Hamza, and I immediately distanced ourselves, forming our own trio.
That was when Hamza whispered.
"How about the Islamic paradise?"
"You can't eat pork there."
"Instead, if you go to paradise, Allah will arrange a marriage for you."
"Does He make you into a beautiful girl too?"
Hamza distanced himself from us the moment Lee Se-jun spoke.
I couldn't hide my dismay, as I understood exactly why he did it. But Lee Se-jun, feeling a pointless sense of kinship, looked back at me with a proud expression.
"He wouldn't be omnipotent if He couldn't make a TS-girl. Right?"
"Stop talking shit and find an outlet."
End