It wasn’t just the patients swarming from outside they had to worry about. Right then, the frantic footsteps of a nurse echoed madly from just beyond the ward. If they stayed planted in place, they’d be surrounded in no time.
But Ian paid them little mind. Park Heesu, a bandolier of shotgun shells slung over his shoulder, had already put a cigarette between his lips and started striding forward with long, resolute steps.
“Alright, I’ll break the path with the Sister here! Wizard, you get ready to cook up a spell that’ll leave this hospital beyond recovery!”
Park Heesu shouted as he shouldered his shotgun with perfect form. Ian let out a hollow laugh.
“You think this world is Dungeons & Dragons? I can’t shoot fire or lightning like some academy student.”
“What? The wizard I saw set someone on fire by force and went nuts doing it.”
“……Just what kind of wizard was that?”
“Spontaneous human combustion, you don’t know? Report came in about some lunatic using magic in the middle of the city, so we went to suppress it, and right there a Bureau agent was burned to death entirely. Then he stormed the Bureau building and slaughtered all the office staff. You’re telling me you don’t know that case?”
Just hearing the outline, it was an absurd incident. Ian had seen talk of spontaneous human combustion on the forums, but he’d had no idea that kind of behind-the-scenes story existed.
‘A mage powerful enough to ignite a person by force... the price for that is simply unimaginable.’
Magic isn’t an all-powerful force. It can work miracles, but the price for working those miracles inevitably follows. Naturally, the greater the magic’s power, the heavier the cost, and how quickly a mage can prepare and wield that power determines their level.
In that respect, a mage who could use magic to incinerate a human body in an instant undoubtedly possessed skills that outclassed most. Whatever price they paid, if they could kill a Bureau agent in a heartbeat, they were certainly a master mage.
Now they were dead, so there was no way to ask, but curiosity stirred in him regardless. Ian resolved to dig up information on that one once he got out, and swapped his grimoires.
*Fwoosh.*
A pure white grimoire materialized in his grasp.
Obviously, being caught owning two grimoires wouldn’t do him any favors, so he immediately slipped the Hand of Re-Creation into the inner pocket of his coat. Then he approached the patients lying prone and activated the magic of re-creation.
“Be born anew.”
*Crack—crunch!*
The convulsing patients compressed, turning into neat little meatballs. The slimy sensation was repulsive, but it seemed wise to secure materials, so he stuffed them all into his bag.
Got to do what’s got to be done.
“…….”
Cecilia’s eyes momentarily rounded when she saw Ian kneading the patients as he pleased, but the sudden sound of the ward door slamming open made her head turn. Park Heesu stared into the face of the nurse pushing her way in and grinned.
“Hey there, missy!”
“Patient! You mustn’t moveㅡ”
“Thanks for taking care of me all this time!”
*Ca-chunk!*
Park Heesu hooked his finger around the trigger and curved his eyes into an arch.
“This here’s my love!”
*BAAAANG!!*
The moment he pulled the trigger, the shotgun’s muzzle spat fire. The lead shot flew and crushed the heads of the pressing nurses, slamming them into the wall. Blood drenched the area, spattering onto Ian and Cecilia’s faces.
“…….”
The sheer power was on a whole different level from an ordinary shotgun. The firepower was such you’d swear they were firing a cannon, not bullets. Probably a custom-modded piece at the Bureau level.
“Hahaha! Let’s go!”
Park Heesu shouted, stepping over the nurse who had become mincemeat. Ian smiled bitterly, gathered what fallen nurses he could, and moved after him. Cecilia passed Ian and fell into step alongside Park Heesu, who was charging ahead at the front.
“Left is mine. Right is yours.”
“Ooh, I like it! Orders like that are right up my alley!”
Park Heesu grinned, shoved his muzzle around the right corner, and pulled the trigger without a moment’s hesitation. With not a trace of playfulness, Cecilia willingly offered her left arm to the monster that sprang from the left, then drove a dagger through its eye and scrambled its brain.
*Crrrrunch!!*
With a ghastly sound, the creature’s body went limp. Leaving her severed arm where it fell, Cecilia immediately climbed atop the fallen creature and opened fire on those swarming forward.
*Tatadadang!*
The muzzle spat fire in rapid succession, pouring out bullets. At that moment, a familiar footstep sounded from the far end of the hallway.
“Laceration found.”
It was the Surgeon.
His clean white coat flapping, he fixed his stare precisely on Cecilia, drool trickling from the corner of his mouth.
“Commencing surgery.”
*Shring.*
He drew a scalpel from his pocket and let his long tongue loll out. Cecilia watched the sight, then at the sudden onset of psychosis she furrowed her brow and plunged the dagger into her own throat.
“*Kuh-heok!*”
Bloody froth boiled from her mouth. Breathing halted for a moment, and blood poured from the pierced carotid artery. A sensation spread through her as if her entire body were going cold and pale.
At that, her consciousness jolted back awake. Cecilia pulled the dagger free, clamped it between her teeth by force, and clutched her rosary in prayer.
Simultaneously, all wounds healed. She took the dagger from her mouth back into her hand and spat out the blood pooled in her mouth—*ptui*.
“My physician is the Lord alone, ye things that crawl up from evil. Do not even think of laying hands on my body.”
Cecilia roughly wiped the blood from her lips, hurled the dagger, and gripped a pistol in each hand.
“Gracious but not merciful, saving but granting no salvation, such is boldly the will of God. I am His agent and servant, and I shall purify what is evil and proclaim His will unto the world.”
She chanted in fluent Italian, crossed her pistols, and fired. From the right came the deafening roar of a shotgun; from the left, the sound of something being chewed and ceaseless gunfire. Under their escort, Ian kept his eyes to the rear.
‘They’re closing in.’
It was all well and good to have the two of them as the vanguard opening a path, but from the looks of it, they had no leeway to cover the rear as well.
No helping it. Ian gripped his revolver and calmly blew out the heads of those advancing.
*Bang! Ca-chunk, blam!*
The cylinder rotated as the muzzle spat fire. In that manner, all six rounds were expended. Instead of reloading, he tucked the revolver into its holster without regret and placed a hand against the wall.
“Be born anew.”
*Cr-crack—crunch!*
The wall elongated, completely sealing off the rear corridor. That secured their rear, but it also made retreat impossible.
Since he’d had no intention of retreating from the start, it hardly mattered. Ian rubbed his aching throat and opened the *Abyssal Grimoire*. Amidst the burst of blood-mist as the grimoire opened, he searched for the summoned creature best suited to the current situation.
Food was no concern. The hospital was a full 66 floors. Just roaming a single floor would keep hunger at bay, so he ignored the costs and filtered only for something suitably strong.
‘Going with this one.’
Having made his decision, he sat in the middle of the corridor and began drawing a magic circle. Park Heesu and Cecilia realized Ian was about to seriously do something and rushed to his side.
“Is it a big one? Tell me it’s a big one!”
“Hurry, hurry, hurry.”
The thick scent of blood wafted heavily from the two. Cecilia, indistinguishable from the monsters with her own blood, was drenched in it; Park Heesu wasn’t much better off. His shoulder blade was fully exposed—it looked like it had been gnawed right off.
However much force the monsters were vulnerable to, once they swarmed in numbers, dealing with them became tricky. Not even a fully-equipped response team, let alone a reconnaissance and field pair armed with only a shotgun, could handle them perfectly.
Cecilia’s condition was relatively fine, but in terms of wounds suffered she was probably far worse off. She looked fine now, but without regeneration she’d have been dead long ago.
But since she hadn’t died, there was no problem.
Undisturbed by the two’s urging, Ian meticulously completed the magic circle, placed no fewer than seven chunks of monster flesh he had collected onto it, and chanted the incantation. He did not forget to mix in his own blood.
“Thou, eye and watcher and lighthouse of the Great One. I, His agent and companion, command thee: reveal thy form here and become an eye and a harpoon for me.”
The moment the incantation ended, blood-mist spread throughout the corridor. A fog that mixed the smell of iron with the fishy stench unique to the sea. Cecilia and Park Heesu flinched at an inexplicable fear; Ian slowly turned his head at the gaze he felt coming from the window.
And their eyes met.
[…….]
A colossal eye. Nothing else was visible. Only his own figure was reflected with crystal clarity in the blood-red pupil.
Commonly called ‘the Watcher’.
A massive jellyfish-form creature, a predator of the outer seas possessing a single enormous eye.
It gazed upon Ian. Ian gazed upon it.
A wordless exchange of looks passed between them.
And in that instant, the Watcher’s eye faintly cracked, and someone’s silhouette dimly revealed itself.
[……huh.]
It was a girl.
Her hair color and features couldn’t be made out. But it was clearly the face of a girl. Blood-red eyes bloomed within the Watcher’s pupil, and the curve of her eyes drew a smile as they slid and trickled away.
“……*Urrp—bleaaagh!*”
“*Huhh, hahh...* Almighty Father, please watch over us... *kuh-heup...!*”
With the girl’s emergence, Park Heesu and Cecilia began seizing and trembling violently. The monsters, too, froze as if bound by something, and even the Surgeon, who had stalked forward so boldly, shivered all over with scalpel in hand.
Only Ian was unaffected.
[……ahaha.]
The girl stared at him stickily, as if savoring him, and laughed in a faint voice. The sound resonated only inside Ian’s head.
A moment later, the girl’s figure vanished from the Watcher’s eye. The cracked pupil returned to normal, and in that blood-hued iris, only Ian’s figure was reflected.
“……*kuh-heup, kahak!* Wh-what was that just now, you f—...!”
Park Heesu glared at Ian, groping about with his hand. Just as Ian was about to answer him, elongated tentacles pierced through the hospital’s outer wall and entered. A tentacle gently caressed Ian, then shot toward the monsters, impaling and crushing them.
“This is...?!”
The Surgeon was thrown into panic by the writhing tentacles. He slashed at them with his scalpel and shouted into the air.
“O Great One! We had absolutely no such intentㅡ”
*Crrruunch!*
A cluster of tentacles dropped from the ceiling and crushed his body into dozens of pieces. Blood splattered down, and the mouths at the ends of the tentacles drooled as they searched for their next prey.
“……The f—. What is this.”
Park Heesu muttered, his expression vacant at the sight. Cecilia, regenerating her half-severed tongue as she came to her senses, kicked Park Heesu with her foot.
“Snap out of it! Move!”
“……If he can summon something like that, is he even human anymore……?”
“The Bureau!”
“I *heard* you, you f—ing Jesus freak! Fine, we move! Emergency exit! We’re heading for the emergency exit!”
Park Heesu spat curses, raised his shotgun, and ran. Cecilia followed behind him and glanced back at Ian.
“Wizard!”
“……I’m coming.”
Feeling the Watcher’s gaze upon him, Ian moved after them.
The writhing tentacles collapsed the hospital’s ceilings and walls, devouring not only the monsters on every floor but the patients as well.
Blood-red began to soak the hospital’s interior.
*
In front of the abandoned hospital in Incheon, the building labeled Yohan General Hospital. The members of Response Team 3 swiftly checked their equipment and condition, then placed their hands on the hospital entrance.
“We’re entering. Keep this in mind: inside, you must never get wounded, and you mustn’t eat anything you’re given. And the moment we step in, we are no longer Bureau agents—we are brothers and sisters.”
“Understood.”
At Kim Yi-seo’s answer, Yeoul nodded, opened the hospital entrance, and began slowly moving inside. The five-member team, with Yeoul at the lead, entered the hospital lobby.
With every step, the scenery shifted. The trees and grass that had stretched behind them began to vanish, and a blood-red sky and empty clearing revealed themselves.
The hospital interior, once empty and unmaintained, transformed into pristine condition. At the same time, the sight of tentacles impaling nurses and rampaging in every direction filled their vision.
“Huh?”
The moment they witnessed that sight, their minds went briefly blank.
Tentacles moving about with nurses spiked on them? There’d been nothing like that in the reports.
Just as everyone thought that, patients began pouring in madly from the entrance they had come through.
There was no time to react. As if swept by a wave, they were instantly mixed among the patients, floundering with bewildered expressions.
“Wh-what is thiiiis!!”
“Respond calmly! It’s an unexpected situation! If you lose your focus, you die on the spot!”
“Mina! Grab the youngest!”
“Y-yes…!”
“Oh f—...!”
Each agent reacted differently, and at the exact moment they drew non-lethal means—
*KWA-BAAAAANG!!*
The emergency exit door suddenly burst open and a patient engulfed in flames came running out.
“S-Save meeeek!! Save me—*uuh-eouoo-eok*!!”
*Crrrack!*
The tentacle clusters that flowed out of the emergency exit after him swallowed him whole. Something burst wetly inside the tentacles, but the tentacles paid it no heed and writhed in search of their next target.
From behind those tentacles, Ian’s group emerged.
Park Mina, who had been floundering among the patients, spotted Park Heesu’s face and shouted out loudly.
“Oppa!”
“……Uh! Is that Mina?!”
Park Heesu.
The target of Team 3 and the only known survivor inside this hospital. The agents’ gazes swung toward him simultaneously at his voice, and they also took in the two people at his side. Kim Yi-seo, who had her cap pulled down low, confirmed Ian’s face and murmured quietly.
“……The convenience store part-timer?”