-A Scene of the Apocalypse
“A terror attack, you say? Where?”
My mind snapped alert on its own.
We had only just begun putting our side’s system in order, and it seemed the black mages had already started moving again.
My body was ready to bolt out at any moment.
“It isn’t clear yet whether it’s terrorism or not. It’s definitely suspicious, but it might be an epidemic……”
Han Dosu said, frowning.
I pressed him.
“What exactly happened?”
“They say people are suddenly collapsing in the streets. No sign of an attack or an enemy.”
“Where?”
“It seems to be spreading from the Gangnam Station intersection.”
“I’ll go check it out immediately.”
“Good. You go ahead first. I’ll bring the Hall mages and follow soon after.”
Cheon Danbi and I left the Hall at once.
It had truly been one busy day after another.
I had gone out early in the morning to clean up the biohackers, stopped briefly at home, then come to the Hall and arrested Kang Yonghun—only to be called out again because news of another possible terror attack had come in.
Everyday life really must have been a dream after all.
“We’re stopping by home first, right?”
Cheon Danbi asked beside me.
“We should. We’ll need to take the car. But if it might be an infectious disease, should we bring Gil and Ren?”
“They’ll decide for themselves. Ren can transform and move through the air, and Gil is a mage. If he needs to, he’ll put up a barrier.”
Hearing Cheon Danbi say it, I realized she was right.
I reflected on whether I had unconsciously been thinking of Gil and Ren as people I had to protect.
From now on, I ought to treat them properly as full-fledged team members.
When we arrived home and asked the two of them what they wanted to do, just as Cheon Danbi had said, Gil and Ren said without the slightest hesitation that they would come with us.
Even the crows promptly came forward. I let them. Once Ren transformed, they could move together, so it didn’t seem like a bad idea.
We all got into the car together and headed for Gangnam Station.
After crossing the Han River, the roads became so jammed that the car could barely move. It seemed to be because of the situation at Gangnam Station.
“Traffic’s completely blocked. Maybe we should’ve taken the subway instead.”
“We’re already here. Let’s eat while we’re stuck.”
As always, Cheon Danbi’s preparedness shone.
Before we left, Cheon Danbi had told us to wait a moment, then dashed to a convenience store and bought a heap of food.
She knew from experience that whenever there was a dispatch, meals were often skipped.
Sure enough, I hadn’t eaten a single meal today either.
We hurriedly filled our stomachs with triangle kimbap, bread, milk, and whatever else Cheon Danbi had grabbed.
By the time we had more or less finished eating, the car was able to approach the vicinity of Gangnam Station.
A police line had been set up before the intersection. Other cars were making U-turns in front of it, but we headed toward it.
By now, my face was my identification. I was able to park the car in front of the cordon without any obstruction.
“My god, what is this? This is seriously bizarre.”
“They’re not dead, are they?”
“No. If you look closely, they’re moving.”
The intersection was full of people collapsed on the ground. They were strewn everywhere, across both the road and the sidewalks.
It was truly a bizarre sight.
Since there had been no appearance of strange creatures, nor any explosion or destruction, I had come thinking of it somewhat lightly. But seeing the scene for myself, I understood why it had been reported as suspected terrorism.
Hundreds of people had collapsed in the street without knowing why.
Police lines had been drawn on all four sides of the intersection. Because the avenue was so wide, the area covered was quite large.
“Let’s put up barriers first and then get closer.”
“I’ll put a barrier around us with a druid’s vitality. It might be an infectious disease.”
“Sure, thanks.”
I let Cheon Danbi do as she wished.
If this really was an infectious disease, a druid’s barrier would indeed be more effective.
Ren had already transformed into a crow, and Cheon Danbi placed barriers around Ren and the crows as well.
The crows flew up into the sky.
“Here, drink this in advance too. This time, it’s not a mana-boosting potion, but one that boosts vitality.”
After each of us drank a bottle of the potion Cheon Danbi handed us, we got out of the car and walked toward the scene.
Before approaching the collapsed people, I first searched for traces of magic circuits.
There were no traces of magic circuits. I couldn’t sense any gray energy either. It didn’t seem like magic had been used.
I did detect faint mana, but it wasn’t strong enough to conclude that magic had been activated here.
Most likely, there were mages or other races among the people gathered here, and that was why mana was being detected.
The people collapsed on the road were all showing mild convulsions.
Their limbs trembled, their pupils were slightly dilated, and their faces were filled with terror, as though some frightening presence stood before their eyes.
“I’m a mage. Can you hear my voice?”
I tried speaking to them, but no answer came back.
They hadn’t completely lost consciousness, but they didn’t seem to be in their right minds either.
Cheon Danbi knelt down and collected the breath of the fallen people into a glass bottle. She also took samples from their skin.
“Are you sure it’s all right to touch them?”
“It’s fine. I have a barrier up, and I’m fully charged with vitality right now.”
“All right. Still, be careful.”
Gil had spread out concentric rings of mana waves and was carefully moving among the people, looking around here and there.
Since there was no enemy immediately visible, each of us was investigating in our own way.
I extended my detection magic once more, sweeping far outward to check the overall scale and situation.
Still, no traces of magic circuits were detected.
Centered around Gangnam Station, the four directions of the intersection were a scene of complete devastation.
The strange thing was that people had not only collapsed on the sidewalks, but also in large numbers on the roadway.
As if they had deliberately swarmed into the road, many people lay fallen between the stopped cars.
Of course, the people inside the cars were in the same state.
The situation seemed to have happened suddenly; many cars were stopped in the middle of rear-end collisions.
There were likely quite a few people injured in traffic accidents as well, but under these circumstances, it seemed the police had not yet been able to do anything.
“Have you only been controlling the area until now?”
I approached a policeman guarding the cordon and asked.
“Yes, that’s correct. We were ordered not to touch anything and only maintain control until the mages arrived.”
I understood why that order had been given, but we couldn’t leave people like this forever.
Since magic had not been used, this was not something to hand over to mages, but something that needed to be sent to hospitals.
“Shouldn’t the injured be transported to hospitals?”
When I said that, the policeman looked at me in surprise and asked back.
“Pardon? Transport them? Is it safe to approach those people?”
“There must be people injured in traffic accidents as well. We can’t just leave them like that, can we?”
“Ah! Yes…… Ambulances should be on their way now.”
The policeman was clearly flustered.
Whether it was magic or an infectious disease, he probably did not want to touch people who had collapsed for some abnormal reason.
But while we were talking, people beyond the cordon also began dropping one after another. Even the police officers were collapsing.
People nearby screamed and ran away, but there were also those who kept watching and taking pictures.
Videos of the scene must already be spreading rapidly across the internet. Along with them, fear and unease would be spreading as well.
Just then, sirens rang out from every direction as ambulances came rushing in.
People collapsing without knowing the reason, others filming and photographing them, and ambulances racing in with sirens blaring.
It was like a scene from the end of the world.
“What? Why are they over there too……? Mage-nim, what in the world is happening?”
The policeman who had been talking with me asked, looking as though he might cry.
“We’re still investigating, so I don’t know the exact cause yet, but there are no traces that magic was used.”
“It doesn’t seem like an infectious disease, so I don’t think you need to worry too much.”
Cheon Danbi abruptly cut in and said.
When I looked back at her, she added in a low voice.
“For now, judging from the breath and skin samples, it doesn’t seem like any particular disease. Of course, we’ll need a detailed examination, but from what I can see right now, the symptoms look like their vitality is being depleted.”
“Vitality depletion?”
“Yeah. It’s being depleted rapidly and severely. That’s why they’re having seizures. If they’re left like this, they might die. For now, I’ve been feeding vitality into the people who look the most at risk, but it would be better to get everyone to a hospital quickly.”
Cheon Danbi’s thoughts were the same as mine.
Since the ambulances were arriving just then, I gave the policeman an order.
“Transport all the collapsed people to hospitals. It is not an infectious disease.”
“But it’s spreading like that……”
“There is definitely some problem here at the scene. I’ll take responsibility and find it. The police, please take responsibility for transporting the people.”
“Understood.”
Ambulances arrived one after another.
Following my order, the paramedics and police worked together and began loading the collapsed people into the ambulances.
The problem was that we still hadn’t found the cause of the vitality depletion.
‘Something that rapidly depletes vitality…… Did something like a parasite enter their bodies? Is there a virus spreading through the air?’
If this was not a problem caused by magic but a purely medical issue, then I had no way of finding it out.
At that moment, Gil came to my side and quietly said,
“The collapsed people looked like they were staring at something in fear, so I checked, and there are pigeons there.”
“What? Pigeons?”
I quickly looked around.
Pigeons were wandering here and there on the streets. But they were simply pigeons, the kind that always existed in the city.
On the outside, there was nothing special about them.
They didn’t look grotesque or enlarged like the ones the biohackers had created through genetic modification before.
I hurriedly extended my detection. This time, I focused only on the pigeons and examined them in detail.
I still couldn’t detect any traces of magic being used, but I did detect mana.
I strode over and crouched in front of a pigeon.
The pigeon made no attempt to avoid me or fly away, simply staring straight at me. But there was something unusual about its gaze.
Unwavering and calm eyes. A bird’s eyes were originally clear and blank, but this pigeon’s gaze went beyond that.
It gave me the feeling that it possessed reason and was seeing right through me.
It was as if it were not the gaze of an animal.
‘Black magic wasn’t used, so what on earth is this?’
I quietly extended mana toward the pigeon. I threw out a magic snare and bound it in an instant.
Only then did the pigeon flap its wings, trying to fly away.