[Translator – Aren]
It happened around the time I went to the bathroom after reassuring the driver in the break room.
"I’ll be back after taking care of some ‘business.’”
"Ah! Operator-nim, tissues, sir. Take these.”
"Huh?”
"What if they're out of toilet paper? Hehe.”
As I headed toward the restroom, I found myself understanding why Lieutenant Shin Hangi liked the driver so much.
Well, I heard people say they’d still plant an apple tree even if the world were ending.
Maybe it means preserving one’s dignity by calmly maintaining everyday life despite the apocalypse. Or perhaps it means having the steadfast mentality not to be shaken by circumstances beyond one’s control.
Still, there were far more people planting apple trees than I expected.For example, the bathroom line was insanely long.
After waiting over 10 minutes, the stall in front of me still hadn’t opened, so I finally lost patience and started pounding on the door.
-Bang, bang, bang!
"Get out already! It’s been over 5 minutes! Hell, it’s been 13!”
"Ah, come on, I’m constipated. I just finally got the urge to go!”
"I can hear your phone!”
"What am I supposed to do if I’m constipated? Poop doesn’t just come out on command. You have to calm your mind, regulate your breathing, and gently apply pressure.”
"Turn off your phone first!”
"You’re being very rude right now, but since you seem desperate, I’ll let it slide. Also, I need classical music to relax my sphincter. I’m in the middle of relaxing it.”
"Fucking hell."
No matter how I looked at it, this guy’s bowel habits were obviously the reason for his constipation. But the bastard beyond the stall door clearly had no intention of admitting it.
In the end, 3 minutes later, another stall finally opened, and I was able to relieve myself in peace.
And even after I finished and came back out, the Classical Music Pooper was still locked inside.
People were pounding on his stall nonstop.
"Hey! You’re not dead in there, are you?!”
"Do you need toilet paper?”
Eventually, people gave up and scattered to the other stalls instead.
After thoroughly washing my hands with soap and passing by the stall, the reality of the situation was truly absurd.
"What the hell?”
Even someone like me, who knew absolutely nothing about classical music, could tell this sounded nothing like it.
And for good reason. It was a cute children’s church song I’d once heard in boot camp because they handed out hamburgers at the chapel.
[Forward, soldiers of Jesus Christ~With Jesus~ leading the way~]
"Fight bravely against the devil and claim victory~ We are the army of love~”
The Classical Music Pooper was actually singing along from inside the stall.
Realizing just how painfully ordinary and insignificant I was compared to this lunatic, I quietly left the restroom.
With faith like that, he could probably awaken a Dogma-type spell without any trouble at all. Maybe he simply had not encountered the fog yet. Or maybe he was already a wizard.
Thinking how miraculous it was that I, of all people, had managed to awaken magic among monsters like these, I headed toward the most important task of all.
The duty I’d postponed because everything happened so suddenly. Food.
When I returned to the break room, I immediately asked the driver:
"Come to think of it, I still haven’t eaten yet.”
"There’s a meal set aside for you, sir. They reheat it so the Operators could eat together. You can head over now. As for me, Lieutenant Shin Hangi ordered me to stay in the break room and not approach anyone except Operator Baek Jemin, sir.”
Thanks to the quick-witted driver’s directions, I made it to the cafeteria before it got too late.
There, I saw the same colorful mix of religious figures and soldiers from the conference room carrying trays to their seats.
"Hey monk. Why’d you take the meat side dish?”
"This humble monk has no intention of placing meat in his own mouth. I merely accepted it so those around me would not feel self-conscious while receiving theirs.”
"Oho~. Nobody dodges a question like a monk.”
Pastor Park Yohan and Monk Cheonghwi exchanged ‘pleasantries’ while I grabbed a tray and received my own meal.
The menu perfectly reflected the suffering of some nutritionists desperately trying to provide variety and proper nutrients with a catastrophically limited budget.
Stir-fried seaweed stems, kimchi, mashed boiled eggs, and kimchi stew that at least looked like it had been simmered properly.
I forcefully suppressed the words clawing their way up my throat.
This was Suwon City Hall, so why the hell did the food look like this? Was this secretly a military base?
Now that I had my food, I needed somewhere to sit, but everyone here apparently possessed less teamwork than a sack of rocks, because each person had claimed an entire table for themselves. No matter where I looked, I was destined to eat alone. In the end, I sat at a random empty table and started with the side dishes first.
Shockingly, as the saying goes, even a dying fish still tasted like fish, the food was actually good.
Compared to the frozen meat-block side dishes from 9 years ago that we used to thaw out by beating them with shovels, this tasted practically like someone’s mother had cooked it herself.
Just as I finally began eating in peace, a familiar face sat down across from me.
"Thanks to you, Operator Baek Jemin, I just got chewed out by the Captain."
Lieutenant Shin Hangi had returned carrying two cans of ‘Let’s Be’ coffee.
He slid one toward me, then confidently pulled a processed meat can from inside his jacket and placed it beside my tray.
"The meal looked kind of lacking, so I brought what you were asking for. You wanted spam, right?”
"Oh."
I remembered how he’d originally tried to lowball me with luncheon meat instead of Spam, but I decided to not mention it and let it slide.
Yeah. The military was in a terrible situation too. Mixing some filler into the meat was understandable.
Besides, if you grilled it properly, luncheon meat honestly didn’t taste that different from spam anyway. Sometimes it was even better since it was less salty. Humming to myself as I accepted it, I suddenly froze and widened my eyes.
"Why the hell is thisRicham?!”
"Whoa, whoa~, calm down.”
"How am I supposed to calm down when it downgraded from Spam to Richam?!”
After some heated bickering, Lieutenant Shin Hangi offered a compromise.
"You do know mobilization’s been declared, right? People are already talking about transitioning the economy into a wartime system. At least in Gyeonggi Province, anyway. This part’s confidential, by the way, Operator-nim.”
"So?”
"So later on, you probably won’t even be able to get Richam anymore. Start stockpiling cigarettes now. Alcohol too. Also, Operators in southern Gyeonggi will likely need to report to the military before moving to other regions. And just so you know, Richam has a higher meat content than luncheon meat. So this counts as a replacement for Spam.”
I accepted the Richam with a deeply conflicted heart.
Was this really going to be my last spam-adjacent meal? Feeling the crushing despair of Korea’s future all over again, I ripped the lid open and licked even the crumbs clean with my tongue.
"Operator-nim, please stop. You look incredibly pathetic.”
"You just throw away yogurt lids without licking them?”
"That’s completely different.”
After finishing the meal and drinking our Let’s Be coffee, Lieutenant Shin Hangi and I headed back toward the break room.
Everyone else was insanely busy. The hallways were packed with soldiers sprinting around in a panic, while people who looked like government officials hammered away at computers so furiously they didn’t even glance up.
Only Shin Hangi and I somehow still felt like we were living ordinary lives.
Noticing my feelings visible on my face, Shin Hangis simply shrugged.
* * *
By the time we returned to the break room, the driver snapped to attention and saluted us with a loud “Attention!”
At this point, the break room had apparently become a private space reserved for me, Shin Hangi, and the driver. I felt a little bad for everyone else, but since we were all technically on emergency standby anyway, I decided a wizard like me deserved to coast a little.
"As long as you properly learn magic, Operator-nim, that’ll be enough.”
"So what, do I have to believe in Catholicism, Protestantism, and Buddhism all at once?”
In theory, wouldn’t believing in every religion on Earth, Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Islam, shamanism, and so on, make someone the strongest possible wizard? Apparently it wasn’t that simple.
"You’re saying you’ll learn and read Sanskrit, Ancient Hebrew, Ecclesiastical Latin, Classical Chinese, and Quranic Arabic all at once?”
"Wow. That’s brutal.”
As a total human disaster who’d never even taken the TOEIC and probably couldn’t score above 200 anyway, this was far beyond my reach.
I was already barely surviving with one language. And now they expect me to read and write a bunch of languages nobody even used in Korea just to learn magic?
For me, Baek Jemin, the man who once escaped a tutoring session by claiming he was just going out to buy some coffee at the convenience store, this was simply too cruel a trial.
"Well, people underestimate religious folks, but among them are some genuinely respectable intellectuals. At least the Operators gathered here today are.”
"Then introduce them properly. Some of them barely said anything.”
At that, Lieutenant Shin Hangi pulled out a notebook and began explaining everyone one by one.
"Pastor Park Yohan may look like that, but he runs a small independent church. Apparently he’s spent years reporting cult scams that swindle people out of their entire savings to the Korean Protestant Association, trying to get society to recognize them as a serious issue. He likes money, sure, but aside from that, there don’t seem to be any scandals around him. He’s active in charity work too.”
Honestly, judging from how he kept calling the monk "baldy," I’d assumed he was the type to openly despise other religions.
"Ah, although he does go berserk, insisting worshippingDangun is idolatry. He doesn’t even speak to the shamans.”
"Well, good or bad, he definitely sounds like a pastor.”
"At least he’s not one of those money-grubbing fake pastors.”
Since I’d actually studied Christianity a bit, I understood.
Both Catholicism and Protestantism were fundamentally monotheistic faiths, meaning their doctrines naturally rejected other religions. From their perspective, the truly strange people were the ones preaching tolerance and acceptance of all faiths.
"Monk Cheonghwi isn’t a head monk yet, but he’s apparently one of the foremost figures in Korean Buddhism regarding Sanskrit scriptures. He believes Buddhism in Korea lost many original teachings during the long centuries of suppression on the peninsula. While he values meditation and personal cultivation, he’s especially interested in directly translating sutras from Sanskrit into Korean instead of relying solely on Chinese-transmitted texts.”
"That sounds genuinely admirable.”
"Apparently, he recently put that aside temporarily to focus on temple cuisine. He thinks promoting Korean temple food could improve public perception of Korean Buddhism.”
That honestly fit the impression I got from him. He seemed like a pretty decent person.
"As for Father Jeong Yonghwan, he worked as a deacon at a Seoul Archdiocese parish before only recently transferring to the Suwon Diocese as a priest. Hmm, he’s a bit unique.”
"Unique, how?”
"Well. Catholicism is actually an extremely administrative organization. I asked around among the upper clergy what they thought of him, and apparently his faith itself isn’t bad, but he keeps saying he ‘refuses to waste the precious blood of the Lord’ while chugging sacramental wine by the bottle. He’s an extremely heavy drinker. There are even jokes going around that he became a priest just so he could legally drink.”
I couldn’t think of anything appropriate to say, so I just smacked my lips awkwardly.
"As for Bosal Geulmun-nim, he’s a rather unusual case. He's a man but insists on using the title Bosal. I don’t know much about shamanism myself, but apparently that’s caused him a lot of trouble over the years. That’s why his personality’s a bit prickly. Still, he practices divination through written phrases, and he’s studied Daoism and theI Ching quite extensively. He says the heavens themselves have changed recently, to the point where the I Ching alone can no longer be relied upon. He’s actually been surprisingly cooperative with the military.”
"The guy who called us bizarre and uncanny?”
"Haah…Well, considering he’s someone deeply connected to the dead, maybe his spiritual intuition is especially sharp?”
For a brief moment, I seriously wondered whether Lieutenant Shin Hangi secretly thought we were creepy bastards as well.
"And the guy wearing a turban is named Hamza. He’s Pakistani. A Muslim.Sunni, apparently. But Islam still isn’t exactly common in Korea, right? So the military's having trouble determining whether the magic Hamza uses counts as Dogma-type magic or some entirely separate category. They’re still observing him.”
"That guy said he eats gochujang and pork belly and drinks soju. Is he even Muslim?”
"Well, by that logic, we shouldn’t be eating burgers, fries, or drinking cola either. The doctors say those'll kill us, right?”
"Hmm..."
Annoyingly enough, Lieutenant Shin Hangi’s argument made some sense to me.
"The rest are soldiers who awakened Alteration-type magic through guard duty incidents or other circumstances, like you, Operator Beak Jemin. Counting you, there are two former reservists, one current active-duty soldier, and one former noncommissioned officer.”
"You're not introducing them?”
"Because there’s still too little known about Alteration-type magic. The military can at least talk with Dogma-type users and categorize their traits, but Alteration-types don’t share much in common aside from ‘some body part changes.’ So for now, they’re intentionally delaying introductions to prevent people from comparing notes too early and contaminating the information.”
"Huh.”
Leaning back against the break room sofa, I pursed my lips absentmindedly.
"If I’d known it’d be like this, I would’ve started going to church or a temple or whatever.”
"Just attending doesn’t mean you awaken. If it did, those monsters would’ve been wiped out ages ago.”
"Then doesn’t that mean God really exists?”
I’d only meant it as a joke, but Lieutenant Shin Hangi’s response was a look filled with awkwardness.
"That’s actually become a problem too. Some groups are already snarling at each other, insisting their god is the real one. Some even file complaints, saying these shouldn’t be called Dogma-type magic but miracles instead, demanding terminology corrections. And there’s a lot of hostility toward Operators who awakened Alteration-type magic too. That’s why the military deliberately officially uses the neutral term Localized Invasive Structural Alteration instead of calling it magic.”
No matter where you go, the most exhausting people always act like nobility.
Grumbling under my breath, I crushed the Let’s Be coffee can and tossed it into the trash.
Then, for the first time in a while, I pulled out the Magic Crash Course booklet from inside my jacket.
"So. Isn’t there some kind of dedicated place for magic research?”
"You’ll get assigned lodging first. And tomorrow we’re setting up a separate space specifically for you Operators.”
At that moment, the driver, who’d clearly been listening with his ears perked up the whole time, carefully spoke in a voice mixed with fear, admiration, and excitement.
"O-Operator-nim. And Lieutenant-nim.”
"Yeah. Go ahead. I know you’re curious.”
When Lieutenant Shin Hangi nodded, the driver’s eyes sparkled.
"Can Operators really shoot fireballs and stuff? Or like emit lightning? What about summoning spirits?”
At that, Shin Hangi stared directly at me. I answered the driver with complete seriousness.
"Of course we can shoot fireballs.”
"O-oooh! R-really?!”
"We shoot red-hot lead.”
"Ooooh…Huh?”
Watching the driver slowly realize he’d been fooled, I burst out laughing.
"Just kidding.”
"Ah, ahaha!”
"I can see 10 seconds into the future.”
"..."
Apparently even Shin Hangi hadn’t known that part properly, because his eyes widened in shock too.
I confidently wiggled my finger with a smug grin.
"Once this whole disaster’s over, I’m taking out massive loans and heading straight to Las Vegas.”