Instead of the whale plushie, I took out the cardigan I had packed and put it on Henry. It was so big that even when I diligently folded the sleeves, the hem dragged on the floor. Seeing that, Yugeumi swapped the cardigan she was wearing with mine. It no longer quite dragged on the floor, but the sleeves still had to be folded.
I wrapped Henry in the cardigan and hoisted him onto my back. If the kid was on my back, perhaps he would be less cold thanks to my body heat. Sin Haeryang checked the indoor temperature with his pad. Looking from the side, it was 22°C.
“The life support system has broken down.”
I Jihyeon looked at the pad with Gang Sujeong and added,
“The air volume is dropping too.”
“Is there any way to fix it?”
“To repair this, we'd have to unload equipment from the Third Undersea Base, evacuate all personnel from Cheongnyong-dong, and then work on it. Our team doesn't know how to fix it. It's not our department. The Russian guys probably know how to fix this. They brought it from their country. I'm not even sure how many hours the repairs would take.”
Gang Sujeong answered like that and scratched his chin ambiguously. So an engineer team couldn't fix everything, after all. But rather than leaving it to the drunk Engineer Team Da, wouldn't it be better to have the sober Team Ga fix it? While I was thinking that, Sin Haeryang spoke to me.
“Repairs are a problem to handle later. Let's focus on getting out of here first.”
Seo Jihyeok looked at the Blue Dragon's tail coiled around the elevator, then asked Sin Haeryang,
“What should we do? Should we keep going? I don't think those Chinese or Japanese bastards would have caused this without preparing an escape route from Cheongnyong-dong.”
Sumire, who had been licking her split lip and scrunching up her face, spoke when people looked at her.
“What? I have no intention of leaving the undersea base. I'm staying right here.”
“Baekho-dong is leaking, and the Jujak-dong research center was destroyed by torpedoes. And you're saying you'll stay here?”
Even after hearing I Jihyeon's words, Sumire wore an expression that said what did that have to do with her and said,
“Cheongnyong-dong will be fine.”
Gang Sujeong looked at Sumire as if disgusted and said,
“Cheongnyong-dong's temperature is dropping. The temperature control system itself isn't working properly. The oxygen concentration will keep decreasing; you never know when you won't be able to breathe. If we go to the escape pods and there are some, we can escape, but if there aren't any, it might be dangerous even while searching for submersibles. Don't you understand?”
Sumire wiped her runny nose, bloody nose, and tears by rubbing them on John's shoulders and back, then spoke toward Gang Sujeong.
“Do whatever you want. Just take me to my room.”
“······To think I'm having a conversation with this right now.”
Gang Sujeong clicked his tongue. I asked Sumire with a sigh,
“Did you leave something important in your room? Why do you want to go there so badly?”
“Do I need a reason to go to my own room? I've been carrying around something that heavy since morning, so I'm tired. And crying made me even more tired.”
Sumire pointed at Baek Ayeong's gun with a jerk of her chin, then shut her mouth and stared vacantly at Sin Haeryang.
The people who had stopped in front of the Cheongnyong-dong elevator began to discuss whether they should change direction right now and head to Hyeonmu-dong.
“Wouldn't some of the Russian guys still be alive in Hyeonmu-dong? That gentleman Vladimir looks like the type who wouldn't die even if you killed him,” Seo Jihyeok said while yawning, then suddenly whipped his head toward the corridor.
At the same time, Baek Ayeong raised the gun she had been pointing downward, and Sin Haeryang stepped in front of Tumanako, who was standing outermost in the corridor among the group, shielding him with his body.
A human figure could be seen in the distance. Someone was running at an incredible speed from the direction of the Cheongnyong-dong escape pods. The person running was a woman with long brown hair flowing loose, a rifle slung on her back, racing forward recklessly.
Once she reached a position where her face was identifiable, the woman broke into a delighted smile, but Baek Ayeong spoke with her muzzle aimed at her.
“Stop right there!”
At Baek Ayeong's sharp voice, the opponent stopped as if she might tumble over from the momentum. Sin Haeryang shouted,
“Put the gun on the floor and put your hands up!”
The woman looked startled for a moment, then shrugged off her gun and threw it to the floor as if shedding a burden. It rolled as though freed from a heavy weight, and she raised both hands high. Then she looked this way with an expression full of anticipation. She seemed to be holding herself back from running over immediately.
“Kneel and wait.”
Sin Haeryang approached and picked up the gun the woman had discarded on the floor. With that, the tension hanging in the corridor eased dramatically. Baek Ayeong slowly approached and looked the other person up and down. Then she took her finger off the trigger, spread her arms, and hugged her.
The woman hugged Baek Ayeong back and spoke with tear-filled eyes.
“Ayeong. I was so scared.”
Then she burst into tears.
“······I'm here, so you'll be okay now.”
Baek Ayeong patted the woman's back several times, then released her with a contorted face. Baek Ayeong briefly introduced the slender beauty whose hair was a complete mess.
“This is my friend, Syuran.”
“Hello. Sniff. Nice to meet you.”
It seemed the members of Engineer Team Ga already knew that Syuran was Baek Ayeong's friend. Seo Jihyeok said something to Sin Haeryang while pointing at the guns, only to suddenly find himself holding two barbells.
“Hello. It is our first time meeting. I am Park Muhyeon.”
“I'm Yugeumi.”
Henry, perched on my back, greeted Syuran.
“Hello.”
Syuran, running her hand through her hair, looked at Henry, froze for two seconds, then answered.
“Uh······. Oh my God. H-hello.”
Tumanako recognized Syuran and spoke to her with a smile.
“You came to the salon to get your hair dyed, right? You know me?”
“Yes. Mr. Tumanako. I've seen you before. ······That's not important! There are escape pods! That's why I came looking for you!”
At those words, Gang Sujeong asked Syuran in surprise,
“The escape pods are intact? Is it fine over there?”
“The ones in Cheongnyong-dong are fine. Wasn't it Jujak-dong and Baekho-dong in that broadcast? They said the escape pods there broke down? The Cheongnyong-dong escape pods are fine. You can use them.”
Then Syuran looked at Baek Ayeong and poured out her worries like a waterfall.
“Do you know how many messages I sent trying to reach you?! Calls wouldn't go through! The internet wasn't working, so I couldn't contact you at all! I was so worried!”
Baek Ayeong said to Syuran, bewildered,
“I haven't checked those in a while.”
“Your team leader couldn't be reached either, I bet he doesn't check messages! Your vice-leader couldn't be reached either!”
“Our team leader hasn't checked them for even longer. The vice-leader ······said he lost his pad.”
Sin Haeryang asked Syuran,
“How many are left?”
“If Hongtao and Zixuan took them up, then three. If not, five.”
So they had left a total of five escape pods? Engineer Team Ra (China) has seven people in total; are you telling me they didn't prepare at least seven to get out of here? Then what was Engineer Team Na (Japan) planning to do to escape? Gang Sujeong, seemingly having had a similar thought, asked,
“There are only three escape pods left?”
“Ah. Hongtao and I weren't being treated like humans. They probably planned to kill us once everything was over. But that broadcast. Who was the one who made the first broadcast?”
Answering this kind of question always made me nervous. I raised my hand and answered,
“It was me.”
“Did someone from our Engineer Team Ra tell you? How did you know we were at the Cheongnyong-dong escape pod port?”
At Syuran's question, everyone looked at me. What was I supposed to say?
“Someone who didn't want to reveal their name came to the dental office and told me.”
In truth, no one had told me. I had only spoken about what I had experienced as a precaution. It seemed that broadcast had inadvertently induced internal strife between the two engineer teams. Syuran said with a smile,
“Thanks to that broadcast, they were fighting among themselves over who leaked the information. And thanks to Team Leader Shin's broadcast, they all flocked to Baekho-dong.”
“What about Haiyun?”
“They went to try to stop them.”
Sin Haeryang nodded. Eventually, the group agreed to head to the Cheongnyong-dong escape pods. I had thought they would split into those going to the escape pods and those going to the submersibles as before, but this time they didn't. They said that without Baek Ayeong, just Seo Jihyeok and Sin Haeryang wouldn't be able to protect the nine unarmed people here.
Tumanako said he would sit and wait in front of the Cheongnyong-dong elevator, but Yugeumi wouldn't allow it. When Yugeumi forcibly pushed Tumanako's back from behind, he lurched forward like a scarecrow.
“You have to walk so you won't be cold. You can't refuse to move like that. Don't just shiver in place; you have to keep moving.”
“I'd rather sit and listen to songs even if I freeze to death.”
As Tumanako trudged along complaining, Yugeumi shook her head.
“People aren't grasshoppers. The harder it is, the more you have to move.”
“What's that?”
“The Ant and the Grasshopper. It's an Aesop's fable from when you were little.”
“Is the translation weird? Isn't it the ant and the grasshopper? ······These days grasshoppers sing and live such good lives.”
As we walked quickly through the Cheongnyong-dong corridor, it grew colder and colder. At first it felt like a summer evening, but now it felt like walking down the street in winter wearing only a shirt. Only my back was warm thanks to the child's body heat.
Occasionally, perhaps because Henry was feeling playful, he kicked his legs about wildly, and I swayed my body left and right in rhythm with him. Then I borrowed Tumanako's headset, put it on Henry's head, and played a song in English.
Gang Sujeong, who had been staring blankly at Syuran talking with Baek Ayeong, asked while slapping Sumire's back with a large hand.
“Hey. Did your team not have anything like that? Like fighting over who leaked the information after hearing the broadcast?”
“It hurts! ······Huh? I don't know.”
“You don't know anything. What do you even know?!”
“I don't know. I don't care who said what. It was probably Tamaki. I only heard that we should just shoot anyone we see while carrying guns this morning.”
Worried that Tamaki might be falsely accused as a traitor as well, I quickly made an excuse.
“Mr. Tamaki didn't say anything to me.”
“Hmm. Is that so?”
Then Sumire, who was being quietly carried on John's back, suddenly said to me,
“······Then there is no one.”
“Excuse me?”
“Since he's going to carry a gun around and kill people indiscriminately, there is no one besides him on the team worth asking to stop it. Do I have to say it twice for you to understand?”
At Sumire's words, just as my feet were going numb, I Jihyeon, having heard that Japanese, glared at Sumire and spoke stiffly.
“Watch your mouth. This doctor is the only person in this group right now who is well-disposed toward you.”
Sumire looked at I Jihyeon and scoffed.
“I know that better than anyone. An ear stuck to the wall, eavesdropping on others' words.”
Sumire was about to hurl something back at I Jihyeon, but seeing Seo Jihyeok standing behind him, she turned her head away.