Just as there is no particular reason a person must be born to live, there is no such thing as a reason they must not die. At Sin Haeryang’s words, Zixuan fumbled with a flustered expression, then jerked his chin toward Seo Jihyeok and shouted.
“Seo Jji-hyeok made a promise with me! He said that in exchange for taking the boat, he’d get me safely to it!”
Clearly, at the time of the boat deal, Zixuan had seemed to think the painkillers were the most important thing and that he had no need for that at all. Now the situation had completely reversed.
“I said I’d get you there safely. I never said I’d get you there alive.”
Seo Jihyeok said it with a sly grin, slipping out of the conversation in an instant. Zixuan’s mouth fell open, his face blank. I’ll make good use of the boat. Leaving those words behind, Seo Jihyeok sidled up behind Sin Haeryang and hid there, slightly hunching himself down.
When Sin Haeryang silently loaded Zixuan’s gun, Zixuan, terrified, shouted toward Seo Jihyeok, who was barely even visible.
“You promised!”
Crouching behind Sin Haeryang, Seo Jihyeok cupped both hands around his mouth like a megaphone and shouted back.
“Ask Li Wei to save you.”
“If it’s money, I’ll get it somehow! If it’s Haiyun, he’ll definitely be able to scrape together more than a billion somehow! He’ll throw money around to save his teammates.”
“Poor Haiyun. He must really hate his job. Having to work with a kid like this as a coworker.”
“You think my country will just sit still if you kill me?! A billion people will come to avenge me!”
“Ah. That revenge you said you’d take ten years from now? Has our team leader ever been afraid of retaliation?”
The longer the conversation went on with the single person named Sin Haeryang standing between them like a wall, the worse Zixuan’s condition became, and the colder Sin Haeryang’s expression grew. Keeping the muzzle of the gun aimed at Zixuan, Sin Haeryang said simply.
“Go into the submersible port.”
At that one sentence, Zixuan was seized with fear. The moment the people around us heard it as well, the thought was driven straight into their heads that he really intended to kill Zixuan. The weight carried by Sin Haeryang’s single command to go elsewhere was immense; it felt as if he meant not to show the others the sight of Zixuan being killed. I stepped in front of Sin Haeryang and said weakly.
“Haeryang-ssi. People aren’t supposed to be killed in the first place. It’s not that we don’t kill them because there’s a reason.”
“He’s too dangerous to leave behind.”
If that’s the reason, doesn’t that make it all the more reason not to kill him? Am I the only one who thinks that?
“We’ve taken his weapons, and we have the pad as well. Zixuan-ssi won’t be able to do anything on his own.”
“There are many things a person can do on their own.”
What? ……Well, maybe you can. I don’t think other people are like that. How much could someone with a gunshot wound in the shoulder possibly do?
Unless Zixuan had eaten something wrong or gone insane, he wouldn’t be able to charge, even by mistake, at the people of Engineer Team Ga, who were armed with three guns. It would be hard for us to meet him again, but even if he saw Engineer Team Ga, he would avoid them from a distance or try to help his teammates some other way.
However, the Zixuan appearing in Sin Haeryang’s imagination seemed to be some kind of bomb that could go off at any moment. Someone was poking me in the side with a finger, but I ignored that finger and said.
“If it bothers you to leave him behind, then let’s take him with us.”
If it really makes you uneasy, you can just watch him from beside him and keep him under surveillance. Apparently he did not like that idea; Sin Haeryang’s eyebrows drew together.
“I don’t want to take him. I saw you being brought here after being taken hostage by Zixuan, sir. ……It seems your memory isn’t very good.”
Oh. Sniping at me like this, huh. While inwardly surprised, I answered slowly as if nothing were wrong.
“Whether we leave him behind or take him with us, there shouldn’t be much of a problem. I think the believers of the Church of Infinity are more dangerous than Zixuan-ssi.”
John Doe, who had been listening from the side while pretending not to know anything about this conversation, jumped up from his seat. Then he shook his head violently at us. With only his wrists tied, John Doe realized only after three seconds that nothing was binding his mouth, and he cried out like an oriole released from its cage.
“The Church of Infinity is a fairly peaceful religion! It’s the Chinese and Japanese people who carry guns around and shoot people who are crazy! Don’t try to oppress a small religion that’s been minding its own business!”
“Then we’ll know once we go to the Second Undersea Base.”
As far as I knew, there had never once been a religion in this world that was peaceful. Realizing that Seo Jihyeok was a rotten rope to cling to, Zixuan quickly switched over to me. Panting with tension, Zixuan spoke toward Sin Haeryang with a shred of hope.
“You heard him just now, right? The teacher said whether you leave me behind or take me with you, the result will be the same.”
At that, Seo Jihyeok shouted from behind Sin Haeryang.
“Then it’d be the same if we killed you and left.”
“Y-you! Youuuu!”
Baek Aeyeong let out a long sigh as she watched this mess, then asked Sin Haeryang.
“What should we do?”
“It’s easier to kill him and go. A person like that is dangerous. I’ll do it. This gun belongs to Sumire anyway, and though I doubt it’ll become a problem later, even if they dig out the bullet, it’ll show he died from Sumire’s gun.”
Before Sin Haeryang could answer, the answer came from Seo Jihyeok. Seo Jihyeok’s answer was terrifying, wasn’t it? He had been half-crouched behind Sin Haeryang, answering in a tone that had been playful all along, but when he closed his mouth and came forward, the pressure he gave off was no joke. Zixuan froze in terror and stopped breathing.
It was one mountain after another. Feeling dizzy, I now tried hard to stop Seo Jihyeok.
“Let’s not do that. Don’t kill him. Let’s at least leave the undersea base and talk about it again. Don’t kill someone for that sort of convenience.”
I remembered the man who had shot and killed people because he found it annoying to stop them from coming up the elevator by himself. Let’s not do that. I blocked the way in front of Seo Jihyeok, who was as big as a door, and raised both palms. Then my eyes met Sin Haeryang’s beside me, and in that instant, I shook my head fervently. He’s your teammate, so you stop this bastard.
Someone had gone beyond poking me in the side and was now tugging at me, so I looked over to see Tumanako desperately pulling at the hem of my clothes. I held out, but because I had no strength in my body, I was dragged along by that hand. Tumanako tried to take me to a corner and said in a frightened voice.
“Don’t get involved in things like this. Stay quiet in the corner. Do you want to get dragged into it and get killed too?”
Tumanako was looking at me with eyes full of worry. I was about to say that the people of Engineer Team Ga were not so unreasonable or immoral, but then I realized that in Tumanako’s eyes, they probably all looked like Asians carrying guns, and my mood grew complicated.
“There’s no one here on your side or mine.”
Did Tumanako, who had only been here a month, and I, who had only been here five days, both think there was no one who would take our side? When Tumanako met Sin Haeryang’s gaze, he clutched the hem of my clothes and trembled like an animal shivering in the cold. I wanted to stroke Tumanako’s shoulder or back and tell him to calm down, but my hands were a mess with Zixuan’s blood. Sin Haeryang stared at Zixuan for a few seconds, then asked.
“How exactly did Engineer Team Ra and the Church of Infinity agree to cooperate?”
Perhaps because he was not saying he would shoot him dead right away, Zixuan answered in a rush, as if grabbing at a lifeline.
“They said they’d provide us with the guns we needed to kill the bastards we didn’t like. They told us to escape from the Fourth Undersea Base on our own. They said they had something to do in the mesopelagic zone, at two hundred to one thousand meters. They said that only if we couldn’t escape from the Fourth Undersea Base should we come up to the Second Undersea Base. Then they’d let us out. This wasn’t something coordinated by me or within our team. It was discussed with our higher-ups. They said they also talked about something related to resources, but we never heard anything clearly.”
“Do the Church of Infinity believers know your team’s faces and personal information?”
As if it was a question Zixuan had not thought of, he bit his lip, then shook his head to the side.
“I-I don’t know.”
“Then the opposite. Tell me the names of the Church of Infinity believers your team knows.”
This question, too, seemed to be one Zixuan had not expected. With a deathly pale face, Zixuan barely managed to mutter.
“Haoran! Haoran received the guns with Weiqi! ……I don’t know much about the rest. Our country doesn’t allow religion!”
Zixuan ground his teeth as if he disliked the very fact that a cult and believers in that religion existed in the world. John Doe looked displeased by everything Zixuan said, but he did not bother to cut into the conversation.
After listening to Zixuan’s story, Seo Jihyeok said quietly to Sin Haeryang.
“It seems like those Church of Infinity bastards scammed two sides, doesn’t it? Considering the Japanese bastards and Chinese bastards are saying similar things.”
Sin Haeryang looked at John Doe, then added one more to Seo Jihyeok’s statement.
“Three sides.”
Baek Aeyeong spoke as if she could not understand.
“No, if they decided to back one country, they should have only given firepower support to that side. What’s with giving guns to both Japan and China? Those two countries don’t even get along.”
“I can’t think of anything except that they wanted them to kill each other.”
Seo Jihyeok narrowed his eyes and scratched the back of his neck, then asked.
“Do you have any guess as to what country, what kind of bastards, thought this was their chance and slammed a torpedo into Jujak-dong?”
“No idea at all. Once I get out of here, I’m planning to lie on a beach in Papua New Guinea and read the newspaper articles. Looking into that isn’t our responsibility.”
After answering that, Sin Haeryang spoke to Zixuan.
“As soon as we go up to Daehan-do, I’ll give you my pad. In return, cooperate with us in escaping the undersea base.”
Even in his state of terror, Zixuan’s eyes flashed at the mention of Sin Haeryang’s pad. Zixuan was something else. Did he want to save his teammates trapped in Baekho-dong that badly? He had not seemed very interested in Weiqi or Haoran, and had even been hostile toward Haiyun. Did he like Li Wei that much? Pressing his right shoulder, Zixuan asked.
“What do I have to do?”
Sin Haeryang looked around at the people here and said.
“From now on, we are Engineer Team Ra.”
“What?”
Zixuan seemed momentarily stunned by Sin Haeryang’s statement. It looked even more so because his face was pale and bloodless from blood loss. Seo Jihyeok wore an expression as though the team leader’s words had made him feel sick.
……What? Ah. I see. We can do that. Looking around, I saw that there were exactly seven people here. So Engineer Team Ra had a total of seven people.
No, but he was saying we would attempt an escape like that? We could try. After all, Engineer Team Na and Engineer Team Ra were both trapped in Baekho-dong.