“The Engineer Team Na bastards did something like this? Those cowards?”
The Slavs all looked at Carlos. At Vladimir’s gaze in particular, Carlos hurriedly pointed a finger at me and said.
“This guy said it! That those bastards broke the rescue sub, this guy said it!”
······I still can’t get used to people looking at me like this. While everyone was looking at me, only Nikita was still staring down at Dmitri’s face. Shin Haeryang briefly turned his head this way, then looked at Dmitri’s chest. I simply stated only the facts I knew.
“Japanese are moving around armed in Hyunmu-dong, Chinese are moving around armed in Cheongnyong-dong, and an armed pseudo-religious force called the Infinite Cult has seized the 2nd Undersea Base.”
“How did you know that?”
Sofia, who had been gathering Irina’s arm and hand that had fallen to the floor, asked with her eyes bloodshot red.
“······I found out by chance. To be exact, I don’t really know either.”
“He doesn’t know anything. He’s a newbie who just got here.”
Tumanako, who was next to me, stepped forward to defend me, but it seemed to have sounded different to Nikolai.
“So what you mean is, not long after he joined, this kind of thing happened.”
Hm. ······That’s true in a sense, but. It’s probably just a coincidence. It seems the situation at this undersea base was already a mess before I arrived. It’s not like adding one more person like me would have caused anything to drastically spiral further out of control.
The only thing I can do is dental work. Even if someone visits Deep Blue, while there might be plenty of people who can eat with less pain or discomfort, I don’t have the ability to mass-produce gun-wielding psychopaths. And besides me, there must be several more people who joined around the same time. It’s not like only one or two people live here.
“Is that all you know?”
Vladimir was asking me.
“If you go up using the Jungang-dong elevator, you will definitely encounter the Infinite Cult people at the 2nd Undersea Base. And there is also an armed person on Daehan Island.”
“How many people? What weapons?”
“The Infinite Cult members number between twenty and sixty, and their weapons are guns.”
Vladimir frowned. Nikolai, who had been listening from the side, asked me.
“So what kind of gun?”
“A long······ gun?”
“Are you trying to be funny?”
Is my description of the gun lacking? How should I explain it?
“It’s black, and you insert the magazine from the bottom upward. The recoil is severe, and it’s heavy to carry, so you sling it over your shoulder with a strap.”
“Most rifles insert magazines from the bottom, have severe recoil, and are heavy. So do they strap them to their heads?”
From his tone and content, he seemed to be mocking me. I understood what Nikolai was trying to say. Seo Jihyeok had taught me how to hold, aim, and shoot instead of teaching me the gun’s name. And also to keep my body low and hide well.
I had never even changed a magazine. I barely knew from roughly watching action movies and seeing Baek Ayeong change a magazine beside me. Nikolai spoke toward me like a sigh.
“Fucking hell. All you Asians are useless in life.”
“If you don’t want to get your ass kicked by an unarmed Asian, watch your mouth.”
Seo Jihyeok, who had retreated to a corner, growled. Jeong Sanghyeon, who was next to Seo Jihyeok, jumped in surprise, looked around cautiously, then quietly slipped away to Jaehui’s side. Hearing that, Nikolai rose from the chair he was sitting in and said.
“You think I’d be scared? Your team members will be found as corpses too!”
“You done talking?!”
Nikita, who had been standing still like a statue, burst into streaming tears, and Vladimir wrapped his arm around her shoulder and patted her. Even though his own team member was about to get into a fistfight with another team’s member, he didn’t try to stop it at all. Shin Haeryang, now carefully examining Irina’s skull gunshot wound, snapped in annoyance toward his back.
“If you’re going to fight, fight to the death! There are plenty of chairs.”
At that, it quieted for a moment, but instead Nikolai pulled out a knife from his wet, worn pants, saying he’d kill that bastard. Seo Jihyeok tried to spring out, saying he’d lay him down next to them too.
No. Did these people hear that as permission? Was I the only one who understood it as don’t fight? ······Or was I wrong? Did Shin Haeryang give permission to fight?
Fortunately, the remaining team members besides those two seemed to have understood normally. Viktor grabbed Nikolai’s waist with one thick forearm and dragged him backward; Nikolai moved away from the Engineer Team Ga people with both legs almost dangling in the air. Only Russian curses and shouts demanding he be put down were heard, and Engineer Team Ga was much the same.
Kim Jaehui suddenly leaped and clung to Seo Jihyeok’s back like a frog jumping. Due to Kim Jaehui abruptly attaching herself to his back, Seo Jihyeok’s center of gravity suddenly shifted backward and he swayed heavily; Baek Ayeong tapped the back of Seo Jihyeok’s knee with her toe as if pressing a button. Seo Jihyeok, who had been struggling to straighten his body as it was about to fall backward, rolled sideways to the floor with Kim Jaehui. Baek Ayeong spoke to the two groaning people as if she found them pathetic.
“You impatient bastard! Hold it in!”
“When in your life have you ever held back, to lecture me!”
Seo Jihyeok, raising his upper body, shouted that at Baek Ayeong. Flames ignited in Baek Ayeong’s eyes as well. Kim Jaehui, fearing Seo Jihyeok would charge at Nikolai again, wrapped both arms around his neck from behind and pleaded.
“Do you want to throw punches at a team that lost two members, in this situation? Let’s hold back. Huh? When people are having a hard time, they can spout some nonsense!”
“What? Yeah! I’m not holding back! Will you die by my hand first?!”
“Jihyeok hyung! Now’s the time! Teach Ayeong a lesson! Teach that bastard Nikolai a lesson too! I’ve disliked him since a long time ago!”
All three glared at Jeong Sanghyeon fiercely, and Jeong Sanghyeon said, “No. It’s nothing,” repeating the same words and closed his mouth.
Now that I think about it, I can clearly see that Nikolai’s tone is trash. And that Seo Jihyeok tried to take my side. I reached out my hand to the two people rolling on the floor.
Kim Jaehui grabbed my right hand that came to her side and hoisted herself up with a grunt. Seeing her stand straight on two legs, I reached out my hand to the next person, Seo Jihyeok, and said.
“They are all drunk. They’re not in their right minds. Let’s not get hurt by the words of a drunkard who can’t even walk straight.”
Seo Jihyeok took my hand and stood up, nodding his head lightly. As Shin Haeryang, his hands wet with blood, approached the team members rolling on the floor, Seo Jihyeok asked the team leader without even dusting off the dirt on his body.
“What about Jihyeon?”
“I’ve told you many times, she wasn’t there.”
“You said the body was hidden. Did you really search all of Jungang-dong?”
“Do you think I could search all of Jungang-dong while carrying a corpse back and forth in just fifteen minutes? No.”
Perhaps realizing it was nonsense even by his own thinking, Seo Jihyeok closed his mouth. And he shook one leg anxiously. Kim Jaehui, seeing that, whispered to Seo Jihyeok.
“Hyung. If you shake your leg, your luck will run out.”
“In this situation, is there any more luck to run out?”
“Are you bragging to me that you can still afford to shake your leg right now?”
Seo Jihyeok’s leg shaking stopped immediately. A slight look of apology flashed across Seo Jihyeok’s face, and then he began gritting his teeth.
With a dentist standing right next to him, I wanted to make a remark about the tremendous absurdity of the situation. However, seeing the anxious look on his face from the side, I gave up and closed my mouth.
Shin Haeryang looked at Seo Jihyeok’s swelling eye and the back of Baek Ayeong’s hand, then spoke to Baek Ayeong.
“I told you to stay still for just ten minutes.”
The answer came immediately from Seo Jihyeok.
“It’s my fault. Ayeong is not at fault.”
“It’s not my fault.”
At Baek Ayeong’s words, Shin Haeryang did glance at her face once, but didn’t say anything more. Kim Jaehui asked while rubbing one of her ear piercings with her fingertip.
“Team Leader. What are we going to do now?”
“First, even if it’s just the people here, everyone has to get out.”
“What about finding the other missing team members?”
“We’ll do that later.”
Then Seo Jihyeok made a face like he wanted to say something but swallowed his words. It seemed he wanted to form a search party right now and scour the entire undersea base to find the two missing people, but couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud. Seo Jihyeok asked Shin Haeryang something else.
“Are they going to take the bodies? You two carried them here.”
“There were no electronic devices, so we couldn’t take pictures. My pad is in my room, and Vladimir said he doesn’t know where his is. ······Deputy Team Leader Nikita said she would absolutely not believe it until she sees the body with her own eyes.”
Nikita, even while crying, still couldn’t take her eyes off her dead younger brother’s face. She was looking at him as if engraving him with her eyes, but no matter how much she looked, she didn’t seem to believe it. Seo Jihyeok scratched the back of his head, looked toward the chairs where Irina and Dmitri had been laid down, then looked back toward Nikolai and asked.
“So. Did you make any deal? Like helping?”
“You want me to get something from a funeral home for carrying a female corpse that weighs less than half my body weight? Well. I did ask them to help find our people, but it won’t be of much help.”
“Team Leader. While they’re fighting the Japanese guys, can’t we just run away?”
At Jeong Sanghyeon’s question, Shin Haeryang thought for a moment then shook his head.
“If Vladimir is in his right mind, I think he’d think about getting his own team members out rather than revenge.”
Baek Ayeong looked toward Irina and asked.
“Did they know how their team members disappeared? We were walking and they suddenly disappeared. Did theirs suddenly disappear too?”
Shin Haeryang answered as if he didn’t expect much.
“If they’re that drunk, they wouldn’t have known even if a bear had torn their bodies apart alive right next to them, rather than their team members disappearing beside them.”
Then Shin Haeryang reached out his hand to me. Now I know. That this isn’t a request for a handshake. I quickly tried to hand over the pad I had tucked under my arm to Shin Haeryang.
But Tumanako, seeing Shin Haeryang’s sudden hand gesture and my action, seemed to have mistaken that my pad was being snatched away by Shin Haeryang. Panicking, he grabbed my hand that was trying to hand over the pad.
“Ah. This pad belongs to Team Leader Shin Haeryang. My pad is in the water.”
Then Tumanako awkwardly said, “Ah. Really?” and withdrew his hand. Shin Haeryang, receiving his pad, replied dryly.
“Thank you.”
“I used it well.”
“······Two members of our team are missing. Do you know where they are?”