The people hiding behind the vending machine started to come out, then stopped and hurriedly hid again. Why······was he shooting the vending machine? The vending machine, hit by bullets in rapid succession, made strange sounds and was on the verge of bursting with a thud when Sin Haeryang finally stopped firing. Under that chillingly sharp killing intent, no one could stop him. Only Vladimir, standing beside him, spoke as if he couldn’t believe Sin Haeryang’s actions.
“Hey. Our guys are over there.”
“I know.”
“Your team members are there too.”
“Do I look like I shot without knowing? Rather than repeating this nonsense at every escape route, tell those selfish bastards to die by my hands right here.”
Vladimir pointed his chin toward the people from Engineer Na’s team and spoke to Sin Haeryang as if soothing him.
“It worked out fine. No casualties either.”
“They just got lucky.”
“Difficult bastard.”
Once Sin Haeryang’s shooting ceased, the people behind the vending machine cautiously started to come out. Vladimir walked toward Nikita, looking as though he didn’t care in the slightest whether his own team members might have been shot behind the vending machine.
Nikita was looking at Ichita, who had been shot concentratedly in the area where his lung was, beside me. The parts of his neck that had been bruised blue from the parachute cord were vividly visible. Since Yamashita was already dead, people crowded around Ichita, who was still gasping and alive.
From what I could see, unless he got into an emergency room at a major hospital immediately, it seemed nearly impossible for Ichita to survive the current situation. The bullet-riddled lung struggled to draw in air, causing blood to flood in; with every breath, he gurgled and vomited blood from his mouth and nose. He would drown in his own blood.
Nikita, without wiping the blood splattered on his face, quietly approached Ichita’s face. Then, with the knife he had received from Baek Ayeong, he unhesitatingly dragged it across Ichita’s cheek. Seeing that, I startled and rose from my spot.
Something suddenly blocked my view, so I looked to the side; Seo Jihyeok had raised his arm to block the space between Nikita and me.
“It’s······not anything good, so let’s not watch.”
“Just now······that.”
When I pointed behind Seo Jihyeok in surprise, he shook his head.
“Sir. Take that Kiwi lady and go wash your face or something.”
“But. Still.”
“Hurry.”
I faced Seo Jihyeok, who was looking at me expressionlessly, then looked at Tumanako sitting blankly beside me, staring into space. Blood was splattered all over Tumanako’s face and head, making a mess. I probably looked quite a sight too.
I helped Tumanako up, and we started walking unsteadily together. As soon as we went a little deeper inside the Central Block, a restroom sign came into view. I was about to send Tumanako into the women’s restroom alone when Tyler suddenly came to mind, and the thought that someone might be inside popped into my head.
I took Tumanako to the men’s restroom, turned on the water at the sink, and washed her face with my hands. This was the first time I’d washed someone else’s face like this since washing my younger sibling’s face. After roughly washing away the blood splattered on her face and hair, Tumanako, who had been dazed, seemed to come to her senses and started sniffling and crying.
I washed my hands at the adjacent sink, then washed my face and rinsed my mouth. The hot, fishy smell of blood instantly faded away. Listening to Tumanako’s sobs mixed with the scent of liquid soap, exhaustion suddenly washed over me.
Strength drained from my legs, and I sank to the floor before I knew it. Startled, Tumanako asked if I was alright. Muscle pain was flooding my entire body. I wanted to lie down and sleep without doing anything. I barely opened my eyes, which were trying to close from fatigue, and answered.
“I’m fine. It’s just that my legs have no strength.”
“Were you shot by any chance?”
“No. It’s from lack of exercise.”
At those words, Tumanako looked at me with a blank, soul-drained expression.
“I’ll be fine if I rest a bit.”
In emergency situations, adrenaline helps one display superhuman strength for a short time. However, it doesn’t take responsibility for the muscles that endured such strength. Only the owner of the body—that is, me—has to take responsibility. Tumanako let out a deep breath and sank down onto the restroom floor alongside me.
“······It’s the first time I’ve seen people dying and killing.”
It isn’t my first time, but it’s always new. One can’t become desensitized to this kind of shock. It feels like stacking new mental trauma on top of other new mental trauma. There is only one answer to this. I have to escape this continuous stress situation quickly.
“Me too. I’m going to resign from the underwater base quickly. I can’t live here.”
“······Me too. I want to get out of the underwater base too. It’s so scary, so terrible. I want to get out of here quickly. I’m going to cut off all the hair that his blood splashed on. What if I get infected with a disease because of that person’s blood?”
“Since we washed it off, it’ll be fine. Wouldn’t you lose all your bangs that way?”
“My head shape is pretty, so it’s fine.”
Tumanako, who had been sniffling, rinsed her hair again with soap and water. I could clearly feel that she wanted to wash her hair properly but was holding back.
My legs felt like heavy chunks of stone. Creaking, I grabbed the sink and stood up; my body felt like a completely broken robot. Was this because I had suddenly exerted too much strength? Watching Tumanako’s back, I tried to speak in as bright a voice as possible.
“Still, thanks to you calling out to me, Miss Tumanako, I hid safely.”
“Everyone else was hiding, but you were the only one wandering in the hallway. Was there no room behind the vending machine?”
“It was too cramped for four men to hide together.”
“What’s with that. When an urgent situation comes, you should hide together even if you have to hug each other, spill your guts, or hold your breath. What is that.”
The words *we should hide together* strangely became a comfort to my heart. Tumanako’s words were in English, and the words entering my ears were Korean. Perhaps because it crossed the barrier of language, it resonated more deeply in my heart.
I thought of Baek Ayeong, who had somehow made room despite the cramped situation, and Nikita, who hadn’t complained at all. Even if they had been driven out, they wouldn’t have resented it. The sight of Sin Haeryang firing at the vending machine was the same. I couldn’t explain it, but my heart felt strangely refreshed. A person who would seem to cherish even a single bullet in this situation—why did he fire his gun like that, as if he didn’t care if he got hit by a grenade? Tears slowly trickled from the corners of my eyes.
“Everything you said is right, Miss Tumanako.”
As tears streamed down my cheeks, all the emotions that had surged up in that moment were carried away with the tears. Tumanako blew her nose with a loud honk, then washed her hands and added,
“Yeah. Next time you get pushed out like that, cover the vending machine with your whole body and shout that you’re hiding here. Got it?”
Now only a smile remained on my lips. Ah. How embarrassing. The sight of smiling after bawling my eyes out. This wicked underwater base has squeezed tears from the eyes of a man over thirty so many times. I’m not someone who cries easily. But······when I see kind people, tears come out.
I suddenly missed Kim Gayeong terribly. If Kim Gayeong and Yu Geumi open a bakery, I should set up a dental clinic in that building. I’ll go buy bread from them once every three days. No. I should go buy some three times a day. I need to earn money diligently and help their bakery.
I washed my face again and walked out of the restroom like a hundred-year-old elder; perhaps not much time had passed, for the people were still in that spot.
Takahashi Yurie and Sato Ryusuke had both hands bound with parachute cord. Seo Jihyeok, who had gagged Sato’s mouth with parachute cord, punched the back of Sato’s head hard with his fist while his team leader was looking at the pad. It was a full-powered swing filled with pent-up rage, enough to make a crack sound.
Unable to withstand it, Sato’s upper body toppled to the side. Though Sato glared from where he was nearly sprawled on the floor, Seo Jihyeok asked the nearby Takahashi as if nothing had happened.
“You really haven’t seen our Jihyeon? Our tall deputy team leader? Don’t look at your team leader’s face and just tell me.”
“Don’t know.”
“Think carefully. You might have seen her in passing this morning. You might have passed by without knowing.”
“I really don’t know, I said.”
“Ha······.”
Takahashi suddenly smiled and asked Seo Jihyeok.
“Why are you asking us about your team member?”
“That’s what I’m saying. ······But why did you break the security cameras on your way here? Before that, you wandered around carelessly like monkeys without a worry.”
“Dunno. ······Ah. Now that I think about it, I think I saw Jihyeon.”
“What? Where?”
“I think she ran toward the Blue Dragon Block.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, yeah. She ran like a pig.”
Seo Jihyeok frowned at Takahashi Yurie’s words. When a shadow suddenly fell over him, he looked to his side; there stood Sin Haeryang, quietly staring at Seo Jihyeok. Seo Jihyeok smiled awkwardly and answered quickly even though no question had been asked.
“You told me to bind their hands and gag them, right. Haha. It’s almost done.”
Seo Jihyeok quickly moved his hands and wrapped parachute cord around Takahashi’s mouth like a gag as well. Then, slightly excited, he approached Sin Haeryang and asked.
“Takahashi says she saw our guys heading to the Blue Dragon Block. Could they really be there?”
Sin Haeryang looked at Seo Jihyeok’s hopeful face and shook his head.
“There should have been at least one shot of them passing on CCTV. How could she possibly move while avoiding all the CCTV in White Tiger Block, Central Block, and Blue Dragon Block?”
“Couldn’t she have had the help of someone like me?”
“Who?”
“That son of a bitch who played me, the team leader, and Ayeong for fools and specifically kidnapped the two civilian women on our team.”
“······Get Sanghyeon and Jaehui.”
Vladimir looked at the Japanese with both hands and mouths bound, then ran his large hand over the nearby Takahashi’s head and spoke to Sin Haeryang.
“You don’t have to wrap them up so neatly like this.”
“We’re taking them on our side.”
“Huh? What are you talking about. Since Dmitri and Irina died, these guys are ours.”
“You heard him say Yamashita killed them.”
Listening to the explanation Jeong Sanghyeon was giving Carlos, he was saying that Yamashita had shot Dmitri to test whether the gun fired properly. He was explaining something called Khiristegomen or whatever; it was a word I’d never heard in my life.
Nikita was wiping the ruined blade on Ichita’s clothes. Looking at Ichita’s face, it was so covered in blood that it couldn’t be seen properly, but it seemed like a checkerboard pattern had been carved onto it with a knife blade. I immediately turned my head away.
Vladimir refuted Sin Haeryang’s words while repeatedly stepping on Sato’s thigh with his foot. No groan came out, perhaps because Seo Jihyeok had tied him so well.
“Of course he’d claim someone else killed them if he doesn’t want to die immediately.”
“Our team is also missing two members, just like yours.”
“It seems you suspect these guys killed your people and hid them somewhere. We were first. Especially this one, we’re giving him to our deputy team leader as a gift.”