For whatever reason, Seo Jihyeok looked completely satisfied when we said we would side with Engineer Team A. A question occurred to me, and I casually asked Seo Jihyeok in passing.
“What would have happened if Ms. Jaehee or I had refused to side with Engineer Team A until the very end? Would the benefits have increased a bit more?”
What else was there besides wakame? Judging by the way he talked about laver, wakame, and things like canned tuna that weren’t easy to eat, Seo Jihyeok must like seafood. Kim Jaehee pretended to whisper to me, speaking softly enough for Seo Jihyeok to hear every word.
“Savior. Please ask only me those kinds of questions quietly. Like in movies or dramas, you might get murdered by Jihyeok-hyung and your body fed to the [Crocodile] or the [Earthworm].”
Hah. Seo Jihyeok gave a small snort at that and spoke as if it were absurd.
“If you were going to be eaten, it would be by the [Crocodile]. The [Earthworm] has a separate filter installed near its intake, so it’s designed to eat only soil.”
As someone who had lived peacefully doing nothing but dental work, I couldn’t tell whether this was a joke or serious. The two of them walked down the corridor toward the escape pod port as if nothing was wrong.
You two might have been talking without thinking much of it, but am I the only one who feels unsettled and creeped out? This conversation just now was scarier than that story about the eyes in the painting moving.
Before anything serious happened, Seo Jihyeok might have asked that question to eliminate anyone who could potentially become an enemy. I wasn’t originally part of Engineer Team A, and although Kim Jaehee was on Engineer Team A, he was also a member of the Infinite Church. If the two of us had opposed becoming allies until the very end, would Seo Jihyeok really have killed us both and covered it up?
The Seo Jihyeok I know is sociable, laughs easily, likes food, likes to chat. ……He’s also fearless, decisive, and knows how to shoot Zixuan or even himself without hesitation.
He doesn’t seem to have a reputation for going around punching people as much as Team Leader Shin Haeryang does, but I don’t think he’d be bad in a fight either. Could Seo Jihyeok easily subdue two adult men? It’s probably more realistic for Seo Jihyeok to subdue me than for me to subdue Seo Jihyeok, right?
Kim Jaehee, walking two steps ahead of me, looked as if he had no thoughts at all. If Seo Jihyeok had tried to kill us, would Kim Jaehee have actively resisted?
I remembered the sight of Kim Jaehee sinking while submerged in seawater. The thought crossed my mind that even if something immediately life-threatening happened, Kim Jaehee might just stay still.
I shouldn’t waste my mental strength imagining things that hadn’t even happened. Let’s think positively. Kim Jaehee’s attitude had been extremely ambiguous, but thanks to this, I had clearly gotten the answer that he was on Engineer Team A’s side.
Besides, if Seo Jihyeok had intended to kill us, it would have been more efficient to do it during the blackout. I sent an apologetic look toward Seo Jihyeok’s back for having imagined something so rude.
During the blackout, I couldn’t even see my own hands properly, but now that I looked, there were seven people in total walking toward the escape pod port.
Jeong Sanghyeon and Baek Aeyeong were walking beside Shin Haeryang and Sato, and behind them, I could see Takahashi and Ichita lagging slightly behind while supporting one man. From this distance, I could only see the back of his head and couldn’t tell who it was, but Kim Jaehee answered immediately when I asked who he was.
“It’s Yamashita. He seems to send our team leader duel challenges from time to time.”
Ah. I know who that is. Yamashita Hikaru. Rather than his face, the first thing that came to mind was the condition of that man’s teeth.
From afar, it looked as though he had injured his leg, since he was walking with the support of the people beside him. Would there ever be a reason in one’s life to send someone a duel challenge?
“……This is the first time in my life I’ve ever heard the term duel challenge.”
I’d never sent one, and I’d never received one. Kim Jaehee heard my sour reply and said with a laugh,
“It was my first time seeing one too. Yamashita gave me something like a letter and asked me to deliver it to Team Leader Shin, so I said sure and took it. If we receive anything from another team member, we’re not supposed to open it or use it. We have to show it to Aeyeong, Team Leader Shin, or Jihyeok-hyung first before using it.”
Kim Jaehee explained it to me calmly. I understood why that rule had been created. Hadn’t he said before that someone had once applied a tattoo sticker someone gave them that contained LSD and ended up hospitalized? Seo Jihyeok, who had been listening to our conversation, narrowed his eyes at Kim Jaehee and shook his head.
“I expected Sanghyeon to cause the most trouble, but I was wrong. He’s timid, and thankfully, since he’s obsessed with games, he stays holed up in his room.”
“Unfortunately, I’m a working adult with a social life, so I come out of my room and move around. I go for walks, exercise, meet people.”
Seo Jihyeok shook his head as if it gave him a headache, then said,
“Do you know what Jaehee said when he delivered the envelope to our Team Leader Shin? ‘It’s a love letter Yamashita sent you, Team Leader.’ Even though it had duel challenge written in hanja right there on the outside of the envelope!”
At that, I burst out laughing without resistance. Kim Jaehee shrugged and said,
“I can’t read hanja. There was something written on the outside of the envelope, but what reason would a man have to send another man such a fancy envelope?”
Seo Jihyeok pointed at Yamashita walking far ahead with a fed-up tone.
“Yamashita had sent duel challenges to Team Leader Shin several times through the pad, but because our team leader didn’t read them at all, that bastard must have started getting some weird idea in his head. Like, ah, Shin Haeryang must place great importance on formalities—some nonsense like that. That lunatic bought stationery, envelopes, and a brush in Japan and wrote it by hand.”
Are duel challenges normally sent in envelopes? The only method of issuing a duel challenge that I know is…… taking off a glove and throwing it down. If you bump shoulders with someone on the street and curse them out, that probably counts as an automatic duel challenge. Of course, if I bump shoulders with someone, I apologize and keep walking.
“And on top of that, he sealed the envelope, so it took a while to open it. We even took the envelope to Daehando Hospital to use hospital equipment, saying we had to irradiate it to kill any unknown germs.”
How do you irradiate an envelope? Did they take an X-ray or a CT scan of it? If you asked a hospital to use hospital equipment on an envelope, would they allow it?
“Couldn’t you just open it?”
“Absolutely not, sir. You sound exactly like Jaehee. You should never carelessly open something someone else gives you. They could have put anthrax or plague in there with the letter paper. They could put all sorts of deadly airborne viruses like smallpox or cholera inside the envelope and launch a biological attack.”
As soon as Seo Jihyeok finished speaking, Kim Jaehee imitated his tone and said,
“Or they could have put flour, frying powder, or rice flour inside just to watch Jihyeok-hyung freak out.”
It seemed Seo Jihyeok overestimated his opponents, while Kim Jaehee was teasing him for it. Seo Jihyeok swung his arm to grab Kim Jaehee, but Kim Jaehee quickly stepped back.
Would someone who went through the trouble of sending something as cumbersome as a duel challenge do that? ……Maybe they would? If you planned to beat your opponent easily, I don’t think you’d send something like a duel challenge.
“So did Team Leader Shin Haeryang, after receiving Mr. Yamashita’s duel challenge, go fight him?”
“No. None of us knew what the letter said. It was written in such scrawled Japanese that even after we scanned the letter and ran it through a translator, the AI couldn’t recognize the handwriting, so we couldn’t read it. After the date written on it passed, we grabbed Suzuki later while he was walking by and had him read it.”
“What kind of format was the duel challenge written in?”
Seo Jihyeok frowned for a moment as he recalled the past, then said,
“What was it again. A man like you is the first I’ve met in my life. Men like us must converse with our fists. Let us fight fair and square with our bare hands, without weapons. Come to the beach at the appointed time. We must conduct a sacred duel, there must be witnesses, and let us fight until death, blah blah blah.”
“Was there nothing about greetings or the weather?”
At my question, Kim Jaehee, beside me, shook his shoulders and laughed quietly. Then he asked me in a voice still tinged with laughter,
“Would they fight when it rains too?”
“They shouldn’t slip while fighting, so shouldn’t they only choose clear days to fight?”
“Do they need a referee too?”
Both Kim Jaehee and I were asking questions neither of us knew the answer to.
“What bad blood does he have with Team Leader Shin?”
At my question, Seo Jihyeok gestured with his chin toward Yamashita in the distance and said,
“What did he say he’d learned again? He said he had some kind of dan rank. Anyway, he singled out one employee on his team and used him as a punching bag. Back when Team Leader Yang was here, I heard Koreans also suddenly got beaten up by that guy in the corridor. I heard that piece of trash Jo got beaten by him too. The reason Yamashita started sending warning letters or duel challenges or whatever was probably because of what happened in the cafeteria. He suddenly threw his meal tray at Team Leader Shin in the cafeteria. The funny thing is, Team Leader Shin caught the tray that flew at him, then used that tray to beat Yamashita one-sidedly. Later, he got carried off by the medic.”
……Then why was Yamashita sending duel challenges to Shin Haeryang? Couldn’t he just throw a meal tray again? Since he got beaten with that, was he now sending a paper envelope instead?
“When Mr. Yamashita went around hitting people, was there no one who stopped him?”
“There seem to have been plenty of guys who watched or placed bets. But I’ve never heard the name of anyone who stopped him.”
At this point, the state of the underwater base wasn’t even surprising anymore. It was such a mess that all I could do was sigh.
Yamashita, who had been walking with the support of Takahashi and Ichita, jerked his arms irritably, shook off his companions, and began walking on his own two feet. Watching him from behind, it didn’t seem like he was seriously injured.
Only Ichita and Takahashi were walking at the end of the group, when Takahashi rubbed his forearms and arms with his hands and shuddered dramatically. Then he said something in Japanese to Baek Aeyeong, who was walking just ahead of him. Baek Aeyeong listened quietly and replied to Takahashi.
“Is that so? Warm yourself with the blood of the men walking beside you.”
Takahashi burst out laughing at Baek Aeyeong’s words. What on earth had Takahashi said for Baek Aeyeong to give an answer like that? Ichita, who had been eavesdropping on their conversation nearby, flinched in surprise, then his steps grew faster and faster until he ran ahead.
Seo Jihyeok, who had been watching the people enter the escape pod port, told us to go in after waiting about five minutes. But the moment the people entered the escape pod port, gunshots rang out.