Kim Jaehui thought for a moment, then asked me another question.
“Then if Jihyeok-hyung or Aeyoung take the escape pod this time, does that mean I won’t be able to meet them at Baekhodong next time? Aha! ······So the fact that the two women in our team disappeared was also the Savior’s doing?”
Kim Jaehui seemed to have quickly realized why he hadn’t been able to meet Lee Jihyeon and Kang Sujeong no matter how hard he looked.
“It wasn’t me. Ms. Sujeong and Ms. Jihyeon escaped the undersea base well on their own. ······Honestly, I don’t really know. People who took the escape pod couldn’t be met at the undersea base after that.”
He had no idea how the people who went to Daen Island were faring. He could only hope that it was at least better than this undersea base. If it was more terrible than here······. Then it must not be. Please don’t let it be so.
To keep a grip on his sanity that was slowly slipping away, he had no choice but to hope that those who had escaped the undersea base were doing well. Please. May all the blunders he had made have been worth at least a little.
After hearing his story, Kim Jaehui spoke while moving his prosthetic fingers.
“It’s a bit different from what I experienced. I never had people disappear or anything. It’s just that the same people kept appearing at the same place at the same time.”
Without taking his eyes off Baek Aeyoung, Kim Jaehui asked him in a low voice.
“Are you taking the escape pod out this time? Then it’d be best to call your name this turn or the next. A fight will definitely break out if one seat remains.”
He repeated the answer he had given Seo Jihyeok to Kim Jaehui.
“I’m not taking the escape pod this time. I’m going to put three different people in the three seats and send them out.”
“Why? Does something happen if you take the escape pod?”
He was quick on the uptake. Was it because he had already experienced these loops?
“If you take the escape pod and leave, you die before reaching the surface.”
“You must have tried it before? Hmm. Then what to do.”
Kim Jaehui muttered as if he were not worried at all, then spoke.
“If you’re not leaving this time, shouldn’t you leave as many people who can help the Savior at the undersea base as possible?”
Baek Aeyoung saw the three corpses and the pool of blood beside the escape pod, then detoured to the side to avoid stepping on them. Tension always hung here. Even knowing Tamaki would let her through. Baek Aeyoung even raised her head and stared up for several seconds at Tamaki, positioned at a height two to three meters away.
It was the same spot Seo Jihyeok had passed in an instant with a confident stride, and where Takahashi had passed with his head deeply bowed. Ms. Aeyoung. Why are you stopping there and looking at Tamaki?
His stomach churned with tension. Baek Aeyoung looked at Tamaki for a moment, then took her eyes off him and passed by. He had tensed up thinking a gunfight might break out, but nothing happened between the two. Inwardly relieved as if sinking through the floor, he asked Kim Jaehui.
“You said I should leave them behind?”
Kim Jaehui pointed at his ear, empty of any device, with his index finger and spoke.
“Mr. Muhyeon, your translator is broken, so if others don’t interpret for you, you can’t even properly understand what’s being said, right? Next time too, the translator might short out from swallowing seawater. Then who will interpret? Is there anyone else who can become your ears and mouth?”
There wasn’t. In the first place, wasn’t it impossible for someone who had only been employed for five days to form such a close relationship with anyone?
Since entering the escape pod port, he hadn’t been able to understand more than half of what the engineers from Team Na and Team Ma were saying. He didn’t know if Kim Jaehui, who had been interpreting diligently until now, had stopped interpreting upon entering the escape pod port intentionally or not.
Was this to make him feel the discomfort? But seeing that the other Engineer Team Ga members didn’t interpret either, perhaps they thought what Team Na and Team Ma were saying didn’t need interpretation to begin with. It seemed Kim Jaehui was saying that he should leave at least one Engineer Team Ga member who would diligently interpret for him.
Hmm. A member of Engineer Team Ga who would interpret diligently. Wouldn’t it be faster to just catch a bluefin tuna and ride it to Daen Island? Kim Jaehui seemed to interpret for fun, Jeong Sanghyeon probably wouldn’t help, and Shin Haeryang seemed to do whatever he pleased.
Kim Jaehui looked into his eyes. He could feel him looking at his eyeballs. Kim Jaehui’s gaze moved to his own leg as he spoke.
“Or what if you’re walking around the base and get injured in the leg or both eyes? Is there anyone else to help you? What did you do in the past when you were walking alone and got hurt?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been hurt while walking alone.”
Kim Jaehui looked at his team members, then came close and began evaluating them in a very low voice.
“Sanghyeon will never help if it doesn’t benefit him. But if he’s in danger, he’ll cling frantically. Depending on the circumstances, he might betray or sell out the Savior. In my opinion, even if he survives, he won’t be much help. ······Personally, I recommend quietly killing him every cycle. Since he thinks he’s smart and superior, he’ll be easier to kill. Or you could use him as bait. He’s stupid, so he’ll fall for it easily.”
Kim Jaehui whispered a criminal conspiracy into his ear. Surprised by the content, he looked around, but fortunately it seemed no one other than himself had heard Kim Jaehui’s words.
How on earth could Jeong Sanghyeon stay safe and sound beside Kim Jaehui? What did he normally think about in his daily life? Wasn’t Kim Jaehui more dangerous than Baek Aeyoung for Jeong Sanghyeon? Jeong Sanghyeon seemed to think of Kim Jaehui as a close older brother. It seemed Kim Jaehui didn’t think so at all.
Kim Jaehui turned his head slightly to look at Shin Haeryang and spoke.
“Our team leader will want to leave after all his team members have escaped. He cherishes his team members quite a lot despite how he looks. If Mr. Muhyeon doesn’t harm the Engineer Team Ga members and helps without reward, our team leader will help Mr. Muhyeon quite easily. I don’t know if he worships the Code of Hammurabi or if his head is made of mirrors, but our team leader returns exactly the attitude the other party shows.”
Shin Haeryang felt Kim Jaehui’s gaze and turned his head this way, but realizing it was nothing, turned his gaze to Baek Aeyoung, who was heading to board the escape pod. Kim Jaehui, taking his eyes off the back of Shin Haeryang’s head, let out a sigh.
“And I······.”
Kim Jaehui rubbed his prosthetic hand with his thumb, thought for a moment, then spoke.
“I’m not interested in anything other than returning to the past. ······All Church of Infinity followers are like that. Most are only interested in their own past. If you want to recruit the scattered Church of Infinity followers one by one as servants, try lying that you’ll send them back to the past if they obey. Depending on their wish, they’ll readily follow and obey the Savior’s words. You could put them to good use for interpretation, escape, and whatever else.”
“Mr. Jaehui, do you think I shouldn’t send any more Engineer Team Ga members out?”
“Yes. We’re outnumbered too. Sending Sanghyeon on this precious golden escape pod under the guise of eliminating an unnecessary person is a waste of opportunity, isn’t it? ······Look at Aeyoung.”
Kim Jaehui made a gun with the tip of his index finger, lightly aimed it at Baek Aeyoung, and mimicked shooting as he spoke.
“She’s kind, cute, and sharp. Full of vitality too. She knows well that if you underestimate her or don’t respond forcefully at first, something more terrible will happen in retaliation next time, so she’ll never compromise on violence directed at her.”
Baek Aeyoung, who had entered the escape pod boarding area, tucked the ends of her hair into the back of her suit’s collar.
“But Aeyoung is weak against women. She seems to have been betrayed a lot and had a lot of money taken, but she still seems to treat them well. Was it Boston from Engineer Team Sa? The moment that guy walked by and told Takahashi she had a small butt, Aeyoung hit his head with a pad, remember?”
He didn’t know what kind of lowlife that Boston guy was, but looking back at Baek Aeyoung’s actions so far, he could tell she had handled it leniently. ······She didn’t hit him with the corner, did she?
“That guy just stood there blankly, probably having never imagined Aeyoung would hit him. Later when I asked, apparently she and Takahashi had never even exchanged greetings before. Amazing, right? ······If the Savior were a woman, I would tell you never to send Aeyoung out. I would have advised you to go out together if you went.”
Baek Aeyoung pressed the escape pod activation button and looked at the people in the escape pod port. Exactly three seconds later, the escape pod flew toward the outside of the undersea base with tremendous force. The escape pod would cut through the seawater and rise straight toward the surface.
“It would be best to carefully weigh profit and loss while watching your team members and send them to Daen Island.”
“······Why are you telling me this?”
Kim Jaehui shrugged and spoke.
“It’s a tip from someone who experienced it first.”
Saying so, Kim Jaehui looked at an escape pod displayed on the front screen and spoke.
“Jihyeok-hyung is really something. Too much, right? Asking you to take Engineer Team Ga’s side when fighting the Church of Infinity or Engineer Team Na. Our Savior isn’t a Church of Infinity follower or an Engineer Team Ga member. Would the Engineer Team Ga people take your side without reward when the Church of Infinity and Engineer Team Na people attack the Savior? It wouldn’t have been bad to keep him by your side instead of sending him off on the escape pod. Jihyeok-hyung isn’t extremely favorable to anyone else, but he’s not particularly malicious either.”
Seo Jihyeok, Takahashi Yuri, and Baek Aeyoung had left in that order, but he didn’t really regret sending these people off on the escape pod. If only there were more escape pods, everyone here could have gotten out.
Just thinking about Kim Jaehui’s advice made him sigh. Die with him, or die before him and wake up in the next life in this leaking undersea base to keep helping him? What do you think of your team members?
If he were a person who could weigh profits and losses, his heart would be at least a little more at ease than it was now.
“Mr. Jaehui. You can say that I’ve tasted less of the loop’s bitterness, or that I haven’t come to my senses. I don’t want to ask others to endure dangers where they might die just for my convenience. If my family or friends were here, I would want to put them on the escape pod and send them out as quickly as possible. So they’d get hurt less and die less. Just think about getting out quickly yourself.”