“I like drinking.”
Kim Jaehee had only said one thing about her hobby, but it felt like a danger alarm went off in my head. So there were people in the undersea base who each liked something forbidden.
If your hobby is drinking, isn’t that, strictly speaking, killing liver cells? I began speaking while trying to get a closer look at the condition of Kim Jaehee’s teeth. It suddenly reminded me of patients who believed the absurd nonsense that drinking alcohol automatically disinfected the inside of your mouth.
“Jaehee, what kind of alcohol do you like?”
“I like all kinds. It makes me feel better immediately when I drink.”
It felt like two danger signals had gone off in my head.
“Do you drink alone? Or do you prefer drinking with other people?”
“I like drinking with people, and I like drinking alone too.”
“Are you good at drinking?”
Kim Jaehee smiled and asked me.
“I can’t drink much. Would you like to drink with me sometime? Unfortunately, thanks to our team leader, it’s so hard to get anything with alcohol in it that I can barely drink at all.”
As she said that, Kim Jaehee glanced sideways at Shin Haeryang beside her. Shin Haeryang noticed her gaze and answered bluntly.
“As long as I’m around, I won’t let that happen.”
In Engineer Team Ga, it seemed Seo Jihyeok was being blocked from smoking, Jeong Sanghyeon from socializing, and Kim Jaehee from alcohol. There might be more that I didn’t know about. There really seemed to be a lot of people going around doing things they were told not to do.
I briefly scanned Kim Jaehee’s teeth with my eyes, but I didn’t see the distinctive periodontal diseases that appeared in alcoholics. People who drank a lot damaged their teeth and gums no matter how well they brushed. The problem with this kind of gum disease was that there were no symptoms until it became very severe. That was why alcoholics only began to feel discomfort after quite some time had passed, and by the time they visited a dentist, there was a very high chance they would end up losing one or two teeth.
“······Let’s drink coffee together instead of alcohol. I’ll buy.”
Alcohol, my ass. I wanted to lure Kim Jaehee in by suggesting we drink coffee together, tie her to a unit chair, forcibly scale her teeth, check her overall oral condition, and then release her back into society. Kim Jaehee, unaware of my wicked imagination, grinned and continued speaking.
“Mm. And other than that, there isn’t really anything I’d call a hobby. Lying down and wasting time watching boring, meaningless videos? Looking back on the past and blaming myself for my life every once in a while? Having pointless conversations with cult members? Managing my prosthetic leg and prostheses?”
Except for the last one, not a single one of Kim Jaehee’s hobbies seemed normal. Shin Haeryang, unable to keep listening, added from the side.
“You have a hobby of buying snacks and collecting them without eating them.”
“······Now that I think about it, I suppose that could count as a hobby.”
It seemed Kim Jaehee hadn’t thought much about her own habit until Shin Haeryang mentioned it. I recalled Kim Jaehee’s room, where food had been stacked against the wall like towers. All kinds of cup noodles, instant cup rice, snacks, and drinks had been piled along the wall all the way to the ceiling. Rather than a room used by an individual, it looked more like a makeshift food storage.
“I’ve bought quite a lot of provisions. My hobby is buying them in bulk, not eating them, stacking them up, and then, when they’re about to expire, having them forcibly disposed of by my team members. If there weren’t people around me who ate well, they’d probably spoil or rot and I’d throw them all away.”
It wasn’t easy to evaluate oneself this objectively.
“They can’t have been cheap, so why don’t you eat the food?”
“When I buy them, I buy them with the mindset that I’m going to eat them all. But after eating one or two, I get sick of them and just leave the rest. Maybe because they take time to arrive, I sometimes get sick of them before I even eat them. It’s also a hassle to open the delivery boxes, so I pick a day and open them all at once.”
Keeping that much food you weren’t even going to eat right away in your own room was a little······surprising. And getting sick of them after eating one or two was too. Kim Jaehee probably knew how much she ate. The rooms in the already cramped undersea base had to be extremely inconvenient to live in if you piled food up like that. Why was she buying so much food she wasn’t going to eat?
“Could I or other people buy some of the food in your room, Jaehee?”
“Savior, you can eat anything in my room.”
Kim Jaehee said this while smiling brightly at me. For a moment, I wondered whether I would have received this kind of goodwill if I hadn’t been the Savior, but making such assumptions wouldn’t do my mental health any good, so I quickly abandoned the thought. Kim Jaehee thought for a moment, then began speaking.
“Even though there’s a lot of food, it hasn’t really caused any problems so far. My team members eat well, too. Sometimes people from other teams buy mine, and sometimes they trade for other things. There aren’t many people who dislike carton chocolate milk. If I put them out when a market opens in the undersea base, they sell well. Once, I sold a whole box of seasoned chicken sauce, and the Australian and Canadian kids bought it and spread it on bread.”
“······How do the others spend their time in the undersea base? Is there anyone with a hobby more unusual than yours, Jaehee?”
Probably not. Would there be anyone else who gathered food in their room like a squirrel? When it came to people’s hobbies, I’d only heard of ordinary things like reading, watching movies, or hiking. Shin Haeryang thought for a moment, then said,
“There is a staff member who reads tarot cards as a hobby.”
Ohh. Interesting. So there were people with hobbies like that too. Kim Jaehee moved her ring finger and little finger prostheses while touching them with her thumb, then said,
“There are quite a few hobby-related groups. There are groups for sports like basketball, soccer, and volleyball, and there are board game groups, and a Cthulhu séance group.”
What was that last one? What were they doing in an undersea base?
“What is the Cthulhu séance group?”
“I went twice before, but I had my doubts whether that séance group could even summon a single squid properly.”
Kim Jaehee seemed to have dipped her feet into all sorts of strange places. With a slightly skeptical expression, Kim Jaehee gazed off into the distance, then asked the team leader beside her.
“What else is there?”
Shin Haeryang thought for a moment, then said,
“Clothing alterations? ······There’s a staff member in Engineer Team A named Sophia Laurent, and she brought a sewing machine into her room. As a hobby, she does simple alterations and hems pants as a side job. If you write your room number and put your clothes and money in the basket in front of Sophia’s room, she alters them within two days and brings them back to the owner of that room.”
“Wow. That’s pretty nice. Have you ever sent clothes to be altered like that?”
Shin Haeryang shook his head, but Kim Jaehee answered quickly, as if she had.
“I don’t have an iron, so I’ve sent her a few clothes that needed ironing. She’s pretty good. Aeyeong sent pants to be altered a few times, and that reminds me of how Jihyeok hyung teased her because of it.”
“What did he say?”
“Jihyeok hyung said, ‘Why are you shortening your pants when you should be lengthening them?’ and Aeyeong kicked him.”
Ah. This was one hundred percent Jihyeok’s fault. A person could shorten their pants if they wanted to. No. Could you lengthen pants? Shin Haeryang, who had been laughing lightly, said to me,
“There is also a staff member who specializes in massaging areas left as scars after accidents or surgery. They said they retired after working as a physical therapist in the United States.”
Scar massage? Shin Haeryang’s words suddenly made my ears perk up.
“Have you gone to receive it?”
“I have not.”
“I’ve been. When you get the massage, they rub and press the surgery scars with their hands, so it’s a bit painful and uncomfortable.”
It seemed there were many things Shin Haeryang hadn’t tried, while Kim Jaehee, despite not having been in the undersea base for very long, seemed to have gone into all sorts of gatherings and places at least once before leaving.
“It’s not massaging a freshly stitched scar right after surgery, but scars from surgeries that were done quite a while ago. They massage with oil, and it felt like the leather of my skin was being tenderly tanned. Try it sometime later. It was really hard to get an appointment.”
I was nodding when Cheloni’s voice came from above.
[We will soon arrive at a depth of 1,000 meters. We are approaching the submersible port of Undersea Base No. 3. There are a total of three submersibles located nearby: Mary Gilmore No. 11, Sim Cheong No. 13, and Anita No. 14. Captain Shin Haeryang, will you be visiting Undersea Base No. 3?]
There were three other submersibles near this submersible? If there were three submersibles, why weren’t they heading toward the surface? Were they planning to keep hiding 1,000 meters below? If they were going to stay near Undersea Base No. 3, wouldn’t it be better to go straight to the surface?
“Can you contact the three submersibles nearby?”
[I have been attempting contact since thirty meters ago, but I cannot reach the AIs or captains of those submersibles.]
“And Undersea Base No. 3?”
[Contact with the me in Undersea Base No. 3 has been severed.]
“Maintain contact attempts and navigate automatically to two hundred meters.”
Following Shin Haeryang’s order, the submersible began to ascend quietly. Before even three minutes had passed, Cheloni suddenly asked Shin Haeryang a question.
[Records from Anita No. 14, located closest to us, have just come in. Would you like to confirm them?]
“I’ll confirm.”
A few seconds later, Cheloni said,
[After launching from Undersea Base No. 3, a fight broke out among the crew inside the submersible over issues related to boarding the submersible. Since then, there have been no life signs from any personnel, including the captain.]
What the hell did that mean?
“Then does that mean they’re all dead?”
Cheloni answered my stunned question emotionlessly.
[That is the AI system’s assessment. The records of the other nearby submersibles are currently being downloaded as well. Shall I report them in order, starting with the closest submersible?]
“Report the records, but maintain course.”
[Understood. Currently confirming Mary Gilmore No. 11.]
Five minutes later, Cheloni spoke to Shin Haeryang again.
[In the case of Mary Gilmore No. 11, it appears to have been forcibly operated while all communication methods were broken. As communication with Mary Gilmore No. 11 is currently impossible, I am checking the records of the remaining submersible, Sim Cheong No. 13. The records of Sim Cheong No. 13 have just come in. Would you like to confirm them?]
“Confirm.”
[In the case of Sim Cheong No. 13, it appears to have been forcibly operated in an emergency under conditions where internal pressure was not being properly maintained. There are no life signs from any personnel, including the captain.]