Gim Jaehui naturally leaned against the bathroom door. They looked like they were resting for a moment, but the instant I realized that door was the only escape route out of this place, I somehow felt trapped. Gim Jaehui casually called out to me.
“Come this way.”
I was looking back and forth with a displeased expression between the face of the man shedding tears and Gim Jaehui gesturing for me to come over, when Sin Haeryang jerked their chin toward Gim Jaehui. It seemed to mean I should go over there. The man tried to lean back because of the blade at his throat, but Sin Haeryang had grabbed his bangs, so he couldn't escape. Even though Sin Haeryang had a gun slung over their shoulder and both hands free, the man didn't move an inch. I spoke to Sin Haeryang.
“Don't kill him.”
You could easily not kill him. At my words, only the man's pupils turned toward me. Sin Haeryang kept the blade aimed at him and replied coldly.
“That depends on how this man behaves.”
When I walked over to Gim Jaehui, Gim Jaehui yielded the spot beside them as if to say the view was good from here. Then, with a face as thrilled as if magic were happening right there in the bathroom, they watched what Sin Haeryang was doing. Fellow cultists who couldn't even bother stopping each other—what was so entertaining about this? I asked Gim Jaehui.
“Aren't you going to help?”
“Help whom?”
Gim Jaehui asked me instead. Their voice was so quiet that I practically had to read their lips. ...Right. The one threatening with a blade was their team leader, and the one being threatened was an Infinite Church believer—so which side should Gim Jaehui, a cultist belonging to Engineer Team A, take? Did they have any affection for Engineer Team A? Then what about the religion they belonged to?
“You believe in the same religion.”
Whether the man heard me or not, his shoulder flinched. He tried to look toward where we were, but Sin Haeryang had grabbed his hair, so he couldn't turn his head.
“Well. Someone on our team once said that people who believe in the same religion exploit one another more easily.”
Gim Jaehui leisurely crossed their arms and said.
“I'm not close to him, so I don't really want to help him actively. I don't want to take the risk of challenging the team leader, either. Let's just watch comfortably. As if our team member defeated a bad terrorist. Wasn't it pretty cool? And my savior is right here, so why would I care about the condition of other believers?”
So if there were someone close to them, they'd dare charge at Sin Haeryang? If Gim Jaehui and Sin Haeryang fought, Gim Jaehui would lose two hundred percent. Meaning they'd lose once, then immediately lose again right after.
Had Gim Jaehui not seen Sin Haeryang kill someone just now? They'd sent someone to the afterlife almost instantly upon meeting them. The time it took for Sin Haeryang to attack the opponent felt like less than two seconds by my senses. The moment the opponent entered arm's reach, they were stabbed with the knife. What was so cool about that? I couldn't understand how people died that easily and quickly.
Sin Haeryang warned the man.
“If you move even slightly, you'll die faster than the one who came in first.”
The man's body stiffened like a statue; it was visible even to my eyes.
“Answer only what you're asked. How did you decide to handle the fire?”
After tears ran down his cheeks about twice, the man answered.
“They told us to go to another undersea base.”
“Aren't they isolating just the submersible port?”
“The fire spread more than expected...... They told us to take the elevator quickly to another undersea base. They said the jewels in the exhibition hall are vulnerable to fire. They said the fire must not spread. Please spare me.”
Were jewels vulnerable to fire? Come to think of it, diamonds are chunks of carbon, so they'd probably disappear if heat were applied. As Sin Haeryang watched the crying man sniffle and tremble while answering, they spoke in a threatening voice.
“What did you decide to do with the hostages?”
“I didn't hear anything about the hostages.”
“How many hostages are there?”
“I was so scared that suddenly...... I can't remember anything. Around...... eight? Nine? About that many.”
The man shed tears silently. Sin Haeryang spoke low, like a sigh.
“You're not lying. You listened well, so I want to let you live. But you saw us.”
“Uuuaahk. I won't say a word. I'll keep quiet. I won't tell anyone what happened here. I'll live pretending I didn't see anything, like a Greenland shark. I swear.”
Seeing strength enter the back of Sin Haeryang's hand, I spoke quietly.
“Don't kill him. You can deal with him without killing him. He did everything he was told.”
The moment he heard that, the man seemed to think he might survive, and began spewing words at me as if vomiting them up, trying to stop Sin Haeryang.
“I keep my promises well. Really. Please spare me. I haven't killed anyone yet. It's true. Please spare me! I won't tell anyone. Please spare me.”
Sin Haeryang glanced at me once. Then they looked at the man again and seemed to make a decision. While still gripping the man's head, they slammed it into the corner of the sink, and the opponent collapsed on the spot.
The hand holding the knife didn't move. Sin Haeryang caught the opponent as he went limp from unconsciousness and carefully laid him out straight on the bathroom floor.
Wondering if they had killed him, I approached closer to check and found that he was breathing. As for his head......I don't know. He'll probably get a huge bump. When this person regains consciousness, he'll absolutely need to get a brain CT at the ER. Sin Haeryang looked at the man for a moment, then spoke to me.
“If we don't finish him here and leave, he'll wake up and cause a commotion.”
“Aren't we going to take this person's weapons?”
“Even without weapons, an adult male who committed terrorism is dangerous. Killing him now means no loose ends.”
“He promised to pretend he didn't see us, so wouldn't he do that?”
“He'll betray us.”
Sin Haeryang answered as if it were only natural, but they didn't recklessly slash the unconscious man's artery like before.
“You don't want to kill people either, Haeryang.”
Sin Haeryang alternated their gaze between the dead man and me, then let out a sigh. And as if they had no time for this kind of verbal sparring, they spoke quickly.
“Instead of taking the risk of letting this man live, I would like you to cooperate on a few things, sir.”
“What should I do?”
Hey. Just ask them to help you. Gim Jaehui spoke toward the back of my head.
“Savior. You're too soft at times like this, Savior. Tell them to at least gouge out his eyes before we go. Or cut off his feet and be done with it.”
“......Are you really a fellow believer?”
Aren't you really too much. Sin Haeryang looked at my build and Gim Jaehui's, then spoke.
“Steal their clothes and pretend to be Infinite Church believers. Jaehui. Come and help.”
Gim Jaehui grumbled, seemingly reluctant to get up from where they'd been leaning against the door, then approached and began stripping the unconscious man's upper clothes as Sin Haeryang instructed. I blurted out a complaint like, I'm really an Infinite Church believer, so why do I have to pretend to be one, but no one listened.
Sin Haeryang was quickly stripping the clothes off the person they'd killed. The black long-sleeve T-shirt's collarbone area was torn from the knife. Sin Haeryang stripped the blood-soaked clothes off the corpse nonchalantly, then squeezed them hard with their hands. Blood dripped out. Watching this with my own eyes from beside them was driving me crazy.
Sin Haeryang washed the T-shirt in the sink three times to remove the bloodstains, then wrung it out hard twice more with their hands. It was as if the T-shirt were screaming. They twisted the clothes like a rope so hard that barely any water came out. ......If Sin Haeryang's goal was to turn the upper garment into a rag, they'd almost succeeded. Sin Haeryang shook out the long-sleeve T-shirt once and held it out to me. I looked at the clothes, closed my eyes once, and opened them. It can't be. Please.
“......Surely you don't mean for me to wear this?”
“It won't fit me.”
I thought you were squeezing it like that so you could wear it. Swallowing the curse that had risen right to the tip of my tongue, I took the slightly damp and unpleasant black long-sleeve T-shirt and put it on. Then I picked up the black cap rolling on the floor.
The dead man had pulled down the mask that covered his face to his nose, leaving it hanging around his neck like a scarf, so after deliberating about five times, I stripped the mask from his neck. I'm sorry.
Other than a gun, chocolates, candy, and a few cable ties, there wasn't anything worth noting in the pockets. Seeing that neither of the two had a shark brooch, they probably hadn't been given false teeth. There didn't seem to be time to open their mouths and check. I hung the mask around my own neck like the dead man had. I couldn't steal the pants or shoes. Because of the size. I pressed the pitch-black cap onto my head and a sigh escaped me.
Gim Jaehui hid their reddish hair with a black baseball cap and pulled their tied hair through the hole in the back of the cap. Then they put on the black top, and from the outside, they looked like a perfect undersea base terrorist. Gim Jaehui kept grumbling at the cap and clothes, dissatisfied with something.
“Some taste this is. I'd rather go around naked than wear something like this. Ah. The clothes smell.”
Hey. There's someone right next to you who stole and put on the clothes of someone who died covered in blood. Sin Haeryang shoved both the dead person and the unconscious person into the innermost bathroom stall. Then they checked the guns the two men had, gave one to me, and the remaining one to Gim Jaehui.
Sin Haeryang smeared the blood that had pooled on the floor all over their face and neck, then naturally bound their own wrists behind their back with a cable tie. Looking at Sin Haeryang's wrists bound with cable ties, I expressed my worries.
“Do you know how to undo this?”
“Yes.”
“That's a relief. I don't know how to undo it.”
“......”
If Sin Haeryang asked me to untie their wrists, I wouldn't know how.
“Well......in movies, they use metal handcuffs, but these are cable ties.”
Those metal handcuffs are unlocked with keys, but this doesn't seem to work that way. Sin Haeryang checked their own wrists and spoke.
“Those handcuffs are quite heavy and inconvenient to carry around. They're also expensive.”
“Ah. So they tie people up with cable ties because they're cheap and convenient to carry.”
Information I really didn't want to know. I felt like I'd have to go to the mountains for convalescence later to forget this kind of information.
Since Gim Jaehui was a real Infinite Church believer among the three of us, they decided to lead the way out. We decided to walk in the order of Gim Jaehui, Sin Haeryang, and then me with my gun pointed from behind, but as I pointed the gun at Sin Haeryang's back, only a sigh came out.