Sin Haeryang, slumped on the forty-first-floor staircase, spewed nonsense at me, fused as I was to the landing floor: “Since you’ve followed so well, I believe we’ll arrive faster than expected.”
Can you not see I’m dying? If your condition’s no good either, you must not be seeing straight. My breath was stuck at my chin, and lying there, it felt as if my soul were leaking out too. It sounded like Gim Jaehui was whispering in my ear, “It’ll be easier if you give up and die.”
They say modern humans are called Homo sapiens—“wise man”—but if anyone saw me now, they ought to call me “stair-climbing man.” I couldn’t move another inch. Sin Haeryang was resting too, but he certainly wasn’t drenched in sweat, limbs trembling, and vomiting every curse he knew at the stairs, the pseudo-religion, and Sin Haeryang, like I was.
Both of us had climbed to the fortieth floor completely battered, so why was one person so much more composed than the other?
Sin Haeryang cleverly exploited the fact that we were awkward, distant coworkers at the same company. When he said, “Let’s rest at the next floor,” I reflexively spat out, “Yeah. Let’s do that,” by pure office-worker spinal reflex. Then when he said, “I know it’s hard, but let’s go up just three more floors and rest,” I offered zero resistance and replied, “Yes, yes.” Sin Haeryang had skillfully manipulated the situation so I couldn’t say I couldn’t do it.
I was an office worker old enough to have learned social life and the importance of saving face, a man who couldn’t throw a tantrum and say he couldn’t climb anymore, and Sin Haeryang knew it well. It was on the fortieth floor, my stamina depleted beyond the point of caring about pride or appearances, that I had collapsed. If he’d threatened or browbeaten me with words instead, I’d have given up faster, saying I couldn’t go on.
Not grabbing one more water bottle on the first floor had become a colossal regret. So had using only the elevator and never taking the stairs. So had complacently thinking it was enough to be able to carry sixty kilograms. So had failing to realize quickly that this undersea base was a chaotic mess and living complacently, and so had submitting an application to work here without a second thought. Everything was steeped in regret. Having lain on the fifth-floor landing and now lying on the fortieth-floor landing, there was simply too much to regret.
I folded up the entire list of regrets at once and shoved them into a corner of my mind. There was no need to torture my mind when my body was already in such bad shape.
Once I got out of here, I would build my stamina without fail. I would make time for exercise no matter what. You need stamina to survive. Just as our ancestors had to run when beasts attacked, in a disaster situation only a certain level of stamina and tightly packed muscles in the lower half of the body can guarantee survival.
And swimming skills were absolutely necessary too. I’d have to recommend it to Mom and Mujin as well. When I got home, my little brother would probably think his older brother had gone crazy since joining the undersea base.
…I want to go home. When I came to my senses, I had already muttered those words aloud.
“I want to go home.”
Sin Haeryang spoke as if pitying me, lying there at an intermediate stage between a living person and a corpse.
“You mentioned it once in Hyeonmudong, but you truly are thinking of resigning.”
“…I’ve seen too many terrible things here. Once I resign and go back home, I won’t turn my head toward the sea for quite some time.”
“There were many who were glad to hear the dental clinic was opening. That is a shame.”
I spoke while imagining the unfortunate person who would take over my position after I left.
“I hope the next dentist who comes is at least ten centimeters taller than me and has twenty more kilograms of muscle. I hope they do combat sports or martial arts as a hobby outside of work.”
The moment I said that, I remembered that Gang Sujeong was the next team leader of the engineer Ga Team, and the feeling was strange. If people kept resigning like this, eventually this undersea base would probably end up staffed entirely by people over 190 centimeters. Hearing my story, Sin Haeryang made an unexpected proposal.
“How about learning combat sports or martial arts yourself, sir? I think you’d do well if you learned. Height is impossible, but you can build muscle through exercise.”
“Combat sports? Me?”
I answered in a tone that said, can you not see me lying here on the concrete floor, rolled in dust and garbage? However, Sin Haeryang, unable to see an inch ahead in the darkness, spoke as if it were no big deal.
“If you keep climbing stairs like this without using the elevator, your stamina will increase drastically. The rest is a matter of repetitive learning, so it is not difficult.”
“…I believe it would be very difficult.”
I couldn’t put an ounce of strength into my legs right now. He wanted me to climb forty floors of stairs like this in daily life? Just kill me. Kill me. That would be more merciful.
Sin Haeryang seemed to think I considered the latter tasks more difficult than climbing stairs.
“Last year, I ran a practical combat course as a one-day class. Most of the students were women, but they followed along diligently. You could do it easily too, sir.”
Sin Haeryang’s practical combat course? My ears, which had been failing to hear properly, suddenly felt as if they were opening up. I’d want to take it even if I had to use vacation days from work.
“How did you end up creating such a course?”
“They told all undersea base employees to each create a one-time lecture on a field they knew well. I wish they had used that time for additional safety training instead, but I suppose the undersea base headquarters people do not see it that way.”
“What was the tuition for the class?”
“It was a free three-hour course. Perhaps because it was free, more people applied with enthusiasm than I expected. It was first-come-first-served, and all twenty spots filled up quickly.”
I was dumbfounded. Did he think it filled up because it was free? Even someone like me, with absolutely no interest in practical combat, would probably take it out of curiosity.
“…I’m curious what you taught.”
If there’s practical combat, is there theoretical combat? What exactly do you teach in practical combat? Killing someone with a large needle? Knocking someone out with bare hands? I thought of the terrorist who had been attacked by Sin Haeryang not long ago.
He killed people almost like a grim reaper upon meeting them. The subclavian artery is a location that cannot be easily saved with a tourniquet or crude first aid if severed. Sin Haeryang thought for a moment as if recalling his days teaching the course, then answered.
“I did teach a few movements. …Ultimately, it was a course for learning confidence, decisiveness, and ruthlessness.”
I don’t know what that means, but is it appropriate to teach that in a one-day course? My mom used to go to one-day classes with her friends and make natural soap. Surely they didn’t make soap from oil and fat wrung from enemies.
…If I were to teach a one-day course, I’d probably cover proper brushing methods, how to use dental floss, or foods bad for dental health.
“Are you still teaching that practical combat course?”
“It was shut down after the first class because it was deemed too dangerous.”
I must have laughed out loud. Sin Haeryang approached me precisely in the darkness, grabbed my arm, and pulled me up. I ended my regrettable rest and stood up, beginning to walk those detestable stairs once more.
Climbing mindlessly, I suddenly realized I was no longer afraid of the darkness or the stairs. There was no one here to threaten me immediately, and no seawater that would rush in suddenly.
What scared me most now was not being able to return home. Dying helplessly over and over was frightening too, but I was terrified at the thought of never making it home. And I was afraid that even after getting home, my mind would remain trapped here. I was afraid that the experiences at this undersea base were so immense that even if I returned home, they would exert too great an influence over the rest of my life.
Even setting aside the darkness and the endless stairs, there was more than one thing to fear. I was afraid of learning strange things from those around me. The people I met most often in this undersea base were those terrified out of their wits, consumed by dread, selfish, who committed irrational acts as naturally as breathing, or who sacrificed others’ lives without hesitation for their own benefit. Though I had not been employed long, I already knew far too much about the people at this undersea base.
What if I gradually came to watch, learn, grow accustomed to, and imitate the behavior of those around me? I felt the soft texture of the mask hanging around my neck and the dampness of my clothes as I walked up the stairs. Right now, I was dressed as both a member of a pseudo-religion and a terrorist.
I already knew how to shoot a gun. I knew how to use a knife, how to pretend to be a terrorist, how to act like a hostage, and how to act like the savior of a pseudo-religion. I didn’t even know how many things I was learning directly and indirectly.
Later, I too might kill someone all too naturally to escape this undersea base, or readily sacrifice people out of necessity. And I might defend my actions in some despicable way, or try to quietly bury them where no one would ever know.
As we climbed, I told Sin Haeryang about some of the things I feared. He listened quietly until the forty-seventh floor, then opened his mouth.
“You will be fine, sir.”
“How do you know?”
“You are someone with enough perseverance to climb fifty floors of stairs. You will escape from here safely. And since your heart is strong, you will handle any problems that arise in life.”
Really? Me, strong-hearted?
A powerful doubt welled up at Sin Haeryang’s words. From the moment I opened my eyes this morning in the undersea base until now, I had made every decision while trembling in fear. Rather than being strong-hearted, it felt like I simply had no choice. Even now, I was terrified of what might happen when we reached the 1st Undersea Base.
“In an emergency like this, anyone could climb about fifty floors. If what you say is true, then everyone would be a person with perseverance.”
Sin Haeryang suddenly stopped on the stairs as if he had heard something absurd.
“Well. Carrying me on your back despite your own injured body and climbing stairs where you cannot see an inch ahead, or yielding your own escape craft to others, or rescuing people in a fire—those are not things just anyone can do.”
Sin Haeryang fell silent for a moment, then spoke to me.
“Usually people give up saying they cannot do it, or simply flee alone. Cases where someone acts as you do now, Bak Muhyeon sir, are very rare.”