Being suddenly showered with praise, I hardly knew what to do with myself. He must be incredibly grateful that I carried him up five floors. If I'd carried him a few more, he probably would have bought me coffee too. Hearing such praise from someone younger than me was unfamiliar at best, and deeply embarrassing.
"That's because you only see my good qualities, Mr. Haeryang. At first, I was so terrified that I cried and couldn't do a thing. The people around me took useless me along with them and helped me, so I learned by watching them. Honestly, I'm just an ordinary person without any real ability."
I was simply returning to those around me what I had received. If I had only seen people fleeing, I would have kept crying and running away alone. Sin Haeryang spoke as he climbed the stairs again without another word.
"Ordinary people like you accomplish great things. Just as a single spark can burn down an entire field, or a single raindrop can cause a river to flood. Someone like you once stopped eighteen tanks alone."
Sin Haeryang spoke curtly, never breaking his stride, so I too kept climbing. He was really laying it on thick with the praise. If we were at a dentist's office, I would have at least pressed some dental floss into his hand; if this were Korea, I would have bought him something to eat. Walking up concrete stairs of questionable vintage, I found I had nothing to give. All I had in my pockets was some ash and roughly a hammer, and I couldn't exactly hit him with them to show my thanks. At the very least, I had to return the compliment.
"You're a greater person than I am, Mr. Haeryang. While luck played a part in getting me this far, it was only possible because someone like you was here."
It was true. I wasn't exaggerating or lying. From a single person, I could feel every side of the coin that was *how can someone like this exist?* So many things had happened while I was with Sin Haeryang that I was afraid I might accidentally mention something from a previous round, so I tried to praise him using only the most recent events.
"Didn't you also free people who were handcuffed and tell them to run from the fire, Mr. Haeryang?"
"...I was the one who started that fire, though."
A bitter reply came from Sin Haeryang as he climbed. Ack! That's right? Before I could figure out how to take back my words, Sin Haeryang added:
"If I hadn't unlocked the handcuffs, almost all of them would have died. I was simply taking responsibility for what I had done."
He spoke as if it were nothing special. ...Well. This was something I had realized the moment I became an adult: the world is overflowing with adults who won't take responsibility for their own actions. There were more than a few people who had been unleashed upon society with fully grown bodies but still-undeveloped brains. Is there any word in this world as frightening as *taking responsibility*?
"When there are bastards who would leave them tied up to die and run away, someone who risks danger to free them deserves praise. ...And as I've noticed every time, the way you work hard to take care of your team members is admirable as well."
I had been inwardly astonished many times by Sin Haeryang and Vladimir fleeing while taking their team members with them. Jennifer, too, had tried to take care of her team members even in the middle of a firefight.
A company team leader taking good care of his team members and escaping together in a disaster situation? I'd often seen people who had wasted their age and rank during my working life. If they simply abandoned everyone and tried to run away alone, that was considered a blessing. At least they weren't tripping the employees they usually disliked.
I think it's truly remarkable to show consistent, unwavering responsibility in the face of crisis. With Sin Haeryang's abilities, if he had fled this underwater base alone, regardless of his team, he probably would have been the first one out.
He must have felt the urge to run away alone to survive, or had team members he wanted to use this disaster as an opportunity to discard. Sin Haeryang is human too; he must have wanted to waver under such temptation at least once. But he didn't. ...Maybe it is precisely because he's this kind of person that he ignores the easy path to walk up 180 floors of stairs, and then another 50. After hearing a few words of praise from me, Sin Haeryang answered quietly as he climbed.
"You think too highly of me. I did not save others without any ulterior motive. Someone like you would do that, Teacher. The more hostages freed from handcuffs survive, the more they will trouble the believers of the Muhan Church compared to if they had stayed quietly bound. I freed them partly based on the calculation that I could exploit the chaos created by others to escape more smoothly. And ... the only people I'm trying to take out of this underwater base are my team members and other Koreans. ...To others, I must look like a chauvinist or an ethnonationalist."
In the past, he probably would have closed his mouth with a polite "Thank you for thinking highly of me" and killed the conversation entirely. I was inwardly surprised that Sin Haeryang had answered at such length.
"Is there a reason you specifically limited it to Koreans?"
Tumanako's face suddenly came to mind. Sin Haeryang replied in a low voice as he climbed.
"My skills are lacking, so it's overwhelming enough just taking Koreans with me. There aren't many who listen."
I opened my mouth to say something, then realized that the person doing whatever he wanted most was walking right in front of me, so I closed it. Then I asked about the second most disobedient person.
"What do you plan to do with Gim Jaehui?"
"If possible, I'd like to take her and escape, but if it's impossible, I'll leave her here. Using the energy to take care of one cult fanatic to instead save three other team members seems more conducive to escape."
"Ah. I see. Just asking in case, but what happens if a Korean goes overseas, joins an antisocial religion, and becomes a terrorist?"
"...The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea will handle it."
He didn't seem to have any intention of explaining specifically how the Ministry of Foreign Affairs handles citizen terrorists. It probably wouldn't be a very good outcome for Gim Jaehui or her family.
When I remembered the voice of the 'Savior' that Gim Jaehui had been constantly calling out to, a sigh escaped me. If rumors spread that Bak Muhyeon was a key figure in an antisocial religion and a terrorist organization, they would probably be watched for life by agencies like the CIA or the National Intelligence Service every time they opened a bank account or ordered something from overseas.
Sin Haeryang was walking steadily when he stopped in the middle of the stairwell. I was walking mechanically and nearly planted my face into his back. Scanning the surroundings with eyes accustomed to the darkness, I realized there were no more stairs to climb.
The end? It's the end. ...It's the end.
After climbing all 50 floors, I was swept up in an enormous sense of accomplishment. My whole body hurt as if it were being trampled, which may have contributed to the feeling. I was as happy as if I had reached a mountain summit through hiking. Come to think of it, hiking is basically going up and down countless stairs, so you could call this hiking too. Aren't apartment buildings really just concrete mountains? Imagining things that would make mountaineers faint, I sank powerlessly to the floor.
Sitting in the stairwell filled with moisture and the smell of brine, I alone was thoroughly immersed in emotion amid the dust and grit. Sin Haeryang seemed to have no intention of sharing my sentiment, instead touching and rubbing the wall at the end of the stairwell by the dim light of his necklace. Having ignored my suggestion to rest for just five minutes, he began pounding on the wall here and there. I wanted to go and help, but my legs had absolutely no strength left.
"Finishing the stairs does put me in a great mood anyway."
Sin Haeryang answered while listening to the sounds of the wall as he struck it with the back of his hand and his fist.
"You seem to be in good condition for someone who's climbed 50 floors, so that's a relief."
I'm not okay; I'm just happy there are no more stairs to climb.
Just 50 more meters straight up and we'd reach the surface. There was no way to explain this emotion. Of all the times I had repeated today, I had only gotten this close to sea level when I took the Jujak-dong freight elevator or the escape pod. This time, we might actually get out.
Sin Haeryang tapped the wall at knee height, then seeming to gain confidence, began kicking the surrounding wall. Fortunately, Sin Haeryang didn't clutch his own foot and roll across the floor. Instead, the partition wall installed around it made a crunching sound and began to break.
A thin beam of light entered from the floor. Though I had only been walking in the dark for about 30 minutes, it felt as if I had lived in darkness forever. Watching that light become a pillar shining into the stairwell, I said with an emotional expression:
"This is my first time at Underwater Base No. 1."
"There's nothing particularly worth seeing."
When Sin Haeryang smashed the partition wall with his kicks, I picked up the hammer in my pocket and stood up to help him break through. As the two of us broke the wall bit by bit, more and more light flooded the stair side. My eyes were so dazzled that I waited with them half-closed to adjust, when I spotted a person's shoe beyond the wall.
I froze in surprise. Looking to the side, Sin Haeryang had also stopped kicking.
"What is this?"
I heard a surprised voice. Someone had been on the other side of the partition wall, and seeing it break, they had apparently approached in surprise. Since the broken part was only at the bottom where ankles would be, the hesitant person bent down for a closer look and poked their head into the dark partition.
At the same time, Sin Haeryang grabbed the person's head and pulled. Dragging them through, the person on the other side literally tumbled all the way over to our side through the gap at floor level.
"Aack!"
The person tried to scream in surprise, but Sin Haeryang precisely struck their philtrum and chin. I was horrified to see where he had punched. Dear God. The person, presumed to be male, immediately lost strength in his legs and collapsed to the floor.
I saw a Muhan Church believer's hat that had fallen on the other side of the wall and reached out to pull it through.
Sin Haeryang was holding the opponent who had been punched in the face and was slumping over. With a bit of light coming in, I could see him glancing down the stairs we had climbed. Looking at Sin Haeryang's profile, I said:
"Don't do that."
"What do you think I'm going to do?"
"Aren't you planning to throw him down from the 50th floor? Let's just break through the wall and leave quietly."
"..."
Sin Haeryang punched the slumping person in his arms once more. Then he stripped the person of everything they had from head to toe, leaving only their underwear. From this person's perspective, we must have seemed more like monsters.