Sin Haeryang looked at Kim Jae-hui and Riko, then swept his gaze over me and the two people in the water. The feeling I got from his eyes—“I trusted you and left this to you”—was probably just my guilty conscience playing tricks on me. Sin Haeryang approached me as I stood at the edge of the pool, gripping the rope and pulling, then asked,
“Are you trying to pull them out of the water?”
Does it look like I’m trying to drown them right now? I was briefly flustered by Sin Haeryang’s question, but I answered quickly.
“Yes!”
Kim Jae-hui and Riko were only watching the two people who had fallen into the pool. I was the only one holding the rope, trying to drag them out. Since both of them were floating thanks to buoyancy, I could control them with just the rope, but I couldn’t haul two grown men out of the water. At my answer, the two Church of Infinity believers, their faces barely above the surface, let out sighs of relief.
“Did they fall in by accident?”
As Sin Haeryang asked that, he looped the rope around his forearm twice and pulled. The people in the water rose until their shoulders were above the surface, their upper bodies catching on the edge of the pool.
“......Well. That’s right.”
I answered ambiguously. There was no need to go out of my way to tattle that Riko had kicked the Church of Infinity believers. However, the middle-aged man, who spat out a mouthful of pool water along with saliva, informed Sin Haeryang of the truth faster than anyone else.
“That crazy woman kicked me and shoved me in!”
Do you think knowing that is going to help you? Sin Haeryang stared at Riko for two seconds, then loosened the rope he had wrapped around his forearm. The rope slid down with a slither, and the two Church of Infinity believers went back into the water together.
Splash! The sound of water rang out loudly. When I looked at Sin Haeryang, he gazed at the crowns of the two heads submerged underwater, then turned to me and said,
“Hearing nonsense makes my arm lose strength.”
“Isn’t it usually the opposite?”
“Judging by their attitude, it seems they did something worth falling into the water for.”
“......Then are you going to kill them like this?”
Sin Haeryang seemed to count in his head, and only after counting to about fifteen did he pull the rope and bring the two men’s heads back above the water. The two men spat out water wildly, and then the younger one burst into tears.
“Save me! Save me! Please save me!”
His loud cries for help echoed through the pool. The middle-aged man was also spewing snot and all kinds of curses, but the younger man’s voice was so loud that the middle-aged man’s low voice was drowned out.
Sin Haeryang looked at them as if he didn’t want to waste time in a place like this, then said to me as though he wanted to move on immediately.
“I think leaving them here and going would be fine.”
“I’d like to keep them alive in a corner.”
Personally, I didn’t want to see any more people die. From this morning until tonight, I’d seen far too many dead people. Why were things that were usually so obvious so difficult here?
As soon as I finished speaking, Kim Jae-hui answered.
“I’d like to see the extremely violent and cruel revenge Miss Riko carries out. I’m sure it’ll be very thrilling and entertaining.”
The middle-aged man, who had barely managed to rest his chin on the uneven edge of the pool to breathe, heard Kim Jae-hui’s words and shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Red-haired bastard! Are you even on our side?”
“Mm. Now that I think about it, I don’t think so. I didn’t join because I liked the Church of Infinity’s believers. The cigars seem so-so, but the alcohol looks decent. I’ll drink it well.”
Kim Jae-hui waved his hand as if saying farewell. Sin Haeryang, gripping the rope, looked appalled and began interrogating Kim Jae-hui.
“Did you drink?”
“No. Unfortunately, the Savior watched over me, so I couldn’t.”
Riko grabbed the half-empty glass on the table and downed the cognac in one smooth motion. It was so natural that no one even thought to stop her, but Sin Haeryang, holding the rope, jerked his chin at Kim Jae-hui, telling him to stop Riko. Perhaps the liquor she had downed in one go was too strong, because Riko coughed softly and trembled.
Kim Jae-hui nodded at his team leader as if he understood, then approached Riko’s side. And then he even tilted the bottle on the table and poured liquor into the now-empty glass. Sin Haeryang’s eyebrows instantly curved.
Riko gripped the glass tightly with both hands, her lips trembling, and said,
“She didn’t even beg you to save her like you did.”
Riko spoke while her whole body shook like an aspen.
“I only realized someone had pushed me after I fell to the floor. It was someone I knew. She was looking at me expressionlessly, wearing a hat. Jyang shouted so loudly the whole café rang. Get away from my friend!”
Then, her hands trembling, she took another sip of liquor and exhaled a hot breath very slowly.
“I worked with her for three years, and every time she spoke loudly, I hated it because she seemed so vulgar and rough. It made my ears ring. She doesn’t know how to whisper. I like it when people speak softly and gently. But I can’t forget Jyang shouting. It keeps repeating in my head hundreds, thousands of times. Get away from my friend! Get away from my friend! Get away from my friend! ......You said you’d let us live if we behaved. You liars!”
Riko kicked away from the chair and stood, screaming toward the pool. She screamed so loudly it was hard to believe such a sound could come from her small height and frame, and perhaps because it was an indoor pool, her voice echoed in every direction. At the shout she let out with her mouth wide open and the hatred that poured out explosively, everyone fell silent and stared at Riko. Tears streamed down Riko’s cheeks.
“......A few people came because of the gunshot, looked at Jyang, and left. That was all they did. No one, nothing helped us. I put Jyang on a cart and cried as I went to the elevator, but they told me not to use it. They said they had to use it, so I wasn’t allowed. Do you know what I said to that? I said okay. Nothing had been resolved. But I answered okay. If she had been conscious, even lying on that cart, she would have argued right then and there. She would have shouted, Is this elevator yours? I work here and I’m injured, so I’m taking this elevator to the hospital. That’s my right. Bastards like you can all get lost.”
Riko set the glass down with shaking hands. Her shoulders trembled as she spoke.
“I...... I said okay and turned the cart around. Lincoln’s corpse was beside the central elevator. I thought he’d been hiding somewhere. But he’d been there since morning. My friend was hurt, and I couldn’t even argue more and ask them to help. I said okay and pulled the cart the other way. ......Jyang shouted for me and even got shot. But even though she was hovering between life and death, when they told me not to use the elevator, I was so scared that I answered okay and turned away.”
The young man, his upper body resting on the rough, uneven edge of the pool, panted before speaking to Riko.
“So what? I-I-I didn’t do it! I didn’t shoot her dead!”
“Yeah. ......It wasn’t you. It was someone else. But the group you belong to did it. Until yesterday, nothing had happened in this underwater base. If only you people hadn’t been here, Jyang wouldn’t have been shot, and I wouldn’t be here crying out of guilt. She and I were just working hard like usual. Why did we have to go through this?”
No one could give a proper answer. Then the young man, as if it was terribly unfair that he was being subjected to this, said to Riko,
“I’m sorry about your friend, but I didn’t do it! It’s true we were ordered to keep people alive as long as they didn’t resist! Of course, one or two bastards might ignore the orders from above and do whatever they want. But the people standing next to you are all the same believers too, so why are you only doing this to me and this old man!”
At those words, Riko looked at me, Sin Haeryang, and Kim Jae-hui, then said. A chill ran down my back.
“......Yeah. You’re all the same. The only reason I came is because Jyang said she wanted to go with you. If not...... If not. If not. I don’t know. It’s all because of me.”
Riko gripped the bottle of Louis XIII, walked calmly to the front of the pool, and struck the young man’s head with it twice in succession. Crack! Crack! The sounds rang out one after another. As he moved his head to avoid being hit by the bottle any more, his upper body slipped and he fell into the water. As soon as there was a splash, the middle-aged man began speaking rapidly to Riko.
“Your name was Riko, was it? I didn’t really think you were a crazy woman! Of course, there was a bit of emotion mixed in! But wouldn’t anyone think that if someone kicked them and shoved them into the water? And look at this situation! You’re only taking revenge because we’re tied up like this! If, by chance, we hadn’t been tied up like this, you wouldn’t have been able to do anything! And neither I nor this idiot shot that woman named Jyang dead, did we? Find the bastard who killed that Jyang woman! Take your revenge properly! This is just venting your anger for no reason!”
Even as Riko’s body trembled, she brought the bottle down precisely on the middle-aged man’s bangs and said,
“That’s right. I’m venting. What Jyang and I went through was just you people venting too. Just like we were wronged, you’re being wronged too.”
Every time she brought the bottle down on his head, crack! Crack! Crack! The sound rang out. So that’s the kind of sound it makes when you hit a person’s head with a liquor bottle, I thought.
I couldn’t clearly remember when I had stopped Riko. When I came to my senses, I was holding the liquor bottle with one hand and Riko’s waist with the other. Sin Haeryang pulled the submerged people in with the rope after thirty seconds, and though they weren’t dead, both their foreheads and faces were split open.
I threw the liquor bottle, smeared with blood and bits of flesh, into the pool. If anyone wanted to pick it up, they’d have to swim down for it. Ashes that seemed to be from cigars floated on the surface of the pool.
Holding her by the waist, I moved away from the pool and sat her back down in the chair. Riko smelled of blood and the dry wood scent unique to high-proof liquor. Riko, who had lain limp like a corpse and then moved so fast it startled me, seemed exhausted again and sagged in the chair. Kim Jae-hui looked at the blood spreading through the pool and smiled at me.