If his outer shell had been intact, they said that even a young, seemingly flawless male could have been used as a sacrifice in the past. If a substitution were possible, I would have liked to give the sacrificial position to Jeong Sanghyeon, the youngest among the people I met today, and just be an ordinary nobody myself. Is that too much to imagine?
I don’t know why they’re so set on using an old, worn-out dentist with so many surgical scars as a sacrifice. Where in the world is there a human sacrifice in their thirties?
······Come to think of it now, if we’re going by age, the youngest might have been the snake or the cat. Had that cat been male? It’s scary enough being a savior, and now a sacrifice? I feel like an ingredient laid out on a cutting board. At least the one fortunate thing is that all the potential sacrificial candidates I can think of aren’t in this undersea base.
“A person worthy of being offered as a sacrifice might not be me, but someone else. It could be someone who already escaped from here.”
“No matter how I look at it, it seems like it’s you, Muhyeon-sshi.”
Kim Jaehui stared fixedly at someone trying to avoid reality, then leaned his back against an orange tree. As time passed, goosebumps rose across his body and cold sweat trickled down. If someone somewhere was waiting with bated breath for a sacrifice to be offered at this altar, would that someone be a giant snake?
“How did you know that Muhan Church worships snakes?”
“From my time as a believer, I got the feeling that Muhan Church treats sharks terribly. They call them friends, but I’d believe they’re actually sacrifices. Don’t you think they use snakes as symbols too much in this undersea base?”
Is that so? Maybe because it was my first time in such a sealed-off base, I had simply accepted that every place was named after fruit. Kim Jaehui asked if I had ever believed in a religion, and I answered no.
“I once joined a religion that believed goats were demons, but even there, they wouldn’t kill goats, though they sacrificed other things. I snuck a question and they didn’t eat them either. It’s the same with religions that think cephalopods possess great intelligence and will dominate humanity. They don’t harm or kill them. They hurled so many curses when my team members were munching away on grilled squid. But the people at the North Pacific Undersea Base eat shark meat almost without exception. They don’t even care that the great white shark they were protecting in the tank disappeared. Isn’t that strange? If it were truly a religion that believed in and worshipped sharks, they would have wept as if their own arm had been severed and tried desperately to find or protect it. Only a few ordinary believers grieve like that. You saw those scheduled to become saviors at the Second Undersea Base, didn’t you? They wouldn’t react like that even if their pet dog died.”
The orange was so perfectly grown that it felt as though I were holding a large golden ball. I rolled it once in my hand; not a single blemish. I didn’t know how well they tended such a large orange tree, but the citrus fragrance was so intense it made my head ache. Kim Jaehui’s gaze turned toward the people sitting at tables and chairs brought from Taiga Cafe, and he spoke slowly.
“In my opinion, Muhan Church used jewels and sharks to expand the distance and increase the time. They must have experimented many times over to get those results.”
“······If they thought that anyone, not just Muhan Church believers, could become a savior and sacrifice, then shouldn’t they treat the hostages well? Why do they treat people so poorly?”
Kim Jaehui plucked a leaf from the orange tree, toyed with it, then crushed it in his hand.
“They don’t seem to kill you if you don’t resist. I treated you well, didn’t I, Muhyeon-sshi? You were an obedient interpreter, and I diligently guided you through convenient shortcuts. While diving, I watched over you so you wouldn’t get hurt, and I never once abandoned you on the way here. In other loops too, when you revealed your identity, didn’t the Muhan Church believers treat you well?”
Maybe because my name was engraved on the jewel. I remembered them providing food, punishing those who betrayed me on my behalf, saying they would grant whatever I wished. I was the only one to make it out of Deep Blue alive, where so many people had died. Should I call that being treated well? Thanks a lot. Yeah. It’s like being a pig kept alive to be slaughtered for a feast. Kim Jaehui muttered toward me as if offering comfort.
“If you look through history, you’ll know that the lives of saviors in various religions were never smooth. They often died horribly, then returned to life displaying miracles. Or else they endured many hardships.”
So nothing good will come to me from approaching the altar.
“Then couldn’t you just call me a sacrifice instead of a savior? Why did you insist on calling me a savior?”
“Both stand between god and humanity, but ‘savior’ sounds better. It’s also easier to deceive people with.”
I know I can’t entrust my own salvation to another, but if I were young or someone easily swayed by others’ words, I might have been tempted by the word “savior.” Besides, if they need a flawless male······.
“No. Wait a moment······ Whether flawed or flawless, if a male becomes the savior and sacrifice, Muhan Church wouldn’t have had a problem if they had broadcasted or lied before occupying this place to help even just the women escape the undersea base, right?”
If Muhan Church had done that, then even setting aside the escape pods they deliberately sabotaged, there might not have been a shortage of escape pods at the Jujak-dong Research Center. At that question, Kim Jaehui let out a deflating sound as if flabbergasted and laughed softly.
“You probably understand by now, but religions are believed in by selfish, arrogant humans like me. If only I and those around me can be saved, we don’t care at all about the sacrifices of heathens. Do you think a pseudo-religion like Muhan Church cares about human lives? Even ordinary religions don’t care about human lives.”
I held back the urge to hurl the orange in my hand at the Muhan Church believers’ heads one by one. But the building is about to collapse; should I be going around throwing punches too? Gaybeong-sshi. How have you maintained your humanity while living surrounded by monsters? Kim Jaehui listened to the indescribable noises coming from afar and asked leisurely.
“Do you happen to remember how you granted Team Leader Shin’s wish?”
“I’m not even sure if I granted that person’s wish. I suppose the jewel is simply strange.”
“Hmm. I wish you would grant my wish too this time, Muhyeon-sshi. ······It seems there isn’t much time left.”
Kim Jaehui said that while staring intently at my hand, and following his gaze, I saw that my hand holding the orange was trembling violently. Before long, the entire undersea base would collapse in a thunderous crash.
From far away, loud thudding sounds and indescribable noises rumbled low. It was the final scream of a building made of concrete and rebar before it fell. Death cries rang out as if throats would burst, echoing through the interior of the garden. The believers near the fountain looked up at the ceiling as if bewildered. It must be the first time they’d heard these sounds. Whether he felt no fear of drowning or being crushed, Kim Jaehui asked in a calm voice.
“Are you still afraid of dying?”
The moment I heard that question, I remembered when I had been so terrified that I begged for anyone to stay by my side. I clenched my teeth, then spoke slowly.
“This isn’t something you can get used to.”
Kim Jaehui looked at me as if pitying me, then asked in a small voice.
“You’re trembling like an aspen. I could tell you a suicide method that is quick and involves little pain. After about ten times, even pain becomes a nuisance.”
I wanted to ask if he felt that way because he had gone through it himself, but I swallowed the words.
“I don’t want that.”
“Why not? It won’t hurt much.”
“······Because I’m getting out of here. What if I remember it every time life gets hard later? When it rains, my back and waist ache. Because of my prosthetic eye, my eyes get so dry they feel like they’ll fall out. There are times when I meet people I hate at work. I come home utterly exhausted, barely able to move a finger. Sometimes I suffer because of family, and sometimes I’m hounded by money. I don’t want to recall such a method every time things get hard.”
I don’t want to develop that kind of habit here. Kim Jaehui nodded slightly and bid farewell in a low voice.
“At least your time in each loop is quite long, Muhyeon-sshi. See you in the next life. Think slowly about granting wishes—.”
Crack! Crack! Fissures ran across the ceiling, and with a thunderous crash, Kim Jaehui—and the tree where Kim Jaehui had been—vanished right before my eyes. In their place, a concrete ceiling that looked at least seventy centimeters thick crushed the orange tree and Kim Jaehui, who had been leaning against it.
When I came to my senses, several burst oranges had rolled across the floor and touched my feet. The orange scent was so strong my head was pounding. Moreover, the orange tree had fallen sideways, and its branches had scratched me all over, leaving my entire body aching as if covered in bruises.
I thought my vision had simply gone blurry, but a branch had scraped my face, and my right side was completely blinded by blood. I couldn’t quite believe that Kim Jaehui had disappeared like that before my eyes. I had thought he would keep talking forever.
The cracked ceiling was collapsing indiscriminately toward the floor, and through the gap where the ceiling had given way, water poured down like a waterfall. The people who had been lounging in chairs and at tables all jumped up and ran this way and that, screaming.
Living had never been easy, but why did dying have to be so difficult too? Kim Jaehui’s blood, mixed with crushed oranges, reached my feet along with the seawater. I stood still, waiting for some concrete roof or glass window to fall on me, or for the ground where I stood to cave in. But even that was not easy. The surroundings were all water, and the moment I let my guard down, I would fall.
The concrete ceiling was mercilessly crushing the people in the garden. A window of tremendous thickness shattered, and when seawater burst through, everything was swept away in an instant. The trees carefully planted inside the botanical garden were swallowed by the flood and vanished in the blink of an eye. Perhaps because the area with the fountain and the orange tree was the center of the garden, people were running to escape the botanical garden.
But several believers were running toward this central area where water was flooding in. Wondering why, I looked and saw they were running toward the altar where black water was pouring in chaotically. They seemed to be rushing to protect the altar, but the surroundings were filled with shattered concrete and exposed steel frames. The words “Is that what matters right now?” rose to my throat.
“Abandon the altar and run!”