“Then if we manage to get a gun, you should be the one to carry it, Muhyeon.”
I nearly cried out and refused on the spot, but it seemed like Baek Ae-young had made a huge concession, so I quietly nodded. He then brought out several hammers smaller than a sledgehammer and told me to swing them in the air.
Imagining a person about my height, I gripped a brass hammer and swung it as instructed—downward, upward, and horizontally. Baek Ae-young watched with dead eyes, as if I were performing some kind of ritual dance, then stopped me as I gradually grew tired and asked,
“Didn’t any tool make you feel like it was meant for you the moment you held it? One that flooded you with confidence or made your blood boil with rage?”
Nearly ten tools lay on the floor. I swallowed a sigh and answered Baek Ae-young in a timid voice.
“None.”
Baek Ae-young let out a deep breath at my answer and asked again,
“What about people you’ve wanted to kill? Have there been none?”
“Well… there are plenty of those.”
“Then imagine swinging at those people you normally want to kill. Name anyone—any person or group you’d like to smash with a hammer.”
If I could, I wouldn’t hit anyone with a hammer; I’d just want to get out of this underwater base. But Baek Ae-young seemed to want an answer, so after hesitating, I spoke haltingly,
“…The ones who tried to proselytize my family.”
Once the words left my mouth, it felt as though a knot lodged in my chest loosened slightly. Hearing my answer, Baek Ae-young shrugged once and said,
“…Usually people name scammers who took their money and ran, or ex-lovers they broke up with, as their first choice. Who else do you want to kill?”
My mouth moved almost reflexively. I couldn’t stop it.
“People who drink and drive. I hate them so much.”
“Oh. Same here. They’re the ones I hate too. Americans usually name ICE or the IRS. Is there a third?”
“People who take advantage of chaos in a disaster situation like this to attack the weak, when we should be helping each other just to survive.”
I can barely even remember the people who mocked or despised me when I lived on land.
“They’re the ones I hate too. We have quite a few things in common, Muhyeon. Every time you swing a tool, imagine you’re landing a painful blow on one of those bastards.”
Baek Ae-young scanned the warehouse interior and fetched a hatchet about the length of a person’s arm from a corner. While he dusted off the hatchet, I carefully set the hammer down on the floor and wiped the sweat pooling in my palms on my pants.
Maybe because I was tense—worried the tool might slip from my grasp mid-swing and go flying off somewhere—sweat trickled down my back. The hatchet he handed me had been wrapped in a leather sheath; when peeled away, the blade was slightly rusted, but the edge was still honed to a pale blue gleam.
After I swung it in the air a few times, Baek Ae-young watched and instructed me incessantly like a drill instructor. Don’t swing with just your wrist; fix your lower body and strike with your entire body’s strength as you twist your waist. Don’t swing with both hands; wield it with one hand while using the other to create distance and maintain your center of gravity. Close the distance to attack and retreat quickly to defend. Judging the gap between you and your opponent is crucial. And so on.
Baek Ae-young was an excellent instructor, but the problem was that I wasn’t a good student. Perhaps because I’d never held an axe before, I could understand my flaws clearly, yet my body wouldn’t move as directed. Watching me swing the hatchet, Baek Ae-young seemed to judge that he could no longer waste time and quickly asked,
“How’s the weight?”
“It’s not as heavy as I thought.”
“That was the best posture you’ve shown so far. Practice is over now. Pick two tools from the ones you’ve swung. Even if you take many, they’ll only weigh you down and make it hard to move, and you won’t use them all anyway.”
I looked at the hatchet’s gleaming blade, then slid the leather sheath back over it. With the edge covered, it looked like nothing more than a blunt hammer. I took that one hatchet and, from among the massive, vicious-looking hammers, a simply designed rubber mallet. My reasoning was that the rubber mallet would hurt less than the other steel or brass hammers. Still, a rubber mallet would hurt more than a toy squeaky hammer, at least.
Even if an opponent was struck by the weapon I’d chosen, external bleeding would be minimal. They wouldn’t be screaming while blood gushed from them everywhere. Internal bleeding… I decided not to think about that. If I thought that far, I wouldn’t be able to swing these things.
My cold, pessimistic rationality spoke up, saying an opponent who would go down with one hit from a regular steel hammer would need to be struck about thirty times with a rubber mallet. And did I think the opponent would prefer being hit thirty times rather than once? It mocked my choice ruthlessly, telling me to consider which was more cruel. Gripping the hatchet and rubber mallet, I was consumed by turmoil. Then, Kim Jae-hee’s words from a few hours ago suddenly came to mind.
‘The only chance to quietly kill Team Leader Shin Hae-ryang is right now. You need to be able to use him comfortably in your next life too.’
This time, Shin Hae-ryang isn’t here. If someone like Shin Hae-ryang, Seo Ji-hyeok, or Kang Su-jeong were in this situation, I might face less physical threat as we moved around. Baek Ae-young would probably feel less anxious and safer with his own team members than with someone like me. But rather than call that guy back to this hellish underwater base, I’d rather swing a rubber mallet thirty times myself. I thought back to the second loop without Shin Hae-ryang. It would probably play out similarly to back then.
Baek Ae-young told me to layer as much clothing as possible, so I rummaged through my backpack, but the only thing I could wear was a suit jacket. Baek Ae-young touched the hem of my suit and frowned as if displeased, then said,
“It’s not very thick.”
“Yes. It’s for spring and fall.”
Baek Ae-young searched a corner of the warehouse and threw me a worn, frayed black leather jacket, which I put on instead of the suit jacket. Then Baek Ae-young himself shook out a battered, smelly brown sheepskin coat before putting it on. Dust billowed like clouds, causing Baek Ae-young to cough several times before grimacing and pulling the drysuit top on over it.
The seams of Baek Ae-young’s sheepskin coat were torn in places. My leather jacket was in similar shape. The clothes were creased like cobwebs, and if I applied too much force, the jacket looked like it would split in two. Now I understood why the owners had discarded them. Baek Ae-young, apparently displeased with the sheepskin coat, sniffed it and bared his teeth.
“If things were normal, I’d never wear someone else’s stinking clothes.”
“I put it on because you told me to, but why are we wearing these?”
“Because they protect your skin better than nothing.”
Baek Ae-young brought over a tool belt from the corner and handed it to me. The leather was worn smooth and shiny, and the previous owner must have had a wide waist because the belt hole further out than the one I fastened was stretched beyond its limit and torn lengthwise. I sheathed the rubber mallet and hatchet in the spots Baek Ae-young indicated, then practiced drawing and resheathing the hammer and hatchet two or three times as instructed.
“Actually, the best weapons for a beginner are ones you can use from a distance, like guns, or long ones like spears that let you keep your distance while thrusting at the opponent. Aim for the torso especially.”
“Wouldn’t something like a shovel or a long-handled axe be more advantageous in terms of reach?”
“They’re good if you can use them well. But they’re heavy and hard to carry around, and someone who’s never handled one before will exhaust their strength after swinging two or three times. Have you used a shovel much?”
“No.”
What dentist handles shovels in their daily life? Unless they’re burying people who don’t brush their teeth in their backyards or tending a weekend farm. Baek Ae-young spotted a pair of scissors with a rust-reddened blade, fiddled with the handle, and pocketed them. Then he looked at a broken chisel knife with its handle detached, removed just the blade, and placed it in the left breast pocket of my leather jacket.
“Is it much easier to aim for the torso than the head?”
Hearing my question, Baek Ae-young nodded lightly.
“It’s harder to hit the head than you’d think. If the opponent suddenly ducks or turns their head, you’ll miss immediately. Also, quite a few people feel burdened attacking while looking at the opponent’s face. If your eyes meet, you might stop attacking or freeze up in fear. I don’t really recommend it for beginners. If you have a clear chance at the head, go for it, but if not, you should aim for the torso. And if you don’t have a shot at the torso, you can aim for the right arm. Left-handed people make up only ten percent of the world’s population. Assume your opponent is holding their weapon in their right hand.”
Is that so? Come to think of it, I’m holding this hatchet in my right hand too. If someone targeted my right arm, my ability to fight would be cut by more than half.
Having roughly gathered the old tools, we quietly slipped out of the warehouse. Baek Ae-young surveyed the surroundings and, apparently deciding it wasn’t particularly dangerous, asked me as I followed two steps behind.
“The eye you primarily use is called the dominant eye. So which eye is dominant for most people?”
This was a fairly easy question. I answered Baek Ae-young with a slight smile.
“The right eye?”
“Yes. So right-eye-dominant people are good at perceiving things to their right. Therefore, to ambush a small group, you should attack from behind and to their left.”
Wow. Fascinating. So you plan an ambush while thinking about that kind of thing. Since Baek Ae-young began walking with his waist bent and posture lowered, I followed suit, crouching down and walking slowly while keeping watch on the surroundings like him.
“If you get into a fight, never stop attacking until the opponent drops their weapon and is completely down. And first, kick the downed opponent’s weapon far away.”
“In case an opponent you thought was dead suddenly gets up and rushes you?”
You see that a lot in movies. That’s why they do confirmation kills, isn’t it?
“It happens a lot in reality too.”
Baek Ae-young glanced at me and said,
“To be honest, the enemy might back down seeing you rather than me. But if they think they can easily take down both of us, they’ll act recklessly. Whether they’re cultists, engineers who failed to escape this underwater base and are wandering around unluckily, or crazy bastards with unknown intentions—whatever they are. Those people will judge us the moment they see us.”
“What will they judge?”
“Whether they can beat us in a fight. Humans are thoroughly hierarchical animals.”