Baek Aeyoung's words sounded no different from a final will to my ears. Remaining in the same crouched posture as I inspected the lower cabinet, I grabbed one of Baek Aeyoung's calves with both hands.
"I can't let you go like this! I absolutely cannot send you off alone! Please, just hide with me!"
When I thought about the strength in Baek Aeyoung's legs—strong enough to climb four thousand steps without difficulty—it seemed likely she could shake me off and dispose of me with ease, but hoping I still had the arm strength from extracting impacted wisdom teeth, I clung desperately to her left leg.
When Baek Aeyoung fights for her life against the Infinite Church believers, am I going to survive by cowering under the sink and barely breathing? And then live off Baek Aeyoung's inheritance? Just thinking about it is horrifying. Her face would flicker before my eyes with every spoonful of rice, and every night beneath the covers, I would recall this day.
It would be better if Baek Aeyoung hid here while I engaged in a clumsy shootout with the Infinite Church believers. I might not fight like a professional mercenary, but I could startle them.
"Or I'll fight instead! I might not fight well, but I can draw the Infinite Church believers' attention. Ms. Aeyoung, hide here. No one will know you are hidden here. It makes even more sense since you are the owner of the gold bullion. And it would be far cozier and more comfortable for you to hide in the lower cabinet than an adult man like me."
Baek Aeyoung appeared surprised to see me refusing so violently, as I had mostly followed her orders until now. As I held her calf like a lifeline, the owner of that leg looked down at me with a troubled expression and spoke.
"First...... let go of my leg and talk."
"Promise me you won't rush out the moment I let go."
Baek Aeyoung was silent for a few seconds before answering.
"......I promise. It may have sounded grandiose, but I'll do my best not to die, too. I'm not going to sit back and watch my entire inheritance fall into someone else's hands. I said that because I didn't know what might happen."
"Nothing must happen! If you must go, then step over me first."
Fortunately, Baek Aeyoung wasn't heartless enough to step on an injured dentist and leave. When Baek Aeyoung tried to sit on the floor, I released her leg. Baek Aeyoung spoke to me as if teaching common sense.
"Hiding without being discovered by the terrorists gives you the highest chance of survival."
"Yes! ......Then let's hide together."
"I want to know what happened to the others. And if anyone died, I want revenge."
Baek Aeyoung didn't seem to have any intention of quietly hiding and waiting for the danger to pass. I want revenge, too. I want to confront the Infinite Church and ask why they twisted my life this far. I want to rage at them for pushing the undersea base people into such a disaster.
But even if I got angry and confronted them, the Infinite Church believers wouldn't bat an eye. They would drag me away, saying they had finally found me, deck me out in jewels from head to toe, and use me as a sacrifice. I took out a carefully packed plastic bag from my backpack and put it in my pants pocket. Then, tossing my backpack into the lower cabinet, I said:
"I'm sure I'm lacking, but I want to go with you."
Baek Aeyoung frowned, perhaps thinking that even if she shoved me in here, I would burst out from under the sink just as I had from the warehouse, then nodded.
"Ms. Aeyoung. Is it possible to broadcast from within headquarters?"
"What do you want to broadcast?"
"Just as the Infinite Church broadcasted to me, what if we broadcast to the Infinite Church?"
The professional mercenary pondered my suggestion for a moment, then spoke.
"I like it. ......Normally, I would have opposed it. Hiding deathly still so they couldn't track Mr. Muhyeon's whereabouts and making them anxious might be more effective. What will the broadcast be about?"
"Do not harm people. Just as you want to return to the past, they want to live in reality and go to the future. If you want your opinions respected, respect their lives as well. Throw your guns into the sea and release the hostages. Especially if you are in the undersea base, bring the hostages with you and come to Daehando. The place where the prayer ceremony is held is not the First Undersea Base. You must come to Daehando, where the Savior resides. I would like to broadcast something along those lines."
Baek Aeyoung shrugged.
"That's pretty radical."
"Excuse me?"
"Your goal is to incite discord among the Infinite Church believers and make them point guns at each other. For something made up on the spot, it's quite good."
Discord? It seemed Baek Aeyoung was under a rather absurd misunderstanding.
"I meant it literally. The undersea base is dangerous. There's a high chance of collapse. Wouldn't it be better for the Infinite Church believers to come out to Daehando and bring the hostages they've tied up with them?"
Baek Aeyoung smiled at my explanation and said:
"Mr. Muhyeon spoke with good intentions, but I'd like to see how those twisted people leap to their own interpretations."
With Baek Aeyoung's revisions, I prepared a speech on the spot to persuade these cult members and terrorists. I didn't think a short speech like this would move them, but it was better than doing nothing.
I had wanted to speak live in the broadcast room, but Baek Aeyoung wanted to play a recorded voice. At her request, I quickly recorded on a pad and headed to the broadcast room.
The headquarters broadcast room was empty. It seemed everyone had gone to the auditorium or the First Undersea Base. While Baek Aeyoung entered the broadcast room to play my recorded voice, I stood outside keeping watch.
That brief moment left alone in the corridor was terribly frightening. As I prayed no one would come down the hallway, Baek Aeyoung emerged from the broadcast room. And the instant the broadcast began normally, we immediately left.
"To the believers of the Infinite Church and the hostages. It is a pleasure to address you. I am Park Muhyeon, a dentist working at the Fourth Undersea Base, Deep Blue. After hearing the recent broadcast, it seems the believers of the Infinite Church have some misunderstandings, so I am broadcasting to correct them."
A small dry cough was audible over the broadcast.
"First, there seems to be a misunderstanding that I am the Savior, but I am not the Savior of the Infinite Church. Those who have already met me will know that I am merely an ordinary dentist, hardly someone suited to become the savior of some cult. I heard that my name was engraved on a massive diamond. It seems that engraving a name on a diamond makes one the Savior of the Infinite Church, but I'm afraid it was engraved by mistake. People can make mistakes in their work."
Everyone makes mistakes. Let's just say the Infinite Church made a rather big one.
"If there are any believers of the Infinite Church who wish to play the role of the Savior, I suggest you erase my name from the diamond and write whoever desires it instead. For your information, the diamond in question is either in Ms. Elizabeth's possession or on display at the Second Undersea Base exhibition hall. Any believers near the exhibition hall can become the Savior of the Infinite Church right now if you wish. Don't miss this opportunity!"
Could someone other than me become the Savior? If my name, supposedly engraved on the diamond, disappears, what would become of me?
"I strongly recommend Mr. Michael Roaker as the Savior of the Infinite Church. Despite repeatedly insisting that he wanted to dedicate his very body to the Infinite Church, he lamented that he could not become the Savior and was drinking himself into a stupor in Ms. Anne Arnedal's room at the headquarters building, present and future be damned. Truly, the exemplary conduct of an Infinite Church believer who wishes to go to the past."
I remembered Michael saying he wished all the headquarters staff would die.
"While other believers were busy monitoring hostages who wouldn't listen to a word, or running around since dawn without even eating to commit terrorism, seeing him playing comfortably in a corner of the room, leisurely guzzling alcohol, makes me ponder once again today what work life and religious life truly mean. Is it that in the workplace or in religion, only those who work end up doing all the work? Was the Infinite Church such a discriminatory and unfair religion? I do not know the Infinite Church well, but if that is the case, I believe you should leave it at once."
Joseph had said he couldn't eat because he'd been running around since six in the morning, so it seemed there were far more busy believers than the leisurely Roaker.
"Furthermore, if I had the ability to return to the past I desired, I would be spending a happy day with my family drinking coffee in Korea by now. Mulsae would not have had to wake up in the undersea base, fight people, lose two fingers to an axe, and go through the ordeal of escaping to Daehando. I heard the hospital is a mess; who knows when surgery will be possible. A religion's Savior with mangled fingers, unable to even get surgery—does it seem likely that he possesses the ability to return to the past? Unfortunately, I do not have the ability to slap severed fingers back into place. The only abilities Park Muhyeon, the Savior of the Infinite Church, possesses are bawling my eyes out at severed fingers and taking lots of painkillers."
I had spoken passionately about how incompetent the Savior of the Infinite Church was, but I had no idea if this would appeal to them.
"Second, while believing in the religion called the Infinite Church, you must have agonized over whether what this religion says is true. Can you really return to the past? Is this religion not deceiving me with nonsense? All of the Infinite Church's claims that you can return to the past are lies. The Infinite Church gives false hope of returning to the past to those who have lost family, relatives, or friends, or to terminally ill patients. You must have received absurd demands to wear jewels for a long time, to extract teeth and replace them with shark teeth, to monitor specific individuals, or to recruit them into the Infinite Church. If it were possible to return to the past through such things, scientists would have first experimented on themselves repeatedly, and hundreds would have already gone to the past."
I didn't know how much this broadcast could shake the Infinite Church believers.
"The Infinite Church is threatening believers by holding their loved ones and desired lives hostage. I know that the believers of the Infinite Church live each day with longing, sorrow, and desperation. The believers must already vaguely sense in their hearts. That though they joined the Infinite Church because they missed those who left, all the efforts made here are in vain. You must already suspect that you must face reality while bearing enormous grief and longing. It is impossible to go back to the past and fix our lives anew."