“Would it be alright if I provided a very small amount of blood and flesh?”
I sighed as I looked at the backs and heads of the people lying face-down on the floor. My fingers were out of the question. Instead, if I scraped off just a tiny bit of fat and dead skin stuck to my body and donated just a little blood, maybe these Church of Infinity bastards would let me or the others go. When Jamal saw room for negotiation in me, he added one more thing.
“Yes. We would be grateful if you could take the time to participate in the prayer ceremony as well.”
If I had to choose between believing your words or Baek Aeyeong’s marksmanship, I’d choose the latter.
“Then what compensation can I receive?”
Jamal drummed his fingers on the table, then pointed with an open palm at the hostages lying prostrate on the floor as he spoke.
“Well. If you want money, we would like to match whatever amount you desire, but it seems you want an ordinary reality or freedom. We can help you exit the miracle. And if you wish, we can coordinate with the other Savior candidates and give you the lives of the hostages here however you want. Though Bess threatened you, there aren’t many Church of Infinity believers here who want to personally execute people. Except for those separately hired by the Church of Infinity, like Anna, David, and Ramunas, the rest are originally ordinary civilians who received basic combat training only for today.”
I wanted to retort that ordinary civilians don’t point gun barrels at people while clinging to the absurd belief that they can return to the past. But if I did, this conversation would literally end right here, so I held back. Jamal acted concerned about his believers’ mental health, but he didn’t seem to care much about the tied-up hostages’ lives.
“Who is Ramunas?”
“A giant over two meters tall with a body built like this……”
“Ahh. I know who you mean.”
Jamal raised both arms as if lifting dumbbells, posing to show off his muscles. Because of that, his bracelet clinked. Jamal twisted his body this way and that, perhaps because the large ring on his finger, the brooch, and the green necklace hanging from his neck were uncomfortable, then fell silent for a moment.
Unlike the Church of Infinity believers I had met before, he wasn’t rude to me, but Jamal didn’t seem like someone who enjoyed talking. After a few seconds of silence, Jamal scratched the back of his head and opened his mouth again.
……He seems like someone who can’t even endure silence.
“I called people over the radio, so until they arrive, would it be alright if I told you a bit about my past, Savior?”
“Uh. Yes.”
Jamal rolled up his forearm, showed old burn scars, and spoke.
“I am one of those who survived a gas leak accident that occurred while working at a factory. It was a massive accident where over 150 people died. I barely escaped the factory complex through about twenty repetitions.”
Jamal smiled as if embarrassed and continued.
“Honestly, I thought everything was either a hallucination from inhaling too much gas or a trick of the brain from the painkillers they used at the hospital.”
I thought so too at first.
“Only after scouring the internet and discovering a religion called the Church of Infinity did I realize that wasn’t the case. I joined the Church of Infinity, received a measly compensation from the company, quit the factory, and somehow ended up here. ……There were many twists and turns even after surviving, but having laid it out, it’s not as long as I thought.”
Jamal rubbed the back of his neck, raised his lips awkwardly, and spoke. And then he, who had been hesitating slightly, opened his mouth.
“What the Savior is experiencing is one of the large-scale experiments that the Church of Infinity is attempting for the first time. You see, the Church of Infinity wants to control the miracle that leads to the past.”
So destroying a workplace where over a thousand people work is something they call an experiment. I held back the desire to openly sneer at Jamal’s face. Jamal continued explaining the phenomenon I was currently experiencing.
“The Church of Infinity investigates survivors from various accidents and incidents to understand the phenomenon, but they also analyze results obtained through artificial experiments like this. I don’t fully approve of everything the Church of Infinity does.”
Jamal’s gaze fell on my injured hand and disheveled state, and he spoke in a gloomy voice.
“Because too many people die whenever these experiments happen. But it’s difficult to obtain additional information about the miracle from simple large-scale accidents. Not only are there cases where the stress survivors experience during disasters and the aftereffects of the accidents are so severe that they can’t provide information even after experiencing the miracle, but there’s also the possibility that the exact same situation will simply repeat.”
……Right. If I had escaped the undersea base and Daehan Island with someone’s help and by luck, I might have returned home safely. But if the axe had struck not my hand but my head, and the loop ended with brain damage severe enough to make conversation impossible, though not a fatal blow, it would have been difficult for the Church of Infinity to obtain information even from a survivor.
Listening to these bastards who artificially cause large-scale accidents whine about how hard it is to extract information from survivors felt like throwing fuel on the embers in my heart. Is making people angry a characteristic of Church of Infinity believers?
“Couldn’t you just leave the miracle that sometimes occurs during large-scale accidents as it is? What is the Church of Infinity ultimately trying to do through this experiment?”
Jamal pondered for a moment, realized he was at a distance from the other believers, and began speaking to me in a low voice.
“Let me explain through examples of what others have experienced. Hmm. The length of time Bess could return to the past was two hours at most. The time I repeatedly suffered through at the factory was forty minutes. Mr. Weiss was able to continuously experience the miracle for a very short time, about fifteen minutes. But what about you, Savior? By simple calculation, it is estimated that you are experiencing the miracle while staying in the past for a much longer time than us. Approximately how many hours do you remain in the past?”
“……I haven’t measured it exactly, but I think it’s about eight hours.”
I lied to Jamal just in case. It feels like about eleven hours to me. Hearing my words, Jamal spoke with a small smile at the corners of his mouth.
“Eight hours. Compared to others who had merely fifteen or forty minutes, isn’t it an incomparably long time? If later through these experiments, you could return not eight hours, but eighty-eight hours, eight hundred eighty-eight hours, no, eighty-eight thousand eight hundred eighty-eight hours into the past and remain there, what would happen?”
Jamal began explaining with slight excitement.
“Having looked at time, let’s now look at distance. Bess repeatedly experienced the same events at a farm within about 1,500 meters. I experienced the miracle in a factory complex of about 1,000 meters. Mr. Weiss experienced it inside a building, but he said it wasn’t even 400 meters. Seeing as you, Savior, stayed at a place called Baekhodong at the Fourth Undersea Base and came to the main building of Daehan Island, it seems the range in which the miracle occurs is at least over 3 kilometers. It’s a distance incomparably wider than what we experienced. ……Savior, do you know the radius of the Earth?”
I was taken aback for a moment by Jamal’s out-of-the-blue question.
“Uh. I don’t know.”
You might as well ask me about dental knowledge.
“It’s 6,371 kilometers. If we invest more time and repeatedly refine additional experiments, perhaps someday we can expand the range of the miracle to a radius of 6,371 kilometers. Please expand what happened at the undersea base today into an event occurring across the entire Earth. What do you think would happen?”
My body went cold as if ice water had been poured over my head. I was breaking out in goosebumps. This so-called miracle only activated when the people at the undersea base within a 3km distance were all in a situation where they were about to die in seawater. It seems like a terrible situation where everyone in the world could die in a short time would have to occur in order to expand this. Could these lunatics be aiming to kill all of humanity?
“Are you saying the Church of Infinity will artificially create a disaster capable of killing humanity all at once?”
At my question, Jamal smiled bitterly and spoke.
“That is not something I or the people of the Church of Infinity are creating. Humanity is already running madly toward ruin, not walking. We probably won’t need to interfere much. We’ll just give a slight push to the back, as we are now.”
I sighed while listening to Jamal’s words, and I sighed while looking at the hostages lying down. It looked like I was censuring the Church of Infinity’s absurd unethical acts, and I actually was. When I exaggerated my sigh somewhat, even the believers far away glanced over here and flinched.
One hostage lay on his side and vigorously rubbed his bound wrists against a knife. He didn’t seem to care that he was bleeding. And after cutting the bindings, he avoided the eyes of the watchers and passed the knife to another person.
The surrounding people noticed the hostage lying sideways trying to untie the bindings on his wrists, and tried to cover him with their own arms or legs. Some of the face-down hostages had untied their wrist bindings and were pretending to be tied up with their hands behind their backs even though the bindings were gone. Joseph turned his head to look at them, then mistakenly thought their wrists were tied and turned his head elsewhere.
“We believers of the Church of Infinity wish to go to the past when a disaster on the scale of annihilating all of humanity strikes. And we wish to continue living there. Not in the existing way where one or two people luckily survive because the miracle occurs, but we want to find a way for many people to survive in the past.”
“Even if everyone at the undersea base dies?”
“If you think about the coming ruin, the North Pacific Undersea Base will be a maritime accident that occurred in a very small scope.”
You selfish bastards. The workers at the undersea base all said that if the North Pacific Undersea Base is destroyed, the Pacific Ocean would become a mess—how can I believe your words?
“Then the only ones who can flee to the past from such ruin would be the Church of Infinity believers who have jewels or shark teeth.”
Jamal spoke while nodding slightly.
“Yes. When the ruin arrives, you’ll know then. Because the religions that promised false salvation will all fall. We will abandon the future where ruin comes and head to the past to find utopia.”