“Why ears… why?”
Thinking back to the way Anna swung a knife, I didn’t think it would stop at just cutting off my ears. If they wanted to tear blood and flesh from a human body, there was no need to take an ear, was there?
“Fingers have bones, so they’re difficult to cut, and given your profession, I assumed you wouldn’t offer them willingly. Ears are easier to restore than fingers and less useful. Emotionally, there should be less resistance as well.”
Less emotional resistance, my ass. Even a robber might take your money, but he wouldn’t demand you hand over your ear. These cult bastards were worse than robbers.
“No. I mean… I’m not livestock. Don’t you think it’s strange to try to cut off a person’s ear?”
“Would you prefer to have your nose, tongue, or genitals cut off? If there’s a body part you’d like to offer voluntarily, I’ll gladly cut it off.”
When Dylan asked that with a smile, I was left speechless. Listening to him, they were all extremities without bones and easy to cut. Between an ear, nose, tongue, and genitals, obviously it’d be the ear. You could cover it with hair, and return to daily life as quickly as possible.
Couldn’t he just not cut anything? Wouldn’t fingernails, hair, or dead skin work? Ah. No blood. Then they could just draw blood separately. …Just having these thoughts felt like my mind was suffering a fracture. I’d thought the Infinite Church didn’t have this kind of barbaric element. Kim Jaehee would find this amusing if she knew.
“You told the other staff your fingers were cut off by an axe. How thoughtful of you to prepare so well for us. I’m glad we won’t have to cause you any more pain than necessary.”
Dylan said it as if he found me commendable, and acted as though it was only natural that the Infinite Church would be taking my fingers. Afraid I’d end up losing two fingers right before my eyes, I immediately made my refusal clear.
“What are you talking about? I didn’t cut these off to give to you people. It happened by accident while I was escaping the undersea base, and I’m going to have them reattached to my hand.”
Dylan briefly sneered at my refusal, then turned his gaze toward the blade of the knife. Following Dylan’s gaze, I looked down at my lower abdomen too. It must have been sharp at first, but after cutting through the ropes of all sorts of people over a hundred times, it seemed he’d used it almost like a saw toward the end. Even when the blade touched my skin, it didn’t immediately sink in.
“Cutting off any part of the body with a dull knife like this would be excruciating. If you won’t give me the fingers, I’ll cut off whatever I like and take it.”
Then the knife blade that had been pressing precariously against my lower abdomen moved a little farther down, scraping the waistband button of my pants with a tick, tick sound. It was nothing much as actions went, but a tremendous wave of terror washed over me. I nearly found myself wanting to just hand over the fingers instead.
I wished the people around us would help me, but Dylan’s hand was so huge the knife was completely hidden in one hand, and throughout it all, he was speaking in a low voice with a slight smile on his face. From the outside, he probably looked like one of the people who had stayed behind to help an injured person. I was lying on a blanket, and Dylan sat beside me, acting as if we were close.
“…What are you going to use the body part you cut off for?”
Maybe I was so terrified that my throat felt completely choked. What else would he use it for? Dylan gave no answer.
“I deserve at least that much of an answer, don’t I?”
I grabbed Dylan’s shoulder with my right hand. When my hand touched his long hair, Dylan brushed it away as if an insect had landed on him and said,
“The fingers will be offered to the altar. Personally, I’d like to throw you whole onto the altar and conduct the prayer rite, but according to past records, they filled the altar with too much water and put the person in tied up, so they drowned before the rite was over.”
I remembered the circular fountain pouring down inside the botanical garden, and the pure white porcelain dish filled with black water and flowers. It was about two meters long and hollowed out at the bottom, so I’d suspected it was closer to a strange bathtub than a dish, but apparently they’d put people in it in the past.
“And while drinking the water from that altar, we’ll make the wish we desire.”
Grotesque.
“…Is that all? Can you go back to the past with that?”
Maybe because I didn’t believe in the Infinite Church, I had no idea why they were doing this. Even if you put my flesh and blood into coffee, floated flowers on it, and drank it, that would just be bizarre coffee. How could it take anyone back to the past? Now that I thought about it, I understood why they’d poured so much coffee into the altar. It was probably to make it so you could barely smell or taste anything. People with weak stomachs wouldn’t even be able to drink that water.
Dylan groped over my pants pocket and pulled out the plastic bag containing my fingers. I tried to stop him with my intact right hand, but since he was threatening me with the knife, I had no choice but to let it be taken. If he snatched away the fingers, he’d have gotten everything he wanted, so he might stab me with the knife. Just as I was overcome with despair, the woman who had asked about my injuries approached my side at some point.
“If you wait just a little longer, the Medic will be here. Get ready to go to the hospital. How’s your body?”
Dylan hid the knife very easily with his hand and forearm. I wanted to scream for help, that a cultist was threatening me with a knife and trying to steal someone else’s fingers. But I was afraid this huge man would go berserk with a knife like an orangutan with a bee in its ear. Feeling the blade pressing against my right side and Dylan’s gaze on me, I answered while tense all over.
“I’m… fine.”
Half-crying on the inside, I kept staring at the woman. My body was trembling, and my face had gone deathly pale; from a distance, it must have looked like my condition was getting worse. If my left hand had been fine, I might have grabbed the hem of this person’s clothes. Dylan went a step further and spoke to her with a smiling face.
“Mengyao. It’s all right here. I know this person. I’ll take care of him.”
“Really? All right.”
Mengyao gave Dylan a slight nod. It was hopeless. In my mind, I was frantically sending telepathic messages to Mengyao. Please help me stop this lunatic named Dylan!
The Medic’s singing could be heard near the entrance to the auditorium. At that, someone who had been groaning after being shot in the arm rejoiced at the Medic’s arrival and quickly got up. This man probably acted that way because he was desperate to ride the Medic, while at the same time embarrassed about being helped up by someone else.
He scrambled up quickly, but because he had lost a lot of blood, he staggered from dizziness and was about to collapse toward us. It was an unexpected sudden movement, and in that instant, I grabbed Dylan’s knife-holding right wrist with my intact right hand. I clung to Dylan’s wrist with so much strength that my right arm and hand turned bright red. Then I shouted.
“Help! There’s someone with a knife! He’s trying to steal my fingers!”
After about three seconds of struggling, Mengyao saw Dylan’s hand gripping the knife and let out a shrill scream. Dylan very easily shook off the grip I had latched onto him with all my strength. Then he kicked me. The moment my body hit the floor, I lost consciousness.
It felt like I had only closed and opened my eyes for a moment, but I was already moving while hanging from the Medic. Beside me, the people who had been shot in the auditorium were also loaded onto the Medic.
My fingers?
When I tried to move on my own, the Medic warned me to stay still. It said that because we were moving quickly, I could fall or get injured. Even though my injury wasn’t to my head, I couldn’t move anything except my eyes and mouth.
The Medic had run out of the Daehando headquarters building and was rapidly climbing the hill. Saying it had to take the safest route possible, it ignored the walking paths and roads made for people and moved wherever it pleased over the grass.
A marble sailfish statue toppled after being caught on the running Medic’s leg, and a flying fish statue broke apart too. Right. The Medic would move me on its own. Let’s get to the hospital and check my hand or whatever there. Feeling almost resigned, I relaxed and let the Medic carry me, when I saw bright red camellias blooming on the ground far away.
It looked like bright red flowers had bloomed in the middle of the grass by the walking path, but I thought it was strange and kept looking, only to realize that it was a person’s dyed head of hair. The person lying there lifted their head briefly, then lowered it back to the ground. The instant I recognized the face, I shouted loudly.
“Jaehee!”
Kim Jaehee slowly raised their water-soaked head and looked at the Medic moving quickly, as if everything was a bother.
“Did someone call me?”
All sorts of thoughts ran through my mind.
“Why are you lying on the ground like that?”
“Because I’m too exhausted.”
The Medic, which was moving quickly, went straight past Kim Jaehee and the elevator beside Kim Jaehee. Judging by its location, the elevator Kim Jaehee had gotten out of seemed to be one I had never ridden before. It was probably one of the direct elevators connected to the First Undersea Base.
Kim Jaehee urgently called out to the Medic as it was about to pass them by. The Medic tried to ignore Kim Jaehee’s call and keep going, but then stopped. One reason was that Kim Jaehee’s heart rate was far too high compared to a normal person’s. When the Medic recorded a question on its screen and asked why it had been called, Kim Jaehee answered simply.
“Medic. Take me too. I’m so tired I could die.”
At first, it seemed the Medic had stopped because it mistook Kim Jaehee’s hair color and heart rate as signs of a serious head injury. But after quickly finishing its scan, the Medic tried to refuse Kim Jaehee. At that, Kim Jaehee pointed at me and said,
“Then put this person down.”
The Medic hesitated for a moment. Then it made a whirring sound, set me down in an instant, loaded the remaining patients, and ran off again. Apparently, in the Medic’s judgment, my injuries were light enough that I could walk. The other patients must have needed immediate treatment.
In the blink of an eye, the enormous Medic shrank to the size of a palm in the distance. Kim Jaehee looked at me and asked,
“Why did you call me?”
“You told them to put down a patient just to ask that?”
“If it isn’t an immediately critical patient, the Medic can abandon them at its own discretion. I guess you probably weren’t that critical.”
Kim Jaehee was soaked from head to toe, and while they looked about the same as usual, they had a bag slung over one shoulder. Kim Jaehee spoke halfheartedly, as if they wanted to lie down on the ground right away.
“I climbed about fifteen thousand stairs, so I have no stamina, okay? Answer quickly.”
“There are only about four thousand stairs!”