Gim Jaehui stared at my left hand and asked a nonsensical question.
“Will you brew coffee with Mr. Scammer’s flesh and blood?”
I’ve only got eight fingers right now, and you’re spouting nonsense? And don’t insult coffee or my hygiene. Maybe it’s because you’re a cultist, but your sense of hygiene seems rather strange.
“I’ll brew you a warm cup of coffee that won’t violate the Food Sanitation Act. Sanitary, clean, and within the bounds of what a friend can do.”
“Is that all? Nothing more?”
Judging by Gim Jaehui’s expression, it didn’t seem like she wanted a second cup of coffee. She was trying to extract something more, like someone who’d won the first-place lottery only to despair upon learning the prize was less than fifty thousand won.
“If you wish, I can add milk or sugar as well. I’ll listen to your worries or daily stories, and even comfort you by saying things will work out.”
Hearing the best service I could offer, Gim Jaehui slowly blinked.
“······Friends are too weak.”
Gim Jaehui smiled slightly, though it was ambiguous whether it was a scoff or a sneer.
“A friendship isn’t enough to stop people as broken as me. Brewing a cup of coffee and offering comfort? You could storm into any religion, beat the ground and wail, and they’d ask what was wrong and offer you tea. A plain cup of coffee from Mr. Scammer can’t save people’s lives. ······Look at the Church of Infinity. The Church of Infinity becomes family to its believers, becomes their friend, finds them lovers too. They even found me a job like this, didn’t they? They say they’ll save my life, that I can undo the mistakes I’ve made.”
Gim Jaehui explained how much the Church of Infinity could provide its believers. She listed quite a lot of material things, including money, but in reality, the aspects were mostly emotional. A community of people who’ve experienced similar loss and pain probably becomes a place to lean on emotionally without even realizing it. That was the big problem with it being a cult.
“How tempting it is. They say they’ll bring back the people you’ve lost, remove your guilt, let you live in whatever time you desire. Other religions don’t do that for you.”
And in return, they’ve sold off all morality and ethics, haven’t they? Terrorizing the undersea base, getting their teeth replaced with shark’s teeth. Creating victims like me and the people at the undersea base. They’re up to all sorts of bizarre antics.
“Compared to that, look at you, Mr. Scammer. Either you dress like a homeless person normally, or you were rolling around in a dirt field today. Compared to the Church of Infinity, you have nothing to boast of, nothing to your name, and you look like you might collapse any moment. Who would want to be your friend? If you hadn’t called out to me while riding the medic, I wouldn’t have even realized you were that phone scammer.”
Then she continued.
“How much willpower do you think it takes to crawl through the darkness to get here? Throwing yourself into the void is easier than you think. Climbing stairs while gasping for breath is harder and more terrible. I’m crazy enough to believe a scam call on a thread of hope that someone might save me, crawling up four thousand stairs. It’s a place where people gather saying they’ll go to the sea if they can’t go to the past. Don’t you think what you’re offering is too light and complacent? A perfectly normal, hot cup of coffee? I wonder. If you offered that bland thing to the Church of Infinity believers who’ve waited so long, instead of the fiery salvation that could take them to the past, they wouldn’t drink it—they’d throw it in your face.”
Considering the jewels filling the exhibition hall and the number of people I’d met so far, the Church of Infinity seemed to be quite a large religion, so listening to Gim Jaehui compare it to some ordinary person she’d kick on the street, I didn’t have much to refute. It just felt like comparing the welfare systems of a conglomerate and a sole proprietorship.
The savior of a cult, Bak Muhyeon, might be able to bestow other things, but what could ordinary human Bak Muhyeon do? There wasn’t much.
I may not be able to save people, but I could give up a cup of coffee I was going to drink.
“······You’re not entirely wrong, Ms. Jaehui. When someone is in a difficult situation, there’s not much a so-called friend can do. Aside from spouting unfunny nonsense by your side, feeding you some food, and offering a few words of comfort that look insincere, they can’t really provide substantial help. I’m sure such people have only been annoying or bothersome to you until now.”
I liked having friends who weren’t much help, but I suppose not everyone feels that way. Gim Jaehui leaned against the elevator button, as if standing on two legs was difficult. Depending on my answer, she looked like she’d take the elevator back down to attend that nonsensical prayer ceremony.
I wondered how many hours I could stop her by clinging to her legs or waist. The only thing I learned from Sin Haeryang was how to tie up people who wouldn’t listen to reason. Thinking I should look for some rope nearby to tie that crazy fanatic up, I spoke.
“Even going forward, I won’t be of great help to you, Ms. Jaehui. I have no money, so I can’t support you financially, and I’m not capable of counseling, so I can’t help you emotionally either. Instead, whenever you try to join a strange cult or scam group, I’ll get angry and make a fuss. I’ll nag you to do the right thing. ······I hope you’ll live less entangled in the past, Ms. Jaehui. Like plants, I hope you take root in reality, happy often and sad rarely.”
Gim Jaehui stared at my face and my left hand, then asked.
“······A Church of Infinity believer took fingers to offer at the altar, so you’re the savior. I suppose you’re that Bak Muhyeon the believers have been searching for?”
“I’m not a savior, but I am Bak Muhyeon.”
Before I could say anything, Gim Jaehui quickly fell to her knees on the spot, clasped her hands together, and begged me. Even when I told her not to, or to get up, she didn’t listen.
“Can’t you become my savior instead of my friend? I don’t want to live in this reality. Please let me go to the past. Please save me. Please let me live in peace.”
“No.”
At the curt refusal, Gim Jaehui quickly crawled on her knees and grabbed the hem of my pants, nearly making me fall. Gim Jaehui begged in a voice engulfed by despair.
“You can do it. Can’t you take care of just me? I’ve lived so hard. Two or three times harder than others—no, a hundred times harder. If I’d only struggled as much as everyone else, I could endure it, but why do I alone have to suffer so much more? Why do I have to live this kind of life? What’s the reason I have to live a life dozens of times harder and more painful than other people? Still, on the one-in-a-hundred-million chance that a savior might descend, that a way to return to the past might appear again, that someone like you might one day appear before my eyes—thinking I should at least save face, even if I didn’t live kindly, I didn’t live committing crimes either. Just me. Can’t you save just me? Please. Please become my savior. Please help me return to the past. I can make a hundred or a thousand friends besides you, but none of them can save me. Am I not pitiful?”
Tears poured from Gim Jaehui’s eyes like rain, silently. Was Gim Jaehui someone who could fake tears for her own goals? ······I thought she was certainly capable of it. But I was a pathetic human being who would hand her a tissue or handkerchief a hundred times, even if she cried fake tears a hundred times.
Tears fell drop by drop down Gim Jaehui’s cheeks. She was only asking for things I couldn’t do. I refused with a troubled heart.
“I’m sorry.”
If I had the ability to perform miracles, I would’ve wanted to grant her wish. I’d felt that way in every moment I spent with people at this undersea base. If I could teleport people, I would’ve wanted to scatter everyone I met while walking around the undersea base across the hills of Daehan Island like pollen. Whether they were people I liked or people whose faces alone made my blood boil.
When I didn’t take back my words and silence fell, Gim Jaehui’s head slowly lowered.
“······How cruel. You say things like we’re friends. You won’t even say you’ll save me as an empty promise.”
“Even without the mercy or whims of a being who can turn back time, Ms. Jaehui, you can save yourself. Think about how you saved that Raphidophora.”
Gim Jaehui bit her lip tightly and spoke.
“It was so hard. Saving even that tiny plant was such a difficult thing, let alone myself. You wouldn’t know how much I cried and crawled coming up those stairs, Mr. Muhyeon. I wish someone would approach me and save my life without any cost.”
“······That’s truly the mindset of a Nolbu. And people who approach you like that are mostly scammers.”
I tensed slightly, worried that Gim Jaehui might dive into the elevator when I let my guard down, or rip off her own finger to mix into coffee. But Gim Jaehui moved very slowly.
Even rising from her kneeling position, she got up very slowly with my support. She seemed to have trouble steadying herself, as if the disappointment was too great. Gim Jaehui spoke with a sniffle.
“Those conducting the prayer ceremony are the cult leader and the savior candidates. While riding this Asprete up, there was an announcement inside the undersea base. Telling Church of Infinity believers to attend the prayer ceremony at the First Undersea Base as soon as possible.”
At my question of what Asprete was, Gim Jaehui silently pointed at the elevator with her finger. So Asprete was the name of the elevator. When Gim Jaehui tried to press the elevator button, I stopped her, but since she said she wasn’t trying to ride it and wanted to show me something inside, I waited a moment.
Of course, I didn’t let my guard down. Heaven only knew what Gim Jaehui might do on impulse. After a brief wait, the elevator doors opened.
Inside the elevator, huge letters were written in Korean and Chinese characters. Certain death brings life; certain life brings death (必死則生 必生則死). Those who are certain to die shall live; those who are certain to live shall die. I could understand the feelings of Gim Gayeong, who said she rode the elevator whenever she missed the Korean language. So this was the elevator that was here.