I quickly abandoned the plan of scattering large gemstones like diamonds across the floor to draw the Muhan Order believers’ attention. Instead, I moved across the vast exhibition hall. Perhaps because I was in a state almost like a soul, I was much faster than when I moved with my physical body.
Passing by engineers, through the displayed jewels, I reached the exit where the exhibition ended. I saw Elizabeth, Jamal, David, and several believers with familiar faces. I quickly ran up and waved my hands right in front of them.
Look at me! You guys made me! So you have to recognize me!
Even though I was waving my hands and feet right under their noses, jumping up and down in place with a snake biting my waist, no one gave me a glance.
I grabbed Elizabeth and Jamal to stop them, and clung to David’s waist and legs. I tried to snatch guns from the Muhan Order believers, but it was all in vain. They passed right through me as if I had become air.
In the end, I got angry at the snake biting my waist and demanded answers. How do I stop this? How do I change it! What are you trying to show me! As befitting a snake, it said nothing.
Is this a fixed past? Is it unchangeable because it’s the past? Will the future flow similarly to what I’ve experienced so far?
Unlike me, frozen in fear because I knew what was about to happen, the situation around me progressed without pause. Armed Muhan Order believers crossed the exhibition hall, and the rest of the group, including Bak Muhyeon, realized the situation and split into two to hide.
Watching closely, some details were slightly different from the past I remembered. Seo Jihyeok and Yu Geumi hid behind a nameless white jewel instead of the red spinel as before, and Bak Muhyeon, Baek Aeyeong, and Shin Haeryang also concealed themselves behind an opaque yellowish amber gem containing a spider, not behind the display stone as before. It seemed to be a change brought about by Baek Aeyeong noticing the approaching terrorists a few seconds earlier than before.
I saw Bak Muhyeon crouching and hiding behind a jewel pedestal following Shin Haeryang’s orders. That Bak Muhyeon probably has his own separate consciousness as that Bak Muhyeon, just as I have a separate consciousness as me.
Will that Bak Muhyeon’s consciousness someday become like me now? Then do the events happening in this exhibition hall and the events at the beach in Daehan-do all connect in one long chain?
After that, things flowed similarly to what I remembered. Watching Bak Muhyeon fire a gun clumsily in fear and hide himself awkwardly behind cover, I could only think, Was I really like that back then?
David arrived late, frowned upon seeing the dead Elizabeth, then grabbed the injured Jamal. And to cover Jamal, he wildly sprayed gunfire toward the place where Bak Muhyeon was hiding.
I realized only now, watching from a third party’s perspective, that Seo Jihyeok was a crack shot. I hadn’t thought he was incredibly good with guns when he shot Zixuan, but seeing him up close made it clear. His shooting posture was severely restricted because he had his leg immobilized with an umbrella-like splint due to his knee, yet he dodged bullets fired by others with ease and his own shots hit their marks every time. He looked like he was firing casually, but it was strangely amazing how accurately he hit. The rifle was so heavy that just holding it made your arms droop—how could he shoot so well?
One of the Muhan Order believers stuck his head out wrong beside a jewel pedestal and had his nose and entire right face torn away by a shot from Seo Jihyeok. “Uaaaaaaargh! Uaaaaaaaaargh! Aaaaaaaargh!” Overcome by sudden tremendous pain and panicking because he couldn’t see in front of him, he sprang up and fired toward his allies, spreading the damage, before being hit by a shot from Anna, who joined later, and going still.
A mess was unfolding every second inside the exhibition hall. A crack suddenly formed in the barrel of the rifle Baek Aeyeong had been using well. As problems occurred in a gun that hadn’t fired many shots, Baek Aeyeong seemed slightly flustered. It must have been a gun with a defect from the manufacturing process, something that happened very rarely. The barrel temperature was rising abnormally high despite only a few shots.
If that had happened to me, I probably would’ve given up, but Baek Aeyeong organized her feelings in a single line: “This is the kind of crap terrorists use.” Having quickly checked her secondary weapon, Baek Aeyeong didn’t easily discard the gun that was malfunctioning in real time. Instead, when the targets were focused elsewhere, she quickly changed position and was struggling to engage in close-quarters combat as much as possible.
Baek Aeyeong sent a signal to Shin Haeryang, located a short distance away, and it was probably about the weapon issue.
Shin Haeryang scraped up all the Muhan Order believers around him toward his position. He poured bullets generously while provoking them; when the believers didn’t shoot at him, he savagely sprayed and shattered gems that looked fragile. Several believers seemed more shocked by what Shin Haeryang was doing than by being shot. Gemstones shattered with crashing sounds, and rough gemstones that lost balance mercilessly poured down onto the bodies of believers hiding behind them.
He also shot the ceiling lights, plunging an entire section into darkness, and approached a terrorist who handled his gun clumsily like Bak Muhyeon and was slowly changing magazines, picked up shattered rough gemstone pieces, and gifted one or two by stabbing them into his joints. He made the believers who had been targeting Baek Aeyeong or Seo Jihyeok have no choice but to target him instead, and in that opening, Baek Aeyeong was able to easily swap weapons from those who had died or been injured.
David, having safely pulled Jamal out of the exhibition hall, joined the chaos where jewels and people were being smashed apart only later; to contain the situation, he tried to call in all the personnel who had been monitoring hostages at the central plaza of the Second Undersea Base and deploy them to the exhibition hall. As the Muhan Order believers disappeared into the exhibition hall in large numbers, the tied-up hostages seized the moment and rose up to confront the hostage-takers.
I stood beside Yu Geumi, who was curled up making her body as small as possible. If I had a physical body, I would’ve wanted to take the bullets for her. ......Is the past fixed?
The moment that thought crossed my mind, I realized I had come from the future and was watching scenes from the past. Watching Bak Muhyeon, who knew nothing, I thought of the futures that would soon rush upon him. ......The future must be fixed as well. I just haven’t properly recognized it yet. Like the long body of a snake. Past, present, and future must all be connected in one long line.
I thought that even if I went back to the past as the Muhan Order intended, I might be able to see the past but not change it. It was because I had just tried everything I could to block the bullets flying toward Yu Geumi.
Seo Jihyeok urgently checked Yu Geumi’s collapsed state only a few seconds later and stiffened for a moment. Then he looked at Yu Geumi in turmoil, let out a deep sigh, and a long silence followed. Seo Jihyeok returned to the engagement as if nothing had happened behind him. Before Bak Muhyeon arrived, Seo Jihyeok had also been hit by about two bullets—one in the shoulder and one in the side. Each time he was hit, a torrent of incredible curses streamed toward the enemy. Quite some time later, Bak Muhyeon arrived, half-crying and crawling almost on all fours. I moved away.
The time of the past flowed without stopping. Can’t I intervene? Can’t I stop it? Can’t I change it? If you’re not going to let me do anything, why did you bring me here! I raged at the snake biting my waist tightly and refusing to let go.
In that dark corner of the exhibition hall, I wanted to curl up, hug myself, and cry endlessly without looking at anything. It was hard to watch the others die, and it was also uncomfortable to watch believers whose faces and stories I had come to know die. When I had one-dimensional thoughts like, They’re terrorists. They’re scum to be killed. emotionally it had been much easier. Don’t kill each other.
Before I knew it, the survivors were crossing the darkened corridor toward the place with the cable cars. I realized David had brought a pair of night vision goggles as personal equipment. Ah. So that’s why he could use guns in the darkness. David was shooting at the freed hostages in the dark. I desperately tried to stop him, pummeling with all my might, but I just passed through his body without him budging an inch.
I screamed at the backs of the fleeing people not to get on the cable car. To avoid being shot immediately, they needed cover, so they had no choice but to board the cable car. The snake slowly swam down, passing through the Second Undersea Base.
The massive snake and I waited silently on the ocean floor where marine creatures I didn’t even know the names of lived. Watching what the snake was doing, it seemed it had come first and was waiting, similar to how it had waited in the darkness of the exhibition hall.
Just as one would watch cable cars moving above ground, I watched the cable car operating from the ocean floor. From here, it really looked like watching cable cars installed in the mountains.
The cable car was moving with difficulty, repeatedly stopping and starting, but the Fourth, Third, and Second Undersea Bases vibrated in unison and shook, unable to withstand it, and began collapsing along with part of the First Undersea Base. It seemed that because the four undersea bases were connected all at once, even if only one undersea base received a massive shock, the impact spread simultaneously.
I stood still and watched the cable car come toward me. Since it was falling and shaking in the water, the impact was somewhat reduced, but the cable car was wrecked to the point where it was a wonder no one died instantly after falling from that height. The lights visible outside the Second and Third Undersea Bases were going out in unison or shaking dangerously, as if they too were collapsing.
The snake slowly swam through and entered the cable car. Inside, Bak Muhyeon, who had been left alone, was leaning against a shattered chair with a vacant, spaced-out face, having cried himself out, and water had seeped in, submerging more than half his body.
Poor guy. I closed my eyes, evaluating my past self like that. There wasn’t a single thing I could do to help, and I didn’t know why the snake insisted on showing me such a tragic past. Was it some kind of mental attack? Or had my mind completely snapped because I drank too much?
Bak Muhyeon, tears covering half his face, opened his backpack.