Gang Sujeong presented several opinions on how to protect me from the Muhan Church believers. One of them was moving me to where the escape craft were located far out at sea. Leave the dentist floating in the seawater. Even if they were searching for Muhyeon, they would concentrate their efforts on Daehan Island. If they searched Daehan Island and failed to find him, they might simply think they had missed him—there was no way they would imagine the person they sought was floating in the ocean.
Besides, they probably wouldn't swim all the way out to those escape craft just to kill Bak Muhyeon. Gang Sujeong pointed with her finger at the spots where the escape craft were floating. She told me the location of her own escape craft that she had left from, and expressed the opinion that since I Jihyeon’s and Henry’s escape craft were also there, I wouldn’t be lonely or scared, and even if Muhan Church believers fired at the sea from the beach, not only would their accuracy be low, but if I dove underwater, they wouldn’t be able to kill me.
The more I listened, the more I thought it was quite a decent idea. I did worry that the wound on my hand would get soaked in seawater while swimming to the escape craft, but aside from that, it didn’t seem bad. The people I’d met during the escape would be there too.
However, it immediately ran into Sin Haeryang’s objection. If the simplest way to escape from the First Undersea Base was not the elevator, then it was scuba diving—couldn’t an assassin approach silently beneath the escape craft via scuba diving and kill Bak Muhyeon?
Gang Sujeong raised several counterarguments against Sin Haeryang’s opinion. But it was not easy to refute the words of someone who had escaped the First Undersea Base via scuba diving and could have killed people waiting in escape craft on multiple occasions.
Sin Haeryang explained to Gang Sujeong just how easily one could take out people waiting for rescue on one-person escape craft using nothing but a knife, even without an air tank. Every time we heard stories of pulling victims into the water one by one like a sea monster and slitting their throats before they could scream, Gang Sujeong and I each etched another wrinkle between our brows.
Listening to him explain that even without a weapon, one could simply wait until an opponent who fell into the water swallowed enough seawater to panic, making them easy to dispatch, I grew curious: how many minutes would the attacker need to hold their breath?
When I asked, Sin Haeryang answered that on average, one only needed to endure for two minutes. Because not many people could hold their breath for longer than two minutes. Gang Sujeong, who had been listening quietly, asked Sin Haeryang how many minutes he could hold his breath, and the answer came back: it depended on his physical condition, but about five minutes if moving continuously, and about ten minutes if remaining still. At this absurd answer, Gim Jaehui sneered, “Even a hippo wouldn’t dive like that.”
Yet it was true that most personnel working at the undersea base knew how to scuba dive, swim, or freedive. I realized that if the First Undersea Base collapsed, Muhan Church believers escaping via scuba diving could endanger the people staying in the escape craft. Thanks to Sin Haeryang’s explanation, Gang Sujeong grew even more worried about the likes of I Jihyeon, Yu Geumi, and Henry.
Then Gang Sujeong suggested that the safest option might be to leave me where the most people were gathered on Daehan Island. She proposed keeping me in places where people currently congregated—the auditorium, the hospital, or the staff dormitory—and hiding me among the crowd. Just as they say to hide a tree in a forest, she argued that no one would attempt to murder me openly in such a crowded place, but I objected.
“They’ll try to kill me openly. My fingers were taken in a crowded place too. Since there is no way to know who is a Muhan Church believer, I could die in the blink of an eye. It might take longer if they are cutting off body parts, but it is hardly impossible.”
Gang Sujeong looked in turn at Daehan Island Hospital in the distance and the other buildings between us, let out a deep sigh, and said we should just hide me where there were no people at all. She asked what about hiding me behind rocks or reefs, or digging into a grassy field, or in an unused warehouse, an unused office tucked in the very corner of a building, a shelf, or a closet placed in the very corner of the staff dormitory. It was a method of burying or concealing the tree, rather than hiding a tree in the forest.
Gang Sujeong’s argument was that even a cramped space serving as a habitat for dust and bugs—a place no sensible, normal human would ever enter—was fine, so long as I was put somewhere safe. She also offered the opinion that tearing open places like the floor or ceiling, where one could not easily look, and stashing me inside sounded quite decent. Listening to her, it did not sound so bad. If some crazy group came to assassinate me, hiding in a corner where they would not think to look was the easiest idea to come up with. It was like playing hide-and-seek where you die if caught.
“Once the Muhan Church believers are confirmed dead or all subdued and the danger on Daehan Island passes, we can dig you back out. Of course, there will be a lot of dust, bugs will appear, you’ll have to tremble in fear alone, and you’ll have to endure the inconvenience of not being able to properly use the restroom or eat for a day or two, but at least Muhyeon won’t be murdered by pseudo-religious terrorists. Treatment might be delayed, but staying alive is more important.”
Kim Jaehui, listening nearby, nodded.
“It seems like a good idea. I agree with the Deputy Team Leader’s opinion. When you put Muhyeon there, please put me in that place too.”
I suppose nobody is thinking about my human rights anymore. Sin Haeryang opposed the opinion that hiding me in a place people would not visit would be safe because the Muhan Church bastards would simply pass by without seeing me.
“There are various detection methods, but in this case, using a thermal imaging device would let them confirm instantly where you are hiding due to your body heat.”
What came back was a terrifying statement: especially if someone was hiding in an uninhabited or absurd place like the ones Gang Sujeong had mentioned, there would be no need to investigate further—just shoot from outside to kill, drag the body out, and check the face. Gang Sujeong muttered to herself that the world seemed to have become far too nice a place. I agreed.
Moreover, according to Sin Haeryang, an experienced tracker could more easily locate someone who had hidden in an uninhabited area. Fugitives left far more evidence than they realized while hiding. Footprints, the position of grass trampled by their stride, the direction of broken branches, the shape and smell of scattered dust, hair and clothing threads dropped unknowingly, the periodic water intake and periodic excretion that had to continue even while hiding, and the various traces left by using electronic devices to endure boredom, to name a few.
He added that if someone were determined to search this tiny Daehan Island to kill a person hiding there, depending on the number of personnel deployed, it would take at most one hour, or even if they combed through it like catching lice, no more than two hours. ......Daehan Island is tiny? Just how wide does he think this island is? It seems the size of the island in Sin Haeryang’s mind and the size of the island in my mind are two different things.
Rather than leaving this beach to face the terror of possibly being discovered and killed while hiding in some unknown place, it seemed far better to stay here on the beach beside trustworthy people who could call for help.
I quietly watched the waves gleaming like iridescent gold beneath the sunlight. Hiding alone in silence? When I was a child, I used to hide in wardrobes and lose track of time, but an adult told to hide quietly somewhere without any electronic devices could do nothing but think anxious thoughts or fall asleep.
“Then wouldn’t it be better for us to dig traps right here on the beach and face them? If it is as Haeryang explained, it sounds like there is no way to flee from an opponent coming to kill us.”
Gang Sujeong immediately objected.
“With that hand? Muhyeon. Let us avoid frontal confrontation as much as possible. The opponent has guns.”
“......Actually, Muhyeon’s opinion is quite sound as well.”
While Sin Haeryang subtly agreed with my opinion, Emma cut in while downing vodka.
“We’re not far from the beach, but it needs to be a place where others cannot see where we are, and we have to hide regardless of body temperature, correct?”
“Yes.”
Emma seemed to think she had drunk too much, sealed the vodka bottle, and buried it in the sand once more. The vodka disappeared as if it had never existed on the beach.
“Then just do it like this.”
Gang Sujeong looked at the vanished vodka and then at Sin Haeryang. Sin Haeryang felt her gaze, looked at Gang Sujeong, then looked at me standing before them. Then he looked at the sandy beach, frowned slightly, and nodded. No way. Surely not? I felt Gang Sujeong, Sin Haeryang, and Gim Jaehui all looking at me in unison.
In less than ten minutes, Bak Muhyeon completely disappeared beneath the sand on Daehan Island’s beach. It was the first time I realized that the Team Ga engineers dug sand so well. Were they human excavators? While digging down through the sandy beach, they discovered three more bottles of alcohol. Perhaps the crazy bastards who visited this beach buried as much as they drank.
I was buried with only my head above the sand, alongside the bottles. To be exact, only my injured hand had been left outside, wrapped in a beach towel. My head was covered with orange and light green beach towels. To anyone unaware, it would likely look like a towel had fallen on the ground.
A beach bed was precariously placed over my body buried in the sand. Perhaps because they were engineers and technically skilled, they had an outstanding knack for burying a person instantly so that he could not be seen. I had suggested various ideas to find a better hiding spot than beneath the sand, but the engineers simply stared at me after digging out a person-sized amount of sand and indicated I should get in. I was forced to lie down flat in the pit. Though I had a towel draped over my body, sand creeping into every part of me was itchy.
“Think of it as a sand sauna. Think of it as stress relief.”
At Gang Sujeong’s words, I automatically tried to nod, but stopped moving because the sand around my jaw crumbled. The sand was soft and warm, which was pleasant, but it felt like stress was piling up instead. I am not a clam or a crab—is it really okay for me to be hiding beneath the sand like this?
“Is this really okay?”
I think I asked similar questions about three times.
“They can’t find you, so how could they kill you?”
True enough.
Sin Haeryang took my shoes and disappeared for a moment. I do not know what he did, but the shoes were gone. Did he throw them away?
“You don’t usually......bury people in sand like this.”
“I suppose not.”