Inside the exhibition hall, the words [The Sea, the Birth of Great Life and Time] were emblazoned in large English letters, and beside them Yugeum was sitting next to Seo Jihyeok and Shin Haeryang. Seo Jihyeok was panting, and Shin Haeryang had both eyes closed.
“Mr. Shin Haeryang?”
I asked, wondering if he had fallen asleep. Shin Haeryang opened his fatigue-heavy eyes and said,
“Let’s go.”
“Yes.”
As I supported Seo Jihyeok and walked, I told the others about what had just happened. Shin Haeryang looked ahead and let out a long sigh. Baek Aeyeong muttered something about that sister having a nice personality, gripped her gun, and moved ahead of everyone. Even while groaning in pain, Seo Jihyeok asked me if I remembered the hairstyle of the guy whose ankle Jennifer had bitten off.
“I was too out of it to see.”
“I was curious whether it was that bastard Daniel or someone else.”
Then he snickered, only to grimace again as his leg seemed to hurt.
Outside, the exhibition hall had a sign saying it was a jewelry exhibition, but inside, it was arranged so that one could view the sight of the primordial sea surging with waves in 360 degrees. There were explanations about how the planet Earth was formed, when the sea came into being, how cells were created within it, and how they became living creatures.
If I hadn’t been in a situation like this, I might have enjoyed looking around this exhibition quite a bit. The videos flickered chaotically, casting light over my body and those of my companions. While I was walking with Seo Jihyeok supported against me, the screen suddenly changed, and the dark display shifted into the color of the sea. The sound of waves flowed out with the music. The farther we walked through the exhibition hall, as if time itself was passing, the number of fish in the sea increased tremendously, and their kinds grew more varied.
The deeper we went into the exhibition hall, the more it was set up as if we were walking underwater. All around us, there was nothing but vivid blue water. Looking at the images projected in 360 degrees over her own body, the walls, the ceiling, and the floor, Yugeum said in admiration,
“It’s... pretty well made, isn’t it?”
Was it? Well, just earlier, a hologram shaped like a pod of dolphins had passed through my stomach in a rather impressive way. I watched a school of flying fish burst out from around Shin Haeryang’s head, pass through Seo Jihyeok and me, and swim through the sea as if flying, then watched rays drift past Baek Aeyeong’s side, and then saw mackerel swimming by Yugeum.
Around the time I thought we had walked a fair distance through the exhibition hall, in an area called Legends of the Sea, I saw a blonde mermaid pass straight through my body. The human-sized mermaid passed through the bodies of everyone walking through the exhibition hall, then brushed past a statue of a person on display. A black-haired mermaid was circling beside Yugeum with a smile, and Baek Aeyeong waved away a pale-green-haired mermaid whose hair was blocking her vision. Mermaid legends from various countries were appearing in rows as scripts alongside a map. A mermaid tail passed by Shin Haeryang’s head.
“There are mermaid legends in Korea too?”
Muttering to myself, I rewrapped Seo Jihyeok’s slipping arm around my shoulder and lightly skimmed the Asian mermaid legends with my eyes. At that moment, the stone statue beside me moved.
“Similar_legends_are_spread_across_the_world.”
I froze in shock, and Shin Haeryang and Baek Aeyeong aimed their guns with lightning speed. What I had thought was a stone statue was an android. Then again, a long-haired blond man with an appearance so inhuman he hardly looked human was standing there in a strange outfit. If I hadn’t heard his voice, I would have thought he was a woman. On top of that, his clothes looked as if he had just stepped out of ancient Greece. His body was wrapped only in white cloth, and Baek Aeyeong, who had run one step ahead of the rest of us to sweep the exhibition hall, seemed to have mistaken him, standing motionless as he was, for a statue or an exhibit.
“...Fuck.”
It was the first time I had heard Baek Aeyeong swear. So that was how she expressed extreme surprise. Looking closely, he really did not look human overall. Even his body and face looked like finely crafted marble set upright. For an android, his face was absurdly handsome. Had they made him by taking inspiration from a movie star’s face? The moment I saw him, the faces of several famous actors flashed through my mind.
Androids were used in various places, but if you looked at their faces, they had a not-quite-human appearance, so while one might mistake them for a person from their build, there was no chance of confusing their faces for one. But this android looked extremely human. I had thought the team leaders at the undersea base were chosen for their faces as well as their abilities, but I had no idea they would make even an android stationed in an exhibition hall with appearance as a priority. Shin Haeryang asked, gun still aimed.
“What are you?”
“I_am_a_traveler. I_have_been_waiting_for_the_life_forms_born_from_the_sea_to_pass_through_this_time.”
Everyone’s expression was different at that wording. Baek Aeyeong and Shin Haeryang remained completely still with their guns aimed, Seo Jihyeok muttered things like “this is driving me insane” just loud enough for me to hear, and Yugeum opened and closed her mouth several times as if dumbfounded. I answered him roughly.
“Then I am a traveler too. I’m trying to find my way to a safe place. Can you help us?”
“There_is_no_place_safe_from_time.”
His eyes, which looked like molten gold, gazed at me as he spoke. I couldn’t tell if he was spaced out or if his pupils were just naturally that large. If I saw him with the lights off at night, I would be scared out of my wits. ...It sounded crazy, but he wasn’t wrong, was he? Still, I didn’t think there was anyone among us here who could satisfy and share in this android’s literary sensibilities. Why had they set him up like this? If it were me, I would have placed him at the entrance so he could help children, the disabled, or pregnant women.
Seo Jihyeok, slicing through that dizzying answer with razor-sharp reason, started saying things like, “I think that android’s defective,” and “Th-th-th-that... I don’t know who programmed him, but they must’ve done it drunk.”
Shin Haeryang standing beside Seo Jihyeok, and Baek Aeyeong in front, seemed to more or less agree with that opinion. Time was gold. Baek Aeyeong cautiously approached and acted as if checking the male android by circling around him once. She even lifted the white cloth that looked like Greek clothing with her hand and examined inside it carefully. When I was horrified by Baek Aeyeong’s actions, she muttered things like “bomb, bomb.” Then she shook her head.
“He has no weapons.”
“...I guess he’s not related to the cult?”
“Is there anyone else in this exhibition hall?”
“Other_than_the_total_of_5_humans_located_in_the_Legends_of_the_Sea_area_there_is_no_one. Do_you_require_assistance?”
“How many meters is the exhibition hall in total, and how far have we come?”
“The_total_area_of_Exhibition_Hall_1_is_2000㎡_and_the_total_length_is_400m. Your_current_position_is_114.6m.”
It was longer than I expected. No, were exhibition halls usually this big? Did I just not know because I hadn’t been to many exhibitions? Yugeum looked at Seo Jihyeok and said,
“We need help. There’s someone with a gunshot wound in his knee.”
“Regrettably_I_do_not_have_a_system_capable_of_providing_medical_assistance.”
Seo Jihyeok sighed and shook his head. I hurriedly said to the android,
“Can you carry one adult to the end of the exhibition hall? A program to help the elderly and infirm should be installed as a basic feature, shouldn’t it?”
“Up_to_250kg_is_possible.”
I immediately looked at Seo Jihyeok. Seo Jihyeok looked at me. Then he looked at Shin Haeryang, Yugeum, and Baek Aeyeong.
“No... you’re going to entrust me to this blockhead robot?”
That blockhead robot knelt down, stretched out both arms, and held them up with his palms facing upward. Seo Jihyeok looked at me and Shin Haeryang and let out deep sighs again and again. Then he grabbed the android’s shoulder.
“Hey. I got shot in the knee, so my leg has to stay straight. If it bends, I’m dead and you’re dead too. We put a splint on it, so it shouldn’t bend unless something really happens, but if my knee bends while you’re carrying me, I swear I’ll sell you off as scrap metal.”
“You_may_sit_on_my_arms.”
The android lifted Seo Jihyeok easily, and at that moment, Seo Jihyeok wrapped an arm around the android’s head and grabbed his shoulder. When the android fixed his arms vertically, Seo Jihyeok entrusted only his lower body to the android, while his upper body clung to the android with practiced skill. Baek Aeyeong looked at the sight and shook her head as she said,
“How undignified.”
“Is dignity important? Staying alive is important.”
“Let’s see how well you live without dignity.”
The android walked very slowly toward the next exhibition area. Baek Aeyeong followed at a slight distance, saying they needed to keep enough space for her to easily subdue the android if necessary. The directly connected exhibition hall was a place where minerals had been gathered, but to my eyes, it looked less like a mineral exhibition and more like a jewelry exhibition.
There was a pitch-black stone the size of a person’s upper body, and when I checked the name, it said [Obsidian]. Beside it was [Olivine], and there was also [Quartz] larger than a person. Yugeum and I were busy looking around at the glittering, shining stones that were bigger than people. However, only Shin Haeryang, Baek Aeyeong, and Seo Jihyeok atop the android were turning their heads this way and that, checking whether anyone else was hiding besides this strange android. Yugeum looked at a large stone and said,
“This says it’s carnotite.”
“What’s that?”
“See how it’s glowing that fluorescent color? I remember it being a uranium-related mineral. The light above it must be ultraviolet.”
“...Is it radioactive?”
Yugeum took on a troubled expression, then spoke as if she was not certain.
“Uh... probably. I’m not sure. Ore isn’t my field. But all of this looks like it must be ridiculously expensive. You can actually extract uranium from ores like this.”
“How much would it be worth?”
“...I don’t know.”
“Uranium is about one million won per kilogram.”
Baek Aeyeong spoke from a distance. Wait, uranium was that expensive? I had heard something about uranium shock and prices rising, but it was this expensive? Though really, when would I ever have reason to buy uranium? Looking at a lump of ore that seemed to weigh nearly 100 kilograms, I found myself wondering how much would come out if it were extracted, then asked,
“How do you know the price of uranium?”
“I found out when I was looking up the prices of gold and platinum before.”
Then Baek Aeyeong turned her head and kept watch over the surroundings. The place where the jewels or minerals were being displayed was quite spacious, and except for the lights illuminating each ore, the lighting was extremely dim. It was to the point that we might not notice even if someone was hiding, and Baek Aeyeong seemed concerned about that.