Beacon of Light in the Dark Sea

Chapter 127

Listening from the side, I spoke while suppressing my incredulous feelings:

“If you steal things because someone seems nervous, all my dental patients should empty their pockets before leaving.”

Expressionlessly, Shin Hae-ryang explained to me again:

“It’s a bit different from that kind of nervousness. …I know it the moment our eyes meet. That instant when time seems to slow down a bit, and it becomes obvious that the other person is hiding something from me.”

…I don’t get it at all. For someone like him, it seems he tried to explain it clearly to me. But I don’t think I can understand it. I guess it’s because I’ve never thought about achieving something by stealing what others have, even if I needed it.

Kang Soojung, looking at the people lying or sitting inside the snake that once bore the world, asked Shin Hae-ryang:

“So what should we do now? We can’t stay here forever, can we?”

At that question, Shin Hae-ryang looked at me while holding the pad, and I looked back at Shin Hae-ryang and Kang Soojung. As Kang Soojung turned her gaze from her team leader to me, I shook my head vigorously and said:

“What do you expect from a dentist who’s only been here for five days?”

Would engineers who’ve lived in the underwater base for years know this place well? Would I know it well? Kang Soojung looked at me, crossed her arms, and asked:

“Doctor, are you a Infinity Church believer?”

“…No. I said that in the South District, but it was actually a lie. I’m an atheist.”

At those words, there was a flapping sound. The man tied up like a fish in front of the shower room door was wriggling around, hitting his whole body against the floor. Without even glancing in that direction, Shin Hae-ryang asked me:

“Where’s the safest place in the current situation? Have you been to the Black Tortoise Building?”

“…I don’t know. I’ve never been there at all.”

“There are several multi-person submarines in the East District besides the escape pods. If escape pods are impossible, how about escaping using the submarines?”

I tried to recall what Baek Ae-young had said before. What was it again? Two-person manual operation? She said something about some submarine.

“I heard there’s one two-person manual submarine. I’m not sure about the rest.”

While Shin Hae-ryang was lost in thought, the Infinity Church believer started wriggling again. He was lying on his side, unable to move much, probably because Shin Hae-ryang had tied him up so well. With his hands and feet tied in front of him, it seemed all he could do was wriggle around vigorously.

So they don’t tie hands behind the back when restraining someone. I think they did that in action movies. Is it because of the possibility of untying? Kang Soojung pointed at the tied-up man and said:

“What should we do with him when we leave here?”

Mmph! Mmph! The man, whose mouth seemed to be stuffed with something, couldn’t speak properly. When he saw Kang Soojung’s finger pointing at him, he flopped around like a fish taken out of water. Before Shin Hae-ryang could say anything, I spoke first:

“We should take him with us.”

When I answered quickly, Kang Soojung’s expression turned sour. We have to take him. When the 4th Underwater Base collapses later, this place will fill with water too, and this person will have to watch it happen with his limbs all tied up? It’s horrifying just to imagine.

The man listened to our conversation and his struggling became more frequent. He was just staring at us with his eyes, which seemed to be filled with a mix of hatred and anger.

Yoo Geum-yi and Tumanako also looked startled every time the man jumped and hit the floor with his legs. Yoo Geum-yi asked Seo Jihyuk, who was standing there impassively:

“I’ve been wanting to ask, why is that person tied up?”

“We tied him up because we thought it would be dangerous if we let him loose.”

Shin Hae-ryang unfolded a 3D map of the 4th Underwater Base and was asking Kang Soojung about things like the diving depth and maximum crew capacity of the submarines. He seems busy. I pointed at the man and asked Seo Jihyuk:

“I have a few questions I’d like to ask. Is it okay if I remove what’s in his mouth?”

“Sure.”

Then Seo Jihyuk picked up the man lying on the floor like a package, made him kneel upright from where he had been lying, and whispered in his ear:

“Well. It doesn’t matter if you scream. But you know I’m faster than your fellow believers coming, right?”

The man who had been shaking his whole body immediately became quiet. Seo Jihyuk undid the complex-looking knot tied around the man’s mouth with one pull.

The man quickly spat out what he had been holding in his mouth along with a large amount of saliva. Looking at what he had been holding, there was an entire toilet paper roll and a wad of tissue in his mouth. The man spat out saliva mixed with tissue bits towards the floor several times before asking me:

“You say you’re not an Infinity Church believer?”

As I was about to answer, Seo Jihyuk stopped me with one hand. Then he said one simple thing to the man:

“Questions come only from our side.”

Seo Jihyuk’s attitude towards the other person was extremely polite, but why do I feel so creeped out? The man spat out the saliva pooled in his mouth onto the floor again and closed his mouth. I looked back and forth between Seo Jihyuk and the man, then asked:

“What’s your name?”

“…John Doe.”

It’s an English name used to refer to an unidentified person. Jane Doe was for unidentified women, wasn’t it? He must really not want to answer. Hearing the man’s words, Seo Jihyuk snorted as if finding it absurd. This is unsettling. I quickly asked the man another question:

“Mr. John Doe. It seems Infinity Church has a phrase they use to identify whether someone is a believer or not, right?”

“…There is.”

“What is it?”

The man looked at Seo Jihyuk with displeasure and answered slowly:

“I told you earlier. …We survive in any situation.”

I’ve heard that somewhere before. Was it from the Infinity Church believer we caught in the 3rd Underwater Base? Or was it Tyler? I can’t remember. One thing’s for sure, the phrase I’ve heard before isn’t the correct answer.

“That’s not it, is it?”

“It is.”

“It’s similar, but that’s not the correct answer, right? If you say ‘We survive in any situation,’ what happens after that? Are you one of those people who joined for money?”

The man who called himself John Doe glared at me silently. Then, looking at Seo Jihyuk, he said to me:

“Get rid of him.”

“Excuse me?”

“That guy. Get him out of my sight.”

Judging by his chin gesture, he seemed to be pointing at Seo Jihyuk standing next to him.

“Then I’ll answer. Keep that bastard away from me.”

John Doe said, gritting his teeth. At those words, Seo Jihyuk replied as if feeling wronged:

“I didn’t do anything.”

Then, as if teasing the man, he sat down with a thud right next to him, putting an arm around his shoulders. The man called John seemed scared even by this simple action. I sighed and said to Seo Jihyuk:

“Jihyuk, can’t you stay away for just 3 minutes?”

Seo Jihyuk answered me while messing up John’s hair with the tips of his fingers that were around the man’s shoulders:

“…It might be dangerous. His mouth is untied, isn’t it?”

Is he worried the man might bite me or attack other people? I shook my head and said:

“That’s my area of expertise.”

I know jaws and bite force well. Seo Jihyuk looked at the man and me for a moment, then released his arm from around the man’s shoulders and moved back diagonally. The man who called himself John shuddered. Seo Jihyuk retreated about 2 meters away from us. After several tens of seconds, the man called John asked me:

“Why do you want to know that?”

“You ask if someone’s a believer and then shoot them dead with a gun, don’t you?”

“No. We don’t intend to kill people like that. We just confirm if they’re Infinity Church believers.”

“What? No. You confirm whether they’re believers or not, and then you kill people.”

“Some people took guns to force people to move, but killing isn’t the goal. Look at me. I don’t even have a gun.”

What are you saying? I saw people dying right in front of my eyes.

“I directly saw people being shot with guns.”

“…It might have been mercenaries hired or some believers acting on their own, but our goal isn’t to kill people. I think I’ve said this twice now. If you’re going to keep asking the same thing without any substance, I’ll say it a third time. Our goal isn’t to kill people indiscriminately.”

“Then how many people is it your goal to kill? Are you just killing everyone in the underwater base?”

The man called John Doe said to me, seeming a bit impatient:

“…You seem to be misunderstanding something. If killing people was the goal from the start, I wouldn’t have joined this religion at all. Our goal is to go to the past we want.”

It’s similar to what Canoe wished for. The unrealistic wish to go back several hundred years. Why is that coming up here?

“Why do you want to go to the past?”

“To live. ‘We head to the past to live.’ This is the correct confirmation phrase. If someone answers this, you can think they’re a Infinity Church believer.”

John Doe, who had been spitting so much, now rubbed his dried-out mouth with his tongue and answered.

“People who don’t think they can handle guns or don’t like pointing guns at people don’t carry guns in the first place, like me. All I have are rings.”

Then John Doe lifted his tied wrists to show two rings on his fingers. Identical diamond rings were on his second and fourth fingers, which looked unmistakably like wedding rings. The man called John twirled the small ring on his index finger with his thumb several times and said:

“I’m going back to before my wife died. That’s my only wish.”

No. With a dazed mind, I said to John:

“No. People were shot indiscriminately with guns.”

“…No. Infinity Church believers agreed to treat people as humanely as possible. What would we do even if we took over this place? If we succeed properly, only a few people will die anyway.”

“Who dies?”

“The people who went back to the past would be considered dead. From the perspective of real time, that person would be completely missing, right?”

What are you talking about? Then what about the people who died, and what about the people walking around with guns now? Are the people walking around with guns in the 4th Underwater Base completely different from Infinity Church? Infinity Church is humane?

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