Beacon of Light in the Dark Sea

Shin Haeryang, who was looking at the blueprint of the Undersea Base, spoke up.

“There is an escape pod in the third underwater base too, but given how things are going, it seems better to take the elevator. Probably, most of the staff working at the third base escaped using the escape pods. There are three elevators connected to the second underwater base, so let’s find a functioning one and go up as far as possible. The elevator nearest to us, from the Blue Dragon elevator we boarded, is the Archelon¹ located on the left.”

Archelon? That’s an unusual name. Is there any place in this undersea base without a name?

“It seems that even the elevators have unique names.”

“There was a massive turtle image inside the elevator. Perhaps that’s the turtle’s name. Let’s make that our first target. If we can’t board it, we’ll go to the second or first elevator. There are escape pods around here as well.”

“Telephone!”

Yoo Geum-yi suddenly shouted next to me, startling both me and Shin Haeryang.

“The phone isn’t working.”

At my words, Yoo Geum-yi shook her head and spoke quickly, “No, no. There’s a landline phone in the bakery! It has an external connection! I saw the first floor operations team asking if all the bread was sold out over the phone! They once tried to install landlines inside the undersea base but due to budget problems and the contractor’s bankruptcy, only the phone line in the bakery remains. They even dug -2000m into the seabed to install it.That place wasn’t originally meant to be a bakery! It was supposed to be occupied by the operations team that manages the entire undersea base. But the operation grew larger than expected, so they seized a ward on the island for use.”

“Who did you hear this from?”

Huffing and puffing, Yoo Geum-yi spoke, “From Olivier Martin of the bakery. You know, the short man who makes excellent croissants, he came from France! (Shin Haeryang had a puzzled look on his face) He can’t make macarons and fruit cakes, but he makes fermented bread really well!”

Seo Jihyuk, lying down, asked as if he understood Yoo Geum-yi’s words.

“Oh, the mustached guy with gray hair who’s obsessed with wine?”

“Yes, that’s him!”

“I did manage to get some French wine from that old man. He was furious at the operation team, asking why they wouldn’t allow him to sell wine at the underwater base.”

As Yoo Geum-yi and Seo Jihyuk talked, Shin Haeryang, who was listening, suddenly rubbed his eyes with his fingertips, looking weary.

“Let’s prioritize escape over sending a rescue request. If those who escaped with the escape pods made it out successfully, they would have automatically requested rescue. And to get to the bakery, we need to pass through the central elevator area, but I’d prefer if we avoided that area as much as possible.”

“That American team leader and Kim Gayoung we saw earlier also said they were taking the central elevator,”

“I’d prefer if we moved to the 0th floor while avoiding contact with others as much as possible.”

Without realizing it, I found myself looking towards where Hai Yoon was and then nodded in agreement with Shin Haeryang. Shin Haeryang knelt down and held Seo Jihyuk’s arm and shoulder. I immediately lifted Seo Jihyuk’s arm on the opposite side. Seo Jihyuk stood up, putting force on his right leg. He used his right leg to stand, grabbed the elevator handle, suppressed a groan, and balanced on one leg.

Yoo Geum-yi took one of my bags and went into a corner. She covered the cat, which was either sitting or lying down in an unidentifiable posture, with the bag and confined it again. I surrounded the snake bag. It felt a lot lighter, maybe because I had been drinking the water inside. Baek Ae-young had already stood up and was looking at us as if nothing had happened.

“Arriving in 5 seconds. 5! 4! 3! 2! 1!”

With a ‘ding’ sound, the door opened. Shin Haeryang, who was by the door, did something towards the outside and then Baek Ae-young went out. Hearing the signal to come out, Seo Jihyuk was supported by Yoo Geum-yi and me. Not long after leaving the elevator, I asked Seo Jihyuk to lean against the wall for a moment and immediately went back into the elevator. The door opening time was long, so the elevator didn’t close. Yoo Geum-yi was startled as she watched me go back into the elevator.

“What did you forget?!”

“It’s Hai Yoon.”

I tried to grab Hai Yoon’s shoulder but I was afraid that if the towel came off, I’d see her face directly, so I grabbed the woman’s ankles and dragged her. Seo Jihyuk watched my actions with an expression that seemed to be full of words, but he said nothing while leaning against the wall on one foot.

Yoo Geum-yi rushed over, put the cat bag behind her back, and caught Hai Yoon’s flailing arms like a cheer. She hesitated at the woman’s cold touch, however Yoo Geum-yi, who had tightly grasped Hai Yoon’s wrist, dragged the corpse out of the elevator. She then laid it down straight right next to the elevator and straightened the corpse’s arms. When she came back to Seo Jihyuk, Shin Haeryang and Baek Ae-young, who had gone ahead, were coming back. I spoke to the two, who were looking at me.

“I think I won’t see her in my dreams if I leave her here.”

What if she was left in the elevator and it fell abruptly? Neither of them said anything after seeing my actions. There was no criticism about wasting time when we were in a hurry. They just nodded, and Shin Haeryang said that he had gone to the convenience store and found no one, and then he helped Seo Jihyuk. I also held Seo Jihyuk’s other arm and supported him. After walking about 2m, Shin Haeryang spoke to me.

“I think it would be faster if I carried him.”

“You’ve been carrying Seo Jihyuk-ssi for quite a while now, wouldn’t it be better if I carried him?”

“Well… I appreciate both of you for not suggesting to leave me behind, but if I were to voice my opinion, I don’t want to be carried by team leader Shin if given the choice. I’d feel more comfortable on the dentist’s back.”

“You’re too full of yourself.”

When Shin Haeryang smirked lightly, Seo Jihyuk chuckled at his words. For some reason, I was relieved by Seo Jihyuk’s laughter. It was much better than listening to his barrage of curses.

Seo Ji-hyuk grimaced and said, “I’m hungry. I’d be content if I could just boil and eat some ramen.”

Resting Seo Ji-hyuk’s arm on my shoulder, I replied,

“Ah, same here. Ever since I came out of the seawater, I’ve been thinking about that… There’s even that ramen cup Soo-jung gave me!”

Supporting Seo Jihyuk, who was making sounds like the spicy and hot soup, was awkward because his knee was the injured part. He had practically wound his knee with pieces of clothing to the point that it was soaked in blood and hardly retained its original color. When we arrived at the convenience store, Baek Ae-young and Yoo Geum-yi were already rummaging through it the store.

Baek Ae-young, together with Yoo Geum-yi, tore up a few blankets with scissors and hands to make a long rope. Shin Haeryang cut off the unnecessary parts of the clothes wound around Seo Jihyuk’s knee with scissors. Looking at the cut pieces, it seemed like a woman’s cardigan that had been wound around tightly. A button fell off with a thunk.

When I asked if we need to remove all the cloth pieces from the knee, Shin Haeryang shook his head. He said if we do so, the bleeding could become worse. There were several parts where the cloth fibers had stuck to the reddened skin. When I brought several sanitary pads, Shin Haeryang carefully attached them to the knee, and began to wrap it with a towel and a long torn blanket.

The only medicines available in the convenience store were a few types of painkillers, general cold medicine, fever patches, disinfectants, and finger bands. There was absolutely no bandage or gauze. What if it hurts here?… Oh, we should just go to the hospital. The first floor here is a hospital, and it’s free of charge. It’s lucky that these items are in the convenience store.

Unable to find anything to use as a splint, I looked around and decided to use two dusty umbrellas that were unsold for quite a while as splints. Don’t people here use umbrellas when it rains? I dusted off the umbrellas with my hands and shook them. When Baek Ae-young tied the umbrellas to his leg with a strip of blanket that had become a rag, every time she tightened it, a moan escaped from Seo Jihyuk’s lips.

“Stop whining.”

“You try enduring this.”

“Getting hit by a stray bullet and all. Tsk. It’s embarrassing. If you knew the opponent was going to shoot at your knee, you should’ve lifted your leg!”

At those words, Seo Jihyuk covered his mouth and shook. It seemed that laughing hurt him. I just laughed, and Yoo Geum-yi, holding some water and a few convenience store breads, also chuckled. Shin Haeryang, who was looking through the drinks, glanced at us once because of the sudden laughter, then picked out a few sports drinks. Seo Jihyuk, who had been trying not to laugh for a while, seemed unjustly treated.

“Laughing hurts my whole body.”

Yoo Geum-yi was tearing open bags of bread from the convenience store shelf one by one, handing them out to people. Shin Haeryang intercepted the bread intended for Seo Jihyuk, shaking his head.

“Jihyuk is now fasting, except for water.”

Even if the world was coming to an end, I doubt Seo Jihyuk would pull such a face. I chimed in at Shin Haeryang’s words.

“He needs surgery. There’s no other way.”

When I started packing fever patches and painkillers, Yoo Geum-yi asked why I was grabbing fever patches.

“Do you have a fever?”

“No. I’m packing them for Seo Jihyuk-ssi.”

“Why?”

“I think he was shot in the knee.”

“When a bone breaks, does it cause a fever?”

“Yes.”

Apparently, the marine creatures Yoo Geum-yi studies don’t get fevers when their bones break. Or maybe she had never experienced a broken bone before. Shin Haeryang urged us to move right away. Supporting Seo Jihyuk was much easier than before once we had set a splint to his leg. Shin Haeryang and I almost carried Seo Jihyuk as we moved.

Following the directions of Baek Ae-young, who took the lead, we passed by a sandwich shop and a café at the third underwater base. A good layout. If it were me, I would have bought a sandwich, then grabbed a drink from the café next door. We could see one elevator at the third underwater base. Baek Ae-young signaled. It was a stop signal. Now I clearly knew the difference between the ‘lay down’ and ‘stop’ signals.

As we stopped near the café, Baek Ae-young pulled out a flat-head screwdriver from the gap between her suit’s ankle end and her shoes. She probably got it from the convenience store. Wow, I wonder when she picked that up. After looking around the elevator, Baek Ae-young came back.

“The elevator is stopped at the second underwater base. Should we call it, or should we go somewhere else?”

If we press the button to call the elevator, we have to wait more than three minutes. Given that we have an injured person, I suggested it might be better to use the elevator here to move. After hearing my opinion, Shin Haeryang looked at Seo Jihyuk’s leg for a moment, considered, then glanced at Yoo Geum-yi and me before proposing that we take the one here after only three seconds. Isn’t that too frank? …It seemed Shin Haeryang thought that Yoo Geum-yi and I, rather than Seo Jihyuk who can’t move on his own due to his injured knee, were more of a hindrance to their movement.

1. An extinct turtle[↩]