NOVEL WEB
Chapter 130
I hastily used my body as a wall to Henry’s view. These were scenes unsuitable for a child’s mental health. Of course, they weren’t good for adults either. How many times in life would you see someone being beaten with exercise equipment? I hope to never see it again.
A flash of undisguisable joy crossed Baek Ae-young’s face as she held the gun, but it quickly disappeared. She immediately aimed the muzzle at Sumire’s head, who was cursing with slurred speech, unable to stop groaning and clutching her thigh.
Shin Hae-ryang’s hands quickly patted Sumire’s clothes, then retrieved a magazine from Sumire’s pink cardigan pocket. As Shin Hae-ryang felt Sumire’s forearm and wrist, Baek Ae-young asked:
“Is that all? Nothing else?”
“Nothing.”
Watching their exchange as they checked Sumire’s body for other weapons, Baek Ae-young and Shin Hae-ryang looked like armed robbers to a third party. As Baek Ae-young seemed to lick her lips in disappointment, Kang Soojung approached, still holding the kettlebell. Then, with a still dazed expression, she said to Shin Hae-ryang:
“You throw it like that? I, I thought we were going to use the plates to swing and hit.”
“I aimed for the torso, but the weight made that impossible.”
“No… Team Leader, I had no intention of throwing this.”
Kang Soojung shook her head vigorously, apparently thinking her team leader was advising her on how to throw the kettlebell.
The barbell plate Shin Hae-ryang had thrown was rolling on the floor after hitting Sumire’s thigh. Curious, I picked up the plate from the floor, and a curse nearly escaped my throat. I could lift it, but I wasn’t sure if I could throw it that distance at that height. This wasn’t made to be thrown at people in the first place. Isn’t her thigh broken?
As expected, Sumire was almost sobbing, clutching her thigh, but the two people closest to her didn’t seem to care at all.
More precisely, since Sumire was holding her thigh with both hands, Shin Hae-ryang was able to tie her wrists more easily with the parachute cord. Watching this scene, Tumanako slowly closed her gaping mouth. Henry was trying to lift the 15kg plate himself, so I put it completely down on the floor to prevent him from getting hurt, then approached the three.
Uehara Sumire’s appearance was completely different from the Infinity Church believers I had seen in the 2nd Underwater Base. The Infinity Church believers all wore black clothes and pointy-ended baseball caps, giving off the impression of a dangerous armed group just by looking at them. Moreover, you could see the fanaticism of mad believers just by looking at their eyes.
However, the person in front of us was completely different. Uehara Sumire was wearing a thin blouse with a pink cardigan over it, and faded jeans. She was even wearing heeled shoes and had her long, curly hair loose. Her face was made up.
Her nails were painted pink, probably with nail art, about 3-4cm long, with several shiny stickers like hearts and stars stuck on them. If she hadn’t been holding a gun, it would have looked like Shin Hae-ryang and Baek Ae-young were attacking an ordinary woman going shopping or on a date in the city. Worried that Sumire couldn’t take her hands off her thigh and kept crying, I asked:
“How’s your leg? Does it hurt a lot?”
“Huu-huuk! Don’t touch it! Huu-huu-huuk!”
Uehara Sumire cried out, sobbing uncontrollably. Her leg was bleeding where the plate had struck, seemingly scraping the soft flesh. I took a towel from my bag and pressed it into Sumire’s hands. Sumire, tears streaming down her face, used the towel with her bound hands to press on her bleeding leg. Then she vented her frustration at Baek Ae-young, who was right next to her.
“My leg! Huu-huu-huuk! Why are you doing this?! Huu-huu-huuk!”
Baek Ae-young answered, still aiming the gun at Sumire’s head:
“Because you’re carrying a gun.”
“Ah. It hurts so much. It hurts so much! I didn’t shoot! I didn’t shoot! Isn’t it enough that I didn’t shoot?!”
Baek Ae-young let out a small “Ha!” and said, raising the corner of her mouth as if finding it absurd:
“If you weren’t going to shoot, you should have thrown it away. With the safety off, who do you think would believe that? Is anyone with you? Where did all the men go?”
“…I don’t know!”
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There was sincerity in Baek Ae-young’s words. Sumire gritted her teeth, then answered as if in pain:
“The men all went to the West District! Why are you asking me this?! …Why are you here?!”
Sumire frowned, looking at Shin Hae-ryang through her tears. It seemed she was questioning why someone who should be at the West District escape pod port was in the Central Building. It appeared the Engineer Team N people really thought Shin Hae-ryang was waiting at the West District escape pod port. Seo Jihyuk, who had been keeping watch around the area, said:
“It looks like she’s alone.”
Hearing this, Shin Hae-ryang asked Sumire:
“Where are the others?”
“I don’t know! Huu-huuk! What are you going to do about my leg! My leg!”
Shin Hae-ryang answered Sumire’s words simply:
“Answer properly before I make your other leg look the same.”
That threat didn’t sound false, and Sumire swallowed her tears and snot before barely answering:
“We split up in the Central Building! I’m alone.”
“What about Takahashi Yurie or Tamaki Yuzuru?”
“Takahashi-san followed the team leader. How should I know about Tama-tama?! I don’t know!”
It seemed the Engineer Team N members weren’t very close to each other. Taking solo action in this disaster situation… Usually, people would try to move together in situations like this. Shin Hae-ryang continued questioning Sumire:
“Why did you break the escape pod?”
“I didn’t do it, so I don’t know.”
“Then who did it?”
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“I don’t know. Someone must have done it. I really don’t know.”
Sumire answered, shaking her head vigorously. …She really doesn’t seem to know. Just as I thought that, Shin Hae-ryang dragged and picked up the 10kg barbell plate from the floor. Seeing this, Sumire looked at the barbell plate, her face crumpling as she spoke quickly:
“It wasn’t me! I saw Yamashita telling Tama to break it!”
“What and where?”
“…The escape pod in the West District.”
The expressions of the West District residents, including myself, were a mess. Tumanako, who had been standing like a statue, looked like he was about to pounce on Sumire, but Yoo Geum-yi was barely holding him back. Shin Hae-ryang asked Sumire again in a low voice:
“Why?”
“He said he wished all of you and the Russian team would die. If something happens to the underwater base, you’d escape using the escape pods first, right?”
The West District has about 80 residents, including the engineer team. Combining the people from both engineer teams, there are 14 in total. They damaged an escape pod that others could use too, just because they wanted 14 people to die? Shin Hae-ryang frowned and asked something else:
“Did your country fire the torpedo at the research center?”
“Torpedo? You mean the bomb? I don’t know.”
Yoo Geum-yi hurriedly cut in beside Shin Hae-ryang and asked Sumire:
“What about the South District escape pod? Why on earth did you break that one? The researchers have nothing to do with the engineers.”
“The South District escape pod? What? Is that one broken too?”
Yoo Geum-yi stared blankly at Sumire before quietly closing her mouth. Shin Hae-ryang looked at Yoo Geum-yi for a few seconds but then dejectedly asked Sumire again:
“…How did you get the gun?”
“Suzuki-san gave it to me.”
“Suzuki Senru? How did that bastard smuggle in so many rifles?”
“I don’t know. He said if there were gunshots in the Central Building, people would be scared and run to the escape pods. He told us to shoot at people. I didn’t do anything wrong!”
As Shin Hae-ryang glared silently at Sumire, she said, clutching the towel tightly:
“I didn’t know it was a real gun. I thought it was just a heavy model that made loud noises until Dmitri asked where we got real ones from.”
“What about Dmitri?”
“…I really didn’t know they were real. And he was drunk from the morning, throwing bottles at us and getting angry, demanding we hand over the guns.”
“Did you kill him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Have you seen Irina?”
“…I don’t know.”
Shin Hae-ryang, who had been observing Sumire, immediately rebutted:
“Don’t lie. Did you kill her?”
“I didn’t shoot! …Ichida-san shot. I don’t know if she died or lived. She just fell and didn’t move.”
With each of Sumire’s statements, Kang Soojung held her forehead as if dizzy, then used Shin Hae-ryang’s pad to write the same message to Vladimir and the other Russians on the messenger: Engineer Team N shot Dmitri and Irina. Survival status uncertain, prioritize team evacuation.
At a glance, Shin Hae-ryang’s messenger inbox was overflowing with messages from people of various countries, but he hadn’t checked any of them, to the point where proper message reception seemed impossible. Kang Soojung also posted the same content on the underwater base bulletin board. The bulletin board was already filled with an enormous number of posts cursing Shin Hae-ryang. Kang Soojung read one or two, chuckled, and turned off the pad.
“Where were you going?”
“…To my room.”
“Why?”
“I was going to hide without doing anything.”
Hearing that, I sighed. As Lee Jihyun frowned at Sumire’s exhausted voice, Shin Hae-ryang asked again:
“What’s your relationship with Infinity Church?”
The man called John, who had been quietly listening to this conversation, moved only his legs to approach and made a “Mmph?” sound, shaking his head vigorously. Sumire looked at her broken, bloodied nails and asked Shin Hae-ryang back with a tearful face:
“What’s that?”
“The religion mentioned in the broadcast.”
“I don’t know. I don’t believe in such things.”
Seo Jihyuk, who had been looking around, approached and, seeing Sumire’s appearance and nails, commented:
“Good Lord. With those nails, she’d break them trying to find the trigger.”
Then Baek Ae-young, without wavering as she kept the gun aimed at Sumire, said to Seo Jihyuk:
“Those nails don’t hinder shooting at all. The problem is loading.”
“Uh… Is that so?”
“…Loading can be done too. It’s just painfully slow. If you let your guard down and get taken down by someone like her, you’re dead?”
“Do I have to die by your hands after getting taken down by her? Give me a break.”