I tried not to fall over from the sudden movement. Before I knew it, I was running in the opposite direction from the escape pod, hand in hand with Yujin. My legs felt weak, and I almost fell several times, but Yujin held my hand tightly and helped me up. Suddenly, tears welled up in my eyes. Yujin, who is only about 165 cm tall, is so small, yet she was incredibly strong. Before I knew it, my eyes were full of tears, and everything looked blurry.
As we ran down the empty corridor, Yujin slipped and fell. This time, I helped her up. She groaned, probably because her knees had hit the floor, and she clung to my arm to stand up. Despite falling several times, we ran back the way we came at full speed, like mad people.
We passed the laundry room and the dormitory stairs, then the Blue Dragon Dorm lounge 2, the bathroom, the shower room, the Blue Dragon Dorm lounge 1, and another bathroom, finally reaching the corridor where the Blue Dragon Dorm elevator was located. At that moment, my eyes met the eyes of the giant dragon that encircled the elevator. Ah, I can see the dragon's face and eyes from the Blue Dragon Dorm side. When I walked from the Central Dorm earlier, I couldn't see the eyes. It seemed like the giant creature was mocking the pitiful beings running towards the elevator.
Yujin leaned against the wall and sat down next to the elevator button. I tried to lie down but remembered the cat and snake in my backpack and ended up falling forward. The cold floor of the Blue Dragon Dorm touched my cheek. I wondered if the cleaning robots were doing a good job lately.
After running so much, I was out of breath. It felt like my lungs were about to burst out of my mouth. Even if someone tried to kill me, I couldn't run any further. I don't think I've ever run so fast in my life. As I lay there trying to catch my breath, Yujin, whose hands were trembling, took out a bottle of water from her backpack.
"Drink some water."
"......You drink first."
While Yujin drank, I lay on the floor, but the threat that my head would swell if I didn't drink made me sit up. I managed to drink the water like a human and, as I regained my senses, I realized that Baek Ae-young hadn't come to the elevator yet.
While waiting, I opened my backpack to check on the cat. Its big eyes seemed to be asking why I had done this to it. The cat, which had been forced to ride a roller coaster, tried to escape from the backpack, and I pressed its head back inside and zipped it up.
"The cat is fine."
Thinking that if the cat understood, it would have cursed me, I opened the snake bag. The snake was curled up in a small pocket at the very bottom of the backpack, not moving at all. It seemed to have been in the pocket closest to my back, so it didn't suffer much shock, but I couldn't know for sure from a human perspective.
"I'm not sure about the snake."
I took a few candies from my backpack and offered them to Yujin, but she shook her head.
"I've run so much, I don't have an appetite."
"Try to put them in your mouth at least."
Yujin took the candies, but her hands were so weak that she groaned and sighed.
"What do we do now?"
"That's the question."
It was definitely twice. It meant we shouldn't come in. So, something must have happened as soon as we entered the escape pod port. Yujin started mumbling, trying to organize her thoughts.
"There's definitely someone at the escape pod port. And who was it in the laundry room?"
"Victoria."
I barely managed to say the name, which I remembered vaguely. I recalled her sitting against the wall, a towel over her head. It gave me chills every time I thought about it. Yujin nodded.
"Right. Victoria. Victoria must have been attacked and made her way to the laundry room. There were bloodstains leading that way, and she must have died from the severe bleeding."
"The attacker must have had a reason to attack her. Maybe there weren't enough escape pods, or they had a personal grudge or something."
Yujin frowned at my words. She sighed deeply and said,
"If the attacker had taken over the escape pod, why would they stay there instead of escaping? They must have warned us not to come in because it's too dangerous for Shin Hae-ryang and Seo Ji-hyuk to let us in."
"That's true. ...Why couldn't they escape? Maybe the escape pod was tampered with or broken, like the one in the Crane Dorm?"
"Then wouldn't the attacker have to move to another escape pod or take the elevator?"
"Uh... Yeah?"
Yujin nodded.
"Muhyun. I think the person who attacked Victoria isn't at the escape pod port. We came after she died, so the attacker must have already escaped or moved to another location."
"Uh... That's possible."
As I thought, I realized there was something Yujin hadn't pointed out.
"What if the escape pod is fine, but they didn't escape and are still there?"
Yujin frowned at my suggestion. It seemed she didn't want to imagine someone not escaping the underwater base when the escape pod was intact, especially with water leaking and gunshots being heard.
"Wouldn't that person be completely insane?"
"Right?"
"Who could it be? Those two are big and tall, but they must feel threatened enough to warn us not to come in."
"Right. Who could it be?"
"They must have a weapon capable of making a hole in someone's thigh."
"Right?"
"Do you have the skills to subdue someone with a weapon?"
At Yujin's question, I almost burst out laughing.
"I'm the kind of person who can be subdued by just extending a spoon."
Among the people I've met, none of the unethical ones came to mind. In the five days I've been at the underwater base, I knew more about people's dental conditions than their personalities. I wiped the sweat from my forehead with my sleeve and sighed.
If it were a dental issue, I could handle it, but efficiently escaping from this massive underwater base or dealing with armed people wasn't my expertise. As I leaned against the elevator wall and waited for someone to come, Yujin rolled the candy in her mouth and grumbled.
"...The more I think about it, the more absurd it seems! In this urgent situation, where people need to help each other to escape, why are they attacking each other? I can believe they fought over the escape pods, but to shoot at each other? And just now, in the Blue Dragon Dorm. Does it even make sense to attack people intentionally? And they've known each other for a long time? They should be helping each other to escape! If they escape in the Crane Dorm escape pod, they won't die! Why not help the person trapped in the water and go together?"
Her pronunciation was poor as she rolled the candy in her mouth, but I listened to her grumbling and asked,
"Even if the person you've known for a long time is a professor like Professor Geun or someone in the same lab?"
At my wicked words, Yujin snorted.
"Stop it. Muhyun. Do you think I've only met people I like in my life? There are good people in the world, but there are also scumbags and people I wish would get hit by a drunk driver and die. But I'm not the kind of person who, in a dangerous situation like this, would bring up past issues and demand repayment. And I'm not the kind of person who, if I had a problem, would say it to their face and get an apology or accept one, not someone who would remember it and stab them later when the situation changes."
"......I'm sorry for saying something bad."
"......I was too harsh. I'm sorry."
Impressive. I now understand how Yujin can meet so many people and know more than half of the people at the underwater base. I tried to test her, but I ended up getting hit by my own question. I am the complete opposite of Yujin.
Compared to Yujin, I am a bit of a grudge holder. I tend to accumulate grudges like collecting points whenever something happens. I'm not good with words, so I don't often argue about the injustices that happen around me. I've never had many allies or been in a favorable situation.
The only way I could endure humiliation was by enduring it, and the only thing I could do was to remember the situation well. I thought that if the scales ever tipped in my favor, I could return the same treatment or seek revenge for the things I unwillingly endured. Because only the victims remember the harm. The perpetrators don't need to remember it. Moreover, it's rare for them to end up in a weaker position voluntarily.
Therefore, I think it's natural for people who have been holding grudges to explode in a situation like this, where the world has turned upside down. People generally only want cooperation when it's to their disadvantage and trample on others when it's to their advantage.
I'm not a good person. But fortunately, I've only been at the underwater base for five days, and there's no one I've had a conflict with. People like Kim Gayoung and Yujin, whom I don't know well, haven't done anything to make me dislike or hold a grudge against them, which is why I thought about saving them. If they were my archenemies, I would have definitely ignored them and wished they would become fish food.
......I don't know. Did I intentionally not save them?
"If I really had someone here who I didn't like, and this special situation arose, I might wish for them to disappear from the world in a mistake or accident."
"That's all fine. You wish for a mistake or accident, not that you'd go there with a gun or knife to kill people or destroy 72 escape pods to ruin their lives."
"Uh... But it could depend on the situation."
At my words, Yujin frowned.
"Are you the kind of person who, depending on the situation, carries a cat and a snake on their back? Even if you don't like the situation or the people, don't try to drag them down. Think about moving forward!"
This girl is really honest. ...I could still throw away the backpack with the cat and go. But if I survive and escape, will I be able to forget the color of the cat's fur and its eyes before I go to sleep? Will I not regret not knocking on the door of the room where the Engineer Da team or Henry were, as I think back on it in the middle of the night?
I've regretted almost everything I've done, always looking back and regretting. Can helping others to avoid regret be considered a virtue? Yujin might think so. People easily make selfish choices because it's convenient, easy, and less tiring, and because it's beneficial. I don't intend to criticize those people. But if we can get out of here by making less selfish choices...