Beacon of Light in the Dark Sea

Sato’s eyes held a smirk. He mumbled something toward the two team leaders fighting over who’d take him. After his lengthy muttering, Vladimir slightly loosened the parachute cord secured tightly around Sato’s neck.

Sato spat out a coin that had been in his mouth with the cord and licked his cord-wounded lips with his tongue. His snaggle tooth showed slightly between his lips. Shin Haeryang glared at Vladimir accusingly, as if asking why he’d loosened it. Vladimir instead questioned Shin.

“Why’d you gag him?”

“Can’t imagine I did it because I didn’t want to hear his shit?”

Amid the sinister atmosphere, Sato spoke with calculated nonchalance.

“…Who knew Japanese would be so popular in this facility. Should’ve visited West District sector with a gun earlier. Was I too indifferent to Russia and Korea?”

Despite having two team leaders ready to tear him apart right in front of him, Sato’s expression barely changed. If they’d named engineer teams by poker rankings, N-Team must be second place.

While I found Shin Haeryang extremely peculiar, Team Leader Sato seemed equally bizarre personality-wise. Shin Haeryang calmly questioned Sato.

“Sato. Never thought you’d go around shooting people. Didn’t you say you were going to listen to some Handel symphony or whatever today?”

“Handel’s right… Team Leader Shin. I’m not doing this because I want to.”

“From the gunshot wounds on Dmitri and Irina’s bodies, you’re a pretty shit shot. Never done live-fire practice?”

“Well. I did quite a bit of hologram shooting. Not as helpful as I thought. Really wanted to hit your head once. Too bad.”

Shin Haeryang didn’t flinch at Sato’s provocation. Instead, he let out a small sneer and asked something else.

“Is R-Team in the East District about the same level as your team?”

“Hmm. Didn’t Hai Yoon tell you anything? Heard you two were dating. How ruthless of you in this regard.”

Shin Haeryang said he wasn’t dating Hai Yoon though. The person involved must be right. Seems there were rumors about them dating in the facility. Completely ignoring Sato’s response, Shin Haeryang asked another question.

“Two of our team members disappeared. Seen them?”

“All your team members are in North District. We had them.”

“Think I’ll believe that? Keep spouting bullshit and I’ll hand you right over to Deputy Team Leader Nikita. Her knife work’s still sloppy – look how crooked the cuts on Ichita’s face are – but practice makes perfect.”

Sato and Takahashi beside him looked at Ichita’s face on the floor. Next to Ichita sat Nikita, hands and face soaked in blood, crouching and staring at the two living Japanese.

Since seeing her little brother’s corpse, Nikita had become drastically quieter. She used to talk and laugh with teammates before. Now, nothing seemed to remain in her except rage and killing intent. Looking at Nikita, Sato sighed once and spoke to Shin.

“It’s true. They begged for their lives, so out of consideration for you, we stripped them and threw them in the mining team’s quarters.”

Seo Jihyuk’s head snapped around from where he was keeping watch toward the Central District. Can he hear our conversation from there? Before Shin could answer, Vladimir quickly cut in.

“Oh yeah? What about our people? Sato. No consideration for me?”

When Vladimir, who’d lost two team members, slapped Sato’s cheek hard enough to make a sharp crack with his huge hand, Sato’s expressionless mask finally broke. Wincing as if with a headache, he furrowed one eyebrow and answered.

“I regret what happened to Dmitri and Irina. Didn’t mean to shoot them dead. Strictly speaking, it was an accident… More curious how you found the bodies though. Thought we hid them pretty well.”

“You ‘regret’ it? What about sabotaging the escape pods so we’d burn to death?”

Sato answered shamelessly. Instead, Takahashi beside him was fidgeting nervously.

“Looking at you lot alive and well, seems that was a massive failure. Besides, you killed three of our members too. One more dead – guess we lost. Congratulations.”

Standing beside Vladimir, who looked like he couldn’t believe this bastard, Shin Haeryang frowned and said.

“Told you I didn’t want to hear his crap.”

Sato scanned the surroundings, then suddenly smiled and addressed me while I was checking Ichita’s death. I thought I’d misheard.

“Long time no see, Doctor.”

…Wow, that’s pretty creepy. Don’t know why he’s greeting me warmly like a teacher he hasn’t seen in ten years, but I have no connection to you. Really hope people around here don’t think I’m in cahoots with N-Team.

Jung Sanghyun and Kim Jae-hee, who were checking the pad near me, backed away and quickly distanced themselves. Heh heh heh.

“Yes, first time seeing you outside the dental clinic. Still haven’t received any answer about your dental correction.”

Had no conventional pleasantries to offer. Questions like how are you doing, how’s the weather, how’ve you been – all had to be trashed in this situation. I put up an invisible steel wall while answering Sato. He shrugged and said.

“Don’t know what you did, but you should worry more about your own safety than my teeth.”

…Don’t know why he’s threatening me. Surely this isn’t meant as advice? Both team leaders looked at me too, and their gazes weren’t exactly friendly.

“But I haven’t done anything except dental work?”

Really haven’t done anything special. The most unusual things I’ve done are getting my side torn by a shark, taking a bullet to the head, and drinking lots of seawater. Compared to your stuff like sabotaging escape pods, harassing innocent people, and shooting people dead, those seem pretty trivial.

Thinking about it twice… you should worry about yourself instead. Both Vladimir and Shin look like they want to kill you every time you open your mouth.

“Well. Quite a few people seem to think differently.”

Shin Haeryang made a slight gesture to Vladimir. Don’t know what that gesture meant, but it seemed to say “take him.” Sato looked past Nikita staring at him intently, to a figure beyond Nikita’s shoulder. Looking at Baek Ae-young’s back in the distance, he spoke to the two team leaders.

“…I prefer Baek Ae-young over Nikita. Unlike Ivanov, I’m not into older types.”

As if deciding he’d heard enough, Shin Haeryang punched Sato hard. Though it was just one hit to the face, Sato’s head snapped sideways over 90 degrees and he passed out.

Listening to the conversation, I’d counted Shin Haeryang practicing patience at least three times… Been wondering when he’d hit him. Dental correction would require extraction, but not by punching like that. Vladimir beckoned his team member with his chin. Viktor grabbed one of Sato’s ankles and dragged him away.

Takahashi, watching all this from the side, seemed dumbfounded. Though captured, he probably expected his team leader to beg for his life, not provoke everyone until getting knocked out and dragged away.

Team Leader Sato probably resigned himself to an ugly death the moment they took his gun and caught him, whether by Russians or Koreans. Fear began creeping into Takahashi’s blank expression as he watched Sato being dragged away. He finally realized it was his turn. Shin Haeryang gestured toward Ichita’s corpse and spoke to Takahashi.

“Takahashi. If D-Team takes you, you’re literally dead. They won’t just kill you – they’ll torture you painfully until your last breath.”

Takahashi muttered in confusion.

“No way. I… I didn’t shoot the Russians! Ichita and Yamashita did it – why should I suffer for that?”

“Why’d you break the CCTVs on your way here?”

“…”

“Seen our team members?”

Takahashi forced out words from his throat.

“…They’re in the North District.”

“Earlier you said East District?”

“…You’ll hand me over to the Russians anyway even if I tell the truth!”

Takahashi cried out in a despairing voice. Shin Haeryang answered as if finding his words ridiculous.

“If you shot my team members dead and dumped them somewhere, I can be even crazier than D-Team.”

Takahashi faltered at those words and looked around. He seemed to be searching for anyone who might take his side, but with little success. Not just D-Team, but A-Team members were all giving him cold stares. Judging that neither I, Tumanako, nor Carlos could help him, Takahashi’s face darkened.

“Didn’t kill them. Never killed anyone! Never even saw them! Only saw some American and Canadian engineers – everyone else was from the mining team. Really!”

“The CCTVs?”

“Someone ordered us to do it.”

“Who ordered it?”

Takahashi hesitated before answering uncomfortably.

“…Religious people told us to break the CCTVs as we went. Said something about what’s visible on CCTVs – don’t know the details.”

“Religion? Infinity Church?”

Takahashi stared at me blankly and nodded. …No idea why he’s looking at me. Had a bad feeling.

Shin Haeryang made a similar gesture to Vladimir as before. Probably meaning take this one too. Nikolai and Sophia linked arms with Takahashi. With his wrists bound in front, Takahashi couldn’t resist as they dragged him away.

“Wait! Wasn’t A-Team supposed to take me?!”

“If our team members are dead, I’ll come find you.”

“Wait! Hold on! This isn’t right!”

Just as Takahashi started shouting frantically, gunfire erupted. Seo Jihyuk was shooting – I grabbed Tumanako and Kim Jae-hee beside me and immediately hit the floor.

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