Chapter 101
Honestly.
If I were to speak with that damn honesty…
‘No.’
I don’t think they’ll survive.
Everyone here either has an illness or is caring for a child.
That’s why they’re not even thinking of leaving.
“….”
Lee Hoin stayed quiet.
It seemed like he was thinking about something for a moment.
And the conclusion he reached was this:
“Do you remember why I said I’d stay here?”
“Yeah?”
“If the others are staying for similar reasons, then once they learn it’s ‘dangerous,’ they might want to leave too, right?”
It was a simple solution.
Ask what the others think.
Put that way… he wasn’t wrong.
“Haven’t the others been here longer than us? Wouldn’t they have noticed something strange?”
That’s what I was curious about.
Had no one really questioned any of this?
If you think about it, it’s strange.
And even now, we still don’t know exactly what that item is, or why there’s an endless supply of ingredients.
Not just that, why do we keep having those dreams?
Where does this persistent sense of stability come from?
We could just leave.
The way out is open.
But there are too many things that feel off.
“What if they all already know?”
“What?”
“What if they all know and are still staying here?”
It’s possible.
That everyone except us knew from the very beginning.
From the start.
“If that’s the case, then maybe the answer is for us just to quietly leave.”
Lee Hoin had no response again.
—
[Just what kind of item is it that makes everyone risk death to stay here?]
[What is that sphere?]
—
Even if we asked, it’s not like they’d answer easily.
I let out a breath as I looked at Lee Hoin, who still seemed uneasy.
“Does it bother you?”
At my words, he pressed his lips together tightly.
It clearly bothered him.
“No, it’s just… the whole thing feels off. When I woke up at dawn today and saw the owner going somewhere… only then did something feel–”
He paused for a moment, then continued,
“I keep blanking out.”
Grammatically, that didn’t quite make sense.
Because of that, it was hard to understand exactly what he meant.
“I think something’s strange about this place, but then I keep forgetting. I have dreams… dreams about normal life. About a time before all this happened. And after I wake up from those dreams, I end up forgetting things… just a little.”
You get intoxicated by peace.
In other words, you get drunk on calm and comfort.
“I forget the hostility or wariness I had toward this place… and instead, some kind of blind sense of security remains. I don’t even realize that I’m forgetting. It was the same when you told me we should leave.”
I listened quietly.
“…It makes you stay.”
This place… had something that made people stay.
It gave a sense of stability and peace.
A kind of comfort you couldn’t find anywhere else.
Why make people stay?
Just to secure sacrifices?
—
[How subtle.]
—
In the end, we wouldn’t find answers just by thinking among ourselves.
We had to talk to the owner again… or talk to the others.
***
I met Choi Seongeun at lunchtime.
It was a particularly peaceful moment.
She greeted me lightly and said,
“Oh, right, the owner brought some fruit earlier. Would you like some? I was just about to peel some apples with my husband.”
A peaceful offer from someone living a peaceful day.
Instead of answering right away, I quietly asked,
“Could you talk with me for a bit?”
“Oh my, talk? What kind of talk?”
She tilted her head and asked back.
“The owner goes somewhere regularly at dawn. Do you know where she goes?”
At that question, she kept her head tilted and looked at me for a moment.
As if time had paused… then she broke into a soft laugh.
“The owner walks around here and there even during the day, doesn’t she? I heard this whole mountain used to be her home. I don’t really know either, but she digs up kimchi from jars buried all over, takes out aged soy sauce, and even makes things like soybean paste herself. She said she buried them all in different places. I don’t really get it, but it’s tradition~.”
The flow of the conversation snapped cleanly.
I stared at her silently for a moment.
“Do you think she goes out at dawn to look for those jars? That early in the morning?”
At my words, Choi Seongeun kept smiling.
Looking at her face somehow reminded me of a clown.
Weren’t the citizens of 6 usually like that?
“I wouldn’t know~ I’m asleep at that time. Why? Did something happen?”
“It’s late at night, and the mountain paths are dangerous… I was just worried she might get hurt.”
When I wrapped it up like that, she shrugged.
“This place is really safe, you know.”
Safe.
After saying that, she went downstairs when someone called her.
Safe…
Yes, it was safe.
I hadn’t seen a single mutant, not even a trace.
I hadn’t even heard one.
But the corpses we saw yesterday… were definitely mutants.
I didn’t know when they were brought in, but it wasn’t just one or two days’ worth.
So I kept asking people here and there.
Eventually, I noticed a pattern in their reactions.
Some just laughed it off.
Some reacted as if asking why I’d even ask such a thing.
And some gave no response at all.
Those who laughed: Choi Seongeun, Shin Junwoo.
Those who questioned me: Kim Daejin, Park Taeyoung.
Those with no reaction were mostly children.
Among them, the most notable reaction came from Park Taeyoung.
Kim Daejin had just asked why I was asking, then left with his usual tired expression.
But Park Taeyoung…
“…Is that important?”
He said the same thing as the owner.
Is that important?
I looked at him and thought.
This man knows.
He definitely knows something.
“If we could all die, it’s strange to say it’s not important. You know, don’t you? What kind of place is this?”
“You can just leave. Just go. There’s no need to stir things up like this.”
I looked at his defensive attitude and hostile expression.
What struck me as strange about both the owner and Park Taeyoung was that when I said, ‘we could all die,’ they only seemed to think in terms of ‘you and me.’
But this place isn’t just you and me.
Your families are here too.
How can you answer like that?
“When I say we could all die, I don’t just mean you and me. Your family is included too.”
I pointed it out clearly.
—
[Perhaps they love this peace more than their family’s safety!]
—
Listening to the narrator’s speculation, I stayed silent for a moment.
More than that, something more fundamental…
Meanwhile, Park Taeyoung stared at me for a moment.
Then he spoke.
“If I don’t have my family, I die.”
It was almost a non sequitur.
“Which means your family could die too.”
At my words, he let out a faint laugh.
Then, with less hostility, he looked at me with a more relaxed expression.
That shift felt strange.
Did I miss something?
As I raised an eyebrow slightly, he said,
“So you’ve only ‘seen’ it.”
“…What?”
“You don’t know exactly what it does, do you? That’s why you can say things like that.”
Park Taeyoung burst into laughter like a madman.
After laughing for a while, he said,
“Do you have a family?”
At that, I went silent for a moment.
“No, let me rephrase that. Are they alive? You can think of it as someone equivalent to family. What I’m asking is… do the people you cherish still live?”
—
[Haha, how fortunate! You don’t have to say you’re an orphan.]
[Let’s see, let’s see… the narrator has been curious too! What exactly counts as a ‘precious person’ to you?]
[If this apocalypse had never happened, would you even have had someone precious?]
[You, who lived hiding away with such a narrow circle of relationships?]
—
Even in the commentator’s mocking words, I maintained my expression.
Someone precious.
Of course, I have someone like that.
I’m human, aren’t I?
But…
when asked if that person was alive…
I couldn’t answer.
—
[Why can’t you answer?]
[Is it that you “can’t”, or that you “won’t”?]
[Even that eloquent tongue of yours freezes at times like this. Truly selfish behavior.]
[You can pry into others’ secrets so easily, but your own must not be touched?]
—
I almost opened my mouth at the narrator’s words, which felt like they knew me too well… but closed it again.
That person… was already dead.
Even before the apocalypse began.
Comments (0)