The realm of his feelings.
Far too frightening a phrase.
"Would you release my sibling now?"
The momentum has gone over entirely.
I had no choice but to pull my hand out of the tank.
Because everything has been laid bare to this being.
When I let go of the sibling, Woo-heon goes straight to the tank and talks with it.
I can hear the tender voice he uses with his sibling.
This atmosphere, settled and calm.
The lull before the storm.
I'm afraid.
Of how he'll act once he's finished talking with his sibling.
Am I going to end up like the passengers on the lower deck?
Or is this compass of mine going to be torn off me alive?
He's probably reading this very thought right now too, isn't he?
Having finished talking with his sibling, he comes toward me.
"Don't be so afraid."
"Don't be afraid......?"
"I have no intention of overturning the result of the wager just because my feelings were hurt."
"What?"
"You only have to grant me one small favor, Mr. Do-yul."
A favor?
"And it will probably be of help to you as well."
"What kind of favor......?"
Had I been thinking of this being called Woo-heon as too utterly monstrous?
"While talking with my sibling, I traced your memories a little."
"......."
"And what I felt was."
He gestures for me to come closer.
When I have no choice but to approach, he takes my hand in both of his.
My left hand, where the compass is carved.
"That you and I have a great deal in common."
......?
"Me?"
Woo-heon spreads his palm and looks down at it.
What's there is a blackened, scorched mark.
And beneath it, a compass-shaped tattoo.
"I too was once as powerless as you."
The compass on the back of my hand is carved into his palm as well.
What in the world is this tattoo?
"I lived being trampled underfoot, beneath the being called Father."
The atmosphere inside the wheelhouse settles heavily.
"And then I realized something."
Having been looking down at his palm, he slowly raises his head.
Octopus-like pupils looking at me.
"That to become strong, you have to eat corpses."
"......."
The story seems to be going in a somewhat odd direction, but.......
The positive is that he's opening up about himself to me!
"Mr. Do-yul,"
Woo-heon looks my way.
"We are the same species."
The tendons below his throat stood out.
"The difference being that I overcame it and you have not yet overcome it!"
"R-right!"
I played along for now.
"And so I have made a decision."
What decision?
"I shall become your guide. And my asking you to accept my offer is the favor I have for you."
A guide?
He means he'll help me?
How?
And why?
"My words don't make sense to you, do they?"
He must have read my thoughts; he grins.
"Your compass is not yet complete, Mr. Do-yul."
I found myself looking down at the back of my hand.
That compass tattoo carved clearly into the back of my left hand.
This isn't complete yet?
"I shall help that compass become complete. In exchange, promise me one thing."
"What?"
"That on the day the compass is complete, you will come to me again."
His words were gentle, but there's a strange authority in them.
"Then we'll be able to set out on a true voyage! How about it? Isn't this an excellent thing for us both?"
He offers me a handshake.
"Then you'll release us?"
"Of course!"
"......."
There's no choice to begin with.
I have to accept while he's offering to let us go in good spirits.
After all, later matters can be thought about later.
'Ah, he's already reading this thought too.......'
I hurried to clasp his hand.
"Understood."
In that instant—Hot!
No, burning!
The feeling of an ember flaring up in my palm.
When the handshake ends and I look at my palm, the scorch mark that had been on his palm is clearly left on my left palm.
"Never break the promise."
Woo-heon snorts a laugh and adds.
"Because I'd rather not eat a friend."
A friend?
When he waves a hand, the wheelhouse lights go out.
"Hurry back to your companions. And then go home."
At an outcome more peaceful than I'd expected, I briefly wondered whether this was really reality, but thanks to the trauma of nearly losing everything even after winning the wager, I hurried toward the entrance.
When I glance back, he's waving at me.
And not only him; his sibling too.
That monster waving a tentacle out of the tank, as if bidding me farewell.
I gave them a short wave and hurried out of the wheelhouse.
***
Once Do-yul had left the wheelhouse, Woo-heon burst into the laughter he'd been holding back.
The yellow eye in the tank watching him.
Bubbles rise to the surface of the tank.
"What's so funny?"
Woo-heon looks at his sibling.
"Do you know who I was just with? Do you know who that boy I brought in was?!!!"
The yellow eye watching him blinks.
"He's that damn bitch's son! That goddamn traitor bitch. The shameless bitch sent me her own son!"
PHOOF— HSSSK.......
Air being injected into the tank just then.
"Well, what can you do? She's offering to make peace, so generous soul that I am, I have to accept."
Woo-heon, snickering.
"Hold on a little longer, sibling. A human life is no more than an instant, isn't it? We only have to wait a little longer."
Woo-heon rises and gazes into his sibling's eye.
"And when that short wait has passed, we finally drive the spear we've prepared into our father's heart."
As if answering him, the monster in the tank swells its body wildly.
The black water in the tank overflows, and Woo-heon's laughter echoes through the wheelhouse.
***
The moment I step into the lower cabin, Ryu Do-ha, who had somehow escaped her belts, is rolling her wrists.
"Do-yul!"
She calls out gladly at the sight of me.
Whereas.
Jang Seo-yun, still sitting in her seat even though she's been freed from the belts.
The look in her eyes as she watches me turns savage.
"Why did you come back alive?"
She springs up from the seat and strides toward me.
"Why did you come back unharmed?!"
"Miss Seo-yun?"
Ryu Do-ha runs after her.
"Do you have any idea how much preparation it took to call this boat?"
The moment she lunges at me, eyes glaring like a madwoman's, Ryu Do-ha rushes in at once and pins her.
Jang Seo-yun, pressed to the floor, twisting her body as if in a frenzy.
"Miss Seo-yun. What are you talking about?"
Ryu Do-ha asked her, but her eyes stay fixed on me.
She looks up at me with eyes rolled back to nothing but whites.
"You weren't supposed to come back. You should have died up there! Because of you! Because of you everything has gone wr......."
Ryu Do-ha covered her mouth.
When she thrashed wildly, Ryu Do-ha finally struck the back of her neck.
At which Jang Seo-yun goes limp.
Ryu Do-ha looks at me.
With an expression asking what on earth happened up there.
I let out a small sigh.
"Let's get out of here first."
The path to the excursion boat's entrance was covered in the Cops' blood and flesh.
Passing over a deck covered in blood and flesh, we got off the boat.
BWOOOOOOOOOO—
A ship's horn sounds behind us.
The blood and flesh scattered through the pool begin being sucked into the excursion boat.
And then it disappears beneath the basin, the way it appeared the first time.
Only then did Ryu Do-ha set Jang Seo-yun, whom she'd been carrying on her back, down on the floor.
"What on earth happened?"
I don't have the energy to answer.
My head is a mess.
"Later. I'll tell you everything later."
Answering that way, I looked at the pool wall.
[ 00 : 09 : 03 ]
A little over nine minutes remaining now.
Once that time passes, is it over?
Can we get out of here then?
"Wait here a moment."
Ryu Do-ha walks toward the restroom.
Jang Seo-yun lying unconscious beside me.
Just as Woo-heon said, she approached me deliberately.
On top of that, she knew I would obtain the compass and that an excursion boat would surface in this pool.
Which means.......
She's unmistakably one of my mother's people.
This pool.
The people sacrificed.
And the excursion boat.
All of it was a board set in advance.
A board for paying the price my mother failed to pay ten years ago.
And I was nothing but a courier who knew nothing.
When I feel around inside my swim trunks, the Pond Snail's shell comes out.
I threw it away without hesitation.
With a PLOP the shell sinks beneath pool water that is no longer bloodwater but transparent again.
They all deceived me.
The man called Gap-o, the Pond Snail, all of them.
The bigger problem is.......
"Haa......."
That I've put my foot in too deep to ignore it all and go back to an ordinary life.
The compass tattoo carved into my left hand.
When I turn the hand over, the blackened scorch mark is there.
'What am I supposed to do now?'
Ever since my father died too, I've lived deciding for myself and taking responsibility for myself.
I was confident about clawing through life alone, but.......
'This is a bit much.'
Right now, no matter how I turn it over, I have no idea.
And it isn't as though I have anyone to lean on or ask for advice.......
"What are you thinking about so hard?"
When I turned around, I could see Ryu Do-ha approaching.
She's carrying the woman over her shoulder.
Feeling my gaze, she shrugs and sets her down.
"Fortunately she's still alive."
"Who is?"
"The lady, I mean."
The lady, her swimsuit still stained red.
"Won't she attack us when she comes to?"
"She probably will. But what can you do? I'll just have to subdue her again."
"......."
"If we take her to the office there'll probably be someone who knows how to turn her back. We have no shortage of unusual people."
The Formless Special Division.
The organization the man who fed me a bug belongs to.
Until I met Ryu Do-ha, no, even now, my impression of that organization was the worst.
But.
Poor first impression aside, the sense of responsibility and the effort Ryu Do-ha has shown all the way here.
If it's the organization someone like her belongs to, might it not be a decent organization after all?
Besides, having been through this, my mother seems to be a fairly problematic human being.
And with me being the child of a human like that, I suppose they could never have looked kindly on me.
"We'll be able to get out of here soon, won't we?"
Ryu Do-ha plops down beside me.
The time on the display is a little over five minutes.
Soon that time ran out, and a door appeared before us.
***
All Green Cherville, fourth basement level.
An enormous hole is bored through the ceiling of the recycling area.
Gap-o, sprawled on top of a bin heaped with standard-issue garbage bags.
He bursts out laughing, clutching his stomach at whatever he finds so funny.
Then a voice rang inside Gap-o's head.
'I dislike you.'
It was the Pond Snail.
At its voice Gap-o's laughter climbs higher.
"Why? I like you."
Gap-o answers, wiping away the tears pooled at his eyes.
The broken wooden mask floats up in front of him.
'By rights there was no need to make this so big.'
"Did I make anything that big?"
'You could have ruined the entire plan!'
"You don't understand a thing."
Gap-o comes out of the trash heap and brushes off his clothes.
He wears a self-mocking smile.
"I don't have the power to ruin anything. However much I rampage, the tide doesn't shift an inch. Infuriatingly."
'.......'
"I'm a creature born to dance on a rope. I only stand on the line that's been set; I have no intention of crossing it. So do your own job properly."
As if it no longer wants to speak with Gap-o, the wooden mask loses strength and drops to the floor.
Gap-o snorts a laugh and walks toward the entrance of the recycling area.
"Ha, that Do-yul bastard...... exactly like his ma, anyway. He's a real handful."