Ch.211Your Time Is Gonna Come! (4)

#211

The first to wake up was not Dexter, but Himena.

This was because Himena had been the farthest from the impact.

“Ugh, my head…”

Himena, who still had her eyes closed, was forced to open them due to the throbbing pain in her head and wrists.

“Where is this…?”

When Himena opened her eyes, she found herself in a place filled with old electronic devices, making it seem like she was inside a large machine rather than a room.

Around the room, three women were bound by thick iron chains and locks on their wrists and ankles.

Jessie, Emily, and Judy were covered in yellowish sand as if they had rolled in dirt, and the same was true for Himena.

Minor wounds had been treated thanks to the nanobots they had been injected with earlier, but the nanobots couldn’t resolve their unconscious state.

That’s why everyone except Himena was still passed out from the shock.

‘Everyone’s unconscious… and where is this place?’

It was a place Himena had never seen before in her life, but it somehow felt familiar.

‘It’s a place I’ve never been to before…’

But one thing was certain.

‘We weren’t put in this room for a good purpose.’

This was evident because thick iron chains were also wrapped around Himena’s wrists and ankles.

She tried to free herself, but it didn’t work.

The iron chains were so sturdy that even Dexter, not just Himena herself, would have difficulty breaking them.

Himena twisted and squirmed her body, forcibly changing to a half-sitting position, then slowly moved forward by alternately drawing her legs in and stretching them out.

‘My butt is killing me!’

Soon, Himena got close to the unconscious Emily and tapped her thigh with her foot.

“Emily, Emily!”

When there was no response after the first few attempts, Himena deliberately applied more force, raising her toes to poke Emily’s thigh.

Eventually, unable to withstand the pain, Emily groaned and woke up.

“That hurts… hmm?”

Emily turned her head to look around, then with her usual expressionless face, looked at Himena and said:

“We’ve been captured, haven’t we?”

“…Probably.”

At Himena’s confirmation, Emily remained dazed for a moment before flexing her hands and feet slightly.

Himena didn’t know what Emily was doing, but Emily was checking how much range of motion she had while restrained.

After several minutes of Emily’s continued fidgeting, Himena couldn’t contain her impatience and asked:

“Emily, do you know how to unlock these locks?”

“Just a moment.”

Despite Himena’s question, Emily fidgeted a few more times, then nodded and immediately began shaking her entire body vigorously.

Himena frowned at Emily’s bizarre behavior and asked:

“What are you doing?”

“Just a moment.”

“…You keep saying ‘just a moment.'”

Himena muttered in a disgruntled voice, but Emily naturally paid no attention.

Unlike the other women, Himena and Emily had rarely worked together, and usually Jessie was between them.

As a result, there was a first clash between Emily’s indifferent behavior and Himena’s desire to get things done quickly.

“When someone speaks, you should listen…”

“Ah, got it.”

As something small fell to the floor with a tiny sound, Emily looked around.

“Wait just a bit.”

“…What are you doing?”

“For situations like this, I keep hairpins tucked in my hair. I just dropped one. Could you pick up that pin for me?”

Where Emily pointed with her eyes, there was indeed a hairpin on the floor, just as she had said.

“When they search your belongings, they might check pockets or under the chest, but they rarely search through your hair.”

“…From now on, I’ll have to search the hair of anyone arrested for theft.”

Himena turned her body around to pick up the hairpin, then with great effort, handed it to Emily.

Emily took the hairpin from Himena, and soon there was a clicking sound as the hairpin met the lock on her wrist.

Shortly after, the sound of the lock being released echoed through the room.

-Click!

With her hands free, Emily rotated her arms in circles to stretch, then immediately used the hairpin to unlock the lock on her feet.

“I should have learned this skill.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier for Himena to just bribe the person with the key?”

“…First Jessie, now Emily too. Do you have some grudge against my wealth?”

Thanks to being teased once or twice whenever they forgot about it, Himena grumbled.

“Well, rich people can have everything they want.”

“It’s not quite like that.”

Emily added as she unlocked the lock on Himena’s wrist.

“Are you saying there are things you can’t have?”

“I’m a person too, you know? Of course there are things I can’t have.”

“Hmm, a planet?”

“No, not that kind of thing.”

“Then what?”

As Himena was about to answer Emily’s question, she hesitated for a moment, then decided to keep her mouth shut.

“No, it’s too embarrassing to say.”

“Should I not unlock your chains?”

“Are you threatening me with that?”

“Just tell me, then.”

The clicking sound from the lock on Himena’s wrist stopped.

Emily’s clear demonstration.

Himena hesitated, then spoke in a very small, stammering voice.

“Dexter isn’t entirely mine…”

“You were having such an impudent thought?”

“Impudent?!”

“Dexter belongs to all of us.”

“I know that! That’s why I said it.”

“I wouldn’t give him up even for a million dollars.”

“I said I know!”

As they were about to bicker while pausing in the middle of unlocking Himena’s lock, Jessie, unable to bear the noise, narrowed her eyes, looked around, and said in a small voice:

“Could you be a bit quieter… My head is killing me…”

“Ah, Jessie! Are you awake?”

Not long after Jessie woke up, Judy also regained consciousness, and only then did the situation become somewhat clearer.

“We really shouldn’t leave those two alone together.”

“…Honestly, it’s frustrating.”

“The same goes for Himena.”

As they seemed about to glare at each other and argue again, Jessie cut in firmly:

“This isn’t the time to fight, is it? We’re not children, and right now we need to figure out where we are.”

Judy, who was beside them, rubbed her wrists that had turned red from being bound by iron chains and said:

“It really looks like a space station or something.”

“A space station?”

“You know, in dramas and movies, space stations have rooms full of machines like this. Same with spaceships. Though Dexter’s spaceship wasn’t like this.”

As Judy chattered in a light voice, Himena looked around with a dawning realization and said quietly:

“A spaceship.”

“What?”

“This is a spaceship. I was wondering why I couldn’t remember…”

“A spaceship? What do you mean?”

“This is Jupiter, the orbital bombardment vessel built by Dexter’s great-grandfather.”

A shocked Himena stood up and pressed a button next to the door.

As soon as she pressed it, the closed door opened, revealing a thick window on the opposite side that showed the outside view.

“Um… was it always this dark outside?”

“That’s not it… This is…”

Focusing on the pitch-black scenery outside the window, Himena covered her mouth and stammered:

“It’s space…”

No sooner had Himena finished speaking than a thunderous engine sound reverberated throughout the spaceship.

It was the sound of Jupiter rotating its hull.

Along with it, a blue planet gradually came into view from the right side of the window.

A large planet full of blue water—Earth.

* * *

Unlike the four women, when Dexter opened his eyes, the situation was completely different.

‘Really, I wonder how many years it’s been since I woke up like this.’

Indeed, Dexter’s upper body was completely stripped.

‘Should I be grateful they didn’t take my pants too?’

Dexter’s wrists were bound with iron chains like the others, but there was one difference from the four women who were sprawled on the floor with chains attached.

‘Am I meat to be hung up like this?’

The iron chains binding his two wrists were attached to a ring on the ceiling.

Since it had been a long time since he’d experienced such a situation, his shoulder joints felt slightly stiff, so he applied a little force to shift the burden from his joints to his muscles.

The situation of being suspended remained the same, but the pain was greatly reduced.

Dexter was fine with being hung from the ceiling, but he was worried about the four women.

‘I wonder if the others are okay.’

He couldn’t remember anything after being caught in the explosion.

He had shouted for everyone to get down, trying to protect the four women as much as possible, but he wondered if they were still safe now.

With such mixed feelings, Dexter looked around.

‘It seems like we’re inside a spaceship, and judging by the shape and construction, it’s probably Earth-made. So, Jupiter?’

Dexter wondered if Jupiter had such a space.

This was because the interior decoration and atmosphere were no different from an ordinary basement.

‘Even my great-grandfather was a bit strange to have created such a space inside a spaceship.’

Although it was said that in his later years he pretended to be insane, the fact that he deliberately created such a desolate space on a spaceship suggested it wasn’t simply a matter of “pretending.”

As Dexter was grumbling to himself to pass the time, he heard the door behind him open and immediately pretended to be unconscious.

“Hehe, still passed out, I see.”

A nasal male voice was heard.

‘It sounds like he’s dragging something.’

Along with the man’s footsteps, a sharp metallic sound could be heard, suggesting he was dragging something heavy.

Since Dexter had his eyes closed and his head tilted, he could only guess based on what he heard and felt.

Soon the nasal-voiced man came close to Dexter, along with whatever he had been dragging.

-Click. Whirrrr…

‘He’s activated something?’

Dexter realized the man had turned on some electrically-powered device, but he was hesitating whether to suddenly get up and attack the man or to wait until the man let his guard down before attacking.

-Splash!

Cold water was sprayed all over Dexter’s body.

The bucket contained ice along with water, making it extremely cold, and Dexter realized it was time to stop pretending to be unconscious.

“Ugh…”

Although he had been awake from before, Dexter acted as if he had just woken up, narrowing his eyes to look around.

“Where is this…?”

“Kekeke, awake now, are we?”

In front of Dexter stood a man in shabby clothes with a scar on one side of his face.

Every time the man opened his mouth, his gold tooth gleamed, and his roughly grown beard enhanced his fierce appearance.

In the man’s hands were jumper cables, the kind used to connect car batteries.

At the end of the jumper cables was a device of unknown purpose, but Dexter had seen a similar machine before.

‘A defibrillator? Cardiac shock device? Something like that, I think.’

The problem was not the iron-shaped part, but the presence of jumper cables, and the machine that should have been in proper condition was covered with illegal modifications.

‘No way.’

Dexter couldn’t help but feel a bad premonition.

“Do you like electricity, my friend?”

‘Oh, shit.’

-Crack, crack!

Sparks flew each time the man in front of him clashed the jumper cables in his hands.

The man intended to torture Dexter with electricity.