Ch.39Aqua Marine 2

Han Siho’s resume flutters in the wind.

Director Tolkin sent that paper flying out the window.

The resume rises gently, heading toward the horizon where the electric boat has passed.

The paper soon falls into the undulating sea.

Eventually, it becomes soaked black and sinks into the water.

Following those waves a little further, a breakwater comes into view.

Waves crash and shatter against the breakwater.

Pushing through that space, a small harbor appears.

The electric boat that arrived there shuts down its engine.

Soon, two girls disembark from the boat.

In the foggy harbor, a man was waiting for the girls.

It’s Lee Daehyuk, a friend of the soup kitchen uncle.

With a work sword at his waist, he was smoking a cigarette.

Soon, he waves to the children.

“Are you kids who escaped from the facility?”

He flicks his cigarette onto the harbor floor.

Then he extends his hand to me, who got off the boat first.

“…”

But I didn’t respond to his handshake request.

I hate strange men.

“What, afraid I smell bad?”

The man awkwardly rubbed his palms against his outer clothing.

Then, he extends his hand to me again.

“Haha… She’s just really shy with strangers. Yes, it’s us, Uncle Daehyuk.”

Seonyae links arms with me and answers him.

“That’s understandable. Follow me, I’ve got the car ready.”

He points to a blue truck visible in the distance.

Seonyae follows the uncle, taking the lead.

But I stood still, not following them.

“You go ahead. I’m not going.”

“What are you saying? We need to go together…”

Seonyae looked back and forth between the uncle and me, seemingly confused by my reaction.

“I hate hanging around with suspicious people.”

I push away her hand.

And slowly start walking alone.

Seonyae watches me with a hardened expression.

Of course, I’m grateful to her.

Thanks to her, I escaped from this hell-like facility and finally gained freedom.

But that’s as far as it goes.

I don’t know what might happen if I hang around with someone who knows the facility director.

Since being injected with that drug, these uneasy premonitions have never been wrong.

This time will surely be no different.

I slowly gaze at the horizon.

A foggy city stretches out before me.

I don’t know what lies at the end of it.

But I calmly walked toward it alone.

“Let her go.”

I paused briefly at the cynical voice.

It was the uncle who had been waiting for us.

He watches me with an arrogant expression, arms folded.

Then he says:

“Wandering around like that, you won’t last long before dying alone. No need to get attached to someone determined to die early.”

The man rambled on as if he already knew what would happen to me.

Annoyed by his arrogant attitude, I turned to face him.

“You. How much do you know about me to talk like that? You pig with your bulging belly.”

“Such a rude mouth. Do you have any idea what the situation is like outside? I’ll bet a pack of cigarettes you won’t last three days.”

This is ridiculous.

This uncle who probably couldn’t even dodge a single bullet is lecturing me.

Both Seonyae and this man are such hypocrites.

“I could pierce your fat belly right now. Watch your mouth.”

I said, looking at his thick stomach.

The man steps forward as if challenging me to try.

“How about this? If you can hit me even once, I’ll take back what I said. But if you can’t even do that, how about getting some training from me before you leave?”

His arrogant attitude makes my lip twitch involuntarily.

The man wiggles his palm, inviting me to throw a punch at him.

“Acting like he’s something special.”

I accept his cocky proposal.

I slowly step forward, secretly closing the distance between us.

And when I reach a distance where I can touch him.

In an instant, I thrust my fist toward the bridge of his nose.

“—!”

I thought I had struck his nose perfectly.

But at that moment, his thick body quickly twisted to avoid my punch.

The man, entering a weaving stance, digs into my solar plexus.

A sudden impact causes ringing in my ears.

But I immediately bit my lip tightly.

Then I pretend to fall while twisting my body for a back kick.

“Indeed, your physical abilities are impressive as I’ve heard.”

The uncle avoids that counterattack with ease while still talking.

Then he immediately steps on my supporting foot.

The impact makes my body stagger.

Soon, a dirty sneaker rushes toward my dropped chin.

I couldn’t dodge that attack.

No, it was impossible to dodge.

Before my brain could even register that I needed to avoid it, my chin was completely turned.

Even as I fell, my mind was filled with all sorts of thoughts.

How could someone with that body move so quickly?

I had never seen anyone so agile even in the facility’s combat arena.

The back of my head slams into the asphalt floor.

At that moment, I could no longer think of anything.

“Uncle, you’ll kill Anna at this rate!”

“Don’t worry. I’ve never seen anyone who’s taken that drug die easily.”

The man smiled leisurely as he carried the collapsed Anna on his shoulder.

Seonyae looked worriedly at the unconscious Anna with her hands tightly clasped.

The three of them boarded the truck like that.

The blue truck heads into the gloomy city.

It crossed the long Incheon Bridge toward the mainland.

It was impossible to tell where on the mainland they were.

The fog was that thick.

“…”

When I woke up, what I saw wasn’t the ceiling of the facility.

It was an unfamiliar light fixture I’d never seen before.

I immediately sat up.

“Where are you, you pig bastard…”

Awakened from sleep, I immediately look around.

Warm sunlight pours in through the window.

The sunlight I’m seeing after so long makes my eyes sting.

I was definitely fighting with that arrogant uncle, but…

Behind the uncle’s face rises the image of me being pathetically beaten.

Yes, I was thoroughly thrashed.

How did this happen to me, who had never lost in the facility’s combat arena?

It’s frustrating.

So frustrating that I want to grind that arrogant face to dust.

That anger soon made me get up.

I went out the door of the room.

There was a staircase going down in the hallway.

Going down those stairs, I soon see numerous tables and chairs.

I immediately spot Seonyae diligently wiping a table.

“You’re awake?”

She welcomed me with a bright smile.

What’s so funny that she’s smiling?

Her constant foolish grinning looks ridiculous.

At the same time, it’s pathetic.

That so many secrets exist behind that face.

She seems to have already adapted to life outside, wearing an apron.

Her neatly cut bob hair sways gently.

I deliberately ignore her and look around the place.

It’s quite a large bar.

At the counter is the uncle who subdued me.

He hums a tune leisurely while wiping glasses.

“Your recovery ability is certainly impressive. I definitely beat you properly.”

He points at my chin, laughing heartily.

“…”

I glared at him through half-closed eyes.

The uncle pretends to be scared, gently folding his hands on his chest.

“Why so scary? Are you that angry?”

Of course I am.

The uncle put down his cloth as if to say he’d stop joking.

Then he looks at me with a rather serious face.

“If your opponent had been a ranker sent from the facility instead of me, you would have died immediately.”

“You seem to know something about the facility that imprisoned me?”

“How could I not? I was a hunter employed there.”

He unbuttoned his bursting shirt sleeve.

And showed me a tattoo on his forearm.

’07.’

A number.

A very simple black tattoo.

“I witnessed all the experiments conducted at the facility. That’s why I quit and now help children who escape.”

“Why? They’re not your children.”

I can’t understand this meddlesome man.

I can’t understand the soup kitchen uncle or Seonyae.

Why are they so kind to me, even risking their lives?

“Call it a guilty conscience. When I was hired by the facility, I was told it was just a training center. But when I got there, it wasn’t a simple training facility.”

He rolls up his other sleeve.

And looks at me with his arms proudly folded.

“I have a daughter too. She’s only 15 and about to enter the academy. What if my daughter had been locked up in such a place?”

The uncle took out a bottle of alcohol.

Vodka.

“She would have gone through hell.”

He downed the vodka repeatedly, perhaps imagining that hell or trying to forget it.

“If something like that ever happens to my daughter, I hope someone would save her, even if she’s a stranger. That’s why I always do this kind of work.”

“That person wouldn’t be me.”

I coldly told the uncle to break his vain delusion.

“What if I, whom you saved, go berserk and kill your daughter?”

“Don’t worry. At least you’re not that kind of person.”

The man pours vodka into a glass with confident eyes.

Then he gazes at Seonyae.

“As long as a child like Seonyae is with you, you’ll never do that.”

Seonyae blushed at his words.

She covered her mouth with the back of her hand and smiled broadly at me.

“…”

She is pretty.

Even with my brain pickled in drugs, I know that much.

But that’s all.

“Now that you’re up, how about earning your keep?”

The uncle stretched his stiff shoulders.

Then he takes out two longswords from under the counter.

“Why the sudden swords?”

“Seonyae has decided to become a bartender at my place. You, on the other hand, clearly don’t seem interested in that… Fighting is more your thing, right?”

Since there was no room for objection, I nodded.

“Then learning to be a hunter would be better for you.”

The uncle threw one of the longswords to me.

I caught it reflexively and followed him outside.

It’s a back alley.

With no facilities or tools that would help with training.

“Alright, let’s start from here.”

He sits on a bucket while yawning.

The bucket trembles under his weight.

“Start what?”

I don’t understand what he’s talking about in this empty space.

“What else? Downward strikes. Since it’s your first day, let’s just do 2,000.”

I looked down at the longsword in my hand.

Being a real sword, it’s quite heavy.

“I’ll watch your form for the first 100, then I need to go check on my daughter.”

I gripped the sword firmly.

Fine.

Anyway, I have nothing to lose by listening to this man for now.

Who would refuse free sword lessons?

I swung with force, cutting through the air.

Thinking of Tolkin and his rankers whom I want to kill.

The uncle watches this scene quietly.

“You’re not swinging to kill someone. If you focus on murder, your blade will waver and you’ll lose your composure.”

At his words, I suddenly stopped my empty swing.

If not to kill someone, what am I swinging a sword for?

As if answering this, the man replies softly:

“You swing it for the people you care about.”

“That’s cheesy.”

“It’s true. I’ve survived all this time with that mindset. It’s important advice born from experience.”

The uncle shrugged as if he was being sincere.

“Who is this person anyway?”

When I abruptly asked, the man paused before answering.

He rubbed his chin with his hand, finally selecting an answer.

“Someone you can rely on and trust. Usually stemming from trust.”

Trust and reliance.

His words involuntarily make me snort.

“Why are you laughing?”

The uncle asks, seemingly displeased.

“It’s ridiculous. If it’s a relationship where you can rely on each other, shouldn’t there be no secrets? How can you risk your life when you both have hidden agendas?”

The uncle closed his lips after hearing my words.

Then he gradually takes a deep breath.

I stare down at him, who has become solemn.

I feel good for having struck right at the core of his arrogance.

“Am I right?”

“Yes, you’re not wrong…”

He silently took out a cigarette.

And calmly lights it.

“But… everyone has secrets so tangled they’re difficult to explain.”

Cigarette smoke rises into the air.

I stared blankly at that smoke.

“Do you have such secrets too?”

“I do. I still haven’t told my daughter where I used to work.”

He tapped his cigarette ash on the ground.

The red ash that falls to the ground gradually fades.

“But. I’ll definitely tell her someday.”

“…”

“So you should wait too. Trust that person.”

I thought of Seonyae for a moment.

Is her secret also too complicated to tell me right away?

If it’s for the benefit of us all…

Maybe I’ll wait a little while.

With such thoughts, I swung the sword 4,000 times, not just 2,000.

With my mind dulled by the drug injections, I needed more time than others to understand Seonyae.