Beacon of Light in the Dark Sea - Chapter 105

The black color of the sea on the full glass front of the elevator interior had now changed to a shade close to navy blue. The people trapped in the less than 300 square foot elevator were in a state of fear and exhaustion, seeming to think of the elevator’s ascent as their only hope. However, I became more and more uneasy as the elevator went up. It felt like the deadline I had pushed back because there was time left was now slowly approaching.

How should I inform them that armed people from the Infinity Church are occupying the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd underwater bases? Those who knew bits and pieces from me were keeping silent. There might be armed personnel gathered outside when we get off the elevator. We won’t die since Kanu is with us, right? Would they kill their own believer? I can’t be sure. Won’t everyone die except Kanu?

Suddenly, Yoo Geum-yi asked Kanu a question, and I was inwardly startled.

“Are there really people who want to go back to the distant past like Kanu-ssi? From what I hear from people, it doesn’t seem like they want to go that far back.”

Kanu scratched his chin, narrowed his brow, thought for a few seconds, then said,

“I did hear a few things a few years ago when believers gathered like an alcoholics’ meeting. There were people who said they wanted to go back to before their child died or before their spouse passed away. I don’t know if there are more people like me.”

“How desperate would those people be?”

Very desperate, Geum-ssi. Crazy enough to be armed with guns and shoot recklessly at unarmed people.

“Well.”

Kanu uttered a low word, then rubbed the back of his neck and thought before saying,

“People who join a religion like this are bastards who have a past they want to go back to no matter what. If you tell them they can go back to that date, there will be bastards who want to go back even if they have to offer everything they have and tear off other people’s flesh and blood to offer it. If people who bought the wrong stocks, futures, or coins could turn back time 1 minute before settlement, they’d try to offer anything, right? It may sound like an excuse, but I’m a bit less desperate. Because I’m not trying to go back because someone close to me died or because of money.”

Then Kanu shrugged his shoulders. Yoo Geum-yi thought for a bit, then asked again,

“If, as Kanu-ssi said, someone gains the ability to go back to the past, and someone with that ability is in here, what would be good for us to do? Can we tag along and go back to the past together?”

…Geum-yi-ssi. Isn’t this a question that’s too easy to misunderstand? Is it okay to ask so blatantly like that? Kanu or other people might misunderstand you.

Surprised by the content of the question, I barely suppressed the urge to intervene and stop Yoo Geum-yi’s words. I was trembling with fear inside, but Yoo Geum-yi, who actually asked the question, was very calm. Moreover, Yoo Geum-yi didn’t ask such questions while looking at me. Rather, she looked at Benjamin and Carter one by one, showing enough composure to ask questions.

I don’t know if Yoo Geum-yi’s strategy worked or not, but Kanu pondered, then looked at the state of the people sitting in the elevator and said,

“I don’t know? …If there is, shouldn’t we kill them as quickly as possible? That way, when that person goes back to the past, they can make these things we experienced not happen.”

If you say the wrong thing, you’ll become a corpse right away. …Damn it.

Yoo Geum-yi made an “umm” sound and became lost in thought again. Emma, who was in the corner, said to Kanu in a mosquito-like voice while huddled,

“Going back to the past is impossible.”

“Why?”

When Kanu asked indifferently, Emma pressed above her eyes with a tired hand and said,

“You can’t go back because the past is already set. It’s the same reason we can’t time travel. You can’t go back from the present to the past. I don’t care what you do with your money, but I’m telling you because it seems like you’re being tricked by that cult. …Is there no one here who majored in physics?”

No one answered. Either they didn’t want to answer or there really was no physics major. Carter sneered at Emma from the corner and said,

“She believes in some Dagon or demon bastard.”

It seemed Emma couldn’t tolerate Carter’s existence any longer. She raised her heavy eyelids and glared at Carter. Wearing black long-sleeved clothing on top and bottom, she looked like a black box when huddled, but when she stretched out her bent body and stood up, it felt like an optical illusion of elongating and enlarging vertically.

With disheveled hair and her head bent to the side at a 90-degree angle, silently glaring at the other person, it was the very embodiment of a horror movie. Everything that made up Emma was black, and only the whites of her eyes were uniquely bright among them. Seeing fierce sparks flying from Emma’s eyes with blood vessels here and there, Carter erased the smile on his lips.

A 170cm tall expressionless woman was holding a flashlight made of stainless steel upside down, glaring at the other person without blinking and without a word. Looking at her, one could imagine her smashing Carter’s head with what she was holding at any moment. As Emma took a step forward with a madness that seemed to have no bottom line, Carter quickly said to Emma,

“You can believe in Dagon too! Of course. People believe in the Boogeyman, Baba Yaga, and the Tooth Fairy, so it’s natural to believe in an elf that lives in water! I think I judged too hastily!”

Emma expressionlessly swung the flashlight in the empty air. It made a whooshing sound. My younger sibling said they bought an expensive one because I should use a good one if I’m going to use it anyway. If you’re in a hurry, you can use that as a weapon too.

As Emma stood and glared at Carter for a while, Carter was the first to slightly turn his head away. Emma stood for a few seconds, then slowly returned to her original spot and bent her body neatly.

…I think the Tooth Fairy who takes old teeth and brings new ones might have been parents or dentists in that era. In this elevator, Emma almost became one. I don’t know about the other fairies Carter mentioned. If the Tooth Fairy could turn the teeth I pulled out as a dentist into money, could I have already made a fortune? I laughed inwardly at the silly fantasy and looked at Emma who had returned to her previous state.

I understand Emma’s opinion that scientifically, you can’t go back from the present to the past. But still, if you could go back to the past and live again. I thought about it and asked again, thinking when and to whom I could ask such a question.

“Then is it also impossible to repeat a certain amount of time?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Like the story of that Haitian person Kanu-ssi mentioned. Could you also go back to the past for about half a day and repeat it?”

“Ha. …Time can’t break down, so how can it repeat? Go take a basic physics class when you get out of here.”

Emma spoke as if she felt sorry for my intelligence. The physics theory I know is limited to the level of sighing and taking it out again because a probe (explorer, dental tool) falls to the floor if I drop it from my hand, or the power to go up the stairs comes from persistence, not physical strength.

Right. How can it repeat when time isn’t broken? Is that how it works scientifically? Am I worrying for nothing? …In reality, there might be no one. There might really be no armed personnel at all outside the elevator, and the Infinity Church being armed and walking around might be a violent fragment of my dream reflecting my action movie-like subconscious. It could be something my mind, which really doesn’t like Deep Blue’s interior, somehow created by piecing together unrelated religions related to blind sharks.

But what if I really went back to the past and came back? If the elevator reaches the 1st floor and the door opens, bullets suddenly pour out, blood splatters, people die, then what do I do?

Can these people with bean powder-like solidarity block or defeat armed religious group members? The way I see it, unless the other side is completely messed up, like being distracted, drinking alcohol, or we’re so close to them that we can easily take their guns, we absolutely can’t win.

Plus, the only weapons are an axe and a flashlight(?). We might end up fighting each other more and beating each other up, but even if there’s an external enemy, can we fight them together?

Suddenly, my vision turned pitch black and I was startled as if jumping up. I seemed to be more surprised than I thought. Someone who sensed my movement reached out towards me. In the faint darkness, that hand patted my back mercifully and swept it down greatly. It was just someone sweeping down my back, but I felt a hot welling up in the corners of my eyes and an immeasurable sense of stability. Kim Ga-young slowly said to me,

“Moo-hyun-ssi. It’s scary to ride an elevator that keeps having power outages, right?”

I’ve ridden one before, I wanted to say, but I barely swallowed the words. Kim Ga-young seemed to think I was scared because of the elevator power outage. Or she was trying to let the people around think that.

…What I’m worried about is different, but just because you’ve experienced it once doesn’t mean you get used to it. A small hand swung in the empty space next to me and lightly tapped my shoulder. If it’s from this direction, is it Yoo Geum-yi?

Kim Ga-young spoke like an office worker enlightened about the ways of the world.

“We can’t predict and avoid everything that happens while living in this world. We just do our best in what we can do while living. Don’t worry too much about the future. Well, our worrying or being scared doesn’t make a stopped elevator move well, nor does it bring in more salary.”

Kim Ga-young’s tone was slightly enlightened. Do you become transcendent of life because your workplace is being destroyed in real-time? I let out a big sigh and tried to relax the tension in my stiff body.

When a shootout occurred, there were jewels or stands strong enough to support the weight of the jewels to hide behind and avoid bullets, but as Baek Ae-young said, there would be nothing around the elevator to shield the body from external attacks. I was a bit surprised to find myself having thoughts like Baek Ae-young or Seo Ji-hyeok. Is it because I saw and learned things from being with them?

But even if we reach the 1st floor, if we don’t get out of the elevator… If we use the elevator door as a shield, we could block bullets to some extent, right? Like how it was in East District, the thickness of the elevator door is tremendous.

The blue sea came into view.