Beacon of Light in the Dark Sea - Chapter 88

Only then did I realize that Jihyun had assigned us without asking how well we could swim. If it were me, I would probably ask how well they swim and assign those who are good at it farther away and those who aren’t closer. Carter asked Jihyun,

“Which valve are you going to open?”

Jihyun showed the map and pointed to two valves. She had told us to open one valve each, but it seemed she had set two as her share to handle.

“I’ll do this one and this one.”

“What? Two?”

“If you’d like to open two valves and travel, would you like to switch with me?”

When Jihyun asked Carter with an expressionless face, Carter asked Ga-young next to him,

“… Miss Kim. Where are you?”

“Here. Next to my lab on the 1st floor. Why? Do you want to switch with me?”

It seemed the places the two were going to weren’t to Carter’s liking. Carter’s eyes met mine.

“Where is the dentist going?”

“I’m going next to Laboratory 120. Carter, where is Laboratory 120? I’m new to the research center, so I don’t know my way around. If it’s closer or easier from here, would you like to switch with me?”

At my question, Carter grimaced and stepped back.

“Why should I switch valve locations with you?”

“Weren’t you asking around to switch with someone else?”

“It’s unfair if only mine is far.”

Leaving that remark, Carter started talking with Benjamin, clutching a pad with several cracks.

Amusingly, there are no lies in what I said to Benjamin. … I really don’t know where Laboratory 120 is. I memorized the location I need to go to while looking at the map, but I’m not sure if I can find it as easily as I think while in the water.

But the others seemed to know well where and how they should go. After all, most of these people were staff members working at the deep sea pollution center. They seemed to roughly know which corridor had which lab in which area, but listening to their conversation, it seemed the most unfortunate one here was me, who had entered this building for the first time. Or Yoo Geum-yi, who was tapping her waist with her face pale.

“Does your back hurt a lot?”

“My back was already a bit bad. But it’s not getting better after getting hit by the chair.”

Could it be a herniated disc? I asked Yoo Geum-yi again,

“Where does it hurt the most?”

“My back hurts. And my legs are numb.”

“Both legs?”

“Both legs.”

Is it a herniated disc?! It might not be. Then would it get a bit better if she goes in the water? I looked closely at the location Yoo Geum-yi had to go to. It was quite different from Laboratory 120. I carefully asked Yoo Geum-yi,

“Try telling Jihyun once. Ask her to change it to somewhere else. Or to exclude you altogether.”

Yoo Geum-yi looked at Jihyun, then shook her head.

“I can’t say it now.”

Yoo Geum-yi looked towards Carter and said,

“If I say it, Jihyun might make a special exception for me. And that special treatment will become a weakness that those people can use to attack Jihyun. They’re already desperate to find the tiniest fault, so I don’t want to give them such an excuse. They’ll ask why she’s excluding me and not them. I don’t want my words to burden Jihyun. She must be having a hard time as it is. … Even if it kills me, I can’t do it now.”

I was a bit surprised to hear Yoo Geum-yi’s thoughts. … Well. If the drainage system won’t work with one less person, it’s either a problem with the drainage system, or escaping via the elevator was impossible from the start. And besides Yoo Geum-yi, who’s injured, there are more than 5 men who are physically fine, excluding Canu.

The humans in good condition can just jump in the water twice. In this situation, if things don’t work out properly or we all end up dying because it doesn’t work out, it won’t be because of Yoo Geum-yi’s back injury but because of paltry calculations and extreme selfishness. I tried to dissuade Yoo Geum-yi a couple more times. But Yoo Geum-yi stubbornly said,

“The back pain might get a bit better if I go in the water. As you know, the weight is reduced due to buoyancy, so the burden on the spine decreases.”

“But it might get worse while swimming. I object to swimming with a numb leg.”

“… You don’t despise injured people.”

Well, everyone who comes to me is a patient. How can I do my job if I despise patients? It’s rare for people with perfectly healthy teeth to come to the dentist, but literally very rare. Most visit complaining of pain and discomfort somewhere.

Thinking about patients or people with disabilities, even in our family, there are those who have difficulties in daily life, but… No. Let’s stop thinking about it. Right now, I don’t want to be emotional, let alone get lost in thoughts about family in this situation. I gave Yoo Geum-yi a simple answer,

“It might be because of my job.”

“The injured are a burden in this situation.”

I was quite surprised inwardly that Yoo Geum-yi, who was holding her back, said such a thing. I shook my head and answered,

“With that kind of judgment, everyone here can become a burden. For being injured, slow, old, ugly, poor. Don’t have such self-deprecating thoughts.”

Don’t worry, Yoo Geum-yi! Objectively speaking, I’m the most useless one here! What the hell can I do without a dental clinic?! Waste oxygen by breathing?! I can barely see out of one eye because it’s so swollen! But I’m still trying not to think so pessimistically. It’s not like the situation will get any better by thinking that way anyway.

Come to think of it… does Yoo Geum-yi think I’ll abandon or neglect the injured, treating them as a burden? That’s a bit sad. If we dig deeper into the injured part, I’m also disabled. My eyes look almost the same on the outside after the back and eye surgery, and I have no problem with daily life, and I can freely get insurance, so I sometimes forget about it too.

Other people… I don’t know. They might judge the injured as a burden and abandon them? It’s not like I have the ability to read other people’s minds. Giving up on trying to dissuade Yoo Geum-yi, I proposed a compromise.

“Yoo Geum-yi. Switch places with me. You go to room 120. I heard room 111 is Ga-young’s lab, and Ga-young is going to open the valve near her lab, so wouldn’t you feel more at ease mentally if you go to room 120? You’ve been to Ga-young’s lab before, right?”

“Yes. I’ve been there many times.”

I don’t know how much Ga-young, who bakes bread when stressed, and Yoo Geum-yi, who loves bread, have been going back and forth to each other’s labs, but it must have been countless times.

“Then think of it as swimming to Ga-young’s lab. I’ll approach the… supply room area and open the valve in your place.”

“Will you still be okay with that?”

“Either way, it’s my first time going to both room 120 and the supply room. But it will feel different for you. You’ll know the way better too.”

You won’t get lost or anything. It’ll ease my worries a bit too. Let’s go to the place that’s a bit more comfortable for at least one of us. That would be better in terms of work efficiency too. I started looking at the location of the supply room Yoo Geum-yi was assigned to. I checked the route again to see where on the 3rd floor I should jump from to get there as quickly as possible.

While I was doing that, a few people around me lightly stretched to loosen up their bodies and threw off all their clothes. Sam Young and Daniel James were already shirtless or had even taken off their pants and were entering the water. Sam shouted obnoxiously as he submerged his lower body in the water.

“Ahh! Cold! Cold! Ack! Cold! Cold! Oh Jesus! Oh God! Oh, help me! Oh Je-sus! Oh, I’m freezing to death!”

“Ah, shut up!”

James splashed a lot of water on Sam’s face as he entered the water. While the two were brutally pouring seawater on each other, Canu shook his head at the sight and entered the water in a straight line without a sound. Logan dipped his feet in the water, sighing heavily, then spouted a few F-related curses and went into the water with a splash. Carter and Benjamin were also preparing to enter the water.

Ga-young stretched her calf and ankle muscles for a long time, then walked around the 3rd floor corridor. Then she waved at me and Yoo Geum-yi and slowly put her legs in the water. Ga-young grimaced. She scooped up water with her hands and poured it on her body. When I looked in that direction a few seconds later, she had already disappeared under the surface.

Yoo Geum-yi, who had been preparing a bit farther from where Ga-young had dived in, was also slowly putting her body in the water. Just before submerging, Yoo Geum-yi said one thing to me.

“The water temperature is quite low. Don’t go in too quickly.”

“… Stay strong.”

Watching Yoo Geum-yi enter the water, I took off my top. I had already decided in my mind to swim with my pants on. The moment I put my feet in the water with my upper body half-naked, the thought that came to mind was a curse about humans themselves.

Why… why don’t human bodies have as much hair as animals? Why are we so weak that we can feel the cold so clearly just by taking off a piece of cloth? Or at least have thicker skin to be able to swim well. Are we sure we evolved properly?!

I endured the cold and poured water on my body. I was doing this to not die from a heart attack, but for a moment, I wondered if I was really not going to die.

Jihyun watched people entering the water, then familiarly went into the seawater. In the dream, Baek Ae-young said she wasn’t good at swimming, but Jihyun seemed to be very good at it. I exhaled deeply, then inhaled deeply again. I repeated this action several times, then took a big breath, puffed up my cheeks, and put my head in the water.

The water looked extremely dark from the outside, but perhaps because it was inside the building, the underwater visibility wasn’t that bad once I was in the water. It’s just that all sorts of debris was floating around. I was a bit in awe of the sight unfolding underwater, as I had learned to swim in an indoor pool, so it was my first time seeing so many structures in the water.

Although I could barely see about 4-5 meters in front of me, it was still spectacular to see a 2-story building completely submerged. I had the strange feeling of having entered a treasure ship in search of treasure. After marveling for about 2 seconds, I quickly started descending vertically.