CH 11.4

I had no idea what she was talking about. I guess I would have to take the central elevator and walk on the surface. I shouldn’t miss the beach on the surface. Perhaps Baek A-yeong explained in as much detail as possible, but I had no choice but to rely on my ability to walk without getting lost to get to the bakery in the third underwater base. Otherwise, I would waste the golden rest time we first obtained at the underwater base. If that mysterious man was lying there, I would either call the hospital or the medic to have him treated. As Baek A-yeong said, I wouldn’t know where he had gone by now. If he had hurt his jaw or teeth, I would book him as my patient.

We were sitting at a table right in front of the café, and I could feel people’s gaze pa*sing over my face as they walked by or sat down. When I turned my head, I met the gaze of a man who had been waiting for his coffee, but he quickly averted his eyes and left with a sullen expression. Another man sitting across the table, sipping his coffee, responded with the same reaction when I looked at him. I wondered why they were acting that way and nervously turned my head around. In a split second, I realized that I was not a particularly attractive person and turned my gaze to the woman in front of me.

Baek A-yeong was as pretty as a doll. She had a tiny face with bangs neatly trimmed to slightly cover her eyebrows, and long, black hair that fell all the way down to her waist. Baek A-yeong untied her hair to re-tie it, biting the hair tie and gathering the hair around her forehead and ears with both hands. Her posture was so upright that my gaze was naturally drawn to her.

“The men are staring at you intensely. I’m scared I’ll receive a love letter in my room soon,” I said.

Baek A-yeong smiled and lifted the corners of her mouth, dropping the hair tie she had been holding in her mouth. Worried that it might fall into her coffee, I quickly caught it and held it in my hand like a hair tie holder. Taking the hair tie from my palm, Baek A-yeong finished tying her hair, creating a beautiful ponytail.

When we finished our coffee and conversation, I stretched and said it was time to go back to the laundry room. Baek A-yeong nodded her head, and then quickly swallowed her coffee in one gulp. Looking at me with a vacant expression, she said, “Wear sandals and go to the beach. Crazy guys drink beer and eat gla*s bottles.”

She then headed to the opposite side of the cafe. I picked up my laundry and started walking towards the laundry room. The man who had been knocked out was nowhere to be seen. There wasn’t even a trace of bloodstains. Had the cleaning robot already been here? If I had come here now, I would have thought that nothing had happened.

I felt a strange sense of mood. Suddenly, I thought that the Fourth Underwater Base was like a huge prison where violence happened dozens of times in places that I didn’t know, and I went to the laundry room thinking like that. Then a man wearing a T-shirt with a big shark drawn on his chest greeted me. I introduced myself as I returned the greeting. He was drying black clothes in the dryer. I threw all my laundry into one washing machine and separated the whites into another.

After turning on the washing machine, I returned to my room and lay on the bed, holding the Underwater Base guidebook in my hand. The first chapter of the guidebook was about how to escape from the underwater base. If it was a guidebook, shouldn’t it start with an introduction to the underwater base? I looked at the book and the page numbers were messed up, probably because the last chapter had been edited and moved to the front. I read the book while tossing and turning on the bed.

[There are currently a total of 234 employees at the Fourth Underwater Base, and there are a total of 220 escape pods (available: 218, under repair: 2). Since this underwater base was originally designed for 300 people, the number of escape pods is not in compliance with safety regulations, and we have already requested several times from ISO to increase the number of escape pods per person. However, it is still pending after two years.]

When I arrived, there were about 400 to 500 people at the Fourth Underwater Base. If I were to take them in order, I wouldn’t be able to get on the escape pod. I pressed my pillow with my chin, thinking about it.

[The evacuation procedure in the Underwater Base guidebook prioritizes escaping through the elevator that moves vertically 3,000 meters. However, in case of any problem in the underwater base, there is a high probability that the elevator cannot be used due to the water pressure. If external impact occurs, all elevators connecting each underwater base will automatically stop. Even if engineers manually operate the elevator, there is a high probability of death before reaching the destination. Therefore, it is recommended to run towards the escape pod depending on the current location, as the survival rate is higher than using the eight elevators.]

The writing was dense. It seemed that Shin Hae-ryang had received translated material and worked hard to add footnotes. As I read through the evacuation instructions and the criticisms of someone who had read the evacuation instructions, sleepiness overtook me. Before I knew it, I had fallen asleep with the guidebook on my chest, dreaming of swimming with fish and mermaids.