WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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Chapter 134: Angel Island (4)

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How much time had passed? A faint sense of inertia stirred. The submarine was slowing down. It was about time they reached their destination. Gyeoul, who had been lost in a familiar stream of thought, looked at the seat beside him.

Saaek, saek. Steady breathing. Joanna was asleep. After the captain left, her tension must have eased, because she had started nodding off not long after. By chance, the place she had been using as a chair was a bed. Gyeoul had been the one to gently lay her down so she would not wake. When she curled up, he had covered her with a blanket. He had even lifted her legs onto the bed.

'The air is stuffy, so no wonder she got sleepy. Yesterday and today must have worn her out too.'

The ventilator kept starting and stopping. It must have been adjusting itself automatically according to the carbon dioxide concentration. The threshold seemed to be set low.

Underwater, everything was limited by nature. On a submarine, even oxygen and air purification were limited resources. Conserving them was the basic rule, and a short voyage like this was no exception. They had to prepare for contingencies. Across all of Gyeoul's experience, the only exception had been American nuclear submarines.

The captain's cabin was barely five square meters. Two people had spent several hours in that cramped space, so of course the air had grown hot and stale. It was exactly the sort of condition where drowsiness came easily, whether one wanted it or not.

Gyeoul's eyelids felt hot too. The precisely recreated fatigue was no different from what he had felt when he was alive. If the correction had been any weaker, forced sleep induction might have followed.

'Should I wake her soon?'

Thinking back on how much last night had taken out of her, he did want to let her sleep a little longer. For the sake of keeping her combat strength up, too.

But she would not want the captain, or anyone else, to see her defenseless. With Gyeoul, well, maybe it would be all right now that they had built up some trust? While he was thinking it over, the submarine moved again. Tiny waves of inertia, so slight they would have been hard to notice without sensory correction, repeated as it changed direction. They seemed to be in the middle of some delicate fine-tuning. The crew must have been positioning the submarine to surface.

"Anne, wake up."

He held her shoulder and shook her gently. Mm. Her brow pinched, but her eyes did not open. It reminded him of waking his older sister Gaeul when he was alive, and Gyeoul wore a rare smile he had not forced. A cramped space created many similarities simply by being cramped. The room where they had lived together in poverty had looked a lot like this cabin.

He had hated opening the window so much during the cold seasons. Gyeoul had liked the stuffy air warmed by body heat. Because of that, Gaeul had scolded him often. "What are you going to do if you get sick?" Each time, Gyeoul had mumbled gloomily, "I hate winter."

His life had never been well-off, but his childhood had been especially harsh. Once the air was changed out, body heat was the only way to raise the fallen temperature again. They had to save on heating, and it was not always possible to bring in boiled water and leave it there. So Gaeul had held her two younger siblings under the same blanket for a long time.

In those arms, he had read old books and learned from Gaeul.

Mm... Gyeoul began to miss the hand holding Joanna's shoulder. The warmth in his palm. It had been a long time since someone had held him, and a long time since he had held someone. He wanted to feel that body heat a little longer. The essence beyond it might not be a real person, but people existed beyond the senses anyway.

Gyeoul did not follow his heart. He put strength into his hand.

"Anne. Anne?"

After he shook her a few more times, Joanna's eyes opened to narrow slits. Her pupils moved left and right, then fixed on Gyeoul. Blink, blink. It took about three seconds for her to grasp the situation. She sprang up. After checking her weapon and the time, she sighed and asked,

"I don't remember when I fell asleep. How long was I like that?"

"About an hour and a half."

"Oh no. You should have woken me. You must have been tired too, Gyeoul."

She did not seem particularly embarrassed. Only apologetic. Because she had been the only one sleeping. Gyeoul picked up the fallen blanket and folded it deftly.

"If you slept well, Anne, that's enough."

No sooner had he tidied the bed than someone approached from outside the door. The one who opened it was an armed enlisted sailor.

"Agent Gibson, Lieutenant Han. The captain is calling for you. Please come to the combat command room."

The sailor led the way. Gyeoul studied the sailor's weapon closely. It was a firearm he had never seen before. A light, easy-to-handle type of submachine gun. He was curious about its performance. There was no immediate chance of fighting them, but later, who knew? Or an enemy carrying the same weapon might appear. Another faction of the Self-Defense Forces, for example. An army that had lost its country would not necessarily move as one.

'Hmm. It doesn't look like they cared much about accuracy.'

The barrel was short. The trajectory would be unstable. There was no stock either. Controlling recoil would be difficult. It was probably meant for suppressive fire, spraying many rounds at high speed. In tight environments like submarines or building interiors, it might be useful. If the engagement range was short, accuracy did not matter much. 「Insight」 and 「Perception」 based on 「Combat Sense」 affirmed Gyeoul's judgment.

Come to think of it, one of the FBI's main duties was firearms control. Joanna was likely to know. Should he ask when they had time?

As they walked down the corridor, a faint vibration traveled up through the soles of his feet. He heard water. It felt as though the floor were floating.

In the command room, the captain was waiting with his hands clasped behind his back. He greeted the two of them with restrained courtesy, then offered them the vacant periscope.

"We will surface soon, but before that, I thought it best for you to get a sense of the surroundings."

He meant they should familiarize themselves with the environment above the surface in case combat broke out. Gyeoul lowered his head.

"That is thoughtful of you. Thank you."

The view through the periscope was also projected onto the screen at the front. It was enough for one of the two to take the periscope. The crew did not do it themselves out of consideration, so the two of them could look wherever they wanted. Since Joanna declined, Gyeoul took the position. The captain helped him operate it.

Their surfacing point was between two ships. One of them was probably the CIA's operations headquarters. The other had likely been secured as well. The gaps open to the front and rear had been hidden with narrow-mesh nets.

Would there even be anything to see like this? That was what he thought at first, but once he increased the magnification, the situation changed. The net gradually became sparse and faint, and the scenery beyond it appeared almost unchanged.

"It feels like seeing through it."

"Think of a Kill Flash."

Joanna's voice. A Kill Flash was a frame similar to a net. It was a tool that prevented enemies from detecting you through lens reflection. Even when attached over a scope, it did not interfere with the view.

A distance marker appeared in one corner of his vision, and Gyeoul could make out the faces, equipment, and clothing of armed personnel more than 230 meters away. The light adjustment, which made it look as bright as day, was impressive.

'Soldiers?'

One soldier was mixed in among civilians, drinking heavily and chatting noisily. The soldier wore digital camouflage in an unfamiliar pattern and was armed with a weapon not distributed in the United States. Watching the screen, Joanna murmured,

"Chinese military. They are the real power behind the Chinese people in this area. The trash beside them are... hmm, from the tattoos, they belong to Sihai Bang. The last time I saw them was when we wiped out one of their branches in Los Angeles around eight years ago. I didn't expect to see them again."

At any rate, they were not a threat for now. Gyeoul checked other directions, but perhaps because it was late, he saw only a few sleepy guards. Their lazy watch was not pointed this way.

"I've seen enough. If Anne is fine with it, I think we can go up. The CIA would have posted guards anyway."

Joanna nodded. The captain gave orders to the crew.

"Drain the ballast tanks. Surface."

The executive officer repeated the order once. Again, though more weakly than before, the floor seemed to lift.

Surfacing did not take long. They had already been close enough to the surface to raise the periscope. The captain led Gyeoul and Joanna to the bridge hatch. More people than necessary followed. Perhaps they wanted to say farewell, or perhaps it was simply formality.

At the captain's order, the Japanese sailors climbed the hatch first. When they opened it, small sprays of seawater poured down. Ick. Joanna frowned and shook out her hair.

When Gyeoul climbed up after them, the sailors who had gone first were aiming in every direction.

As if they had been waiting, a rope ladder dropped from above. A man leaning over the cargo ship's railing was looking down at them. In casual clothes, wearing night vision goggles and smoking a cigarette, he gave off a careless impression.

"We were waiting, Inspector. And Lieutenant Han Gyeoul. Hurry up and climb aboard. Let me get some rest too."

Joanna frowned again.

Captain Umehara said his farewell.

"Our meeting was brief, but I am glad to have made your acquaintance. If fate allows it, let us meet again. When that time comes, I will show you a better side of myself. And Lieutenant Han."

He bent at a right angle to Gyeoul.

"For the Japanese citizens wherever you are, please take good care of them."

One by one, the crew followed the captain's example. Gyeoul bowed politely to them as well.

"I ask the same of you. Please continue to remain as you are."

Joanna watched this scene with one foot already on the ladder.

After shaking Captain Umehara's hand one last time, Gyeoul followed Joanna up the ladder. By the time he finished climbing, Jinryu had begun sinking below the surface too. The hull quietly submerged.

"Hmm. Done watching?"

A bored voice. When he looked back, the displeased Joanna and the still relaxed man made a clear contrast. The man tossed his cigarette butt away and took off his night vision goggles. In age, he seemed about Joanna's age or a little older. The guard troops deployed on the deck watched this meeting.

"First of all, nice to meet you. I am Nathan Chadwick, operations team leader of the CIA Homeland Security Support Division and field commander of Operation Fair Strike. Uh... what was it, with burning patriotism and... exceptional loyalty, I offer my deepest condolences to the two of you, who must have been dragged here like dogs and pigs... Anyway, let's eat first. You probably missed dinner because of the schedule."

The flow was a complete mess. Gyeoul wondered what to do, then answered formally.

"As you may know, I am Lieutenant Han Gyeoul. I look forward to working with you."

Joanna, on the other hand, remained silent.

Team Leader Chadwick kept the same bored face while his words alone played at being slick.

"Oh dear, why does our Inspector look so unhappy? You'll ruin that pretty face. We may be the dog of Montague and the cat of Capulet, but... let's not be too stiff from the start. Everyone except the ones on watch or in the middle of an operation is asleep anyway. I can't even introduce you right now, you know?"

"Come on, let's go in." He threw an arm around Gyeoul's shoulders. With his other hand, he pointed the way. His casual attitude was a little awkward. Since he led them away like that, Joanna ended up following behind.

The place he brought them to really was a cafeteria. Team Leader Chadwick entered the kitchen himself. It had an open layout, so conversation was no problem.

"I kept some precious meat aside to receive our precious guests. Would you believe a refrigerated ship came in just in time? I paid a steep price for it, but... Those greedy Chinese. They charged me 150 rifle rounds for two slabs of beef sirloin. Distribution costs in this shitty beggar den keep rising because of those bastards. If not for them, maritime transport would be enough. Hmm. I hope they all die."

Whether it was an act or his nature, he chattered away the whole time he grilled the meat. Mostly meaningless words thrown out one-sidedly. He did not give them a chance to speak.

"Here, eat up."

A roughly grilled steak was placed on the table. Despite that, it tasted good. Joanna picked up her utensils with a reluctant air, then twitched her eyebrows after one bite.

"How is it?"

"Excellent."

At Gyeoul's answer, Chadwick grinned broadly.

"Oh, Lieutenant, I like you. Then should I tell you news about the people you're probably most curious about?"

The people he was most curious about. For Gyeoul, that could only be the Gyeoul Alliance at Fort Roberts. But could there already be news? How long had it been since he left?

'If he's saying it like this, though, something must have happened...'

As Gyeoul quietly stared, Chadwick smiled.

"So you really do want to hear. Well, stars live on attention, after all. Good. Then from now on, I will brief you in detail on the branches and activities of your fan club operating throughout the United States."

"No... I'll pass on that."

What about that had been so funny? The intelligence agent burst into loud laughter. Beside them came a groan. Joanna was putting down her utensils. She looked like she wanted to snap back, but was struggling to choose her words.

Would this operation really be all right?

============================ Author’s Note ============================

#Q&A

Q. kartiel-nim: @ In the setting, are the promotional videos featuring Gyeoul being consumed almost like movies or dramas? I am looking forward to delinquent youth version Han Gyeoul lol

A. Since it is reality, it is more than movies or dramas. As for popularity... mm... Michael Jackson?...

Q. OneChance-nim: @ Recently this is the second time I thought, "Huh, did I skip a chapter?" and went back to the previous one. Once was the crazy captain case. Skipping ahead first and filling it in with flashbacks is a story development used often here and there, but... this time, rather than feeling like an intended development, it looks like a bad move left in place to push forward a tangled plot. I don't know if I hadn't noticed before because I was following the serial installments as they came out, but... while reading, it felt like the flow just snapped off, so it wasn't very pleasant. Since the update cycle has gotten longer compared to before, seeing this makes me worried that maybe you are busy these days or in a situation where writing has become difficult. I also wonder if it is because of readers who start yelling whenever the story progression slows down even a little... I am writing on my phone, so the post is getting long and I can't express everything I'm thinking, so I will stop here. I hope my worries are unfounded. I am always supporting you. Fighting.

A. It is true that comments saying the pacing is slow have been bothering me. Still, I thought I had written it without much strain, but I guess it was uncomfortable for you. Haha. I will think about it a little more and either fix it or something.

Q. Pepper Pepperpepper-nim: @Do you not watch that g-game of thrones full of childlike innocence?

A. I watched up to season 1 and stopped. I don't have enough time to watch that. T_T

Q. Strawberry Munch Munch-nim: @I voted for the protagonist award rather than the subject matter award. The apocalypse setting and the apocalypse game story setting are unusual, but I feel like the protagonist stands out more than that.

A. Either one is fine. This novel is not going to place anyway. I am grateful just for the vote. :)

Q. Nanananyang-nim: @After reading Joara novels, the line between plagiarism and cliches feels vague. I was curious what you think about it, author-nim, so I am asking.

A. I think authors' professional ethics have gone missing.

I also think the argument that readers wanted it, or that supply exists because there is demand, is a cowardly excuse. If you study even a little economics, you know supply and demand influence each other...

Among the various ways to satisfy demand, they are simply choosing the easiest and most proven path.

They say imitation is the mother of creation, but the only imitation that saying can justify is imitation that aims for creation. Dressing up the whole work in a similar way and then making excuses like, "It's fine because legally it isn't plagiarism. There is nothing new under the sky anyway, right?"... Well... that makes me sad...

Q. MasterKalsolum-nim: @How much is 16 coupons? First, I will allocate 2 per tentacle and give you 16. They say 2 of a squid's 10 legs are reproductive organs. Therefore, 8 legs at 2 each makes 16 coupons.

A. My legs are purely legs, though? I don't have reproductive organs.

Footnotes:

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