Hey, This Bastard... I'm Not Crazy, Right? (2)
I feel like I'm floating in water.
“Captain, it’s dangerous!”
Why is this happening?
“Ugh, Elia… This is too much, even if I do it…”
Right now.
It felt like watching a movie from the theater seats.
It wasn’t me. It was me…
“The captain seems to have lost consciousness!”
“Damn it, I know that too! What kind of monster is this?!”
I was clearly…
“Everyone, stay alert, or you’ll die!”
“Understood, Captain!”
⦿
Eight hours ago.
When I returned to my room, I started scanning the documents piled on the desk. Reports written in languages I’d never seen before. But with Fact-sensei around, there was nothing to fear! As if answering my own thoughts, the characters on the report blinked several times, then translated into Korean and floated before my eyes.
Great! Great! Xgao must be crying too!
How amazing is the Korean language, right?
Of course, K-nationalistic flattery should be supported.
Arriving at the palace of Joseon…
Hmm, shall I take a look?
“[Engine Improvement Plan and Future Maintenance Schedule]…”
Besides that, there was a long list of reports: [Nautilus Cannon Output Report], [Unknown Navigation Route Report], [Crew Welfare Enhancement Plan], [Corps Maintenance Standby List], [Shipboard Combat Training Achievement Report], and so on.
“…I have no idea what any of this is.”
After reading everything, it was just a bunch of things that looked difficult. In fact, these kinds of information were useless to me anyway since I couldn’t understand them. As the captain, I could just say “Good, let’s go!” and be done with it, right…? Please say that, Fact-sensei!
[…….]
Pfft! Fact-sensei didn’t answer. Fortunately, right next to the report was a neatly written one-week schedule in Elia’s handwriting, which seemed to be the most helpful information for me right now. Starting tomorrow, it was the captain’s life of tightrope walking. If something I didn’t know came up, use the captain’s power for infinite thread-pulling! If it got troublesome, first go crazy and interrogate, if there was a mistake in processing, say “The one who looks like me, come out!” That was the perfect trinity, wasn’t it?
“Today’s date is…”
That thing floating in the upper right of my vision.
Does it match today’s date and time?
Let me check, what I have to do tomorrow…
“What kind of notebook is this?”
The leather notebook neatly placed next to the schedule.
It looked like it had been used for a long time, the leather noticeably worn.
What kind of notebook was this? Curious, I immediately opened it.
The first line on the very first page.
Scary. I become not myself.
I thought it was pointless to open it.
This is a diary, right? A diary, right? It seems right.
Can I read it? No privacy?
No, it’s mine. But it’s not mine either?
Screw it. Should I read it?
It’s being eroded. It hurts but I have to endure.
A voice is heard. An unknown voice.
I haven’t kept the promise with Eve yet.
It feels like part of the memories have changed.
I paused for a moment while leaning on the back of the chair and reading.
Part of the memory changed? What kind of cyborg are you?
That’s not applicable to me, right?
I already did the fact check earlier, right?
No abnormalities, right? By the way…
“Stomach… rumbling… I’m hungry.”
Since I was hungry, I should stop reading.
Hehe, I hadn’t eaten anything but I was burping.
Yes, I know! This is important!
But there’s the saying “Gangnam Station is after eating,” right?
Anyway, I have to eat first.
I’m starving.
Ugh.
There’s food.
Combat rations piled up in one corner of the room.
Is this the space combat rations from the game?
Since it’s in my room, it’s mine, right? I’ll eat it without hesitation.
Gulp.
Until I forget everything.
Until everything becomes mine.
Because I was too hungry, I started tearing off the packaging and eating it greedily. It was surprisingly delicious. So delicious that even eating the packaging would be good. I felt the disgusting, bitter taste of plastic in my mouth, but for some reason, it gradually turned into a sweet taste. It must be the cutting-edge space combat rations designed to be eaten even the packaging in extreme situations. Keke.
Cough, cough, my throat is blocked. Water, water, give me water!
While searching for water like a shaman about to die, a sound of small metal balls clinking came from a corner of the dark room. Dozens of shiny objects were hanging on coat hooks on the wall and moving in sync with the ship’s sway.
“This is…”
As I got closer, I saw familiar objects. Small metal beads strung together into a necklace. An identification tag attached to the necklace. I know this thing. It was a military dog tag. But why is the military dog tag dangling like this…
This military dog tag looks familiar.
What the hell is this?
I was in the navy.
Then it’s natural.
No, that’s not it.
The military dog tag looks familiar.
What is this military dog tag?
Remember—ha—ma ra.
The neck—is mine.
I haven’t kept the promise with Eve yet.
The gi—is important.
Everything to me—ra.
Suddenly, with a pain like my head is shattering, fragments of various images brushed my head. Me holding Eve’s hand running in a field of rapeseed flowers. The pine tree standing in the center of the square piled with snow, Eve wrapping a scarf around me under that pine tree. The judge pronouncing the death sentence in court, and the graveyard stretching endlessly.
If you are by my side—,
I—wouldn’t have died, right?
In front of the graveyard, I atone.
I’m howling while clutching my chest.
But why?
“Huh, kueuk.”
The headache is getting worse.
A piercing tinnitus rings in my ears.
It’s mine. It’s mine. It’s mine.
Everything is mine.
And finally, a clear voice is heard.
A voice is heard. An unknown voice.
I feel a creepy sensation as my hair stands on end.
Give me everything.
Yes, slowly, very slowly.
Leave everything to me.
Ha, haha. Am I hearing things again?
Is it because I’m thinking weird thoughts?
Yes, since I’m the captain now, I’m pissed off, but hearing voices is possible. It’s fine! Probably because it’s an SF world, a few weird sounds could be Fact-sensei’s system error. This is because I received too much stress. Look at the documents piled on the desk. If I handle all of them alone, I might hear voices too.
And that’s it. If I hear such voices, I can’t do the “Who is there?! Come out!” I shouted in the dark room during my middle school days here and now. I’m a grown-up! I have pride, I absolutely can’t do that.
Yes, so—
“Let’s not think about other things.”
As soon as the words ended, pain in the chest. At the same time, extreme thirst was felt. Same pattern as last time. Water, water is needed. Anyway, I have to drink water. I staggered into the bathroom and turned on the faucet. Without time to catch my breath, I gulped water for a long time.
“Yes, because I’m constantly thinking other things. This thirst…”
What’s the connection between thirst and this? No, there is a connection.
I have to give everything as is, but because I’m resisting unnecessarily.
Wait, what am I saying now?
Illogical thoughts are floating in my head.
Because the burning pain continued, I loosened my uniform.
Bandage?
The bandage wrapped around my chest.
A black pus-soaked bandage.
As I slowly unwound the bandage, what appeared.
“…?”
Why the bandage? Ah, to show this?
A black thing wriggling near the right side of my chest.
Moving? Parasite? Why on my body…? No, on my body?
An unrealistic scene. Disgusting and terrifying. While repeatedly telling myself not to vomit on myself, I forcibly grabbed the unidentified black biological entity with my left hand and tore it. But the black thing I pulled didn’t come off my chest at all, making a squeaking, disgusting scream. Wrong. This shouldn’t be attached to my body.
“Get off, get off!”
The instinct whispered that this horrible thing would never fall off my body. As my breathing quickened, my hand trembled. I picked up a piece of broken mirror fragment from the floor of the bathroom. With the fragment tightly gripped, my hand was cut and blood flowed, but that didn’t matter.
“Die, damn it!”
I stabbed the parasite attached to my body madly. Black pus burst from the torn area. But even that, the parasite became more disgusting, clinging to my body and starting to regenerate quickly. No pain was felt. But when no pain was felt, I became more anxious.
The reason no pain is felt.
It wasn’t me.
This is not part of me.
My reflection in the broken mirror fragment.
The thought stops.
The sentence written in Elia’s diary.
It’s being eroded. It hurts but I have to endure.
“Damn it, what the hell, die, die! Die!”
What is this, what is this, what the hell
Stop it, stop it.
How can this be attached to my body.
“Huh, huh, ha, damn, damn!”
Scary. I become not myself.
Don’t say nonsense.
My birthday, December 4, 2097.
My military number, 20-72971204
It’s not the time to be thinking about this weird stuff now.
I have to tear it off from my body. I have to tear it off.
The blood of the parasite, warm, is slippery on my hand.
I can’t distinguish whether it’s the parasite’s blood or my own blood.
It’s fine. If I go to Sister Reina, she’ll treat me.
I did my best to stab deep into my chest.
“Stop*crackling*?”
Looking at the pus spurting like a fountain—
“Ah, it’s so disgusting.”
I said that.
“I will put all of you into my arms completely.”
The whole world compresses and turns into a single point.
“Even the last fragment of my mind.”
With those words, my consciousness was sucked into a tunnel.
⦿
Where am I?
In my faint consciousness, fragments of the past are replaying.
“Elia.”
Eve’s voice. Inside a ruined building. From far away outside the building, occasional sounds of artillery and machine guns. I was sitting on a broken bed. Only a thin line of sunlight leaking through the bullet-ridden roof illuminated the dark room.
“Shall we do it here?”
Eve threw the first aid kit and pulse rifle she was carrying on her shoulder onto the cement floor. Then she pulled a chair with a broken backrest and sat next to me. In her hand was a syringe with green medicine.
“Come closer.”
Because a shell fell nearby, there was a ‘boom’ vibration. Due to the shock, cement dust and concrete fragments from the broken building fell from the ceiling.
“Don’t forgive me, Elia.”
I looked at Eve. She raised her long eyelashes and fixed her golden eyes on me. Her eyes were full of grief that scraped at her heart. But at the same time, unconditional love was contained in her deep eyes. My reflection in those eyes was resolute.
“Don’t forgive me.”
Eve repeats.
“Huh, never—”
“-Eve, if it’s for you… I can be anything.”
I placed my hand on her slightly trembling shoulder.
I shook my head as if to say not to say anything.
Tears began to well up in her golden eyes.
“Sorry, Elia. Sorry, I’m, even while saying this, scared and afraid, and forcing this on you. You’ll never be forgiven in your life, hate me forever, Elia. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry… huh, sorry.”
Finally, the tears that had been pooling in Eve’s two eyes burst out. The shaking of her shoulders intensified, and words biased towards emotion rather than reason poured out. I pulled her into my arms.
“-Eve, don’t cry.”
I don’t know what she’s asking for forgiveness for.
I want to reach out to memories but they have already been taken away.
But Eve was crying for me.
That alone was enough reason to forgive.
“Elia, Elia, Elia! Huh, Elia!”
Eve let out a sob even more pitifully from my arms. At that moment, a voice came from the walkie-talkie in her first aid kit.
“…Current Sector 09 has lost operational capability. Execute operation name ‘Hetacomb’. All citizens of Sector 09 immediately comply with the orders. This is an automatic repeating communication and is the final command signal sent only when I die. The Unknown’s parasite infection speed is too fast. If this signal is captured from outside, support here should be abandoned. Stop increasing meaningless sacrifices. Surviving soldiers should prioritize killing surviving citizens over infected ones. Surviving citizens are advised to commit suicide before increasing the infection source. All retreats have already been blocked. Current Sector 09 has lost operational capability. Execute operation name ‘Hetacomb’—”
As I reached out to the bag and turned off the walkie-talkie, boom- and again, this time shells fell quite close. The explosion shook the entire building.
Eve got out of my arms.
She wiped her tears and rolled up my sleeve.
And, the needle of the syringe pierced my arm.