Tourist Attraction Maker
After the day we worked the flamingos half like living sculptures and fired off hundreds of photos, we kept right on sightseeing. At the Charles Darwin Research Station on a nearby island we watched tortoises and all manner of other animals, and we were able to look over specimens of quite a few creatures besides.
We made the rounds of one site after another, and in the end we spent close to ten days on the Galapagos Islands alone. It was a wonderful stretch of time, of course. We met animals you could never easily see in Korea, and there were plenty of experiences to be had along the way.
Day after day we filled ourselves with pleasure and novelty, and then, setting a great deal of regret behind us, we passed our last night.
"Um..."
The morning after that final night, with our bags packed to bursting for the journey home, we found the guide wearing a thoroughly awkward expression.
"Is something wrong? Oh—did the luggage get to be too much...?"
"Why does our luggage always multiply the moment we take a trip?" Noona said. "Use what you brought and it ought to shrink."
"Isn't it because we bought up every souvenir in sight? Eight hats from here, twenty scarves... and was it about thirty pieces of decor? And on top of that—"
We traded a brief bit of banter in front of the guide. Even so, the look on his face refused to ease. Starting to wonder if something really was the matter, I turned to him, and he opened his mouth with a deeply apologetic expression.
"I'm truly sorry to ask this on the day you're leaving, but... could you grant me just one favor?"
"A favor? What kind?"
"You know the place. Where you cut the marine debris off the sea turtles and the sea lions and the rest."
"Ah. That place..."
The memory of nearly being swarmed by seafood—octopuses and the like—surfaced, and my face twisted on its own. Perhaps because of that grimace, the guide looked even more sorry.
"So why there?"
"The truth is, it's about halfway to becoming a tourist attraction... and we were hoping for a little help."
"Help? No, wait—a tourist attraction?"
Rather than explain it in so many words, he said it would be better if I saw the place myself, and asked me to come along for just a little while. I had no particular reason to refuse, so I gave a light nod and agreed.
Thanks to that, Noona announced she would finish the departure preparations she hadn't managed to wrap up in time, and she unpacked every bag she had only just stuffed shut.
"Have a good trip!"
"Pya!"
As if she wanted to go along packed inside the luggage, Soeun sat down in the suitcase and waved. Seen off by Noona and Soeun, I set out with the guide, and before long we arrived at the spot where we had gone swimming.
"...?"
The moment I got there, I lost every word I had. A great crowd stood lined up in rows, and every single person was gripping a knife a little smaller than the palm of a hand.
"Did these people come here to start a knife fight?"
"A knife fight... Well, in a manner of speaking, it is a knife fight."
I startled at that and looked at him, only to find the guide grinning. I stared as if to say he had better quit joking and explain, and the grinning man laid out the whole story.
"You saved those animals back then, the sea turtles and the rest, didn't you? It seems someone filmed you rescuing them and receiving their thanks."
"Ugh..."
The thought that they had caught me freaking out over an octopus left me oddly embarrassed. That embarrassment, though, turned to sheer disbelief at what he said next.
"Because of the video, a few more people started seeking this place out, and then someone happened to find a sea turtle tied up in rope."
"...Surely not. Tell me that's not it."
"Why wouldn't it be? They cut the line binding the sea turtle, and a little later it came back with a fish in its mouth. Ever since, people have been waiting around with knives, just like that. Waiting for a sea turtle, or any other animal, with marine debris tangled around its body."
"Did anyone besides that person actually succeed?"
"Quite a few, they say. Most of them got something in return, too. Fish or shellfish, for the most part. You left without taking the octopus, so perhaps that's why no one gets an octopus?"
"..."
I was so dumbfounded I couldn't get a word out. How had anyone even thought to copy that? I stood there unable to go on, staring at the crowd in disbelief, and the guide, who had waited a moment, spoke again.
"So the government here made a request. They want to turn it into a kind of tourist attraction, and they'd like you to spread the word among the animals."
"...I'm sorry?"
"Marine debris keeps washing in no matter how much you clear away. So rather than going out to find and rescue the animals one by one, wouldn't it be better to have them come looking for us themselves? And it can double as a tourism resource, besides."
Hearing him out, I could follow the logic well enough. Better to have the animals come of their own accord than to go searching for ones whose lives were already in danger.
"Of course, they say they'll also station staff on site for the animals' safety. To carry out rescues when no one else is around, and to stop anyone who threatens them."
"Well, if that's how it is, I can't very well refuse. They've given us so much already, and I did feel a little guilty about looking out for nothing but the penguins."
However high the going rate for a Supreme Rank Awakened Individual might be, the considerations the Galapagos side had shown us, and the compensation they had promised, were by no means small. They had even arranged for us to take the penguin, Pe-eng, along, which only weighed on me more.
I asked Noona to have a change of clothes ready, then immediately pushed through the crowd and lowered myself into the sea. Someone shouted along the way as if to say there would be no cutting in line, but people who recognized me opened a path one after another, so it was no trouble.
Out at the point farthest from the beach, people were already lined up, bracing against the waves and holding their places.
"Oh!"
A white man waiting at the very front with a knife in hand caught sight of me and looked startled.
"Divine Beast!"
He was shouting Divine Beast—a word-for-word translation of Shinsu, the name of my MewTube channel. Then he announced that he was a subscriber, asked for a handshake, and even requested a photo. After I ended up taking one with him in the fluster of the moment, I swam a little farther out.
I had only been waiting there a short while when, from some distance off, a sea lion came swimming slowly toward me.
"Eung?"
The moment it saw me, though, its eyes lit up and it started glancing all around. I watched for a moment, and then I realized I had seen the creature somewhere else before.
"Hey. It's you, isn't it? The one who grabbed the penguin that time."
"Euhung!"
The sea lion startled at my words and made as if to flee. The marine debris cinching its flippers and torso, though, kept it from getting away. I seized it at once.
"Where do you think you're going!"
"Let go, let me go! If Pretty's not here, I've got no business with you!"
"Why are you looking for my daughter!"
"I dunno! Let go!"
The sea lion wailed and thrashed, trying to escape me. I held on and would not release it, and once its strength gave out, it finally surrendered. Being in the water, I could at least lift the creature without too much trouble, so I dragged it along to the white man who had claimed to be my subscriber.
"Um... C, cut!"
"Okay!"
What I had produced was barely more than a single word of English, but the meaning seemed to have gotten across well enough. The man looked at the sea lion in my grip, came closer with a touch of fear in his face, and cut away the marine debris constricting its body.
"Wooooah! Thank you!"
Freed of the debris, it immediately tried to bolt, but I did not let go. The man beside me had grabbed hold of it along with me in the confusion, so between us we managed not to lose it.
"Just let me go a little!"
"You wait a minute."
"Kuuung..."
I gripped it hard and told it to stay, and the sea lion gave up on escaping again. Only then did I start explaining why I had caught it in the first place.
"You. Pass a message along to the sea lions and the sea turtles and the rest."
"A message?"
"Creatures tangled up in trash, like you were just now—tell them that if they come this way, the humans will cut them free."
"That's all I have to do?"
"No. Also tell them that once they're free, they ought to offer a reasonable thanks. A small fish, or a shellfish off the bottom. You know the sort."
The sea lion flopped its enormous body. "That much is easy!"
"You have to do it too, so bring a fish or a shellfish and give it to the human right here."
"Got it!"
I let go of the sea lion once it answered that it understood, and it swam off at speed and vanished in no time. The man beside me could not understand a word I had said, but he had watched me point at him and say something, and he looked at me with open expectation.
"Wait."
I told him to wait a moment, and he fixed his eyes on the sea and settled in. I let out a small laugh at the sight and waited with him, and before long the sea lion that had disappeared came back, a small fish held in its mouth.
"Pwesent!"
"...Is this thing messing with me?"
It called the thing a gift, but what it had brought was a pufferfish puffed up tight as a drum, and I could only stare in disbelief. Unlike me, the man at my side seemed thoroughly pleased, and he hoisted the swollen pufferfish high into the air. At that, the people who had been waiting broke into applause, or looked on with naked envy.
"...I don't get it."
I could not for the life of me understand being happy to receive a pufferfish, but it was none of my concern. I had spread the word among the animals, just as the Galapagos side had wanted, and from here on it was no business of mine. Whether some human ate a so-called gift of pufferfish and drifted off bloated, or didn't—what did I care? I shook my head and made my way back to the lodging.
And there I heard yet another shocking piece of news.
"I forgot to mention it earlier... The flamingo lake has become a photo spot for people now, too. Apparently it's turned into a trend to photograph the flamingos, which have learned that if they strike a pose, they'll be given food. There's already a vendor set up selling the food the flamingos like..."
What in the world had I done?