Hand Signals, Sign Language
I went and did something unnecessary.
That was what Yeon-woo thought as he watched John McCallan's retreating back.
John McCallan had approached Yeon-woo and his companions while they were eating breakfast, tossed out a few perfunctory greetings, and then vanished without another word.
As a result, every person in the hotel restaurant began staring at Yeon-woo and his group.
"That must be the guy."
"You mean the champion?"
The man in the red beanie sitting nearby snorted.
"Champion? Please. He just got lucky as the inaugural winner. The gap in level between Survival Island and this Global Match is enormous."
"True enough. It was basically a kids' game they put on after dragging a bunch of nobodies out of some tiny country in the East. Honestly, looking up that guy's profile told me everything I needed to know about the show's quality."
Someone beside him chimed in agreement, and the man in the red beanie grew even more animated.
"I looked up his profile too. Interesting stuff. As an actor, his résumé was flawless—Golden Bear at Berlin, plenty of high-profile works. But survival is a different story. No military service, never competed in any international events or related competitions."
Others around them piled on.
"Hey, Gunnar. You really don't know a thing about Asian broadcasting systems."
"Asian broadcasting systems?"
"They're basically puppet shows, almost entirely scripted. The whole thing was rigged from the start so that guy would win."
"You mean it wasn't real? So it was a fake documentary?"
The man in the red beanie looked doubtful, and the man beside him quietly nodded.
"Look at his filmography, his looks, his age. Put it all together. He's an outstanding actor."
"...Right."
The man in the red beanie gave a bitter little smile, as if he had just uncovered some ugly truth, and fixed his gaze on Yeon-woo.
"Still, this Global Match won't be like that, will it?"
"Of course not. That guy is just a trophy they brought in to make this year's winner look even better."
"...A trophy."
The more they talked, the more plausible it sounded.
Only now did John McCallan's sudden appearance—going out of his way to greet some Korean actor named Ryu Yeon-woo—start to make sense.
Yeon-woo, who had been listening quietly the whole time, slowly opened his eyes.
Kim Su-hyeok spoke softly beside him.
"Hmm. Not sure what they're saying, but they sound Northern European. They sure talk a lot while they eat."
Yeon-woo smiled quietly and nodded.
Kim Su-hyeok's guess that they were Northern European was correct.
More precisely, Norwegian guys.
Yeon-woo was not fluent enough in Norwegian for full conversation, but he understood enough to catch the gist of what they were saying.
Thanks. Appreciate you thinking of me that way.
At first he had hoped the game would start quietly without drawing attention, but John McCallan's sudden intrusion had inevitably put him under the other contestants' scrutiny.
Perhaps he had underestimated their confidence.
They were full of themselves.
Their arrogance was sky-high.
The more they dismissed him as a trophy or a greenhorn, the easier the games ahead would become.
Yeon-woo never underestimated their abilities.
To be precise, not the celebrity contestants themselves, but the people they hired.
According to the materials Han Hae-un had passed him, even if they met as enemies on a battlefield, none of them would be easy opponents.
Some of them were veterans among veterans, with more combat experience than Yeon-woo had possessed even in his previous life.
So he fully agreed with the red-beanie guy's claim that the level gap between the amateur Survival Island back home and this Global Match was massive.
He had never planned to steamroll them with overwhelming force anyway. Across both his past and present lives, that simply was not Yeon-woo's style.
Instead he thoroughly analyzed weaknesses, built countless plans in his head, and prepared himself to react dynamically to every variable so he could exercise split-second ingenuity at any moment.
The difference between combat and command was larger than most people realized.
No matter how sharp those battle-hardened mercenaries or special-forces veterans might be on the field, when it came to directing multi-versus-multi engagements, Yeon-woo was more confident.
Even so, there were still those who needed to be hit first and those who could wait.
The Norwegian in the red beanie. His name was Gunnar Hundsen, I think. Note that for later.
After finishing breakfast and loosening up a little, Yeon-woo and his companions returned to their rooms for light naps.
Refusing to sleep until nightfall just for the sake of jet-lag adjustment was foolish.
Accumulated fatigue settled into the body and, at critical moments, slowed reaction times and clouded judgment.
The best method was to take several short naps of two or three hours each and gradually acclimate to the local rhythm of life.
Around evening, Yeon-woo went to Kim Su-hyeok's room.
"So... you want me to teach you hand signals?"
Yeon-woo nodded at Kim Su-hyeok's question.
Once they entered the field, hand signals were essential. Performing them flawlessly without ever having learned them would only invite suspicion.
This is awkward. Pretending not to know what I already know is hard, so the only option is to act like I'm receiving full training in advance.
Kim Su-hyeok looked at him with a troubled expression.
"I can teach you the basics, but if you don't fully master the advanced material it will only create confusion between us. Unless we're in a situation where we're holding our breath in close contact, it might be better just to talk."
Yeon-woo nodded.
As a former—well, still current—operations commander, he completely agreed.
"But I'm actually pretty smart, you know? Memorization is my specialty, so teach me the advanced stuff too. I'll remember it right away. Test me, and if I pass we'll use the signals actively."
When his employer put it that way, there was no reason to refuse.
Looking at the young actor's confident eyes, Kim Su-hyeok scratched his cheek.
Well, he was either top or second in his class at Seoul National, I think. I might have seen a news article about it.
Deciding to play along, Kim Su-hyeok began demonstrating the signals one by one.
"These are the basics, and these are the advanced ones. When you fold two fingers like this, point the elbow forward, and drop the fist downward..."
Even as he demonstrated the sophisticated signals—ones that looked similar at a glance but could convey complex meanings depending on angle and which fingers were folded—he wondered whether this was a waste of time.
"That's everything for now. If there's any part you don't remember, I'll show you again."
"There isn't. You can test me right away."
Kim Su-hyeok tilted his head at the immediate reply.
"I just showed you well over twenty signals. You're saying you remember all of them?"
"Yes."
Faced with that firm answer, Kim Su-hyeok scratched his cheek again and then nodded.
"Hmm. All right. Let's try."
He stood and pointed in various directions with his fingers as he laid out a scenario.
"Friendly forces are advancing from the rear in a W formation, splitting front and rear security. Actor Ryu alone has detected enemy movement within seven meters to the left front."
Without hesitation Yeon-woo opened his fist in the stop signal, then extended index and middle fingers to indicate direction, flattened his palm toward the floor, and finally pointed with his fingers—two, one, zero.
It was not a countdown; it was the marker for seven meters ahead.
"Oh..."
Kim Su-hyeok murmured a small note of admiration at the signals that appeared without the slightest delay, then immediately began setting new problems.
"What is this, some kind of instantaneous memory ability?"
Watching Yeon-woo's crisp hand movements execute every scenario perfectly the moment it was presented, Kim Su-hyeok clicked his tongue in amazement.
Toward the end he even threw out situations so complex that he himself had to pause and think how to express them. Yet Yeon-woo immediately simplified them into clean, universally readable signals that any trained person would understand. In this area, Kim Su-hyeok felt, the young man was better than he was.
No—it's not just concise. He completely grasps the highest-priority action that needs to be taken first in that situation. Is this talent...?
Yeon-woo was looking straight into Kim Su-hyeok's eyes, as if he could read exactly what the other man was thinking.
It's not talent, you idiot. It's years of experience.
Just then Park Jung-hyeon opened the door of the small room off the suite and stepped into the living area.
In one hand he held a smartphone; the inverted screen showed Google Maps.
His face looked extremely pleased—like a man who had found an oasis in the desert.
Seeing him, Yeon-woo nodded and extended a hand.
He began with a closed fist, then immediately extended index and middle fingers to point at Park Jung-hyeon.
Without pause he brought thumb and index finger together in the gesture of holding a spoon and made a scooping motion, conveying absolute certainty.
Then he spread four fingers and flipped his hand upside down.
True to his profession as an actor, every movement was clear and intuitive.
Kim Su-hyeok watched with his mouth slightly open and nodded.
Yeon-woo's complex sequence of gestures registered instantly in Kim Su-hyeok's mind, and he spoke the meaning aloud.
"Park Jung-hyeon has just found a Korean gukbap restaurant within a five-hundred-twelve-meter radius."
Park Jung-hyeon tilted his head.
"Huh? How did you know? It was closer than I expected. In that case, mind if I step out for a bit?"
How did he know?
Ryu Yeon-woo's hand signals had said exactly that.
When he had indicated seven meters earlier by pointing two, one, zero in sequence, it was because seven is the sum of four, two, and one—two to the second, first, and zeroth powers.
Kim Su-hyeok had deliberately chosen seven meters because it was a complicated number to express. In actual operations they usually broke distances into simple powers of two: two meters, four, eight, sixteen.
Fingers were extended in sequence according to distance; six used the little finger, and from seven onward each additional finger was added while the hand was flipped.
Thus four fingers inverted meant nine—two to the ninth power, or five hundred twelve meters.
Pointing at Park Jung-hyeon and the spoon-scooping gesture had been so obvious they needed no explanation.
On top of that, the snap judgment that took in both the smartphone screen and the expression on Park Jung-hyeon's face, plus the boldness to extend a hand and signal without the slightest hesitation—
It was impossible not to be impressed.
Through that mechanism, Yeon-woo's hand signals had said:
—Park Jung-hyeon has just found a Korean gukbap restaurant within a five-hundred-meter radius.
"At this point it's not hand signals anymore. It's sign language."
Kim Su-hyeok found himself growing more and more curious about what this young employer would show him next.