The Shooting Range
Two days had already passed since Yeon-woo and the agents began adjusting to the time difference and bringing their bodies back into peak condition.
As usual, they were loosening up with light exercise in the hotel fitness center when the door opened and a production staffer from Blue Whale Gate approached.
"The match will begin in three hours. Please return to your rooms and wait."
Hearing that, Yeon-woo glanced at Kim Su-hyeok and Park Jung-hyeon working out beside him. The two men simply nodded.
Over the past two days, Kim Su-hyeok and Park Jung-hyeon had done everything they could to pass on whatever knowledge they possessed. Yeon-woo, for his part, had been suffering through the ordeal of pretending to learn things he already knew cold.
Still, if I just keep things moderate, I've got an alibi solid enough to let me cut loose whenever I need to.
He had put on the diligent-student act not only to avoid unnecessary suspicion, but also for the sake of the two men teaching him. On the battlefield, the single most important thing was trust. Not the religious kind that claimed faith alone could defeat an enemy—rather, the unshakable confidence in a superior that let a soldier execute an order without a second's hesitation. The difference between dropping flat the instant the command came as bullets flew, versus pausing even a heartbeat to think, created a delay that could decide life or death.
"Let's head upstairs and wait."
Following the staffer's guidance, Yeon-woo and the two agents returned to their respective rooms. Roughly two hours later, someone knocked on Yeon-woo's door.
Knock-knock—.
"Yes."
When he opened the hotel-room door, several staff members stood waiting, a cameraman among them.
"Please put on this blindfold. The game starts now."
Yeon-woo nodded, first casting a quick glance down the hotel corridor and counting the staff before accepting the blindfold.
Five total, including the cameraman.
No other staff were visible in the hallway. One of them stepped forward and covered Yeon-woo's eyes; two more took him by either arm. That left only a single staffer besides the cameraman—nowhere near enough people to collect Kim Su-hyeok and Park Jung-hyeon from the neighboring rooms as well.
So either the team members and I start separately, or there's some game only the team leaders tackle first.
Earlier at the fitness center the staffer had announced the game would begin in three hours, yet the time Yeon-woo had checked just before these people arrived showed only about two hours had elapsed.
Being summoned a full hour early means there has to be a mini-game the team leaders complete first.
Supported on both sides, Yeon-woo rode the elevator down and climbed into a waiting vehicle. The engine turned over and the car pulled away. Without conscious effort, a map unfolded inside his head.
This hotel has no underground parking, and from the sound of the revolving door we exited through the main entrance. Once a car leaves the front of the hotel it has to pass the intersection toward Miami.
While staying at the hotel he had studied maps of the surrounding area and major facilities on his smartphone, committing them to memory, so he could track the car's real-time direction like watching a mini-map and predict the destination. Operations could involve pursuit or flight, incoming fire, or the need to stay dead silent in concealment—there was never time to keep checking a physical map. Projecting a large operational chart inside one's mind was an essential skill for any commander.
Exactly as Yeon-woo expected, the car stopped after roughly a hundred meters.
Waiting at a light means we're not turning right, at least.
The right-hand side of the mental map was erased. Straight ahead would take them into Miami; he would need to check the next intersection, but the airport was the higher probability. A left turn, however, connected to the highway leading toward the port.
The light changed and the car moved. His body leaned to the right.
Heading for the port.
The map of the harbor rose again in Yeon-woo's mind. Located about twenty kilometers from the hotel, the port was one of the two options—ship or plane—for reaching the island that would serve as the main stage of the survival show. If they were traveling by sea, this was the high-probability stop, so he had memorized even the internal facilities in detail.
Gathering only the team leaders for something. Factoring in the original schedule, the whole thing should take about an hour.
Once they reached the island they would be fighting for days until they were sick of it; the producers would never have the team leaders physically clash or run a mini-survival. That would only spoil the main event and kill the fun.
So most likely an individual record competition or a timed capture contest of some kind.
In the short ride toward the port he began drafting multiple scenarios and running simulations. Whatever the challenge turned out to be, the difference between being thrown into it cold and having already prepared and image-trained was night and day.
The vehicle seemed to have arrived at the port exactly as predicted. Fine vibrations from the gray cement surface of the harbor—distinctly different from asphalt—traveled up through the wheels.
Entering the port gate and immediately turning left means we're heading for the warehouses, not the docks.
His current position continued updating in real time inside his head. A warehouse destination suggested several possible mini-games.
Then the car stopped.
Zing—.
"We've arrived. Please take the staffer's hand and exit carefully and slowly."
The door opened; the staffer beside him offered a hand, and Yeon-woo climbed out with deliberate care. From the number of idling engines nearby, the other teams' leaders appeared to have arrived the same way.
Guided by the staff, he stepped into an enclosed space. The floor was smooth urethane and the air felt cool, so they had clearly entered a logistics warehouse.
A voice rang out.
"Welcome, everyone invited to the greatest show on earth—Survival Island: Global Match! Please remove your blindfolds!"
When Yeon-woo pulled the blindfold away he saw the other team leaders who had been brought in the same fashion. On a raised platform ahead stood a Black man wearing a beret—Tony Williams, the well-known television host. Despite the beret, however, he wore a white suit rather than military fatigues, as if striking a midpoint between a naval dress uniform and a show MC.
Maybe it actually fits the spirit of Survival Island perfectly.
It was a survival competition in which people aimed guns at one another for their lives, yet at the same time it was a television show whose fundamental purpose was entertainment.
The participants were glancing around in confusion. Having been resting in their hotel rooms only to be blindfolded and dragged out, the celebrities opening their eyes inside this vast cavern had no idea where they were. Yeon-woo made a show of looking around the same way. Since he already knew the location, he simply scanned what had been installed inside the port warehouse.
On the left, large shelves packed full and covered by black curtains. On the right, a corridor-type structure with four entrances.
He had a guess about the curtained area but nothing certain. The corridor structure on the right, however, he recognized at once. It was a shooting range—individual firing lanes sectioned off so competitors could shoot at targets. A classic mini-game any survival show was expected to include.
Tony Williams, looking down at the celebrities still disoriented and foolishly scanning their surroundings, opened his mouth.
"Before you officially set foot on Survival Island, we need to check whether you even have the qualifications, right? This round is live-fire pistol shooting. You'll fire a total of ten rounds. In the event of a tie, the person who finishes shooting in the shorter time receives the higher score."
At those words Yeon-woo's eyes lit up.
This round?
Tony had deliberately called the mini-game a round. In survival competitions, a round carried two essential elements.
"So what do you get for first place? A special-weapon acquisition ticket that either the team leader or a team member can use. Depending on the situation, it could deliver tremendous power."
One of the two essential elements of a survival-game round had appeared: the reward.
A special weapon…
This game was said to use specially developed U.S. military training rounds—ammunition with far superior range and velocity compared to the airsoft pellets normally used in survival shows. How far that advantage would be allowed remained unknown, but it was a reward Yeon-woo absolutely needed.
If I want to put a sniper rifle in Kim Su-hyeok's hands, I'll have to go all out.
Tony Williams spoke again.
"And if there's a reward for the winner, there should be a penalty for the loser, right? The team that finishes last in this round will not be allowed to land on Survival Island."
And there was the second element. The existence of rounds in a survival game meant the existence of eliminations.
The moment Tony finished, the celebrities inside the cavern stirred. Being barred from the island meant elimination—the dishonor of never even participating, a so-called entrance cut, the worst disgrace of all. Though a television show, the production carried the character of a national competition; for celebrities who lived on public popularity, finishing last and being eliminated was a nightmare merely to contemplate.
The faces of the other celebrities standing left and right shifted as they registered the seriousness of the situation, expressions turning grim. One of them raised his voice.
"This is different from the contract, isn't it? Not even being allowed onto the island—"
Tony smiled with the easy confidence of a man who had expected the question and wagged an index finger.
"No, no. That's not the case. You signed a contract to participate in Survival Island: Global Match, not a contract to land on the island. This is the first round of the survival, and you are the representatives of your respective countries, so it fully satisfies both the 'survival' and 'global match' terms of the agreement."
The man who had spoken fell silent. When the organizers put it that way, there was no ground left to argue. Tony smiled again and added,
"Besides, you simply have to avoid finishing last, right? Are you afraid you won't score better than the others in shooting?"
"Ahem…"
Those wearing dissatisfied expressions cleared their throats. The fundamental spirit of survival had always been "as long as it isn't me," after all.
At the same moment, the closed doors of the shooting range swung open.
For someone, those lanes might become a path of death.