Half the World (3)
Half the World (3) — Marin Hotel, Jung-gu, Incheon
The Marin Hotel, one of the last five-star hotels left standing in Incheon, boasted lodging space so vast it had to be divided into wings. I took my time surveying the top-floor suite in the Purple Wing. It was undeniably a room whose interior dripped with luxury, but to someone who had already laid eyes on the Holy Temple the System had crafted with deliberate care, it hardly stirred anything in me. My entire review amounted to this: the bed was wide, so sleeping here would probably be comfortable.
"Vice Captain."
"Yes, Cult Leader-nim."
"After Jeong Seonga, our prospective believer—how many more believers are left for me to save?"
At my question, the Vice Captain leafed through a document pulled from his inventory and answered. "Three prospective believers whose whereabouts we've identified remain. Additionally, salvation requests from believers who have witnessed the returned prospective believers alive are pouring in."
"And that's limited to Incheon alone—not even counting the other districts?"
"Yes. Over one hundred cases, as far as I know."
"That's a lot."
Then again, when you've watched family you'd buried in your heart as dead come back to life, who could possibly stay calm? The Sanctuary, whose population was mostly fervent believers to begin with, had to be rocking with even wilder waves of religious frenzy right now—I didn't need to look to know. And Paradise, soon to witness the sisterly reunion of Seo Hyeyoung and Seo Hyewon, whom I'd sent over just recently, would be no different. The requests for salvation would no doubt keep swelling like something gone runaway.
But from the moment I'd laid eyes on Shim Soyoung, I had no intention of leaving this hotel until she was mine.
"In that case, let's call everything up to prospective believer Jeong Seonga Phase One of the Hand of Salvation Project."
"Yes."
I gave a couple of friendly taps to the shoulder of Kim Haeil, who bowed his head without a word of protest, and continued. "While I save the Marin Hotel, Vice Captain, you'll be saving the citizens of Paradise."
When it came to evangelizing the Marin Hotel, I alone was enough. For a man who toyed with Shim Soyoung like a plaything, a friendly set of daily quests starting from tutorial level wouldn't even register as a challenge.
"Off you go, now. The rear detachment should be reaching the hotel about this time."
It was just about time for the rear detachment that had ferried Seo Hyeyoung to the Sanctuary to come circling back around the hotel.
"I will carry out every one of your commands, Cult Leader-nim, without deviating so much as an inch!"
"Haha—such a fuss. And pass my regards along to the Sanctuary's executives, too."
"Yes, sir!"
While running the Hand of Salvation, I'd been meaning to make up for all the time I'd neglected Ayoung and Joohye. Instead, it looked like I'd be taking on a new executive. Well, I could always repay them twice as hard later.
Standing at the window, I watched Kim Haeil go join up with the rear detachment's military truck convoy. They bowed precisely toward the spot where I stood as they departed, and I watched until they had vanished from view before lifting my head. Today's sun was tucking itself away behind the mountain ridge. Night was settling over the hotel.
It was time to begin the evangelism.
Evangelism, Day One — Night
Bright LED lamps flooded the suite with light. Thanks to the lamps placed throughout the sprawling space, the room was no different from morning, and after a look around I surrendered my body to a chair in the living room. As I indulged in the plush cushions and enjoyed the view of a night outside utterly without a speck of light, calm footsteps tickled at my ears.
Knock knock—
Before long, at the sound of someone knocking on my suite door, I broke into an easy smile and reached out a hand. The front door—which had never actually been closed—swung wide open, and Jeong Seonga, standing in the doorway, went round-eyed and started babbling incoherently.
"...Ah, hello."
"Hey there. Hello."
I answered her greeting in as gentle a voice as I could manage. Clutching her trembling hands together, Jeong Seonga pointed down the corridor and asked, "D-Did you set all of this up because you knew I'd come?"
The place where the Marin Hotel survivors gathered was the Blue Wing, sitting at the exact opposite end from the Purple Wing where I was staying. From there, all the way down the corridor to my suite, LED lamps had been placed at even intervals. Those, of course, were ones I had set out in anticipation of Jeong Seonga's visit.
"That's right."
At my nod, Jeong Seonga peered past me into the room. "Where's the scary man with the spear?"
"Ah, my colleague went back with the group. Somebody has to tell your grandmother that we found her granddaughter."
"...Grandma really asked you to come find me?"
I let my gaze rest, long and unhurried, on Jeong Seonga's tightly bitten lower lip, and let the silence do its work. That's right. You're dying to know, aren't you? The hope that maybe, just maybe, your grandmother really is looking for you—how sweet does that taste?
Meeting her finely trembling eyes, I smiled softly. "Of course we did. We came looking for you at the request of your grandmother, Kim Deoksoon."
I rose from my chair. At the sight, Jeong Seonga flinched and raised her voice. "C-C-Couldn't you just say it from right there?!"
Dragging her feet, stumbling backward, her whole body shook. Watching her tremble—honestly, every part of her that could shake, arms and legs included, was rattling—I calmly settled back into the chair. So she's still at the stage where even getting close is too much?
"I'm never coming over there, so relax. If you've got more questions, keep asking."
Perfectly at ease, I began buying tonight's dinner through the shop window.
"W-Why did the way you talk change?"
"This is how I usually talk. Earlier was sort of an official occasion, that's all."
There had been the negotiation, after all, and then the ambush. With a light shrug, I summoned a dinner lavish enough to fill the entire table. Steam drifted up from the warm food along with its fragrance.
"Wow. That looks delicious."
Rubbing my wooden chopsticks together like it was nothing, I let the admiration slip out. When I stole a glance, Jeong Seonga was—as predicted—simply staring blankly at the sight of me. To put it more precisely: her eyes, fixed on the food, were trembling harder now than they had when I stood up earlier. Just like when I was coaxing the vigilantes, and now as well—food has never once let me down. For every ordinary person starving in the apocalypse, it was probably the one temptation they couldn't escape.
"Didn't you come here because you had something to ask me?"
"...Ah. I wanted to... you..."
"Call me Han Guwon."
"Couldn't you show me just a little more proof that I can trust you, Mr. Guwon?"
"If I had that, I'd have shown you ages ago, no?"
I furrowed my brow, chewing through the stretching cheese of my rose tteokbokki. Ugh—not my kind of flavor at all. Not that I ordered it because I wanted to eat it, anyway. I swept my gaze over Jeong Seonga, who was watching the long cheese pull with something wistful in her eyes.
"Then... if I had gone with you, Mr. Guwon, how would things have gone?"
"Hmm. We'd have moved you safely to our shelter. You'd have shared a tearful, heartwarming reunion with your grandmother. Anything left to say?"
"Did Grandma say anything about what to do if I didn't believe?"
"Unfortunately, I never got to ask that far. But since your grandmother told us, we must have secured photos from your house, right?"
Nailed to her spot in the corridor, she kept firing off questions, and I kept eating my dinner, handing out answers that were thorough yet curiously offhand.
"Um... that..."
"You can stop now. I've heard enough."
Deliberately, I finally met the eyes I'd been avoiding all this time and smiled. "You want to believe me too, don't you?"
"..."
"Good thinking. Look a little deeper, and there's more than one or two things that don't add up, right? If I'd meant to do anything to you all, I could have done it long ago. And yet, look at me—here I am, quietly eating my dinner. If I hadn't been ambushed in the first place, I was planning to settle everything calmly with a conversation."
I raised both hands in a gesture of wounded innocence. "Seonga. Jeong Seonga, granddaughter of Kim Deoksoon. We came to save you. Do you know how your grandmother has been?"
She gave a small shake of her head, her eyes never leaving me. Her whole body, at least, was no longer trembling in front of me. I opened my mouth toward her as she calmly waited for my words.
"Not a single day has passed without her praying for your safety. Always in tears—Seonga, Seonga... she whispered your name."
Watching the rims of her eyes slowly flush red, I went on. "That's why I want to take you with me, no matter what. I'm confident I can persuade you, too. So why don't you come inside, and we'll talk for a bit?"
At my gesture, Jeong Seonga's eyes, darting between the food and me, wavered wildly. Then, clutching her arms as the trembling crept back in, she shouted.
"D-Don't lie to me! Everything Soyoung unnie said was true! Men are all—T-Tess are all the same! You're only saying that because you need women, too!"
A reaction that burst out of her, violent, as if I'd struck her trauma dead-on. Without a word, I simply kept looking at her.
"I-I have to go. I-I'll be leaving now. P-Please. Please don't follow me."
She shook her head furiously, then began backing away, slow and unsteady. I watched her go and smiled. "See you tomorrow."
"..."
Listening to her footsteps fade little by little, I walked to the window. Gazing across at the Blue Wing on the opposite side, I organized my thoughts. I'd expected, of course, that today would be a no-go. Their revulsion toward men was at its absolute peak. And if Shim Soyoung came to her senses on top of that, she'd keep the women under such tight control that none of them would so much as come near me. Which meant I had to produce meaningful results before that happened.
How long until they come to their senses—four, five days? A pack of survivors so gripped by terror of men that they flee trembling even from foods they can no longer dream of. Would "thus sayeth the Cult Leader" have moved them? No. In their eyes, I'm still just a man who could rape them at any moment. Step one, then: change that perception.
A weak poison calls for a strong one. And if you map that onto men—what was it women always said? Out goes the shit-cart, in comes the Benz?
"Ha... Guess it's about time I got sweet again."
For starters, I'd play the Marin Hotel's prince on a white horse.
Evangelism, Day Two — Midday
I walked the corridor, bright now without my having noticed. Yesterday's only visitor, naturally, had been Jeong Seonga, curious about me. Not that she hadn't lost her nerve and bolted for the Blue Wing, of course.
My steps didn't stop until I reached the vast lobby connecting the three wings. Chairs and tables stood stationed here and there across the lobby floor, and in the corner of the long staircase leading down to the lower floors, I studied the cluster of survivors. Come daylight, there they were, huddled up together somewhere—just as expected. Then again, only about twenty survivors remained in this massive five-star hotel that, exaggerating only slightly, rivaled a university campus in size. With a suite apiece to spare, they couldn't just stay shut up in their own rooms. A human being who does nothing will inevitably go mad—people need outside activity, period. It's not for nothing that even prisoners locked in solitary are granted exercise time.
"Hyiiiik!"
One of the survivors, seeing me emerge from the Purple Wing, shrieked. At her cry, everyone huddled together in the lobby turned to look at me and recoiled in terror. As they scattered in a rush back toward the Blue Wing, my eyes locked onto one survivor in particular. She must have felt my gaze, because she cautiously glanced back at me. Her face was even more drained of color than yesterday. An awakened one lying unconscious, after all, couldn't very well provide them with meals. As always, I said nothing at all and simply smiled, soft and easy.
Evangelism, Day Two — Night
Once again, a night on which only my suite gleamed brilliant. Just like yesterday, I sat in the chair and waited for someone. The table was already covered with freshly purchased food, its delicious aroma billowing into the air.
Trudge— trudge—
Just like yesterday, someone's footsteps echoed. Knock knock— Just like yesterday, someone knocked. And there, before the door that swung open at my telekinesis, stood that familiar face.
"Hey there."
"Ah, hello."
To Jeong Seonga, who kept biting her lip and radiating anxiety from every pore, I asked carefully, "Did something else come up that you wanted to ask?"
"...Yes."
Her eyes, answering in a whisper, didn't know where to land.