Only Thirty Keys
"Only thirty keys prepared! Now, go!"
With the declaration that those who failed would face a terrifying punishment, the key hunt began without warning. At the MC's urging, contestants who had tentatively dipped their feet into the pool rushed out, splashing water as they searched for capsules that looked promising.
"There are way too many capsules!"
A contestant who picked one up and shook it promptly flung it away. Looking at the shapes, empty shells must have been mixed in among them.
Some capsules floated on the surface, others sank to the bottom, while some drifted about underwater. Counted all together, there had to be several hundred, tossed this way and that by the contestants' movements.
"Over here!"
Song A-seong emerged with a capsule sealed so tightly it looked nearly impossible to open, and received a bottle opener from the production staff.
Having apparently washed his face in the meantime, Song A-seong carefully opened the capsule with water still streaming down his face. With a pop, something shot out from inside.
"Yes~ What Song A-seong found was a lollipop! Looks delicious! Please go pick another one!"
"…."
Plop. A water droplet clinging to Song A-seong's chin fell forlornly.
Perhaps not expecting that result, Song A-seong stared blankly at the lollipop before heading back into the pool. Then, as if taking the baton, Han Min-hyeok received the opener next.
With his wet hair swept back to reveal his forehead, Han Min-hyeok looked overflowing with confidence. Looking at the capsule he'd brought, it did seem special—sparkling unusually brightly.
But both Song A-seong and Han Min-hyeok—the water only comes up to their knees. Why are they so soaked?
Han Min-hyeok, damp from head to toe, opened the capsule with a focused expression. That concentrated look was similar to Song A-seong's—I supposed this was where you found the family resemblance.
Anyway, with a pop, what came out was a wind-up key. The kind you'd use to turn a music box.
"Huh?"
Han Min-hyeok's expression turned dubious at the contents. The pink wind-up key, neatly tied with a ribbon, looked as if it had been carefully packaged. Pointlessly so.
"Yes, what an adorable wind-up key. Where do you suppose it's meant to be used?"
"No idea…."
Fiddling with the key and looking at a loss, Han Min-hyeok sighed heavily as if he had no choice and headed back to the pool. Behind him, thoroughly soaked contestants lined up to open capsules.
Meanwhile, I stood at the capsule-checking station in a perfectly dry, comfortable state, watching to see if anyone had passed.
With that many of them, barging in blindly…
In reality, the verification time was longer than the selection time. So rather than wandering around aimlessly, it would be more efficient to figure out what kind of capsules the keys came from and then move. There had to be some common factor.
"Han-hee, aren't you going to look?"
"…I'll go."
But my plan fell apart when MC Cheon Tae-rim singled me out from where he'd been watching behind me. Holding out here would look weird on camera. Reluctantly, I started walking slowly when an excited voice rang out.
"Wah! A key! It's a key!"
At the cry that a key had been found, every head nearby whipped around. Mine included. It was Woo Cheong-hee. He'd already found one? I was watching carefully when Cheon Tae-rim strode over. After carefully examining the key Woo Cheong-hee was holding, he shook his head.
"Unfortunately, this was a combine key!"
"Huh?"
Combine? Round-eyed Woo Cheong-hee was followed by confused voices. "What's a combine?", "Isn't that farm equipment? Like a tractor.", "Why would that be here?"
As people murmured, Woo Cheong-hee's face visibly drooped once he realized what a combine was.
"A combine… key."
"Yes, truly a shame!"
At Cheon Tae-rim's oddly firm tone, Woo Cheong-hee, who had been moving his lips, hung his head. It wasn't even teasing—a combine key? The toy-like key rolled across the floor.
In contrast to Woo Cheong-hee, who bent down to pick up the dropped key, Han Sang-jin, who had been opening a capsule right beside him, lifted his head. Through his thoroughly soaked thin short-sleeved shirt, the contours of muscles that had been hidden came into view. He'd be popular.
"Is this the right one?"
"Let's see—oh! Contestant Han Sang-jin! You've acquired a room key!"
The MC approached and announced that the first key had appeared. The capsule Han Sang-jin was holding was jet black on the outside.
"With that, twenty-nine keys remaining!"
And from the moment the key secured inside the capsule was found, I was already running.
Black!
An easy color to identify. Completely black capsules, top and bottom. I cut through the water, hurrying to find a black capsule. A strange chill ran through me when I stepped into the water, but I had no time to dwell on it.
Because I found one right away.
The instant I spotted a black capsule being swept along in the water, a clamor erupted behind me.
"He said black capsules!"
Thanks to someone kindly sharing the information, the gazes of the five or six people already nearby locked onto the black capsule at once.
"Black?"
"That one?"
"…."
Judging by the way it was half-sinking, half-floating, it didn't seem empty either. For a moment, silence fell. Less than three seconds. The people surrounding the black capsule met one another's eyes. In that instant, the eyes of strangers who had only brushed past each other without any connection fixed clearly on one thing.
"Ack! Wait—pfah. Ah!"
The first person to rush in after gauging the situation made a sound of swallowing water. Shoved by the person next to him, he toppled and sat down, screaming as the surging water hit him.
Watching that, I casually sidestepped a body colliding into me from behind.
"Whoa!"
The body that had tried to push me over with force instead lost its balance in an instant and fell on its own, splashing water across my back. Cold.
"Wait!"
Ignoring the clothes clinging wetly to me and the voice from behind, I sprinted ahead. If I didn't claim it now, I'd keep getting soaked. I get cold easily.
With the feeling of the water dragging at my ankles, I ran hard, when a contestant racing from the opposite side suddenly slipped.
"Aaaah!"
He seemed to step on a capsule and slid, landing hard on his rear, sending a small wave rolling toward me. I snatched the capsule that came rushing with the cascading water. The sensation of water wrapping around my body and falling away was vivid.
And when I came to my senses, even though I hadn't actually fallen in, I was soaked front and back. My hair was completely wet too.
"…."
I roughly swept back the hair falling into my eyes and looked around—from contestants with their fronts completely soaked by fierce water spray to ones who had fully fallen in, people were now simply enjoying a water fight.
"Ahahaha, how do you like that!"
"Hey, what are you doing! Get a grip!"
Some were so hell-bent on soaking others that they put more effort into dunking people than finding capsules, so I carefully moved to avoid them. Seeing limbs grabbed and people thrown, I had no desire to get caught up in it.
And inside the carefully retrieved capsule, fortunately, lay a key.
"Yes! The fifth key! One shot, one kill! Excellent strategy. With that, twenty-five keys remaining!"
"Thank you."
One shot, one kill. I gave an awkward smile to the MC who deliberately brought it up, as if he'd remembered. Still, getting wet once was enough—even if it looked a bit crafty, it couldn't be helped.
Wiping away the water droplets running down my forehead and clinging to my eyelashes, I left in search of a sunny spot. And after greeting Han Sang-jin, who had already claimed a perfectly suitable place, I sat down beside him.
"You don't look well."
"I'm fine, just a bit cold."
The sunlight was beating down fairly strongly, but somehow my body, seeped with chill, was cold.
"Do you usually get cold easily?"
"Yes, I've always been that type."
As I wrung out my hair, my hands looked paler than usual. And after automatically answering Han Sang-jin's question about whether I got cold easily and then replaying the content, a strange feeling came over me. I've always been that type? Since when did I get cold so easily?
I seemed to remember going around in not-so-thick coats even in midwinter.
It's not even cold weather—was getting soaked once really enough to make me shiver like this?
As I blankly watched my visibly trembling fingers, a sense of dissonance settled in. And before I knew it, a white towel dropped over my head, blocking my vision.
"If you want to get rid of the moisture, you need to dry it with a towel."
Apparently dissatisfied that I was just sitting in the sunlight, vaguely wringing out my damp clothes and shaking off water droplets in a strange state of exhaustion, Han Sang-jin had gone and gotten a towel himself and scrubbed my hair with it.
The force I felt wasn't particularly strong, but after a few swipes that made a flapping sound, the moisture vanished in an instant. The water droplets that had been dripping heavily were gone somewhere, and my hair, left with only a slight dampness, was soft and fluffy. Bemused, I wiped my face with the towel he'd hung around my neck. What was that.
"Do you by any chance raise a dog?"
"No."
"Or a cat?"
Han Sang-jin looked puzzled, as if he'd heard something out of the blue. But that was the skill of someone who'd washed and dried a lot of hair.
"I'm used to drying my younger siblings' hair."
"Ah."
Come to think of it, he'd mentioned having younger siblings.
"Is there a big age gap between you and your siblings?"
"About ten years with the youngest, and two more above that."
"Wow."
A ten-year gap. And three of them. Had he raised his siblings together with his parents? Thinking of everything I'd seen so far, the image of Han Sang-jin looking after young siblings came to mind naturally. It suited him well.
No wonder I thought the way he looks after people around him was unusual.
Abundant stamina and patience, along with a consistently broad field of vision, observational skill, and care. Thinking about it, Han Sang-jin had exceptional stats for looking after children.
Having inferred so much from a single hair-drying technique, I nodded. Truly essential talent for a team. Skill was skill, but outstanding stamina and patience were real strengths.
"What number is written on your key, hyung?"
"303. Yours?"
Han Sang-jin continued, looking at the key he'd taken out of his pocket where he'd stashed it. 303. I lifted the key I'd similarly kept in my pocket. The same.
"Same room. Looking forward to working with you."
I lifted my clothes, which had dried reasonably in the sunlight, wiped off the remaining moisture, and stood up. And right on cue, a whistle blew.
"Alright! Through the final thirtieth! All the keys have been found! A special reward awaits the contestants who found keys!"
Having selected the thirty who found keys, the MC gestured to the right.
"Alright, everyone go that way and grab as many snacks as you want."
Snacks. Following the gesture, I found simple refreshments and cold juice being set out one by one on a well-laid table. Color returned to the faces of contestants who had been worn out by the rougher-than-expected water play.
The passers who grabbed four or five cookies each, as if short on sugar, chattered happily, while the eyes of the eliminated watching them looked pitiful. Something like tears seemed to be welling up.
"Alright, contestants who didn't find keys, please come this way."
At the MC's call, twelve contestants gathered to the left. Water dripped from their feet from searching through the water until the end, and the curious part was that Kwon Do-ha and Lee Jae-jin were among them.
Wait, why?
Looking closely, people around them were staring at the two with exhausted expressions. Had there been some kind of physical brawl?
"Those of you who didn't find keys will use six-person rooms rather than the five-person rooms of those who found keys. But it would be a shame if it ended there, right?"
Some of the eliminated, who had been looking enviously at the people diligently recharging their sugar across the way, lit up. Because tables were already being set in front of them as well.
Looking at the eliminated lined up in a row before the table, the MC with a beaming smile pointed at the table whose setup was quickly finished.
"For the eliminated who must be exhausted from a longer water play than the others, our production team has prepared a special drink. A secret health drink to warm up your tired bodies!"
With a ta-da flourish, twelve ice cups and a dark brown liquid were placed on the indicated table. In ice cups, but it warms the body? While I was thinking something seemed off, the serving began.
"Alright, Contestant Min Gyu-sik, come forward and take yours!"
Having been intimidated by talk of a terrifying punishment, only for it to look like nothing much, the contestant who stepped forward accepted a cup without hesitation. But the moment he took one sip, he sprayed it out.
"Pffft!"
Urgh, cough. Attention focused on the contestant who dropped to his knees making strange sounds.
"What the…."
Seeing him twist his body, the faces of those waiting their turn went pale. Same for the people watching from across the way. Wait, what is that.
"Alright, next is Contestant Lee Jae-jin! Please come forward and take yours!"
Next turn. With a rigid face, Lee Jae-jin creaked his way to stand before the table. His expression was more solemn than at the ranking announcement.