Chapter 261: Tour

Her head turned, slowly, taking in the full scope of the section with an expression of someone whose priorities had just reorganized themselves.

"I want to try everything," she said.

"No," Jisoo said.

"Why?"

"We're not here to indulge ourselves."

Alex looked at me. The look was an appeal.

"She's right," I said.

"You both suck," Alex said, with a sincere feeling.

We kept moving. Or Jisoo and I kept moving— Alex followed, but slowly, her head turning back twice.

I dropped back slightly, matched her pace, and said, low enough that Jisoo wouldn't catch it. "Next time. Ok? Or later when we're free."

She looked at me. Then at the food section we were leaving behind. Then back at me.

"Okay, Oppa." Immediate. The good mood restored completely. "Fine, it's just Jisoo who sucks."

Jisoo's grip on my arm tightened.

I felt her look at the side of my face.

I looked forward and kept walking.

***

The outer edge of the ship was different from everything else we'd passed— no stalls, no equipment, no people working or moving through.

Just the flat open deck, the railing at the edge, and the water beyond it. The quiet of a space where something happened at specific times rather than constantly.

"What's this section for?" I asked.

Cal stopped beside me and looked out at the deck. "Verification," she said. "When we pick someone up, or when someone new joins— this is where it happens. You'll find out tonight, probably…"

She didn't elaborate. I filed it under later.

***

(Inside)

The navigation room was behind a door that opened into something I hadn't expected.

Maps in every wall, from floor to ceiling, covered in them— old paper ones pinned and layered over each other where newer information had been added, hand-drawn updates in different inks showing different years of revision.

A long table in the center with a current working map spread across it, weighted at the corners, covered in markings.

I walked closer.

The old pre-flood maps showed a city I recognized— the grid of it, the roads, the major structures —but over it, in careful hand, someone had redrawn everything.

Current routes marked in blue.

Safe zones circled.

Current-flow arrows showing which directions the water ran.

Monster territory outlined in red, with notes at the edges that I couldn't read from this angle.

Floating settlements, dots with names I didn't know.

Unexplored sections left blank with a single word: UNKNOWN.

And in the west. Far west. Where the map ran to the edge of the paper and someone had taped another sheet to extend it: A line.

Drawn in heavy ink, solid and deliberate, running the full length of the sheet from top to bottom.

'WESTERN BOUNDARY' written beside it.

And next to that: UNKNOWN.

Jisoo looked at the map for a long moment.

Neither of us said anything.

***

The crew quarters were a hallway of closed doors, each one slightly different from the next in ways that became more obvious the longer you looked.

One had a small shrine arrangement at the threshold, carefully maintained.

The next had a door that was slightly open and visible inside: books, stacked on every flat surface, organized in order that only made sense to whoever lived there.

A room further down had the door open for air, and inside, arranged on shelves, were things that took me a moment to identify— stuffed animals, old ones, worn at the edges.

The room after that had teeth. Monster teeth, I assumed, given the size of some of them, displayed on a mounted board the way someone displayed something they were proud of.

Another door was open just enough to see the entire room: a hammock, a bucket, nothing else. Immaculate… ༎ຶ⁠‿⁠༎ຶ

The captain's room, at the end, had its door shut.

But through the gap at the bottom, warm light, steady. But I could feel the sense of space where everything was exactly where it was supposed to be.

"Here," Cal said, stopping in front of a door. "Two people. Who's staying?"

Jisoo and Alex looked at the door. Then at each other. Then both of them looked at me.

"Me," Jisoo said. "With Oppa."

"Me," Alex said. "With Hon."

I looked at Cal.

Cal looked at me with an expression of someone who had navigated crew conflicts before and was calculating her approach.

"You know," she said, "the room fits two. Either of you two could share with each other, and he takes the single down the hall—"

Jisoo looked like she was about to say several things.

Then she pressed her lips together and said nothing.

Alex smiled with a specific satisfaction of someone who had gotten an outcome they were prepared to accept. "Works for me."

"Fine," Jisoo said, in a tone of someone for whom it was not fine but who had decided this was the battlefield she was choosing not to fight on today.

Cal showed me to the room at the end— smaller, one person, a narrow bed in the corner and a desk against the wall and a lamp hanging from a hook in the ceiling.

She handed me the key. "I'll do the rest of the tour next time! I've got to get back to Vinehaven— I promised at least six people stories and I've already kept them waiting."

She patted my back once, cheerful, and was already moving before she finished the sentence. "Good luck tonight! The verification thing's fine, don't stress about it!"

Then she was gone, and the hallway was quiet.

I went in.

Closed the door.

Stood for a moment in the small room that was going to be mine for however long this took.

Now that I think about it… isn't everything recorded or live in… That Munches Cave? This feels weird… so like 7 days in there is probably a year here… or more, I don't know anymore, I will let the fate decide.

Oh, but I remember the other team has only 1 day to complete their scenario… a lab, a medieval war, a raid.

Then I noticed the vine on the wall beside the door.

Same installation as Vinehaven— same function, apparently.

I pressed my back against it and felt the familiar pulling sensation move through my jacket, my shirt, everything, drawing the water out in seconds. Dry. Done.

I sat on the bed.

Then lay back.

The ceiling was close and plain. The lamp made a small circle of light that reached most of the room. Somewhere above, through the deck, the faint sounds of the ship working— movement, voices, the creak of the hull.

"Ah," I said.

"Finally."

"Guess Pink Scenario is different, since to complete it, I need to free Jisoo, maybe… and, now that I think about it… why the hell is there a Trial this long to complete just for a mere SafeZone… isn't this."

I paused.

"Oh, yea… everything we'll get here will be permanently ours… does that include peop—"

Then my stomach made its own announcement.

I stared at the ceiling.

Hungry.