## Chapter 70 – Stage Preparation
Krrrrrr.
I was pulling up my pants after relieving myself when I heard a tremendous thunderclap.
It was fundamentally different from anything I’d heard before.
‘Is lightning striking repeatedly somewhere? But there wasn’t much flashing.’
I was wondering about it when Seohee suddenly shouted from beside me.
“Woojin! Be careful! Grab the palm tree next to you!”
I didn’t know why, but her cry was so urgent that I grabbed the palm tree next to me without hesitation.
And at that moment, splash! A huge wave crashed where we were.
‘Khuk?!’
The wave was so high and strong that I would have been swept away if Seohee hadn’t warned me.
“Woojin, are you okay!”
“Yeah. I survived thanks to you. Thanks, Seohee.”
Not trusting my words alone, Seohee jumped off the boat and anxiously checked me over.
She was being overly concerned even when I said I was fine.
“Haa. Thankfully, you’re alright.”
Seohee looked relieved. I smiled at her and turned to look at where the wave had come from with uneasy eyes.
‘What was that just now?’
It was especially unsettling because the direction was towards where the kids were.
‘I need to go there right away.’
I quickly ran with Seohee to where the kids were.
And I saw it.
The plane that had vanished without a trace.
The plane that might have been the only hope for the classmates.
The kids, who had been holding on without losing hope, thinking that rescuers would definitely come someday, all stared blankly at the spot where the plane had been, with expressions of utter despair as that symbol disappeared.
‘Did the plane sink like Science said?’
It seemed so. Judging by the few kids who were frantically swimming towards us from where the plane had been.
‘How many got caught up in it?’
For now, Sejun Oh, Seyoung Oh, Jimin Park’s gang, and Taehoon Kim were there, and kids were swimming in from afar, joining them one by one in real-time.
The kids who had come back to life as if from the brink of death had their eyes and mouths wide open, breathing heavily.
“Huff. Haa. What the hell is…?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know either. What happened?”
The kids caught in the accident were just out of it, but the kids who had witnessed the scene from afar were frozen stiff, to say the least.
Even Jimin Park’s face was stiff, so I could guess how terrible the situation was.
Seohyun Lee stammered.
“The, the plane suddenly went into the water with a whoosh.”
“What?”
“Just as you guys were about to get on, the plane suddenly tilted and disappeared into the water in an instant.”
At Seohyun Lee’s explanation, the kids who were catching their breath realized what they had just experienced and their faces turned pale.
“You, you guys were also sucked into the water along with the plane. You were caught in that whirlpool.”
Then, one by one, they swam out of the water.
Since most of the people who were late to approach the plane were girls, all the girls were able to return to the island alive.
But-
“Wait. What about the guys?”
“Huh? Jaejun…?”
Belatedly, they realized that the boys had been dragged deep into the water while on the plane.
All the girls had come back alive, but none of the five boys had returned yet.
“Oh, what do I do? My Jaejun.”
Yoo Hana, who usually just smiled quietly, stamped her feet and looked at the sea.
Was it that her desperate call reached him? Someone floated to the surface.
Splash!
It was Jaejun Kim, Minhyuk Lee, Dogyun Han, and Jihu Yoon.
‘Did Youngwoo Choi get left behind?’
Only four had come out.
They came out of the water one after another, soon spotted where the classmates were, and began to swim frantically.
Their very urgent movements gave the feeling that they were terrified.
As expected, Jihu Yoon, who came out of the water last, suddenly disappeared into the water with a whoosh.
Then, with a splash! His severed leg shot high into the sky.
“Eh?”
“What…?”
And as it fell, three or four sharks jumped up at the same time, tearing it apart as if competing for it.
“Kyaaak!”
The girls screamed.
They had definitely seen a similar sight on the first day they fell on this island, but while they had laughed and not cared at the time, they were now screaming in terror.
During the time as a flight attendant, I didn’t even treat them as the same humans, so I just thought they must have died, but when Jihu Yoon died like that, I realized it.
That death had come close to them.
That the threat wasn’t that far away.
The kids screamed and moved away from the edge of the forest and into the interior.
As if that wasn’t enough to calm them down, they screamed incessantly.
‘In the end, two guys died, huh.’
I stared at the boys silently.
The three men who had been dragged into the water with the plane and survived, and the two who hadn’t started from the beginning.
‘They’re really lucky guys.’
After all, talent alone wouldn’t have made them diamond spoons.
‘Well, since they were born into wealthy families from birth, you could say they were born with heavenly luck.’
But I soon shook my head.
It would have been better if they had just died.
Having been born into a wealthy family and lived for 20 years, enjoying everything. It would have been great if they had just died with those pleasant memories.
‘In the end, they survived and prolonged a life of suffering.’
In the future, they will starve and learn with their whole bodies how ordinary people without money live, and then die as strangers somewhere on the island.
In some ways, they were more miserable and unlucky than the two who died earlier.
‘Well, I don’t need to worry about the guys.’
Anyway, due to a series of events, the kids’ hope had been completely shattered.
They had been holding on with that one hope, but now even their mentality was collapsing, and their physical condition was rapidly deteriorating.
At this rate, they wouldn’t last even a few hours.
Thinking that the time was ripe enough, I turned my body sharply.
“Where are you going, Woojin?”
“Follow me. We have something to do urgently from now on.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to buy rubber boats.”
Seohee grabbed my shoulder and stopped me.
“Don’t do that. It’s just a waste of money. Why would you help those bastards when you don’t need to?”
“I don’t want them to die.”
“Even though they bullied you every single day for three years throughout high school?”
Yeah, that happened.
“Even so, I don’t want them to die.”
I said with a bright smile.
It was a sincere feeling from the heart.
‘Because I can take them. Because I can trample on them.’
Because I can ravage them and impregnate them with my seed.
Because I can make their pretty bodies pregnant and make them give birth to my child.
So I absolutely couldn’t let them die.
“…Woojin.”
Then, Seohee, who didn’t know my true intentions, looked at me with an impressed face.
“Even though you’ve suffered such pain, you’re thinking of helping them.”
She could have deduced why I was doing this with just a little thought, but Seohee, who had infinite trust in me, believed that I was moving with a truly righteous purpose.
Yeah, she just interpreted it that way. It was a truly grateful, apologetic, and heartwarming moment.
“You’re really… amazing. You’re a man I acknowledge.”
“Then shall we move right away? Time is running out. I need your help too.”
“Leave anything to me. I’ll gladly risk my life for anything you do, Woojin.”
Having received Seohee’s active cooperation, I moved my feet and ran the calculator in my head.
Saving all the classmates required a surprisingly large expenditure.
20,000 won per 10m of rope.
14,000 won per 1.8×2.7m of waterproof tarp vinyl.
150,000 won per 1-2 person rubber boat.
‘Is it 184,000 won to fully equip one boat?’
Since there were a total of 14 classmates, if I put two people in each boat, I would need a total of seven.
Converted to cash, it was a huge sum of 1.28 million won.
I checked the remaining amount of cash I had.
[Cash: 1,364,651 won]
It was practically a situation where I had to use almost all of my cash. But I made the purchase without hesitation.
[1,288,000 cash will be deducted.]
[Daily purchase amount has exceeded 1 million won.]
[A gift will be given.]
[You have obtained ‘Customer Appreciation Discount Coupon (50%)’.]
With this, I had a total of two discount coupons.
I briefly considered using it this time when buying the rubber boats, but I just postponed it to the next time.
I thought I could use it more usefully when I had to buy something more expensive someday.
[Cash: 76,651 won]
With this, the remaining cash balance was about 70,000 won.
[Remaining Points: 887]
But I still had plenty of remaining points. If I was in a hurry, I could just convert the points to cash and use them.
Having purchased several rubber boats, I installed them with Seohee in various places in the forest.
By the time that work was finished, the typhoon had already entered its third day and was passing by.
“Haa. Thanks for your hard work, Seohee. And I’m sorry. For making you go through this trouble because of me.”
“No. I respect you as a man, and I cherish walking and working with you. I hope you’ll call me if there’s another opportunity like this in the future.”
There was not a hint of falsehood in her smiling face.
I smiled gently and hugged Seohee’s side.
“Thank you.”
With this, the preparations were complete.
I had done almost all the preparations I could do.
‘Shall I go check if the kids are holding up well?’
The classmates were gathered together, the girls with the girls, and the boys with the boys, with their heads bowed and trembling.
It wasn’t a joke, but even from a distance, I could see them shaking.
Even Minhyuk Lee, who was an athlete, was shaking, so I didn’t need to check how the other kids were doing.
‘Hmm. Their condition seems adequate, but just in case, shall I do something to help? Their resistance might be stronger than it looks.’
I took out a whistle and blew air into it weakly.
Peeeee-
The sound of the whistle echoed through the forest, and Seohyun Lee, who heard it, suddenly raised her head.
She looked around and spotted me, then pretended to go to the bathroom and approached me.
The kids, who were too cold to look around, didn’t care whether a strange sound echoed in the forest or whether Seohyun Lee left.
“Master, I’m here.”
Seohyun Lee, who had come running, sparkled with expectant eyes.
She seemed to be hungry again.
Her eyes were full of hope that she could play with me again and get something to eat.
Thinking that she looked like a puppy begging to play, I told Seohyun Lee a list of names.
“Did you memorize it all?”
“Yes, I memorized it.”
To memorize it after hearing it only once. As expected, she had frightening genes.
“You can move when I give the signal. You five can decide among yourselves who will take care of whom.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll give you something delicious again if you do a good job.”
“Yes!”
Seohyun Lee, who had received a special order from me, ran back to Jimin Park and whispered to him.
Jimin Park smiled as if he was interested, and soon gathered his gang and whispered something.
And when the story was fully told and they returned to the girls, I went to the kids with Seohee.
It felt strange to be returning to the classmates after about a month.
No, maybe it was because I was about to go on a big hunt.
‘Haa. I hope everything goes well without any problems.’
