## Chapter 2 – 외딴섬
“Ugh.”
“Damn it. What was that just now?”
One by one, people raised their heads and looked around.
For some reason, the glare made it difficult to open their eyes.
But as their eyes adjusted to the light and they could see clearly, their mouths naturally dropped open.
“Wh-what.”
“What the fuck is this! Did we crash-land?”
Crash-land.
It meant that the plane had a problem mid-flight and landed just anywhere.
But the word “crash-land” was wrong. The plane was cut in half.
Creak— Thump!
Splash!
To be precise, it was in the process of being split in half.
The fuselage shuddered, and then the severed rear of the plane splashed away, disappearing into the water. After that, nearly three-quarters of it was submerged at an angle.
“Everyone, get out this way! Quickly!”
Following the flight attendant’s instructions, we quickly evacuated the plane.
Splash! Splash!
Fortunately, the water wasn’t deep, and there was land right in front of us. Having gotten off the plane, we looked around as if possessed.
“An island?”
“Is it uninhabited?”
We were standing on the shore of an unknown island.
It had a distinct South Pacific island vibe, like Oceania or Hawaii.
White sand. Scorching sun. Palm trees. Emerald sea.
The salty smell of the ocean filled our noses, and in the distance, there was a large cliff on one side, and the island’s center was covered with endless lush vegetation.
“Ugh. What is this? Are we really stranded in the middle of the Pacific?”
“We were heading to America when we dropped out of the sky, so theoretically, it is the Pacific.”
“This is seriously fucked up. How could something like this happen? Ugh, stress.”
“More than that, I’m already hot and thirsty.”
When stranded, the most important thing is food. Especially drinking water.
We all turned to look at the plane.
Thankfully, the plane wasn’t moving anymore. The severed rear of the fuselage was deeply submerged, but the front part was mostly above the water.
“Seeing as the belly is on the ground, it doesn’t look like it’s going to sink any further.”
“Let’s grab some drinks. I’m thirsty after drinking so much booze.”
“Isn’t it because you were knockin’ boots? I heard you banging in the bathroom all the way out here, man.”
“Oh, really? Well, I’m sorry about that, fellas. My bad.”
Having gotten off the plane, we went back on board to grab what we needed.
Fortunately, there was food. Enough to last about 20 days if we rationed it.
“Even if we’re stranded for longer, there are sealed rations in the back of the plane, so don’t worry. You can rest assured about food.”
Said the flight attendant with the name tag that read “Kim Yeon-ju.”
In the wake of the unexpected accident that left the captain and all the staff and security guards missing, she was quite calm, even as the remaining flight attendants were confused.
She was probably the most experienced of the flight attendants. Just hearing her voice was reassuring.
It was then, as we were calming our shocked emotions, that…
“That’s not the problem!”
A sharp voice tore through the peace.
“My suitcase is gone!”
“Hey, Park Ji-min. Is that stupid suitcase really important right now?”
“It is important! My skin’s gonna get ruined in this sun! Hey, you. Where did you store my luggage?”
“Oh, Ji-min. The plane’s in this state, so it probably got blown far away.”
“If you’re not gonna help, just be quiet, Tae-hoon, okay?”
Kim Tae-hoon re-tied his ponytail and scratched his shaved sideburns, backing off.
He knew that butting in would only provoke Park Ji-min’s fiery temper.
As Park Ji-min and Kim Tae-hoon bickered, Kim Yeon-ju, who had been talking to a male flight attendant, answered.
“If it’s not here, then it’s not here. All of your belongings were stored in the front of the aircraft. So, it seems… they were lost when the plane was damaged.”
“Lost? Are you sure? Maybe it’s stored in the back?”
Park Ji-min said, pointing to the half of the plane submerged in water.
“That’s only where we keep supplies for possible emergency situations…”
“Can you swear to it? What if I go and it’s there?”
With her hands on her hips, Park Ji-min raised the corners of her eyes. My body trembled involuntarily, as if signaling the start of her trademark power trip.
Park Ji-min.
A crazy bitch with skinny limbs and ash-gray hair.
She usually smiled sweetly, but she was an unpredictable, hot-tempered nutcase.
Her father owned a large entertainment company, which was in competition and cooperation with Kim Tae-hoon’s family’s entertainment company. The two families were currently the leading powerhouses in K-pop.
As the Korean Wave had recently been influencing the world, the influence of the two companies had grown beyond one country.
As a result, she had been acting up and showing off since the first grade, and now, having graduated from high school, her craziness was at an all-time high.
“Hey, I’m asking you. What if it’s there?”
“That’s…”
“Go look.”
“Excuse me?”
“Go and check with your own eyes whether it’s there or not. Then I’ll believe you.”
It was a truly absurd request.
To go into the cargo hold of a plane that was nearly three-quarters submerged in water and check if her bag was there.
‘Well, considering her behavior over the past three years, I guess it’s only natural.’
Kim Yeon-ju, who seemed to have a lot of experience, was flustered, as if she hadn’t expected such an absurd request.
The flight attendants looked back at the teachers who were traveling with them, but they quietly turned their heads away, as they had done for the past three years.
“Aren’t you going? Should I go myself?”
“I-I’ll go.”
“Hurry back. All of you go.”
“Excuse me? Do you mean all of us?”
“Yeah. If this woman goes alone, it’ll take forever. You’re colleagues, so go together.”
Forced to comply, all the flight attendants put on underwater gear and headed to the back of the plane.
And it was around this time that I realized that the world we lived in had changed a little.
“What’s going on? Why are they suddenly rushing back?”
“Huh? Hey, what’s that?”
“What, where?”
“There. Isn’t that blood?”
The five flight attendants frantically thrashed their arms and legs as they swam toward us.
There were definitely six who had left, but only five were returning.
And behind them, red ink was slowly spreading, a severed arm was briefly visible, and then something appeared and quickly snatched it away.
“Isn’t that a fucking shark?”
“Shit.”
The students who had been watching the situation near the water all moved away. Only I ran toward them, reaching out my hand to pull them onto the fuselage.
“Hurry up, get up here quickly!”
But before I could pull up the last person, a dark shadow quickly approached and snatched the flight attendant away, disappearing into the water.
Leaving behind only a few bubbles from her mouth. Spitting out red ink.
“…….”
That was the first time I had seen someone die since being stranded on this deserted island.
No, maybe it was the first time in my life.
“Holy shit, that scared me. I was worried it would come up here like in the movies.”
“I was so scared I almost pissed myself. Heh heh.”
“…….”
The students were either laughing or indifferent, and the flight attendants were pale and panting.
A shadow fell over them as they caught their breath.
“So, where’s my suitcase?”
The flight attendants looked bewildered at Park Ji-min’s question. Kim Yeon-ju raised her voice, veins popping in her neck.
“Is that what’s important right now! Someone just died!”
“The dead are already dead, and that’s separate from this. So, where’s my bag?”
Kim Yeon-ju bit her lip and answered.
“It’s not there.”
“Really? What if it is…”
“It’s not there! You can go check for yourself!”
Only then did Park Ji-min shrug and turn away, muttering something like, “Oh well, never mind.”
***
Although someone had died, there was no time to grieve.
As Park Ji-min said, the dead were dead.
The survivors had things to do in order to survive.
First, we checked the number of survivors.
7 male students
13 female students
2 female teachers
2 male teachers
1 male flight attendant
3 female flight attendants
‘So 28 people survived.’
It wasn’t a large number.
In some ways, it was the worst-case scenario.
‘Only 9 people, including me, are capable of moving.’
No cooperation could be expected from those modern-day aristocrats.
The decisive example of this was their current behavior.
“Wow. Still, it’s not bad here in the shade. The overall view is about as good as the Maldives, don’t you think?”
“Yu-na, never mind the oil, do you have any spray? Or cream?”
They were enjoying themselves as if they were on vacation.
They didn’t seem to have any sense of crisis.
‘And even among us nine, there are only five women.’
Not that I was looking down on women, but they didn’t seem to have the stamina to be of much help.
“Is there any communication?”
“No. None at all.”
Communication was also down.
“I see. Well, let’s start by looking around the island. To see if it’s safe or not.”
That was a good idea. If we happened to find someone living here, we could immediately ask for help.
The other teachers and flight attendants nodded at the suggestion of Park Jae-hoon, the physical education teacher. He called out to one of the students.
“Jae-joon! We’re going to look around!”
Kim Jae-joon approached and said.
“We’ll gather the others and help.”
“No, no. We can do it ourselves. You must be tired and confused, so rest. After all, it’s supposed to be a graduation trip.”
The physical education teacher joked and laughed.
In contrast, Kim Jae-joon had no expression on his face. He was always like that. It was hard to know what he was thinking all day long.
‘Kim Jae-joon.’
The heir to one of the leading global conglomerates in Korea.
Among the male students, his family was the most powerful, and he was effectively the leader of our class.
That’s why even the teachers were fawning over him. At the repeated refusal, Kim Jae-joon nodded.
“I understand. I’ll tell my parents about today’s events.”
“Haha. It’s nothing to worry about. Anyway, we’ll be back.”
Kim Jae-joon bowed and turned away, and the physical education teacher, who had been smiling with a friendly face, turned around as well.
“Okay, let’s get going. It’s hot, but it’s best to look around as much as possible before it gets dark.”
As they moved their feet and I was about to find a place in the shade to rest in the scorching sun…
“Jung Woo-jin, what are you doing! Hurry up and follow us!”
The physical education teacher wouldn’t leave me alone. It was no use even when the flight attendant tried to stop him.
“Just a moment. That student is also a student.”
“Haha. It’s okay. He’s special.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s like that. You don’t have to worry about it.”
Only then did the flight attendants look like they understood.
Everyone knew that there was only one commoner at Daehan International School.
They frowned at the blatant discrimination and looked at the physical education teacher, but he didn’t care at all.
“Woo-jin, aren’t you coming!”
He was simply discriminating as if it were natural.
It was the treatment I had been subjected to for the past three years, so I didn’t care and got up.
‘Well, we’re going to have to look around anyway, so let’s just think of it as getting it over with early.’
***
The search team to explore the island was formed, and our nine members split into two teams and moved along the coast in opposite directions.
Our team consisted of me, the physical education teacher, and two female flight attendants.
‘Was the sun always this hot?’
The heat was so intense that I felt dizzy just walking.
As I was walking with difficulty in the scorching heat, someone approached me.
“Thank you for earlier.”
It was Kim Yeon-ju. She quietly expressed her gratitude, shaking her name tag with her ample chest.
“I was able to survive because you pulled me up when I was being chased by the shark. Honestly, I was in such a hurry to swim back that I didn’t have the strength to climb onto the plane.”
“It was the obvious thing to do.”
“I don’t know. For what it’s worth, everyone else ran away and just watched.”
“…….”
“Hehe. Anyway, thank you. I won’t forget your help. If you need anything, just tell me. I’ll do anything for you.”
She winked and returned to her fellow flight attendant, shaking her large breasts. My eyes naturally followed the swaying mass of flesh.
‘Those are huge. Her shoulders might hurt just from running.’
For a moment, I felt a surge of energy in my lower body, but it quickly subsided. The scorching sun was even taking away my libido.
‘Anyway, we should be able to get a rough idea of what this place is like in an hour.’
That’s what I thought, but I was dead wrong.
The island was bigger than I thought.
No, much bigger than I expected.
“How long have we been walking?”
“One hour and twenty-four minutes.”
“Damn it. Assuming the other team has been walking steadily like us, that means we won’t be able to make a full circle even if we walk for more than three hours.”
We stopped walking and stood in place, shading our eyes with our hands. Then we looked out over the sand in the distance.
The endless sandy beach was so vast that we wouldn’t be able to reach the end even if we walked for several more hours, and after that, there was a towering cliff waiting for us.
“Didn’t we see a cliff like that when we looked at the opposite side from the starting point?”
Everyone shook their heads, saying they hadn’t seen it.
“Ugh. I can’t walk anymore, whether it’s a cliff or whatever. Sis, let’s rest in the shade for a bit.”
The short-haired female flight attendant, the one who had been banging a student in the bathroom, was whining.
She plopped down in the lush shade and threw her shoes on the ground.
“Hyun-ji. But if you sit down, you’ll get bitten by bugs.”
“Yeon-ju unni. Are you worried about bugs right now? I’m about to get cooked. I feel like I’m being roasted alive.”
It was terribly hot.
Everyone was enduring it with all their might, but they were all drenched in sweat and exhausted.
“Screw it!”
The physical education teacher also sprawled out in the shade.
He lay down right next to the flight attendant, and judging by the way his eyes were on her thighs under her skirt, it seemed like he had other intentions besides being tired.
Eventually, Kim Yeon-ju also sat down in the shade, and I found a suitable spot as well.
As soon as I escaped the sun, I felt drowsy.
‘We’ve only been walking for half a day, but all the energy has been drained from my body.’
It was a truly terrible climate.
I was feeling firsthand how difficult it was to face nature with nothing but my bare body.
It was like going back to prehistoric times.
It felt like a return to an era where wealth and possessions could not be accumulated.
‘This is really a place where there’s nothing. No connections, no background, no interference from anyone. Everyone is equal before nature.’
If I could start over in a place like this, there might be no more unfairness in life.
As I was having these useless thoughts in the shade where there wasn’t even a breeze, slowly becoming exhausted, I heard a strange voice in my head.
[Special item detected from player! Perk granted!]
Huh?
