Chapter 530 – #111_Intimacy Work (4)
#530
1.
“Are you saying we can actually watch a movie with this?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Even without a projector?”
“Yes. Just like the monitors in the control room.”
“Hoo!”
Ruelle showed great interest in the large, full HD TV.
It was the largest of the spoils of war from the modern world, and it was also very eye-catching, so it was only natural.
Therefore, Siwoo immediately took the TV to the ship’s movie theater, rolled up the screen, and focused on installing the TV.
Next to him, Ruelle was peeking around with eyes that seemed to be looking at something amazing.
By the way, who would have thought that one of the Gehenna witches would want to bring in a TV and surround speakers, among other electronic devices?
It was quite a unique taste.
In Gehenna, where there wasn’t even proper power generation equipment, turning these things on would require a rather troublesome process.
In that sense, Akula was able to supply power to the electronic devices without much difficulty.
After all, it was a nuclear submarine that had more than enough electricity to use.
“When will it be done? How much longer do I have to wait? Am I perhaps in the way? Would it be better if I left for a while?”
Ruelle was fidgeting, raising and lowering her heels.
“It’s almost done.”
“What? Already?”
“Yes, it was just a matter of connecting the wires, so it wasn’t a big deal.”
The standard voltage had been around 110V or 220V since the moment electricity was invented.
All Siwoo had to do was plug a converter adapter into the cord and then plug it into the plug that originally powered the projector. Even someone who wasn’t familiar with electronics could easily set it up.
After placing the speakers in the right positions and pressing the remote, the TV turned on.
The moment a video of flowers, which was used to check the screen status, started playing, Siwoo carefully watched Ruelle.
He was curious about her reaction.
“……”
He had expected it, but he didn’t think she would be this surprised.
Ruelle’s gaze, fixed on the TV’s standby screen, was like that of someone looking at a masterpiece painted by a master with all their soul, and her small, open mouth looked like it could fit her fist.
It was said that extremely advanced science was no different from magic, and for Ruelle, everything in front of her might have felt like the first time Siwoo saw magic.
“Amazing!”
“I’m glad it works well.”
“What kind of miraculous technology is this….”
Even so, to be so amazed when they were modifying a nuclear submarine into a workshop.
“The screen isn’t black and white. It’s colorful! How is this possible! It’s like looking at real flowers!”
Ruelle stuck her nose close to the screen, examining it in detail as if it were something amazing.
Even though it wasn’t anything special, he felt a sense of pride for some reason.
It was impossible to watch terrestrial or aerial broadcasts since they were submerged at a depth where radio waves and even satellite communications were impossible, but there was no problem in watching the hundreds of movies they had.
He put in a Blu-ray disc that she would probably like.
“Let’s start the screening.”
“Ooooh!”
Ruelle, who was very excited, jumped onto the sofa, and Siwoo placed a bag of Doritos and a can of Mountain Dew, which were among the spoils of war, in front of her.
To buy snacks and drinks like this through direct smuggling, whoever ordered this must be quite wealthy.
“What is this?”
“It’s a snack that’s good to have while watching a movie. Like popcorn.”
“Ooh, I also like popcorn very much.”
He opened the bag and placed it on Ruelle’s lap, and poured a drink into her cup.
“You sit here too. If there’s anything I don’t know, you can teach me.”
“Yes, I understand.”
Ruelle didn’t take her eyes off the screen, not even blinking, as she gave her orders.
When he was a child, his mother used to joke that he would be sucked into the TV if he kept watching it, and he thought he knew what he looked like back then.
The movie started.
It was a war movie set in the late stages of World War II that he had watched when he lived with Sharon.
It was a story about a tank platoon and its crew. Although the tank action was well-received, it wasn’t a movie that was meant to show the splendor of war in the first place.
Rather, it was a movie that bitterly showed the contradictions and horrors of war, along with the crew suffering from PTSD. In other words, it was the kind of content that might bring about some change in Ruelle if she watched it.
If Ruelle thought of war as if it were a game of shooting guns, like boys playing, and if it was because she lacked education, he wanted to change it if he could.
He thought, ‘Here goes my meddling again….’ but what did it matter?
It wasn’t like it required a grand effort.
Ruelle, with her already large eyes wide open, blankly put a Dorito in her mouth.
“It’s a war movie.”
“Yes, it is.”
“You have excellent taste.”
The exclamation mark at the end of Ruelle’s words disappeared not because she had lost interest.
She was completely immersed in watching the movie, so she didn’t react to the stimulating snack she was eating for the first time.
However, when the equipment and surrounding scenery began to appear in earnest, she snorted as she munched on Doritos.
It was only natural that there would be no comparison, as she was seeing her beloved weapons in full HD, not in blurry black and white, and with the latest movie techniques.
“Ooh! That’s the main character, the M4 Sherman! It has the feel of a veteran tank!”
“Is that so?”
“But why is the tank’s track a T84?”
“Huh?”
“Looking at the setting of the story, it seems like the T80 would be more common. But it seems like it’s the end of the war, and it seems like a tank that has been active on the front lines for quite a long time, so it wouldn’t be wrong to say that it was used as a patch.”
“……”
He had no idea what she was talking about.
As it was a war movie, many weapons naturally appeared.
Every time a weapon she knew appeared, Ruelle shouted with almost a cheer and gave a detailed explanation.
The problem was that she knew all the weapons that appeared in the movie.
Not just on a superficial level, but in such detail that she pointed out all the historical inaccuracies.
Therefore, instead of giving an explanation, he was in a position to listen to an explanation that he couldn’t understand at all.
“Oh…!”
With Ruelle’s exclamation, the first proper battle scene finally appeared.
It was a scene that properly showed why tanks were objects of fear for infantry.
Ruelle, who had finished eating the Doritos, clenched her fists and chattered as she watched the scene of anti-tank guns and tanks exchanging fire.
It was like an old man who had bet all his fortune on a horse race, cheering with spittle flying.
“The Nazis deserve to die! Indeed, the power of tanks is amazing!”
But her admiration was short-lived.
As those who know will know, the weak-hearted protagonist cannot shoot at enemy infantry because of his aversion to killing.
Ruelle complained as if she were watching a jockey who had bet on a horse that was not doing well.
“No! What is the protagonist doing! Shoot! The enemy is right in front of you!”
Ruelle, frustrated, gulped down the carbonated drink.
“How frustrating. It feels like I’ve eaten a box of sweet potatoes! To not shoot the enemy because he’s trying to find his own conscience. If he were my subordinate, I would have punished him severely under military law.”
Ruelle, who had been sucked into the movie, was already a commander on the battlefield.
The scene that followed after the magnificent battle scene.
A Nazi prisoner of war, dragged out of a trench, begs for his life, showing a family photo.
The tank commander orders the protagonist, who has not fired a single shot properly throughout the battle, to show his soldierly side and kill the defenseless prisoner.
He puts a pistol in the protagonist’s hand, who refuses, and forces him to shoot the sobbing prisoner.
The protagonist, who was forced to commit an unwanted murder, is tormented by guilt.
When he glanced to the side.
Ruelle was frozen.
She was not the same as before, when she was excitedly talking.
From the moment the prisoner appeared, begging for his life, she was stiff as if someone had pressed the pause button.
She looked at Siwoo with a look that seemed very confused, as if she were asking for directions on a lost road.
With eyes that seemed to not know what to do.
“……”
As a result of observing her over the time they had spent together, Ruelle was truly simple.
It could even be said that she had a dichotomous way of thinking.
Good, and everything else was evil.
Our side, and everything else was the enemy.
The identification criteria of the previous Nukelavee, who had lived as an outcast for her entire life, might have been enough.
And Ruelle probably inherited it as it was.
But in this world, there is no absolute evil or absolute good, is there?
War is a place where ambiguous bad guys and ambiguous good guys mingle, killing and being killed.
It is a place of slaughter where the grand journey of life, which would not be enough even if written in a thick book, is pointlessly torn apart by a few grams of bullets and a few kilograms of shells.
Ruelle said that she would only kill soldiers, not civilians, but was war ever like that?
He hoped that she would see not the outskirts of a wide-open drawing paper with clear black and white colors, but the gray area where the two colors vaguely intertwined.
And judging by her reaction, it seemed like it was enough.
“…It’s not fun.”
Ruelle, who had been showing signs of excitement until just now, tried her best to feign a nonchalant voice and hid her trembling eyes.
“Shall I play something else?”
“No, my excitement has died down. It was a truly low-quality and unpleasant movie. You should return to your work and continue sorting the spoils of war.”
“Yes, I understand.”
Siwoo left the theater.
And he peeked at Ruelle through the slightly open door.
“……”
Ruelle, who had been looking at her feet, hesitated for a moment, then pressed the remote control, just like Siwoo had done, and quietly played the movie again.
