225 – Maybe, Haildo, Desert Island #3
“Haildo! Where on earth have you been until now? Do you know how much I’ve been looking for you? Huh? Why did you come so late?”
As I was brushing off the kelp strands stuck to my body, Seo Ye-rim shouted at me.
I was worried about her health when I saw her messy hair and clothes stuck with salt, but it seemed my concern was unnecessary.
Seo Ye-rim said it had been three days since she drifted onto this island.
“There’s no one on this island! Really, there’s nothing at all!”
After not eating or drinking anything for three days, Seo Ye-rim was almost going insane. She already had a hysterical side to her, and it was evident now.
I guess that just means she’s healthy.
“What the hell happened? What’s going on?”
I wanted to ask Seo Ye-rim, who had arrived on the island before me, about the situation. She then looked around and gestured to a nearby tree.
“Let’s go over there for now. The beach is too sunny. My skin will burn.”
Indeed.
Direct sunlight is dangerous.
With that feeling, we sat in the shade of a palm tree near the beach.
Seo Ye-rim spoke.
“When the accident occurred, I was talking with the ship’s captain. It turns out the captain was a member of the Telos Truth Commission. From the start, he intended to trap me on this island.”
“The ‘Telos Truth Commission’? What’s that?”
“Remember when the first-generation superconducting cellphone came out and one in ten million exploded while charging? Almost ten people were injured because of that.”
I see.
I thought that sounded familiar.
Back when they were making a fuss about phones made with superconductors, some did explode while charging. So they recalled all the products sold in the market, right?
But I hadn’t heard about anyone getting hurt from those explosions.
“The company bribed the victims with money to cover up the incident. But not everyone could be bought off. Some of them were doing one-person protests in front of the company every day.”
I see.
According to Seo Ye-rim, the cruise ship captain was someone whose only daughter was seriously injured due to one of those exploding phones.
“It’s not exact, but thinking about it now, I think he was that person. So, he holds a grudge against Telos Corporation and crashed the boat into this strange rift, locking me on this desert island.”
That’s a somewhat plausible theory.
Should I think of Kang Cheol-Min and the cruise ship captain as a team? It was interesting to see Seo Ye-rim’s attitude was fairly calm.
“Isn’t this a serious problem?”
I asked.
Seo Ye-rim snickered, somewhat proudly.
“I’ve nearly been kidnapped more than ten times since I was a child. Such things happen often in life.”
Living as the daughter of a wealthy family doesn’t seem easy.
I decided to share what I knew about Kang Cheol-Min too.
“I saw Kang Cheol-Min on the ship. You know my classmate Kang Cheol-Min? The one who was supposed to be dead. He was alive and on the boat. We must have caught the short end of the stick.”
“Really? So that Kang Cheol-Min is alive…”
It seemed Seo Ye-rim didn’t know that Kang Cheol-Min was alive either. But what about the others?
According to Kang Cheol-Min, this strange rift sucked in people with ‘high magic power’, so civilians wouldn’t have been caught up in it, but…
“I think Lee Jin-A and the Nymphs might have been caught up in it. Ari probably too. My animals are likely to have been pulled in as well. They might be somewhere on this island.”
I stood up and looked around.
From the white sandy beach where the waves were frothy to the jungle thick with trees and shrubs, I could see a rather tall hill.
I would need to take proper measurements, but it looked like a pretty large island.
It felt like it would take about a week to fully explore the island.
“Inoi! Illinois! Coris! Morales!”
I called out loudly for the Nymphs.
A suddenly thrust desert island.
“Kkungkkungi! Aang! Kkwang! Kalilnoi! Ing-Ing!”
I called out loudly for my animal friends. Since animals have good senses, they would surely hear my call even from a distance.
But there was not a single cry in response to my shouts.
“I hope they’re all okay.”
I was worried about the people and animals around me.
What a situation because of that bastard Kang Cheol-Min.
If I escape from here, it’ll be just right to find that guy and punch him in the face to relieve some pent-up frustration. While thinking that, I heard a sound like “guu-uu”.
Guuuuuuuuuuuu.
Turning my head, I saw Seo Ye-rim holding her stomach and blushing.
“What…!? No way…!”
“…….”
What does she mean no way?
I hadn’t said anything.
But thinking about it quietly, it was natural.
Earlier, Seo Ye-rim said she hadn’t eaten anything for three days. No matter how strong an Awakened one is, it’s only natural to be hungry after three days of starvation.
Moreover, having met me while she might be in a considerably tense state due to the possibility of being isolated on the island, it was only natural that the physiological effects she had been suppressing would break through.
I slapped my cheeks to wake myself up.
Worrying about the Nymphs, my friends, and the animals wouldn’t resolve matters immediately.
In times like this, it’s better to tackle one task at a time rather than wallowing in unresolved worries.
The first urgent task.
It was to survive on this island.
“Let’s think about surviving first.”
According to Seo Ye-rim, that meant I had also drifted here for about three days. Maybe because I had purged so much seawater, I felt utterly drained and quite hungry.
Swish swish swish-.
I decided to write something in the sand with a stick.
Seeing that, Seo Ye-rim asked.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m assessing and showing my condition. This is my state right now.”
“Hunger: 20/100”
“Thirst: 50/100”
“Sleepiness: 90/100”
“Injuries: None”
To put it simply, it was a self-diagnosis.
I needed to accurately assess my condition to prioritize what I should do first.
Swish- I handed the stick to Seo Ye-rim and told her to quantify her state as well.
Surprisingly, Seo Ye-rim wrote on the beach without complaining.
“Hunger: Very Hungry”
“Thirst: Very Thirsty”
“Sleepiness: Very Sleepy”
I see.
This is a complete dire situation.
I remembered the 333 rule.
It’s said that humans can survive for three minutes without air, three days without water, and three weeks without food.
Today, Seo Ye-rim was on her third day without water.
Though she had the robust body of an Awakened one, this island seemed to absorb our magic powers like a sponge, so we were practically the same as regular people right now.
It seems it would be good for Seo Ye-rim to hydrate today.
“Water… Water…”
I tried to draw in as much of the little magic power remaining in my body to the surface as possible. Without Kkungkkungi around, my ‘wild instinct’ should still trigger to some extent.
Then, a delicious scent wafted into my nostrils.
Swish-.
When I lifted my head, I saw the palm tree we were resting under had plenty of coconuts hanging from it.
“Oh. What’s that? Coconuts?”
According to videos I had seen, coconuts greatly help with relieving thirst and fatigue. But another thought crossed my mind.
“Hey, why haven’t you eaten anything with those coconuts hanging up there?”
“I can’t climb trees.”
I see.
Right now, we’re in a near-normal state.
Without the help of magic, Seo Ye-rim couldn’t climb trees. She had focused more on developing her abilities than on physical training.
If anyone could have climbed easily, it would have been Ari or Lee Jin-A, who undoubtedly wouldn’t have skipped physical training.
“Then why didn’t you train a bit normally? Wait here. I’ll go up and drop some down, so catch them from below.”
It’s easy to say in hindsight, but I was somewhat confident in climbing trees.
Swoosh- I climbed the tree like a Squirrel Beast, and soon reached near the top of the tall palm tree.
When I picked a coconut with my hand, it felt quite heavy.
“Hey! I’m dropping it!”
Thud-.
I successfully obtained three coconuts.
I found a suitable rock on the ground and cracked open the coconuts, and the sound they made was quite satisfying.
Splish-.
I handed one of the opened coconuts to Seo Ye-rim.
Pop-!
Seeing it, Seo Ye-rim couldn’t contain herself and grabbed the coconut from me, gulping down the liquid flowing inside.
The pale liquid ran down her throat and soaked her clothes, but she didn’t even care, downing it with effort that seemed quite serious, like someone who had been starving for days.
It was quite literally the behavior of someone who had been starving and thirsty.
Indeed it was.
“Ah, now I feel alive!”
After drinking the coconut juice, Seo Ye-rim quickly regained her strength. When was the last time she had such a delicious drink?
The wine she usually enjoyed every evening didn’t even come close to this deep flavor and refreshing thirst-quenching ability.
“…….”
Guuuu-.
The problem was that while her thirst had been quenched, her hunger hadn’t disappeared. In fact, with the food having entered her, the hunger had intensified.
Seo Ye-rim seemed very embarrassed by the sound of her stomach growling.
But Haildo seriously nodded and said, “Now that my thirst is satisfied, I need to find some food to replenish my energy.”
Swish-.
Rising from my seat, Haildo ventured into the thicket.
“I’m going to look for food and also get a sense of the geography of the island. Since it’s a large island, there should be groundwater or a clear stream somewhere. I’ll also search for the others.”
Following Haildo’s back as he confidently made plans, Seo Ye-rim thought.
“Has Haildo always been this dependable? More than that, when I think about it, what is this situation? That the two of us need to survive on a deserted island together…!”
It was undoubtedly a critical situation.
But Seo Ye-rim’s heart began to pound with a mix of tension, excitement, and a peculiar sense of relief.
