From the Darkness

18. The Jeep

Mingi returned two days later on the day Jongho expected to finish the gun. He was amused to find Wooyoung still loitering around the cave.

"You're more patient than I thought. If he doesn't get it done soon, I'll have a word with him. There are better things to do," he chuckled as he dragged up the tarpaulin from his cart and restocked his ware. The crates with resources dominated one of the side rooms, never stopping to awe Wooyoung in their amount.

Wooyoung lounged at the working table, engrossed now that the rifle was so close to being born.

"He's still hurt. Can't push around a wounded man."

"He doesn't need his leg to build the gun, does he?" Mingi asked with a glance at Jongho's merry tinkering.

"I also decided to stay," Wooyoung continued, picking at his sleeve nonchalantly. Now, he properly caught Mingi's attention.

"Oh?" The trader asked, leaning back against his cart with a protein bar in his fingers. It crunched when he chomped down on it. "Did they convince you?"

Wooyoung nodded. "Seonghwa isn't what I expected, but he makes believing much easier. And there're guns and ammunition here," he chortled. Mingi toasted his snack to that.

"True, true. In that case, I will take you and San along to a raid one of these days. We will get an extra batch of metal for you to shred the fouls with," he promised. He went back to work while Wooyoung lingered.

"Can I ask why you aren't joining? You believe enough in this mission to help, but you don't want to come along?"

"I know a good deal when I see one. It's a wager, our lives against the world's cure. But what use does the world's cure have for me? I live comfortably as I do. Instead of unnecessary risks, I only take deals where I know I make a profit," Mingi elaborated his shrewd tactics. Wooyoung was left to ponder it but Jongho gave a mild reply.

"Mingi helped me a lot, but he knows his place is here."

"If you make it, I can offer you a great new world sale, though. I would hope business booms as more people dare venture outside."

"I bet it will," Wooyoung grinned. He couldn't imagine such a world, but he didn't have to. Either he would see with his own eyes, or reality would snatch them back and lull them into the usual routine. For now, foolish hope was a welcome distraction.

"Seonghwa should get a free lifetime supply for all that. Speaking of, he wanted to try out exerting his power on a smaller level so we can be sure they are up to date," Jongho threw in. He picked out tiny screws holding the gun together so it wouldn't blow up in Wooyoung's hands.

"How so?" Wooyoung imagined a bigger net of electricity and technology was needed to broaden his range.

"With magnificence, of course! You saw the water in the cave downstairs?"

Both Wooyoung and Mingi hung from Jongho's lips, curious where this would go.

"If we locate him nearby, his electrodynamic waves or whatever he calls them should spread far enough to coat any nearby metal with enough magnetism to disturb the ball's gravity core. It sounded super complicated, but the gist of it is that we should be able to pull down the whole ball. That would mean infinite water!" Jongho's eyes sparkled at the imagination. No water gatherer could get this much at once. The cave might drown in all that water, but Wooyoung wanted to see it.

"Can we bathe in it? A real bath?" He asked, baffled at the idea alone. The water seemed too precious to soil with their dirty bodies, but a bath sounded heavenly.

"We will have so much of it, you can definitely bathe in it. There will be designated bath water and designated drinking water and designated just to look at water!" Jongho snickered.