Incheon Port. After the Black Parade’s makeshift funeral.
The Patissier they had rescued was shoved into a pitch-black limousine and whisked away.
“Where the heck are you taking me?! Somebody help meee!”
The limo pulled out of the port, the Patissier’s pathetic screams trailing behind it.
“Heh heh.” Watching the limousine’s tail lights disappear, Hae-eun Seo dusted off her hands. She looked every bit the merchant who had just completed a very satisfactory delivery.
“Another job well done. I do hope the client is pleased.”
Who was this client? And where was the Patissier being taken?
Jae-hee was bursting with questions, but there was no one to answer them.
“Don’t ask about mission details, and don’t get curious about the aftermath,” Ghost had told him brusquely. “Every mission we run is black ops. A far cry from anything clean.”
And so, all Jae-hee could do was wave at the receding limousine.
I have no idea where you’re going, but it has to be better than dying in a zombie-infested hellhole, he thought.
***
With the Patissier gone and Hae-eun and her subordinates bustling about on some other business, Jae-hee and Ghost were left stranded at the pier.
Ghost was lying flat on the ground, her face covered by a baseball cap, snoring loudly. Jae-hee, however, was too unsettled by the funeral to even think about sleep.
He sat there in a daze, killing time, when something caught his eye.
“Hm? That’s a…”
A ship had appeared on the distant horizon.
He wasn’t impressed at first, but as it drew closer, a gasp of awe escaped his lips.
“Whoa. Where’d this come from?”
He hadn’t seen many ships in his life, but this gleaming white passenger vessel was massive beyond belief. Even from afar, its sheer presence was overwhelming as it cut through the waves like a moving island.
It had to be one of those towering luxury cruise liners that supposedly once circled the globe before the war.
“Talk about insane. It’s like a skyscraper floating on the water…”
The liner, now in full view and escorted by two frigates, slowly approached Incheon Port.
Jae-hee let out a low whistle. “I’d love to sail around the world on a ship like that. Bet it would feel incredible, huh?”
Beside him, Ghost pushed the cap off her face without sitting up. “That’s the ship.”
“Sorry?”
“That’s the ‘prison’ we’ll be boarding.”
Jae-hee simply blinked, his eyes round as it took a moment for the words to sink in.
Ghost slowly pushed herself up, yawning languidly as she scratched at her scalp. Her hair was once again a chaotic mess.
“The floating prison for the Awakened, Paradise Lost.”
“Ehh…?”
“It’s where you’ll be spending the rest of your life.” Ghost clicked her tongue. “Congratulations. Your wish came true. You’ll be taking a cruise on that goddamn ship till the day you die.”
Jae-hee couldn’t believe her.
But as the ship drew nearer, it became clear she was telling the truth. Hae-eun Seo and her subordinates were already busy preparing to board.
“Wow. I can’t believe the prison is a ship…”
He’d assumed it would be on land—or on an island, if he was unlucky. He’d even held out a sliver of hope that he could use his speed to make a break for it someday.
But a ship on the open sea…
A heavy feeling settled in his chest as he stared blankly at the approaching vessel.
< PARADISE LoSt >
The words were emblazoned across the colossal liner’s bow.
Ghost, who had flopped back down onto the ground, gestured toward the ship. “See how the lettering on ‘Lost’ is different?”
“Oh, you’re right.”
The word PARADISE was printed in neat, machine-perfect letters, but LoSt was a crude, hastily scrawled mess.
Sensing his confusion, Ghost explained, “The Paradise series. A line of super-liners operated by the American tourism company, Paradise Cruise. That ship is their newest model.”
“Huh…”
“Well, ‘newest’ is a relative term. We’re talking thirty years ago. That was the last time anyone was building luxury liners.”
Lying down, she pulled a cigarette from its pack and placed it between her lips, leaving it unlit.
“Anyway, this fancy cruise ship was built in a national shipyard. But right before its maiden voyage, the Gate War broke out…”
It had inherited the family name, “Paradise.” But before a given name could be painted on the hull, the ship was abandoned.
“It was just left there, ownerless, until somebody came along to play the vandal. That’s how it got the name.”
Paradise Lost. A fitting name for a ship with such a tragic fate.
“Cruise tourism was wiped out after the war, obviously. The ship was just rusting away, an eyesore, when that devil Hae-eun Seo had an idea: remodel it into a prison.”
Ghost clicked her tongue in distaste. “Existing prisons couldn’t handle Awakened criminals. Escapes were frequent. There was some talk of building a new, high-security facility on a remote island, but…”
“But?”
“They crunched the numbers and realized this prison cruise was a hell of a lot cheaper.”
“Ah.”
“Where’s the government supposed to get the money and tech to build a dedicated prison for the Awakened—on some remote island, no less? In this day and age?”
Now that she mentioned it, he had to agree. If the government had that kind of money and technology, they’d probably build another anti-monster fortress around Seoul…
“So, Hae-eun made a proposal: just throw all the convicts on that ship, stick it out on the ocean, and let it circle endlessly so they can never return to land.”
“And it worked?”
“Well, you see it floating right over there, Boy. And that’s the retarded story of how our Republic of Korea’s famous floating prison cruise came to be.”
Jae-hee covered his gaping mouth with a hand. “It’s incredibly creative, I guess… but still, imagine using a passenger ship as a prison…”
A voice spoke from behind them. “You might find it’s more satisfying than expected once you’re in.”
He turned to see Hae-eun approaching with her subordinates in tow. She stretched a hand out toward the ship on the water.
“Four hundred meters long. Thirty decks. Three thousand guest rooms. Forty restaurants. Ten swimming pools. Four theaters. A casino, an arcade, bars, cafés—the whole luxury package. It’s got everything! Room for twenty-five hundred crew and seventy-five hundred passengers. Just imagine the charming prison life you’ll enjoy aboard Paradise Lost, the world’s greatest—”
Rattling off the specs like some travel agent, the commander shrugged and looked between the two convicts.
“—or, well… almost greatest cruise ship.”
Ghost snorted. Jae-hee just shrank back, stunned into silence.
The Post Office–marked transport plane that had landed nearby let out a deafening roar from its engines. Hae-eun gestured toward it with her chin and grinned.
“Well, it’s time to move into your new sweet home. Shall we go have a housewarming, Boy?”
***
Thwump-thwump-thwump—
The transport carrying Jae-hee and the others flew slowly toward the cruise ship.
The prison liner didn’t dock at Incheon Port. The reason given was that allowing it to make contact with the mainland could cause problems.
“There were always a few morons who’d try to escape the second we docked,” Ghost explained. “After that, they switched to just resupplying from the sea near the port.”
Just as she said, cargo ships were approaching the massive liner one by one to deliver supplies.
Jae-hee watched from high up in the transport plane. “Huuuh… so people must try to escape a lot.”
“They never stop. Look, even now. Out on the waters, over there.”
He looked where Ghost was pointing. She was right.
From one of the middle decks, a convict leaped overboard and began running, seeming to glide across the surface of the sea.
The man’s skin was blue. He must have had an ice ability, because the seawater froze wherever his feet landed, creating a path.
A cacophony of cheers, jeers, and curses erupted from the other convicts on the mid-deck.
Fueled by their energy, the escapee yelled triumphantly, “Bahahaha! So long, cunt motha fuckas! I am outta here!”
The unstable ice path hinted that his powers were being suppressed, yet he kept his balance with astonishing skill. Without hesitation, he made a beeline for the nearest cargo ship.
Was he trying to hijack it? Or just use it as a stepping stone on his way to the shore?
Jae-hee was curious—but he would never find out.
Bubble… bubble…
The surface of the sea beneath the escapee’s feet began to churn and boil. Then, with a tremendous FWOOSH—! something erupted from the depths, sending up a terrifying spray of water.
“Woah? What the hell!” It took the terrified Jae-hee a few seconds to identify what it was. “A snake…?!”
It was a colossal serpent of the sea. It had shot up from beneath the waves, its jaws agape, and had snatched the escapee in a single bite.
“Aaaaargh! Hel—”
The man’s desperate scream was drowned out by a deafening roar. The sea serpent’s massive jaw opened to its widest point, then—CRUNCH!—it snapped shut with ferocious force.
Its countless teeth interlocked like a zipper, sealing its great maw. The escapee vanished without a trace.
Ruuuumble…!
The serpent carved a smooth arc through the air before diving back beneath the waves, leaving behind nothing but a mountain of foam.
Next to Jae-hee, who was still pressed against the window with his mouth hanging open, Ghost snorted as she watched the spectacle.
“Sea Serpent,” she explained. “The guards of this prison cruise. And the executioners of anyone who tries to escape. It’s one of our dear commander’s abilities.”
“What? That serpent is the commander’s power? The commander’s an Awakened?”
“Correct. That woman can command every ‘snake’ in this world.” Ghost jabbed a finger toward Jae-hee’s solar plexus. “That parasite you swallowed, the Gu? It’s a kind of snake, too. She controls it with the same principle.”
“Ahh… I almost managed to forget about that…” Jae-hee rubbed his stomach with a grimace, then paused. “Wait a second. If that’s the case, couldn’t she just use the parasite to stop escapees?”
“That’s the easy way, but this is necessary,” Ghost said, her gaze shifting from the placid water back to the cruise ship. “You have to show everyone what happens to any rat that tries to escape.”
Booooo—
The convicts on the mid-deck, who had just been cheering, now erupted in a chorus of jeers and curses. Then, just as quickly, they turned and went back to their daily routines—working, cleaning, exercising, reading.
It was as if nothing had happened. As if watching someone attempt to escape only to be executed by a sea serpent was a perfectly normal part of their day.
It was only then that reality truly began to sink in for Jae-hee.
He was about to be dropped into a world completely different from the one he had always known.
Thwump-thwump-thwump-thwump—
The transport began its descent toward the landing pad on the ship’s upper deck.