Chapter 8. The Laughing Box
Clatter.
A sound came from inside my bag.
At first, I thought I had misheard it.
The warehouse was already chaotic enough.
Four unconscious gang members were sprawled across the floor.
Spent shell casings were scattered everywhere.
The metal door had been ripped off and lay twisted nearby.
And Lee Minho, who had been tied to a chair until moments ago, was only barely managing to stand.
Amid all that chaos, the strange sound came again.
Clatter.
This time, I was sure.
The sound had come from inside my bag.
The lamp.
I slowly put the bag down.
Lee Minho stared at me with a pale face.
"What... was that just now?"
"Beats me."
"There's something inside your bag..."
I didn't answer.
No.
I couldn't answer.
Because I didn't know either.
I opened the zipper.
The old lamp appeared.
Normally, it should have been completely still.
But now it was trembling ever so slightly.
What was even stranger was its surface.
A faint blue light was spreading through the patterns engraved into the metal.
It looked just like the light I'd seen when the Genie first appeared.
"Haah..."
I slowly exhaled.
"Hey, Bob."
No response.
"What the hell are you doing?"
The lamp only continued trembling.
Lee Minho, who had been watching, cautiously spoke.
"That object... where did you get it?"
I stared at the lamp as I answered.
"From the sea."
"Which sea?"
"Not Sinan. Somewhere else."
Lee Minho's gaze locked onto the markings on the lamp.
Then his eyes suddenly widened.
"Those patterns..."
"Why?"
"That's right. The box had markings like those too."
I lifted the lamp.
The metal wasn't cold.
It was actually slightly warm.
Almost...
as if it were alive.
"You said you heard laughter near the box, right?"
"Yes."
"What kind of laughter?"
Lee Minho bit his lip for a moment.
"It sounded like a person laughing... but also not quite human."
"A man?"
"Probably. But it didn't sound like it was coming from nearby."
"Then?"
"I heard it inside my head."
My grip tightened without thinking.
Creak.
The lamp groaned beneath my fingers.
I quickly loosened my hand in surprise.
"This is driving me crazy."
Come to think of it, everything had become strange after I obtained the lamp.
More precisely, my son had picked it up at the beach.
I had rubbed it as a joke.
The Genie appeared.
Then granted me three wishes.
And now, inside a shipwreck off the coast of Sinan, there was supposedly a metal box with the exact same markings as the lamp.
Laughter came from that box.
And the moment the lamp heard about it...
it began reacting.
At this point, treating it as coincidence would be stranger.
I put the lamp back inside the bag.
"Let's get out of here first."
Lee Minho looked at me in confusion.
"What?"
"More of them might come soon. The Coast Guard or police will probably show up too."
"We need to report this."
"We will. But first, I need to get you somewhere safe."
I looked toward the corner of the warehouse.
Inside the wooden crates were pieces of relics that the organization had apparently smuggled away.
If we left them here, the gang could come back and recover them.
But carrying them myself wasn't a good idea either.
I took out my phone and began taking pictures.
The wooden crates.
The relic fragments.
The unconscious gang members.
The inside of the warehouse.
I recorded the location and surrounding area too.
Then I anonymously reported everything again.
That made three reports in one night.
Whether it was the Coast Guard or the police, they were going to have a very busy night.
After ending the call, I looked at Lee Minho.
"Can you walk?"
"A little."
"Good."
I helped him out of the warehouse.
Cold dawn wind blew against us.
Lee Minho staggered after only a few steps.
He had been held captive for a long time and hadn't eaten properly.
His body had become extremely weak.
"I'll take you to the hospital. The same place where Choi Junseok is."
"What about you?"
"I'm going back to the sea."
Lee Minho urgently grabbed my arm.
"No."
"Why?"
"That box is dangerous."
I chuckled.
"Is there anything in this world that isn't dangerous?"
"I'm serious."
This time, even his voice trembled.
"Everything started going wrong after we discovered that box. All of our survey equipment broke down, and my senior started having strange dreams."
"What kind of dreams?"
"A black sea. Blue smoke. And a laughing man."
I stopped walking.
Blue smoke.
A laughing man.
Naturally, the Genie came to mind.
"A dream?"
"Yes. And my senior said someone kept asking him something."
"What?"
"To tell him his wish."
A chill ran down my spine.
Wish.
Those were the same words I had heard.
Speak your three wishes.
Anything is possible.
I swallowed.
This was no longer a simple treasure hunt.
There was something beneath the sea off Sinan that was connected to the lamp.
And maybe...
The secret behind my powers was hidden there as well.
The condition that would make my abilities disappear.
There was a chance the answer was down there too.
"Then I have to go even more."
Lee Minho stared at me in disbelief.
"After hearing all that?"
"That's exactly why I need to go."
"I told you it's dangerous."
"Which is exactly why I have to check."
In the end, I lifted him onto my back.
"Close your eyes."
"Again..."
"Get used to it."
Whoosh.
The next instant, we were standing in an alley near the hospital.
This time, Lee Minho didn't scream.
Instead, he stared blankly at me for a long time.
"You really are..."
"Human."
I answered before he could finish.
"Still."
Even after saying it, I felt strange.
Why did I keep saying that?
I forced myself to smile.
"Go to the emergency room. Find Choi Junseok and tell the police everything. Just leave me out of it."
"Do you think that's possible?"
"Do your best."
Lee Minho stared at me for a moment, then lowered his head.
"Thank you."
"If you're thankful, buy me a meal later."
He gave a faint smile.
"I definitely will."
I started to turn away, then stopped.
"What do you think is inside that box?"
Lee Minho's expression stiffened.
"I don't know."
"Take a guess."
"It didn't look like an ancient relic. The metal wasn't rusted at all, and the markings were glowing. And..."
"And?"
His voice trembled.
"The gold coins and ceramics around it had all been pushed away from the box."
"Driven away?"
"Yes. It didn't look like the box had simply landed there when the ship sank..."
He swallowed.
"It looked as though the box had made space for itself."
I didn't ask anything else.
That was enough.
"Go to the hospital."
Then I teleported again.
Whoosh.
This time, I appeared directly above the waters off Sinan.
For a moment, I floated over the black waves and looked up at the sky.
Faint stars could be seen through gaps in the clouds.
The sea was strangely quiet.
There had been many boats and people around earlier.
Most of them were gone now.
I could see Coast Guard lights in the distance.
They had probably gone after Manager Park.
What about this Chairman bastard?
There was no way he would stay still.
If Manager Park was arrested, the tail would be cut.
Then there was a good chance the people above him would move to destroy evidence.
Or retrieve the box they truly wanted.
I immediately dove beneath the surface.
Splash.
Cold darkness wrapped around my body.
The underwater world no longer felt unfamiliar.
If anything, it was almost more comfortable than land.
I didn't need to breathe.
There was less noise.
And even the slightest movement sent me forward at tremendous speed.
I descended toward the underwater cave.
The terrain had changed after the explosion.
Some of the rocks had collapsed.
Sand had spread across a wider area.
The cave entrance had opened further.
Inside...
Part of the enormous shipwreck was exposed.
An ancient wooden ship.
A broken mast.
A hull half-buried in sand.
Fragments of ceramics and metal were scattered nearby.
And deeper inside...
A faint blue glow leaked from the darkness.
There.
I slowed down and carefully approached.
This time, I didn't use my strength recklessly.
If I touched the wrong thing, the old hull could collapse.
And more importantly...
I had no idea what that box really was.
I carefully squeezed through a gap in the wreck.
The inside was narrow and dark.
Normally, a person wearing diving equipment would have struggled to fit through.
But I was barehanded.
Other than the problem of being a potbellied middle-aged man.
"I really need to lose weight."
I muttered without thinking.
My belly caught against a wooden beam.
If I pushed with strength, the wood would obviously snap.
So I twisted my body, sucked in my stomach as much as possible, and barely squeezed through.
Beyond it was a small cargo compartment.
It was beneath the stern, exactly where Choi Junseok had described.
