Chapter Sixteen: Bitter Coffee

Yet after he finished speaking, Jin showed no reaction at all. It was as if he were talking to himself, and that left K feeling faintly annoyed. Seeing Jin standing there in thought, K nudged him and asked, “What is it? What are you thinking about? Were you even listening to me?”

Jin paused, then looked up at K and said, “Why are you so certain it was aliens kidnapping humans?”

K gave him a strange look and shrugged. “Then what else? Aside from aliens, what other force could do something like this?”

Jin opened his mouth, but in the end said nothing. He very much wanted to say that perhaps they had simply returned to their homeland...

But judging from K’s deep, bitter hatred, if he said that, it would probably be taken as a joke.

After thinking for a moment, Jin then heard K mutter to himself, “Why are there still so many people here at three in the morning?”

Before Jin could answer, K went on in a speculative tone, “Maybe the victims were lured here...”

“Lured?” Jin looked at him, a little puzzled.

“This is the testimony of a taxi driver who transported the missing woman...” K lowered his head and drew a file from his chest, handing it to Jin as he continued, “When the woman was first brought to this place, she said...”

Jin merely glanced at it briefly before setting the file down.

“She said herself that she wanted to come here?”

“Mm.” K nodded. “And when she was lured, the victim showed no signs of disorientation. She only seemed to be in a terrible hurry, leaving even her overcoat and shoulder bag behind in the taxi.”

“By searching the things in her bag, we’ve already confirmed that the woman’s name was Eriko...”

“Eriko...” Jin murmured softly. So the woman was called Eriko...

“But... how exactly did the aliens lure the victims?” K pondered aloud. “The people gathered together must have been threatened by something. We might as well start investigating from that angle.”

Receiving no reply, K paced habitually, his gaze drifting toward the sea as he said, “I’ve been investigating this alone all along. If you’re going to come with me, I hope you won’t say anything unnecessary...”

Yet when he looked back, he sadly discovered that Jin was still standing exactly where he had been, lost in some unknown train of thought. K could only let out a long sigh, then said irritably, “Did you take root where you stand? Can’t you move a little faster?”

“Or do I have to press a gun against your front teeth?”

Jin ignored the other man’s shamelessly embarrassing remark and looked up at K.

“I’m going to investigate this on my own for a while...”

K gave a helpless laugh, then nearly collapsed in exasperation. “You really are reliable, aren’t you? Let’s meet here three hours from now!”

“Bye-bye!”

“Hurry up... the ship’s coming!”

Recalling Eriko’s words in the file, Jin slowly raised his head.

“The ship is coming... the ship, Ark Tetsuya!”

In the bright cafe, Jin sat across from Ark Tetsuya. He studied the man before him. Indeed, there was something very much like himself in him—not in appearance, but in the way the two of them shared habits that were almost entirely the same.

For instance, Jin habitually liked to think while drinking coffee, his fingertips lightly drumming against the rim of the cup without stopping. And once seated, he would habitually lean back in his chair, his eyelids lowering slightly, falling into his customary silence.

The Ark Tetsuya before him was exactly the same. He looked almost like another version of Jin himself. Aside from their different faces, the two of them had habitually similar movements and expressions, with scarcely any distinction to be seen.

Perhaps the only difference lay in the way they smiled.

Ark Tetsuya took a small sip of coffee, the corner of his mouth habitually lifting into a faintly contemptuous smile as he looked at the man opposite him and said, “If you have something to say, say it quickly. I still have plenty to do.”

“The ship... I want to hear you talk about the ship!”

Ark Tetsuya half-lidded his eyes, gave Jin a slight sideways glance, then smiled, but did not take up the thread. He only shrugged lightly and said, “As for my theory, I think you’d do better to go and dig up some of the material I’ve already put forward, rather than wasting my time here.”

Jin raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

Ark Tetsuya stood up, checked his wristwatch, then said, “Still, if you want to understand these things, I can recommend someone to you.”

As he spoke, he placed a business card on the table, then picked up the black overcoat beside him. Turning back, he smiled at Jin, but before leaving he said, “People living in this cold world, out of fear and doubt, dare not take that first step. But you should not be like that. I can see that you are a resilient and powerful man, yet in your eyes there is confusion and uncertainty toward everything before you.”

“If you try thinking about it differently, perhaps it will help you.” He spoke softly. “Perhaps none of this is real. Perhaps this is not a real world at all, and you should not heed the voice in your heart that tempts you. Only by casting these things aside will you discover what lies beyond the mist.”

Watching him push open the door and leave, Jin lowered his eyelids, deepened his gaze, and took a small sip of the bitter coffee.

And Ark Tetsuya, once he had stepped out of the cafe, wore an eerie smile.

“Being trapped in this utterly powerless human body... how unpleasant. Fortunately, I can’t stay with him for too long either... otherwise he would eventually notice and begin to doubt me.”

“But... this should already be enough. Enough to make him question the Gaia consciousness’s answer, enough to make him believe that everything before his eyes is unreal.”

“But... if I want him to make a choice... I need to add one more spark.”

Inside the cafe, after Ark Tetsuya left, Jin remained in deep thought.

Suddenly, he stretched out his hand, dipped his fingertip into the coffee cup that Ark Tetsuya had used, and tasted the faint moisture on his tongue.

Bitter...

Although the man had a different face and build, his actions and expressions were identical, and even his tastes were exactly the same...

Did this man have anything to do with me at all?

Were the things he said even worth believing?

Could it be that everything before my eyes is unreal? Is all of this merely a world of illusion, as though I were trapped inside The Matrix, living in a fabricated world?

Is the real me perhaps sleeping in a cultivation tank somewhere?

Maybe only by boarding the ship and heading for the legendary utopia will I be able to find my true self?

And yet the voice that had once echoed in his heart when he first awoke sounded once more.

“This is the world you live in...”

“This is all a real world...”

Jin shook his head slightly. That voice seemed to be seducing him, seeming to urge him to choose belief—to believe everything before him, even though it all looked as if it were shrouded in fog.

This mysterious voice, of unknown origin and unknown intent, seemed able to sound at will within Jin’s heart.

Whom should he believe?

Jin rose, walked to Ark Tetsuya’s seat, and picked up the business card.

It was nothing more than a completely handwritten card. On the white stock was written a single letter, and beneath it a string of numbers.

“R...”