New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Chapter 972: Going Over The Plan

"Is that why you kept looking worried every time we landed somewhere? Were you receiving the reports one by one?"

David simply nodded, his face already strained to stay composed.

"Why didn't you tell us anything sooner? I can understand not wanting to worry us, but we could have at least managed to get more people on board if we knew sooner. Why did you keep it for yourself?"

David sighed loudly, scratching his chin with a tired expression.

"And what then? If we had gotten more people on board, and all this was a false alarm. What then? Do you think we can sneak more people into the volcano's crater as it stands? Don't you think the more we are, the less easy it is to stay low profile?"

Jin-Sil interjected here, trying to ease the tension slowly building up.

"I doubt bringing more people would have been a good idea. This is a protected site we are going to. If the authorities see a bunch of youngsters pull up to it, they'll think we are trying to throw a party. I think David was right to keep this small."

David smiled at her, glad someone was still looking at the situation as a whole. But Athena quickly snubbed him and looked back at Rì-Chu, ignoring his sympathetic glance.

He could tell from her attitude that she had not done this for him.

Regardless, she was right.

"As she said, we needed to be a smaller group to ease our access. At our current numbers, we can still pass as a group of young rich kids trying to sightsee the world on our parents' fat wallets. Any bigger and we'd raise all matters of red flags."

Alex was unconvinced by his excuse, but calmed down as Kary's hand lay on his forearm.

"Alright, let's all calm down. I agree with Alex that keeping this from us was ill-advised. But I understand your reasons. I would have preferred you bring this up sooner so we could plan contingencies.

"But we can make do with our current group. We simply have to find a solution to a possible battle of attrition. We can do that together, instead of arguing; what do you say?"

Alex nodded, swallowing his anger at being kept in the dark by his ally, while David pushed aside the matter altogether, focusing back on the first part of their briefing.

Time flew by quickly, and by the time they were done discussing every occurrence they could think of, it was already lunchtime.

"Alright!" Kary said, clapping her hands to get attention on her.

"What do you all say we eat something local before we make our way to the eastern part of the island?!" she asked, keeping her enthusiasm up in hopes of infecting others with it.

Instantly, lights lit up in Jonathan, Violette, Winston, and Cory's eyes.

Alex tried to hide his excitement, as did David, but they couldn't deny their want to try some local food. Who wouldn't want to experience the clash of cultures firsthand, after all?

Jin-Sil pulled her neurophone out of her ear and opened KakaoMap to find a restaurant not too far from the airport.

"There is something a few miles away along the beach that I think you could all enjoy. It's a KBBQ and hotpot restaurant that is famous around here. Care to try that out?" she asked, opening the menu's photos.

Alex instantly started nodding frantically, as the images of meat and the vivid colours of the hotpot titillated his taste buds. And he wasn't the only one.

As everyone seemed enraptured by the pictures, aside from Rì-Chu and Liu Yan, who could eat something similar in China, and weren't too fazed, Jin-Sil put the phone back to her ear to get the directions directly in her mind, and led the way.

Jin-Sil and Kary had already coordinated the rental of four mini-vans for the transport of their gear and themselves, and it didn't take long for the four vans to be loaded with the gear.

Now was only the separating of the people that remained, before leaving the hangar and airport, to head into Jeju.

David insisted he drive one van, since he didn't want to be dependent on anyone else, and looked around, only to see that no one was insisting on going with him. With a shrug, he headed to the van alone.

Jin-Sil took the second vehicle, Rì-Chū instantly stepping to her side, promptly followed by Liu Yan, who wasn't sure he wanted to ride with the others just yet.

The third van was driven by Killian, who insisted Winston come with him, since he wanted to talk to him about family stuff. Aapo tried following them, since he felt the least intimidated around them, but Killian glared at him, and that feeling quickly changed.

With that happening, Aapo reluctantly walked over to the first van, where David nodded at him, Aapo nodding back in silence.

The fourth and last van was filled by Alex, Kary, Violette, and Cory, with no fuss about it, aside from Jonathan and Cory playing rock-paper-scissors to determine who would ride with David, since the vehicles could only accommodate four people, given the amount of luggage they carried.

After three hands of humanity's most basic form of gambling, Jonathan had lost, and dragged his feet toward the first van, getting a chuckle out of David.

By the time this was done, the four vehicles had been fully loaded by the hangar team already, and they were cleared to leave.

It took them a little less than half an hour to leave the airport, which was a brief wait, all things considered, before they were on the roads of Jeju.

The cultural shock was almost immediate as they left the airport premises when all the shops and commerces were suddenly marked in bright and eye-catching colours, with the Korean Hangul spelling out the shop names.

Alex had to pay attention to where Jin-Sil was leading them, and this made his curiosity itch, as he couldn't stop to look at everything. But the same issue did not affect Kary, and her up- to-now stoic face changed to amazement, the joy of visiting a place she had always wanted to see becoming a reality.

Alex smiled warmly as he noticed her child-like amazement and sparkling eyes.

'At least her mind is off the impending danger that is upon us,' he mused, thinking about the volcano they were about to tread.

'The layout was all too familiar. That wasn't just a natural formation...'