WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

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◈ How to Die in the Office Labyrinth ◈

Chapter 10: The Library Murder

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"Seon Yu-han examines the body of a woman lying face-down on the floor."

What.

Where is that coming from?

A strange voice, impossible to pin down to any one spot, like it was seeping out of the space itself from every direction at once.

Like an oracle. A divine proclamation.

Not carried through air the way sound should be, but driven into every single cell.

"Seon Yu-han examines the body of a woman lying face-down on the floor."

I looked down at the woman collapsed in front of me. The woman, or what had been a woman.

"Seon Yu-han examines the body of a woman lying face-down on the floor."

Relentless.

It was going to keep repeating until I complied.

Kill me if I didn't, probably.

I gave in and slowly bent my knees to get a closer look.

"Seon Yu-han examines the body of a woman lying face-down on the floor."

The area around her neck was soaked in blood, a dark stain spread across the floor beneath her. Stabbed in the neck? Hard to say. Her long hair, half-tied with a clip, was splayed across her cheek and neck in a mess that obscured the wound.

"Seon Yu-han examines the body of a woman lying face-down on the floor."

She was wearing a gray knit top mottled with dark reddish blotches and jeans, clean sneakers on her feet.

"Seon Yu-han examines the body of a woman lying face-down on the floor."

Still not enough?

Did I need to see her face too.

I carefully turned the body over.

No surprises, thankfully. She did not turn out to be a Labyrinth monster that suddenly snapped awake and lunged at me.

I checked the employee ID badge around her neck first.

Her name was Kim Gilyeong.

A librarian at Chaekbang Ollae, apparently.

The badge meant she was staff. Maybe having her here would have let me walk into the daycare without being treated as an outsider.

"Seon Yu-han examines the body of a woman lying face-down on the floor."

I kept going over Kim Gilyeong's body.

The neck was drenched. I pushed the matted hair aside, wiped away some of the blood, and the wound came into view.

"Seon Yu-han has determined, based on the shape of the wound, that the murder weapon was not a knife."

The narration finally changed.

Was it reading my thoughts?

Unsettling.

"Seon Yu-han examines the librarian's body in greater detail."

Annoying.

"Seon Yu-han examines the librarian's body in greater detail."

I shook my head and looked back over Kim Gilyeong.

There were one or two wounds on her chest similar to the ones on her neck. Her hands and face had scratches and puncture marks. The knit cardigan was stretched out of shape in several places.

"Seon Yu-han has determined that a struggle occurred between Kim Gilyeong and the perpetrator, and has concluded that this was likely the first time the perpetrator has ever killed another person."

Utterly impulsive. A killing carried out without any real conviction.

And committed by a human.

The hostile entities of the Labyrinth did not kill people in such a human way.

"Seon Yu-han has reconstructed the sequence of events. For reasons unknown, the perpetrator reached the conclusion that Kim Gilyeong had to die and drove something into the area near the victim's heart."

But what they held was not a blade designed to cut or slash.

Given the shape of the wounds, and the fact that nothing in the surrounding area could obviously serve as a weapon, probably...

"The pen is mightier than the sword. But the perpetrator's pen tip was not strong enough to reach Kim Gilyeong's heart. Kim Gilyeong resisted, naturally."

At the end of that struggle, they must have stabbed her in the neck multiple times until she died.

"So who was the perpetrator?"

Hard to guess even gender, let alone build.

In a situation like this, those things were not particularly important variables.

That was not to say physical strength counted for nothing, but...

In moments where life and death are grinding against each other, a lot of factors besides raw force come into play. No matter how big and strong a person is, if they hesitate, get careless, panic, or lose control, someone half their size can turn the tables. And unless you have been professionally trained, how would you even know how to kill a person efficiently? And even if you did know, how would you actually apply that knowledge in the moment?

On top of everything, this was the Labyrinth.

Anything could happen here. Being surprised by any of it was meaningless.

Guessing at the perpetrator's identity right now was a waste of time.

"Then where is the perpetrator now?"

My chest went cold.

"And the weapon? Where is the pen used to stab Kim Gilyeong?"

I looked around fast.

No sign of anyone. There hadn't been since I walked in.

"Did they flee?"

The narration phrased it as a question, and I couldn't help the unease that crept in.

I checked the door, half-expecting it to be locked. It wasn't.

It still opened fine. Someone could walk out and come back.

Whatever event had been playing out in the library appeared to be over.

"Seon Yu-han realizes they arrived too late."

Fair enough. I had dragged my feet back in the interview room.

By the time I got here, roughly thirty minutes had passed since the Labyrinthification started. Whatever was going to happen here had already happened long before I showed up.

"Perhaps if Seon Yu-han had arrived a little sooner, Kim Gilyeong might have lived. Like Chae Jae-ha."

Maybe.

Nothing new about that.

"Indeed. That is the kind of person Seon Yu-han is. A person who patches their broken shell with pieces of others, who cooks their meals on the breath of others, who lives each day on the deaths of others."

I walked past the entrance where the librarian had fallen and went a little further inside.

There was a shelving area lined with sleekly designed bookcases, and beyond it a reading area where sofas and desks were arranged in harmony with various styles of shelving.

"Is that not exactly what a Labyrinth monster is?"

My gaze snagged on a single book lying in the reading area.

It was in a space where a fluffy-looking bean bag and one and two-person sofas were gathered in a loose circle, and the book had been dropped right in the center.

"Seon Yu-han realizes they have no right to read this book."

What? I wasn't allowed to read it?

The moment I stepped closer, the book snapped shut.

I lowered the hand I had been reaching out and left it alone.

You didn't just touch things at a time like this.

"Still, a nagging regret lingers in Seon Yu-han's chest. If only they had come a little sooner."

Yeah. Maybe I would have had a chance to open that book. Maybe the librarian would not have died. Maybe Chae Jae-ha would not have died. Maybe I would not have...

"Seon Yu-han quietly set about doing what needed to be done. What no sane person could bring themselves to do."

The voice that followed me out of the library like an auditory hallucination, I ignored it.

I have to live. Even through death. I have to make it out alive.

That is my rule.

"Must rules be kept? Like the Labyrinth?"

Shh, shh. I focused only on the sound of fabric dragging against the corridor floor.

"Oh my!"

When I opened the door to Uri Saennal Daycare, a familiar goose plushie came waddling out at a trot.

"Now who on earth would be insane enough to drag this hideous little doll nobody would want even as a gift across our clean floor and barge into a daycare?"

Calling a person a doll.

And it was a doll itself, saying that.

"Ah... but she is staff. Is there any way...?"

"Any way? With this defective piece of junk?"

You could almost see an expression on the stuffed animal's face, even though stuffed animals couldn't have expressions.

"Uri Saennal Daycare prohibits entry to non-staff."

...Next time I would have to bring her in while she was still alive.

* * *

5-1. A staff member's body does not help you enter the daycare.

* * *

"If it were possible to turn back time, what would you do, Seon Yu-han-ssi?"

"I would go to the library..."

"The library. Have you thought about what specifically you would read there? Books are good to read at any time, but some books, well, you have to read them at exactly the right moment. In the end, how you feel about them changes depending on your mood and your experiences at the time."

I let the Interview Administrator finish before I spoke.

"Interview Administrator-nim. This building has become a Labyrinth."

Then I laid out everything I had learned firsthand about surviving one.

"Ah, and if there is anything you want to grab from the merch store, you need to pay in one lump sum and get out... actually, just do not go in at all."

"Oh, okay..."

The Interview Administrator looked rattled but still asked if I was all right.

"Yes, I'm fine."

We both knew that was a lie.

"Then later... let's meet again. Outside. Safe and sound."

"Yes. Let's meet again."

I hoped that part, at least, would not turn out to be a lie.

* * *

Bang!

Boom, crack, crash, bang!

Crack, thud!

I successfully picked up Chae Jae-ha from the elevator and showed him the Labyrinth's strange magic, where no matter how many flights of stairs you descended you always came out on the second floor.

Thud, bang!

"Ugh! It won't break! Ow!"

Chae Jae-ha spent a good while holding his head and grinding his teeth, foaming at the mouth about how he was going to smash a window and escape, but he recovered eventually.

"So what do we do now?"

He stopped fuming and asked.

"I'd like to check the library first."

"Why? Don't we have to go everywhere? What about the daycare and TARAE? Aren't you going to the main auditorium?"

"That's my call. If you want to go there first, you're welcome to split off and check things separately."

"No, I was just purely curious about your reason. Why the library first."

The accountant, whose fear was proportional to his size, fell in behind me as we walked down the corridor.

"Have you ever been to the library, Chae Jae-ha-ssi?"

"No?"

"Oh... was it only open to Uiwi Guild staff?"

Last time I had walked in without any issue.

"That's not it. People from our company borrow books from there too. Ah, I really should read more. Just no time."

People who actually want to read make time, even when there isn't any.

Anyway.

"Chae Jae-ha-ssi."

I stopped briefly in front of Chaekbang Ollae and turned to face him.

"I'll say this once more before we go in. It'll be dangerous. Even if it looks perfectly fine and safe, you could die in there if you're not careful. That said, staying outside doesn't guarantee safety either..."

"Yes, yes, I get it, Mom."

He scrunched his brow slightly, then let his expression soften and clicked his tongue.

"I know most people caught in an invasive type end up dead. I'm not a kid."

He acted like one.

"But you're in there trying to find a way out anyway, right? So I figure following you beats sitting in a corner shaking until I die."

Was he an adult after all?

"Not saying I'd definitely not blame you if it goes sideways, though."

Kid or adult.

Impossible to tell.

"Well. Blame me if you need to."

"Oh, come on. What kind of thing is that to say."

Chae Jae-ha let out a short laugh and opened the door to Chaekbang Ollae.

"Huh?"

The moment I heard that ominous syllable, I steeled myself for death.

"......"

He had violated the no-"huh?" rule, and nothing happened.

I opened my eyes like nothing had occurred.

Two women were standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, staring at us.

One in a black three-piece suit with her hair in a ponytail, and one in a gray knit cardigan.

"How did you get in?"

"Through the door?"

"But how did you open it?"

"I, well, grabbed the handle...?"

"And it just opened?"

"Yeah... it opens, doesn't it?"

"It wouldn't open for us."

"Ours opened fine."

Click.

"Hm? Oh wait, it's not opening anymore. Seon Yu-han-ssi, what's going on?"

What is with this conversation that gets dumber by the line.

"Ha... what do you think? This is the Labyrinth."

So. We were trapped in the library.

"Excuse me? The Labyrinth? Surely that's a joke."

The woman in the three-piece suit stared at me like I had lost my mind, and when I gave no reaction, her expression slowly went stiff.

"Really... genuinely the Labyrinth? Here? Invasive type?"

"Yes, unfortunately."

"This person's right."

Chae Jae-ha backed me up.

"You heard that sound earlier, like the whole building was collapsing? That was the elevator falling. You know that doesn't just happen in a power outage, right? And we came from the third floor, but no matter how many stairs we walked down, we came out on the second floor. Nothing explains that except the Labyrinth."

Hard to tell if he was helping or showing off.

"Then does that mean... we're trapped here too?"

The woman with the half-tied hair and an employee badge around her neck trailed off and sank to the floor.

Kim Gilyeong.

The librarian of Chaekbang Ollae.

"Then I... am I going to die here?"

The person who had been dead the last time I was here. Right in this spot.

To be precise, murdered.

"Would you stop saying things like that. Who's dying? You've been so dramatic this whole time."

The woman beside her spoke in a voice that was sharp but not unkind, scolding Kim Gilyeong and pulling her back to her feet.

A slender-eyed woman in a three-piece suit, long hair pulled back tight in a ponytail.

"Ha... well, Labyrinth does explain it, I'll give you that. So that's why there's no internet and the power went out. And why the door won't open from inside."

"Yes, it seems that way."

Could it be this person?

Could this person have killed the librarian?

If so.

We were currently locked in a room with someone who might be capable of murder.

Footnotes:

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