WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 102: Cinderella's Sorrow

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I read through the dismissal notice.

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｜Name｜Yun Geon-min

｜Department｜Management Support Division, Human Resources Team

｜Address｜other.side.boil.midrange

｜Reason for Dismissal｜Violation of Article 19 of the Employment Rules, Duty of Service

｜Basis for Application｜Articles 59, 60, and 63 of the Employment Rules, Grounds for Discipline, Types of Discipline, and Disciplinary Action

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The above-named individual is hereby notified that he has been dismissed, effective as of this date and time, for the reasons stated above.

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......I shouldn't do that next time.

I still hated watching someone disappear in the Labyrinth.

Even someone I'd only spoken to a few times.

If they had to die, I hoped it would be in front of me, leaving behind a body I could cremate.

Click.

I went back into the IT Operations Room.

I'd opened and checked the General Affairs Team office, so now it was time to go upstairs.

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Welcome!

　　　We remember you!

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I didn't even need to log in again. The monitor in the Information Support Team office recognized me on its own.

"Ugh......"

When I reached the deepest part of the server room, another black wire pierced my back, where the hole still hadn't fully healed.

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　　　 What you want␦

𝟣. Permanent deactivation

𝟤. Escape

𝟥. Refresh

𝟦. Unlock (☻)

𝟧. Access floor 3

𝟨. Access floor 4

―――――――――――――――

The moment I thought I needed to access Floor 4.

Crackle, bzzzt.

"Ah."

Compared to when Brother killed me, the current running through my body was barely more than a tickle.

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　　　 What you want␦

𝟣. ☻☻ ☻☻☻☻

𝟤. ☻☻

𝟥. ☻☻ ☻☻

𝟦. Unlock (☻)

𝟧. ☻☻ ☻☻

𝟨. ☻☻ ☻☻

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Then every choice vanished, and a new message window appeared over them.

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You do not have enough opportunities to perform this operation.

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Ah, damn it.

It looked like I could only choose one of those options.

Which meant Unlock had been the wrong choice.

......This loop was ruined.

* * *

23-1. Do not make requests outside your authority. The only operations you may request are ascent and descent.

* * *

I was trapped on Floor 12.

I could go neither up nor down.

"......"

Swish.

Thump.

Rrrk.

Tap.

Click.

Flutter.

This time, I took my time and turned the entire Management Support Division office upside down.

Behind dusty cabinets, inside locked drawers, in overflowing trash cans, the multifunction printer's paper tray, even inside the ceiling-mounted air conditioner. I searched every corner.

In case there was some other clue that could get me off Floor 12.

"Ha......"

I found absolutely nothing.

I even picked through the paper shredder waste and tried piecing it together.

All I got was a pile of useless information that did nothing to help me escape.

Time sure passed quickly, though.

It was exactly like the Labyrinth.

There were countless forks in the road, and you chose one path and moved forward. By the time you realized it was the wrong path, every other route had already collapsed.

That was why so many people died in the Labyrinth.

There could be more than one way out, but there would always be even more paths that led nowhere.

And there was no way to know whether we'd chosen the right one until we reached its end.

Creak, tap.

I sat in a random chair, tapped my phone screen, and checked the time.

[6:47]

I think I was usually playing Garden of Psyche in the arcade around this time.

While the others rattled off the answers to True Stories.

"......"

When I stopped moving, a chilling silence settled around me.

It was so quiet.

There was nothing. No one.

Just me.

No one but me. Here.

What were the others doing? What had happened to Chae Jae-ha, who got off somewhere on an upper floor? Had Hwang Ju-yeon managed to kill Kim Gilyeong? Was Jeong Ji-ho still being tortured in that doll-like posture, unable to check out from daycare? Had Yu Hyun-jae already escaped the parking garage and moved up or down? Had Lee Jin-su died happily while playing the Happyland game? Was Lee Na-hyun going to eat hand sanitizer as her final meal again? What had Kim Hee-sook chosen? Had Yun Geon-min vanished without even leaving a body behind? Where did people who disappeared in the Labyrinth go? Where did people who couldn't become ashes go? Where would I......

Flake.

"Mmm......"

When I opened my eyes, the office, which had only been a little dim before, was completely dark.

I had no idea when I'd fallen asleep.

......When had I last slept?

How long had I been awake?

No. No, that wasn't important.

I shook my head hard, trying to wake myself up.

[11:56]

It was the middle of the night, so of course no light came in through the windows.

That made this my longest survival time yet.

When I drowned in the Mechanical Room, it had been around nine thirty, hadn't it?

Tap.

"......Hm?"

I stood from my chair and stretched my stiff neck. Something like grayish-white powder fell from my hair.

For a moment, I thought I'd slept for five days straight, not five hours.

Crunch, crumble......!

Ah, if only that had really been the case.

Slowly, I raised my head.

......That had gone beyond anything that could still be called a crack.

Compared to that ceiling, even drought-stricken earth split wide open without a drop of water would look smooth.

Crack......

It wasn't just the ceiling.

The whole wall was split apart as though it had been covered in wallpaper with that horrible pattern from the start.

Naturally, the floor was the same.

Crumble......

Prepared to die, I took a step and fled out into the hallway, but it was even worse there.

The whole place looked so precarious that one wrong breath could bring it down. It was hard to understand how it was still standing at all.

"Ha."

So this building was already ready to collapse.

It was only waiting for a very small starting gun.

......Don't tell me.

[11:59]

I looked back at the numbers on the screen.

At some point, I had asked the owner of Jaelae Building a question.

'How long is this building open? Is there a set time when the whole building closes?'

I had wondered whether this Labyrinth had a time limit.

'It's open twenty-four hours a day. Even if there is a time limit, I think we'll be fine until midnight.'

Yu Hyun-jae had guessed that then.

[12:00]

Boom, craaash!

Yu Hyun-jae was strangely good at being right about useless things.

......Damn it.

* * *

24. Leave the company before midnight.

* * *

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

I had to find the first-floor exit and escape before midnight.

* * *

Riiiiiiiiing!

11... 10... 9...

I confirmed through the elevator panel that Chae Jae-ha had gotten off on Floor 9, then immediately turned away.

The moment midnight came, this Labyrinth would collapse on itself and bury everything inside it.

From 3:29, when the loop began, until midnight, when the company collapsed.

About eight and a half hours.

That was the time I had been given.

"......"

The Labyrinth didn't pose unsolvable problems.

Maybe this wasn't even urgent.

Maybe I had plenty of time.

......To get out alive by myself.

Swish.

I opened the diary and reviewed everything I knew about the Labyrinth's floor layout.

I barely knew the upper-floor layout, and I didn't even know where Floor 1 was, but depending on the circumstances......

Half the people trapped in this Labyrinth might die.

Irreversibly. Forever.

No matter how desperately they struggled.

'You don't intend to try any harder either, do you? And you won't save anyone whether they die or not, will you?'

......Chae Jae-ha was like a broken clock. Sometimes, he saw people very clearly.

I didn't want to save them at the cost of my own life.

I didn't think their lives weighed more than mine.

There would never come a day when their graves, forever beyond excavation, made me sad.

But.

But......

I knew those days without sadness would torment me forever.

* * *

Tap.

While Kim Hee-sook entered the server room alone, I quickly tried logging in again with her ID.

Bzzzt.

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■[Time]░

[Death]pass▚｜33333333333333=1

[Pass]▒▓｜▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█▉

☑ Remember me

　　　　｜LET IN｜

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Ah. It worked.

What a relief.

I really should thank Brother for this.

The original Labyrinth would never have allowed a workaround like this.

"Wait a moment, Kim Hee-sook. Let's go in together."

"......Huh? Didn't you fail to log in, Seon Yu-han? No, it's dangerous."

Kim Hee-sook tried to stop me at the server room threshold.

"It's all right. We'll manage somehow. I don't want to send someone old enough to be my mother in alone, either."

Kim Hee-sook fell silent for a moment, wearing a complicated expression like she had a lot to say, then nodded.

"Oh, all right. To be honest, I didn't really want to go in alone either."

For someone who said that, she'd gone in alone just fine every time.

And died every time, too.

We reached the server monitor, which stood firm in the middle of the ruined cabinets at the deepest part of the server room.

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　　　 What you want␦

𝟣. Permanent deactivation

𝟤. Escape

𝟥. Access floor 3

𝟦. Access floor 4

𝟧. Download

𝟨. Export

𝟩. Refresh

𝟪. Unlock

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Download? Export?

Choices that hadn't been there before had been added.

Had my choices and Kim Hee-sook's been combined?

I didn't know whether those words meant exactly what they said or were computer terms used to refer to something else.

Either way, they had to be the choices that got Kim Hee-sook killed.

"Ah! Aah......! What is this......?"

At that moment, a wire pierced each of our backs.

"Kim Hee-sook, just bear with it and stay calm. It hurts more if you move."

Taking advantage of her brief distraction, I thought of what I wanted.

Then the server accepted my signal and opened a new window on the monitor.

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　　　 What you want.

　　　　｜Access floor 4｜

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"Mm......? The screen. Seon Yu-han, what did you just do......?"

Her face was pale in the monitor's light.

"Yes. We're going to Floor 4."

It was time to leave this place.

Brother wasn't speaking to me anymore, either.

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　　Access to Floor 4 granted.

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Footnotes:

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