WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 104: Treat Gold as Blood

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Click.

The locker door opened.

"What, there's nothing in here? Just a hanger?"

"Oh, thank goodness...... At least there's nothing strange."

The inside was completely empty.

Click.

I opened the locker beside it. It was identical to locker 26.

One hanger hung from the rail at the top, and there was nothing else inside.

I quietly stared at the hanger.

What I needed to try first was obvious.

"No, then what am I even supposed to do with that?"

Rustle. Rustle.

"Why do you keep stripping wherever you feel like it? There's a lady here too!"

"......I'm only taking off my tie."

"Oh."

I had no intention of taking off my jacket, since the Diary was in its inner pocket.

Needless to say, I wasn't taking off my shirt either.

"A-anyway! Say something first."

Wouldn't it be stranger if I asked permission every time I took off an article of clothing?

Tap.

Thinking that, I hung my tie on the hanger, placed the hanger on the rail, and shut locker 26.

"Is it because it's where you put clothes, so you're trying putting clothes in it?"

"Yes. Labyrinths respect rules."

I nodded to Kim Hee-sook, then pressed my ear close to the locker.

"Can you hear anything......?"

"I don't hear anything unusual, but something may have happened inside."

"Do you feel like your hearing has gotten worse than usual, maybe......?"

"What? No, it's fine. I don't think my hearing has anything to do with this."

I looked at Kim Hee-sook for a moment. She didn't seem to mean anything by it, so I opened the locker again.

Click.

"Oh my, it's gone?"

"Huh? What, really?"

The tie I'd hung on the hanger had vanished without a sound.

A locker that ate clothes?

What could that possibly mean......

"Hm?"

As I crouched and felt around inside the locker, checking for any other changes, I saw something round tucked into the back corner.

"Why, is there something in there?"

At first, I thought it was a crumpled bit of trash, like a piece of chocolate wrapper.

"......"

But it was strange.

Strangely heavy.

I placed the gold sphere, about the size of a BB pellet, on my palm and studied it.

"Oh, it's so round and cute. And it's gold too."

"What are you staring at now? Isn't that something that fell off a necklace? Or maybe some kind of clothing decoration."

"No. It wasn't there when I checked before putting in my tie. This is......"

It looked like real gold.

The surface was soft, too.

Soft enough to scratch with my fingernail. Far too soft.

"I think...... it's pure gold."

"What?"

"Huh?"

"Touch it."

"Oh my. What is this? Goodness, it's heavy. It really might be gold, what do we do?"

"Me too, let me see. No, this is crazy...... Is this, is this really...... real?"

It probably was.

No, it had to be real for it to be like a Labyrinth.

Ordinary currency like banknotes could be tracked because the issuing authority printed serial numbers on them from the start, but gold was different.

The Labyrinth might not be able to manipulate the Bank of Korea's systems outside it, but it could create as much gold as it wanted.

"Wow, fuck...... I need to put mine in too. You should put something in too, ma'am! If we get out alive, we'll have hit the jackpot! Gold prices just keep going up."

A fortune overnight, literally.

Exactly the sort of thing a Labyrinth would do.

"Fuck, it came out! Doesn't it look bigger than before? Should I put in my jacket too?"

"Move aside for a second. I want to put something in too."

A locker that gave you pure gold when you put clothes in it?

I'd never seen a locker like this before.

I'd seen plenty of suspicious, dangerous things like it.

Considering the weight I could feel despite its small size, it was definitely over a gram.

Even based on the retail price of my tie, its value had increased more than tenfold.

In short, the scales weren't balanced.

If the scales were this badly unbalanced......

One day, they might tip in the other direction.

Against me.

"Oh, right. Seon Yu-han, aren't you doing any more? Put in your jacket. Or at least your socks."

Kim Hee-sook had apparently traded away even her navy cleaning-uniform top. Only the T-shirt she wore beneath it remained.

She even looked disappointed that she had nothing else she could take off here.

"I told you, didn't I? We need to be careful. Don't be greedy."

"Hah!"

Yun Geon-min, whose outer shirt was already gone and who only had the white T-shirt underneath left, snorted.

If there hadn't been anyone else here, he looked like he would have traded away his pants and underwear too.

"Don't give me that crap about greed...... That's just what people say to rationalize their pathetic lives and feel better about themselves. You need to know how to seize an opportunity when it comes. Or can't you take off your clothes without someone helping you?"

"......No. I'll take care of my own business. You don't need to worry about me."

It wasn't as though I hated money.

Money could solve a lot of problems.

But there were problems money clearly couldn't solve.

The Labyrinth.

My eternal shackle, binding me even after death, one I could never escape.

"Ah, wait a second."

Yun Geon-min stopped as though a thought had occurred to him, blinking.

"Nobody said you can only put clothes in here, right?"

"Hm......? What are you putting in?"

"This! Gold!"

Tiny lumps of gold, gathered like beads, gleamed in Yun Geon-min's palm.

A light that bewitched people.

"Wouldn't it turn back into clothes, then?"

"It might come out as a bigger piece of gold!"

"But that's a little......"

"Ah, it'll be fine. It's just one piece. We can test it."

Until just now, he'd been so cautious, yet he was about to try something that ridiculous.

Without a moment's hesitation. Willingly.

Gold had a mysterious power like the Labyrinth's.

No.

It was human belief that had that power.

Because all of us had agreed and believed that lump of mineral held that much value.

"Ah, please, please, please."

Yun Geon-min clasped his hands in front of the closed locker door, muttering a prayer.

At my previous job, there had been a coworker who came in, sat down at their desk, and prayed like that. It turned out to be because of cryptocurrency.

Which meant what Yun Geon-min was doing with this Labyrinth locker looked like an even more ruinous path to financial ruin.

"Whew......"

Tap.

After taking a deep breath, the Human Resources Team employee slowly grabbed the locker handle, and the moment the door opened......

"Uaaaaaagh!"

Yun Geon-min doubled over, screaming.

"Why, why is he......"

Kim Hee-sook, who checked Yun Geon-min first, sucked in a sharp breath and then turned away, stumbling back as if fleeing from him.

"M-my...... face, ugh...... What, why......"

The skin on Yun Geon-min's left cheek had been peeled away.

More precisely, it had only been partially peeled off.

Like someone had started skinning him and stopped halfway through. The loose flap of skin dangled, revealing a sliver of red flesh beneath.

Remembering the shepherd butchering me at the end of the first game of The Silence of the Lambs, I flinched before I could stop myself.

That had to hurt......

Compared to that, drowning almost seemed quick and painless.

"Ah, ugh...... Sob......"

"Oh, what do we do......"

I turned back to the locker.

The door had only opened halfway.

Like his cheek had only been peeled halfway.

"......It looks like it peeled him by exactly as much as the door opened."

If he'd thrown it fully open, he would have been completely skinned.

"Hic, what......?"

Tap.

"It doesn't look like closing it restores anything, either."

"Why, why?!"

For now, I covered it with the gauze I'd brought from the third floor.

Honestly, I had no idea what I could do for this.

"Has anyone among your parents or siblings had skin cancer, or died from skin cancer?"

"Ah, what the fuck are you talking about? No, ah! It hurts...... What did I do so...... wrong......?"

One belief, as enduring among people as the value of gold, was that the pain I suffered was the result and punishment of what I had done.

Sometimes it was true, and sometimes it was an illusion.

But the need to believe that much in order to endure was always real.

"Yun Geon-min, you didn't do anything so wrong."

......But I really had done wrong.

It was my fault. All of it.

"Then, then why......! Is wanting a little more gold a crime?"

"I don't know. Maybe it liked the skin we're wearing better. Maybe clothes weren't enough."

Or there was every chance it considered human skin to be clothing.

By the Labyrinth's standards.

Wasn't it just a shell in the end?

Perhaps something wearing golden skin stood on the other side of that locker.

"Oh dear, what do we do...... Don't be like this, let's hurry to the hospital area. There might be a doctor or nurse there......"

Kim Hee-sook, shuddering at the sight of his peeled skin and shifting from foot to foot, supported Yun Geon-min.

"It's fine, I can walk......"

Rustle.

Yun Geon-min covered half his face with one hand, either hiding his reddened eyes or holding the gauze in place, and left the fitness center first.

* * *

25. Do not put clothes in the locker.

* * *

"You two wait here for a moment. I'll check the surgical department first."

The Medical Line at TooYou Wellness Center had five departments.

Internal medicine, surgery, dentistry, pediatrics, and psychiatry.

I had known there was a psychiatry department even before the interview.

'I want people to escape not only physically, but mentally too. Sincerely. A Labyrinth is a place that's hard to completely escape.'

Uiwi Guild championed mental liberation.

One of their selling points was that they provided support not only for Labyrinth survivors but ongoing mental health care for their Red Threads. Beyond that, they had built a hospital like this as an employee benefit.

I didn't know how many employees actually used it, excluding outsiders.

"Is anyone here?"

The surgical department was empty.

Rustle.

Pediatrics was empty too.

The remaining departments would rarely handle anything surgical.

Of course, they were still far better than someone with no medical training at all.

"Is anyone......"

Rustle.

The moment I opened the internal medicine door, I froze.

"......Our......"

Someone was muttering in the consultation room beyond the slightly open door.

It was a human voice, at least.

That didn't mean it was a real person, and even if it was, that didn't automatically make it a good situation.

More than thirty minutes had passed since the elevator fell and the entire building noisily underwent Labyrinthification. The three of us had caused all this commotion coming up to this floor, and yet this person hadn't even peeked outside, instead staying shut in there?

They might be even less cooperative than Yun Geon-min.

Holding my breath, I approached one cautious step at a time.

"......and......"

A man's voice.

I couldn't tell his age.

His voice was too quiet, as though he was praying.

"......please have mercy on me......"

Ah.

He really was praying.

At last, I reached the consultation-room door and stood there, listening to the prayer drifting outside.

"......I believe you will save me. Gracious......"

For some reason, listening to it made me feel nostalgic.

And as far as I remembered, the combination of Labyrinths and faith wasn't a particularly good one.

Footnotes:

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