WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 106: A Lowly Creature
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I couldn't stop.
“Do you sometimes feel as though your thoughts, feelings, or behavior are being controlled by another being?”
It wasn't something I could stop.
I wasn't the one asking. No. I was asking.
I had to ask.
“Have you lost more than 4.37 kilograms in the past five months?”
“No. Have you received a pneumonia vaccination?”
“I probably got one as a child. Isn't that something only little kids or old people get? This is a question about falls. Have you fallen in the past month?”
We had to ask.
“I almost slipped while cleaning the hallway once... But how many units of offspring have you given birth to?”
“None. The pale tree isn't my child. How many glasses of water do you usually drink a day?”
“Um, one or two? Honestly, I drink coffee or other beverages... Anyway, how much fruit juice or sugary drinks do you have in a day...?”
We kept asking and answering.
It was perfectly natural. There was nothing strange about it. It was something we obviously had to do. Examining our bodies and minds was very important.
We had to be healthy.
We had to be normal.
* * *
Blink.
“...”
I blinked blankly.
I felt sluggish but refreshed, like waking from a deep sleep on a day off without setting an alarm.
“Um...”
“Is everyone all right...?”
“What the hell, how did...?”
Strangely, we were all sitting down.
Just as we had been when we first gathered in the waiting room. Nothing had changed.
...We weren't dead?
I hurriedly checked the time. At most, fifteen minutes had passed.
“Ugh, it feels like I was possessed by a ghost...”
Kim Hee-sook shuddered.
Yun Geon-min patted himself down to make sure nothing was wrong, while Jeon Yeong-gwang shook his head and muttered that his body didn't feel like his own.
“Huh...? This wasn't here before, was it?”
Kim Hee-sook looked around in confusion, then picked up a white envelope from the empty seat to her left.
“What does it say?”
“Huh? Here.”
Rather than opening and reading it herself, Kim Hee-sook held out the whole envelope.
She was remarkably good at naturally dumping things on me.
Of course, I didn't particularly mind, so I took it and examined the front first.
It was a rectangular paper envelope, exactly the size of a standard mailing envelope.
[Children’s Hospital]
Only the sender's name was written on it, without any unnecessary details.
There was no recipient.
“Doctor, do you happen to know a place called Children’s Hospital?”
“Hmm, I'm not sure...”
Jeon Yeong-gwang tilted his head.
“It sounds like the name of a pediatric clinic, but not among the hospitals I know...”
“Do any of you know it?”
“No, I think this is my first time hearing of it too...”
Kim Hee-sook answered, and Yun Geon-min only shook his head.
I hadn't expected much either.
I'd only asked on the off chance.
This was mail sent by the Labyrinth.
“Then I'll open it.”
Rip, riiip...
Inside was a single sheet of paper, folded to fit perfectly.
Slide.
Thankfully, it didn't seem to have poison sprinkled over it or anything.
Rustle.
“What does it say?”
Jeon Yeong-gwang leaned slightly toward me.
[Children’s Health Screening Results]
“It says, ‘Children’s Health Screening Results.’”
I lowered the paper slightly so they could see and read it aloud.
There wasn't much detail anyway.
―――――――――――――――
#Kim Hee-sook
Overall Result｜Pass
#Seon Yu-han
Overall Result｜Pass
#Yun Geon-min
Overall Result｜Pass
#Jeon Yeong-gwang
Overall Result｜Pass
―――――――――――――――
Pass.
What an ominous word.
“If we passed... that's still a good thing, isn't it...?”
“I think so too. It's better than not passing. We're alive for now, at least.”
I had no idea what standards it used to pass us, but I knew one thing.
At the very least, its standards for mental health and cognitive impairment assessments were extremely lax.
If so, it had probably judged us mainly by our physical condition.
At least none of the four of us seemed to have a serious illness.
“Hmm, but...”
The internist spoke up.
“Could it mean a different kind of passing?”
“What kind of passing?”
“This floor.”
Jeon Yeong-gwang pointed toward the hospital entrance.
“Could it mean we're allowed to pass through this floor?”
“Ah. Ah...! You're right!”
Kim Hee-sook clasped her hands as though she were about to applaud, while Yun Geon-min, whose left cheek was still hurting, silently widened his eyes.
“Let's go check. Seon Yu-han, what are you doing? Come on!”
I had been sitting there blankly, but Kim Hee-sook grabbed me and pulled me out. We climbed the emergency staircase.
Why hadn't I thought of that?
Why?
I...
“Oh my, I guess that really was what it meant by pass. It's the sixth floor! The doctor was right! What a relief. Right?”
“Yes, I suppose so. I'm glad we got out without any trouble.”
...Was I disappointed?
“Still, just as you three said, the floor really has changed completely... This is something else...”
Jeon Yeong-gwang's sigh-laced voice finally pulled me from my thoughts.
The sixth floor.
[Red Thread Liaison Department｜Agent Team 1｜Agent Team 2]
“Ha...”
“Huh? What's wrong? Seon Yu-han, does something hurt?”
“Ah, no.”
I waved Kim Hee-sook off.
“I told you I interviewed for a Red Thread team position. Seeing the directory just made me feel a little strange.”
“Ah. Oh dear... Right. Of course it would...”
No, not at all.
I was only thinking of the seventh floor, where Agent Team 3 and Agent Team 4 of the Red Thread Liaison Department had been.
Agent Team 3's office had become the Dollhouse Labyrinth, and Agent Team 4's office had become the Prisoner's Dilemma Labyrinth.
Each had turned into a Labyrinth suited to the Red Threads that team handled.
If this sixth floor followed the same pattern...
Agent Team 1 and Agent Team 2's offices would have become contact-type Labyrinths as well.
The problem was that I still didn't know what might be waiting for us.
Each team handled more than one or two Red Threads, and as an outsider, I had no way of knowing exactly which Red Threads each team was responsible for.
“Um... Yun Geon-min.”
“Hm?”
The Human Resources Team employee only raised an eyebrow slightly, as if asking why I was calling him.
“Do you happen to know which Red Threads Team 1 and Team 2 handle?”
This time, his widened eyes darted around, as if asking why I wanted to know that.
“I asked in case it could be a clue before we go in. Something connected to the Red Threads might appear. ...It's fine if you don't know.”
Yun Geon-min shook his head as though he were having a fit, then finally opened his mouth.
“No, I do know, you know?”
He was easy to read.
“...You know who they are, right? That one, the former UDT operative...”
Unable to open his mouth wide because of his left cheek, Yun Geon-min pursed his lips and listed the Red Threads each team handled one by one.
Judging by the number of people, he didn't seem to be telling us all of them.
“You would've known too if you'd seen it, ma'am. Yes, that's right. The one who appeared there and won. Team 2 handles that person...”
Following his explanation, I organized the possible contact-type Labyrinths that could emerge from Team 1 and Team 2's offices in my head.
“Anyway, it's not like the Human Resources Team knows everything... Agents are employees, while Red Threads are basically freelance contractors... I wasn't in charge of that side... So I only heard things here and there... It's not some huge secret, but... Still, don't go around saying I told you...”
No one had said anything to him, but watching him keep going made me feel a little sorry for him.
“Of course. Thank you for telling us. It couldn't have been easy.”
After more or less placating Yun Geon-min, I pointed toward the hallway on the left, where Team 1 was located.
“I suggest we check Team 1 first. Any objections?”
“Mm, no. We have to go somewhere anyway.”
“Huh? I have a better feeling about Team 2...”
“I don't mind starting with Team 1... Yun Geon-min, is there a particular reason?”
“Ahem, no. Well. Team 1 is fine too...”
There were contrarians, but no one wanted to be the odd one out.
We all agreed that moving together was better than splitting up and leaving someone alone.
“Then...”
Swoosh.
I opened the door to the Agent Team 1 office.
“Huh...?”
“This is... Didn't we just enter an office? Why is there a theater...?”
There was no trace of an office.
Instead, a space like the main auditorium in this building, a place resembling a theater, appeared before us.
“Holy shit, someone's sitting over there...?”
Like an audience member who had entered at the wrong time, I stared from the back of the empty seats toward the stage.
At the center of that stage, someone sat in a chair with their back to us.
“...”
No. That couldn't be.
Without realizing it, I had stepped back.
Then I slowly moved forward again.
One step at a time.
The closer I came to the stage, the harder it became to breathe.
It felt as though someone were squeezing my heart.
“Excuse me, student? Why are you sitting there?”
“Wait, Doctor. A student? They look pretty similar to this lady, so calling them a student is a little...”
“Huh? What are you two talking about? The figure looks like a pretty ordinary middle-aged man from behind...”
The voices I heard failed to register, crumbling into meaningless noise.
I only stared blankly at the person onstage.
Long, rough hair tied carelessly after the waves had completely fallen out from going too long without visiting a salon. Two small marks at the nape, visible only because the hair was tied up. Shoulders so thin that I felt I would touch hard bone if I wrapped my hands around them.
...No. That couldn't be.
That woman was dead.
It had already been ten years since I threw her remains down a drain.
Yes, even after ten years.
Every moment from that day remained so vivid that it felt within reach.
The weight of the urn engraved with her three-syllable name, held against my chest. The coldness of the bathroom tile where I collapsed. The sharp crack of porcelain that resembled someone, exquisitely beautiful to the point of horror, as it struck something and shattered. Tiny particles rising like mist between the shattered fragments before scattering away. Bone ash I unknowingly breathed in and coughed back out. The cloudy color of water being swallowed down the drain.
All of it, everything you left behind, still remained alive within me.
Yes. It couldn't be you.
You couldn't have come back alive...
“Ah.”
Like the hot steam that had filled that bathroom clearing away, the things clouding my mind gradually faded.
I thought I knew what kind of Labyrinth this was.
But something didn't sit right...
Still, that was the only answer.
“How does that look like a middle-aged man, and how does it look like a female student...? From behind, they're completely just like our...”
Kim Hee-sook, Yun Geon-min, and Jeon Yeong-gwang couldn't bring themselves to go up onstage. They stood between the first and second rows, staring at the stage and arguing heatedly.
“Excuse me.”
“Oh, right! Seon Yu-han, how does that person look to you?”
My first Labyrinth.
My eternal Labyrinth, where I had missed my chance to escape.
That was how it looked to me.
“More importantly, do you know of a contact-type Labyrinth called The Executioner’s Stage?”
“Of course I know it... Ah.”
“Who wouldn't know that... Ah.”
“Hm? I know it, of course. Why...? Ah.”
The three answered together, realized the answer at the same time, and finally went pale.
The Executioner’s Stage.
It was a contact-type Labyrinth problematic in many ways. Even three days and nights would not be enough to talk about it.
The biggest problem, and the rule of this Labyrinth, was...
We weren't the ones being executed.
We were the executioners who carried out the sentence on the “prisoner.”
‘...Aunt.’
And the prisoner wore the face of the person we most wanted to come back alive.
Footnotes:
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