WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 127: Dignity

──────

"You're leaving now...?"

Kim Hee-sook asked anxiously, and I nodded.

"Yes. It's time for you to leave too, isn't it, Kim Hee-sook? I think you can head up with me now."

By the time we'd reached the Legal Affairs Office, introduced ourselves, fought Yu Mi-rae, and dealt with the aftermath, Kim Hee-sook's twenty-one-minute confinement sentence had long since ended.

"Th-then..."

Kim Hee-sook looked at Yun Geon-min, unconscious on the floor, her eyes wavering.

Of course I intended to leave him behind.

Honestly, I hadn't planned to wait for Kim Hee-sook either.

I needed to go up.

I had to learn about the next floor as soon as possible.

All I had to do was find the electrical room.

It would be even better if the first floor showed up.

There was no point in wasting time here waiting for someone.

If the fight with Yu Mi-rae hadn't delayed me this much, I would've left with Yu Mi-rae. Definitely.

Of course, someday, I could wait for not just Kim Hee-sook's sentence but Yun Geon-min's to end, then head up together.

But not now.

I wasn't that good a person.

"What about Yun Geon-min...?"

It was a question she already knew the answer to.

She just didn't have the courage to answer it herself.

She wanted someone else to make the decision for her.

"Well, I don't intend to wait an hour. Who knows what'll happen if we head up too late? We can't just stay holed up here indefinitely."

Still, I was willing to be that good a person.

"So I'd like both of you to come upstairs with me."

Good enough to make that choice for her.

"..."

Kim Hee-sook cautiously got to her feet, watching my reaction.

People like this weren't so easy to dislike.

"Aren't you coming, Hyeon Je-won?"

I looked down at Hyeon Je-won, still crouched there and avoiding my eyes.

"I... I'll go later... with Yun Geon-min..."

They meant they would wait. For an hour.

Because they didn't want to move with me?

Because they didn't want to leave Yun Geon-min behind?

"Do as you like."

After all...

After all, it would be over if I died.

None of this meant anything.

"Seon Yu-han..."

Just as I opened the Legal Affairs Office door to leave, a low, mumbled voice came from behind me.

"You really resemble Representative Mi-rae..."

That voice lingered in my ears, even as I climbed the emergency staircase and opened the door to the floor above.

Like an echo.

* * *

29. Crimes committed inside will be judged inside.

* * *

Clunk.

"Huh? The ninth floor? But this hallway..."

Kim Hee-sook hesitated and stepped back as we came through the door upstairs.

The ninth floor.

[Sales and Marketing Division｜Sales Team｜Marketing Team]

It should have been a box-shaped layout, with the Sales Team and Marketing Team facing each other.

"The Labyrinth seems to have altered it somehow."

But the ninth floor was now H-shaped.

The elevator and emergency exit stood in a line along this hallway.

A central passage connected this side to the other.

On the far side, the Sales Team and Marketing Team sat side by side.

"Good grief... There's no end to this nonsense..."

"It's the Labyrinth."

I'd seen a floor laid out like this before.

The Strategic Planning Division on the eleventh floor.

The place where the Future Strategy Team and Budget Planning Team had been merged.

The place with Doi, the gambling die with twenty-one eyes.

Sales and marketing...

Was this a floor related to selling things?

I had a bad feeling about it.

Whether I sold something to the Labyrinth or the Labyrinth sold something to me, it definitely wouldn't be a good deal.

"Oh dear..."

Kim Hee-sook glanced down as we crossed the passage, then shook her head.

Far below, I could see the lush Maze Garden on the first floor.

"..."

Suppressing the impulse that rose up despite myself, I quickly crossed to the hallway on the other side.

There was only one door in the hallway of the combined Sales and Marketing Division.

"Then... let's go in."

"Um, Seon Yu-han."

Just before I opened the door, Kim Hee-sook suddenly stopped me.

Fidgeting with her fingers as she watched my reaction, she finally forced herself to speak.

"Why... aren't you asking?"

"Pardon? What should I ask?"

"No, earlier..."

Kim Hee-sook lowered her head.

"About the judgment... What I did to get that sentence..."

For a moment, I looked down at the attempted thief who had received a twenty-one-minute confinement sentence.

At that face, which knew shame and guilt.

She really was softhearted about the strangest things.

"Would you like me to ask?"

"Huh? No, it's not that..."

Sometimes people wanted to be found out.

Even for things that shouldn't be found out.

Because those things were part of them too.

They wanted someone to understand them.

"Then that's fine. You didn't ask me anything either, even though you saw my room."

Kim Hee-sook flinched slightly, as though I'd hurt her.

"Consider it repayment for that."

The truth was, I wasn't curious enough to pry.

Honestly, I could guess part of it.

At least the motive behind the crime.

Theft was usually about money.

Kim Hee-sook had been struggling to make a living while raising a sick son alone after losing her husband.

"Ah... Okay. Thank you..."

"Then let's go in."

Kim Hee-sook slowly nodded, her expression still deeply uncomfortable.

Swish.

I slowly opened the Sales and Marketing Team door.

The sight that met us was strange, a pure white room so bright it felt like staring at it too long would blind me.

"Huh...? Over there..."

Yu Mi-rae lay sprawled on the white floor at its center, as though deeply asleep.

"Ah, uh...?"

Beside Yu Mi-rae, a man bent over to examine her sprang upright as if he'd seen a ghost.

"Who...? No, I didn't do this!"

A thirty-four-year-old man with dark brown hair, dressed in neat business casual.

A man who was timid for his size, often snappish, yet unable to be cruel when it mattered most.

An extremely familiar man.

"Chae Jae-ha?"

A certified public accountant from Hoewol Accounting Firm. Chae Jae-ha.

...Come to think of it, was it the ninth floor?

Whenever the loop began, if I triggered the fire alarm, Chae Jae-ha got off the elevator at the nearest floor.

If I set off the alarm without delay, he usually got out somewhere between the eighth and eleventh floors. The timing was generally consistent, so he seemed to end up on the ninth floor more often than not.

But I never made a point of checking which floor he got off on every time, and honestly, I'd mostly forgotten.

I hadn't expected to run into him here.

"Huh? Is that someone you know, Seon Yu-han?"

"Um... Excuse me, but have we met before?"

Chae Jae-ha quickly moved away from Yu Mi-rae. Now that he felt he might escape any unpleasant suspicion, he approached with a faintly relieved expression.

"Are you one of our clients, perhaps...? Sorry, my mind's a mess right now..."

As always, he looked at me like he'd never met me before.

...Knowing everything really was boring.

"No, not exactly. I tutored Minha for a little while, and I heard a lot about their uncle then. My name is Seon Yu-han."

"Ah! Minha. Ah... You were their tutor."

The moment I mentioned his niece's name, Chae Jae-ha completely lowered his guard.

I was only pulling this trick because I needed information from him.

It wasn't something I could use for long.

Once he calmed down and had time to think it through, it would backfire.

"Not anymore. I'm here to interview at Uiwi Guild today."

Then, before giving him time to think any further, I walked straight over to Yu Mi-rae.

There were no visible injuries...

But she wasn't breathing.

"..."

I quietly looked down at Yu Mi-rae.

It hadn't even been fifteen minutes since we'd fought.

There was neither pain nor pleasure on that face, which looked as though it had fallen into a deep sleep.

It was strange.

For some reason, I couldn't imagine her, or those kids, dying easily.

How had Yu Mi-rae died?

Had she lived an interesting life, right up to the final moment, as she'd wished?

"How did this happen? It seems this is Representative Yu Mi-rae..."

I deliberately spoke as though this was the first time I'd seen Yu Mi-rae.

In case he lied about something.

I wanted to check.

"No, I really didn't do this..."

"Of course. I know you're not the kind of person who would."

Of course, he didn't have the nerve.

Even if circumstances had forced him to act, I couldn't imagine Chae Jae-ha defeating Yu Mi-rae.

Yu Mi-rae wouldn't have hesitated for an instant.

But this was the Labyrinth.

There was always a possibility.

"Please start from the beginning."

"I had an outside meeting, so I was taking the elevator down to the parking lot when the alarm suddenly went off. I got out right away, but then I heard this sound like the building was collapsing..."

That wasn't quite what I meant by starting from the beginning, but I listened quietly.

"Anyway, no matter how far down I went, it was still this floor. So I finally said screw it and came in here, but I couldn't get back out... I think I was trapped for almost two hours? I was seriously losing my mind, and then Representative Yu Mi-rae came in a little while ago. I thought, well, at least that's a relief, so we talked a little. She was kind of strange... unusual, but I figured it was because of the Labyrinth... No, anyway, that's not what's important."

Chae Jae-ha definitely hadn't relaxed yet. He was talking this much, after all.

Of course, Yu Mi-rae had probably been "kind of strange" before this building underwent Labyrinthification.

"Representative Yu Mi-rae suddenly disappeared."

"...Disappeared?"

"Yes! She was just, really just here, and then poof, she disappeared. But only a few seconds later, she suddenly came back. Right before you two came in. Like this... no, she had passed away."

"She came back dead after only a few seconds?"

"That's what I'm saying. I know it sounds unbelievable, but I'm really not lying."

"No, I believe you. This is the Labyrinth. We've seen enough strange things too."

I gestured toward Kim Hee-sook.

"Oh, and this is Kim Hee-sook. We met downstairs and came up together."

"Ah, yes. Hello... My name is Chae Jae-ha."

Chae Jae-ha politely bowed and handed her his business card.

He was a remarkably consistent person.

"Ah, yes... I'm Kim Hee-sook. I work as a cleaner at Uiwi Guild..."

"Did Representative Yu Mi-rae do anything in particular?"

I cut in as soon as they had finished introducing themselves.

"I thought it would help if we knew why only the representative, who arrived much later than you, suddenly disappeared."

"Hmm... She didn't do anything especially significant. There are only the walls and ceiling here, apart from the door we came through. And I don't think Representative Yu Mi-rae touched the door again either. She just walked around the room once and tapped on the walls... But I'd already tried all that."

Then each person's actions had nothing to do with the rules of this floor?

Of course, there could have been something particular Yu Mi-rae did that Chae Jae-ha hadn't noticed.

Would I have to die a few more times to find out?

Then should I do nothing this time and wait to see what happened...?

"Um, Seon Yu-han."

Chae Jae-ha's voice interrupted my thoughts.

"How old are you, by the way?"

It was a question Chae Jae-ha often asked to change the subject.

"I'm twenty-nine."

So I answered casually and was about to return to my thoughts when,

"Hey."

A very familiar informal way of speaking struck my ear without warning.

For some reason, it even made me glad.

I forced the corners of my mouth down and looked at Chae Jae-ha.

"What the hell are you doing?"

I wasn't sure what it was, but it seemed I'd made another mistake.

Footnotes:

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried