WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 132: The Box

──────

Makeup. Lips. Left eye. Lighter. Fire.

My mind raced.

So that was the kind of "makeup" it meant.

This maze was demanding that we burn our lips and left eyes with that lighter.

Probably only one of us had to do it, not both.

That was how it created conflict.

"Yu-han. Aren't you going to answer?"

That voice had a way of drawing people in. I focused on Yu Mi-rae again.

Yu Mi-rae had asked how much I could give up.

"Anything but my life. As long as I can get out alive."

"Really? Anything?"

"Why are you asking that? Do you want to know how much I'm willing to yield to you? Are your eyes and mouth too precious? Then burn mine."

When I leaned my face toward the lighter, Yu Mi-rae frowned.

"Are you a little stupid?"

"I'm starting to feel a little offended, too."

Yu Mi-rae burst out laughing, as though she had heard the funniest joke.

"Ah, hahaha!"

She bent over as if her stomach hurt from laughing...

"Ha, ah, aaah...!"

Hiss.

The flame touched her lowered face.

"Representative!"

It happened in an instant. It was smooth, yet abrupt.

I grabbed Yu Mi-rae's shoulders in panic.

The lighter clattered to the floor, and the note fluttered down after it.

[Makeup Time｜5 minutes

□ Lips

▣ Left eye (eyeball)]

My mind suddenly went blank.

"Mi, Representative Mi-rae! What the hell...?"

Yu Mi-rae swayed, yet remained standing.

Carefully, I reached out and lifted her chin.

"Ah. Ah..."

Too late.

A sickening burnt smell rose from her singed eyelashes and red, blotchy eyelid. Sticky discharge and tears seeped from between them, covering Yu Mi-rae's left cheek.

"Why... Why would you...?"

This was on another level from eating something that seemed to be a bug during Meal Time, or drawing a hundred grams of blood alone during Diet Time.

My fingertips trembled.

My stomach churned.

My breathing quickened.

"Representative Yu Mi-rae... Why. Why would you...?"

I didn't understand.

Why was she doing this?

"Why would you do something like this on your own...? Why?!"

I was angry.

"Do you think I'll be grateful?"

It was horrible.

"Do you think you've made some great sacrifice?"

It disgusted me.

"Do you want to die that badly?"

I hated her.

"Why don't you people know how precious you are...? I..."

I wanted you to live.

Even if you had to hurt me.

"You can't get out... of the Labyrinth."

"...What?"

That voice pierced my ears and snapped me back to my senses.

The person before me was Yu Mi-rae.

Only Yu Mi-rae, alive.

Everyone else was dead or gone.

"You can't get out... without losing anything."

Her lips, untouched by fire, moved faintly.

"If you were the kind of coward who didn't even have that resolve, it'd be better to kill you here and leave you behind... I think you're worth giving up one eye for."

Yu Mi-rae curled her lips like a mischievous child.

Yet no matter how she smiled, her left eye was horribly distorted.

As if she were looking into a blinding light.

"Yield? That's what you said. Not give up. Yeah. That's what I wanted to know."

I stared blankly at that face, then picked up the lighter from the floor.

Click, whoosh...

"How much can we yield to each other? We..."

Yu Mi-rae had given me one eye.

Giving Yu Mi-rae my mouth was nothing compared to that.

Without hesitation, I pressed my lips to the flame.

* * *

"Hm?"

There was a bed in the center of the room we entered after finishing our "makeup."

A single bed, narrow even for one person.

Whoosh.

I ran ahead of Yu Mi-rae and grabbed the note on the pillow.

[Bedtime｜5 minutes]

Bedtime? Here? Within five minutes? Was that even possible?

"What's it say?"

Rather than move my lips, burned and stuck together, I silently showed her the note.

"Ah."

Yu Mi-rae let out a short sound, as though she understood something.

Crack!

A terrible impact shook me from under my jaw to the crown of my head, and my consciousness cut out.

* * *

When I opened my eyes, I saw the familiar ceiling of the prison.

"Ugh, mm..."

My head spun. I thought I had dreamed. Hadn't this happened before? Memories surged backward. Who had that guy been? Poor children.

"Lie down a little longer."

The body I had reflexively tried to raise was stopped by an unfamiliar hand.

Something firm yet soft pressed against my back.

Only then did I realize I was lying on the bed.

When I turned my head slightly, I saw Yu Mi-rae sitting on the floor with her head resting against the mattress.

"Yu, uh..."

I opened my mouth unconsciously, and pain like my face was splitting apart swept over me.

Ah. I had burned my lips with the lighter.

I'd forgotten for a moment. I still wasn't fully awake.

I couldn't even tell if this was a dream or reality.

Yu Mi-rae's right eye looked at me like I was pathetic.

"You remember I knocked you out, right?"

Ah...

I slowly nodded.

"Good. Thanks to that, the door opened."

Apparently, being unconscious counted as sleeping.

Maybe that had been the room's intended purpose from the beginning.

Yu Mi-rae had figured that out and knocked me out the moment she read the note.

"You've only been unconscious for about a minute. There shouldn't be anything seriously wrong with you. Rest a little more, then let's move on."

This bastard was terrifying too...

"I'm going to kill you."

Terrifying words, fitting for a terrifying bastard.

She said them with terrifying calm.

"If I have to."

With the peaceful expression of someone who had woken from a nap leaning against the bed, she said it so easily.

"I don't want to yield my life either."

Half her face was pale white, and half was mottled with burns.

It felt like I could reach her if I moved only my fingertips.

"You understand me, right?"

"...Yeah."

I forced my mouth open.

"I understand... I do."

Because I would kill you too, if I had to.

And you would understand me, if you had to die.

"..."

Yu Mi-rae's expression changed strangely.

"You."

Eyes cold enough to send a chill through me stabbed into mine.

"You resemble Yu Hyun-jae."

Not a compliment. Not a compliment. Not a compliment.

If there was one sentence you should never hear from someone who had torn out Yu Hyun-jae's throat with her teeth in broad daylight, it was that one.

Without realizing it, I flinched and felt around beneath the blanket.

"Looking for this?"

A silver blade swayed before my eyes.

Creak.

I sprang up, about to snatch it away.

Click.

Yu Mi-rae carefully folded the blade and handed it to me.

"Keep it safe."

She was the one who knocked me out and took it in the first place...

When someone was this absurd, words failed.

"Let's go. The five minutes are almost up."

"Ha..."

In the end, I let out a long sigh and got out of bed.

Yu Mi-rae, unconcerned, walked calmly to the door as though nothing had happened.

Click.

The door opened.

* * *

"Let's go left. The room on the right is probably the one we went through a while ago. The one where I stuck a safety pin in my mouth."

"I think the way ahead looks better."

"Really? Okay, then. It'd be funny if Bleep-Bleep was in the final room after we cleared all this."

We called the "owner" who had bought us and locked us in this maze prison Bleep-Bleep.

I hadn't come up with the name.

Yu Mi-rae had.

She named it after the beep-beep sound of an alarm.

"I'd be happy if it would just quietly send us back to the building."

Bleep-Bleep was a maze maker who was infuriatingly good at pacing things.

[Free Time｜5 minutes]

Whenever it felt like we absolutely couldn't go on, a room that let us recover for a while appeared.

[Preparation Time｜5 minutes

□ Trim eyebrows

□ Remove nail cuticles

□ Remove thumbnail]

Whenever we started to feel like we could survive, it broke us again.

"Pull out my nail. I can't feel my right arm anyway."

"Is that so? That's fortunate."

Still, we had come too far to break down and stop over every single thing like that.

"But, so, ngh, what do you expect me to do...?"

There wasn't a trace of warmth in the eyes looking down at me as I curled up.

"Seon Yu-han. Why won't you listen?"

"I... clearly told you. I'm willing to yield... as long as it doesn't kill me."

Gritting my teeth, I looked at Yu Mi-rae.

Only one thumbnail had been pulled out, yet my entire body shook with pain as if my whole hand had been torn off.

"How many times has this been for you?"

"How many times what? How many times I haven't listened to you?"

"How many times have you come back?"

Eyes as deep and dark as a well.

"From the future."

I pooled in that well.

"Or was it from death?"

Yu Mi-rae tilted her head again.

"Either way. You died and came back."

I wasn't surprised anymore.

The inevitable had simply arrived.

Yu Mi-rae was an honest person.

She didn't wield secrets and lies like weapons.

...If she wanted to attack, she was the kind of person who would simply show it through her actions.

"Yes. Quite a few times."

So I thought it would be better for me to answer honestly too.

"Then this isn't the first time, is it? This conversation either."

"Yes. This is the twelfth time."

Right. I had died eleven times in this maze alone.

"Twelve times? Is this place that hard?"

Yu Mi-rae asked as if she couldn't understand.

"Well, rather than this place being difficult..."

This maze was a simple place where all we had to do was what it told us.

Whether we chewed bugs for Meal Time, pulled out canine teeth for Orthodontic Time, injected paralytics for Rest Time, or for Social Time...

Damn it.

Making up our minds and carrying out that kind of thing within five minutes wasn't difficult in itself.

What was truly difficult was...

"Representative."

Yu Mi-rae.

"You're the hardest part, Representative."

"Me?"

The Representative smiled with a bloodless face and opened the door.

Bleep-Bleep really was an excellent maze maker when it came to pacing.

By the time both of us were battered rags from head to toe, it gave us a room where doing what the note said would definitely kill us.

For example...

[Transfusion Time｜5 minutes

Blood volume｜600 cc (100 cc, 6 times)

Blood type｜Rh-negative AB]

A place where you inserted blood incompatible with your own into your veins.

A place where sharing the pain peacefully meant dying together.

A place where, to survive, you absolutely had to kill the other person.

This was a Labyrinth.

Footnotes:

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