WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 137: The Black-Haired Beast

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"Argh! Shit, ughhh......"

No. 46 spotted me, screamed, and started thrashing. His severed ankle must have started hurting again, because he kept crying out in pain.

I grabbed his leg with one hand and held it still.

"Please stay still. It'll hurt more if you move like that."

"You, crazy, ngh...... Wh-what are you......?!"

"I wanted to check something."

"Ch-check what, ah......?"

No. 46 stared at my hand in his pants pocket, his eyes full of confusion and fear.

I pulled my hand back out.

Clink.

A necklace with a flat metal plate hung from my hand.

An ID tag necklace identical to the one around my neck.

―――――――――――――――

Individual No.｜46

Rescue Location｜Legal Affairs Office, Floor 10, Jaelae Building

Special Notes｜Coy, clever, lively, energetic child

Health Status｜No health check conducted, no meal provided

―――――――――――――――

The Legal Affairs Office on the tenth floor?

That was one floor below us.

But I had never seen a judgment document that seemed to belong to him in the Legal Affairs Office. Not once.

If he'd passed through there before me, there should have been paperwork left behind.

Then had he really come from another Labyrinth?

"You seem to work at Uiwi's Legal Affairs Office. Did you leave your judgment document there?"

"......"

No. 46 just clamped his mouth shut and glared at me.

He seemed to have plenty of life left in him.

"I know how to make conversations go more smoothly and quickly."

"Ah, ngh......"

I lightly squeezed the part of his calf near his severed ankle. No. 46 grimaced and trembled.

"If necessary, I'm willing to use it. Did you leave your judgment document in the Legal Affairs Office?"

"......I left it there. Why are you asking about that? What does that matter right now?!"

It mattered to me.

It meant he had really come from another Labyrinth.

"Then did you come up from the tenth floor to the ninth, or down?"

"......Up, why?!"

Even if the Labyrinths were separated, did they have the same floor layout?

It was hard to be certain based on just two matching floors, but......

"Why did you come up, though?"

"What?"

"Normally, you'd go down when you don't know whether the floors have been mixed up."

"Didn't you come up too? Instead of going down."

That was because I knew the floors had been mixed up, and more importantly, I was looking for the electrical room.

"......So you knew? That the floors were mixed up?"

I only stared at him instead of answering. No. 46 looked uncomfortable and spoke up.

"I didn't know. I just...... thought it'd be better to move differently from everyone else. Since it's an invasive-type Labyrinth."

It wasn't a bad idea.

Of course, whether it was the right answer depended on where the first-floor exit was.

"What's your name? I'm Seon Yu-han."

"......Kang Chan."

"Ah."

I remembered.

It was a name I'd seen when I was tearing apart the Legal Affairs Office to kill time until midnight after receiving the maximum sentence.

"Did you recently review a contract for a merchandise production company?"

"What, you...... Who are you?"

He didn't seem to be impersonating anyone.

His one-syllable name had happened to stick in my memory, but......

I looked at the number written on his chest.

[46]

Could there be a connection between this man's two-digit individual number and his one-syllable name......

"......Ah. The stroke count."

"What? This number?"

No. 46's casual response made me blink and look at him.

"You knew?"

"Well...... Everyone but me has three digits. More or less."

"You're really clever."

"Hey, you little......"

No. 46 scowled, then immediately shut his mouth after checking my reaction.

"We started with four people. Did your side have four too?"

"......Come to think of it, where did those other two go?"

"Exactly."

I didn't know.

At first, I could roughly guess which direction they'd gone from the sounds behind me. But they wouldn't have moved in a straight line, so by now they were probably somewhere I couldn't even begin to guess.

"Anyway, it seems you've seen someone die in this forest. You don't think I killed those two and got rid of them."

Hyeon Je-won's headless corpse had been covered in plants until no trace of a person remained.

"Oh, right. Those flowers...... Ah...... I completely forgot. When did you see them? Did you see them bloom?"

No. 46's already dark expression grew even darker, and he tried to stand.

It felt a little strange to cut off someone's ankle and just watch, so I helped support him.

"About ten or fifteen minutes ago. I didn't see them bloom. I ran before they did."

I had escaped just before the abnormally grown buds on the stems opened, so the flowers had probably bloomed by now.

"Which way? Is it close? Then hurry, ah, shit, we need to run."

"Why?"

"What do you mean, why, you crazy bastard......?!"

No. 46 naturally clutched my arm like a crutch and hopped on one foot as he shouted.

"That thing's contagious!"

"You turn into a flower even if you don't die?"

"Yeah. Even if you're alive, flowers start blooming out of your wounds, then you die. But you and I are both hurt. We need to avoid it. They're not that fast, but I......"

The man opened his eyes wide and looked back and forth between his remaining foot and my face.

"Is it airborne? Does distance matter? Do you have to touch it for that to happen?"

"I don't know! How would I know something like that?! Ngh......"

No. 46 followed as I supported him, breathing hard.

"Honestly, I'm not even sure wounds matter. But I was the only one who was fine then, so I just assumed that was it......"

"Your companions died and were injured. Did the injured people catch it from the dead?"

"......Yeah."

No. 46 answered through gritted teeth.

I liked this side of him much better, with a layer of affected cynicism peeled away.

"How long has it been since you ended up here? I think it's been about thirty or forty minutes for me."

Too much seemed to have happened for him to have been sold into this forest at the same time as my group.

"I don't know. About...... two hours? Two and a half? Something like that."

The difference was too large. What was going on?

"More teams came in before you guys. That same broadcast played every time. It probably happened before I got here too."

"Ah...... I think I understand. Is it a system where participants keep entering at intervals?"

"No, the intervals weren't regular either. Sometimes they came in minutes apart, and other times it took forever."

Still, since this was a Labyrinth, there had to be some rule concerning additional people.

Whether I could figure it out was another matter.

Even if I did, the people entering from other Labyrinths were all variables beyond my control. There was still too much I didn't know about this forest itself.

It didn't seem like I could solve this with one or two deaths either.

"Ha......"

Once I died this time, I should go to the 5F Arcade below.

There was no need to keep stumbling around on this floor.

Now that I'd realized we were all "hamsters," there was no choice but to get information out of Hosoo, the host and dealer of Idle Hamster.

I wanted to resolve matters on the upper floors without leaving them whenever possible.

It seemed the Labyrinth had a different opinion.

Then.

Rustle......

Something moved ahead of us.

"Ha, shit, there! This way!"

It wasn't a human presence.

It was covered in flowers and stems of every color, leaving only the vague silhouette of a human within.

"......It looks like a giant bouquet."

"Crazy bastard, is this the time to admire it?"

It looked like a living thing designed incorrectly.

It was made of dozens, perhaps hundreds of flowers, but it was far too dynamic to be a plant.

It bent its body and walked on one arm and one leg, swinging its head and other arm as though they were both arms.

Those grotesque flowers seemed to have no understanding at all of the body mechanics of the prey they had made into nourishment.

Still, thankfully, it wasn't that fast.

But if we delayed too long, it would catch us.

Without anyone to help him, No. 46, missing a foot, would be caught before long.

"Can't that flower be killed with this?"

"I don't know. It didn't die after getting hit once or twice, shit......"

I held up the hand flashlight as I asked. No. 46 answered between ragged breaths.

Trying to move quickly with one ankle cut off had to be exhausting.

Click.

"Huh?"

Whirr.

"No, what are you......"

Click.

Bang!

Broken petals and stems scattered through the air, fluttering down like snow.

A large hole had opened in the bouquet corpse's torso.

Squirm.

But the remaining stems writhed and tangled together like knots, filling the empty space.

It began approaching us again.

......It would be best not to waste any more time.

"I told you it wouldn't die. Why'd you shoot it? Ah, ah......! What are you doing......?!"

I half lifted No. 46 and dragged him forward as quickly as I could.

"Ha......"

Only after we'd put some distance between us did I stop, breathing hard, and gently set No. 46 down.

"I wanted to know. Information about that thing, and whether you were lying."

"Why would I lie......"

The man, who had something to feel guilty about, belatedly shut his mouth and cleared his throat.

"......But why didn't you leave me behind?"

To get information out of him.

It had been a lie when I told Kim Hee-sook I would leave No. 46 behind.

"I don't like people dying. It's better when people are alive, generally speaking."

"Ah, so that's why you didn't kill me and only blew off my ankle?"

No. 46 snapped sarcastically.

This man had tried to deceive us and get us killed, and now he had one foot cut off, making it difficult for him to move.

In other words, he was an uncomfortable, burdensome piece of baggage with mutual trust approaching zero.

I wasn't confident I could control and lead a group that included someone like that.

He would only needlessly increase the tension and anxiety, probably causing Kim Hee-sook or Yun Geon-min to start firing the hand flashlight wildly.

I decided it would be easier for both of us if I dealt with No. 46 alone. Safer, too.

"Yes. It was impulsive, but...... I thought it would be better to shoot the lower body than the upper body."

"......What?"

I looked down at No. 46's left leg.

"This way, you're easier to control, aren't you?"

The bandage around the severed end was stained red.

"Rather than someone who can run away from me whenever they want without my help."

I felt the man, who had been holding onto my arm as though leaning on me, go rigid in an instant.

I gave him a faint smile to put him at ease.

"......You."

Thankfully, perhaps my sincerity had reached him. No. 46 shut his mouth again and quietly accepted my support.

He kept looking around uneasily, though.

"Anyway, can't you interact with those surveillance crows at all?"

"......Yeah, at least not from what I've seen."

As I chatted quietly with No. 46 to gather information and walked a little faster, I said,

"But among your group or the people from other teams, ah......"

Tap.

The one-footed man wobbled and stepped forward with his right foot in a hopping motion.

Clank.

A strange sound came from below.

A metallic sound that could not exist in nature.

Footnotes:

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