WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 146: Dawn
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“You have one hundred and seventy-six ‘Unlife’ coins.”
* * *
“You have one hundred and eighty-five ‘Unlife’ coins.”
* * *
“You have one hundred and ninety-seven ‘Unlife’ coins.”
* * *
Without hands, I couldn't roll the dice.
* * *
“You have two hundred and nine ‘Unlife’ coins.”
* * *
I couldn't preemptively claim only mine and leave.
* * *
“You have two hundred and thirteen ‘Unlife’ coins.”
* * *
Not yet.
* * *
“You have two hundred and twen......”
* * *
I could roll them better next time.
* * *
“‘Unlife’......”
* * *
Why was I doing this again?
* * *
Tap, rattle.
I suddenly woke from a dream.
No.
It wasn't a dream.
5. 4. 6.
The three numbers stood still, like an instant or like eternity.
I looked around and realized there were only three people who could share this moment with me.
The lunatic who had followed me since the parking garage, the game company employee who looked at me as though I were a user breaking the rules, and the yellow-haired person who only watched nervously and whimpered.
Where was everyone else?
“Seon Yu-han, would you like to make a preemptive claim?”
“Yeah. Preemptively claim 546.”
Ah.
They were probably dead somewhere.
Didn't they only need to be alive at the end?
“Yes. ‘Seon · Yu · Han’ has preemptively claimed 546. As soon as 546 enters the ‘pen,’ payment will be processed automatically and the purchase will be complete.”
The 546 card moved beneath my ‘Seon · Yu · Han’ card.
This wasn't the first time I had rolled that combination.
But it was the first time it had come out so perfectly, so beautifully.
This is fun.
“Did you say I'd find out about returns when the time came?”
“Yes, you will. Would you like to call someone?”
Ah......
“Let's see. ‘The Voyeur’?”
“Your conversation with ‘The Voyeur’ has already ended.”
“Was that so? Ah...... Right. I keep doing awful things to them...... Then, ‘All Dharma’?”
“Yes. ‘Seon · Yu · Han’ has called ‘All Dharma.’ ‘All Dharma’ has answered the call from ‘Seon · Yu · Han.’ ‘All Dharma’ has rejected the request from ‘Seon · Yu · Han.’”
“Ah, right. They always did that. Forget it, then.”
But why exactly was I doing this again?
‘I’ll kill you, Seon Yu-han. Again and again, until you find another way.’
Was it because Yu Hyun-jae would try to kill me if I preemptively claimed only my own card and left alone?
No.
That was only an excuse.
I could have simply separated from them before reaching the arcade in the first place.
An excuse.
An excuse to find another way.
An excuse to save everyone else.
But.
Why did I need to find another way?
Why was I wasting time here?
When had my life become so cheap?
They had died just as many times as I had.
I had killed them by dying.
I had even killed them with my own hands.
So why was I doing this, suddenly deciding I should try to save them?
When I didn't actually care about their lives at all.
What was I even doing?
Why now?
Why?
Ah.
Had that been an excuse too?
‘Don't you want to leave the Labyrinth, Teacher?’
They had seen right through me.
A very long time ago.
Maybe I......
Wanted to live.
Or wanted to die.
Did I want to remain trapped in the Labyrinth and live forever?
Did I want to remain dead forever outside the Labyrinth?
Did I deserve to live?
Then did I deserve to die?
“Seon Yu-han.”
Right, Seon Yu-han.
Three bodies were buried in that name, reasons I mustn't die.
‘Then 【you too】 【die with me】.’
At the same time, there was a letter that had crawled up from within that name, whispering why I mustn't live.
I had to get out to grant that request......
“This is why I like people qualified to find an ‘Easter Egg.’”
Hosoo broke into a wide smile and said something out of nowhere.
“People like you enjoy the game purely for its own sake. For no reason other than enjoying it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You've lost sight of why you decided to enjoy the game, haven't you?”
I didn't answer.
“You've lost interest in saving the children, haven't you?”
I didn't answer.
“And yet you still came to enjoy my game, didn't you? As the host, that makes me very happy.”
I didn't even want to respond.
“Now, roll the dice.”
Swish.
I gathered the three dice in one hand.
Right then, I couldn't find a reason to buy another child.
There was no way I could survive this run and escape the Labyrinth in one go anyway.
So there was no need to struggle now.
Meeting people I had already met countless times, introducing ourselves countless times, killing things I had already killed countless times.
What a waste of time.
All of it......
I just needed to throw them.
Tap.
Then the hand about to throw the dice was caught.
“What are you doing?”
“I understand why you're becoming arrogant, but...”
Yu Hyun-jae's businesslike voice sank low.
“Don’t get the wrong idea. Seon Yu-han, you are not the center of this Labyrinth.”
“What are you talking about? I've never thought that.”
“A lie.”
“......”
“Even if some strange rule applies to you, Seon Yu-han, it is still only part of a greater rule.”
“......What are you trying to say?”
I tried to strip the emotion from my voice. Yu Hyun-jae seemed to notice that effort, and his expression softened.
“That time continues to pass after you die.”
Crash!
The chair toppled backward, and at last our eyes were nearly level.
“What, what do you know? Explain properly. Don't tell me you remember? Everything that happened before? Speak. Tell me!”
“You need to let go...... before I can speak.”
Yu Hyun-jae lowered his gaze slightly and gestured toward his collar.
I glared at that loathsome face for a long while before reluctantly releasing his collar.
“Unfortunately, I have no memory of the ‘things that happened before’ you are referring to.”
At that point, I realized one serious problem.
I had no way of knowing when Yu Hyun-jae was lying.
I still couldn't tell whether this bastard shepherd was telling the truth or lying.
“Then how do you know? That time passes even after I die.”
“In truth, I'm not certain. I'm only saying it may be possible.”
Confusing.
Then why was he telling me this?
“Do you happen to know something?”
“I don't fucking know. Why are you doing this to me?”
“It's been at least......”
The conspiracy theorist co-representative of Uiwi Guild smiled faintly.
“Thirteen years since I began investigating the Labyrinth-induced time-reversal phenomenon.”
So he had been a conspiracy theorist since right after Fissure Day.
“Compared to that, Seon Yu-han, you haven't even spent a year trapped here, if we count the number of days.”
The conspiracy theorist glanced at the heap of coins made of flesh, bone, and blood.
How many had it been earlier? Two hundred and sixty-something.
“Besides, if we count only the passage of time strictly...... Has it been a month at most? That makes me more of an expert than you.”
It was so absurd I wasn't even angry.
“I don't think thirteen years of speculation beats one month of experience.”
“It's not speculation.”
No, I thought I might get angry after all, seeing the conspiracy theorist widen his eyes slightly and gesture at me with his chin.
“What I mean is, it may feel to you as though time returns the instant you die, Seon Yu-han, but that timeline may actually continue longer.”
It wasn't as though I had never considered that possibility.
But I had never had a reason to think further about the world after I died.
“Does this Labyrinth have a time limit?”
“......Yes. The building collapses at midnight.”
“What?”
“It collapses......?”
Lee Na-hyun and Lee Jin-su, who had been watching the two of us nervously, reacted in quiet shock.
Yu Hyun-jae spoke as though he had expected it, unconcerned.
“Then, for example, the timeline may continue until midnight after you die, and time may rewind when the Labyrinth collapses.”
Even so, I returned to life without feeling that intervening gap, so in the end it was no different from time returning the moment I died.
When I died, I simply went back.
“It means that we will continue to exist, alive, after you die, Seon Yu-han.”
“......Ah.”
I understood.
Finally.
My fist tightened. The three dice in my hand felt as though they might shatter.
“So you're asking me to save you? By rolling each die properly? You? And your younger sister too while I'm at it?”
At that moment.
The moment I saw Yu Hyun-jae's face.
I was seized by the feeling that I had made a mistake.
It was an instinctive feeling, something close to animal intuition, though I couldn't explain why.
“You met her.”
His face was so utterly devoid of emotion.
No pleasure, no relief, not even hatred.
Then it vanished as though it had been an illusion, and a smile as hazy as Mist appeared.
“Yes. In the end, that's what it comes to. Save us. Please.”
He said it so calmly that it didn't sound pathetic in the slightest.
......If anything, it felt as though he didn't mean it.
“I can't promise that either.”
“I know. I'm only telling you not to forget.”
Playfulness entered his voice.
“As I said, we will probably remain alive after you die, Seon Yu-han. That is what I meant when I said you are not the center of this Labyrinth.”
After I died, my companions would be shocked for a short while, confused, then go on living without me.
Just as they had lived without me before.
When they eventually failed and died, they would think of regrets from their past lives or the faces of the people they loved.
I would not be in those final memories.
Just as I had not been in their memories until yesterday.
......Right.
I was not the center of this Labyrinth.
“You will always be an outsider in this time, Seon Yu-han.”
Someone who could leave the here and now at any time.
Someone detached from the present, absent from both the past and the future.
“Still, don't stray too far away on your own. We may remember you someday, Seon Yu-han. At the end.”
That was right.
They only needed to be alive at the end.
But to do that, I needed to learn how to keep as many people alive as possible until the end, then carry it out without a single mistake at the end.
There was no way that could happen overnight.
No, not in a single loop.
“......I'll need a lot of practice.”
“Yes. That was what I was saying from the beginning.”
I put down two dice.
* * *
“If it were possible to turn back time, what would you do, Seon Yu-han?”
Was Yu Hyun-jae possessed by some kind of water ghost?
He had started sounding fairly sensible and decent, so I let my guard down for a moment......
‘Roll the dice well from now on. I don't like being abandoned.’
Anyway.
That bastard really was the craziest person in the world.
Still trying to shake off the sensation of my whole body being crushed by a giant cane snake while my legs were broken because of that water ghost, I checked the wall clock behind me.
3:29.
“Seon Yu-han?”
At the puzzled voice calling me, I turned back to the Interview Administrator.
I thought of the time when they disappeared.
3:33.
“......”
Maximum sentence, 8:27.
Rescue location, third-floor hallway.
“Seon Yu-han, is something wrong?”
“Ah, sorry. It's nothing.”
I smiled politely and shook my head.
Not now.
Not yet.
What if it didn't end even if I left now?
What if it ended because I left now?
What would I do?
What about Brother?
Right.
What about the children left here?
That's right.
I had to be by those children's side.
Save them if I could save them.
Accept their deaths if I couldn't.
I still hadn't confirmed that they couldn't be saved......
“If I could turn back time......”
Until that moment came, I had the right to indulge this meager feeling a little longer.
“I'd like to ask your name, Interview Administrator.”
“What? My name?”
“Yes. I forgot it. I'm sorry.”
The desire to remember the name of someone I would part from anyway, and the desire to be remembered by someone......
“Ah, no need to apologize. It's fine. Everyone forgets eventually. Honestly, who has the presence of mind to memorize an Interview Administrator's name? Right?”
The Interview Administrator waved a hand and laughed lightly.
“Well...... You're the first person to ask my name at the end, though.”
Of course.
No applicant would waste Jaelae Group's final question on an Interview Administrator's name.
“Is that really all you want? You know this wasn't originally a chance to ask the Interview Administrator's name. Is there some weird tip going around that you can win the Interview Administrator's favor this way? You shouldn't believe that sort of thing. Want a chance to take it back?”
They were a good Interview Administrator.
A good person.
A kind child.
I wanted them to get out at the end.
Together with me.
So I wanted them to stay here until the end.
Together with me.
If I came back and no one was here, if no one welcomed me, if no one saw me as just Seon Yu-han, an ordinary interviewee, if no one called my name, I......
I didn't think I could come back.
Not ever again.
“It's fine. A name is enough.”
The Interview Administrator gave an uncertain smile, as though unsure what expression to make, then soon smiled naturally.
“Myeong Sae-byeok.”
They said the name clearly, one syllable at a time.
As though engraving it in me again because I had forgotten it.
“My name is Myeong Sae-byeok. It was nice to meet you. You did well, Seon Yu-han.”
The interview was over.
Was this the first time I had properly finished an interview?
Since realizing I was trapped in the Labyrinth.
I sat there quietly, overcome by a strange feeling, and the Interview Administrator gave me a polite smile.
“Um, Seon Yu-han? You can leave now.”
“......Ah. Interview Administrator, I should have told you this first.”
“Seon Yu-han, I understand you're reluctant, but the interview is over...”
“It's not that. This building has undergone Labyrinthification.”
“......What?”
This wasn't the time for that.
I got up at once and led the Interview Administrator outside.
Click.
Riiiiiing!
After setting off the fire alarm, I raised my voice and began pouring out instructions.
“Remember this. Don't stay in the stairwell for more than five seconds. At the daycare, exhaust the dolls and put them to sleep. At the library, you have to kill the librarian to get off the second floor...”
Crash!
The sound of the elevator falling as the building lost power cut me off.
Rumble, craaash, bang!
The fire alarm could no longer be heard.
Crash, thud!
Myeong Sae-byeok.
I stared at the empty spot where the Interview Administrator had vanished, repeating the name under my breath.
I hadn't been able to tell them all the rules I knew.
“......”
It felt as though I had gained Myeong Sae-byeok's name and lost Myeong Sae-byeok's life.
I opened and closed my empty hand, then nodded blankly.
Yeah.
It didn't feel bad.
Footnotes:
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