How to Die in the Office Labyrinth - Chapter 149

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 149: The Story

──────

Whether Yu Hyun-jae entered The Executioner’s Stage alone or not.

"......I'll go with Team 2."

I led my confused companions into the Corridor of Unforgettable Memories.

Nobody wanted to go with Team 1.

[𝟘𝟘𝟙]

[𝟘𝟘𝟚]

[𝟘𝟘𝟛]

[𝟘𝟘𝟜]

[𝟘𝟘𝟝]

Me, Kim Hee-sook, Jeong Ji-ho, Chae Jae-ha, and Hwang Ju-yeon.

There were as many guest rooms as there were people who entered.

Riiing......

"It's coming from Room 4. Let's go in."

Swish.

After briefly explaining what had to be done in the Corridor of Unforgettable Memories, I opened the guest room door.

A quiet hallway that seemed to be inside some building. Soft flooring that swallowed sound like carpet......

It was a guest room I'd never seen before.

I looked over Jeong Ji-ho, Chae Jae-ha, and Hwang Ju-yeon.

"Which of you is it?"

"Not me."

"......I think it's mine."

Hwang Ju-yeon answered with a sigh.

"I think I know where the phone is, too."

"If you tell me, I can......"

"No."

Hwang Ju-yeon shook her head and stepped forward.

"I'll go. I don't want to leave it entirely to someone else. Besides...... there's probably someone in there I want to see."

So we followed Hwang Ju-yeon down the silent corridor.

The signs hanging from the ceiling suggested it was a performance hall.

"This is backstage. Where the waiting rooms and dressing rooms are, that sort of thing."

Was it a memory from when she performed before becoming a piano instructor?

"......Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Well...... it is an unforgettable memory, but......"

A bitter, sorrowful look passed over Hwang Ju-yeon's face.

"Honestly, I didn't expect this to come up. I thought it'd be some really terrifying memory. Like a stranger trying my door lock in the middle of the night."

"Even knowing everything here is fake, it seems the guest rooms bring out memories that are difficult to face."

"......Yeah. That makes sense."

For some reason, the freelance magician seemed relieved as she agreed.

Riiing......!

A door leading to the stage came into view, and the sound grew louder.

"Um, you know. Could I......"

Hwang Ju-yeon looked at the door, then turned to me as if checking my reaction.

"Would it be okay if I went in alone? I'll answer the phone right away."

If it was Hwang Ju-yeon......

"Yes."

She would face her memory without running away.

Even if she failed, there were still four guest rooms left.

"......Thank you. For understanding."

As though my permission had surprised her, the piano instructor's eyes widened slightly. After a brief hesitation, she opened the door.

In the few seconds it took for the door to open and close, everything beyond the gap seemed to move slowly.

An audience holding its breath in solemn silence.

Faces cast in shadow. Eyes gleaming as they reflected the stage lights.

A woman seated onstage as though there were nothing there but herself and the piano, staring down at the keys.

And an old analog telephone sitting boldly atop those keys, as though that woman's hands could never reach it.

"......"

The door closed just as the freelance magician in a three-piece suit, with long hair tightly tied back, approached the pianist in an elegant dress with her long hair flowing softly down.

Riiing......

Click.

Before long, the ringing stopped.

Bang!

[𝟘𝟘𝟜]

[𝐌𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐔𝐏 𝐑𝐎𝐎𝐌]

Everyone was thrown out of the guest room.

"Whoa, that scared me......"

The accountant, who had jumped back, kept glancing at Hwang Ju-yeon's face.

As if he wanted to know whether she was all right, and exactly what kind of story it had been.

"Um...... it's not a very big story."

Hwang Ju-yeon fidgeted with her hands as she spoke.

Long, slender fingers. Neatly trimmed nails, tidy hands.

"I ruined the performance. A friend I liked quite a bit, no, really liked, came all that way with their family to see it."

"Ah......"

"It was Fissure Day."

"......What?"

"The performance hall wasn't caught up in it, of course, but that friend's family...... was."

Only the friend who had come to see Hwang Ju-yeon's performance had survived.

"After that accident, I don't know...... things got strange between us. In some ways, we were tangled together so tightly we couldn't be separated, but in other ways, it was completely broken beyond repair......"

I thought I understood.

"Being around each other hurt us, but what could I say to someone who'd lost their family? That I was hurting because of them, too. That it was hard when they looked at me with resentment, like I'd committed some kind of sin......"

Those who survived alone often thought that way.

That they should have died too.

So they came to hate everything that had left them alive.

It wasn't a matter of logic or reason.

"......"

She had said there was someone she wanted to see, so it likely meant she hadn't seen that friend for quite some time.

Judging by how she spoke, that friend didn't seem to have died.

There were partings like that.

"Well, that's the story. Um...... shall we go?"

[𝐄𝐗𝐈𝐓]

Hwang Ju-yeon pointed at the exit as if trying to forcefully break the heavy mood.

"Yes. Let's."

I gladly played along.

* * *

"That was quick."

When we came out after leaving the room, Yu Hyun-jae was waiting quietly for us.

Clean and spotless, without a drop of blood on him.

He had gone in alone, so he must have executed the prisoner himself.

"Ah."

Perhaps he noticed my gaze traveling over him. Yu Hyun-jae casually placed a hand on my shoulder.

"If you tear open the back of Row 6, Seat 11, you'll find work clothes. Remember that. It won't hurt to know."

I was certain that was the moment my companions felt even greater distance and fear toward Yu Hyun-jae than they did toward me.

"Let's go up now. Did you say the Artifact Management Room was on the floor above?"

"......Yes."

I was the only one who noticed Yu Hyun-jae's hand trembling faintly.

And I felt distance and fear because I couldn't tell whether it was an act.

* * *

"Ah. An eliminated candidate."

That was Yu Hyun-jae's first impression when he saw something resembling Hyeon Je-won's corpse.

There was a reason I called it a corpse-like thing.

"Uh...... Is that maybe a person......? An actual person?"

Chae Jae-ha made a strange face as he pointed to the huge full-body image on the wall.

Hyeon Je-won had been flattened against the Artifact Management Room wall like a mural, or a full-body sticker.

Even the expression Hyeon Je-won had worn in that final moment remained unchanged.

......I'd died like that before.

So that was what it looked like from someone else's perspective.

Swish.

I moved close enough that my forehead nearly touched the wall.

I didn't reach out. Hyeon Je-won hated being touched.

"It'll be over by midnight at the latest. Don't be afraid."

I whispered it very quietly, then turned away.

Tap.

I picked up the Artifact Management Ledger and Artifact Request Form that had fallen to the floor.

It was a Labyrinth that could only be cleared by correctly matching the Recipient Entity Name and Requesting Entity Name on each document.

"They ended up like this after trying to use the artifacts directly."

There were many things that were difficult to infer from the artifact's shape, name, or request alone without using the artifact firsthand.

I began filling in the blanks on the documents.

―――――――――――――――

Artifact Name｜Haero (Common Name：　)

Management Grade｜ㅻ

Recipient Entity Name｜Na Pil-jo

―――――――――――――――

There was an artifact called Haero, like a ring made of feathers.

An artifact that turned people into murals.

―――――――――――――――

Requesting Entity Name｜Na Pil-jo

Request Details｜"It's for my husband."

―――――――――――――――

As I guessed when the artifact researcher had finally lost patience and used the artifact directly, I refined the route in my head once more.

"But, Representative. What does it mean to call someone an eliminated candidate?"

Hwang Ju-yeon narrowed her eyes and looked at Yu Hyun-jae warily.

"What did this person get eliminated from? You never used that word when the others died...... Is this some kind of test?"

"Ah."

Despite her suspicious gaze, the co-representative of Uiwi Guild simply shook his head as though it were nothing.

Then he told us about an applicant who had passed a Jaelae Group job interview based solely on their answer to the interview's most famous final question.

"Ah, they explained how time could be turned back......?"

Everyone's eyes turned to me.

"Yes. It was an answer worthy of being hired. I have no objection to Hyeon Je-won's employment, either. Personally, though, I found that answer boring."

Yu Mi-rae had apparently liked it.

"What exactly was the answer?"

I asked as I filled in the empty spaces of the Artifact Management Ledger.

I wanted to know Hyeon Je-won's answer to how time could be turned back.

"It was an answer related to artifacts, but it felt like cheating to me."

Yu Hyun-jae curled his lips as if mocking the idea.

"Besides, it does not seem Seon Yu-han is experiencing time reversal because of an artifact."

"......Ah."

That was true.

It was more likely to be a gift for someone revisiting an invasive-type Labyrinth.

Or perhaps Brother had......

......No. Maybe I'd been caught up in it for another reason, or even entirely at random.

The idea that the Labyrinth's rules were always decided within the bounds of human understanding was an arrogant delusion.

So was the idea that the Labyrinth revolved around me.

"Yes. I don't know either. It's like a natural disaster......"

Swish.

Once I filled in every blank on the documents, all the artifact display cases turned pitch-black, and stickers appeared on their nameplates.

[Release Complete]

"Let's go up."

The next floor was Basement Level 1, Haruda Dining.

The place where Yu Mi-rae's secretary had dried up and died like a mummy, while Yu Mi-rae had escaped alive.

And I hadn't told Yu Mi-rae's sibling that information.

* * *

I expected Yu Hyun-jae to be shaken by the traces Yu Mi-rae had left behind.

"......Manager Kim Si-hyeok."

Not by Yu Mi-rae's secretary's death.

The co-representative of Uiwi Guild seemed to recognize Yu Mi-rae's secretary from the nearly skeletal corpse alone.

「Representative. I told you not to print a meal ticket.」

「Ah. You saw?」

Even as his younger sibling's voice played from the live video, Yu Hyun-jae quickly skipped through it without much reaction.

As Manager Kim, who had been eating greedily, gradually dried up and the sanity vanished from his eyes, the video continued.

「Don't you have anything you want to say? To Si-yeong. If I meet Si-yeong, I'll pass it on.」

「No. Nothing. Si-yeong may be lacking in many ways...... but Si-yeong will have done their part.」

Then the co-representative of Uiwi Guild placed his left hand on the shoulder of Manager Kim, whom he had seated neatly.

The red gem in the ring on his little finger glimmered softly.

"Yes. He did."

The moment I saw that chillingly gentle smile, I suddenly understood, as if I were only grasping the meaning of an oracle after it had come true.

'Driver Kim suddenly started screaming, so I ran over. He was agitated and babbling incoherently.'

The name of the escort whose heart had been taken, and who had died.

'......The fact that the victim was deliberately rescued in preparation for an emergency similar to the incident above......'

How useful these siblings' deaths had been.

* * *

"Uh, why is the Representative......?"

―――――――――――――――

　　　　　　JUDGMENT

Case　　　Assisting Suicide

Defendant　Yu Hyun-jae

　　　　　　VERDICT

The defendant is sentenced to

19 minutes of confinement.

―――――――――――――――

Unexpectedly, the person Yu Hyun-jae had assisted in suicide was not Driver Kim, but Lee Jin-su.

It seemed Driver Kim's death did not count as suicide.

That made sense.

Unlike Manager Kim, who had eaten food that looked obviously fatal, Driver Kim couldn't have guessed that Prajna would kill him if his heart rate rose.

In any case, this Labyrinth judged Yu Hyun-jae to have assisted suicide by making Lee Jin-su participate in the special seminar despite knowing Lee Jin-su had a passive death wish.

"No, even so. How could that possibly be a crime......"

The others hadn't understood Lee Jin-su's traits well enough for a crime to be established.

―――――――――――――――

　　　　　　VERDICT

The defendant is sentenced to

11 minutes of confinement.

―――――――――――――――

I hadn't been there at the time, and I'd half forgotten about it, so my sentence was shorter.

Then Jeong Ji-ho, Chae Jae-ha, and Hwang Ju-yeon were not guilty, leaving only......

The person who must have received twenty-one minutes of confinement for attempted theft.

"Kim Hee-sook."

I wasn't the one who called her name.