How to Die in the Office Labyrinth - Chapter 151

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

Chapter 151: Today’s Butler

──────

“Mm...? What are you talking about?”

555 asked, their eyes darting around.

“Our home...? You just said it was Seon Yu-han's home. No, why is a home even coming up in the first place...? What are you hiding from us?”

“You don't need to worry. This place is safe. Nothing will harm any of you. Rest for as long as you want...”

I gestured at the walls.

Doors appeared on every side. They all opened at once, revealing new rooms.

“Eat as much as you want. Play as much as you want...”

One room had a refrigerator and kitchen, another a TV and game console, another a desk and bookcase...

“You can live like that. You don't have to work. Just do whatever you want.”

“...For how long?”

555 asked suspiciously.

It seemed they thought I was lying.

It was too good a story to believe without question.

“Until you die, of course.”

“...You're insane.”

655, who had been quietly listening, let out a breath of awe and ran somewhere.

Click.

“Ah, fuuuck...!”

655 threw open every door in the new rooms and screamed with joy at the reality of owning a home with no limit on square footage, a dream achieved at thirty-four.

“You... I knew you'd do something like this, you crazy bastard!”

655 rushed into my arms.

His hands trembled with happiness.

“I told you, didn't I? I kept wondering why the hell I was following this guy! No, wait. You weren't human from the start, were you? You're one of those Librarian monsters too, aren't you?”

“Why do you always say things like that, Chae Jae-ha?”

Why did he treat everything he didn't understand as a monster?

Did he know how much that hurt, isolated, and humiliated me?

“Because you make me say it! No, hold on... Always? This isn't the first time you've pulled shit like this, is it?”

“I have no intention of harming any of you.”

“You intend to imprison us, though! I don't know what the hell you did, but let us out of here now! God, seriously! I knew something was up when you separated us and went down alone. I'm the crazy one. Why the hell did I trust a lunatic like...”

“Where are Ms. Hwang Ju-yeon and Ji-ho?”

475's voice cut through 655's shouting, as though 655 might bite me at any moment.

“I don't know. I wasn't able to make a preemptive claim on either of them. They're probably waiting in the pen, the Sales and Marketing Division space, or they'll soon meet different owners. So I can't say for certain...”

Just as I was about to say I didn't know, I suddenly realized that I could return myself and go back to the pen.

And that even after returning, I could watch over this home.

“Owners? Then Seon Yu-han must be our owner.”

This was these children's home, and I was their owner.

“Yes. I bought all of you.”

I had both the obligation and the right to care for them.

“...What?”

These children could live safely and happily until they died.

Inside me.

“Do you know?”

“Know what, you lunatic?”

“The truth is, I don't know what the next floor is.”

“What?”

“Mm? But the Diary clearly said you'd been up to the floors above this one... It even said what was there. Something about a maze prison.”

“I just made that up.”

I had deliberately written about the ninth floor as though it were nothing much before handing over the Diary.

If I had told them every detail, they would never have cooperated so willingly to get this far.

And with the cause of death on the ninth floor determined by whether a preemptive claim had been made, there was no way they would have let me go to the arcade alone.

“So I don't know what will happen either. Even if you insist on leaving here and going up to the next floor... you'll only die painfully alongside me anyway.”

I didn't want to sacrifice these children to meaningless suffering.

“Wouldn't I alone be enough for that?”

“So if Seon Yu-han dies...”

475 spoke with a flat expression.

“What happens to those of us here?”

The answer came to me the moment I heard the question.

As if I had known it from the beginning.

Maybe this was a customer's right too.

“You'll be abandoned automatically. You won't have an owner.”

“...Then.”

655 murmured softly, then closed his mouth as if surprised by himself and let go of me.

“Then you mean you could escape if you killed me here? Yes, probably. Then we're back to what I said earlier. Dying painfully in a place where you don't know what's waiting for you. Without me.”

“Th-then, what's the difference...?”

555 asked, their face pale.

“Between Seon Yu-han going alone and dying, leaving us to get abandoned or whatever... and, um, here...”

“Between that and killing me?”

555 slightly averted their bloodshot eyes.

I watched them and thought it over.

“Honestly, there is no difference.”

It didn't take long to decide.

“Either way, I'll send you away before I die. Without pain.”

“What?”

“There's no chance of you killing me in here anyway.”

I slightly tilted my head toward 475, who had moved out of my sight.

“Even you, CEO.”

These children couldn't kill me here.

I was standing in this spot, yet I could see the entire space from every angle.

“You'd be surprised if you knew how many places make an exception of me.”

“Even so, that only applies outside the Labyrinth.”

There was no point wasting more time humoring them.

“Then I'll be going.”

I returned 546.

As I checked Yu Mi-rae's body lying in the white room, I could hear the children talking.

〔Uh... What do we do...?〕

〔Fuck... Ah! What if we break these rooms somehow? Or start a fire? If we can get that bastard back in here somehow, maybe we can catch them from behind?〕

〔I doubt such a method would work. Besides, it seems likely that Seon Yu-han is still watching us now.〕

That was true.

I might lose track of them if I wasn't consciously paying attention, but if I wanted to, I could observe them whenever I liked.

〔Agh! What the hell?!〕

655 jumped so high he nearly hit the ceiling.

Large, dark-red letters had appeared on the wall he had been looking at.

『Correct. See. Hear.』

...Hm.

What I had meant to convey was, “Yes. I am watching and listening.”

I hadn't intended for it to come out like a cursed message scrawled in an abandoned house.

I didn't know whether it was because our worlds were separate, or because those children were subordinate beings bound to me, but the balance of communication seemed somewhat broken.

〔Th-this is Seon Yu-han... answering us... right?〕

『Correct.』

New writing appeared where the previous message had vanished.

〔...You monster bastard! Let us out already!〕

『Don't want. Children. Die.』

Meanwhile, Yu Mi-rae had died as though asleep again.

Just as Yu Mi-rae always did, aside from when they had been trapped with me in the maze prison.

Partly because I hadn't made a preemptive claim on Yu Mi-rae, but it also meant that none of the customers who had given up their purchase at my request was the culprit.

〔Children? What the hell are you talking about... Wait. Ji-ho... Right, did Ji-ho die? Is he dead?!〕

『Incorrect. Dead. Correct.』

I hadn't been talking about Jeong Ji-ho, and Jeong Ji-ho wasn't even my child, but it did seem that he was dead.

Only Jeong Ji-ho's clothes remained.

Apparently, he had been sold to an owner who liked changing every scrap of a person's clothing.

〔Ha, don't you feel even the slightest bit sorry?〕

『Correct. Atonement. None.』

By contrast, there wasn't a trace of Hwang Ju-yeon.

〔Then... why did Seon Yu-han even... Why not just leave us unrescued from the beginning...〕

『Death. Life. Choice. Life.』

As I sorted through the list of customers in my head again, I grasped the white door's handle.

Swish.

It opened smoothly.

『Life.』

30-1. Do not be sad even if you cannot be abandoned. It means you are a hamster who is loved.

I slowly climbed the emergency staircase.

〔CEO, is this really the time to be eating? And how do you know it isn't poisoned?〕

〔It seems you're no longer afraid of me. ...That was a joke.〕

『False.』

〔It really was a joke.〕

Clunk.

I opened the door.

〔Don't worry about it. Make yourselves comfortable. If Seon Yu-han wanted to kill us, they could do so anytime.〕

『17.』

〔Pardon?〕

『B5. 2. 3. 12. 4. 6...』

〔...Ah. You mean the next floor is the seventeenth floor.〕

That was right.

It was the seventeenth floor.

〔The seventeenth floor has the Audit Office and a conference room.〕

475 immediately understood what I wanted to know.

The Jaelae Diary did give a brief description of the facilities on the seventeenth floor, but there was no harm in getting more detailed information from an insider. More than that...

『Layout.』[1]

〔Do you need help?〕

『No. 17. Space. Layout.』

It wasn't a square-shaped layout with an empty center.

〔Ah, the structure. I understand. From the seventeenth floor to the rooftop, the middle isn't open. Assuming, of course, that the structure hasn't changed through Labyrinthification.〕

Like the underground parking lot on the lowest floors, the top floors seemed to have an ordinary flat layout.

There was a transparent glass floor in the exact center, like an observation deck, but it wasn't very large.

A diamond shape, about sixty centimeters on each side.

It looked just large enough to fit one person inside.

〔If the decor on the right feels different from an ordinary office, that would be the conference room. It's mainly used for executive meetings.〕

On the right, I could see walls and doors in a stately design with a dark copper background.

〔The Audit Office is on the left.〕

But there was only a wall on the left.

『Left. Wall.』

〔Yes. Follow the wall straight ahead, and you can turn left at the end. The entrance is inside there.〕

Ah.

When I got closer, I could see a corner at the end where I could turn in.

『Correct.』

Given its nature, the Audit Office probably had little work-related contact with other departments. Even from its location alone, it felt as though outside access was tightly controlled.

〔It would be better for Seon Yu-han to enter the conference room first. Just in case.〕

『Correct.』

〔If I were there, perhaps it would be fine to enter the Audit Office first.〕

Seriously. So sly.

I stopped paying much attention to 475 and approached the conference room.

Click.

When I opened the door and stepped inside...

“...Oh.”

There was a customer who had arrived before me.

A living, perfectly unharmed person.

Footnotes:

[1] The Korean word for layout or structure also means rescue, which explains the offer of help.