WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 153: Glad to Meet You
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“Seon Yu-han, would you like to make a preemptive claim?”
“...No.”
This was the last turn.
This time, I couldn't even make a preemptive claim on Yu Hyun-jae.
I looked over the children moved beneath the ‘Seon · Yu · han’ card.
546. 535. 545. 555. 756.
Me. Jeong Ji-ho. Yun Geon-min. Kim Hee-sook. Hyeon Je-won.
Five was actually not a bad result.
Though Hyeon Je-won would probably be dead before I even got to meet them.
“Would you like to call someone?”
“Yeah. ‘All Dharma.’”
I turned my attention back to the customer cards.
｜All Dharma｜
｜Preference: “⏺ || ⏭”｜
A customer whose preferred individual I couldn't even begin to guess.
“Yes. ‘Seon · Yu · han’ has called ‘All Dharma.’”
All Dharma was a reserved customer, memorable for neither accepting requests to leave the market nor ever attempting to call me.
I had checked every customer here one by one while dying over and over, rolling dice like a madman. Most at least tried to call me.
“‘All Dharma’ has refused ‘Seon · Yu · han’s request.”
As expected, it refused.
Refusing a request did not necessarily mean it was an actual buyer.
It could simply refuse to leave the market because it did not want to miss its chance to window-shop.
But if it really was a buyer, I needed to remember it.
“‘All Dharma’ wishes to call ‘Seon · Yu · han.’”
“...What?”
It was calling me?
This customer had never done that before.
“‘Seon · Yu · han’ has answered ‘All Dharma’s call.”
“What?”
It had called me for the first time and had not even failed?
According to the host, another customer needed to roll well to successfully call my name.
And the die was a giant twenty-sided one whose results I still did not understand.
...I had a bad feeling about this.
At that moment.
The curtain inside the card opened.
“The conversation has ended.”
“Uh...”
I could only blink blankly.
“Looks like your conversation with ‘All Dharma’ went well.”
“No, it didn't go well at all...”
What was that?
For the first time, a conversation with another customer had remained in my memory.
Enough for me to recognize that the conversation had gone badly.
Assuming something like a one-sided proclamation, conducted without a single human word, could even be called a conversation.
What All Dharma had done to me had been closer to violence than conversation.
Even though, in that place, I had neither soul nor body. I was merely an insubstantial phenomenon, a concept called ‘Seon · Yu · han.’
｜All Dharma｜
I read the short phrase beneath the image, now blacked out.
｜Symbol: “⏺ || ⏭”｜
What All Dharma had shown me was the meaning of that symbol.
The individual it wished to purchase.
‘⏺ || ⏭’.
The present or the future. That was what All Dharma wanted.
There happened to be two individuals in this Labyrinth whose names meant current and future.
｜Seon · Yu · han｜
｜Preference: “Individual No. 546, 655, 845, 535, 475, 257, 545, 555, 756, 446.”｜
In other words, just as a series of individual numbers was listed in the Preference field of my customer card, All Dharma had singled out the particular individuals it wanted.
Yu Hyun-jae or Yu Mi-rae.
It was not an especially strange choice.
Any being with average human tastes when it came to human appearances would have liked the two of them.
Of course, it might have had different criteria.
Because they were smart. Because they were the original owners of this Labyrinthified building. Because their Hunger, Prettiness, and Obedience stats were extreme. Because they were siblings. Because they had lived trapped by a guardian like the Labyrinth. Because they looked perfectly normal but were both mentally unwell... and so on.
Those children were special.
All Dharma had conveyed its intention to buy them.
To me, its competitor.
For the first time, of all times.
It had never done this while I was out of my mind, rolling dice.
Was it telling me to back off because it intended to buy them?
Not that I could buy either of them this time. I had failed to make a preemptive claim on both.
Anyway, there were all kinds of crazy customers.
Could All Dharma be the culprit behind Yu Mi-rae having lain dead as if asleep all this time?
“If Ji-ho wants, I'll connect your room with Kim Hee-sook's or Yun Geon-min's.”
The moment I opened the Sales and Marketing Division door, I moved to the ‘home’ and separated the children's spaces. Even as I did, that question stayed in my mind.
Had it bought Yu Hyun-jae this time too?
Would buying Yu Mi-rae alone satisfy it?
Or did it want to buy both of them?
“What, what are you trying to do? What is this? What the hell is this?!”
“Don't worry. Like I said, nothing will happen.”
After soothing 545, who was still shrieking, I returned 546.
The moment I returned myself and left the pen, an unpleasant silence closed around me.
The first people I saw were Chae Jae-ha and Hwang Ju-yeon, both rigid with tension.
They looked startled by my sudden appearance, but their mouths only opened and closed while their eyes darted around.
As if that was not important right now.
Following their unsteady gazes, I finally understood why.
In the center of the pure white room stood a man with his back to us, head lowered.
“...Ah.”
I had been so focused on the road ahead that I had not considered it.
What expression Yu Hyun-jae would wear when he found Yu Mi-rae's corpse.
How Yu Hyun-jae would react when he saw Yu Mi-rae dead.
He stood blankly beside his younger sister's body, looking down at her pale face.
Our first encounter since being trapped in this Labyrinth had taken the worst possible form.
‘I don't want that child to see me dead.’
Those words, spoken in that low voice, suddenly came back to me.
The words about not wanting a younger sibling to see them dead.
At the time, I had thought it meant they hated each other enough that they did not even want the other to know whether they were alive or dead.
Even if they were on bad terms, letting someone remain unaware of their sibling's life or death in a disaster like this was too cruel.
But...
Perhaps it had meant the opposite. Perhaps they did not want to see their sibling dead, either.
Yu Hyun-jae slowly bent down and reached for Yu Mi-rae's head.
His back blocked my view, but I thought he was stroking her.
...Until Yu Hyun-jae turned around.
“Who do you think this is?”
Yu Hyun-jae had gripped her black hair viciously and raised Yu Mi-rae's upper body halfway up.
So that the face with its eyes closed, as though asleep, faced us.
“Sir!”
“What are you doing...?!”
Hwang Ju-yeon and Chae Jae-ha flinched in horror. I, too, stood frozen as if nailed to the floor.
That... Those eyes...
“Answer me. Look properly. Who do you think this is?”
“...What are you talking about?!”
Hwang Ju-yeon shouted, seeming to force the words from her throat.
“It's Representative Yu Mi-rae! Your sister!”
Thud.
Yu Hyun-jae released his grip without mercy, and Yu Mi-rae's head dropped limply to the floor.
Someone sucked in a breath.
It did not stop there. It bent down again and reached for his sister.
Tap, scrape.
“Jesus, stop it, ugh...!”
Unable to bear it any longer, Chae Jae-ha lunged forward, only to collapse with absurd ease.
Hwang Ju-yeon quickly backed away. Silently, as though trying to hide her existence.
Until she was suddenly sold to some customer and her presence vanished completely.
For a moment, I thought I envied her.
I remained where I was.
As always, like the cowardly bastard I was.
Unable to run away or stop it.
“Don't touch her. This is my right.”
A voice so horribly emotionless, so businesslike.
Gestures that made duty and rules meaningless.
Eyes that viewed a living being as a worthless object.
All of it bound my legs in place.
I remembered a familiar ceiling. I remembered the woman who sometimes appeared in place of that ceiling.
I could not do anything.
I should have told it not to. I should have told it to stop. I should have made it stop.
I did nothing.
How would those scenes be written?
That I could not stop it?
Or...
That I did not stop it?
“What do you see?”
At the thing's sudden voice, I returned to reality as if waking from a long dream.
Feeling my throat tighten, I examined it.
Its breathing remained calm and even. Its neat clothes were not wrinkled. Not a drop of sweat marked its clean face...
Yu Hyun-jae had done nothing. At least, nothing like...
He was merely asking while lightly nudging his only blood relative with the toe of his shoe.
“What do you see in this? Look properly.”
“...I don't want to, you crazy bastard.”
Barely gritting my teeth, I stared straight at that hateful face.
“Hm? You don't want to see it with your own eyes?”
It did not sound sarcastic. It sounded like a murmur of genuine hurt, as though he truly could not understand why.
Yu Hyun-jae turned away, covered his face with one hand, and bowed his head.
“Ugh.”
Short, restrained sounds like sobs came from beyond his turned shoulder.
“Ah, ugh.”
Was he crying? Suddenly? Only now?
Drip. Drip.
...That was impossible.
I heard tears pattering onto the floor.
Then, at last, he turned back around.
“Ah. Ah...”
Yu Hyun-jae's left cheek was stained dark red.
Blood flowed like tears from his left eye, closed tightly like his sister's.
“Here.”
A blood-soaked hand extended toward me.
Resting upon it like a gift was something white, black, and red.
A long, bright-red tail stretched from that round thing like an umbilical cord.
“Put this in, or whatever it takes. Look.”
The shout of what the hell are you talking about could not leave my mouth.
My entire body had stiffened.
His eye.
So, his eyeball.
Had he pulled it out?
His own eye?
With his own hand?
“I can't give you both. I need to see where I'm going too.”
Was he offering me his own eye because I refused to look?
Was he insane?
No.
Insane was not enough to describe this.
He had gone far beyond that.
“Hmm.”
I could not tell whether the sound was a groan of pain or a hum of thought.
“Do you need my tongue this time? Why aren't you answering?”
The question chilled me enough to make my hair stand on end.
This bastard would really do it.
He was the sort who would really rip out his own tongue.
“What... What are you? What the hell is wrong with you?!”
“The Labyrinth.”
“What?”
“The only problem for one trapped in the Labyrinth is the Labyrinth. Always. Forever.”
Yu Hyun-jae gave a faint smile.
Like mist. Impossible to see through.
“Now, look again.”
He felt like an existence far beyond my comprehension.
Like a rule of the Labyrinth that I could not dare defy.
All I could do was tense my legs to keep from collapsing pathetically in front of him.
“What do you see in this?”
Yu Hyun-jae pointed at his younger sister again as though she were an object.
I could not resist any longer.
I turned my gaze toward the body.
Slowly and carefully, unlike that deranged bereaved bastard.
Skin so white it seemed never to have known hardship.
And... dark scars covering every part of her body normally hidden beneath her clothes.
...Yu Mi-rae.
It was her.
Devastatingly so.
She really was his younger sister...
“Have you seen enough? Properly? Then tell me. What does this look like to you?”
I glared at Yu Hyun-jae without hiding my hostility.
“It looks like a victim of domestic violence being abused even after death.”
“Ha!”
Yu Hyun-jae let out a short laugh.
It was an open, refreshing laugh. A terribly horrifying one.
“I see.”
Soon, the expression vanished as though he had never laughed at all.
Perhaps his face held even less life than his younger sister's lying there.
Yu Hyun-jae knelt beside Yu Mi-rae's corpse, which he had dropped onto the floor like trash with his own hand.
“Yu Mi-rae.”
Then, like a prayer, he slowly bent at the waist and pressed his forehead to his sister's.
“It's been a long time.”
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