WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 166: A Devoted Brother and Sister
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“Do you really understand? Just from that...?”
I asked, forcing myself to ignore the chilling sensation creeping up the back of my neck.
“That’s a password I came up with.”
A gleam passed through Yu Mi-rae’s dark eyes.
“A password I decided to say if I ever met a time reverser.”
What exactly was wrong with these conspiracy theorists...?
I barely stopped myself from shaking my head and looked at Yu Mi-rae.
“So it’s a password I only planned to tell a time reverser. If someone says it to me, I’ll immediately know they’re a time reverser.”
For something like that, I had only heard that password for the first time last time.
In Bleep-Bleep’s, no, the Jailer’s maze prison, Yu Mi-rae had asked if I was reversing time when I carried out the note’s instructions without hesitation.
And I had answered honestly.
Every time, across all twenty loops.
Yet Yu Mi-rae had never once given me a password like that.
“...You only told me that password once. Even though I told you I was reversing time quite a few times.”
The other Uiwi Guild co-representative conspiracy theorist shrugged.
“There must’ve been something then that made me want to make sure a time reverser existed. Right?”
...There had been.
‘Yu Hyun-jae. It’s been a long time...’
It seemed this one, too, had been affected by Yu Hyun-jae’s death.
Still, not enough to kill me and start over.
There probably was another reason, though...
“So, what were you planning to do after identifying a time reverser with that password?”
I had to ask.
It would be a problem if Yu Mi-rae interfered with my escape like Yu Hyun-jae.
“First, I’ll listen to you.”
The conspiracy theorist answered firmly, then added, “Ah.”
“Not very well. Just a little.”
They really did only do whatever they wanted...
“Oh, really.”
“Yeah. And...”
Yu Mi-rae, who had been staring right at me, smiled faintly. Like a mischievous younger sibling, as always.
“I’ll make sure you can’t go back again.”
“...What?”
For a moment, it felt as if I had been struck in the back of the head with a hammer. I could only open and close my mouth, clenching and unclenching my fists.
I nearly grabbed Yu Mi-rae by the collar.
“Do you know...? The way to end this... loop?”
When I finally gathered the words in my mouth and forced them out, Yu Mi-rae answered as casually as ever.
“You just have to solve the Labyrinth.”
“Ah...”
All my strength suddenly left me, and I closed my mouth.
Yu Mi-rae stared at me blankly, as though wondering what else needed explaining.
Silence settled over the Legal Affairs Office.
Kim Hee-sook and Yun Geon-min had been busily turning their heads like meerkats while we talked. Now they just stood there with their mouths open, looking like they had no idea how to speak.
Then Hyeon Je-won hesitantly raised a hand.
“Um, Seon Yu-han, what Representative Mi-rae means is...”
Hyeon Je-won kept glancing at me to see if it was all right to continue, head slightly lowered. I simply nodded.
The moment permission, or something like permission, was granted, the researcher who loved Labyrinths and artifacts poured out the explanation.
“The phenomenon of time flowing nonlinearly is itself a Labyrinth anomaly that cannot occur outside a Labyrinth. So if we solve the Labyrinth, the time reversal itself could stop...!”
But if my guess was right, this time loop...
It began four minutes before Jaelae Building’s Labyrinthification.
“And since every anomaly naturally occurs under the Labyrinth’s rules, if we understand those rules, we should be able to escape the phenomenon...!”
Was the condition for ending this time loop escaping Jaelae Building within those four minutes?
Or...
Escaping Jaelae Building after it had become a Labyrinth?
“So, we just need to solve the Labyrinth...!”
“...Yes. I think so too.”
I smiled faintly and agreed with Hyeon Je-won.
“But... Representative, did you not particularly intend to solve the Labyrinth until now?”
“I didn’t think I needed to do it myself.”
Looking at that calm face, a thought suddenly occurred to me.
Could Yu Mi-rae have decided to solve this Labyrinth because they wanted to make certain Yu Hyun-jae died?
So that a time reverser could not bring him back to life. Forever.
I forced down the corners of my mouth before they could rise.
“Ah...”
If that was it, I could understand.
“Yes, all right.”
Right. As long as they were not trying to kill me, I did not care what it was.
“Then I’ll be back soon. I’ll return by the time Yun Geon-min’s fifty-eight-minute sentence ends. That’s right, isn’t it?”
“No, uh... yes...”
Yun Geon-min flinched as if pricked by a needle, his voice trailing off.
Ever since Yu Mi-rae had told him, “You’re the one leaving our company this time,” he had been visibly deflated.
“Um, but you’re really going alone...?”
“Yes. Well... if you really want, you can come with me.”
“Ah, uh, no, it’s not that...”
Kim Hee-sook shook her head, looking somewhat uneasy.
I had expected that.
“Yes. Then please get some rest.”
After a brief farewell, I left the Legal Affairs Office.
“Ha.”
Honestly, I had to admire it.
I looked down at the pool of blood in the middle of Neosoft.
This guy was really dead again this time.
Last time, the front half of his head had been gone.
This time, his entire lower body had been blown away.
Come to think of it, at the very beginning, had all his bones been gone?
What exactly was wrong with Yu Hyun-jae...?
There were so many problems that I could not even begin to guess.
“...”
I lifted Yu Hyun-jae, now only an upper body and consequently much lighter, as if cradling him.
I did not know whether it would mean anything, but that kid might come all the way down here.
I did not want to show them your dead body...
Swish.
Still holding half of Yu Hyun-jae, I entered the cafeteria across the hall.
Even Yu Mi-rae probably would not go as far as opening the cafeteria freezer.
Click.
The moment I opened the freezer door, cold air hit me.
Without his lower body, I did not need to fold him up to fit him inside.
Thud.
As I tucked in his left arm, which dangled limply to the side, my eyes fell on the ring.
‘It’s like a trophy. To cover the scar, too. It also means a promise.’
A trophy...
I took hold of Yu Hyun-jae’s little finger and looked down at it quietly.
What kind of war had those siblings fought that both of them had lost fingers?
‘If you want to pay back your debt, a single finger will do.’
‘Rings are just too uncomfortable.’
...Wait.
‘Manager Kim Si-hyeok belongs only to my younger sibling, and Driver Kim Si-yeong belongs only to me. For a very long time.’
Could it be...?
No. Forget it.
I shut the freezer door at once and stood up.
It felt like a realm I no longer needed to know about.
I did not need to learn any more about how insane those siblings were.
I already knew far too well.
[Three Family Members Found Dead at Detached House in ▓▓ District... ‘Robbery-Murder Followed by Arson Suspected’
|20▓▓.▓▓.▓▓. 08:49 Saved
|Published 1 minute ago]
Whenever I came to Singyae Daily alone, it was better to “publish” this article rather than “edit” it.
I thought this was the easiest and fastest way through this floor.
“...”
I did not want to hesitate and end up surviving alone again.
And I did not want to leave my younger sibling to die alone.
Tap, clatter.
6. 4. 4.
“Seon Yu-han, would you like to make a preemptive claim?”
“...No.”
I suppressed the urge to make a preemptive claim on 446.
I only needed to make a preemptive claim on my own card.
There was no need to do something like that now...
For now, I wanted to find the fastest route to the electrical room while excluding luck with the dice and other people’s help as much as possible.
I was worried whether I could regain my senses without Yu Mi-rae if I became immersed in the character from that play again, as I had last time.
But even if I failed, there would be another chance.
“Would you like to call someone?”
“Yeah. All Dharma.”
“All Dharma has accepted Seon · Yu · han’s request.”
“...It did?”
I looked at All Dharma’s customer card as it was moved aside.
|All Dharma|
|Preference: “⏺ || ⏭”|
All Dharma, the customer who wanted “present or future.”
It had never accepted my request to get out of this market.
Had it lost interest because Yu Hyun-jae was already dead?
Yu Mi-rae was still alive, though.
Swish.
I hurriedly checked the hamster cards.
|#446|
|Status|Hunger: 0|Prettiness: 10|Obedience: 0|
|Traits: 446 has pure white fur. It likes to play.|
Yu Mi-rae’s card was still there.
That meant they had not left the Legal Affairs Office without listening to me and gotten killed.
Then why had All Dharma left?
Had it given up on both of them because one had died when it wanted them both?
I did not know either...
“Goodbye, customer.”
Anyway, it was enough that I had made a preemptive claim on my own card.
...It did not feel like enough at all.
“I’m going too.”
When I returned to the Legal Affairs Office, Yu Mi-rae declared that they were going upstairs with me.
“Didn’t you say you would listen to me...?”
“I said not very well!”
Right. They had...
I swallowed a sigh and spoke.
“I truly do not know what will happen if we go upstairs...”
“Then isn’t that even better?”
“Yes... you’re right... Do whatever you want...”
Giving up was easier.
“Right! Je-won, you should come too!”
“Yes...!”
“Kim Hee-sook and Yun Geon-min too!”
The sparks from that lightning bolt reached the two pitiful ordinary people as well.
“Uh, yes...?”
“No, I...”
“Then don’t.”
And so Yu Mi-rae, Hyeon Je-won, and I entered the Sales and Marketing Division on the ninth floor...
“Ha...”
By the time I immediately returned myself and came back to the white room, both of them were already dead.
“I told you, I don’t know either...”
There was a white skeleton that seemed to have been Hyeon Je-won, as though someone had stripped away all its flesh.
And there was something that seemed to have been Yu Mi-rae, like a huge, wrinkled, rotten seed.
Among the customers remaining in the market, the ones matching those forms would be...
|The Cook|
|Preference: “I’m not that picky. The child only needs to be healthy. I’ll take care of the rest.”|
|Lord of the Five Precepts|
|Preference: “I want a simple child. They will be used as a primordial seed, so it would be better if they were pretty...”|
It might have been those two.
As I organized my thoughts, I went up to the seventeenth floor, where the audit and meeting were taking place at the same time.
【What is an ideal world?】
“A world without problems.”
【Come this way.】
“I don’t think I can.”
The man named Kang Jun-gyeom looked between the mirrors and me, then answered seriously.
I nodded appropriately and watched with interest.
【There are no problems here.】
“It looks like there are.”
He was good at making use of what he had learned.
I had already been freed from the mirror cords.
Because I had entered midway through, the question about an ideal world had come to me first.
So that man was now following the exact process I had just used to escape the mirrors’ conversation.
Simply copying the same answers would not be enough. He would have to truly mean them.
But he had done well.
【No luck today.】
【How are both of them like this?】
【Get the hell out already!】
In the end, Kang Jun-gyeom was safely freed from the mirror cords too.
“Ah, you saved me. Thank you.”
The moment we entered the hallway, Kang Jun-gyeom pushed his slightly slipped rimless glasses back into place and greeted me politely.
“Earlier, you said your name was Seon Yu-han, right? I’m Kang Jun-gyeom. I didn’t think you caught my surname.”
I had thought he looked like a soldier.
But seeing his easy grin, it seemed the hamster card’s description of a cheerful personality was accurate.
“Ah, yes. That’s right, Seon Yu-han. I came here for an interview today, and then suddenly this happened...”
I smiled as if slightly troubled.
“Anyway, I came up from downstairs. What about you, Kang Jun-gyeom?”
When I trailed off, prompting him to introduce himself, Kang Jun-gyeom’s eyes widened slightly. He gestured toward the entrance to the Audit Office.
“Ah. From downstairs? I work here on the Audit Team, but since I couldn’t get downstairs, I tried going into a meeting room and...”
A lie.
Footnotes:
“Present” and “future” echo the Korean meanings of Hyun-jae and Mi-rae, respectively.
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