WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
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Chapter 169: Not Funny Games
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‘No!’ A skull-splitting scream rang through the Gardener’s mind. ‘That’s wrong! That isn’t my name!’
Then what? If it wasn’t that, what was the Gardener’s name?
“Ah, ngh...”
What was my name? He crouched on the floor, clutching his head. What was my name? He scratched furiously at the back of the hand where the false name was written. What was my name?
Forgot? No. Lee Hyeon█. No. Kim Je█. No. Kim Byeong█. That isn’t my name. Forgot? I... No, I...
I am.
I looked down at the skin peeled away from the back of my hand. At my nails filled with rotten balsam dye.
I raised my head.
Dawn had broken before I knew it. Another day began, fresh as something new and rotten as something old.
Just as I was about to head to the manor for breakfast.
“Uh, whoa, what... Gardener... sir? No, Gardener?”
Bang!
The annex door flew open, and the Cook entered, dressed head to toe in black like a plague doctor.
The Cook looked at my face, then the back of my hand, then my face again.
He did not act rashly, as though he were trying to assess something.
“Yes. Have your memories returned?”
When I asked that, the man’s eyes finally softened.
“That’s a relief. You’re back. Yes, what you wrote on your hand helped.”
Kang Jun-gyeom looked perfectly fine.
Was I the only one who had such a hard time getting out?
“But just now, when I tried to call you by your name, Gardener, I felt this really intense resistance.”
“Maybe it’s because we’re originally characters with no names in this play.”
I stopped as I answered the Cook.
“...Breakfast.”
“Pardon?”
“Have you prepared breakfast for the people in the manor?”
“Ah!”
Kang Jun-gyeom’s eyes widened slightly as he sucked in a breath. Then he grinned proudly.
“Of course. I made breakfast as soon as I came to my senses. Let’s go eat together.”
Unable to put the strange feeling into words, I followed Kang Jun-gyeom in silence.
“But the ingredients were seriously awful. There’s practically no protein or fat. Even the carbs that are here are almost rotten. This setting definitely isn’t Korea. If you told Korean people to eat this kind of food and work, they’d have revolted already.”
I clenched and unclenched my fist, trying to find a way to express this feeling, then realized it was stupid and stopped.
Nobody who entered the Labyrinth of their own accord could possibly be normal...
“Good morning.”
Creak.
Kang Jun-gyeom politely greeted everyone as he entered the servants’ dining area, and I simply bowed my head.
“Good morning.”
As expected, the only person to return the greeting was the middle-aged Housekeeper.
Kang Jun-gyeom did not sit down, instead standing beside the table.
“I ate earlier. You should eat, Gardener.”
Clack.
The kitchen maid set a plate in front of me.
The Cook gestured toward the soup on the plate.
“This was about all I could manage. Still, I pan-roasted the vegetables to bring out a little more flavor.”
“Ah, yes. Thank you. I’ll dig in.”
After tasting a spoonful, it seemed a little better than Yu Mi-rae’s food from last time, so overloaded with that seasoning that I could not tell whether it was soup or porridge.
“Housekeeper.”
I set down my spoon after a few bites and looked at the Housekeeper across from me.
“What did you gain by offering up those children?”
At that moment.
All twenty or so eyes in the dining room fixed on me.
“What were they sacrifices meant to appease? A witch? A demon? A monster? A god? Nature? What were you so afraid of?”
“What difference would it make?”
The Housekeeper spoke calmly.
“It is all of those things, and none of them.”
It was an irritating riddle, but it clearly followed the same thread as my conversation with Yu Mi-rae last time.
‘Did they sacrifice children as offerings because they feared something and wanted to appease it? Whether it was nature, or something like a real demon.’
‘Could be. Or it could be an excuse.’
An excuse...
Did that mean they had used supernatural things as an excuse to cover up something they truly feared?
Like how people once blamed human beings for plague, famine, drought, and natural disasters?
My gaze suddenly fell on the plate on the table.
Soup made with terrible ingredients.
And in Hansel and Gretel, the fairy tale that seemed to be the motif for this play, the reason the brother and sister had been abandoned in the forest was...
“Ah.”
I realized what the offerings were meant to appease.
“You were hungry.”
I quietly met the Housekeeper’s eyes.
If monsters, demons, and everything else had ultimately just been excuses to appease hunger, then they must have been partaking of an offering.
“Were you happy?”
“What did you say?”
“Ah, nothing. It just slipped out. But can’t you leave the forest? Does the plague keep you from leaving too?”
If they belonged to a manor this large, they must have originally procured supplies from the village outside.
The Housekeeper fell silent, in a way that was neither agreement nor denial, then rose from her seat.
“We are paying the price.”
She looked down at me as she spoke, her expression hard and final. Her eyes were cold and resolute.
But at the same time, she looked so exhausted...
I did not stop the Housekeeper as she moved to leave with the other servants.
Thud.
“I’d prefer it if you all stayed gathered here.”
Instead, the Cook blocked their way.
“I’m planning to look around the manor now, so it would be troublesome if you interfered. The Gardener says... well, it looks like we probably won’t need to enter the forest for now.”
Kang Jun-gyeom quietly and swiftly ran out, planted himself in front of the shabby door, and politely smiled.
“Please cooperate.”
Then the six or seven servants trapped in the dining room suddenly began thrashing around like mad.
"Aaaaaaah!"
"G-get out! You get out!"
"Nngh..."
"P-please let me go!"
They screamed those revolting sounds.
“Good grief, they’re practically zombies...”
No matter how threateningly Kang Jun-gyeom tried to restrain them, they paid him no mind and charged at him.
Their reaction was more violent than I expected.
“Hm? Gardener?”
The Cook, dealing with them one by one, raised his voice.
“All these people have half their tongues cut off?”
At that, I turned my gaze to the Housekeeper.
The only person standing apart from that pack of dogs.
Far from maintaining her composure, she was clenching her teeth so hard it looked as though her jaw might shatter.
“Please... let them out.”
“That’s what we’d like to say.”
Kang Jun-gyeom laughed hollowly and pulled out a handful of cable ties from his breast pocket.
I had thought he was wearing an ordinary suit.
But something was hanging all over the inside of his jacket.
Crrk. Zip.
Each time someone’s hands and feet were bound, the Housekeeper’s tightly clenched fists trembled pitifully.
“Please... untie them. They are like this because they have things they need to do.”
“Then what things are those?”
The man’s voice became somewhat intimidating.
As though stepping in to mediate, I moved closer to the Housekeeper.
“Then you won’t interfere if we look around the manor or go up to the attic? Even if we set the manor on fire?”
“That...”
The Housekeeper hesitated briefly.
“That certainly does sound like something someone would do... However, that is not what I mean.”
The unconscious servants were reflected in her hazel eyes.
“We... each have duties assigned to us in this manor. For example, the cleaning maids must clean... Everyone has their own work. There are times we must keep as well. Just as the Cook cannot miss mealtime.”
“Ah. Rules... What happens if you don’t follow them?”
At my question, the wrinkled corners of her eyes twitched slightly.
“What do you think would happen?”
I roughly understood.
If these people failed to stay faithful to their respective roles, the minimum consequence seemed to be madness and the maximum, death.
If they just died quietly, perhaps that would count as a good death.
“...Then.”
As I paused briefly to think.
“Um... Gardener?”
Kang Jun-gyeom frowned slightly, as though he felt awkward.
“You aren’t mistaken, are you? There are only two actual humans here, you and me.”
There was not a trace of malice in his words.
“No matter how human they look, you need to make sure you can tell friend from foe.”
He was seriously worried about me, if anything.
“...Yeah. I know.”
I gave a faint smile and nodded.
“Then...”
I motioned toward the Housekeeper.
“Let’s tie this person up too.”
“Yep.”
The Labyrinth Management Bureau agent came over without question and efficiently finished the job.
...Should I keep bringing him along next time too?
Thinking that, I stepped out into the manor hallway.
“Gardener, shall we start with the attic?”
“Yes. Let’s find the children first. They’re the most important ones in this Labyrinth.”
Since the attic was likely one of the play’s settings, there was a good chance the boy and girl would be there.
Tap, tack...
We slowly climbed the central staircase.
Portraits, landscapes, still lifes, and various other framed paintings hung at intervals along the walls.
Tap, tack...
As I watched the paintings grow closer, then farther away again as we climbed, Kang Jun-gyeom’s voice made me sharply turn my head.
“Gardener.”
Kang Jun-gyeom narrowed his eyes as though warning me.
“It would be better not to stare too closely. Especially at portraits. What if you make eye contact?”
“...How am I supposed to find clues if I don’t look closely?”
“You need to focus, take one good look, then look away right away and search only in your head.”
The Labyrinth Management Bureau agent shrugged, seemingly sensing the meaning behind my gaze.
“I can do that. You get used to it with training.”
“Ah, really?”
“Yes.”
Tap, tack...
Kang Jun-gyeom steadily climbed the stairs and began talking about the paintings.
“At the very bottom, there was that portrait of a married couple with their faces torn away. The wife was pregnant, and the husband was wearing something like a uniform, so he was probably an officer. Could they be the children’s parents? But then, what happened to the parents?”
Kang Jun-gyeom spoke softly, but his gaze never stayed fixed in one place. He kept vigilantly checking the ceiling, the view beyond the windows, and behind us.
“Anyway, the fruit painting after that had only rotten apples, or apples with bite marks. And the field painting...”
Tap, tack...
At last, we reached the third floor.
To get to the attic, we had to go up through a room at the end of the third-floor hallway.
Tap, tack...
The third floor contained bedrooms for the low-ranking servants, who did not have private rooms of their own.
They could not sleep at night, and when an unfamiliar presence entered, they pretended to be asleep.
I reached for the room door at the end of the hallway, dimly shadowed.
Tap, thud, tack...
At that moment.
“Gardener.”
Kang Jun-gyeom suddenly grabbed my arm and whispered quietly.
“Unfamiliar footsteps have joined ours.”
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