WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

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◈ How to Die in the Office Labyrinth ◈

Chapter 17: Exit Music

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"Why... why won't she come out?"

The three of us were thrown into confusion.

Hwang Ju-yeon and I could come and go freely. But Kim Gil-yeong alone couldn't make it through the door. Even when we grabbed her and pulled, something made us lose our grip right at the threshold.

She had come out fine when she was dead.

"What on earth is the problem..."

My eyes landed on Kim Gil-yeong's employee badge.

"Librarian."

"Yes, sob, yes?"

"No, I was just thinking, maybe it's because she's a librarian."

"What do you mean?"

"Librarians might have their own rules. Different from ordinary visitors like us."

Just as the students of Seonghwa High, trapped inside the Labyrinthification, had to complete a graduation ceremony before they could leave. Just as the masked monsters assigned to each year group had been barred from the faculty office.

Invasive-type Labyrinths sometimes fold a person's personal details, or the nature of the existing space, into their rules.

"So Gil-yeong has her own separate condition for leaving? How are we even supposed to figure that out..."

Hwang Ju-yeon let out a heavy sigh, and Kim Gil-yeong broke into full, wrenching sobs.

"I'm sorry, hic, I'm sorry. I know this is so selfish, sob, I know, but please don't leave without me, please don't leave me here alone, hooook! I'm, I'm such a terrible person, huhhh..."

My chest clenched.

I knew that fear.

The helplessness of being the one left behind. The powerlessness of being weighed on a scale.

"I will--!"

While I just stood there gnawing on my lip, Hwang Ju-yeon quickly pulled the librarian close and soothed her.

"I'll stay here with you. Don't worry so much. I'm not leaving you. Okay? Stop crying. Seon Yu-han-ssi."

"Yes?"

The freelance magician and piano instructor waved her free hand.

"Go on ahead. That kid you know, Ji-hu? Ji-ho? Either way, you said you knew someone."

That was how Hwang Ju-yeon sent me off. Telling me to go check on the child right away. Not even saying "come back," sparing me that weight.

"Understood. Then I'll definitely--"

Her thoughtfulness hit me with a sudden rush of shame and irritation I hadn't expected. I mumbled something, dropped my head, and all but fled outside.

She had probably been that kind of person even before she read my story and learned anything about me.

I shook off the stray thoughts and ran for Uri Saennal Daycare.

That short distance from Chaekbang Ollae to the daycare felt horribly, endlessly long.

Slip.

I finally pushed open the daycare door and stepped inside.

"Oh my!"

The teacher, whose personality was as vicious as her appearance was unassuming, looked up at me with pitch-black pupils.

"Hello! What brings you in today?"

Damn it. She didn't seem to recognize me.

Could I really have skipped the daycare entirely?

That couldn't be right. It shouldn't be possible.

"Are you here about enrollment consultation, perhaps?"

"No, I'm here because--"

"Are you perhaps a guardian of one of our children?"

Guardian.

The word jolted something back into motion in my head, which had gone briefly still.

"Yes. Jeong Ji-ho. Is he here?"

Right. I had no doubt that even this loop, I had stopped by the daycare with Hwang Ju-yeon before going to the library. I must have obtained temporary guardian status for Jeong Ji-ho and put on a dance show to wear the toys out. Careful this time not to make Hwang Ju-yeon suspicious.

"I should be listed as his temporary guardian."

The goose teacher stood motionless for several seconds, saying nothing.

Like an AI given a request it couldn't parse, stalling through a long load screen.

"Hmm. There seems to be some misunderstanding?"

Finally the goose doll tilted its white neck and spoke.

"There is no child by the name of Jeong Ji-ho enrolled at Uri Saennal Daycare."

My stomach dropped. I swallowed before I could stop myself.

Say, on the smallest chance, that I had gone to the library first for some reason even I couldn't remember.

Even so, a child who had clearly attended this daycare, whose name was plastered right on his own cubby, and the monster whose entire function in this Labyrinth was to torment him, was claiming not to know him?

"Are you perhaps an employee of Uiwi Guild?"

That control-obsessed library that handed out penalties for disobeying its rules.

It hadn't just erased memories as a penalty. It seemed to have gone further, erasing the existence itself, then manipulating every related memory and circumstance until nothing was left.

"Your silence tells me that's a no."

So Jeong Ji-ho had simply vanished. As if he had never existed here at all.

If the Labyrinth resolved in this state, what would happen to him? What about his parents?

"So an outside male who isn't even a Uiwi Guild employee has walked into our daycare? Babbling about being the guardian of a child who doesn't even exist?"

It was only because of the loop, because I still carried memories from previous rounds, that any of this mattered.

If I had tried to escape the Labyrinth with his existence wiped entirely from my mind, I didn't want to think about what would have happened.

"Uri Saennal Daycare prohibits entry by outsiders."

* * *

"If it were possible to turn back time, what would you do, Seon Yu-han-ssi?"

I gave the Interview Administrator the familiar rundown of the situation and the necessary precautions, triggered the fire alarm, went down to the second floor, and met up with Hwang Ju-yeon.

From there it played out similarly to the loop where I had been disqualified as a colleague by Hwang Ju-yeon for saying "because you can play piano," but more smoothly this time.

I found Jeong Ji-ho in the daycare, suffering what they called education but was nothing but punishment. I got the goose doll's permission to check him out. Then I fumbled through a dance show to exhaust "the children" until they dropped.

That was where things became new.

At least, new as far as my current memory went.

"... The child was left alone..."

We pulled it off. The "children" drifted off to sleep one by one to the lullaby, curling up on their little arms.

"Oh my, they've all passed right out. They must have had a real blast."

The goose doll monster, ridiculous-looking as ever, spoke in a hushed voice for the first time.

It fixed those two black-bean eyes straight on me and slowly bent its white neck.

"Thank you for playing so nicely with our babies. Have a safe trip, guardians. You too, Ji-ho."

"Mm."

I was holding Ji-ho, who had worn himself out and fallen asleep in my arms, and gave something between a reply and not a reply before slipping out.

Slip.

Uri Saennal Daycare's entrance opened smoothly, as if it had never been locked.

"Ohhh... ugh, my hands are numb. I was more nervous than at an actual competition, honestly."

The moment the door closed, Hwang Ju-yeon practically collapsed against the wall, shaking out both hands and kneading them.

"Seon Yu-han-ssi, at least sit down and rest. Are you okay? You look absolutely drained."

"No. Let's get downstairs quickly."

I patted the back of the child sleeping with my shoulder as his pillow, gentle taps.

"Rescuing Ji-ho might have been the condition for getting down to the first floor."

"Oh, that could be it. Let's hurry."

To get straight to the point, we tried going down those stairs, heaven's staircase or hell's staircase or whatever they were, with the child strapped to my back, and nothing changed.

Our arms and legs just shook worse than before.

And there was no way to wake the kid up in the middle of it, purring away in sleep like that.

Given the nature of this wretched staircase, stopping partway would mean falling.

I had no idea how parents managed to carry children around like this.

"Oh, right! What about the librarian, come to think of it, surely she's not still trapped in the library..."

"Ah, Hwang Ju-yeon-ssi, in that case I could--"

Oh, damn it.

I had been about to say I would go check the library alone when I caught my own mistake.

I should have confirmed last loop whether finishing the reading circle was the condition for getting to the first floor.

I had rushed straight to the daycare without thinking it through.

There was no way to tell Hwang Ju-yeon to wait outside with Jeong Ji-ho.

The condition for going down might only apply to those who had completed the reading circle.

"Ah, no, then let's all go in together. There might be a clue about the condition for getting downstairs, so let's check on that at the same time."

Current time: 3:54 PM.

The three of us pushed open the door to Chaekbang Ollae.

* * *

"It is time for the reading circle."

Once again, that voice came, the library's announcement or narration or whatever it was.

The time was exactly 4:00 PM.

Last time it had started at 3:50.

"No additional participants will be accepted once the reading circle has begun."

Did it check participants every ten minutes before beginning?

The explanation of the reading circle ended, and a single pure white book dropped into each of our four hands.

"Reading circle participants will each read their own book."

"So we just, read them... is that right?"

"Yes. Let's read. Oh."

A thought struck me and I looked over at the child to my right.

How old was he exactly?

Could he read a book this thick?

"Ji-ho, can you read Korean?"

The child nodded with an anxious expression.

Good.

He could manage it, more or less.

There would probably be words he didn't know yet, so understanding everything might be hard. But adults didn't necessarily understand every line they read either.

"Then take your time, and if there's anything you don't understand, just ask me or the teachers here."

I noticed the tight press of his lips and added something.

"You don't have to use words. Okay?"

Only then did the child nod again.

[Kim Gil-yeong was born on September 16th at 7:32 in the evening.]

When I opened the book, everyone except me looked at each other in confusion.

"Wait, this book..."

Kim Gil-yeong had Hwang Ju-yeon's book, Hwang Ju-yeon had Jeong Ji-ho's, Jeong Ji-ho had mine, and I had Kim Gil-yeong's.

["History-making children of Munrim Elementary--!"

The days of standing in front of the podium listening to the principal's tedious speeches and singing the school song.]

Even though I had read it through once before, I was careful not to skim.

["Did you go to Sanglim Elementary?"

At the end of middle school orientation, Kim Gil-yeong had sat quietly, too shy to push her way into the noisy crowd of classmates, when someone came bouncing over and spoke to her with easy cheerfulness. Hong Dong-hee. Kim Gil-yeong glanced over to check the nameplate.

"Looks like we're the only two from our elementary school in this class. Let's eat lunch together later!"

Tan skin, a mouth that opened wide enough to show her uvula when she laughed, a bouncing quality to every step she took. Hong Dong-hee became Kim Gil-yeong's favorite friend.]

Hmm?

Something...

"Reading circle participants will each read their own book."

I looked over at the quiet child to my right.

Sure enough, a book packed wall to wall with text and not a single illustration, and he was struggling to focus. His eyes were on the page but he had clearly drifted somewhere far away.

Good seat choice...

"Ji-ho, even if it's hard to read, you have to read. Slow is fine."

I said it while shoving away a thought that kept crawling through my head like an insect.

I really was a terrible adult.

"Hm? Is there something you don't understand?"

The child looked up and immediately pointed to a passage in my book, as if he had been waiting for the chance.

"Oh, this part?"

"Reading circle participants will each read their own book."

The moment I started reading from the book with me as its subject, the voice came, sharp as a warning.

"So I can only read my own book..."

I kept my expression carefully neutral.

"Anyway, this word here is like a guardian, sort of, like a mom or a dad. If there's no mom or dad, a nearby relative or another adult steps in to fill that role. That's what you call that kind of person."

I had no idea what level of explanation was right for a preschooler.

And the story itself didn't seem like something meant for a child that age in the first place.

"Keep asking whenever you hit a word you don't know. And, um, it looks like glancing at someone else's book briefly is tolerated."

The child nodded, but his expression grew a shade darker.

I turned back to the book.

[Kim Gil-yeong won a prize at the school book report contest.

"After reading this book, I thought that dreams aren't something you can only dream at night.

(... excerpt omitted ...)

So after reading this book, every night I started opening the wardrobe door just a little."

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland became Kim Gil-yeong's favorite book.]

That had been one of the spoilers from the last reading circle.

Strange even now reading it again, I thought, and kept going.

[Kim Gil-yeong stared blankly out the window. Pure white snow was scattering like flower petals. As if celebrating a birthday.]

...Wait.

Rustle, rustle.

I carefully flipped forward. Came back. Turned back again.

["What is the name of your closest friend from elementary school?"

Kim Gil-yeong recalled the memory as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. A friend with dimples that appeared only occasionally when she smiled, a face so pale it looked like it had never once seen sunlight. Hong Dong-hee. Kim Gil-yeong had no trouble writing in the answer.]

Rustle.

Forward. Forward. Then back again.

[Kim Gil-yeong stopped in front of the empty shelf and slid the C. S. Lewis novel into place. Quietly pulling out and reading a book that had once been her childhood favorite, but that no one among the in-building library's patrons had any use for anymore, that was a librarian's privilege.]

Forward. Back again.

"......"

Cold sweat prickled along my brow. The fingertips holding the pages trembled, small and uncontrolled.

I pretended to scratch the back of my hand to force the shaking still, and moved my eyes.

My palms were damp. My mouth was going dry.

I couldn't let it show.

...That I had figured it out.

Footnotes:

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