How to Die in the Office Labyrinth - Chapter 22

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

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◈ How to Die in the Office Labyrinth ◈

Chapter 22: Mark

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Could he remember me?

The me he'd met in a previous run?

Or, maybe.

"You look familiar."

I almost stumbled backward.

And this was despite the fact that Yu Hyun-jae's gaze held none of the arrogance you'd expect from someone in power. None at all, actually. Not a single emotion leaked through.

But those eyes radiated a strange kind of pressure.

Maybe I was just feeling guilty for no reason, on account of the debt I'd racked up with Yu Hyun-jae last run.

This was also the first time I'd faced him up close, calmly, like this.

"Ah, my apologies."

Yu Hyun-jae, who had been staring at me without so much as a twitch, blinked for the first time and offered a greeting.

He reminded me of a doll that had somehow been breathed into life and set moving.

"I thought you might be one of our employees, but I suppose not."

I exhaled quietly.

"That's right. Not yet, anyway. I came for a Uiwi Guild interview today, hoping to change that. I'm Seon Yu-han."

"Oh, is that so."

A smooth smile, like something drawn with a fine brush.

"Did it go well? I hope it did."

What an airheaded thing to say.

Interview or no interview, we were trapped in a Labyrinth and about to die. But he said it so naturally, with no sense of the absurdity, that I almost felt a groundless confidence that maybe we really could get out of here.

"U-um, hello. I'm Chae Jae-ha, I work at Hoewol Accounting Firm on the 16th floor here. It's an honor to meet you...!"

"Pleased to meet you, Chae Jae-ha-ssi. I'm sorry it had to be under these circumstances. And if you'll excuse me asking, you are...?"

"Oh! Hi. I'm Hwang Ju-yeon. I don't work here, I came for a magic show at the daycare. And, um, this child's name is Jeong Ji-ho."

"Pleased to meet you. And you too, Ji-ho-gun."

Without any hesitation, Yu Hyun-jae knelt on one knee to bring himself to eye level with the child.

"You must have been very scared. Thank you for being so brave."

I supposed that was what you'd expect from someone who'd built himself up from nothing at such a young age.

The ease with which he handled people, even in a situation where lives were on the line, was something to behold.

"Ah. So you came straight down here from the second floor... It seems the floors have gotten mixed up somehow."

We gave Yu Hyun-jae a quick rundown of our situation, and he took it in without much visible alarm.

"As it happens, I found a small emergency exit I'd never seen before and opened it, only to find stairs leading down. The fifth basement floor should be the lowest level, so I did suspect something had changed with the floors."

Being the head of a guild, he seemed to have a solid grasp of just how unpredictable a Labyrinth's properties could be.

"Even so, remarkable. That all of you made it down here without serious injury."

"We were lucky. Are you all right yourself, Director? You must have been shocked when the building suddenly turned into this."

The Hoewol Accounting Firm accountant was addressing the Uiwi Guild director as if he were his own direct superior.

He was admirably consistent. Endearing, really.

To be fair, someone of Yu Hyun-jae's standing was genuinely worth treating like a superior, even if you weren't a Jaelae Group employee.

"I appreciate the concern, but I'm really quite fine."

The director curved his mouth upward, gently.

"I'm someone who makes his living off Labyrinths. I'm not so green that getting trapped in one would send me into a panic."

This from the man whose every sound of retching had carried crystal clear through that pin-drop silence.

He was impressively composed, face smooth and innocent, as if none of that had ever happened.

"Well, now that we've all introduced ourselves, it would be good to form some kind of arrangement for safety. We'll put Ji-ho-gun in the center..."

While he briskly sorted that out, the three of us, excluding Yu Hyun-jae and the child, exchanged glances as if we'd coordinated it beforehand.

A silent agreement.

We would not bring up the retching sounds we'd heard before running into him, or the reddened eyes we'd noticed when we first met.

Whether he thought we hadn't noticed, or whether he was asking us to pretend we hadn't, we couldn't say.

But if he wanted to keep it private, digging it up would be rude.

"Out of the three of you, who'd be best suited to take the rear? Ideally someone who doesn't startle easily, the kind who can sit through a horror film without flinching."

"Ahem..."

"Ah. I'll take the rear."

"Well then, that settles it."

And so the five of us settled into a diamond formation.

Yu Hyun-jae at the front.

Chae Jae-ha, Jeong Ji-ho, and Hwang Ju-yeon.

Me at the rear.

"If we get separated, split into groups of two or three. No one goes alone. And Seon Yu-han-ssi, at the back, keep your flashlight dim."

"Director, is there something that comes toward light?"

I tried to reconstruct the appearance of the thing that had taken my heart last time.

Ears that gladly received the prayers of all living things, a mouth that preached the dharma of suchness, hands extended in the compassion of perfect enlightenment... O World-Honored One, you who come from the machine and go toward truth, you for whom coming and going are not different, truly worthy of your name, virtuous and exalted and wise and benevolent and merciful and magnanimous and generous and compassionate.

"No, Seon Yu-han-ssi."

In the murky, faint wash of light, Yu Hyun-jae looked straight at me.

His gaze was cool, but it was the kind of cool that planted your feet back on solid ground.

"It doesn't seem to have eyes."

"Then why..."

"Because we do."

That quiet, matter-of-fact voice bored straight into my ears before I could think.

My body pulled inward on its own.

I couldn't help grasping the implication of that simple, obvious sentence. That we have eyes.

Meaning those of us with eyes.

"Don't witness things. Whatever they might be, things capable of frightening you."

There are things our eyes must not see.

"And if you do happen to witness something, don't panic. And if you do panic, cover your mouth. I'm not certain, but..."

That composed, unfaltering voice paused for just a moment.

"It seems to come toward loud sounds. Screaming, for instance."

Oh. So that was why.

Come to think of it, last time, Yu Hyun-jae had kept telling me to calm down.

And I'd misread everything, turned wild-eyed, and screamed at him.

That must be why I died.

"Oh no, then..."

Chae Jae-ha, who had the child's hand gripped tight, raised his free hand to cover his mouth and whispered,

"Do we have to watch what we say too...?"

"No."

Yu Hyun-jae answered with deliberate firmness, apparently trying to reassure us.

"This level of sound, I'm certain it can't hear. As you can see."

"But, really, no offense, how exactly did you find that out...?"

Hwang Ju-yeon asked.

There was a sharpness tucked under that careful tone.

"I was just about to get to that, actually. I was originally with my driver, Kim-ssi, ah, my personal security driver, and..."

Yu Hyun-jae's eyes widened slightly and his expression grew complicated.

"Once we realized this place had undergone Labyrinthification, we each began exploring. Looking over the cars here, trying to open doors, that sort of thing."

"All of these cars?"

"Yes. If there's anything odd, it's a clue in itself."

The Jaelae Building is a tall high-rise with a large footprint.

And the underground parking garage, unlike the above-ground floors with their hollow square layout, had no gap in the middle, so the actual floor space was even larger.

Even conservatively, there were probably fifty cars parked here.

"Did you find anything?"

"Oh, nothing major, but we did find some strange skid marks. I'll get to that in a moment."

Yu Hyun-jae gave me a slight nod as if asking my indulgence and continued.

"I'm not sure what he saw, but my driver Kim suddenly cried out, and when I ran over he was agitated and rambling. And not long after that, something appeared, grotesque, like a distorted Buddha statue, and it tore out Kim-ssi's heart..."

Yu Hyun-jae's brow furrowed faintly. He glanced at Jeong Ji-ho and let the sentence trail off.

Chae Jae-ha and Hwang Ju-yeon's expressions darkened as they caught the rest.

"I should have held his hand. But I ran..."

A very quiet murmur. As if he was fighting hard to keep it level.

"Anyway, that's how I came to suspect it moves toward loud sounds. Right, so I was thinking we could look at those skid marks I mentioned, and then split into two groups to finish the search we couldn't complete."

Yu Hyun-jae wiped that dim, lingering sorrow cleanly off his face and stepped forward to lead the way.

Click, tap...

Five sets of footsteps, all different, fell into an uneven rhythm, like musicians playing out of time.

"Here."

Yu Hyun-jae stopped in front of a pillar and aimed his flashlight at the floor.

A sharp set of tire marks cut a long line across an empty parking space with no car in it.

I looked down at that dark streak without a word.

"No, you can't really get up to that kind of speed in a parking garage, not enough room to leave a mark that long, even if you wanted to..."

"Doesn't the position look a little off too?"

Hwang Ju-yeon tilted her head alongside Chae Jae-ha and pointed at the skid marks.

"The marks are too close to the pillar. If it were an actual car, the body would have caught on that pillar, so it shouldn't have been able to leave marks like that in the first place."

"Exactly. That's why I thought it was strange."

Yu Hyun-jae nodded at Hwang Ju-yeon's words.

"I was about to investigate further when the, Kim-ssi... incident happened."

"But how would you even investigate further from this..."

"The pattern."

"What?"

My muttering drew everyone's eyes to me at once.

I glanced around and opened my mouth.

"Well, tire treads aren't all the same, so I was thinking it might help to focus the search on cars with tires that match this pattern."

There wouldn't be a small number of those, sure. But it had to be better than poking around every single car at random with nothing to go on.

"That's a very good idea."

The co-director of Uiwi Guild's eyes gleamed in a way that made me uneasy.

"I heard there's a new Red Thread recruitment meeting today. Would that happen to be the interview you mentioned? Not for the agent track, but the other."

The gap between a Red Thread recruitment meeting and an interview for a Red Thread position was roughly the distance between a CEO and a job seeker.

"No. I'm here for the agent team interview, and the closest thing I know to an escape is a room escape cafe."

"Oh, that's actually a fine quality for a Red Thread."

He wasn't listening.

Was he always like this?

Subtly relentless. And this of all moments. He was oddly scatterbrained, or maybe the word was shameless.

"Well, we can talk about that later. For now, how about we just split into two and go in different directions."

Yu Hyun-jae gestured lightly, as if slicing the group in half.

Chae Jae-ha and me.

Yu Hyun-jae with Jeong Ji-ho and Hwang Ju-yeon.

"Sure, I don't really mind."

"Um, I guess I'm..."