How to Die in the Office Labyrinth - Chapter 29

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

◈ How to Die in the Office Labyrinth ◈

Chapter 29: Welcome to the Land of Happiness

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【Invitations will be sent to your friends shortly! They say happiness only grows when shared, doesn't it? Even more happiness is on its way to you, binary, for spreading the joy!】

"Oh, for the love of..."

"He... he just did something weird to us just now, right? That bald little..."

"It said Happyland just now, didn't it...?"

The bald man, one step away from getting grabbed by the collar instead of the hair, scrawled another quick note and held it up.

[there was no other choice please understand]

His face had gone chalk-white, like he wasn't feeling well, and there wasn't a trace of remorse on it.

More than that, there wasn't really any expression at all.

"Wow, just... wow."

Chae Jae-ha grabbed the back of his own neck.

"Got some nerve, this guy."

[anyway ill fill you in on everything i can oh my name is lee jin-su]

Hard to tell if that was just his personality, or if the Labyrinth had done something to him.

[hold on this thing has a time limit]

Lee Jin-su set his phone down and looked back at the game screen, the popup now gone.

【A vendor in a raccoon mask is selling ice cream. It looks delicious. You cannot resist your hunger.】

【▶ Eat】

【▶ Resist】

Click.

【Eat!】

The moment Lee Jin-su clicked "Eat" --

CRUNCH! SPLAT! CRACK!

-- a spray of red splattered across the entire screen to the sound of something that absolutely could not have been someone eating ice cream, then vanished just as fast.

The pixel-art raccoon-masked vendor was gone too.

【Sweet and savory never fails, does it! You licked the ice cream from the corner of your mouth with satisfaction. You don't think you'll be hungry for a while.】

Lee Jin-su watched that repulsive screen without a word, then opened his notepad again.

[if you go over the time limit it just auto-selects for you and you still get the penalty so you have to pick within the time no exceptions]

"What exactly is the penalty?"

[like this]

Lee Jin-su opened his mouth wide.

His tongue really was gone, just the root barely left behind.

"Oh..."

"Oh god..."

Even Chae Jae-ha, who had been glaring at Lee Jin-su until a moment ago, deflated.

[but it doesnt hurt and sometimes it just takes something like hair so dont freak out too much what body part and how much also seems totally random]

Just then.

Pop --

Da-ra-ran, da-dan, da-dan...

His phone lit up and circus music started playing.

A bright, lively rhythm over a retro organ. The kind of melody that made you picture an amusement park parade.

"What is this."

"Don't tell me that's the invitation from before..."

The same thing happened on everyone else's phones.

Rattle.

Then a desk drawer with no owner slid open on its own, and a portable game console flew out and landed in front of Jeong Ji-ho.

[guess theres a mobile and console version too probably cause there arent enough computers for everyone]

No computer, use a phone. No phone, use someone else's console.

What a fair and considerate Labyrinth this was.

We all looked at the title on our screens.

【Lost In HAPPYLAND】

【ENTER】

Happyland.

An abandoned theme park that had become an invasive-type Labyrinth eight years ago.

The place had already been shut down long before Labyrinthification, and its particular atmosphere had made it a popular filming location. Then one day, during a music video shoot for some idol group, it happened.

The Happyland Labyrinth ended the same way, too. Total elimination of all personnel inside.

Like Seonghwa High School from the film in the main auditorium, or Youngun Mountain from the radio story in the parking garage.

"We can't... not do this, right?"

Hwang Ju-yeon made a weak attempt at wishful thinking, already wearing the face of someone who didn't believe it could be avoided.

"We should pull some chairs together first. Would you mind if we borrowed a few, Lee Jin-su-ssi."

Lee Jin-su gave an easy nod at Yu Hyun-jae's question.

[take whatever you need not like their owners are here anyway]

Creak, rattle.

The wheeled chairs scooted over and clustered around Lee Jin-su.

When someone pressed ENTER under the game title, a new screen appeared.

【Enter your name】

【＿＿＿＿】

"Does it cause any problems if you don't use your real name?"

The popup earlier had shown Lee Jin-su using "binary" instead of his real name.

In a way, maybe that was his real name.

[every now and then it asks if you remember your own name and gives you options to pick from like a quiz but real name or not doesnt seem to matter feels like just a player id]

"Then I'll... use my name."

After a short pause, I typed it in.

【Seon Yu-han】

【ENTER】

I stared at those characters and felt faintly stupid about it, then shook my head and hit enter.

It wasn't like the Labyrinth was an idiot.

There was no way writing down a different name would stop it from recognizing who I was.

Even if I'd written Hong Gil-dong, it wouldn't kill Hong Gil-dong instead of me.

【...Waiting to enter Happyland...】

"Ugh, I'll just put my last name. Oh no. I don't know anything about games..."

Hwang Ju-yeon, who had typed "Hwang," buried her face in her hands and groaned.

"I've never really had a knack for these electronic games either."

This Labyrinth, seriously... Yu Hyun-jae muttered that in a low, sunken voice, fidgeted with the ring on his little finger, then typed "Hyeonje."

"Sigh, I'll do initials then. Oh, Ji-ho, what do you want to do. Want your uncle to help?"

When Jeong Ji-ho nodded without a word, Chae Jae-ha worked the buttons smoothly, asking things like "What about this one? Or this?" as he went.

That was how "Jo" ended up entered on Jeong Ji-ho's console.

"But this thing's still loading and won't move to the next screen?"

"Ah."

Chae Jae-ha asked the question, Lee Jin-su made a sound and opened his notepad.

[seems like only 1 person can play at a time]

"What does that mean."

[weird way to put it since its an offline game but only 1 person can be connected the reason you cant get in is because im playing right now my game only started after my coworker quit too]

"What?"

[so basically i think the system is that the next person only gets in once i die or quit]

"What, are you serious, you could have said that sooner!"

"Do you think it might go in the order we entered our names...?"

If it was first-come, first-served, I was probably next in line.

Then Hwang Ju-yeon, Yu Hyun-jae, Chae Jae-ha, and Jeong Ji-ho after that.

"Can you actually quit, though?"

[if you retire in-game? or die? anyway a continue and exit choice comes up my coworker pressed exit and it became my turn]

"You said your coworker died."

Was that an exit from the game, or an exit from the living world?

"Ah."

Lee Jin-su blinked blankly, then tapped his phone again.

[that was because i killed them]

"What?"

"Wh, what?"

"You killed someone? A person?"

Chae Jae-ha scrambled to his feet in horror. Hwang Ju-yeon grabbed the pen off the nearest desk. Yu Hyun-jae quietly shifted Jeong Ji-ho behind him.

Lee Jin-su kept going with the same blank expression.

[they were almost dead anyway but the point is they didnt die from pressing exit so dont worry]

The fact that he wasn't bothering to defend himself properly somehow made it more credible.

[pressing continue just means you keep playing the game you just take a penalty for it]

"So, the penalty. Losing a random body part with no pain. That's right, isn't it."

Lee Jin-su nodded.

[completely random luck sometimes it just clips a fingernail but if youre unlucky youre losing a lung or something]

If you didn't pick a choice within the time limit, you got a penalty. And if you died in-game and wanted to keep playing, you got a penalty for that too.

Depending on which body part the penalty took, you could die on the spot.

[so if you dont want to lose anything just press exit]

Then it would pass to the next person.

Keep passing it down, and eventually it would reach the last in line. Jeong Ji-ho.

What kind of loyalty test was this supposed to be.

"So why weren't you quitting, Lee Jin-su-ssi? Because there was no one to pass it to back then?"

[thats part of it]

Bloodshot eyes looked straight at me and curved into something like a smile.

[also because its fun]

Maybe what Lee Jin-su had lost in this game wasn't just a tongue and some hair.

Something seemed to have gone wrong in the brain department.

Though there was a non-zero chance he'd always been like this before the game.

"Wow, he's actually out of his mind..."

Chae Jae-ha, visibly horrified, slid his chair slowly toward mine.

"Seon Yu-han-ssi, back at the elevator you were grabbing me and saying all this crazy stuff and I kept telling you that you were insane. In the parking garage too, going on about things... I really want to apologize for that. Seon Yu-han-ssi, you're completely normal."

Freshly certified as a functioning member of society, I turned my gaze to Lee Jin-su's monitor.

【Oh look, there's the "Bang Bang Car"! Hop in a cute bumper car and zoom around, bang bang! Be happy!】

【▶ Be happy】

【▶ Be unhappy】

Lee Jin-su pointed at "Be happy." Completely unbothered by whoever was staring.

[for rides just pick this one basically always it moves in-game time faster and if you dont ride them you get some ominous script]

So he'd tried "Be unhappy" too.

"What's the goal of this game? What do you have to do to clear it?"

[based on the opening script it seems like the goal is to last until closing time thats the most natural ending the way the flow goes anyway]

"How long is the game, roughly?"

[hmm it doesnt seem like a huge volume i mean assuming you dont drag out the time limit and pick choices quickly like best case shortest route maybe 20 minutes? assuming optimal play]

Meaning the actual playtime could end up several times longer, or you could die before it even got that far.

[that said the difficulty isnt completely brutal for what it is]

"No, where on earth is it..."

Chae Jae-ha, apparently unable to even address Lee Jin-su directly, started to snap then backed down.

[because the player is in the guest role if you were on the cast side the balance would be so broken no one could clear it]

"What... why is that... Seon Yu-han-ssi, what does that mean...?"

Chae Jae-ha clearly had zero interest in Labyrinths.

Must be nice.

Hwang Ju-yeon seemed to roughly get it.

The Uiwi Guild representative who had been quietly keeping his mouth shut this whole time obviously understood.

And it was natural for Jeong Ji-ho not to know, since the Happyland Labyrinth had happened before he was even born.

"Let me explain some background first, for everyone's sake."

For their safety, at least the basics had to be covered.

"The people who were trapped in Happyland were... they were in the middle of shooting a music video for some idol group --"

"-- Oh, I remember that. People gathered to mourn them and everything. They were unknown before and only blew up after dying... that always felt a little..."

I'll be honest, it made me sick.

People who had no interest in them, then the moment word got out that they'd died in some tragedy, swarming in to dig up every last trace of the deceased and forcing themselves to love them.

People who enjoyed grief like a game.

Eight years passed like that, and the idol was slowly forgotten, and the staff who had been mourned as an afterthought had long since lost even their names.

"Anyway, when the bodies were recovered, they were all wearing Happyland staff uniforms. Cast uniforms, I mean. Different ones."

Cast uniforms varied depending on the attraction or role.

"Based on the condition of the bodies, the working theory was that rather than being treated as employees, they had been treated as the attractions themselves."

And that theory was probably right, if this game was based on the real incident.

"Oh, wait. You said the player is in the guest role in-game. So that means we're..."

"Yes."

Bang! CRACK! Bang! SPLAT!

【You pulled off a perfect drift even on a soaking wet track.】

I glanced at Lee Jin-su's monitor with its unpleasant sound effects and text, then continued.

"We're the ones killing people."

"Ha... figured. That's why the game is like that?"

Chae Jae-ha looked at the Neosoft employee who was enjoying a game like this, clearly done with him.

Just then.

Bang! CRUNCH!

"Aigo."