WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ How to Die in the Office Labyrinth ◈

Chapter 43: Dead Moments

──────

So it's not the type that kills people directly.

I moved around, checking from different angles, trying to figure out what the mannequin really was.

It did nothing except mirror me.

Every move I made, it followed one beat behind.

Anyway.

Why had these two been made to kill themselves like this?

Something in the Labyrinth had clearly broken their minds.

A necktie or hand sanitizer -- neither is the kind of thing you'd think of first as your last meal.

I looked over the two bodies again, lying apart from each other.

On the off chance they'd left something on their phones. A final message, maybe.

[Cipher input]

"Hmm."

I'd even wiped their faces and opened their eyes.

No luck, apparently.

Nothing in the Moment O'Clock office stood out to me. At least not for now.

The supply closet the mannequin had come out of was the same -- nothing.

I stepped back out into the corridor.

The door hadn't locked behind me, fortunately.

Which meant, at minimum, nothing was going to happen inside Moment O'Clock right now.

If there had been something dangerous in there, the door would have trapped me.

I crossed the corridor to the office on the opposite side.

The mannequin was still following me, one beat late, as always.

[Singyae Daily | Singyae Daily]

Bold, heavy typeface for the company name.

I thought it made an interesting contrast with Moment O'Clock across the hall, and pushed the door open.

"Oh."

This was new.

The wide office was completely empty.

Except for one desk.

A low partition, a laptop, a desk, a chair.

In the middle of a dark, powerless office, only the laptop screen gave off any light.

Desolate didn't begin to cover it.

I walked over slowly and had a look at the laptop.

The copycat mannequin beside me settled into an invisible chair and stared at nothing.

[▓▓ Daily] [●]

The characters before "Daily" were corrupted.

The profile icon in the top right corner was blacked out.

The overall layout looked like the Labyrinth's imitation of an internal staff portal for a news organization.

[Published]

[Draft]

[Failed]

I clicked "Published" first.

Nothing there.

When I clicked "Draft," a long list of articles appeared.

I started reading from the top.

[World War III on the Horizon? Anxiety Spreads Among Citizens...
|20▓▓.▓▓.▓▓. 19:57 saved]

Never mind the world -- my own life was the anxious part.

[Worker Falls with Scaffolding at ▓▓-dong Construction Site, 2 Pedestrians Crushed and Killed
|20▓▓.▓▓.▓▓. 17:10 saved]

When was this from?

The date was corrupted, so I couldn't tell.

Accidents like this had been happening consistently, before and after the Labyrinths...

A memory surfaced briefly and I paused, then moved on to the next article.

[Saenggang Nuclear Plant in Gangwon: Cooling System Malfunction and Hydrogen Explosion... Mass Evacuation Order Issued
|20▓▓.▓▓.▓▓. 09:56 saved]

Hmm?

As far as I knew, no domestic nuclear plant had ever exploded.

I moved on.

[Smoking in the Kitchen... Bang! 'LPG gas blast' -- Owner Dies, 2 Customers Seriously Injured
|20▓▓.▓▓.▓▓. 15:21 saved]

Did places like that still exist?

Still, this one was fairly ordinary.

[Military Reports 'Detection of North Korean Missile Launch'... Government Issues Air Raid Alert, Emergency Response Meeting Convened
|20▓▓.▓▓.▓▓. 07:09 saved]

This one, well.

Since the post-Labyrinth era arrived, direct military provocations had actually decreased and relations were slowly stabilizing -- but it wasn't like nothing like this had ever happened before.

[3-Member Family Found Dead in ▓▓-gu Detached Home... 'Suspected Robbery, Murder, and Arson'
|20▓▓.▓▓.▓▓. 08:49 saved]

That one seemed plausible enough.

[Presidential Office Holds Briefing on 'Russian Attack on Japanese Nuclear Facility'
|20▓▓.▓▓.▓▓. 12:39 saved]

...That was strange, though.

When had Russia attacked a Japanese nuclear facility?

[All Students and Staff of ▓▓ Middle School Found Dead in Mass Incident, Police Launch Large-Scale Investigation
|20▓▓.▓▓.▓▓. 16:22 saved]

That might be believable for Seonghwa High after Labyrinthification, but there had never been a case of an entire middle school's students and faculty dying.

"Ha."

These articles. The incidents they described.

None of them had actually happened.

Unless.

Were they incidents that would happen?

Events that might occur at some point in the future?

I quickly scanned the rest of the draft titles, then checked "Failed" as well.

[Unidentified Toxic Gas Enters Morning Subway Commute... 'Mass Suffocation Disaster'
|20▓▓.▓▓.▓▓. 15:01 saved
|Failed 2 hours ago]

[Drunk Driver Hits Power Pole, Knocks It Down... 2 Students Electrocuted, 'Drunk Driving Penalties Must Be Toughened'
|20▓▓.▓▓.▓▓. 20:45 saved
|Failed 1 hour ago]

Only two articles.

That seemed connected to the fact that there were two bodies.

The way they'd been marked "Failed," too.

Both of them had died in ways that roughly mirrored their failed articles.

The man had choked to death -- not from gas, but from swallowing his own necktie.

The woman had drunk something with an alcoholic smell: hand sanitizer.

[Published]

[Draft]

[Failed]

So what I had to do was take a draft article and get it to "Published."

If it failed, I'd be made to kill myself in whatever horrible fashion matched the headline.

I had no idea how to actually "publish" one.

It wouldn't be as simple as typing at the keyboard and editing the text.

Given that every headline described some disaster or tragedy, I probably needed to resolve them -- turn them into something that ended well.

In that case, there were two criteria for picking which article to go with.

One: which incident looked the most manageable.

Two: which incident, if it failed, would result in the least painful way to die.

World, nationwide, all citizens, mass casualties, government, Presidential Office...

Any article with a scope that wide had to go.

By those criteria, the article I chose was:

[3-Member Family Found Dead in ▓▓-gu Detached Home... 'Suspected Robbery, Murder, and Arson']

This one.

A robbery-murder would probably mean heavy blood loss or something close to instant death.

And even if it was suffocation from the fire, you'd lose consciousness fast enough.

[Worker Falls with Scaffolding at ▓▓-dong Construction Site, 2 Pedestrians Crushed and Killed]

[Smoking in the Kitchen... Bang! 'LPG gas blast' -- Owner Dies, 2 Customers Seriously Injured]

I'd considered these two as well, but ruled them out. I was limited to whatever was available on this floor.

How would I manage to get crushed under something heavy on my own up here, or set off a gas explosion?

If publication failed, the easiest and fastest option would just be finding a blade and stabbing somewhere vital, or setting that supply closet on fire.

[3-Member Family Found Dead in ▓▓-gu Detached Home... 'Suspected Robbery, Murder, and Arson'
|20▓▓.▓▓.▓▓. 08:49 saved]

Clicking on the article brought up a preview page with the full text.

[(Photo)

▴On ▓▓, a fire broke out at a detached home in ▓▓-gu, Seoul, and three family members were found dead with signs of physical trauma. Police are conducting a forensic examination of the scene.

Three members of a family were found dead in the early morning hours at a detached home in ▓▓-gu, Seoul.

According to ▓▓ Police Station and ▓▓ Fire Station, a fire broke out at approximately 3:10 a.m. on ▓▓ at a detached home in ▓▓-dong, ▓▓-gu.

Following a resident's report received at 3:13 a.m., firefighters arrived and extinguished the blaze within 17 minutes, but three family members had already died.

Physical trauma was identified on the victims during post-fire recovery operations, and a joint investigation with police is currently underway.

Teenage children A and B were found in the living room with stab wounds near the neck.

Father C, in his forties, was found in the master bedroom, limbs bound and stab wounds covering his body.

Two separate points of origin were identified in the fire: the master bedroom and the living room.

Reports indicate that opened bottles of liquor and large quantities of flammable materials were found near each point of origin.

Police and fire authorities believe, based on evidence remaining at the scene, that the likelihood of an outside perpetrator committing murder and arson is high.

Police stated they suspect the perpetrator threatened and killed C, then killed A and B as witnesses before setting the fire to destroy evidence, and that they would investigate with the possibility of a premeditated act motivated by personal grievance in mind.

(Photo)

▴A police line has been established at the entrance of the ▓▓-gu detached home fire scene on ▓▓.

▓▓ Daily, Reporter ▓▓▓
▓▓▓▓@▓▓▓.▓▓.▓▓]

At the bottom of the preview page were two buttons.

[Edit] [Publish]

Right.

The goal was to get it to "Published," so...

After a brief moment of thought, I pressed "Publish."

[+#▓▓▓"?S░-▓░▓?y0▓4▓▓??░O▓▓▓▓░vꠓ▓?1^▓?░░▓▓▓░?░B?ꠙ░▓▓░N░2░ꠙ░▓▓░▓R▓▓ꠘcP>▓▓▓░?%▓░?J?░`▓,░▓▓??X░5Þt░O░▓░q░▓▓▓▓▓]

The full article dissolved into corrupted characters and alien gibberish, spreading across the entire monitor until it covered▓

* * *

Air filled my lungs -- cool, carrying a faint, strange dampness.

"Ah...!"

I choked on it like something caught in my throat, the unfamiliar air pushing down my airways.

I was outside the Jaelae Building.

...Though "outside" was the wrong word. I'd gone further in, clearly.

For one, my dedicated mannequin was still right beside me.

And then there was the ceiling -- barely above head height, with a tiny window set near the top, the way a basement room looks.

Inside the office it had only just been evening, but here it was the middle of the night.

Through that small window, a sky as dark as this room looked back at me.

The fire in the article I'd just read had started at around 3:10 a.m.

The family murders would have happened earlier than that.

If I was here to intervene in that incident somehow and get the article "Published," I was almost certainly here before the murders had even begun.

"What are you doing."

"Ah, damn it. What?"

I flinched hard.

A rustling sound from behind me, and then a voice.

If you could call it that. If you could call it human.

"What. Did you forget again? Yeah, fair enough. After what you pulled yesterday."

I sat there blankly and looked down.

Thin T-shirt and sweatpants, long hair spread out against the bare floor, lying flat without so much as a blanket...

░▓▓▓?v▓?,▓16V▓▓Q░?▓░▓▓▓▓░;?░▓▓░▓░D░▓▓▓▓▓░??░▓▓8▓▓▓░[E?░%▓?▓░▓R▓▓I?▓▓?KT4░?H5?░▓▓

A mass of black text.

Fractured, broken, worn-down sentences without end, tangled together like a skein of thread, forming the shape of a person.

"Fine, then just go to sleep. I'm tired."

The words flowed out from where a mouth should have been.

On instinct, I checked my hands and feet.

"Just lie down, I said. You worry too much... whatever. You'll remember when you wake up, like always."

Fine.

Actually, fine?

My body felt drained, and there were bruises on my arms and legs -- but that wasn't the problem.

My surgery scars were gone.

That was the problem.

This body.

It wasn't mine.

"Ah."

My voice was different, too.

...Oh.

"Teenage children A and B were found in the living room with stab wounds near the neck."

I was A right now. The dead one.

I looked at B, composed entirely of black lines of text I couldn't read.

"What were our names again?"

"Wow, it's actually bad this time. ▓▓▓, you idiot. I'm ▓▓▓."

No face to look at. No real voice to hear. No name I could call.

No way of knowing if B was an older sister or a younger one -- just A's female sibling.

"How old are you?"

From the way B spoke, it felt like they weren't far apart in age.

"Hey. We don't do ages. Stop being annoying and go to sleep. Before I knock you out."

The words drifted out of B, who had rolled over to face away, flat and even.

It sounded genuine, so I dropped the age question.

Going by that kind of reaction, A was probably the older one.

Either way, B didn't seem particularly surprised that A was acting like the memories were gone. Not deeply, at least.

Which made sense. It wasn't hard to understand.

The bruises. And the sight of what looked like middle- or high-school-aged kids left to sleep on a bare floor without blankets, in what looked like a basement room.

The guardian -- most likely the father, the one who'd been murdered -- seemed to be abusing them.

Memory gaps made sense, in that case.

That was, in its own way, the kind of anomaly one human being could produce in another.

Like a Labyrinth.

Footnotes:

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