WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ How to Die in the Office Labyrinth ◈

Chapter 45: A and B

──────

'▓▓▓. Get a grip. Tell me again about that happy dream you had earlier.'

I turned back to look, and C was already trussed up tight in fishing line.

B must have taken care of it while I was spacing out.

So they really had been listening to everything I said.

'So. Where do we stab ourselves in the neck, exactly?'

They're actually going to do it. No hesitation.

The thing I couldn't manage.

"......The living room."

'Fire investigators confirmed two ignition points at the scene, including the master bedroom and the living room.

It was reported that opened liquor bottles and a large quantity of flammable materials were found around each ignition point.'

I recounted the article and filled in a few more details. B nodded.

'Ah. Got it. That kind of thing. Right. If we're going out, we go out big. Okay, first we need a lighter and...... ah. You go get some bottles from the fridge.'

The words came out bright and breezy, like humming put to text.

I helped B carry an armful of bottles from the first-floor kitchen, went up to the second floor, and opened the master bedroom door.

"......"

All black. Shattered fragments everywhere, dark as coal.

But I could smell blood. I had gotten so used to it by now.

Fsssss.

Over that came the sharp sting of alcohol.

We piled the bedding and clothes together and soaked them.

'Done? Then pour some in here too.'

I came back down to the living room, where B had finished the preparations.

Newspapers, textbooks, blankets...... anything that would burn well had been gathered into one place.

'Me too, just one.'

B took one of the bottles from my hands.

At first I thought they meant to drink it.

"Hey. What are you doing?"

But B splashed it all over themselves, then turned and splashed the rest on me.

Like we were playing in water.

'What do you think. Going out big, remember?'

That laughter, clear and cool, turned to words and burrowed into my ear.

If I ever heard the real sound of their voice.

Could I stand it.

'Here.'

They took my hand.

They pressed my grip tight around the knife so I wouldn't drop it, then guided my hand toward their own throat.

'You're not backing out now, are you? Don't make me laugh.'

When I instinctively tried to pull my arm away, the grip on my hand tightened.

They caught my other hand too and pressed it to somewhere on their throat.

'Here.'

Broken, shattered sentences I could not read brushed against my fingertips.

Beneath them, something writhed and screamed.

Read me.

'Stab.'

Just once.

'One clean motion.'

Can you?

'You can.'

I nodded.

And slowly raised my right hand......

Clunk.

I let go of the knife, the one with the dark fragments of my father's stain still on the blade.

The tip hit the floor and stuck there, upright, as though it had been made for exactly that.

"......What are you doing?"

With the same hands that had gripped a knife and killed monsters, I held them.

Ah. Alive, definitely.

"▓▓▓. What's wrong with you."

My little sibling. My ▓▓.

We can find another way out.

This is a Labyrinth, after all.

"A Labyrinth? What are you talking about?"

▓▓ smiled, faint and fragile, like it might crack any second.

"Labyrinth is only a word you use when there's an exit."

Right. So let's go. Let's get out of this Labyrinth that's trapped us. Together.

"You think we can?"

Yeah.

"You're still so young."

▓▓'s laughter grew, cutting into something raw.

"Fine. Go ahead and try."

I took their hand and opened the front door and stepped outside, and in that moment.

We ▓

* * *

"Ah."

I blinked slowly.

[3 dead in single-family home in ▓▓ district... 'Suspected arson following robbery'

| 20▓▓.▓▓.▓▓. 08:49 saved

| Published 1 minute ago: FAILED]

Publication failed.

"Ah......"

Why did I do that.

Why did I overturn a perfectly set table for some kid whose face and name I don't even know.

Was it just that I didn't want to die with them.

Ha. So now......

What happens.

I leaned back in my chair and barely caught sight of the mannequin.

Strange, the way it sat in midair without a chair, torso bent backward.

"......"

But wait.

Didn't it just shift slightly to the right?

The moment I sat up to get a better look.

The mannequin, rising from its spot at the exact same time, extended its right foot.

And I extended my right foot.

Shit.

* * *

When the mannequin took a step forward, my legs moved with it.

Same posture. Same direction.

Like I was a copy of the mannequin.

My own will, and yet not my own. An unpleasant sensation.

If the copycat catches you.

You become the copycat.

I couldn't resist, couldn't even summon the urge to resist.

Just the familiar helplessness of a body that moves by inertia even when I don't want it to.

The mannequin didn't tremble, so I couldn't tremble either.

There is no greater existential terror than this, and yet.

Nothing should frighten me more than the feeling of being trapped in this body, this life, this world, with no way out.

And yet it was strange.

The part of me that should have been screaming and thrashing, begging to be freed, let go, let out, let away, was quiet.

Only then did I understand that I was no longer the same as before.

Whether that matters, I couldn't say.

In the end I let my body follow the mannequin out of Singyae Daily on its own.

And turned things over in my head.

Given that the mannequin had followed me into the article itself, Singyae Daily and Moment O'Clock must be linked somehow.

In that case, was completing the article before the mannequin caught me the condition for escaping the 15th floor?

[MOMENT O'CLOCK | moment o'clock]

Before I knew it, I had arrived in front of the office where the number of stored bodies was about to go from two to three.

The mannequin on my right reached out and mimed grabbing a door handle and pulling it open. I grabbed the actual glass door and opened it.

The mannequin bent at the waist and picked up something invisible, like a demonstration.

My body didn't need to watch. It could already follow along.

I picked up the hand sanitizer from beside the head of the young woman, the one who had been the MD team assistant manager at this company.

I pulled the lighter from the pocket of the middle-aged man, the one who had been the section chief at Singyae Daily's social desk.

I opened a desk drawer at an empty workstation and took out a box cutter.

And methodically made my preparations to die.

Dry, matter-of-fact. Like a ritual that simply had to be done.

When the mannequin finished its preparations, and when I finished mine, we walked into the supply room.

I confirmed my own near future, one step ahead of me......

And, unable even to scream as I wished, laughed quietly to myself.

God.

I don't want to die. Not like this.

* * *

15. Do not let the mannequin catch you. You will begin to imitate it.

* * *

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

"Ah, shi-"

I barely got my hand over my mouth in time.

I almost swore at someone to their face and screamed.

The phantom sensation of my whole body burning through with holes slowly faded like an illusion.

The sizzling smell of meat cooking, drifting past my nose. That too.

I know what that tastes like...... I know how much happiness it gives me......

"Seon Yu-han-ssi?"

"Ah."

I blinked again, dazed.

I looked at the Interview Administrator's somewhat vacant expression, then at the ceiling, then slowly lowered my head.

Ha.

I...... I really did some spectacularly unhinged things.

"Would you like me to repeat the question?"

Without answering, I started going back through my memories.

Those memories that wouldn't digest.

Yu Hyun-jae crawling into the gambling den on his own without being told, that I could set aside.

But Chae Jae-ha, Hwang Ju-yeon, Jeong Ji-ho, Lee Jin-su.

I had persuaded all four of them to walk into that gambling den and let themselves get killed.

On the reasoning that if I came back alive, they would come back alive too.

And honestly, the logic was almost sound.

'Don't worry! It will hurt. A minor curse will make you unhappy: brain'

That damned Happyland.

It didn't take a small, unnecessary piece of my brain. It took a lot of a very important one.

I thought back over what I had done.

Things I would never have done before.

But they were still me.

Pushing my companions to their deaths. Looking at human corpses like objects. Hacking at C.

All of it was me.

I have no intention of denying that.

No desire to, either.

Whoever carved out whichever lobe.

That's not some convenient switch that flips a good person into a monster in an instant.

It only adds a layer to the filter through which you see the world, or peels one away. It clears out a snare that was holding you, or that you were holding onto.

I simply...... changed a little.

And people change. It's what they do.

* * *

Floor 11, Strategic Planning Division, Future Strategy Budget Planning Team.

This time too, Doi proposed a bet, with escape as the prize.

"I'll do it-"

"-Representative. I'd advise against it."

Yu Hyun-jae raised his hand to take the bet without fail, and I stopped him.

Then I looked around at the group and made my case. The opposite of last time.

"We've come this far without any real trouble, haven't we."

Well, in the parking garage, Jeong Ji-ho had cried for nearly One Hundred and Eight seconds straight, like he'd seen his mother's ghost, and almost got himself killed.

And when we reached Neosoft, Lee Jin-su was already dead, so there was nothing to be done about that.

"Something like that wouldn't offer escape as the prize if it were easy to beat."

"Well, that's true, but......"

I nudged the anxiety a bit more from there, and they came around without much trouble.

The process was essentially the same as when I had been persuading them to walk into the gambling den.

"True enough. Gambling with your life is something to be restrained about. You only get one chance."

Yu Hyun-jae changing his mind and backing me up helped with the persuasion.

"Wait, are we seriously doing this? It's going to hurt......"

"It's better than dying in some strange bet, isn't it."

"Ugh. Uuugh......"

Swish.

Five soft sounds in a row, one after another, fingers dragging across paper.

"Ow."

"Ugh...... Good thing we brought bandages."

Whether it was fortunate or unfortunate, everyone got a clean cut on the first try.

"Ah."

Everyone except me.

"You have already failed once. You must find another way."

Doi spoke with a smile in its voice.

Damn it.

I hadn't thought of anything besides dragging a finger across paper.

"Oh no, what do we do."

"It's fine. Let's head out for now."

And so we left Doi's grinning gaze behind and made it to the 15th floor.

"This is the floor right below our office......"

"Why don't we try going left first."

I ignored the Hoewol Accounting Firm accountant muttering to himself and pointed toward Singyae Daily.

I wanted to know whether the mannequin would come even if we didn't visit Moment O'Clock.

"Huh, wha? What is that?"

As we approached Singyae Daily, Hwang Ju-yeon cried out in alarm.

Five white mannequins were striding down the corridor from the other end.

Damn.

They figured out to open doors themselves. Quite resourceful.

"What the hell is that? Hurry, hurry, let's get inside!"

"Wait, calm down, Chae Jae-ha-ssi, just a moment......!"

Whoosh.

Chae Jae-ha, not knowing that the mannequins weren't monsters we needed to flee from urgently, threw the door of Singyae Daily open and charged in.

The moment we entered the Singyae Daily office.

"Huh?"

"Wh-what, aagh!"

A young woman with bleached yellow hair, sitting at the only desk in the room, screamed and recoiled in shock.

"Oh, oh no, what do I do......!"

I realized she had accidentally hit something, and rushed over to check the laptop screen.

[Unidentified toxic gas floods morning commuter subway... 'Mass asphyxiation disaster'

| 20▓▓.▓▓.▓▓. 15:01 saved]

[This article is currently being published by 'Kim Young-ho'. Editing will begin under a different name. 'Seon Yu-han, Yu Hyun-jae, Lee Na-hyun, Jeong Ji-ho, Chae Jae-ha, Hwang Ju-yeon'.]

"Ah."

You've got to be kidding me. I don't want to die choking on my own tie ▓

Footnotes:

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