WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

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◈ How to Die in the Office Labyrinth ◈

Chapter 48: A Teacher's Grace

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'Mass death of all students and faculty at ▓▓ Middle School, police authorities launch large-scale investigation'

Most of the students and faculty had died from poisoning.

Which meant the rest?

How had they died?

『Oh? What tipped you off?』

I bolted for the back door to avoid the front door the ghostly girl was watching.

Crash! Clatter!

Sorry to the dead students, but I shoved every desk I could reach and sent them toppling, throwing whatever I got my hands on.

『Hey! Can a teacher really do this to a student?』

"Can a student do this to a teacher?"

Damn it.

Whether it was their age or their build, they were lighter on their feet, a step closer to the back door.

I was a cornered rat, zigzagging between the front door and the back. I watched for an opening and bolted for the front.

Thunk!

"Ugh..."

『Oh.』

Both things happened at the same moment.

They caught up to me at the front door in an instant and drove the awl hidden inside their blouse sleeve into my shoulder, while I, bracing for it, pressed the box cutter I'd grabbed from the pencil case to their carotid artery at exactly the right spot.

It was the moment my little sibling's, no, B's teaching shone through. B had once told me to stab here in one clean thrust.

『Teacher. Can you do it?』

"Do what?"

『Are you ready to kill me?』

A hollow laugh tore out of me.

"Obviously."

In the Labyrinth, being ready to die isn't enough. All that gets you is dead.

You have to be ready to kill.

That's how you make it out alive.

"What about you. Ready to die?"

The tip of the blade sank shallowly into the black mass of broken text.

『Sorry. I give. I surrender.』

A playful line drifted out from the shattered letters, and the student raised both hands above their shoulders.

I grabbed both their hands with one of mine, pulled the awl out of my shoulder with the other, then stripped the belts from the dead students.

『Haha. You're not exactly normal either, Teacher. Surprisingly.』

I used those belts to bind their arms and legs. The student let themselves be tied without resistance and muttered that to themselves.

My left sleeve was soaking through, cold and wet.

Given the situation, I couldn't deal with it right now.

"You. Why are you doing this? What would stop it? Are you hiding anything else? If this doesn't work, will you set off a bomb or something?"

『Teacher. Why would there be a bomb at a school...』

Even without seeing their face, I could feel the look of someone finding me pitiful.

『If you had a bomb big enough to kill an entire school, would you really waste it on a school? You'd blow up somewhere bigger. Honestly.』

"What?"

『Oh, right. Who did you have lunch with? Which teachers didn't eat the school lunch?』

No question about it. They planned to track them all down and kill them. Every survivor, every student and faculty member still alive.

Just like the article said.

Should I call the police first?

I didn't know if having no phone in my pocket right now was the Labyrinth messing with me, or if I'd just left it in the faculty office.

Either way, I had to get down to the second floor.

『Where are you going?』

I grabbed the student by the scruff of the neck and put them in front of me.

Tap.

The moment I finally made it back into the corridor.

⑈　⑆⑉　⑆⑉⑇⑈⑇　⑈⑇⑆⑉⑆

⑉⑇⑇⑉　⑆　⑆⑆⑇⑆⑈⑇

⑈⑈ ⑇　⑈⑉ ⑆⑉⑉ ⑈⑉⑉ ⑆⑇⑈

⑆⑇⑇⑆⑇　⑉⑈⑇⑆⑉⑈⑆⑇　⑉⑈⑇

Like a broken television switching channels, my vision inverted again and a hallucination played out before me.

A gray corridor with not a single person in it.

Red blood pooled ankle-deep, lapping as it spread.

Black silhouettes dropping like rain past the windows outside.

A faint melody drifting up from the staircase at the far end of the corridor.

Footsteps beating a rhythm to a cheerful, humming tune.

『You need to pick your times and places for spacing out, Teacher.』

Slam!

"Wha, ugh...!"

My body was yanked hard without warning and I went down, sprawling across the staircase landing.

『You should exercise more.』

Using the fact that I was still gripping them tight, the student deliberately spun with force and fell with me, landing safely.

Using the teacher as a cushion.

"Ugh..."

I was sure my organs had burst.

My whole body was already aching from being slammed against the hard stair edges.

There weren't many steps, which was the only mercy. Another second of acceleration and I could have snapped my neck and died.

"Ha, damn."

I was barely managing to push myself up against the wall when my ankle declared a strike.

Absolutely unbelievable.

"You..."

The student, who had somehow stood despite their bound legs, looked down at me.

Something uneasy stirred in my chest and I looked up at them in silence.

Snap. Crack.

A skin-crawling sound came from behind their back.

『Ta-da! Pretty amazing, right? Like magic!』

The thin, long arms that had been bound behind their back swung freely in front of me.

Their thumbs.

They had broken their own thumbs to free themselves. Without a moment's hesitation.

『You asked me earlier, right? Whether I was ready to die.』

I only understood now.

『How could I kill others without being ready to die myself? We've been ready for a very long time.』

That student was no longer something you could call human.

Strangely, I felt a deep, aching fear of that Labyrinth, and...

I felt sorry for them.

『I'll make a special exception and save you for very last, Teacher! See you later!』

They walked back up the stairs with quick, lively steps and disappeared.

I clenched my teeth, stood, and grabbed the stair railing.

...Wait.

A sudden cold prickle ran through my chest.

"We've been ready," they said?

It's not just one person?

* * *

I ignored the screaming from every joint in my body and every circuit in my brain and made it down to the second floor.

The moment I got there, I spotted someone standing far off near the faculty office and, before I could stop myself, I was screaming.

"Yu Hyun-jae!"

The urgency hit before any thought could catch up, and the name just shot out of my mouth.

The faculty member I recognized as Yu Hyun-jae and a male student gripping them both snapped their heads toward me.

"Get away from him!"

The male student might have been innocent, but after what I'd just been through, I couldn't afford to let my guard down for a second.

For now, I had to treat everyone except me and Yu Hyun-jae as a threat.

"The killers are among the survivors! They're trying to kill the rest!"

At those words, Yu Hyun-jae slowly turned back and looked down at the male student. The instant they faced each other, it was like a starting signal. The student reached for Yu Hyun-jae.

Thud!

Yu Hyun-jae stepped back slightly and kicked the student without hesitation.

The student stumbled, head hitting the wall, and the co-representative of Uiwi Guild started running toward me.

"No, you shouldn't be coming this way, we need to tie that kid up...!"

Right. If only I hadn't twisted my ankle.

"Seon Yu-han-ssi, in here for now."

Yu Hyun-jae took my arm and guided me into the teachers' lounge right next to us, locking the door in a hurry.

"Where were you? I was on the third floor and ran into a girl up there. She seems to be one of the killers. It looks like they're trying to kill everyone who survived without eating the school lunch."

"I was in the nurse's office. It's right next to the faculty office, so I checked, and the teachers were all dead. Every telephone cable had been cut. The phone collection bag was gone too."

Frighteningly meticulous.

"Their goal is what the article said, everyone dead, every student, every faculty member. So the two of us who came to 'edit' that..."

Bang bang! Thud, crash!

『▓▓▓ Teacher, ▓▓▓ Teacher. No, wait. Yu Hyun-jae Teacher..., Seon Yu-han Teacher...? I have so many questions. Could you come out for just a second?』

Soft, meandering lines seeped in through the rattling gap of the lounge door.

"So we have to survive those children."

"Yes. In a way, it's just... an ordinary Labyrinth, I suppose."

Not some ominous Labyrinth loaded with meaning about events that might unfold in the future.

Just a Labyrinth being an invasive-type, using a real space as its stage, with the Labyrinth's monsters taking human form. That kind of ordinary Labyrinth.

Of course, strictly speaking, those human forms were made entirely of shattered text.

『What are you two whispering about in there that's so interesting...? Do it with me too. I'm bored.』

Rattle!

While I tried to manage the shoulder the awl had gone through and worked out whether I could pull the security grille off the window, lines of whispering from the male student outside kept seeping in without pause.

『Come out and play with me. Yu Hyun-jae Teacher. It's no fun if you just hide. Seon Yu-han Teacher.』

Rattle.

『Come out.』

Rattle...

『Come out.』

Rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle

『▓▓▓. What are you doing over there?』

The noise of the door shaking well past the point of breaking stopped.

Damn it.

The girl had come too.

『There's a school nurse and a chaplain inside. But do you know what their names are?』

『What.』

『Yu Hyun-jae and Seon Yu-han.』

Hahahahahahahaha!

Sharp laughing characters seeped in and dropped to the floor.

『We don't have any teachers with those names at our school.』

『Exactly. Isn't it strange? Isn't it curious? So I'm politely asking them to come out right away.』

Rattle.

Quite politely trying to force open the locked door.

『Forget it. Leave them for now.』

Save the best for last, after all, a small murmuring line whispered, smiling to itself, trembling faintly, then disappeared.

『See you later, Teachers. I'll visit some friends and come back.』

Tap...

The sound of two sets of footsteps grew distant.

"What do we do? The security grille doesn't look like it'll come off any time soon. Jumping out the window seems out of the question too."

Yu Hyun-jae glanced briefly at my ankle.

"What if you got out of the school first, Representative? If even one person makes it out alive, it might count as the article being edited."

"But what if it isn't. What if Seon Yu-han-ssi has to get out too?"

That was a fair point.

"Then how about we go to the main entrance on the first floor together?"

"They'll have done something to the main entrance too, knowing those kids. Or at the very least they'll be waiting there with a trap set."

That was also fair.

Judging by the care they'd shown cutting every phone line and getting rid of the mobiles to prevent outside contact...

"Oh. The fire hydrant."

"Pardon?"

"If the fire alarm goes off from a hydrant, it alerts the nearest fire station, doesn't it."

"You mean hold out until help arrives from outside."

"Yes. They usually get there within ten minutes, so we have a real chance."

Set a time limit for how long we needed to stay alive.

Because you can't just run forever with no end in sight.

"By the way, Seon Yu-han-ssi."

We had just put together a rough plan that was nine-tenths improvisation when Yu Hyun-jae spoke as they unlocked the door.

"The 'all students' includes those children too. Keep that in mind. They..."

"I know."

Those children are ready to die.

"Do you really know? People like that will do anything. Truly. Anything."

"Yes. I know."

And so will I.

"All right. Then let's..."

Click.

The lock finally turned.

"Go."

Slide.

The door opened.

『Are you coming out now, Teachers?』

A line climbed up faintly from the staircase to meet us.

Footnotes:

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