WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ How to Die in the Office Labyrinth ◈

Chapter 49: Early Departure

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Click.

Br-r-r-r-r-r-r-ring!

The alarm screamed in my ears.

『Just wait a moment! I'll be right up!』

A student's voice cut faintly through the noise.

"Let's go up."

First I pulled the fire hose from the cabinet and took it with me.

From the third floor and up, the windows wouldn't have security bars. The plan was to use the hose to climb down.

"Ugh......"

I climbed the stairs as fast as I could manage, even with the limp.

My ankle wasn't going to hold out forever, but collapsing here and getting caught would be a worse outcome.

Thud. Click.

Ahead of me, Yu Hyun-jae, whose legs were fine, took point on the third floor and slipped into the nearest classroom.

『Ugh...』

The moment I reached the third-floor corridor behind him, a faint voice leaked out of a classroom farther down the hall.

『P-please... save me...』

Someone was half-crawling out through the classroom door.

A girl in gym clothes with a short bob cut.

Nothing like the first student, who had long hair and a full uniform.

An innocent victim who'd gotten lucky and survived? Or a third culprit?

『Mama...』

The student coughed, and dark blood dripped and spattered across the floor.

"Seon Yu-han-ssi, hurry...!"

Yu Hyun-jae had tied the hose to a window inside the classroom and stepped back out to pull me along.

"Representative, over there......"

『Please... help me...』

Yu Hyun-jae looked where I pointed and went still for a moment.

He was working through the same question I was.

"Is there any chance the condition isn't just staff -- maybe you have to save at least one student, too?"

I kept my voice to a whisper.

"That's... not entirely impossible."

The co-representative of Uiwi Guild rubbed a hand over his face.

"Then here's what we do. I'll bring that student myself, so go down the hose right now. Immediately."

The order was cold and flat. I found myself nodding before I'd even decided to.

I was just deadweight with a wrecked ankle anyway.

I split off from Yu Hyun-jae and dragged myself toward the window inside the classroom.

Swish.

One short breath, then I grabbed the hose and swung myself out the window.

Thud.

Someone grabbed the classroom door.

"Ah, Representative......"

The student was standing in the doorway.

The same student with the short bob and gym clothes, the one who had been bleeding and crawling across the floor.

Alone.

『Neither of you recognized my face or my voice? Like I was a completely different person?』

Yu Hyun-jae had been caught.

『What are you really, teacher?』

"......You're the one from before, aren't you."

『Yes! That's right!』

The student waved, and the broken thumb flopped along uselessly.

『I hung out with my friends, cut my hair, and changed clothes. I wasn't sure at first if it would really work, but you really couldn't tell at all.』

Should I keep stalling until the fire department arrived?

Or drop down right now without looking back?

"You said something felt off from the start. What was it?"

I pressed against the outer wall, gripping the hose tight, and kept talking.

『For one thing, you never said my name once. You didn't ask why I was wearing someone else's uniform, even though you saw the nameplate.』

The student stepped inside, slow and light, almost dancing.

『You couldn't even meet my eyes properly.』

Another step.

『More than anything, the way you looked at me said it all. You were nothing like the school chaplain I knew. That person was... hmm, no. Have to protect their dignity... Aigo.』

Pak!

Before taking another step, I kicked off the outer wall with one foot like I was scaling a cliff.

『▓▓▓! Seon Yu-han-teacher, get out the window! Class 2-5!』

The fragmented voice leaned out through the window, looked straight down at me, and shouted loud enough to ring across the whole school grounds.

Then pulled back inside.

With a broken thumb, gripping the hose to climb down would have been too difficult. There was no intention to follow.

Thud.

The moment my feet hit the flower bed, the mannequin's feet landed a beat behind mine --

A faint wail of sirens reached me from somewhere far off.

Almost here.

One or two minutes. That's all I needed to hold out.

I couldn't run fast on this leg, so I had to find somewhere to hide.

The cafeteria should be over that way...

Boom, thwack!

A sudden loud crash. I spun around and saw a dark shape moving inside the front gate.

The male student.

Sure enough, it looked like they had barricaded it with every heavy piece of furniture they could find, grandfather clocks, desks, everything, to keep anyone from getting out easily.

I cut around the side of the building and pressed myself flat.

Clang. Click.

Beneath the rising sirens, the sound of the front gate's lock giving way.

『Teacher. You hurt your ankle, didn't you? Please don't push yourself so hard...』

The student's voice came around the corner toward me.

"Ugh......"

I jammed a hand over my mouth and forced down a breath.

『Why are you trying so hard? I don't want to hurt you...... I'll make it easy for you. Just answer our questions honestly. Okay? I promise.』

Sweat soaked through my clothes.

I was running on an ankle I had no business running on, and I had to keep silent so they couldn't track my position.

Step, step.

The sound of soil-dusted feet on asphalt crept closer.

The sirens, too.

Which would get here first, the fire department reaching the school, or the student reaching me?

The cafeteria was too far. I'd be caught before I made it.

In the end I pressed my back against the wall at the rear of the building and pulled out the box cutter.

Ambush was the only option left.

......I hadn't wanted it to come to this.

Being ready to kill didn't mean wanting to.

『Seon Yu-han-teacher.』

The student's voice drifted up right beside me.

Moving along the side of the building.

A long shadow told me roughly where.

"......"

Stab!

The instant the dark shape appeared, I swung the blade.

『Ah...』

The male student grabbed his eye and went down.

『Ha, haha...』

I'd deliberately aimed low.

Low enough that, in any normal situation, it would have hit the stomach or somewhere below.

『You knew... I'd be crouching.』

"Yeah."

I twisted his arms behind his back and pressed my knee hard into his spine to pin him down.

"I figured you'd spot me anyway. That I was hiding here waiting for you."

I couldn't run fast. We both knew that.

If a wounded quarry suddenly disappeared, it meant they were hiding nearby.

These unhinged hunters were never going to pass that up.

『I underestimated you...... I'll admit it.』

A breath of a sentence, half a sigh.

『We lost.』

At the same moment, the sirens drilled into my ears, the fire department practically at the school gates.

Finally.

I could leave this school.

『But, teacher.』

"What."

『Why did you fight this hard? That ankle. You might be limping for the rest of your life. You were already wrecked and you just kept pushing.』

"Because I want to live."

To survive, even like this...

The words came out like a murmured prayer, in a voice that felt somehow unfamiliar, somehow hollow.

『Don't you think dying without pain is better than living in pain?』

"That's the wrong question."

My grip on him tightened.

"Dying isn't one of my options. It can't be. It never should be."

A muffled sound came from beneath me, something like a laugh.

『Easy to say. With that face.』

Trying to read genuine sorrow into a face made of shattered letters was a pointless exercise.

『Do you think I could become like you, teacher? When I grow up...』

I couldn't answer. Honestly, even I didn't know the truth of it▓

* * *

"Ah......"

The moment I opened my eyes, the throbbing in my bandaged left ring finger hit me again, impossible to ignore.

"Hmm......"

"Representative?"

I flinched at the presence beside me.

"You're alive?"

"Did you want me dead?"

Yu Hyun-jae said it with a slight frown, not irritated, just pained somehow.

"Are you hurt?"

"No, I'm not. Well, I was, but not anymore."

Yu Hyun-jae turned both hands over a few times, then quickly clenched them and lowered them.

I pretended not to notice the way those fingertips had trembled.

"That, uh, that remarkable female student seems to enjoy tormenting people."

So it hadn't been a quick death. Something drawn out.

Still a disturbed kid.

"Either way, are the others still in the middle of editing?"

"Let me check. Oh......"

[Published]

[Smoking in the kitchen leads to explosion! 'LPG gas blast' kills shop owner, two customers seriously injured

|20▓▓.▓▓.▓▓. 15:21 saved

|Published 11 minutes ago]

[All students and staff of ▓▓ Middle School found dead en masse, police launch large-scale investigation

|20▓▓.▓▓.▓▓. 16:22 saved

|Published 1 minute ago]

"It says publishing succeeded eleven minutes ago."

A smaller incident, maybe. They seemed to have finished editing before us.

"They must have gone down first, as we agreed. Publishing looks like the escape condition. Good."

"And since the mannequin was still attached even after we published, not waiting and heading down immediately was the right call."

The white mannequin was still behind us, still mirroring our movements.

Whether because of the successful publish or something else, it hadn't managed to fully match our speed yet.

It hadn't disappeared, though, so we couldn't relax.

"Right. Let's head down too."

Clunk.

The mannequins had followed us all the way to the emergency exit, but the moment we stepped into the stairwell they both snapped back to attention.

And stood there watching.

Until we were out of sight.

* * *

16. Publish the article and leave. The mannequin will no longer follow you.

* * *

Clunk.

We opened the emergency exit door marked 14th floor from inside the stairwell, and the first thing we saw was:

"5... huh?"

A marker that said 5th floor.

"Ji-ho...? Ji-ho, are you okay?"

And crouched beneath it, looking up at us with swollen red eyes, was Jeong Ji-ho.

We both stooped down to check on the child.

"Ji-ho-gun, are you hurt anywhere? And Hwang Ju-yeon-ssi and Chae Jae-ha-ssi......"

Yu Hyun-jae didn't get to finish.

Pak!

Ji-ho, eyes still wet at the corners, punched Yu Hyun-jae in the face with that tiny little fist.

"......"

Slapping the most influential business figure in the country.

A seven-year-old child had just done it.

Footnotes:

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