WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

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◈ How to Die in the Office Labyrinth ◈

Chapter 52: Victory Incantation

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"Seon Yu-han-ssi? Are you all right? Seon Yu-han-ssi?"

What have I done?

I shouldn't have. I. Don't even have the right to. To take my own life.......

No. No. What I did was not that.

There were names I couldn't afford to forget. And those names were my life.

To take them back, I could stab myself as many times as it took.

* * *

"Ha......"

I looked down at the two bodies that had their hearts taken by a merciful hand.

Every single time, without fail, I end up having to deal with this in the parking garage.

Chae Jae-ha was dead.

He'd gotten anxious after receiving a string of death notifications.

I'd thought I'd managed to talk him down, arguing that it made no sense for the Labyrinth to let only him contact the outside world when he wasn't anyone special, but his smartwatch heart rate had kept climbing above One Hundred and Eight.

Jeong Ji-ho had witnessed the fake Buddha killing Chae Jae-ha, directly and indirectly, and took such a severe shock that he followed not long after.

You can only calm someone down so many times before it stops working.

So the only ones left were Hwang Ju-yeon and Yu Hyun-jae.

Either way, this run's plan of gathering seven people and escaping through the 5F Arcade was a bust.

* * *

【Don't worry! It will hurt. A minor curse will bring misfortune upon you: Hand】

I braced myself, expecting my fingers to go flying again.

"Your nails are a little shorter now."

"Ha...... What a relief. Really......"

The freelance magician pressed a hand to their chest.

Even without being close to them, watching Chae Jae-ha and Jeong Ji-ho die right in front of you, then walking straight into Lee Jin-su's body the moment you stepped into Neosoft, would shake anyone. They'd probably been worried the same thing would happen to them.

I hoped next time all three of them would still be alive.

* * *

"Ah. So it acts as a way of warding off bad luck, then. Getting a paper cut."

"Yes."

Swipe.

"Ah."

It failed.

The paper just dragged across my finger without cutting it.

"Wait, you didn't get cut......?"

"You have already failed once, so you must find another path."

Hwang Ju-yeon's voice from when she'd found a bandage in the Future Strategy Budget Planning Team office and handed it over, and Doi's voice as it watched us with interest, layered over each other in my head.

"It's fine. I have something else in mind."

I didn't want to brush it off the way I had last time and end up suffering the kind of rotten luck that got me kidnapped by a subway bomber.

Slide.

I picked up the box cutter from an empty desk and extended the blade.

Then, before Hwang Ju-yeon could finish asking what on earth I thought I was doing with that, I threw it straight up into the air.

I positioned the back of my hand to meet the blade as it spun back down.

Thunk.

Not the blunt end but the sharp point landed cleanly, right on target.

"How dull. With resolve like that, I'd have expected a more interesting contest."

Doi commented with what sounded like mild disappointment.

A success.

Which way a spinning box cutter falls -- that too was apparently counted as a domain of luck.

Now I understood how to reliably sidestep the undefined misfortune that was certain to come.

* * *

14-1. Go to misfortune before it comes to you. You will be able to control it.

* * *

"They just keep following us all the way into the hallway, these mannequins......"

"I imagine they'll keep mirroring us until we leave this floor."

This time I stopped at the Moment O'Clock office before Singyae Daily.

I wanted to give Hwang Ju-yeon and Yu Hyun-jae time to adjust to the copycat mannequins.

"If we can't get out, will we...... end up like that man from earlier......?"

I also wanted to ease them in with some advance context, using Kim Young-ho's body, the one who'd choked to death swallowing a necktie.

"We'll be able to get out. Don't worry."

Swipe.

I made just enough noise and opened the Singyae Daily door slowly, and there she was, the young woman with the bleached yellow hair.

"Oh, um, hello...... hi......"

Lee Na-hyun looked flustered, but at least she didn't startle the way she had last time and make the mistake of pulling all of us into an article.

After quick introductions, I walked her through the article list and shared my theory on editing and publishing.

"What? So we actually have to go inside these articles? Can't we skip that......?"

"Lee Na-hyun-ssi. I understand how you feel, but if you stay put, you won't get out. Not from a Labyrinth."

The Moment O'Clock MD's shoulders drooped.

"Oh. Here."

Yu Hyun-jae, scanning the draft articles, stopped at one.

"Looks like our old school."

Here it comes.

"Just so you know, Representative. That doesn't mean you should go and volunteer to edit this one."

I needed to cut this off right now.

I had no interest in running another chase through that school with those murderous students.

"Hm."

The co-representative of Uiwi Guild tilted his head with a slightly sheepish look.

"Is that really how you see me? As someone who just charges in without thinking?"

Yes.

"Don't worry. I don't make reckless decisions in a Labyrinth."

Huh.

Look at that. Grown up.

The stubborn idiot who would have pushed to go in alone was nowhere to be found.

Maybe it was seeing so many bodies this time. Maybe it was deciding he didn't want to end up like Kim Young-ho at the Moment O'Clock office.

I thought it was a good thing, the way people shifted a little from loop to loop.

The unpredictability you couldn't explain.

That was the most terrifying thing about life, and for the same reason, the most important.

Life as a phenomenon is fundamentally at odds, by nature, with a labyrinth built from rules.

Strangely, I found that comforting.

"I think this article looks the most manageable. The scale is small."

[Cook smokes in kitchen... BANG! 'LPG gas blast' -- store owner dead, 2 customers seriously injured]

The one where, last loop, I'd sent in only Chae Jae-ha, Hwang Ju-yeon, and Jeong Ji-ho, and they'd managed the edit with only one kid left standing.

"Right...... I mean, we just have to stop the owner from lighting anything, don't we?"

According to Jeong Ji-ho's account, when they tried to stop the owner from smoking, a customer, or whatever hostile entity it was, suddenly turned on them and attacked.

"Yes. But we should also account for the possibility the owner refuses or the customer interferes. This is a Labyrinth, after all."

Still, with four adults here, as long as we didn't let our guard down, I thought we could manage the edit without anyone dying.

"Then I'll press it."

Lee Na-hyun made a face, but with everyone's agreement she pressed the "Edit" button.

The screen filled wall to wall with scrambled, broken characters and▓

* * *

"Kyeeaaah......!"

The first thing I registered was Lee Na-hyun's scream.

"Yu-han-nim, your face looks wrong! Like it changed somehow? I can't recognize you......"

"Calm down. You look the same to me. It seems we've simply entered different bodies."

Once the panic settled, Lee Na-hyun's attention shifted to her surroundings.

"Wow, this really is a completely different place......? If it weren't for the mannequins, I honestly would have thought we'd actually escaped."

We were standing on an ordinary street.

Apartment complexes on one side, shops visible in the distance, a typical residential neighborhood.

Quiet all around.

"Oh right! But where are the representative and Hwang Ju-yeon-nim? Where are they?"

"Over there, across the street, I think."

Across the road, two people who registered as Yu Hyun-jae and Hwang Ju-yeon were looking around, trying to get their bearings.

I gestured roughly toward the shops and signaled for them to meet us at the crosswalk on that side.

"So, Yu-han-nim, are you like, a new Red Thread joining Uiwi Guild or something?"

During that short walk with just the two of us, Lee Na-hyun talked like someone who couldn't stand silence.

"Like, the representative's here too, but there's something about the way you just, you know, work so crisply."

"Not a Red Thread. I'm an aspiring Red Thread agent."

"Agent......? Oh, like, sort of a manager type?"

"Yes. That's right."

Answering one question after another, we caught up with the other two soon enough.

"Now we just need to find the restaurant with exactly two customers."

"Better to search together. Splitting up would cost us time regrouping."

The shopping area wasn't a strip with storefronts lined up outside but a single building packed tight with multiple shops inside.

Without an interior map, there was no way to spot any particular place at a glance.

"Here...... over here......! Two people......!"

It wasn't that big a building, so it didn't take long.

[Yukbokeum]

An old restaurant where a sticker had fallen off, turning "Bokkeum" into "Bokeum." Through the window, two dark silhouettes sat inside.

Jingle.

"Yes, welcome! Party of four?"

The owner pulled both hands from an apron pocket and glanced at the clock on the wall.

It was around the time the place would normally be on break time.

"Yes."

We moved according to plan.

"Excuse me, you two. Can we ask you something?"

Yu Hyun-jae and I each approached one of the customers, one apiece.

"Excuse me, owner."

"Yes, what can I get for you?"

Hwang Ju-yeon and Lee Na-hyun stepped up to the owner, pretending to order.

"Oh, actually, it's just that there seems to be a bit of a smoke smell in here. You use gas in the kitchen, so we were worried something might accidentally catch fire--"

--Bang!

Before Hwang Ju-yeon could finish her careful, quiet explanation.

Clatter!

The instant the two customers reached for their spoons, Yu Hyun-jae and I swept the tabletop and sent them clattering to the floor.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing!"

"What's your problem?"

"What are you doing! I'm calling the police! I'll actually do it!"

"Let's all walk out quietly. Without hurting anyone."

Ignoring the flustered owner's voice, we grabbed both arms of the two thrashing customers.

I took the girl, Yu Hyun-jae took the boy.

"Did we do something to deserve this?"

"Where did you people even come from?"

"Seoul?"

......That probably wasn't a question about location.

Honestly, if I were them, I'd have hit Yu Hyun-jae out of sheer irritation.

"Funny guy."

The girl's voice carried a trace of amusement.

My grip on her arm tightened.

These weren't kids who couldn't break free from a simple hold like this.

They were letting us off easy.

They were playing along.

Both of them had their arms pinned but were otherwise free, which meant they could fight back and kill all of us whenever they chose.

So I needed to strike first.

While they were still underestimating us......

"What would it take for you to leave quietly?"

Suddenly, Yu Hyun-jae tried to negotiate.

Pointless, most likely, but if the goal was to draw their attention, not a bad move.

"How about you all kill yourselves?"

"Sorry. Can't do that. But anything else, I can. Name it."

A snort came from both customers at the same moment.

"Anything? Nobody who talks like that ever holds out for anything."

"Fine, let's hear it. How far are you willing to go?"

"You'll want to leave once you hear how far I've already gone."

Yu Hyun-jae glanced around the room as if about to share a secret, then lifted a hand to cover his mouth and leaned close to the boy's ear.

"......"

The whisper was short.

Maybe just one sentence.

But that single, unknowable sentence changed everything.

"▓▓▓. Let's go."

"You'll tell me too, right?"

"Yeah."

"All right. Take care, everyone."

The two young customers shook free from our hold as easily as if they'd never been struggling at all, and walked out. Calmly.

"Wait, what? They actually left."

"How did you do that?"

"What exactly did you say?"

The unfamiliar man who read as Yu Hyun-jae rolled his shoulders.

"The 'ultimate human limit' that kids that age can imagine is, when you get down to it, more or less the same across the board. I simply...... told them there was something beyond it."

When you climb to a certain position, you end up going through all manner of things. Yu Hyun-jae added that, with no apparent intention of telling us what was actually said.

"Is...... that so."

For the first time, I was glad we couldn't make out each other's faces properly right now.

That girl and that boy. The ones who kept appearing again and again in every article.

They were this floor's equivalent of monsters.

Even if they didn't break the physical limits of a human body.

A monster is a monster.

Labyrinth monsters whose rule is to kill people.

......What on earth could that one sentence be, the one that could send even a Labyrinth monster away with nothing more than words.

How far into ruin does a person have to fall before they can say the one thing that would turn even a monster around.

I...... couldn't help but feel that Yu Hyun-jae was ▓

The restaurant name 육육복음 is a visual pun: the sign originally read 육육볶음 (Yuk-yuk Bokkeum, a stir-fried pork dish), but with the sticker on 볶 partially fallen off, 볶음 reads as 복음, meaning "gospel" or "good news." The English rendering keeps the name as-is (Yukbokeum) since the visual gag is in the Korean script and does not translate cleanly; a bracketed description is embedded in the narration instead.

Footnotes:

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