WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ How to Die in the Office Labyrinth ◈

Chapter 53: Frequently Asked Questions

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We left Singyae Daily on the 15th floor and arrived at the 5th floor below.

"There's a convenience store over there. Let's grab what we need and take a short break."

Same as before, we picked up individually wrapped bar snacks, water, and some medication.

Rustle.

I was loading things into a basket when I heard plastic crinkling from the other side of the shelving unit.

The moment I glimpsed Lee Na-hyun's silhouette through the gap between the racks, a nameless unease washed over me.

"Lee Na-hyun-ssi! Stop!"

I shouted without thinking and scrambled over to her.

There she was, a chocolate bar clamped between her teeth.

About half a second from tearing the wrapper open with them.

"Don't eat that!"

"Hm? Oh, is it bad?"

Lee Na-hyun pulled the chocolate bar out of her mouth like a dog that had just been told to drop something.

"No, that's not it. Don't open it yet. You need to pay first."

"Oh. Really?"

"Yes, really. The power's out, but the register is still running fine. There's a reason for that."

It was so obvious to me that I hadn't thought to warn anyone. And Hwang Ju-yeon and Yu Hyun-jae weren't the type to grab things before paying, so it hadn't crossed my mind.

"Ah...... I see."

"I'll handle the payment. Just put whatever you need in the basket."

I barely headed off Lee Na-hyun's accidental shoplifting, and then the four of us sat down at a table to catch our breath.

"Let's eat."

Lee Na-hyun's voice didn't stop for a single moment while we ate.

So you all came from different floors, right? Wow, the floors really are completely mixed up then. So our goal is to find the first floor and get out? Oh, so we go down in one direction, and if there's no first floor we go back up the other way? What were the other floors like? Oh really, oh so there used to be more people, that must've been rough. Mmm, hmm. Oh right, I'm twenty-seven, how old is everyone else? Oh wow, you two are the same age! Actually, I thought Ju-yeon-nim was around the same age too. Come to think of it, you know that really famous magician? They look really young too. Maybe there's a connection? So can I call you unni?

"Oh, haha...... Yes, sure. That's fine."

Somehow Lee Na-hyun's barrage of questions had gradually shifted onto Hwang Ju-yeon.

Yu Hyun-jae, no matter how pleasantly they smiled, gave off a fundamental sense of a wall between them and everyone else.

I'd answered everything Lee Na-hyun asked me, but apparently I hadn't come across as particularly warm.

This freelance magician seemed to have a soft spot for people who looked like they needed looking after.

She had shown that same gentleness toward Kim Gilyeong, the librarian at Chaekbang Ollae. That was only before knowing she was a monster, of course.

"We should get moving."

I pulled Hwang Ju-yeon, who was beginning to look like her soul was slowly leaving her body, out of the swamp of questions.

The four of us headed into the lounge together, where a host in a worn button-down and torn jeans, walking stick in hand, greeted us warmly.

"Good to see you, Seon Yu-han-nim, Yu Hyun-jae-nim, Lee Na-hyun-nim, and Hwang Ju-yeon-nim. I'm your host. Please call me 'Hosoo'."

"What are you hosting?"

While Yu Hyun-jae asked the same question as last time and the two of them exchanged the familiar back-and-forth, Hwang Ju-yeon and Lee Na-hyun were staring holes through the host, fascinated by how he spoke like a Korean-foreigner hybrid despite the rectangular horizontal pupils.

"Unni, are you thinking what I'm thinking right now?"

Lee Na-hyun lowered her voice and nudged Hwang Ju-yeon's shoulder playfully with her own.

"He's kind of good-looking, right......? The eyes are a little scary, but."

"Sorry?"

In all the loops I had lived through, I had never once seen Hwang Ju-yeon make that expression.

Bewilderment, aggrievedness, shock, and discomfort, all blended together and written plain across her face. That complicated, subtle look was something else.

"No, that's not what I, I mean, I was going to say he kind of looks a little like Jesus...... don't you think?"

The person cold toward religion, who had once been a churchgoer, stumbled over her words, visibly flustered.

Dark skin that brought to mind Middle Eastern features. Large, prominent facial structure. Black hair long enough to pull back into a loose tie.

Honestly, a little......

At that point I decided to stop thinking about it.

"While we wait for the others to arrive, please enjoy the other games I've prepared."

After Hosoo informed us of the minimum player count for the final game, we moved into the arcade.

[FUTURE ARCADE]

"Seeing this place completely empty is kind of strange......"

The Moment O'Clock employee wandered around with her eyes lighting up at everything she saw.

"I was curious about the games, but whenever I came by during lunch there were always so many people, so I only stopped in once or twice. Most of them were Uiwi Guild employees, so I felt a little awkward."

"Were our employees making the tenant staff feel unwelcome? There's no rule saying it's for employees only. It's not a space reserved for them."

Yu Hyun-jae's brow furrowed slightly.

"Do you remember which department?"

It was an unsettling question.

"No no no! What are you going to do......? It really wasn't that serious, I swear. I was just making myself feel uncomfortable on my own......?"

"I'm planning to restrict certain employees from entering the game tournament. That much is within my discretion. The organizer will understand."

Three ordinary people swallowed their sighs at the same time.

Then again, no matter how far gone things were, wrongful termination was not something that would happen. The company itself had a rare reputation for keeping things clean when it came to personnel matters.

"I do understand how the employees feel. They know this place was built by their company's own representative, so naturally it feels like their space. It makes sense they'd resent outsiders using it. But."

The co-representative of Uiwi Guild moved along the shelves, examining board game boxes one by one.

The voice was businesslike.

"This space is, in principle, open to anyone. Employees have no right to act contrary to that rule. They don't have that standing."

This is how the world works. And this is how the Labyrinth works.

In the world, in the Labyrinth, I had always been something that had to follow the rules already laid out.

Always without standing.

When someone makes the rules of the world, when someone decides who has standing and who doesn't, I still have to follow those rules. I have no right to push back.

I don't mean I resent it.

Imitating is something I'm used to.

It's just...... a little tiring, is all.

"Is anyone good at darts?"

Hwang Ju-yeon, who had gone quiet after the Jesus comment, asked, and the topic shifted naturally.

That cursed Puncture Darts game, or whatever it was called.

"There's something written here called 'Fragment of Life.' In games, those are usually a good thing, right?"

"If you're curious, you should try it yourself. What's the fun in knowing everything beforehand?"

Hosoo answered without changing a single syllable from last time.

"Hmm. There are quite a few words here that sound like bad news if you hit the wrong spot. Pulmonary cavity, ventricular cavity...... It sounds like something gets perforated."

"Then what about these, 'void of ieung,' 'void of a'...... what are those?"

I had a lot to say about that.

"I'd guess it means losing memory. Of anything connected to those consonants or vowels."

And it wasn't just a matter of memories developing holes here and there. It seemed to manipulate the mind into wanting to erase everything connected to the relevant letter entirely.

In some ways a more dangerous penalty than getting a hole punched through your body.

Because it could hurt not just yourself but everyone around you.

"Let's hold off on this one for now. There are still plenty of other games."

"Oh! Then how about we all sit down and try these arcade machines together?"

Lee Na-hyun pointed to the row of cabinets lined up side by side.

[𝗽 𝗿 𝗲 𝘀 𝘀　𝗮 𝗻 𝘆　𝗯 𝘂 𝘁 𝘁 𝗼 𝗻]

"Rather than all playing at the same time, it might be better for one person to go first. In case it's a game where spectators can help."

Lee Na-hyun nodded and let her eyes wander, clearly following the logic.

She wasn't eager to go first herself. Not alone, anyway.

"I'll go."

"Yu-han-nim? Really?"

"Yes."

I'd been planning to try whatever came up anyway.

The only way to know which game was most manageable was to see them firsthand.

I was fairly sure filling the minimum of seven players for the final game wasn't happening this run, but I didn't want to waste the time.

And you never know how things turn out.

"Seon Yu-han-ssi."

Hwang Ju-yeon called my name in a low, quiet voice.

"I know it's shameless to say this when you've been the one keeping me alive, but...... like with Happyland, are you really okay always going first?"

"Does it matter whether I'm okay or not? The Labyrinth doesn't care either way."

"Sorry?"

I genuinely didn't understand what she was asking.

Wasn't I okay enough?

Whether I rolled down the stairs and snapped my neck, or got torn to pieces over some installment debt, I couldn't die, so eventually I would get out of this Labyrinth alive, no matter what.

And even if someone out there had conspiracy theories about trapping a regressor in a Labyrinth to run experiments, at least the people I was with right now were honest when it came to survival.

No standing frozen at crosswalks, forcing something down. No having to swallow curses and nausea through the warm, well-meaning nonsense of "good" people.

That's what this Labyrinth was.

"So."

I was genuinely fine.

"I'm just asking you to let me do it. I'm doing this because I want to, because doing something is the only thing keeping me going."

I sat down in front of the leftmost cabinet and looked up at Hwang Ju-yeon.

Still a bit of an unpleasant person, honestly. The fact that she was capable of making an expression like that.

"...... Fine. Alright."

But this was what was good about Hwang Ju-yeon.

She was not the kind of person who would ever sacrifice her own life for the sake of some cheap sense of conscience.

Click.

[𝗽 𝗿 𝗲 𝘀 𝘀　𝗮 𝗻 𝘆　𝗯 𝘂 𝘁 𝘁 𝗼 𝗻]

I pressed a button on the cabinet panel at random.

Ding, ding--.

The screen changed and 8-bit music, the kind you only heard in old arcades, began to play.

It had a mysterious, lyrical quality to it.

[𝙶𝚊𝚛𝚍𝚎𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝙿𝚜𝚢𝚌𝚑𝚎]

Garden of Psyche.

For something called a garden, the pixel-art backgrounds and title design leaned heavily urban.

Concrete grey space. Murky pink font.

Not a trace of green.

[𝙰𝚆𝙰𝙺𝙴]

The only option printed beneath the title.

Awaken?

It seemed to mean start game. The way Happyland's start option had been ENTER.

"Oh, wait a second!"

Just as I was about to press the round button on the panel, Lee Na-hyun shouted and bolted toward the entrance.

"I saw something earlier, like a pamphlet! Ah! Found it!"

Lee Na-hyun rifled through the small booklet stand by the door, then came bounding back with a single thin sheet of paper.

"Here!"

"Oh, you're right, there really is one."

"Sharp eyes."

[《Garden of Psyche》 FAQ]

《Garden of Psyche》 Frequently Asked Questions.

That was what was printed at the top of the stiff paper.

Whether enough people had actually played this game to generate frequently asked questions was debatable, but regardless, a list of questions and answers ran down the page below.

Footnotes:

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