How to Die in the Office Labyrinth - Chapter 6

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

◈ How to Die in the Office Labyrinth ◈

Chapter 6: Those Who Never Made It Out

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"Sunbae, what's wrong? What's in there?"

The first-year girl, her hair now in a ponytail instead of the bob it had been before, moved to stand beside the boy who had gone rigid.

He flinched and tried to close the locker, but it was already too late.

"Is that... what I think it is?"

Those two seemed to grasp the significance of the anomaly immediately.

This place had been a Labyrinth that only let out those who met a specific condition.

There might be a condition where the whole Labyrinth resolves and everyone escapes at once, but probably the easiest solution would have been to wait until graduation.

"I'm jealous. I really am. I wish I'd been born just a little earlier. We could have graduated together. But honestly, truly, congratulations. I mean that."

The round-eyed girl choked out the words through her tears, doing her best to stay brave.

Seonghwa High School's one and only first-year buried her face in the chest of its one and only about-to-graduate student and cried for a long time.

Sniff.

From the back row came the sound of someone quietly sobbing.

Only two people in the audience, and one was throwing up while the other wept.

A truly cinematic experience.

"Don't go getting any stupid ideas about staying behind. Think about getting out. Don't come back. Don't worry about me. If you're that worried, go out and get someone to help. You know all the rules now."

"You think you can hold on without me? For two years?"

The two of them stared at each other with bloodshot eyes, like they were trying to bore holes through one another.

"Then what about me. You think I can hold on? Without you?"

I know that love can keep a person alive.

"What the hell, what's wrong with this guy, his eyes and his mouth still working just fine? Hey! You, get in the faculty office! Give me a minute! I'm going to deal with that and come right back! I'll be back soon, so tell Song Seo-rin what I said!"

And so I also know that love can get a person killed.

"Seo, Seo-rin. Song Seo-rin. What are you doing. Hey. Get up. Hm? Are you sulking? Because I didn't come to the gym? I, I'm not graduating... wait. I, the graduation ceremony... so, because of me...?"

Yun Haejun held Song Seo-rin in his arms in the middle of that blood-soaked faculty office and stayed there on the floor for a long time.

The scene cut.

Yun Haejun quietly gathered the bodies.

Scrubbed the dried blood from the faculty office floor.

Put on a jacket and tie, neat and tidy.

Made his selections from the school store with practiced ease, carried everything up to the rooftop, and arranged it one by one on a desk he had lowered as far as it would go.

I watched, studying each item Yun Haejun had set out.

Apple-flavored gummy candy, pear ice cream, sikhye, barbecue-flavored chips, fish-shaped crackers, rice drink...

In front of what must have been the heaviest memorial table in the world, Yun Haejun knelt and bowed.

He rose, then bowed again.

His back, curled small like a child's, trembled faintly.

Black smoke rose beyond the shoulders of Seonghwa High School's last remaining student.

The camera pulled back slowly, slowly, until it held the full view of the school.

Seonghwa High School, burning like a torch in the dark.

At last the school shrank smaller and smaller, and the ending credits began to roll.

[Those Who Never Made It Out]

[Yun Haejun]

[Song Seo-rin]

...

Names. Names. Names.

Over two hundred names.

I pressed my hand over my mouth.

A Labyrinth is a time and space of rules, by rules, for rules.

Follow the rules correctly, satisfy the Labyrinth, and you can get out.

"Those who never made it out."

And so the Labyrinth holds no malice.

If it seems malicious, that is only mimicry, nothing more than a human being's arbitrary interpretation.

This space, mechanical and purely terrible.

[Venue provided by: Seonghwa High School]

...

[Subtitles by Labyrinth Pictures Co., Ltd.]

The credits ended.

I slipped out my phone and checked the time.

6:02.

Running time: two hours, seven minutes.

Time to get moving. I turned and gestured to Chae Jae-ha in the row behind me.

Flash!

Without warning, the screen behind my head lit up again.

Damn.

A delayed attack.

I planted my half-risen backside straight back into the seat.

If I had stood up thinking the credits were done, I really would have died.

Don't tell me this insane Labyrinth made a post-credits scene too.

Going to tease a sequel?

I stared at the screen, incredulous.

"Huh?"

I was on my feet before I even knew it.

"Huh? Huh?"

Chae Jae-ha's dim voice was the last thing I remembered.

There had to be a rule in this Labyrinth against saying "huh."

Damn it.

* * *

4. Do not rise from your seat before the film has completely ended.

* * *

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

Had I imagined it?

Was I sure I saw it right?

And it happened so fast I couldn't even tell how I'd died.

What way is there to silently kill a theater villain mid-screening without anyone noticing?

...No. Forget it.

I had things to do.

"Excuse me. This building has become an invasive-type Labyrinth as of this moment. You need to leave. Yes, I'm completely serious. Please keep listening."

I got the Interview Administrator up from their seat and explained.

"There will be a blackout shortly, so the elevators are out. Be careful not to fall on the stairs, and do not stand still on them for more than five seconds. If anyone asks you the time, just answer with whatever you know. If you get trapped in the main auditorium, you absolutely must follow the announcement instructions. Also, it seems you can only move one floor at a time, so if you finish your business on the second floor but cannot get out to the first floor, then... I'm sorry. I don't know what to tell you there."

Walking almost at a run while talking that much left me breathless.

"Oh. Ah, I understand."

The Interview Administrator looked flustered but nodded.

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

"Yes. Please go quickly. I have to get someone out of an elevator."

I also made sure to mention asking the Uiwi Guild's Red Threads to spread word of the Labyrinth activation on social media.

"I see. All right."

The Interview Administrator looked at me steadily.

"Oh, and Seon Yu-han-ssi. You don't need to apologize for not knowing something here. Not knowing things is completely natural in a Labyrinth."

"Ah."

Which meant that I, who had gone on and on knowing just a little too much about this Labyrinth, was inevitably not "natural" at all.

The Interview Administrator noticed, said nothing, and even told me not to feel sorry.

Having someone like this as my Interview Administrator was one of the few pieces of good fortune in my long string of bad luck.

"Yes."

For some reason I couldn't quite meet their eyes, so I answered quietly and lowered my head.

"Then, Seon Yu-han-ssi. Take care of yourself, and let's meet again."

"Yes. Please be careful."

I hope they don't disappear.

Would we actually meet again?

With that thought, I stopped the elevator.

6... 5... 4... 3... Ding!

"The doors are opening."

There was that face. Chae Jae-ha, the accountant, looking none too pleased to see me.

"Chae Jae-ha-ssi."

"Hm? Yes?"

"I need to speak with you. Could you step out for a moment?"

Chae Jae-ha seemed confused at the request from a complete stranger but couldn't quite bring himself to ignore it, so he stumbled out looking dazed.

"Uh. I, what's this about...?"

He stared at me hard, as if searching his memory for my face.

There was not much I had to say to that.

Just that this Jaelae Building had become a Labyrinth, that within roughly a minute all communications would go dead, and the power inside the building would cut out.

"No, that's completely--"

Bam!

"--What the?!"

Crash, creak, bang, boom!

"Right. You've seen it. Now let's take the stairs down."

Smash, thud!

"Uh, yeah? Okay..."

After getting a surround-sound live performance of the Jaelae Building's elevators crashing down, he was left a little blank, and then he fell into line without complaint.

"Hold the railing and come down slowly. But don't stop moving."

"Ah, yes. I, by the way, I genuinely can't place you, so if you don't mind my asking, how do you know me...?"

Chae Jae-ha's voice echoed through the emergency stairwell like a cave.

"I know you on my end. You're with Hoewol Accounting, aren't you."

"Ah, ah right. You saw the photo on our website? I thought so. If you were one of our clients there's no way I'd have forgotten your face."

The accountant sighed with relief and smiled, then paused.

"But--"

"--Keep coming down, don't stop."

"Ah, yes. Sorry, but what's your name?"

"Seon Yu-han."

Fortunately, being mid-staircase, Chae Jae-ha did not reach for a business card.

"Right, anyway, Seon Yu-han-ssi."

The accountant pushed open the first-floor emergency exit and looked straight at me.

"How did you know I was in that elevator?"

Huh. Sharper than I expected.

"I didn't."

"That seems unlikely, given that you were basically waiting for me the moment the doors opened."

So this is the problem with pretending to know things in advance and calling someone out of an elevator.

"And you knew it would fall when the power cut. A power outage doesn't normally cause elevators to fall. Even in a Labyrinth. And it hadn't even been five minutes since this place became a Labyrinth, had it? Everything was fine before I got in the elevator. It barely looked like a Labyrinth at all. How did you know?"

Wow. He hadn't said all this last time.

Give someone time to think quietly and they get sharp.

Going forward I should just not give him time to think.

"I have good instincts. Just had a feeling today that this place was going to become a Labyrinth, and that I'd know what would happen inside. Something like that."

"Come on, that makes no sense."

Chae Jae-ha had finally dropped the formal speech.

"Even the fortune-teller who predicted a foreign president's death couldn't tell where the next Labyrinth would appear."

"Maybe that fortune-teller was never trapped inside one."

The accountant finally shut up.

"Labyrinths sometimes leave problems that don't get resolved. Even after they're solved."

He was eyeing me cautiously, working out what I meant.

Honestly, such a straightforward person.

"Anyway. The problem we need to deal with right now is this."

I tossed him a new problem so he wouldn't go wandering down pointless trains of thought.

"We came out on the second floor. We opened the first-floor emergency exit."

"What? Wait, for real?"

We ended up doing it again, going all the way down to the first floor and coming out on the second.

"Ugh! Seriously!"

Nothing to be done about it, I supposed.

Fair enough. I would have checked for myself too, so I wasn't going to say anything about it.

"So, Seon Yu-han-ssi, what are you planning to do now? You're a Labyrinth survivor, you've got to know something. What to do from here. I know invasive-type Labyrinths are pretty different from competitive-type ones."

"I'm going to walk the whole second floor. That itself might be the condition for getting down to the first, and even if it isn't, I can probably figure out what the condition is. For now..."

Starting here.

I said that and tilted my head toward the main auditorium's front doors.

"The auditorium? Why there?"

"No particular reason. Just feels right."

That garbage snuff film titled "Will Spring Come to Seonghwa High School Too?"

Honestly, I could barely stand to look at it.

But I hadn't made it through to the post-credits scene last time.

I had to watch. Even if I didn't want to. For the sake of knowing.

I had to know. Even if I didn't want to know. For the sake of getting out.

"And after the auditorium, I'm planning to go past the daycare center over there, make a full loop, and come back here."

I pointed to the second-floor map on the corridor wall.

The Jaelae Building had a square floor plan, shaped like the Korean character for "mouth."

According to the map, the library was to the north, the daycare center to the west, the merch store to the east, and the main auditorium to the south.

With the open courtyard at the center, reaching the library would require passing either the daycare or the merch store.

My plan was to start from the auditorium and hit the daycare, the library, and the merch store one by one, going clockwise.

I didn't say anything to Chae Jae-ha about following along or coming with me.

"All right. Let's do that."

He just came along anyway.

For someone his size, he was quietly a bit of a coward and more sensitive than he looked.

"That said, whatever happens, please don't be too shocked. And follow the rules."

"What are you saying. I'm not a kid."

I said it because he was acting like one.

I recalled begging Chae Jae-ha last time to please just stay in his seat, and opened the auditorium door.

* * *

In the end, I had to coax the accountant through his loud, fussing refusal to sit down all over again, and I had to sit through a second viewing of that garbage snuff film titled "Will Spring Come to Seonghwa High School Too?"

[Those Who Never Made It Out]

[Yun Haejun]

[Song Seo-rin]

...

Not "those appearing," as in the cast. Those who never made it out.

Seeing it a second time, I couldn't even manage a bitter laugh.

Waiting for the post-credits scene, I thought about Seonghwa High School.

Four years ago, Seonghwa High School became an invasive-type Labyrinth on October 2nd, and was released from Labyrinthification the following February 5th, the evening that should have been graduation day. It was completely burned down.

The inside of the school had been neatly cleaned up, and most things had been burned beyond recovery, making it difficult to determine what had actually taken place.

Only the six bodies left on the rooftop, and the traces of over two hundred people, crudely reduced to ash and stuffed into every available container and drawer, proved that an enormous amount of grief had once been trapped there.

And now I know the path they walked.

Will there ever come a day when I can speak of them?

How brave those children were, and how cowardly. How kind those adults were, and how foolish. How much they thought of others, and how much they only thought of themselves.

How desperately they failed.

Could I tell the families, still trapped inside a Labyrinth that no longer exists, what happened?

Can I get out of this Labyrinth? Even for their sake?

Flash!

The credits finished rolling, and the screen brightened again.

I gripped the armrests tight so I wouldn't stand up without thinking, the way I had last time.

The post-credits scene that had gotten me killed began to play.

Footnotes:

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