How to Die in the Office Labyrinth - Chapter 61

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

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◈ How to Die in the Office Labyrinth ◈

Chapter 61: Island

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Very quiet. Very peaceful.

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Q: "How do you tend the garden?"

A: "Water it. Give it light. Sing to it. Wait."

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I drank water. Every time a scream tore up from somewhere beneath my throat.

I took in light. Until the glow of the light fragment I had found in the maze faded away.

I sang. Because singing that song brings no salt water to my eyes.

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𝙴𝚅𝙴𝚁𝚈 𝙰𝙽𝙶𝙴𝙻 𝙸𝚂 𝚃𝙴𝚁𝚁𝙾𝚁 𝙴𝚅𝙴𝚁𝚈 𝙰𝙽𝙶𝙴𝙻 𝙸𝚂 𝚃𝙴𝚁𝚁𝙾𝚁 𝙴𝚅𝙴𝚁𝚈 𝙰𝙽𝙶𝙴𝙻 𝙸𝚂 𝚃𝙴𝚁𝚁𝙾𝚁 𝙴𝚅𝙴𝚁𝚈 𝙰𝙽𝙶𝙴𝙻 𝙸𝚂 𝚃𝙴𝚁𝚁𝙾𝚁 𝙴𝚅𝙴𝚁𝚈 𝙰𝙽𝙶𝙴𝙻 𝙸𝚂 𝚃𝙴𝚁𝚁𝙾𝚁 𝙴𝚅𝙴𝚁𝚈 𝙰𝙽𝙶𝙴𝙻 𝙸𝚂 𝚃𝙴𝚁𝚁𝙾𝚁 𝙴𝚅𝙴𝚁𝚈 𝙰𝙽𝙶𝙴𝙻 𝙸𝚂 𝚃𝙴𝚁𝚁𝙾𝚁 𝙴𝚅𝙴𝚁𝚈 𝙰𝙽𝙶𝙴𝙻 𝙸𝚂 𝚃𝙴𝚁𝚁𝙾𝚁 𝙴𝚅𝙴𝚁𝚈 𝙰𝙽𝙶𝙴𝙻 𝙸𝚂 𝚃𝙴𝚁𝚁𝙾𝚁

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I waited.

Waited, and kept waiting. With no end in sight.

Until the seed inside me would grow.

(If it keeps going like this, you should clear it without any trouble...... The maze was honestly what looked like the hardest part, and you got through it so fast......)

(Was it? I think I got lucky. I've played a lot of navigation games before.)

(Oh! I have a question. Like Yu-han-nim said, if clearing the games here gives you an extra life the way heart items work in real games, would everyone play? What about you, unni?)

(Um, hmm...... I'm not sure. I'd be scared of throwing away the life I already have just to try for an extra one...... Plus I've barely played any games. At most something like a card game......?)

"It's starting to feel like simple repetitive labor at this point."

"Once you get used to this genre, it does turn into that kind of grind...... That's part of the fun, really......"

Even with the game fast-forwarding time on its own, boredom was inevitable for player and spectator alike.

The thrill of navigation was gone. The monsters and traps that popped up now and then were just tedious.

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Q: "Is there a way to make it grow faster?"

A: "If you're lucky, you might find fertilizer somewhere."

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So I fed the character fertilizer.

The monster resembling a Minotaur, with two white horns on either side of its head.

The more it ate, the more it would grow.

I can feel something alive inside me.

Something whose nature I cannot name, feeding on my blood and growing.

That is what frightens me most.

Not that I don't know what will happen when the seed finishes growing. What frightens me is that I still don't know what this thing inside me is.

That someone I don't know is living inside my body.

I want to split my chest open and tear it out.

I want to rip through my stomach and yank it free.

I screamed, clawing at the wall.

No.

That is not an interaction I am permitted.

(Um, Hosoo......? Moderator-nim?)

(Yes, Lee Na-hyun-nim. I'm the moderator. Please call me "Hosoo.")

(I was thinking, if I do play a game, maybe this one...... Would that be alright?)

(That game does not bring happy things when you win. That game does not bring sad things when you lose.)

(Oh, really? I guess this one doesn't count then!)

(So not all of these board games are Labyrinth games after all.)

(It seems not. Still, it's good we could check, I suppose. Representative-nim, are you thinking of playing something......?)

(If I do, I'll stick to a board game. When it comes to games against machines, I'm...... just not cut out for it.)

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Q: "The tree ran away. What do I do?"

A: "Get it back. Prune it. Soothe it."

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If I try to run away, I will bring myself back with a single button (no), I will trim away my limbs (that's not necessary), and I will wait for myself to calm down on my own (I won't run anyway).

It's fine.

I know I will come to understand.

Myself.

I can feel the gap between my two split streams of consciousness slowly widening.

The sense that each side's perceptions and thoughts are no longer fully shared.

Connected through a single button, yet disconnected.

No. It might be an illusion.

Even this feeling might be a hallucination I've constructed.

It might be that way because I want it to be.

Me.

......Me?

Who am I. What am I. Me? Am I me. Who is me. That thing outside, controlling me? That thing inside, unable to take a single step without me? Is that thing me too. Who is that thing. What is that thing.

That thing doesn't seem like a "person." Not anymore.

(Lee Na-hyun-nim. Would you like to play True Stories?)

(No no no! I was just checking it out. I'm not playing right now! But wait, isn't this game normally called Dark Stories?)

(I don't quite follow. This is True Stories, a game I made myself.)

(Oh, ah, right......)

(Hey, Na-hyun-ssi. So what kind of game is it?)

(Oh. Have you ever heard of the turtle soup game?)

¿actually I knew the whole time they weren't horns those were ribs I knew the whole time whose bite mark that was I knew from the very start that it was a person but you know what do you know what actually I get happy every time I eat it do you know that do you know that all of it is real?

Time flows like eternity.

I think about eternity.

I know a being who lives forever.

Someone who would still be alive long after I died.

No.

A woman who would never even allow my death, who would go on living and tearing pieces off me forever.

That was why I felt like I would survive forever too. Me as well. Together with her.

Like I would never escape her. Even as a grown-up.

I had to kill that woman.

I was right.

I was wrong.

That woman never dies.

She goes on dying forever. Inside me.

There are too many living things inside me.

It's moving. I'm telling you it's moving. It's moving. I said it's moving.

Parasite.

Why should I have to feed and raise something like you?

Now I'm supposed to take care of someone else's kid, too?

What did I do so wrong?

Don't you feel sorry for me at all?

Very quiet. Very peaceful.

And that is unbearable.

Silence is not something I'm allowed.

Too many sounds reach my ears.

The voices of people I can never meet again.

Their voices, blaming me.

My voice, cursing myself.

I am not allowed to answer.

Because everything they say is the truth.

What grows inside me keeps swelling larger.

My body feels heavy. My heart feels strangely light.

As if this thing is devouring not my body but my mind.

What a good little thing.

I am alive.

I feel like I might be dead.

Have been, for a very long time.

Before I ever missed a step on the emergency stairs of the Jaelae Building. Before I was ever rewarded for keeping quiet about what I knew of that town. Before I ever burned the aunt and uncle. Before I ever climbed a winter mountain in nothing but a t-shirt and jeans. Before I ever flushed her ashes down a bathroom drain. Before I ever stood at a red light, blank and motionless. Before the car carrying three of us ever flipped over.

Even further back. Much further.

Before I ever drew my first breath.

From some point impossibly far in the past, and impossibly far in the future, both. All the way up to now.

I feel like I have been dying all along.

My body is not my own.

But my mind is mine alone.

My heart. My thoughts.

I am free. At least inside my head. Even if that isn't necessarily a good thing.

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Q: "I'm lost. How do I find my way back?"

A: "<𝚛𝚘𝚘𝚝> will ask you a question. Give the right answer."

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I'm lost, I used to murmur to myself.

Every time I went into the maze to gather new light fragments and fertilizer.

By now I know the maze's layout well enough to move through it blindfolded.

I'm lost. Help me find my way back.

The moment I thought that, the shadow-like stalker would appear without fail and ask its question.

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<𝚛𝚘𝚘𝚝> 𝚆𝙷𝙾 𝙰𝚁𝙴 𝚈𝙾𝚄

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And Seon Yu-han had to give the right answer.

Of course, failing to give the right answer wouldn't get me killed or hurt by root.

It would just take me somewhere dark, what might be its home or something, where nothing could be seen, and stand me there perfectly still like a decoration for the entire day before throwing me back into the middle of the maze.

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<𝚈𝙾𝚄> 𝙴𝚃𝙴𝚁𝙽𝙸𝚃𝚈

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Seon Yu-han still had not given the right answer.

Psyche. Eros. Aphrodite. Apollo. Swan. Gardener. Garden. Earth. Root. Seed. Branch. Stem. Leaf. Fruit. Tree. Daphne. Soul. Love. Beauty. Sun. God. Angel. Terror. Grief. Song. Mother. Father. Parent. Past. Hyeonje. Future. Infinity. Eternity.......

These could all serve as answers to "who you were."

But none of them could serve as an answer to "who you are."

Seon Yu-han doesn't know.

I think I'm starting to.

It was only in the moment I understood the difference that I could finally accept it.

That I would never go back.

That I cannot leave this garden.

We have already become far too different from each other.

This game will end someday.

And when it does, so will I.

Very quiet. Very peaceful.

I am not alone.

I want to meet you soon.

I'mgoingtokillI'mgoingtokillJustdieJustdieI'mgoingtokillhimNoIshouldn'tWhyshouldIhavetodomegoodthingsNoJustdieDieandstartoveragainyoupsychoJustdumpthisgodforsakenstupidgameandfindsomethingelsepleasestoppretendingnottoknowYoubloodycockroachyouknowittoodon'tyouNomatterhowyoutrapmeinthisplaceandplantsomemonsterinsidemenonethispenancecanevenbuyyouforgiveness.Thatthereisnovaluewhatsoeverinmysuffering.

It's fine.

Because I understand.

You.

Correct. Correct. Correct. Correct. Correct. Correct. Correct. Correct. Correct. Correct.

Correct. Correct. Correct. Correct. Correct. Correct. Correct.-

One year has passed.

Footnotes:

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