How to Die in the Office Labyrinth - Chapter 65

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

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◈ How to Die in the Office Labyrinth ◈

Chapter 65: Oraculum

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If I could save Lee Na-hyun and chose not to...

I picked up the gold coin again and looked the host straight in the eye.

"Yes. Seon Yu-han-nim, would you like to transfer one coin of 'Life' to Lee Na-hyun-nim?"

"Yeah."

I handed the coin to Lee Na-hyun. She took it with a dazed look, face still flushed red from all the running she'd been doing just moments before.

"Th-thank you......"

I like people who accept things without making a fuss.

Watching someone put up pointless shows of reluctance in a situation where they might actually die turns my stomach.

I genuinely cannot imagine what kind of life a person has to live to end up that way.

"I'll use this, Hosoo-nim! That means I don't have to drink the tea, right?"

"Yes. Lee Na-hyun-nim has offset True Stories' penalty with one coin of 'Life.'"

Hosoo said this while calmly sipping from the cup he still held in his hand.

"However, please be aware that we do not compensate for any difference in value arising from an imbalance between the items exchanged."

"Okay!"

In other words, whatever Lee Na-hyun had been about to lose as the price of her defeat fell short of the value of one coin of 'Life.'

Which meant that drinking the tea wouldn't have killed her.

I wasn't sure whether the penalty was small because she'd only gotten one answer right so far, or whether the penalties just stayed low no matter how many answers you got right. Either way.

I didn't feel like I'd wasted anything.

It wasn't as if I had anywhere to spend it to begin with.

"Yu-han-nim!"

A tangle of blonde hair came bounding toward me.

"You saved my life......!"

Ah.

For a moment I almost regretted helping.

That kind of expression does something uncomfortable to my insides.

"You wouldn't have died anyway."

"Oh, come on. You have no idea what that thing would've done to me. Not dying isn't everything."

Isn't it, though.

As long as you're alive.

"Anyway, I'm really, truly grate--"

"--Please don't."

"What?"

"Never mind."

I closed my mouth.

From somewhere deep in my gut, an unbearable wave of nausea surged up.

Or maybe it was laughter I couldn't control.

"Anyway, I'm done playing games...... I'm too scared to keep going."

"Please enjoy the other activities I've prepared while you wait for your friends to arrive."

The host's guidance, which was also a warning, shepherded everyone back inside the arcade from the corridor.

"Lee Na-hyun-ssi has been through enough -- please rest. I'll take a turn now."

The co-representative of Uiwi Guild smoothly settled the group and stepped up to one of the arcade machines.

It was the one right next to the leftmost machine, the one running the Garden of Psyche.

The reason I had chosen the Garden of Psyche machine first wasn't simply that it was the leftmost.

[u o ʇ ʇ n q　ʎ u ɐ　s s ə ɹ d]

The standby screen on the machine right next to it had its text printed upside down, and that was part of it too.

Why would anyone want to start a game that was already broken on the title screen.

Click.

Yu Hyun-jae tilted his head as if considering, then pressed a button at random.

The screen went black, and without any sound effect or background, green pixel text appeared.

Like something out of the old CRT monitor era.

[𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚓𝚎𝚌𝚝 𝙳𝙴𝙻𝙿𝙷𝙸]

Project Delphi.

Delphi, as in the Oracle of Delphi -- so maybe a game about the future. But I couldn't actually picture what that would look like.

The title faded and new text appeared.

【Answer the Question.】

......Wait. It's displaying Korean.

That was the first thought that crossed my mind.

I'd assumed from the Garden of Psyche that the system could only output in English. Apparently that was just a quirk of that particular game.

"Questions......? Like a quiz......?"

Lee Jin-su muttered from somewhere behind me. I shook off the stray thought and focused on the screen.

This was a Labyrinth.

The questions might be completely unreasonable.

【Question I】

The screen switched immediately.

【How many people appear in the film 《Will Spring Come to Seonghwa High School, Too?》】

What?

The swearing that surged up to the tip of my tongue at the sight of that question was cut off the next instant.

A large number appeared below the question.

【𝟸𝟷】

21? For a second I thought this game was giving 21 chances like True Stories. That thought vanished fast.

【𝟸𝟶】

A countdown.

Well. Yu Hyun-jae was done for.

How was he supposed to get this one.

"Zero."

【Correct!】

......How did he get that one.

【Press right on the cross (✛) button to proceed to the next question.】

It didn't seem like the game forced you to move on.

"How did you know?"

The question tore out of me before I could stop it, landing squarely on the back of his head.

Yu Hyun-jae turned around with an expression that said, what kind of obvious question is that.

"What use would the co-representative of a Labyrinth guild be if he didn't know the survivor count from the Seonghwa High Labyrinth. Even I know that."

"No. What I meant was...... how did you know that was what the question was asking. The survivor count."

《Will Spring Come to Seonghwa High School, Too?》 was a film set against the backdrop of Seonghwa High School, which had been transformed into an invasive-type Labyrinth by Labyrinthification four years ago.

Those Who Never Made It Out.

Yun Haejun.

Song Seo-rin.

...

In the ending credits of that worthless snuff film, beneath the words "Those Who Never Made It Out," the names of everyone who had died there appeared, ordered from the last to survive down to the first.

A kind of mockery.

The standard phrase "those who appear" in a film -- meaning cast members -- had been twisted into "those who never made it out." Ugly wordplay.

Those 200-odd students, faculty, and parents had all "never made it out" of the Labyrinth. They died there.

"How many people appear in the film 《Will Spring Come to Seonghwa High School, Too?》"

So in that context, "the people who appear" wasn't referring to cast members at all. It was a trap question -- "appear" meaning the survivors who made it out of the Labyrinth alive.

Even someone who had watched the film probably would have gotten it wrong without thinking carefully.

So how had he answered correctly.

Someone who hadn't set foot in the main auditorium even once during the 3:55 to 6:02 window when the film was being screened.

"Labyrinths tend to have a twisted quality. From what I've heard, and from personal experience."

I had no choice but to agree.

"No matter how difficult the problem, I believed it wouldn't set a question that was genuinely impossible to solve."

What would be the point of a Labyrinth that no one could solve.

That addition came in a quiet voice, and it called up something this person had said before.

"The Labyrinth is a graveyard of unsolved problems. And those problems are waiting for someone to come and solve them."

I had never heard anything that cut more precisely to the nature of a Labyrinth than that.

"I've never seen that film, and even if I had, who memorizes the number of people in a cast. So I didn't think it was that kind of question."

It had been thirteen years since Labyrinths first appeared.

In all that time, there had been no shortage of theories.

Some people invoked God. Some invoked simulation theory. Some talked about the end of days, some talked about divine judgment.

As if Labyrinths had some grand will behind them, some solemn meaning. Or perhaps as if they hoped they did.

"And honestly, I'm not even sure a film like that actually exists."

People who tried to find meaning in Labyrinths were generally either losing their minds or had already lost them.

Not unlike the people who try to find meaning in life.

"I recall hearing there was a documentary about Seonghwa High, though I can't remember the title. That one was made as a memorial, so...... the title wouldn't have had that strange, twisted quality."

And yet, if Labyrinths had any single purpose at all, it was only this: liberation.

Not sadistic cruelty, not pure malice. Just...... becoming free.

That's what I believe. What I know.

"I figured it was probably one of the Labyrinth's bad jokes, or a metaphor. In that case, 'the people who appear' would mean 'the people who made it out of the Seonghwa High Labyrinth alive,' and the answer is zero."

Yu Hyun-jae finished with a casual raise of one eyebrow, like it was nothing.

"Ah......"

Genuine admiration. For someone who had thought that far in barely two seconds.

That's the kind of mind it takes to run a guild at that age with no family backing.

Being the head of a guild that manages and supports Red Threads meant he had to know Labyrinths inside out, but that kind of split-second judgment wasn't something that came from simply having a lot of information.

......The more I thought about it, the more I could piece together what kind of life he must have led up until now.

And why this person lives the way he does, always grinding against something.

There are people in this world who live outside the Labyrinth as if they were trapped inside one.

People who have no other choice.

"Does that surprise you? I tend to be misread a lot, ordinarily."

Yu Hyun-jae made the joke as if he'd read my mind.

Of course, the misread he usually dealt with and the misread I'd just made were pointing in entirely different directions.

Click.

Yu Hyun-jae pressed the right button and the screen changed to the next question.

【Question II】

Green text appeared on the black screen.

【What is your favorite book?】

【𝟷𝟿】

The countdown resumed from where it had paused.

"The Monkey's Paw."

Less than a second from reading the question to answering it.

Reflexes like a trained athlete.

【Correct!】

Correct again.

【Press right on the cross (✛) button to proceed to the next question.】

"Do you really like that book best......?"

"Yes. Of course, in interviews I used to name something a bit more literary."

So Project Delphi wasn't only asking questions with set answers like the first one. It also asked questions where the correct answer differed depending on the player.

The real problem was that the two types were hard to tell apart at a glance.

If you couldn't tell the difference, you'd fall into a trap and give a completely wrong answer.

"I remember the first time I read The Monkey's Paw -- it hit me so hard I didn't do anything for the rest of the day."

"......Oh. Really."

Can we move to the next question.

"How could someone write something like that. If I had a monkey's paw myself, I'd want to use it to bring that author back to life......"

Yu Hyun-jae let the sentence trail off with a small laugh.

"......"

I spent a moment thinking about what life must be like for employees who have a boss with terrible taste in jokes, then stopped.

Click.

Yu Hyun-jae finally pressed the button.

【Question III】