WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

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◈ How to Die in the Office Labyrinth ◈

Chapter 77: The Boy Who Cried Wolf

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Why hadn't I suspected it sooner?

"Yu Hyun-jae is not a wolf."

Not a wolf.

That didn't mean Yu Hyun-jae was a sheep.

Why hadn't I caught it?

"Sheep may, once during the night while alive, name someone they suspect of being a wolf and find out whether that person is or isn't a wolf."

Whether they are or aren't a wolf.

Not whether they're a wolf or a sheep.

If they were just a sheep, that's all it would have taken to say.

So if the only two sides were wolf and sheep...

"What are you, exactly?"

"Good question. What could I be."

When I finally turned my head to look, Yu Hyun-jae was smiling a smile I couldn't read.

It looked like amusement. It looked like boredom. And somehow it felt like all of that was fake. A strange smile.

Not wolf, not sheep. A peculiar smile, as though whoever wore it had stepped briefly above the food chain entirely.

"Shepherd."

"Pardon?"

"A guardian who tends the sheep. An exploiter who keeps them penned in the pasture. That was my role."

Shepherd.

Shepherd...

Shepherd?

"Oh."

No way.

I looked past the shepherd's shoulder at the host, who stood holding a wooden staff.

Black hair that rolled in waves. Dark skin that seemed to reach toward the sky. Cuffs and trouser hems worn ragged, nearly through.

"No, that's not what I meant. I was going to say you look a little bit like, uh, Jesus..."

Shepherd of the little lambs. The most famous shepherd in the world.

A dry laugh escaped me.

The clues were right there from the start, practically begging to be noticed. I couldn't swallow a single one.

Serves me right.

"If you are sheep, drive out the predator and leave only sheep in this pasture. Then, free from all threat and control, enjoy safety and freedom in the open field."

My victory condition was to leave only sheep.

But there had been a creature I was certain was kin who kept surviving, and that was why the game never ended.

"So then..."

Had I killed people I didn't need to kill? From a single mistake in judgment?

"Oh. I killed them for nothing."

"What?"

I looked at the shepherd again. A casual tilt of the head, like it was nothing.

"Is that what you were thinking?"

I didn't answer.

"It wasn't entirely pointless, so don't be too hard on yourself. As I saw it, there was only one sheep in this pasture."

How far should I trust that?

"I won't tell you how many wolves and sheep there are. Every faction is in the dark about the others' identities."

Even if the host had concealed the shepherd role, there was no reason for that particular explanation to be a lie.

In a game with only two factions, wolf and sheep, there was no need to say "every faction" unless there were more.

Looking back, the hints had been there.

"You can trust me. My eye for people is quite accurate."

Like I could read minds.

"It's not your eye I don't trust. It's your words."

"Ah. Fair enough. I understand."

This person is genuinely bizarre.

So bizarre that I'd crossed some threshold past irritation, and the leisurely air didn't even bother me anymore.

"So. What's the shepherd's victory condition? Protect the sheep, keep them alive to the end, and then what?"

If protecting the sheep alone were enough to win, the game would have ended in Yu Hyun-jae's victory already.

Which meant something still remained.

Which meant I still had a chance to turn this around.

...Was killing directly an option, not just the vote?

Honestly, this person's build was slightly better than mine, so it wouldn't be easy.

"See, that's exactly what I mean."

The unhinged shepherd suddenly lit up like I'd said something delightful.

"My eye is accurate. We're practically the same kind, in a certain sense."

So they'd read me. That I was thinking about killing them.

Genuinely exhausting to deal with.

"Anyway. Keeping the sheep alive doesn't win me the game. I do have the ability to protect, that much is true. Once."

"...The second night, when nobody died..."

"Yes. I thought Hwang Ju-yeon was going to kill Seon Yu-han, so I stepped in. You're welcome."

As if.

"Why did you keep me alive? Protecting the sheep doesn't win you anything."

"I didn't pick Seon Yu-han on purpose. Seon Yu-han picked themselves."

The co-representative of Uiwi Guild looked at me with something almost like innocence. Unwavering.

"Decent at reading expressions, decent at lying. Someone who could keep up with me. Of course I'd keep you alive."

I'd been maneuvered from the start.

"I'm a sheep. Me too."

Those lying signals.

Not trying to fool the wolves by pretending to be one. Trying to hook one foolish sheep.

Anyway.

This person really is that good.

Should have gone into acting.

"Come to think of it, was it you who killed Chae Jae-ha?"

"Does that matter?"

The shepherd glanced at my face, laughed softly, and waved a hand.

"No, not me. That wolf really was Hwang Ju-yeon. Quite fond of her, actually. I don't dislike people who fight to survive. Don't you feel the same?"

I didn't answer.

I do. To the bone, I do.

"Don't people like that make you want to be genuine with them? Make you want to fight with everything you have? They're worth that."

There's something both unpleasant and strangely comfortable about a conversation with someone who can read you even through silence.

"Though Hwang Ju-yeon's limits are clear. In the end, she couldn't have killed Ji-ho. Even if Ji-ho had been a sheep. Lee Na-hyun is a little borderline too, but since killing at a distance rather than by physical contact is a different matter, it might not be entirely beyond her."

A remarkably accurate read.

Especially given that Hwang Ju-yeon had once killed the librarian at Chaekbang Ollae.

Kim Gilyeong, whatever else she was, looked on the outside like an ordinary woman around Lee Na-hyun's age.

"Why is it so easy to harm something smaller and weaker than yourself... Almost trivially so. And yet, precisely because of that, so many people can't bring themselves to cross that line."

It's not that they can't cross it. It's that they shouldn't.

That is the agreement we've made. The line we've kept.

The boundaries of the world we live in are the sum of all those countless lines.

I know I've come too far.

Far enough that looking back, I can't find the line at all.

"That's what I was curious about, Seon Yu-han."

The shepherd said something meaningless.

"How far you could go."

I said nothing.

"Do you happen to know about this?"

"No."

A vaguely uneasy feeling settled in.

"That I believe time reversal may be possible in the Labyrinth."

Damn it.

"I had my suspicions. You let that question come up in the interview, after all."

Lying is all about conviction. The closer to the truth, the easier to deceive.

But would this person actually fall for it?

"Why bring that up now, though?"

The eyes of Uiwi Guild's co-representative curved in a way that didn't sit right.

"You really are good at it. Lying. ...Or aren't you? Still can't tell. That's genuinely impressive."

"So what are you saying..."

Now a laugh slipped between Yu Hyun-jae's lips.

"All right. I lost."

"No, what do you mean..."

"Seon Yu-han. Are you experiencing time reversal?"

"What? No, really, what are you... What? Out of nowhere...?"

If there was anyone who must not find out about this damned loop, it was this person right here.

Not just unhinged but capable on top of it. An absolute disaster.

I could not get caught.

"Not out of nowhere. Mm, how should I put it."

The unhinged shepherd propped a chin in one hand and tapped a finger against their lips.

"You just seem to know everything."

"Me? Know what?"

"Everything."

At least until the final game. Yu Hyun-jae added that last part with an almost playful air.

"Representative. People tend to see what they want to believe, and believe what they want to see."

"That's not wrong. So... you're saying I wanted to see that?"

The shepherd's gaze drifted downward. Below the table.

"Seon Yu-han never being surprised no matter what happens? Even when your own toe was being cut off?"

Oh. Damn.

"I appreciate you forgetting what a spectacle I made of myself in pain, but."

"Being in pain and being surprised are two different things. What I mean is, most people don't take it that calmly when any part of their body disappears."

"That's just how I am."

"Even before being trapped in the Labyrinth?"

"Yes."

The shepherd nodded, a quiet ah.

There was nothing else to do but accept it. This wasn't someone who'd mistake pure, unvarnished truth for something else.

"There are people like that. Unresponsive to external stimuli, accustomed to violence, neurologically distinctive."

That was also a self-portrait.

"Then let me try a different argument."

The shepherd seemed almost pleased.

Was all of this just a game to them?

"Seon Yu-han seemed too desperate to live. In a strange way."

"...I don't follow. That's strange?"

"You don't actually want to live."

"..."

"You look like someone living only because you can't die. That's how you look to me."

"Isn't that how everyone lives?"

The shepherd smiled, faintly.

Even that smile was fake.

"You're right. You are. That's how everyone lives. That argument won't hold."

Because it looked like grief. Just for a moment.

"Well, it doesn't matter either way. Right is nice, wrong is fine. I have nothing to lose."

Then the tone shifted back to something easy, unconcerned.

"So hypothetically. Hypothetically. If I kill Seon Yu-han right now, and it somehow becomes like it never happened. And we meet again."

A calm voice, unsettling in how undisturbed it was.

"I'll have to be much more thorough than this."

Deep and cold as a dry well. Black eyes that didn't blink.

"I read people very, very well."

Pak!

The arm that shot out in a surprise strike was caught clean.

And then the left hand, which had scrambled to grab a pen while bracing for the right to be caught.

Stronger than expected.

I was trying to wrench free and get up when.

Kwak!

"Ngh..."

The shepherd's face closed the distance fast and slammed into my forehead with full force.

My vision went white for an instant, my head yanked back in a brutal grip and spinning, and then.

Puk!

"Kh-ugh..."

Heavy impacts landed on my stomach and solar plexus in quick succession.

"Ngh... ugh..."

Dirty fighter. Going straight for the vital points.

Fights filthy. Wouldn't have guessed it.

...I had a rough idea, but still.

"Even so. Please believe this one thing."

The shepherd looked down at me, methodically pressing down to keep me from getting up.

Through the spinning in my vision, I thought I understood, somehow, the dim emotion in those eyes.

"I do not enjoy watching people die. Not in the slightest."

I'd rather you were alive, if anything...

A voice so pitifully honest it made me not want to believe it, crumbling apart like dust.

"Host. Now."

The shepherd gestured toward the sheep.

"Let's get to the slaughter."

* * *

"If you could turn back time, Seon Yu-han, what would you do?"

"Ah, ah..."

I barely managed to clamp a hand over my mouth and curl into myself.

But there was nothing I could do about the shaking shuddering through me like a chill.

"Seon Yu-han. Are you all right? Seon Yu-han!"

List the following in order from most to least painful when removed with a kitchen knife? ㉶ Skin list in order? List my pain in order? Skin? Sk sk sk sk sk skin when removed most to least painful list which part in order? If you score each joint and pull slowly you can peel it off so prettily flesh flesh flesh flesh flesh flesh flesh flesh hide skin skin skin skin skin skin skin skin skin skin skin skin skin skin skin skin meat

"Seon Yu-han, can you hear me?"

Everywhere the Interview Administrator's hands touched burned like fire.

"First, look at my eyes and breathe slowly..."

No. It's not real. It's a delusion. All of that is in the past. It didn't happen.

Calm, steady eyes.

Only what I'm seeing right now is real.

"It's okay, it's okay. You're somewhere safe, Seon Yu-han."

That is not the truth.

But the words of someone who believed it with their whole heart carried something stronger than truth.

"One... two..."

Following the soft voice, I let the seizure slowly quiet, and thought about my answer to the final interview question.

Life.

I need to save lives.

Footnotes:

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