WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

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◈ How to Die in the Office Labyrinth ◈

Chapter 92: Confession

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Splish, splash.

The water had risen to chest level.

Even perched on a pipe, high enough that my head nearly touched the ceiling.

Watching the surface of death inch toward my face, I made my confession to the group.

More precisely, to Yu Hyun-jae.

"I'm experiencing time regression. Right now."

As for what had happened in the meantime.

There had been deaths.

Deaths in which a few small hand flashlights from the convenience store solved nothing.

Deaths racked up before I finally managed to cross TARAE's threshold without triggering a seizure, purchase a hand flashlight outright, and slip back out in one piece.

Deaths paid for in brain and heart and lungs and blood and bone and skin, the price of choosing misfortune at Happyland.

Deaths in which every bone in my body was crushed into silence by the staff serpent that received the host's kiss of Life at Future Arcade.

Even pooling every scrap of light we had across all those deaths, the light was always too little. The water always too much. I was always running out of air.

It was time to admit it.

The moment had come to take a different road.

Not down, but up.

Somewhere I had never once been.

Not descending from the third floor, where the interview rooms were, down to the second, but climbing toward an unknown floor.

"So to be precise......"

I turned away from Chae Jae-ha and Lee Na-hyun, who both looked too drained to shout at me about the nonsense I was spouting in a situation like this.

I looked straight at Yu Hyun-jae.

Of everyone I had met, this person understood the Labyrinth best.

The sharpest mind, too.

Sharp enough to be vicious, even, with no particular malice behind it.

If there was anyone to ask for counsel, it had to be this person.

"Every time I die, time rewinds. Back to the moment I was hearing the final interview question."

So I said it. For the first time. Honestly.

It wasn't as though we had a long road ahead of us, anyway. In a little while we'd all be sinking together, and there was nothing to lose by saying it out loud.

"......"

The co-representative of Uiwi Guild, the conspiracy theorist, was quiet for a moment.

What kind of reaction would I get?

Would Yu Hyun-jae seize on it and fire off questions?

Or try to kill me as a test?

The first question that came, though, was not what I expected.

"It seems you can't find a way out. Looks like we're going to die for certain now. With no way to escape at all."

This time it was me who lost my words.

"You must have lost faith in me somewhere along the way. Confessing only when death is at the door."

Say one thing and this person already sees ten steps ahead.

Whether that made Yu Hyun-jae exhausting to deal with, or actually easier, I couldn't decide.

"Wait, just a moment......"

Chae Jae-ha, who had barely survived with one arm gone, forced his mouth open.

His expression said he didn't understand a word of it.

"So, Representative-nim, you're saying you actually believe that......?"

"Of course I do."

"Why? How......?"

"Hmm......?"

Lee Na-hyun, beside Chae Jae-ha, wrinkled her face right along with him.

"Oh, you both believe in that, the Labyrinth time regression theory? You actually both believe it......?"

"Excuse me, but are Seon Yu-han-ssi and the Representative both, perhaps, slightly out of your minds right now?"

It was the first time Chae Jae-ha had ever spoken that bluntly to Yu Hyun-jae.

Every hypothesis suggesting that time travel, forward or backward, was possible inside a Labyrinth held the status of a conspiracy theory, plain and simple. In the minds of sane, reasonable people, it ranked alongside flat-earth theory.

The problem was, the earth was still round, and I was actually experiencing time regression.

"But Jae-ha-nim, does it even matter. We're going to......"

Lee Na-hyun, who had been holding herself together until just a moment ago, was on the verge of tears again, her voice trailing off.

She probably meant that since we were going to die anyway, it didn't matter if anyone was out of their mind.

"Ha....... Yeah, fine. Whatever."

Chae Jae-ha winced, his shoulder clearly hurting, and shook his head.

He didn't seem to want to spend the last hours of his life arguing with a pair of unhinged conspiracy theorists.

"So, how many times have you been through this?"

The unhinged conspiracy theorist was undaunted.

"Let me think. Close to ninety times, I'd say."

"Ha!"

A derisive snort. From Chae Jae-ha.

"You're actually properly insane......"

Low and muttered, half to himself.

We were all packed close enough together that it carried like a whisper straight into my ear.

"Hey. Listen up, Seon Yu-han-ssi."

The color had been drained clean from Chae Jae-ha's face, but now his eyes were shot through with red.

"Fine. Say you really did die ninety times, or a hundred, whatever."

Was he angry?

That anger reminded me of a candle flame that keeps reviving even as it gutters, and I found I liked it.

"Then....... why did you let Ji-ho die? You died that many times, lived through that much. What about Hwang Ju-yeon-ssi? What about Lee Jin-su-ssi. My arm....... Why did it all end up like that? Why are we in this state right now?"

Anger that had simply lost its way to the right destination.

Everyone becomes a lost child when death is close enough.

"There had to have been a better path. You should have figured it out and tried harder. Is it over once you find the way out for yourself alone?"

"Chae Jae-ha-ssi."

My head tilted to one side without my meaning it to.

"I think you may be mistaken about something."

"What?"

"The Labyrinth is not some romantic place where you find the choice that saves everyone and pick your way out. I'm not that kind of person, either."

How had he come to expect otherwise?

"No, seriously! That still doesn't mean you just leave people to die! You're a real psychopath, aren't you? You're not even thinking about trying harder? You don't care if people live or die, you won't even try to save them? If you really could turn back time, the first thing you should have thought about was saving as many people as possible."

"Why would I do that?"

"Why? Why? Because that's what people do! Because that's, goddammit, what it means to be human! You might not understand that, being a psycho, but that's what a normal person is supposed to do!"

A normal person?

My life had been a continuous process of having it confirmed that I was not a "normal" person.

"Why on earth would I have to be that kind of person......?"

I didn't understand.

"Why do I have to take all of that on? For someone who isn't even me? If I can come back to life, does that mean it's fine to die as many times as it takes? If it resets anyway, is it fine for my body to be hacked to pieces over and over? If none of this will have happened, is it fine to sink under the water as many times as it takes?"

"......"

"Why is it okay for me to go through all that? Why should I have to?"

"......"

"I want to stop dying, now......"

Please.

But I knew no proper answer to my plea would come.

"I'll help as much as I can, and save whoever I can save. So."

I cannot die, and I must not die.

That was my only principle.

The single principle that came before every other rule.

"Look for your messiah somewhere else."

"You. You, really....... You actually meant it."

Chae Jae-ha's mouth opened and closed a few times, and then he shut it at that.

"For someone who's died ninety times."

A low voice cut into the silence.

"You still seem remarkably intact."

That one's judgment was also broken.

Maybe because the end was close.

"Maybe it's because I was never intact to begin with."

What a charming thing to say.

"Anyway. What are you planning to do now? It seems like you brought this up for a reason."

"......I'm going to look for the electrical room. So I can head upward next time."

"Ah."

Yu Hyun-jae nodded, as if it made sense.

"You've been going straight down from the starting point all along, haven't you? Not once going up."

"Yes."

"Then we won't be meeting for a while? All of us. Oh, but I suppose you'll still see Chae Jae-ha-ssi. You said you came down together from the same floor from the start."

Chae Jae-ha, who had been pressing his lips shut and staring elsewhere, flinched at the sound of his name.

"Wait, Yu-han-nim, so....... If you really do keep, like, reviving......?"

Lee Na-hyun kept stealing glances with the look of a dog that had gotten into trouble and was waiting to be scolded.

"What happens to us? After you die, or, I mean, go back, what happens to the rest of us? Do we all go back with you? Or are you jumping into a different parallel world or something?"

"I don't know that either."

Whether we all reset together along a single timeline, or a new world branched off each time I died and came back.

"There's no way to check."

Honestly, I wasn't even curious.

No need to know.

What mattered was how I was going to make it out of this Labyrinth alive.

That was all.

"If we kill Seon Yu-han-ssi right now, we could find out. What happens to the rest of us after."

"Sorry?"

"What?"

Lee Na-hyun wasn't the only one who recoiled in shock at the unhinged conspiracy theorist's remark. Even Chae Jae-ha asked again, horrified.

"It's a joke."

"I know it isn't."

"I've really lost a lot of trust, haven't I? When did I lose it, I wonder. Curious."

"With things like what you just did."

Yu Hyun-jae laughed out loud at that. Like it was genuinely entertaining.

For a moment, Yu Hyun-jae looked something close to an actual age.

"Oh, really......"

The co-representative of Uiwi Guild stopped laughing and wiped at the corner of one eye.

"In any case. You're saying you're about to set foot on a path you've never taken before."

"......Yes."

"And?"

"Sorry?"

"So what do you want from us."

I stared at Yu Hyun-jae blankly.

Not because of the unfamiliar tone, but because of the realization it sparked in me.

"What does telling us change? We won't be on that path, and there's nothing we can offer you."

Oh.

It wasn't advice I'd wanted.

I...

"Just."

Had been afraid.

Too afraid to bear it without telling someone.

"If you remember just this one thing, that would be enough."

I had to turn now and take my first step upward.

There would be rules I didn't know.

There would be deaths I hadn't encountered.

There would be people I hadn't met.

There would be Labyrinths I didn't understand.

What you don't know, you can't understand.

What you can't understand, you fear.

"If you need help, come back down anytime. Where to find us, well, you'd know that better than anyone, Seon Yu-han-ssi."

How much more time would have to pass before I stopped being afraid of all those things?

"......Yes. I will."

It came out smoother than I expected, given how hard it was to open my mouth.

"Thank you. Really."

"I know. Not a lie."

I'm sure.

"I have a question."

"Yes, go ahead."

"Can you tell me how it feels? What it's like, experiencing time regression."

"Ah......"

Well.

I'd had so much to say, it seemed.

Now I wasn't sure anymore.

Right now I just felt...

"The days."

Are too long.

Long enough that even the feeling of being tired of it had grown tiresome.

"The days feel too long. Today especially......"

Ha.

A limp, deflated sigh leaked out.

It might have been a laugh.

"I see."

The conspiracy theorist, having received some return on their extraordinary faith, gave a nod.

The surface had crept up to just below the chin now. It grazed the tip, sending out a faint ripple.

"In any case....... Thank you for being honest with me about the time regression. It couldn't have been easy. Even knowing our memories will disappear."

Yu Hyun-jae looked down at the water with slightly lowered eyes and spoke quietly.

"Since we've come this far, I'll confess a secret of my own......"

Don't, you lunatic.

Footnotes:

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