WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ How to Die in the Office Labyrinth ◈

Chapter 98: ☑ Remember me

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Kim Hee-sook.

She seems soft at first, but there's a backbone to her.

"......Yes. I think doing it Kim Hee-sook-ssi's way is probably right."

I might still have a ways to go.

A little like Lee Na-hyun, maybe?

Ah.

No.

Actually, Lee Na-hyun's version of that quality was less a "backbone" and more something that came from a kind of vitality -- the kind that forgets information it has no interest in and lives fully in each moment......

Kim Hee-sook, on the other hand -- experience, maybe?

Knowing just how much to laugh it off, how to dip slightly as if to put the other person at ease, while never giving an inch of herself. That kind of wisdom.

Thinking about the solidity of that self-respect, I could catch glimpses of Hwang Ju-yeon and Yu Hyun-jae. Different methods, same core.

"Mm, anyway, I'll head in first, so Seon Yu-han-ssi wait here. Just to be safe. No point both of us going in if something happens because you didn't log in......"

I wanted to go in with her.

"Understood."

Part of me was still bothered by the fact that Kim Hee-sook hadn't checked the empty box.

I'd just confirm what happens if you go in without checking it, then see if we could go in together next time.

"Please be careful."

"Sure. Don't worry. I'll just take a quick look."

You'd have to say she doesn't scare easily.

Kim Hee-sook walked into the darkness of the server room, where machines hummed and pale blue light seeped through the gap.

"......"

The moment she stepped inside, I watched the monitor closely.

It seemed a little different from last time.

No sound of someone being dragged off, and no 403 Forbidden error window popping up.

A few minutes passed like that.

"......No, this, I......"

A faint, urgent voice, shouting something.

Crackle.

At the same time, an error message surfaced on screen through a wash of static.

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☹

4　[D]eath Ͷoʇ Fo∧n▟

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404 Not Found.

Crackle.

Another error window layered on top.

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☹

4◌6 N[o]t ∀c©ept＠bl𝚎

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406 Not Acceptable.

"......What is, why, aah......"

A short scream, then silence.

Crackle.

One last error window appeared.

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☹

[F]our10 Ǥ⎋⒩e

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410 Gone.

See.

Keeping the beat is our job, apparently.

* * *

23. Allow the server to remember you.

* * *

Kim Hee-sook did not come back. I turned away from the server room door.

Before checking whether logging in under someone else's ID was even possible, I needed to confirm the state of the canary I'd left out in the corridor.

Swish.

Tap, tap, tap......

The moment I opened the IT Operations Room door, hurried footsteps receded into the distance.

"Yun Geon-min-ssi?"

The corridor was too long to hide in, and the HR team employee was standing in an awkward half-crouch behind the cleaning cart.

Just as I thought -- he'd lurk out here, sure, but he's not the type to go anywhere alone.

"What, you came out already?"

Yun Geon-min asked in a topic-shifting way, as though he hadn't been hovering outside the IT Operations Room at all.

The door must have blocked all sound completely, because he had no idea what had happened.

"Anyway......"

His gaze slid to my side, and his brow creased slightly.

"Where's that cleaning lady? Where'd she go?"

Was he worried?

About Kim Hee-sook?

Or about himself?

"Kim Hee-sook-ssi just went into the server room. I opened the IT Operations Room door to check if anything had changed. I was also curious whether Yun Geon-min-ssi was doing all right."

"Me? Obviously I'm fine. The ones in the most danger right now are you and her."

Yun Geon-min being unharmed meant the elevator hadn't come up.

Getting Chae Jae-ha out had been worth it.

That strange elevator revival event seemed to be something that only happened on the 12th floor.

There might be some unknown rule unrelated to floor number, but back when Chae Jae-ha had died in the elevator a few times on the lower floors, nothing like last time had ever occurred.

And more than anything, the same monster had never appeared on multiple floors at once before.

"That's true. Then I'll head back in. I'm worried about Kim Hee-sook-ssi too."

"Ha...... seriously."

Yun Geon-min scratched his head in irritation, messing up his hair.

"You think playing the good guy like that does anything?"

This is a new one.

"Worried, worried, whatever -- just stay out here. Leave the lady alone. If you were actually worried, you'd have gone into that server room yourself instead of letting her go in."

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Even people like this have their own insights.

"Fair enough, right? No answer means I'm right. So just wait out here in the corridor. Stand still in a Labyrinth and you've already made it halfway."

"I want to go all the way."

"Huh? What?"

"All the way. Not halfway."

What's the point of going halfway through a Labyrinth?

That just means you're stuck at its deepest point.

"What..., no, hey!"

Click.

I had no time to spare on someone who didn't even have the nerve to follow me inside.

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Name |

Employee ID |

Password |

▢ Remember me

| LOGIN |

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I sat down in front of the monitor and entered Kim Hee-sook's information.

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Name | Kim Hee-sook

Employee ID | 2451017

Password | ●●●●●●●●●●

☑ Remember me

| LOGIN |

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I filled in the last box, too. Asking to be remembered.

Click.

I took a short breath and clicked the login button.

At that moment.

Crackle.

The entire login window glitched, and the characters broke apart and reassembled.

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N▞｜■[T]ime░

[D]eath[pass]▚｜33333333333333=1

[Pass]▒▓｜▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█▉

☑ Remember me

| LET IN |

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The briefest blink of time passed, and a new window appeared immediately after.

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Welcome back!

We remember you!

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A second, ominous line had been added alongside "Welcome back!"

"......"

I stared quietly into the darkness of the server room, where black cables reached out hungrily in every direction.

The sound of a massive machine that never stopped.

I know that it called my name.

The pale blue light that never went out.

I know that it has been watching me.

For a very long time.

* * *

The first thing I felt the moment I crossed the threshold was cold.

Cool air brushed my cheek and crept inside my clothes.

I stopped for a moment and took in the server room.

This place was like a library that did not welcome people.

Tall black shelves rose almost to the ceiling in rows like bookcases, and each shelf was packed tight with black server units glowing like books.

Thousands of pinpoints of light, evenly spaced, the same size, scattered through pitch darkness -- the sight of it felt somehow unreal.

Step, step......

I moved slowly, passing through the aisles between the black machines.

Some servers were half-destroyed or completely broken open, spilling cables from their guts.

Those cables spread out like roots and branches, and there was a strange vitality to them, as if they might start writhing at any moment.

"......"

The deeper I went, the more wreckage surrounded me.

Black cables pushed out and covered the floor.

"Ah."

Finally, the deepest point.

Among the destroyed shelves stood one intact shelf, alone.

Beside it on the floor, a large shape bulged up, buried under black cables.

By the outline: Kim Hee-sook.

Kim Hee-sook's body.

Which meant if things went wrong for me, the same would happen.

Wrapped in cables like a burial shroud, I would become fuel for the machines.

I straightened up and checked the monitor positioned at chest height on the shelf.

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What do you want?

1. Permanent deactivation

2. Escape

3. Refresh

4. Unlock

5. Access to floor 3

6. Access to floor 4

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Well, obviously......

But how was I supposed to answer.

Out loud? With the keyboard?

That question turned out to be completely pointless.

Shhk!

"Ha, seriously......"

Before I could resist, my entire body locked rigid, as if rooted to the spot.

I knew this was coming.

I knew you'd move. These damn cables.

Crack!

"Ah, ugh......"

A sudden searing sensation erupted from my back.

I turned my neck, the only part of me not restrained, and looked behind me. A thick cable had been driven precisely along the line of my spine -- through the cervical vertebrae between my shoulder blades, right at the point where the thoracic spine begins.

The feeling of my own body becoming part of these black machines made me snap my head back around and stare hard at the monitor.

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What do you want?

1. Permanent deactivation

2. Escape

3. Refresh

4. Unlock

5. Access to floor 3

6. Access to floor 4

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Crackle.

Crackle.

Crackle.

"Ugh, nngh......"

Three glitches in rapid succession, and with each one, a pain too severe to endure flooded through my entire body from the spot where the cable was lodged.

Like being plunged alternately into boiling water and ice-cold water.

The only reason I hadn't collapsed to the floor was that the cables wrapping my body like a mummy were holding me forcibly upright.

I steadied my trembling body as best I could and looked at the monitor.

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What do you want.

1. ☻☻ ☻☻☻☻

2. ☻☻

3. ☻☻ ☻☻

4. Unlock

5. Access to floor 3

6. Access to floor 4

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If this was the plan, there was no point asking.

Got my hopes up for nothing.

Anyway, "Unlock" would mean......

The General Affairs Team office that had been locked, most likely.

Picking that option seemed to open up the General Affairs Team.

"Access to floor 3" would mean getting into floor 3, literally.

Considering that the floor directly below this 12th floor is floor 3, "Access to floor 4" as a separate option implies two things.

First: floor 4 is directly above floor 12.

Second: the locked General Affairs Team office has nothing to do with escaping floor 12.

So there's information in the General Affairs Team that isn't crucial to escape but isn't something they want to give away for free?

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What do you want.

| Unlock |

-------------------------------------------

All the more reason I want to know.

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Activating the lock.

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No, why are you activating it. I asked you to deactivate it.

......Ah.

Right -- there was a door lock on the entrance to the General Affairs Team office.

Before, the power had been out entirely, the door jammed shut by the Labyrinth's doing, the lock not even functioning.

If it activates...... then all I need to do is get through the door lock itself. Either by entering the right code or scanning an employee badge.

I was working through it in my head when.

Crack!

The entire server room went dark, like the world switching off.

Thousands of indicator lights on the servers went out all at once.

"......"

Ding!

I held my breath and waited, and before long a crackling, worn-out sound effect played.

The monitor in front of me lit up alone.

The window I'd been looking at was gone without a trace, and a single line of text floated on the screen.

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D o　y o u　r e m e m b e r　m e ‽

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The glitched login screen in the source (이▞｜■時░ / 死운ㅓ▚｜33333333333333=1 / 비밀▒▓｜▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█▉) is intentional corrupted text representing the Korean field labels (Name/이름, Employee ID/사원번호, Password/비밀번호) breaking down. The Hanja 死 (death) and 時 (time) and the partial Hangul fragments are the Labyrinth corrupting the interface. These have been rendered as partially translated/corrupted English equivalents to preserve the unsettling glitch effect while eliminating the untranslated Korean and Hanja from the chapter body. Similarly, 死 and 四 and 時 in the error message panels are the Labyrinth's distortion of "4" and "Not"; rendered with bracketed English equivalents to flag the corruption while removing raw CJK from the body text.

Footnotes:

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