Chapter 12

Chapter 12. And Then Were There None?

I was one step late in pulling the librarian toward me, and Choi Jaeha grabbed Hwang Juyeon.

“Y-You’re insane! What are you doing?! Are you insane?!”

“Shalc?=?,?FouRz_sadjop!?Wei?”

“Ugh……! Gasp!”

THUD.

The attempted murderer shouted incomprehensible words and thrashed, then was shoved backward by the accountant, slammed the back of her head hard against the sharp corner of a bookshelf, and collapsed.

As I looked back and forth between the two attempted murderers and the two unconscious patients, I suddenly grew curious.

How would this scene be written?

That I had failed to stop it?

Or…….

“Sh-She isn’t dead, right? Mr. Seon Yuhan, uh, wh-what do we do?”

“As for Ms. Kim Gilyoung, well, she wasn’t stabbed deeply, so I think she’ll be all right. I think she only fainted because she was startled too.”

It was never easy to kill someone with a blunt ballpoint pen, not even a fountain pen with a sharp nib.

Stabbing the chest covered by clothing once or twice like this could not inflict a fatal wound.

It would be another matter if one pierced deep through the eye from the start and reached the brain, or aimed precisely for the carotid artery.

“As for Ms. Hwang Juyeon, well……. It looks like she has a concussion, and the back of her head is badly split. Ms. Hwang Juyeon. Ms. Hwang Juyeon!”

I placed a cushion under the head of the attempted murderer and patient, then checked her consciousness, but there was no sign she would open her eyes.

I could perform simple first aid, but I did not know how to treat someone with a concussion.

A concussion did not necessarily mean death, but Hwang Juyeon’s case looked fairly dangerous. She was unconscious, and she was bleeding.

But the only thing I could do right now was barely stop the bleeding from the split in the back of her head.

Even that was just a makeshift job.

It would have been a little easier if I had a first aid kit.

“I…… I was just, I was just trying to stop her, I didn’t even push that hard…… Urgh.”

“I know. It is not your fault, Mr. Choi Jaeha. Do not worry too much.”

I patted the accountant’s back as he fidgeted anxiously and even retched.

If this man lost his mind and did something insane for no reason too, things would become exhausting.

“Ms. Hwang Juyeon tried to kill Ms. Kim Gilyoung, and you only tried to stop her. It was self-defense.”

If it went to court, it might not be recognized as self-defense, but that was not something Choi Jaeha needed to hear right now.

In any case, it was difficult to judge right and wrong legally for things that happened inside a Labyrinth.

“Mr. Choi Jaeha, let us drink some water first.”

There was one water purifier inside Book Bang Ollae.

The accountant, looking half out of his mind, staggered over to the water purifier and wet his throat.

Meanwhile, I pushed two sofas together and laid the unconscious librarian on them.

I moved the concussion patient to a position where she remained within my sight but was kept out of Choi Jaeha’s field of vision as much as possible.

But why on earth had Hwang Juyeon tried to kill Kim Gilyoung?

……And with such a terrified expression too.

I quietly looked down at the cover of the book Hwang Juyeon had dropped.

The only thing I could guess was that storybook about Kim Gilyoung that Hwang Juyeon had read.

Maybe, as it turned out, Kim Gilyoung had committed something so terrible it could not even be spoken aloud.

Maybe she was the daughter of an enemy who had killed Hwang Juyeon’s family.

Or…… whatever it was.

Did Hwang Juyeon think Kim Gilyoung deserved to die?

Would I understand why if I read it too?

“The reading club participants read their respective books.”

The moment I reached for someone else’s book, the voice urged me again to hurry up and read my own.

“Mr. Choi Jaeha, I know it will be difficult, but open your book. You will probably have to read at least one sentence.”

“What about those people? What happens to them……?”

True.

What would happen to those two unconscious people over there?

Those two were not in a state where they could read books right now.

“Mr. Choi Jaeha, sit down.”

“But…….”

“There is nothing more we can do for those two right now.”

As for the librarian, she had simply fainted, so if nothing else happened, she would wake up on her own.

On the other hand, if Hwang Juyeon was lucky, she would survive with serious aftereffects, and if she was unlucky, she would die.

“The reading club participants read their respective books.”

Either way, even if we took the risk of violating that command to intervene, unless we somehow communed with Hua Tuo’s spirit, the result would not improve dramatically.

“There is only one thing we can and must do right now.”

Follow the rules.

I pressed down on Choi Jaeha’s hunched shoulders and made him sit.

“The reading club participants read their respective books.”

“Read the book.”

My voice was buried beneath the library’s revelation-like voice.

Still, Choi Jaeha seemed to understand, because he looked up at me with a dazed expression, then lowered his head.

I sat down too and opened the book.

[Around the time Choi Jaeha took the first midterms of his third year of middle school, Choi Jaeha’s older brother married the person he had been dating since college. Since his older brother had been living independently ever since he became an office worker, it did not feel as if much had changed. Only when he heard much later that he would have a nephew did it finally feel real.

Choi Jaeha’s older brother was seventeen years older than Choi Jaeha, and from the moment Choi Jaeha could remember, he had already been an adult. To Choi Jaeha, he had always been someone who was somehow far away. And now, someone like that was becoming the father of a child.

His brother felt farther away than before. At the same time, his brother felt infinitely close.]

I wondered if Choi Jaeha’s sister was married by now.

I was a little curious how he had reacted then.

“The reading club participants read their respective books.”

[The house without his sister was terribly silent. Choi Jaeha realized that some kinds of quiet could be separated from peace. His sister had gone somewhere far too distant.]

What?

“The reading club participants read their respective books.”

[He thought it would be nice not to have a nagging nuisance constantly bothering him. Until his sister left. But once she actually left, the house no longer felt like a home. It felt strange.

“What are you doing? Did you eat dinner?”

“Yeah. I’m going to the academy now. What about you?”

“I had lunch. But why does your voice sound like that? Did you catch a cold?”

“Nooo, yes…….”

“Is that a no, or a yes? Fix that habit of not answering properly, all right?”

“Yeah. Okay. I think I just have a bit of a cold.”

If she had seen her youngest brother’s face in person, his sister would have noticed right away. Choi Jaeha did not have a cold.]

That was a relief.

His sister had not left this world. She had left Korea.

It was the first time my heart had clenched while reading this book.

It was a section with its own kind of suspense.

“The reading club participants read their respective books.”

How long would that sound keep repeating?

How long would it wait for those two people?

A Labyrinth was not a warm place that would take into account the fact that someone was in no condition to follow the rules.

“Ugh, mm…….”

A small sound broke the silence of the reading club.

I quickly raised my head.

“Ms. Kim Gilyoung. Are you conscious?”

“Ah, yes……. Ugh.”

Perhaps the librarian felt the pain in her chest, because she grimaced as she struggled to sit up on the sofa.

“Uh……. Why am I, what…….”

“You fainted. Do you remember what happened?”

“Mm, uh……. No, not really…….”

Kim Gilyoung could not remember at all who had stabbed her in the chest with a pen.

It seemed she had lost her memory from the shock.

The human brain occasionally did such cute things.

Or was it terrible?

In any case, it meant Kim Gilyoung did not know the culprit.

“The reading club participants read their respective books.”

“I know it will be difficult, but sit down and read that book first.”

“Yes, yes…….”

Only after confirming that the librarian had started reading her own book did I turn my eyes back to mine.

[Kim Gilyoung was born at 7:32 p.m. on September 16.]

Hm?

Something was strange.

[Kim Gilyoung’s father used to lie face-down on the floor with his young daughter on his back and read newspapers or books. Reading something was an exceedingly natural part of daily life for Kim Gilyoung.]

Why was it that, unlike last time, the culprit had failed to kill Kim Gilyoung this time?

Had the culprit heard us coming and run away?

I looked to my left.

Ah. I was confused.

Had the culprit heard me coming and run away before finishing the job?

But for the culprit to try to kill Kim Gilyoung twice without change.

There might be a personal grudge unrelated to the Labyrinthization Phenomenon.

[“Munrim Elementary children who will write a new history―!”

The days when they listened to the principal’s boring lecture in front of the command platform and sang the school song. The days when there were Saturdays with school and Saturdays without school. The days when they shared five-hundred-won cup tteokbokki and slushies, and bought slap-match cards from the stationery store. The days when they competed over who could climb the jungle gym first and who could swing higher.]

Something really was strange.

Couldn’t we not leave this library?

How did the culprit run away?

No way, had it happened before this place became a Labyrinth?

No. That was not it.

Then the sequence did not match.

Was there something I did not know?

No, of course there was.

I felt like I was missing something very important.

There was clearly something I did not know, even though I could not afford not to know it.

What was it?

[Kim Gilyoung won an award in the school book report contest.

‘After reading this book, I thought that dreams were not necessarily things you only had at night. Because we also have days at school when we suddenly grow bigger and smaller, and days when we run with a clock because we might be late. And sometimes, I get confused about whether something my friends said was real or a dream.

When Alice woke up at the end, I felt disappointed. Because it would be nice to keep living in such a strange country, and if it were me, I don’t think I would have come back.

But Alice came back, and returned to daily life as if nothing had happened. Somehow, that felt ordinary and sad.

This book was fun, and also a little scary and confusing. But when I thought that all of it might be real, it felt like the country inside the book had really existed.

So after reading this book, I opened my closet door a little every night.’

《Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland》 became Kim Gilyoung’s favorite book.]

Wait.

If I read the last page of this book, wouldn’t I be able to find out who the culprit was?

This book recorded the librarian’s life in chronological order, so wouldn’t the recent incident be written in the final part?

If even the parts she herself did not remember were not described, there would be nothing I could do.

But it was worth trying.

Flip.

[Kim Gilyoung]

At the sound of pages turning―

[Kim Gilyoung looked]

At me―

[Kim Gilyoung looked at Seon Yuhan with puzzled eyes.

“Mr. Seon]

Yuhan……?”

“One life is one story. This is the theme of this reading club.”

“Damn it.”

“A gaze that had flowed from left to right struck a blank space and fell from top to bottom. The gaze flowed from left to right again. Once again, it was blocked by a white wall and fell. It also hurriedly ran back up to the top. And then it ran toward the end of a single point again

[and moved to the next page.”]

Judging from the way something like the library’s guidance, or whatever this bullshit was, suddenly sounded, it seemed I had made another mistake.

[Letters that sounded like an irresistible oracle. Sounds that read like an uninterpretable poem.

“To repeat that endlessly, then at some point mark a period and stop. That is the rule of a story.”]

If one life was one story, then the rule of a story was also the rule of a life.

“Seon Yuhan violated that rule.”

To be treated like a heretic immediately after skipping the middle and reading the last page first.

[“Mr. Seon Yuhan……?”]

The librarian’s words, with confusion, fear, and worry all mixed together, entered through my eyes and ears.

Right before my memory cut off for the last time.

An absurd curiosity suddenly flashed through my head.

Why did she open the closet after reading ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’?

1. When Reading a Book at the Reading Club, Do Not Skip the Middle.