Chapter 14

Chapter 14. It Looked Good (Like Shit) to Adults

Stay calm.

“Hello, my name is Seon Yuhan. I am a colleague who shares the same goal as Ms. Hwang Juyeon here. Right, Ms. Hwang Juyeon?”

I calmly ran my mouth.

Who said a colleague necessarily had to mean a coworker?

It could mean a colleague in escaping the Labyrinth.

“Ah, yes. Of course. He is my colleague.”

Fortunately, Hwang Juyeon caught on quickly and nodded.

For a moment, the stuffed goose did not respond, like a robot whose battery had run out.

It seemed as if it was judging whether I really was Hwang Juyeon’s colleague.

Depending on how that judgment came out, it would be decided whether I would get lynched by them here again or not.

“Ah! I see!”

After ten seconds that felt roughly like ten minutes, the doll’s cheerful voice rang out again.

Honestly, I still could not let down my guard.

After all, at first, it had also said “Ah, I see” again and again before chasing me out. To the afterlife.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Seon Yuhan!”

The stuffed goose flicked its long neck toward the inside.

5-2. Enter Together as a Colleague of an Employee or Daycare Center Affiliate.

“Please come in, both of you! The children are waiting!”

Good grief. These things were terrifyingly kind to people who were not suspicious outsiders.

But I could not be mistaken. These things would not treat children as especially precious.

A Labyrinth was fair, and therefore unfair.

A Labyrinth was vile in that it spared no one, whether they were weak, old, or young.

Of course, that was a very human-centered evaluation, but I was human.

No, was it actually better than humans, who bullied the weak and cowered before the strong, because it killed strong people fairly too?

I’m confused.

Anyway.

Different rules might apply to children than adults, but those rules would not be rules that safely protected children either.

“Gasp……! Hey, child! Are you all right?”

See?

I told you they did not spare children.

Petty things.

I hurried inside after Hwang Juyeon.

The thought that perhaps I should have received permission from the stuffed goose before moving came belatedly.

That was how unpleasant the sight before my eyes was.

A child of about six or seven was standing on a round pedestal with their arms stretched out theatrically, and the pedestal was rotating slowly.

Like a doll in a cute little music box.

“Do you…… remember me? I showed you magic here earlier.”

The child’s thin arms and legs were trembling, and their small face was twisted and covered in tears.

I did not know how long they had been doing this, but this was clearly punishment and abuse.

“Can you hear us? Can you come down?”

Even at my question, the child kept their mouth shut tightly, nodded, then shook their head again.

“Ah……!”

They even struck Hwang Juyeon, who was trying to lift them down, with their forehead as hard as they could and pushed her away.

Hwang Juyeon looked confused as she held her reddened nose.

I recognized what was in the child’s tearful eyes.

Fear.

And that fear was aimed at a being that was not us.

“Ms. Hwang Juyeon, wait a moment.”

I lightly tapped Hwang Juyeon’s shoulder and looked at the stuffed goose.

The doll, still looking so insignificant that it made a person lower their guard, stood straight with its orange beak pointed this way.

“What should I call you?”

“Oh my, you are amusing!”

A cheerful laugh flowed out from between its stitched beak.

“What do you think I am?”

A monster?

A stuffed goose?

A horrifying slaughter monster wearing the skin of a stupid-looking stuffed goose?

“I am, of course― the teacher!”

Fine, then…….

“Teacher, why is that child doing that?”

“Ah, you mean Jiho?”

That child named Jiho was definitely like that because of the Labyrinth’s rules, so I had to understand exactly what kind of situation this was before I could resolve it.

If there was a teacher who would answer kindly, there was no need to take the long way around.

“Can’t you tell by looking? Jiho is learning how to become a child who is loved!”

“May I know specifically what that method is?”

“Oh my, you are very interested in our educational methods, aren’t you? How rewarding. In fact, the childcare curriculum at Uri Saenal Daycare Center has had far too many shortcomings until now, so we took this opportunity to completely revise it.”

“I think next time, you should completely discard it.”

“What was that?”

“Pardon? I did not say anything.”

The goose teacher, who had caught my muttered words like a ghost, shook its white neck from side to side.

I could not tell what the gesture meant.

“In any case, the method is simple. We simply correct them like that so that the appearance of a child loved by people naturally settles into their body.”

In the direction the goose gestured, the child was still trembling.

“So they do not cry loudly, do not whine and throw tantrums, do not run around distractingly, do not twist their bodies this way and that, and do not mumble so people cannot understand them. And now, look!”

The goose, after chattering on and on about “the appearance of a child loved by people,” spoke in a voice filled with unbearable pride.

“They look good to adults, do they not?”

Like hell they do, you lunatic.

But separate from how I felt, I diligently stored that information in my head.

Those were the rules that child had to follow in this Labyrinthized daycare center.

“I truly cannot understand why we never used this wonderful educational method before.”

Because it is violence, you damned bastard.

Children are supposed to grow up noisily.

They deserve to cry as much as they want, throw tantrums, and run around.

Otherwise, adults would easily forget that children existed.

Because adults were beings who even forgot that they had once been children themselves.

……And I, too, was not free from that forgetting.

“But now you can leave your children at Uri Saenal Daycare Center with peace of mind. We have completely discarded the teachers who failed to meet standards!”

“What did you say?”

“Oh my, a slip of the tongue! We fired them.”

What a hateful monster.

Discarded or fired.

Even outside the Labyrinth, and especially inside one, it was an ominous expression.

It was right to assume they were dead.

“What are the standards for not being fired?”

“That is a little difficult to tell you. It concerns internal personnel matters, after all…….”

I had not expected an answer.

“Then is it all right if we take Jiho with us now?”

This was the main point.

Whether we could stop that torture now.

“Mm, I wonder.”

The plump white body twitched.

It looked almost as if it was enjoying the way the three humans here were watching its mood.

“Ah! Very well! Let us say the two of you will become Jiho’s temporary guardians, and Jiho will leave early today.”

Just when I wondered why the goose teacher had granted permission so readily, it threw a bomb at us next.

“There is no need to wait until Jiho’s mother gets off work. She will not be able to come anyway.”

“What? What does that……. What exactly do you mean?”

Remembering the child nervously looking this way, I lowered my voice and asked.

“Jiho’s mother is gone now.”

That goose bastard answered with a bright smile, as if deliberately making sure the child heard.

“C-Come to think of it, the other children. Where are the other children?”

Hwang Juyeon asked in a flustered voice. Perhaps because she was watching the goose teacher’s reaction, her polite speech sounded awkward.

“Oh my, what a funny joke. They are right here, are they not?”

The goose tilted its head and pointed behind it.

“Jiho has so many friends here.”

There were countless dolls there.

The toys that had once bitten, stabbed, and killed me.

Hwang Juyeon was horrified and pointed at the group of dolls.

“No way. Friends? Are you saying the children turned, turned into that?”

Instead of answering, the goose teacher simply hummed, hm, hmm, to a familiar lullaby.

The freelance mage’s face turned pale.

Needless to say, Jiho looked as if they were about to die from the beginning.

“A Labyrinth.”

I walked straight past the goose and toward the wall where the lockers were.

“Likes deceiving people. No, deception is the role of a Labyrinth. That is how it makes people wander.”

Kang Hayun……. Kim Minjun……. Kim Jiyul…….

“It also likes making people cry. That is how it makes people collapse where they stand.”

Park Junsu……. Lee Nayeon……. Lee Hyeonji…….

“I am so.”

Jiho. Jeong Jiho.

Here it is.

When I opened the locker, there was a sky-blue pouch containing a change of clothes and a bag of a cute size.

I closed the empty locker and turned my head.

“So…….”

Sick of this.

I was sick of discovering the bloody toy box in that corner hidden by the partition wall.

Sick of realizing the identity of the person neatly crumpled inside that toy box.

Sick of guessing that a child who had not even entered elementary school might have witnessed a teacher’s horrible death.

“Jiho.”

At some point, the child had collapsed into Hwang Juyeon’s arms as if completely exhausted, shedding tears as large as chicken droppings.

The sight of the child swallowing back sobs while still watching the goose monster’s reaction was pitiful.

I quietly signaled with my hand, then embraced the child who had slipped free from Hwang Juyeon and stood up.

“We are leaving here now. All right?”

Even if I comforted the child, I had to do it after leaving this daycare center.

I heard sniffling by my ear. There was no answer.

The arms around my neck had no strength either.

“Hold on tight. Let us go, Ms. Hwang Juyeon.”

Hwang Juyeon nodded with Jiho’s bag on her shoulder, and I adjusted Jiho properly on my back as I grabbed the daycare center’s doorknob.

“Oh my, are you leaving already?”

“Are we not allowed to?”

“It is not that you are not allowed? It is not, but.”

Not, but what?

You are making me anxious, seriously. And I could not simply ignore it and leave.

“Our children will be so bored, will they not? If the friend who plays with them leaves.”

“So?”

My words did not come out politely.

“Hmm.”

The goose teacher, which had been cheerfully humming the lullaby, waddled closer.

The other toys also came one step closer.

They were small and cute, but I knew painfully well how mad for blood these things were.

“How about playing with these children for just a little longer?”

CLUNK, CLUNK.

“It’s locked……!”

Hwang Juyeon whispered with an anxious expression.

Perhaps frightened along with her, the child’s arms tightened slightly around my neck.

Damn it.

Somehow, I thought it was letting the kid go too easily.

“Playing with them? What, how, until when?”

Since this was a company daycare center, six o’clock should be the usual pickup time.

Was it planning to keep us here until then?

“I told you, you really are amusing!”

When the goose teacher giggled, the surrounding toys also shook their bodies as if laughing along with the teacher.

“I suppose you have never played with children before? Asking how long you must play with them…….”

The laughter-laced voice came down like a death sentence.

“Until the children are tired, of course!”