Chapter 2

Chapter 2. A Clock Is a Watch

THUD!

I gripped the doorknob tightly and hurled myself forward like a relay runner who had just taken the baton.

Fortunately, I was able to stop the door from opening.

RATTLE, THUD! CLACK, THUD!

Damn it, what kind of strength……!

As expected, it was not a child.

Naturally, it did not seem to be an ordinary human being either.

“Now. What hour. What minute.”

Because I was holding that thing back, I could not take the phone out of my pocket.

Barely managing to keep the opponent from forcing its way in, I turned my head with difficulty and scanned the inside of the interview room.

Ah. There is a clock over there!

Fortunately, an analog clock was hanging on the wall behind the seat where I had sat during the interview.

CLICK, RATTLE.

“Ugh, three o’clock! Three fifty-sev……? No, fifty-eight! Three fifty-eight!”

I shouted urgently at the dark shape visible through the narrow crack in the door.

“Gratitude.”

At the same time as that thanks, the doorknob that had been rattling terrifyingly stopped, and the heavy force from the other side vanished as if by magic.

THUD…….

The door closed.

“Current 3:58. Communication error? Future recheck required. Excuse. Interview supported.”

SCREECH, KIK, CREAK.

The chilling sound of friction slowly moved away.

“Ha…….”

Only after the sound had completely disappeared could I gasp for breath.

I had kept my mouth shut because I thought I should not answer.

Was it the kind of thing that would have quietly passed by if I had simply told it the time?

I had wasted my strength for nothing.

All the strength drained out of my legs.

I sat for a moment and thought.

Anyway. Can I leave?

I could not stay here forever.

Should I go down through the emergency exit again?

I retraced the location of the emergency stairs in my head.

If that thing was still on the third floor, I would have to run by the shortest route. I could not afford to get confused about the direction.

This time, I have to be careful not to trip.

Just as I was carefully rehearsing the route in my head.

The door flew open.

Without any warning or presence.

Everything happened in an instant.

“Time pools.”

Darkness.

I saw darkness pooled outside the door like a puddle. It was not the hallway where sunlight came in through the windows even during the blackout. It was complete darkness, the kind that felt as though it would blind me.

“Time flows.”

Wind.

I felt wind flowing outside the door like a waterfall. It was not a breeze that gently brushed my hair and tickled my ears. It was wind strong enough to make my legs sway.

“Usage time over. Time exists.”

WHOOOSH―!

The darkness began sucking in the air like a vacuum cleaner.

And I was nothing but dust.

“Must not exist. Time does not exist.”

As I was crushed and squeezed from my toes upward like an empty tube of toothpaste, right before I finally burst all the way to the top of my head—

The last thing I saw was the paper attached beneath the interview room nameplate that read “Conference Room.”

[Yuwi Guild New Employee Recruitment

INTERVIEW ROOM

10:00 a.m. ~ 4:00 p.m.]

Damn it.

It was 4:01 now.

1. Observe the Interview Room Usage Hours.

“If it were possible to turn back time, what would you do, Mr. Seon Yuhan?”

That is exactly what I would like to know.

I swallowed those words and took out my phone with trembling hands.

My head throbbed, and it felt as if my entire body were being torn to pieces, but that was only an illusion.

[3:29｜5G｜87%]

Does the internet still work for now?

That is strange.

In any case, first…….

“I suppose I should leave. Alive.”

“Pardon?”

“I apologize. Excuse me.”

I got up from my seat and pulled the interviewer up.

“Oh.”

An innocent smile appeared on that somewhat dazed-looking face.

“Is this a role-play scenario? It has been a while since an applicant personally demonstrated their answer like this.”

I ignored that nonsense and brought the interviewer out with me.

The interviewer followed obediently.

Perhaps thinking this was my answer to what I would do if time could be turned back, they looked at me with fascinated eyes.

If I passed, this person would become my superior.

“Is the hallway normally this empty?”

“I suppose it usually is? The third floor only has the auditorium and conference rooms, and there are no events today besides the interviews.”

Come to think of it, it had been a quiet place even before the interview.

“Ah. There it is.”

I spotted the fire hose cabinet on the corridor wall near the restroom.

In a few minutes, the power would go out again, and even the internet would be cut off.

I reached toward the red manual alarm button.

If I sounded the fire alarm now, at least everyone in the building would grow alert and prepare themselves mentally.

With luck, it might reduce the number of people in the elevators by even one.

“Mr. Seon Yuhan.”

TAP.

The moment I was about to press the alarm button, the interviewer grabbed my arm.

Despite appearances, their grip was fairly strong.

The interviewer began speaking rapidly with a businesslike smile.

“We did promise that there would be no disadvantage in the interview, but going this far is open to debate. Demonstrating your answer through action is, of course, within the expected range, but it becomes a little problematic when that action affects the entire company building. We are not the only ones in the company, and the executives are here as well. You understand what I mean, right? Besides, making a false report is……. Firefighters would be dispatched too, and that would not be right. Would it?”

Listening to them, there was a point.

Not because of the executives’ feelings or the false report.

The problem was that more people would enter this building.

By my guess, this place was…….

Maybe the fact that I had died and come back was not reality, and all of this was happening only inside my head.

Even so, to me, this felt like reality. I had no choice but to judge it under the assumption that it was real.

Ultimately, there was only one place where something this absurd could happen.

A Labyrinth.

“Mr. Interviewer, this building has become a Labyrinth.”

“Are you perhaps still doing the role-play…….”

The interviewer, who had been looking at me, closed their mouth, and their eyes narrowed.

“You are saying that seriously, right? Not that a Labyrinth appeared, but that it has already ‘become’ one.”

As expected of someone whose job was to care for Raiders, who were generally sensitive to an extreme degree, they were quick on the uptake.

However, no matter how quick someone was, believing my words without doubting them was another matter entirely, so perhaps they were simply born with a gentle disposition.

“Yes. It is an Invasive Labyrinth.”

An ordinary Labyrinth exists in a separate space-time, not on Earth.

A “Rift,” shaped like a crack in the universe that appears suddenly somewhere on Earth and sucks in the people nearby, merely serves as the passage into the Labyrinth.

Those Labyrinths are neutrally called “Contact-type Labyrinths,” and most Labyrinths are Contact-type.

But there are exceptions. Always.

Very rarely, a specific space on Earth itself becomes a Labyrinth.

This is described as the “Labyrinthization Phenomenon,” and a space that has undergone Labyrinthization is called an “Invasive Labyrinth.”

“Phew……. This is serious.”

The interviewer swept back their hair and took a deep breath.

“It is a little too late to leave now, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I think so.”

The point when Labyrinthization began was presumably 3:29, when the absurd event of my regression occurred.

It had just become 3:32.

Soon, the building would lose power, and the elevators would fall.

“I am sorry, Mr. Seon Yuhan. It seems I delayed you somehow.”

“No, not at all.”

I turned away because I did not want to look at the interviewer’s apologetic face.

“If it is Invasive-type, then it is right not to call the fire brigade. I was being shortsighted.”

Invasive Labyrinths usually ended with everyone inside being wiped out.

Because that was the condition for the Labyrinth to be resolved.

For all the humans who had entered the Labyrinth to die.

Of course, there were other conditions besides that.

The problem was that one either did not know what those conditions were, or even if one did, they were difficult to achieve.

Although Contact-type Labyrinths were completely different worlds rather than Earth, most of them were randomly varied structures based on a few limited types, so Raiders could resolve them using the information and knowledge accumulated over years.

In contrast, Invasive Labyrinths occurred at an extremely low frequency, and a space on Earth suddenly underwent Labyrinthization.

In short, it meant that a completely new Labyrinth environment, one that had never existed before, had been created.

On top of that, in ninety percent of cases, everyone inside was wiped out without any survivor left to testify, and the Labyrinth was naturally resolved, undoing the Labyrinthization of that space.

Collecting data was almost impossible.

In other words, it was an unprecedented space-time where one could not know what would happen at all, and where anything could happen.

That was an Invasive Labyrinth.

“First, let us go down to the first floor. The lobby is where anything resembling an exit would be. We cannot take the elevator.”

The interviewer nodded and took the lead toward the emergency exit.

“Mr. Interviewer, what is the fastest way to let as many people as possible know that this place has undergone Labyrinthization?”

Because of their nature, Invasive Labyrinths made outside rescue even harder to expect.

“At the very least, we need to stop people from entering by mistake. The Raiders will not come to solve it anyway.”

No Raider would risk their life by entering a Labyrinth with no clue whatsoever as to how to escape.

Even if such a person existed, the agent in charge and their guild would stop that Raider.

“Ah, right. Even now, we should report it to the Labyrinth Management Bureau. It is usually only used when reporting Contact-types, but…….”

The emergency exit opened.

As soon as it did, every sound reverberated with a low hum.

“No, not the Labyrinth Management Bureau. They only begin controlling the area after receiving a report and going through the verification procedures. Until then, civilians will know nothing. A large number of people need to know right now.”

I went down one step at a time, carefully. This time, so I would not miss my footing. Carefully.

“In that case……. Ah!”

The interviewer, who had been thinking seriously, brightened.

“There is a very easy and certain way to—”

I stopped dead where I stood.

The interviewer’s voice struck the walls like an echo, then soon vanished like a dream.

Why?

Why did this person keep disappearing?

Where on earth was this person going?

BANG!

My body flinched at the sound that seemed to shake the very earth.

RUMBLE, CRASH, BANG!

Only after hearing that sound did I remember the man who had gotten into the elevator with me.

CRASH, THUD!

Unlike the interviewer, that man did not seem to disappear.

Which meant that if it was him.

At least that man, I might have been able to save somehow.

For some reason, my breathing grew ragged, and I grabbed the railing.

Why am I like this?

Stupid. Self-centered. Regretting things only after the fact.

Why am I still like this?

What in the world am I—

SINK.

“Huh?”

My foot suddenly dropped downward.

It was that dizzying feeling of thinking the stairs had ended, only to realize there was one more step below.

“Aaaagh!”

I fell just like that.

Into a cold, deep hollow like a well.

Further and further down. Down.

I reached uselessly toward the place above me.

Toward the only faint light flowing into the pitch-black darkness.

That light was rectangular.

In other words, the landing where I had briefly stopped had collapsed, leaving a gaping hole.

……At any rate, it seemed the chance to save the man who had gotten into the elevator would come back sooner than I had expected.

Damn it.