Chapter 3

Chapter 3. I Am Ground

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

“Mr. Interviewer. This building has undergone Labyrinthization.”

I raised the interviewer to their feet without delay.

“Uh, what, pardon?”

The interviewer was dragged out with a bewildered look, as if they did not know what expression they should make, but before long, their face hardened.

“You are saying this seriously.”

This person truly believed my words to a frightening degree.

Did managing Raiders as an agent make it easy to distinguish another person’s emotions or sincerity?

“Yes. And is there a way to let people know, as quickly and widely as possible, that this building has undergone Labyrinthization so that no one else enters? Not through the Labyrinth Management Bureau.”

Last time, the interviewer had vanished just as they were about to tell me that method.

Fortunately, the interviewer did not have to think for long.

“We can ask the Raiders on our team. Ask them to post it on social media. Even the Raider I am in charge of right now has nine million followers.”

Ah. There was that method.

As expected of a Raider agent.

The Team Leader of Agent Team 4 of the Raider Support Department sent a concise group message through their smartwatch, then spoke with a look of resolve.

“Mr. Seon Yuhan.”

Their impression was a little slow-witted, but judging from this attitude, they did not seem like the kind of person who would be easily taken advantage of anywhere.

“I am going to the second floor. There is a daycare center there. I will not force you to help, so please escape first.”

Why did people like this exist everywhere?

I…… hated people like this so much I could hardly stand it.

“No. I am going toward the elevators. The building will lose power soon. Before that happens, I need to make anyone who can get off do so.”

“Understood.”

The two of us had to part ways here.

It did not take two people to press the elevator button on the third floor, and I also could not follow the interviewer while abandoning someone I could save right now.

Of course, even so, I would not be able to save everyone.

I knew that well. The interviewer probably did too.

Because a Labyrinth was not that kind of place.

“Please be careful, Mr. Seon Yuhan.”

“You too, Mr. Interviewer.”

We each hurried toward the elevators and the emergency stairs.

Ah, right.

“Mr. Interviewer!”

I urgently turned and shouted at the back of the interviewer’s head as they grabbed the emergency exit handle.

“If someone asks you for the time, just answer honestly! And be careful going down the stairs!”

The interviewer tilted their head, but still gestured that they understood.

“Phew…….”

I quickly ran back to the elevator area and pressed the button.

“All of them except one are…….”

As expected, aside from the elevator I had ridden and fallen in, the other three were all up on the upper floors.

They were in positions where it was physically impossible for them to stop midway even if I hurried up the stairs.

6… 5… 4… 3… DING!

「The doors are opening.」

That man was inside again this time.

A man who appeared to be in his mid-thirties, with dark brown hair, dressed in neat business casual clothes and carrying a laptop bag.

“Are you not getting in?”

The man asked somewhat brusquely, then pressed the close button without any intention of hearing my answer.

What a damn impatient personality.

CLUNK.

“Please come out. The power will go out soon.”

I hurried into the elevator, blocked the door with my leg, and dragged the man out.

“What, what are you doing? Why are you doing this?”

The man I had grabbed violently shook his arm and threw me off.

I was almost hit by the laptop bag he was carrying.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Seon Yuhan.”

“No, not your name! Shouldn’t you apologize first?”

The man huffed angrily.

He approached as though threatening me, but he did not seem like the type to throw hands without thinking.

“Yes. I apologize. This building has become a Labyrinth, and the power will go out soon. Let us go down the stairs together.”

“What the hell is that supposed to—ha……. Forget it. It is my fault for getting caught by a lunatic.”

He had heard the apology he wanted, but it did not seem to satisfy him.

The man roughly scratched the back of his head and pressed the elevator button.

“Please believe me. This place is dangerous now—”

“Hey, are you going to let go? I really will report—”

The sensitive man could not finish his sentence.

BOOM!

Because a tremendous crash rang out, so enormous that we could even feel the vibration.

RUMBLE, CRAAASH, BANG!

“Aaagh! An earthquake, it is an earthquake!”

CRASH, THUD!

The man clutched his head and jumped.

“Calm down. Let us go down the stairs together. It is not an earthquake. The elevators fell.”

“What? All of a sudden? Seriously?”

“Yes. You can see the power is out now, can’t you? Follow me.”

“Damn it…….”

The man, too shaken to think straight, followed me blankly.

“Then was I about to die?”

I died, so you probably would have died too.

Instead of answering that way, I used the short walk toward the emergency exit to explain again. This building had become an Invasive Labyrinth.

“How does that make any sense? I am trapped in a Labyrinth? No. No way. That cannot be. The chances of an Invasive-type are lower than being struck by lightning!”

“A Labyrinth is a place where things that make no sense happen. And some people really do get struck by lightning.”

There was no law saying it only happened once, either.

“Stop talking nonsense. I cannot believe this.”

I understood that it was hard to believe.

I was probably even more unwilling to believe it than this man.

I swallowed a sigh, opened the emergency exit door, and stopped with only my right foot on the landing.

1…… 2…….

“Wh-What is it now? Why are you not going in?”

“Wait a moment. There is something I need to check.”

I roughly understood that the first time, I had tumbled down and broken my neck because I had hurried down in a panic and missed my footing.

But I had to find out why I had fallen to my death last time when I had been standing still.

While I was at it, I could force this man to recognize reality a little.

3…… 4…… 5…….

The instant a chilling sensation, as if the floor beneath my foot had dropped away, raced up my spine, I pulled back my right foot and retreated.

“Damn it. What is this?”

The man standing behind me sucked in a breath at the sight that spread before our eyes—no, the sight that had disappeared.

The two of us only poked our heads out and looked down into the square hole, whose bottom was nowhere in sight.

“Hmm…….”

Come to think of it.

“Is there perhaps another emergency staircase here?”

I should have checked after going all the way down.

1-1. Do Not Stand on the Stairs for More Than Five Seconds.

“Ha…….”

Perhaps the reality of the Labyrinth was slowly sinking in, because the man let out a sigh deep enough to collapse the ground.

But it was a little late. The landing had already caved in.

“There is another emergency exit. Over there.”

I followed the man down another nearby emergency staircase.

“Please go down carefully. Make sure you do not trip.”

“That is not something the guy who collapsed the stairs should be saying. What did you need to check, anyway……?”

The man’s muttering echoed around my ears in surround sound.

I kept my mouth shut without wasting any energy.

The second floor…….

As we passed the second-floor emergency exit, I thought of the interviewer.

Had they reached the company daycare center on the second floor safely?

Had they vanished somewhere again?

If they vanished, could I still save them?

Could a person who vanished also return?

“Labyrinth or whatever, we just have to get out.”

The door opened.

“We are here!”

The first-floor emergency exit opened along with the man’s confident voice.

“Huh?”

I felt as if I was about to develop a neurosis over the word “huh.”

I hated saying it, and I hated hearing others say it too.

Still, this time, extenuating circumstances were possible.

“Did we not just come out on the first floor?”

The place we had opened the door and come out into was the second floor.

The two of us went back inside the emergency exit and checked the floor number written on the wall.

“What the hell. Why does it say second floor?”

Before we entered this floor, it had definitely said first floor.

Damn it.

I calmed the emotion boiling up inside me.

“As I told you…… this place is a Labyrinth.”

Whether it was a Contact-type one entered through a Rift or an Invasive-type one seeping into Earth, there was a reason a Labyrinth was called a Labyrinth.

The Labyrinth from Greek mythology was a prison. A place built to confine the Minotaur.

“It seems we cannot get out that easily.”

A Labyrinth did not easily release those who entered it.

“Shut up! Do not jinx us. There are easy Labyrinths sometimes, right?”

The man gritted his teeth and rushed into the emergency exit, starting down the stairs.

It seemed he intended to go down one more floor.

It seemed pointless, but there was no telling, so I followed him.

CLUNK!

As expected, it was pointless.

“Ha, it is the second floor again!”

Even when we opened the basement first-floor door instead of the first floor, the view that greeted us was the second floor.

“Perhaps we can only go down one floor at a time.”

“Then what am I supposed to do? And you!”

The man, who had been groaning, suddenly turned his head and grabbed my shoulders.

“What is with you? Why have you been so calm since earlier? Are you perhaps a Raider? I do not think I have seen a Raider who looks like you at Yuwi.”

Calm, my ass.

I was barely holding back the urge to vomit.

“No.”

I hesitated to honestly say that I knew Labyrinthization would happen because I had died and come back to life.

I could hardly believe it myself in the first place.

Besides, I did not know how long this phenomenon would continue.

Whether I could return endlessly, or whether there was a limit.

I had no idea how many chances I had left.

Perhaps this might be the last one.

At the very least, I had to move while prepared for that.

“But I saved you earlier, so I suppose there is not much difference.”

Only then did the man who had avoided dying in the falling elevator slightly close his mouth.

“Ahem. Well, I do owe you for that. What did you say your name was? I am Choi Jaeha, an accountant working at Howol upstairs…….”

Choi Jaeha rummaged through the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out a business card.

The fact that he was thinking about exchanging business cards while trapped in a Labyrinth made him admirable in many ways.

I carefully surveyed the area while glancing over the business card.

[Howol Accounting Firm Certified Public Accountant Choi Jaeha]

Judging from the address, his office was on the sixteenth floor of this building.

This Jaerae Building was Yuwi Guild’s headquarters, but several floors were being rented out.

It seemed one of those was the sixteenth floor.

“Ah, yes. Nice to meet you. I am Seon Yuhan, and I do not have a business card to give you. I am a job seeker who came to interview at Yuwi today.”

“Ha.”

“Yes, I know my life is miserable. So now, let us think about what we are going to do next, Mr. Choi Jaeha.”

I brought Choi Jaeha into the main auditorium.

I could understand the third floor, but the fact that even the second floor showed no sign of people gave me a bad feeling, so I felt uneasy standing still in the hallway.

We also needed a place where we could talk quietly.

The uniquely cold and dark atmosphere of the empty auditorium felt eerie.

“What do you mean, what are we going to do? Do you have a good plan?”

Choi Jaeha snapped.

Honestly, this was an extremely mature reaction.

For someone who already knew that he had almost died once and might die soon.

“Raiders do not enter Invasive-types, right? Unlike Competitive-types.”

Was he the type who called Contact-type Labyrinths Competitive Labyrinths?

If Contact-type was a neutral expression, Competitive-type was more political, value-laden, and proactive.

I got a slightly clearer sense of what kind of person Choi Jaeha was.

“That is true. Because there is no way to know what will happen. Still, we can make some guesses.”

“Can we? What are they?”

“If we cannot go from the third floor to the first floor while skipping the second floor, then I think we need to satisfy some condition on the second floor before we can go down to the first floor.”

It was not simply limited to this floor. Looking at the larger picture, that was how the Labyrinth itself was structured.

Whether Contact-type or Invasive-type.

Once the condition was achieved, the Labyrinth was resolved.

It was a very simple rule.

“What is that condition?”

As expected, the problem was that I did not know what that condition was.

“That, I do not know either. It could be staying on the second floor for a certain amount of time, going in and out of every room on the second floor, meeting other people on the second floor and going together, defeating something on the second floor……. Or it could be something completely absurd.”

There were many paths.

And those trapped in a Labyrinth had to wander among countless forks in the road.

If they did not choose the correct path, they would only encounter the death crouching at the end.

CLICK―!

“Huh?”

The lights above the stage came on.