Chapter 37

Chapter 37. Labyrinth vs. Human

"Time loop, time leap, time slip. Ah—these days people use the word 'regression,' too. At any rate, I believe it's possible. Any of it."

When a person who believes some strange conspiracy theory also holds high social standing, it stops being merely that individual's problem.

"A Labyrinth is, at its core, a phenomenon that warps space. A Contact-type Labyrinth crosses over through a Rift into a space entirely separate from this Earth. As for an Invasive Labyrinth—well, as you can see. If it can warp space like this, why not time as well?"

This is, precisely, the claim of the conspiracy theorists who believe in the possibility of Labyrinth regression.

I'd thought it a preposterous, escapist delusion—closer to religious faith than anything.

But here was the problem.

However little anyone understood why or how the space-time called a Labyrinth even exists, so long as it physically, substantially existed in reality, that conspiracy theory was awfully plausible.

And here was the real problem.

Since I was, right now, undergoing that very phenomenon, the truly strange one wasn't the conspiracy theorists—it was me.

"Our company helps Labyrinth Survivors partly for that reason, too. In case there might be someone who has experienced the phenomenon of time running backward."

Yuwi Guild supports a PTS treatment program for Labyrinth Survivors.

However much the odds of dying in a Contact-type Labyrinth had dropped to roughly the odds of dying in a traffic accident, the way you cared for that trauma couldn't be the same.

"If such a person exists, I want to be the first to know."

"Are you saying that's the real purpose behind helping people?"

"No? A hidden purpose existing doesn't make the stated one a fake, Mr. Seon Yuhan."

He didn't look like he was lying.

Either way, I had no intention of blaming him.

"I want people to escape the Labyrinth not only in body but in mind. Truly."

A Labyrinth is a place that's hard to escape completely, Yoo Hyunjae added, almost as if muttering to himself.

"Mm. To get back to the point—what we ask in the interview is something like an aptitude test, half a bit of fun, I suppose. Someone who'd actually experienced time running backward would hardly bother showing up to a dull little interview like that."

How short on imagination.

You could just as easily show up to that dull little interview and end up experiencing time running backward.

"Director."

"Yes."

"Why do you believe such a thing is truly possible?"

When I asked point-blank, the conspiracy-theorist head of Yuwi Guild widened his eyes, as though hearing such a question for the first time in his life.

"Then—is there no moment you'd want to go back to, Mr. Seon Yuhan?"

The words caught in my throat.

"There is. We all have such a moment, after all."

"Then...... if you found one, I mean."

I fought to keep my voice from trembling.

"If you met someone who'd turned back time, what would you do, Director?"

"I'd have to experiment, wouldn't I? There's so much to confirm."

The master of the Jaerae Building smiled, hazy as mist.

"Even if it meant locking them back inside a Labyrinth."

I stared blankly at that face.

A very famous meme surfaced in my head.

Question: Between a Labyrinth and a human, which is the more terrifying?

Answer: A human trapped in a Labyrinth.

***

I must never let it slip. I must never let it slip. I must never let it slip. Never.

I could barely even remember what we talked about after that.

My head was so crammed with the single thought that I must never let Yoo Hyunjae find out about the regression.

To be trapped in a single Labyrinth with a man who'd experiment on a Labyrinth Survivor by locking them back inside—

Wasn't this beyond simply setting out a meal and saying eat me—wasn't it more like scooping up a heaping spoonful and shoving it into his mouth myself?

If I got found out in here, I might just rot in this place forever.

I'd been certain he wasn't a bad person at heart—and even now, that hasn't changed—

but a screw had definitely come loose somewhere.

There are good-natured types even among conspiracy theorists, aren't there. Sociable, too.

They just happen to hold strange beliefs.

"Shall we try heading down again? Is everyone all right?"

It was already past five.

Until now, even with the corridors blacked out, sunlight had come through the windows, leaving it merely dim—but once the sun began to set, it would grow far darker.

"Ah, yes. We're fine."

"Jiho, how about you? Think you can manage? You okay? Right. Up we get."

"But this time we'll really get a next floor, won't we? If handing over that photo was the condition?"

I prayed so.

"It's a shame the Diary only has information up to the fourteenth floor."

"Right......"

Clunk.

I answered breezily and opened the emergency exit door.

I'd better not use the Diary carelessly anymore, either.

Each time I regressed, the Diary's printed type warped until it no longer matched my actual handwriting—but its very contents seemed liable to rouse Yoo Hyunjae's suspicion.

'It looks rather uncertain. For a Labyrinth Relic...... it's almost as if a person wrote it.'

He'd said as much before, plainly.

Wouldn't it be better to shut down the very possibility that a regressor might be somewhere in this Labyrinth?

The reason I'd started taking the Diary out and writing in front of others in the first place was to record the Happyland game script—

and now that I knew I only had to pick the 'Become Unhappy' option, without bothering to write down all those details one by one—

getting through to the fourteenth floor without the Diary would be a slight nuisance, but not difficult.

I'd simply look like a man whose nerve grew in proportion to how quick on the uptake he was.

Clunk!

As I sorted through my thoughts and pulled the emergency exit door open once more—

"Huh?"

"The eleventh floor?"

"Did this floor always look like this?"

Finally.

We'd left the fourteenth floor behind.

My liver had indeed been put to meaningful use.

***

12. Keep a photo of your happiest moment with you. The being in the empty office across from Neosoft will accept it.

***

The eleventh floor.

[Strategic Planning Division｜Future Strategy Team｜Budget Planning Team]

So read the directory beside the elevator.

The words 'Strategic Planning Division' were printed a touch bolder.

"Ah. On the eleventh floor here, the Future Strategy Team and the Budget Planning Team used to be on either side."

According to the Yuwi Guild Director's brief account, the Strategic Planning Division held the Future Strategy Team, the Budget Planning Team, and the Planning & PR Team.

And the Planning & PR Team was on the tenth floor.

"It's changed somewhat."

"This looks like rather more than 'somewhat,' though......?"

The Jaerae Building was originally a 'ㅁ'-shaped structure, with a square opening punched through the middle.

"Let me revise that. It's changed a great deal."

But this eleventh floor now sat closer to a '工'-shaped structure.

On this side, an elevator and an emergency exit set in a straight line.

A single passage crossing from this side to the other.

And on the far side, the Future Strategy Team and the Budget Planning Team—which must once have faced each other—now joined side by side.

"I wonder if the staff are safe......"

The eleventh floor was uneasily silent.

From the office across the way, not a hint of anyone stirring.

"What do you suppose happens if you fall from here......?"

We crossed the newly built passage that cut the eleventh floor in a straight line.

"You either die...... or drop right back onto this floor, I'd imagine."

When I'd looked out the window from the fourteenth floor, I didn't think there'd been a passage like this—

but since a Labyrinth can warp space, it was nothing to wonder at.

"Whatever could be inside......"

Seeing that there was only one door, it seemed the two teams of the Strategic Planning Division, joined together, had merged into a single room.

"I'll open the door. Be careful."

Sliiide—

What came into view as the office door opened was......

"Ah! At last—my first guests."

A vivid crimson cube.

A cube bigger than a human head.

As if lumps of flesh, blood vessels, and slime had been kneaded together like clay.

Coiling folds, like intestines, like a brain, writhed across it.

That unfathomable cube floated, bobbing, in midair.

"I was about to die of boredom."

"Ngh, nngh......"

"What in the world is that......"

Eyeballs were embedded in its six faces.

One on one face, two on another, then three, four, five—and six......

"A die?"

"A sharp-eyed guest. Or is it quick wits?"

Whish!

The die of flesh shot up before me and spun sharply this way and that in the air, as if to show off every face.

Blink, blink.

Each time the huge eyeballs blinked, a red membrane tugged along slightly, and I heard the wet smack of eyelids meeting slime.

Twenty-one eyeballs, as if in chorus.

A trick of the eye?

For just an instant, it looked as though they furrowed. At me.

"A gamble against such an opponent is delightful."

The voice that uttered the unsavory word was an androgynous, beautiful tone—like a shadow seizing you by the ankle and holding fast.

Though of course, it had no mouth and no throat.

"Gambling! Gaming! Wagering! Gamble!"

All at once the die bounced this way and that, crying out as if in song.

The vessel-like threads on the cube's surface throbbed in time with the voice.

"A contest in which you stake your money, your time, your life, your everything on a future not even an inch of which can be foreseen! My very reason for being."

Was that why it had appeared in the Future Strategy Team and the Budget Planning Team?

"My name—yes. 'Mr. Do' will do."

A name anyone could see it had just made up on the spot.

"Now, everyone, sit here."

Mr. Do spun in a great circle around a white round table large enough for several to gather at.

"Come along."

"Let's just...... sit, shall we......?"

"Sh-shall we."

They say even a schoolhouse dog can recite poetry after three years—

well, do three floors of a Labyrinth, and you turn docile.

I took a seat and swiftly scanned my surroundings.

There didn't seem to be any Yuwi Guild staff. Not even a corpse.

I'd assumed there'd be at least a person or two on each floor—but it seemed there could be none at all.

"Hmm."

Mr. Do drifted around the five of us, blinking eyes the size of fists.

One by one, as if appraising us.

"Wh-what, why, why are you doing that......?"

The lump-of-flesh die ignored Choi Jaeha's piteous protest and moved on past him.

Mr. Do stared hard at the child, who was about a third its size, and Jeong Jiho squeezed his eyes shut and trembled all over.

Hwang Juyeon, who faced the die next, glared at it with a stiff expression before looking away.

Mr. Do swept sideways again.

To me.

"......"

As I thought.

It was no trick of the eye.

The bloodshot eyeballs quivered around their lids once more as they glared at me and passed by.

For the span of a blink, quite literally. Just an instant.

Lastly, Yoo Hyunjae tilted his head, as if curious about a die with nineteen more eyes than he had.

"Good. I like it."

Mr. Do floated about for a long while, as if savoring our reactions with all those eyes, before speaking again.

"We shall have a most delightful contest."

"A contest?"

"Indeed."

The vivid-red die spoke merrily.

"A contest between you all and me. You may call it a game. Or a gamble, a wager, a bet. Whatever you like."

A voice that hummed, as if happy at the mere thought.

"The contest is, without exception, one on one. Conducted in private. The one who defeats me—"

The red-eyed die declared in a beguiling voice.

"—I shall let leave this place."