Chapter 40

Chapter 40. Lost Boy the Last Boy

[Case ③ - 4 Statement]

[Testimony c: "Hey—you know I really thought of you like my own little brother, right? Mom and Dad said it too. That it felt reassuring, like they'd gained another son. So if someone had asked me, before I ended up like that, how many people were in our family, I'd have answered exactly this many."]

SLAM!

[××｜(Verify)]

A red brand of doubt was seared onto the white paper.

"Do not doubt."

The eyes looking at me—one, three, six, ten, fifteen, twenty-one—those beautiful eyes itch and itch and itch and itch and itch and itch, and they laugh.

Another mouthful of the Breath of Judgment seeps into me.

"Kh, ugh......!"

Red before my eyes.

The whole world surges like a red haze. Long ago, when I was very young, I saw a scene like this. The world flips over. My parents are dead. I'm losing too much blood.

White before my eyes.

As I collapse onto the cold floor, a white ceiling comes into view. On some days, instead of the ceiling, it was my aunt I saw. A woman who sometimes laughed, often cried, frequently raged, and was pitiful every single day. I look up at that dazzling light.

Black before my eyes.

I close my eyes, just for a moment. The die's pips number twenty-one. Or I sleep a long, long nap. After the time I woke screaming from a nap at school, I never dozed off again. I open my eyes.

At last. Nothing is visible.

"Ha, krk, kh......!"

A laugh kept slipping out of me.

That to the very end, they died thinking of me as family.

That for that brief time, they thought of me as one of the family.

That such foolish people were now gone from the world.

That it was all because of me.

It was so funny I couldn't bear it. I simply couldn't.

"The event is closed."

Mr. Do's strange, beautiful tone no longer reached my ears properly, either.

Something warm trickled from my ears, too, leaving them muffled.

"Hh, ugh......"

I forced my body up and sat back down.

Tok, clatter!

I heard the die rolling across the hard table, slowly coming to a stop.

Naturally, my blinded eyes couldn't see the number on the top face.

"May I...... check by...... hand."

"I permit it."

Ah. How tender, and how merciless.

Mr. Do had probably known it would come to this.

That I'd willingly keep Verifying to confirm the truth, until I lost my sight.

So if it had forbidden touching the die beforehand, my victory would have been settled at this point.

Because of course I'd have just kept choosing 'Accept.'

If you don't know the number on the die's top face, then however much you want to Verify a testimony, Verifying gets you no information at all, since you don't know the number anyway.

In other words, Mr. Do wanted me to know the number of the event that occurred on this die.

Only then would I want to know whether the testimony tied to that number was true or false.

Only then would I, braving death, go ahead and Verify the testimony.

"4......?"

Fumbling, I carefully felt the die's surface and counted the pips.

"Ah, it's 5."

Top face: 5.

"An event has occurred. I begin my testimony."

The paper before me probably read like this.

[Case ④ - 5 Statement]

[Testimony d: 　　　]

"Oh—I'm waiting for you on the floor that matches the number of these pips."

A voice somewhat like Mr. Do's, yet far more masculine, with a soft, coaxing manner.

"I've prepared lots of games to delight you. Only—the last game has a minimum number of players to enjoy it together. Because I'd be less upset if a quarter of the friends playing the games I made died, rather than half."

That's a matter of ratio; in the end, the absolute number who die is the same, isn't it?

"So if you'd like to play to the very end, you have to bring more friends along. That way you can lower the odds that the friends you cherish even a little will die during the games. Of course, you'll think it doesn't matter as long as you alone get out alive—and yet, even so, you also think it would be good if you could save someone."

A vast volume of testimony.

But there was no need to overthink it.

Truth is invariably truth, and falsehood invariably falsehood.

Truth and falsehood cannot coexist within a single testimony.

If even one sentence among them is true, the rest are all true as well; conversely, if false, every other sentence is false too.

"Accept."

And at least one of those sentences—I knew which was true.

SLAM!

I heard the sound of a seal stamping the statement.

[(Accept)｜××]

Right now, the statement's Accept and Verify columns were probably marked like this.

"The event is closed."

Thank goodness.

I'd been worried another testimony I absolutely had to Verify would come up.

Come to think of it, it was the first time since the main game of Breath of Judgment began that I'd Accepted a testimony.

It'd be good if I could get through the remaining two like this, too.

In any case, I had no idea where the fifth floor was, but it seemed I'd have to play another life-or-death game there.

And I'd have to save more people than I had now, too.

"Khk, urgh......"

Even sitting still, a blood-laced cough would burst out.

I'm sleepy.

The whole world is dark.

Maybe I'm merely sunk in a deep sleep with the help of some drug, and all of this is just a horrible nightmare......

Thwack!

"Ngh, agh......!"

Pull yourself together.

Close all six events and last six minutes.

Even with a body like this, just hold out for six minutes, and I can send Jeong Jiho—that kid—out of the Labyrinth.

"Hurry...... move on."

"A contest with a spirited opponent is a joy."

Tok, clatter.

The small die's rolling clatter stopped, and once more I reached out slowly and felt the die to count the pips.

"2...... no, 3."

Top face: 3.

"An event has occurred. I begin my testimony."

Slip.

I heard a new statement being set before me.

[Case ⑤ - 3 Statement]

[Testimony e: 　　　]

It would read like this.

"This is the weight of death you have laid upon your own name."

This time, it was simply Mr. Do's voice.

A voice androgynous and beautiful, one that would bewitch you if you listened too long, one whose form you couldn't picture from sound alone.

"You should not have done so."

"Don't...... lecture me."

"This is the testimony of an event that befell you. Upon your own name, you would carry the lives of others, at least this many in number, and go on living."

A voice as if addressing something pitiful and pathetic.

What line were Mr. Do's eye-corners drawing right now, I wondered.

"My cowardly, foolish adversary. Even were there no twisting of time, you would not be fit to join my table. For in the letters that make up your name, there is not a single portion that is your own. Your life holds no worth as a stake, as I know. As you know."

"......Accept."

SLAM!

I heard the sound of a brand being pressed into the statement.

Why is that bastard spouting such pointless nonsense?

Has it lost the will to actively obstruct my Accepting now?

If I close the one remaining event safely and hold out for six minutes, I win, don't I?

Does it think that, having already taken two mouthfuls of the Breath, I'll just keep wheezing and die on my own?

"The event is closed. Now only the sixth event remains."

Or...... maybe one last blow was left.

"Close the event just as you did, and you can send that small, young opponent out of this Labyrinth. You will not live long, but six minutes is not so long a time. It will not be difficult."

Tak, ta-rak......

As an ominous premonition crept up from my toes, the sound of the die rolling ceased.

I reached out and slowly stroked the top face.

The die's hollowed pips numbered one...... two......

"It's 2."

Top face: 2.

"An event has occurred. I begin my testimony."

The paper, which would read 'Case ⑥ - 2 Statement,' appeared with a slip.

And then......

"The number of people I want so badly to kill but cannot."

A voice that sounded strangely unfamiliar—my own.

Two people, then.

Hadn't one been enough? No—were even two not enough? Could I be satisfied with two?

I don't know.

Whether it's true or not doesn't matter.

I have to Accept it and close the event. Without fail.

"Acc—"

"—the number of people who did not die in the Dalumul-ri Labyrinth ten years ago."

"......What?"

What did it.

"What, ugh, what is that supposed to mean......?"

I scrambled up, but my strength gave out and I fell.

By now I could barely feel the pain.

"Th-they didn't die—what do you mean that's two people. Say it again. Keep talk......, urgh, talking......!"

From Mr. Do, wherever it was, only silence returned.

"M-me—besides me...... someone survived. Back then...... that day, surely, the bodies......"

There'd been one body missing.

His body was missing.

To be precise, the moment after he was caught in a certainly fatal situation, that person had vanished.

It was something I couldn't understand, but a Labyrinth was a place beyond understanding to begin with.

But if he hadn't died......

Of course, I'm no longer young enough to be fooled by a Labyrinth's wordplay.

Medically, he was surely, properly dead.

But if, in some sense, he was alive.

'▶ Forgot?'

The voice that had stirred me awake in my happiest moment at Happyland—could it perhaps have been......

"Really. Is it really......? Is it true?"

"I told you. That what you believe, and what you do not, is what matters."

Mr. Do no longer mimicked my voice.

"Ah, ah......"

As if, in a single instant, the whole universe condensed into one point, everything falls still.

The temperature of the blood sliding down my throat, the agony of the membranes inside my body burning away, the tinnitus ringing noisily through my head.

All of it converges into a single point, small as a pip drawn on a die.

Within that one-point world, there is only me, and the truth I must face. The two of us alone.

In the pitch-dark where I couldn't see an inch ahead, only then could I look straight into all of Mr. Do's eyes.

"Verify."

I.

I...... want to know the truth. I have to.

Even if it means wagering the future of that seven-year-old child.

No—if I could, even if it meant wagering the futures of every human being here.

"Do not doubt."

And so, at the price of giving up the child's future, I obtained the truth.

"Ha."

Gladly, I drew in the final breath.

***

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

One thing is certain.

I will never be forgiven.