The Pen Is Mightier
"Seon Yuhan examines the corpse of a woman lying face-down on the floor."
What the hell.
Where was that coming from?
It was like an oracle, a revelation handed down by god — except it didn't travel through the air the way sound should. It drove straight down into every last cell of my body, the way rain hammers the earth.
"Seon Yuhan examines the corpse of a woman lying face-down on the floor."
I looked down at the woman — or at what had been a woman — lying crumpled on the floor in front of me.
"Seon Yuhan examines the corpse of a woman lying face-down on the floor."
Relentless, isn't it.
Did it plan to keep repeating itself until I complied? And if I didn't — would it kill me?
In the end, I slowly bent my knees to get a closer look at the woman.
"Seon Yuhan examines the corpse of a woman lying face-down on the floor."
For starters, the area around her neck was soaked through with blood, and stains darkened the floor beneath her. Had she been stabbed in the neck? I couldn't say for certain — her long hair, half pinned up with a claw clip, had come loose and fallen in disarray across her profile and throat.
"Seon Yuhan examines the corpse of a woman lying face-down on the floor."
"Seon Yuhan examines the corpse of a woman lying face-down on the floor."
Still not enough for you?
Did I have to confirm the face properly, too?
Carefully, I turned the body over. Fortunately, as it turned out, there was no need to worry about her being some labyrinth monster that would jolt awake and devour me on the spot.
The employee ID hanging around her neck was the first thing I checked. The woman's name was Kim Gilyeong. Apparently she had been the librarian of Chaekbang-Ollae. An employee ID meant she was genuine staff — which meant that maybe, just maybe, if I brought her along, the daycare wouldn't treat me as an outsider. Maybe I could even get inside.
"Seon Yuhan examines the corpse of a woman lying face-down on the floor."
I kept examining Kim Gilyeong's body. Her neck was drenched in blood, but once I lifted the matted hair away and wiped some of it clean, the wound came into view.
"Judging by the shape of the wound, Seon Yuhan determined that the murder weapon was not a knife."
The line had finally changed.
Was it reading my thoughts? Because that was deeply unsettling.
"Seon Yuhan examines the librarian's corpse in closer detail."
Annoying.
"Seon Yuhan examines the librarian's corpse in closer detail."
Shaking my head, I went over Kim Gilyeong again. Her chest bore a wound or two much like the one at her neck, and her hands and face were marked with scratches and punctures. Her knit cardigan hung stretched out of shape all over.
"Seon Yuhan judged that a struggle had taken place between Kim Gilyeong and the culprit, and surmised that this was the first time the culprit had ever killed a person."
A thoroughly impulsive murder, committed by a culprit who wasn't even sure of it themselves. And by a human, at that — the labyrinth's hostile entities don't kill people in such a 'human' way.
"Seon Yuhan reconstructed the incident in his head. For whatever reason, the culprit had concluded that Kim Gilyeong had to die, and had stabbed at the victim's heart."
But whatever the culprit had been holding, it was no blade made to cut or slice. Considering the shape of these wounds, and an environment where nothing else could plausibly serve as a weapon, it was probably...
"The pen is mightier than the sword. However, the tip of the culprit's pen was too weak to reach Kim Gilyeong's heart. Kim Gilyeong, naturally, resisted."
Most likely, the fight had ended with the woman being stabbed in the neck again and again until she died.
"But who, then, was the culprit?"
Forget build — even their sex was hard to gauge. In a situation like this, that wasn't a critically important factor. Not that raw physical strength counted for nothing...
In the moment when life and death grind against each other, a good many factors besides strength come into play as variables. However big and strong you are, if you hesitate, or get careless, or panic too hard, or lose your head, someone less than half your size can turn the tables on you. Besides, unless you'd been trained for it professionally, how would you even know the proper way to kill a person — and even if you knew, how would you actually manage to apply it when it came down to the real thing?
And this place was a labyrinth. A place where anything at all can happen, and where being surprised by whatever does is meaningless. Guessing at the culprit's identity was a waste of time, for now.
"Then where might the culprit be?"
My chest went cold in an instant.
"And the murder weapon? Where might the pen that pierced Kim Gilyeong be?"
I hurriedly scanned my surroundings. No sign of another living soul. There hadn't been one from the moment I first walked in.
"Had it fled?"
But when it tossed out lines like that, I couldn't help feeling uneasy. I half-suspected the door had locked itself and went to check — it hadn't. Even now it opened just fine. I could walk out and come back in whenever I pleased.
"Seon Yuhan knew that he had been too late."
Fair enough. I had taken my sweet time in the interview room. Going by the clock, roughly thirty minutes had passed since the building became a labyrinth — whatever was going to happen in here would have happened long before I arrived.
"Perhaps, if Seon Yuhan had come just a little sooner, Kim Gilyeong might have lived. Like Choi Jaeha."
Maybe so. Nothing new about that.
"That's right. Seon Yuhan is that kind of human. The kind who sews his shattered shell back together with scraps of other people, who cooks his meals with the breath of others, who lives out each and every day on the deaths of others."
I passed the entrance where the librarian had fallen and moved deeper inside. There was a stacks section furnished entirely with sleek, stylish bookcases, and a reading section where sofas and desks sat in harmony with bookcases of every conceivable shape.
"Now, wasn't that the very monster of the labyrinth?"
My gaze snagged on a single book in the reading area. It was a space where plush-looking beanbags and one- and two-seater sofas gathered in a circle — and dead center lay a lone book.
"Seon Yuhan realizes that he has no right to read this book."
What now? Was I not supposed to read it?
The moment I drew near, the book snapped shut with a clap. So I obediently lowered the hand I'd been reaching toward it. In moments like these, you must never touch anything carelessly.
"The regret of 'if only I had come a little sooner' lingers, clammy, in Seon Yuhan's heart."
Yes — if I had, then maybe I would have gotten the chance to open that book, and maybe the librarian wouldn't have died, and maybe Choi Jaeha wouldn't have died, and once again I—
"Seon Yuhan silently set about the task before him. The kind of deed no whole human being could carry out."
Even after leaving the library, I ignored the voice trailing me like a hallucination.
I have to live. Even if I die. I have to keep living.
That is my rule.
"Must rules be kept? The way the labyrinth keeps its own?"
Swish, swish. I fixed my attention on nothing but the sound of fabric dragging along the corridor floor.
"Oh my!"
The moment I opened the door of Our New Day Daycare, a familiar goose doll came waddling out.
"Now, I do wonder — who might this madman be, dragging a doll so ugly nobody would take it for free, filthily scraping it along the floor straight into our daycare?"
Calling a human being a doll. When it was a doll itself.
"Ah... but she's still an employee. How could it not work?"
"How could it? Not with this cheap, defective product."
I could almost see an expression on the stuffed doll's face — an expression that could not possibly exist.
"Our New Day Daycare prohibits the entry of outsiders."
...Looks like next time, I'll have to bring her in alive.
5-1. An employee's corpse will not help you enter the daycare.
"If it were possible to turn back time, what would you do, Mr. Seon Yuhan?"
"I would go to the library..."
"The library, I see. Have you thought about which book, specifically, you'd read once you got there? Books are always worth reading, of course, but some books have their moment — there are ones you simply must read at a certain time. After all, what a book leaves with you can change depending on the reader's mood that day, on what they've lived through."
I had no wish to cut the interviewer off, so I waited until she had finished before opening my mouth.
"Interviewer, this building has become a labyrinth as of right now."
After that, I passed on every precaution and every warning the labyrinth had taught me with my own body.
"Oh... I, I understand..."
Flustered as she was, the interviewer once again turned the question back on me, checking whether I was all right.
"Yes, I'm fine."
We both knew that was a lie.
"Then, later... let's meet again. Safe, and outside."
"Yes. Let's meet again."
Still — I hoped that this one promise, at least, would not be a lie.
BAM!
KABOOM, KRRASH-BANG, KRAK!
CRASH, THUD!
I retrieved CPA Choi Jaeha from the elevator without incident, then demonstrated the labyrinth's uncanny magic for him: no matter how many flights of stairs we descended, we came out on the second floor.
WHUMP, BAM!
"Uuugh! It won't break! AAAGH!"
For a good while, Choi Jaeha clutched his head, ground his teeth, and foamed at the mouth, carrying on about smashing the glass and getting out — but he pulled himself together eventually.
"So what do we do now?"
Choi Jaeha had stopped his fussing long enough to ask.
"I'm going to try the library first."
"Why? Aren't we supposed to sweep the whole place? What about the daycare and Tarae? You're skipping the grand auditorium?"
"It's my preference. Ah — if you'd rather go there first, we could always split up and check separately."
"No, no, I was just genuinely curious about the reason. Like — why the library first?"
And so the CPA whose cowardice matched his bulk fell in step behind me, and we walked the corridor.
"By the way, Mr. Choi Jaeha — have you ever been to the library?"
"No?"
"Uh... was it one of those places only Yuwi Guild employees can enter?"
There had been no problem when I went in last time.
"No, that's not it. People from my company borrow books there too. Ah, I've been meaning to read a few myself. Just can't find the time."
People who actually read... make the time, even when they don't have any.
Honestly. People.
"Mr. Choi Jaeha."
I stopped briefly in front of Chaekbang-Ollae and turned back to the CPA.
"Before we go in, let me say it one more time: it will be dangerous in there. Even if it looks perfectly fine and safe, one wrong move and you could die. Not that I can promise it's any safer out here..."
"Yes, yes, I hear you, Mom."
Choi Jaeha, who had wrinkled his nose, smoothed his expression back out and clicked his tongue.
"I know most people who get trapped in an invasive-type end up dead, and that's that. I'm not a kid."
He seemed like one, though.
"But you know all that, and you're still trying to find a way out anyway, aren't you? So I just figured following you beats sitting rooted to the spot, trembling until I drop dead."
Was that an adult speaking?
"Well, if this all goes sideways, I can't promise I won't blame you."
Child or adult. I honestly couldn't tell.
"Sure. Blame me as needed."
"Honestly. What kind of answer is that."
Choi Jaeha let out a hollow laugh and opened the door of Chaekbang-Ollae.
"Huh?"
The instant I heard that ominous little exclamation, I braced myself for the death coming my way.
...
He had violated the forbidden rule of 'Huh?' — and yet nothing happened.
I opened my eyes again, smooth and natural, as if nothing had happened.
Two women stood there awkwardly, staring at the pair of us. One was a ponytailed woman in a black three-piece suit; the other wore a gray knit cardigan.
"Uh— how did you get in here?"
"Hm? I opened the door?"
"Yes, but how did you open it?"
"Uh... like this? You take the handle and...?"
"And the door just... opened?"
"Yes... well, it does open, doesn't it?"
"It wouldn't open for us, though?"
"It opens just fine for us, though?"
Clunk.
"Hm? No? It won't open? Mr. Seon Yuhan, what's wrong with this thing?"
What was this conversation — the kind that made you feel yourself getting dumber just from listening to it?
"Ha... Why, you ask? Because this place is a labyrinth."
Which meant we were now trapped inside the library.
"I'm sorry — labyrinth? You're joking, right?"
The woman in the three-piece suit stared at me as though I'd lost my mind; when I offered no particular reaction, her expression gradually hardened.
"Seriously... an actual labyrinth? Here? An invasive-type?"
"Yes. Unfortunately."
"This guy's telling the truth."
Choi Jaeha chimed in.
"You heard that sound earlier, like the whole building coming down? That was the elevator falling. And you know elevators don't normally plummet just because the power cuts, right? We came down from the third floor, but no matter how many stairs we took, we kept coming out on the second. Call it anything but a labyrinth and it doesn't add up."
Was he backing me up or talking down to them?
"Th-then don't tell me... that we're trapped in here too..."
The woman with the half-tied hair and the employee ID lanyard around her neck let the words die, then crumpled to the floor.
Kim Gilyeong. The librarian of Chaekbang-Ollae.
"Then am I... am I going to d-die here?"
She was the one I'd found dead last time — right on this very spot. To be precise: murdered.
"Don't jinx it like that. Who's dying? Honestly, you have been nothing but doom and gloom since earlier."
The woman beside her chided her in a voice not entirely sharp, and helped Kim Gilyeong back to her feet. A woman in a three-piece suit, long hair bound tightly into a single tail, with sharp, upturned eyes.
"Ha... well, it makes sense now, I suppose — labyrinth and all. So that's why there's no internet and the power's out, presumably? And why the door absolutely will not open from the inside."
"Yes, that seems to be the case."
Was it her?
Did this woman kill the librarian?
And if she had — then we were now locked in a sealed room with someone who might be capable of murder.