Interview Room Usage Hours
Thud!
Like a relay runner taking the baton, I gripped the door handle tight and hurled myself forward with everything I had.
Thankfully, I managed to keep the door from opening.
Rattle-bang! Rattle-bang!
Insane—what kind of strength is this…?!
Just as I thought. He's not a child.
And obviously not an ordinary human, either.
"What time. How many. Minutes."
There was no way to pull the phone out of my pocket while I was busy holding him back.
Straining to block the lunatic shoving his way in, I barely managed to twist my head and survey the inside of the interview room.
Ah. There's a clock over there!
By some miracle, an analog clock hung on the wall behind the seat I'd sat in for my interview.
Tick, tock.
"Hhk—3 o'clock! 3:57…? No, 58! It's 3:58!"
I shouted desperately toward the dark shape visible through the sliver of an opening between the doors.
"Gratitude."
With that acknowledgment, the door handle that had been rattling with terrifying violence stopped, and the crushing weight beyond it vanished as if by sorcery.
Thud….
The door closed.
"Now 3:58. Communication error. Reconfirm later. Pardon. Cheering for interview."
Eeee-kick, kick, creeeak.
That spine-chilling scrape slowly faded into the distance.
"Ha…."
Only after the sound had vanished entirely could I finally gulp down air.
I'd kept my mouth shut because it felt like the wrong thing to answer.
Was that all it took—just telling him the time and he'd pass by quietly?
What a waste of strength.
All the tension drained out of my legs.
I sat down for a moment and thought.
So. Can I go out now?
I couldn't stay holed up in here forever.
Should I head back down the emergency exit?
I retraced the location of the emergency stairs in my head. If that thing was still on the third floor, I'd have to flee by the shortest route. I couldn't afford to get turned around.
This time I'd be careful not to fall.
Just as I was running that cautious mental rehearsal—
BANG.
The door swung open. Without the slightest warning, without the faintest sound of approach.
Everything happened in an instant.
"Time pools."
Darkness.
I saw darkness pooled beyond the door like a puddle. Not the corridor where sunlight would still come through the windows even in a blackout, but a total, absolute darkness that would blind me.
"Time flows."
Wind.
I felt wind pouring through the doorway like a waterfall. Not the breeze that tickles your ears playing with the ends of your hair—the kind that makes your legs buckle beneath you.
"Usage time over. Time remains."
Whoosh—!
That darkness began sucking in the air like a vacuum cleaner.
And I was nothing but dust.
"Should not exist. Time is none."
Like the last dregs squeezed from a spent tube of toothpaste, I was crushed and wrung out inch by inch from my toes upward—and just before the pressure reached the crown of my head and burst—
the last thing I saw was a piece of paper taped beneath the interview room placard that read 'Conference Room A'.
Yuwi Guild New Employee Recruitment
I N T E R V I E W R O O M
10:00 AM ~ 4:00 PM
Damn it.
It was 4:01.
3. Observe the usage hours of the interview room.
"If it were possible to turn back time, what would you do, Mr. Seon Yuhan?"
Good question.
I swallowed the words, pulled out my phone with trembling hands.
My head throbbed and my whole body felt like it was coming apart at the seams—but that was an illusion.
The internet still worked, apparently?
That's strange.
Anyway, for now….
"I'd get out. Alive."
"I'm sorry?"
"My apologies. Excuse me."
I rose from my seat and pulled the interviewer up to her feet.
"Huh?"
An innocent little smile bloomed across a face that otherwise looked somewhat vacant.
"Is this some kind of role-play? It's been a while since an applicant demonstrated their answer with their whole body like this."
I ignored the nonsense and led her out. She followed along docilely.
She seemed to think this was my answer to the question of what I'd do if I could turn back time, watching me with eyes bright with fascination.
So if I pass, this person becomes my boss.
"Is it normal for the hallway to be this empty?"
"I believe so? The third floor only has the auditorium and conference rooms, and there's no other event scheduled today besides the interviews."
Come to think of it, it had been quiet up here even before my interview.
"Ah. There it is."
I spotted the fire alarm mounted on the corridor wall near the bathroom.
In a few minutes there'd be another blackout, and the internet would go down with it.
I reached for the red transmitter.
If I triggered the fire alarm now, at least everyone in the building would feel a spark of alarm—would have a moment to brace themselves.
If I was lucky, I could even cut down by one the number of people riding the elevator.
"Mr. Seon Yuhan."
Tap.
The very moment I was about to press the transmitter button, the interviewer grabbed my arm.
It was a considerably stronger grip than her appearance suggested.
Wearing her business smile, she began rattling off her objections—and, listening, I had to admit they held water.
The problem was more people entering this building.
By my best guess, this place was….
Maybe I hadn't actually died and come back to life. Maybe all of this was happening only inside my head.
But either way, it felt real to me, so I had no choice but to judge it on the assumption that it was real.
And in the end, there was only one place where something this impossible could happen.
A Labyrinth.
"Interviewer-nim, this building. It's become a Labyrinth."
"Are you still doing the role-pl…."
The interviewer's mouth closed as she looked at me, her eyes narrowing.
"You're being serious, aren't you? Not that a Labyrinth is forming—that it's already 'become' one."
Well, of course she was quick on the uptake. Her job was caring for Red Weavers, who were people—people who were, on the whole, relentlessly sharp-eyed.
Though being quick to notice was one thing; trusting my word without a shred of doubt was quite another. Maybe she was simply kind by nature.
"Yes. It's an Invasive Labyrinth."
An ordinary Labyrinth exists in a separate spacetime, not on Earth.
What appears suddenly somewhere on Earth and swallows up the people around it is a 'fissure'—shaped like a crack in the universe itself—which serves only as a gateway into the Labyrinth.
Those are neutrally called Contact-type Labyrinths, and the vast majority of Labyrinths are of that kind.
But there are exceptions. There always are.
On very rare occasions, a specific location on Earth itself becomes a Labyrinth.
This is called the 'Labyrinthification phenomenon', and a space that has undergone it is called an Invasive Labyrinth.
"Hoo…. This is bad."
The interviewer swept her hair back and took a deep breath.
"It's too late to evacuate now, isn't it?"
"Yes, it appears so."
The moment Labyrinthification began, I estimated, was 3:29 PM—the moment when that absurd event, my regression, takes place.
It was only just past 3:32 now.
Soon the building would lose power, and the elevators would fall.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Seon Yuhan. It seems something got delayed because of me."
"It's fine."
I turned away, unwilling to watch her face as she apologized to me.
"If it's Invasive, then no fire brigade is coming. That was shortsighted of me."
An Invasive Labyrinth usually ends with the total annihilation of everyone inside.
Because that is precisely the condition for the Labyrinth's resolution.
Every human who entered it dies.
Of course, there are other conditions besides that one. It's just that no one knows what they are—or even when they do, they're too difficult to fulfill.
Contact-type Labyrinths, though they exist in entirely different worlds, are mostly built from a handful of limited templates randomized into variations, so Red Weavers can resolve them using the information and knowledge they've accumulated over years.
An Invasive Labyrinth, on the other hand, occurs at an extremely low frequency—and on top of that, it's a random patch of Earth suddenly transformed into a Labyrinth.
In a word: a Labyrinth of a completely unprecedented environment, freshly generated from nothing.
What's more, in nine cases out of ten, everyone inside dies without leaving a single witness, the Labyrinth resolves naturally, and the Labyrinthification of the space is lifted.
Data collection is all but impossible.
In other words: an unknown spacetime where no one can predict what will happen, and anything at all can.
That is an Invasive Labyrinth.
"Let's head down to the first floor for now. The only real exit is in the lobby. And no elevators."
The interviewer nodded and took the lead toward the emergency exit.
"Interviewer-nim, what's the fastest way to warn as many people as possible that this building has been Labyrinthified?"
Because of its very nature, rescue from an Invasive Labyrinth is all the more hopeless.
"Not a single person should wander in by mistake. Not that any Red Weavers will come to resolve it anyway."
No Red Weaver would gamble their life entering a Labyrinth with no clue how to get out.
And even if one tried, their assigned Agent and their Guild would stop them.
BANG.
The instant I pushed open the emergency exit, every sound came flooding back in a low, humming roar.
I descended step by careful step. So I wouldn't misplace my footing this time. Carefully.
"Well, then… Ah!"
The interviewer's grave expression brightened.
"There's a very simple, very certain way."
I stopped dead where I stood.
Her voice echoed off the walls and then vanished like something out of a dream.
Why.
Why does this person keep disappearing on me?
Where on earth does this person keep going?
BOOM!
A sound like the earth itself being shaken to its roots made my whole body flinch.
CRACK, KABOOM, CRASH!
Only at that sound did I remember the man who'd been riding the elevator with me.
KABOOM, thud!
Unlike the interviewer, that man didn't seem to vanish.
Which meant, if it was him.
If it was him, I could have saved him too, one way or another.
Somehow I was out of breath, and I grabbed the railing.
Why am I like this?
Stupid. Self-absorbed. Always regretting too late.
Why am I still like this?
What am I, anyway—
Slip.
"Wha—?"
Suddenly my foot plunged downward.
That lurching feeling of thinking you've reached the last step, only to discover there's one more below it.
"AAAAH!"
I fell.
Down into a shaft, cold and deep as a well.
Down, and down. Ever downward.
I reached a hand uselessly toward the top. Toward the single, faint thread of light spilling into the pitch-black darkness.
The light was rectangular.
Which meant—the landing where I'd paused for just a moment had crumbled away, leaving a gaping hole.
…Either way, it seems my chance to save the man in the elevator is coming back around sooner than I thought.
Damn it.