There Is No Librarian Here
“This floor, whatever it is—urk!”
I fired the flash straight into Yu Hyeonjae's eyes and drove a fist into him with everything I had.
“Seon, Seon Yuhan……? Why…….”
I ran for my life.
Toward the spot where Yu Hyeonjae had first been.
“No way. N-no. Don't do this…….”
How many sections was it again? C07? G01?
“You've got it wrong. Stop.”
Ah. Since this whole line is the C section, C07 has to be it.
“Don't go, Seon Yuhan. Stop. Stop running. You mustn't look…….”
Yu Hyeonjae seemed to scramble up behind me and give chase, though he didn't sound like he was running properly—maybe he'd twisted an ankle in the fall.
“Ah.”
Here.
In section C07 stood a midsize sedan and an SUV.
Behind the sedan, across the car stopper and the wall, spatter marks of vomited stomach acid—Yu Hyeonjae's doing, apparently.
And behind the SUV, across its car stopper and the wall—
“Ah. Ah…….”
Bright red blood, not yet even beginning to congeal.
No. No. No, that can't be. No way.
Barely keeping my grip on the sedan's body, I staggered around to the driver's side of the SUV, hidden behind the pillar.
Thud.
And at the sight that spread out before me, my phone slipped from my hand.
“Ji-Jiho……?”
No. This isn't fair.
“Hwang Juyeon……?”
It was like a stage play.
Soft white light spilling down from the ceiling.
An innocent child and an blameless woman, collapsed hand in hand.
Bodies draped in dark blood as if receiving absolution, faces pale to the point of translucence.
Whitened shards of rib, red flesh crushed and running down, and the hollow space between them.
The missing heart.
The tragedy in which only the purest meet a reasonless, everlasting death, while only the filthiest claw their way to survival and suffer for it.
“How—how could……. Why, like this…….”
“Seon Yuhan…….”
“You. Yu Hyeonjae. What did you do to them?”
Crunch!
My body lunged before my mind caught up.
“Urk…….”
“What the hell happened here!”
“Calm down. I didn't—ghk—do this. It wasn't me.”
Yu Hyeonjae raised both hands as if to prove his innocence.
They were dirty with something like dust, but there wasn't a speck of blood on them.
“Don't play word games with me. I don't believe you tore people apart with your own hands, either.”
My forearm pressed against his throat, slowly tightening.
“You think I used them as bait. Fed them to the monster.”
“No. I only…….”
Slammed against the wall, wheezing, Yu Hyeonjae made no move to resist—he simply bowed his head in apparent shame, the shadowed rims of his eyes reddening.
None of it made sense.
That these two had died in such a state in that sliver of time. That Yu Hyeonjae had hidden it and worn that odious expression.
“I'm sorry for lying earlier. I thought—Seon Yuhan, I thought you were the one who'd hurt those two…….”
“……What?”
“I meant to attack you and run if things went bad…….”
“What—what did you say……?”
Suddenly my chest seized tight, as if squeezed by an unseen hand.
“Seon Yuhan, please. Calm down and listen to me.”
Yu Hyeonjae's two hands came down over the forearm pinning his throat, over my clenched fist. As a composed warmth traveled across the back of my hand, the strength drained out of me bit by bit.
“When you first asked me about those two, you sounded—like a hunter who'd lost his quarry. That's why I misunderstood.”
My head swimming, I laboriously replayed the conversation from before.
'Did you happen to see anyone else here?'
'Anyone else?'
'Yes. Two people—a child and a woman. They should have come down here.'
'Are they family?'
'No. I ran into them upstairs. Well. I lost them.'
'Should I catch them?'
Ha.
While I was wary of Yu Hyeonjae, Yu Hyeonjae had been just as wary of me.
He'd had more than enough circumstantial evidence to see me as dangerous.
“And even though it was only for a moment, when I did run into them, they truly looked like they were being chased.”
My breath grew ragged.
As if I'd overheard something never meant for me, my voice crumbled to scattered murmurs.
“The woman screamed in fright before she even got a proper look at my face. And then, not long after, she ended up like that……. Ah—Seon Yuhan, no. You mustn't. Breathe deeply.”
So it was because of me.
All of it, because of me.
Because of me.
“Seon Yuhan, slowly. Breathe.”
Someone was gripping my wrist.
Someone seemed to be talking to me. I couldn't hear it well.
“Look here. Calm down, please—”
―Clack.
“Ah. So it did hear us. Two minutes or so, I suppose…….”
Clank. Splat.
From the darkness beyond the reach of the weak flashlight glow, something was coming.
Clatter-click, clatter-click—metal striking metal in a steady rhythm.
A faint grinding, like gears interlocking.
A wet, heavy squelch of something fleshy being pressed and stepped on.
“Seon Yuhan.”
The monster.
“Stop thinking about the dead and calm down, first of all.”
A man-eating monster.
“Breathe. Breathe deep. That's how you stay alive.”
It had devoured that much already and still it wasn't satisfied. Of course not.
“My guess is that fake Buddha goes for the heart—”
Crunch.
'It's literally the monster of the labyrinth, isn't it?'
The instant that flat, dead voice echoed through my ears—
Creeeak.
The fingers of the benevolent Buddha statue tore through my chest like paper, crushed through my ribs, and invaded inward.
A cold compassion pierced through my whole body like gospel truth.
Even in that moment, Yu Hyeonjae was clutching my wrist.
Until I left this world of suffering behind.
……You should've just run, you lunatic.
“If it were possible to turn back time, what would you do, Mr. Seon Yuhan?”
“Heart—”
A hideous spasm shimmered across my chest like a mirage.
Just my imagination.
“My heart is. My hearts are.”
“I'm sorry? Mr. Seon Yuhan, are you feeling unwell?”
When I clutched my chest and mumbled, the interviewer looked at me with concern.
“No. I'm fine.”
“Ah, um? Right.”
I stepped toward the interviewer, who looked less than convinced.
“Get up. This building has become a labyrinth.”
“I'm sorry?”
As I pulled her out into the corridor, she first watched me with eyes wondering if I was genuinely ill—then, seeing me recite the labyrinth precautions like a rosary, she nodded gravely.
“Ah, and the librarian. We have to kill the librarian…….”
The moment that revolting thing surfaced in my memory, my words began spilling out of my mouth in a feverish tumble.
“To get down from the second floor—no, the floors are mixed up, so the next one is basement level five—anyway, we have to kill the librarian in the library. It'll be hard, but we have to kill it. That damned……! That thing. That thing is not human.”
“Wait. Hold on, Mr. Seon Yuhan.”
The moment I felt her grip close around both my forearms, my shaking, scattered vision locked onto a single point.
There was no monster wearing a human skin there. No human bleeding out and dying because of it.
“Look at me.”
There was only the interviewer, looking straight at me.
“Yes. I'm looking.”
“Well done.”
Only after my mind had settled did the interviewer smile.
No—or was it the other way around?
I would probably never become a Red Weaver Agent half that good.
“By the library, you mean Bookbarn, right? There's never been a librarian there—it runs on a self-service checkout system…….”
“Ah, damn.”
This time, I truly struggled to hold back the curse.
“It won't be that…….”
“Sorry?”
“It won't be that easy. Labyrinths, you see. Really……”
Heat flared up from my core.
Of all people, I'd been stuck with humans who'd never been to Bookbarn—which was exactly why that disaster had played out over and over, wasn't it.
“Then I'll see you again, Mr. Seon Yuhan. Take care of yourself.”
“Yes. Please don't wait for me. Stay safe.”
With the remaining explanations delivered, I split off from the interviewer quickly.
3:31…… 3:32.
Steady.
Riiiiiing—!
I smashed the fire alarm, sprinted down the corridor at full speed, and jabbed the elevator button.
4… 3… Ding!
That was close.
The panic attack had cost me time—I'd nearly missed the window entirely.
「The doors are opening.」
The elevator doors split apart like a dissected chest.
The glum face of a neatly dressed, brown-haired accountant came into view.
“No way—you're getting on? I was just about to head down because of the alarm.”
“……Long time no see, Mr. Choi Jaeha.”
Truly.
“I'm telling you, it won't work……”
“No, how would you know without even trying—”
“—Um, excuse me……?”
After we'd spent the second floor bickering over whether or not to smash the windows with fire extinguishers, we ran into Hwang Juyeon coming out of the infinite staircase.
So it was possible, after all: ring the fire alarm with seconds to spare before the blackout at 3:33, get Choi Jaeha down from the third floor, and meet Hwang Juyeon in the corridor as well.
It was a somewhat roundabout method, but I'd found a way to meet Choi Jaeha and Hwang Juyeon outside of Bookbarn.
The three of us exchanged a quick summary of our situations and introductions.
“There's a daycare here—you know the one—and I'd come to put on a magic show for the kids. Afterward I was just going to rest my eyes in the library for a bit. Ha. Honestly.”
You shouldn't have. The voice that added that sounded bitter.
“Oh, right! The librarian!”
Suddenly, Hwang Juyeon shouted like a scream.
“Where was that person? Why didn't we run into them? Are they still in the library……? No, no—when the alarm woke me up and I headed for the entrance, the librarian was there. They weren't at the desk when I first came in, so I didn't see them……”
The freelance magician, who'd been muttering to herself, explained with an awkward look.
“Anyway, so I asked what this was, whether it was a real alarm. And they told me to get out first. Said they'd check with the management office once and leave right after. But come to think of it, if they came out too, they'd have to be on the second floor regardless, right? However far down they go, they can't reach the lower floors.”
“Ah, just a moment. Ms. Hwang Juyeon.”
I called Hwang Juyeon to a stop just as she moved to head toward the library.
“I'll handle the library. How about you and Mr. Choi Jaeha go on to the daycare first?”
I couldn't let them into the library.
Not Hwang Juyeon, not Choi Jaeha. Not anyone but me.
I couldn't make the same mistake twice.
“Ms. Hwang Juyeon, they at least know your face, so the children will take to you more easily. I'll grab the librarian and come straight to the daycare.”
“What, you're not planning to just bolt off somewhere alone and ditch us, are you?”
Choi Jaeha shot me a sidelong glance.
It came off as half a joke, so I shook my head listlessly in return.
“It would've been nice if I had somewhere to run to, even if it took that.”
Hm.
Apparently not funny. And I was the one telling the joke.
“In any case, if nothing goes wrong in the library……”
3:41.
I checked the time and continued.
“I'll be at the daycare within ten minutes at the latest.”
“Fine. Go get the librarian and come right back. No funny business.”
Leaving behind the accountant whose trust in me converged on zero and the freelance magician watching me with worried eyes, I made for Bookbarn.
If my guess was right, the book club checked its headcount at ten-minute intervals, and began the moment even a single human other than the librarian was present.
Which meant I had nine minutes of leeway before 3:50.
“Uh, uhh……? The door—how did you open the door? It was locked, and I couldn't, hnnk, couldn't get out…….”
Nine minutes would be enough.
“Ex-excuse me……? Why are you looking at me like that…….”
For killing the monster.