The Price of Happiness
"Mr. Seon Yuhan. This... he took a bullet, didn't he? Just now?"
"Oh! So he was an agent sent in by the Bureau of Fine Appearances, was he!"
Listening to Choi Jaeha and Hwang Juyeon trade words, I forced my white-knuckled grip on the phone to loosen.
Those Labyrinth Management Bureau bastards.
I knew those dogs were too greedy to share with anyone.
Sending people into an invasive Labyrinth when they knew damn well they'd only die — swelling the body count just to scrape together a little data.
Ah. Right. There was that incident where the parents snuck in on their own. Astonishingly, during the window when a certain government agency's oversight had 'loosened.'
"Well, I'd wager that's exactly what they went in planning. Why else bring a gun? From what the footage showed, it wasn't even a pistol or a rifle — more like a heavy machine gun. You'd struggle to find one of those even in the military, and no single person could carry one anyway. They sent him in dead set on it, that much is clear."
"Oh, really......? But then, after going to all that lengths...... it never even gets made public......"
Had those parents been steered into infiltrating the Labyrinth without even knowing it — quietly tolerated from above? Or had some backroom deal been struck? Judging only by the fragmented clips from that film, there was no way to tell.
Either way, the Labyrinth Management Bureau had weighed the nature of a school and decided to send in the parents. Concluding that a grieving parent might serve better than some jarring, out-of-place special operative who didn't belong in a school.
Was I supposed to call that progress?
"I have some business ties with the Labyrinth Management Bureau myself."
The head of Yuwi Guild feigned modesty in a bone-dry voice.
"It is an organization with corners it cannot be honest about. Rather like a Labyrinth, in that respect."
Would they try to come into this building too, then?
Given that it was a guild headquarters, Bureau people traipsing in and out wouldn't strike anyone as strange — it would be that much easier for them.
Not that they'd be found as anything but corpses, with the floors scrambled the way they were.
"Then I'll keep going."
"Whoa, no, wait——"
Choi Jaeha couldn't decide what to do with himself, eyes darting between his right foot with no heel and my face.
"Look, I've been thinking about this. Honestly, for me one round was plenty — no, more than plenty, honestly......"
The accountant, head hanging in shame, forced the words out with difficulty.
"So that's why, Mr. Seon Yuhan——"
"Hey, you crazy bastard!"
"I'm losing my mind, you lunatic!"
"What— why are you hitting me—"
"—Aiyo, does it even hurt? Aren't you scared at all? One wrong move and you'd have died like that man earlier! Even if you don't die, you'd be crippled for the rest of your life!"
"Ha, look at your face. What the hell is wrong with you? How can you be laughing here? You...... you're seriously not right in the head."
My license as an honorary sane person had been revoked. In the end, I was right back where I'd started.
"'Why does someone who looks perfectly fine act like that' — it's genuinely terrifying, you know......"
"That's it."
"What?"
That was the very question I had always screamed like a wail. At this world. At this life.
But no answer ever came back to me.
So I had none to give in return, either.
"Hhk, hck......"
It was the strangest sensation.
Every gulp of air could be felt passing down my throat, vivid as a breeze against skin —
and my chest never swelled.
"Hah, haah......"
No matter how much I inhaled.
No matter how I gulped until my mouth went bone-dry.
Like a thirst that would never, ever be quenched.
"......Wh-what do we do......"
"......You have to get it into your lungs......"
"......Yuhan, Mr. Seon Yuhan......"
There is a well inside my chest, deep as any well ever dug.
And in that hollow, empty well — so many deaths......
"If it were possible to turn back time, what would you do, Mr. Seon Yuhan?"
"Hh—ck......"
I dragged in air in ragged gulps.
Like the first breath of my life. Like breathing the world in for the very first time. Like I would never draw breath again. Like the last breath of my life.
"Mr. Seon Yuhan? Are you all right? What's come over you all of a sudden? Can you speak?"
"Yes...... Yes."
I seized the interviewer's arm as she came around the desk toward me and hauled myself up.
"Ma'am. This building — it's become a Labyrinth."
After clearing away the librarian's shell at the Chaekbang Ollae bookstore, and before setting off for Uri Saenal Daycare, where Hwang Juyeon and Choi Jaeha had gone on ahead, I stole a moment to check the Jaerae Diary.
"Unbelievable......"
It had been one damn thing after another.
The hideous mechanical drone of the Tarae Keeper played back in my head.
So damage occurred during the delivery process, did it.
The shapes of the letters had warped, little by little. It went without saying that the hand behind them had changed. It looked as though something inhuman had studied my handwriting and drawn an imitation of it.
Small mercies, I supposed — at least no one would be around to interrogate me about why my handwriting matched the original so exactly.
"Hah."
I closed the diary for now and headed for the daycare.
The road ahead was long.
"Whoa, so what was written in that diary really was the floor numbers, huh...... It really is B5...... Holy crap, so next up is the 14th floor?"
I had shown Hwang Juyeon and Choi Jaeha the Jaerae Diary right after pulling Jeong Jiho out of the second-floor daycare. He needed to see it beforehand if it was going to be used at NeoSoft — later on, there would be no natural moment to 'discover' it.
"My, my. Quite the unusual Relic, isn't it?"
I had exchanged proper introductions with Yu Hyeonjae in the parking lot, mid-dry-heave, and shown him the diary as well.
"You found this at the Chaekbang Ollae bookstore?"
"Yes. I went looking for the librarian, but there was no one in the library, and only this had fallen on the floor. I picked it up thinking it might be some kind of clue."
I gave him the same explanation I'd given Hwang Juyeon and Choi Jaeha, word for word.
"The librarian?"
Yu Hyeonjae's eyebrow rose a fraction.
"Our library doesn't have a librarian."
"Wha— no, that can't be right?"
Hwang Juyeon's voice cracked.
"They were definitely there! We even talked......"
"Was there a librarian even before the Labyrinthification? If so, that's a far more frightening thought, from where I stand."
"Uh, uhh...... That— now that you mention it, no, actually. At first there was no one at the desk, but later, after the fire alarm went off, someone was sitting there. I just assumed they'd stepped away for a moment. Naturally."
And so was solved a small mystery that only ever chilled the people who didn't know the whole story.
Choi Jaeha died in the parking lot.
He never even made it far enough to see Bae Seowoo's urn.
"......His brother-in-law?"
This time it hadn't been his niece — it was his brother-in-law. He'd rambled so incoherently that I couldn't pin down the exact reason, but whatever it was, he'd been furious past the roots of his hair, and nothing anyone said could calm him down.
Fwoosh.
I watched in silence as the four chrysanthemums consumed themselves in flame, counting the white blossoms that had never even been given the chance to run.
[NeoSoft]
Except.
"Hup, um......"
Lee Jinsu was drastically different from last time.
Not bald — his hair hung thick and unruly — and the ear that had been so neatly attached was gone.
"I...... think he's dead."
And above all, he was dead.
We'd arrived at almost the same time as before, yet the parts Lee Jinsu had lost were completely different — which meant the penalties were entirely random.
Pop—! Ta-da-ran, tan, ta-dan......
The screens of my phone, Hwang Juyeon's, and Yu Hyeonjae's lit up at once.
"This really is exactly like what was written in the diary......"
The Lee Jinsu who could have explained it was dead, but I had already written down what last loop's Lee Jinsu had told me, back when I heard it.
"'Play order = order of name entry?' — there's a question mark on it."
Yu Hyeonjae read it with apparent interest.
"It seems to be their way of saying they aren't certain. For a Labyrinth Relic...... it reads exactly like something a human being wrote."
Well, of course — there was no way to know how the order resolved after I died, and it really was written by a person.
"Let us assume it is indeed entry order for now, and I will go first. With young Jiho going last."
"You're going first, Representative? It's dangerous."
"The first lash always lands lightest, I find. If a lash must fall at all."
Honestly, I was grateful. And privately, stunned.
"Then I'll take the next turn."
I had assumed I'd be the first batter again this time, too. I couldn't have put Hwang Juyeon or Jeong Jiho ahead of myself, and it had never even occurred to me that Yu Hyeonjae would volunteer to go first.
"Ah. So it really is entry order, I see."
Thud...... Clatter!
A ring more expensive than my monthly salary and a wristwatch more expensive than my annual salary hit the floor.
"Dear me."
Yu Hyeonjae scooped up the runaway ring and slipped it back onto his right pinky — managed it one-handed, no less. The left sleeve of his jacket hung limp and lifeless from wrist to elbow.
"Are you all right? Your watch...... shall I put it back on for you? The crystal's cracked, but......"
"No, I'm quite all right. Thank you."
Yu Hyeonjae set the watch Hwang Juyeon had picked up for him onto the desk beside him.
"It doesn't feel real. Since it doesn't hurt."
He stared at the empty place where his left arm had been for a long moment, then murmured it quietly.
"Which might be exactly what makes it the more dangerous."
KRA-BOOM—! SHOOOSH!
"Seems they've laid booby traps, then."
Yu Hyeonjae shook his head at his phone screen. Having dodged the machine gun in the Haunted House, he'd walked straight into the booby trap on the Waterfall Ride.
I jotted it down in the diary, fast. It would be my turn next, after all.
Having confirmed I'd finished writing, Yu Hyeonjae brought his one remaining index finger close to the screen.
"......Huh?"
Yu Hyeonjae chose to continue. Not to quit.
"What. No— why......?"
"Well, naturally."
"Because I want to live."
A declaration dry as bone and desperate as drowning.
He wanted to live that badly. Even having already lost half an arm. Even knowing he stood to lose something larger still.
"Because I want to get out."
He wanted out of the Labyrinth that badly.
"Then— then just quit, why would you......"
I had assumed Yu Hyeonjae would stop here. Of course he would. Frankly, playing a single round as the first batter, ahead of even me, should have been more than enough......
"Still, I do rather like gambling."
Ah.
Only now did I roughly understand why Choi Jaeha had smacked me on the back.
"It seemed like a bet worth placing. This one."
"I've been a lucky sort of person, you see."
A faint smile played at the corner of Yu Hyeonjae's mouth.
In that instant —
Yu Hyeonjae's body came apart.