The Labyrinth Makes No Mistakes
[ The Late ]
With Choi Jaeha, Hwang Juyeon, Jeong Jiho, and Yu Hyeonjae — every last one of them in tow — I tore through the B5 parking lot in a blind rush and found Bae Seowoo's funerary urn in an instant.
It wasn't hard. All I had to do was act like I was following what the diary said.
[ The Late Bae Seowoo ]
"Uh, Bae Seowoo...? Uh, uhh?"
Fwoosh. The five flowers burst into flame of their own accord and crumbled into ash.
"Th-that, uh..."
Hwang Juyeon stared at the scene in bewilderment, her lips quivering.
"Is something the matter? Do you see something, or hear something?"
"No, it's not that. Um, I can't decide whether I should say this or not. I'm not certain."
What was she on about, out of nowhere?
It was random anyway, and there were plenty of parts you could lose without dying.
This time, I had to win. That was all. Only that.
But then one sentence from Hwang Juyeon — uttered as she carefully pointed at the urn — scoured those sordid thoughts away like shock therapy.
"I... I think I knew this person. Bae Seowoo."
"...Pardon?"
What was this, all of a sudden?
No — wait, why had she never brought it up before...
Ah. There had never been room for it, any of the times before.
The first time, I'd heard something that wasn't there and bolted straight for the emergency exit. The next time, Choi Jaeha hadn't been dead for long.
"It was the same when I saw this name in the diary, and even when we heard about the unidentified skeleton on the radio and in the Mount Yeongun labyrinth, I couldn't quite remember... The pieces wouldn't connect, either."
The piano instructor wriggled her slender fingers and went on.
"Ah..."
"One thing led to another and I stopped going after that, so it's been quite a while since I heard any news of her, but... I think that Bae Seowoo is this Bae Seowoo..."
Hold on. A church? If a church... a cross?
I thought back to the cross car ornament that had been inside that delivery box. And to how Hwang Juyeon had died while we were using it as a clue to hunt down the car with the cross hanging from its mirror.
Hadn't that been a trap?
No. It wasn't.
What led to the name 'Bae Seowoo' was the shipping label. Not the cross inside the box.
"Ah. That emblem."
Yu Hyeonjae said, arching an eyebrow slightly.
"The sedan emblem — the one with the snake. There was a cross drawn beside that snake. It may well have been a clue in its own right."
"Ah... I see. I'm sorry I didn't recognize it..."
At this point, it was no coincidence. They wouldn't know that — they'd never opened the delivery box to see what was inside.
"Still, I'm glad to know now... Um, shall we head down, then? The, uh, floor below was the 14th, right...?"
Hwang Juyeon changed the subject as if forcibly smothering her emotions.
But I decided to remember. The cross, maybe. Just maybe — a clue to finding the killer.
"Um. Hello..."
A living Lee Jinsu was a sight I wasn't used to — I'd only seen it once. He had a tongue. Hair. Ears. His fingers and legs looked to be a few short, though. He was alive, in any case.
Not cold, exactly, but not lively either. The skin under his eyes looked worn and gloomy, and he showed little emotion.
Ding.
In the middle of our brief round of introductions, a familiar popup appeared on Lee Jinsu's monitor.
Lee Jinsu sighed, his hand on the mouse.
"Sorry about this, but I'm going to invite you. There's no way around it..."
"Yes. Go ahead."
In a weak, droning voice, Lee Jinsu began to explain what he knew.
That pressing 'EXIT' would probably end the game, though he couldn't be sure. That pressing 'CONTINUE' cost you a random body part.
"But you could die if you lost something like your heart. That's how my colleague passed away..."
I studied Lee Jinsu's eyes as his voice trailed off into a blur, and I understood. Which of the two he would choose — 'CONTINUE' or 'EXIT'.
Suppressing a faint surge of anger, I checked the monitor of the man who wanted to die, where the popup had vanished.
It was exactly what I'd been wanting to ask.
"Those names... the ones that look like IDs. Do you happen to know them?"
Lee Jinsu nodded, slow and listless.
"They look like people from our office. When I first saw this, I actually talked it over with the assistant manager — whether it was some kind of instanced dungeon. I said I'd almost prefer that. It would at least mean they weren't all dead. That they were alive somewhere."
"Um..."
Hwang Juyeon spoke up, sheepish.
"'Insta-dungeon'? What's that?"
"An instance dungeon."
"Yes, and what does that mean?"
"Oh, uh, ah..."
The NeoSoft employee, abruptly buffering, gave us a quick rundown of instance dungeons and parties, along with his own theory.
"Yes. Something like that..."
While the teacher and her star pupil held their lesson, the first person who came to my mind was the interviewer.
It was good news, at least, that the idea of the missing being alive somewhere wasn't my speculation alone.
It was bad news that I would never meet them unless they walked out of there alive.
"Ah..."
At the sound of Lee Jinsu's voice, I gathered my scattered thoughts and turned back to the monitor.
"Don't— wait a second..."
"You just— ha..."
I had never once been a match for this damned man's hand.
For an instant I seized Lee Jinsu's hoodie by the collar — then let go.
There was no point in raging at a man who would soon be dead.
For the whole time Lee Jinsu spent dying — choking, his face a pale shade of blue, just like mine had been once — I had to stay hunched over, as if to hide my entire body.
Trying to feel better on your own?
I wasn't allowed to die. I couldn't die.
So why did you get to feel better alone?
Solely to hold down that irrational rage.
"Ha..."
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine... Just a little dizzy."
"Uh, dizzy? Then this— no, wait, would one of these pills help? Ha— Mr. Seon Yuhan, you're not dying, right?"
"I'm not dying... But my head is ringing, so..."
"Huh? Oh. Okay. I'll be quiet."
Fortunately, only part of my liver seemed to be gone — not enough to be fatal.
Every screen in the room had changed to the same thing.
"Whoa, it's really over! Over! Look at this! The door's open! Come on, quick— no, no wait. Mr. Seon Yuhan, you sit in that chair. I'll push you."
"I keep telling you, I'm fine..."
The hulking accountant in his mid-thirties hopped up and down like a little kid, giddy — while the actual little kid stood meekly behind Hwang Juyeon, clutching the hem of her clothes as if to hide.
I knew Jeong Jiho was looking up at me, anxious, and I pretended not to notice.
Children's eyes can sometimes pierce straight through the world — fierce as ice, sharp as an awl. I didn't want to know what it was he saw in me that frightened him.
"No, really, I can walk."
Just as I was still wrangling with Choi Jaeha over whether or not to sit in that chair—
Ka-chak, vrrrrr.
"Gah! That scared me!"
The multifunction printer against the wall had whirred to life.
Shk— shff-shk—.
"Something's coming out. Looks like... a photograph of some kind."
Yu Hyeonjae, standing closest, tilted his head at the paper emerging from the tray.
Sshk, shk—.
We all gathered around and looked at what had been printed on the A4 sheet.
"This looks just like that thing. The photo they automatically take on the downhill of a roller coaster."
A very low-resolution image was printed there, as if someone had scanned a Polaroid.
An old roller coaster, its six seats sunk in shadow.
Rails and a pitch-black night sky, faintly visible in the background.
And beneath the photo, a comment written in a cutesy, rounded font.
"Seon Yu... huh? Why's this got Mr. Seon Yuhan's name on it? There's no one in it."
"Tell me about it."
Holding the A4 sheet, I quietly stared into the photo.
"I'll hold on to it for now. Just in case."
"Right. Let's just get out of here first. But Mr. Seon Yuhan — you're really okay, right? Your face is still white."
"Yes. Really, I'm fine."
I folded the photo, slipped it into my trouser pocket, and hid my trembling hand along with it.
I know.
That in that photo, I met eyes with myself...
"So what floor comes next...?"
"Good question. Mr. Seon Yuhan, the diary didn't say what comes after the 14th floor, did it?"
"No, it didn't."
"Then wouldn't this be the last floor? I sure hope so."
I opened the emergency exit on the 14th floor, and a low, buzzing murmur of voices echoed through the passage leading down.
Clunk!
The stairwell read 13th floor on the inside — but the emergency door I opened led out into a corridor that was anything but.
"What the—?"
"Uh, why..."
We had come out on the 14th floor again.
"Shi—"
...t.
"There must've been some trick to it. Let's try going down agai—"
"—Mr. Seon Yuhan."
CEO Yu Hyeonjae's low voice drove into the back of my skull as I turned away, desperately refusing to accept it.
"The labyrinth does not make mistakes. That is something only people do."
All at once, every ounce of strength left my body.
"Whoa— Mr. Seon Yuhan!"
So all the bullshit stunts I pulled in Happyland — or Madland, or whatever that place was — were all for nothing?
That every organ I donated while still alive was worth jack shit too?
...That all those hours I dared to forget them, lose myself, and throw away my own name meant nothing?
Please. Tell me it isn't so.