One of the Happiest Moments
To get straight to the results: my liver seems to have been put to meaningful use.
I don't know whether that's a misfortune or a stroke of luck.
Honestly, if there was a floor we could clear without going to NeoSoft, wouldn't that be a good thing, in the long run?
But at the time, my brain short-circuited for a moment.
"Excuse me, did you say the right side was the vacant one?"
First, I got myself hauled up off the floor and strode down the right-hand corridor, away from NeoSoft on the left.
Then I flung open a door with no nameplate on it whatsoever.
"Ah, sh—"
Found it. Someone — or something — standing in the completely empty room, staring at the wall.
"I've set an example."
Clack.
To absolutely no one's surprise, the door did not close.
I peered through the half-open gap at that figure, or whatever it was.
It — or he — turned toward us, slowly.
Thankfully, it didn't come any closer.
"Uh, is that thing…… a person? It's not, right?"
Choi Jaeha had scurried after me and was muttering into my shoulder.
It certainly looked like a person.
The silhouette, at least.
"I'd wager not……"
A heavy gray coat far too thick for the weather, a bowler hat pulled low, wrapped in a scarf to the point where not a trace of a face was visible.
Height somewhere between 160 and 170 centimeters. Build hidden under the bulky outerwear, gloves on both hands.
Every inch of exposed skin was covered, making it impossible to guess sex or age.
And if it wasn't human, the distinction was all the more meaningless.
In other words, nobody knew what shape that coat concealed.
"It's holding scissors."
"L-let's go……. Run, let's just run, we……"
Yu Hyeonjae observed lightly while Choi Jaeha tugged at my jacket.
"Um, Mr. Choi Jaeha…… you need to know something."
There are three important facts to go over here.
First.
Labyrinths are full of monsters and anomalies that can kill a person without a blade — but that does not mean they won't use one.
Second.
Third.
The trouble is, this might well be proof that we're heading the right way, so there's no way to know without actually going.
"Wait, where's the fourth? There's no fourth? The part where we could go check and then just *die* somehow didn't make the list……?"
That's such blindingly obvious information that even Choi Jaeha, who couldn't care less about labyrinths, already knows it — which is why I left it off the list.
"U-uh, it, it's moving!"
The moment the scissor-wielding hand of that unknown entity began to rise, slowly,
Choi Jaeha was already back at NeoSoft's door.
Yu Hyeonjae and Hwang Juyeon had retreated down the corridor with Jeong Jiho, out of sight of the room's interior.
"What are you doing, aren't you coming—!"
While some man was dying of frustration, I stood rooted at the threshold, staring dead ahead at the fingertips of the being standing against the far wall.
"I believe it's pointing at me."
Stepping one way, then the other, across the half-open doorway only made it clearer.
It was pointing at me, precisely.
So — was ignoring it the right path, or would ignoring it get me booted straight to hell?
I had no idea.
This was the whole problem with labyrinths. Well, the labyrinth itself was the problem, but you know what I mean.
"I'll try going in."
But in the end, there was no way to know without going in.
"I'm sorry, going where……?"
Another round of squabbling broke out — if I go in will I die or not, are you insane, it's all because of your liver, etc., etc. — but go in I did.
"You're actually insane……."
Using Choi Jaeha's voice as background music, I edged forward, one slow step at a time.
And the closer I got, the lower the scissors came — from my head, to my chest, to my belly…… sinking steadily.
At first I thought it was aiming for my liver.
But the thing's arm kept going down.
My gaze slid along its blade to my waist.
Right hip? Femoral artery? Aorta?
What was it going for?
And then, at last, when I was standing right in front of the hatted thing, I realized what the sharp point of those scissors was indicating.
My right trouser pocket.
Swoosh……
The thing inside it: my souvenir photo from Happy Land.
The red roller coaster with its paint peeling. Six empty cars, not a single rider. The rusted rails, stinking of blood and iron. And between them, the shadows of the night sky gnawing their way in.
A corner of the happiest moments of my life.
"You want this?"
The thing nodded.
Though whether that was actually a head, I couldn't say.
The height difference meant the underside of the hat was still out of view, and I had no particular desire to bend down and peek inside.
No — I must not look.
My instincts were screaming it.
"Here."
Shff, scrff—
It took the A4 sheet, folded half and half, smoothed it flat and stiff, and began to cut.
Looking closely, it was trimming away the margins, tracing the shape of the photograph.
[Seon Yuhan's One of the Happiest Moments]
Even the caption, snipped out with practiced care.
Scissor work surprisingly deft for hands in thick fur mittens.
The thing stood still for a moment, photo in hand, then abruptly shuffled a few paces to the left, stretched its arm up high, and pressed the photo flat against the wall.
I had no idea how it stuck without tape, and nothing about that spot struck me as special.
But it seemed to have rules of its own.
"……"
I half expected something to change. Nothing happened.
The thing turned back toward me and tilted its hat, as if to say, you're still here?
"You want me to leave?"
It nodded its head-region and waved, like a goodbye.
And so I drifted back out of the room in a daze.
What the hell.
What was that.
"I'd imagine handing over that photograph was itself the condition."
Yu Hyeonjae, waiting outside, smoothed away my confusion.
"Oh. Then now—"
"—Mr. Seon Yuhan. You need to sit down and rest for a bit."
I tried to hurry down to the floor below to check, and got forcibly planted on the floor instead.
Looking around, I saw the other three were already lined up against the corridor wall, sitting.
"Your condition is one thing, Mr. Seon Yuhan, but there's a child here."
Only then did I obediently lean back against the wall and accept a bottle of water and some snacks.
Apparently, while I was off presenting my photo as tribute, Yu Hyeonjae had stripped the NeoSoft pantry bare.
"What were you planning to do if you'd gotten trapped, going back in like that?"
"I didn't get trapped, so it's fine."
His secretaries must suffer so much.
So I thought, staring at that infuriatingly unbothered face.
I turned my head slyly and looked at the child wedged between Choi Jaeha and Hwang Juyeon.
"Jiho. Uh, how old are you……? I forgot."
There were far too many things I hadn't thought to ask until now.
The boy squirmed like he wanted to say something, and finally folded down three fingers.
Seven years old.
Old enough to start grade school next year.
"I see……. It's still hard for you to talk. And you're scared."
Jeong Jiho nodded.
"But the teacher who used to teach you—"
I knew before I even finished the sentence.
Just from the look on his face.
Behind the partition wall near the daycare's cubbies, there had been a person 'tidied' away inside a toy box.
That person had been a daycare teacher too, and Jeong Jiho had watched her die.
Of course he couldn't bring himself to speak.
'No crying loudly, no whimpering or throwing tantrums, no running around restlessly, no squirming and twisting your body about, and no mumbling so nobody can understand you — that's what it takes.'
The conditions for being a 'well-loved child,' as the daycare's goose doll had put them.
He was afraid of breaking those conditions.
Even outside the daycare.
Even surrounded by adults talking normally, and living.
His voice simply wouldn't come out the way he wanted.
"Mm. Your parents work at this company, right? Your mom? Ah — your mom. Do you remember what the magician lady was talking about earlier?"
Round eyes looked up at me.
Thankfully, he seemed to remember the gist of the instance dungeon explanation.
"So even if you can't find your mom in here, don't worry too much. You'll see her when we get out."
He looked only half convinced.
And honestly, that was the sound judgment.
Even if Jeong Jiho walked out of here alive, his mother might come out dead.
But as the boy listened to me keep chattering, something in his expression brightened, just a little — as if he'd talked himself into believing.
"See, we're still doing fine so far, aren't we? His mom's probably the same."
No. She might already be dead.
And then, later — will this kid resent me? Demand to know why I lied? Why I strung him along with false hope?
But I want this kid to keep standing. Even if it costs him a hope-torture.
I want him to make it out of the labyrinth without ever giving up. Alive.
"Hey, Jiho. You don't have a phone on you? Kids these days supposedly carry them around from preschool."
At Choi Jaeha's out-of-nowhere question, Jeong Jiho's attention wavered — and Yu Hyeonjae, seated beside him, turned his head my way.
"Mr. Seon Yuhan."
"Yes."
"What did you answer at the end?"
"Sorry?"
The CEO who'd produced a question with no context whatsoever, his eyes glinting.
"The final interview question."
"Ah."
The last question, invariably asked in every hiring interview across the Jaerae Group — Yuwi Guild included.
If you could turn back time, what would you do?
Interview questions were supposed to be confidential, but the thing was so bizarre that on the internet it circulated as a poorly kept secret.
"I'm aware it's not to be shared."
"You know who I am, don't you?"
Right. I do.
Yu Hyeonjae, Co-CEO of Yuwi Guild.
Which also meant such an absurd interview question couldn't exist without his sanction.
"I could find out everything about your interview anyway. If I felt like it."
"That's something you should be eating outside. What you need to consume right now, CEO, is water and food."
"Skipping a day's meals is no hardship."
The conversation had careened somewhere strange.
I was talking about what he was holding in his hand, and to please eat it.
"So — how did you answer, at the end?"
Persistent bastard.
"Why are you so curious about that, if I may ask? Not just my answer — why you'd ask it in an interview at all."
"That's a bit unfair, isn't it? You didn't answer my first question. Why should I answer yours?"
The strange man's eyebrows dipped ever so slightly.
"Ha……. Feel free not to tell me, then."
"No, I'll tell you. Life is unfair to begin with."
Is this guy actually insane?
Isn't that the one thing the hiring side isn't supposed to say?
Or is he testing whether I know what's truly unfair?
"Asking that question in an interview is really nothing more than a personality assessment. If you can guarantee there's no penalty for honesty, people give you far more candid answers. Some people even come up with genuinely entertaining ones. That said."
Yu Hyeonjae continued, with a smile.
"Setting that aside entirely — I believe it is possible, inside a labyrinth, for time to flow backward."
"Time…… flowing backward. You believe that. Sincerely."
"Yes."
God, I hoped not.