Those Who Stay Too Long Become Part of the Labyrinth

'Those who stay trapped in a labyrinth too long eventually become part of the labyrinth.'

Call it a ghost story, or call it a maxim.

These days, thanks to years of accumulated experience and intel, Red Weavers clear contact-type labyrinths as quickly as possible, and survival rates have climbed accordingly. Before that, though, contact labyrinths claimed casualties every bit as heavy as the invasive ones. Especially in the early days, when there was no real countermeasure against fissures that sucked in everyone nearby like black holes.

That was why the saying had come into being.

Stay in a labyrinth too long, and you become part of it. In other words, you become something that is no longer human — by losing your humanity.

Granted, it was a sentence lazily trotted out by people who had never once troubled themselves to consider what "humanity" even meant — people who grossly overestimated the value of humanity and grossly underestimated it at the same time.

But thinking about it now, maybe there was a certain insight buried in those words after all.

To learn that truth, I had buried a seven-year-old child's chance of escape inside the labyrinth.

That person. And I.

We had both stayed trapped in the labyrinth far too long.

"Interviewer-nim. Please hear me out."

I have to get out. I have to get out of here.

That was all I could do, and all I had to do. Still. I shoved into a corner of my mind the tangle of thoughts that only snarled tighter the more I pulled at them, and descended one floor at a time.

"Huh? No, seriously, what the hell are you talking about?"

I pulled Choi Jaeha out of the elevator.

"Ha... that's insane, no — I'm sorry. Either way, it is a labyrinth, right?"

I crossed paths with Hwang Juyeon, who'd come out at the fire alarm and was making her way down the endless staircase.

"Kk— urgh..."

I killed the librarian of Wanna Come to the Bookstore on my own.

"Thank you for playing so nicely with our children. Take care, guardians. You be good too, Jiho."

I brought Jeong Jiho out of Uri Saenal Daycare.

"Mm. I'm fine."

I met Yu Hyeonjae in the parking garage, pretending he hadn't just been gagging on his own nausea.

"Goodbye, Bae Seowoo."

I watched the ash of chrysanthemums settle into the urn that had gotten its name back.

"Hold on a moment, Lee Jinsu-ssi."

This time, my hand was faster.

"I'll take it from here. Please rest."

"...All right."

Lee Jinsu glanced up at me with the one eye he had left, then listlessly withdrew. The faint disappointment reflected in that eye — I was probably the only one who caught it.

"I'm going to do as I said and keep pressing only 'Become Unhappy.'"

I didn't take out the Jaerae Diary this loop. I had no intention of giving even an inch to a certain conspiracy theorist who, upon meeting someone with experience of temporal regression, would seal them inside a labyrinth again just to run experiments. Unless a situation arose where I absolutely had to open it and write, that was how it would stay.

I had no intention of becoming happy.

I most likely had no right to, either.

But I kept choosing unhappiness, over and over, chewing on it as I went.

The crimson tears that had rained down in those moments of happiness. The screams that had sounded like a sweet serenade. The texture of them grinding to pulp between my teeth. The hunger that never filled no matter how much I swallowed, and swallowed, and swallowed...

"Ha— so it really does let you out? If you just keep pressing the unhappy option?"

God, please let it be something I can lose without dying — like that time when a chunk of me went missing.

Ah. Of all things, the brain. Just my luck.

I braced for the death that was coming and closed my eyes, consoling myself that at least there would be no pain.

"...Mr. Seon Yuhan?"

"Mr. Seon Yuhan, are you all right?"

And my eyes snapped open again.

Choi Jaeha, Hwang Juyeon, Jeong Jiho, Yu Hyeonjae, Lee Jinsu.

All of them visible, all of them registering properly. My memory seemed intact as well.

"Mm. I'm fine."

I moved my body this way and that. Nothing felt off.

"It appears only a very small, unimportant part of my brain is gone."

"Ha... well, that's a relief, I guess."

"But is he really okay? What if something suddenly goes wrong later on—"

"If I were going to die, I'd have died already."

In a little while, a photograph would slide out of the multifunction printer.

"I'll go grab some water and snacks from the break room."

I offered a plausible excuse and hung around, dawdling.

"Whoa, that startled me..."

Soon enough, the copier whirred to life.

"So something like... a photograph, is coming out."

Not a rollercoaster this time.

A dark scene inside an unlit room, glimpsed through the gap of a wooden door left slightly ajar. The small room on the second floor of the Haunted House, where I had briefly stayed.

It looked happy.

"Hm? Where's— Mr. Seon Yuhan, is that... oh? Another one's coming out?"

A second photograph, unexpectedly.

"That one... must be Lee Jinsu-ssi's."

The tip of a Viking ride flung high into the air. And in the photo, no one was sitting in the back row of the Viking.

"Keep it for now, Lee Jinsu-ssi."

"Oh, yes..."

Lee Jinsu didn't seem to recognize the figure in the photograph as himself.

Something that had never finished becoming anything.

Maybe I should have just let him keep pressing. Beyond padding out our headcount, the man might yet prove useful.

"Let's get out of here."

I handed the commemorative Happyland photo to the unidentified entity in the vacant office across from NeoSoft.

Then we arrived once more at the Yuwi Guild Strategic Planning Department on the 11th floor.

"Ah! So our first guests arrive at last."

The flesh-and-blood die, just as before, put the labyrinth's exit on the table and proposed the wager.

"Very well. I will."

This time, Yu Hyeonjae was the first to raise his hand.

I, unlike last time, stayed silent. Do-ssi had said it himself: the same contest as before would never be offered again. And I could not stake my companions' lives as the price of my own escape.

The weights didn't balance. Even if I offered up all five of the people here.

"And hast thou decided by what game thou wilt contest me?"

"Texas Hold'em."

"Poker, is it. The orthodox choice."

"Well. I'll be ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠modifying the rules somewhat."

Do-ssi rocked its cubic body back and forth, as if to say, go on, tell me more.

"We'll use hwatu cards as betting chips, and whenever a community card is revealed, each player also flips and discloses a card from their own hwatu hand, so that—"

The rules grew more concrete with every sentence I heard.

These were not rules he had just made up on the spot.

"Mm. It would take far too long to explain the hand rankings and scoring as well."

"Oh, I see. Some coordination will be required, no doubt. Thou shalt discuss that with me in there, separately."

Do-ssi drifted toward the private office at the back, gesturing at it.

"E-Excuse me, sir."

Choi Jaeha stopped Yu Hyeonjae as he rose from his seat. Judging by his face, it was Jaeha — not Hyeonjae — who looked more nervous of the two.

"Are you... confident you can win, sir...? The way you were talking, it sounded like you've done this before, but..."

"Confident I'll win? If such a thing existed, it wouldn't be gambling."

Yu Hyeonjae toyed with the ring on his left pinky. Probably an unconscious habit.

"You'll find people who firmly believe they cannot lose in exactly two varieties: cheating gamblers, or addicts one step away from checking into rehab."

Doesn't the man want to live? He isn't even considering cheating his way to a win. Not that it was any of my business.

"I do hope everyone gets to walk out of here to see it."

Yu Hyeonjae left nothing behind but those words, and went inside.

"Now then, you others may pass the time by reading that record while you wait."

Just before Do-ssi followed Yu Hyeonjae through the door and shut it, a yellow file binder appeared on the table where we had gathered.

The door to the private office, now a gambling den, clicked closed.

"What is this thing? A... match statement?"

We examined the binder Do-ssi had left behind.

Judging from Do-ssi's standpoint, "victory" meant that the human opponent had lost.

"I don't think that's it."

Hwang Juyeon countered Choi Jaeha's assumption.

"Do-ssi called us the first guests earlier."

"Oh... right? Huh? Wait. Then that means there really are people trapped in labyrinths identical to this one...!"

This match statement listed the information of people who did not exist here. It gave further weight to Lee Jinsu's theory ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠— that this labyrinth, like an instance dungeon, had split its occupants across separate, parallel copies.

Ignoring the chatter beside me, I read through the match statement in silence.

"What even is this... no, seriously, how has this thing never lost? It beat them at everything?"

"Keep reading. There has to be at least one loss to a human in here. I'm sure of it..."

"Ah! Found one! A defeat!"

Do-ssi's defeat. Meaning a human had won.

But it was the contents of the notes column that were interesting.

"Unbelievable..."

Hwang Juyeon, who had gone briefly speechless, changed the subject.

"S-Still, it seems it's not some hopeless thing where we're guaranteed to lose."

"Exactly... there does seem to be a chance of winning. Oh — Jiho, here's what's happening right now, okay..."

Choi Jaeha patiently walked Jeong Jiho through the situation all over again.

"Has everyone decided what they will do?"

I turned and asked Choi Jaeha, Hwang Juyeon, Jeong Jiho, and Lee Jinsu in turn. Lee Jinsu was a passive volunteer for death, so he was a given.

"Honestly... looking at that statement, winning looks pretty hard. If we try and die for nothing—"

"That's what I mean. I genuinely don't know..."

"—No, this guy is seriously saying something dangerous. If you try and lose, you die. What's all this one-try, two-try nonsense?"

Ah.

These people's deaths were final. The first one killed them for good.

At least, from where they stood.

"That slipped my mind."

"How does something like that slip your mind... oh. Oh no. I bet that's a side effect of the bit of brain that got deleted earlier. Amnesia. What are we gonna do."

"Mm. Hard to say."

"What do you mean, 'hard to say,' acting like it's somebody else's problem... Anyway, what do you think, Mr. Seon Yuhan? It's a gamble that could kill you..."

So worried that I might die.

...Oh!

Why had I never thought of this before? A wonderful idea had just come to me.

"I'm going to play."

Let's talk every single one of these people into gambling.

"We don't even know where the exit is. We don't know how much further we'll have to go, or what else is waiting for us down there."

So what if I lose and die? I'll simply come back to life once I'm dead.

These people only believed they were staking their own lives as the price. In the end, there would be no price at all.

"Just look at me — I only survived because I got lucky and lost some useless scrap of my brain. If we abandon this match, lose whatever good fortune we're carrying, and just keep descending... honestly, I'm scared of what happens then."

If I win, wonderful. If not, no matter.

"So all of you, too—"

All I was doing was pressing into their hands the priceless chance of salvation they were about to let slip away on their own.

If anything, shouldn't they be thanking me for it?