Do Not Gamble If You Have No Confidence in Winning

Lee Jinsu, Choi Jaeha, Hwang Juyeon, Jeong Jiho, and me.

That was the order we'd settled on to enter the gambling den after Yu Hyeonjae.

I'd arranged it that way myself.

Choi Jaeha prowled around the office muttering something under his breath, restless as a caged animal. Jeong Jiho, at least, was quiet and well-behaved — didn't say a word.

I settled comfortably nearby and went back over the match records, step by careful step.

Going through the records, it appeared that some forty-odd people so far had gambled against Do-ssi, each within their own stretch of the labyrinth.

Fewer than I'd expected. Far fewer, considering how many people must have been in this building to begin with.

Most of them had likely been on the 11th floor even before the labyrinthification — which meant that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠only a very handful had survived their own floors long enough to make it down here.

I passed the time that way, reading the records with a kind of grim fascination — until, somewhere near six o'clock, the door to the gambling den swung open and Do-ssi emerged.

"The match has concluded."

A new line had been added to the record.

Yu Hyeonjae was dead.

That made twice now, hadn't it. Every time he got tangled up in an event decided by pure chance, he died. What an astonishingly unlucky human being.

……On the other hand, it also meant he had never once died from his own mistake.

Not a single time.

"Who is my next opponent?"

"Th-that would be…… me……."

At Do-ssi's question, Lee Jinsu rose awkwardly to his feet.

"Please, win……. Thank you for everything."

"Ah…… yes."

Receiving Hwang Juyeon's farewell, Lee Jinsu went around to each of us and bowed his head in turn.

Very sociable, for a man on his way to die. I gave a vague nod of my own.

"Yes. Do your best, sir."

It was advice offered with Lee Jinsu's interests in mind — the records suggested Do-ssi didn't care much for opponents with no fighting spirit.

His ending probably wouldn't be a pretty one either way. Ah well. He'd manage. Somehow.

"Enter."

The door to the gambling den closed.

"The match has concluded."

More content had been appended to the record.

The moment I read the notes field, I covered my mouth.

So Do-ssi had deliberately toyed with Lee Jinsu, dragging out the draws — and then, the instant the man showed even a flicker of will to live, finished him on the spot.

What a nasty piece of work.

"Enter."

"Well then…… I'm off, Ms. Hwang Juyeon. See you, Mr. Seon Yuhan. Jiho, we'll go out and see it together, okay?"

Choi Jaeha took a deep breath and offered his goodbyes.

"Yes. Do well and come b— do come back safely, sir."

If his luck and his skill held, there would be no reason to see this accountant again. I didn't think Choi Jaeha would lose with one hundred percent certainty.

That wouldn't be gambling. As long as the human side held even a single percent of winning odds, a match was possible.

On my way back from seeing Choi Jaeha off, I picked up a book from one of the now-unclaimed desks. Some kind of self-help title.

"Um…… Mr. Seon Yuhan? Is anything bothering you, by any chance? Something different from usual?"

"No, nothing in particular."

Hwang Juyeon looked at my hand and launched into a litany of needless fretting. Wondering if the tension had gotten to her, I steered the conversation her way to redirect the nerves.

"By the way, Ms. Hwang Juyeon — once you're out of here, what's the first thing you want to do?"

And while we whiled away the hours like that, the door to the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠gambling den opened once more.

"The match has concluded."

Fair enough. He was a man who had trouble hiding what he felt.

"Alright, I'm off. Jiho — when we get out, the two of us are going to see your mom, all of us together, I promise. And Mr. Seon Yuhan — you know I'm really, really grateful, right? You kept stepping up and handling everything first, all on your own. You'll get out too. I know you will."

"Yes. Stay safe and do well, sir."

Time drifted on again. Jeong Jiho, true to form, stayed gentle and good beside me.

"The match has concluded."

"Jiho. It's time to go."

Maybe the kid couldn't read adult faces properly yet. Or maybe he could, all too well.

"Yeah. Bye."

Time seemed to flow slowly now. It was quiet. Peaceful.

It had been a while since I'd been left alone for this long — long enough that it almost felt novel.

"The match has concluded."

I read that final entry through, then closed the binder.

"You."

Do-ssi's eyes looked down at me, all twenty-one of them.

"I take it you cannot wager against me."

Strange — the voice didn't strike me as nearly as seductive as it had last time.

"You really do see everything, don't you."

"Is that a question?"

"Should I not be asking you? The scales are inside me, remember. Let's not talk about scales. I have trauma about scales."

Do-ssi let out a laugh that sounded derisive, then turned slowly around.

"You may leave. You shall be deemed to have forfeited the wager, and from this day forward you shall lose one stroke of fortune."

Leave the 11th floor without gambling against Do-ssi, and a misfortune would strike — that much was certain. From what I'd heard, the severity of that misfortune was random.

"You're the one who refused to take my bet, though. Isn't a forced handicap unfair?"

"You possess an advantage in the gamble called life: an indifference to death. By that measure, we are even."

"Doesn't exactly feel like an advantage to me. But whatever."

I spread open the self-help book I'd pocketed earlier, pressed my finger against its thin paper——

Shhk.

It sliced.

"Ah."

A sharp sting flashed across my pinky, instantaneous and bright.

This was the conclusion I'd been mulling over the entire time my companions took their turns gambling. If the coming misfortune couldn't be avoided — then why not simply cause an unfortunate event myself? Under my own control.

"It cut me."

Touching paper doesn't always draw blood, of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠course. I'd kept experimenting while I waited, varying the angle, the speed, even the dampness of my skin.

Identical conditions did not produce identical outcomes. Which meant that whether my hand got cut or not was, at least in part, a matter left to chance — to luck. To fortune. Exactly the kind of event I needed.

"A pity we could not wager together. It would have made for a truly interesting match."

Do-ssi stared intently at the bead of blood welling on my fingertip, then turned its gaze away.

"You are engaged, even now, in a wager repeated without end. Because 'odd' came up this time is no guarantee it will come up the next. Do not forget — the essence of gambling lies in precisely that caprice."

If that was meant as a warning—— then it meant slicing my hand on paper was not a perfect, universally valid solution.

But it also meant that, for now at least, it would hold.

"Yeah. Take care."

And with that, I left the Strategic Planning ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Department — that den of fortune carved out by a walking lump of flesh — behind me for good.

The steel door of the emergency exit clanked open.

A quick look around the 11th floor corridor turned up nothing of note, so I headed straight down.

"The 15th floor……"

I jotted the floor order into my diary as I confirmed the information. Sinhae Ilbo was a small-to-midsize newspaper. And Moment O'Clock — what did they do again? The name sounded vaguely familiar.

The company nameplate itself was engraved in clean, elegant lettering.

"Hmm."

The moment I opened the door and stepped inside, the scene spread out before me stopped me in my tracks.

First: two human corpses on the darkened office floor. A young woman. A middle-aged man.

The woman lay sprawled on her back, staring blankly at the ceiling. Next to her head sat a fallen bottle of hand sanitizer, cap off. A whitish film of vomit crusted her mouth and the floor around it.

Drank hand sanitizer, then. That must be it.

More striking than the manner of death, though, was her outfit. Yellow-bleached hair, a black skirt with a wildly asymmetric hem, black knee-high boots.

"Ah."

It came back to me. Moment O'Clock — an online fashion retailer handling all manner of clothing and accessory brands.

I checked her employee badge. Lee Nahyeon, Assistant Manager, MD Team, Moment O'Clock. Then I shifted my gaze to the middle-aged man.

A drab, rumpled suit — a stark contrast to the woman beside him. I checked the badge hanging around his neck.

Kim Young-Ho, Head of the Society Desk, Sinhae Ilbo.

The man lay curled on his side, and sticking out of his mouth was—— a necktie?

Strangely, the tie trailed out past his lips. Judging by the color of his face, the cause of death was asphyxiation. He'd been eating the necktie, and choked.

And most distinctive of all: beside each of these two corpses stood a mannequin, posed in exactly the same position as the body next to it. Like a mockery.

Then——

Click. The door of a supply closet at the back of the office swung open, and a white mannequin walked out.

It came toward me without a sound — no footsteps, nothing — and stopped at my left side.

For an instant my body flinched, every nerve firing. But it passed in a heartbeat. Now I was merely curious.

Even seeing a mannequin walk and move — it wasn't all that frightening.

Even now, formulas calculating my body weight part by part surfaced in my head. My ears rang with the sound of my own joints being severed, one by one. My nose itched with the phantom scent of blood soaking through my clothes——

Maybe it helped that I'd seen a crash-test dummy, something very much like a mannequin, back in that parking garage. Familiarity, however thin, was still familiarity.

Curious, I reached out my hand to touch it——

"Ah. You're copying me."

The mannequin raised its left hand in exactly the same motion.

Same pose. Same direction. As though it were tracing a copy of me.