The Void of Jieut
The arcade's sign had been designed in a colorful, retro pixel font.
"Jiho, careful. Some of this could be dangerous if you go touching it."
I held out my perfectly intact right hand to Jeong Jiho.
Little Jiho, apparently finding it novel, took my hand and looked around at our surroundings with wide, rounded eyes.
Of everything I had seen so far, it was the closest thing to a bright face.
On the enormous screen hanging from the wall glowed an image like the picture on an old VHS tape: a vast field with a dark forest at its back. The low resolution and blurred outlines lent the whole thing a desolate, unsettling air.
One look was enough to tell it was bad news. I had little desire to go poking at it.
"It's supposed to be lots of fun, they say."
If you wanted to know, you'd have to find out for yourself.
"Well, now. Outwardly, nothing much has changed. Though the contents appear to have changed somewhat."
Honestly, I was a little surprised.
Yu Hyeonjae strolled slowly around the arcade as he explained. Apparently so many people had wanted to take part that they'd ended up holding a lottery and even preliminary rounds.
"And if someone wins, do you award them a prize? Money?"
"Not at all," Yu Hyeonjae answered offhandedly. "You merely earn the chance to face the CEO at that event. One-on-one."
For an instant I wondered if I'd misheard, and I faltered mid-step.
"...With the CEO?"
I asked while working to keep my expression in check, and the co-CEO of Yuwi Guild shook his head.
"I'm not the one hosting this. Personally, I have no aptitude for video games whatsoever."
"Ah. I see."
Responding with as much sincerity as I could muster, I moved my steps toward the darts.
Well, whether it was this CEO or that one, I could understand it. They were both popular — and that one had started out as a celebrity, after all. Still, even so, that was a bit much. If it were me, I'd just ask for the money.
"CEO Yu."
Casting aside my musings, I came to a stop before the wall and called out to Yu Hyeonjae. "Take a look at this."
The dartboard was strange. Then again — in a labyrinth, that was only to be expected.
Broad segments alternating black and white: the single ring. An outer rim alternating red and green: the double ring. An inner rim in the same red and green: the triple ring. And at the very center, a red dot: the bull's-eye.
The problem was the words studded sparsely across every one of those zones.
[A Hole in the Pupil]
[The Void of Pain] · [The Void of Jieut]
[A Hole in the Aorta]
[The Void of Friendship] · [A Hole in the Lung] ……
Given what a dart's sharp needle is for, the word that kept recurring here — hole — had to be meant in the most literal sense. Miss your mark, and a hole would open up in whatever body part was written in front of it.
And if you hit a 'void'... did that mean the thing it named simply ceased to be? What ceased, or how, was anyone's guess.
Either way — hole or void — the smart move looked to be not hitting any of them.
"This one. Only this segment is a little different."
I pointed at the triple-20 — the highest-scoring line on an ordinary board.
"Ah. They did say something pleasant happens the more you win." Yu Hyeonjae turned his gaze toward where the host stood.
"Is that what this Fragment of Life refers to?"
"If you're curious, you'll simply have to come and enjoy it yourself. Where's the fun in playing when you already know everything?"
Hosu tilted his head.
The rectangular pupils of some grazing animal stayed perfectly horizontal, still parallel with the floor.
"Still, going by the name, I'd guess it functions as a spare life."
It would be nice if it could be handed over to someone else — or carried forward into the next loop, like the Jaerae Diary.
"Hmm."
Yu Hyeonjae fingered the corner of his mouth as if deliberating something. "If it's a spare life... I wonder — could it perhaps be used to stand in for someone we're missing?"
"If you're curious, you'll simply have to win one and find out. Where's the fun in playing when you already know everything?"
Once again the host served up an answer nearly identical to his last. Gentle — and yet somewhere in it, something distinctly mechanical.
"For now, I'll give these darts a try."
Nothing ventured, nothing gained... no — more like a dead sprint into the red.
"Will you be all right?"
The host, Hosu, had warned me before: if I gave up on myself, it would make him very, very sad.
I nodded at Yu Hyeonjae's words. Harder than an ordinary game of darts, if anything — it certainly didn't look any easier.
"Mr. Seon Yuhan. Will you be enjoying a round of 'SongSong Darts'?"
The host drew near without a sound and held out the hand that wasn't gripping his crook. A single dart lay across his palm.
The needle looked extraordinarily sharper and thicker than an ordinary dart's, and the length looked a good two times longer as well.
"I only get the one throw?"
"Oh no! The chances to throw at 'SongSong Darts' are infinite, you see."
When Hosu shook his head, the hair loosely tied back swayed along with it.
"Though for some people, one throw in an entire lifetime is all they ever get."
Figures. Get a hole punched in the wrong place — the aorta, say, or a lung — and you're dead.
I took one of the darts and lined myself up with the throwing line painted on the floor.
The host's vile temperament came through undiluted — he hadn't even deigned to tell me to stand at the line in the first place.
And the moment I had carefully settled into my stance and taken a straight grip on the dart—
Grrrk, whish, swish.
The dartboard began to spin with ferocious speed.
"Whoa."
Had this thing gone insane? What kind of darts game turns the board into a spinning wheel?
"All you have to do is land your throws nicely, that's all."
Far from stopping or slowing down, it only spun faster.
Shweeee—.
Before long, even the whistle of that wind had come to feel outright threatening.
"Hoo..."
It felt like any more dithering would leave me with nothing at all, so in the end I made a rough guess at where the inner triple ring had to be and threw.
Please. Triple twenty. Fragment of Life. The red triple band. Please.
Praying that desperately—
Thwack!
I heard the dart bite deep into the board.
At the same time, the board that had been whirling with such force began, little by little, to slow.
Damn it.
It hadn't come to a full stop, but the color of the segment where it had landed was obvious at a glance.
A black single segment.
Fragment of Life? In other words — not a hope in hell.
Then again, with the thing spinning that madly, the needle even sticking in at all was doing well enough.
Grrrk, whish...
All of us took a step closer and studied the dartboard intently.
"Huh."
A glitch?
Even after I pulled the dart out and checked again, the space in front of 'Void of' sat utterly empty.
"The front of it is blank. I don't believe there was a segment like this a moment ago."
Nothing about it felt as though it had changed — which meant it was probably some kind of error.
"...Mr. Seon Yuhan."
The co-CEO of Yuwi Guild was suddenly staring at me, his face grave.
"It seems you've discarded it, Mr. Seon Yuhan."
"I'm sorry? Discarded what, exactly?"
"Oh dear. So you can't even perceive it. What I mean is, Mr. Seon Yuhan — you have forgotten a certain... phoneme."
What kind of out-of-nowhere nonsense was that?
"Giyeok, nieun, digeut, rieul, mieum, bieup, siot, ieung. The phoneme right after that has flown clean out of your memory. It seems 'void' refers to a phenomenon in which a blank opens up in your memory."
No — what the hell was this man on about?
Giyeok, nieun, digeut, rieul, mieum, bieup, siot, ieung. And the next one was, obviously—
"Isn't it chieut? What exactly do you mean, forgotten? I believe there's been some mistake on your end."
"My name."
"I beg your pardon?"
"My name — do you remember it? This child's name? The names of the colleagues of ours who died in Singye Ilbo?"
I stared blankly at the two of them. The moment those two pairs of eyes seeped into me, gooseflesh erupted across every inch of my body.
I understood... I went and understood...
"Mr. Seon Yuhan!"
Just as I was, I drove the dart in my hand as hard as I could into my own throat.
Chunk—!
Once. Just once was enough.
Unlike the dartboard, which went on whirling with all its might, my body merely convulsed faintly and stayed where it was — so there was no need to worry overmuch about the point failing to reach where I wanted.
The spatter of hot blood surging up and falling like rain. The crunch of the barbed needle burrowing in as though to crush my flesh outright. Those were the last sounds I ever heard.
Damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it.
17-1. Do not hit the Void of ■■. You will forget it, deny it, and destroy it.