You Are That Hamster
The hamster cards we'd been given at the start had numbered twelve in all.
If those twelve cards had stood for twelve people... then, blissfully unaware of my unease, Hwang Juyeon — hopelessly absorbed in her game of Hamster Raising — had begun bursting out in full dialect.
No. That's not it.
"I don't understand. Just now, Ms. Hwang Juyeon requested that this labyrinth inform her in advance who would die here, when, and how."
"I did? I said what?"
"That, I'm afraid, is a request beyond my authority."
"...Wait. Hold on. Hold on a second."
Hwang Juyeon, who had been staring blankly into space, shook her head as something finally dawned on her.
"That's a lie. Ah... no, wait. It's not a lie, is it?"
"Correct. It is not a lie."
Hosu beamed radiantly, and Hwang Juyeon retched.
"So the games I've been playing all this time... who exactly did I...?"
"Please don't worry. While the state of the originals does affect the children's cards, the children's state hardly ever affects the originals in return. The connection isn't all that tight, you see."
"Hardly ever...? Then there is a chance. If a hamster card dies, a real person could die too—"
"There has never been such a case so far. At least, not among anyone present here."
Sold off, devoured by one another, disposed of — among all those cards that had vanished to who knows where, there was no doubt that some of them had been made from us.
"Now then, let the bargaining begin. Ms. Hwang Juyeon, please choose a child from the pen and place it in the cage."
"...Here."
With only one hamster card left anyway, there was nothing left to study closely.
"Shall we check the results of the negotiation?"
Come to think of it — was the number of hamster cards reflecting, in real time, the total number of people in this labyrinth? If so, and since Hamster Raising had started at around seven o'clock, that would mean twelve people had still been alive at that point.
Twelve people.
A small number, certainly — but for an invasive labyrinth, it was a lot.
I had no way of knowing how many had survived inside the other Jaerae Building labyrinth, the instance dungeon waiting somewhere out there, but they couldn't all be dead. That much I was sure of.
"Huh? Then there are six more people besides us — no, wait, five now — aren't there?"
"It would appear so."
There were definitely other survivors in this building even now. People still breathing, nearly four hours after the labyrinth swallowed the place.
"That's right. Wait a little longer, and they may yet come."
They probably wouldn't come.
Honestly, if we'd been in this arcade for nearly two hours without a single new arrival, then I had to accept that this run was a bust.
It would only end when I died.
No — it wouldn't end. It would simply begin again.
So what was I even doing here, instead of restarting? Why was I compounding their suffering, swelling the total sum of pain in this place? Like a monster? Like the labyrinth itself?
'How. How... can you do something like that without so much as blinking... Get off me! Don't you dare touch me! If you can do that to me, what would stop you from doing it to someone else? You monstrous bastard...'
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
I wanted these people to be spared. Genuinely. Their pain gave me no pleasure whatsoever.
And the same went for my own death.
I didn't want to die.
Dying is a terrible thing. Living is a terrible thing. More terrible still is dying and coming back to life.
I just couldn't—
"Oh! An anonymous buyer has purchased 457!"
Hosu's syrupy voice scattered my spiraling thoughts.
"Oh! Ms. Hwang Juyeon has raised every last one of her children and sent them out into the world!"
Hwang Juyeon was facing the dealer, forcing her posture upright on a face flushed crimson and slick with cold sweat.
She looked ready to collapse at any moment.
"The children Ms. Hwang Juyeon sold number five in total. One of them was abandoned, but please pay that no mind."
Five.
No matter how many times I ran that game, I doubted I could put up a score like hers.
"Congratulations."
Tap, tap.
The master of ceremonies rapped the table, and a golden shape materialized in one of the empty black-bordered slots.
"Ms. Hwang Juyeon has obtained a Fragment of Life!"
The freelance magician picked up the golden fragment with hands trembling on the edge of convulsion and turned it over, examining it from every angle.
"This... looks like exactly a third of the whole. Am I right? Five out of twelve, so I never even hoped for a half, but shouldn't it be bigger than a third?"
"I don't understand."
Hosu tilted his head with that same infuriating smile.
"One child's share was deducted as the dealer's commission. Dealers have to make a living too, you see."
"U-Unnie...! Unnie! Are you okay?"
"Ms. Hwang Juyeon!"
In the end, Hwang Juyeon fainted from the sheer stress of it all.
Thankfully, Hwang Juyeon came to within a minute and managed to steady herself.
Immediately after, a debate broke out over whether to combine Yu Hyeonjae's golden fragment with Hwang Juyeon's. Of course, put together they'd still fall short of a full token — but that also meant that with only a little more effort, a complete Life would be finished.
"A combination becomes possible only after Ms. Hwang Juyeon transfers her Fragment of Life to Mr. Yu Hyeonjae, or Mr. Yu Hyeonjae transfers his to Ms. Hwang Juyeon."
Ownership had to change hands before the fragments could be joined, so the first question was who would transfer to whom. And once a full token was assembled, would either of them claim a stake in how it was used? In other words — of the two of them, who would hold the deciding vote on whose life the Life would be spent for?
"Honestly, if I went purely by what I want, I'd like it sitting with me right now, since my stake is the bigger one at the moment. But set my share aside, and it's two-thirds either way."
Hwang Juyeon spoke in a voice wrung dry.
"Calculated by stakes, that two-thirds would carry more weight than my opinion."
"If we're calculating by stakes, then I have even less to say on the matter."
Yu Hyeonjae received her words with perfect gentleness.
Maybe it was only because none of it felt truly desperate yet. Though I suspected that a fight over combining these fragments was, in its own right, one of the things the labyrinth wanted to see.
...And honestly, I wanted to watch, too. I wanted a read on the instinctive patterns these people showed when they were pushed to the brink.
"Then how about we shelve the whole combination question for now? We're a long way from completing a full token regardless."
"...True. Fair enough."
One quarter-piece and one third-piece. There was quite a gap left to fill before the remaining slots were full.
Lee Jinsu made a small, hesitant sound and shuffled to his feet.
"Yeah... maybe I'll just try the darts..."
So his wish to die had all but faded now, apparently.
Not that darts aren't a perfectly good way to die — honestly. But judging by his vaguely grim, half-resolute expression, that wasn't quite what he was after.
"Are you any good at darts?"
Ah.
By process of elimination, he'd settled on Poke-Poke Darts — the one game with the simplest rules and mechanics.
"Mr. Lee Jinsu, will you be all right throwing with it?"
"Mm... well, I'm left-handed, at least..."
"No — I'm worried the weight balance won't agree with it."
I couldn't have cared less which part of his body ended up with a hole punched through it. But a hole punched through memory was another matter entirely. If he lost his consonants and vowels, he'd turn violent before he even knew it was happening.
"Ah... true, that. Still, I have to try, right..."
Right. If you want to, then try.
Even I didn't know what I felt anymore. It wasn't as if I couldn't understand that look in his eyes.
"Mr. Lee Jinsu. Shall we enjoy a round of Poke-Poke Darts?"
"Yes..."
Jinsu accepted a dart from the master of ceremonies.
"Are darts normally this... big?"
"Not remotely."
Yu Hyeonjae shook his head.
The needle was thicker, sharper, and far longer than an ordinary dart's — long enough, and keen enough, to find a carotid artery without the slightest margin for error.
"Ah, Mr. Lee Jinsu. There's a line down there. You'll need to stand on it, I believe."
"Oh. Ah...! Thank you."
Jinsu set his feet on the throwing line I'd pointed out on the floor and swayed gently, side to side, until he found his balance.
"Hoo..."
A short, deep breath.
"Huh? No — why is that thing—"
"Whoa, that's not some prize wheel you spin! Hosu, this seriously cannot be allowed, right?!"
Spin and surge.
"Oh! It hit! It hit, it hi—"
"—Aa—aaarghk...!"
And then, a direct hit.
"Mr. Lee Jinsu!"
"Mr. Jinsu!"
Jinsu doubled over and crumpled to the floor.
"Where — where did it hit him?"
Smack!
I seized the slowing dartboard and forced it to a dead stop.
The cell the dart had struck was Double 13.
"The ventricle. It hit the ventricle."
The ventricle's pupil.
"Mr. Lee Jinsu! Mr. Lee Jinsu!"
"Oh no... oh no, what do we do? I think he's lost consciousness."
"What do we do? We don't have a single coin left..."
Lee Nahyeon was on the verge of tears.
"If only I hadn't spent them earlier..."
"This is not Ms. Lee Nahyeon's fault. I gave her the gold coins to spend, and that was my choice."
While I did what I could to calm her, my mind was running at full speed.
"The ventricle... if there's a hole in the ventricle, how long does he—"
"Three minutes at the outside, I'd say."
I was certain I'd only muttered that inside my own head. And yet an answer came back.
Three minutes. Three minutes, then.
I looked down at Jinsu, his whole body shuddering. And I thought of the Fragments of Life clenched tight in Yu Hyeonjae's and Hwang Juyeon's fists.
"Open your eyes...! Please..."
Somehow, it struck me as a small, bitter waste.
After all that striving. After praying that hard.
Effort and prayer are not transactions whose reward and answer are promised in return. No one knows that better than I do.
And yet...
And yet, knowing full well that it was futile — that it was a pointless, worthless gesture that accomplished nothing at all —
if I could just fit that last piece into place—
"...Mr. Seon Yuhan?"
Project Delphi.
It was time to receive a prophecy.