Silence of the Lambs
"What kind of—what kind of bullshit is that……? So you're seriously saying that if anyone ever seems like a wolf, you'll drive them out one by one? Even knowing it means people will die?"
"……As I said, I don't want to die either—"
"—So if you don't want to die, that makes it okay to kill?"
If that's so, is quietly dying without killing anyone the truly righteous path?
Since I'll just come back to life anyway, is dying cleanly all there is to it?
If I die as a 'good and innocent' being, is that enough?
"Do you want to win that badly? Badly enough to kill for it?"
Then what, I should just die? I'm supposed to die without doing anything? Is that what you all want? Is dying nobly what counts as justice? Do you not want to survive? Would you rather die than kill?
Why?
Is dying easy? Is living easy?
Am I not allowed to survive? Won't you let yourself live? Won't you all try to live a little longer, for your own sakes? You can kill me over and over again while you're scrambling to make it through, so won't you keep on living? Won't you fight not for some dead line on a page, but for life itself—alive, breathing life? Won't you go on living, even if it means killing, instead of quietly lying down and dying where you stand?
"Then you—don't tell me. Jiho, that kid—even a child that young……? You're not saying you'd lay a hand on him, are you?"
"That's……."
I will win, someday. Without fail.
If I lose this time, then the next time. If I lose the next time, then the time after that. If I lose the time after that, then the time after that.
A future in which I have been defeated does not exist. Whether I want it to or not.
Under the premise that I will win, everyone who is not on my side dies.
Which amounts to the same thing as me killing them.
'The more games you win, the more wonderful things will happen.'
That is why this labyrinth offers the chance to erase death with golden coins called Lives.
'And if you lose?'
'Something sad will happen, I'm afraid.'
The chance not to die here means, in the end, the chance not to kill.
"Ha. I knew you were a lunatic, but I didn't realize you were this much of a piece of trash."
The fact that I couldn't put that chance into your hands.
That alone, I do regret.
"Then what am I—what are we—supposed to do……? If we just sit here doing nothing, no one gets out. Are you saying it's fine to stay trapped here and die like this?"
"That's—! Still, we have to find some way for all of us to survive!"
These people don't know that Life exists.
I made sure they didn't.
I gave them no chance to find out, no time to look, and shoved them straight into the final game instead.
Purely for my own sake.
The moment the chance to play the final game arrived, I swept everyone along to seize it.
Even knowing that at least two of them would die in this game.
"Whether a path where no one dies actually exists…… I honestly don't know. You all know as well as I do what kind of place this is."
So even if I come back here again someday, alone, and earn seven people's worth of 'Lives' to bring them all back to life and get them out of this arcade, it will never atone for what I've done.
Is it because it becomes a thing that never happened—but I still remember it?
Not at all.
It's nothing so romantic as that.
Simply because this isn't the kind of equivalent exchange people imagine it to be.
I die, and then I live again.
But does my coming back to life truly make my death reversible?
Is living the reward for that death?
Killing and then saving is exactly the same.
Taking a life is taking a life; salvation is salvation.
That is all there is to it.
Kill someone and save them, and your sin is not absolved. Save someone and kill them, and your sin does not pile up and grow heavier for it.
"So, if there's anyone I suspect of being a wolf……."
Sin accumulates in proportion to what you've done, and atonement does not live inside a reversible cycle of life and death.
"I will exile them."
So please—let no one ever forgive me.
So that I can make it out alive.
"You truly won't exile anyone?"
By the time the sun began to set, Hosu had drifted slowly in a full circle behind the players, confirming each person's intentions one by one, and now asked again with a sullen look.
Secretly communicating a vote for exile to the host was impossible.
What a cruel game this was.
"So be it, then."
The host, who had been slumping his shoulders in exaggerated dejection, broke into a beaming smile as though he had never worn such a face at all.
"The sun sets beyond a pasture where no one has left."
Hosu stretched his hand out gently, as if tracing a horizon far beyond sight.
The hem of his worn, threadbare shirt—holes even torn through at the cuffs—swayed like a passing breeze.
"Night falls, and the predator that could not sleep for its hunger comes creeping out, stealthy and slow."
When Hosu's hand drew another line through the empty air, the familiar darkness seeped in.
Once again, the scenery around us and the figures of the others were erased into the dark.
Only two remained: myself, seated at an empty table, and the host, wearing that infuriating smile.
"Identity check."
"Yes, Seon Yuhan. Who do you suspect of being a wolf?"
I jerked my chin toward the empty seat on my right without a moment's hesitation.
"Yu Hyeonjae."
The fact that he'd spent the whole day babbling about whether or not he'd vote, without actually voting—of course it was because of this identity check.
"Understood. Seon Yuhan suspects Yu Hyeonjae of being a wolf. Verifying the truth."
Yu Hyeonjae, who had introduced himself as a lamb, was—as far as I could tell—nothing but a lying wolf.
"Yu Hyeonjae is not a wolf."
"……What?"
For a moment, I thought I'd misheard.
"Yu Hyeonjae is a lamb? My own kind?"
No, then why did he act like that?
Was he just purely nervous, shaking like that?
Hold on.
Or—don't tell me he manufactured that expression on purpose?
The wolves know their faces can be read?
To pass themselves off as fellow lambs?
If that's the case, that bastard is genuinely terrifying.
"Ha……."
My protection card went up in smoke, pathetically.
The penalty was confirmed.
"Is the penalty not being able to vote tomorrow, by any chance?"
"If you're curious, you'll simply have to enjoy it yourself. Where's the fun in playing a game you already know everything about?"
"Fine……. You're right about everything, as usual."
What's done is done.
It wasn't as if he had any plans to use it on me today anyway.
"Not worried? You could end up eaten, you know."
"Hmm……. If I were a wolf, I don't think I'd kill someone like me. I'd want to keep watching a little longer."
For now, in a situation where no one can vote carelessly, having someone else around who openly declares an intent to vote—someone like me—creates a kind of atmosphere that encourages voting.
In other words, it becomes easier to whittle down the lambs' numbers in broad daylight, not just at night.
Besides, someone who declared themselves a lamb surviving night after night without ever being hunted?
"And when I stop being useful, they can just whip up suspicion that I'm a wolf and have me killed. Very convenient."
A wolf with enough malice and nerve to call out its first target ahead of its own packmates from the very first round wouldn't kill me in the opening act.
It would never waste such a valuable asset.
Thinking it through that way, I could roughly guess who would be hunted tonight.
"The moon withdraws once more, and a new day dawns."
The night had ended.
"Oh dear! I wonder if something happened in the night?"
The host pointed at a single spot with a gesture of theatrical disgust.
"Where Choi Jaeha once sat, only the faint scent of blood lingers……."
Choi Jaeha was dead.
No trace of him remained.
He had simply vanished, the way everyone's forms vanish in the night.
He had merely been carved out of this world forever, alone.
"Hup……."
Lee Nahyeon sucked in a breath, and Hwang Juyeon clapped a hand over her mouth.
Lee Jinsu stared open-mouthed in shock, while Yu Hyeonjae wore a complicated expression.
Jeong Jiho's face was fighting back tears.
"……."
It was the outcome I'd expected, but I kept my face well managed.
Choi Jaeha was the one who'd told me we ought to find a way for everyone to live together, after all.
If you're going to hunt someone, you kill the person who voices opinions like that.
And conveniently, he and I had set ourselves up in mild opposition, so pinning it on me worked nicely too.
"Could it be…… no, surely not. Seon Yuhan……?"
When Hwang Juyeon looked at me cautiously, every gaze in the room gathered on me once more.
"……."
What is this?
"Seon Yuhan. Why aren't you saying anything……?"
"……."
What the hell.
"Yuhan, don't tell me…… you really did it?"
"……."
Oh, you have got to be kidding me.
For the first time in a long while, my blood ran cold.
"Were you pretending to be a lamb all along?"
"……."
The words wouldn't come out.
No—literally, the words would not come out of my mouth.
I couldn't even manage the simple gesture of shaking my head.
So this is the penalty. Being silenced.
Is this why they call it Shepherd's Silence?
I rolled my eyes toward the host, and there he was, flashing that maddening grin again.
"How could you……."
This is getting dangerous.
Everyone's eyes are anything but friendly. Hwang Juyeon's and Jeong Jiho's especially.
"You went on and on about exiling anyone suspected of being a wolf…… and that was just groundwork the whole time?"
If this mood builds any further, I'll be exiled on the spot.
Unlike yesterday, when no one was exiled, today it's been revealed that Choi Jaeha died in the night.
A person died.
Someone killed a person.
And now a justification exists.
The justification needed to topple, in one stroke, the petty hurdle of morality they'd all been straining to hold up before themselves.
"Still, that's going too far. How could you from the very—"
"—One moment, please."
Yu Hyeonjae raised a hand slightly and cut off Hwang Juyeon.
"Doesn't something strike you as strange? Seon Yuhan isn't the type to hold to silence in a situation like this."
I take back what I said about him being terrifying.
"Seon Yuhan. Did something happen to you in the night?"
I thought you were a wolf, pointed you out, got it wrong, and ate the penalty.
"Everyone, think about it calmly."
CEO Yu said, pointing at me.
"In a position this disadvantageous, he would have seized my question just now as his opening and launched straight into excuses. And yet he didn't utter a single word—didn't even move his head."
"……And so?"
"Isn't it more likely that Seon Yuhan isn't a wolf out of words, but a lamb who has suffered something? For instance."
Yu Hyeonjae regarded me for a long, deliberate moment.
With eyes carrying just the faintest blend of awkwardness and apology.
"He mistook someone for a wolf, named them, was proven wrong, and received the penalty for it."
No. I take back taking it back.
That bastard really is terrifying.
"You truly won't exile anyone?"
But in the end, it was a lamb scarier than any wolf that saved my life.
"Hold on."
As the allotted thirteen minutes of daylight drew to a close.
When the host asked for votes of exile, Yu Hyeonjae—silent until now—carefully lifted his head.
"Now that I think of it, Hwang Juyeon."
"Yes?"
"If I recall correctly, you're the one among us who has spent the most time with Seon Yuhan. Am I right?"
"……Yes. Though it's only about fifteen minutes more than you, sir. Not that that's saying much."
A subtle current passed between the two of them as they faced each other.
"Ah, is that so. Still, you'd know something of his character, and yet you were so quick to jump straight to suspicion……. No, forgive me. Given the circumstances, I suppose it couldn't be helped."
Unbelievable.
"Night has come, and beasts thirsting for blood prowl the dark."
He engineered the whole room into suspecting Hwang Juyeon, and then the darkness fell—no vote at all.
"Ha."
I stared, dumbfounded, at the empty seat where the CEO of Yuwi Guild had been sitting.
This guy really is something else.