The Death I Hoped For

—Flip.

Seated in the library, replaying the diary's records in my head, I found myself thinking about the 'thing that never happened'.

'You... what on earth are you?'

I'd always believed I read people tolerably well, all things considered.

...Then how many lies had I failed to notice and let slide, all this time?

"Ah."

In that instant, I understood.

That Yu Hyeonjae had understood that prophecy.

That he had simply pretended not to recognize it.

"How."

That the inexplicable unease I'd felt every time I looked into those know-nothing eyes had been a wrongness born of one thought — there was no way this man couldn't solve even that simple prophecy.

That so much truth was locked away inside that horrifyingly insane shepherd.

That some of the truths locked away in there were terribly cruel, and terribly sad.

And that he could go on acting as if none of it were anything at all.

"How can anyone do that."

Because I still can't.

No matter how used to hiding things I became, how practiced at imitating other people.

The moment my aunt's voice reached my ears, my heart would beat itself half to death; the moment my brother's did, my breath would strangle in my throat.

If I'd received a prophecy like that, I could never have pulled it off. Even writing it off as just another labyrinth lie, my face would have frozen solid.

...When did that man become like that?

Out of nowhere, it struck me that an enormous stretch of time had passed.

All the way back to when the concept of a 'labyrinth' was nothing more than a space out of myth.

Swish.

Leaving the librarian's corpse behind me, I walked out of the library.

After that, I died exactly three more times before filling out the seven and reaching 'Future Arcade'.

Fortunately.

"Welcome, Seon Yuhan, Yu Hyeonjae, Lee ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Nahyeon, Lee Jinsu, Jeong Jiho, Choi Jaeha, and Hwang Juyeon. I am your host, you see. Please call me 'Hosu'."

Nahyeon pointed at the rust-brown notebook in my hand.

Ever since coming back after being butchered by the shepherd, I'd been showing the diary to the group. The reason I'd hidden it until then was simple: I was afraid the conspiracy-theorist co-CEO of Yuwi Guild might, just possibly, entertain the idea that a time regressor existed inside this labyrinth.

It had turned out to be a pointless precaution.

"We can just leave it on the table and go through it together."

I spread the diary open and laid it flat, then glanced around at the others.

Taking care that my gaze didn't linger on Yu Hyeonjae a beat longer than necessary.

'Seon ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Yuhan. You're experiencing time regression, aren't you?'

That man had suspected me without even knowing the diary existed.

Granted, I'd been careful to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠come across as nothing more than a lucky guy with good instincts — but apparently I hadn't ruled the possibility out entirely, either.

'You look like a man who's alive because he can't die, Seon Yuhan.'

...My own unconscious manner must have been a problem too.

I might as well have been advertising myself as a regressor.

In which case, it would've been better to be remembered as someone who happened to get lucky and snag a relic at the Wanna Bookstore.

At least my handwriting didn't survive anywhere in this diary, which 'naturally sustains damage during this special delivery process'.

Wherever a passage gave the impression of being written by a human hand, I'd torn it out and rewritten it.

Of the 'True Stories' questions whose answers were written in the diary, there were twenty in total.

Get twenty-one right, and you won an entire 'Life' token in one piece.

All seven gold coins were, naturally, out of the question.

There was no way a seven-year-old kid could memorize the answers to every last one of those problems, after all.

And there were limits to scribbling the answers down in a notebook, too.

"But why isn't question 21 written down anywhere? If we just knew that one, we'd be all set."

Why?

Because in the three loops since, I never even made it this far.

Which meant this time, I had to solve it myself.

"Hard to say... My guess is it means we're meant to work that one out for ourselves. It is the last question, after all."

"Fair point. It's a labyrinth relic — it's not going to be entirely on our side, is it? Even the other explanations were pretty unfriendly and weird, weren't they."

Thankfully, it seemed I'd written it well. Just human enough — and not a whit more.

"Would it be all right if I took this one?"

"Whoa, Yuhan, you've already got them all memorized?"

"Yes. Short-term memorization is one of my better skills."

It had graduated into long-term memory ages ago.

"That's why we should do this fast. I'll forget it all soon enough."

"Okay."

I'd done everything I could do.

"Hosu. Shall we enjoy 'True Stories'?"

"Yeah."

And so, by unanimous consent, the solving fell to me.

From their point of view, none of them would want to gamble on cracking an unknown question themselves, either.

"Allow me to explain briefly."

I left the host to run through the rules on his own and checked that the bandage on my right hand was holding firm.

I'd lost a sliver of my ring finger getting out of Happy Land.

It hadn't been lopped off wholesale — more that a small animal had gnawed away the very tip, right down through the nail.

It hurt, but at this level, whatever.

"......For the record, please be aware that every incident you are about to hear is a true story."

"What's the fun in playing it when you already know everything?"

What?

I snapped my head up and looked the host dead in the face.

Surely he wasn't thinking of swapping out the questions at this late stage?

"What's the fun in playing it when you already know everything? What's the fun in playing it when you already know everything? What's the fun in playing it when you already know everything?"

"Okay, this is way too funny, though."

"Seon Yuhan."

Had I rattled him too badly?

His voice seemed to have sunk a shade lower than usual, and as I stiffened my senses and trained my eyes on Hosu —

The scene that followed hit me like a blow to the back of the head.

A grotesque voice — as though it had dismembered phrases already stored inside itself and stitched the fragments back together to output a sentence that had never once been entered.

His left eye spinning krrrk-krrrk as it wept, like someone gazing down at something pitiful and precious and dear.

"You..."

I was Hosu's lamb.

For that one moment, I was.

"What did you just—"

"—Now! The first incident!"

The host, every trace of brightness restored, held out the first card.

The questions hadn't changed.

"Answer."

And so I cleared all twenty incidents without spending a single question.

"Now, the twenty-first incident!"

"Hah."

"No, why is this one at that difficulty...? It's way too broad."

Was this a joke?

What kind of deadbeat, punk-ass question even is this?

There wasn't a single drawing on the card, either.

Where the illustration should have been sat a blank patch, and beneath it the question floated all alone.

Even granting that it was the final question...

"Are that woman and that man inside the labyrinth?"

Hosu broke into a wide, beaming smile.

"Yes."

If the labyrinth was the backdrop, this got a great deal harder.

Labyrinths were stocked with every bizarre phenomenon and monster imaginable — you were expected to shrug off whatever happened inside one. Depending on which labyrinth it was, the possibilities were endless.

Granted, contact-type labyrinths shared fairly similar patterns, so you could hazard a rough guess.

"Did they both die for breaking the labyrinth's rules?"

Death at the hands of another person couldn't be ruled out, either.

It could have been a story set against the backdrop of a labyrinth, only for them to die because of a human being.

"No."

"Did just one of them break the rules and die?"

"Yes."

Then I could surmise that the other had died by murder, suicide, or accident, unconnected to the labyrinth's rules.

"Was the woman the one who broke the rules and died?"

"No."

The man was the one who'd broken the rules and died.

The woman had died for another reason.

"Then... could the woman have been murdered?"

Hosu smiled.

"Yes."

"Was she murdered by this man?"

"No."

Surely I wasn't expected to identify some unknown third murderer on top of everything else.

The previous twenty questions had only required nailing down the general circumstances.

Was this really something I could crack in fifteen questions? Including the reason the rule-breaking man died?

It had nothing to do with the Divine Realm Daily articles, so was blind guessing my only option?

Wasn't there some clue somewhere?

Among everything I knew, wasn't there an incident just like this one?

A labyrinth...

For some reason — a murdered woman, a man who died breaking a labyrinth's rules...

What was the relationship between these two people...

Friends? Colleagues? Perfect strangers? Lovers? Family? Husband and wife...?

"Ah."

Don't tell me.

'What was the aunt's dying wish?'

'...I'll be waiting. I'll be right there.'

I still don't know how the aunt died.

I never saw it with my own eyes.

So I had to cremate her without ever knowing.

Everyone said it must have been an accident, or that she'd been killed by those things.

But we allowed ourselves to consider another possibility, too.

That a human being had killed the aunt. Deliberately, or by mistake.

Which death is the better death?

Dying in a freak accident? Being murdered by the labyrinth? Being murdered by a person?

I had my own answer, and it hasn't changed even now.

Uncle and my brother might think whatever they liked of that answer.

But I hoped the aunt had been murdered. By a person.

Because at least that is something a person can understand.

Chance and the labyrinth are, at bottom, the same phenomenon.

Neither of them carries any malice.

And that is precisely why they can never be understood.

So I...

I wanted the aunt to have been the woman in this question.

"..."

Time crawled.

The host held his smile for a brief beat, as if savoring the pause, and then opened his mouth.