TARAE
"For all we know, the condition could just be sitting still and letting the clock run out. What if we bust our asses for nothing and die anyway? Honestly, fools really don't know the meaning of fear."
Even grumbling away, my gutless accountant followed me without a word of protest.
As I suspected, he didn't want to be left alone.
Tarae.
True to its name, the store bore a red logo designed around the motif of a tangled skein of thread, coiled into the shape of the number eight.
It seemed to have been drawn from 'Jeoksa,' the official term for the professionals who resolved contact labyrinths for a living.
Jeoksa. The red string.
The crimson thread Ariadne gave Theseus to lead him out of the labyrinth.
The name meant precisely that — a being who found the right path within a labyrinth and unraveled it, just like that red thread.
Truthfully, if you could pour out overwhelming physical force — guns, bombs, whatever you had — most things could be resolved.
But realistically, you couldn't mobilize an army's firepower for every labyrinth, and some of a labyrinth's rules simply never bowed to physical force.
That was why the Red Weavers existed.
Their mission: to resolve labyrinths as efficiently as possible.
The guild's role here was essentially the Red Weavers' agency — not unlike a management company for celebrities.
When a contact labyrinth appeared, the guild decided which Red Weavers to send in, liaised with the Labyrinth Management Bureau on their behalf, and handled all the procedures surrounding labyrinth entry and exit.
They also supplied the equipment needed for a labyrinth raid and managed the Weavers' schedules.
And crucially, the guild traded the relics a Red Weaver recovered from a labyrinth as that Weaver's proxy, splitting the profits at a fixed percentage.
Yuwi Guild was the industry leader in this field.
Its two co-CEOs were the founders of a sports agency and an entertainment company respectively, and I suspected that was where their particular brand of expertise came from.
And I had walked into an interview for a Red Weaver Agent position at exactly that Yuwi Guild, only to end up like this.
Depression settled over me all over again.
"Mr. Choi Jaeha. Here. I mean this place."
I'd heard the guild raked in money by the hundreds of millions while its agents kept up careers in the public eye.
If you survived, that is.
"Is there any rule against outsiders entering? Something about purchases being limited to employees only?"
Before opening TARAE's door, I checked first.
I couldn't afford to repeat the same mistake.
"Huh? No? Loads of fans come here all the time. Well, there's a discount for employees and tenant-company staff. That's actually how I bought one for my niece once."
What was so appealing about people who might die any day now? Choi Jaeha grumbled like he couldn't wrap his head around it.
But maybe that was exactly what hooked people.
The way they were like mayflies with no tomorrow.
The way they were like candle flames trembling in the wind.
The way they were like moths hurling themselves into the fire.
"Then…… let's head in for now."
The moment I pushed open TARAE's door, singing greeted us.
A groovy pop song, tasteful interior design, and merchandise arranged in artful displays to match.
"Wait, why is there no staff?"
And truly, absurdly, there were no employees. Just as Choi Jaeha had said.
Our first plan — dragging the TARAE clerk over to our New Dawn Daycare and bringing it along with us — had ended in failure.
"Oh, wel come, this is TARAE?"
"GYAAAH!"
The accountant let out a strange shriek and clamped a hand on my shoulder.
I stiffened all over and turned my head.
On the LED display panel mounted on the wall, a big, round, yellow face hovered.
"Remember, you're the one who said 'Whenever'"
"If there's some thing you're cu rious about, please call…… a TARAE Keeper, any tiiime at aaaall?"
The TARAE Keeper inside the LED screen hummed along to the music flowing through the store and spoke in its signature mechanical drone.
"Our deaaar valuued customersss, please browse at your ownnnnnn pleasure?"
Unsettling.
So unsettling I thought I might literally die from it.
"Mr. Seon Yuhan, over there. Let's go there. Survival kits, right there."
"Well, if we get down to the first floor soon it'll be useless, but you never know? Even for just that little stretch."
I didn't bother voicing the possibility that the first floor might not be the end — that the floor below might not actually be the first floor at all.
Passing racks of digital accessories, stationery, and every other kind of merch, I let my eyes sweep across a display shelf packed to bursting with nothing but labyrinth survival kits.
Labyrinth survival kits.
Kits built for the possibility of being trapped in a labyrinth — bought mostly by people who lived or worked near fissures, with the chance of getting sucked into a contact labyrinth in mind.
That didn't mean the contents were useless in an invasive labyrinth, of course.
In any disaster, a survival kit always helps.
"We could probably just dump everything else into that most expensive bag there."
The kits ranged wildly in price depending on their contents and design.
Pile on separate components like relics, add-on functions, extra options here and there, and they'd casually quote you figures in the millions of won.
Granted, there were plenty of kits under 100,000 won too.
Labyrinth survival kits these days seemed to have shifted from necessity to luxury. Fittingly, or unfittingly, for something with 'survival' in the name.
The odds of being swallowed into a contact labyrinth were about the same as the odds of getting into a car accident.
The odds of dying inside one had also come to mirror the odds of dying in a car crash.
Just as people don't tremble in constant fear of traffic accidents every time they cross a crosswalk or get behind the wheel, people these days no longer compulsively carried survival kits everywhere they went.
I kept a cheap, budget-model kit on hand myself, but I rarely brought it along.
It was a hassle to lug around.
And yet here I was, trapped not even in a contact labyrinth but an invasive one.
If I walked out of here and bought a lottery ticket, first prize would be a guaranteed thing.
"No pharmaceuticals, as expected."
"But there's antiseptic and gauze, at least."
Naturally, since the guild was legally barred from selling medicine, users had to buy it separately and pack it into their kits themselves.
Thankfully, emergency kits with over-the-counter remedies did exist.
"There's emergency rations too…… water would be nice, though. Is there a water purifier nearby?"
"No idea. I've barely ever been up here on the second floor. Well, the library or the daycare should have one, shouldn't they?"
"Ah. Good point."
I hoped it was in the library, if anywhere. Rather than the daycare.
After grabbing whatever tumblers my hand happened to land on from the display, I spotted a 'Special Sale Item.'
The Jaerae Diary.
A russet leather notebook, the only one on the shelf.
The clear wrapping bore a neatly affixed 'Limited' sticker.
Tearing it open to inspect it before buying would obviously be forbidden.
I glanced sideways at the grotesque yellow face inside the LED screen.
"I have a question."
"Of course. What are you curi ous about, dear gu est Seon Yuhaaanim?"
As the emoji split into a beaming grin, I glimpsed countless white teeth, a red uvula, and a black abyss.
I heard Choi Jaeha make a horrified choking sound.
"Is buying this really fine? Me, I mean? I thought I heard the ad say non-employees were okay, but still."
"You heard cor rectly. By the way, this partic ular product is a spe cial limited item that becomes bound to its owner. Any where, any time?"
"……Anywhere, anytime?"
It was a loaded choice of words. Given my circumstances.
"Yes, Seon Yuhan, Seon Yuhan, Seon Yuhan, whatever you desire is yours — any time, any place, any how. However, damage sustained during that spe cial delivery process is a very natural phenomenon, and TARAE assumes no responsibility. Would you care to purchase right now?"
Purchase……
I had no choice but to.
I had just listened to a set of instructions designed to turn the consumer into a sucker, but I quietly tucked the diary into my haul anyway.
There are no bleeding-heart customers in a labyrinth.
In a labyrinth, the labyrinth is always the one holding the power, and the customer's only options are to meekly obey its rules — or refuse and walk the road to death.
"Did you get everything?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I did."
Choi Jaeha stared at the Jaerae Diary in my hands as if it were some revolting insect.
"You're actually gonna buy that?"
"Yes. Then……"
I shot a sidelong glance at the giant emoji still regarding its customers with smiling eyes, and said,
"Let's check out."
Skipping out on the bill in a place like this meant death. Guaranteed.
I didn't need to die to know it.
We would die. Absolutely, one hundred percent, dead.
"Huh? Buy it? Wait, no — you want me to pay, of all things, in this situation—"
Choi Jaeha's complaining voice cut off abruptly.
His eyes had locked dead-on with the TARAE Keeper, still humming along to the song.
The round emoji's expression was beaming so brightly, so delightedly.
Dozens of teeth on full display.
"I guess I'm buying. Yep. Obviously. Carving holes in other people's ledgers, that's just not done. Mm."
The accountant's about-face was swift.
"Can you by any chance operate a register?"
With no cashier at the counter, we'd have to ring ourselves up.
"No?"
"Then I'll check out first, and if you hand me your card, I'll pay for yours as well."
With trembling hands, I picked up the barcode scanner.
Beep.
No snake-like contortion, no venomous sting, no 'How dare a customer self-checkout? DIE!' — none of that happened.
Beep. Beep.
Relieved, I kept scanning barcodes.
What truly frightened me now was the price.
Choosing the priciest version of everything had pushed the total to roughly a month's salary for a fresh hire.
Thank God I'd raised my card limit recently.
I deployed my three-month, zero-interest installment plan skill.
The moment the payment-complete message appeared on the register screen, I let out a sigh of relief.
I'd been half afraid the screen would suddenly lunge to devour me with 'THIS CUSTOMER CANNOT PURCHASE THIS ITEM!' or electrocute me on the spot.
Thankfully, absolutely nothing—
"Hey, hey. Mr. Seon Yuhan. That emoji. Its face just changed."
Choi Jaeha tapped my shoulder and pointed at the huge LED display.
In place of the round yellow emoji, a golden balance scale now hovered on the screen.
"Mr. Choi Jaeha! Get out! Drop everything and go! Now!"
"Wh-what?!"
I had no idea what that change meant, but in a labyrinth you always assume the worst first.
Click.
Astonishingly, the door didn't lock — it swung open, smooth and easy.
I was stepping over the threshold right behind Choi Jaeha when—
"KH—!"
Something seized me by the nape of the neck.