The Doll House Route
"Why is this..."
So it wasn't only invasive labyrinths like Seonghwa High or Happy Land — contact-type labyrinths like the 'Doll House' could appear too?
"I have a rough idea why," the Yuwi Guild CEO said dryly.
"Among the Red Weavers handled by Agent Team 3, there's one whose specialty is the 'Doll House' labyrinth."
"Ah."
I had a fair idea who he meant. That Weaver was a former competitive climber, and I'd heard that whenever a 'Doll House' labyrinth manifested, he was the one assigned to it — because the 'Doll House' was a contact-type labyrinth built on a rock-climbing pattern.
The way to clear the 'Doll House' was simple. Ignoring gravity, you climbed — gripping with your hands or pushing off with your feet whatever clung to the walls or floated in midair — toward the spot where a doll sat waiting in the distance.
It was intuitive, and working out the optimal route wasn't especially difficult. Better yet, only one person needed to succeed.
A truly simple labyrinth. The only problem was that it was physically brutal.
Which was why, in the early days, people had died with some regularity. From falls.
"CEO... do you know the way up?"
"I do know it."
The Yuwi Guild CEO beside me flicked a glance toward the places where his right arm and my left arm used to be.
"Whether we can manage it... that, I'm not so sure about."
Of course, athletes with disabilities could climb — paraclimbing existed for a reason. But whether the two of us could was an entirely different question. Namely: two men whose arms had been severed less than thirty minutes ago.
"I'll put the route together myself, for starters."
Not every 'Doll House' labyrinth shared the same interior layout. Each time a new one manifested, the placement of objects and the doll's position shifted a little. That was precisely why a Red Weaver from a competitive climbing background — someone specialized in finding the optimal line to the target mid-climb — could shine here.
"Even so, certain patterns and rules hold steady within all those variations. You'd know that yourself, Seon Yuhan, being an agent hopeful."
"Yes, sir. I've memorized them."
An agent was merely a Red Weaver's representative and manager, not someone who ran the field in person. Because an agent had to grasp which labyrinths suited the Weavers they handled, how those labyrinths could be cleared more efficiently and effectively, and what support the Weavers needed to do it.
"Things like: the route must always pass over the cupboard; stay on the sofa longer than three minutes and it explodes; a cake sitting on a table means the table's a trap; never peer into the mirrors..."
The Labyrinth Management Bureau publicized this information and supported teaching it in schools and workplaces — a contingency for situations where ordinary citizens couldn't, or had no time to, wait for a Red Weaver and had to resolve things themselves.
Of course, whether people actually drilled all of it into their heads or let it slide in one ear and out the other was another matter entirely.
"So you know all the major precautions."
Given the national character of this country, I couldn't help thinking a mandatory exam would have improved retention, but the Labyrinth Management Bureau never went that far.
"Shall I tell you the parts the Bureau doesn't disclose in detail? The things only we know. It's nothing you'd be in trouble for not knowing."
There was talk that this secrecy came from some quiet agreement struck between the guilds behind closed doors. After all, it was true that the scarcer and more indispensable Red Weavers became, the more the guilds stood to gain.
Or perhaps it was a deliberate vagueness, meant purely to cut down on civilian casualties. A person who had read a single book was the most dangerous kind — civilians might decide they could handle it themselves, dig in their heels, and end up dead.
"First of all, the route doesn't strictly have to go by the cupboard," the Yuwi Guild CEO said, pointing at the far-off cupboard stacked with white dishes.
"The research simply concluded that it was the safest and most efficient option."
This time he pointed at the green sofa bobbing in midair.
"As for the sofa exploding after three minutes — that's actually a lie."
"A lie?"
"It's a sofa that explodes once you've stayed 'too long.' But everyone's threshold for 'too long' is different, so in practice there's no fixed time limit at all. The three-minute rule was imposed to control how people perceived it."
The rule 'never stay on the sofa past three minutes' led naturally, in the human mind, to the next conclusion: that past three minutes, you had been on the sofa 'too long.' And just like that, the rule bought you three minutes on that sofa.
"Then couldn't you stay longer than three minutes? Ten minutes. Thirty."
"Isn't that too long, though? Long enough that even the person sitting on it starts thinking, haven't I been here an awfully long time? Three minutes is about right. Red Weavers don't bother wrestling with their own perception — they just train to the three-minute mark."
Yu Hyeonjae finished flatly, then pointed at the chocolate cake on the dining table. A kirsch cake, red cherries set into it like the jewels of a crown.
"The table with that cake hardly needs a more detailed explanation. It's an illusion with no physical substance."
Step onto it believing it looked roomy, and you would drop straight through. Someone must have tried exactly that — that, presumably, was how the data had been collected.
"And those mirrors."
Yu Hyeonjae pointed them out one by one: the oval mirror on the wall, the hand mirror atop the vanity tilted at a slant in midair, the mirror lying flat like a foothold.
"Glancing at them once or twice in passing is fine. Instead, be careful never to find anything in those reflections that differs from reality."
Like one of those spot-the-difference puzzles? Except here, the point was not to spot it.
"What happens if you find one?"
"Well. That much, there's no way to know in detail."
The Yuwi Guild CEO's eyebrow rose a fraction.
"No one has ever come back. From inside those mirrors."
Ah.
So you got trapped. Inside the mirror.
"That's enough explanation. I think the route should go something like this."
The Yuwi Guild CEO stretched out his left hand and traced a jagged line, from the chair at the very bottom of the 'Doll House' up to the desk far above where the doll sat — a route that doubled back and switched direction again and again, touching the wall, leaping across the floating furniture, touching the wall once more.
In any ordinary situation, a hopelessly inefficient path.
"With the two of us each missing an arm, we'll want to keep to the aerial footholds as much as we can."
But for us, that path was the best one there was. We were in no state to alternate hands and climb the wall grip after grip.
"Anything else you'd want to adjust?"
"...No. Nothing."
It was a knife's-edge route even for our current condition, but I couldn't come up with anything better. This was a labyrinth that wasn't easy to clear even with an unharmed body. No easier path could be made.
"I'll go first. Follow me."
In other words, all that time he'd been reciting the rules at me, Yu Hyeonjae had been plotting this optimal route in his head. He was, without a doubt, the kind of man who would have risen to the very top of this industry even in a field or research role.
Tap—.
At some point Yu Hyeonjae had sprung lightly off the chair, caught the cuckoo clock with one hand, kicked off the wall, and settled onto the tea table.
...Did that really come off that easily? Easy as it looked, it was surely anything but.
"What do you do for exercise?"
The question tumbled out of my mouth unbidden.
"Hm?"
Yu Hyeonjae, shifting his feet on the tea table to test his balance, narrowed his eyes slightly — then let out a small ah and tilted his head.
"Nothing special. I keep myself in shape the way most people do, moderately. But I tried a bit of everything back in the day, this sport and that, so the feel of it never quite left me."
"Ah. I see."
Such a by-the-book answer snuffed out my curiosity on the spot.
"How's the shoulder?"
"Fine. For now."
Yu Hyeonjae answered, rolling his left shoulder in something like a stretch.
"Though with only one arm to work with, I expect it'll start to strain before long. I'll have to manage the load carefully."
I had asked about the severed right one. Not the perfectly whole left. Which meant it ought to be hurting.
Even so, I decided against correcting myself and asking again.
"Uh... mm."
After all, I would be finding out firsthand soon enough. Just like this.
"Be careful."
I already had the premonition that a few more jumps would send every muscle in my body on strike — and this, in a place where a single slip could end in a fatal fall.
"If Agent Team 4 went in first, what kind of labyrinth do you think they drew?"
I had a grasp on nearly all of the Yuwi Guild's Red Weavers and their specialties, but exactly which agent team handled which of them was something no outsider could know.
"Hard to say. Agent teams aren't necessarily organized around their Weavers' specialties."
"Ah. I see."
"If this seventh floor is about either-or choices — a floor that prizes the weight and balance of a decision — then Agent Team 4 will have drawn a labyrinth they can clear even with somewhat lacking physical ability. If not..."
Yu Hyeonjae let the words trail off and shrugged his remaining left shoulder.
If not, Agent Team 4 would be facing a labyrinth much like this one. Something no body short of 'normal' could hope to clear.
"Still, working from the former assumption, let me speculate a little."
Tap— clang!
Yu Hyeonjae sprang off the nightstand and slipped neatly through the door of the birdcage lying on its side. I followed, moving over to the empty nightstand.
"They may have drawn the 'Prisoner's Dilemma.'"
The Prisoner's Dilemma. A name for that one specific labyrinth pattern — the rule itself — and at the same time a blanket term for every contact-type labyrinth built on that rule.
Unlike the 'Doll House,' where the layout shifted within an identical space, the 'Prisoner's Dilemma' was identified by its rule alone, because its environment was never the same twice.
"It's a pattern that stands in contrast to the 'Doll House,' where a single strong performer is enough — and Team 4 happens to have a pair famous for how well they work together."
"Ah — you don't mean the twins...?"
"That's right. Team 4 handles them."
True to its name, the 'Prisoner's Dilemma' was a labyrinth where trust and cooperation between people were everything. It went without saying how many had died in 'Prisoner's Dilemma' labyrinths in the early days, when no one knew the rule.
It was a pattern that condemned the simple wish to live as nothing but greed and selfishness.
Of the early 'Prisoner's Dilemma' survivors, few were still alive today. Most had ended their own lives.
"From here on, follow me carefully."
Kicking off the rounded surface of the birdcage without incident and trailing him step by careful step, I soon found myself at a height where the ground below was starting to look dizzyingly far away.
Tap—!
Whump...
Even from the plush sofa, soft enough to swallow his feet whole, Yu Hyeonjae sprang high and caught the blind cord hanging against the wall. At once, his body angled nearly vertical, he planted his feet against the wall and ran them in rapid succession, like a sprinter building to a start...
Thud!
Releasing the cord, he launched upward and landed square on top of the wardrobe.
...
Which meant I was expected to reproduce that feat, exactly.
I took a long, deep breath and loosened my body all over again.
"You can do it, Seon Yuhan."
I can do it.
Making that dependable voice my marker, I leapt.