How to Die in a Company That Turned Into a Labyrinth

Yu Mi-rae stepped closer.

“I have a favor to ask.”

Don’t.

I clenched my teeth.

Don’t ask me to save Yu Hyun-jae.

Don’t try to kill me for that reason too.

As though my desire to save all of you had to matter more than my own life….

“Don’t bring me down with you next time.”

“…What?”

It was not the favor I had expected.

“Don’t show me things like this.”

Yu Mi-rae was not trying to kill me.

Instead, Yu Mi-rae began offering constructive advice.

“Just keep me waiting in Legal Affairs and go to the arcade alone. Bringing all of us down is a waste of time too. You know that.”

The co-representative of Uiwi Guild glanced over Kim Hee-sook, Yun Geon-min, and Hyeon Je-won.

“The safest thing is to leave behind anything you don’t need. Me included. Taking everyone along is just your greed.”

I had no answer.

If I could have simply left this group behind, I would have wanted to.

I wanted to bring only Yu Mi-rae down to meet Yu Hyun-jae, then stop by the arcade alone before going back up.

But in that situation, I could not exactly tell the others not to follow.

I was not even sure they would listen if I tried.

It was one thing if a lunatic claiming to have gone back in time said they would go down alone. But when the guild representative immediately followed that lunatic, people were bound to wonder if there might be something to it.

“So when you meet me, make me wait there.”

“…If I ask you to wait, will you?”

“I’ll say no.”

It was astonishingly accurate self-awareness.

“If I say I don’t want to wait, say this. Say you know what happened to us the day before Fissure Day.”

“…But I don’t.”

“I know. Just say it. Then I’ll understand and wait.”

What on earth had happened that day, if even such an obvious lie could serve as proof?

Something picked at my mind like insects crawling around inside it.

“…All right.”

“Yeah. I’m leaving now.”

Yu Mi-rae turned away.

As though the sibling’s corpse did not matter in the slightest.

“You said you’re going back up anyway. And we can’t even go to the arcade. Then we should head up first.”

Yu Mi-rae really did leave, taking the others along.

Clunk.

I stared at the firmly shut emergency exit for a moment, then entered the vacant office across from Neosoft.

―――――――――――――――

｜Name｜Gamagwi

｜Assigned Facility｜Part of Floor 14 (Vacant Office)

―――――――――――――――

The thing, hiding its entire body beneath an out-of-season heavy coat, fedora, and scarf, was facing the wall.

A memorial photograph was attached to it.

The person who had died could not have handed over that photograph, so someone accompanying them probably took it from the copier and gave it to that Gamagwi.

Probably Hwang Ju-yeon. I had not seen Hwang Ju-yeon's body on the way here. Chae Jae-ha was too scared.

It was a good thing people could make their way down on their own even without me.

Ah. So Yu Hyun-jae dies here.

I would have to remember that.

“You’re really going to leave just me behind?”

A minor problem came up when I returned to the Legal Affairs Office after finishing the Easter Hamster game.

Yun Geon-min’s sentence was not over yet.

“Yes. There’s no helping it.”

It was my mistake.

When I first met Yun Geon-min and Kim Hee-sook this time, I should have persuaded Yun Geon-min to come up with us and finish the sentence early.

“I’ll make sure to account for it next time.”

“Next time, my ass! Then why did you bring me here in the first place?”

I did not want to say that Yun Geon-min should not have stolen coworkers’ belongings in the first place.

That would have been crueler than necessary, and it would not improve the situation.

“Because I’m looking for a route. One that can save more people.”

“Yeah! That’s what I’m saying! You’re doing this because you want to save people, aren’t you? Then why are you abandoning me?”

“The people I’m going to save are not here right now.”

I glanced at the game addict looking bored beside me, then looked away again.

“It’s like a game. While looking for a better strategy, your teammates might die, but that doesn’t matter, right? You can restart. This will become something that never happened… to you.”

Nothing that existed here, right now, truly mattered.

Not even me.

Even treating my own life as precious was, fundamentally, a deception. Nothing but an empty ritual I forced myself to uphold.

Someday, I would definitely leave this Labyrinth.

…I had to leave.

I would leave.

So I was a constant that would not change. I was not what mattered.

What mattered was the end. The people who would make it out alive at the end, when there would be no more restarting.

“…Huh. So all of us are fake to you? Our deaths, our lives, all of it!”

“Would you prefer I thought of you that way?”

“Wow… Wow….”

Yun Geon-min’s face turned bright red as his mouth opened and closed soundlessly.

While I had the chance, I signaled to the others that we should leave the Legal Affairs Office.

Yu Mi-rae’s expression brightened at once, and Yu Mi-rae immediately opened the door. Hyeon Je-won fidgeted helplessly before following.

“Seon Yu-han, I…”

Unexpectedly, Kim Hee-sook shook her head.

Kim Hee-sook looked at me with a deeply complicated expression, brows furrowed.

“You’re not coming with us this time?”

“…Yeah.”

“Right. I’ll keep that in mind too.”

I liked knowing there were still things I did not understand.

Swish.

Just as I was heading outside.

“Yeah, go! Go ahead and do whatever you want!”

An enraged shout came from behind me.

“You think you’re some kind of god?”

That was not true.

“In the end, bastards like you ruin the lives of innocent people like us! You’re the one killing everyone!”

That was true.

“So this place can be considered a kind of Labyrinth…!”

756’s eyes blinked rapidly while listening to a brief explanation inside my “home.”

Both cheeks were flushed red.

“Everything in this house is an artifact! Is this time and space located inside Seon Yu-han’s physical body? Or is it a separate world that merely belongs to Seon Yu-han? Could this be interpreted as a pseudo-Labyrinthification phenomenon occurring in a human being? And, and perhaps we can trace the principles behind how artifacts are created…”

“Hyeon Je-won.”

I cut 756 off at an appropriate point and looked at 446.

“Representative, are you all right?”

“No. Let me out. Right now. Before I kill you.”

I hesitated for a moment.

I had clearly decided to let them leave. I did not want to lose them like that again. But whenever I came to my “home”…

“Could you stay here? It’s dangerous outside.”

“You’re the one who said that if we die, we can just restart, Seon Yu-han.”

“You are my children!”

“What are you, my father?”

446 looked at me as though looking at something utterly contemptible.

“Yeah. You do act like him.”

Something turned cold in my chest.

I immediately covered my mouth.

No. I am. I…

“Ah.”

I had been doing the same thing as that woman.

No matter how much I struggled, I was still a child raised in that woman’s shadow.

I was still, Aunt’s…

At that moment.

The house crumbled away, and the children were freed.

Yu Mi-rae and Hyeon Je-won left the pen and went outside.

They were no longer my children.

Just as they had never been from the beginning.

Clunk.

“Have you been through this floor before?”

The moment we arrived on the seventeenth floor, where the Audit Office and conference room were located, Yu Mi-rae turned and asked.

With an utterly calm attitude, as though Yu Mi-rae had completely forgotten about being confined by me.

“…No. I’ve only been here once.”

“Great!”

Yu Mi-rae’s face lit up.

It was obvious Yu Mi-rae was glad there would be no one beside them offering advice.

“Then let’s go to the Audit Office first. Have you been there?”

“No. I went to the conference room first because I thought there might be entry restrictions.”

“Huh? Why?”

Yu Mi-rae, leading the way along the wall to our left, tilted their head.

“You should go to the place where you seem most likely to die first. That way, you won’t have to come back.”

“…Why would we need to come back?”

“Because I want to know every route.”

This was why game addicts were like this.

“I prefer dying even once less.”

“Huh? Really?”

Yu Mi-rae looked at me as though that was strange.

“You don’t seem like that kind of person.”

I did not ask what that meant.

When we reached the end of the wall and turned the corner, a translucent glass door came into view.

“I’ve never been here before…!”

“Yeah. That makes sense. We did call in Lab staff before, but that was before Mr. Je-won joined. Maybe you don’t know?”

The co-representative of Uiwi Guild casually opened the Audit Office door.

“…Was it originally built like this?”

I had expected to find a spacious office, but there was only a cramped, stifling corridor stretching straight ahead.

An unpleasant sense of déjà vu came over me.

“Yeah. You just need to turn three corners from here.”

Apparently, the office space was inside, reached by circling around the outer corridor.

“Why was it designed like this?”

“They say it was meant to put psychological pressure on people brought in for audit interviews.”

A straight corridor with walls on both sides, creating the sensation of moving deeper and deeper inside.

It could wear down the already weakened nerves of anyone summoned here.

…Just as I thought.

It was similar to the Labyrinth Management Bureau.

Rather than a coincidence, it was probably shared intent.

“I thought it would be fun if they made it a maze, but apparently that was not allowed. Ah, we’re here.”

There were eight doors in the corridor.

The Audit Office, followed by seven interview rooms crowded together in a row.

“We only have two interview rooms, though.”

Click.

“Ah, Representative Yu Mi-rae…!”

Yu Mi-rae abruptly flung open the door to Interview Room A.

“…”

It was empty.

Click.

Without hesitation, Yu Mi-rae immediately opened Interview Room B.

“Huh?”

At that puzzled reaction, I hurriedly followed and checked inside the room.

I made the same expression as Yu Mi-rae.

“Uh, um…”

The artifact researcher, entering last, hovered awkwardly behind Yu Mi-rae and me, too large to hide.

“Wait.”

I stretched out an arm to block Yu Mi-rae and looked at the person seated before the interview room desk.

A man named Jun-gyeom, who looked somehow familiar, wearing rimless glasses and an entirely black suit.

“…Who are you?”

Why was he here?

Last time, he had clearly been tied up in the conference room. Had I arrived later than before, giving him time to escape and come here?

No, something about him seemed a little different…

“I’m Kang Jun-gyeom.”

The man answered calmly in a deep voice.

Yu Mi-rae looked Kang Jun-gyeom over from head to toe, then spoke.

“You came from upstairs?”

The co-representative of Uiwi Guild asked with certainty.

It seemed there was no employee named Kang Jun-gyeom, at least not in the Audit Office on this floor or the Sales and Marketing Division below.

That was why Yu Mi-rae had concluded Kang Jun-gyeom came from above rather than below.

“…”

Kang Jun-gyeom neither confirmed nor denied it.

Why?

It did not seem like such an important secret.

If something terrible had happened upstairs and that was why Kang Jun-gyeom was staying silent, his expression was too calm.

It was almost as though Kang Jun-gyeom did not know the answer to the question.

Something felt off.

Not simply because of that composed attitude, but something else…

Had he changed after all?

I looked Kang Jun-gyeom over properly once more.

The part in his short, neat hair. The breast pocket on the right side of his black suit jacket. The buttons on the left. The hoop piercing on his right outer ear. The watch on his right wrist…

Ah, no way.

“…How many people are in your family?”

“Including me, two.”

The man whose left and right had been switched answered.