Chapter 12: And then there was no one left?

I reacted one step earlier and pulled the librarian toward me, while Choi Jaeha grabbed Hwang Juyeon.

“Y-you’re crazy! What are you doing? You’re crazy!”

“—?! What—!? —gh—!?”

“Ugh…! Ah!”

Thud.

The attacker, shouting incomprehensible words, struggled until the accountant pushed her back.

She violently hit the back of her head against the sharp corner of a shelf and fell.

I looked alternately at the two failed aggressors and the two unconscious ones, and suddenly I wondered.

How will this scene be described?

Will it say that I failed to stop it?

Or…?

“S-she’s not dead, right? Seon Yuhan, w-what do we do?”

“Kim Gilyeong wasn’t stabbed deeply, so she’ll be fine. I think she just fainted from the shock.”

It’s not easy to kill someone with a regular pen.

A couple of stabs to the chest covered by clothing do not cause a fatal wound.

Unless you aim for the eye from the start to reach the brain, or precisely at the carotid artery.

“As for Hwang Juyeon… I don’t know. It looks like a concussion, and the back of her head is split open. Hwang Juyeon! Hwang Juyeon!”

I placed a cushion under her head and tried to check her consciousness, but she didn’t respond.

I can do basic first aid, but I don’t know how to treat a concussion.

It’s not always fatal, but in her case it looks serious she’s unconscious and bleeding.

The only thing I can do is stop the bleeding as best as I can.

Improvised.

If I had a medical kit it would be easier.

“I… I just… tried to stop her… I didn’t push her hard… ugh…”

“I know. It’s not your fault, Mr. Choi Jaeha. Don’t worry too much.”

I patted his back while he struggled to breathe.

If this guy loses his mind too, it will be a problem.

“Hwang Juyeon tried to kill Kim Gilyeong, and you just stopped her. It’s self-defense.”

It may not legally be so, but it’s not something I should tell him now.

“Mr. Choi Jaeha, drink some water.”

There was a dispenser in the library.

The accountant walked unsteadily and drank.

Meanwhile, I pushed two sofas together and laid the librarian down.

I placed the other one where I could see her, but outside Choi Jaeha’s field of view.

But… why did Hwang Juyeon try to kill Kim Gilyeong?

And with that expression of fear.

I looked at the book that Hwang Juyeon had dropped.

Maybe the answer is in Kim Gilyeong’s story.

Did she do something horrible?

Is she the daughter of someone who killed her family?

Or something like that…

Did she think she deserved to die?

Will I understand if I read it?

“The participants of the reading club read their respective books.”

As soon as I reached out toward another book, the voice interrupted me.

“Mr. Choi Jaeha, I know it’s difficult, but open the book. We must read at least one sentence.”

“And what do we do with them…?”

Right.

What about those two?

They can’t read.

“Mr. Choi Jaeha, sit down.”

“But…”

“There’s nothing else we can do for them.”

The librarian will wake up if everything goes well.

Hwang Juyeon, if she’s lucky, will live with sequelae. If not, she will die.

“The participants of the reading club read their respective books.”

No matter what we do, we cannot change the outcome.

“The only thing we can do now…”

Is follow the rules.

I forced him to sit.

“The participants of the reading club read their respective books.”

“Read.”

My voice was drowned out by the voice of the labyrinth.

But Choi Jaeha understood.

I also sat down and opened the book.

[When Choi Jaeha was in his third year of middle school, his brother married his college girlfriend…]

His brother was always someone distant.

But upon becoming a father.

He felt more distant and closer at the same time.

I wonder if his sister is already married.

“The participants of the reading club read their respective books.”

[The house without his sister was silent…]

What?

“The participants of the reading club read their respective books.”

[He thought it would be better without her scoldings… but…]

Ah.

She didn’t die.

She just went abroad.

I sighed in relief.

It was the first time I felt tension while reading.

“The participants of the reading club read their respective books.”

How long will this keep repeating?

How long will it wait for them?

The labyrinth is not a compassionate place.

“Ugh… ugh…”

A small sound broke the silence of the reading club.

I immediately raised my head.

“Miss Kim Gilyeong. Are you conscious?”

“Ah… yes… ugh.”

The librarian frowned as she struggled to sit up, as if she felt pain in her chest.

“Uh… I… this… why…?”

“You were unconscious. Do you remember what happened?”

“Hmm… uh… no… not very well…”

Kim Gilyeong did not remember at all who had stabbed her.

She seemed to have lost her memory from the impact.

The human brain sometimes does those kinds of curious things.

Or should I say horrible?

In any case, that means Kim Gilyeong does not know who the culprit is.

“The participants of the reading club read their respective books.”

“I know it’s difficult, but sit down and read that book.”

“Yes… yes…”

Only when I confirmed that the librarian had started reading her book did I turn my gaze back to mine.

[Kim Gilyeong was born on September 16 at 7:32 in the evening.]

Huh?

Something is strange.

[Kim Gilyeong’s father used to put his little daughter on his back and read newspapers or books while lying face down. For Kim Gilyeong, reading was something completely natural in her daily life.]

Then why did the culprit fail to kill her this time, unlike before?

Did they hear us coming and run away?

I looked to the left.

Ah, I got confused.

Did the culprit hear us coming and escape without finishing what they were doing?

But trying to kill her twice.

That no longer seems like something caused only by the labyrinth.

There could be personal resentment.

[“Munrim elementary school children who will write a new story!”

The time when they listened to the principal’s boring speeches in front of the podium and sang the school anthem. The time when there were school Saturdays and free Saturdays. The time when they shared 500-won cup tteokbokki and slushies, buying tokens at the stationery store. The time when they competed to see who climbed the bars first or who swung higher on the swing.]

Something definitely doesn’t add up.

Isn’t it supposed that you can’t leave the library here?

Then how did they escape?

Could it have been before this became a labyrinth?

No… it doesn’t make sense.

Am I overlooking something?

No, of course I am.

But something important.

Something I shouldn’t ignore.

What is it?

[Kim Gilyeong won a school review contest.

“After reading this book, I thought that dreams are not only things that happen at night. Because we too, at school, suddenly grow or shrink, or run with a clock in hand for fear of being late. And sometimes, the things friends say seem so unreal that one doesn’t know if they were real or a dream.
When Alicia woke up at the end, I felt sad. Because I would like to always live in such a strange place. If it were me, I wouldn’t return.

But Alicia returned and continued her life as if nothing had happened. That seemed normal to me, but also sad.

This book is fun, a bit scary and confusing. But thinking that all of that could be real made me feel that that world truly exists.

That’s why, after reading it, I opened the closet door a little every night.”]

《Alice in Wonderland》 became Kim Gilyeong’s favorite book.

Wait.

If I read the last page, could I discover the culprit?

The book follows her life in chronological order.

Then, the recent part should be at the end.

Unless it doesn’t include what she doesn’t remember but it’s worth trying.

Flap.

[Kim Gilyeong—]

The sound of pages turning.

[Kim Gilyeong, with a puzzled look—]

At me—

[Kim Gilyeong looked at Seon Yuhan with a bewildered expression.

“Se—”]

“Yuhan…?”

“A life is a story. That is the theme of this reading club.”

“Damn it.”

“The gaze that flows from left to right collides with a void and falls from top to bottom. Then it flows again from left to right. Again it is blocked by a white wall and falls. It rushes to climb to the top. And once again runs toward a final point…”

[“Turn to the next page.”]

From the voice that suddenly echoed in the library, it seems I made another mistake.

[“Words that sound like a revelation impossible to reject. Sounds that are read like an incomprehensible poem.

Repeating it infinitely until, at some point, it stops with a final point. That is the rule of a story.”]

If a life is a story, then the rule of the story is the rule of life.

“Seon Yuhan broke that rule.”

So reading the ending while skipping the rest is enough reason for this?

[“Seon Yuhan…?”]

The voice of the librarian, filled with confusion, fear, and concern, reached my eyes and ears.

Just before my memory cut off—

An absurd thought crossed my mind.

‘I read Alice in Wonderland then, so why did I open the closet?’

**

Do not skip parts while reading a book during the reading club.