Chapter 17: Exit Music

“Why… why can’t I get out?”

The three of us fell into confusion.

Hwang Juyeon and I could enter and leave without any problem.

But Kim Gilyeong couldn’t get out.

Even if we grabbed her and pulled, her hands would slip free right at the boundary of the doorway.

When she was dead, she could come out.

“What the hell is wrong…?”

Suddenly, my gaze fell on Kim Gilyeong’s employee ID badge.

“Librarian.”

“Y-yes? Yes…?”

“No, I thought maybe it’s because you’re a librarian.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe librarians have different rules. Different from normal visitors like us.”

Just like the students of Seonghwa High had to complete the graduation ceremony to escape the labyrinth.

Just like the masked monsters of each grade could not enter the teachers’ office.

Invasion-type labyrinths reflect people’s identities and the original characteristics of the place in their rules.

“So… is there a separate condition for Gilyeong to be able to leave? And how are we supposed to find something like that…?”

Hwang Juyeon let out an exhausted sigh, and Kim Gilyeong burst into tears for real.

“I’m sorry… sniff… I’m really sorry. I know this is selfish but… don’t leave me here alone… don’t leave me here alone…! I… I really am trash… huuuaaa…”

I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

I know that fear.

The despair of the one left behind. The helplessness of the one being evaluated.

“I…!”

While I only bit my lips, Hwang Juyeon hurriedly hugged the librarian to calm her down.

“I’ll stay here with you. So don’t worry too much. We’re not going to abandon you, okay? There, stop crying. Seon Yuhan.”

“Yes?”

The freelance magician and piano teacher waved her free hand toward me.

“Go first. What was the name? Jipo? Jiho? Anyway, you said you knew a child, right?”

Hwang Juyeon let me go just like that.

Telling me to hurry and check on the child, without making me feel guilty.

“Understood. Then I’ll come back…”

Faced with that consideration, the first thing I felt was shame and an unpleasant discomfort. I lowered my head while muttering and left almost as if fleeing.

Even though Hwang Juyeon was probably already like that even before reading my story.

I shook off those thoughts and ran toward the Woorisaenal daycare.

The short distance between the library and the daycare felt unbearably long.

Sshk.

Finally, I opened the daycare door and entered.

“Oh!”

The teacher, whose personality was as wicked as her appearance was ridiculous, raised those black pupils toward me.

“Hi! Could you tell me what brings you here?”

Damn. It seems she doesn’t recognize me.

Did I really skip the daycare?

That makes no sense. That couldn’t have happened.

“Did you perhaps come for an enrollment consultation?”

“No. I…”

“Or are you perhaps the guardian of one of our children?”

Guardian.

The moment I heard that word, my mind, which had stopped for a moment, started working at full speed.

“Yes. Isn’t the child Jung Jiho here?”

Of course.

I am completely sure that, even in this loop, I came to the daycare first with Hwang Juyeon before going to the library.

That I obtained the role of Jung Jiho’s temporary guardian and that we performed choreography shows to exhaust the toys. Of course, this time without making Hwang Juyeon suspicious.

“I’m sure I’m his temporary guardian.”

Then the goose teacher became completely still for several seconds.

Like an artificial intelligence processing a request impossible to understand.

“Hmm. I think there’s a misunderstanding.”

Finally, the goose tilted its white neck and spoke.

“There is no child named Jung Jiho in Saenal daycare.”

A horrible chill ran through my stomach and I swallowed involuntarily.

Let’s accept, even if only as the slightest possibility, that for some reason I don’t even remember, I went to the library first.

But even so, it’s telling me it doesn’t know a child who clearly attended here?

A child whose name was written on his locker?

And coming from a labyrinth monster whose rule consisted precisely of tormenting him?

“Are you perhaps an employee of Yuwi Guild?”

The controlling library that punishes you if you don’t follow instructions.

Its penalty was not simply erasing memories. It was completely erasing someone’s very existence and manipulating all the memories and situations related to that person.

“From your silence, I assume you are not.”

So Jung Jiho simply disappeared? As if he had never existed here?

And if the labyrinth were resolved like that? What would happen to him? And to his parents?

“Saenal daycare prohibits entry to outsiders.”

***

“If it were possible to turn back time, what would you do, Mr. Seon Yuhan?”

As I was already used to it, I explained the current situation and necessary precautions to the interviewer, activated the fire alarm, and went down to the second floor, where I met Hwang Juyeon.

After that, everything flowed similarly, though more smoothly than in the previous round where Hwang Juyeon had disqualified me as a companion because of my comment about “because you know how to play piano.”

We found the child Jung Jiho while he was receiving punishment disguised as education inside the daycare, obtained permission from the goose for him to leave early, and started performing clumsy choreographies to play with the “children” until they got tired.

And from here on, everything was new.

At least, according to my current memories, this had never happened before.

“……the child stays alone……”

We managed to make the “children” finally fall asleep peacefully, resting their arms beneath their heads to the rhythm of the lullaby.

“My goodness, they fell deeply asleep. They must have had so much fun.”

For the first time, the ridiculous-looking goose monster spoke softly, almost in a whisper.

It stared directly at me with those bean-like black eyes and slowly bent its white neck.

“Thank you for playing so well with our children. Then have a safe trip, guardian sirs. Jiho, you take care too.”

“Mm.”

I hugged the exhausted Jung Jiho, asleep in my arms, and answered vaguely.

Sshhk.

The entrance to Saenal daycare opened smoothly, as if it had never been blocked.

“Huff……. Uuugh, my hands hurt. I was more nervous than during a piano competition, seriously.”

As soon as the door closed, Hwang Juyeon collapsed against the wall and shook both hands while massaging them.

“Seon Yuhan, you should sit down and rest a bit. Are you okay? You look completely exhausted.”

“No. Let’s go down quickly.”

I gently patted the child on the back as he slept with my shoulder as a pillow.

“It’s possible that saving Jiho was the condition for getting down to the first floor.”

“Ah, that could be it. Let’s hurry.”

To summarize it, we went down those stairs whether they were stairs to heaven or hell, who knows carrying the child on my back, but nothing changed.

Only my arms and legs ended up trembling even more.

And I couldn’t wake a child sleeping that deeply either.

With the cursed characteristics of those stairs, if I stopped halfway down, we would probably end up falling.

I don’t understand how parents carry children like this.

“Ah, right! Wait, the librarian was there. Don’t tell me she’s still trapped in the library…….”

“Miss Hwang Juyeon, then I……”

Ah, damn it.

I was just about to say I would go to the library alone when I realized my mistake.

In the previous round, I should have confirmed first whether finishing the reading club was the condition for getting down to the first floor.

But I was in such a hurry that I went straight to the daycare.

I also couldn’t ask Hwang Juyeon to wait outside with Jung Jiho.

Maybe only those who completed the reading club could go down.

“A-ah, no. Let’s go in together. There might be clues there about the condition for going down, so let’s take the opportunity to check.”

Current time: 3:54 p.m.

The three of us opened the library door.

***

“It is time for the reading club.”

Once again, that voice impossible to distinguish as either a divine revelation or narration echoed out.

Now it was exactly 4:00 p.m.

Even though other times it had started at 3:50.

“No additional participants will be accepted until the reading club is over.”

So they check participants every ten minutes and then the meeting starts?

When the explanation ended, a white book fell into the hands of all four of us.

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

“D-do we just have to read……?”

“Yes. Let’s read them. Ah.”

Suddenly, I thought of something and looked at the child sitting to my right.

How old is he exactly?

Can he even read a book this thick?

“Jiho, can you read Korean?”

The child nodded with a nervous expression.

Thank goodness.

At least he could read a little.

Maybe he wouldn’t understand every word, but it’s not like adults always understand everything they read either.

“Then read slowly. And if there’s something you don’t understand, ask me or the teachers here.”

I looked at that tightly closed mouth and added,

“You don’t necessarily have to speak. Understood?”

Only then did the child nod again.

[Kim Gilyeong was born on September 16 at 7:32 p.m.]

The moment we opened the books, everyone except me looked up in confusion.

“But this book…….”

Kim Gilyeong received Hwang Juyeon’s book.

Hwang Juyeon received Jung Jiho’s.

Jung Jiho received mine.

And I received Kim Gilyeong’s.

[“Munrim Elementary students who will write a new story!”

The days when they listened to the principal’s boring speeches in front of the podium and sang the school anthem.]

Even though I had already finished this book before, I was careful not to skip any parts.

[“You came from Sangnim too, right?”

After the middle school entrance ceremony, someone cheerfully approached Kim Gilyeong, who was sitting alone among noisy classmates because of her introverted personality. Hong Donghui. Kim Gilyeong glanced sideways at the name tag.

“It looks like only you and I came from the same elementary school in our class. Let’s eat together later!”

Dark skin, a huge smile that showed even her throat, steps always full of energy. Hong Donghui became Kim Gilyeong’s favorite friend.]

Hm?

Something…….

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

I looked at the silent child sitting to my right.

Clearly, he was struggling to focus on a book filled with nothing but text and not a single illustration.

His eyes were pointed at the book, but he was completely distracted.

I think I chose the seat well…….

“Jiho, even if it’s difficult, you have to read. It doesn’t matter if you go slowly.”

I spoke while trying to force away that thought crawling through my mind like an insect.

I really am a horrible adult.

“Hm? Is there something you don’t understand?”

As if he had been waiting, the child pointed at a section in my book.

“Ah, this?”

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

The moment I took the book in which I myself was the protagonist, the voice echoed like a warning.

“Can I really only read the book I was given……?”

I tried to keep a calm expression.

“Well, in short, this means something like a legal guardian. In other words, like a mom or dad. When a child doesn’t have a mom or dad, other close relatives or other adults have to take on that role. Those people are called that.”

I have no idea what the proper level of explanation is for a preschool child.

Although, to begin with, this doesn’t seem like an appropriate story for someone his age either.

“If there are words you don’t understand, keep asking. Mm, it seems they do allow quick glances at other people’s books.”

The child’s expression, as he obediently nodded, darkened a little more.

I turned my attention back to the book.

[Kim Gilyeong won a school literary review contest.

“After reading this book, I thought dreams aren’t things that only happen at night.

(omitted)

That’s why, after reading this book, I would open the closet door a little every night.”

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

It was one of the parts that had been considered a spoiler in the previous reading club.

Even rereading it, it still seemed strange to me, but I continued reading.

[Kim Gilyeong absentmindedly watched the white snow falling outside the window, scattering like flower petals. As if celebrating her birthday.]

……Wait.

Flip, flip.

I carefully turned pages forward. Then back.

[“What was the name of your best elementary school friend?”

Kim Gilyeong remembered a memory as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. A friend with skin as pale as someone who had never seen sunlight, with charming dimples when she smiled. Hong Donghui. Kim Gilyeong wrote the answer without difficulty.]

Frrp.

Forward. Further ahead. Then back again.

[Stopping in front of an empty space on the bookshelf, Kim Gilyeong placed a novel by C. S. Lewis there. Secretly reading the book she had loved most in childhood, even though it no longer had demand among users of the corporate library, was a privilege exclusive to the librarian.]

Forward. Then backward again.

“…….”

My forehead soaked with cold sweat itched, and the fingers holding the pages trembled.

Pretending to scratch the back of my hand, I forcibly hid the trembling while moving my eyes.

My palms were damp with sweat and my mouth was drying rapidly.

I can’t let them notice.

……That I realized it.