Chapter 20: With empty hands you come, with empty hands you leave

“It seems this floor is— ugh!”

I pointed the flashlight directly into Yoo Hyunjae’s eyes and threw a punch with all my strength.

“S-Seon Yuhan……? Why……?”

I ran desperately.

Toward the place where Yoo Hyunjae had been standing before.

“No. Wait. You mustn’t…….”

Which sector was it exactly?

C07? G01?

“It’s a misunderstanding. Stop.”

Ah. Seeing how this entire line belongs to sector C, it must be C07.

“Don’t go, Seon Yuhan. Stop. Stop running. You mustn’t see it…….”

It sounded like Yoo Hyunjae had gotten back up and was coming after me.

Maybe he had twisted his ankle when he fell earlier, because it didn’t sound like he was running.

“Ah.”

Here.

In sector C07 there was a sedan and an SUV parked.

On the parking stopper and the wall behind the sedan there were splashes of vomit, probably Yoo Hyunjae’s.

And on the stopper and wall behind the SUV……

“Ah, ah…….”

There was fresh red blood that hadn’t even finished coagulating yet.

Ah. No. No way. That doesn’t make sense.

Barely holding onto the vehicle, I staggered toward the driver’s side of the SUV hidden behind the pillar.

Tap.

And the instant I saw the scene before me, I dropped the phone.

“J-Jiho……?”

No. Not this. This is unfair.

“Miss Hwang Juyeon……?”

It looked like a stage play.

A faint white light softly illuminating the ceiling.

The innocent child and the innocent woman collapsed hand in hand.

Bodies soaked in dark blood as if they had received absolution for their sins, and pale faces almost transparent.

Fragments of exposed ribs, crushed and mangled red flesh, and the emptiness between them.

The missing heart.

A tragedy where only the purest receive an eternal and incomprehensible death, while the most impure survive by miserably clinging to life.

“H-how……? Why…… like this……?”

“Seon Yuhan…….”

“You, Yoo Hyunjae…… what the hell did you do?”

Crack!

My body reacted on instinct.

“Ugh…….”

“What the hell happened here?!”

“Calm down. It wasn’t me. Ngh…… it wasn’t me.”

As if trying to prove his innocence, Yoo Hyunjae slowly raised both hands.

They were dirty with dust, but there was no trace of blood on them.

“Don’t play games with me. Not even I believe you tore people apart like this with your bare hands.”

The elbow pressing against his throat began exerting more force.

“What I do believe is that you offered them as bait to a monster.”

“No. I just…….”

Yoo Hyunjae, cornered against the wall and coughing, lowered his head in shame without trying to resist.

His eyes hidden by the shadows were red.

I don’t understand.

I don’t understand how those two died like that in such a short amount of time.

And I don’t understand Yoo Hyunjae hiding this while wearing that hypocritical expression.

“Sorry for lying earlier. I thought you were the one trying to harm those two…….”

“……What?”

“I thought that, if things went wrong, I would have to attack you and run away…….”

“What…… what the hell are you saying……?”

Suddenly, I felt my chest tighten.

“Seon Yuhan, please…… calm down and listen to me.”

Yoo Hyunjae’s hands slowly covered the arm and fist with which I was holding him.

As that calm warmth passed through my skin, the strength gradually began leaving my body.

“When you asked about those two people at first, you sounded exactly like a hunter who had lost his prey…… so I misunderstood.”

Amid the chaos in my head, I struggled to reconstruct that conversation.

“Have you perhaps seen any other people around here?”

“Other people?”

“Yes. A woman and a child. They should’ve come down here.”

“Are they your family?”

“No. We met upstairs and, well…… I lost them.”

“Do I need to catch them?”

Hah.

While I was suspicious of Yoo Hyunjae, he was also suspicious of me.

And from his perspective, there was enough circumstantial evidence to consider me dangerous.

“And even if it was only for a moment, when I encountered them, they truly looked like they were running away from something.”

I couldn’t breathe.

As if I were listening to a story I should never have heard.

The voices were unraveling inside my head.

“The woman screamed in terror before she even properly saw my face. And shortly afterward they ended up like this…… Ah, Seon Yuhan, no. Don’t do that. Take a deep breath.”

So it was because of me.

Everything was because of me.

Because of me.

“Seon Yuhan. Breathe slowly.”

Someone grabbed my wrist.

It seemed someone was still talking.

But I could no longer hear properly.

Thump, thump.

I could feel my heart inside my ears.

Thump, thump.

Hearts.

The hearts of the dead too.

Thump, thump.

As if they were beating inside me.

Thump, thump.

They are mine.

The ones I took away.

Thump, thump.

They are mine.

The ones taken from me.

Thump, thump.

“Look at me. Calm do—”

Clank.

“Ah, so you did hear it. Maybe two minutes……?”

Clang. Splash.

Something was approaching from the darkness beyond the weak reach of the flashlight.

Clang-clack.

Metal colliding in a steady rhythm.

Kirik-kirik.

The faint sound of gears locking together.

Squish-splat.

Something like flesh being crushed beneath heavy footsteps.

“Seon Yuhan.”

A monster.

“Stop thinking about the dead and calm down first.”

A people-devouring monster.

“Take a deep breath. That is the only way you will survive.”

As if swallowing so many had not been enough.

In the end, even……

“According to my suspicions, that false Buddha is searching for hear—”

“—One who cannot free himself from desire does not understand that the self is empty, that you are empty, and that we are empty.”

Crack.

“Isn’t that, precisely, the true monster of the labyrinth?”

The instant that indifferent voice echoed beside my ear once more.

“The Tathagata is the one who comes in accordance with truth, who departs in accordance with truth, and who correctly awakens to nirvana.”

Crack, crunch.

“Willingly listening to the thoughts of beings incapable of severing their 108 desires.”

The compassionate fingers of the Buddha statue tore through my chest as if it were paper and shattered my ribs as they pierced through them.

“I shall personally guide these poor living beings toward the world of true reality.”

An icy mercy pierced through my entire body as though it were absolute truth.

“However, being reborn in paradise is neither a sufficient nor necessary condition to attain liberation.”

Even at that moment, Yoo Hyunjae was still holding my wrist.

Until the instant I abandoned the earthly world.

……You should have run away, you crazy bastard.

***

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

“Co—”

A horrifying pain rippled across my chest like a mirage.

It’s an illusion.

“The hear…… the hearts.”

“Huh? Seon Yuhan, are you feeling unwell?”

When I clutched my chest and muttered that, the interviewer looked at me with concern.

“No. I’m fine.”

“Ah, um… yes.”

I approached the interviewer, who answered with an uncomfortable expression.

“Get up. This building has turned into a labyrinth.”

“What?”

Once we were in the hallway, at first the interviewer looked at me as if he truly thought I was sick.

But when he saw me reciting the precautions inside the labyrinth like a mantra, he nodded seriously.

“Ah, and the librarian. We have to kill the librarian…….”

The instant I remembered that disgusting existence.

The words began spilling incoherently from my mouth.

“To get down from the second floor…… but the floors are mixed, and after that comes basement five, but in any case we have to kill the librarian in the library. It’ll be difficult, but we have to kill her. That damn thing……! That. That is not human.”

“Wait. One moment, Seon Yuhan.”

The moment I felt hands gripping both my arms, my trembling vision focused again.

There were no monsters disguised as humans there.

Nor humans bleeding to death because of them.

There was only the interviewer looking directly at me.

“Look at me.”

“Yes. I’m looking.”

“Good.”

When I finally managed to calm down, the interviewer finally smiled.

No… was it the other way around?

I probably could never become a Red Snake agent as good as him.

“But when you mention the library, do you mean Book & Allae? There isn’t actually a librarian there originally. It’s an autonomous borrowing system…….”

“Ah, shi—”

This time it was truly difficult to hold back the curse.

“It’s not that easy…….”

“Huh?”

“I’m saying it’s not that easy. These labyrinths…… really…….”

I felt heat rising from deep inside my abdomen.

So all that chaos had happened repeatedly just because the people gathered there had never been to Book & Allae before?

“Then I’ll see you later, Seon Yuhan. Be careful.”

“Yes. Don’t wait for me. I hope you make it out alive.”

After finishing the remaining explanations, I quickly separated from the interviewer.

3:31… 3:32.

Click.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiing—!

I activated the fire alarm and sprinted down the hallway to press the elevator button.

4… 3… Ding!

That was close.

I panicked and lost time; I almost didn’t make it.

“The doors are opening.”

The elevator doors split apart to both sides like a chest ripped open.

The expressionless face of the brown-haired accountant, impeccably dressed, appeared.

“Are you going up? I was just about to head down because of the alarm.”

“……Long time no see, Choi Jaeha.”

Seriously.

***

“I already told you it won’t work…….”

“We won’t know until we tr—”

“—Uh, excuse me…….”

While we were arguing on the second floor about whether or not to break the windows with a fire extinguisher, we ran into Hwang Juyeon, who had just come out of the endless staircase.

If you activated the alarm before 3:33, before the blackout, you could get Choi Jaeha to come down from the third floor and also meet Hwang Juyeon in the hallway.

Even though it had almost happened by accident, we had found a way to gather outside Book & Allae.

The three of us quickly shared our situations and introduced ourselves.

“I came here to do a magic show at the daycare, you know. Then I thought I’d rest for a bit in the library and… ah, seriously.”

The voice with which she added “I wish I hadn’t” sounded bitter.

“Ah, right! The librarian!”

Suddenly, Hwang Juyeon shouted as if she had just remembered.

“Where was she for us not to run into her? Is she still inside the library……? Ah, no, when the alarm went off I headed toward the entrance and the librarian was there. When I entered I didn’t see her because she wasn’t at her spot, but……”

The freelance magician awkwardly explained the situation.

“Anyway, I asked her what the hell was happening, whether the alarm was real. And she told me to leave first. That she was going to check the administration office and then come out right away. But now that I think about it, if she came out, she should still be on the second floor, right? Because no matter how much you go down, you can’t reach the lower floor.”

“Ah, wait a moment, Hwang Juyeon.”

I called out to Hwang Juyeon just as she was about to head toward the library.

“What do you think about you and Choi Jaeha going to the daycare first? I’ll go look for the librarian.”

I could not let them enter the library.

Neither Hwang Juyeon nor Choi Jaeha.

No one except me.

I could not make the same mistake again.

“You at least already have some familiarity with children, so they’ll probably accept you more easily. I’ll bring the librarian and head to the daycare right away.”

“You’re not thinking of abandoning us and escaping alone, are you?”

Choi Jaeha glanced sideways at me.

He seemed half-joking, so I weakly shook my head.

“I wish there were a place I could run away to, even if I wanted to.”

Mm.

It seems it didn’t sound funny. Even though I really was joking.

“In any case, if nothing strange happens in the library…….”

3:41.

I checked the time and continued.

“Even if I’m delayed, I’ll get to the daycare in less than ten minutes.”

“Fine. Go quickly, bring the librarian, and come right back. Don’t do anything weird.”

Leaving behind the accountant whose trust in me tended toward zero and the freelance magician looking at me with concern, I headed toward Book & Allae.

If my theory is correct, the reading club checks participants every ten minutes and begins whenever there is at least one human besides the librarian.

That meant there were still nine minutes left before 3:50.

“U-uh……? How did you open the door? I couldn’t get out because it was locked…….”

Nine minutes are enough.

“E-excuse me……? Why are you looking at me like that……?”

To kill a monster.

**

Kill the librarian. There is no librarian here, and that thing is not human.