Chapter 26: Heaven & Hell HUB

Choi Jaeha took the lead and began guiding us.

“No, it’s just that I’d never heard of Sammae Delivery before. I found it strange, so I remembered it. The companies here usually already have designated delivery services they use.”

Director Yoo Hyunjae, who had explored the same area as Choi Jaeha, showed no particular reaction.

Which made sense. He was someone who had no need to know which logistics companies came in and out of the building.

“Yes, it’s this one. Sammae Delivery.”

On the rectangular cargo compartment that Choi Jaeha pointed at, the words “Sammae Delivery” were written in large orange letters.

Bae9502, white cargo truck, E02.

Just in case, I also memorized and photographed the vehicle’s information and location.

“Can we open the cargo compartment?”

“Isn’t it locked?”

“Yes. It looks like the latch is already open.”

Just as Hwang Juyeon said, it seemed all we had to do was pull the handles that looked like latches.

Rather than thinking the driver of this suspicious truck had forgotten to lock it on this particular day, it was more reasonable to assume all of this was the labyrinth’s doing.

“Then I’ll open it. Stay alert in case something strange comes out.”

At those words, Choi Jaeha and Hwang Juyeon covered the child’s eyes and stepped back slightly.

Director Yoo Hyunjae positioned himself behind me with an expression that was a mixture of tension and curiosity. I never expected him to help me open the door.

Clack.

I grabbed both handles and pulled.

Creeeak…

The door began to open slowly, and a faint flashlight beam slipped through the gap into the dark compartment.

And when the light reached the back.

“Ah…!”

I let out an exclamation without meaning to.

“W-what is it? What’s wrong? Ugh…!”

“It’s nothing. It’s just a dummy.”

There was a flesh-colored dummy the size of a person.

Its joints were twisted into grotesque positions.

Its appearance reminded me of a mannequin, and I felt a chill run down my spine.

I tried not to think about that mannequin with the golden scale for a head.

Nor about that formula that added and subtracted my weight by body parts.

“It’s a crash test dummy.”

Creeeak.

Yoo Hyunjae climbed into the compartment without hesitation and examined the dummy.

“A dummy?”

“Yes. A vehicle crash test dummy. See that yellow-and-black circular mark on its temple?”

At his words, I forced myself to push those thoughts aside and climbed into the compartment to get closer.

The arms and legs were bent in impossible directions.

The pelvis and thighs, in particular, looked as though they had been violently twisted.

No matter how I looked at it.

“It looks like it was run over.”

I could calculate exactly what conditions would leave a person like this.

The model of the vehicle.

The distance between the car and me.

The speed.

The moment the driver notices me.

Their reaction time.

The point where they hit the brakes.

Every possible scenario.

It was a very old habit.

So old it felt engraved into my bones.

So old that I could barely remember the faces of my parents, who died in an accident.

“Run over badly? This must be a clue too. Does anything come to mind?”

“Yes.”

Even though this dummy was smaller than me and did not seem to have the proportions of an average adult.

And even though there were still missing clues.

I had a few ideas.

“The skid marks we saw earlier. At a speed high enough to leave marks like that, this could happen.”

“Then they’re evidence from the scene.”

Yoo Hyunjae nodded as if he understood immediately.

“A scene? Not an accident?”

Choi Jaeha asked from outside, leaning only his upper body into the compartment.

“Director, are you saying this actually happened?”

“Not necessarily.”

Yoo Hyunjae smiled as if the question were almost a joke.

“But if it did happen, then it would be an unsolved case.”

“An unsolved case? Why?”

The guild director who made his living exploring labyrinths curled his lips into a smile.

“Because labyrinths are graves for unresolved problems. And those things are always waiting for someone to come and solve them.”

It was a poetic statement.

And at the same time brutally straightforward.

For the first time, I understood that Yoo Hyunjae was not someone who observed labyrinths only from the comfort of an office chair through written reports.

He also saw the real labyrinths that existed beyond those documents.

“Huh? Jiho, what’s wrong? What’s over there…? Aaah!”

Suddenly, a scream came from outside.

“Hwang Juyeon-ssi?”

“Are you alright?”

We hurried out of the truck.

Hwang Juyeon was sitting on the ground, gritting her teeth.

Jung Jiho was crouched beside her with a tearful expression, not knowing what to do.

“What happened?”

“Ugh…”

Hwang Juyeon pulled up her pant leg slightly while groaning.

There were small drops of blood on her ankle.

They looked like two tiny puncture marks left by a needle.

“A snake… a snake…”

“A snake?”

“Agh, o-over there…”

Hwang Juyeon pointed underneath the truck.

And indeed.

There was a snake coiled up, watching us.

“T-there’s really a snake!”

Choi Jaeha stepped back in horror.

I quickly took off my tie and tied it above the wound to apply pressure.

Current time.

4:17 p. m.

It did not look like a venomous viper.

But this was a labyrinth.

I could not be sure.

We needed to observe how long it took for the bleeding to stop.

…And also how much time would pass before the monster appeared.

“B-but I’m not going to die, right?”

122, 116, 109, 113, 120…

The numbers on Hwang Juyeon’s smartwatch fluctuated nonstop.

She seemed worried about the scream she had let out.

From experience, I was convinced that the false Buddha did not come because of screams but because of heart rate.

But I did not say it with certainty.

They would not have believed me.

“Don’t worry about the scream. Try to calm down first. If that monster really is attracted to heartbeats, we still have time.”

Looking back on it, all of us had been startled many times.

But the Buddha did not always appear.

And when it did appear, it did not arrive the very instant a heart began racing.

There was always some delay.

“If it doesn’t appear immediately even though your heart is beating that fast, that means there’s another condition besides heart rate that involves time. So calm down and take deep breaths.”

“Haa… ugh…”

But Hwang Juyeon’s heart rate continued fluctuating between 110 and 125.

“The blood… ugh… the blood won’t stop!”

“What?”

Startled, I looked at her ankle.

The bleeding had practically stopped.

Only a few drops remained pooled around the two fang marks.

“I… was bitten by a venomous snake, right?”

“No. It’s not venomous. I don’t know what you’re seeing, but that’s an illusion…”

Hwang Juyeon was seeing a hallucination created by the labyrinth.

“Hwang Juyeon-ssi, Seon Yuhan-ssi is right.”

Yoo Hyunjae spoke while trying to calm the frightened Jung Jiho.

“It’s an ordinary snake. As far as I know, venomous ones have triangular heads.”

“Ugh, don’t li—”

—Clank.

“Damn it. Hwang Juyeon-ssi, please. Calm down. I’m begging you…”

“Seon Yuhan-ssi. It’s too late. We need to hide.”

The blood-soaked Buddha was approaching.

“That which you cherish. That which you fear. That which makes you bleed. I come from all those cracks.”

Yoo Hyunjae forcibly dragged me behind a pillar on the other side.

Choi Jaeha and Jung Jiho were already crouched down, trying to hide.

“You still do not understand for yourself that your heart remains bound by the one hundred and eight afflictions. Then how could you cut them away? How could you free yourself from them and attain perfect enlightenment?”

Crack, splash…

“Kgh, aaaaah!”

I remained motionless behind the pillar, watching everything.

Without closing my eyes.

Without covering my ears.

Without covering my mouth.

“……”

The heart that had been racing wildly slowly began returning to its normal rhythm.

It felt so unreal that it gave me chills.

And at the same time, strangely comforting.

The same sensation as those times when, unable to endure any more violence, my incorporeal self was forcibly separated from my physical body to escape the pain.

Strangely.

I felt that it was the most human thing of all.

And also the most alive.

“Seon Yuhan-ssi? Seon Yuhan-ssi?”

“Ah. Ah…”

When I came back to my senses.

Everything was over.

The white truck had been stained red.

And the monster had already left.

“Are you alright, Seon Yuhan-ssi?”

“Ah… yes…”

I stared blankly at my phone screen.

4:19 p. m.

4:20 p. m.

“Between the moment it started approaching and the actual moment of death, subtracting that time, and counting from when Hwang Juyeon was bitten by the snake until the first sound of footsteps was heard…”

“Between a minute and a half and two minutes?”

Without realizing it, I muttered to myself as though reciting a sutra.

And for some reason, I felt as though I had heard something similar before.

“Huh? D-director! Seon Yuhan-ssi! The snake is moving!”

At that moment, Choi Jaeha’s sudden shout brought me back to reality.

The snake that had emerged from beneath the truck began moving somewhere.

“Seon Yuhan-ssi, if you’re tired, you can stay here and rest with Jiho. We’ll go follow it.”

Yoo Hyunjae spoke without taking his eyes off the direction Choi Jaeha was pointing.

“Huh? You mean me?”

“No. I’ll go. I’d prefer Choi Jaeha-ssi to stay behind and look after Jiho.”

“Ah, yes, of course. I have a niece, I’m very good with children.”

And so, leaving Choi Jaeha behind as he hugged and comforted the trembling child, I followed the snake alongside Yoo Hyunjae.

It was not moving very quickly, so we were able to keep our distance while following it.

“Could it be that car?”

When he saw the vehicle in front of which the snake had stopped, Yoo Hyunjae made an odd expression, as if unsure whether to laugh or not.

“Ah…!”

Tap—!

The snake, which had been watching both of us, suddenly leaped.

And disappeared into the car’s emblem.

In other words, a snake the size of a human arm entered a flat emblem smaller than a palm and became the image of a snake.

“The logo of this car brand originally has a snake on the right and a cross on the left, though I suppose that isn’t important.”

Seo8102, red sports sedan, A11.

While memorizing the vehicle’s information and location, Yoo Hyunjae set aside that useless curiosity.

“For now, I’ll open the door.”

Click.

As expected, it opened easily.

I sat in the driver’s seat and checked the sun visor, the door compartments, and the center console.

I found nothing.

“Oh.”

Yoo Hyunjae, who had opened the passenger-side glove compartment, pulled something out.

“There’s a catalog. A car catalog.”

It was a catalog describing several models from a well-known domestic brand.

“Perhaps there’s a clue about the next car in here…”

The moment Yoo Hyunjae opened the catalog.

Bang!

Click!

The doors on both sides slammed shut simultaneously and locked at once.

“Ha…”

Damn it.

I barely managed to hold back the curse and pulled on the handle.

But it was useless.

As expected.

“It seems it wasn’t just my hallucination. This door won’t open either.”

Then.

Chzzzt, chzzzt…

The radio turned on.

And static began to play.