Chapter 206

To the man who had fallen silent, Baek Mu-jin asked again,

"What do you think?"

"It did… seem off, yes."

The man's expression was thoroughly reluctant.

"That's the very part I wanted to ask about, too."

"Speak. I'll hear you out even now."

"I didn't think he looked like an adult either, and he sounded human enough… but setting that aside, treating a being inside a Labyrinth—one not even small of stature—like a child isn't a natural thing to do, is it."

"By instinctively seeing that child so, she became able to withstand the Gaps, I'd say."

That was how she at last became an Artist. Taking in only as much as she could withstand, and feeling rapture in it.

"This is only conjecture. As for what exactly Seon-hae was thinking, and what particular attachment led her to that misperception—work out the details between the two of you."

"I'd rather not."

"I'll indulge you exactly three times today as well."

"I'm honored."

"That is how the residents of the Gaps go on living, by giving out names."

Baek Mu-jin ran his thumb over the glass.

"Effective or not, it's a place so free-spirited you can't endure it without defining things even in that way."

"You're saying the power a name holds is tremendous."

"And so your first worry, too, is put to rest."

To give a name is a thing this frightful.

"Because that's something even powerless humans can do."

The modern public would be unable to see 'Our Hotel' as anything more or less than a game.

"In which case your second concern is resolved as well. The limited manipulation within a game can hardly produce the 'fixation' you speak of. Being, after all, merely about a game, their thoughts and feelings only cement 'Our Hotel' further as a game."

"……."

"You said you worried how the Sensitivity Bureau and the vigilantes might respond. Gangwon's Director has already resolved to preserve the fellow. There's no way the Bureau could give up a honeypot that not only controls a threat without casualties but can even command other Labyrinths. Head Office won't leave it be."

The man's expression was still unconvinced.

"Even so, the hardliners, or the vigilantes outright, might…."

"Many of them are the sort who don't look around them to begin with."

Baek Mu-jin's voice was even.

"'Our Hotel' will inevitably keep growing in size—did you think I had to keep hiding it forever? Did you truly believe it would have to be so?"

"At the very least, you shouldn't leave an unprepared 'honeypot' out in a precarious situation, should you?"

"Which is exactly why you failed to consider that this affair could become an opportunity?"

If a 'game' truly launched, anyone could experience 'Our Hotel' without pressure. The stronger the hatred, the more there'd be who sought information through that 'game.'

And among them, someone would surely realize it. That this is not a target my hatred should reach.

"Merely by taking the 'form of a game,' many will let down their guard. Had it been a honeypot that would break just from that much information spreading, I wouldn't have gone to such lengths."

"That 'Our Hotel' Labyrinth…."

The man, hesitating, cautiously went on to ask,

"there's no chance it will change its mind, is there."

The Gaps he knew were terribly violent, and Labyrinths were Disasters you couldn't reason with. He'd never seen or heard it directly, but the knowledge he'd built up indirectly told him so.

"If it grows discontent, how long could a young Dokkaebi living in that Labyrinth last?"

"Oh."

Baek Mu-jin gazed quietly at his precious youngest son.

"So you've finally taken a mind to come into this line of work?"

"Don't put 'have you gone mad' in a roundabout way—my head aches enough as it is, it's hard to parse. But whatever his exact age, it's a fact that for a Labyrinth or a Dokkaebi he's young, isn't it."

"Quite young."

Baek Mu-jin nodded and asked again,

"In what sense did you read the 'uri' of 'Our Hotel'?"

"Sorry?"

The man made a subtle face.

"'Uri,' that is… as the personal pronoun used to refer to several people including oneself…."

"I read it also as a 'pen.'"

Pen, Cage, Fold.

"A place for raising livestock or penning up beasts, I mean."

They'd left room for interpretation, but the Sensitivity Bureau named that Labyrinth so. In which case, who exactly the master managing that 'pen' might be was obvious enough without further thought.

"That Dokkaebi's authority is greater than you imagine."

"If so, that's a relief, but…."

"A Labyrinth with no need to sate its hunger on innocent real-world sacrifices. There's no reason he'd give up a system this perfect and harmless."

The real human body and soul stay safely stored in the outer society, while the Labyrinth fills its belly on the fixation produced solely by replicated shells. If only this could be permanently stabilized—

"Do you think a better substitute for the Offering could exist?"

That Dokkaebi, 'Lee Yeon-woo,' would never give up this method.

"So you too should see a 'game' as merely a game. Rather than trembling with needless unease and pouring in useless fixation, you'd do better to simply live your own life."

"……."

Only after a long while did the man open his mouth again.

"…I still don't understand it."

Why?

"Why aren't they uneasy?"

Seon-hae, and Writer Hong Gyeong-yeon, and all those many people who lent their strength to making this 'game'—why, in the face of that malice-filled Disaster, do they thump their chests and go on living their lives?

"I think it's preposterous. Are they not even afraid? The 'Our Hotel' they say they experienced this time was… yes, quite kind and mild, so I can see how it might be. But I can't shake the thought that they've grown far too bold."

How great could mere humans be before a Disaster, to act so insolently.

"I simply can't understand it…."

"Do you think they stepped forward because they judged themselves fit to face a Disaster?"

It wasn't so high-minded a kind of arrogance.

"They can't fail to know they were lucky."

"So they leaned on the hill they could lean on, is what you're saying."

"Artists tend to have a keen instinct and a shameless streak."

"Still, staking your life on instinct alone seems a waste."

"It's because they don't count it a waste that they do it."

The pure civilian Hong Gyeong-yeon was a very peculiar exception, so set him aside.

"Isn't that why you, too, disliked 'Artists'?"

Had they been healthy and wise enough to grasp their own place and weigh things properly, there's no way they could have stayed calm trapped in a Labyrinth's belly.

"Because they can withstand it. Unlike ordinary humans, they can perceive that existence and interact with it. And one day they might even create such a Labyrinth, or, if lucky, even kill it. Because they know such cases exist…."

The residents of the Gaps live with their guts laid out like that.

"Child, that is the Gaps."

"……."

"Didn't I tell you."

That they're all mad.

"So they even name Disasters as they see them."

"Does that help?"

"With 'Our Hotel,' at least, I expect it will. How often would powerless ordinary people get to name a Labyrinth of that caliber as mere harmless data? It's a miraculous situation."

"For some reason it doesn't sit well with me."

"You really are hopeless as material for an Artist, aren't you."

"That's a relief."

Baek Mu-jin's son wiped a hand down his weary face.

"As I keep saying, I don't much want to be one."

Now and then his own family looked like monsters to him.

"I wish Seon-hae hadn't ended up that way."

"Loathe them as you please—the Artist breed won't so much as notice."

Baek Mu-jin continued in a flat tone.

"Nine in ten are all worthless things. You've neither the power nor the will to enter this line of work, so live your whole life keeping your distance. How would you ever withstand the fools you can't understand, the criminals, and those madmen?"

"I'm sorry, Father."

"Knowing your weakness, I never expected anything of you."

"I know."

Even now, it was already more than enough.

***

And so the residents of the Gaps gave names to Disasters.

Because they exist within one's life, because they have already shown themselves before your eyes, and because it's a world you cannot endure without defining something, anything.

The child worked its feet busily.

"Huff, hah…."

A deep forest where light and darkness coexisted.

Lift your head and you'd see branches densely overgrown above. Sunlight poured down here and there through the gaps, but instead of reaching the child, that warmth only heated the thick fog all around to a white glow.

Bright yet dark, warm to look at yet cold.

"Haa… ugh…."

The clothes had long since lost their original color, scraped by the brush and steeped in mud. The long trailing hem, torn by thickets, hung ragged, and the collar, stained with sweat and dirt, cinched tight as if choking the throat.

Gasping dry breaths, the child silently moved its feet again.

"……."

It wanted to raise its voice and call for someone, but before the vast silence of nature and its dismal air, the child was small beyond measure. Only the single-minded thought that it must find a way moved the child's feet.

Treading precariously over pine roots as big as its own body and steep clefts of rock.

Onward, and onward again, it pressed.

"…Ugh…."

But no matter which way it looked, all it saw were endless colonies of trees and white fog coiling about its ankles.

'Where even is this.'

Within it—where the place felt at once like somewhere just passed and like a wholly new path—even its sense of direction blurred. And time, so capricious, left it unable even to guess whether it was day or night.

How long did it wander so.

"Little one…!"

Breaking the stillness all around, a 'familiar voice' came from the far side.

"Little one, why in the world are you here!"

"Aigo, who is this! Why are you in a place like this?"

Voices murmuring in layers from every direction rang out along the white fog. Even the voice of the auntie who'd always called its name so kindly, and the elder who used to chuckle with a long pipe in his mouth.

Out of the fog, familiar figures walked forth one by one.

"Didn't we tell you to stay put in the village…!"

"I can't bear it, I can't."

"Are you hurt anywhere? Aigo, aigo…."

The instant they spotted the child, they showed joy and shock. Some looked ready to burst into tears at any moment; others stamped their feet, asking why it had come up into these mountains to suffer so.

"Come here, quick, little one. Don't go wandering alone."

They were people so welcome the child wanted to run into their arms that very instant, but—

"……."

the child did not approach.

"…Little one?"

They didn't perceive one another at all.

They looked at the child alone, laughing, weeping, taking fright, feeling relief. What that grotesque dissonance meant was clear. These were not real people.

And 'they,' too, seemed to have realized it.

"……."

"……."

Gazing blankly at the child, they opened their mouths.

"…Go, quickly."

"Go, quick, and don't look back."

"You must not answer."

"Little one, go and seek out the Fox God."

The auntie whispered, weeping streams of tears.

"Go and beg for mercy. This place is inside that one's belly, and unless that one spits you out, you'll never leave. And even if you receive no mercy, it's no worse than becoming one with the Fox Den."

So seek the Fox God, she urged desperately, unable even to bring herself to take hold of the child.

"For that, you must eat nothing. Here, don't drink the water, don't eat the berries. However thirsty and hungry you are, endure it. Until the Fox God comes to find you. Understand?"

"……."

"Little one, aigo. This little thing…."

The village elders wailed mournfully, every one of them.

"It's our village's original sin, our original sin. We're so ashamed to have handed you something so dreadful."

The auntie waved her hand, motioning it away. When the child faltered and stepped back, those who had been wailing began, as if by prior agreement, to draw away all at once.

To the child, who had somehow moved two steps farther off, the village headman said, last of all,

"The Fox God will be very hungry. If you endure by starving, that one will surely show itself before you. You must hold out until then."

At last the child turned its back.

"I'm sorry."

"……."

"Be sure to escape the Fox Den."

One step, two steps. Then the child began to run toward the fog.

"……."

Hiding, deep inside its bitten lip, the sob welling up.

***

Thump.

The child's knees buckled.

"Huff, hh-huk…."

The small body, staggering, lost its balance and pitched forward onto the rough, damp earth. Mossy ground and fallen leaves brushed its cheek. Exhaustion piled past all limit and the cold of the soil surged through its whole body.

With finely trembling fingers the child scratched at the muddy ground, thrashing to rise.

"Nngh, ugh…!"

It struggled desperately, but the body already sunk into the mire had not the strength left to lift a single finger. In the end the child let the strength slip from its body.

"…Hooo…."

Just for a moment.

'Let me rest, just for a little while.'

Over the child's heavy eyelids, slowly closing, the sunlight-laden white fog settled like a shroud. At the very moment the fog was about to swallow the small body whole—

with a whoosh, as if it were a lie, the fog lifted.

"……."

When it cautiously opened its eyes, clear sunlight stabbed into its sight. Where the white fog that had cinched its throat had withdrawn, cutting through the smothering silence, two foxes stood before the child's eyes.

"Kong?"

"Kong-kong."

Small foxes with jet-black fur. Red cloth was wound about their necks.

'Foxes….'

The fox kits, who came up to the child and twitched their noses to catch its scent, presently turned and scurried off somewhere. Without thinking, the child turned its head and followed after them.

There, beneath the shade of an old aged tree, a man stood.

"……."

It was a face it had never once seen before.

'…All of him is black….'

A man clad in black clothes deeper and denser than any darkness of the forest. The face revealed above robes that seemed to let not a single strand of sunlight through was dazzlingly pale.

A jawline sharp as if it might cut, and long, curved eyes. That cool yet strangely arresting air resembled, to the very letter, the black foxes standing at his feet.

'And within his eyes, gold….'

Golden pupils gleamed like the midday sun.

"……."

It was the Fox God.

"…Cough, ugh…."

The villagers' plaintive voices grazed its ears like an auditory phantom.

'If you endure, that one will surely show itself before you.'

That being was the master of this mountain, the vast Disaster that had swallowed their village. The child barely parted its dried lips. From its cracked, splitting throat leaked a rasp like grating metal.

"Mer, cy…."

"……."

"…Grant me… mercy…."

All at once it felt a touch cold as a mountain stream reach its cheek.

"I beg… for mercy…."

Unless he spat it out, they'd said, it could never leave this belly. It didn't want to become part of the Fox Den and vanish just like this. It wanted to live. It had to see again the younger siblings waiting at home.

The child looked up at the man who had bent toward it and cupped its cheek, and pleaded.

"…Please, save me…."

Before the desperate vow could even be tied off, the child's head dropped with a jerk.

Its consciousness sank down into deep darkness.

***

"……."

"Hello?"

'Not especially hello.'

Lee Yeon-woo faced the gravest situation since he'd been abducted into this game. Beyond the facial muscles frozen into a smile, the eyes looking down at the unconscious child's face trembled finely.

'Why is a child here…?'

Far, far younger than Rawi, who had been his youngest guest.

TL Notes:

- "Uri": the Korean word behind "Our" in the hotel's name is a homonym meaning both "we / our" and "a pen, cage, or fold for penning livestock." Baek Mu-jin reads it in the second sense—"Our Hotel" as a pen that keeps the beasts (Labyrinths) enclosed.