Chapter 116 |
Residents living in happiness within their peace. They called the forest surrounding the village the 'Fox Den' and believed that forest to be the 'Fox God.'
When the god slept, order without confusion arrived.
And they gained a daily life free of contradiction.
"It's what they call 'the Grace of the Righteous Path.'"
"I don't really understand...."
"That's a good thing."
The elders seated in the shade of a hut by the paddy ridges enjoyed themselves in peace.
"The most peaceful time is always when you know nothing at all."
"...Yeah."
The timing for farming was never missed, and the signs in the sky were clear. Waterways went unblocked, and plagues and crop diseases either never came or vanished quickly when they did. The villagers called it grace.
"This is all thanks to the Fox God sleeping."
"And if not?"
Seome, gripped by an inexplicable foreboding, by a terror as though unseen hands were softly stroking the back of the neck, would ask.
"What happens when the god wakes?"
"Everything begins to crumble."
"How does it crumble? How can you tell the god has woken?"
"Anyone can tell. The village becomes strange."
Those words were the truth.
"The terrain starts to change. The paddy ridges grow longer than yesterday, and the distance between houses increases...."
The children said, "The road got longer."
"The direction of sunrise changes, but the evening shadows stretch longer. The wind shifts direction several times a day, yet the dogs and birds fall silent."
"......"
"Around that time, people can no longer remember each other's names."
No one could remember. They forgot each other.
"The road you took in the morning vanishes by afternoon. You leave the house to go to the field, and it leads only to the forest. People repeat sentences they've said, or suddenly can't hear them partway through."
People's faces began to overlap.
"Eventually, all the roads in the village begin merging into one. At the end of it, a passage to the Fox Den opens, and by then, everyone must prepare diligently before things fall apart completely."
"...Prepare what?"
"You'll learn when you're grown, Seome."
Grown — I never even got to grow up.
"......"
It was only after everything was over that she learned: labyrinths are especially fond of Artists. Because they don't stop at sensing things — they can transform what they sense into form.
Among them, the 'Fox Den' was a labyrinth specializing in paths, directions, and order. An Artist — a 'being that constructs paths' — was therefore significant to it. Especially if they were 'siblings.'
"Seome."
"...What do I do...."
"Seome, my sister."
"The villagers are going to offer me as a sacrifice tomorrow night. They said I'll be sent into the forest after dark."
"Listen to me, I found out what the Fox Den really is...!"
Her younger sibling, born a boy — Seosang — had ransacked the village chief's house and uncovered the truth of the 'Fox Den.'
"They say it's something called a labyrinth."
Beyond The Gaps, a world incomparably more advanced than this village. In the late 1990s, an incident had occurred on the outskirts of the region called 'Gapyeong' where they were situated.
An era when countless industries and enterprises were collapsing under severe financial crisis. People went missing. But not a single body was ever found. The police filed the cases as simple disappearances, and the number of missing persons crept steadily upward.
"It's like our village."
It had been an area thick with foxes to begin with.
"The residents apparently said people were 'bewitched by foxes'...."
"Wh-what... what is that, what does it matter right now...."
"Please, sister, listen!"
"Seosang, I'm scared."
"If you really do have to go in, this 'story' is important!"
It was an era when everyone was too busy and exhausted to pay attention. They hadn't noticed the missing persons trickling away over several years, but that couldn't last forever.
"It was actually done by people!"
The scene of a crime committed in the remote reaches of Gapyeong — a group carrying out forced confinement, kidnapping, human trafficking, and murder. They destroyed people, declaring that 'those who are lost must return to the divine.'
"They dumped the bodies in forests where nobody goes. The disposal sites were scattered all over, but the body of the most recently killed person was being eaten by foxes...."
"S-stop...."
"The Fox Den is a labyrinth born from that. This labyrinth, having grown all this time, isn't just enclosing our village — it surrounds all of Gapyeong. That's how powerful it's become."
"Stop it. What am I supposed to do about any of this?"
"Come with me."
"......"
Seome's younger sibling, Seosang, said it like that.
"Just come with me, Seome. My sister."
"...What? What do you mean?"
"You're an Artist who can sense danger, and I've been mapping the forest."
"That's no reason."
"The Fox Den is a labyrinth that handles paths, directions, and order, so if it's not just you, the one chosen as sacrifice, but me alongside you, we'll definitely be able to find the way out."
Hopeful words. Without a shred of evidence.
"A labyrinth is a story, they said. Like a storybook, I think. I've read the writings about those disappearances over and over, so no matter what kind of story unfolds inside, I can handle it."
"...Seosang, don't... there's no guarantee it'll work out...."
"I'm stronger than you! I've wandered the forest tons of times and even fought the animals."
"But."
"They said you'll die horribly...."
"......"
And so he cried.
"Over and over and over, losing your way, getting torn apart by foxes...."
"...Ah...."
"They said you won't even be able to die. You'll end up begging to be killed. They said you'll become one with the Fox Den — the village chief said so."
So bitterly.
"I'll help you. I'll protect you."
"......"
"Let's run away together."
"...Together?"
"We go into that forest, play dead, and get out the other side. Then we live, just the two of us."
Face drenched in tears, a pathetic expression, crying.
And smiling.
"It's okay, I know the way! They say there's another village beyond this one! And beyond that, a world far bigger and more amazing!"
"......"
"Sister, they say Artists are treated as precious there."
"......"
"...You're a person of value...."
She shouldn't have fallen for that tearful face.
"......"
"......"
"...Okay. Let's do it."
She should have known that defying the divine would only make things more terrible.
"Let's run away together."
"Yeah."
"You'll protect me?"
"I'll protect you. I promise."
They knew nothing.
In this terrible world, the price for having dared to grow up ordinary.
The price for having grown up foolish — was what they paid.
***
"That is a labyrinth that feeds on the concept of 'paths.'"
Paths always require an aligned order.
"Ah. From what I know, it also encompassed direction and order."
"......"
"An Artist is certainly a delicious morsel for a labyrinth. But a being that is chaotic and emotionally unstable represents, in itself, an incomplete sense of direction. That labyrinth would have felt resistance toward you."
"......"
"The Sensitivity your body possessed was, from the labyrinth's perspective, a being that generated far too many paths. But your younger sibling was a figure who moved in a single direction."
A goal of saving his sister. A singular, linear will to defy the established order.
"From that labyrinth's viewpoint, that becomes energy that organizes paths. Emotions scatter, and direction aligns. Being something ominous born from a large, deep incident, it would certainly have the power for that...."
The passing Hero said this.
"It decided to combine the two of you."
"...How could it...."
"Your talent as an Artist seems to have resided in your body rather than your soul or mind. Rejoice if you like — that is precisely why you were not offered."
"Because I... lost my flavor?"
"When there is a new dish made by cherry-picking only the delicious parts, there is no reason to bother with the scraps. What you are now is, so to speak, a collection of the bitter and the sour."
"What about Seosang...?"
Seome's soul, having entered the younger brother's body, let out a thin breath.
"What happens to Seosang...?"
"Give up."
"Why... I... got out...."
"Your younger sibling was the aggregate of 'the delicious parts.'"
A dry voice entered the ear. Buzzing, piercing the heart as if to burst it.
"Being offered to a labyrinth is not merely being consumed. It is becoming one with it. Being incorporated into the structure called a story."
When a labyrinth receives a human as an offering. It means inserting that human's choices, emotions, and actions into the 'framework of a narrative.'
"Think of the human body. Imagine separating each bone, blood vessel, and muscle one by one."
"...It would hurt a lot, and... they'd die...."
"Yes, they die. With things as they are, trying to separate them won't end well."
A labyrinth is like a fairy tale where setting, characters, and story are intermixed. No one person can be wholly extracted from within it.
Because that someone is also the setting, a character, and the story.
"What you've been looking at all this time...."
Seome, who had been left with nothing but the 'flavorless' parts, wandering the forest called the Fox Den, drifting forever with the younger sibling who had taken Seome's body in exchange —
"It's just a story."
It had been nothing more than part of a play.
"At some point, your younger sibling was no longer alive. It wasn't your sibling anymore."
"Then what is it."
Talking with me,
Comforting me,
Assuring me that someday, we'd get out.
"Then what is it...."
And sometimes, detecting the 'danger' that screamed from every direction and losing all reason.
"If that's not my sibling...."
"A husk."
"......"
"...Have you ever read a storybook?"
A nod. A dry answer came back.
"It's the same as that."
Not a real person.
"Didn't your sibling's behavior become simpler at some point?"
"......"
"The behavioral patterns? Talk, eat, break down, then come back around — didn't it cycle like that? Ignore the minor differences. What matters is the broad pattern."
"......"
"Then let me say it clearly. Your sibling is already dead. They became one with the labyrinth. A story called 'Seome and Seosang' was simply added to the storybook called 'Fox Den.'"
"......"
"No, since you got out, now it must be just 'Seosang's Story.'"
"......"
"...Do you want to die?"
The question had to be asked, because all the air had been knocked from the chest.
"...Why did you save me...?"
"......"
Why, indeed.
"......"
"......"
It was a long time before the answer came.
"...I was taught that there's no reason needed... to save a person...."
...The voice was every bit as wretched as Seome's own.
***
"......"
Parched lips parted.
"Ah, I see...."
With a pallid hand, Lover of Dawn gently stroked the small head.
"Your love runs deep."
"......"
"Seome, my sister."
"......"
"We can be happy forever."
A soul still lingering on the road is precious indeed.
Sitting in a chair in a garden blooming with innocent souls, caressing a young body in which a guilty soul was trapped, she curved her red eyes — looking as though they might drip blood at any moment — into a smile.
Her voice was exceedingly tender.
"You are a person of value."
"Oh, but of course."
"......"
...Between them, a composed voice interjected.
"Seome is a person of value. As a living, breathing human being, is there anyone who isn't? No matter what happened in the past, a person who strives to survive is beautiful."
"......"
"All the more so when it is for the sake of protecting something precious."
A hand in a white glove gently seized the 'lover's' hair. He pressed a light kiss atop it.
"Seducing my friend the moment I step away to greet a new guest."
"You...."
"A slightly different method than I'd anticipated. How adorable of you, my love."
"You don't love me."
"How could you say that?"
The eyes behind the lenses curved long, like a fox's.
"If I hadn't loved you, how could I possibly have kept you in my hotel this long?"
Had it not been for the attachment forged by twenty-six years of memory, he would have exorcised her long ago.
"I've come, so please, let that person go."
"Nobody loves me."
"Look at me. I love you."
"You're lying."
"What must I do for you to believe this heart of mine?"
"Give me your blood."
Yeon-woo removed his glove and clawed at his own wrist, tearing the flesh.
"What's next?"
"Give me your hand."
Yeon-woo gripped his own hand and severed the ragged wrist.
"What's next?"
"...Give me your eyes."
Yeon-woo pushed his fingers beneath his eyelid and gouged.
"Now, what's next?"
"......"
"If there's anything you desire, please, by all means."
With his one remaining blood-soaked hand, he gently stroked the 'lover's' cheek.
"I can become a sanctuary of rest for you, I can remove any discomfort you have, and I can remember everything for you. Being your most perfect lover for tonight is the full extent of my role."
"......"
"Our hotel always puts the guest first."
"...You...."
"Because now, I am able to give you anything you ask for."
It was a cheat play, but.
"So, what's next?"
"Give me your heart."
"Of course."
***
Having successfully proven his love, Yeon-woo did not forget the memory of that night's rendezvous.
A formidable achievement in its own right, and yet.
"......"
All that remained on the rooftop was a battered body and mind, and a sixteen-year-old adult sprawled across the ground.
"Hah...."
One of these days, he really was going to tear this hotel to the ground.