episode_0141

“Can’t you feel it? That gaze.”

Lethe looks up. There is nothing.

“I’m sure it’s the same for everyone else.”

There’s screaming from behind the scenes. Something’s tearing. Liquid’s splashing everywhere.

It was a strange thing.

I was just playing the tape, but I could even picture lines that sounded like something out of a play.

“Robin.”

“It’s a play. Not only the recorded voice, but even the sentences are saved.”

“Let’s pause the tape for a moment.”

I held down the pause button on the player.

The flowing voice stops for a moment, and Robin carefully examines the cassette.

“This looks like a regular machine… …. What do you think, Dabin?”

“There’s nothing special about it when I look at it. It’s just a regular cassette tape player.”

“To be exact, it’s called a deck.”

Heo Yun-do also came over and inspected the deck.

“Then is there something wrong with the tape?”

“That’s not it either. Didn’t Dabin check the tape earlier?”

“Yes. There was nothing unusual about the tape either.”

“Then what the heck?”

“The ‘information’ recorded on tape, right? Dabin?”

Robin keeps passing the conversation to me.

The most certain way to verify the anomaly here is to use my abilities.

He nodded.

“But you can’t know in advance if it’s dangerous. Maybe that’s the anomaly of information.”

“And if it’s what the professor left behind, it’s not just that. It’s a headache.”

There is a brief pause in the conversation.

If this happens, we cannot guarantee everyone’s safety.

But it’s not safe to go back like this.

It could be a trap set by the professor, but ultimately, it’s about protecting the world.

Now that we’re here, we need to see what’s on this tape.

“I guess I have no choice but to listen to everything.”

Heo Yun neatly sorts out the situation.

“I’ll press the button.”

“Yes, let’s do that.”

Robin is the first to agree.

There is no other way. Thinking about it will only be a waste of time.

But, I can’t help but worry about other people.

A moment of hesitation. Heo Yoon asks in a clear voice.

“Im Da-bin? Should I press the button?”

“If it seems dangerous, I’ll tell you right away.”

“Okay, play it again.”

Click.

Voices begin to flow from the deck again.

“I can’t stand it anymore.”

Noise is mixed.

Researcher A picks up a ballpoint pen and stabs himself in the eye.

Lete continues her speech without paying any attention.

“I keep feeling your gaze. Once I noticed it, it keeps on going. It keeps on going.”

“We were possessed by something from the beginning. That something was sleeping in our heads, and now it has awakened and is running wild.”

“It’s strange that these things didn’t happen sooner.”

“Why didn’t I know this?”

The lab turns into a horrible place.

Researchers go crazy and cut their own bodies.

Some people giggle while holding their own organs protruding from their bodies.

The armed guards kill themselves. Like a shower, the sound of gunfire continues.

“Our minds have adapted to live in a finite time, and that has been our vulnerability. Disease has long since taken advantage of that gap and taken over us all.”

I swallowed nervously.

The woman in the video, Lete, laughs so hard she almost loses her breath before barely managing to speak.

“We must free everyone. From hell.”

The tape broke.

There was a brief silence in the room.

“Disease. What are you talking about?”

Heo Yun looks serious and lost in thought.

Da-ju seems to have felt relieved inside.

“It wasn’t as dangerous as I thought.”

“But I still feel really uneasy.”

Jeong Hae-won, as always, is a bit anxious.

I tried to quietly turn back towards the people, but then stopped moving.

There was still some recorded footage left.

“Books… … .”

This time it’s a man’s voice.

Click.

I used all my might to stop the playback.

“Get out of here. Quickly.”

“Huh?”

“Only Yebin remains and everyone else leaves.”

All I heard was a few words.

I can’t even tell what will come out after this.

But my intuition tells me.

“You must never listen to the rest of this content.”

This is a trap set for me.

If it’s a trap big enough to catch me, it could easily kill other people.

Other people hurriedly left the room.

The only one left is Yebin.

“Dabin.”

“Shh. I’m going to play it again now.”

Yebin speaks quickly, as if she has something to ask.

“Wasn’t it okay to hear it later?”

“No. You have to hear it now.”

Tt …

The deck is twisted, as if a twisted rubber band has been forcibly held in place.

If you delay even a little longer, the tape itself will be damaged.

“Okay. I’m sorry.”

The audio that had been cut off earlier was played again.

“… … The library. To be exact, it’s a story about the Wanderer’s Library, or the Infinite Library. ”

As expected.

The library. It was about the library where I was a librarian.

The professor speaks in a soft voice.

And the speaker telling the story is a professor.

That’s it.

I looked at the deck.

“The library originally wanders between dimensions. It collects and records information as it goes. The library is like a giant ark that stores all information from all worldlines.”

The clip that was on the desk falls to the floor.

“But now, it is anchored and not moving.”

A paper boat floating in the air sinks to the bottom.

The window vibrates as if it’s going to break.

The air begins to taste like iron.

The floor creaks.

“I think you know why.”

The professor raises his head and looks at the audience.

The once clean lab begins to collapse.

The windows are shattered. The floor is shattered. The air is shattered.

“Mr. Im Da-bin.”

The ‘professor’ is right in front of me.

“Open your eyes again.”

Sitting at a desk on a bloody floor, looking at me.

Yebin, who had been by my side, disappeared in an instant, and the surroundings completely changed in an instant.

It is exactly as it was left on the recorded tape.

The floor was covered in blood.

The footprints of all those who were going to leave were left in a mess.

The rest swim in their own blood and vomit.

“Ehhh.”

The researcher’s white coat, with its eyes rolled back and a creepy laugh streaming down its face, has long since turned red.

It was a disaster.

A horrifying sight that I can never get used to no matter how many times I see it.

A feeble scream, the sound of guts being ripped out and eyeballs being gouged out.

The pungent smell of metal.

All kinds of bodily fluids flowed out and soaked the floor.

Orgy.

A carnival where people kill and eat each other.

Cross-section of a severed body.

All my senses scream.

“Wow.”

I swallowed my nausea.

In the midst of all this tragedy, the ‘professor’ was just sitting at his desk without moving an inch.

Keep staring at me.

“This happened once before.”

“When?”

“When I saw the ending once. I was going to go to the 7th floor. But before I knew it, I was on the 6th floor, and just like now, the scenery changed in an instant.”

I barely managed to come to my senses.

I must not waver here. If I waver here, I will end up like the future ‘me’ from another world line.

You must kill everyone else and face the catastrophic destruction alone.

“You. That’s it.”

Her voice was trembling, but she managed to get the words out until the end.

bang!

It was a sound coming from the door.

“The door hasn’t opened for a while now.”

“Dajuya. Can’t you break it?”

“Just a moment.”

Boom!

There were a few more loud bangs, but the door didn’t budge.

The voice only became more urgent.

“Hey. Im Da-bin! Answer me! Im Da-bin!”

“Are you inside? Oppa! Answer me, please!”

“Dabin… … .”

The voice was soon drowned out by other sounds.

There’s a fight, blood is flying everywhere, and someone’s screaming.

The scenery outside must be even better than this inside.

The ‘professor’ takes out a handkerchief and offers it to me with a calm face.

“Keep calm.”

“… … .”

“First, I will answer the question from before.”

When I didn’t take the handkerchief, the ‘professor’ put the towel back in his top pocket.

“I can see into the future and fix the outcome. The latter is an ability that can only be used in very limited situations, but it’s still worth using a few times when it’s important.”

“Then… … .”

“It’s true that I sent Dabin to the 6th floor.”

“Then why did you do that?”

The ‘professor’ narrows his eyes.

His wrinkles are more prominent. They are the wrinkles of an old gentleman who would have seemed very kind if you had met him without knowing anything about him.

The ‘Professor’ sighs for a moment and then speaks in a soft voice.

“I hope Dabin saw it.”

“What, is it… … .”

“What I wanted to show you was the future if Dabin did not cooperate.”

I thought of internet broadcasting.

The empty night sky that I saw at the end, and the expression I made on my face in another world line.

But, is that what the future would be like if I didn’t cooperate?

Wasn’t it because I fell into the professor’s trap that I ended up like that?

I can’t believe it. No. I won’t believe it.

Rather, it is more likely that this is a trap.

I let the professor continue talking, the thought running through my head a thousand times.

“I don’t think Dabin would want that kind of ending either.”

“Yes. I don’t want an ending where people die, the world is destroyed, and everyone is forgotten in the end.”

“I’m glad you think the same as me.”

A little later, I realized the true nature of the feeling of discomfort I had been feeling.

There is no emotion in the words of the ‘professor’.

In fact, you are simply conveying what you think is true.

The ‘professor’ sat up for a moment, still sitting at his desk.

“So, let me make a suggestion.”

“Suggestion… … ?”

My voice keeps shaking.

The terrible tragedy surrounding us has long since faded from sight.

The only thing that catches my eye right now is ‘professor.’

“In this ending that I designed, ‘Seven’ will not swallow the world. In the end, everyone will survive, and no one will be forgotten.”

“So you massacred people? And released the fifth apostle into the world?”

“This is not the time to be concerned about methods. We are now at the biggest turning point in the story. If we don’t handle it properly here, we will never be able to reach the ending.”

[It’s Yebin. It’s Dabin. Are you listening now?]

[At the library right now… … . Warnings keep coming… … .]

In the midst of noise.

Only the ‘professor’ speaks clearly.

“First, let’s start with the relationship between this situation and the library.”