241. Final Trial

Until now, I had tried not to place too much significance on those bizarre yet strangely realistic dreams I’d been having.

Even after waking from those dreams, I dismissed the events as nothing more than nonsense and tried to carry on with my daily life. But it wasn’t easy.

Occasionally, those events would return to me in the form of nightmares.

I was still lost in the labyrinth, watching people die before my eyes.

On days when I had those dreams, I felt terrible all day, as if I had PTSD, and became overly sensitive.

Those dreams affected me deeply. Gradually, I began to wonder if they weren’t just dreams-they kept haunting me endlessly.

Eventually, because of those nightmares, I quit my job and spent nearly a year in therapy, visiting a psychiatrist.

At one point, the psychiatrist told me:

If medication wasn’t working, long-term therapy through counseling might be the way to go. Of course, that method failed too.

In the end, no one could cure my symptoms. Without understanding why, I continued to suffer from nightmares.

Spring came again, summer passed, and after a brief autumn, winter arrived.

It had already been two and a half years since I first had that dream.

And it was only around then that I realized:

Living this broken life wasn’t the answer.

Money was always tight. It had been over a year since I quit my job, and the savings I’d scraped together were almost gone, drained by medical bills.

Only after being pushed to the brink did I finally make a firm decision. I decided to trace the remnants of the dream I’d had.

I became completely obsessed with the idea and began organizing the events from the dream in a notebook.

Among the faintly remembered names, one stood out-Olivia.

She was an Earthling like me. Someone who, like me, had been dragged from Earth into that strange world.

She had said she was from South America. That she’d been pulled into that world while playing a game popular there.

Yes, Olivia had mentioned that the world she was dragged into resembled some kind of game.

The problem was, I didn’t know what game it was. I had to find out. What game had she been playing?

With no idea whether it was a console or PC game, armed only with the keyword “labyrinth,” I began searching again.

I locked myself in my room and scoured every game related to labyrinths, even those never released in Korea.

But no matter how hard I looked, the game Olivia mentioned never appeared. No matter how much I dug through the internet, there wasn’t even a trace.

The only clue to my dream had completely vanished. Then again, Olivia was just a character from my dream. There was no way she existed in reality. Maybe it would’ve been easier if I’d just accepted that and given up.

But I remained obsessed with the dream like a madman, to the point where I started believing it was real.

Eventually, my parents found me, a wreck of a person, holed up in my room, fixated on a game that didn’t exist. Dragged away like a lunatic, I was taken to a mental hospital.

The psychiatric ward had plenty of people like me. There was an uncle who rambled about being a druid, a pathological liar who believed a male nurse was secretly an alchemy master in love with her.

Everyone was a little unhinged. Some showed symptoms of schizophrenia. I couldn’t connect with them-no, they couldn’t even connect with each other.

The saying that the mentally ill are lonely was true. No one listened carefully to what we said, and every action was dismissed as part of our illness.

I was trapped in an inescapable prison. The strange behavior I’d exhibited over the past few years had built these walls, locking me behind bars.

Every morning, noon, and night, without fail, they gave me pills. I had to swallow whatever the nurses handed me, not knowing what they were or what they did.

If I refused, I’d be dragged to solitary confinement. If I resisted, they’d force-feed me.

The drugs were potent. After taking them, my thoughts vanished, and my mind went numb.

No will remained. Slowly, I lost myself.

Time passed again. Exactly four years had gone by since I was admitted. Everyone who’d entered with me had been cured by the drugs and discharged.

But I was still trapped here.

In the helpless flow of time, I changed a lot.

The dreams of the past had long been forgotten. By the time the sight of the same hospital room made me sick, I was transferred to another facility.

Apathy became my default state. I had no motivation. Normal thought was impossible-my mind was always clouded, as if wrapped in a thick fog.

“Kang Yu-chan-ssi.”

“Yes…?”

“Your family is here to visit.”

“Family… my family?”

“Yes. Come on, let’s go see them.”

A male nurse led me to the visitation room.

Half-dragged by his grip, I shuffled awkwardly until a steel door opened, revealing a table and chairs.

One of the two chairs was already occupied by someone else.

A stranger.

“Who are you?”

“Yu-chan, you don’t recognize me?”

“Who are you?”

I had no idea.

There was no woman like this in my family.

I only had my mom and dad. In fact, even they hadn’t visited in months.

I was practically abandoned in this hospital.

Who the hell was this?

“Really? You don’t remember anything?”

“I don’t know. Who are you? Do you know me?”

The woman bit her lower lip, looking at me with pity.

Her expression was full of sympathy, as if she found me pitiful and pathetic. She shook her head.

“You really don’t remember anything, do you?”

“I don’t know what you want me to remember.”

“Alright. If you don’t remember, that’s fine. I’ll come by sometimes to check on you.”

What was I supposed to remember?

Who even was this woman? Not a cousin, and definitely not a sibling.

I didn’t know her, yet she claimed to be family.

I tried to think further, but the drugs made it impossible. My mind wouldn’t work.

I just accepted it. The hospital’s drugs made me apathetic, numb, and compliant.

If she said she was family, then she was family. It wasn’t like anyone else was visiting.

“Well, see you next time.”

My so-called family, whose name I didn’t even know, left the visitation room.

As I faintly glimpsed her profile walking away, for some reason, she was smiling.

Even though she’d looked at me with pity earlier, the moment she stepped out, her face was full of smiles.

As if her plan had succeeded. As if she’d gotten everything she wanted.

Why was she smiling?

I couldn’t understand the meaning behind her smile, but my head hurt too much to think further.

I had to take my pills and sleep. That was the only peace I had left.

---

Five years had passed since I was admitted to the hospital.

During that time, the woman who claimed to be my family occasionally visited, asking about my well-being and embracing me each time.

For some reason, I began to look forward to her visits. Gradually, talking to her helped heal the wounds in my heart.

“I think you’re ready to be discharged now. Recent tests show no issues, and it seems like you’re ready to live a normal life, Yu-chan-ssi.”

After five years of treatment, I was finally allowed to leave the hospital.

“Mom and Dad won’t be coming. From now on, you’ll live with me.”

“Mom and Dad aren’t coming?”

“No. They’re not doing well health-wise. You’ll just live with me from now on.”

Unfortunately, since she started visiting, I hadn’t seen my parents even once. I guessed she was now my legal guardian.

It wasn’t bad. She never criticized me. Never hurt me.

She always embraced me, shielding me from my problems.

Being with her always put me at ease. More than anything else, I felt comfortable.

“This is where you’ll live from now on, Yu-chan.”

“Your place?”

“Yeah. Let’s live here together and work on your rehabilitation.”

I’d spent a long time in the hospital.

There was no freedom, but I never went hungry. It was always boring, but that was it.

The psychiatric ward was like a greenhouse. Isolating, protecting, and managing me, away from society.

Now that I was out, I had to stand on my own.

My ability to communicate had deteriorated, so I started working part-time to reintegrate into society.

Time passed again.

I recovered enough to live a normal life.

Yeah, I was normal now. No more spouting nonsense and living like a wreck.

In the empty house, I looked at myself in the mirror and shouted. It was a ritual before work.

“I’m normal.”

Right. I was completely cured.

Just as I thought I’d finally taken my first proper step back into society, the reflection in the mirror spoke.

[Shion. I know you’re still having those dreams. Right?]

“What the hell are you…?”

For a moment, I thought I’d lost my mind.

I was supposed to be fine. Why was this happening again?

Was I still insane?

Maybe I needed to be readmitted.

Maybe I’d have to waste more years doped up among those idiot patients.

No. I couldn’t waste any more time. I couldn’t throw away my youth to mental illness again.

[Don’t panic. Listen carefully, Shion.]

“Shion…? What the hell is Shion?!”

[Wait! Don’t break the mirror!]

The reflection shouted, but my fist was already smashing into the glass.

Blood dripped from my hand, staining the sink red as I punched the mirror over and over.

With each crack, the reflection inside begged me to stop.

Then, it began to change-into something inhuman, a shape I vaguely recognized.

A hypercube.

‘That’s…’

The hypercube, now formed in the shattered mirror, screamed at me to wake up, to return to my true self.

‘What true self? I’ve always been like this. What do you want from me? Why are you calling me Shion?’

A headache struck.

I couldn’t think anymore.

“Haah… Haah… Fuck.”

Shards of glass dug into my flesh, but the pain was nothing compared to the madness creeping back into my mind.

“Why…?”

Why was this happening again?

Why was this happening to me?

I clutched my head and cried for a long time.

The nightmare wasn’t over.

It was still going. Relentlessly replaying inside me.

I had to forget. Only by not remembering could I find peace.

So I had to stay dumb, stay ignorant.

That was the only way to be happy. The only way to stop hurting.

“But… is this really the right way?”

Dizzy, I stared at the broken mirror fragments.

The hypercube flickered in my mind.

What was that? What did it mean? Who was Shion?

Was I really Kang Yu-chan?

What if this was just an extension of the nightmare?

Lost in endless questions, I found no answers.

In the end, there was only one way to resolve this.

“If this is really a dream… if I’m still dreaming… then I…”

I picked up a shard of glass.

Squeezing it tight, my fingers bled.

Holding the bloodied fragment, I hesitated for a long time.

Thinking, agonizing.

Was this really the only way?

“Shion. Who the hell is Shion? Why do you keep appearing in front of me? Who are you? Who?!”

Shion had appeared in my dreams too. Someone who looked like me.

That guy was popular, capable, living a successful life.

He was everything I envied, while I was just pathetic.

The inferiority made it all come back.

The memories I’d buried in the mental hospital resurfaced one by one.

When the hypercube called me Shion, the dreams slowly returned.

If I remembered any more, I’d be dragged back to the hospital.

But I decided to keep remembering.

These damn memories would haunt me forever anyway.

In this world, I was just a useless lunatic with mental illness.

“It’ll never end.”

I couldn’t tell if this was reality or if the dream was reality.

At least in the dream, I was happier.

The psychiatrist had failed.

Years of treatment hadn’t cured me.

If it wouldn’t end, then I had to end it myself.

My sister hadn’t arrived yet.

Before she came, I had to prove this was real.

No-I had to end this damn reality and return to the dream.

If I didn’t end this version of myself, I’d keep chasing the dream and breaking further.

“If it’s a dream, I won’t die. If it’s real… then dying is fine. I can’t take it anymore.”

I pressed the glass shard against my throat.

One stab, and this life would be over.

Then I wouldn’t have to see those fragments of the dream anymore.

I wouldn’t have to remember Yuria’s face.

I wouldn’t have to agonize over who Leah was.

Rozie would mean nothing to me anymore.

Death would end it all.

I could erase the life of that man named Shion, who looked just like me.

No more envy.

Thud.

The glass shard pierced my throat.

“Ghk-!!!”

When I opened my eyes again, I was in a cramped, narrow room.

Surrounded by walls, I held a dagger in my hand.

“What the hell…?”

“You’re awake.”

“…You…”

A black figure looked down at me and smiled.

Whatever it was-man or woman-it erased the dagger from my hand and effortlessly expanded the cramped room, conjuring a chair and table.

“How was the nightmare?”

“Was this your doing?”

“Of course not. It was simply the trial inscribed on the 9th Floor. I just… seasoned it a bit. You could’ve lived happily in that dream forever. Yet you chose this hellish reality. Even after waking, all that awaits is suffering.”

The Malice of the Labyrinth chuckled as it poured tea.

“Well, congratulations on making it this far. You’re the second one.”

“…Second?”

“Yes. I was the first. That Insight Eye of yours-it was originally mine.”

At the entrance to the deepest part, the Malice of the Labyrinth initiated the conversation.