Ch.109End of the World Puzzle (2)

Inside the elevator where the survivors had gathered.

Robin was trying to organize information about the timeline by asking each person about their memories.

The only one left was Choi Serim.

However, Serim avoided answering while staring at the floor.

“I don’t really know either.”

“First Daju, and now you too, Serim.”

“Yes. Maybe some people lose their memories when they enter the apartment?”

Robin narrowed her eyes briefly, but that was it.

She quickly turned her attention to the other survivors and moved on to a different topic.

“Alright. Let’s think about the detailed timeline now.”

Whether Robin was suspicious or not, Choi Serim took a deep breath with her eyes tightly shut.

She must have really hated talking about it. Serim’s past contained memories that were painful just to recall.

Tap.

I approached her and lightly touched the back of her hand.

While thinking the most positive thoughts I could.

A sunny park I had visited before.

The scenery of a library reading room.

A quiet auditorium window. The sound of wind making the curtains flutter.

Instead of listening to the conversation in the elevator, I focused only on recalling pleasant images.

Soon, our eyes met.

I could feel Serim becoming more at ease after looking into my thoughts.

It wasn’t just about sharing peaceful memories. When I focused on reading one person’s thoughts, the frequency of other people’s thoughts flowing in decreased significantly.

Robin, who had committed various unethical acts at the Foundation, all in the name of protecting humanity.

Yoon Daju, a former Foundation researcher who had spent painful time as a test subject.

Heo Yoon and Seok Hyunmin, who had survived in the apartment for a long time.

People constantly wrapped in anxieties both big and small.

They must have all been surrounded by terrible memories.

‘Thank you.’

Finally able to rest, she conveyed her gratitude to me through her thoughts.

I felt a mixture of sympathy and satisfaction at the same time.

Providing a place for thoughts to rest, away from painful memories.

This is what she really needed.

The same goes for others in the elevator who are working hard to uncover the truth.

Serim finding stability and making judgments. Her memories are the key to this puzzle.

Serim, who had seemed comfortable, suddenly asked me anxiously.

‘But what about you, Dabin? Is it okay for you to be like this?’

She meant whether it was okay for me to miss the important conversation going on.

Right now, I was focusing only on recalling good memories.

But it didn’t really matter.

‘Yes. It’s fine.’

I didn’t need to listen to or participate in the conversation.

I already knew the information about the timeline through the Librarian’s ability.

Besides, the point was for everyone else to discover the truth on their own.

Robin was doing a great job.

A long time passed.

I could feel that Serim had become much more at ease.

A bright summer day in the park created in my mind.

Sitting on a bench, I looked up to face Serim.

Perhaps it was time to bring it up now.

I spoke with an apologetic tone.

‘But, Serim.’

‘What is it, Dabin?’

I found myself speaking faster out of nervousness.

‘There’s something you need to do. That’s why I created this space. Because you’ll need time to calm your mind.’

‘Huh? What is it?’

‘What you did before.’

‘…’

This was a truth that even Serim herself had avoided facing because she couldn’t bear it.

Even I felt troubled having to convey this.

I took a deep breath and delivered the facts as calmly as possible.

‘You’ve been tampering with other people’s memories, haven’t you?’

Serim flinched at just the first sentence, visibly shaken.

She was once a Librarian of the Wanderer’s Library.

Though incomplete, she would have known the flow of the future, and Serim acted according to what she had to do. Using her own ability.

‘You tampered with other people’s memories to prevent exploration progress until I arrived at the apartment. You passed the Librarian role to me to prevent our worldline from disappearing.’

‘Dabin. Wait, just wait.’

‘You even placed restrictions on my thoughts.’

‘Ah. No. That’s…!’

Serim clutched her head in agony just from hearing this.

This was all happening in our mental space. In reality, Serim was standing still as if nothing was wrong, but inside her mind, it was different.

‘I know. That you had no choice. I understand that better than anyone. I simply received the Librarian authority at a convenient time.’

This was something we needed to address.

Although I had received the Librarian authority, I hadn’t inherited Serim’s abilities.

Several restrictions still remained among the others.

A silent scream.

A soundless cry.

Was it because this was happening in imagination?

Serim’s self-harm became even more brutal.

As she violently pulled at her hair, it came out with pieces of scalp. Blood splattered everywhere, and Serim didn’t stop there—she began smashing her head against the park bench armrest.

Blood flowed from her broken forehead, creating a horrific scene.

‘Because of me. People died meaninglessly because of me.’

Serim retched and wailed.

‘I already knew there was no escape, but I made people forget that.’

‘I kept people on the 11th floor knowing they would have to pay the price.’

‘Please…’

‘Dabin. I want to stop now. Please.’

She always had to make choices.

To secure clean water, she left a purification ability user she once befriended abandoned in a water tank.

Because of her duties as a Librarian, she had to erase others’ memories and manipulate their thoughts.

This had been happening since she was very young.

Very slowly but with determined movements, I grabbed Serim’s wrists.

‘You don’t have to suffer alone anymore.’

Fresh blood wet my fingers.

The warm blood flowed down the back of my hand and wrapped around my arm.

Before that warmth disappeared, I pulled her arm and embraced Serim.

‘You had no choice.’

It took quite a long time for Serim to regain her stability.

Now, it was time to return the information she had taken from the survivors.

***

Robin stood with her arms crossed, questioning people.

“Next is Haewon’s turn. The time when you entered the apartment. Can you recall the exact year or any events that might help us estimate?”

With her Foundation experience, Robin skillfully drew out people’s testimonies.

The people gathered in the elevator each explained the situation in the “outside world” before they came here.

“Um… Come to think of it, I can’t remember the exact year.”

Jung Haewon answered hesitantly.

“Hmm.”

Robin tapped her wrist with her fingertip.

Not just Haewon but all the other survivors—Dan, Riko, and even Robin herself—couldn’t remember the exact year they had lived in.

“If that’s the case, it seems some information has been lost here too. It might be similar to how Daju and Serim lost their memories.”

Is this a memetic anomaly?

A meme is information that has evolved to be remembered and transmitted to as many intelligent beings as possible. For a meme, being forgotten is like death for a living being.

So it would seem to be at odds with forgetting, but some types of memes can erase memories. They’ve evolved to erase other memories, leaving space for themselves to be remembered.

‘There’s an anomalous meme in this apartment that affects people and erases their memories.’

Right now, it seems only information about exact years has been erased, but we can’t rule out the possibility that other memories have been erased too.

In this situation, the important thing isn’t “what has been forgotten.”

We need to organize “what is still remembered” and figure out how to deal with it.

After being lost in thought, Robin spoke again.

“Although we’ve forgotten the exact years, we all still have our past memories. Even if we can’t pinpoint exact moments, we should be able to figure out the chronological order.”

“So you’re suggesting we draw a timeline, Robin?”

It was Heo Yoon, the leader of the survivors.

“Yes, exactly.”

“Then we can save a lot of work. I have something I recorded in the exploration notes before.”

Heo Yoon pulled out a thick notebook from her bag.

Inside the worn leather cover, fluorescent sticky notes jutted out, dividing the contents into sections.

“I’ve collected stories not just from people here now, but also from survivors who came before us. Even those who died.”

“…”

Indeed, traces of many people’s hands remained on it.

Without any manuals or procedures, they must have gathered information while risking their lives.

Robin placed her hand on the cover and bowed her head in tribute.

“Let’s take a look.”

Countless lines were drawn across the opened notebook.

Each line indicated information about when people had arrived.

“What’s this thick line in the middle?”

“That marks when the disaster happened. It seemed like an important point, so I deliberately marked it prominently.”

Robin deliberately focused on examining the area around the line.

On either side of the thick red line were the names of at least a hundred people, divided into two groups.

As she stared at one spot for a long time, Heo Yoon added an explanation.

“People who came before the disaster all entered the apartment by chance. Those who came after were almost all refugees seeking shelter in the apartment.”

So that’s how they had organized everything by time period.

“This is definitely… helpful. Almost suspiciously helpful.”

“What do you mean?”

“I distinctly remember hearing from you about other survivors. You said many people died trying to find a way to escape. But from the perspective of refugees from the future, wouldn’t they have no reason to go outside?”

Robin sighed deeply and said:

“What I mean is, there’s a lack of motivation to escape. If they already knew the outside was just as much of a hell, why would they risk their lives to escape? They would more likely wander around looking for safer places.”

Robin herself knows this is an excessive leap.

The contradiction is easily resolved if we define “escape” as leaving the apartment and returning to a safe time in reality.

Past, present, and future.

Now that we know time periods are tangled inside the apartment, we could assume the survivors had similar thoughts.

But what mattered to her wasn’t logic but her intuition.

Something is strange.

Why reveal such important information only now?

And reflecting on the stories I’ve heard from survivors, the strange feeling grows stronger.

The strangest thing is what Heo Yoon mentioned.

They say they obtained documents about the end of the world through exploring the library.

They already knew what would happen in the future, yet they still went to the library to get information.

The information was just a pretext. Was the real purpose to visit the library?

What if someone manipulated the survivors to forget the information they already had for that purpose?

Many questions, but no clues.

She tried to read Heo Yoon’s expression, but couldn’t discern anything.

Heo Yoon’s face showed only bewilderment.

It wasn’t the expression of someone caught hiding something.

Rather, she seemed just as confused as the person asking the question, as if the question had revealed a flaw she herself hadn’t noticed.

“You’re right. Why, why did I forget about this until now?”

She’s a smart and brave young woman, and surviving without any information shows how remarkable she is, but at times like this, her lack of experience shows.

Anyway, we’ve gained important information without any risk, so it’s fine to leave it be. Keep the suspicion, but there’s no need to dig for the truth right away.

Robin smiled quietly and replied:

“Perhaps there was some restriction placed on the people in the apartment, and I, as an outsider, broke it.”

Like a door that can’t be opened from the inside no matter what, but must be opened from the outside.

Perhaps she had opened a door and liberated some information.

“I don’t really understand what you’re saying.”

“Neither do I. Let’s just go with that for now.”

There was still much to figure out later, but for now, she decided to leave it at that.

That wasn’t the important thing right now.

Robin grabbed the elevator handrail and leaned against the wall.

“Now, we can put the puzzle back together.”

Organizing the sequence of events and understanding the situation.

Twisted timelines. Numerous causalities tied together with the apartment as a focal point.

From the volcanic eruption Robin herself experienced, to the “Fifth Apostle,” a disaster that would sweep away the world on an unimaginable scale.

Capturing the Professor who would likely be at the center of it all begins with properly understanding and analyzing the current situation.

***

* Timeline of key figures as understood by Lim Dabin during the ‘End Puzzle’ episode

– Due to difficulties in determining exact years, time points are indicated as past, recent past, etc.

– The timeline indicates when each person entered the apartment from the real world timeline.

– The interior of the apartment has its own unique timeline, and the “starting point” when entering the apartment is determined by factors other than real time. That is, entering the apartment at an earlier point in time does not necessarily mean one has been in the apartment longer.

Excerpted from [Anomalous Apartment Survival Log], Appendix/Reference Materials