Chapter 145
It’s not like I feel some great sense of superiority just because we’re different from Sa Jaeheon, but this is simply the nature of the group I belong to, and what we’ve built up.
Sa Jaeheon… that bastard, that’s just his way of surviving. Maybe I’m only able to choose like this because this life is both my first and my last.
Only after pushing through for quite a while did we finally reach the end of the corridor. Kicking the door open, as soon as Lee Hoin stepped in, he used his strength to shut the heavy door.
Bang!
With that sound, Lee Hoin leaned against the wall, catching his breath, while I raised my phone and quickly scanned the surroundings.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
‘No openings for something like that chimera to crawl out of.’
I carefully checked the ceiling too. You never know where something might suddenly pop out from, so I even tapped along the walls.
While I was doing that, Lee Hoin, still breathing heavily, sat down beside Kim Taekjin, who had collapsed as well, and began treating his arm as best as he could, wrapping it up with bandages.
When Kim Taekjin tried to drink water, Lee Hoin stopped him.
“Don’t drink water while you’re still gasping for breath.”
Even though he said it bluntly, it was his own way of being considerate. Only after his breathing had settled a bit did Lee Hoin hand him the water, and Kim Taekjin let out a long breath before drinking.
For now, there didn’t seem to be any hidden sections in this space.
—
[You never know. Isn’t a labyrinth something that creates space?]
—
Yeah, well. You never know. And there was something else we found.
‘The door.’
One tightly shut door. It wouldn’t open even when pushed, and there didn’t seem to be any handle.
I do know how to solve the “answer” on this path, but…
I glanced once at the mana spread around.
‘It’d be easier to examine properly if everything were fully lit.’
The mana remained completely unmoving… just like before, as if it had hit rock bottom.
In the end, I called over everyone who was resting and had them sit in front of the door. Each of them took out their phone and shone it at it.
‘A simple game of Twenty Questions. Or… some kind of quiz.’
Each door is different, and it changes every time, so even if you know the “method,” the answer is always different.
I stared quietly at the door. The letters written along its frame looked like ancient script or unreadable runes.
—
[Let the answer be found within the question.]
—
A window appeared in the center. A translated window of those characters.
Let the answer be found within the question.
“Hmm…”
Kim Taekjin was also staring at the floating window.
“Is it… a quiz?”
As he muttered that, the text in the window dissolved like ink in water, then slowly reformed.
—
[0/25]
—
And a number appeared.
“Ah, I guess it really is a quiz.”
Kim Taekjin murmured, then tilted his head.
“Can it only be answered with yes or no? Or will it respond freely if we ask questions?”
“We’ll have to try asking.”
When I said that casually, Kim Taekjin looked at it for a moment, then spoke.
“How can this door be opened?”
At that question, Lee Hoin raised an eyebrow.
We’d already seen the hint that the door could be opened through questions. Was he thinking that asking something like that would waste an opportunity?
I didn’t think so.
You can’t know whether something that could be judged with a yes or no will also be answered in descriptive form.
‘And there’s no guarantee the answers will be truthful.’
If you start doubting what’s true and what’s false, there’s no end to it. Still, at least what appeared in that window earlier… that was true.
That you open the door by asking questions. Even within my “doubt,” that much felt true.
But the answers?
The silent window soon produced a reply.
—
[It can be opened through questions.]
—
It can give descriptive answers, and the answers are true.
Somehow, something felt like it was subtly clicking into place.
—
[1/25]
—
Is it counting the questions?
Lee Hoin ruffled his hair, thinking hard about what to ask. While he hesitated, Kim Taekjin kept speaking.
“To open the door, do we need to find the answer and shout it? Or do we need to perform a specific action?”
Shouting or acting.
At that question, the number vanished again, and a reply appeared.
—
[You act. Shouting is an action.]
—
Since it defined shouting as an action, it was unclear whether anything beyond shouting was required.
An ambiguous answer. Still, it didn’t stray from the intent of the question.
‘It only defined a specific action as shouting.’
Kim Taekjin let out a long breath. Lee Hoin was still thinking, worried about making a careless mistake.
I quietly watched the situation unfold.
—
[This is a headache. Honestly, things like this are the most annoying.]
[The Sphinx, Turandot, Vafþrúðnir’s riddles… something like that.]
—
A way to solve it.
Whenever these kinds of Twenty Questions came up, how did Sa Jaeheon handle them again?
It had been so long since he just brute-forced everything with a single pattern that I couldn’t remember it well. Eventually, I sat down in front of it and flipped through the character index.
‘I know how to get here, but these problems always follow different patterns.’
Sometimes they spout nothing but absurd lies. Sometimes they give a proper Twenty Questions with a clear answer. Sometimes they demand a specific action.
I needed to figure out which one this was, but with what I had right now, it was difficult.
What kind of question did Sa Jaeheon ask to figure out the structure? I definitely knew it before.
—
[Don’t be overconfident in yourself. The human brain is so narrow that it sometimes mistakes not knowing for knowing.]
[And you know better than anyone that such a world is the most dangerous, don’t you?]
—
While I was checking the character index, both Kim Taekjin and Lee Hoin were quiet, deep in thought.
“Is the answer a sentence, a word, or an action? Choose one.”
Kim Taekjin asked. A precise instruction.
—
[It is a word.]
—
A word? A word?
“Is it a pronoun?”
With a faint rustling sound, the letters disappeared and reappeared.
—
[It is a pronoun.]
—
Twenty Questions? It really does seem like it.
—
[4/25]
—
Twenty Questions? So we just have to shout the answer?
The answer is a word and a pronoun.
Kim Taekjin continued narrowing it down. It wasn’t a living being; it had legs, it could move.
‘A car? A machine?’
Thinking that, I listened as he narrowed the possibilities.
“…Can it think? By ‘thinking,’ I mean independent reasoning. Something derived from algorithms or input doesn’t count as thinking.”
It was an odd question.
At that, Lee Hoin turned to look at him, and I did too. Kim Taekjin just stared at the door.
—
[It can.]
—
It can.
Not a living being, yet it has legs, can move, and can think?
An inanimate object capable of higher reasoning?
“Does it exist on Earth?”
—
[It exists.]
—
Kim Taekjin kept firing off questions without pause. Lee Hoin tried to stop him, but he ignored him and continued.
“Does this door have eyes?”
—
[It does.]
—
“Can the door clearly observe its surroundings?”
—
[It can.]
—
A brief silence fell.
After that observation question, the number [10/25] briefly appeared.
Kim Taekjin opened his mouth again.
“Then what kind of group are we… what gender, what species, and how many people? By ‘we,’ I mean those challenging this problem. Even if someone isn’t acting, if they’re in this space, they count as ‘us.’”
The door fell silent for a moment, then the number slowly disappeared.
—
[Male, human]
—
It began writing.
Male, human.
—
[2 people.]
—
Two people.
Wrong.
A chilling tension spread through the air.
If it had been more than three, we could’ve considered other possibilities… something hidden beyond our perception.
But…
Fewer than three?
‘We’re not being observed.’
Which means the claim that it has eyes is also false.
Then, from where did it start lying?
‘An inanimate object capable of advanced reasoning.’
That’s also false.
From the beginning?
All of it?
I frowned, clenching my fist, when Kim Taekjin asked again:
“How can this door be opened?”
The same question as before.
Previously, it answered: through questions.
What about now?
—
[The door can be opened through action.]
—
Through action.
Kim Taekjin slowly looked at us.
It felt like a breeze brushed past my cheek, though there should’ve been none, and my hair stood on end.
The previous answer was wrong.
Now it was giving something that sounded somewhat plausible.
Nonsense.
From beginning to end, the door was speaking nonsense…
Nonsense that could pass as “truth.”
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