"What?!"
The staff mber at the wheel was startled.
"H-his hands were injured that badly?"
"Yeah."
The director in the back seat nodded.
"I thought you'd all be too shocked, so I couldn't say anything back there. Sorry."
"Ah, no… nothing to apologize for… I was just startled…."
"Who says it isn't? I'm not joking, my heart really dropped. The blood was coming down so thick I thought for a second my eyes were playing tricks."
The other staff mber turned to the writer.
"You saw it too, Writer?"
"Yes, I did. If blood was falling to the floor like that, it had to be truly dangerous, so my eyes were drawn to it. The Director kept her composure, but I'm afraid I let my shock show a little."
"That's… really dangerous, isn't it? The situation aside, the injury itself…."
"It is very dangerous, yes. He hid it behind his back so quickly I couldn't see it properly, but he was wearing gloves. Those white ones we saw yesterday."
"Those looked pretty thick."
"For blood to drip through cloth gloves, it would have to be a deep laceration or a penetrating wound. In vascular terms, at least a vein would have had to rupture for that kind of blood loss."
"A vein?"
"I don't see how it's possible."
"But… he didn't show a single sign of it."
"He didn't, no. I can't begin to imagine how he managed it."
The director let out a half-laugh.
"You fuss about every little thing, and then the mont sothing actually happens you turn all clinical on , huh?"
"That's what happens after a few years stuck beside you, Director…."
"Rember when we went to xico?"
"Oh, please don't. Just imagining it makes
carsick."
The writer's voice was weary. Lee Seon-hae had debuted as a docuntary director. Her emphasis on location scouting ca from there.
Films as realistic and detailed as possible. A mise-en-scène that plunged audiences deep into the world of the film. That was the kind of work the two of them made.
"Ugh, even I found this one genuinely chilling. At least when we went to war zones or drug dens, those were places I braced myself for. And they weren't even dostic."
"I kept saying that hotel was really strange…."
"Setting that aside, what on earth would you even get injured by in a hotel?"
That was the crux of it.
"If he wasn't trying to show us, what reason did he have to co out into the lobby with an injury like that?"
"We can't rule out the possibility that he did want to show us, can we?"
"Why do you think so?"
"Because he gave off this feeling of wanting us out of this hotel."
"So, 'this hotel's this dangerous, so knock it off and leave,' is that it?"
"No, he probably wouldn't have gone that far in his head… but I thought it could be along similar lines."
A mont later, the writer changed his mind.
"Ah, no. Probably not."
"Right. That man didn't welco us staying at this hotel, but at the sa ti he wasn't telling us why. If anything, he was trying to hide it."
"A man like that would have no reason to openly display an injury on that scale. Above all, we can't even know whether that injury has anything to do with the hotel's strangeness."
The staff mber at the wheel began to whimper.
"What, wait, you two had sothing between you the whole ti? We just hung around and slept without a clue…!"
"Since it's co up, from today on, you two sleep at the guesthouse. You haven't cancelled it, right?"
"You told
to leave it just in case, so I only called to say we might not be able to drop in often. But really, is the hotel actually that dangerous?"
"For now, it's still just speculation."
"It is still just speculation, right?"
"Of course."
The director counted off on her fingers.
"Sure, the hotel is hidden in the middle of nowhere, it's been appointed far more luxuriously than its location suggests, it has far too few guests even for a soft opening, the general manager is quietly turning guests away, and he gave an unnervingly calm reaction despite a serious injury, but!"
"……."
"All of that could be coincidence, right?"
"…They say when coincidences pile up, they turn into inevitability."
"Is that usually the context that saying gets used in?"
"Couldn't you and the Writer co stay at the guesthouse too, please?"
"At first, I just stopped in hoping I might find so decent inspiration or material."
The director thought back to when she had first seen the hotel.
"Not sothing you co across every day, after all."
A hotel in the mountains in the middle of a downpour.
A hollow yet lavish atmosphere.
The uncanny staff.
"But now, I'm genuinely curious."
"Oh, Director…."
"More than anything, it's stuck with . I've got no solid basis, but the general manager has been consistently kind to us. And this ti, he showed up with that serious injury on top of it."
"But that has nothing to do with us."
"I'm not saying I'm going to actually do anything—I just thought letting it go as is would stay with . And beyond all those reasons, isn't it just… interesting?"
"You're going to end up in the hospital again."
"If it starts to feel lethal I'll back off, so don't worry too much."
"The fact that we're even having this conversation is already plenty to worry about."
"I just want to look into it more."
Lee Seon-hae gave a mischievous grin.
"So, what do you think?"
"Huh? About what?"
"Hm? Writer, why would the general manager have gotten an injury like that?"
"…Ah, ?"
The writer, who had been looking out the window, turned. He soon rubbed the back of his neck as if asking why this was being dumped on him.
"I'm not a profiler."
"But when it cos to putting together stories, Writer Hong is the best among us. Best at research, too."
"I'm not sure this is really appropriate… yes, alright, if I try to think of it as just a story."
"If you try?"
"Hold on, let
think."
The writer furrowed his brow. The reaction he always had when plotting out a script.
"…First, we need materials."
"Materials?"
"In mystery terms, they'd be clues."
"Right, with only what we have now, it'd be hard to put together a detailed story, wouldn't it?"
The director tapped her chin, then said,
"Up until we boarded, not a single elevator was moving."
"Ah, one did."
"Really?"
"No, not as we got on. I saw it from the lobby."
"You definitely saw an elevator moving?"
"Yes. I saw it stop on the seventh floor."
"The seventh floor?"
The director murmured, and the writer cut in.
"Isn't that the floor the general manager ntioned?"
"He said there were a lot of guests there because of the rain, or sothing like that."
"I thought that was a slightly odd thing to say."
"It was a morable choice of words, yes. Anything else?"
"If we put this together, I think we can piece out the order of events…."
"Right, the elevators in that hotel are really fast."
"We boarded the elevator from the twenty-first floor."
"However fast they are, getting from the twenty-first floor down to the first takes ti. If we assu the incident where the general manager got injured happened in the lobby—"
"Then he would've been able to see that we were coming down from the twenty-first floor."
"And the guest who went up to the seventh floor in between."
A conclusion took shape.
"So the general manager, after confirming we were on our way down, had soone from the lobby sent up to the seventh floor?"
"It could be that he didn't want us to run into them. Highly likely. If he'd been injured to that degree, he should naturally have gone for treatnt rather than appearing in front of us."
"Right—there's no reason the general manager himself, out of all the staff, had to co out to et guests."
"I think he judged he didn't have ti to treat the hand. Even with that fast elevator coming down from the twenty-first floor… hmm, hold on."
The writer paused. Sothing had occurred to him.
"Still, there was no particular reason for the general manager to co out in front of us in the first place. His role is to oversee the hotel; he isn't in a position to personally attend to every guest."
"This hotel may be unusual, but even in the unusual hotels I know, the general manager doesn't co out personally. And we aren't guests of that kind of standing, are we?"
"Then it could have been to divert our attention. He sent whoever it was up to the seventh floor so we wouldn't cross paths with them, but there was still sothing in the lobby we weren't supposed to see or touch."
The writer turned to the staff.
"Have either of you seen anything else?"
"…I'm getting a bit worn out here, hold on."
The staff mber in the passenger seat spoke up.
"Uh, there was a lot of rainwater?"
"Rainwater?"
"On the floor."
The staff mber's voice was uncertain. The mood was turning strange.
"It was like a trail of water that started at the entrance. I thought soone else must have co in soaked through the rain."
"There aren't many guests here…. Wait. Soone else?"
"So, uh…."
The staff mber in the passenger seat turned toward the driver's seat.
"You rember what we saw yesterday?"
"I rember, but—what, you're freaking
out. What's this mood?"
"So, Director, the two of us were looking around the room yesterday before we went to sleep."
The staff mber looked back as she spoke.
"A room this nice, on the twenty-first floor… we were saying we might never get to be sowhere like this again, so we were looking out the windows and all that. We figured the view would be great since it's in the mountains."
"And?"
"But it was raining so heavily nothing was really visible. A little disappointing, so we figured we'd walk around the hotel. The service facilities really weren't usable—the elevators wouldn't even run in that direction."
"You actually went out to check that?"
"Yes. So the only place we could really go was the lobby, and we went down there."
The writer cut in.
"What did you see there?"
"It was right as we stepped off the elevator. The lobby was empty except for the staff, and soone walked in. The entrance opened as they ca in."
The staff mber's expression looked a little sickened.
"A man soaked all the way through to the skin…."
Long, clearly uncared-for hair. Thick clothing in the middle of sumr. Boots filled to the brim with rainwater.
"He was really tall. Even walking hunched over at the neck and waist, he seed taller than us. I don't know why he got that wet, and it's none of our business, but… usually when you're that drenched, don't you do sothing? Wring out your boots, wipe your face, sothing?"
"His hair was plastered on so thick it looked hard to even breathe, and he was just walking along like that, you know?"
"It freaked us out enough that we got right back on the elevator and went back up. The general manager had told us the guests here were eccentric and to be careful. That ca to mind…."
The director asked, concern in her voice.
"He didn't see your faces, did he?"
"Oh, no? We literally stepped off and went right back up. We spent at most a minute, maybe two in the lobby? We spaced out for a bit, but no way it was over three minutes."
"Good, then."
"But now that I think about it, it's a little strange."
The staff mber's face shifted.
"There were a fair number of staff there, and not a single one of them… acknowledged him."
"What do you an, acknowledged?"
"A guest that drenched, and they didn't bring him a towel. Service-wise, fine, let's say that's possible. But honest to god, not a single one of them reacted at all."
"Not a single one?"
"If soone's tracking rainwater all over your floor, you'd think they'd at least glance over."
"Wow, that is creepy."
Weighing sothing carefully, the director asked,
"What ti was this?"
"Uh… early morning. We went to bed late."
"Roughly what ti?"
"Around three a.m.?"
"Okay."
The director looked at the writer.
"Does it roughly line up?"
"…What ti did we co down?"
"Around six, probably."
"That trail of water at the entrance—that was probably from that guest, right?"
"Unless there's another strange person like that?"
"Right. So, I'm not sure if this is correct, but…."
After a beat, he continued.
"Let's suppose that guest has the hobby of taking walks outside only in the early hours, when there's no one around."
"Right, since it was three a.m. or six a.m."
"We ca down at six, so that guest would have co in earlier. Hours aside, without being sure of the exact sequence, that guest and the manager crossed paths in the lobby."
"Maybe the manager sought out the guest who was already there, or maybe the manager was in the lobby and saw the guest walk in."
"And for reasons we still don't know, the manager, after confirming we were coming down from the twenty-first floor, sent that guest back to the seventh floor. Probably because that person is the 'guest who enjoys rainy days.'"
"There can't be too many grown n walking around in a downpour with nothing on them. Especially not full-grown adults."
"We can't be certain, but is there anyone else in this hotel who could inflict an injury like that? Going by the timing, the location, and the general manager's actions…."
"The most likely candidate is, in the end, that seventh-floor guest?"
"There's no direct evidence, of course. Just circumstantial, going by what we have."
The staff mber at the wheel asked,
"Couldn't he have gotten hurt before he t the seventh-floor guest…? There's no real basis for saying the wound ca from that guest—"
"Then he would have gone to get treatnt first."
"R-really?"
"He isn't in a position to personally greet guests. He's in general oversight. And with an injury that bad, he should have gotten it treated first."
"But…."
"Of course, that's only if he were a normal person."
If, for example, the general manager were the sort of person whose psychological makeup made him indifferent to his own injuries, the story might shift a little.
"He was bleeding and still calm, and he ca out to et us—as though nothing had happened. Given that behavior, we do have to consider the possibility that he isn't soone with ordinary sense."
The premise that one treats an injury first is a commonsense one. But it can shift depending on psychological motivation. If, for instance, he had the kind of personality that prioritized other things over his own physical safety.
"Even so—would the general manager, soone whose appearance matters that much, leave an injury to his hand, of all places, unattended that long? Soone that dedicated to his work, at that?"
An injury sustained before eting the seventh-floor guest? In that case, he would have treated it first. If there'd been a reason he absolutely had to et the seventh-floor guest, he would have gone with a treated hand.
The staff mber asked again,
"Um, couldn't he have been hurt sowhere else, and there was sothing we weren't supposed to see, but he had no ti to clean up, so he ca out as is—?"
"I just said he wouldn't have had that kind of ti. The injury clearly occurred after the contact with the seventh-floor guest. If the wound had been sustained before that, he would have treated it, as I ntioned earlier."
"Ah, right."
"And as for 'sothing we weren't supposed to see'—there's no way sothing of that scale appeared in the hotel lobby overnight. When you went to the lobby at three a.m., was the general manager there?"
"No, at that point… it was only the staff."
"Then at least at that mont, there wasn't anything in the lobby that we weren't supposed to see. Which ans it appeared within three hours. And the single biggest event in that window would be the manager's hand injury."
The director muttered,
"Along with his hand getting hurt, sothing appeared we weren't supposed to see…. Like a scene, maybe?"
"So indelible trace could have been left along with the hand injury. Blood would be the obvious example."
"A few drops of blood wouldn't have been enough to make him stand in the way that deliberately. Either that 'sothing' was too conspicuous, or he didn't even have ti to clean it up or hide it."
"With so little to go on, it's hard to say for sure. But if I lay out the situation in sowhat extre terms…."
The writer summarized.
"So the general manager took steps to keep us from running into the seventh-floor guest. And that seventh-floor guest is, in all probability, the one who injured his hand."
***
"Do you think they've figured it out?"
"Yes."
"I blocked their path too openly. There goes the general manager's dignity."
"Yes."
Coco never spoke hollow words. Thanks to that, Lee Yeon-woo's mind and body were being ground down in real ti. His mind was chewed on by Coco; his body had been torn up by the monster guest.
Even so, having confird that the group had left through the main doors safely, a belated wave of relief washed over him at last.
"Well, as long as the people are alive, it's fine. Wouldn't you agree?"
"No."
"Wicked cat."
"No."
He casually brushed off the snide objection. Yeon-woo rang the bell to summon the staff.
Soon, staff with mops approached expressionlessly and began scrubbing the floor. A floor where rainwater and thick blood had mingled together. Too grueso a sight to be explained away as rely a hand injury.
After gazing down at the stained floor for a mont, he glanced at the large mirror behind him.
"……."
…His back was gouged open.
Marks as though a beast had torn into the flesh.
Resurrection takes ti. If he had died, the next target would have been the human guests who had just stepped out.
"…Precious people very nearly didn't live out their natural lives. A breathtakingly close call."
A blessing his own life was as tough as it was.
"I never thought I'd use blood magic for this sort of purpose."
"Yes."
"Still, rather useful, don't you think?"
"Yes."
"Yes."
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