"No."
Day 11 of hotel confinent.
Judging that he had adapted to his new body to so extent, Lee Yeon-woo began the tutorial. It was not easy, but neither was it especially difficult for Lee Yeon-woo, a player with twenty-six years of experience.
First, learning the building's layout.
Second, receiving guests.
Third, cleaning.
Fourth, how to use the staff.
The fifth was learning how to use the power plant, but....
"Not a single part of this hotel seems to be operating legally."
"No."
"My little partner does have generous standards. Which part, exactly, is not? Pardon , but to my eyes this is a plain labor-law violation."
He was not talking about his own work. The Operator was both the owner and the general manager, so that much could be excused. The real horror lay in the fact that the monsters classified as "staff" worked without rest.
"To think I am the owner of a company like this. What a rotten joke."
It was the very picture of an exploitative company.
"No?"
"It seems you are not quite aware that this is reality rather than a ga."
Or perhaps it did know, and simply did not care.
"Of course, when it was a ga, this was only natural. The developer of this ga was not the sort of person with enough ti to implent rest animations for every last NPC. But what I am trying to say is that this is... reality."
Assuming he had not truly fallen into a coma, that was.
"To apply the ga to a perfectly respectable hotel exactly as it was... how inflexible. To my eyes, this looks less like work and more like exploitation. Might you have any advice on how to resolve it?"
"Yes."
"What a hopeless company."
"Yes."
"I am astonished to hear you admit it."
As though it were none of its concern, Coco rolled around in Lee Yeon-woo's arms.
With its purring, it was an infuriatingly adorable cat. Coco yielded like sli to the touch, and its fur was as soft as a carpet. Its mild warmth was exceptional.
"This sits rather badly with ."
Having ekly acknowledged his own limitations, Lee Yeon-woo stepped out of the power generation room.
"To bear the title of Co-owner and yet have so little I can do... this leaves
in a rather awkward position."
"No."
"Would you not agree that my circumstances are far from easy?"
This hotel had certain situations and areas with extrely high entry difficulty.
One of them was the power generation room. rely breathing there corrupted the mind and raised the Operator's probability of suicide. When he could barely look after himself, he could hardly be expected to consider the staff's working conditions as well.
"...That was a rather shaful complaint."
The priority was to secure enough breathing room to look around him at least a little.
And so, day 27 of hotel confinent arrived.
"......"
In the end, Lee Yeon-woo hit a wall.
"The door will not open."
"Yes."
"At my age, after coming this far doing hotelier work in the body of a minor, and in a field outside my specialty, one might at least find
a little admirable. I even did it unpaid, so instead of wages, perhaps you might open the door for ."
"No."
"Now that reply interests
a little. Let us be precise, partner."
Looking down at the four-legged beast, he asked flatly,
"Are you refusing, or are you unable?"
"Hello."
"My apologies, I phrased the question incorrectly again. Are you refusing?"
"No."
"Ah, I see...."
Lee Yeon-woo rely rolled his eyes.
"...Even my only friend, who is willing to speak with , does not possess the authority to open this door. What a disaster. And now that I have beco a Co-owner as well, where exactly am I supposed to go to negotiate...?"
He had finished the tutorial tasks long ago.
He had done everything asked of him. He had learned nearly all of the hotel's functions as well.
'Even if it has beco reality, it is no different from the flow I rembered. Perhaps the bugs from the ga were carried over as they were, because I have even received monster guests of a difficulty level that should never have appeared during the tutorial.'
There was, however, exactly one stage he had been unable to complete.
"...Coco."
He called the monster whose form had beco so familiar that he could have drawn it with his eyes closed.
"There are many problems with bringing an actual human being here."
"No."
"It is not that I do not know what process the tutorial requires. I rember as well that after monster guests cos learning how to attend to human guests."
"Yes."
"I know that. But as a matter of basic human decency, that is unacceptable. And I am human. A human, not a beast, ought naturally to observe certain lines. Are you familiar with morality and ethics?"
"No."
"My, was this the third ti I had died of high blood pressure?"
"No."
"I was speaking to myself."
"Yes."
"......"
There were many kinds of beings that visited or resided in this hotel, but "guests" could largely be divided into two categories. They were "monster guests" and "human guests."
And human guests were, in the most literal sense, simply... people.
"Shall we sit down, Coco."
"Yes."
"Let us have a conversation."
"Yes."
"I have no intention of bringing any new person into this place besides myself. There are things that are only possible because a ga is a ga, and this ga is especially so in that regard. Who exactly am I supposed to bring in here to kill?"
"Yes."
"Did you just say that bringing people in here to get them killed is indeed the correct course?"
"Yes."
Fine. He did not particularly want to concede the point, but even if he yielded a hundred tis, a thousand tis, and accepted that....
"Then can that person resurrect as well?"
"No."
"Let
confirm one more thing, then, sir. Is that person sothing closer to the ga characters I know? An NPC? Or are they an ordinary human being, the sort who wakes up in the morning, goes to school or work, eats their als, and gets through the day with ordinary emotions?"
"Yes."
"Are you saying that an ordinary person, one who cannot resurrect the way I can, is supposed to co here and stay the night? That this is part of the tutorial? And that I am to learn how to attend to such people?"
"Yes."
"For my sake, I am to drive unrelated strangers onto a path of thorns?"
"Yes."
"It seems you have lost your mind."
This kidnapper was now trying to turn him into a murderer.
'As expected of a monster cat. Does it truly possess no conscience whatsoever?'
Naturally, Lee Yeon-woo had no intention of attending to real people.
In the end, he gave up on doing things fair and square. Life was full of variables, and it was better to find another path to survival than beco a murderer.
'There must be a way even without clearing the tutorial.'
Thus ti passed, and day 34 of hotel confinent arrived.
"It is unpleasant to realize that I am adapting."
"No."
All in all, it was livable enough.
"It should be interesting to see what happens once I finish the tutorial."
'Hoone' did not progress like an ordinary ga. Even the proper interface only appeared after the tutorial ended. And for all its unusual systems, it had plenty of bugs as well.
Lee Yeon-woo's present situation was exactly such a case.
'If left alone, resources pile up without limit.'
Normally, the tutorial in this ga ended in four days at the latest. But if one deliberately dragged it out for more than thirteen days during that short stretch, the system beca overloaded and several fatal bugs occurred.
The first concerned the type of guests. High-difficulty monsters, who were supposed to appear gradually in accordance with the user's level, began showing up from the very beginning. In a ga already difficult to begin with, it was hardly a welco developnt.
'And the second is the accumulation of resources.'
The amount of resources one could store was determined by the hotel's Grade.
But at the tutorial stage, there was no interface, which ant there was no upper limit on resources either. It was like having no storage at all while goods piled up without restraint.
From the perspective of a veteran player, it was manageable enough to adapt to, but....
"...Without an interface, I cannot know the exact figures."
"Yes."
"But the amount can hardly be small."
Resources far surpassing the tutorial average must already have pooled up throughout this hotel.
'Then will that be reflected as well?'
Ordinarily, excess resources piled up in this way were reset when the tutorial ended. The problem was that Hoone's error-handling code was poor.
To process undeleted resources, the system force-converted all of them into experience points.
'I once reached level 666 all at once with this thod.'
Under normal leveling, one had to consu a special item every five levels and perform a "Limit Break." But this bug ignored that process and sent the level skyrocketing.
And naturally, various side effects and conveniences ca with it.
'In a situation like this, where the ga has beco reality, those aspects would loom even larger.'
How high would his level rise this ti?
"Since it is only the two of us, I will be quite honest. I am rather looking forward to it. And that makes
deeply uncomfortable. Clearly, twenty-six years of attachnt have clouded my reason."
"No."
"The fact that living like this is not as bad as I expected makes
reproach myself. No one short of truly losing his mind ought to be able to enjoy such an unreasonable situation...."
"Yes."
"......"
He looked at Coco with an indifferent gaze.
"At tis, I find myself wondering whether you are not expressing a desire to pick a fight with , Coco. Though of course, I assu you will say no."
"Yes."
"I really should not be adapting to this sort of thing. I shall reflect on that."
It was a ga he had played for over twenty years. Regretting the end of service, he had inquired about the rights and ended up receiving a transfer of copyright as well. And now he had entered the very ga he cherished so much that it had beco part of his daily life.
'I admit I cannot help feeling attached to it.'
Death was no real threat, and living posed no hardship. Though he had been kidnapped and confined, looked at generously, it might even count as a kind of vacation.
'At this point, it is not so terribly bad. It is hardly different from stepping into an imrsive studio secretly built around my ga, the one that never even got updates, let alone rchandise.'
If he thought of it as staying overnight in a the park or a haunted house, it was tolerable in its own way.
"Even so, I would still like to return to my original life."
"No."
"How very firm of you. But I understand what you an. In the state I am in, nineteen and as fragile as wet hanji paper, it would be difficult to expect a return to my old life. Even if I did escape from here."
"Yes."
"Could I truly live an ordinary human life? Would I not risk being snatched up by the National Intelligence Service? Would people even recognize
in this suddenly younger body...? In truth, I cannot know."
"No."
"Hearing that only makes
less confident. If this was an attempt to keep
from even thinking of leaving this place, I would say it was not a bad one...."
He murmured,
"...When will that door open."
And so ti passed.
Before long, it was day 52 of hotel confinent.
"Now, repeat after ."
Across his usually dry expression, Lee Yeon-woo drew a "painted-on smile."
Controlling his expression was one of his specialties. As always, the corners of his mouth lifted smoothly.
Then he spoke in a pleasant tone.
"Hello."
"Hello."
Lee Yeon-woo nodded at Coco's answer.
It was a sign of mutual understanding. He was teaching it the language of human society.
"You are doing very well. Please rember that human language can express a great many things through intonation alone. Since you understand my speech, I am certain you will learn intonation quickly as well."
"Yes."
"In that case, nodding your head would express your understanding more clearly. For reference, by head here I an the part above the neck, especially the chin...."
Lee Yeon-woo began interacting with the hotel in earnest.
Since Hoone had beco reality, there was no reason he could not aim for sothing beyond the ga. Above all, the reason was simply that he was bored and had nothing to do.
'If the tutorial feels boring, that must an I am in a situation with that much room to spare. I ought to be grateful.'
If he had entered the main playthrough, he would have been busy beyond asure. Between attending to guests and managing the hotel, he would have had no ti to breathe. But it was not like that now.
He still had not finished the tutorial.
"Hello!"
"Excellent, Coco."
He could not beco a murderer for the sake of his own safety.
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