"…Gone to Seoul, she says…."
Seoul, when the person in question was cramd into the 23rd floor of this hotel. What absurdity.
"Was this your doing?"
"Yesno?"
"Maybe this is better, actually."
The hotel's core resource, 'Nightmares,' are exactly what the word implies. A collective term for all negative residue from a guest's experience here—mories, emotions, circumstances, everything.
In other words, once a 'Nightmare' is paid, the guest forgets that nightmare. Just as money vanishes from an account when spent.
This was a setting explicitly stated within the ga.
'I expected he'd forget, of course, but I never imagined the mory gap would be patched over so conveniently.'
It was a bit surprising. Not everything Hong Gyeong-yeon experienced here had been a nightmare, it seed. He'd only forgotten the part about Director Lee Seon-hae's disappearance.
"……."
He looked down at the cogwheel resting in his palm.
Shimring with the iridescence of water-scales,
'…The sea….'
Or a texture like a lake.
"…If I study this properly, I might be able to collect as many 'Nightmares' as I want."
"Yes!"
"I see."
He couldn't leave everything to the hotel's own criteria. The risk was too great. The mont the system classified soone's entire life as a 'Nightmare,' it would ruin a person wholesale.
'But that's for later. Right now there's sothing more urgent.'
It isn't over until it's over, they say.
"You really do wear
out."
"Tired?"
"Yes, you wicked cat."
"No!"
"Anyone can say 'no.'"
"Yes!"
"Good heavens, such honesty."
He pocketed the cogwheel. A high-purity Nightmare with no use during the current tutorial.
"……."
Lee Yeon-woo stood before the elevator.
The high-performance elevator opened its doors promptly. Lee Yeon-woo pressed 23.
"……."
It didn't register.
"……."
It didn't register.
"……."
"……."
This ti, too, it didn't register.
"Ha…."
Against those odds—a bust.
"I must be going mad."
The tutorial had not been completed.
"Still, it wasn't an entirely aningless attempt."
So let's hold on to a sliver of hope.
"This ga has plenty of bugs, especially in the early tutorial like this. With an event overlapping on top of it, it's possible to resolve the situation on the 23rd floor via the managent route through a bug."
"No…."
"I won't entertain that opinion. The point is, with luck, I may be able to exploit this bug on the 23rd floor. Provided, of course, I arrive there in ti…."
"No."
"My luck really is foul today. Failing to land above 80%—a water ghost's curse, perhaps. The future looks thoroughly bleak."
"Yes."
"Wicked cat."
"No."
***
He'd have liked it to give up at this point.
This entity refused to accept the death of a 'human guest.'
"There is still a way."
"……."
"Let's see how much more foolish I can get."
"No…."
Coco curled into a ball on Lee Yeon-woo's shoulder.
***
Why do I resurrect?
A question any scholar ought to raise.
'Because the absolute proposition that death is equal for all has been shattered.'
Simply because this is a ga? Or because this is a world half-mixed with reality?
Such vague hypotheses were unnecessary. Through precisely what chanism does the phenonon manifest? Lee Yeon-woo had been relentlessly repeating experints to uncover that foundation.
The objective was singular: securing the 'Ergency Restoration Protocol.' Precisely analyzing this resurrection system to obtain its core circuit. In simple terms, he wanted control by his own will, not regeneration subordinate to the system.
'Why do I co back to life?'
The answer is simple: because it was designed that way.
When specific conditions are t, the function activates according to its logic. This resurrection is not the product of survival instinct but of a precisely engineered algorithm. He'd sought to unearth its operating principle.
"Ha."
Lee Yeon-woo grasped the ergency stairwell's door handle, but—predictably—it didn't budge.
"How stingy."
"Yes."
"I expected as much, but the stairs are out of the question."
"Yes."
The cat looked pleased. A laughable display of psychological warfare.
Lee Yeon-woo already knew the answer. These seemingly futile efforts were rely a verification stage, converting hypothesis into certainty.
And so his thoughts continued.
'Who is the entity that determines I must live?'
That determination is not made by Lee Yeon-woo's brain or heart. It is decided in the blood. His blood carried the accumulated emotions, mories, form, and purpose of 'Lee Yeon-woo' as data.
'Who defines my death?'
Death is not an event designated by an external observer. It was identified as a specific state judged from within the blood. Do you understand what that ans?
Even if the heart stops and brain waves cease, the mont the blood reads 'not yet over,' survival continues. In other words, so long as blood remains, Lee Yeon-woo cannot die.
'Whose command is restoration, and by what chanism does it operate?'
This is a command system inscribed into the blood and the hotel—or perhaps into an unknown beyond. Whether it's an imprint bestowed by the system's designer or a function born of the ga's environnt, he couldn't tell.
But once analysis is complete, only one path remains for a researcher.
Utilize,
and adapt.
"……."
Lee Yeon-woo boarded the elevator again. In one hand, a chair taken from the lobby.
His gaze, scanning the elevator ceiling, stopped at one point.
"…I knew it'd be there."
Perhaps thanks to the design's faithful adherence to reality. A maintenance hatch caught his eye. Lee Yeon-woo opened it by force without hesitation.
A dark passage appeared. Or rather, was barely visible. Only the light from the small opening in the elevator illuminated that long, high shaft.
"No. No. No…."
"……."
"No!"
Lee Yeon-woo reached out. Tested his footing. The white cotton gloves had been discarded long ago. The uncomfortable suit jacket, already shed. Only one thing mattered now.
Could he climb up through here?
'During the tutorial stage, stairwell and elevator use is restricted.'
If this world was a ga, it ant he could only move within spaces defined by the system. In other words, he had to target the blind spots the system hadn't accounted for—'gaps that were never rendered.'
'Like the passage beyond this ceiling.'
The problem was the physical state of his body.
"…One wrong move and I might die…."
Had his body been intact, he'd have clung on and climbed sohow, but the current physical condition made it untenable. In a risk-free situation, he'd have trusted the resurrection chanism and repeated reckless attempts, but—
The thought hadn't even finished forming.
"……!"
—CRASH!!!
"—Ngh, AGHH…!!!"
"No."
"…Hh…."
Ah.
'Ah, honestly.'
It hurt.
'This'll be the death of .'
His spine scread. The back of his skull rang as though cracked open, every joint in his body twisting in a sensation that made drawing a single breath an ordeal. The result of trying to hang on with pathetic grip strength, and falling.
'A man tips backward a bit and ends up this wrecked… what a sorry sight I am.'
Yes, well—where was this water-soaked hanji body going to go?
"No."
"…Phew…."
"No."
"Co out here."
"Yes."
"At least you listen well."
Assessing his condition, the ligants were swollen. Since this wasn't an 'officially defined injury' within the ga rules, pain was felt. Raw, unshielded pain, unprotected by the system.
Thanks to that, his synapses were scorching. This brain-being-ripped-apart sensation.
"How amusing."
But it wouldn't kill him, either.
'Because this, too, is not a death defined within the ga rules.'
So long as Lee Yeon-woo exists as the 'General Manager,' he won't die even in this ragged state. Exactly as the hypothesis he'd wrung from his brain through sleepless pre-dawn hours.
"Ha, haha…!"
He truly felt insane.
'This works, that doesn't!'
The boundary between reality and ga that this hotel had set was savagely selfish and narrow. It really couldn't stand the thought of not binding Lee Yeon-woo as its 'General Manager'!
"So this doesn't work either."
"Yes. Yes. Yes."
"But that doesn't an I'm out of options."
"No. thod, no…."
Coco's objections were blithely ignored.
He could not tolerate people dying on his watch in a space he managed. Much less when he'd exchanged business cards with said guest. Letting them die was out of the question.
"I'd rather not have resorted to this, but… I'm afraid I have no choice."
Regrettably, one 'foolish option' still remained.
"To the quarters."
The most foolish thod of all.
***
There exists a substance called botulinum toxin. In more familiar terms: Botox.
"Quite a familiar word, wouldn't you say?"
"Yes."
"Its original purpose was as a treatnt for facial muscle spasms. But a side effect was discovered. A costic effect—the reduction of wrinkles. As a result, it's now widely used for wrinkle removal and aesthetic procedures."
"No. No. No…."
"Do you know minoxidil? Also known as Rogaine. Originally a hypertension dication, but a side effect of increased body hair was discovered. As a result, it was repurposed as a hair-loss treatnt and beca a hit."
"No, no. No. Side effect. No."
"What's to stop
from doing the sa? How is blood magic any different?"
The countless resurrections he'd undergone were not miracles. They were a reproducible restoration algorithm.
"This, too, is ultimately scholarship and science."
He'd conducted many experints.
Incised the left forearm to confirm the dian nerve and observe the blood's response. Punctured the right femoral region to analyze coagulation tendencies.
Partially incised below the ribs to attempt direct stimulation of the liver capsule. Induced finger joint separation and guided reattachnt. Approached nerve damage. 280 milliliters of bleeding. No repair. No response. Intraperitoneal hemorrhage induced, defensive blood response recorded.
Restored bone tissue did not match normal joint structure. Analgesic and anesthetic use restricted to eliminate additional variables and external factors. Consciousness maintained to observe sensory response and autonomous blood response.
Pulse rate, blood pressure, and pain response during hemorrhage recorded—successfully. But no aningful results were produced. An additional 81 rounds of deep experintation followed. Still nothing.
Because he hadn't been able to access all layers of the blood's structure. An error born of ignorance. Misfire. Failure.
"There's a reason this hotel had texts on blood magic."
It was deeply connected to this body and this hotel. Created through it. At minimum, related. Or interpretable through it. Lee Yeon-woo was human and data and a lump of blood.
The basic chanism, as far as he'd mapped it, was simple. Conditions are detected. Resources are summoned. Form-mory is recalled. Connection to self and will is attempted. The body is reconstructed….
"But exploiting this is difficult. I'm the subject the imprint was applied to, not the person who inscribed it. In my clueless, wretched state, naturally I can't utilize it either."
"No…."
"If you wanted to stop , you should have acted before things reached this point. I am doing what I must do, and insisting on my own way for the responsibilities I must bear."
And he added:
"I sincerely hope you, too, Coco, can be at least that mature a soul."
Blood contains five things. Life, mory, emotion, will, and soul. The closer to the soul, the deeper the knowledge. He'd identified them arbitrarily but hadn't understood them.
'If only I'd had the ti.'
With more ti, it would have been entirely possible. Fourteen months at most would have been more than enough to analyze down to the soul's domain.
'But there's no such luxury now.'
It had to be done here. Right now.
Lee Yeon-woo swept a bloodshot eye across the crushed skin around his other eye. An injury from the elevator fall. Even a brief touch left thick bloodstains on his palm.
'In this state, I hardly need additional experintal material.'
Blood magic was a convenient discipline that could manifest nearly any phenonon so long as blood was available. In the end, Lee Yeon-woo, a researcher to the marrow, couldn't help but think even in a situation like this:
—Isn't that splendid cost-efficiency?
"No."
"Good."
Lee Yeon-woo laughed. It was absurd. It was exhilarating.
He was now attempting to force his way to knowledge.
"Let's see…."
Blood-stained fingers traced, unhurriedly, the magic circle he rembered.
"…Let's ruin it. The forbidden ritual."
There's even a sacrifice right here.
Isn't that right?
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