Our Hotel Is Open fo Chapter 30

How much ti had passed? Consciousness began to return.

"Hrrgh…."

Breathing was choked. Whether from the high humidity or because her lungs had given out, she couldn't tell.

Even so, an instinctive relief washed over her.

'—I'm alive.'

Well, alive, but she couldn't tell if she was living or dying.

The lunatic had chased her like a maniac, so she'd run like one. After she'd dragged it out long enough, it slowed down. She'd used the opening to escape the knife-wielding maniac's line of sight.

"…Hk, haahh… hk…."

She fought to muffle her breathing.

"…Hoo…."

Lee Seon-hae bit down on her lips.

'Just hiding in the tunnel wasn't enough…!'

She'd been too complacent. She ought to bang her head against a wall and write a letter of reflection.

There was sothing she'd overlooked. The suspicious but ticulous entity's early information was generally correct, true. But the walkie-talkie had said:

Pipe or tunnel.

'It said I could speak freely inside the tunnel. It never said the place would be safe forever.'

That was what it had ant.

'But I never imagined he'd squeeze that enormous body in and co crawling through!'

She'd been sitting still in the tunnel when the footsteps stopped and he suddenly burst in. She'd scrambled out the opposite end in a panic. Recalling that mont, Lee Seon-hae moved her feet.

"……."

…Please, get a grip.

'No amount of ntal composure matters if the body can't keep up. Tis like these are when I need to hold on to reason. Stop getting distracted and move.'

With every step, water splashed up like pain. Her leg hurt. She couldn't pick up speed. Worse, the splashing was loud. Truly the worst.

Lee Seon-hae grimaced.

"…Ngh…."

She hadn't been caught yet. Emphasis on 'yet.' Running this noisily and slowly, her position would be given away in no ti.

'…Where, where to hide… ah, right. Pipes? Where are the pipes? Did it an water pipes? Those are too narrow for a person. Then was the pipe talk a lie? If not a lie, where the hell are they?'

She hadn't bolted out without a plan. The walkie-talkie had said 'pipe or tunnel.' If there was a space as safe as the tunnel, she could hide there.

The problem was not knowing where that was!

'Well, I'm screwed!'

This Aqua Park was obscenely vast. She'd seen the pamphlet at the information desk, but it was pure fiction. Most of it was traps. Nothing worked.

'My stamina is tanking…!'

The breath rose to her throat. Footsteps were closing in. It was searching for her.

'The closest thing— ah!'

Timing was on her side.

Her eyes caught a moderately large maintenance box behind a display tank.

'Is it open?'

Fuck, thank god—it was.

Lee Seon-hae imdiately opened the box and climbed inside. It was too dark to have known this box existed. She desperately hoped the knife-wielding lunatic was equally unaware.

"……."

She held her breath.

"……."

Squelch,

squelch,

squelch.

"……."

Squelch….

"……."

"……."

"……."

…Squelch.

Squelch, squelch, squelch.

'…Wow.'

She'd made it.

'I seriously thought I was done for this ti.'

The effort of not breathing and clamping her mouth shut had paid off.

Whether this was tornt or a genuine failure to spot her, she didn't know. But she was alive for now, so she decided to thank the heavens. Thank God.

'What did I ever do to that bastard to make him follow only ? Was he that offended that our Gyeong-yeon stood in his way? Is he the type who absolutely cannot tolerate soone being noisy?'

But he started it.

Just going after our kid with a knife.

My writer, whom I raised and coaxed and nurtured.

"……."

…When a person is hungry and exhausted, all sorts of thoughts intrude. Self-loathing ca and went.

'Is this really the ti?'

Feeding the knife-wielding lunatic prison food, or smacking the back of his head—that was for after she'd made it out alive. Burning vengeance and grievance was a aningless act right now.

Lee Seon-hae pressed hard on the space between her eyes. Lack of sleep had left them stiff and aching.

"…Ha…."

Save , seriously.

'I've really gone this far.'

She had to pull herself together.

"……."

To stay alive a bit longer,

she had to move a bit more.

'…This is neither pipe nor tunnel.'

She turned it over in her head.

'The walkie-talkie might have given wrong information, but this is a place it never even ntioned. So paradoxically it could be safer… but considering the tunnel, there's no guarantee this maintenance box will stay safe forever either.'

She rembered which direction the footsteps had receded. She'd need to move the opposite way. There was a fair chance the other party knew everything and was toying with her.

'Leave this spot.'

Creeeak—…

She opened the maintenance box door slowly, carefully.

"……."

No one around.

'Those damn ghost fish are perfectly visible, though….'

A faint glow entered her field of vision. Light, yes, but sothing hollow about it.

'Compared to the other monsters, they're almost cute.'

Slightly relieved, Lee Seon-hae crept out of the maintenance box.

'They just drift through the air without reacting to

at all. Eerie, sure, but the least scary monster to run into. They deserve a "nice monster" award.'

A school of fish, drifting serenely through the dark void.

"……."

No—she didn't want to waste ti like this again, but.

"…Wow…."

Honestly, wasn't this worth risking her life to see?

They gathered in clusters up high, like stars. It felt like being subrged in the ocean. Transparent and faintly luminous, they seed to display the scenery of the deep sea.

A sense of awe at sothing vast and boundless.

"Beautiful."

Lee Seon-hae smiled awkwardly.

'How strange.'

She knew this wasn't the ti, yet her heart pounded fiercely.

A lair of monsters, any one of which could swallow a person whole. This place was unexpectedly beautiful and sentintal. As though it were truly an Aqua Park built for its guests.

But she knew it wasn't.

"……."

Visible through the faint glow of the ghost fish, in that high darkness—

"……!"

Enormous.

Enormous, and enormous. But precisely—too large to fit within the bounds of perception.

So impossibly vast that she had no mory of seeing the whole, yet the re fact of having glimpsed a part of it made her brain ache with a tingling pain. Had her heart been pounding, or had it stopped entirely?

It was too pale.

Bloodlessly cold… no.

The very concept of 'having blood' was unsuitable….

Waterlogged and swollen, sothing that might or might not be flesh.

It was gazing down, quietly, from above.

At .

'Gazing?'

No—sothing that could only be described as gazing. It was detecting .

'I can see it, I'm sure.'

Those countless gazes bored into her eyes and brain like thin tubes.

Each ti, she felt it.

This isn't safe.

'It can't be safe.'

This was a tank where sothing that should not exist lay sleeping.

"……."

…But, well.

'It's got nothing to do with .'

Even if it exists, she'd like it permanently filed under "doesn't."

Good view, anyway. She'd been feeling guilty about being unable to do anything for Mr. Yeon-woo, and here she was finding one more reason to justify crawling into this hotel.

'Ah, my eyes hurt….'

She rubbed her bloodshot eyes and lowered her gaze again. She knew looking did no good, yet kept staring. Maybe the more negative sothing was, the more addictive.

Director Lee Seon-hae moved as quietly as possible.

'Oh.'

And found a decent crutch along the way.

The place was probably a staff break room. Or an infirmary. There was a simple bed and a small dicine box. Everything looked dated.

"……?"

But the crutch aside, there was a dication she'd never seen before.

"What's this?"

The packaging itself was mass-produced.

But Lee Seon-hae was soone who'd courted hardship and injuries throughout her career. She knew every dication there was. And yet this one was a complete mystery.

'Is it safe to use?'

After so deliberation, she set it aside.

'I'm not about to die yet. No need to gamble.'

Gambling is for when there's a chance of winning. At minimum, you do it with so conviction or hope of coming out ahead. Lee Seon-hae didn't trust this unidentified dication one bit.

"Ugh."

Footsteps again. Lee Seon-hae ducked straight into a locker.

'This isn't so obedience training for a dog… is he just toying with

while knowing everything?'

No—she wasn't even sure it was human. After seeing so many monsters, resembling a human wasn't enough to be certain.

'The behavior is definitely not passing for human, at least.'

She stuffed a few dications into her pockets. Good thing she hadn't slept in pajamas. Had she been wearing sothing thin and pocketless, she'd have died of hypothermia by now. Couldn't have carried anything, either.

"……."

The footsteps receded again.

'Must've just been passing through.'

And just as she was climbing out of the locker.

Thwack.

"……."

A strange sound.

Right beside her ear, from very close.

"…Huh…."

She turned her head slowly.

On the inside of the door she'd pushed, a red handprint was stamped.

'A hand?'

Precisely—a handprint stamped at exactly her eye level.

"…Why is this…."

The mark had spread as if sothing had pushed out from the inside.

Red liquid slid downward. Silent, yet vivid even in this darkness.

'This is….'

What?

"Was this left for

to find…?"

It certainly looked that way.

It was positioned too perfectly, as if waiting to be discovered by Lee Seon-hae. So perfectly positioned that it looked suspicious.

'Then again, nothing here could be normal.'

Anyway—wow.

"……."

Wow!

A belated gasp.

Director Lee Seon-hae clutched her chest. Her tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth and wouldn't co free.

"Classic horror movie stuff…."

What a scene of pure thrill.

'Thought my heart was going to leap out of my mouth.'

She worried it might stop soon. Too formulaic and too deliberate—that was what made it terrifying. A blatant cliché, but experiencing it firsthand was this frightening.

'Hong Gyeong-yeon would've fainted already.'

Right—at least that coward didn't get dragged here. He tended to court death through hysterics when panic set in. Viewed that way, the situation wasn't the absolute worst.

'So where do I go now, ha….'

And just as she opened the room's door to leave.

"……."

"……."

…Their eyes t.

A mouth torn wide.

Bloodshot whites.

Hands caked in blood.

"……."

Those hands.

Those were the hands.

The very hands that had left the mark on the locker door monts ago.

"…Ah,"

In other words, she was completely, utterly screwed.

Lee Seon-hae's judgnt was instinctive.

She didn't actually think. She just moved.

She happened to be holding sothing.

"…AAAGHH, FUCK—!!"

SMASH—!!!

She hurled the dication into its eyes.

"GET AWAY FROM !!"

"……!"

The man faltered but didn't so much as blink. But in that instant of faltering, Lee Seon-hae spun around and walked as fast as she could. Having even a crutch was heaven-sent luck.

'But what good does that do!!!'

Running in this condition was a joke. Naturally, she was caught within steps.

"AAGHH…!!"

The man's hands, damp with blood, were enormous, and cold as a corpse. She felt sothing like insects crawling on the neck that was instantly seized.

Ah, and just like that.

"Mmph, gah…!!"

SLAM—!!

She was driven into the floor.

"You, piece of—!"

"……."

"…Gkh, hahh, ugh…!!"

"……."

"Ngh…!!"

"……."

The man looked down at Lee Seon-hae without a word.

This was what dying felt like. The lunatic was staring at her with that unhinged face. Breathing hurt beyond suffocation and quickly turned hazy.

'There are ways to sotis still breathe through this.'

Was he a professional at strangling? He'd locked the airway shut. A pressure that refused even a sliver of oxygen.

She clawed at the hand around her throat, but the figure didn't stir.

'Fuck, seriously fuck this… this son of a bitch…!'

Death was at her doorstep. No escape in sight, and reason was dimming.

"……!"

"……."

"…Urgh…."

The sensation of the last scrap of air in her lungs hardening solid. At that threshold of death, Lee Seon-hae thought without aning to.

'…If I die, what happens to our writer.'

That wasn't the only problem.

'I went through all that to save him and send him out… if I die here….'

Through her blurring vision, she saw the man raise his knife. Eyes impossibly red. Beyond bloodshot—red in a way that defied human biology, those scarlet eyes curved into eerie crescents.

—No.

"Hh…ngh!!"

Lee Seon-hae wrung out every remaining ounce of strength and gripped the crutch.

"……!!!"

CRACK—!!!

She bashed his skull.

In the split second the figure hesitated, Lee Seon-hae did not falter. Again and again and again, she brought the crutch down on that head. Until the worn crutch scread and snapped apart.

Lee Seon-hae drove the broken crutch's jagged end straight into the man's eye.

—SQUELCH!!

The wet pop of a bursting eyeball struck her eardrums.

"AGHH…!!"

Revolting and foul. But alongside a heartbeat she couldn't stop, a ragged breath burst out like a roar of laughter.

"Hack, cough, gahk, gkh…!! Hk, ngh…!!"

"……."

"Mmph, cough, cough…!!"

"……."

"Hahh, hk, hhk… ngh, ha…."

She clung to consciousness with everything she had. It was the only way to survive.

The crutch hadn't pierced through the skull, obviously. Far too little force. But the ruptured eyeball was certain. She violently shook free of the man's grip, frozen stiff like a statue, and crawled out.

She barely managed to stand against a wall.

'I can't take him.'

She'd never neglected exercise or self-defense, but in this situation, none of it ant anything.

Lee Seon-hae's body was wrecked and the other party in peak condition. Could she kill him? She had no proper ans, and killers kill better—experience counts.

"Gkh, ungh…!"

She'd never committed murder. The greatest transgression of her life had been injuring soone in self-defense. There was no room to weigh conscience or ethics, but lack of experience ant hesitation,

and hesitation was directly connected to death.

'As if I'd make that gamble.'

So she had to run. She had to leave this spot imdiately, and yet—

"…Ugh, urk… urgh…."

"……."

"BWEHH…. Hack, gkh…."

Her stomach—her stomach turned inside out.

"Khlk, ngh. Ugh…."

Bile surged up.

Her vision lurched rcilessly and her head spun. Senses were slashed beyond any sense of direction. The inside of her throat burned, and her lungs felt like she'd inhaled wet cotton.

Her fingertips were cold. A damp, heavy sensation. She ca to and found her hands splashing in the water that covered the floor. Had she fallen? Yes, she'd fallen. Probably.

"……."

In the midst of ragged breathing, an impossibly clear sound pierced her ears.

Footsteps mixed with the sound of water.

'Ah, please.'

Squelch.

Squelch. Squelch….

The sound of a person walking through mud or swamp.

"……."

"……."

She barely managed to turn her head and bring the man into view. The knife-wielding lunatic. The guest from Room 703.

"…Good god."

Pulp and flesh dropped away from the ruined eye. Blood stread freely, yet not a flicker of pain showed on that face. Lee Seon-hae caught herself laughing before she could stop it, and only then did she feel she understood sothing.

"So it really was a monster."

Of course it wouldn't feel pain. Of course my desperation wouldn't have registered as anything.

It was smiling, and the eyes were not bloodshot—they were a dark, blackish red. So red the pupils couldn't be distinguished, and both eyes and mouth curved in crescent moons.

'Ah….'

When the knife,

just like that,

fell like a star.

…The pain.

"……."

Strangely, it did not co.

"……."

"……?"

The man's movent froze mid-stride.

'Why?'

Before the question could even form, a bizarre déjà vu swept across Lee Seon-hae's entire body.

'It was on the seventh floor.'

The man had shown this exact sa reaction once before. Her petrified brain thawed with relief and finally unearthed that fragnt of mory.

'…Right—when Mr. Yeon-woo rang the bell—'

Swsssssh—

"……!"

In that instant, vivid arterial blood spread across the surface of the water.

From far below what she'd believed to be darkness—from beneath the pool floor—sothing was slowly rising. The water on the ground pulsed like a heartbeat, responding to its presence.

It was not a re bloodstain. It was blood itself. A living, moving, enormous pool of blood. Rivulets of blood that had seeped through cracks in the walls trembled finely and began, one by one, to take shape.

A vitality that was chillingly vivid, and intelligence. Particles too fine to see with the naked eye, yet they were unmistakably—

moving with a self of their own.

【■■】

A single utterance.

Had it sensed a living breath within that noise, or had it only wished to believe so? From the pitch-black water, a single vermilion strand surged upward like the root of a plant.

"……."

The strand changed direction.

As if raising its head.

As if looking at Lee Seon-hae.

Above all.

…As if it knew everything.

【A guest?】

At the sa instant, countless strands erupted above the water's surface.

'That's impossible.'

Veins wove together and a spine grew. Arms attached above it, and broken bones found their places, clicking into alignnt one by one. And when the eyes were ford—

"……."

Lee Seon-hae was certain.

She had seen those eyes before….

"Ma'am."

"……."

"Director Lee Seon-hae."

From those precisely constructed lips, her own na erged.

Here, at this hour, among all these red things. It should have been a welco call, yet for so reason her heart dropped.

Did he sense it? Lee Yeon-woo's eyes blinked slowly, catlike. As if to say, don't be wary. I won't hurt you, and you're not in danger.

"…It looks like you're in a dangerous situation."

Gently, as one would coax a small, fragile creature, Lee Yeon-woo carefully spoke.

His tone was still composed and courteous. Far too polite for a monster that had walked out of a pool of blood—so much so that it sounded like a kind adult extending a hand to a frightened child.

Was it her head that had gone strange for thinking that?

"May I be of assistance?"

"…Ah…."

The irony was exquisite. An entity reborn from blood in the most irrational manner possible, asking after her well-being with the most deeply human bearing. The stark disconnect drew a laugh out of her.

So she laughed.

"Aha, ha… ha…."

It was Lee Yeon-woo.

"This is truly sothing."

Hair swept neatly back. Eyes behind the glasses. A trim three-piece suit and dress shoes. The sa face she'd been looking at, yet all the more unreal for the circumstances.

Perhaps this was not a person at all.

'But it looks like one.'

Because she could feel it—beyond that practiced smile—the gaze checking on her safety, the fatigue asking for permission. That was why. Finding both the wonder and the humanity at once struck her as absurd.

So she grasped the lifeline that had descended like a miracle.

"Listen, Mr. Yeon-woo, I'm really sorry, but."

"Yes."

"…Please save ."

With those words, the thread of consciousness that had been clinging on by a hair finally snapped. In the instant before she lost awareness, her last thought was exactly one.

This hotel is really insane.

***

"……."

"…Oh, dear."

Lee Yeon-woo felt pity.

Director Lee Seon-hae had apparently lost consciousness the mont she saw him, her tension dissolving. The problem was that the current situation was far from lenient enough to let her rest comfortably.

"Getting her out imdiately isn't feasible."

He'd arrived on the 23rd floor after much difficulty, but there was still a long way to go.

'I am still bound by this ga's rules.'

Belaboring this point after coming all this way felt a bit sheepish, but Director Lee Seon-hae, as a human guest, was equally constrained by the rules.

In the end, their only way out was to exploit the ga's rules, its system, and whatever errors might exist. At least he'd arrived with a razor-thin margin of 10 hours and 57 minutes to spare.

'But that's only the bare minimum for survival.'

aning several more trials still lay ahead.

"……."

"…I suppose I should be grateful you're looking this way as intended."

Director Lee Seon-hae was forgotten, for the mont.

"Glare all you like—I've no gift to offer."

A brief standoff.

But Lee Yeon-woo had anticipated this much before setting foot in the Aqua Park.

'…The playable character has a companion transport function.'

A motion called 'Carry Companion.' A function allowing the user to personally support and move a companion whose stamina has dropped below 30%....

"……!"

Lee Yeon-woo hoisted the director onto his back and broke into a run.

"…!! ……!!"

"This is recklessness of the highest order."

As the 'Drenched One' swung its knife in pursuit, Lee Yeon-woo grimaced. Dealing with those who couldn't act their age and ran amok was, no matter how many tis he experienced it, an exhausting affair.