Random Box.
In Hoone, this type of reward appeared on rare occasions.
"A probability-based reward, but."
"Yes."
It also showed up in tutorial rewards. However, not everyone who finished the tutorial received one. The quality of the rewards varied depending on the manager's rating.
"This ga really does have every vile elent imaginable."
"Yes."
"So you agree...."
And the 'Random Box: Manager Welco Package' was a reward given starting from a tutorial rating of B.
"......"
Bronze (B),
Silver (A),
Gold (A ),
Platinum (S).
"...So I had a faint suspicion, but."
"Faint suspicion."
"Has soone lost their mind?"
"Pardon?"
"Whose idea was it to make the box itself out of platinum? Was it you, Coco?"
"No? No?"
"You're sure it wasn't?"
The gaudily decorated box glittered. The light reflected off it almost like a mirror. Staring at the surface, so smooth it hurt his eyes, he found himself curious about the creator's brain structure.
"Inflexible doesn't even begin to describe it. Whoever implented this box apparently never considered that only the color might be platinum."
"No."
"I'm not listening. What I'm more curious about is whether I can actually open this. There shouldn't have been an unboxing animation implented in the ga, right?"
Even the ribbon was platinum. Remarkable craftsmanship.
"Shall I share a fascinating fact?"
"No."
"Platinum has a Mohs hardness of roughly 4.3, making it harder than gold at 2.5. And it's heavy."
"Coco, no."
"However, you're right. It does have so malleability, so it's not impossibly difficult to work with. Made thin enough, it's fairly flexible for a tal. That said, whether you can undo it by hand is an entirely different question."
It was also rather thick for a ribbon.
"......"
"......"
Coco glanced back and forth between the Random Box and Yeon-woo. After seeming to read the room, it quietly rose. Then it clamped its mouth firmly over the end of the ribbon and began slowly unraveling it.
Before long, the ribbon was completely undone.
"Oh."
Clang.
"I'd never imagined the sound of ribbons clinking together could be this weighty, but since being abducted to this hotel, I seem to be accumulating all sorts of novel experiences."
"No."
"As I always say, please specify exactly what you're denying."
How a ribbon with the density of tal had unraveled like an actual ribbon remained a mystery. Yeon-woo's common sense was losing value by the day. A dismal state of affairs.
But setting aside that collapse of common sense, Yeon-woo was able to safely inspect the box's contents.
[Starter Resource Set]
Nightmare Assets ×500
Emotional Stabilizer (dium) ×3
Purification Kit (Single Room Use) ×2
Ingredient Box (S) ×1
[Response Protocol Set]
Facility Automation (S) ×3
Resource Storage Organization (A) ×1
Surveillance Circuit Reallocation (B) ×5
A list that spilled out the mont he opened the weighty box.
"...?"
And one card.
"...What's this?"
He took it out and examined it.
Quite large,
classical,
and luxurious.
"......"
"Cards and files did occasionally co out of random boxes in the ga, but... this seems to be an entirely different kind. Wouldn't you agree?"
"......"
"It's not in the manifest, either."
mory Cards, Contract Fragnts, Sealed Records, Emotion Straps. Those sorts of collectible items would occasionally appear in Platinum Random Boxes. Naturally, those too fell within the realm of probability.
'But this doesn't look like the sa type.'
Even for a twenty-six-year veteran player, this was a deeply unfamiliar item.
Yeon-woo murmured.
"...The Devil."
Tarot card, number 15.
'As I thought, a card I don't recognize.'
If a symbolic item like a tarot card had appeared in this ga, there was no way he'd have failed to rember it. So where had this co from?
'Or was this one of the ga's concepts I never knew about?'
Suspicion bred suspicion. Yeon-woo quickly ford a hypothesis that bordered on instinct.
"...This might be my imagination, but...."
"......"
"Does this belong to this hotel?"
Yeon-woo held the card in front of Coco's face.
"......"
CHOMP.
Coco bit the card.
"......"
"......"
Munch, munch.
"No."
"So it doesn't."
"No."
"Yes."
So it seed.
'I've never seen it look this displeased.'
Coco normally had no expression. It simply wore a perpetual smile with round eyes. Even so, its emotions were usually fairly transparent—but even accounting for that, right now, it was painfully obvious.
'...Then that ans it's an object from outside this hotel and the ga system. It's not in the manifest, either. For soone who hasn't even fully adjusted to the hotel yet, this is a rather ominous object.'
Of all things, 'The Devil.'
'Sinful desire, corruption, obsession, addiction....'
Or materialism, or helplessness.
That was how Yeon-woo rembered the card's aning. Mostly negative.
'Being a tarot card, it must have positive interpretations as well, but those don't co to mind.'
This was decidedly not his area of expertise.
Yeon-woo extracted the card from between Coco's teeth.
"Hmm...."
Despite all that chewing, it was perfectly intact.
No matter how much he tried to convince himself otherwise, it didn't look like an ordinary card. An unidentifiable, ominous scrap of paper. Yeon-woo gently placed it back inside the box.
"Let's set this aside for now."
"Yes."
"For how vehent that reaction was, you surprisingly aren't telling
to throw it away."
"Yes...."
"Ah, it's an item that can't be discarded? Cos back like a boorang?"
"Yes."
"Wonderful."
No different from a cursed doll.
"Anyway."
"Anyway."
"Befitting a Platinum, the rewards are excellent. The starter resources are nice, but the fact that a Response Protocol Set was already included is very encouraging. All that suffering was worth it."
"Yes."
"This should give us a bit more breathing room for operations."
Hoone, surprisingly, had an automation system. In simple terms, it was a feature that let the system handle the tedious processes a player would normally have to manage one by one.
'It just eats through resources, is all.'
In the ga, these were called 'Protocols.' The player had to design automation circuits themselves, and calculate the required personnel and resource numbers down to every last digit—a cumberso task.
But what allowed you to skip all that complexity and apply it imdiately was precisely this 'Response Protocol' item. Any area where it was used would automatically handle guest services in an optimized structure.
"Facility Automation... Resource Storage Organization... Surveillance Circuit Reallocation. Three types, then."
"Resource Storage Organization."
"Please calm down."
"als. Ingredients. Storage."
"Please calm down."
This pig-cat.
"We haven't even unlocked the greenhouse yet. Using a Response Protocol on the ingredient storage is wasteful, in my estimation. We're hardly in a position to afford that kind of luxury."
"als... storage...."
"This is the early stage of operations. Guest numbers are low, and the threat level is manageable. Tis like these are precisely when we should invest more in facility maintenance. If we attend to the consumables and dical supply storage first, guest and staff satisfaction will improve."
"als...! Ingredients...!"
"You'll be eating three als a day with
anyway, so why... must you be this stubborn? If you saw the tutorial completion notification alongside , you know the fate of this hotel is at stake...."
"Ingredient storage!!"
"Good lord."
It was rare for Coco to raise its voice. Rarer still for it to throw itself flat on the floor and flail, or imitate crying sounds to throw a tantrum.
"......"
Yeon-woo... tasted the agony of childcare for the first ti in a while.
'My head is spinning.'
Why must he feel this kind of anguish while looking at a half-finished monster cat?
He tried his best to stay sane and reason with it.
"Listen. Guests in the early stages of operations rarely use the buffet or the dining hall. Hardly any recipes have been unlocked, so all the more reason. You know this too, Coco. I'm not sure why you're being like this, but the storage that actually demands the most attention early on is the item and dical supply—"
"Eeh."
"......"
Yeon-woo pressed his lips shut.
'That's a truly honest "eeh," I have to say.'
But it was admittedly rather cute.
"...The ingredient storage isn't even connected to the greenhouse or the automation system yet, so using a Response Protocol to manage it would be too much of a waste—"
"Eeh."
"No matter what, for the sake of stable operations, we need to secure the safety of the managing staff and ourselves before we can move in a better direc—"
"Eeh. Eeeh."
"......"
"Eeeeh."
...Well, the ingredient storage did rank about third on the priority list.
'...The level spike was so steep that another bug could trigger at any ti. If the greenhouse does get connected to the automation system, it wouldn't be strange at all for the ingredient storage to rank first among all the storages.'
It wasn't the orthodox play. Early on, long-term guests were few, so dining hall utilization was low.
'But running a hotel isn't just about facilities and services. The als guests enjoy are clearly part of the equation too, and I'd been planning to start running the dining hall at least for appearances....'
When he thought about it, none of the other areas were automated either. Even if he could craft items in the Power Generation Room, he still had to buy recipes and do everything by hand.
"......"
No, but even so, the guest room consumables storage should be automated in advance.
"......"
"Eeeh...."
"...I'll consider it."
If the thought 'What's the worst that happens—I die a few tis?' had crossed his mind, had he finally lost it?
'To think I've beco this generous about my own death. If this was an elaborate sche to make
voluntarily abandon my humanity, it deserves comndation.'
But it was the early stage of operations.
'There's definitely room to spare.'
The guest room consumables storage at this stage was manageable to organize manually.
'...Inventory cleanup, auto-recomndation and refills, tagging... and it even handles Nightmare Asset recovery... If I think of it as a future investnt, putting it toward the ingredient storage is arguably more profitable in so ways.'
The greenhouse belonged to one of the higher-tier areas among the 'non-existent floors.' Accordingly, the linked ingredient storage had diverse functions, and normally, unlocking those functions required pouring in yet more enormous resources.
"Understood, let's go with that."
"......!"
Coco shot to its feet. Its Vantablack eyes seed to sparkle today. Just his imagination, surely.
Yeon-woo smiled.
"I'll try to tackle the greenhouse first."
"Yes!"
'Though I have no idea when I'll actually have the capacity for that.'
So [Resource Storage Organization (A)] would go to the ingredient storage.
'Facility Automation....'
[Facility Automation (S) ×3]
"Three tickets."
The areas that demanded the most attention were the 23rd floor, the 22nd floor, and the 2nd floor. The rest didn't require significant investnt in the early ga.
"...Since we've already set the greenhouse as our goal, let's use the automation tickets on the Aqua Park, Dining, and Buffet. The remaining facilities can be wired up and staffed gradually."
"Yes."
"I'm glad there's no disagreent on this point."
The two clasped each other's hands and sealed the agreent.
***
"Ugh, I know, right? He called
out of the blue, so I was just as surprised."
"......"
"Yeah, yeah. Right. Of course I trust you, Gyeong-yeon. If you send the materials, I can check them on my end... yeah. I'll head back over there soon too."
"......"
"...Alright then."
Director Lee Seon-hae pressed the phone tight against her ear. The corners of her mouth, which she'd forced upward, crumpled awkwardly at a single word of concern from her colleague.
"Nothing's wrong."
The call ended shortly after.
"......"
Seon-hae lowered the phone and stared vacantly at the ceiling. A sigh tried to escape, but she swallowed it back. A bone-deep weariness pressed down on her entire body.
She carelessly tossed the phone onto the seat beside her, leaned back on the sofa as if collapsing, and asked.
"Satisfied?"
"Yes."
The solidly built old man nodded.
"The master of the Labyrinth went to the trouble of showing consideration. It wouldn't do for us to bungle things on our end. You know as well as I do that there's nothing good to co of your young friends finding out. And above all...."
"......"
"Seon-hae, you were very lucky."
"...I know."
A smile laced with revulsion crept out.
"I know that."
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