Our Hotel Is Open for Business as Usual Chapter 64

The elevator doors opened, and Lee Yeonwoo stepped outside.

 

“….”

 

The first thing he had to do was clear.

 

‘I must keep my mouth shut.’ 

 

However, the uninvited guest atop his shoulder seemed to have zero intention of cooperating.

 

“Yes?”

 

‘Have you lost your mind?’

 

He was acting like this even though he knew full well they weren’t supposed to make a sound. Even after having come here multiple times already.

 

Despite Lee Yeonwoo’s reproach, Coco purred and rolled around on his shoulder. The way he tried to smooth over every situation with sheer cuteness could not have been more detestable.

 

‘This wicked cat.’

 

“Yes?”

 

“….”

 

Lee Yeonwoo pressed firmly against his temple with his thumb. It was dizzying right from the start.

 

‘I would be deeply grateful if you would close yours as well.’

 

“….”

 

‘Thank you very much.’

 

The 14th floor was similar to Room 14, yet the very air was different.

 

Cables dangling from the ceiling, worn control panels mounted on the walls, and dark, dead monitors. It was a space that felt like a closed-down research laboratory and a surveillance center had been mashed together.

 

‘There are more objects and terrain features, though.’ 

 

Rusted iron plates, cracked tiles, and bloodstained laboratory benches were scattered here and there. Unlike Room 14, which was boxed in on all sides by concrete, glass walls allowing an unobstructed view of the interior were installed here.

 

After walking a short distance, he saw blood-soaked writing beyond a glass wall.

 

‘That is probably….’

 

Lee Yeonwoo stepped closer and peered inside.

 

“….”

 

It was an intaglio mural carved out using blood as paint.

 

Though not the work of an expert hand, the sight devouring the walls and ceiling exuded a bizarre grandeur. Countless concepts could be read within the painting.

 

‘…Did it feel like this in the game as well?’

 

He had spotted similar defaced murals in various parts of the 14th floor before.

 

However, 2D pixel art and a real-life mural belonged to entirely different realms in terms of resolution alone. Once graphics where one could barely discern shapes took on the texture of reality, they struck with an entirely different level of oppression.

 

Only, the description that popped up when attempting to interact with this painting in the game remained vivid.

 

[It is a mural depicting heaven] 

 

Every time he saw it, Lee Yeonwoo had felt bewildered.

 

‘Where in this does anyone see heaven?’

 

No matter how many times he looked, he simply couldn’t relate.

 

Just what had the playable character seen to refer to this as ‘heaven’? No matter how much he racked his brain, the true identity of the ‘general manager’ remained shrouded in mist.

 

“….”

 

‘The Guest Without a Sense of Taste must have seen this painting too.’

 

Lee Yeonwoo cautiously opened the door. Screeech, the rusted hinges let out a piercing shriek.

 

“…Ah.”

 

Found it.

 

‘As expected, this is a different place from the mural room I saw last time.’

 

He had thought the texture of the blood painted on the walls felt subtly different, and his hunch had proven correct.

 

Lee Yeonwoo picked up a faded sheet of paper lying on the floor. In the game, it was an item that merely displayed a brief description: ‘Materials containing various experimental records.’

 

Now that it was reality, however, he could read the detailed circumstances beyond the text.

 

‘It’s heavily damaged.’

 

The bloodstained paper was precariously brittle, as if it might crumble to dust at any second.

 

‘I don’t have the luxury to decipher it leisurely here.’

 

Lee Yeonwoo shoved the paper straight into his inventory.

 

Whether he found a way to restore it later or examined it in a safe place, collecting it for now was the best course of action. Finding out what had happened here was an issue directly tied to his survival.

 

‘Now then, let’s see.’

 

With practiced hands, he rummaged through the test subject’s room. The knack for finding useful items was already second nature to him. After all, he had endured in this hotel for quite some time.

 

‘Ah, here too….’

 

“Yes.”

 

‘Please.’

 

“Yes.”

 

“….”

 

Swallowing down Coco’s reply for a moment, Lee Yeonwoo pulled a syringe out from deep inside a document box.

 

A slender syringe with a small capacity. Beyond its dusty, transparent barrel, a strangely shimmering liquid was visible. It seemed somewhat grotesque, yet at the same time, somewhat divine.

 

[Purification Sample]

 

An essential item for clearing the 14th floor.

 

This place was structured so that merely lingering contaminated the body and mind. The longer one stayed, the more grotesque auditory hallucinations rang out and visual noise crept in; eventually, one lost all sense of direction, their ego crumbled, and they met their death.

 

‘Whenever contamination builds up, I have to recover using this, but….’

 

The problem was the volume.

 

‘Even when playing the game, this was always a grievance.’

 

A single syringe could not completely purge the contamination. Now that it was reality, the recovery speed would obviously be even slower, so hoarding Purification Samples whenever they appeared was the only answer.

 

Lee Yeonwoo prudently stepped out of the room and surveyed his surroundings.

 

“….”

 

The monitors and panels lining the hallway were all shut down as if by mutual agreement.

 

‘That’s another thing I have to be careful of.’

 

Even if they appeared dead, some were still active.

 

They were organically connected to surveillance cameras or the ‘Watchers’, sharing the intruder’s location in real time. The moment one entered their field of vision, a meticulously crafted strategy would instantly turn into a catastrophe.

 

On this 14th floor, there were a total of six types of Watchers.

 

Listener / Watcher,

 

Analyzer / Archivist,

 

Controller.

 

And lastly, the Omni-Tracker.

 

‘Though I haven’t even caught a glimpse of the Omni-Tracker yet….’

 

It was better for his well-being not to run into that one.

 

Their dispositions varied widely, from those who roamed on foot to those who held their ground. Judging by realistic odds, what Lee Yeonwoo was most wary of were the mobile types with high variability.

 

‘As long as I grasp the patterns, I’ll rarely encounter anything besides the Listener and the Watcher. Unless I’m forced to enter a room, that is.’

 

At most, the patterns did not exceed one hundred. Since the experiment room had appeared right at the start, the options were already whittled down to seventy-one.

 

Just like during the pursuit in Room 14, the layout shifted with every entry, but it could not fool the calculator running in the head of a 26-year veteran player.

 

“….”

 

As he walked cautiously for quite a while, Coco hopped lightly off his shoulder and followed silently behind. It was truly a cat’s soft-padded footwork.

 

Feeling puzzled, Lee Yeonwoo asked inwardly:

 

‘Are you fine not riding on my shoulder?’

 

[Yes.]

 

“…?”

 

Out of nowhere, a translucent system window floated up in midair. What sort of ghostly trick was this now? Lee Yeonwoo looked back and forth between Coco on the floor and the window in the air.

 

‘Is this a message you sent, Coco?’

 

[Yes.]

 

[Coco.]

 

‘I see how it is.’ 

 

As the supposed co-owner of a hotel in a horror game, it was plausible he might have a convenient telepathy function like this. Yes, it was plausible, but….

 

“…?”

 

…Then why hadn’t he shown this until now?

 

‘Do you not want to talk with me?’

 

[No?]

 

‘I understand.’ 

 

To think he possessed such an ability.

 

‘If it’s this, there certainly won’t be any need to worry about things getting noisy.’ 

 

Above all, Coco was thoroughly muffling his footsteps. Unless he deliberately acted out of spite, concerns about being detected by the Listener could be set aside.

 

Unless he deliberately acted out of spite, that is.

 

“….”

 

Lee Yeonwoo looked down at Coco. Rounding his mouth into an ‘O’, Coco acted terribly aggrieved.

 

[I feel wronged.]

 

‘Wronged, you say.’

 

In fact, when it came to that, it wasn’t as if Lee Yeonwoo had no words he wanted to share either.

 

He was someone who had painstakingly smoothed out his abrasive edges and paved over a crooked path to enjoy a fairly stable life. Though he was now stuck in a situation where he had been swept into this catastrophe out of the blue and died over and over, well.

 

[We■¿]

 

‘I am not quite sure.’

 

[Coco.]

 

‘Yes, I’m fine.’

 

He did not want to bring up such topics in a situation like this.

 

‘Your vocabulary has indeed expanded. You’re doing well.’

 

[No. I feel wronged.]

 

‘Aha, I understand.’

 

[I feel wronged.]

 

‘Yes.’

 

As if he could ever trust that spiteful Co-Owner.

 

‘If so, why did you only listen to my words all this time?’

 

[Wronged!]

 

‘Indeed, I see.’

 

Puzzlement preceded suspicion of spite, but it was not something he needed to ponder right now.

 

‘For now… I will gratefully consider it a courtesy for my sake.’

 

[Yes.]

 

‘For now.’

 

[Yes?]

 

The layout here was similar to Room 14. Countless rooms repeated, and some sections stretched endlessly or were twisted in grotesque ways.

 

To those who did not know the patterns, it would be an inescapable labyrinth forever, but Lee Yeonwoo thought differently.

 

‘Still, it’s easier to distinguish patterns here than in Room 14.’

 

[No?]

 

‘That is an opinion I cannot comprehend.’

 

How could one even compare when the types of rooms were so distinctly different? Compared to Room 14, where every room looked identical, the 14th floor, with its clear visual distinctions, was far more forgiving.

 

‘Come to think of it, you take quite a bit of pride in this game.’

 

[Yes.]

 

‘Indeed.’

 

Is that why you made the difficulty like this? Lee Yeonwoo felt a sudden surge of sorrow over the years he had spent wrestling with this game all alone.

 

‘If only the developer had adjusted the difficulty in a somewhat humane manner, I wouldn’t be suffering this much right now.’

 

Just then, a sharp electronic beep pierced the ears of Lee Yeonwoo as he surveyed his surroundings.

 

‘Oh dear.’

 

He made a gesture of covering his ears.

 

‘To run into a control sector already.’

 

Here, electronic sounds and light interference accelerated the rate of contamination. The contamination value displaying on the interface began to spike alarmingly. Having found only a single Purification Sample, this was an exceedingly awkward situation.

 

‘With my bag so empty, I can’t go in right now.’

 

[Danger. Danger.]

 

‘Let’s look for more items.’

 

The control sector and the server room. This space, tangled with countless surveillance cameras and cables, was practically a minefield. The instant one was exposed to a camera, all Watchers in the vicinity would activate.

 

‘It’s not just a matter of worrying about contamination. An ID card is essential to clear this place safely.’

 

Yet it was well worth taking the risk. Because in server rooms like that, key items required to clear the Central Control Room spawned with a high probability.

 

‘At this rate, the conceivable patterns already narrow down to fifty-nine.’

 

For an ‘experiment room’ and a ‘control sector’ to appear back-to-back in the early stage was an uncommon case….

 

“….”

 

[Hello?]

 

‘Let me think about it for a bit.’

 

Lee Yeonwoo already felt fatigue rushing in. Just thinking about scraping together all the items and reaching the Central Control Room made his chest feel tight.

 

* * *

 

The ‘Guest Without a Sense of Taste’ in the dining room.

 

Before his eyes spread a banquet lavishly set with all manner of delicacies from land and sea.

 

Silver candlesticks flickering with serene light, and silver cutlery glistening smoothly as it reflected that glow. Over the table drifted an aroma of dishes so rich and deep it could enchant anyone.

 

Slowly, he took wine into his mouth.

 

“….”

 

It had no taste at all. None whatsoever. The liquid touching the tip of his tongue merely slid down his throat, leaving behind only a cool, faint sensation of weight.

 

Perhaps the scream-laced records he had witnessed beyond the glass walls in that repulsive laboratory on the 14th floor would have had a far more vivid flavor. Had it been the him of before….

 

He could have generously filled his belly with those alone.

 

“….”

 

…Yes, that was how it was. He had already relearned hunger. He could no longer appease his craving with the mere screams of others. Oh, benevolent and wicked deity.

 

Ah, do you know? Just how delightful a wait this is.

 

“May I eat it?”

 

He gladly awaited the moment to invite.

 

That moment when a single drop of blood would fall from you.