Welcome to Dungeon Hotel Chapter 300

294. Have some cake.

 

‘Now that the status window doesn’t give you quests anymore, are you making up your own and carrying them out?’

 

Merlin grumbled inwardly as he stepped into the kitchen area inside the bakery.

 

There, the general manager was moving things like eggs and flour.

 

“So, you’re saying we agreed to lend out the kitchen just to persuade that pâtissier?”

 

Merlin pointed to the middle-aged man with dark skin visible beyond the kitchen counter.

 

A man who claims to be a baker but has the face of a farmer.

 

Right now, Junghyo had just finished persuading the man to try baking a cake at Yeongchun Bakery by lending him the kitchen and ingredients in hopes of recruiting him.

 

‘How about trying to make it yourself?’

 

‘Yes?’

 

‘I thought maybe you’d have to try it first to see whether working at our hotel is right for you or not. The ingredients we provide here at our hotel—you might be seeing them for the first time, but I’m sure you’ll like them.’

 

‘…That…’

 

‘Even if you don’t end up accepting our recruitment offer, would it be possible for you to try making a cake and give us some feedback if there’s anything wrong with our hotel’s kitchen setup or ingredient sourcing? I’d really appreciate it.’

 

At the word “please,” Kim Euihae’s wavering eyes betrayed his hesitation. 

 

And watching Kim Euihae like that, Merlin muttered inwardly, recalling Lee Junghyo’s sly, gleaming eyes.

 

‘Is this some kind of ‘Quest: Find a Pastry Chef for Yeongchun Bakery’ or what?’

 

“….”

 

“But then why won’t you answer me?”

 

Merlin quietly just moved the ingredients without answering, so I poked the general manager to get a reaction.

 

But the general manager merely glanced at Merlin with a look of contempt, still refusing to answer.

 

What did I do wrong?

 

Merlin, for no real reason, began helping move the sack of flour while stealing glances at Kang Miyeon.

 

“Why? Is there a problem?”

 

“There shouldn’t be a problem?”

 

“….”

 

“Why on earth did you decide to work at our hotel?”

 

Kang Miyeon put her hands on her hips and glared at Merlin. 

 

“Huh? Me?”

 

Merlin tilted his head with a puzzled expression, as if to say, “Kim Euihae is the one going through the hiring process—why are you asking me?” 

 

“I mean… as you know, to protect the world… Who knows what that damn Demon King might try to pull.”

 

Merlin unconsciously glanced toward Guest Room 802. The guest of Room 802, Louisa Villani, was sitting in the cafeteria, blankly staring out at the sea.

 

Anyway, we have to keep an eye on it, right?

 

“That’s all just excuses.”

 

“What are you talking about?”

 

“You want to take your hotel back, don’t you? You told Alex you wouldn’t mind if a more suitable successor came along—but now that the hotel is becoming stronger than it ever was, you’ve started wanting it back, haven’t you?”

 

“…?”

 

What are you talking about?

 

“But let me be clear. I can’t work with reptiles like you—people who treat everything like a joke, who toy with human lives without a shred of guilt. If the owner of this hotel changes, I’m walking away from it all.”

 

“….!”

 

Merlin looked at Kang Miyeon with bewildered eyes. 

 

Kang Miyeon looked Merlin straight in the eye, expecting him to say, “You’re just as useless to me.”

 

Of course.

 

Merlin Gray was secretly discriminating against people by saying he was the hotel owner.

 

When they first met, he would shy away even at the slightest touch, saying humans were “too warm.”

 

So naturally, what should come next is an intense bout of speciesism followed by something like, “I don’t want to work with you either”—

 

“How could Yeongchun Hotel possibly run without you, Manager?”

 

“Yes?” 

 

It’s normal though…?

 

Kang Miyeon looked at Merlin with a bewildered expression. Merlin’s yellow eyes stared at her in absurdity. 

 

“What? Weren’t you actually pretty serious about working at the hotel? And yet you’re saying you can just give it up that easily?”

 

“…T…that’s…” 

 

Why is this person saying this to me? No, why is this reptile saying this to me?

 

She was momentarily confused, but then suddenly snapped back to attention because of Kim Euihae’s unexpected arrival.

 

“Then, should I make the cake with this? The manager told me the deadline is by 8 o’clock—is that correct?”

 

“Yes? Oh, yes.”

 

She quickly explained the locations of the utensils and the ingredients. Then, she also talked about the person who would be eating this cake.

 

Louisa Villani.

 

“It’s her 70th birthday.”

 

“What about allergies?”

 

“Oh, I must have missed that part…”

 

“I’ll check on that.”

 

Kim Euihae replied with that and then touched the flour.

 

Then he began meticulously checking the ash content and protein level of the flour.

 

Kang Miyeon recited the detailed information about the flour written in the exclusive store, then asked Kim Euihae.

 

“Is it good flour?”

 

Of course it’s good flour, right?

 

Because this flour, supplied to the hotel, also contains special properties.

 

But the answer she heard was different from what Kang Miyeon had expected.

 

“Hmm. There’s no such thing as good flour. But there is such a thing as a good cake. If I knead the dough to suit the flour, bake it with the right recipe, and serve it with the ingredients the guest likes most, it will become a good cake. There are bakers in this world who make bad cakes with expensive flour, and bakers who make good cakes with cheap flour.”

 

Seeing Kim Euihae give a small smile, Kang Miyeon quietly stepped back and muttered to Merlin.

 

“Somehow… doesn’t he seem like someone who really suits our hotel? I think I understand now why the boss wanted him so much.” 

 

Merlin snickered at Kang Miyeon’s words.

 

“You know that stuff, but you don’t know the boss’s heart.”

 

“…Yes?” 

 

“No, more importantly, something keeps ringing in your pocket?”

 

Pocket?

 

Kang Miyeon absentmindedly opened her phone.

 

Even if you’re not S-rank, you’re still in the Junghyo Fanclub (New messages: 999+)  

 

…Oh, that’s right.

 

I had an accident.

 

She quickly closed her phone again.

 

She decided to deal with the accident on her way back.

 

* * *

 

Louisa Villani was sitting in the cafeteria.

 

As the sunset began, layers of red, violet, and sky-blue light gradually stacked over the sea visible from the cafeteria.

 

It was quite a beautiful sight, but—

 

‘This is only temporary.’

 

She thought to herself.

 

In the end, everything would wither away.

 

Just like the things she once loved—and the ones who once loved her. 

 

The radiant smiles of lively children, the voices that once exalted the value of noble sacrifice, the jokes that never faltered even in pain—she never let go of hope, even as all those things faded away before her eyes.

 

She had been that way for hundreds of years.

 

In the world she—no, the Demon King—had seen, dynasties were born and fell. There were kings who maintained their dignity even in ruin, and lords who, even amid collapse, only sought to fill their own bellies.

 

In those long years where good and evil were intertwined, there were moments that surprised the Demon King.

 

Things like the sacrifice of an old soldier risking his life to save a new soldier.

 

Resolutions like the promise to pass on the kind words once received from the previous generation to those who come after.

 

‘Thank you for being born. You must… you must live a life different from mine.’

 

Yeah. Scenes like that felt as if they might free him from his long-lasting ennui.

 

But one day.

 

A great disaster struck this world. The disaster didn’t come from outside, but from within.

 

A car carrying the crown prince and princess, who believed more in peace than in nationalism, mistakenly turned into an alleyway—where a young man in his twenties, fervently consumed by nationalism, assassinated them with a semi-automatic pistol. A country that had nothing to do with the conflict declared war as if it had only been waiting for the chance.

 

The war continued.

 

While tens of thousands died in the trenches, the so-called leadership had hardly a thought.

 

The battles they desired sometimes brought tangible gains, and sometimes did not.

 

They simply had no intention of giving up.

 

Honor? Patriotism? Money? Titles? It wasn’t that they couldn’t give those things up.

 

It was the position of power itself that they couldn’t give up.

 

Did that absurd truth make the Demon King despair enough to dream of the world’s destruction? Not quite.

 

Unlike what Junghyo or Merlin might have thought, he didn’t fall into deep despair. The world war soon ended, and in the grand flow of humanity, it was merely a small loss—a brief moment of madness.

 

In the end, the world recovered once more and continued on its path of righteousness.

 

Just when he had come to believe that, another world war began.

 

Another war. Another war. Another war.

 

A crisis befell humanity, and many people predicted the end of mankind.

 

Merlin believed that the Demon King must have gone mad at that time as well.

 

But in reality, the Demon King wasn’t crazy.

 

The Demon King loved humans especially.

 

Merlin loved games created by humans and the civilization they built, but he did not love humans themselves. In truth, the only thing Merlin ever loved was the hotel. He was always interested only in the drifters who would “stay for a while and then leave.”

 

‘Why do you like hotels?’

 

‘Are you asking sincerely? Or are you just trying to pick a fight?’

 

‘….’

 

He was a bit strange.

 

‘I’ll answer you. What I like about this place is that all I have to think about is eating, sleeping, and taking a dump.’

 

‘I asked for nothing.’

 

‘Snakes like you, playing hero, wouldn’t understand.’

 

‘What?’

 

‘The value of an unspectacular, ordinary life.’

 

Owen, heir to the Black family, who had long claimed to be the guardian of the world.

 

Owen Black. He simply couldn’t understand Merlin Grey.

 

The Demon King held many aspects of the world close to his heart. He grieved sincerely over farewells and rejoiced genuinely over new encounters.

 

To him, war was a crisis of humanity that had to be ended. And so, in order to bring that crisis to an end, he resorted to actions he should never have taken.

 

Touching the past.

 

He began to touch the starting point of human prosperity.

 

As industry advanced and the environment was destroyed—when human deaths began to grow uncontrollably from thousands to tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands—his mind gradually began to fall apart.

 

The first thing he did was awaken the “Great Human King” from within his “memories.”

 

With the help of the Human King, he wandered in search of a way to prevent humanity’s extinction.

 

In an effort to end human wars, he once gave great power to the nation that seemed the most virtuous—only to witness that nation fall into corruption, triggering a nuclear winter and bringing about humanity’s end.

 

He once empowered a scientist, only to witness the end of the world brought about by the very weapon that scientist created.

 

He even went so far as to wipe out two-thirds of humanity once, reverting Earth to a primitive state.

 

But he failed again.

 

As he tried and tried again in repeated failures, his mind gradually fell into nihilism.

 

The end of humanity is always set.

 

Failure. Destruction. Death. 0. Zero.

 

He looked upon a world where nothing remained and thought.

 

Why do I still love humanity? Why can’t I stop this love? And yet, why do you—

 

Why do you try to leave me on your own?

 

At that point, he realized.

 

Perhaps there is only one way to truly love humanity.

 

Rather than seeing the horrible sight of humanity bringing about its own destruction, I would end it with my own hands.

 

So that humanity could at least maintain its last bit of dignity.

 

That would be it.

 

So, in the end, he tried to take over this hotel in order to destroy humanity once and for all.

 

Just as the destruction of the world was nearly within his grasp, a man named Lee Semyung got caught up in the flow of regression by mistake, causing complications.

 

However, if he could draw all the dimensional power through this hotel, such errors would never occur again.

 

He just hadn’t expected the hotel’s proprietor to be a madman who hid a fierce gleam behind those clear, innocent eyes.

 

‘You’re scared of Merlin because he’s really strong, right?’

 

The moment those flashing eyes called Merlin, he was absurdly swept into a strange chatroom.

 

And though he barely managed to issue something like a final quest and had all his powers stripped away, he knew.

 

After a span of time far beyond the lifespan of a human like Lee Junghyo, his power would build up again.

 

Because corrupted beings would appear in this world again.

 

So until then—

 

“Have some cake.”

 

Have some cake… … What?

 

The Demon King—no, the Demon King in the form of Louisa Villani—suddenly lifted their head with a sharp motion.  

 

And there stood Junghyo, with clear, bright eyes.