Welcome to Dungeon Hotel Chapter 330 - Webtoon Side Story: Welcome to Dungeon Hotel Branch 4 (1)

Webtoon Side Story: Welcome to Dungeon Hotel Branch 4 (1)

 

A young man who had just turned twenty, George was walking across the pristine white snowfield.

 

The endless falling snow left his vision barely clear for even a meter ahead.

 

‘If I keep walking like this, I’ll die.’

 

He had no way of knowing when a kravas might spring up from beneath his feet.

 

Even so, George couldn’t stop.

 

It wasn’t just that he was stranded in the Arctic or Antarctic.

 

The place he was in was a D-rank dungeon.

 

The reason he, merely an E-rank hunter, had entered this place was for money. 

 

Having left his hometown and settled in Paris, he struggled to keep up with the city’s high rent and his suddenly increased living expenses. 

 

He didn’t regret his choice, which had been made to escape a violent stepfather and a helpless mother, but after just one year of living in Paris, he couldn’t deny the fact that he needed to find a way to make money beyond his part-time serving job. 

 

For example, using the supernatural ability that had been rated E-rank a year ago to gather monster byproducts from illegal dungeons.

 

‘E-rank hunter? I saw on TV that there are even EX-rank hunters—are you telling me I’m only E-rank?’

 

As soon as George realized his awakening at the age of nineteen, he told his mother the truth.

 

But his mother’s reaction was indifferent. 

 

She was even afraid that once George started working as a hunter and earning money, the government subsidies would stop. 

 

‘What kind of hunter do you think you could be? If you become a hunter, what happens to the subsidies that come in under your name? And if you die in a dungeon, it’ll be even more trouble. With just E-rank, it’s not like you could make any real money anyway!’

 

His stepfather’s reaction was no different.

 

He even mocked him, saying that no guild would accept an E-rank hunter and that he would make more money using his stamina working at a construction site.

 

Mocking.

 

Yeah, he could bear the mockery.

 

But what George couldn’t tolerate was the pitch-black future ahead of him.

 

No matter what he did, it seemed his future would never improve: a filthy, hopeless home, powerless parents, and his own future rotting away within it.

 

George left home that day.

 

Like many young people in Europe, he carried an ambiguous longing for Paris.

 

An old city teeming with rats.

 

The countless tourists in front of the Eiffel Tower.

 

A place at the forefront of industry, yet difficult to call the cutting edge of art.

 

And yet, Paris.

 

The word itself exuded a strange aura.

 

That aura sparkled, softened, and dazzled.

 

Perhaps the very absence of practicality in that dazzlingness made the word shine even brighter.

 

No young person went to Paris thinking, “I need to find a job there,” or “This industry has a good future in Paris,” or “The rent is cheap there.”

 

George was no different.

 

After all, his objective future wasn’t bright.

 

He was nineteen, had no money, and even less experience.

 

He simply wanted empty words like hope and dreams.

 

He felt that if he went to Paris, he might figure out what it was he truly wanted.

 

He felt that even if he slept on the streets, he could still dream.

 

But reality was harsh.

 

Daily fights with an obnoxious restaurant owner.

 

The noise between floors and the stinking sewers.

 

Rats swam in the Seine, and eating a rubbery, dried-out baguette beside them made words like dream and hope vanish completely from his mind.

 

‘RataX is a lie!’ 

 

He thought to himself.

 

Those stupid American animators!

 

They had clearly never lived in Paris.

 

The rats of Paris were not cute at all. They weren’t clean, and they certainly weren’t gentle.

 

They hissed and robbed other people’s houses.

 

They were trying to take over this city, targeting street food.

 

‘I’m sick of rats.’

 

Rats always invaded his home, too.

 

As he set up primitive rat traps, he thought: in this creaky, foul-smelling old house, he was no different from the rats.

 

He, too, was nothing more than a predator hiding in this city.

 

The owner who hired him checked his bag every day after work to make sure he wasn’t stealing food.

 

The old landlady grew irritable whenever rent was due, worried he might skip a payment.

 

That’s right. 

 

It treated him like a foreign substance.

 

Just as his mother had treated him like an intruder in her own home after marrying his stepfather.

 

He had thought he had finally escaped that life, only to find himself once again living as an unwanted presence.

 

“…The romance of Paris, my foot.…” 

 

He clicked his teeth together and let out an angry sigh. A cloud of white breath spilled from between his lips.

 

He couldn’t understand his own decision—to risk his life by entering this dungeon just to maintain that wretched life in Paris.

 

But at the same time, he couldn’t help asking himself where else he was supposed to go if he didn’t. Back to Lille?

 

The thought left him suddenly depressed.

 

He felt even more desperate than when he and his temporarily formed party had been scattered after being attacked by three Polar Bears (E) during a dungeon raid.

 

“Cold…”

 

His knees buckled.

 

He sniffled, but even that didn’t last long—his snot froze.

 

“Hungry…”

 

His throat ached, but he struggled not to cry.

 

Even if he did, the tears would just freeze.

 

“I want to go home… no… not that house…”

 

He meant his real home.

 

A home like something out of a movie or drama.

 

A place with a warm bed, soft blankets, and pillows.

 

From the floor below came the smell of slowly simmered tomato soup, mingling with the sharp scent of cheese…

 

‘I can smell it just by imagining it.’

 

He tilted his head in curiosity.

 

As if his reason had gone numb, he found himself burying his nose in the snow and sniffing like a dog without realizing it.

 

He crawled on his knees in his hazy vision, searching for the source of the smell. 

 

Strangely, the smell only grew stronger.

 

But it was a little different from the tomato stew he had imagined.

 

‘…Spicy…?’

 

What was going on?

 

There was no way food smells could exist inside a dungeon, so this had to be a hallucination—but then why was his nose picking up something spicy?

 

What he had wanted was a sweet, rich tomato stew.

 

But this smell was acrid.

 

‘I can’t stand spicy food, though…?’

 

Even as he thought that, he found himself sniffing and inching forward. If anyone had seen him, they would have said he looked like a sailor bewitched by a siren.

 

How long had he gone on like that?

 

When he reached a certain point, an unfamiliar violet glow caught his eye.

 

He raised his head, his nose flaring.

 

‘What… is that?’

 

Without realizing it, he raised a finger and pointed at the thing before him.

 

Hotel

 

Open 24 hours

 

It was a signboard of dreadful appearance.

 

A sign that pursued no beauty whatsoever beyond conveying information.

 

It even flashed garishly in neon, brutally marring the surrounding scenery.

 

If the city of Paris had seen a sign like that anywhere within its limits, it would have tried to tear it down for infringing on the public good.

 

That instinctive, very French thought passed through his mind—

 

Soon, another thought washed over him. 

 

‘Could that be…?’

 

Is that it?

 

That…?

 

He sprang to his feet and started walking toward the violet light.

 

No—he began to run, unsure where that surge of strength had come from.

 

And when a revolving door appeared before him, he knew it for certain.

 

‘It’s a dungeon hotel!’

 

A broad smile spread across his face.

 

A shelter for hunters who had lost their way.

 

A place said to be run by an EX-rank hunter.

 

Where potions flowed like springs, gourmet dishes overflowed, and even sleep itself could heal you!

 

Without the slightest hesitation, he dashed straight through the revolving door.

 

Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.

 

Behind him, only the revolving door spun violently where he had vanished.

 

Soon, even that revolving door was swallowed up by the snowstorm.

 

 

* * *

 

A moment later.

 

“….”

 

“….”

 

Spat out into the frantically spinning revolving door, George frowned at the sight of an interior that was nothing like what he had imagined.

 

“…Yes?” 

 

“Yes?” 

 

The two stared at each other stupidly in a brief standoff.

 

George found himself facing a black-haired woman holding a broom, covered head to toe in dust.

 

Could it be that this woman was the EX-rank hunter? She’s got cobwebs stuck in her hair…?

 

Just as George was thinking that—

 

Something clattered beneath his feet.

 

He looked down.

 

“Boss! Two bowls of Shin Ramyun, extra spicy~!”

 

Shouting that as it came over, holding aluminum pots, was a giant rat.

 

Rat. 

 

George lashed out with his foot at the thing, which looked at least twice the size of the rats that used to infest his home.

 

“Aaaah! You again—!”

 

He thought he’d made it to a dungeon hotel, and it was rats again?!

 

Crash!

 

As bowls clattered and overturned, the black-haired woman—Junghyo—thought to herself.

 

‘The very first hunter guest at Branch 4… I’m screwed.’