Welcome to Dungeon Hotel Chapter 341 - Webtoon Side Story: Welcome to Dungeon Hotel Branch 4 (12)

Webtoon Side Story: Welcome to Dungeon Hotel Branch 4 (12)

 

The recovery potion—no, the grape juice blessed by the food-service spirits—had to undergo fermentation before it could become wine, the spirits explained to me.

 

As I listened, I found myself wondering what exactly made this wine so special—

 

“You just have to ferment it using oak barrels blessed by the culinary spirit living in that tree over there!” 

 

In the end, it was all about the power of blessings. 

 

Then is the significance of this quest to gather strength together with these spirits? 

 

As if sensing my doubt, Gray spoke up.

 

“Depending on how the blessing is performed, the result changes slightly. It might become ordinary wine, or it might gain additional attributes. That’s why sincerity is the most important thing!”

 

“But I’m not a spirit….”

 

Even with the same recipe, my sincerity wouldn’t manifest as a blessing.

 

“What does that matter?! What matters is sincerity, sincerity!”

 

“…Yes.”

 

I decided to follow the master’s instructions for now.

 

Meanwhile, the oak barrel meant to ferment the grape juice also received its blessing.

 

The spirit who blessed it looked much like the others—but this one was a squirrel rather than a rat.

 

The squirrel, like the other mice, blessed the barrels by chanting strange incantations and dancing in front of them. 

 

Once finished, the barrel became—

 

Oak Barrel Blessed by a Food-Service Spirit (E)

 

—Improves the taste of contained beverages by 200%.

 

…an item.

 

Was food service simply another form of magic?

 

I watched the squirrel spirit, who strutted about sternly after circling the oak barrel and chanting, showing off shamelessly.

 

“Oh my, exhausting! Blessing oak barrels always makes my whole body ache!”

 

“That must’ve been hard.”

 

“Hang in there, Oak Barrel Manager!”

 

For some reason, the spirits seemed to treat the one in charge of oak barrels with extra respect.

 

And the squirrel spirit seemed correspondingly more arrogant. It even looked slightly older than the rest.

 

But even if it’s old, it’s probably just the difference between 1,000 and 1,020 years old. 

 

Do they still care about age even after a thousand years…?

 

“Ahem…… By the way, who are those two humans over there?” 

 

At that moment, the squirrel spirit looked down at Han Woohyun and me with suspicion.

 

How it managed to look down on us while I was physically taller remained a mystery.

 

“I run a hotel business. And this is my… friend.”

 

“Lover.”

 

“He’s your lover…!”

 

Whispers erupted among the rats at the end of my introduction.

 

The squirrel spirit, however, remained unmoved, still gazing at me haughtily.

 

“Hotel business? What’s that? You think such a thing will help our ‘mission’?”

 

“A hotel provides people with a place to rest and charges for the service….”

 

If that “mission” of yours is making wine—

 

And letting people enjoy it—

 

“Then of course it helps.”

 

I’m confident, after all.

 

“And how exactly does it help?”

 

After a brief pause, I replied,

 

“Because I can gift people the ‘rest’ they desire. Whatever it may be, it’s about evoking emotions that people haven’t felt in their daily lives.”

 

* * *

 

The day after check-in.

 

The folklore club members wandered through abandoned houses with ominous reputations and deserted air-raid shelters in pursuit of ghost stories.

 

The grand tragedies of human history had long since fragmented into intangible myths, and the club adored such intangibilities.

 

Ghost stories, spirits, death.

 

Things like that.

 

Among them, Lloyd was something of an anomaly.

 

Because what Lloyd loved was not intangible at all.

 

He did not love ghost stories, spirits, or death.

 

He loved something else entirely.

 

For example—

 

“Lloyd. Look at this. This part of the photo is blurry. Could it be a spirit photograph?”

 

Olivia, with jet-black hair and green eyes, held up her digital camera for Lloyd to see.

 

Lloyd pretended to examine the blurred area but instead let his gaze linger over Olivia’s long fingers, her soft hair, her beautiful eyes.

 

These were what he loved.

 

There were more.

 

The curve of her smile.

 

The slight crease between her brows when she concentrated.

 

The way she gripped the steering wheel tightly with both hands.

 

Everything he loved had a very tangible form.

 

Olivia.

 

Lloyd stared at her blankly until he suddenly met her eyes—which were fixed on him, waiting for an answer—and he became flustered. 

 

“S-spirit photograph? Well… I think it’s just….”

 

…out of focus.

 

He wanted to say that, but he couldn’t bear to disappoint the sparkling look in Olivia’s eyes. 

 

Lloyd and Olivia had been childhood friends since they were eleven.

 

Ever since Olivia moved to his neighborhood at age eleven, and his indifferent parents gave him permission to walk around town with her as if it were a chore.

 

She regarded him as a friend, and he began to think of her as more than one.

 

Of course, he knew.

 

‘Lloyd. Look at this gravestone. It says someone named Hampton is buried here, but according to the records I found, Hampton was born in the 18th century. Yet the stone looks so clean. As if he was buried just days ago.’

 

‘That’s probably a different Hampton—maybe the old man who passed away last month in the village across the river….’

 

Olivia was unique.

 

Lloyd was smart, good at sports, and the son of a family that was essentially the local gentry; many girls at school liked him.

 

Olivia was the opposite.

 

Her grades were good, but she frequently became the laughingstock of her classmates for bringing up strange theories during history class. Far from being athletic, she was always gloomy during group activities, and hers was the only outsider family in this ancient town.

 

Still, Lloyd liked her.

 

He liked Olivia’s father, who welcomed him without ceremony whenever he visited her house, and he liked Olivia’s mother, who always burnt her pies but listened to his troubles with all her heart.

 

But what he liked most was Olivia’s love for intangible things.

 

Only she understood Lloyd’s own intangible anxieties, the kind hidden beneath his reputation as top student.

 

‘I dream every night that my parents abandon me. Pathetic, right?’

 

‘That’s not pathetic, Lloyd. I dream that I’m a beaver. Building dams and filling them with the fish I love.’

 

‘That’s the pathetic one, Olivia.’

 

‘What? Come here.’

 

‘Just kidding. I thought you only dreamed about ghosts and horror stories.’

 

‘Of course not. I care about those things to eliminate unseen threats. To build a sturdy home—like a beaver.’

 

‘So you’re anxious too?’

 

‘I suppose you could say that.’

 

Lloyd loved the way Olivia’s mind worked—the way others called nerdy or eccentric.

 

He loved her way of speaking, which allowed him to drift away from realistic things like dropping grades or university acceptance letters.

 

However, all the things he loved about Olivia began to drift away when the two of them went to university.

 

Their universities were completely separate. He looked for any excuse to visit her near her campus, but Olivia did not do the same.

 

Instead, she immersed herself in something new.

 

The folklore club.

 

‘Are you sure that club is trustworthy? What if they’re secretly selling weird drugs or something….’

 

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Lloyd! You should come visit sometime. Everyone’s sweet and cute.’

 

‘C-cute……?’

 

‘Yes!’

 

‘Are there guys there?’

 

‘Guys? Oh… yeah. Actually, we don’t have that many girls.’

 

‘Listen, Olivia…..’

 

At that time, he also thought about other possibilities that arose as their universities grew apart.

 

Possibilities that emerged as the two childhood friends, who were always attached at the hip, were separated.

 

Olivia’s social circle growing without his knowledge.

 

An eventual boyfriend for Olivia.

 

Olivia’s boyfriend!

 

The mere thought left him feeling as if someone had struck the back of his head.

 

It was hard enough just being in this situation where he couldn’t be her boyfriend, and now a boyfriend who wasn’t him might appear.

 

Lloyd wanted to confess to Olivia right then and there. He wanted to elevate their special relationship beyond what it was.

 

But to Olivia, Lloyd was too much of a friend. It was just a comfortable and kind friendship, nothing more, nothing less.

 

After agonizing for days, Lloyd attended one of the folklore club meetings.

 

And the moment he noticed boys eerily similar in temperament to Olivia—

 

‘Olivia, have you seen that YouTube video about the secret of Oxford? We’re thinking of going to Oxford at dawn tomorrow. Want to join?’

 

‘Really? Sure!’

 

Lloyd decided to join the club.