The Hotel of Mirrors and the Two of Them (3)

I briefly replayed what had happened in the lecture hall.

The scenes kept looping, just like An Yumin's dream.

It seemed the space had absorbed the unconscious wish of An Yumin, the one who ruled the tenth floor, and poured it into every wall.

It always began the same way — the two of us sitting side by side in lecture-hall chairs.

We were a couple.

If she had never kicked me out of Aegis, it might genuinely have become our future.

In that imagined world, An Yumin looked at me with eyes full of unbearable affection.

Until the other girls walked into the room.

The two of us had been spending a sweet stretch of time together, the kind any ordinary college couple might enjoy. But the moment never lasted.

Other girls entered the lecture hall.

Choi Hana. Song Sia. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Ha Yeeun.

And every other female cadet who had any connection to me at all.

The instant An Yumin saw them, she changed.

Simply because I had returned their greetings, she drew her hunter's sword.

I let the memory surface again.

I never imagined An Yumin could become that strong.

As a hunter, her rank was C-class — but that was by high-school academy standards. Once the midterms remeasured everyone's grades, she would clear C+ without trouble.

What she had shown me just now, though, had blown past B+.

Song Sia and Choi Hana were slaughtered without even managing a scrap of resistance.

This was a special space generated inside Theia Academy. Astonishingly enough, the Hotel of Mirrors had perfectly reproduced every cadet's abilities even inside a fantasy.

I had watched Song Sia and Ha Yeeun in action recently. I knew exactly how strong they were.

She wouldn't have lost even against Jo Arin.

There was a reason my Hidden Title had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠been restricted.

Right now she was sleeping peacefully in my arms — but the girl whose eyes had turned into five-pointed stars had been more savage than any villain I had ever faced.

That was no exaggeration.

The madness pouring off An Yumin had been deadlier than anything the Horror Hall had thrown at me during the tutorial.

And the trigger for her villainization...

Of course. The reason the villain inside An Yumin had awakened was me.

It had been pure, vicious jealousy. And it had been cruel.

Standing atop a pool of the murdered cadets' blood, she had turned to look at me.

You'll only love me... right?

Drunk on the rapture of having eliminated every obstacle, she had smiled.

Goosebumps had crawled over my skin.

But not from fear.

Without meaning to, I had found that sight unbearably beautiful — An Yumin, driven mad by jealousy, transformed into a complete villain.

It threw me for a second.

The Absolute Calm of the Cold Flame Avenger had not applied. My feelings toward An Yumin had opened back up — and yet finding beauty in that version of her was something my old common sense would never have allowed.

I guess something inside me has changed after all.

If I could look at a villainized An Yumin and call her beautiful, then the me standing here now was undeniably a villain.

And so An Yumin's slaughter kept repeating.

The setting never changed — always the lecture hall. Every time those obstacles walked through the door, she killed every last female cadet.

More than ten times over.

It finally stopped, though.

When I refused to spare the other girls even a glance and poured every scrap of my attention onto An Yumin alone — when I performed the sweetness of being her boyfriend so perfectly it might as well have been real — every last one of her dreams finally came to an end.

The lights in the lecture hall went out.

And just like now, An Yumin lost consciousness and collapsed.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

The moment I finished replaying it all, every wall of the lecture hall turned to mirror glass —

and shattered.

Crash—

Still holding her in a princess carry, I looked around.

Back in the corridor.

We had spilled out into that mirrored hallway again.

And a system notification window activated.

The Hidden Title whose effect had been locked inside the lecture hall was functioning normally again.

I checked the room numbers along the corridor.

Three digits. Leading number: one.

Wherever we were now, it was the first floor — not the tenth floor from a moment ago.

So An Yumin's villainization has been undone.

That was when I felt it — someone watching me from inside a mirror.

Unknown?

The man in the blood-red mask was looking straight at me.

Then the Unknown inside the mirror removed the mask.

I hurried to catch a glimpse of the face beneath it — but he vanished.

Thud—

At the same instant, something was flung out of the mirror.

"This is..."

I carefully propped An Yumin against the wall and examined the object.

I was stunned.

It was Unknown's mask.

"Why is this mask here...?"

I turned it over, inspecting it — and the single sentence written on the inside froze me where I stood.

— To my dear one. Please take good care of my daughter.

And when I saw the name signed beneath that sentence, I nearly doubted my own eyes.

An Yumin is... his daughter?

Leticein's name was written there.

But there was no time to dwell on it. I hurriedly slipped Unknown's mask into my coat, out of sight.

Now that An Yumin's dominion has lifted, this space will probably...

It felt like we would be leaving the Hotel of Mirrors any second.

Sure enough, An Yumin's voice reached me.

"Nnh..."

She was coming around.

"Are you two all right?"

Jo Arin's voice called from somewhere far down the corridor.

At that moment, An Yumin pushed herself up and our eyes met.

She had regained her senses. The five-pointed star pattern was gone from her pupils.

But tears were streaming down her face instead — as if she had just woken from an impossibly happy dream, only to realize it was a reality that could never come true.

Absolute Calm had reasserted itself. Looking at her, I felt nothing at all.

But my mind was already moving, cold and precise.

If I could just keep control of her whenever she villainized... re-entering the Hotel of Mirrors might not be difficult at all.

I gently pulled the weeping An Yumin into my arms.

Her startled eyes trembled.

What had happened during the student-council patrol was reported to Theia's board of directors.

But neither of us could remember the events inside the Hotel of Mirrors in any detail. Jo Arin had spent the entire time wandering the first floor, and An Yumin only retained the tenth-floor incident the way one remembers a dream.

In the end, it was written off as a surprise attack by a villain.

Well. There were no casualties, so.

Security around the Old Campus was tightened even further. Not ideal for someone who still needed to dig up Leticein's secrets — but it wasn't a serious problem.

If anything, I'm in a better position than Crimson Teeth.

The villains Ash Monk and Fatal Blood — both members of Crimson Teeth — had experienced a special phenomenon in that place. For a while, Crimson Teeth's attention would be fixed on the Old Campus.

But the real key to every clue connected to Leticein was still the Hotel of Mirrors.

And I had already forged the most reliable card and connection for accessing that hotel.

An Yumin.

I'm certain of it. An Yumin is a far more important key than the Old Campus itself.

The location barely mattered. The next time An Yumin got tangled up in a villain-related incident at Theia Academy, the Hotel of Mirrors would open again.

The mask of Unknown now in my possession was the hard proof.

Hard proof that what had happened on the tenth floor of that hotel was neither illusion nor dream.

I checked the system's item log.

Just as the description said — exclusive item. This mask existed for Unknown and Unknown alone.

An all-stat increase...

A simultaneous boost to every stat was an extremely rare special effect. On top of that, it had a separate Exclusive Level instead of a standard enhancement level. No resources needed to be spent on upgrades. Simply continuing to use the item would raise its level and unlock additional special effects.

It was, quite literally, a gift prepared for me and me alone.

"Please take good care of my daughter," huh...

I thought again of Leticein's handwritten inscription on the back of the mask. It wasn't a forgery. The system itself had authenticated the writing as genuine.

I never once imagined An Yumin could be Leticein's daughter.

It was almost impossible to believe. Leticein had been one of humanity's great heroes, but everything about his existence was shrouded in secrecy. An Yumin's mother was unmistakably a hero. If that legendary archmage was her biological father, then the villainization I had witnessed inside the Hotel of Mirrors made no sense at all.

And that's not even counting the fact that he left this mask specifically for me — a villain.

Plenty of questions remained. But for me, it was unquestionably good news.

Even if An Yumin villainized, I alone could control her.

And I won't even need to force the act.

If Absolute Calm stayed active, she would eventually realize I felt nothing for her. Back in that lecture hall, while she slaughtered the other cadets over and over — more than ten times — An Yumin had asked me again and again:

— You're not cheating on me, right? Because if you are... I'll kill you too.

That was how deep her obsession ran once she turned. Absolute Calm, which had helped me until now, could become an obstacle.

But fortunately, the moment she villainized, Absolute Calm released its hold — which meant I could play the gentle boyfriend without the slightest strain.

I glanced at my phone for a moment.

So the incident during that last patrol had narrowed the distance between An Yumin and me, at least a little.

To her it had only been a sweet dream. But once she came back to her senses, I had deliberately left the door open. I had comforted the girl who sat there crying in hollow despair, realizing that the dream of becoming my lover could never be real.

Of course, once An Yumin fully recovered, she insisted she had simply had a scary dream. But for someone who usually wore such a rigid, frozen expression, she had looked thoroughly embarrassed — ducking away from my gaze.

She seemed to be in an excellent mood.

After that, we started exchanging the kind of casual texts any classmates who shared a few lectures might send each other.

And before I knew it, midterms were a week away.

I've got even more on my plate now.

The incident had given me another piece of information as well: Leticein's Ark directly influenced the growth of the cadets. That was the only explanation for why Student Council President Jo Arin was stronger than her original-story depiction.

Which means midterm scores matter too.

It was still only a hypothesis — but if Theia's Ark system truly affected the cadets directly, then I could get stronger in a short span of time as well.

And it's not just Theia. When I think about the underworld... and Crimson Teeth...

The thoughts kept chaining together.

With all of Theia's classes finished for the day, I was riding ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the subway. A short while later I stepped into a private café housed in an old building in Jongno — the place Choi Hana had chosen for our study session.

Our general-education lecture still hadn't ended, so I arrived first.

I've got a little time.

Perfect. Just enough of a window to catch Ha Yeeun's Saintess TV stream.

I had just set my laptop on the table when one of the café staff approached.

"Oh! Junwoo?"

A young blonde server beamed at me in recognition. The face was familiar.

A female member of Choi Hana's organization — Blood Jaguar. And the VTuber who ran a crew channel alongside Choi Hana.

Jeong Noeul.