Chapter 4
Chapter 4
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 4
Chapter Title: Loading and Unloading (3)
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Clack!Screeech— A sound like a key turning from outside.
The door began to slowly creak open.
From under the table, I watched some grotesque shape enter the room.
It had a human form, but it wasn't human.
Its skin gleamed like a mannequin's under a worn uniform, and with every movement, its joints twisted at unnatural angles, snapping crack, crack.
Through the gap in the open door, the cleaning cart in the hallway was loaded with horrific "trash" that no normal hotel would ever contain.
Unlike the mannequin monster, the skin on that "trash" looked like real human flesh.
'It's coming in...!'
The monster slowly entered the room and began to move.
After glancing lightly around the room, it extended its arm in a bizarre manner, pretending to wipe the windowsill or the table.
When its hand reached toward the table, my heart nearly stopped, but fortunately, it didn't bother checking under the table.
Then it approached the bed and started straightening the covers.
With stiff, unnatural movements, it grabbed the edge of the blanket and folded it with precise angles.
I'd thought for sure we'd be caught, but the college student hiding in the bed hadn't been discovered yet.
That was when it happened. "Hic... Hic..." A faint sob escaped from under the covers, unable to hold back the terror.
It seemed the fear had reached its limit from the monster touching the blanket.
Creak, crick-creak.
The monster's neck twisted at an unnatural angle as it scanned the room for the source of the sound.
Then its gaze fixed on the bed.
And— Whoosh!
The blanket was yanked back.
"Kyaaack!"
The screaming college student's face was revealed.
I could imagine the horrific events that would follow, so I burst out from under the table.
"R-Run! Run away!"
Thud-thud-thud!
With my shout, I mustered my courage and launched myself at the mannequin monster.
I grabbed both its arms tightly, hugging them close.
A hard, cold sensation transmitted through my hands. At my shout, the middle-aged woman burst out from the closet.
She glanced back and forth between me and the monster for a moment, then grabbed the terrified college girl's arm and pulled.
"S-Sorry!"
With a voice on the verge of tears, she snatched the girl and bolted out the door.
With the two women's gazes—mixed with sorrow and fear—on my back, only the mannequin monster and I remained in the room.
Crick-creak, crick-creak... The mannequin writhed, twisting its joints with displeased sounds, trying to escape my grip.
Its movements were more flexible than expected, making it hard to hold on.
"Ugh, uuu... D-Don't do that...!"
Its joints contorting at impossible angles felt straight out of a horror movie.
Panicking, I hugged the mannequin with all my strength.
Then, a strange sound started coming from within my embrace.
Squeak, squeak—!
Crack! Crunch!
"D-Don't... do th—?"
The mannequin's waist, which I'd been holding, crumpled like paper under my strength.
It snapped in half powerlessly, its lower body collapsing limply to the floor.
In my hands, only the severed upper body remained.
It twitched a few times like a spasm, then went still.
"Ah... Um..." Awkwardly, I placed the mannequin monster's upper body on the table.
Up close like this, it almost looked like some grotesque yet expensive decorative piece.
Silence filled the room.
"Huh? This is..."
On the upper body—clothed in its shirt—was a small name tag.
The name part was painted black and unreadable.
"A check mark?"
There was a green check mark.
Could this be another item to toss into the settlement hole for points?
For now, I tore the name tag off the clothes and pocketed it.
I brushed the fragments of the mannequin monster off my clothes and headed in the direction the two women had fled.
"Haa, haa..."
The middle-aged woman dragged the terrified college student by the arm all the way to the lobby.
While he held the mannequin to buy them time, they had sprinted madly down the hallway to the settlement hole.
"Hic... Hiiic..."
As soon as they reached the dimly lit lobby, the two collapsed to the floor.
The college girl burst into the tears she'd been holding back, while the middle-aged woman stared blankly at the lobby with empty eyes.
She recalled his shout and the sight of him sacrificing himself to restrain the mannequin.
That young man had stayed in the room with the grotesque monster to save them.
"...At least this..."
With trembling hands, the middle-aged woman pulled out the jewelry box clutched in her bosom.
It was the prize from his sacrifice.
Staggering, she dropped it into the deep, black settlement hole.
The number above the hole changed.
500 points. That was all the jewelry box they'd risked their lives for—mere 500 points.
The road to escape was still so far away.
What had happened to the other groups by now?
Had they found items with check marks?
Had they encountered those grotesque mannequins too?
Right then.
"Did you put the jewelry box in?"
At the familiar voice, the two jumped in surprise and looked up.
A man walked out from the lobby side.
He looked a bit fatigued, but otherwise completely fine.
"H-How..."
"A-Are you okay, oppa?"
The two women approached me, speaking up.
Their wide eyes scanned my body here and there, asking what happened.
I scratched the back of my head awkwardly and made an excuse.
"Nah, I just shoved it and ran... Turns out it was dumber than I thought. Got lucky..."
I put on a frightened expression as I glossed over it.
I couldn't exactly say I'd hugged the mannequin so tight I'd smashed it.
"Thank goodness... Really, thank goodness..."
The college girl clung to my arm, nearly in tears.
Their genuine worry even made me feel a pang of guilt.
I checked the number above the settlement hole.
500 points. Still a long way to go.
"...What do we do now?"
"For now... we should look for more."
There was still one more room left in our assigned section.
Room 106, where the monster had come from.
At my words, the two women's faces stiffened.
"Th-That was where the monster came from, right...?"
"Since it came out of there, doesn't that mean it's more likely to be empty? It finished cleaning, after all."
I even slipped in a little white lie.
"When we ran, it seemed like it was heading down the opposite hallway too."
The two hesitated for a moment but, with no better option, decided to trust and follow me.
We headed back to the place we'd fled from. Screeech—.
As I'd confirmed on the map, there were no more "moving monsters" around here.
Only the horrific cleaning cart the mannequin had used stood there forlornly. We averted our eyes from the cart with effort.
"But why is this cart here..."
The middle-aged woman voiced a small doubt but decided to ignore it after seeing the gruesome trash inside.
In room 106, we found two more items with check marks.
A silver candlestick and an old pocket watch were the stars.
"Think this'll be worth a lot?"
"We can hope."
I said that, but somehow I had a feeling it wouldn't be pricey.
In games like this, the big, rare things usually fetched the high prices.
A pocket watch small enough to fit in your pocket was unlikely to be valuable.
The candlestick offered some hope, at least.
"...Huh."
When we returned to the lobby, the situation had changed a lot.
Besides us, a few other groups who had finished searching had come back.
We'd split into six groups at first, but now only about four groups' worth of people were there.
Some leaned against the wall staring blankly into space, while others comforted those who were sobbing.
From the talk, some had even returned alone. Coming back solo after moving in threes in this hotel— No need to ask;
we could guess what that meant.
"Monsters really exist..."
"We must've been really lucky..."
There was even a group whispering like that, having returned unscathed.
They were the lucky ones who hadn't run into any monsters.
That group included the work-clothes guy who'd been leading us and a rough-looking man.
Above the "settlement hole" in the center of the lobby, it read [6,800 / 20,000].
The other groups must have diligently deposited items too.
We approached and dropped in the pocket watch and candlestick.
As the number rose, a few people glanced our way.
"Which section were you in...?"
A nearby man asked cautiously.
He was one of the ones who'd returned alone.
"The guest rooms on the left hallway."
"...Did you see any monsters?"
"...Yeah, we ran into the 'hotel staff' that handles cleaning."
"...I see... W-We were in the restaurant area, and th-there were 'guests' and the 'head chef,' so... Urk..."
The man clamped his mouth shut as some horrific memory resurfaced, collapsing to the floor.
His shoulders trembled faintly. A heavy mood settled over the surroundings.
"The two groups that went to the pool and machine room still haven't reported back."
"No way... Already...?"
"L-Let's wait for now. These folks just got here too..."
Even as he said it, the work-clothes guy clutched his head, perhaps sensing something ominous.
Nearly half the people hadn't returned.
At this rate, I could picture everyone getting taken out by monsters before we hit 20,000 points.
"..."
That's when I remembered the name tag in my pocket.
The green check-marked item from the mannequin monster's upper body.
On a whim, I flung it into the settlement hole.
"Huh?""Wh-What!?" The number jumped by 2,000 points in one go, leaving the people around us stunned. I was surprised too.