Hotel Snark
Hotel Snark stood there.
Alone and imposing in the gray wasteland of Ghosttown, it carried the bleak desolation of the industrial age fused with gothic grandeur.
Among Hotel Snark’s guests, there isn’t a single one who hasn’t killed a few people. This place—Guild City’s most quiet, secretive, and mysterious sanctuary—is precisely where the city’s most dangerous and raucous affairs are born.
When Solomon pushed open the heavy doors of the hotel, the grand lobby unfolded before him like a living thing.
The zombie doorman-cum-undertaker stayed behind at the entrance, standing guard.
“Welcome, Master Solomon.”
A man spoke as if he had been waiting. Another zombie, his rotting flesh peeled back to reveal bare bone.
And it wasn’t just zombies.
Zombies, skeletons, floating specters—every conceivable form of the dead provided service in this hotel.
“This is where we part ways. Catch you later. Hey, you walking corpse. Got any powder? Titan’s Breath, if you’ve got it.”
“Regrettably, Lord Oberon, we only have the cremation ashes left from this morning’s service…”
Oberon?
The name felt strangely familiar to Solomon, but he didn’t have time to waste on a drug-addicted fairy.
“The tea lounge is this way.”
A legless ghost bowed politely and gestured toward an arched corridor leading deeper into the lobby.
Dark mahogany wood, marble floors, delicately patterned wallpaper. Aristocratic elegance permeated every corner—something rarely seen in the Lower District slums.
The one similarity was the pervasive stench of decay. The foul odor of rotting corpses.
Before long, Solomon had crossed the hallway teeming with the dead and arrived at the tea lounge.
Several people were already there. Living people, not the deceased. Every one of them dressed like fellow professionals. Yet the faceless man Solomon knew was nowhere to be seen.
“Oh, you’re earlier than I expected.”
The man seated on the central sofa spoke. Between the porcelain teacups and silver teapot arranged on the antique wooden table, dressed in a black suit.
This was an entirely new face, nothing like the one Solomon had seen in the sewer. He even looked much younger.
“No reason to waste time.”
“I like that attitude.”
Without any sign of hesitation, Solomon took a seat at the man’s table. A woman in a suit and monocle sat with him—apparently part of his entourage.
She had pale, milky skin and distinctively pointed ears. An elf.
“Is this the one?”
The milky-skinned elf looked at Solomon and asked in a businesslike, icy tone.
“Yes. The capable contractor who will restore our trust.”
“……”
The monocled elf stared at Solomon in silence. Her gaze was sharp, as if she could see straight through him. After a long pause, she spoke.
Straight to the heart of the matter, skipping any preamble.
“To cut to the conclusion, the entity behind the experiments conducted from the Sewer Magic Tower is the Biotech Guild.”
“The Biotech Guild…”
The Guilds are the rising bourgeois power threatening both the Five Great Families and Uptown itself. They are Downtown.
“A gathering of psychopaths specializing in body modification, biological weapons, living armaments, and especially the field of biomancy within magitech engineering.”
“Then the monsters in the sewer were…”
“Synthetic creatures created by the Guild. Their goal is future military contracts with the kingdom.”
Exactly as Solomon had suspected.
“And these are the targets we would like you to handle, Master Solomon.”
As she spoke, the elf slid something across the table.
“The individuals responsible for this incident within the Guild and the Magic Tower, respectively.”
The first was a man named Gilbert Graham, an executive of the Biotech Guild and the chief overseer of the living weapon project Solomon had witnessed in the sewer.
The second was a junior elder of the Sewer Magic Tower who operated in a parasitic relationship with the first.
Two documents containing detailed information on the men who needed to die.
“So how exactly does this job connect to ‘my trust’?”
Solomon asked carefully while examining the papers. He knew the question might sound rude.
The elf frowned slightly, but the faceless man answered in an unconcerned voice.
“First, there aren’t many fixers or contractors willing to take jobs against the Guilds. You need proven skill. Like it or not, your name will become known. It’s a small pond.”
“……”
“Second, there are countless bastards who want someone to move against the Guilds. Just in Downtown’s twentieth ward alone, there are over a hundred guilds. They’re all desperate to stab each other in the back. At the very least, you won’t have to worry about losing your meal ticket.”
“It sounds a little too optimistic.”
“Well, that’s something to think about when the time comes. Just listen to the rest of the story.”
The faceless man continued.
“The moment you accept the request, the hotel will assign you a room. You’ll be able to use room service immediately.”
A room? Room service? Solomon barely had time to register his surprise at the unexpected offer.
“An empty room… 101… 102… No, 104 seems appropriate.”
“With all due respect, isn’t that a rather high number for someone who hasn’t proven anything yet?”
“That remains to be seen.”
At the elf’s words, the faceless man simply shrugged.
“Want to bet this friend will reach the third floor within a month?”
When you try to describe a Major League batter by saying, ‘He’s the hardest-working player on the team, with big dreams and overflowing passion…’ people rarely understand.
But the moment you mention the No. 4 on his back or that he’s the top priority for a new contract, they get it immediately.”
Even with the voice ringing in his head, it wasn’t difficult to grasp the meaning behind the rooms, floors, and numbers.
A system that assigns higher floors and room numbers according to skill. Like a rank system.
A blatantly obvious, almost childish way of ranking people.
In the Hotel of Assassins, what could be simpler than dividing status by numbers?
“What floor is your room on?”
“1408.”
The faceless man spoke in a voice thick with disgust.
“It’s been that way for far too long. Since the Battle of Camlann, I think. No matter how long I wait, no one comes.”
Room 8 on the 14th floor…
1408.
Solomon had been assigned 104—room 4 on the first floor. It wasn’t hard to understand the gap between them and what the numbers truly signified.
“So, what will you do?”
“Thank you for choosing Hotel Snark.”
Solomon followed the clacking skeleton bellhop down the hotel corridor, leaving the lobby and lounge behind as they entered the floor reserved for guest rooms.
“Before you enter your room, I must inform you of a few house rules.”
They passed rooms 101, 102, and 103 before stopping in front of 104.
“Hotel Snark has fourteen guest floors, with forty-four rooms on each floor.”
Fourteen times forty-four. Did that mean six hundred and sixteen fellow professionals stayed here?
“I cannot give exact figures, but there are quite a few vacancies. Not enough to call it crowded.”
“I see.”
“Even at its highest occupancy in the hotel’s history, we have never exceeded seventy percent.”
So in reality, maybe two or three hundred people.
The skeleton bellhop unlocked the door with an old-fashioned analog key. Room 104. Was it the hotel’s aesthetic that kept them from avoiding the number four?
No—fourteen floors with forty-four rooms each clearly carried deliberate intent.
“Our hotel provides various forms of ‘room service’ for our guests. The higher your customer rank, the greater the benefits you can receive.”
“Room service?”
“Yes. As it happens, your room service for today has already been provided, Master Solomon.”
“Already provided?”
“After you enter… please check the table facing the mirror.”
The skeleton bellhop spoke in a voice whose origin Solomon couldn’t place.
“We have also left a booklet outlining the hotel’s rules of use. Please refer to it at your convenience.”
With those words, the skeleton withdrew. Solomon was left alone in the room.
It looked small and cozy. Yet an indefinable chill hung in the air.
The table stood right beside the bed. On it rested a suspicious-looking mirror. Below, a two-tiered bookshelf was packed with documents.
Next to them sat a glass of on-the-rocks whiskey, the ice slowly melting and clinking against the sides.
It didn’t take Solomon long to understand what “room service” meant. It wasn’t about the whiskey or the ice.
He sat at the desk and immediately examined the documents placed there.
“So this is Hotel Snark’s room service…”
From basic target information to every minute detail of their habits. There were even reports outlining their schedules and movements for the next week.
They even included the interior blueprints of the Biotech Guild’s stronghold…
The desk held every piece of information necessary to complete the request.
The table had been set. All that remained was for him to pick up the knife and stab accurately.
That was why Solomon immediately turned to the file on Gilbert Graham, the Biotech Guild executive. What he read left him unable to hide his astonishment.
Good god. Is this even a person? It’s a work monster.
It went without saying that an executive of a massive guild would have a packed schedule. But Gilbert Graham’s was extreme.
His timetable contained not a single second of rest. He never went home. He never slept.
To make matters worse, true to the Guild’s focus on treating life as raw material for magitech, Gilbert had undergone numerous biological modifications and apparently possessed considerable combat ability.
One of those modifications even eliminated the need for sleep. It was tempting enough to make Solomon consider it—until he learned that, cost aside, it consumed more than half of one’s remaining lifespan. No matter how he looked at it, the math didn’t add up.
He’s willing to go that far just to work day and night?
The man named Gilbert was a machine—no, a monster—who sacrificed even his own life to keep working for the Guild.
The Magic Tower target looks comparatively easy.
The junior elder of the Sewer Magic Tower was a scholarly type who had distanced himself from combat entirely.
In contrast, Gilbert required careful handling when considering his combat strength and security detail.
Fortunately, thanks to the absurdly thorough room service provided by Hotel Snark, finding an opening wasn’t difficult.
After reviewing the materials, Solomon opened the booklet containing the hotel’s rules of use.
Rule 1. Disputes, conflicts, murder, possession, exorcism, predation, and body snatching between guests within the hotel are strictly prohibited.
Rule 2. Extended absence and external stays are permitted. However, external room service will not be provided.
Rule 3. If both parties in a conflicting request demand room service, the hotel will provide optimal room service to both sides. (Benefits may vary according to customer rank.)
(Omitted)
Rule 7. When leaving the premises, you may exit to any location within Downtown’s twentieth ward via the Door of Inquiry.
Rule 8. Upon return, you may re-enter the Door of Inquiry only at a specific time and specific location.
(Omitted)
Rule 14. There is no 14th floor in Hotel Snark. (May vary according to customer rank.)
(Omitted)
Rule 41. Rule 14 does not exist in this booklet.
Rule 44.Run. (May vary according to customer rank.)
“What a bunch of weird rules.”
This was the new stage on which Solomon would fight from now on. It was no exaggeration to say every guest in this hotel was a potential competitor.
A hotel that existed on the boundary between life and death.
For an assassin’s hotel, there could be no more perfect place. They even had a full-time undertaker on staff.
Wait. When they say you can die here… they don’t mean—
Solomon shook his head before the thought could fully form.
No need to think about that right now.
Having finished organizing his thoughts, Solomon lay down on the bed. Instead of the hard stone floor that had left his legs aching, he sank into a soft, high-quality mattress. This was the first time he truly felt how vast the difference in sleeping arrangements could be.
A proper house. A proper bed…
Before long, the pleasant buzz of alcohol pulled his eyelids shut. The ice in the glass clinked as it melted.
Congratulations, Master Solomon. You have leveled up.
You have now reached Level 3. The following bonuses are provided.
· 2 freely allocatable characteristic points.
· A new 2nd-level spell.
· 1st-level spell slots increased from 3 to 4 (⚀⚀⚀⚀). One 2nd-level spell slot secured (⚁).
· Unique bloodline trait Shadow Bloodline — enhanced effect now available.
These were the rewards that came with the level increase. The gains were incomparably greater than what he had received at Level 2.
New spells for the next level, additional spell slots, characteristics—everything.
There was no reason to hesitate.
What he needed to do was clear. Grow stronger. Acquire enough strength to avoid dying.
To that end, he would lay the foundation that would allow him to become stronger than anyone else in this world.