Banquet Hall (1)
🏛 Type: Hall
⚔ Difficulty: A-Class
📍 Floor: Current / Total
💀 Boss: Unknown
"...This is the Banquet Hall?"
"I told you we should've just stayed at the School! Or we could've tried the shopping mall. What the hell are you doing...?!"
"A motif called to me."
"No, seriously, what if this really is an S-class Backroom? You're actually going to get yourself killed."
"If I stay somewhere safe, I'll just slowly wither away anyway."
"Fine! I'd rather die slowly! At least then I'd get food, and dying of boredom would be better! What are we even supposed to do in this corridor?"
I had to admit, that was a fair question.
For the past hour, we'd been walking down an endless corridor.
Ugh, memories of the shopping mall.
I wondered if this was another loop, but even then, wasn't an empty corridor going a little too far?
It was called the Banquet Hall, for God's sake.
How was this a banquet hall, of all things?
"...Getting mad only made me hungrier......"
"What matters in the Backrooms is peace of mind."
"Boss, you really shouldn't be the one saying that. If the craziest bastard in the gallery starts talking about peace, everyone's going to clutch their necks."
"What, me? I'm just fighting to survive."
"The kind of bastard who'll bulldoze through even a sandcastle just by thrashing around......"
"Oh. Don't I kind of feel like a giant titan?"
"You do seem pretty damn unhinged, yeah."
Another hour passed with more pointless jokes.
I eventually sank down in the still-endless corridor.
"Does this thing even have an end?"
"You're asking me, the guy on his first trip here?"
"You looked so confident coming in that I figured your precious navigation system had to know something."
"This thing only shows me doors that can be no-clipped through."
"Damn it... Somehow it feels even more dangerous than being in the School......"
"I saved your life once, didn't I? The rest of it should be spent living for me. That's how it usually goes."
"That's only in anime, you maniac."
Real life was harsh and rigid like this.
There was no romance. None at all.
Where were the heart-thumping friendships and dreams of a shonen manga?
"If I phase through the wall with intangibility, won't I see something?"
"If it's too thick, you won't find your way out. I can't even see anything inside walls. Get lost in there and you die."
"Then I'll carry your dream and keep moving forward in your place."
"What the hell is wrong with you? No thanks."
"Useless as ever."
In the end, all that was left was to keep moving, so I hauled myself up on my aching legs.
The complaining delinquent got to his feet too, then wrinkled his nose.
"Huh? Hey, hey, don't you smell something delicious?"
"Yeah, actually."
At his sniffing, I focused for a moment and caught it too. Something spicy, something sweet, drifting from farther down the corridor.
Right. Our lantern doesn't lie.
This really was the Banquet Hall.
We got our second wind and ran on, and soon enough, bright light came into view.
"Whoa... What is all this?"
"What, is this some chaebol family's banquet hall? First time I've ever been intimidated by food."
Under a glittering chandelier, tables lined the walls on both sides, each one piled high with mouthwatering dishes.
Steam rose as though everything had just been set out, and every dish was advertising itself through scent alone.
From braised short ribs to tteokbokki, from cod soup to ramen, it was a buffet with absolutely everything.
"Let's keep searching for now. We don't know what else might be here."
"Uh, uh......"
I dragged along the delinquent, whose eyes had somehow locked onto ramen of all things, and crossed into the next room.
This one was Chinese food.
The room was packed with the greasy, fried, stir-fried smell of dishes that seemed to oil your nose just by breathing them in.
The room after that was Western food, Japanese food, and every other cuisine on Earth. It was a Backroom that held all the food on the planet.
"I don't see any aberrations, and there aren't any other passages either. Just food."
"So is it safe?"
"No, it isn't. If the lantern's getting interfered with, there's definitely something here. But just in case, don't eat the food, you idiot."
"Chew... Huh? Wait, when did I pick this up...? But it's good! This isn't ordinary kimchi stew!"
The delinquent, who'd been stripping the meat out of his kimchi stew, gave me a thumbs-up.
How had this bastard survived at the School?
"You don't feel anything weird? Poison, maybe? Or hallucinations, auditory delusions, something like that. On the surface it looks normal."
"I feel fine. But damn, this is really good. I bet everything else tastes amazing too."
"It's obviously a trap. Tch, do whatever you want. If you're volunteering to be the taste tester, I'll decide what to do based on your condition."
"I shall taste it, Your Majesty-"
That lunatic wasn't tasting anything; he was just eating a full meal.
He tore through two helpings of braised short ribs in two bites, shredded a strip of kimchi in one pull, then started downing seaweed soup by the bowl.
For a guy who'd always done well at the cafeteria, he'd apparently been possessed by a ravenous spirit.
Still, there was no sign of anything wrong with him.
Well, one thing was wrong.
He was eating so damn well it made me hungry too.
"Hey, boss. Quit standing there and eat something too. It's insane!"
"It's not poison, and it doesn't seem like mental contamination either. So how the hell do we get out of here?"
"Eat first. Rest a bit, then think."
After watching the delinquent gorge himself for about an hour, I got so hungry I finally decided to eat a little too.
Just in case, I split the braised ribs in half with Black Moon, then bit into the meat, which tasted incredible without triggering any reaction at all.
Holy hell, this was really fucking good.
It was so good I started to feel like I was the idiot for having spent all this time being needlessly on guard.
Still, just to be safe, I only ate what the delinquent had touched first.
"Hey, Delinquent."
"So you are going to eat after all... What now?"
"I want sushi, so go over to the Japanese room and eat some for me."
"You're making me taste-test to the bitter end because you're worried it might be poisoned."
"Hurry up and move."
"Yes, sir. Right away, Your Majesty."
On the way over, he even kept snatching at skewers of grilled meat, then headed off and stuffed every kind of sushi into his mouth without hesitation.
"Satisfied, Your Majesty?"
"Yeah."
"Then I'll be crossing back over to the Korean food section."
He really was an old man, wasn't he? His tastes were something else.
I chuckled as he trotted off, picking up a piece of yakitori on the way.
But what was this place, really?
Could it be that you had to eat everything to clear it?
If so, this was paradise.
The sushi in my mouth melted away in an instant, absolutely exquisite.
If food like this kept coming, I could eat a hundred pieces.
But even though I've eaten a lot, I still feel like I can keep going.
Had my stomach expanded?
No. Was it because I'd been living off energy bars and hardtack so long that my body was overcompensating?
Besides, each dish tasted like it had been made by a Michelin chef, so once I started with the chopsticks, I couldn't stop.
Even the delinquent had been gorging himself for over an hour, so I had no clue how good everything was... hold on.
...Why am I still hungry?
Something was off.
I was definitely full enough.
By this point, I'd eaten more than a grown man's worth of food, and yet I still wasn't satisfied.
Hunger washed over me, the kind that I hadn't noticed while I was eating.
It was getting worse, not better?
"Shit, I knew it. Hey, Delinquent! Delinquent!"
I rushed over and slapped away the enormous handful he was about to take.
The braised pork belly, garlic, chili peppers, and ssamjang that had been returned to their original shape in midair made the delinquent's eyes go misty.
"W-what the hell? Why are you acting up again?"
"Stop eating. This is wrong. The more I eat, the hungrier I get."
"What? That's nonsense."
"You've been shoveling food into your face for over an hour now. And you're not even sick of it? What are you, a mukbang YouTuber? How does that all fit?"
"...Huh?"
Only then did the delinquent realize something was wrong and pull back the hand he'd stretched toward the food.
"Come to think of it, that is weird... Why am I so damn hungry?"
"It's fine while you're eating, but maybe it was all just an illusion."
"I'm hungry... I feel like I'm going to die of hunger."
"So it gets hungrier the more you eat... Dammit, what the hell kind of rule is that? At this rate, some monster ought to show up!"
"Boss, I can't take it anymore, what do I do? I'm going crazy from hunger. Just one bite. Hm? Can't I have just one bite?"
"Get a grip and hold out. We already know eating doesn't make the hunger go away."
"B-but while I'm eating, it feels okay... maybe I should just keep, keep eating?"
"That's exactly what this Backroom wants! It wants to turn us into pigs in this filthy room!"
"Okay... I'll try to hold out for now."
"Haaah. Let's search the place one more time. There might still be something else here. And don't touch the food, no matter what."
"Got it."
I led the guy, who was clutching his stomach, as we checked room after room again. But there was nothing but food, and not the slightest sign of any hidden seam or warped crack.
What the hell was this place?
"...Hey, lamb skewers......"
"Put it down while you're talking. I'll rip that arm clean off."
"You're swallowing your saliva too! Why can't we just eat while we search? I can't even focus because I'm so hungry. I'm going insane!"
"Let's go back to the corridor first. Once we leave the Banquet Hall, maybe things will change."
"Haa... If there's nothing there either, let's at least keep something in our mouths while we work. I'm not saying we should stop looking for the exit. Got it?"
"......"
I wanted to shout that he'd lost his mind, but honestly, I felt like I was going crazy too.
Hungry.
I didn't know how many times I'd bitten my lip trying to keep my hands off that primal urge.
Even blood tasted good.
"Let's head back the way we came."
"Yeah. Watching this is making me even more insane. Let's go."
We left the last room and returned to the first Korean food room.
But the corridor that had been there just moments ago was gone, as if it had never existed in the first place.
"...What? Where'd the corridor go?"
"Something blocked it on purpose. It's trying to keep us trapped here."
"Haa, let's just eat one thing first. Then we'll go back and... huh?"
The delinquent, who'd turned around ahead of me, sucked in a sharp breath in shock.
Why, had the food disappeared?
I was thinking that might actually be a relief when I turned around and met the eyes of a dead pig laid out on the table.
"Oh, hell no. Who asked to check the raw ingredients, you fucking aberration!"
With their bellies slit open, the carcasses of every kind of animal imaginable, from cattle to pigs to chickens, lay sprawled across the tables, stuffed with vegetables.