Chapter 42
When Baek Mu-jin finished his phone call and tried to take the elevator,
“……”
The lights of the rooftop garden slowly went out.
The lights that had been embedded like stars all sank into darkness at once.
Baek Mu-jin’s gaze, which had been scanning the surroundings, stopped in one place. A neatly decorated outdoor staircase. Only that place still had small lights flickering.
From that faint glow, he felt something calling him.
“……”
Baek Mu-jin did not refuse. He stepped toward it. Grasping the railing, he descended the steps made of opaque glass one by one.
Slowly, along the spiral staircase.
“…The scent of flowers.”
It was not his imagination. Baek Mu-jin clearly smelled flowers. It was not the fragrance drifting from the now distant rooftop garden, nor the artificial scent from the decorative flowers on the stairs.
And…
“Small footsteps.”
The laughter of children.
“How childish.”
As if responding to his murmur, a burst of giggles rang out. Innocent, yet hollow like passing wind.
At that, Baek Mu-jin stopped halfway down the stairs and looked toward the wall of the hotel.
“……”
That was the end.
The scent and the sound disappeared.
After staring at the empty outer wall of the building for a moment, Baek Mu-jin moved again.
The lights of the steps he had already passed flickered and went out. The tiny presences of children that had been crouching together like little birds also vanished along with those lights. The spirits that had been playing returned home.
“……”
Soon, different scents and sounds greeted Baek Mu-jin.
“These stairs connect to the Aqua Park as well.”
A damp smell of water brushed his nose.
A cry that sounded deeply submerged.
“It seems each hotel zone has its own territory.”
On the twenty-third floor, the entrance to the Aqua Park appeared.
For a moment he considered entering, but the lights of the staircase still continued downward. It seemed this was not the destination of the lights.
Baek Mu-jin continued descending.
And when he reached the twenty-second floor, where the outdoor staircase ended and he stepped inside the hotel…
“……”
All the lights stopped.
“Now then…”
Who had called him?
Baek Mu-jin calmly rolled his eyes and examined the hallway of the guest floor.
Nearby, he saw an elevator. The button light was off, but the faint indicator showing the current floor was clearly glowing.
“Fourteen.”
Baek Mu-jin stared at the number.
“There is no floor with the number four in this hotel.”
That was what the young dokkaebi had explained earlier, saying it had been avoided since the design stage.
“It did not seem like a lie, yet it felt like something was being hidden… as expected.”
The elevator stubbornly insisted that it was stopped on the fourteenth floor.
“So the opinions of the dokkaebi and the hotel are different.”
The elevator beside it was the same.
“Fourteen.”
The next one as well, and the one after that.
All fourteen.
A space that should not exist shone shamelessly, as if determined to prove its existence.
“……”
Baek Mu-jin stared at the row of numbers without any emotion.
“It deserves praise.”
Was he not staying in quite an interesting place?
It was rare for something to respond to him this blatantly. Whether this was mischief or welcome.
Baek Mu-jin closed his eyes and focused on the sounds of reality flowing around him.
Beyond the glass wall, rain poured down as if it would swallow the world.
“It is not only rain.”
Between the rain, a faint scraping sound slipped in, like wet cloth dragging across the ground.
Baek Mu-jin pressed the elevator button. A brief noise passed by, but he did not bother to listen.
“Hm.”
The door opened.
“So it works.”
The air that blew from inside was unusually cold.
A heavy humidity brushed his nose, like something soaked with rainwater.
A fishy, stale scent. Familiar, yet unfamiliar.
Baek Mu-jin quietly stared into the dark interior of the elevator.
“This is too heavy to be a prank from that young one.”
He had smelled this air before in a morgue.
It was the scent of a corpse freshly pulled from water.
When his thoughts reached that point, Baek Mu-jin turned around.
“Then this must be the hotel’s greeting.”
He took out a silver Zippo lighter from the inner pocket of his jacket.
With a clear metallic click, the flame flickered and then stood upright.
The small light illuminated the way ahead.
Wherever the light reached, doors lined both sides of the hallway at perfect intervals.
A perfectly ordinary structure.
“……”
He took a step forward.
The flame did not move at all, yet the shadows on the floor writhed irregularly.
The corridor was perfectly decorated for guests.
Paintings that revealed the manager’s refined taste, flower vases placed on tables, elegant lighting.
All of them appeared as shadows within the darkness.
“How restless.”
They looked as if they might speak, declaring that they were alive.
“All landscapes.”
The paintings on the walls all depicted the same scenery.
Whenever the light passed by, the trees inside the paintings swayed slightly.
As if touched by a spring breeze, their leaves fluttered down.
And the corridor itself,
entered his vision.
“Yes.”
It was regular.
“……”
Baek Mu-jin soon headed toward the central staircase for guests.
He leaned over the railing and looked down.
The stairs descended into pitch-black darkness. The deeper they went, the more completely they were swallowed by darkness until the bottom could not be seen.
That endless abyss stirred a faint impression in him.
“A throat.”
A gigantic throat pretending to be stairs.
“It seems to have swallowed light and space. Then that must be…”
Several floors below, near the railing, something clung there at a strange angle.
The small flame of the Zippo lighter in Baek Mu-jin’s hand brushed past it.
In that instant, the shape was revealed.
“A foot.”
What appeared white was a human foot.
“No, something that only looks like a person.”
Not bad.
It had remarkable talent for imitation.
“Is that all of it, or is the rest simply unseen?”
The pale, smooth texture was clear beneath the light.
It looked as if it had been soaked underwater for a long time and swollen.
The sound of water he had heard inside the lungs of the young dokkaebi on the twenty-third floor returned to his mind.
“A drowned water ghost has taken a liking to you.”
What a tiring life to choose.
Or perhaps it was merely a matter of taste.
His curiosity about why someone would insist on remaining as the general manager of such a hotel only deepened.
“One cannot tell what that fellow is thinking.”
Baek Mu-jin heard the sound of water dripping like beads.
The swollen corpse-smell was unpleasant.
“……”
Yes.
Perhaps that was the case.
“Something improper.”
The small flame in his hand still burned steadily.
As if it no longer held any value, he withdrew his gaze and slowly walked away.
This time he headed toward the emergency staircase.
Here again, the lights were the only ones still on.
Baek Mu-jin extinguished the lighter and pushed himself inside.
The heavy iron door closed with a dull weight.
The sound became muffled.
“……”
Thud.
Thud.
The sound of footsteps descending the stairs.
“……”
The lights in the passage flickered occasionally.
Baek Mu-jin walked down the path with an indifferent face.
It would take some time to reach the seventeenth floor.
Perhaps even longer than expected.
Above his head, on the corner of the stairs one floor up, a white foot stood quietly.
A bloodless ankle simply stood there.
Without taking a single step.
Baek Mu-jin knew it.
But he did not look.
There was no reason to.
“……”
When he reached the seventeenth floor, the door to the passage opened without a sound.
A smooth movement.
Impeccably neat attire.
An unwavering smile.
“An employee?”
“……”
It bowed silently.
Then, with a graceful motion that seemed to glide rather than walk, it indicated the direction.
The movement was smooth and flawless, yet there was not a trace of humanity in it.
“I am having quite an entertaining experience today.”
Part of a labyrinth can only remain a labyrinth.
A labyrinth that knows how to interact with humans is highly valuable.
A hotel where the labyrinth entertains guests, operated by a dokkaebi.
“Very interesting.”
The gesture pointed toward Room 9, where he would stay.
It stood there stiffly like a mannequin, waiting for Baek Mu-jin’s command.
“……”
“Go.”
The employee bowed as if offering thanks and walked ahead.
No footsteps could be heard.
“It seems to possess very little sense of self.”
Baek Mu-jin spoke into the quiet corridor.
“But it is too refined to be a mere wandering spirit. If its intellect were truly this unclear, it should have long since fallen into corruption and collapse. Is this also the influence of your second master?”
“……”
“You are unexpectedly affectionate. Well, that is often the case with dokkaebi. Perhaps you cherish even such faint traces simply because they resemble humans. Treating them as people, as your own staff.”
Baek Mu-jin’s eyes narrowed.
“If your kind master were to leave this nest… what would become of you all?”
At that moment—
“……”
“……”
The employee walking ahead turned its face toward Baek Mu-jin.
Its body continued walking forward, yet only its head twisted completely backward at a grotesque angle.
With a perfect smile.
With a clean and orderly face.
It smiled.
“……”
Are you loved?
“Is it anger, or simply an error…”
It began softly and pitifully.
A faint noise spread like a ripple.
From the empty rooms around them seeped sounds of cheerful laughter, conversation, and the clinking of champagne glasses.
Overflowing fullness.
As if a grand party were being held.
But Baek Mu-jin knew.
There were not that many guests in this hotel.
And beyond those doors, every room was empty.
“It feels heavy and dull, like being underwater.”
The noise seeping from the walls, floor, and ceiling constantly whispered something to Baek Mu-jin.
But there was no way to understand the words spoken by vocal cords swollen from water.
Baek Mu-jin politely offered his guess.
“Are you feeling displeased?”
“……”
“But you do not possess enough intellect for that.”
“……”
“What a peculiar place…”
Soon he arrived before Room 9.
“……”
The employee had already disappeared.
“How narrow-minded.”
When he stepped into the room, the cheerful hallucinations also stopped.
Ah, by the way.
The twenty-second floor of this hotel is not a guest floor.
It is the sky lounge.
“How long have you worked at this hotel?”
“……”
At Baek Mu-jin’s sudden question, Lee Yeon-woo showed an unwavering smile.
A typical service worker’s expression that revealed nothing of his thoughts.
But despite the calm appearance, he was troubled.
“What should I say to that?”
If he included the time spent being resurrected, it had been about five years.
If he counted the gameplay time of the game itself, it exceeded thirty years.
Either way, it was far removed from common sense.
Lee Yeon-woo arranged the dining table and spoke.
“I believe it has been quite some time.”
“I assumed it must have been long…”
“I see.”
“You are difficult to read.”
“……”
That was awkward.
It hurt his pride to admit it, but that was reality.
Lee Yeon-woo’s common sense was roughly at the level of a newborn infant.
At least within that mysterious world Baek Mu-jin was referring to.
But he could not reveal the truth.
Even without the system’s restrictions, the fact that he had been kidnapped to operate a horror simulation game was too unusual.
“I do not want to be kidnapped again somewhere and treated like an experiment.”
But should he remain completely silent?
“How often will a guest with this level of knowledge return to the hotel?”
Lee Yeon-woo finished his calculations.
“When I came to my senses, I found myself acting as the general manager of this place.”
“You?”
“Yes. That is what happened.”
“So your memories begin here?”
“Not exactly.”
“An interesting mystery.”
“I am glad it sounds that way.”
“There is too much accumulated within this hotel.”
“Ah.”
Lee Yeon-woo did not know much about Baek Mu-jin.
He only knew that the man was the chairman of a large corporation and the uncle of Director Lee Seon-hae.
But in less than a day, he had already gained a rough estimate of what kind of person the old gentleman was.
“He speaks very poetically.”
Perhaps he had studied literature.
Lee Yeon-woo would have preferred to speak plainly with facts and numbers, but as someone living in society, he had no intention of confronting an elderly guest with logic.
Fortunately, Lee Yeon-woo’s language grades had been excellent.
Reading between the lines was not difficult.
“I have done my best to maintain it, but if it appeared old enough to show its age, I sincerely apologize. Was there any inconvenience in the service we provided?”
Meaning
“What exactly did you see in such a short time, sir?”
“The smell of water was strong.”
Meaning
“You are raising a water ghost.”
“The smell of water… I have no excuse. Since the hotel is still in its trial operation stage, there are areas where maintenance is lacking. It seems you experienced some discomfort while moving around.”
Meaning
“When exactly did you run into the water ghost that lives in my house?”
“This old man does not mind. Personally, I found it interesting.”
Meaning
“It seems you live in quite a suspicious place yourself.”
“……”
“……”
Lee Yeon-woo poured the pairing wine.
Baek Mu-jin inhaled the aroma from the glass and gave a small nod.
Lee Yeon-woo immediately caught the moment and asked naturally,
“Does the fragrance suit your taste?”
“Do you produce the wine here?”
“Yes. It is a house wine produced in small quantities to draw out the optimal flavor for each dish served in our hotel.”
“…Quite good.”
“If it is not improper, may I prepare a few bottles as souvenirs when you check out?”
“That is welcome news.”
“I am glad to hear it.”
Even a white-haired elder was not immune to bribes.
“The older they are, the more they seem vulnerable to such obvious flattery.”
Fortunately, his social skills had not rusted.
Judging by how easily the man followed the rhythm of the conversation, it seemed unlikely that he would make a problem of the hotel.
“For someone like me whose identity is unclear, this is the best possible outcome.”
Without even knowing what kind of world he now stood in, Baek Mu-jin had chosen to overlook things with mild goodwill in exchange for a few bottles of wine.
Lee Yeon-woo felt deeply grateful for that.
“You.”
“Yes, please speak.”
“Will you not dine with me?”
“If it does not inconvenience you, I would gladly keep you company.”
“Good. The staff here are all very quiet.”
“They are rather cold friends who are not very affectionate even toward me.”
“That sounds lonely.”
“But there are none who listen to my stories as patiently as they do.”
Lee Yeon-woo took a seat across from him.
However, he did not touch the food served.
Baek Mu-jin seemed to have expected that and tasted a small portion of his dish before speaking again.
“The smell of blood is strong in a place meant for rest.”
“I apologize, but it is a trace that I cannot completely erase on my own.”
“No, you are erasing it quite well.”
His gray eyes rested on Lee Yeon-woo’s face.
Would you like to allow Existence Detection?
Yes
No
“……”
No.
“I committed a discourtesy.”
“I do not think so.”
“I should have apologized yesterday. This old man became too absorbed in exploring the hotel and ended up being rude. My apologies once more.”
“Please do not worry. I consider it a natural curiosity for a guest.”
“I was simply curious how it works.”
Baek Mu-jin took another sip of wine.
Just like the tea yesterday, he seemed to enjoy drinking something.
“Does he not enjoy food very much?”
If so, Lee Yeon-woo thought they might share a strange sense of kinship.
“The smell of blood came from you as well.”
“I am ashamed that my poor condition was noticed by a guest.”
“Let me ask you something. Do you truly believe this hotel can become a place of rest for humans? Do you love humans so much that you desperately wish for someone to visit here?”
“I am not so arrogant or inconsiderate.”
“Then why go that far?”
He wiped his lips with a napkin.
“How many times have you died here?”
“……”
How many times.
“…I have never counted.”
In a game where death was as common as breathing.
Not only during the past five years, but even within the data of years of gameplay, death had been routine.
The other man seemed to understand the hotel through some form of record.
It was not a question he could answer carelessly.
Baek Mu-jin nodded as if he understood even without an answer.
“The history accumulated here is much deeper than what appears on the surface. That must mean the flow of time inside the hotel differs from reality. Is that not so?”
If the in-game time had been the same as real-world time, it would hardly feel like a game.
“But the body I see appears to be about nineteen years old…”
Thanks to that, Lee Yeon-woo confirmed the biological age he had only vaguely guessed.
It seemed the character’s age setting from the start of the game had remained unchanged.
What a fortunate thing.
“This old man says this with gratitude for saving his foolish niece. If you live as a human, you will be human. If you live as a beast, you will be a beast. And if you live as a ghost, you will be a ghost.”
“……”
“So please, live however you wish.”
“…Thank you for the advice.”
And inwardly, Lee Yeon-woo thought,
“If I choose to live as a human, will my missing human rights return too?”
That was something he was genuinely curious about.
Because from the look of things, they had disappeared quite a while ago.