The Hospitality of the Desert
The door to the hotel suite opened with a soft, practiced click. Two maids stepped inside—a clear case of trespassing. The room was far from empty; a man and a woman were clearly asleep within, yet the two maids moved with a quiet, unhurried confidence, their footsteps making no sound.
"...Ernette-nim."
Even in the living room, where the two had left about eighty percent of their meal unfinished—looking for all the world like they had simply passed out mid-bite—the maids remained composed.
"Do you still believe they are spies?"
"Ugh...!"
Ernette, the captain of the guard currently disguised as a maid, let out a heavy, stifled groan at the head maid's question. If she had been forced to answer intuitively, based on the scene before her, she would have shouted, "I was wrong!" The couple was nearly naked, and the man had his face buried deep in the woman's chest. Was the food so delicious that one could pass out while eating it? ...While it was certainly tasty enough to warrant such a reaction, it was obvious that the two were not sleeping because of the meal.
"It is hard to say, Head Maid. Help me."
Ernette approached the glass containing the drink and lifted it with agonizing slowness. The head maid sighed, gestured toward the door, and then brought over an identical glass. She took a few sips herself before placing it in the exact spot where the original had been. A perfect swap. Unless the sleepers had been memorizing the liquid level down to the millimeter, they would never realize the glass had been replaced. It was a piece of tradecraft so refined it looked like they had been doing it for years.
"The sleeping agent has been neutralized. So... do you sense anything?"
"Hmm, wait. They must have hidden something using mana."
"They aren't strong enough for that."
"Doesn't that make it even stranger? How did people like this manage to get all the way here?"
"They probably hired mercenaries. If they were agents of the Demon King, they would have communication devices or some form of disguise... but there is absolutely nothing of the sort."
"Grr... is it just my imagination?"
Ernette scratched her head, scanning the man. "I feel some kind of demonic energy coming from that man..."
"Perhaps one of his distant ancestors was a demon. Just because an ancestor was a demon doesn't mean the descendant is one, does it? If you don't feel any mana, I suggest we leave quietly."
The head maid pointed toward the door with her thumb. "They are honored guests who have come all this way to visit Lampades. The Desert King said it himself, didn't he? In court, we shouldn't assume guilt from the start; we should assume innocence while keeping the possibility of a crime in mind."
"...That's all well and good, but if the possibility is true, the consequences are too severe. If they are agents of the Demon King, then 'that day' is..."
"Please, stop. Even if they are unconscious, this is not the place to discuss such things in front of our guests."
As Ernette began to spiral into gloom, the head maid took her hand and led her outside. "Let's let them see only good things and hear only good things. Until the day they leave."
"...I suppose you're right. Still, I will not stop my surveillance."
"Understood. But keep it to a minimum. It is disrespectful to our guests to... no, helping you cross the line is the last thing we will do."
"I will keep that in mind."
Before leaving the room, Ernette cast one last, complicated look at the man collapsed over the woman. In that final moment, she caught a glimpse of something between the robes that made her face burn, but she could say nothing more.
Dawn.
"...I feel tired, yet strangely refreshed."
"That's because you fell asleep on the sofa instead of the bed. ...Wait a second."
As soon as I woke up, I sat up and began to move along the 'dead zones,' pretending to wander around the room.
"What are you doing?"
"Hold on, just act natural."
Shin Yuhee tilted her head at my movements, but soon she began to tidy her hair, pretending it was nothing. From the living room to the inner bedroom, I checked every possible location—
"Thank goodness. I can keep talking like this. There are no wiretaps."
"...Do we really have to worry about things like that?"
"Yes. Because they might be there."
"How do you even know how to check for things like that, Sunbae... no, never mind, I won't ask."
Was she already convinced I wouldn't answer? Shin Yuhee waved her hand, reached for the table, and picked up the glass containing the drink.
"The sleeping agent was in here, right?"
"Yes."
"...Do you think they swapped it?"
"What makes you say that?"
"Lipstick marks."
Shin Yuhee pointed to the faint trace of lipstick left on the rim. "I deliberately applied it broadly, but it looks a bit different now. Surely they didn't fake the traces to make it look like we drank it, did they?"
"Want to know how to check?"
"Yes."
"Just drink it again."
I took a sip, then ran my finger along the top of the glass and licked it. "If I don't fall asleep, they swapped the glass."
"On the rim of the glass...?"
"Exactly. It's a classic trick often seen in mystery novels."
If you poison the food, the fork and knife will reveal it. That's why they go for the drink. "Let me give you an advanced application. If someone tries to poison you and says, 'You drink it first,' what happens?"
"If I drink it, I die. So, do they apply it to the rim where the lips touch?"
"Right. Even if someone tells you to drink it, you just drink from a spot where they didn't apply it. In this case, though... they probably coated the whole thing since they didn't know where we'd drink from."
I ran my hand along the rim of the glass once more. "Wait a minute?"
Shin Yuhee, looking thoroughly unsettled, grabbed a napkin and wiped the rims of both my glass and hers until they were pristine.
"...Honestly, I thought you were worrying a bit too much."
"About what? The poison in the food?"
"Yes. That, and everything you said back at the arena. But somehow... every word you say turns out to be essential advice."
Shin Yuhee's eyes narrowed. "Just what did you do in the military to know all this?"
"I was in a survival club of sorts."
"A survival... club?"
"You know, people who run simulations on how to pack a survival bag or what to do if an apocalypse hits. I did a bit of that. And, well... I have a bit of background knowledge."
That was a lie. In addition to the experience I had built up myself, the memories of countless heroes who had fallen to the Demon King's army were simply accumulating in my mind.
"I'm only doing this because I'm basically doing a preview study. If I were a complete blank slate, you would have known better than me."
"Liar."
"It's the truth."
It was. If this were the Yu Siwoo of the first playthrough, Shin Yuhee would have been the one leading me, discussing every possible contingency in an environment like this.
"Forget it. Let's get ready. Dawn is approaching, and it's time to do what we came here to do."
"Dawn...?"
"Yes."
I walked over to Shin Yuhee and gently rubbed her stomach. "Whether it's for a pregnancy prayer or a successful tutorial breakthrough, going to dawn prayer is the standard procedure."
"You're really going to keep doing that?"
"Of course. Didn't you see the look in the people's eyes in this city the moment I mentioned pregnancy?"
"This isn't because of this, is it?"
Shin Yuhee made a circle with her fingers.
"What's wrong with that? It's not a crime."
It would be fraud to claim pregnancy benefits when not pregnant. "We're just a couple struggling to conceive, not committing fraud while infertile."
But we were a newlywed couple here to conceive. Even by Desert Law, it wouldn't be a violation.
Dawn.
After finishing our showers and changing our clothes, we left the room.
"D-did you rest comfortably?"
The manager greeting us in the hotel lobby looked visibly flustered. It seemed he hadn't expected us to come out at this hour. Clearly, they weren't bugging the room enough to catch the trivial conversations happening inside.
"Yes. We rested very comfortably. So much so that I didn't want to leave."
"......Yes?"
The manager's face turned pale. At the same time, I felt a chill behind me.
"Y-you didn't want to leave? What does that mean...?"
"Sunbae. You have to speak clearly."
Shin Yuhee poked my waist. "They lent us such a nice room for 'one day,' shouldn't we be grateful for even that?"
"Right. My apologies."
Did it feel like a malicious prank? For me, it was just a habit of probing for reactions, but Shin Yuhee seemed a bit uncomfortable seeing his heart sink like that.
"Thank you, Manager. Thanks to you, I feel like we've gained some good energy. And the food was delicious, even late at night."
"Ah, yes. Um, by any chance... are you checking out...?"
"Yes. We had such a good rest—"
"No, no!"
As soon as we tried to check out, the manager waved his hands frantically.
"You can stay for a fortnight, no, a week!"
"Pardon?"
"Actually, we are... um, starting renovations in ten days! Since there are some areas where we are lacking, we're doing some internal repairs...! So please, feel free to stay until then! We don't have any guests right now other than the villagers... haha."
Conclusion: Stay where we can monitor you for ten days, then get lost.
"T-that's too much gold—"
"Madam. The desert does not treat guests who have traveled from afar poorly. Especially now, during the festival, isn't it? Please, consider this a small gift from us, wishing for your successful pregnancy, and enjoy yourselves to the fullest."
The hospitality was so excessive it became uncomfortable to accept. At this point, I would have felt more at ease if this hotel had been a hideout for human traffickers.
"No, even so..."
"You don't need to decline."
"That..."
"Understood, Manager. In return, this is the only compensation I can offer."
In response to his kindness, I decided to pay the price they would likely want most.
"Could you tell me your name?"
"Your... name?"
"Yes. I will remember you."
"......!"
"So that when we tell our children stories in the distant future, we can tell them accurately."
"...Akundal."
The hotel manager, Akundal, bowed his head with a polite demeanor.
"My name is Akundal. Please, I ask that you remember it."