Our Hotel Is Open for Business as Usual - Chapter 104

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 104.

“The hand kiss originates from proskynesis.”
“Pardon?”
“It’s an act of reverence toward the divine and humanity. It was a ritual expressing submission through kissing the ground, which spread from the gesture of loyalty and obedience when kissing the rings of monarchs or clergy, and eventually….”

Lee Yeon-woo gently waved his gloved hand.

“It transformed into the practice of kissing the back of the hand and became established.”
“I see.”
“You could say it’s almost entirely a European custom.”
“I see.”
“You still don’t feel like studying, I take it.”

I didn’t realize how that reaction compelled me to elaborate further.

“…? Betrayal. Betrayal.”
“You misunderstand.”

I gently patted the gelatinous form perched on my shoulder.

The staff members in the corridor passed by in silence, their heads bowed, and their behavior seemed to echo the context of the monster guests’ actions from moments before.

Observing them, I continued speaking.

“In the seventeenth century, it was an act that displayed loyalty, submission, and hierarchical order. Afterward, it became a symbol of respect, chivalry, and courtesy. In modern times, it’s a gesture rarely used, but….”

This sudden history lesson wasn’t merely to tease Coco.

“That’s why it feels burdensome.”
“Pardon?”
“You need to possess the same background knowledge I do in order to truly empathize with me, don’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I was asking for your empathy.”
“Coco. Empathy.”

It was a satisfying response.

“I am a modern person, am I not?”
“Yes? Yes.”
“To receive such treatment from monster guests—treatment I’ve never received from humans. The fact that it wasn’t just one of them makes my feelings quite peculiar. What could have made them this way?”
“Huh?”
“It’s not good at all. I do enjoy receiving hospitality and kindness, but even so, this is a bit… beyond what my sensibilities can handle.”

It wasn’t as though I’d grown up in such a cultural sphere.

“The situation was quite suspicious as well.”
“Was it not?”
“Only you, Coco, would have acted that way.”

When Lee Yeon-woo had just stepped out of the Elevator and received that inexplicable welcome, he couldn’t bring himself to look at the students for long. I could vividly imagine how flustered he must have been.

‘I was worried that the students’ wariness would increase even more because of it.’

Lee Yeon-woo wiped the corner of his mouth.

“…It was truly unexpected that it went in the opposite direction. Their suspicion toward me seems to have grown, but separate from that, I felt a faint trust that wasn’t there before.”

Suspicion and trust. I’m not sure if these are words that can be proportional simultaneously. But from what Lee Yeon-woo could see, the students regarded him with suspicion, yet they showed a slightly more relaxed demeanor.

‘As if they were deliberating whether to rely on me….’

An injury?

‘Is this truly the effect of the injury?’
“Y…yes?”
“If the effects are that good, I might need to get hurt a few more times.”
“Huh?”
“What’s needed at the hypothesis stage is experimentation, after all—repeated experimentation.”
“Was it not?”
“Don’t reject the universal process of research simply because you dislike the idea.”

In any case, setting everything else aside.

“….”

Lee Yeon-woo’s eyes rolled behind the glasses he’d donned after so long.

“If I had to guess, there are two possibilities. The first is….”
“External surveillance level.”
“You’ve hit the mark precisely.”

I suspect the meta-being monster guest—whose face I never even saw this cycle—had considerable influence. According to what I confirmed in the Hunting Ground, the external surveillance level increased from 4 to 5.

And in this game, in Ho-won, “external surveillance level” meant “Hotel prestige.”

“Since the Hotel’s reputation has risen, perhaps I, as a co-owner there, have become worthy of respect.”

But.

“Still, this isn’t certain.”
“Yes? Yes.”
“While it’s quite possible this influenced their attitude toward me, I find it difficult to believe it was the decisive factor.”
“Yes.”
“There were no related elements in the system either, and realistically speaking, the timing is far too abrupt. It’s possible that influence changes in increments of 5, but there’s no evidence for it.”
“Yes.”
“So in the end, only one possibility remains.”

I observe the staff members.

As always, their uniforms were immaculate. Not a single wrinkle could be found, and their footsteps were barely audible. Their movements possessed restraint, flowing with the fluidity of a river.

And so, our gazes meet.

“….”

Reverence and fervor.
Absolute conviction and relief.
Obsession and dependence.

Twisted love and intoxication.

“…Hmm….”

Lee Yeon-woo’s eyes narrowed slowly.

“Indeed, there are some similarities, aren’t there.”
“Yes.”
“So it wasn’t just my imagination.”

The second possibility that occurred to him.

“So it was this Hotel that was the problem after all.”

The sudden “respect” from the Monster guests seemed to stem from Lee Yeon-woo’s fusion with the Central Control authority.

“That’s certainly an effect that didn’t exist in the Game.”
“Yes.”
“Thanks to that, the Monster guest’s behavior has become even harder to predict.”
“Yes.”

Solve one problem, and another springs up in its place.

“Nothing is ever simple.”

* * *

Rewinding time a bit… or rather, quite a bit.

“….”

The Central Control Room on the 14th Floor, just before disabling the maintenance function and descending to the Basement 7th Floor Hunting Ground.

“…I must be losing my mind.”

Lee Yeon-woo draped himself like three-year-old laundry and muttered.

“It’s taking this long.”
“Yes.”
“Would you move off my face?”
“No.”
“How unfortunate.”

The weight was negligible, so it wasn’t particularly uncomfortable. Mercifully, it hadn’t covered my breathing passages. But the sensation of Slime draped across my forehead and eyes was decidedly peculiar.

Lee Yeon-woo slipped his hand beneath Coco’s ribs and lifted.

“….”
“….”

Our eyes met.

Unable to keep him at a distance, I lowered Coco to my chest instead. Perhaps due to my awkward posture, Coco slid down smoothly and settled onto my thigh.

Coco lifted his head to look at me. I declined indirectly.

“I have human rights too.”
“Pardon?”
“If you show doubt there, how exactly am I supposed to react?”

True enough—I was someone erased from the world. My resident registration number might have vanished as well, making it difficult to legally claim human rights protection.

‘To begin with, the work I’ve done over these eight months wasn’t exactly a project that prioritized human rights.’

This wasn’t a metaphor—my entire body was literally tattered and worn.

“But the results are undeniable.”
“Yes.”
“You’ve escaped that tiresome emotional disorder.”
“Yes.”

The problem was so unrealistic that it took time to identify its form and source. But I had improved the emotional accumulation anomaly—the penalty from the Tasteless Guest.

For now, at least.

“It’s unfortunate that the improvement isn’t perfect.”
“Yes….”

Coco answered dejectedly. From his reaction, I could tell that my emotional accumulation anomaly hadn’t been completely resolved.

‘And….’

I furrowed my brow.

“No matter how much I think about it, there seems to be a factor other than the Tasteless Guest behind such massive damage to the big data.”
“Yes? Yes.”

There were parts I could guess at.

“During the pursuit with that person, there were unusually many contradictions in my memories.”
“Yes. Yes. Yes.”
“So it was as I thought.”

Her name: Lover of Dawn.

Save for her eyes, she was pure white from head to toe—a phantom of an eternal love that could never exist, and ultimately… a monster guest obsessed with the memories of living humans.

It had to be her. Lee Yeon-woo flipped through the control room screens rapidly.

“From the CCTV records, we can find this guest starting from the tutorial, but examining the logs shows that she formally requested accommodation at the Hotel quite recently.”
“Tasteless Guest.”
“Is that designation still being used… Yes, around that time then.”

Lee Yeon-woo navigated the interface and reviewed the memory cards I had collected regarding the Tasteless Guest.

“For some reason, there are cards I don’t remember.”
“Yes…!”

Coco’s reaction was intense.

There had been few opportunities to offer the Tasteless Guest a “meal.” So I must have thought to stimulate the most “fundamental human sense” related to it.

But with only Ho-won’s existing memory cards, I couldn’t decipher it…

“In the end, I approached the Lover of Dawn to persuade him. I needed a card containing his core memories, so I wanted to borrow the systematic rules of this monster guest.”
“Exactly!”
“And I probably gave the Lover of Dawn the memories she desired in exchange for something temporary… yes, it would have been a verbal agreement at most. No matter how much I examine it, there’s no trace of a contract besides with the Wet Person.”

Of course, if that had happened, the Wet Person wouldn’t have stayed quiet.

“She was there from the tutorial, yet I didn’t feel any sense of incongruity—just how much did she tamper with my memories? Before the Tasteless Guest, she wouldn’t have approached at all.”

Since I frequently reviewed the Hotel’s records, even the past me would have known that “there’s an abnormality in my memories, meaning it’s likely the Lover of Dawn’s doing.”

Yet I had ignored it all this time.

“Hello.”
“I have no excuse.”

Lee Yeon-woo reflected not only on his present self but on his past self as well.

“It seems I judged there would be no significant harm.”

Now that I confirmed it, there were times when Director Lee Sun-hae and Writer Hong Kyung-yeon had stopped by—I even saw them sitting in the same Lobby. This was undoubtedly a blunder born of my own arrogance.

“Since she was an uninvited guest who never formally registered with the Hotel and merely wandered its halls… I suppose she was relatively well-behaved during that time.”
“Well-behaved?”
“Is that not so?”

Indeed, the Lover of Dawn in the Game was not a difficult guest to entertain. Even now that reality had become what it was, if the Hotel’s rules were still fully in effect, controlling her would have been relatively manageable.

Coco, who had been quietly listening to my thoughts, suddenly rose to all four paws.

“No?”
“Then that would mean no one else suffered harm besides me.”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”

With each passing day, my communication with this Cat teacher had become smoother. By now, it was not difficult to understand what he was trying to say.

I continued.

“Whether the Lover of Dawn broke the Hotel’s rules as an unauthorized intruder or consumed my memories, it mattered little to me. I thought it was a bargain compared to what she could offer.”
“Yes.”
“But now that reality has become what it is, she’s been poking around trying to do something on her own, divorced from the Game’s rules, and this problem has arisen. Am I correct?”
“Yes.”
“I regret it.”

The countless “past versions of me” who had likely sensed the dissonance must have concluded: “Whatever she does, I’ll simply leave her be and use her as needed.”

“Think about it—when you were chasing me across the 14th Floor, you expressed doubt so many times. Back then, I thought you were protesting my foolish actions.”
“No.”
“So by that logic, this is a disaster I brought upon myself.”
“Ugh.”
“Don’t be so sad, Coco.”

Lee Yeon-woo patted Coco gently.

“Things have become rather complicated, but….”

As if to remind me that my body still remained under the system’s control, completely erasing the penalty from the Monster Guest through means outside the game’s framework was ‘impossible’.

Even if it stemmed from a verbal contract.

‘This is madness.’

I couldn’t understand why it wouldn’t be fixed when I said I would fix it.

‘Is it saying it doesn’t want to abandon its identity as a game?’
“Ninio?”
“I’ve already come to understand that even you don’t know the answer, Coco.”

Coco held a negative stance toward the Tasteless Guest’s penalty. If there were a solution, she would have told me within these eight months. The fact that she hadn’t meant it was indeed a problem with the Hotel, or the system itself.

So Lee Yeon-woo had to compromise. I installed an on-off function.

“This must be what they mean by ‘a blessing in disguise.'”

Due to Belmarés’ nature, each droplet of my blood possessed its own consciousness. That was largely why I could split my ‘identity’ in half.

‘Even though I’ve divided myself into the Hotel General Manager and Lee Yeon-woo for now….’

Lee Yeon-woo observed the interface crackling faintly.

“…Why won’t this work?”
“Nenio?”
“I think I need to research this more.”
“No.”
“You must have grown quite bored.”
“Yes.”
“Indeed.”

Perhaps because I had focused solely on ‘physical enhancement,’ working in a different method than the Game had affected the interface itself. It felt like viewing a prototype with jagged wires jutting out haphazardly.

As a result, the originally clean interface had become somewhat ominous. Yet despite its appearance, the functionality remained intact. Lee Yeon-woo stared at the [Version: Lee Yeon-woo] floating there.

“….”

…The ‘Lee Yeon-woo’ mentioned here was a sort of update file.

‘A patch, I suppose.’

I had overlaid the file ‘Lee Yeon-woo’ on top of the base file ‘Hotel General Manager.’ However, during this process, there was something I had come to notice.

“The Game was already full of bugs to begin with.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know? A technique called ‘map clipping’ is used in quite a few games. Also called Wallclip or Clipping—essentially, it’s finding gaps in incompletely finished terrain and objects to make progression easier.”
“Yes? Yes.”
“It’s when a character’s collision detection doesn’t work properly, causing them to clip through walls or inside objects. Ho-won had no shortage of such bugs, but….”

Lee Yeon-woo continued with a weary expression.

“Whether it’s a side effect of synchronizing with Central Control Room authority, or a defect created during the process of fixing it—such bugs have appeared throughout our Hotel.”

Then Coco spoke.

“Tasteless Guest.”
“That person isn’t entirely blameless, it seems?”
“Yes. Rude Guest.”
“A fair point.”

Indeed, during the final chase, the Tasteless Guest had forcibly broken through all the way to the 14th Floor. It appeared to be a phenomenon reflecting the wounds inflicted on the system at that time.

“But it might be usable after all….”
“Huh? Impossible.”
“Of course, I anticipate the recoil inflicted on the body from data collision will be severe. Attempting it recklessly without calculation or using it multiple times simultaneously could prove rather difficult.”
“Hello.”
“Yes, but in urgent situations where every moment counts, it might prove quite useful.”

A sort of cheat, in other words.

“But this bug that emerged isn’t the only one, so to speak. It has quite the talent for exhausting people in various ways.”
“Who?”
“I don’t really know who that is.”

Right—who was it that trapped me here? Even Lee Yeon-woo seemed driven to madness by the question.

“Bugs emerge as bugs do, and it’s not as though I could completely resolve the penalties either. It would have been nice if I could have smoothed out the water affinity contract with The Wet Person more cleanly.”
“Yes, well.”
“What kind of psychology is that?”

Lee Yeon-woo rubbed his chin.

“Still, it would have been better if I could have fixed it.”
“Mm.”
“The coercive power the Hotel System exerts does seem quite considerable.”

Emotional abnormalities could be traced back to “is something wrong with the brain,” but water suddenly filling the lungs or the body being conditionally dominated without any trauma—that had no solution.

Solutions could be created, but that required adequate foundation and materials. In the end, what Lee Yeon-woo gained from this update was this “on-off function” and….

“…Sigh….”

…a body that had become ambiguously healthier as a result.

“I’ll need to make appropriate choices depending on the situation.”
“Hello?”
“Correct. In the ‘Lee Yeon-woo’ version, not only are the penalties conditional, but invincibility becomes conditional as well….”

Moreover, it hadn’t properly settled yet. That’s how prototypes always are. Despite the slight inconvenience, I had no choice but to utilize this function for now.

“But what’s certain is that I’ve grown closer to the Hotel than before.”
“No!”
“I see. I should be able to construct more precise sentences.”

Lee Yeon-woo rubbed his weary eyes. The ‘physical enhancement work’ had succeeded to some degree, so there shouldn’t be any physical abnormalities. It was a habit from when I was once a proper human—my eyes felt dry and gritty.

“Perhaps I should say we’ve become one.”

That was truly an odd sensation.

“Beyond the functions the Game provides, that is.”
“Yes!”
“It’s gratifying to have someone rejoice in my accomplishments. Though I feel I’ve taken another step further from humanity, if this is the best I can do right now, then I should be pleased as well.”
“Yes!”
“How resolute of you.”
“Hehe.”

Lee Yeon-woo, apparently quite bored, glanced at Room 14 sprawled about carelessly.

“Come here, please.”
“…?”
“As I mentioned, I’ve successfully completed the interior design.”
“…!”

Room 14 climbed eagerly onto Lee Yeon-woo’s hand.

Lee Yeon-woo, watching Room 14, carefully closed his hand. Gently, so the small life in his palm wouldn’t startle. Like cradling a newly hatched chick.

And then…

“…”

I swallowed.

Though it wasn’t swallowed through my mouth, a taste of blood seemed to linger on my tongue. Lee Yeon-woo, habitually licking his lips, assessed the state of himself and Room 14, then spoke.

“No abnormalities.”
“Yes.”
“Excellent.”

At last, I had succeeded in ‘blood drinking’ through contact, beyond mere oral intake.

“In some ways, it’s regrettable.”

Had I not drifted further from humanity with this?

‘Though I suppose that was true long ago.’

But regardless of what anyone might say, this was something Lee Yeon-woo had to do. It was something I could do. And so I simply did it.

It was a simple truth. So there was no need to carry such a heavy weight of emotion.

“Sigh….”

Lee Yeon-woo rose from his seat.

“Shall we step out of this frozen time now, Coco?”
“Yes!”

And so Lee Yeon-woo left the Central Control Room.

…Reacting to the staff’s expressions, he hurried toward Basement Level 7.

* * *

“….”

The Wet Person, who had just stepped out of the Elevator, tilted his head.

“….”

The air here was noticeably more stable.

‘…It seems someone took care of things upon arrival.’

His gaze met those of several spirits. Among them were some bearing fear, others utterly indifferent, and still others harboring competitive spirit.

Yet all were cold. Sharp and frigid. No matter how vast or profound they might be, could they ever match the Wet Person? They held no value to him whatsoever.

Utterly useless.

“….”

His eyes pursued the faintest, most delicate warmth.

“…─.”

The Friend.

My friend.

My warm and gentle friend.

“…hmm….”

You promised to give me sweet treats, didn’t you?

Delighted at the thought of tormenting this simple friendship, The Wet Person laughed. The spirits’ gazes grew heavier at his laughter, but he cared not. It was none of his concern.

His thoroughly drenched footsteps turned toward the Aqua Park.

‘I like it.’

His new home—as pleasing as sweet confections themselves.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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