Our Hotel Is Open for Business as Usual - Chapter 126

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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 126.

“How would you even tell?”

It was a question Seme had once posed to The Hero.

“That is….”
“That, what.”
“Because they’ve already become one with the Labyrinth.”

Perhaps it wasn’t truly a question at all, but rather a rebellion—a refusal to accept his brother’s death that wasn’t quite death. He had been in that phase then, unable to come to terms with the end.

The Hero, having clearly seen through Seme’s inner turmoil, remained silent for a long moment before speaking.

“Fundamentally, it’s a matter of time. Though it varies greatly from person to person.”
“What do you mean by varies greatly?”
“The time it takes to be completely consumed. There’s the individual’s capacity to endure within the Labyrinth, and there’s the Labyrinth’s own hunger and aggression… but generally, after enough time passes, they die.”
“Consumed?”
“Consumed.”
“Then?”

What if it wasn’t time?

“You said it varies greatly from person to person.”
“Right. You can’t determine it precisely by this alone.”

His tone remained constant—neither praising nor indifferent, somehow both at once.

“There is no certain criterion or method to distinguish those consumed by the Labyrinth. The Labyrinth is such an intricately constructed performance that it’s difficult to even identify the sacrificial offerings caught within it.”
“Then Ser-sang could still be alive….”
“From what I observed, that wasn’t the case.”

He continued his explanation.

“Those who have been offered are fixed within a single scene, performing endlessly. Even as the world around them transforms, they perceive nothing—merely repeating the same emotions of a single moment, like an actor trapped in perpetuity.”
“But Ser-sang recognized the change that is you.”
“That’s precisely what makes the Labyrinth so vile. A Labyrinth as vast and profound as the Fox Den possesses exceptional adaptability—much like a brilliant theater troupe. It handles external interference with seamless grace.”
“Then what’s the other criterion?”
“The flattening of emotion.”

Those who have been offered do not feel emotion—they merely recreate it.

“Emotion lacks depth. They respond immediately to stimuli, but nothing accumulates.”
“They respond but nothing accumulates? What in the world does that even mean….”
“Their emotional baseline remains constant. No matter what occurs, they inevitably return to that fixed emotional state. I remember your brother was the same.”

Anger gives way to composure; sorrow dissolves back into the original expression.

“Emotions lack continuity. They cannot alter the circumstances surrounding them. They respond to others’ feelings, yet there are moments when something feels distinctly wrong.”
“For instance?”
“Anger without behavioral change. Weeping alongside someone else, yet producing no tears….”
“That’s rather grotesque.”

Just as her brother had been.

“I simply thought he’d gone mad.”
“Sometimes that’s the case too.”
“Can’t you be more precise?”
“…I’m not certain….”

Whether he was deliberating or simply too weary to elaborate, his voice drawled as he continued.

“Perhaps the consistency of their bodily responses?”

Another incomprehensible statement.

“…Consistent? How so?”
“Body temperature remaining constant regardless of fatigue or ambient temperature. Breathing rhythm identical, unaffected by sleep or pain.”
“That could simply be composure.”
“That’s hardly an easy feat.”
“Isn’t there something more definitive?”

That my brother is already dead. That much is certain.

“Just… a little more….”

There must be a reason you didn’t save him.

You saved someone like me, yet you left that child behind and emerged from the Fox Den. Someone as cautious and fearful as you must have had a reason.

“….”
“….”

…After a long silence, he spoke.

“…When an offering is completed, it means they died while still alive.”

His voice was low and measured.

“The common thread between an offering and death is that there is no future left for that person.”
“I’ve heard that before, but….”
“From the Labyrinth’s perspective, it means they cannot write a ‘new story.'”
“And that also….”
“What that means is….”

He seemed to be gazing at something distant.

“Their fundamental behavioral patterns remain identical.”

To a degree that transcends being merely ‘rational.’

“Stripped of emotion and instinct, they follow the systematic calculations that allow the Labyrinth to operate optimally. That’s why, though they may shift slightly with external variables, their actions don’t fundamentally diverge.”
“…For example?”
“Let me explain through your brother.”

He wanted to show me the truth.

“He continues to help others. He protects his brother, Seme. He searches for a way forward without losing hope and speaks of a future that will never come.”
“That could just be optimism.”
“Even after tumbling off a cliff without dying, after a beast tears at his throat and blood pours out, he survives?”
“Just….”
“Acting as though it never happened, calm and composed even in situations where he should be dead?”
“….”

A painful reality.

“Was that really your brother?”
“….”
“It wasn’t just some photo album collecting records your brother might have made?”
“…Your words sound strange….”

Isn’t that right.

“‘Might have made’ ‘records,’ you say.”

The future and the past cannot occupy the same space, can they.

“It’s absurd.”
“That’s how the Labyrinth works.”

Everything rolls along that way.

“If there’s only one or two, it might simply be that person’s characteristic. But when multiple conditions converge in one place, you need to suspect that person. You’ll probably understand someday what an ‘offering’ really is.”

It was almost a curse, wasn’t it.

“You said it wasn’t common.”
“Even seeing it once or twice is enough to make it stick with you, something that resonates.”
“A person who lives while dead?”
“Exactly. You can feel it just by looking.”

The closure of narrative.
The flattening of emotion.
A static body.
Patterned behavior.

All of it—those unable to escape their own Labyrinth.

“….”
“You’ll understand as you observe.”

Who is already dead.

“Nothing holds meaning then.”
“Is that why you didn’t save Ser-sang?”
“One who has been completely consumed cannot be saved, even by death.”
“That’s terribly unreasonable….”
“So when you encounter someone ensnared by the Labyrinth, you must save them.”

Rather.

“With that blade in hand….”

* * *

“….”
“….”

Kill them.

“…Seme?”

Save them that way.

“Your complexion looks poor.”
“…Yes….”
“Do you require assistance?”
“No.”

They’re pitiful, aren’t they?

“It’s you who needs help.”

As the night deepened further, Seme pressed a blade against Lee Yeon-woo’s throat as he entered the Guest Rooms door as promised, driving him down to the floor in one fluid motion.

The hardness of pressing down upon a withered, desiccated log. Over that exhausted, skeletal frame, Seme continued speaking, still gripping the blade.

“Do you truly feel nothing?”
“I find it difficult to comprehend your meaning.”
“You never speak of the future.”

Lee Yeon-woo had always been that way.

“Your actions are always identical. Whenever a crisis emerges, you unconditionally protect others and sacrifice yourself. You repeat the same pattern without the slightest deviation, every single time.”
“I didn’t know helping people required so much justification.”
“You’re composed in all things. You show anger occasionally, and sometimes fatigue or sorrow, but it’s always temporary. You return to equilibrium immediately—how could you call that emotion?”
“I didn’t know being rational was a capital offense either.”
“Your sentence structure is always flawless and devoid of emotional nuance. You’ve never stumbled over your words during conversation, never wavered in your speech patterns.”
“To be condemned for speaking well—I never imagined it.”
“You know, I’m only saying this now.”

Even with a blade pressed to your throat, you don’t flinch—unmoved as stone.

“Your body temperature never changes. Did you know that?”
“….”

He fell silent,
and Seme’s smile twisted into something grotesque.

“Your heartbeat, your breathing intervals—always constant. Like a machine.”

Always cold as if drowned in ice. I don’t know about anything else, but this is proof. Proof that the being before me is no complete human.

“Even when injured, you only show the same weariness. No reaction to pain. You speak of exhaustion, yet there’s no evidence of fatigue at all.”

Not a living body, but a reconstructed one.

“Everything you must do, everything you can do—it’s all connected to this Hotel.”
“….”
“…I’m a sorcerer, you see….”

A sorcerer is ultimately spiritual energy wearing human form. That’s how I could sense Lee Yeon-woo’s youth, the vastness of his power, and most of all—

“I can feel that you’re connected to this Hotel….”

How utterly tragic this is.

I knew from the beginning. When I ascended to this Hotel and saw him welcomed by the guests here, I felt it. The soul he possessed and this Hotel, the Labyrinth—their spiritual essence was nearly identical.

There were differences, but they had already merged beyond recovery. I realized it then.

“Let me help you.”

…So, to put it another way.

All of this had happened because I had never explained the Nightmare.

Because from that point on, I was judged to still be alive. And because the sight of me appearing dead while still breathing seemed so horrifying, and worse yet, it overlapped with the image of my younger brother.

“I’ll… save you….”

* * *

Meanwhile, I found the whole thing utterly absurd.

“I’ll… save you….”
“….”

…I’d been threatened with death for being too competent before, but not often.

‘But someone trying to kill me while claiming they’re saving me? That’s a first even for me.’

I swallowed a shallow sigh internally.

Being crumpled on the floor of someone else’s Guest Room in the middle of the night, pinned beneath a sixteen-year-old, exhaustion crashed over me. For someone who’d come to check if I was still alive, the guest’s complaint was remarkably violent.

[Hello?]
‘My back hurts.’
[Hello.]

But still, yes.

“….”

I needed to sort out this situation first.

“…Killing to save, is it.”

My voice came out parched.

“That’s quite a lazy way to save someone, Seme.”
“While you’re still human, before you become something else entirely.”
“I believed I was still human in my own way, but seeing you makes it clear I’ve been deeply mistaken. Don’t you think so?”
“Then die for me.”
“I refuse.”

Lee Yeon-woo grasped the blade driving into the side of his neck with his bare hand, exhaling a shallow breath. Blood seeped through the gaps in his torn glove, yet he paid it no mind.

“I’m doing my best too, after all.”

Whatever his concerns, I was confident I would remain Lee Yeon-woo to the very end.

“But it seems you already know I don’t die easily, Seme. You already understand that even if I died, this Hotel would never let me go.”
“….”
“You’re a terrible person.”

With an innocent face, tears streaming from his eyes, his gaze clinging desperately—Lee Yeon-woo didn’t even flinch before that silent scream.

“And yet you still try to kill me.”

Knowing full well it was fundamentally pointless violence that would solve nothing, was he swinging the blade merely to find solace? I asked.

“Is that sword really so special? Capable of saving even someone like me, mired in the mud?”
“…Perhaps….”
“If you wish, go ahead and try. Blood pooling in The Human Guest’s room isn’t welcome, but I don’t want to make your hard-won courage seem foolish.”
“….”
“Instead, let me ask you one thing.”

Raising my remaining hand, I pressed it indifferently against the young boy’s round forehead, as if pushing him away.

“Will I be enough for you?”

I know what dwells within this body is a foolish adult.

“The person you wanted to save, even if it meant killing me….”
“….”
“…The one you wanted to save,”

Isn’t that right?

“It couldn’t have been me.”

A person crumbles in a single moment.

“….”
“…Ah….”

The blade trembled.

“Ah, ugh… Aaaaah…!”

Crack――!!

“Aaaaah, please――!!”

He thrashed and screamed.

Seme, his suppressed emotions finally detonating, clawed at Lee Yeon-woo’s collar as he pinned him down. His hands had seized the fabric, but his rage was not directed at Lee Yeon-woo—and it was not even rage at all.

He cried out as though vomiting the words.

“Please, why… why can’t I do anything?! I wanted to help, I should have helped! Please tell me they’re alive, tell me they’ll live. That child too, that person too, you too…!!”

The guilt of the survivor. Rage at an unjust world. Self-loathing and helplessness.

“Why do I keep living alone, you damned bastards! What gives you the right to be so at peace, so relieved! Do you have any idea how wretched it is for those left behind?!”

The desperation to save them even through death, and the anguished cry of one who knows no one will ever be saved.

“It should have been you! Not me, living like this, powerless until someone rescues me, not a worthless wretch like me――!!”

And affection.

“…You’re all so damn kind, every last one of you…!”
“….”
“…You’ve made it so I can neither live nor die….”

Trapped in a sixteen-year-old body,
the weeping of a stunted adult.

“I just… wanted us all to be… together….”

Lee Yeon-woo gazed upward in silence at the pitiful, stubborn figure weeping like a beast upon him.

He offered no words of comfort, nor did he stir with hasty emotion. He simply remained in the same position, quietly waiting for another’s abject feelings to pour out completely to the very bottom.

“…I just wish we could have all been happy together….”

Watching Seme whimper like a child before exhausting himself, Lee Yeon-woo spoke with dry finality.

“….”
“How unfortunate.”

Rolling my eyes, I met the gaze of Rawi, whose expression had grown troubled.

“Most unfortunate indeed.”

I had said it before. Fundamentally, nothing would be resolved—he would know that.

‘The dead do not return.’
[Yes!]

That was the truth of it.

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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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