Our Hotel Is Open for Business as Usual - Chapter 141

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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 141.

Returning now, from Kwon Do-hyun’s perspective.

‘Perhaps something else might….’

As I surveyed the Room, my gaze caught upon a peculiar structure occupying the corner.

▶ A large white birdcage, tall as a human torso. The door stands wide open, and the interior is empty.

“What’s with the birdcage?”

Mere decoration? Yet the craftsmanship seemed unnecessarily refined for mere interior design. It looked as though it could genuinely house a bird. Perhaps a bird that once dwelt within had escaped.

Drawing closer to the birdcage, I peered inside, my gaze settling upon the floor.

▶ A single snow-white feather lies scattered across the birdcage’s floor.

“….”

Observing the empty birdcage and the white feather, a sudden tightness seized my chest, suffocating and inexplicable. A profound emotion, its cause and nature unknown, surged toward my throat.

‘What is this?’

I suppressed it forcefully, turning my head away. This time, my attention fell upon the mantelpiece Clock above the fireplace. The product displayed visible, intricate gears turning within.

▶ The second hand remains fixed at [11:59], utterly motionless.

‘Is it broken?’

▶ For something supposedly broken, the ticking of the gears inside sounds disturbingly clear and distinct.

‘No, it seems to be functioning.’

A Clock that cannot advance past midnight. Upon the side table beside it rests an antique rotary telephone.

▶ An antique rotary telephone. Would you like to pick up the receiver?
[Yes/No]

Thinking that I might be able to reach the outside world, I picked up the receiver.

“Would a phone this old-fashioned actually connect if I just dialed a number…?”

My hand froze as I reached for 112. The sound coming through the receiver was strange.

▶ Only a faint, muffled sound of waves—as though submerged in Deep Water—filtered through.

“….”

Kwon Do-hyun’s gaze shifted downward toward the telephone.

▶ The black telephone cord that should have been connected to the wall outlet lay unplugged on the floor.

“What is this…?”

Wave sounds emanating from a disconnected phone. The sensory disconnect from reality made Kwon Do-hyun lower the receiver.

“Have I really been kidnapped?”

If I stayed in this room much longer, I’d either lose my mind or suffer something far worse.

‘The window won’t open fully, and it’s far too high. I can’t escape through the window.’

The door was my only option.

‘Find the Escape Route.’

Passing through room after room that seemed to stretch endlessly, I discovered a door with a slightly different texture. I had to get out of this place immediately. The moment I reached for the handle and began to turn it—

Creak—

“….”

Ssshhh… shhh….

A sound like something heavy being dragged across the floor where ceiling met ceiling—an incomprehensible noise emanated faintly from the Corridor beyond the door, something no human throat could produce.

▶ An unpleasant scraping sound echoes from outside.

Kwon Do-hyun withdrew his hand from the doorknob and took a step backward.

▶ The air outside the door feels far too ominous to face bare-handed. An unpleasant scraping sound drifts in from beyond. I should search for something—anything—that might serve as a weapon.

“…?”

For a moment, something seemed to have been ‘visible’.

‘Am I seeing things because I’m so panicked?’

But Kwon Do-hyun quickly revisited the ‘thought’ that had just occurred to him. Yes, a weapon was necessary. He turned his body and scanned the Guest Room, eventually positioning himself before a mahogany dresser.

▶ A small mahogany dresser. Inside are only blank memo sheets embossed with the Hotel logo and dust.

He yanked the drawer open, but there was nothing of use. He was turning away in disappointment when—

“…Wait.”

▶ An odd sense of incongruity emanates from the drawer’s bottom.

A strange sense of discord flickered through his mind. As though possessed, Do-hyun reached deep into the dresser and felt along the underside of the drawer’s bottom. Finally, his fingertips brushed against the rough, foreign texture of tape.

Rrrip—!

“Oh.”

The crudely affixed black tape tore away, and something heavy and cold—a metallic object—dropped into his palm.

▶ [Item Obtained!] You have acquired [Worn Revolver] and [6 Silver Bullets]!

“A gun hidden under a dresser in a room like this? This doesn’t look like a toy. Does this thing actually fire…?”

The cool, metallic sensation filled his palm. Kwon Do-hyun examined the grip’s end intently.

▶ Deeply etched into the grip’s end are the initials [K.S.J]—worn with age—and [K.D.H], which appear to have been carved more recently. Between the initials, dried bloodstains of a dark crimson hue cling stubbornly.

“K.D.H….”

Kwon Do-hyun.

“K.S.J?”

Kwon Seung-jae.

“Why is my Uncle appearing here?”

The name of an uncle I’d barely met a handful of times. If it had been just my own name, I might have overlooked it, but seeing the name of someone I actually knew made me all the more uneasy. Kwon Do-hyun’s expression hardened ever so slightly.

‘But there’s no guarantee these initials were actually engraved here. We don’t have any soldiers in our family, so there’s no way someone who uses guns would be around.’

I concluded my thoughts there.

“So someone must have hidden this… Well, I’ll just borrow it for now.”

Click.
I closed the cylinder with practiced ease.

▶ Despite being an unfamiliar weapon, the moment it settled into my palm, my body seemed to remember how to use it, fitting snugly against my hand.

Without realizing it, Kwon Do-hyun lifted the cold barrel and lightly scratched his chin with the muzzle. It was as natural as a familiar habit.

“Whoa, that startled me.”

Kwon Do-hyun, alarmed by his own actions, pulled the gun away from his chin.

‘What’s wrong with me, pointing a gun at my own face like that.’

Kwon Do-hyun, cursing himself, stood before the entrance again with the gun in hand. After taking a few light breaths to compose himself, Kwon Do-hyun grasped the doorknob of the Guest Rooms once more, his finger already on the trigger.

The door opened.

* * *

A sharp screech followed by a loud bang.

The heavy metallic sound of the door slamming shut echoed behind me. The fierce patter of rain that had faintly permeated the room was cut off as though it had never existed, and the corridor descended into an eerie, suffocating silence.

▶ The corridor stretched endlessly before me. Soft chandelier light illuminated the passage, yet deep shadows crouched in every corner beyond its reach.
▶ The crimson carpet beneath my feet felt disturbingly plush and damp, as though saturated with blood. Each step produced an unsettling, squelching sound.

“…This place….”

Kwon Do-hyun thought to himself.

‘Is this a Hotel?’

The room had been so vast and luxurious that he hadn’t considered it. The long, spacious corridor certainly bore the hallmarks of a Hotel layout. Yet something felt deeply wrong.

“Why is a Hotel Corridor so quiet? It’s suffocating….”

Kwon Do-hyun’s gaze lingered on a massive oil painting hanging on the corridor wall as he moved cautiously forward, his grip tightening on the pistol in his hand. For some reason, his eyes were drawn to it.

▶ A landscape painting framed in ornate gold. It depicted Nobility enjoying a banquet within a forest.

‘The colors are bright, yet it feels so oppressive. There’s something unsettling about it.’

▶ The shapes of the meat on the plates before the Nobility in the painting are grotesque. They resemble human fingers or ear lobes.
▶ A viscous gaze seems to pursue me from beyond the canvas.

“….”

Damn it.
Goosebumps erupted across my skin.

“What disgusting taste. Who hangs something like this in a corridor?”

I shook off the creeping revulsion and quickened my pace. Just as I was about to turn the corner at the end of the corridor, In-young suddenly burst from the darkness.

“…! Damn it, who are you!”

Click—!
My body moved before my mind could process.

I stepped back in one fluid motion, aligned my sights, and aimed the barrel directly at the figure’s brow in the darkness. It was a clean, economical shooting stance—reflexive, executed without a moment for conscious thought.

But the voice that echoed from the darkness was not unfamiliar to me.

“Whoa there…! Don’t shoot, don’t shoot. Our Nephew here almost put a bullet hole through your Uncle’s forehead~”

▶ A Middle-aged Man in a shabby jumper. His good-natured face was striking.

“Huh…?”

Kwon Do-hyun lowered the revolver he had raised in bewilderment.

“Uncle? No, I barely see you even during holidays—why are you here?”

It was Uncle Kwon Seung-jae, whom Kwon Do-hyun knew—the man who always wore that perpetual grin. He stepped out from the deep shadows with his characteristic affable smile.

“Why are you asking? You suddenly declared independence and vanished. You just disappeared without a trace—whether into the earth or the sky, I don’t know. Do you have any idea how much trouble this Uncle went through to find you here?”
“What is this…?”

My brow furrowed.

“When did I disappear? I haven’t even graduated yet, so what independence?”
“Huh?”
“This is so unfair I could die. What did I do? I’m already distressed from having a huge fight with Father yesterday. And when I woke up, I was here? Is this some kind of hidden camera prank?”
“Hidden camera? Your old man isn’t young enough to pull something like that.”
“Then why did I wake up here? Did I actually get kidnapped?”
“Hmm…”

Uncle’s good-natured smile faltered for a moment.

▶ I feel Kwon Seung-jae’s gaze sweeping across my face and the revolver in my hand.

“Uncle?”
“So it was that kind of Labyrinth? This is unexpected, quite different from what I anticipated.”
“What kind of otaku nonsense is that…?”
“Looks like you’ve forgotten how to manage your expressions.”
“What did I…?”
“Yes, yes, that’s right.”

Uncle grinned brazenly again.

“Last night. Let’s call it last night for now. Your face looks absolutely haggard. At least you don’t seem to have any injuries, so that’s a relief.”
“Stop dodging the question. Where exactly is this place? Outside is some mountain valley I’ve never seen before, strange things prowl the corridors, and Grim has lost his mind.”
“Maybe it’s because he’s returned to his fluffy self—he must be frightened. Calm down, Nephew.”

He explained.

“I won’t beat around the bush since you’ve clearly seen more than I have. This is a Hotel, but not an ordinary one. It’s a Labyrinth infested with abnormal monsters—what they call Dokkaebi.”
“This is really a hidden camera prank, isn’t it?”
“It’s not, you fool. Your Uncle isn’t the type to have such terrible comedic timing. You’ve gotten unlucky enough to be caught up in this, but I recruited a police friend and came in to find you, so don’t be so scared.”
“When did I ever say I was scared…?”

Uncle gestured with his chin toward the gun Kwon Do-hyun was holding.

“By the way, Nephew, you’re handling that sinister hunk of metal quite well. When you aimed it at me earlier, your form was sharp—that’s not the work of someone who’s only handled a gun once or twice.”
“I… I don’t know either. I just found it hidden at the bottom of a drawer in my room and took it for self-defense. How would I know if my form is good or not? It’s strangely familiar, though.”

Unconsciously, I scraped the barrel of the still-cool gun against the scars on my chin and lips.

“There he goes again.”

Despite having cursed myself and put the gun away just moments ago in the room, the action surfaced again unbidden during our conversation, and Kwon Do-hyun flinched in surprise, lowering the weapon.

Uncle chuckled at that.

“Well, well, funny fellow. Your mind’s been completely reset, but your body remembers, doesn’t it?”
“I’ve been wanting to ask since earlier—do I have amnesia or something?”
“If that were the case, you’d have forgotten how to shoot too. What’s the point of teaching you if it won’t stick? What will you do if monsters burst out right in front of us?”
“What else? I’ll run.”
“Running won’t solve anything in a place like this.”

▶ The sound of wings beating grows closer.

“Perfect timing—here comes your practice opponent.”
“Wait, birds?”

What flew toward them from the opposite end of the corridor was a flock of white birds, each twisted in some grotesque way.

“What the hell is this…!”

▶ Witch’s Minions have arrived!

“What are those things now!!”
“I told you—it’s a Goblin’s Lair.”

While Kwon Do-hyun stumbled backward in shock, my Uncle withdrew one hand into his pocket and took a leisurely step back.

“Seems an angry spirit caught a whiff of dinner and came flying. Now listen carefully—your Uncle will teach you how to survive this.”
“I-I’m l-listening. Damn it, I’m listening!”
“Aim for the head,”
“Got it.”
“Fire!!”
“You absolute madman!!”

Click.
Rawi leveled the gun.

* * *

▶ [SYSTEM: Combat Tutorial Initiated]
▶ Use the directional keys to align your crosshair with the red core and press [Z Key] to fire.
▶ When the enemy’s attack motion appears (! popup), press [Shift Key] to evade or defend.
▶ [SYSTEM] Tutorial Complete! You have acquired the fundamentals of combat (shooting/defense/evasion).

“Is it the influence of the body, or the system’s assistance?”

The Hotel General Manager murmured the question aloud, and Coco answered.

“Both.”

At Coco’s brief reply, his gaze fixed upon the Young Man on the screen. The user had completed every tutorial stage and now stood gasping, staring down at the corpses of the ‘birds’ scattered across the Corridor.

“Then it seems Rawi’s sense of self remains intact.”
“Coco. Guarantee.”
“Most satisfactory.”

This promised to be a fascinating experiment.

‘A game this intricate always requires a Closed Beta Test.’

The Hotel General Manager’s primary objective was to calibrate the stress index with surgical precision—ensuring users experienced appropriate terror without crossing the threshold into abandoning their conquest entirely. It was a delicate balance, one that demanded constant recalibration.

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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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