Our Hotel Is Open for Business as Usual - Chapter 145

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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 145.

In the Central Control Room, the Tasteless Guest approached silently behind Lee Yeon-woo, who remained fixed upon the screens.

“Quite the fascinating vista.”
“Forgive me, but this is a restricted area for authorized personnel only, Guest.”
“Soon we’ll be breaking bread together, yet you remain so cold. Didn’t you promise to hire me as this Hotel’s chef once this ‘event’ concludes?”
“That discussion comes after formal employment.”
“To think a being called the god of vampires would be such a stickler for protocol.”

Lee Yeon-woo turned to face him, a smile crossing his lips.

“Is there truly such a pathetic god in existence?”
“That’s precisely what I find appealing about you.”
“No matter how elevated one’s authority, it doesn’t translate to higher wages. So wouldn’t it be more convenient for us both if I adhered to principles with unwavering discipline? You seem unaware, but this Hotel operates not on faith, but on the labor I’ve ground from my own spine.”
“…Yes, well, that too.”

Despite becoming Belmarés—a transcendent entity—he still maintained his human convictions.

‘His nature seems to have changed considerably, and yet…’

Perhaps one’s essence never truly transforms.

The man tapped his cane lightly against the floor. Sinking deeply into a single-occupant sofa that materialized from empty air, he surveyed the countless screens blanketing the walls.

“At least within this Hotel, such a title wouldn’t be undeserved. You manipulate time itself at your whim, after all.”
“I lost ordinary sensibilities long ago, yet such praise still feels excessive. Rather than manipulating time, I’m merely a desperate administrator thrashing the system under deadline pressure—nothing more.”
“You’ve become more acerbic.”
“I’ve stopped seeing reason to restrain what I think.”
“Ah….”

He wonders how all these words were contained for so long, but that’s beside the point.

“So what is that supposed to be?”

The young man’s gaze lingered beyond the screen, following two humans wandering through an alien corridor alongside the White Owl.

“Which attempt is this?”
“Including this cycle, it’s the eighth.”
“They have no memory of the previous attempts?”
“As the repetitions accumulate, Kwon Do-hyun has been gradually grasping the pattern.”
“He’ll think his proficiency suddenly increased.”
“It’s a useful talent for this sort of game.”

He added further.

“Kwon Do-hyun possesses a knack for piercing through the true nature of things.”
“Is that an important element in this ‘game’ you mentioned?”
“It’s similar to detecting the ‘clues’ provided by the game system.”

Only that part gleams, so to speak.

“…That’s not really my concern….”
“I sense your age, it seems.”
“Hearing such words from a spirit barely born twists my disposition.”

The young man’s brow furrowed slightly. The amusements of these arcade-like creatures of flesh were not to his taste.

“The atmosphere differs from ‘last midnight,’ doesn’t it? The Hotel appears to be proliferating infinitely—you’ve transformed this place into the Gap, it seems. The way the corridors expand exponentially like an organism is quite impressive.”
“That wasn’t the intended design.”

Lee Yeon-woo shrugged.

“It’s closer to a system error than the Gap, strictly speaking.”
“Explain it in terms I’m familiar with. That endless maze isn’t a trap designed to fool them, then?”
“It could be utilized as an event, but not currently. It’s a space I haven’t been able to touch, so if I’m careless, it could become catastrophic.”
“You mean there are spaces even you can’t control? That’s unexpected.”
“With insufficient budget and personnel, even an administrator is powerless.”

Lee Yeon-woo pointed to a specific location on the screen as he answered.

“This is a space that lay dormant within the Hotel’s system architecture. What you might call ‘Dead Data.'”

Just as unused dummy data remains like sediment when opening a game file, that place too was a buggy space born from the process of managing and maintaining the Hotel—what was colloquially known as ‘Hotel Maintenance.'”

“I, too, have lost my way in there many times.”
“You have?”
“Yes.”

Of course, during Game playthroughs.

“Though I’ve since mastered the techniques.”

It was a phenomenon that had existed since then.

“Once the Gap opens, that dead space expands infinitely, and when the Gap closes, it evaporates again. It’s a pure error phenomenon, literally.”
“Yet it suits this place rather well.”

Unlike the elegantly ordered exterior of the Hotel, that place was saturated with unrefined repugnance. A space toxic enough to corrode human cognition itself.

“In that ‘Game’ you speak of, wouldn’t such a bizarre space make excellent material?”
“To wax romantic about a Closed Zone that’s the top priority for safety inspections—truly, the mindset of someone freeloading outside the rules is different. How refreshing.”
“Didn’t we agree to forget about that?”
“My apologies. The repair estimates for that place alone are giving me a headache. No matter how excellent the material, if a guest gets lost and perishes there, we’re looking at a lawsuit under the Major Disaster Punishment Act.”
“I feel like I’m being scolded.”
“It’s not a feeling. But to continue on the subject you raised, fortunately, with Seme here, there’s no danger of wandering forever.”

A half-fledged Staff Member, a sorceress—Seme.

Though she now takes the form of the White Owl, her essential talent remains undiminished. In fact, since coming under the Hotel General Manager’s command, that withered seed had blossomed anew.

‘The talent to find one’s way.’

The intuitive power she once possessed as an Artist, before her spirit dwelt in her sister’s body.

The Vampire, recognizing this as well, let out a low chuckle.

“An excellent guide you’ve acquired. The foresight to position her beforehand deserves praise. Truly fascinating.”
“You’re too kind. I merely placed capable staff in optimal positions to reduce my own workload. Speaking of which, there’s something I wanted to say.”

Lee Yeon-woo regarded the Vampire. His face wore a smile that resembled expressionlessness.

“That theatrical manner of speaking won’t do, will it?”
“Now you’re criticizing my speech patterns?”
“I attempted to adapt considering your age, but the listener’s fatigue doubles. To work at our Hotel, you’ll need changes befitting the times.”

In summary,

“Why don’t we try speaking more ordinarily?”
“If you lived like me, your perspective would change.”
“If after centuries of living, all you do is cause a commotion in someone else’s establishment, then I’d rather not grow old that way.”

The more I entangled myself with the Hotel’s monsters, the more childish my words and actions became. That blurring sensation between normalcy and abnormality—the Hotel General Manager mode’s deep synchronization had a significant effect.

My thought processes were growing progressively simpler, but as long as it didn’t interfere with Hotel operations, it hardly mattered. I concluded as much without hesitation.

[Yes? Yes.]

Coco seemed to agree as well.

“It must be a talent I haven’t exercised in ages. I’m grateful Seme is enduring this so well.”
“May I ask a question as a friend?”
“Please do.”
“How did you manage it?”

The Vampire seemed genuinely perplexed by Seme’s transformation.

“The form itself, I’ll grant, was influenced by the White Raven,”
“The term ‘witch’ is too aggressive—call her the ‘White Raven’ instead. Though she wanders outside now, she’ll soon become part of our family too.”
“You’re remarkably magnanimous toward the one who devoured you. Fair enough. I understand how the White Raven caused you to shed your human body and become the White Owl, but where did that power come from?”

As the eldest Vampire on Earth, he saw through to Seme’s very essence.

“When Seme was human, he possessed no power as an Artist whatsoever. After transferring into his magician brother’s body, I thought power followed the flesh—yet he lost that talent.”
“That’s weak reasoning, even for Riedmar.”

Lee Yeon-woo continued, as if unable to comprehend.

“Blood contains five essential elements.”
“Life, memory, emotion, will, and soul. The foundation of Blood Magic.”
“Yes, I simply utilized them.”
“But what composed her initially was your brother’s blood, wasn’t it?”
“The memory and soul remain Seme’s own.”
“You’ve done something insane.”

The Vampire grasped my intention immediately.

“You amplified the remaining traces?”
“The material was sufficient.”

While lacking scientific rigor, it resembled cases where organ transplant recipients adopted the donor’s habits, or where blood type changed after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

If memory and soul—the essence of humanity—remained intact, nothing was impossible.

“When my brother’s body became an instrument of the White Raven, his essence grew obscured. The effect came less from my intervention than from secondary influences arising within the sphere of the Two Labyrinths.”

In simpler terms: as the body’s influence diminished and the soul’s influence rose proportionally, Ser-sang’s magician aspect faded while Seme’s artistic nature emerged.

The Vampire sneered at this.

“Have you heard of the Ship of Theseus?”
“So long as memory and soul remain the pillars, essence does not change.”

No matter how the form shatters and transforms, it is still called the Ship of Theseus.

“That’s what matters.”
“I truly despise that about you.”
“Your words keep shifting, though you claimed to like it.”
“If you hadn’t force-fed me humanity all this time, things wouldn’t have come to this.”
“How convenient—relishing it when it pleased you, now venting your frustration.”

Truly, one must choose friends with care.

‘And I’ve never had much luck with friendships, have I.’

I needed to keep my wits about me.

* * *

“Isn’t this the corridor we just passed through?”
“Well, it’s similar, but something’s different~”
“How can you even tell the difference? What are you looking at?”

Kwon Seung-jae shrugged at Kwon Do-hyun’s exasperated tone.

“Stop being lazy and look carefully, you fool. I’m not going to keep doing all the work while Uncle just sits back.”
“But how am I supposed to see anything?”
“There’s no one in this place with eyesight as sharp as our Nephew here.”
“This is driving me insane….”

My eyes felt like they were going to burst from the strain. What did eyesight matter anyway?

“We keep walking and walking, but it never ends. That bloodstain pattern on the carpet—I’m seeing it for the third time now.”

▶ A cross-shaped maze space where wallpaper and carpet of identical patterns proliferate endlessly like a living organism.

“Is that really all?”
“The corridor length seems to stretch and shrink oddly, now that I think about it.”

▶ The angles at the edges are subtly distorted, as if following non-Euclidean geometry.

“Damn it, what the hell is non-Euclidean geometry?”
“Well, non-Euclidean geometry is a branch of modern mathematics that began when mathematicians rejected one of the axioms established by Euclid, the ancient Greek mathematician, in Euclidean geometry~”
“That’s too long.”
“It’s the mathematics that describes the world of curved surfaces.”

Kwon Seung-jae turned back to his nephew with his characteristic good-natured smile.

“Can you still see it? That guidance window you mentioned?”
“Ever since that Hotel General Manager or whoever rang the bell in the Lobby, it’s been showing up constantly.”
“Does it interfere with your movements?”
“It disappears from my vision if I don’t pay attention to it, so not really….”
“That fellow gives strange gifts.”

He looked at the White Owl perched on Kwon Do-hyun’s shoulder.

“This one too.”
“Why are you doing this to me? The feathers are tickling my face.”
“Oh my, you must really like it. Just keep holding it like that~”

At those words, White Owl’s expression seemed to say ‘I’m putting up with this,’ but Kwon Do-hyun couldn’t see it from his angle, and Kwon Seung-jae lacked the skill to read the owl’s expressions, so no one noticed. He continued speaking.

“It seems this one is serving as our guide.”
“Well, that’s…”

▶ The direction White Owl turns its head is quite striking.

“It does seem that way.”

After flying ahead several times, the owl grew impatient with the humans’ cautious, slowed pace, and now simply indicated directions with head gestures.

“I’m not sure if we should trust this outright.”
“The Labyrinth twisted the space. It seems the dimensions got properly warped starting at noon, like the Hotel General Manager said.”

Beneath bright lighting, an immaculate corridor stretched endlessly, utterly silent.

“Without our owl friend’s help, we wouldn’t even be able to find our way. What’s there to worry about?”

▶ A geometric arrangement of corridors that renders human directional sense and reason utterly meaningless.

“If you’re really worried, look for clues scattered around.”
“I’m worried my eyes will fall out from looking so much.”
“Oh, what am I to do with this fragile nephew of mine~ My heart aches.”
“Aches, my foot…”

Perhaps it was the oppressive weight of infinite space. Kwon Do-hyun walked while clutching his throbbing head, when his gaze fell upon a withered potted plant sitting in a corner of the corridor.

▶ [Selective Observation: Withered Potted Plant in the Corridor]
▶ A pot completely desiccated and dead. If one were to dig through the soil, instead of plant roots, a nauseating tangle of what might be densely matted black hair or blood vessels stretches down beneath the pot, pulsing into unseen depths.

“Ugh, I’m about to throw up.”
“With a space this vast, throwing up shouldn’t be a problem, right?”
“Is that supposed to be funny?”

▶ The more one tries to comprehend the structure with reason, the more one’s head throbs as if it might split.

“Ah, damn it. So it wasn’t just a headache after all.”

Ever since stepping into the corridor, the throbbing had been intensifying steadily.

“Wom-mae, you had a headache too? You should have said something if you were in pain.”
“Why? Do you have painkillers?”
“Not that. If it’s contamination, we’d need to take extreme measures.”

He meant execution. Kwon Do-hyun’s face drained of color.

“Please tell me you’re joking.”
“I wish I were~”
“Uncle, what exactly do you do for a living?”
“I make my living with words~”
“Not with a gun?”
“Both are pretty much the same thing, what’s the difference.”

The way he chuckled was strangely familiar. Given that I’d just been threatened with death, I should have been more terrified than this.

‘Am I losing my mind right now.’

Or perhaps I’d already lost it somewhere in the gaps of forgotten memory.

* * *

….
….

They say most Artists have their humanity shattered. Some are born that way, while others are pushed toward it by the world. You seem to be the latter, Do-hyun. Right now, you’re in the process of being crushed.

―What difference does knowing that make?

At the very least, you should recognize that you’re going mad, you fool. Before your eyes roll back and you send your father to his grave, follow your Uncle. I can at least teach you how to go mad gracefully.

―What difference would that make either.

You’d find it a little easier to breathe than you do now.

That’s all there is to it,

There’s nothing but madmen.

―….
―…Let’s go together.

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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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