Our Hotel Is Open for Business as Usual - Chapter 50

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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 50.

Honestly, I hadn’t given it much thought.

“….”

I was already overwhelmed just trying to keep myself alive.

Besides, this was a game. For twenty-six years, Ho-won had been nothing but a plaything to Lee Yeon-woo. What good would it do now to claim that the tragedies within these walls were real history? How deeply could such words truly penetrate?

Even if I felt something, I had to ignore it.

“….”

What else could I do?

Lee Yeon-woo was no god, and right now I could barely fend for myself, trembling with anxiety. So I mustn’t be foolish enough to be swept away by sentiment. I needed to make rational, wise decisions.

I didn’t want to regret later, wishing I had been more careful only after everything had already fallen apart.

“….”

Yet, just before the second pursuit began.

Lee Yeon-woo unfolded the documents I had brought along and began to read.

Yes, it was nothing. I could spare that much time. To reiterate: I despise my own ignorance, and I hate regretting things long after they’ve passed.

So before the situation spiraled into chaos, Lee Yeon-woo wanted to ask myself something first.

Can I walk away from all of this, pretending nothing happened, as if everything were fine?

“….”

…Memories that weren’t even mine surfaced.

What arrived first was acute pain. Or perhaps a record left behind by someone.

The profound resignation of one who had realized they could never return home, to family’s embrace, to an ordinary life. A silent scream sinking into the abyss of despair echoed through the darkness.

Stripped of human rights, treated as less than a living creature, crushed beneath the pressure of a narrow confine. Even a single breath exhaled felt unbearably suffocating.

No—it would be suffocating.

“….”

Someone thought it would be suffocating.

“Truly….”

That was, in truth.

“A pity.”

It had vexed Lee Yeon-woo.

* * *

Striking my head against the walls.
Clawing with my hands.

“….”

Ah, at last.

“….”

The door opens.

* * *

“….”
“….”
“….”

Kuguung―!!!

“…Coco.”

I called out, but heard no response.

“Coco.”

The same silence answered me. Coco should have been hanging around my neck, yet my ears felt deadened—no sound reached me at all.

“….”

I glanced around, and the answer came immediately.

Room 14 was collapsing, warping before my eyes. Dark crimson blood surged backward through the gaps where countless eyeballs had been embedded. Grotesque fingers sprouted from the cracks in the brutish, rough concrete walls, forcing their way through.

Lee Yeon-woo exhaled a short, bitter laugh.

‘Yet it cannot even escape outside.’

As if pleading to be saved, or as if demanding to be killed.

Long since split and torn, those fingers clawed at the wall as though devouring it. Scritch-scritch-scritch-scritch-scritch-scritch-scritch-scritch-scritch-scritch-scritch-scritch-scritch-scritch-scritch-scritch―

Scritch.

“…Ha….”

My ears throbbed with pain.

“Coco?”
“Yes!”

Now I could hear it.

‘Compose yourself.’

I forcibly erased the lingering afterimages of experiments and rituals clinging to my mind. I barely shook off the sickening sensation of my consciousness being tainted. This was no time to indulge in such contamination or sentiment.

Lee Yeon-woo asked his partner calmly.

“Are you confident you won’t fall?”
“Yes!”
“Excellent.”

Grotesque sounds poured into my ears.

The laughter of the unhinged, the dull thud of a head being smashed against the wall. I wanted to cover my ears immediately, but I couldn’t.

Right now, hearing was what determined survival.

Boom―!! Boom-boom-boom!!!

“As you’re aware, we’re being pursued right now.”
“Yes!”
“The speed….”

I wanted to push faster.

“…but.”

It was impossible. This was the maximum speed I could currently muster.

I had been running ever since leaving The Last Room. The moment I secured the elevator button, the second pursuit sequence was forcibly activated.

‘I understand the situation is dire enough to demand faster speed, but exceeding the character speed defined by the system causes physical overload. My condition is already terrible, so I need to be even more careful.’

If I recklessly pushed beyond my limits, my body itself could scatter into blood.

“In any case, I’m glad you’re holding on so securely to my shoulder.”
“Yes!”

Coco dangled from my shoulder. She hung there like an inverted necklace or scarf. At least her weight was barely perceptible, so she posed no hindrance whatsoever.

I sharpened my focus on the sounds reaching my ears.

“….”

Crash――!!

‘The sound is drawing closer.’

Reflecting on the game’s mechanics, the monster’s speed was marginally faster than my character’s maximum velocity. To survive this second chase sequence, I had to select the correct path without a single moment of hesitation.

‘Right, so….’

The right path.

“I have memorized it all, but…”
“Yes.”
“Now that it’s become reality, I’m getting confused after all.”
“Huh?”
“Was this section… Pattern 21? No, Pattern 94?”
“Huh?”
“Ah, this isn’t it either.”

Lee Yeon-woo pivoted sharply toward the right corridor.

‘I nearly got trapped.’

The interface map displayed an escape route, but it was a decoy. Certain passages had collapsed or monsters lay in ambush like hidden sentries, so I had to discern which path was correct on my own.

‘Right here, then left next, and then… is this the pattern? If not, then right… then the stairs….’

First, the red lighting. The correct path’s illumination was steady, but false paths flickered. Yet some corridors had no red lighting at all.

In such cases, I needed to listen. The correct path was relatively quiet or emitted only the sound of aging machinery. Traps distorted screams and whispers.

“This isn’t it either.”
“Yes!”
“This is maddening.”

Even when both seemed correct, if I felt vibrations in the air, it was a trap. Part of the monster lurked there. Entering meant instant death—this required absolute caution.

“How many patterns is this now? The 55th? The 32nd?”
“No!”
“Now I’m certain. The 73rd.”
“Yes!”
“Of all patterns, we had to draw the longest one.”

It was hardly welcome news.

‘This is absolutely maddening.’

The Ceiling, once shrouded in darkness, now bristled with monitors clustered like insect egg sacs. Each crackling screen replayed the footage I had witnessed during the Temporary Administrator Test.

Fingers clawing at the wall,
A floor trembling and thundering from behind,
Monitors shrieking with fractured sound.

“Hello?”
“No….”

Crash!! Crash crash crash—!!

“Anything but hello….”

Pleading eyes flushed crimson and the agonized din of fists hammering against iron doors. Through every narrow crevice, contorted and crushed limbs forced themselves forward, writhing into the corridor.

All to seize Lee Yeon-woo alone.

“This is utterly repugnant.”

Who designed this hell? I desperately hoped this was all an elaborate theatrical performance—merely a spectacle to startle the user, not the preserved anguish and resentment of an actual soul.

Please, anything but that.

“Ha…!”

A hollow laugh escapes me. This wretched world. Disillusionment floods through me. I cannot help but question myself.

‘If this is truly real, is it truly right for me to flee like this?’

And for good reason.

‘Regardless of how I got here, I am now the administrator of this Hotel, the only person who understands what’s happening in this place.’

The question that had tormented me throughout this journey now stood before my final opportunity.

The Room 14 event occurs only once. I might discover new variables within the materialized system, but fundamentally, once Lee Yeon-woo leaves this place, Room 14 closes forever.

‘Then do all the existences here perish? Do they sleep eternally?’

Or are they trapped once more?

Lee Yeon-woo recalled the Hotel’s settings from the game and felt on the verge of madness.

They had been confined for far too long. Nearly an eternity. They must be yearning for the solace of death itself.

“I really don’t understand why you’re doing this to me.”
“No?”
“No, I don’t understand. I still know nothing.”

No clear answer emerged. Coldly speaking, feeling unnecessary responsibility in this situation was no different from willfully choosing stupidity.

Yet I continued to weigh futures and possibilities. It was because Lee Yeon-woo had never discarded his humanity. And I had to bear that cost myself.

The responsibility for deciding to live as myself.

“If I recall correctly, the entity that serves as the subject of this event was not classified as a Staff Member.”
“Yes.”
“That’s unfortunate.”

This event falls under the ‘horror element’ category. Once the Hotel System deletes the data with the event’s conclusion, there’s nothing I can do about it.

“As if I don’t have enough on my plate just keeping myself alive, and now this confusion.”

…So the conclusion I reached wasn’t entirely absent.

“….”

I wonder if this is right.

“Once this is over, I really need to get some proper rest….”

A groan escaped me unbidden.

I couldn’t determine whether the alternative forming in my mind was a path that preserved my humanity or one that abandoned it entirely. In the end, it came down to which values I chose to prioritize.

“Let me clarify the original strategy first.”
“Yes.”
“The conventional approach is to scatter blood packs along the path. Like Hansel and Gretel. The key is to buy time while the pursuing creature absorbs that blood.”
“Yes!”
“Of course, it shouldn’t be overused.”

The more blood the creature absorbs, the stronger and faster it becomes. It’s a last resort, something you use only when you’ve lost your way. In a situation like now, where I’ve memorized the path perfectly, it’s best not to use it at all.

‘Besides, this fresh blood will be a resource I desperately need later.’

I gazed at the blood packs filling my inventory, my eyes narrowing.

‘Should I just run?’

Or perhaps.

‘Should I gamble?’

…A dry laugh escaped me.

“I’m uncertain. What do you think?”
“….”
“That’s unusual, Coco. Do you have nothing to say?”
“Ung….”
“You mean it’s difficult to commit firmly to either approval or disapproval. I understand. It’s an alternative with both clear risks and clear returns.”

As confirmed in the first pursuit, the creature in Room 14 is weak to contaminated blood and drawn blindly to fresh blood. And I myself, stripped to essentials, was essentially a living mass of blood.

“If I let myself be consumed, return to blood, and then absorb the creature into my body in reverse… I could take that thing with me even after leaving this event zone.”

As long as I don’t undergo the conversion process, it won’t become ‘me’. It would simply be contained within my body as a vessel. Once secured that way, I can figure out how to handle it later in the Research Laboratory.

That was the ‘alternative’ I had devised.

“….”
“….”
“…It’s shameful to call myself sane at this point….”

I’d lost count of how many times I’d willingly thrown myself into madness.

But some primal instinct seized the back of my neck, refusing to let me turn away. The eyes and fingers beyond the wall were mere “phenomena,” but this pursuing entity was different. It felt akin to what I’d sensed from those monstrous Guests.

Perhaps… a living creature.

“….”

…Or people.

“Sigh….”

I was exhausted.

With the desperation of someone hastily shoving a kimbap roll into their mouth on the way to work, I pulled out a blood packet. It was a blessing that everything—the collection kit and all—could be swept up together.

I bit down on the packet. From here on, it would be a war of attrition. Without the System’s assistance, a direct confrontation required me to be fortified first.

‘Better to act than spend a lifetime haunted by doubt.’
“No?”
‘This wretched Cat.’

I ignored it and drank the blood. Such crude tactics. Even when I’d drunk heavily at a Company Dinner Venue to lighten the mood, I’d never consumed this much.

* * *

Please.

I want to get out.

—————
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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