Our Hotel Is Open for Business as Usual - Chapter 90

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

Chapter 90.

“….”
“….”

The girl’s frame was small—probably around the same age as Seme.

But her hair was long, her entire body pallid, and her gaze held something almost zealous as she stared at us.

When I noticed the kitchen knife gripped in her slender hand.

“….”

I had no choice but to draw my own blade.

“…? Senpai?!”
“Get the gun.”

And I gave the order.

“Fire!!”

Bang—!!!

After targeting the girl’s eyes, we bolted.

“No no no wait a second!!”

Rawi, bewildered by his own shot, sprang up in protest.

“Damn it, are we really allowed to strike first like that? Aren’t we supposed to beg for our lives when we encounter a Dokkaebi?!”
“There are Dokkaebi you can appease on your knees, and there are those you can’t. Didn’t you see her eyes were gone?!”

This Dokkaebi had no intention of letting us live in the first place.

“A hunter-type Dokkaebi…!!”

There existed Dokkaebi who took particular pleasure in hunting humans. Such creatures, naturally, could not be reasoned with or negotiated with. They found satisfaction only in the process of destroying humans.

The mage Seme, sharp-witted enough to grasp this immediately, had judged upon seeing this creature that there was no choice—no other option remained.

“Running is our best bet!”
“No, damn it, but still…!”
“That actually gives us the highest survival rate!!”

Desperate resistance.

That was precisely the choice most likely to satisfy this hunter-type Dokkaebi, and in that moment of satisfaction, find a way to survive.

“Ah.”

Rawi understood immediately.

“Let’s try every desperate trick we can muster.”

Click, bang—!!!

Rawi’s bullet pierced through the throat of the girl standing before them.

Water droplets scattered like shrapnel with a sharp pop, and Rawi let out a cry of anguish.

“We ran first, so why is it already ahead of us, Senpai…?”
“You’ve never seen a Dokkaebi use spatial folding before?!”
“That’s what spatial folding is supposed to be…?!”

The spatial folding he knew was nothing like this—nothing so unsettling.

When Seme swung his blade, the Girl in Raincoat was already waiting in another corridor ahead. When bullets found their mark, water droplets scattered from the impact point, revealing bloated, burst faces pressed against walls and mirrors.

Drowned Corpses clustered on all sides like barnacles clinging to the rocky shore.

“Damn it, stop…!!”

Beyond fear—it was grotesque.

“Ugh…!”

As mist seeped into his ears, scratching and clawing at his senses, he pulled the trigger.

“Rawi!!”

Bang!!! Crash!!!

“Ugh, gasp….”
“Calm down and look around!”
“Hrrgh…!!”

The bullet that tore through the air curved toward an unexpected target—the house that conjured hallucinations as if lit from within. The moment the bullet struck, something changed.

Beyond the windows, beyond the walls, water pooled in a pale blue hue burst forth. Like blood erupting from a gunshot victim, it flowed along the walls, writhing as though alive.

“There it was.”
“….”
“Rawi, we need to go home.”
“…!!!”

Goosebumps erupted across my entire body, as if tens of thousands of centipedes crawled beneath my skin.

That voice filtering through the oxygen mask. An eerily cheerful laugh mingles with terrible memories. I fired just one bullet, yet I felt utterly mocked—everything about me ridiculed.

“Damn it,”

Click. The gun sounded again.

“Get your head straight, you half-baked bastard!!”
“Kack!!”

Thwack―!!
Seme struck Rawi’s head with the flat of his blade.

“Were you about to shoot me?!”
“No, no, when did I ever…!!”

Only then did Rawi realize where he’d been aiming the gun barrel—directly at Seme’s head. Something had gone terribly, catastrophically wrong. Rawi’s face drained of all color.

Seme recognized Rawi’s state and cried out.

“Calm down! The harder you try to win, the stronger the Labyrinth becomes!”

He had grasped the true nature of this Labyrinth.

“This place feeds on human fear!!”
“But, but right now…!!”
“Stop trying to win and just endure! We’re both going to die at this rate!!”
“Damn it, I think I’m losing my mind!!”

Perhaps it was Seme’s voice, but the urge to fight harder suddenly vanished. He was right. The harder I tried to win, the more intensely this place seemed to laugh at me.

As if mocking them both, the sound of wet footsteps approached from all directions.

“What, what do we do now?!”
“At this point, that Elevator really might be the exit….”
“But the Girl in Raincoat was blocking it!”
“Who knows if she’s still blocking it now…!”

Seme grabbed Rawi’s shoulder.

The wet footsteps grew faster. They rushed through a landscape bloated with waterlogged flesh and down the repeating corridors.

“….”
“Senpai? Senpai, you will save me, right?”
“Shut your mouth, will you…!”

He seized Rawi—whose frame was far larger than his own—and dragged him into a crumbling Shop. Seme pressed him against the wall and hid alongside him.

Only then did Rawi, his reason finally returning, quickly close his mouth.

“….”
“….”

…The sound begins to fade.

‘No, it’s diminishing.’

I hadn’t completely escaped it, but at least the village’s cacophony—the noise that had been assaulting my ears—had finally ceased. Through the faintly fading din, only the distinctive footsteps of the Girl in Raincoat echoed faintly in the distance.

But something felt off.

“…It doesn’t seem like they don’t know where we are.”
“Wow, really? We’re screwed?”
“Are you trying to play tag or something?”
“If I play along enthusiastically, will you send me home?”
“I don’t know that either.”

What was certain was that they were deliberately controlling their pace from over there, whatever their intention.

“If I just had a clear reason, I could dig into that….”

Rawi, whose mind had gone blank, responded to my muttering.

“Maybe we’ve caught their fancy.”
“You really are overflowing with confidence.”

But Rawi’s nonsense, in a state of semi-consciousness, showed no signs of stopping.

“I’ve never heard anyone call me ugly anywhere.”
“So I should sacrifice the handsome you and slip away?”
“Senpai, you’re quite charming yourself, aren’t you? Small and all.”
“So you’re saying we die together?”
“Should I shut up?”
“Yeah.”

Finally, in the silence that had descended, Seme wiped his face.

“…I want to cry….”
“So do I.”
“I’ve always thought I had poor luck with people.”
“Excuse me?”

Seme naturally ignored Rawi and soon regained his composure.

‘Of course, we cannot overcome this Labyrinth.’

At most, we’re talking about one nine-year veteran of the Mercenary Corps and one green recruit. There are countless Labyrinths in this world where it’s difficult for even one person to survive despite clearing them with hundreds of attempts.

This place appeared to be a Labyrinth of that same caliber of difficulty.

‘There’s no other way to explain this vast expanse.’

At a glance, it wasn’t a puzzle or Game-type Labyrinth.

‘If it were that kind of Labyrinth, the difficulty would be insane, but there would definitely be a path to survival. However, if it’s simply a Labyrinth that operates through pure screening, it wouldn’t be strange if there were no gimmicks whatsoever.’

But.

“…That Elevator….”
“I was thinking the same thing.”
“No matter how I think about it, there’s nowhere else.”
“So we’re done for?”

Rawi asked with a hollow laugh on his face.

“I don’t think that Dokkaebi in the raincoat will let us pass.”
“Of course, it’s impossible for us to defeat or trick that Dokkaebi and get through.”
“If you enjoy fighting, you could fire away for four days and nights straight and maybe—”
“It doesn’t enjoy fighting—it enjoys destroying us.”
“That’s problematic.”
“Honestly, it doesn’t make sense for us to put on a battle that would satisfy it with our skill level.”
“We’re truly stuck with no way out.”
“But there’s one thing I’m curious about.”

Seme murmured as if whispering.

“Why would it bother to hold back at all?”

Was there any need to?

“To toy with us?”
“That’s obvious, of course.”

Seme continued the thought that Rawi had started.

“You let us go far too quickly.”
“Even in that brief moment, we nearly died.”
“To squeeze out more fear? No, that doesn’t fit—the hunting instinct is too strong for that. A Dokkaebi like that typically has poor understanding of humans.”
“A mayfly would have a more stable existence than this.”
“Even that chase just now—it wasn’t direct attacks, but circling around us, startling us, applying pressure. All while holding a blade in hand.”
“….”

Rawi rolled his eyes and spoke.

“…Maybe that’s just their hunting style?”
“You’re saying that after seeing your eyes roll back like that? Fine, go on.”
“Even a starving tiger has its own hunting method, doesn’t it?”
“Uh… does it? I’ve never actually seen a tiger before.”
“Neither have I, really, but hunting is something beasts do more meticulously than humans, isn’t it?”
“We’re far too insignificant for it to bother being meticulous with us.”
“Then… I don’t know? Maybe it’s just savoring fresh prey after so long—biting, tearing, tasting, enjoying it?”
“Like a piece of candy you’re rationing?”

Too weak to survive without restraint, so perhaps reluctant to see us perish so quickly?

“…So why…?”

To Seme’s perception, they were a single bite to the Girl in Raincoat. Not even that—barely a morsel. Why would it bother rationing something so minuscule that only the faintest taste would register?

‘I’m not even sure if such precise control is possible for a being like that.’

Seme felt somewhat exasperated.

“Of course, there are Dokkaebi like that in the world.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Those kinds of Dokkaebi are usually far stronger than imagination allows.”
“Damn, we’re screwed then.”
“No, let’s shift our perspective. Either way, whether it’s stronger or weaker, we were already in a hopeless situation. The fact that we’re a single bite to it doesn’t change.”
“But if it has understanding of humans, wouldn’t that change something?”
“Uh….”

Seme, deep in thought, spoke.

“That you’ll be tortured more meticulously?”
“Damn it, I take back what I just said.”
“I’ll do what I can to cheer you on.”

Seme bit down hard on her lip.

“….”

…But something still felt wrong.

The opponent was a Dokkaebi with a hunter’s nature. Seme and Rawi were fragile mercenaries who could die from a single gesture. Squeezing out fear, savoring it slowly—such things didn’t suit a hunter.

‘No, even if that were truly the case….’

Thinking it over again, it had released us far too quickly.

‘If this is really a careful, measured consumption, then it’s practically considerate.’

And a Dokkaebi with a hunter’s nature showing consideration to humans? That made no sense.

But if the thing in the raincoat had truly acted on pure whim, Rawi and Seme should have been in far worse condition by now. It wouldn’t have ended with just a brief scare.

Then the reason that Dokkaebi controlled his pace wasn’t because it was his personal style, but rather…

“…Wait.”
“Please say something, I’m dying of fear.”
“Is the Elevator really the escape route?”
“Yes.”

The color drained from Rawi’s face. But Seme had to speak.

“What if that Dokkaebi has a master?”

It was one of two possibilities. Either the Dokkaebi was weaker than expected and couldn’t pursue them to the end, meaning there was a separate entity befitting this Labyrinth.

Or beyond this Elevator lay something beyond imagination itself.

“If I’m being optimistic, the Labyrinth’s own rules might prevent that Dokkaebi from running wild as it pleases, but… I don’t know. That seems too hopeful.”
“What if we assume that might be the case?”
“Sometimes there are Labyrinths with that concept. Game-format Labyrinths. Even the Dokkaebi has restrictions placed on it, and regardless of difficulty, it always leaves at least one hole for survival. That’s the kind of Labyrinth.”
“But from what I can see, this doesn’t feel like a game.”
“That’s exactly why I said it was too hopeful.”

After a moment of thought, Seme lifted her sword with warmth in her expression.

“It’s awkward to say this, but—”
“Then why say it at all?”
“Should I just kill you now?”
“Please let me live.”

Seme looked at the Young Artist with a pitying gaze.

“Rather than be tortured forever in the Water Mist, it would be a better death to go cleanly when you have the choice.”
“Since you’ve already gone through all this trouble, just keep me alive a bit longer. If this Labyrinth also has rules for survival, I’ll think harder about it.”
“I suppose that’s fair.”

It was Seme who had been telling him all along not to think of dying easily. Even if he had asked first, she couldn’t give up this quickly.

“You’re right, it’s possible.”

There could be rules that allowed for survival.

“Variables can emerge anywhere, after all.”
“Right?”
“I don’t know everything about Labyrinths either. This is only the second time I’ve encountered a Labyrinth of this difficulty—including this one. I was lucky enough to survive that time, so there’s no reason I can’t now.”
“You speak wisely, Senpai.”
“If we find the rules restricting that Dokkaebi, or persuade a higher-ranking Dokkaebi instead, we can survive even if it takes time. There’s also a possibility that one isn’t a hunter-type Dokkaebi.”
“Hearing you say that gives me some hope.”
“Of course, we’ll need to prepare for various things. Whether we’re finding the rules or finding a way to persuade. By the way, I’m not particularly skilled at that sort of thing—are you good at studying?”
“If we’re talking about my second-year high school grades, I was roughly around a grade 5…”
“I’ve never attended school, but I understand that’s a low grade. What about your way with words? Negotiation skills?”
“Then I would’ve become a lawyer or diplomat.”

Seme didn’t answer. Rawi didn’t continue either.

“….”
“….”

That was when it happened.

“…Senpai.”
“Shh.”

I sensed a presence.

‘They’re coming this way.’

They didn’t seem to be actively searching for us.

Just footsteps passing through the corridor where we’d hidden ourselves in the building. Yes, the footfalls of roughly three people.

Seme felt something off about it.

‘The sound is dry.’

It was nothing like the Girl in Raincoat who’d been toying with us moments ago, nor the monsters we’d kept encountering in this area. Their presences all carried that damp quality, like the water mist itself.

‘Then what is this presence…?’

Seme carefully craned his neck to peer beyond the crumbling wall.

“….”

…People?

‘Three of them.’

Three people dressed in black and white.

The distance was too great to make out details. Instead, Seme gestured to Rawi, whose eyesight was keen. His boast about having excellent vision proved no empty claim—he immediately provided an answer.

“A…person?”
“Anything unusual stand out?”
“Just that they don’t belong in this humid city at all?”
“What’s your impression of them?”
“The one walking in front seems to have a higher rank than the others.”
“A hierarchical relationship, you mean?”
“From what I can tell, perhaps….”

Rawi furrowed his brow.

“…But they seem too young for that.”
“How old would you estimate?”
“Captain, I’d say they look about my age. Or perhaps a bit older?”
“So at most, early twenties?”
“Though looking again, they could pass for a high school student. More like a Young Master, really.”
“A Young Master…? In a place like this?”
“The hierarchy between them and those behind is so pronounced…?”

Rawi continued, his own uncertainty evident in his words.

“There’s this overwhelming determination not to let a single drop of water touch their hands.”
“That sounds incredibly obsessive.”
“Almost like pathological cleanliness, I’d say.”
“That’s enough.”

Seme whispered and pulled Rawi back down beside him.

“For now, we just stay hidden like this….”
“Wait, eyes.”

―Our gazes had met.

Before either could voice it, Seme clamped his hand over Rawi’s mouth and dragged him backward. Seme too had locked eyes with the figure, just as Rawi had.

‘Insane.’

A mouth split open with terrible clarity,
and eyes black as the deepest void.

Behind the young man stood two Staff Members, their entirely different faces bearing the exact same expression.

They stared at him.

“….”
“….”

Murderous intent and revulsion.

It was not merely vigilance against an intruder. It was their blind faith made manifest, hatred that filthy refuse had rolled into their master’s vision—a vision that must remain pristine.

From them came a slow, grotesque sound.

“….”
Hhhhh… uuuu■….
“…heh….”
■■■■….

Both their bodies went rigid.

The wail that tore through the mist began faintly, as if echoing from a great distance, then swelled to a horrifying magnitude.

A cry and metallic screech tangled together, as though someone’s throat were being violently twisted and wrung.

“…this….”
“Stop.”

An ominous tremor—whether wail or laughter, none could say. The unstable rhythm, cutting out moment by moment then erupting convulsively, seized their hearts like a strangler’s grip.

■■■■■■■―!!

“….”

God, please, someone save us.

Rawi shut his eyes tight and clamped both hands over his mouth. Seme ignored the cold sweat streaming down her spine, holding her breath as she pressed her head against the flimsy wall.

The eardrum-shattering shriek echoed from all directions in overlapping layers, consuming the space itself.

“Sigh….”

I wished it was just my imagination.

‘The sound is drawing closer.’

It wasn’t simply someone walking down that corridor. The deliberate footsteps, sharp and purposeful, mingled with the wailing and advanced directly toward our hiding place.

Seme shut his eyes tightly, as if to ignore the presence approaching through the Water Mist. Given the gaze we’d drawn and the welcome we’d received, our fates were as good as sealed.

‘We’ve been discovered.’

I couldn’t say when it had happened.

‘I just hope it’s quick.’

Thud, thud.

With each footstep growing clearer, that was all Seme could wish for. Rawi had realized it long ago too—his clasped hands trembled like he was praying.

The footsteps drew to within arm’s reach, then stopped abruptly.

“….”

The suffocating wail cut off as if it had been a lie.

“….”
“….”

Beyond the half-crumbled wall, what met us were the eyes of a human.

* * *

‘…Why are there children here?’

Two youthful faces, drained of all color by terror, stared back at me.

‘Have I lost my mind?’

It was the thought of Lee Yeon-woo, whose mind and body had been worn to tatters after completing roughly eight months of physical enhancement work and maintenance.

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