Chapter 96 |
The air here always tasted of rusted metal.
Massive cogwheels covering the sky interlocked and turned, their heavy metallic groaning reverberating through the ground. Abandoned steam engines belched soot from the hands of squatters who had claimed them.
Damp neon signs, easy enough to spot....
"Ahhh, man...."
A man with an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips scratched his head vigorously.
"Why the hell won't my one and only disciple answer his phone?"
"P-please, spare—"
"Should've stuck with me, see."
BANG—!!
"I swear, never listening is just an Artist species trait."
Like these lot here.
"Let's see, let's see~"
The name [Rawi] flickered on the terminal screen, but as expected, the other end didn't pick up. The man casually flicked the blood splatter off his gun and rolled his eyes sideways.
'Or maybe he can't.'
He tucked the gun inside his worn coat.
"Hmm."
No matter how much the kid whined, he shouldn't have been sent in straight from the Surface. He'd drilled the important points into him time and again, but in The Gaps, what mattered most was luck.
'And this family's fortune has luck that's neither here nor there... so who knows.'
Dead, maybe?
"...Oh dear...."
What a predicament.
'What am I supposed to tell his old man?'
The man wasn't even from The Gaps.
An affable smile, somewhat awkward, crossed the middle-aged man's face.
The intermediary the kid had picked was from the list he'd provided. They were all trustworthy, so the odds of foul play were low. And that was precisely the problem.
'Then he might've gotten caught up in something.'
The most likely suspect was, of course, a labyrinth.
"The last few years, Dokkaebi have been acting strange—honestly, it's the end times, the end times."
Then this uncle would just have to go find the body. If he didn't at least bring that back, receiving an empty coffin for his son would drive his brother to more than just grabbing him by the collar.
Imagining his brother's veins bulging with fury, the man laughed.
"Now where might our dear nephew have gone~...."
An idle, lilting hum.
Behind his shambling gait, bright red footprints trailed.
Left beside the... dozens of skinned corpses.
***
"......"
"A shame."
Sadly, no exit was in sight.
"You said this was the first location you remember arriving at?"
"Yes, more or less. It was a godsend we didn't end up on the open sea. If we had, we'd have been helpless—dead before we could so much as hold out like this."
"With the mist making it hard to find your way, how did you manage to reach the harbor city?"
"Ah, I have a water attribute, so...."
"......?"
Water attribute?
"...I see."
Just as when they'd introduced themselves as mercenaries, Lee Yeon-woo nodded placidly.
'Maybe young people these days define themselves this way—like the old blood-type personality craze or MBTI.'
He could wrap his head around it well enough through the lens of Dig○mon or Pok○mon. A memory surfaced of his own younger sibling once insisting she was a Grass Type, but Lee Yeon-woo quickly swept the thought aside.
'What matters now isn't that....'
His ominous premonition, as always, hit the mark with ruthless accuracy.
Water-Affinity Penalty notwithstanding, Lee Yeon-woo was practically half Water Wraith himself—that was one thing. But these two students wouldn't be free from Sub-Level 7's penalties. This was a place where you couldn't even find your way without items.
Which meant he couldn't keep them in the Hunting Grounds too long.
'But if this is the case, the exit might actually be somewhere else entirely. If they didn't arrive through a specific door but through some random chemical reaction, things get even more complicated.'
Lee Yeon-woo thought privately.
'I must be out of my mind.'
[Yes.]
'The difficulty balancing is still a mess.'
[Yes?]
No wonder there are no players.
[Yes?]
Lee Yeon-woo sank into deliberation.
Continue remotely operating the hotel while searching for an exit on Sub-Level 7. Or bring the two students up to the hotel entirely, register them as guests, and send them out that way.
"......"
He silently traced the edge of his lips.
'...This is a scenario that never existed in the game, so I can't guarantee their safety if I do that. Trying something that risky on kids this young....'
In the end, Lee Yeon-woo's conclusion was this:
"Let's keep looking around for as long as we're able."
Search the Hunting Grounds for an exit until they hit a wall; if that failed, bring them up.
'I can't drag this out too long, either.'
The current situation—where he was only hosting Open Version-exclusive Monster Guests—afforded some breathing room. But there were backed-up guests to attend to, and certain guests couldn't be handled remotely; the player had to receive or escort them in person.
'There's no telling when such a guest might arrive.'
[Yes!]
'I should prepare to bring them up if it comes to that.'
Lee Yeon-woo looked back at the two students.
"Since there's no visible door at the first location you remember, it seems your memory has been distorted—or the door's location has shifted."
"Oh man, I knew something felt ominous."
"I'm not seeing anything unusual either."
"So, um...."
Rawi asked in a deliberately deflated voice.
"Are we parting ways here...?"
"I haven't even shown you the sights outside yet—wouldn't it be too soon to part?"
"Wow, how generous."
A laugh disguised as relief, but with wariness still unresolved in the voice. Lee Yeon-woo was beginning to understand the student called Rawi's survival style.
'He acts brazen, but his distrust of people runs deep.'
Put simply, he was good at picking sides. He chose the right hill to lean on, knew where to plant himself. Strongly opportunistic, and prepared to cut ties at a moment's notice if need be.
'Still just a kid's level, though.'
That particular quirk seemed to be something the student called Seome was roughly aware of as well.
'As I thought, Seome's psychological age is clearly higher than Rawi's no matter how I look at it. The way they each see the other as younger, too. Interesting pair.'
Having thought that far, Lee Yeon-woo opened his mouth in a dry voice.
"You clearly find it suspect—why I'm being this generous."
"Was it that obvious? How embarrassing~"
"Think what you like."
For a reason he couldn't place, the thought 'this is entertaining' crossed his mind, and he let out a small laugh.
"In any case, even if I pushed you away, you wouldn't be planning to leave my side anytime soon, Mr. Rawi."
It was hard to persuade someone with a deep distrust of people through words alone. Clumsy goodwill would only be suspected as poison. So Lee Yeon-woo chose not to grovel for their thin trust.
"But, I see. The oxygen mask you're using won't last much longer... so I'd best find the exit before innocent people start choking and collapsing before my eyes."
"Not a fan of seeing corpses?"
"......"
Lee Yeon-woo gazed at Rawi in silence.
"...Of course not."
Lee Yeon-woo gave a shallow nod.
'Who likes seeing corpses?'
He'd had more than enough of that during his early Hoone playthroughs, watching 'Human Guests' die.
'And now this question, to someone who chose the No-Kill Route because he couldn't stand watching even that.'
He kept his bewilderment to himself.
"At the very least, I have no intention of leaving such a situation unattended within the zone I manage."
"Uh...."
"Having taken responsibility, I have no intention of standing by while you become corpses before my eyes, either."
From their words and behavior, he'd more or less guessed already—'mercenary' was no empty title. There undoubtedly existed a violent, brutal world that Lee Yeon-woo knew nothing of.
"So, why?"
"......"
Why?
Before irritation, fatigue arrived.
'A world where students who should be studying talk about corpses like they talk about the weather.'
A terrible world he never wished to belong to. Yet bound as he was as this hotel's General Manager, Lee Yeon-woo was in no position to blame or pity anyone.
"......"
"Um, Mr. Lee Yeon-woo?"
"...Let's move."
...Parenting was never easy.
***
He had thought the man might not be human.
For an ordinary person, there were far too many strange things about him.
'Why does he ask complete strangers how old he looks?'
'How does he know this much about this place?'
'Why won't he tell us anything about himself?'
Above all—
'What was that thing I saw when Lee Yeon-woo killed the jellyfish monster?'
That 'something.' That unfathomable abyss—it seemed almost to scream 'he can't possibly be human.'
But it wasn't just these doubts. Not entirely why he had deemed the man non-human.
'The atmosphere....'
When he first saw him.
"......"
He was by no means a person who'd linger in one's memory.
Lee Yeon-woo's looks were, of course, striking. Disconcertingly so. But that wasn't the point. It was simply that he looked like a student who'd gotten no more than three or four hours of sleep, or an office worker worn down by too many late nights.
And yet... each time his gaze fell on the man, something vaguely unfamiliar bloomed.
"Is it okay to move this openly?"
"She won't come chasing right away. Her hunting has a sort of cooldown."
"Saying 'cooldown' really does make it sound like a game."
"Is that so?"
Setting aside the way he called the Dokkaebi in the raincoat a 'person,' and the strange distance that seeped from it—
"Staying in one place isn't feasible. Once she's drawn her blade, she won't stop hunting until the prey leaves her territory. But if you learn her patterns, it's easy enough to avoid her."
Setting aside, too, the weary certainty of someone who'd been through every kind of hell—that no one else could possibly control this place's mechanics as well as he did—
"......"
Yes, it was this.
"...Right."
Those chilling, hollow eyes that never wavered before any horror.
'The behavior.'
The posture. Everything that comprised him.
"......"
...was too ideal to be human.
His expression was mostly indifferent. It could seem dry at a glance, but there was no hollow space that suggested he was forcibly hiding emotion. Rather, it was as though he'd simply shed unnecessary emotion altogether.
Within it, Seome saw a restraint that pressed everything down with reason.
"Don't enter buildings that look intact."
His unfaltering gaze was fixed on some invisible coordinate in the air, unwaveringly steady.
"From now on, we'll hide primarily in skeletal shops and hardware stores."
"...Is there a reason?"
"In enclosed spaces, this damp fog will eat away at your cognition before you know it. I'd rather not watch you go mad from hallucinations and put air holes in each other's heads."
"I-I see."
He held the other person's attention for just as long as needed, then released it. When he spoke, he dealt only in facts without expending emotion. And at the end, he left an inevitable silence.
That unwavering tone, paradoxically, brought the listener's heartbeat to a calm.
"You're not looking well."
"That's not the case."
"Before you collapse—wouldn't some rest be in order?"
His words were somewhat rough and dry, yet what lay between the lines was unmistakable consideration.
The gaze wasn't sharp. What looked empty at first glance was far removed from warm-hearted humanity. A deep abyss, settled with the heavy fatigue of someone who'd witnessed countless deaths until their emotions had eroded away.
It was like looking into a mirror that no longer stirred before any horror.
"...We're...."
"I'd like to rest."
"...Yes, so he says. Could we take a brief rest?"
Could what he gave even be called 'kindness' or 'goodwill' in the usual sense?
"Go inside. I'll stand watch."
"Will you be alright?"
"I have no interest in tormenting tired people."
"There can't be just one or two monsters living around here."
"It's something I can do."
The goodwill he extended carried not so much warm comfort as a responsibility to see them out of here alive, tangled with fatigue. In the end, it was always him standing outside the door—at the very front line of danger.
'Look at that.'
It almost felt suffocating.
'It doesn't fit this labyrinth at all.'
Suspicion toward the stranger's identity, gratitude he couldn't help, and the primal frustration stirred by that deformed devotion. Having controlled himself so perfectly, there was not a shred of hesitation in his willingness to pare away his own flesh for others.
Given the extraordinary circumstances, it was only natural that the man felt like an altogether different kind of being.
His chest churned with frustration.
"I hope you get enough rest."
"...If you'd do that for us, we gratefully accept your consideration."
Seome was simply confused.
"......"
—Hey, I—
"......"
—...I'm glad I could help.
Only bad memories surfaced.
And those memories were what made Lee Yeon-woo look 'human.'
Because the fall has no bottom.