Chapter 112 |
[Archive]
[Monster Guest]
[Name]
[Lover of Dawn]
The residual afterimage of happiness that remains after all love has perished.
An emotion that refused time, becoming consciousness of its own accord, walking through a dawn that has stopped.
She wishes for happiness to be eternal and cheers on the love of all beings. She seeps into the memories of others, restoring the moment that shone brightest, and within it performs the role of 'the one who loves' or 'the one who is loved.'
And when she departs, that memory vanishes whole.
"Before morning comes, come meet me."
Therefore, stay in the present. Do not answer reminiscence. Do not lend your ear to the 'back then' she whispers. She exists in the past, so as long as you remain in the present, she cannot reach you.
"I love you."
※Warning※
A deep indigo sky just before a storm, and a blue wheat field overflowing with red poppies.
The more a person clings to old ties, the more frequent her approaches become. If you believe in eternal love, go to sleep early. If you believe in a dark future, stay awake.
She makes you forget even what it was you forgot.
-
→ While Lover of Dawn is staying, patrol the guest room floors around the clock without fail
→ Addendum: While Lover of Dawn is in the lobby, observe Human Guests closely (use of all five senses mandatory)
→ Addendum 2: If a Secret Rendezvous of the Dawn event has occurred, interfere before daybreak without fail
→ Addendum 3: ★Lover of Dawn Counter Discovered★ If you examine memories and records, within them....
***
"Wow, that's scary."
Seome responded to Rawi's playful remark.
"You don't look particularly scared."
"Can you not see my pale face?"
"It's disturbingly clear, and honestly, that kind of bothers me."
"In what sense it bothers you would require an honest conversation between us, but I do agree that it's disturbingly clear."
His slightly upturned eyes surveyed the pitch-black surroundings.
"I'd think it should be normal not to see anything at all when it's this dark."
Black in every direction.
So black it was difficult to distinguish up from down, one side from another.
Yet the fact that their feet were on solid ground was unmistakable. If he were stupid enough to lose his bearings in mere darkness, he'd never have cut it as a mercenary. Even Rawi, a rookie, could manage that much.
Above all, he was someone with an exceptional sense of 'seeing.'
"This way does seem to be forward."
"It's definitely not all that wide...."
Seome felt along the black 'wall' with his hands. Whether to call it a wall was debatable. The texture defied description. It was smooth like silk, yet also felt like a simple restriction preventing passage.
"...Ah."
And soon, another door appeared.
"White...?"
"More like."
Rawi stepped onto a stark white floor and raised his head to look ahead.
"It's a room, isn't it?"
Seome checked behind them.
"......"
It was the guest room door they'd just seen.
It was right behind them. An absolutely absurd situation.
"...I feel like we walked for quite a while."
"And yet it feels like we stepped through the door and arrived instantly. What is this?"
"They say labyrinths are like that...."
Around that moment, a composed voice interjected.
"It was a waiting room, designed to hold you briefly until preparations to receive guests were complete."
"Yeon-woo."
"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting."
In the center of the stark white room, a man in a black coat, Lee Yeon-woo, greeted them with a light bow. Seome, blinking, understood Yeon-woo's words a beat late.
"So... the space didn't connect directly."
"I'm the only one who doesn't get it again."
"It was a kind of 'Gap,' like where I live."
"Ahh, so that was a Gap too...."
Rawi rolled his eyes and nodded.
"So that's why this side only appeared later."
"I really envy you Artists. Lend me those eyes."
"Regrettably, rentals aren't available, sir~"
Until the master's permission was granted, while this space called 'Room 4' was being manifested by the labyrinth, they had been suspended in that dark passage, cut off from space and time.
Rawi looked behind them and added,
"Our fumbling around in that pitch darkness itself served as a 'signal,' like knocking on a door."
At that, Yeon-woo spoke.
"You've understood well."
"Ah, wait, then does that mean we didn't actually need to wander around in that darkness? It seems like we would've arrived here even if we'd just stood still."
"Who knows."
Yeon-woo let out a rare, genuine chuckle.
"Thanks to you diligently making footsteps, I was able to sense the knock more distinctly. If you think of it that way, it wasn't a wasted effort."
At that composed dismissal, Rawi shook his head in amazement and surveyed the surroundings.
"......"
"What?"
"No, how should I put it."
He turned back to Yeon-woo.
"This room seems to resemble its owner quite a lot."
The air was clear and even. There was a sense of order, and it was so still it could only be described as silent.
"I've been meaning to ask since earlier, but is that... a water tank?"
"It covers the entire ceiling, so 'tank' seems a bit small."
"This is really fancy. Like a rich person's mansion."
The ceiling was not sky but water surface. Transparent water rippled quietly, covering everything overhead. Within it, fish glinting silver could be seen.
They moved so slowly they appeared almost motionless. But if you looked closely, they were swimming at a steady pace along fixed orbits. They were alive.
'Well, they could just be made to look alive.'
But there was no denying how convincingly alive they appeared.
"Did you decorate this yourself?"
"It's not to my taste."
Neither denial nor affirmation. Rawi didn't bother hiding his confusion.
"Huh? But the interior suits you perfectly."
"You think so?"
"Then is this just a characteristic of the space called 'Room 4'?"
"Hardly."
Yeon-woo, who had been gazing up at the ceiling with an indifferent look, withdrew his gaze.
"Someone simply taxidermied the inside of another person without their consent."
"Who would...."
"This hotel has rather foul taste."
He added with the cynicism of someone appraising another person's home decor.
"I'd advise you both to be careful, so that a nuisance of a stalker like mine doesn't attach itself to you."
The tone was flat, but Rawi's smile stiffened. If that was the case, it meant this massive labyrinth had forcibly stripped Lee Yeon-woo's essence bare and put it on display in the form of a room.
Having thought that far, Rawi couldn't understand how Yeon-woo could be so dry about it.
'If it were me, I don't think I could stand it.'
His insides had been laid bare without his intention, hadn't they?
'This isn't a joke, it's an actual stalker....'
The malicious obsession of the labyrinth that imprisoned him. Most people would go mad or be revolted. Yet Yeon-woo stood at its very center as if it were someone else's problem, composed and poised.
"You said there's no internet here, right?"
"I'm not sure how you knew that, but yes, there isn't."
Seome cut in, flustered.
"Why are you even speaking on the premise that a labyrinth would have internet?"
"How else would I file a police report?"
"Who would... no, never mind."
Seome shook his head. He'd clearly been about to say, 'Even if you filed a report, who would come rescue someone inside a labyrinth?' Rawi knew full well, yet looked away.
Neither Rawi nor Seome was careless enough to say that outright in front of Yeon-woo.
"...Still, it is impressive."
"Thank you for the consideration."
"No, I mean it, really."
Rawi fixed his gaze on the ceiling, where scales of water light rippled.
"I guess you'd call it like a work of art."
The fish cast their shadows onto the ceiling's waves. Each time they grazed the walls and floor, the light fractured once, seizing the air of the entire room.
Contracting and expanding at a subtle tempo, like a heartbeat.
"It's quite bright."
"It is."
"Honestly, with the number being 4 and the way to get in being so eerie, I braced myself. But the blue-and-white feel put me at ease. Like being inside purified water."
"I wouldn't say I'm quite that pure. I can't fathom why the interior turned out this way."
"Oh, come on."
There was no separate lighting. Yet the space was bright.
That brightness had no direction. The light didn't reveal the shapes of objects. Instead, it spread as a single state, making no distinction between things and air.
Rawi approached the wall where water was flowing.
"Wow...."
"You seem to be enjoying yourself."
"Doesn't it look like a rich person's mansion? Is it just me?"
Seome made a complicated expression.
"Is this what rich people's mansions are like these days?"
"You know, the wall with water flowing down it. I feel like I've seen something like this in a drama. Haven't you?"
Rawi approached the wall, trying to lighten the mood.
"I've never seen a drama, so I wouldn't know."
"But sunbae-nim, I know you've had plenty of jobs at wealthy clients' homes."
"Being wealthy in The Gaps means being a considerable individual. All I ever got to see up close were nicely finished face-leather and human eyeballs...."
This time, it was Yeon-woo who reacted.
"......"
"...Why, why are you looking at me like that?"
"That must have been upsetting."
"Ah, it's just, this is the nature of the job."
"Just because it was work you had to do doesn't mean it's not allowed to turn your stomach."
"That... that is true."
"I'd hope you don't have to see such things while you're here, at the very least."
Yeon-woo shrugged, with those characteristically lowered eyes.
"This hotel is embarrassing no matter where you look, so I'm greatly concerned."
"Uh...."
He just says it outright. Even while inside the belly of the very hotel that holds him captive.
'The fact that he can say that even in this situation is remarkable.'
Yeon-woo tended to treat everything related to the hotel as if it were nothing. When it obviously couldn't be nothing.
'Maybe it's because he's this kind of person that he's been able to endure this much.'
Thinking that, Seome made an effort to look away.
"...Isn't something like this called a wall fountain?"
"How knowledgeable. That's correct, it refers to water made to flow down along a wall."
"If no measures were taken, mold would grow easily in a house like this...."
At Seome's remark, Rawi turned to look at him.
"You gave me a hard time, and now you're doing the same thing."
"What did I do."
"Saying a labyrinth obviously wouldn't have internet."
"I didn't go that far."
"If we're questioning practicality, the mold issue shouldn't come up either."
"No, I wasn't talking about here, I meant a house on the outside...."
Seome trailed off mid-sentence and closed his mouth.
"......"
"......"
So did Rawi.
Talking about 'the outside' in front of Yeon-woo, who couldn't leave, was, predictably, not the right thing to say.
"Ah... anyway, it's wonderful."
"Yeah... it's wonderful...."
But Yeon-woo showed no sign of displeasure, merely brushing his collar lightly with a gloved hand.
"Fortunate that even this place has its merits, wouldn't you say?"
It was a reply carrying the unspoken consideration of 'don't walk on eggshells around me.' But that didn't exactly put the hearts of the people who'd brought it up at ease.
'Wh-what should I say.'
'Sunbae-nim, say something.'
'You only call me sunbae-nim at times like this.'
'Ah, seriously....'
In the end, Rawi opened his mouth awkwardly.
"It, it really is wonderful. I'm not just saying that."
"You think so?"
"Especially the fish up there, the way they shimmer...."
Wait.
"......?"
Rawi turned his head and looked at the wall again.
It was a mirror, but a thin film of water was flowing across its surface. And as that water flowed, the shadow of a fish seemed to seep into the glass, its tail rippling.
And beyond it, the reflection of Yeon-woo was,
'...Huh.'
...soaked in water?
When Rawi rubbed his eyes and looked again, the Yeon-woo in the mirror had returned to his usual neat appearance, gazing this way with a puzzled expression. The two of them were making eye contact through the mirror.
"Is something wrong?"
"Mm, no. It's just, how do I put it...."
When Rawi trailed off and averted his gaze, Yeon-woo didn't press further. Inwardly swallowing a sigh of relief at Yeon-woo's response, Rawi thought,
'Did I imagine it for a second because of the fish shadows?'
Rawi looked up at the ceiling again.
"...Oh."
"Yes, they're separate beings."
"I see."
He'd thought it was the shadow of the ceiling fish being reflected. But there were simply separate shadow-fish. At a glance, the movements of the silver fish and the shadow-fish were subtly different.
"They overlap quite a bit, though."
"They appear to be a pair."
"That's romantic in its own way...."
"It is."
As the two stared up at the fish for a while, Yeon-woo clapped his gloved hands lightly to draw their attention. When both pairs of eyes naturally turned to him, Yeon-woo spoke.
"Unless you'd prefer to keep talking while standing, allow me to show you to the table inside."
"Oh, there's a table here too?"
"I can at least offer you warm tea."
The floor beneath their moving feet was wood.
"This way, please."
A glossy sheen as though coated in thick lacquer. But rather than deep brown, it was an opalescent milky white. The silver threads running through the wood grain were regular.
'If this really reflects the person Lee Yeon-woo is, it's easy to see why a labyrinth trapped him.'
Rawi watched the back of the man walking ahead.
Even amid the labyrinth's grotesque obsession, Yeon-woo led the two toward a safe space with the unruffled composure of a proper adult, never once losing his poise.
Same posture as always, same attitude, same responses....
"......"
This is why they say being kind only gets you taken advantage of.
***
[Huh?]
'What I'm saying is.'
Yeon-woo thought again.
'It's been confirmed that when I get hurt, their guard drops.'
[Huh? Huh? Huh.]
'At this point, it's truly undeniable.'
But is that psychologically okay?