Chapter 135 |
If there was one guest in this hotel who was most uncontrollable, who defied all specifications, it was naturally the Guest Without Taste. And he had a tendency to take issue with Yeon-woo sheltering the Human Guests.
'In that case, it would be better to buy time and make the situation airtight.'
"Eeing."
"So there's one more person here who takes issue with me."
"Coco. Person. No."
"When we communicate this well, I'd say you could pass for one."
"No?"
Yeon-woo, having arrived at the Central Control Room, set Coco down on the table. Then, just in case, he gently roused the sleeping No. 14 and placed it atop Coco's head.
"I refuse."
"Coco. No. 14. Reject."
"Must you intimidate it like that?"
No. 14 was either still half-asleep or couldn't quite open its eyes.
"If you look after it, I'll repay you with a feast."
"Coco. Diligent."
"I knew we'd see eye to eye."
A splendid about-face.
"......"
Yeon-woo's gaze, scanning the CCTV feeds from throughout the hotel, soon halted on the rooftop.
"...There really are so many who won't listen to a word the hotel manager says...."
The Rooftop Garden was in disarray.
"Rude guest."
"You said it."
A vast, grotesque tableau that surpassed human cognition.
The sky--a deep, heavy navy, as if a storm were about to break--pressed down as though it would crush everything beneath it. Murky clouds, smeared like oil paint ground in with neurotic force, spiraled in deformed vortices, churning ceaselessly.
"Who gave anyone permission to alter this hotel's interior?"
Beneath her feet stretched an endless field of pale blue wheat.
A pallid, blue-green light closer to pathology than vitality. Each time a bleak gust tore through, the wheat stalks--rendered in rough, coarse brushstrokes--snapped at the waist in unison and surged like savage waves.
The rustling friction of stalks colliding sounded like tens of thousands of dry bones clattering together, or like the final screams murmured from within a blaze.
And there, between those chilling blue swells.
"......"
Blooming in riotous profusion, poppies so blindingly red they could have been arterial blood erupting from the wounds of a torn earth.
Their vivid, intensely crimson petals trembled as if about to be ripped apart by the gale, yet flaunted a dreadful vitality. With every gust, droplet-like red petals scattered into the air, and a sweet, acrid fragrance mingled with the smell of blood as if to paralyze one's reason.
At that, Coco asked as if confirming Yeon-woo's sanity.
"Hello?"
"It's not as bad as last time. Seems I'm developing immunity to the contamination."
"Yes? Yes."
"It appears I really have assimilated with this hotel."
Judging by the fact that he could feel the Lover of Dawn from within himself.
'A dead tree stripped to its skeleton, a massive crucifix... and black ash.'
At the far end of the blue wheat field, the silhouettes of a leafless tree and a cross smoldered, swallowing crimson flames.
'A burning stake.'
As that pitch-black ash mingled with raindrops and fell, Yeon-woo surmised that this place was an eternally repeating execution ground--someone's madness-drenched mindscape.
And the woman at its center.
"...The woman of dawn...."
No. The White Crow.
That was what humans had called her.
The hem of her thin, pure-white nightgown thrashed wildly in the wind and rain. Silver-white hair swayed like a curtain over skin as pale as a corpse's. Her lips moved, soundlessly singing a dirge.
Within this burning canvas where everything warped and spun into madness....
"--Lieb mich."
Love me.
The witch who had become the subject of a masterpiece smiled quietly.
***
The beginning traces back far.
The uninvited guest who had been prowling this place for nearly five years in defiance of the rules--the White Crow. In the past, Yeon-woo had struck a verbal agreement with her in order to obtain leads on the Guest Without Taste, offering up his own memories in exchange.
"Since there was no one but me who'd suffer harm, I tolerated her doing as she pleased. I acknowledge my arrogance."
But she--who craved love eternal--had marked Yeon-woo as her '■■■' and was nurturing a blind obsession. The Yeon-woo of the past had likely accepted even that.
"The situation changed abruptly right after I picked up the lost outsiders--Seome and Rawi--from the Sub-Level 7 Hunting Grounds and sent them up to the hotel."
As fate would have it, Seome had caught the White Crow's fancy. The White Crow had been trying to adopt a passive stance in accordance with the hotel's rules, but Seome's presence shook that patience.
"She became something of a catalyst, you could say."
One day, Yeon-woo realized that a solid block of memory--the several dozen minutes during which he'd walked to Seome and Rawi's room with blood streaming from a Water Wraith-severed ankle--had been cleanly excised.
With his Emotional Big Data damaged and even fear rendered vague, he could only reverse-engineer his past self using the objective information available: the wounds on his body and the gap in time.
"At the time, I was able to determine that the only one in this hotel capable of editing memories as if cutting them out with a scalpel was the Lover of Dawn."
He deduced that the White Crow had finally submitted to the hotel's rules and begun a formal stay, determined to ensnare Yeon-woo--and that she had chosen the mage Seome, who carried grief and guilt over a dead sibling, as her prey.
"Trying to catch two rabbits at once must have left her rather frantic."
Yeon-woo forced himself into a systemic routine: every night between 21:00 and 24:00, he checked the Central Control Room's CCTV and secured the authority to intervene in the secret rendezvous. That was how he blocked the 'secret rendezvous of dawn.'
As a penalty for disrupting the rendezvous, he lost his memory of those hours each time--yet Yeon-woo's interference repeated without a single deviation. In response, the White Crow, as the Lover of Dawn, demanded proof of love.
"Blood, and hands, and eyes, and a heart...."
Yeon-woo let himself be devoured without hesitation.
"There was no better opportunity."
Velmareth's blood and flesh were no mere lumps of protein.
"The fragments of me that flow into her organs will function as a biological security tool--Malware--transmitting information in real time and securing control."
Therefore, feeding her his entire body was the most certain hardware-level infiltration method: physically connecting to the target's main server and seizing administrator privileges.
And Yeon-woo's gambit worked.
"I confirmed that she sees me as her '■■■.' Since she was a being born from that very deprivation, it allowed me to settle on my approach for this operation."
There were, of course, minor complications. Perhaps because the rendezvous had been clumsily severed, the overloaded Seome was tormented by visions of her dead sibling until she finally snapped, pressing a blade to Yeon-woo's throat.
"But that wasn't a significant problem...."
"No."
"Coco, the recording is still running."
The real problem was something else entirely.
"This hotel does not count 'mages' as 'Human Guests.'"
The existence known as a 'mage'--spiritual energy itself. Trapped in such a body, Seome could not simply accumulate Nightmares and check out normally the way other Human Guests could.
Sensing that it was only a matter of time before Seome was consumed by the Lover of Dawn, Yeon-woo devised a suboptimal but clever countermeasure, building on his existing interpretation of the White Crow's nature.
"I gave her an Employee Recruitment Ticket."
A total of ten recruitment tickets, received as a tutorial reward. They were gamble-like tickets that could draw employees ranked 1-Star through 3-Star, but in reality, they functioned as a form of 'employment contract.'
"My calculation was that if Seome became bound as a staff member under my authority, then even if the White Crow later absorbed her and made her a thrall, at the very least, the complete annihilation and erasure of her soul and self could be prevented. A defensive barrier of sorts."
For in this hotel, the rules of the game took precedence above all else.
"Simultaneously, I systematized the plan further and secured the safety of its execution by completing negotiations with others. Even if I can't count on the Guest Without Taste, at least the Drenched One would open an escape route as one of my staff."
However.
"And here's where the problem arose. Until Seome mentioned The Devil card, I had completely forgotten that I'd given her the recruitment ticket."
Yeon-woo spoke dryly as he stared into the camera lens of the Central Control Room. The red light indicating recording blinked faintly behind his glasses.
"While rummaging through the box, I realized: one Employee Recruitment Ticket was missing, and since Coco couldn't have touched it, the culprit must be me. Which meant I had planned to hire Seome, and that plan had been discovered by the White Crow."
Since the Lover of Dawn would have seen the stolen memories.
"Therefore, the White Crow could no longer afford to sit patiently inside the hotel's rules, politely ringing the doorbell for the 'secret rendezvous of dawn.' I became certain that today--by any means necessary, even breaking the rules--she would fully absorb Seome and try to destabilize me."
After all, the Lover of Dawn's ultimate target was Yeon-woo himself. Having said this, the Yeon-woo on screen rested his chin on interlaced fingers.
"So, before she makes her move, I need to strike first."
"Yes!"
"There's a method I tried on the Drenched One during the previous tutorial but which failed due to a bug."
"Evict! Evict!"
"I define her as 'not my guest.'"
Because she did not respect me, the General Manager, and did not abide by our rules.
"In that case, I can forcibly strip her of this hotel's systemic protections."
Her taking memories unrelated to the secret rendezvous was already a rule violation, but he'd stayed silent on that previously, setting a precedent. Yeon-woo wanted a more definitive justification.
"More than mere disturbance or memory theft--imposing her own stage onto the hotel's interior, negating the very space of this hotel, is a clear act of erosion. It is precisely the kind of eviction-worthy offense that I, as this hotel's General Manager, cannot tolerate."
"GWT."
"Yes, and that's why I waited, pretending not to notice. I already knew the White Crow's behavior was somewhat clumsy and fumbling. She can't be the meticulous type of guest that the Guest Without Taste is."
That was precisely why Yeon-woo had sat across from the Guest Without Taste in the Dining, exchanging idle conversation.
"I bought some time chatting with him. If I'd rushed straight to Seome and blocked the Lover of Dawn, she'd have been nothing more than a problem guest who hadn't yet crossed the line."
"Problem guest. Evict. Problem guest. Evict."
"So you also dislike guests who don't respect the rules."
Gently cupping Coco's cheek, he continued.
"That said, I hadn't expected her to wreck my hotel to this extent, like the Drenched One did. Whether I should be relieved that the conditions for eviction have been met...."
Yeon-woo's gaze turned to the monitor panel.
The Rooftop Garden on screen was no longer part of the hotel Yeon-woo knew.
The deep, heavy navy sky on the verge of a storm. The pale blue wheat field surging like savage waves. And poppies blooming in blood-red so vivid they stung the eyes like arterial blood. Beyond the horizon, a cross smoldered, swallowing crimson flames.
The complete 'mindscape' and 'stage' of a sixteenth-century tragedy had been overlaid onto the hotel rooftop.
"She crossed the line of her own volition."
Yeon-woo's lips twisted into a cold, curving arc.
"I did provoke her into it, but I didn't expect this kind of reaction just from being ignored for a bit. The scorn she suffered from her ■■■ must have left quite a deep wound."
"Weak."
"Let's not go that far."
When both sides were playing dirty, there was no need to add personal attacks on top.
The unglassed Yeon-woo rose from his seat. Not a hint of hesitation in the motion of his gloved hands as they straightened his coat collar.
"Now it's my turn to go up to the rooftop and make it clear to her."
"......"
"I'll become the '■■■' she so desperately craved, and tear open her trauma in the way she fears most. That's how I intend to seize the initiative."
Coco spoke.
"Dangerous."
"I'm aware."
The Yeon-woo on screen answered calmly.
"In the process, I'll inevitably be killed. Just as the Lover of Dawn spent over four years prowling this hotel doing exactly that--this time, too, she'll end up handling me that way."
In the end, the White Crow wanted to devour Yeon-woo. But Yeon-woo, already bound to the hotel, could hardly be subjugated by another being through something as trivial as death and consumption.
That may have been the very origin of all this problem-guest behavior.
"And when that happens, this arbitrarily set coding will activate 'General Manager Mode.'"
It might be difficult to regain my senses.
Yeon-woo stared straight into the camera. Or rather, it was a resolute directive addressed to 'the future self who would have lost his memories' or 'the General Manager' who would be watching this footage.
"So I say this to you, the one reviewing this record. This is not a sentimental last will--it is an explicit operational handover."
"......"
"All of this is calculated resource management for the hotel, an operation equivalent to containing a malicious virus. I've already fed the White Crow plenty of my blood. The conditions to seize control of her from the inside are in place."
"......"
"So use this advantage I've created. Instead of crushing and exorcising the Lover of Dawn outright, proceed with a Contract."
Yeon-woo's eyes darkened.
"Don't be an idiot and let yourself be swayed by vague emotions. Execute exactly according to the manual, on the board that 'you'--the one watching now--have laid out. For Rawi, who will be left alone--inject the kind of terror befitting Hotel One."
You know what this place's identity is, don't you?
"A game should behave like a game."
"......"
"...And remember that you, too, are part of that game."
[Recording has ended.]