Chapter 158

Our Hotel Is Open for Business as Usual

"So...."

Seon-hae, seated across from Baek Mu-jin, summarized with a sour expression.

"A cult criminal organization went on a rampage under the name 'The Foundation'??"

"Yes."

"And the hotel where Mr. Yeon-woo is--that's the result of those lunatics??"

"Their death throes."

"What even was this 'paradise' they were after?"

"Only they would know."

Baek Mu-jin continued.

"The primary tools used in the process were Blood Magic and Black Magic."

"Can I be honest?"

"I'll hear you out."

"That's really hard to get used to."

As a creator, the words were genuinely burdening.

"I did like that sort of thing during my rebellious phase."

"Then you're fine."

"How am I fine?"

Seon-hae let out a deep sigh.

"So? Assuming what Mr. Yeon-woo uses is Blood Magic, what's Black Magic? Is there something even more bizarre than a person turning into blood and back again?"

"Difficult to compare."

Baek Mu-jin set several books in front of her.

"Blood Magic is a transactional structure that computes miracles by paying a clear physical and spiritual cost--one's own bones, flesh, and blood."

"In simple terms, Equivalent Exchange?"

"Yes. A discipline that burns one's own body as fuel to shoulder responsibility for the desired outcome. You could call it an exceptionally honest and rational field of study."

"And from context, Black Magic is not."

"Because it doesn't pay the cost."

He tapped the thick hardcover.

"This book carries a curse that destroys the mind of anyone who reads it. Its contents hold the essence of Black Magic, but now no one can read it."

"Please stop collecting things like this, Uncle. You'll get yourself killed."

"This book devours the reader whole the instant every word is read, and taxidermies their knowledge. So those who wished to read it had a sacrificial victim read it first, and only gleaned the knowledge up to the point just before."

"The world really is full of creative people."

"The other books have similar structures."

Only then did Seon-hae grasp Baek Mu-jin's point.

"They shift the cost onto others."

"That's why Black Magic is treated as taboo and Black Magic practitioners are targets for extermination. Unlike blood mages, dealing with them almost always results in net loss."

"Can't Blood Magic shift costs too?"

"In Blood Magic, the caster offloads 1 to gain 1. In Black Magic, the caster offloads 10 to gain 1. The structure of Black Magic itself has accumulated enormous debt."

He explained.

"It's called a fraud that denies and forges the two pillars supporting the universe--causality and the cycle of life and death. The more Black Magic is used, the more the entire universe shoulders the burden."

"When you put it that way, it sounds like cancer cells."

"The punishment for one's sins, the misfortune, pain, death--all shifted onto others. A form of theft that steals another's narrative, bypassing legitimate cause and process, and claims only the results."

Seon-hae's expression soured.

"Could you move these books a bit farther away?"

"As long as you don't open them, they're just books."

"Please."

Even if it didn't smell, who'd want it nearby? Baek Mu-jin calmly slotted the books back onto his shelf.

"It freely swaps bodies and flesh, forcibly tethers souls whose lifespans have ended to the mortal world, and devours the living's sense of self."

"Hmm, the most frightening aspect of Black Magic would be?"

"The ecstasy, I'd say."

"What?"

Seon-hae narrowed her eyes.

"It feels good?"

"It's a cunning miracle."

"How, exactly?"

"It targets what you crave most."

Deprivation, love, longing, guilt.

"That's how it paralyzes reason."

A sickeningly sweet floral scent, or the voice of whoever you miss most, or the form of a lost lover. Baek Mu-jin added.

"The most representative example is the sixteenth-century classical labyrinth known as the 'White Crow.'"

"So classical labyrinths get named like that. White Crow would be... albino?"

"That hotel you saw will eventually be named too. The Sensitivity Bureau will likely handle it."

Baek Mu-jin sat back down.

"So to summarize...."

***

"It's stealing someone else's save file and overwriting it."

Seung-jae leaned deep into the sofa back and spat the words out.

Room 1209's living room. Under dim light, Do-heon stared blankly at the bloodstained memo and old diary in his hands. He murmured.

"Like dining and dashing, basically...."

"My, what a perfect analogy. Exactly. Slapping the bill for your own sins onto some stranger who's never even met you."

He shrugged.

"I'd guess one of the projects those damned Foundation people ran involved that kind of overwrite. Problem is, the universe isn't that lenient."

Seung-jae tapped the torn diary with his gun barrel.

"The payment's empty but the receipt keeps floating around, so the world's physics engine crashes. All that cosmic error data piles up and rots, and the waste... falls squarely on Black Magic's victims."

"......"

"Roughly follow?"

He asked.

"The one who wrote this diary we picked up at the Greenhouse--one of the two women, by your account?"

"Ah, yes."

"The one called 'my lady' consumed that girl's intact body and soul whole, then overwrote the self. What was born from that is the labyrinth that uses hallucination and amnesia to consume targets--the 'White Crow.'"

Seung-jae added.

"Making someone feel blissfully ecstatic and painless so they surrender their soul willingly--that's Black Magic's textbook method. Rigged so you can't help eating it, even though eating it kills you."

"Then...."

The pale face he'd pulled from the sink flashed through Do-heon's mind.

"What about the General Manager? And what's this memo?"

Do-heon gripped the bloodstained memo just tight enough not to damage it. Flat and clinical, yet carrying unmistakable, clean-cut responsibility.

The answer came from Hyeon Si-gyeong.

"It appears to be a memo written by the Water Wraith you encountered in the bathroom at dawn. The General Manager with black irises and golden pupils wrote this memo, and it was likely lost after some incident transformed him into the current General Manager."

"And 'that person' became a Water Wraith?"

"That is unclear."

Seung-jae, who'd been scratching his chin with the gun barrel, picked up Hyeon Si-gyeong's thread.

"By that reasoning, the current General Manager can't be called a pure enemy, either. He could've gotten rid of a memo that might serve as a hint, but he left it."

Hyeon Si-gyeong nodded at that.

"While based on the former General Manager's principles, he appeared strictly neutral."

"So as long as this labyrinth is managed properly according to the rules, he doesn't much care~"

Seung-jae waved the gun like a finger and continued.

"Since he's half-consumed by the labyrinth's system, he can't be called a full ally. But given that he's trying to get us out alive, he's not an enemy either."

"That's, how do I put it...."

A business mindset that executes the manual perfectly without revealing personal feelings. Not someone you'd call 'on my side,' but a guide holding premium intelligence. Services rendered only in proportion to the price paid.

Do-heon's expression turned complicated.

"He's like an NPC."

Like a game NPC that guides gameplay.

"Gives quests, shows the way. On top of the guide windows already feeling game-like."

"Yeah? I've never played that kind of game...."

"Anyway, if he's neither ally nor enemy, the conclusion is straightforward. No neutral NPC lies about quests, so if we just do what he asked, he'll let us out."

That was enough.

'A bit uncomfortable, though.'

From what he'd heard, the lost memories only amounted to about a year. Whether he recovered them or not, the moment an exit presented itself, he'd take it. No reason for attachment.

"......"

"Well then, shall we get moving?"

"...Yeah."

Yet for some reason, it felt wrong.

"Let's find the other three. Quickly."

With that tangle of feelings, Do-heon stepped out of the room, and--

***

"......"
"......"

...the General Manager was struck speechless.

"...Oh dear."

"Is it regrettable?"

"Yes, it is."

He murmured with a bitter smile, matter-of-fact.

"This is harder than I expected."

Coco, watching the monitor from its designated cat basket, spoke.

"Thirty-fourth attempt."

"A balance patch is urgently needed."

"Kill?"

"No, we're not killing anyone."

"Eing."

"Why do you keep trying to kill our precious new users?"

Do-heon's party was already waking at the save point for the thirty-fourth time. In other words, within the given conditions and environment, they had failed to secure the second 'memento.'

'Thirty-three times.'

Having decided this wasn't working, he'd paused the hotel. The General Manager was silent for a moment.

"......"

"Hello?"

"I can't inject any more of my blood into the Lover of Dawn."

"Correct."

"The volume would exceed what she can withstand."

"Coco. Guarantee."

"We're in trouble."

As the quest progressed, the Lover of Dawn had apparently grown furious. The bristling White Crow had not only prevented the three users from retrieving the next item--she'd killed them outright, multiple times.

And so the General Manager had been forced to rewind time thirty-three times.

'But I can't inject more blood to restrict her behavior further.'

This was Velmareth's blood, after all. Even now, he'd been carefully selecting the gentlest, most well-mannered portions of his own to inject, and this was the result. A blood mage's blood was inherently arrogant beyond measure.

'If I put in any more, the separated blood might lose control and devour her entirely....'

"Yes. Devour."

"And that's exactly what I want to avoid."

He couldn't afford to turn someone he'd earmarked as future family into a part of Velmareth.

"But the users' conditions seem insufficient to handle the current Lover of Dawn. Unlike a normal game, I can't pre-run simulations--I never expected that limitation to poison things this way."

"No?"

"Our game can do better than this, Coco."

"Heehee!"

Coco was indeed pleased by the words 'our game.'

"If I can't nerf the Lover of Dawn, I'll need to restructure the hotel or strengthen the users' conditions. Maybe I should try jury-rigging some items...."

The General Manager rolled his eyes.

"......"

"No?"

"I was only imagining."

"No."

"I see."

He'd recalled the 'universal panacea made from Velmareth's blood' he'd once envisioned, but it was vetoed. The General Manager was an excellent business partner who respected the co-owner's opinion.

"But without a survival tool at least that brainless, it looks difficult."

"Coco. Agree."

"I should've left Mr. Hyeon Si-gyeong's eyes uncovered. Mr. Kwon Seung-jae is unusually vulnerable to Black Magic, so the adults aren't much extra help."

"Useless."

"How can you say that about our precious users?"

We should be grateful they're even playing our game.

"Last time, using Seome as a conduit to alter the hotel system in real time didn't work either."

"Limits."

"Yes, no matter how fast I reshape the layout, if they're outmatched in stamina and speed, there's no answer. In that case, I really will need to improve existing items somehow...."

Just then.

"......"

The General Manager blinked his golden eyes.

[Sixth Sense]
'Signs of Awakening detected.'

"...Oh."

He smiled.

"Splendid."

"Correct!"

"This, I can use."

He hadn't bothered paying attention to outside affairs until now, but the situation had changed.

"We can make things even more enjoyable."

The General Manager looked at the latent Artist, Lee Seon-hae.

"If this goes well, we might even recruit more users...."

"Correct! Correct!"

"So our game finally sees the light of day."

"Revenue up! Successful IPO!"

"I'm deeply moved."