Seon-hae, who had been standing in a daze, began to walk.
"......"
Hoo—...
She steadied her breathing.
And opened the door.
"......"
A changing room and showers came into view.
'...If I go through here....'
She opened another door and found a corridor.
Spotting signs in a mix of Korean and English, she turned around. So I really was in the Aqua Park after all, she thought, and followed the path. It wasn't a complicated route. The signs were well marked.
She pressed the elevator button. The doors opened shortly after.
"......"
Ding—
Reaching the 1st floor took only a moment.
Was it just her imagination, or did the lobby seem more crowded than before? Crowded was generous—you could still count them on one hand—but the increase itself was unmistakable.
'...Are those people monsters too?'
Born human and turned into monsters, or monsters from the start.
She made no effort to meet anyone's eyes. She made no effort to meet their eyes, yet she could still feel their gazes reaching her. She had the impression it was similar to what she'd felt in the Aqua Park.
Seon-hae looked toward the counter.
"......"
Only staff wearing identical expressions occupied those seats.
The composed face she remembered was nowhere to be found. The young face that was clearly a student's, the skin pale and bloodless, the eyes that would narrow gently when their gazes met.
Even the fatigue behind that, and the dry, blank expression she'd grown accustomed to in just a few days—none of it was there.
"...Right."
Seon-hae murmured reflexively.
'He said he wouldn't die.'
As if persuading herself, she turned her head, pushed open the lobby's front door, and stepped outside. The first thing she heard was the sound of rain.
"......"
"...Oh."
A black sedan came belatedly into view.
"Well, this is surprising."
"......"
"I didn't expect you to come out this intact. Then again, you've always been lucky in this sort of thing, ever since you were small. Talented, too."
A healthy elderly man. His hair was fully white and his skin was lined with wrinkles, but his build was solid.
"...Uncle...."
"I was going to inquire whether I could purchase some keepsakes, but it seems there's no need for that."
"Why are you here?"
The old man, as if for a cherished niece, personally opened the sedan's rear door.
"Get in."
"You seem to know an awful lot."
"I believe the age for finding joy in getting rained on has long since passed for you."
"I've seen kids die plenty of times."
Seon-hae murmured.
"I've even seen one die because of me...."
"......"
"But it's my first time killing someone to save myself."
"......"
"...I just...."
"Are you tired?"
"Yes."
"That's an indulgence unlike you."
"Seriously."
Not going to sugarcoat it, is he?
She swallowed the retort and smiled weakly.
"This is why I hate you."
"That, too, is a meaningless sentiment."
"Haha."
Seon-hae stood still for a moment, then got into the car a few minutes later.
***
Congratulations, General Manager.
You have successfully completed the Beginner Manager Course.
A portion of this hotel's authority has been transferred to you.
[Tutorial Performance]
Guest Services: ★★★★★
Room Management & Cleaning: ★★★★★
Staff Management: ★★★★★
Security & Safety Management: ★★★★☆
Facility Management & Operations: ★★★★★
Overall Rating: S
[New Features Unlocked]
Full Interface Activation
Management System Module Access
Sensory Expansion
Presence Detection Permitted
[Accessible Areas (Open Version Exclusive)]
25F: Rooftop Garden
23F: Aqua Park
22F: Sky Lounge & Dining
3F, 5-6F: Lifestyle Zone
2F: Grand Banquet Hall & Buffet
B1: Staff-Only Break Room
B5~??: Hunting Grounds
[Status Change Summary]
Manager Grade: Lv.1 → Lv.763
External Observation Level: 0 → 3
Accumulated Resources: ■■,■■■,■■■
Total Play Time: 1,770 days
[Tutorial Rewards Claimed]
Nightmare Assets ×300
Random Box ×1
Employee Recruitment Tickets ×10
Explore the hidden floors and reach the dark truth of this hotel.
From this point forward, every decision you make will determine the fate of this hotel.
***
"......"
A system window that filled his entire vision.
Frowning, Yeon-woo muttered from where he lay in bed.
"...I already know all of this...."
He'd been playing this game for twenty-six years. Not knowing would be stranger.
He cracked open his gritty eyes and blinked. The sensation of sleep deprivation. A familiar discomfort. He sat up and stared at the translucent window before him with dry indifference.
"...Hmm."
Honestly, the technical marvel took precedence.
'I'd wondered how the interface would manifest, and sure enough. So this is how it was implemented.'
Within his existing knowledge, it most closely resembled augmented reality technology. It wasn't his field of expertise, but even an industry professional would have been stunned by the overwhelming level of polish.
'What's the underlying principle? If a separate device were attached to my eyeballs or brain—no, even that wouldn't explain certain aspects. It's not a HUD system, either. If the medium is air, achieving this level of resolution and rendering stability would be physically near-impossible....'
Around that point, Yeon-woo closed his eyes and severed the train of thought.
"......"
He rubbed his face.
"...My thoughts are drifting. Must be the sleep deprivation."
"Yes."
"I'd assumed this body was designed to be unaffected by sleep duration."
"Nyes."
"Well, there'll be time to research that gradually."
He'd just come back from the dead. Resurrection was a routine procedure for him, but this time another person's life had been at stake. And here he was, having barely clawed his way through that ordeal, contemplating the output principles of a system interface.
'I should get my head on straight first.'
He took a deep breath and lifted his head, and only then did proper rationality return.
"Did Director Lee Seon-hae make it out of the hotel safely?"
If the bug had worked properly, she should have left without any additional procedures. But the Drenched One in the Aqua Park had been in a somewhat ambiguous state, which privately worried him.
He'd even been prepared to personally escort the director out if she were still trapped inside. Coco, who had been staring up at him, perked its head up and mimicked his words.
"Made it out safely."
"...Oh, right."
Yeon-woo smiled faintly.
"That's a relief."
Good. No one had died. Regardless of how the process unfolded, it was the result he'd wanted.
"How many days has it been since I died in the event?"
"Days."
Coco bounced on the bed—boing, boing, boing—three times.
"Ah, three days."
"Three days."
"I thought I'd already taught you how to count numbers and dates."
"Taught you."
"Are you pretending not to know, or did you forget already?"
"No."
"I really can't tell what you mean by 'no'...."
Yeon-woo picked Coco up. It was squishy, lukewarm, and soft. An excellent texture and heft.
"......"
It was over.
'Along with my career.'
The absurdity of this situation drew a hollow laugh. At this rate, how many years would he be looking at in prison? He'd spent his whole life priding himself on living honestly, and now he couldn't show his face to the world.
"Trying to argue that none of this was my choice wouldn't get me anywhere."
"No?"
"No."
Regardless, he was the one who'd steered the situation, and the fact that he hadn't been able to send the guests out immediately was undeniable. Yeon-woo closed his eyes and took stock of the circumstances.
'I was an abduction victim, but in the end, I cooperated with the operation.'
He'd stood by and watched while fully aware that someone was in danger.
"Article 32... Article 33... Article 30 if I'm lucky...."
"......??"
"Just being involved in a criminal organization is enough to make a prison sentence likely... but if I argue the abduction angle, I might be able to get it reduced to a suspended sentence or a short term...."
Coco tilted its head. Judging by its fidgety movements, that was its version of being flustered. It seemed to have picked up reasonably human gestures.
"......"
Creepy, that.
Yeon-woo cut off the thread of thought by kneading Coco's cheeks. The yielding texture pushed between his fingers. Now this sensation—he truly couldn't fathom how it worked.
"Of course, these are concerns only possible when I can fully return to society."
"Yes."
"Yes."
A sudden unease crept in.
The sense that a great many things had changed.
***
"—Cough."
Ah, honestly.
Bad premonitions never miss. Not even once.
"Cough, HACK! Ugh...!"
Blood dripped steadily from his mouth and nose, and from his ears and eyes as well. He tried to hold it back with his hands, then gave up. It didn't take long to realize it was pointless.
'At this rate, I might actually die.'
Only after several rough breaths and bouts of hemoptysis that came like retching did he finally manage to raise his head. His hunched back slowly straightened.
"Hh...."
Beneath his heaving breath, Coco circled him in a frenzy.
"...I'm fine."
"No! No! No!"
"To be precise, the situation appears to be anything but fine, yet my mind is strangely calm. Have I finally lost it?"
"No...."
"Why are my brain and my heart operating independently?"
It was clearly a serious situation. He was well accustomed to dying and getting injured as a game character, but right now he was even calmer than he'd been back then. No—it almost felt like it wasn't a big deal at all.
'How do I even describe this?'
Ah, right. That was exactly the feeling.
'Like the time I'd been researching until 7 AM from back-to-back all-nighters and went straight back to work, and my nose started bleeding....'
...Wait, wouldn't that mean this is anything but fine?
"...At any rate, it's clear that significant changes have occurred in my body."
"Yes."
"Yes, my durability was already miserably poor beyond comparison, but now it seems that even the system that used to guarantee minimum survival isn't functioning properly. Otherwise, there's no reason I should feel like my lifespan is being shaved away just by breathing."
"Yes."
"I've lost my mind, haven't I? What exactly went wrong? There are too many likely causes for me to pinpoint the exact one. At this rate, forget everything else—basic survival itself becomes difficult...."
His body was continuously destabilizing. His mind, too, was fracturing in indistinct ways. Yeon-woo bowed his head and looked down at his fingertips, having pulled off his gloves.
"...The color's already changed."
One of the penalties that came with contracting the Drenched One. In game terminology, it was called 'Terminal Pallor'—a condition where the extremities turned blue, signifying extreme vulnerability to impacts.
"At this rate, walking around barehanded is out of the question."
Far too conspicuous.
"How unfortunate."
"......"
"...Cough, gkh...!"
"No! No! No!"
The coughing erupted again. It was a semi-permanent penalty—there was no escaping it.
'Terminal Pallor. Persistent Hypothermia. Submersion Cough Episodes. Automatic Breathing Suppression Near Large Bodies of Water. Aquatic Auditory Sensory Disorder. Drowning Re-Experience Syndrome. Waterside Compulsive Urge....'
Wasn't it impressive? Seven penalties in total. The majesty of a Monster Guest Common to Both Versions was truly fearsome. Even as he coughed hard enough to feel like his innards were about to spill, the future looked pitch-black.
'Not about overcoming—just about enduring.'
That was how this game was played.
"Hff, hh...."
Yeon-woo retched for a long while more before finally slumping back in his chair.
"...Haah...."
His body and mind were in tatters. Might as well have been a wrung-out rag.
"...Instinctively, I feel that the fact I'm alive right now is nothing short of a miracle. What a peculiar sensation. The system, the blood ritual, the bug, and the contract penalties are all tangled up in knots, somehow maintaining human form... only to come undone...."
"......"
"Like a Jenga tower... riddled with holes."
A Jenga tower that could collapse with a single stray breath.
'I suppose it's some consolation that the pieces are so heavily entangled they won't topple easily.'
He truly wouldn't die from just breathing, but it was certain he'd been reduced to a state requiring extreme caution with his body.
"If my memory isn't failing me, hemoptysis and blood vomiting aren't among the Drenched One's penalties."
"Yes."
"It's probably an effect of the Crimson Core Commentary ritual."
"Yes...."
"If this isn't pneumonia or a gastric ulcer but is simply occurring due to the softening of my internal organs, then that's a relief."
No—correction. No, it wasn't. Absolutely not a relief. Let me not lie to myself.
'Still, the fact that I can estimate the cause is comparatively fortunate. Few things are worse than being completely unable to grasp the situation.'
He had a rough idea.
One of the penalties: 'Submersion Cough Episodes.'
A condition caused by the internal organs becoming waterlogged. The blood he was coughing up was likely the result of the water making contact with lungs that had become closer to liquid blood than actual organs.
In other words, what he'd been vomiting was his own blood—blood that constituted his organs—
"......"
"Hello...."
"...I've been thinking for a moment."
"Thinking?"
"About what kind of catastrophic impact on human dignity would result from scooping up this vomit and putting it back in my body."
"Pardon?"
"Indeed."
Absolutely not. Out of the question. He couldn't do it.
'The synergy is truly the worst.'
The Crimson Core Commentary ritual had rendered his entire body little more than liquid blood, and the Water Ghost contract penalty was helpfully pumping that blood out of him. At this rate, there was no avoiding anemia.
'No—anemia is far too polite a word for this.'
This was no different from dying in real time.
'To put it in ordinary terms, every time I cough, a chunk of my organs is tearing away.'
Crimson Core Commentary. A ritual that transforms a human into eternal liquid blood. In this body, every single drop of blood was not mere fluid—it was his sole physical asset.
"......"
Whether my blood,
or another's.
"...And as long as I'm under contract with the Drenched One, I have to keep coughing up these precious assets. There's no voiding the contract unless I switch to a new save file."
"Yes."
"So this... isn't something that can be solved by simply vomiting it out. The inevitable anemia problem must be addressed through separate means in order to guarantee my survival."
A passage from the Crimson Core Commentary came to mind.
"According to the records, every test subject of the Commentary became a monster that craved blood. Whether drinking blood, chewing raw flesh, or reveling in cannibalism."
"Yes."
"I don't... feel that kind of compulsion. Perhaps because I'm the one who successfully completed the ritual, unlike them? That's a relief, I suppose. But the absence of compulsion aside, doesn't this mean... I, too, am now in a position where I need to procure blood externally?"
"Yes!"
Yeon-woo looked down at Coco, sitting on his lap. Reading what Coco was thinking wasn't difficult. This crafty little cat, honestly.
"You were just thinking about how to take blood from the Human Guests."
"Nyes?"
"We cannot accept Human Guests."
"No?"
"There are limits to how much you can turn a person into a criminal. It's one thing to be a mere murderer, but now you're planning to make me a cannibal? Just how far do you intend to drag me dow— cough... gkh...!"
"......!! No! Hello! No! No!"
"Enough, ugh, I'm fi— BLEGH..."
"HELLO!!!"
Blood streaming from the corners of his mouth, and Coco circling round and round the collapsed Yeon-woo. This absurd pandemonium and the blood-vomiting didn't subside until a full two hours had passed.
Yes, a full two hours.
"...The game did have specific intervals where coughing episodes were frequent."
The timing of the contract penalties was typically random. Or else entirely continuous.
"How unfortunate."
"Yes...."
"Am I even still a person at this point?"
Yeon-woo stared at the bloodstains messily strewn across the marble floor.
'What an absurd state of affairs.'
A pool of blood so thick and wide it was embarrassing to call a mere 'trace.' The blood that had fallen from his body was utterly still, yet Yeon-woo could feel that it was still alive.
The puddle was not dead liquid—it remained part of him, connected. His pallid fingertips silently brushed across the area over his sternum.
'Something,'
...felt hollow inside.
"...At this rate...."
I may never be able to become a person.
"......"
"......"
After a long silence, Yeon-woo added in a sunken voice.
"...Let's find a way."
A way—whatever it took—to remain myself.