After finishing the tutorial, Yeon-woo had surmised as much. That he had become a being straddling somewhere between 'game character,' 'mass of liquid blood,' and 'human.'
When the situation had reached this point, it was only natural for a person to grow curious.
What would happen if he stepped foot outside this hotel?
"......"
Yeon-woo, attempting to resolve that curiosity, had nearly crossed the threshold of death in a mere thirty seconds.
"Before I can even be miserable about having durability worse than a single cell, I'm bewildered. What kind of structural distortion in one's tissue could so casually bypass biological limits? I need to publish this immediately."
"Hello?"
"I wasn't planning on going all the way out, either."
Obviously. With a body that was nothing but a pile of penalties, professional life itself was impossible.
He'd simply intended to get a breath of fresh air while resolving some doubts about his body, now that the tutorial was over. He'd just been released from prolonged confinement, after all.
'I just didn't expect my body to try dying the moment I stepped out.'
Me. This body. My weakened soul and biological tissue structure.
"I've truly lost my mind."
He should have known sooner. That his current self could not leave the hotel's domain.
An ordinary human body, compounded with a physique that possessed absolutely no defensive mechanisms. A structure that absorbed external impacts in their entirety. He constructed that hypothesis.
'In other words, the rules known as the system are forcibly propping up a body that cannot survive on its own.'
Which meant that the moment he left the game's domain, he'd be stripped of those protective rules and become a 'human block of soft tofu.'
'And if I died that way....'
Good lord.
"...If I die outside the hotel's domain, can I still be resurrected?"
"No."
"How unfortunate."
At this rate, he'd become an earthbound spirit of the hotel. In more ways than one.
'Absolutely not.'
This was unacceptable.
'If there's a cause for my body being in this state, there must be a way to improve it. If there isn't one, I'll make one. Biology is my field. Given enough time, I should be able to improve it to the point where daily life is at least possible....'
How quickly?
"......"
How safely?
"......"
"......"
He sighed. Nothing in life came easy.
"...Shall we eat?"
"Yes."
"Let's have some boiled pork."
"Yes."
"Yes."
***
"Listen."
He hadn't planned on going out in the first place, but the situation was more serious than he'd anticipated.
"I may die soon."
"...? No?"
"At this point, it's like sprinting through a minefield and vaguely praying to survive. It feels like just yesterday I was grimly joking that at least breathing wouldn't kill me, but now I feel like I could genuinely die from choking on my own spit."
"No, no, no. No...."
"Why can't you give me a definitive no?"
"Yes...."
"Yes?"
If you go and affirm it, what am I supposed to do?
"...At any rate, restoring this body looks like it will be an even longer campaign than planned."
"Yes."
"That almost sounded like you were hoping for exactly that, but for the sake of our friendship—which we'll be maintaining for a long time to come—I'll chalk it up to my imagination."
"No."
"Wicked cat."
"No."
"Right."
The one consolation was that the tutorial was finished.
'My body's become horrendously fragile, but if I combine the tutorial rewards with the bug, I should be able to create at least a minimum of breathing room for hotel operations.'
Now that the interface was open, he wouldn't need to leave his room for a while.
Hoone offered various quality-of-life benefits immediately after the tutorial. The design philosophy was to subject players to hellish difficulty at the very start, then let them breathe as a reward.
'Not that anything actually becomes easy.'
Yeon-woo sipped his buckwheat tea while looking at the system window.
[Tutorial Performance]
Guest Services: ★★★★★
Room Management & Cleaning: ★★★★★
Staff Management: ★★★★★
Security & Safety Management: ★★★★☆
Facility Management & Operations: ★★★★★
Overall Rating: S
As announced when he received the Platinum Random Box, the overall rating was S.
"......"
There wasn't a major difference in reward tiers, but it wasn't the game's highest score.
'...The failed rescue route during the Aqua Park event must have been factored in. It was caused by a bug, so it's hard to blame anyone, but it's still a shame I didn't get S+.'
He scrolled down.
[New Features Unlocked]
Full Interface Activation
Management System Module Access
Sensory Expansion
Presence Detection Permitted
"...First, with the interface now open...."
Yeon-woo looked at Coco sitting on the dining table across from him.
"This will be a great help for hotel operations."
"Management System Module. Sensory Expansion. Presence Detection."
"Yes, those included."
As expected, Coco seemed to be synchronized with this system window.
'Well, it's an entity that could practically be called the hotel itself. It's perhaps only natural that a being who was part of the game would perceive system rewards and notifications in real time.'
Yeon-woo turned his gaze back to the window.
"...Hmm...."
There were quite a few entries. All familiar functions, but their weight was different from before.
Tools that secured operational control, closed information gaps, and enabled prescient decision-making. With improved access to previously hard-to-detect targets, a wider range of options had opened up.
'All the areas have been unlocked, too.'
[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
Apart from floating in midair, it was a carbon copy of the in-game layout.
'So this is how it was implemented.'
Yeon-woo slowly scanned the list.
"...Right, these were the areas I selected for facility automation."
The Aqua Park on the 23rd floor.
The Dining on the 22nd floor.
And the Buffet on the 2nd floor.
'The facilities that require the most hands-on work and see the heaviest use in the early stages of hotel operations.'
Pouring the automation tickets from the tutorial rewards into these areas first was the natural course of action.
'After that, I'd need to conquer the non-existent floors where the next critical facilities are located, satisfy the conditions, and clear all the way through the Closed Version for the most stable operations possible.'
Operations....
"......"
"Pardon?"
"It's nothing. The future just went dark, is all."
It felt like a mountain of assignments had been dumped on him.
'...Intriguing, though.'
Uncharted territory was always a subject for research. Above all, this was the in-game hotel he'd cherished for over twenty years.
The curiosity of a player and researcher alike stirred—wondering what textures the areas he'd only seen in pixel graphics had been rendered with in reality.
'I'll verify all that in due time.'
Since he'd set the difficulty to Open Version, operations themselves should be considerably more manageable. And thanks to the interface activation, he could now manage guests remotely from his quarters.
'In my current condition, not dying is the smartest policy. I should restructure my operational approach to handle all tasks from within my quarters whenever possible.'
But a change in approach didn't reduce the accumulated workload.
"......"
Yeon-woo swallowed a shallow sigh.
[Status Change Summary]
Manager Grade: Lv.1 → Lv.763
External Observation Level: 0 → 3
Accumulated Resources: ■■,■■■,■■■
Total Play Time: 1,770 days
"...The level's past 700."
"Yes."
"That's not exactly welcome news."
An abnormal level-up caused by the bug. Resources that couldn't possibly exist at the tutorial stage had accumulated excessively, and the system had ultimately converted all those figures into levels.
'There will be gains, but proportional risks as well.'
The biggest advantage was that it had become easier to secure the hotel's cooperation.
In this game, levels represented a manager's 'standing.' The higher the manager's level, the more sensitively the hotel system responded to the player's disposition.
'The Monster Guests will generally show goodwill, too. That blood-loving guest backing off at a single refusal from me earlier was ultimately due to this level gap. Before, there wouldn't have been a chance.'
He was a rather persistent guest, after all.
'And....'
Beyond that, there were many practical benefits like skill unlocks and shop access. Functions that should have opened sequentially with each level were now viewable all at once, thanks to the bug.
However, the downsides were equally clear.
"......"
"......"
Yeon-woo quietly set down his cup.
"...I've lost my appetite."
"No."
"The proper response in that situation would be 'That won't do.'"
"That won't do."
"I didn't expect you to look after my meals too, Coco. How very kind of you."
Yeon-woo's gaze lingered once more on the line: [External Observation Level: 0 → 3].
"...Honestly, this was one thing I wasn't hoping for."
This game was rife with meta elements.
The trickiest of all was the fact that, even when starting a new file, certain guests remembered the player. Naturally, these events only triggered when specific, demanding conditions were met.
And Lee Yeon-woo.
'I.'
Had played nothing but this game for twenty-six years.
"Haah......"
This was precisely the side effect of the Tutorial Bug that Yeon-woo found most troublesome. Certain guests, having met specific conditions, would recall 'records' from the past.
'In other words,'
The records from every single game file accumulated over those twenty-six years.
'How many guests' conditions did I satisfy in total?'
The Drenched One, with whom he'd just contracted, was one of them. The fact that the game had become reality and the External Observation Level had risen meant that quite a few guests had actually recalled him.
'Is the Drenched One showing no particular behavior even immediately after the contract because it recalled those memories? But this isn't a situation where I can relax just because it's being quiet. If it remembers my twenty-six years of records.'
The attention and focus of Monster Guests was fundamentally akin to a penalty.
"...It's also unsettling that the Drenched One hasn't been seen since the contract."
"Eeh?"
"If it signed a contract, it should at least show its face as a staff member. Is it in the Aqua Park? Or wandering the closed areas?"
"No."
"Not planning to give me the details, I see."
"Yes."
"To put it weakly—I'm genuinely not sure I can survive."
With this soft-tofu body of his.
When he muttered that, Coco—which had been face-deep in its plate, absorbed in eating—raised its head. Then, just as it had done once before, it declared with full confidence.
"Guaranteed."
"By you?"
"Coco. Guaranteed."
"I appreciate the words of comfort."
"Yes."
"Yes."
The one consolation was that the worst-case scenario hadn't arrived yet.
Even if countless Monster Guests remembered him, it was merely the 'recalling' stage. No matter how many variables he estimated, things wouldn't be in 'the same state as before.'
'Just because a contract was formed in a past file doesn't mean it automatically carries over to this world.'
All Yeon-woo needed to do was be a bit more careful.
'But... aside from that, bugs are bound to crop up fairly often with the Playable Character itself. I can't get a read on how those will manifest in reality. Could my physical condition get even worse?'
If so, that would be a miracle in the worst sense of the word.
'Or perhaps my current state is already the product of the bug. Nothing is certain, so a thorough investigation is necessary, but I'm not sure I'll have the time.'
Whether or not he had the time, checking and improving his body was essential. No matter how much he benefited from rewards and bugs, in this fragile state, a disaster could strike at any moment—and strike hard.
Yeon-woo picked up his spoon with a dry expression.
"Yes."
"......"
"Yes!"
"I didn't expect such enthusiastic support."
This was the reaction to him resuming his meal.
'Transparently obvious.'
Eat well and get healthy—that was the message.
'Coco cares a great deal about my physical and mental health. I can sense its determination not to let me accept the hotel in a broken state. At the very least, it doesn't seem to want a puppet manager.'
Another train of thought.
'Regular meals, a consistent sleep rhythm, appropriate activity levels and hydration, and balanced nutrition. It's not as though I don't know those are the hallmarks of a healthy life.'
It was a part he'd been neglecting, wondering whether such common-sense wisdom even had value for this body.
'But it's clear now... compared to the tutorial, the body's responses to maintenance are far more immediate. If I don't live like a normal person, something might give way at any moment.'
Even if it was a body perched on the ambiguous border between living and non-living.
"......"
He held back another sigh.
"I'll need to calibrate."
"Calibrate?"
"Yes, calibrate."
This, too, would be part of the method to preserve 'himself.'
'And now I have free use of the kitchen.'
Clink.
Yeon-woo looked down at his bowl, which had been scraped clean.
"...I suppose the first step is putting together a meal plan."
Even during his relentlessly busy days as a researcher, he'd always made sure his diet was balanced. Now that he arguably had more leisure than back then, he could manage his sleep schedule with equal rigor.
He decided to begin proper self-management in earnest.
"With a level this high, quite a few recipes should be unlocked for free."
"...! Yes!"
"I didn't expect you to be this happy about it."
"Meal plan! Ingredients! Recipes!"
It didn't look the part, and it had never been described this way in the game, but Coco was surprisingly fond of eating.
'Pig-cat....'
"Yes."
"Oh, you admit it?"
"Yes."
"Remarkable."
His thoughts had been read. His privacy apparently didn't exist.
"......"
Rain against the window.
'...It'll be hard to see another person's face going forward.'
He could no longer go outside.
'How unfortunate.'
Yeon-woo thought as much, and finished his meal.
***
"...Hmm...."
The old man raised his head and gazed up at the hotel.
"...Looks like quite a convincing nest, even on a second viewing."
A building that soared high. A rooftop submerged in rain and fog, reduced to a silhouette. And the dense forest encircling it like a barrier.
For Seon-hae, ever curious, it was the kind of composition she'd have been unable to resist entering, as if drawn by a spell.
'And.'
He could feel it.
"......"
The thick smell of blood wafting toward him.
'Gold built upon screams.'
He knew places like this.
"...Not a suitable place for a young Dokkaebi to reside."