CRASH—!!
"......!!"
His body slammed into the floor in an instant.
'What kind of strength....'
It felt as though the skin of his ankle was being ripped off. There was no time to scream against the monstrous pressure, like being clamped in a steel vise—Yeon-woo was dragged across the floor, clawing at it.
"Ugh, wai—!!"
SCREEECH—!!
'This deranged hotel, honestly.'
Even as he was being dragged, the doorframe of Room 1814 came into view.
Yeon-woo grabbed it reflexively. No—it was closer to an automatic input than a reflex. A predetermined sequence from a cutscene. Yeon-woo knew the next scene all too well.
The door drops from above like a guillotine blade, fast.
Ah....
'This is maddening.'
CRUNCH—!!
"......!"
A sickening sound of rupture.
His arm convulsed. The sensation of his wrist being severed was vivid.
The door slammed shut with a deafening crash, his right hand caught in the gap, and his body was yanked the other way—torn clean off. The severed hand was left sitting alone in the corridor.
That was the cutscene he 'saw.' The blood flowing through the gap where the door had vanished into the wall, and the hand left behind.
"......"
THUD, SCREEEECH—!!
"...Ha...."
Even as he was dragged helplessly, Yeon-woo felt a stab of admiration. It had been one of his hypotheses, but he hadn't expected the player's perspective to project into reality and allow him to see scenes from 'invisible angles.' A peculiar phenomenon.
This too must be a mechanism of the hotel, so if he analyzed it properly later, it could be put to good use....
"Eeh."
"I'm aware this isn't the time, Coco."
His body, being hauled at tremendous speed.
Mercifully, thanks to the game's allowances, being dragged across the floor didn't destroy his clothes. But any further delay and it would truly be game over. The owner of this hand would kill Yeon-woo.
'I can't afford more deaths and resurrections. I need to break free of this grip. If it follows the game, a mechanism should appear soon....'
Yeon-woo darted his eyes around. Dim scenery whipping past. Within that darkness, flashes of dark crimson gazes.
And at last, he spotted it—a lever.
'If I,' pull that.
Clunk.
"Ah."
BOOM—!!
WHAM!!
"—...!!"
He sucked in a ragged breath.
An isolation shutter that had dropped in an instant slammed into his back. He'd been hauled at high speed and then hurled mid-trajectory. His arms, which had been clutching Coco without realizing it, went slack.
His back tingled and his arms trembled. Separate from 'perceiving' pain merely as 'information,' a groan tore out of him involuntarily.
"Gkh, ngh...!"
THUD!
Bounced off the shutter, he crashed face-first into the floor again.
"Thi—"
What kind of ordeal was this?
'Like a rubber-band toy for children.'
Unbearable revulsion surged. He despised the way his body flailed about beyond his own volition. No matter how paper-thin his body was, this had crossed the line and then some.
With trembling arms, he braced himself against the floor and propped up his torso.
"...Alright, fine...."
The metallic tang of blood mingled with his labored breath. Right, then. Time to pull himself together.
"...I perceive the pain, but it isn't agonizing. This contradiction bewilders me every time. Don't you think so?"
"No?"
"You wicked little cat."
"No!"
"Ha...."
His ankle throbbed. That was how he 'perceived' it. Glancing sideways, he saw several blood-soaked fingers embedded deep in his ankle.
Yeon-woo calmly regarded the grotesquely elongated arm extending from those fingers. Slumped on the floor, he surveyed the bizarre appendage with a dry gaze.
'Cut off.'
The descending shutter had severed it in one clean stroke. A hollow laugh escaped.
"Haha."
"..."
"...We're in the same boat, it seems."
BANG—!! CRASH!! CRACKLE!!
As if in reply, violent noise erupted from beyond the shutter.
Despite the considerable thickness of the steel door, the vibrations carried through clearly. The way back was now completely sealed. Swallowing the fatigue that surged toward him, Yeon-woo let out a quiet breath.
"......"
He stared at the translucent interface window hovering in the air.
"I thought I'd prepared well enough."
Inventory. A space for storing and retrieving objects that Yeon-woo recognized as 'items.'
"At this rate, my preparations may have been for nothing."
"No!"
"You think?"
Even with a useful function like this, variables always exceeded imagination.
Originally, in event situations like these, there were virtually no means of attacking the monsters. He'd brought makeshift weapons on the off chance that reality might be different, but the situation was far worse than anticipated.
'No—I deliberated plenty.'
He simply lacked the capital to procure anything better.
'Even if I can't use them as direct weapons, they should be useful for other purposes.'
"Hello?"
"I'm fine. Come here."
"Yes."
"Good."
Yeon-woo extended a shaking hand and pulled Coco back into his arms. Cradling the thing—like a squishy bundle of silk—he slowly rose. His thoroughly weakened body swayed.
The deformed arm connected to the fingers embedded in one ankle dragged along the floor like a shackle.
"Well, now...."
Yeon-woo clicked his tongue and lightly shook his foot.
Perhaps because his body was so soft, the monster's deeply lodged fingers came free surprisingly easily. Which meant his own ankle had been half-severed in the process, but still.
'The blood smell is strong.'
Yeon-woo looked down at his ankle. Coco's gaze followed suit. After staring at the blood gushing there for a moment, Yeon-woo faintly furrowed his brow.
'No, it's not from there.'
Drip....
Something was falling from a point distinctly higher than his ankle. Vivid red dots appeared on the floor. When he touched his forehead, a sticky, slippery sensation ran down his fingers.
It wasn't that his forehead was split.
"......"
...Ah, the sensation at the back of his head was wrong.
His entire back was damp as well. Even in his extreme confusion, an ominous certainty seized him. He briefly excused himself from Coco in his arms.
"One moment."
"Yes."
He tucked Coco under one arm and ran his free hand along the back of his neck.
"Well, then."
All his hand met was blood.
"There was no such scene in the cutscene."
"Yes."
"This must be because I've grown too fragile?"
"Yes."
"You never mince words, do you?"
"Pardon?"
"Indeed."
In the original cutscene, you crashed into the shutter, fell, and got back up—that was all. A situation where half your body turned to mush was absolutely not part of it.
Under an intact game system, that is.
"It's a headache when my body only halfway mimics being human."
Calling it a mimicry of being human was generous, really. Since his constituent material was essentially liquid blood, an impact this severe caused the body's tissues to fail to hold together and scatter.
"Let's see...."
Fortunately, enough blood remained to maintain his form.
Yeon-woo used Blood Magic to begin filling the hollowed-out spaces. As time passed, the emptiness in the back of his head and across his back gradually filled in.
Having stitched up the torn pocket, there would be no further leakage.
'Or should I say hemorrhage.'
Either way, in systemic terms, it was a deficit all the same.
"I'm little more than an empty shell at this point."
"Yes."
"A human-shaped empty shell. I've truly lost my mind."
"Yes."
By now, Coco did seem to be agreeing with genuine understanding.
"......"
"Hello?"
"...I'm low on blood."
"Yes."
"Is there really no option other than temporarily setting aside my human dignity?"
"...? Hello?"
"I'm not exactly well. I'm desperately short on blood."
"Quarters. Bed. Rest."
"I'm aware of that."
Sleeping and waking in the Operator's Quarters would replenish the missing blood.
But right now, he couldn't leave until he completed the 14th-floor game. His life, already a candle in the wind, was about to gutter out.
'Then the options really are....'
Yeon-woo looked at the blood-soaked floor.
"......"
He looked at the shuddering shutter.
"......"
And he looked at the pitch-dark surroundings.
"...Do you know what I was just thinking?"
"Yes."
"A serious value conflict has arisen under the overarching premise that my humanity must be preserved. Dignity is also an essential component of humanity, and no matter how desperate my circumstances, the question is whether it's rational to lick my own blood off the floor."
"......"
"But then I also think—if I can't stay alive, if this form deteriorates further after death, what good is that dignity? I can't plunge deeper into the abyss just to preserve one shred of dignity, can I? Am I being dramatic?"
"......"
"You go uncannily silent at times like these."
Yeon-woo lamented and added:
"The shutter will be breached soon."
Right—dignity or not, the immediate priority was escaping this place.
Lapping spilled blood off the floor wasn't a wise choice. Impurities would reduce the efficiency, and licking the floor clean with his tongue would take far too long.
At that rate, the monster would smash through the shutter and eat him first, long before he'd replenished anything.
"If only I'd fully mastered the blood-drinking technique."
There were levels to the art of blood consumption. As a novice who'd merely been lucky enough to succeed at the Crimson Core Commentary ritual, Yeon-woo had only learned the primitive method of oral ingestion.
"......"
Oral ingestion.
"I'm not in immediate danger of dying."
"Yes."
"Right."
His phone battery was at about 71%, so to speak. Being down 29% didn't mean the power would cut out immediately. If he conserved carefully, he could last a few more hours.
'The only thing bothered is my temperament, which can't rest easy unless the battery's above 90%.'
The coughing fits and nausea that erupted just when things seemed to be improving were a problem, but to see this event through to the end, there was no choice for now.
Yeon-woo adjusted his hold on Coco. It was squishy.
"There is a way."
"People?"
"No, that's a pass on my end."
"Eeh."
"I suspect the other party would pass on me, too."
"Eeeh."
"There are blood packs in here."
Packs filled with fresh blood.
"Finding them shouldn't be too difficult. They're on the way, after all."
In the game, they'd been used as decoy items to lure pursuers in the later stages of the run. If he cared about appearances, aiming for those was the better option.
"Well then, now that the situation's been sorted, shall I stop whining?"
"Pardon?"
"It's time to...."
He surveyed the area.
"......"
"Get to work."
Countless holes in the walls.
The eyes beyond them were watching Yeon-woo.
***
14th floor, Central Control Room.
"This is the area that controlled every unethical experiment and ritual conducted within the building. Accordingly, the benefits of obtaining the Central Control Room's authority are substantial, but the danger is proportional."
Yeon-woo added, as if asking the Coco in his arms.
"Wouldn't you agree?"
"Yes."
He walked through the deeply shadowed corridor. The rooms were submerged in silence, yet from behind the countless holes in every wall, innumerable eyes fixed on Yeon-woo with relentless intensity.
"The identity of the Playable Character is a subject even I have pondered for a long time."
Human, ghost, or simply a monster? What causal thread bound it to this hotel?
"The developer said it was up to each player's interpretation. What a deflating answer. Thanks to that, even after knowing this game for over twenty years, I still haven't reached a conclusion."
"Pardon?"
"The hotel's reactions toward the character are excessively contradictory. Sometimes it attacks with open hostility, and other times it defends in ways that are hard to fathom. There are also moments of complete neutrality."
"Yes!"
"That's precisely what makes it so vexing. What, exactly, was the 'General Manager' in this hotel's history?"
Yeon-woo peered into the holes in the wall.
"But when I'm confronted with a sight like this."
"......"
"...I can't help but think that perhaps 'I,' too, was one of the perpetrators."
The gazes from within the holes, through the cracked fissures, looking at him.
The vivid things within those gazes approached him as deeply as if they were splitting open his entrails. Screams brimming with fear, pain, and anguish. Without a single sound. Without any words or form of language.
Without even a cry like an animal's, they were screaming at Yeon-woo.
"It creates an unsettling feeling, as though the victims of the past are watching me from sealed rooms. Whether their eyes ask for help or pour out resentment, I can't tell."
Noise from somewhere. Yeon-woo used the mechanical hum as a guide and kept walking.
"But when you actually open the door and step inside."
He pushed open a steel door and entered.
"There's nothing inside."
"Yes."
As though the gazes that had been pouring down moments ago were an illusion, as though the bloodshot eyes had been a trick of the mind, the room was empty.
A single old, dust-covered CRT television sat in the silence.
"It doesn't work, as expected."
In the game, too, it had been a non-interactive background object. Becoming reality hadn't changed that, apparently.
"Still, it's fortunate, isn't it? Even in reality, I remember every route through this maze. The first time I entered the Room 14 event, this vicious layout killed me quite a few times."
"Yes."
"You remember? That's impressive...."
"Yes."
"Moments like these remind me that you're a being who's been with me for twenty-six years."
Rooms of similar form, connected endlessly. Eyes moaning through every crack in the walls. The only clue was to follow the TV's noise.
'This part is actually easier now that it's reality.'
By now he could navigate the route by memory alone even without sound, but back when it was a game, it had been quite an ordeal. The audio difficulty varied wildly depending on hardware performance and sound settings.
And when you reached the end of that trail....
"Ah, right."
"......"
"There you are."
All noise cut off in a single stroke.
A CRT television in the center of the room. A chair opposite it. A remote control resting on the seat. Yeon-woo dusted the chair off lightly and sat down.
He gripped the remote and fixed his gaze on the screen.
"Shall we give it a go?"
[Welcome, General Manager.]
Mini-game time.