Escaping the Mystery Hotel

[User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 2

Current Location: Floor 1, Corridor

Sage’s Advice: 0]

Everyone except for one person was absent-minded.

Jinchul-hyung was lying down on the floor muttering something like, ‘Huhu, huhu.’ while Eunsol-noona was sitting on the coffee table, drinking 10 shots of coffee straight.

Songee was crouching next to the potted plant like yesterday, whimpering, ‘Happy… Som…’ along with some terrifying set of words while Elena was huddling on the other side of Eunsol-noona.

And as for me… I was blank-mindedly strolling around.

What was it – what did we just go through?

I brought my mind back to what happened; to my family who had gone crazy. 

Actually, I shouldn’t even call ‘them’ my family. Those monsters copied the appearance of my family and insulted my mind.

My mind considered those nonsensical things normal, and in the end, I rolled around naked in the middle of winter and froze to death.

Others must have experienced something similar. We didn’t feel like asking each other what happened in the slightest. Not only was I not curious, but I also had no intention of telling them what happened. 

And–

The only sober person of our group came back.

“Umm, it will be lunch time in 30 minutes. Shouldn’t we head back to Room 105?”

… … … … …

Five of us were all silent.

Thus, I had to force my mouth open.

“Yeah… We should have some food. And, Seungyub. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

When I started off with my words of gratitude, the absent-minded people also opened their mouths.

“Aigo… It’s embarrassing how much I was showing off that I would be protecting everyone before going in. Wasn’t expecting something strange like that. Seungyub, no, Hero Seungyub. Thank you very much. If it wasn’t for you, seriously…”

“That’s true. If not for Seungyub-gun, that would have been the tragic end for everyone. Thank you very very much,” said Elena.

After receiving a word of thanks from everyone, Seungyub waved his hands with a blush.

“No no no! I had no idea what was going on either… And honestly, I don’t even know why it was a successful escape. I was just running, and ‘pop?’ it suddenly appeared, so… Ahaha. You seriously don’t have to do this.”

Was this his first time being praised by a bunch of people at once? It seemed difficult for the young middle-school boy to contain his lips from breaking into a smile.

Anyway, it was fortunate.

Seeing how at least our energetic middle-school student was safe and smiling brightly eased the gloomy atmosphere surrounding us by a little.

We all took our belongings and stood up.

“Now! Let’s all cheer for Seungyub 3 times, and go have food. What’s life? In the end, we live to eat food. So let’s go: hooray! Hooray! Hooray!”

“Hooray!!! Hooray!!! Hooray!!!”

Half because of how grateful we were to Seungyub, and half in order to push aside the traumatic memory, we cheered for the young boy whose face was now as red as a strawberry before heading back to Room 105.

[User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 2

Current Location: Floor 1, Room 105 (Room of Rest)

Sage’s Advice: 0]

10 minutes before the meal, I washed my face in the bathroom to settle my heart and changed my clothes while fixing my gaze at the status screen.

Both the date and Sage’s Advice were the same.

Did I not spend more than a day inside that hellish place?

Going to the botanical garden in the morning, visiting the duck restaurant, heading to the resort, spending a night and dying during the ski.

I spent a night so shouldn’t it be Day 3?

That was when I suddenly remembered something. Looking back, the flow of time within that nightmare was far from normal.

Not only were the people crazy, but there was no delay when moving between places, and it was morning when I closed and opened my eyes once.

I thought that was because I had also gone crazy, but they were all strange events now that I thought about it.

It might not have been that long in the real world. Even though I wasn’t keeping track of the time, we entered Room 101 straight after breakfast, so it would have been 9 am at the latest.

And it was 11:20 when we left together.

At first I thought it was 11:20 of the following day but…

Looking at it now, it seemed we had simply entered in the morning, and came out before noon. 

A nightmare horrifying enough to collapse not only me, but also a strong man like Jinchul-hyung… was only going on for 2 hours.

How many terrifying things were there in this hotel?

I needed some rest.

My heart had crumbled too much for it to be simply called ‘2 hours of hard work’.

“Let’s take a rest.”

That was what Jinchul-hyung said immediately after I arrived at the dining room.

“Yes, today… no, let’s take tomorrow off as well… But first, let’s have a nice lunch. At least they always have delicious food. That’s one good thing. If they just let us out, I would be 100 times more grateful though.”

“This is too… ah. Hhkk… Too…”

“Stop! Yu Songee. Stop! Everyone promise me! We will forget what happened in that room, and we won’t talk about it. We just had a terrible nightmare for a few days. All of you, lower your heads and look at yourself. Has anything changed? No, right? We are healthy, yes? It was just a nightmare. Forget it. It’s done.”

“You are a lot better than me, noonim… Let’s do that. It’s not good to talk about something bad in front of meat.” Jinchul-hyung added.

“Yes. We should all relax and have some food. And, just putting it out there; it’s probably only been 2 hours instead of a few days.”

Eunsol-noona asked after hearing me say that.

“Ehng? It had been a few days with my second brother… No, don’t worry about that, but I spent a few days inside though?”

“No,” Jinchul-hyung replied. “I think Kain is probably correct. I… thought about it, but the whole process is a little off. If you look back at it, noonim, actually, don’t look back, but I’m sure the flow of time would have been strange. Kain, you’re saying that based on your status screen right?”

“Yes. It is still Day 2, and the advice hasn’t been refreshed either.”

“Ehew… so you mean I did all that stuff in just 2 hours. Alright, let’s end this topic here.”

After organising the situation, we quietly indulged in our meals.

Seriously, in spite of the situation, the food was very delicious. A spoonful of white rice, a bunch of chilli pork, a little bit of sesame oil and a piece of fried egg.

That one mouthful blurred today’s nightmare by like ⅓. It must have been true that people lived to eat.

“Dude, you look like you’re enjoying the food a lot. Ahh~ I was going to have some chilli pork as well.”

“Oops. I grabbed it without thinking because there was so much food. Sorry.”

“No, no. Don’t worry about it. I’m just saying things. The spare ribs here are also delicious.”

The tension eased a little as we indulged ourselves in the delicious food. While everyone was slowly pulling themselves together, Elena opened her mouth.

“We are going to take today and tomorrow off at least, right? I saw it yesterday but there were a lot of interesting facilities in the basement. If we are taking today off, how about we go there?”

“Hmm. I think that sounds good, but it’s not strange to have monsters suddenly pop out of the facilities in this hotel right? Like we said on the first day, I think it’s dangerous to go around when that warning thing or whatever of Kain is at 0.”

“Hyung, do you have no advice left?” Seungyub asked.

“Nn. It’s still Day 2, and the number is at 0. I must have used all three in that room…”

“Let’s do as Jinchul-ssi said. Going around without Kain’s ability is too insecure. Let’s just have lunch today, and rest by ourselves at Room 105,” said Eunsol-noona.

Since there was no ‘Sage’s Advice’, let’s have appropriate meals and rest together instead of exploring this dangerous hotel, and have a look at the facilities at the basement tomorrow – that was the conclusion we came to.

“In any case, a pool and a gym I can understand but… A ‘zoo’? A ‘botanical garden’? Is this normal in hotels? A camping site? There’s an amusement park as well. Eunsol-noona, you look like you’ve been to places like this a lot. Have you ever seen a hotel like this before?”

“Well… I also think a zoo and a botanical garden is quite absurd. And as for the campsite and amusement park, rather than how absurd it is, it’s theoretically impossible for this to exist in the basement right? Well, I guess it’s not that strange in a hotel where opening the door of a guest room leads to a different world. Wouldn’t it look like a normal door and have some theme parks or something inside?”

A slightly expectant voice echoed across.

“A pool! Everything in this hotel is quite fancy and stylish, so don’t you think the pool would also look amazing? But I don’t have any swimsuits with me. What should I do?”

“Haha, well we can find out by going there right. I assume you like swimming, Miss Elena?”

“I’ve been doing it ever since I was young. You look like you’d be good at everything that requires using the body as well, Jinchul-ssi.” Elena replied.

“Well… I can do the basic stuff.”

“I want to try out the zoo! I think there will be some interesting animals inside.”

It was very energetic considering how full of chaos this hotel was. Apparently, it seemed that I wasn’t the only one thinking that way, and there was a voice warning them.

“Okay okay. It’s great to see everyone so keen to play. It would be great if this hotel loved us back, instead of hiding monsters everywhere.”

By the time I realised it–

I sensed the signs of trauma and horrible pain being washed away from everyone’s faces. They might have been forcing themselves to have an enjoyable conversation to wash their traumatic experiences off. 

I too felt those horrendous memories turning fuzzy.

Nothing much happened after that. I rolled on the bed and rested, had dinner with another exciting conversation, rolled on the bed again and fell asleep.

If it was always like this, then this hotel might not be a bad place to live in.