Chapter 11 - Rest, Hotel Basement Floor
[User: Han Ga-in (Jihye)
Date: Day 2
Current Location: Layer 1, Corridor
Sage's Advice: 0]
Everyone except one person had lost their minds.
Jincheol-hyung was sprawled on the floor making strange sounds like "hehe, hehe," and Eunsol-noona sat at the coffee table downing about 10 cups of coffee.
Song-i was crouching next to the bonsai like before, whimpering and saying creepy things like "Happy... Som-i...", and she sat across from Eunsol-noona with her whole body curled up.
I... just paced around with an empty head.
What on earth was that? What on earth did we just go through?
I recalled the memories. The mad family—no, I shouldn't call 'those things' family.
Monsters that copied the appearance of my family had violated my very mind. I accepted strange thoughts as natural,
and in the end, I stripped naked and rolled around in the dead of winter until I froze to death.
The others probably went through something similar too.
I didn't have the slightest intention of asking what they experienced.
I'm not curious, and I have no intention of answering either.
And —
The one sane person among us returned.
"Um, it's about 30 minutes until lunch time, shouldn't we start heading to Room 105?"
... ... ... ... ...
Silence from all five.
I forced my mouth open.
"That's right... We need to eat. And, Seungyeop-ah, really, truly thank you."
When I started with the pleasantries first, the people who had been out of it soon began to speak as well.
"Oh my... I went in there acting like I'd protect everyone and now it's just embarrassing.
Who would've thought something this bizarre would happen. Seungyeop-ah, no, Seungyeop the Great Hero, truly thank you so much.
If it weren't for the Great Hero, really..."
"That's right. If it weren't for Seungyeop-kun, we would've all ended miserably there. Really, thank you so much."
As we started taking turns expressing our gratitude, Seungyeop, whose face had grown flushed at some point, waved his hands.
"No, it's nothing! Honestly, I don't even know what's going on either... I don't even know why I succeeded in escaping.
I was just like, huh? huh? and then suddenly I was pulled out. Haha, really, you don't have to go this far."
Is this what it feels like to receive praise from multiple people for the first time in his life?
With the mentality of a young middle school boy, he couldn't control his splitting smile.
That, at least, was a relief.
Seeing even just one energetic middle schooler looking fine and grinning ear to ear, the atmosphere filled with what seemed like depression gradually faded a bit.
Everyone gathered themselves and stood up.
"Alright! Then let's all give three cheers for Seungyeop and go eat. After all, what is life? You gotta stuff food in your mouth first. Manse! Manse! Manse!"
"Manse!!!! Manse!!! Manse!!!!!!!!"
Mixing half gratitude toward Seungyeop and half a desire to wash away the trauma-like memories with three cheers, we all shouted three cheers together toward the boy whose face was now as red as a strawberry, then returned to Room 105.
[User: Han Ga-in (Jihye)
Date: Day 2
Current Location: Layer 1, Room 105 (Room of Rest)
Sage's Advice: 0]
10 minutes before meal time. Calming my mind, washing my face in the bathroom, changing clothes here and there, I kept an eye on the status window.
Neither the date nor the Sage's Advice had updated.
Hadn't we clearly spent over a day in that hellish place?
Going to the arboretum in the morning, stopping by a duck meat restaurant, going to the resort, staying overnight, then skiing and dying.
Since I slept for a day, shouldn't the date have changed?
Then, it suddenly dawned on me.
Come to think of it, the progression of events in that nightmare was completely abnormal.
It wasn't simply a matter of people going crazy.
There was no delay when moving between locations, and when sleeping, I just closed my eyes and opened them to morning.
At the time, I was crazy too so I thought it was normal, but looking back now, every single thing was anomalous.
Perhaps, not much actual time had passed at all.
I didn't check the time precisely, but since we entered Room 101 right after breakfast, we must have entered before 9 AM at the latest.
The point when we all came out was probably around 11:20 AM.
At first, I mistakenly thought it had become 11:20 AM the next day after entering...
But looking at it now, we simply entered in the morning and came out around lunchtime.
A nightmare horrifying enough to not only take me down but even knock out a strongman like Jincheol-hyung in that short time...
Just how much more terrible things await in this hotel.
We need rest.
It's too much to dismiss as 'only two hours of suffering' when my mind has crumbled this much.
"Let's rest for a while, everyone."
The moment we arrived at the dining hall, those words about resting came right out of Jincheol-hyung's mouth.
"Yeah... Let's rest today, no, let's rest until tomorrow even... For now, let's just enjoy lunch.
If there's one thing I'm grateful for here, it's that the food is always good. Though I'd be 100 times more grateful if they just let us leave."
"Too much... sob... too much..."
"Stop! Yusong, pull yourself together! We all promise this today! We'll just forget what happened in that room. We won't say a single word about it to each other.
We just had a terrible nightmare for a few days, that's all. Everyone, look down and check yourselves.
Is anything different? Nothing at all, right? Everyone's healthy, right? It was just a nightmare. We forget it, and we end it."
"Noona is much better off than me... Let's do that. I shouldn't be saying weird things with meat in front of me."
"Yes. Everyone, relax a bit and eat. And... I'm saying this just in case, but it probably hasn't been days, only about 2 hours that passed."
"Huh? I spent days with my little oppa, no never mind the details, but I definitely did something for days?"
"No, Ga-in is probably right. I... thought back on it and the progression was strange.
Noona, if you think back—no, don't think back—but the progression was strange anyway.
That's also going off the status window I mentioned before, right?"
"Yes. The date hasn't changed so it's still Day 2, and the advice hasn't updated either."
"Phew... We went completely crazy in just 2 hours. Fine. Let's really put an end to this incident now."
After roughly sorting out the situation, everyone continued their meal in silence.
Truly, even in all this, the food was delicious.
Three scoops of spicy pork over white rice, a drizzle of sesame oil, a fried egg on top, and one spoonful.
That single bite blurs about 1/3 of today's nightmare. People truly do live to eat.
"Hey, you're eating incredibly deliciously. Hah~ I was thinking of having the spicy pork too."
"Heok... There was so much food I just grabbed it without thinking."
"No no, it's fine, I'm just saying. The galbi here is really delicious too."
Eating delicious food, the atmosphere naturally relaxed to some degree.
Just as everyone was slowly gathering themselves, Elena spoke up.
"We agreed to all rest together for at least today and tomorrow, right?
I noticed since yesterday... there are a ton of convenience facilities underground. How about we look around while resting today?"
"Hmm, that's a good thought, but isn't this hotel the kind of place where it wouldn't be strange for monsters to pop out of convenience facilities?
It's what we talked about on the first day, but I think it's dangerous to wander around when Ga-in's warnings are at 0."
"Hyung, you don't have a single advice number either?"
"Yeah. It's Day 2, and the number is 0. I think I used up 3 in that room..."
"Jincheol is right. It's too uneasy to wander around this place without Ga-in's ability.
Let's just eat lunch today, go back to Room 105, and each rest."
Given that there was no 'Sage's Advice,' the consensus was to simply rest with proper meals rather than dangerous hotel exploration, and look around the various underground convenience facilities tomorrow.
"But then again, a swimming pool or gym makes sense...
A 'zoo'? A 'botanical garden'? Do normal hotels have these?
A campsite? An amusement park? Eunsol-noona, you seem to have been to a lot of these places—do hotels like this exist?"
"Well... I find the zoo and botanical garden absurd too.
A campsite or amusement park, aside from being absurd, can something like that even exist 'underground'?
But then again, this is a hotel where you enter a room and a different world pops out, so I guess nothing is impossible.
Just like, a normal room visual but you open the door and it's an amusement park! Something like that?"
A voice tinged with slight anticipation resonated.
"A swimming pool! Most of this hotel's facilities are incredibly flashy and fancy, so the pool must be really amazing, right?
But we don't have swimsuits or anything, what do we do?"
"Haha, well, we'll know when we get there, won't we? It seems Miss Elena is good at swimming too?"
"I've done it a lot since I was young. Jincheol, you seem like you'd be good at anything physical too."
"Me... well, I just do the basics."
"I really want to go to the zoo! I feel like there'll be amazing animals there."
I thought it was quite a lively atmosphere for a hotel filled with chaos.
I wasn't the only one thinking that, as expected, a sharp voice cut in.
"Yeah yeah, it's so nice seeing everyone full of thoughts about playing.
I wish the hotel would like us a bit too, instead of just thinking about hiding monsters in every corner."
Before I knew it—
I could feel the trauma from the horrific pain on everyone's faces being washed away a little.
Perhaps, everyone was forcing themselves to chat cheerfully to wash away the trauma.
I too felt the terrible memories growing faint.
Today, nothing else happened after that.
We rested while lounging around, ate dinner mixed with pleasant chatter again, and fell asleep lounging some more.
If only such times continued, this hotel might actually be livable.