Chapter 39 – Party Time! - In Search of Secrets
Chapter 39 – Party Time! - In Search of Secrets
[User: Han Ga-in (Ji-hye)
Date: Day 14
Current Location: Floor 1, Corridor
Sage's Advice: 3]
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
My footsteps echoed through the corridor. A strange sensation. With everything so quiet, even my footsteps felt loud.
I hadn't walked around alone like this since arriving at the hotel.
Since we all came out of Room 103 yesterday, we spent the day eating, resting, and conducting experiments with 'diverse perspectives.'
The next day, we started exploring the hotel from the morning.
This wasn't our first time exploring the hotel. However, it was the first time everyone had scattered like this.
The hotel is dangerous. Until now, we relied heavily on the 'Sage's Advice' when exploring, so we never went around separately.
However, the next two days are the 'danger-free days' declared by the hotel.
If there's no danger, is there really a need to explore together?
Naturally, everyone scattered.
*
The hotel's secret that only reveals itself during 'Party Time!'
Where on earth could it be?
Everyone except me headed underground first.
Unlike the 1st floor, which only has the front desk, main entrance, and a corridor with 7 rooms, the underground is filled with over 100 rooms.
Each room is packed with amenities on a scale that could never fit inside a mere 'room.'
Zoo, botanical garden, bar, PC café, billiards hall, swimming pool, photo studio, bathhouse, and absurdly enough, even places like amusement parks and mountain hiking.
What even is mountain hiking? Does a mountain appear when you open the door?
Naturally, everyone went underground thinking there was a high probability of a secret being somewhere in this vast space.
However, someone needed to stay behind to search the 1st floor, so I remained.
*
[User: Han Ga-in (Ji-hye)
Date: Day 2
Current Location: Floor 1, Room 105 (Room of Rest)
Floor Info (*)
Room 101 (Room of Curses – Bizarre Family)
Room 102 (Room of Curses – House of Terror)
Room 103 (Room of Curses – Athanasia's Human Ranch - Cleared!)
Room 104 (???)
Room 105 (Room of Rest)
Room 106 (???)
Room 107 (???)
Sage's Advice: 3]
I checked the floor info for the first time in a while. The noticeable 'Cleared!' in the middle.
We really did completely finish Room 103.
I walked up to the door of Room 103. What would happen if I entered a cleared room again?
Surely I wouldn't suddenly fall into outer space or something?
I was somewhat worried, but since the Sage's Advice didn't react at all, I opened the door to Room 103.
Nothing. Just a door in an empty space, with nothing that could possibly hide a secret in sight.
It seems this room became a meaningless space the moment our party cleared Room 103.
Walking further past Room 104, Room 105 that we enter daily, and Room 106, I could only see the 'nameplate' of Room 107.
I recalled what Ari told me a few days ago.
We used to call it the 'Gate Room.' A room you can enter only after achieving certain results across all other rooms excluding that one, and upon passing, allows you to ascend to the next floor.
'Gate Room.'
It's probably Room 107. Room 107 doesn't have a 'door' at all, only a nameplate.
Probably, achieving certain results or above from Room 101 to 106 would cause a 'door' to appear, wouldn't it?
I went all the way to the end of the corridor but found nothing in the end.
Apart from the guest rooms, there were only walls.
I couldn't enter a Room of Curses alone either, so there really was nothing on the corridor side?
I should check the front desk and main entrance area, then join the others underground.
!
As I turned around, Ari was standing there without a sound, as if she had been waiting.
"Jeez! You startled me. How do you walk around without making any sound?"
"Did you find anything?"
Now familiar casual speech when it's just the two of us.
"I opened Room 103 and there was nothing. Room 107 is a Gate Room? Just about that much."
"So you found nothing."
"Yeah. Come to think of it, you seem to know quite a lot about the hotel. Do you know what the secret that only appears on 'Party Day' is?
Even just identifying whether it's an object, a person, or a room would make it easier to find."
"I don't hide necessary knowledge. What I haven't told you is either what I don't know, or knowledge that's meaningless to learn.
In the first place, what the Management Bureau knows about the hotel is just the tip of the iceberg.
To answer your question, all of them are correct.
Discovering treasure, unidentified companions, enhancement of blessings, opening the next floor without passing through the gate—there's no end to it.
You already know some of them."
It instantly came to mind. 'Room of Resurrection,' 'Buddha.'
"Are you talking about the Room of Resurrection and Buddha?"
"The Room of Resurrection is correct. Buddha is a concept we don't understand at all. I heard it for the first time here.
You can tell just from the name, right? The Room of Resurrection?
I heard it's a room that resurrects participants who lost their chances after being defeated in the hotel through some procedure and gives them another chance.
Though it seems the procedure itself changes every time..."
"What other secrets are there?"
"Too many. It's different every time, so explaining it is meaningless. In the end, we have to find and discover something ourselves."
I heard a lot of information.
It only feels like the unknown parts have increased even more.
In the end, I have no choice but to find it myself.
*
While walking toward the front desk, Ari continued following behind me.
"Aren't you going underground? The 1st floor doesn't have any space for anything other than the front desk and main entrance anyway. Wouldn't it be better to go somewhere much larger?"
"There's no guarantee that secrets are hidden only in large spaces. I just... had a feeling there was something on the 1st floor."
Front desk.
Outwardly, it didn't look different from a typical hotel front desk. Just without any people.
No people, yet a reception desk existed pointlessly, and above it was a massive display.
-Click
????
-Click
With the sound of a button being pressed, the surroundings darkened, and with another press, they brightened again.
Flustered, I looked toward Ari and saw she had found the light switch and was fiddling with it.
-Click
...
-Click –Click -Click
"You're not a little kid. I'd appreciate it if you stopped with the weird pranks."
"..."
I poked around at various things. Going inside the desk and opening a drawer, a note came out.
'87439124'
An unidentifiable 8-digit number sequence.
Could this be...?
Instinctively, I stuffed the note into my pocket and glanced at Ari. Ari was still examining the switches near the main entrance.
My heart raced.
Could it be a coincidence that a number sequence that could only be explained as a 'password' was hidden in the desk drawer as if waiting?
The escape button in the elevator. They said to wear a 'protective suit' and press the 'password.'
I had decided to forget it. Without a 'protective suit,' it's meaningless anyway.
Is it right to hide this from everyone?
*
I couldn't find anything else at the front desk. The other drawers were all empty, and no matter how hard I looked, I couldn't see anything hidden.
Could there be anything worth finding near the main entrance? It's just a giant door, so it seemed like there was even less space to hide something than the front desk, but Ari lingered there for quite a while.
"Is there something?"
"Come here and see."
? Is there really something?
-Click
"Ah! Really, some elementary school-level prank—"
"It's not a prank, so come and see."
The moment the lights turned off, the entire 1st floor went dark.
Only then did I realize the anomalous phenomenon that had been occurring!
Thinking it's natural for it to get dark when you turn off the lights is a great misconception.
There's a transparent glass door here, beyond the glass door you can see the sky, and in the sky there's a sun!
Naturally, even if you turn off the hotel's interior lights, sunlight from outside the glass door should come in.
Yet the moment the lights were turned off, even the outside of the hotel became dark.
As if, simultaneously with turning off the lights, the area beyond the glass door transformed into a 'different space'!
"This... should we try opening the main entrance?"
"I couldn't figure that out, so I waited."
"You don't know? You said there would be no dangerous events today."
"I think that statement is open to interpretation. It probably means the hotel won't create separate 'dangerous events.'
For example, does it mean the danger disappears even when going to a 'space that's originally dangerous'? I don't think so.
If that were the case, going to the Rooms of Curses during 'Party Time' would have no danger, but they wouldn't do that for us."
"In other words, there's a possibility that beyond this door is a 'space that's originally dangerous'?"
"It could be. Try grabbing the door."
Slowly watching the 'Advice' on my status window, I grabbed the door. Nothing appeared.
However, as I experienced at the swimming pool, I can't completely trust the advice. The advice only activates right before a crisis hits.
If a monster attacks a minute after entering a room, the advice gives no warning.
"For now, let's call everyone else."
"..."
Ari looked somewhat displeased, but she didn't stop me from going underground.
*
Click – Click
"Is it real? How on earth did you guys find this? We just wasted time underground."
"Did you not find anything either, noona?"
"Yeah. The people underground periodically gathered and searched here and there, but... the underground is just too vast in the first place.
I even went into 'mountain hiking' and got lost until other people came to find me."
"Let's go in first. It seems we need to see with our own eyes to know what's there. I'll take the lead."
"Jin-cheol oppa, wait a moment."
Song-i approached Jin-cheol hyung and did 'something.'
"What did you do? I don't feel any change."
"I solidified the perspective that oppa's senses accept, preventing the information you receive from being disrupted."
"Sorry, but could you explain it more simply? I'm not that smart."
Actually, I didn't understand it at all either.
"I took measures to prevent something from twisting oppa's senses? There's no guarantee that dangerous elements are necessarily something physical."
"Is that even possible? That would be really useful."
"It's only possible for one person at a time, for about 10 minutes."
Since entering the hotel, I had thought countless times about how vulnerable we were to mind-altering attacks, and now we finally had at least one countermeasure.
The functions of 'diverse perspectives' truly have no end.
With Jin-cheol hyung, now temporarily strengthened both mentally and physically, at the front, we headed toward the strange space beyond the main entrance that formed when the lights went out.
Upon entering, everyone fell.
[Congratulations on reaching the Sanctuary of Blessings!]
Author's Note
I received my first sponsorship. Thank you, Amkeutcheonma-nim.