Chapter 5 - Hotel Exploration (3)
[User: Han Ga-in (Jihye)
Date: Day 2
Current Location: Floor 1, Room 105 (Room of Rest)
Sage's Advice: 3]
Thank goodness. I fell asleep hoping for the best, and fortunately, the Sage's Advice had refilled to 3 uses.
It seems to be a system where it refills when you wake up from sleeping, just like Seung-yeop said.
Exactly what time does it refill? I'll have to check if I ever get the chance to count the nights.
After lightly washing up, getting dressed, and finishing preparations right on time for the meal, people 'appeared' from here and there as if they had been waiting.
After lightly greeting the now-familiar people and arriving at the dining hall, I heard another piece of good news.
"I found out what my blessing is at dawn yesterday. Seriously, ha! Once I knew, it was actually kind of ridiculous?"
"Whoa! What is it, Unni? Do you have some kind of superpower now too?"
Shaking her head, Eun-sol noona suddenly held out her smartphone.
Why a smartphone? Since arriving at the hotel, smartphones hadn't been working properly, so everyone just left them lying around anywhere. However, Eun-sol noona, as if she had something to show, held out her smartphone in front of everyone and tapped the screen, eventually pointing to an app I'd never seen before.
HP Market
"HP? Don't tell me this is... Hotel Pioneer?"
"Probably. Just in case, I'm asking, but did this appear for anyone else?"
Belatedly, everyone scrambled to fetch their phones, but as expected, there was no change on anyone else's phone.
Only on Eun-sol noona's phone did the strange app appear.
"What's the app's function?"
"I couldn't experiment with it on my own at dawn, I just turned the app on and read around.
For now, well, it's similar to Coupang. When you enter the market, they sell all sorts of things. The surprising thing is... there's no 'price'."
"Huh? Then everything you buy is free?"
"There's no price, but there's a purchase limit. No matter what item, the maximum limit is 1 per day, and 3 per week combined. And delivery is done instantly."
"Instantly? Living in Korea, I've always thought the delivery was incredibly fast and convenient to the point of wondering if I should keep living there... but even then, instant delivery would be absolutely impossible even for Coupang."
"Hahaha, if Elena says she'll keep living in Korea, all the guys will be happy, right?
Well, this damn hotel isn't a normal place anyway. Anyhow, I tried to buy something right away, but there's a quantity limit...
So I just saved it for now. It's probably better to buy when I'm certain that something is absolutely necessary..."
"Um, for now, I think we unconditionally need to buy a weapon, but is there anything like a gun?
Even if not that, if we can get something usable, it would be better than me carrying around an iron pipe every day."
"Hmm, what Jin-cheol said is exactly what crossed my mind yesterday too. But the items sold in this 'Market' are surprisingly sensible.
You really can just think of it as Coupang, and Coupang doesn't sell guns or longswords...
But I found a lot of things that could be used as weapon substitutes. The first thing that came to mind was a baseball bat. Other than that, there were kitchen knives, self-defense 3-stage batons, tonfas, and things like that."
"Even just that is much better. Honestly, I overdid it a bit yesterday, but that iron pipe definitely... carrying it around was tough.
A baseball bat isn't bad either, but a tonfa, if you know how to use it, it's pretty good, right? Um... I'm not trying to brag, but I did some martial arts outside.
I learned tonfa for a couple of months for fun... I think that would be good, what does everyone think?"
No one objected. After Eun-sol noona tapped the screen a few times, the tonfa was ordered, and the next moment, a refreshing *ding-dong!* sound echoed.
"This... it seems your stuff has arrived outside, hyung?"
"I'll go check. Ha, I'm kind of looking forward to this... I'm really having all sorts of experiences."
A moment later, just as I heard the sound of Jin-cheol hyung tearing open a box outside, he appeared holding the tonfa.
Grabbing the handle and attaching the long part to his wrist, he thrust his fists into the air as if demonstrating some martial art.
I knew absolutely nothing about martial arts or anything like that, but a 190cm muscular hulk wearing a weapon and throwing punches definitely had an awe-inspiring intensity that made you exclaim in admiration.
Clap clap clap~
Before I knew it, Eun-sol noona started clapping with a delighted look in her eyes. For some reason, it felt like an atmosphere where we had to follow suit, so when everyone clapped together, Jin-cheol hyung, uncharacteristically, blushed and sat back down at the table.
It was a joyful meal time for the first time since arriving at the hotel.
As we finished our meal and everyone was slowly getting ready to stand up, a notification popped up on the guide window at the 'perfect timing', as if it were a matter of course now.
/Dear beloved customers! Did you enjoy your meal? Hotel Pioneer always considers preparing meals for our customers a great joy.
But dear customers, by any chance, are you aware that countless treasures are hidden within the hotel? Beauty, nobility, lofty value, greatness. Endless treasures containing all of that, blessings, and perhaps even loves are waiting for you!
Of course, treasures are only given to those who are qualified. A little danger, well, doesn't it make the treasure even more beautiful? Don't worry! We know very well that all of our customers are fully qualified.
In fact, you just need to unwrap the prepared gift box! So then, dear customers. Let's go find the treasures! Oh right, there are often less-than-presentable previous guests in the rooms with treasures.
If possible, please enter together. As long as even one person can come out, there will be no major problem for everyone./
A silence fell as we tried to understand the situation.
"So... I roughly get one thing. If you've rested enough and eaten enough, get to work."
"It's not even a wordplay, sheesh. It just looks like they've dug traps that are perfect for dying in, right? 'You just need to unwrap the prepared gift box?'
Ah, if that's the case, just give us the box right in front of us. Wouldn't we just open it?"
Taking in Jin-cheol hyung's grumbling, Eun-sol noona began her analysis.
"The first three paragraphs can be summarized as just 'go find the treasures'...
The last paragraph has quite a bit of content. There's danger in the treasure rooms, go in together—I get it up to here, but,
'As long as even one person can come out, there will be no major problem for everyone.' What does this mean?
'If even one person comes out'
Actually, my head grew complicated thinking that the hidden meaning of that sentence might be a declaration that 'It's a hellish difficulty where only one person can barely survive!' What should we do? Should we just do as told and search for wherever this so-called treasure is?
Around the time I was starting to feel a throbbing headache, a notification from the 'Status Window' popped up.
[User: Han Ga-in (Jihye)
Date: Day 2
Current Location: Floor 1, Room 105 (Room of Rest)
Floor Information(*)
Room 101 (???)
Room 102 (???)
Room 103 (???)
Room 104 (???)
Room 105 (Room of Rest)
Room 106 (???)
Room 107 (???)
Sage's Advice: 3]
"Um... something else popped up. It says 'Floor Information', and below it, rooms 101 to 107 are listed, and next to the other room numbers except for 105, it says ???.
Room 105 says Room of Rest. I think we need to go to the other rooms except for 105."
"Are there like monsters and treasures in those rooms?"
"Looks like we'll have a use for the tonfa as soon as we bought it..."
"Umm... shouldn't we also each arm ourselves with at least a minimum, like a weapon?
Of course, it's embarrassing to say in front of Jin-cheol-ssi, but I also did some physical training while preparing for acting."
"Haha, what is there to be embarrassed about? Of course I'll try my best to use my strength, but everyone still needs to prepare what they can.
And there's another friend here with a well-built body and handsome looks. Ga-in, shouldn't you prepare something too? Do you know how to use a tonfa or something?"
"Uh... sorry, but I've never learned any martial arts. But I think I have somewhat decent stamina... what would be good?"
"Hmm, you don't look like you can't exercise, but it's a bit of a shame you haven't learned martial arts. Still, with your physique, you could deal some damage just by swinging something heavy.
If you don't know how to use it, a tonfa is a bit much, so a bat would be better for you."
"Wait, wait, did you forget what I said earlier? 1 per day, 3 per week. We already ordered the tonfa today, so we can't order any more today."
"Ah... um... then do we have to go in bare-handed? That's too much of a burden..."
"Um... there's something I saw earlier."
I unconsciously noted that Song-i always seemed to shrink back a little when she spoke, and looked at her.
"When walking down the hallway here, there were a lot of strange props hanging on the wall that looked like they'd be in a movie, right? Among them was a dagger."
A dagger. Come to think of it, I also remembered grabbing something like a silver candlestick to swing around like a blunt weapon on the first morning.
I quickly got up and lightly ran in the direction Song-i pointed.
Sure enough, perhaps because the hallway was so long, I saw a decorative dagger that I hadn't noticed yesterday.
An incredibly flashy item. I'm no expert, but if you sold something like this somewhere, wouldn't it go for at least 10 million won? I picked it up and returned to the dining table.
"This is more of an art piece than a practical dagger? There are even jewels embedded in the handle.
The durability of something like this is questionable. It's not something made to actually stab with...
But still, it's 10 times better than bare fists. It's a shame there's only one, but..."
Barely one. For some reason, I felt self-conscious about just taking it right away, so I asked for their opinion.
"Can I... take this? Since this is the only weapon-like thing, it feels a bit awkward?"
"I think it's fine? I don't know about Elena who said she trained, but honestly, for me, Song-i, or Seung-yeop, it doesn't seem like we'd be able to fight even if we held something like this.
The fewer weapons there are, the more it makes sense for the stronger person to hold them. Everyone agrees, right?"
No one objected, and naturally, I became the only other person with some sort of armament, after Jin-cheol hyung.
Eventually, after finishing our meal and equipping ourselves with the minimum gear, we headed out toward Room 101 first.