Chapter 29
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Explorer I
Shin Noah
1
When the Void erupted in the middle of Seoul, the Gangnam area was reduced to ruins.
I've already mentioned this story several times in my accounts, so it should be familiar to all of you.
The incident known as the 'Gangnam Void Incident,' 'Gangnam White Night,' or simply 'Seoul's Summer.' Even Elder Sho's wife was caught up in 'Summer' and passed away.
However, even in Gangnam, which had been completely tainted by the Void, several buildings remained intact.
That is, if the word 'intact' only means the building's exterior appears undamaged when viewed from the outside.
Here's the problem.
Q. If a building remains perfectly intact on land that has been consumed by the Void, well isn't that surprising. What principle could possibly allow for that?
A. That's also Void.
Correct. An eye for an eye, poison for poison.
Just like the principle of fighting fire with fire, if you want to withstand the Void, you have no choice but to subdue it with an even more powerful Void.
In other words? If you witness a still 'intact' building in Gangnam, it means that building executed a "It's fine, I deflected it" maneuver right in the middle of the Void that wiped out half of Seoul's population in one go.
Truly the highest difficulty dungeons.
The sturdiest, most terrifying, and most brutal Voids on the Korean Peninsula are almost entirely concentrated in Seoul's Gangnam.
While the real estate market in the human world completely collapsed, among the strange entities, Gangnam still enjoys its reputation as a hot spot.
One of the particularly famous dungeons among them is a hotel operated in a building also known as 'Sauron's Tower.'
That's right. Since I talked about an inn in the last episode, I thought I'd talk about a hotel today.
2
The building known by the nickname 'Sauron's Tower' is, as you all know well, that very skyscraper boasting the highest floor count in Seoul.
Originally a nickname with a touch of humor, after the Void erupted in the Gangnam area, all the residents, office workers, and hotel employees who had been occupying the building were completely annihilated, so now it's truly called 'Sauron's Tower.'
Actually, until immediately after the Void erupted, people had very high expectations for Sauron's Tower.
"That building is still intact!"
"Couldn't there be many survivors inside the building?"
It was already the tallest building on the Korean Peninsula. Naturally, in this day and age when Seoul's average building height regressed to 50 years ago, it stood out even more.
"Ah. Come to think of it, I think I heard somewhere that tower was designed to withstand even a magnitude 9 earthquake..."
"Don't tell me the interior is intact too?"
"They say there's a gateway to another world near the top of that building."
"Let's go in! Let's check it out!"
Thus, primarily residents north of the Han River entered Sauron's Tower.
They went missing immediately after entry.
Of course, in a situation where the Apocalypse had just erupted, no one cared about three or four missing persons. Even adding two zeros to the number of missing persons wouldn't have changed the situation.
But as one month passed, then two months, strange rumors about Sauron's Tower began to spread.
That it was 'a place where if you open the door and take even one step inside, you can never come out.'
"We'll organize an investigation team."
At this point, the Republic of Korea military, which was still maintaining its existence, launched an operation.
It was during a time when the Ten Clans were treating soldiers as rations and actively wiping them out in hunts, so the fact that they had survived until now meant the unit was composed of elite soldiers.
The soldiers decided to borrow the wisdom of ancient sages. Though from very ancient times.
"We will form a single file line to enter the tower. All soldiers will tie ropes around their waists."
"Sir? Ropes?"
"Yes. We'll connect all soldiers in a single line with this rope. The operation will be named 'Ariadne.'"
With the same mindset as when Theseus landed on Crete and faced humanity's greatest labyrinth in the distant past, the soldier commanded the operation.
"After the front line enters first, if there are no abnormalities, they will back out through the hotel entrance. If the soldiers in the front line lose response, immediately cut the rope with a knife and the remaining personnel will escape. Understood?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Good. Then prepare the ropes."
It was a prudent and good method.
The problem was that Sauron's Tower wasn't just an ordinary dungeon but a demon lord's castle that survived 'Seoul's Summer.'
"No response from those who entered through the door!"
"Pull the rope!"
"Th-the rope won't pull! Ugh, it's not moving! It's heavy as a rock!"
"Can't be helped. Abort Operation Ariadne. Cut the rope!"
"Yes. Huh? The rope, this, why? Huh?"
"What are you doing, you bastard! I said cut the rope!"
"I-it won't cut! The rope won't cut!"
"What kind of bullshit... Ugh? We're being dragged!"
"Aaaah! Save me! Save me!"
"No! Hold on! If you get dragged, you'll die...!"
Amazingly, at some point the rope seemed to have been replaced with titanium. The military knife couldn't even make a dent.
Sauron's Tower's glass doors opened wide and dragged the soldiers inside. It swallowed the rope in one go, like slurping noodles.
Truly a perfect mukbang.
"A, aaaaah...!"
Even the soldier who had been gripping the door frame trying not to get dragged in until the end disappeared into the darkness with a swoosh. Screams were heard for about 2 seconds, but those too faded in an instant.
With a creak-, the glass doors became quiet again. From Sauron's Tower's perspective, it probably wanted to say 'burp-'
Investigation team wiped out.
After this incident became known, the queue of ordinary people fearlessly trying to tackle Sauron's Tower completely stopped.
That's right. Ordinary people were like that.
I, the Funeral Director, was someone who lived with my ego placed quite far from typical sensibilities.
What if I die going into the tower? Yeah, I just regress.
And I searched for a sacrificial lamb to go play at the hotel with me. It's boring going alone.
"Ah-ryun. How about a hotel vacation this summer?"
"H-hotel vacation?"
Shim Ah-ryun perked up her ears. She was someone with a天生 loner nature, yet had admiration for being social carved into her heart like acne.
"I'd like that but... D-don't tell me it's just you, Guild Master, and me, the two of us?"
The acne spoke.
"Even so, th-that's a bit..."
"Oh my. It's not that kind of trip, so don't worry. I'm just thinking of staying a few days at the finest hotel on the Korean Peninsula. If you're interested, come along, if not, I'll ask the others."
"Umm..."
Shim Ah-ryun blinked her eyes.
She seemed hooked by my indifferent yet chic response, thinking 'Is this for real?' This kid has been consistently easy to read from the 1st round until now.
"Th-then... Okay, I-I'll go!"
Two days later.
Shim Ah-ryun screamed with a travel backpack on her back in front of the hotel entrance.
"You said hotel! Y-you said hotel! Guild Master! This is Sauron's Tower―here!"
"What are you talking about. There's a hotel here too."
"It's not 'is,' it's 'was,' probably! It's ruined! This too, that too, th-everything is ruined! It's 'Gangnam'!"
"Tsk, stop talking nonsense and follow me. You need to come inside and draw landscapes and maps for me."
"Kyaaaaah! I should have known when you said hotel vacation! Someone save me! No I don't want to die here tens of thousands of people died even if you're the Guild Master I still don't want to―"
The Funeral Director's exciting Void exploration, begin.
3
As soon as we opened the glass doors of Sauron's Tower and entered, an amazing sight greeted us.
"Huh? The lights...?"
The building, which had appeared completely dark when observed from outside, was actually brightly lit with illumination when viewed from within.
That wasn't all.
On either side of the building entrance, there were two elevators each, so a total of 4 elevators were waiting cleanly. The chandelier hanging from the ceiling was spotless without a speck of dust.
It was as if―
"Time hasn't... f-flowed at all. How can this be..."
"Hmm."
I nodded.
I tried pressing the elevator button as a test. With a smooth slide, the elevator door opened without any issues.
"Heek. It's, it's moving...?"
"Amazing. It's not simply that time has stopped, but the building is actually functioning. And Ah-ryun, did you notice?"
"Huh? Notice what?"
"Look outside the door."
Shim Ah-ryun, who had been distracted by the chandelier and elevators, finally turned around. And with her characteristic "Heek!" scream, she clung to my forearm like a caterpillar.
"W-what is that? Who is that?"
Outside the door. In other words, beyond the glass doors we had just passed through... a man in a formal suit was standing politely.
"Probably a hotel employee. Staff who open the door when guests enter."
"B-but there was no one there earlier..."
"Ah-ryun, keep this in mind. In the Void, you must not handle your senses with preconceived notions. The glass doors we saw from outside and the outside we're looking at from here are different spaces. It's easier to think of that as just a picture inside a frame."
"Ah..."
"The problem is that we've entered that frame. If you try to open the door, it probably won't open. Go try it."
"..."
Shim Ah-ryun carefully tried to open the main door. But there was no response at all. The hotel staff member right nearby, separated by just a single pane of glass, didn't even glance at Shim Ah-ryun.
"It's true..."
"That's why the term 'Void' fits better than 'Gate.' Now, things that look like doors have no meaning as either entrances or exits. To escape the Void, you either have to follow proper procedures, or subjugate the boss."
"Boss..."
"Of course, there are many Voids without bosses. Then the strategy becomes trickier. So let's see how well this Void is imitating a hotel."
I took Shim Ah-ryun and boarded the elevator.
Having preserved the glory of being one of Korea's finest hotels intact, even the elevator was luxurious.
The building boasted a maximum of 123 floors, but we had chosen the hotel's main entrance as our route to enter this Void. Perhaps because of that, the elevator had only 4 buttons.
[81F - Western Restaurant, Korean Restaurant, Bar]
[79F - Lobby, Guest Lounge]
[76F - Grand Banquet Hall, Small Banquet Hall]
[01F - Entrance]
Shim Ah-ryun kept shrugging her shoulders, seemingly both intrigued and anxious.
"What if the elevator suddenly falls while going up after pressing the button...?"
"Then that would be fortunate."
"Eh? W-we'd die though?"
"Yeah, we might die. Instead, the course becomes extremely short, doesn't it? It would mean this huge Void is satisfied with the fun of dropping humans with just one elevator... It would seem quite low-level, wouldn't it?"
In that case, Sauron's Tower would simply be registered as a Void or strange entity named 'Hotel Elevator' and that would be the end.
It wouldn't be dangerous at all, and the method to conquer it would become very simple. Just don't ride the elevator. Done.
Unless you're a pervert who feels sexual arousal from elevator vibrations, from the next round onward, you could live without paying it any mind.
"What kind of nonsense is that, Guild Master... You said we'd die?"
"Truly terrifying Voids don't kill people. Rather, they make you feel like you want to keep living here."
"Huh?"
I pressed [79F].
Because we had entered through the hotel entrance. Then there was a quite high probability that we were guests coming to stay at this hotel.
If we were guests, naturally the first thing to do would be to stop by the 'hotel lobby' and handle 'check-in.'
Flinch!
When the elevator started moving, Shim Ah-ryun's shoulders shrank. I patted her back and spoke.
"How long you successfully survive in a Void depends on grasping that Void's 'personality.'"
"..."
"There was a hotel employee standing beyond the glass door earlier, right? You mustn't miss such minor points. There are no meaningless clues in a Void. If there's a hotel employee standing outside the door, we can speculate that it's probably 'because the Void believes itself to be a hotel.'"
"It believes itself to be a hotel..."
"That's right. Just as you should follow Roman law in Rome, if you're not planning to wreak havoc from the start, you have to submit to the Void's rules for now. In that respect, the soldiers who tried to enter here in the past were unlucky."
"Huh? W-why?"
"What guest in the world would enter a luxury hotel wearing a military uniform and carrying a gun? They were probably recognized as terrorists the moment they entered and wiped out."
"..."
I secretly hoped the elevator would fall like this. If I surrounded my entire body with aura and protected Shim Ah-ryun too, we'd have a high chance of surviving either way.
However, this world was incredibly sincere about screwing over humans, and especially about feeding me pumpkin taffy, sweet potato taffy, stick taffy, liquid taffy—every variety of taffy imaginable.
Slide-
In less than a minute, the elevator arrived at the 79th floor.
And the moment the elevator doors opened gracefully, I became certain that this Void too was a space belonging to our proud world.
"Oh my goodness. Guild Master! Look! Th-this place is completely luxurious...!"
A perfectly polished marble lobby gleaming brightly welcomed me. Even at the check-in counter in the distance, staff members were standing intact, smiling at us.
"Hmm."
This is some big taffy indeed.