Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Waiting Room (2)

[2. Please take care not to damage or lose the hotel-issued mobile phone provided to guests. Anyone not carrying one will be considered an illegal intruder and removed by Security.]

Even though someone else had opened the door, what mattered was the detail of the rule.

“Ugh… Uwaaaaagh!”

The shaggy-haired man was considered to have entered a room he had already entered once.

As soon as he was thrown into the room, he began screaming.

As if trying to dispose of the foreign object that had rolled into the room, dozens of hands sprang up from the floor, grabbed the shaggy-haired man’s limbs, and twisted and folded them every which way.

Broken bones tore through muscle and flesh, jutting out, and the room became a mess of blood as though red paint had been sprayed everywhere.

The scream was brief, and the sound that came after was nothing more than wind drowning in blood.

“…Krrgh, khk… hkk.”

Inside the room appeared a being wearing a maid outfit and an old white rabbit mask, dingy and blurred with ash-gray age.

It began tearing apart the shaggy-haired man’s abnormally folded limbs one by one, as if sorting them for recycling.

There was no other way to describe it. Skin and flesh were ripping away as easily as if they were worth less than sheets of paper.

CLICK-

Han-su, who had returned after hearing the scream, closed the door in Su-myeon’s stead while he stood frozen at the sight.

Only then did Su-myeon realize he had even been holding his breath, and he exhaled the breath that had been stuck in his chest.

A coin rolled out through the crack beneath the door, rolled across the floor, tapped Su-myeon’s shoe, and stopped.

This sight was witnessed by Su-myeon, Han-su, and….

“Wow…. This is way too realistic for a dream.”

The villain inside this damn game.

“The rules are stricter than I expected.”

Ki San-hyeok.

Only those three witnessed it directly.

The others, who had been about to move, merely stood frozen in shock at the sudden scream.

‘This bastard….’

Only after he caught his breath did Su-myeon glare at San-hyeok.

From the backs of his hands to his neck and cheeks, tattoos covered his entire body, and his hair was bleached.

San-hyeok, who looked like someone you would avoid if you ran into him on the street, stuck out his pierced tongue and grinned at Su-myeon.

“…….”

Su-myeon clenched his teeth and did not bother responding to San-hyeok.

Unlike a death caused by the man’s own carelessness, this was clearly murder.

“What exactly happened?”

When Han-su asked, San-hyeok merely grinned wide enough to show his fangs.

San-hyeok was a villain who did all kinds of bizarre things inside this hotel and never died until the very end.

He was a third-generation chaebol who had committed every kind of illegal and corrupt act, a character whose personality was originally set as trash.

‘…And I’m already getting tangled up with this guy.’

In the original game, he revealed his true nature only after they had gone up several more floors.

But why was he acting like this already? Was trying to save the shaggy-haired man the wrong choice?

Perhaps characters originally destined to die could not be saved.

San-hyeok stared at Su-myeon, who was lost in thought, then shrugged with a strange expression and pointed at the closed door again.

“I don’t know either. No, I’m telling you, that guy who was so obsessed with his wallet just went in on his own.”

Right?

After telling such a shameless lie, San-hyeok flashed another disgusting smile at Su-myeon.

Su-myeon, who had been deep in thought, frowned slightly at the sight and replied.

“What are you talking about? You opened the door and shoved him in.”

Why are you lying when I clearly saw everything?

He had pointlessly stepped forward in front of everyone twice just to save that man.

Twice, no less! How dare this bastard make all of that come to nothing?

“What exactly happened?”

“I heard a scream….”

“Uh, where did that man from earlier go? Don’t tell me he ended up going in?”

The people who had crowded back into the narrow corridor began murmuring again.

Fortunately or unfortunately, because the sound echoed, it seemed only Han-su and San-hyeok, who were close by, had heard Su-myeon’s words, while the others had not.

San-hyeok swept his gaze over the panicking people, then asked back with the same crooked smile and gloomy voice.

“You, can you take responsibility for saying that?”

Su-myeon was about to face San-hyeok, but then he suddenly realized something.

A small droplet of blood had splattered onto his glasses.

Su-myeon took them off with a frown, wiped them clean, and answered.

“The person who acts is the one who takes responsibility, and the people listening are the ones who decide what to believe.”

Since the bastard younger than him had spoken informally first, Su-myeon returned it in kind and made the issue clear.

Please handle the cleanup properly, Mr. Protagonist.

“…For now, let’s discuss this later.”

After hearing Su-myeon’s words, Han-su thought for a moment and replied that way before looking back at the room where the shaggy-haired man had disappeared.

He quietly pressed his ear to the door, but apparently heard nothing, because he shook his head.

Since a person had gone in and failed to come back out, everyone would be unable to shake off this uneasy feeling as things stood.

They needed to confirm it.

“It said a room once left… so someone entering it for the first time should be fine.”

When Su-myeon quietly told him that, Han-su stared at him for a moment before carefully opening the door.

Inside, the room was clean, as though nothing had happened, and the yellow wallpaper and old carpet on every side were no different in color from the corridor.

“…….”

Because the vivid banquet of red blood still lingered before his eyes, Su-myeon stepped back with a sigh.

Then the people unable to suppress their curiosity crowded forward, squeezing into the narrow corridor to look inside the room.

The square room was identical in every way to the room where Su-myeon had opened his eyes.

There was only one difference: a red cloth in the shape of a rabbit placed at the very center of the room.

Han-su, who had suddenly looked around, beckoned to Su-myeon, who was standing far away.

“Could you hold the door for a moment?”

…Why me, of all people?

He wanted to argue, but Su-myeon simply decided to do as Mr. Protagonist told him.

While Su-myeon held the door, Han-su went inside and came out holding the red rabbit that had been placed there.

A cloth neatly folded into the shape of a rabbit and soaked in red liquid.

It was similar to the way hotel housekeepers folded towels for guests.

After hesitating for a moment, Han-su unfolded the cloth, revealing a T-shirt that had been partially torn and pierced with holes.

The T-shirt was thoroughly soaked in a bright red, slightly viscous liquid.

Su-myeon did not want to clarify exactly what it was.

“It appears to be the same clothing the man from earlier was wearing.”

At Han-su’s words, everyone recoiled in horror and stepped back.

The cloth gave off a bloody stench strong enough for everyone nearby to smell, and both of Han-su’s hands, which were holding the clothing, were drenched red.

Su-myeon tapped Han-su’s shoulder with his finger to call him.

“How about tying that to the doorknob for now as a marker…?”

At Su-myeon’s words, Han-su nodded and wrapped the T-shirt around the doorknob of the room he had come out of, tying it there.

Even with that simple act of tying it, blood streamed down from the wrung cloth.

A thick smell of blood spread everywhere, leaving no need to ask whether it really was blood.

Anxiety and fear spread among the people, but not enough to throw them into major panic yet.

“For now, let’s move.”

The one fortunate thing was that none of them had seen how the shaggy-haired man had died.

Someone had reentered a room, then vanished while leaving behind one blood-soaked T-shirt.

Was it because the entire situation was far too unreal? The people maintained a fair amount of calm.

Now truly reduced to fifteen, the group walked for a few minutes, and the scenery around them slowly began to change.

“Does this structure even make sense…?”

Everyone agreed with the words someone muttered.

The end of the corridor, which they had thought would lead somewhere else, had suddenly changed into a wide space.

It had merely widened, while the same wallpaper and carpet continued, and columns stood here and there in completely random positions.

There were even out-of-place partition walls, or solitary fixed doors standing in the middle.

“…I can only see the same wall beyond the hole.”

The smallest woman among the group said that while looking beyond a hole in the middle of a sagging wall.

Han-su pulled the woman in office attire, who had been pressed against the wall looking through the hole, away from it.

Because Han-su had closed the door for Su-myeon, only Han-su and San-hyeok had seen it directly.

That monster that had torn a person apart with ease.

“It would be better not to look inside carelessly. It may be dangerous, so please do not get too close.”

“Ah… yes.”

At Han-su’s firm warning, the woman answered dejectedly and quietly stepped away from the wall.

Because the scene kept surfacing in his mind, Su-myeon took off his glasses again for no reason and scrubbed the lenses hard one more time.

He had watched almost every decent horror movie, and there was no such thing as one of those so-called “words you must never search” that he had not looked up.

Inwardly, he had prided himself on being immune to gore.

But had he ever smelled it? No, had he even imagined it?

The hot smell of blood and the stench of filth released when the whole body of a person who had been alive moments ago was torn apart.

The sound of living flesh ripping apart in long strips, and bones snapping one after another….

‘I feel like I’m going to throw up….’

Suppressing his nausea, Su-myeon shifted his attention to his phone.

He did not know whether everyone else had seen it, but one more rule had appeared on the phone.

Usually, safety rules were all shown from the beginning, but this game was a little different.

As if to emphasize them one by one for everyone, the rules tended to increase one at a time according to the situation and timing.

‘As long as we don’t break them, we can survive.’

The only thing given to them in this bizarre space, the phone, was important.

Su-myeon opened the app drawer of the phone that had a heart mark on the back.

Inside this damn game, apps were useful progression tools.

[Safety Rules] [Inventory] [Camera] [Messages] [Secret Shop]

‘What… is this…?’

Among them, Su-myeon tapped an unfamiliar app that stood out.

The Secret Shop, marked with a golden-yellow bell-shaped icon, launched with the name <Beautiful Belle’s Secret Shop>.

He had never seen anything like this in the game either.

[Buy items with Rose Coins!]

At the guide message that appeared on the first screen, Su-myeon checked the coin that had rolled to his feet earlier and that he had picked up.

Something had suddenly rolled over, so he had taken it reflexively, but….

The silver coin, about the size of a 500-won coin, had roses embossed on both sides.

“…….”

After hesitating for a moment, Su-myeon lifted the coin and pressed it to the screen.

The method for using the Inventory was simple.

If he placed an item that could be stored against the screen, it entered inside, and when he took it out, it popped back out just as conveniently.

Sure enough, the coin easily slipped into the screen.

[Rose Coins: 1]

Fortunately, the coin that had entered the Inventory properly was displayed as currency inside the shop.

But Su-myeon was still bewildered.

‘I found and followed every Easter egg, so there’s no way there could be a function I don’t know.’

Even the parts that required physical skill too difficult for him to replicate had all been watched through online walkthrough videos.

Su-myeon could not easily accept that there was a function he did not know.

But as if showing off, the app brought up a new guide window.

[Preparing stock….]

[Would you like to enable stock-arrival notifications?]

Was there perhaps a recent update…? Or was this a function from some fan game he had never played?

As a horror game enthusiast, he felt as if his pride had been slightly wounded, but there was nothing more he could look at right now.

After enabling the notification with a small sigh, he put the phone back into his sweatpants.

“…I am Kang Han-su.”

Then, right on time, the protagonist approached and suddenly held out his hand to Su-myeon, asking for a handshake.

A handshake with the protagonist he had played hundreds of times.

It was a strange feeling, but Su-myeon needlessly wiped the sweat from his palm on his pants once before taking his hand.

“Ah, yes. I heard earlier. I’m Han Su-myeon.”

“Yes, Mr. Su-myeon. ……I believe what you said.”

Did he really need to tell me that directly…?

The thought came to Su-myeon reflexively, but he awkwardly nodded.

For now, he was grateful that Han-su believed him instead of San-hyeok.

“Oh! Jackpot! There are stairs here!”

Just then, San-hyeok’s voice rang out. He had been rummaging around the area alone at the very front.

Su-myeon quietly swallowed dryly.

If everything up until now had been the tutorial, then the real game would begin from the next floor.