Chapter 20

Chapter 20. Suite Room

[20. If you encounter a lost guest in front of the Suite Room, make it clear that you are not an employee.]

Unable to find a solution, the group had no choice but to leave Min-su behind and climb one more floor.

What greeted them this time was the floor with the Suite Rooms.

Everyone was too exhausted to continue exploring, so they sprawled out near the entrance and waited for midnight.

The third midnight, met in silence and darkness.

Having passed that hour with nerves on edge, the group prepared to move again.

"Is that man… dead?"

Only then did Ju-hee raise the question.

She didn't specify who, but everyone understood who "that man" was.

"No one survives a hatchet to the back of the skull."

Han-su stated flatly.

But something nagging lingered, making it hard to move on.

"……Was he still human at that point?"

Ha-min raised a reasonable doubt, but Su-myeon answered firmly.

"Monsters that aren't human die from bullets and hatchets too."

Silence followed Su-myeon's words.

As if trying to lift the mood, Ju-hee spoke with forced optimism.

"Anyway, we just need to go up two more floors and then we can get out. Right?"

"That's right. Exactly. We've made it this far! Let's hang in there a little longer."

Ha-min chimed in alongside her, bolstering the group's spirits.

To Su-myeon's eye, Han-su had never seemed shaken in the first place, but the others appeared to draw comfort from each other's words.

"For now, everyone's tired. Let's just make sure the area's safe, get some sleep, and then move again."

Sleep deprivation was the state Su-myeon hated most.

Having said that, he took the lead once more in search of a safe place to rest.

'But why is he staring at me like that…….'

Young-cheol's expectant gaze was a bit uncomfortable, but Su-myeon decided to understand.

The man had been stuck with a piece of garbage like Ki San-hyeok — of course he'd be like this.

Su-myeon trusted that the expectation would fade on its own once Young-cheol saw how ordinary he really was.

The Suite Room floor — Basement Level 2 — had a corridor stretching on, entirely carpeted in red.

The hallway had an antique elegance, and the room doors and nameplates were adorned in gold — lavishly, almost excessively so.

"This is a huge step up from the regular rooms."

Compared to the damp, aged yellow wallpaper and carpet of Basement Level 9, this looked extravagant to the point of exaggeration.

"Anyway, this is our first time entering any room, so surely we can use one of them, right?"

Han-su said this and checked the door of the nearest room.

[Room 666]

"Not exactly a room number I'm eager to walk into."

Du-pal said as he went a little further ahead and checked the next room's number.

[Room 666]
[Room 666]
[Room 666]
[Room 666]
[Room 666]

Every single room had the same number.

And an extremely unpleasant number at that, stretching on and on.

Very occasionally, a room with a safe number would appear.

An ordinary number like 201.

In that case, they could rest comfortably in a very nice bed.

'No luck this time.'

After a long walk yielding nothing but the same room number, Su-myeon decided to give up quickly.

No one was seriously injured, starving, or parched — everyone was in relatively good shape.

It'd be nice if Young-cheol could sleep somewhere more comfortable, but aside from some bruises, he had no major wounds either.

Better to rest wherever they could than waste energy on something uncertain.

"…Let's just sleep in the hallway."

Of course, knowing it was the rational choice didn't make it feel any less miserable.

With sleep being the strongest of his basic desires, Su-myeon — who was extremely particular about the quality of his bed — sat down in irritation.

At least the temperature was neither too hot nor too cold, which eased the discomfort somewhat.

Once Su-myeon settled in and sat down, the others found spots nearby.

Sleeping in a hotel corridor flanked by rooms on both sides was a strange feeling, but there was no alternative.

A little sleep would make things better.

"We're almost there. Just a little higher and we're outside."

Ha-min spoke quietly from among the resting group.

"Do you think we'll see each other again? After we get out?"

No one answered Ha-min's question, as if they were all asleep.

Su-myeon heard it too, but exhaustion rolled in like a tide between waking and dreaming, and he couldn't respond right away.

Just a moment — he thought he was turning Ha-min's question over in his mind one more time, when—

…
…
…….

"…!"

Su-myeon jolted awake, startled to realize he'd fallen asleep.

How long had he been out? He checked the time in alarm — it was already well past 8 AM.

He was surprised at how long he'd slept, but given the plush carpet and his level of exhaustion, it made sense.

"Haah…."

Even so, Su-myeon felt like his fatigue hadn't properly lifted. He took off his glasses and rubbed around his eyes.

The others weren't much better off.

Ju-hee was simply blinking, lost in thought, and Du-pal was still asleep.

Young-cheol looked like he was in some pain from his injuries, so Su-myeon dug through his bag for painkillers.

"Here."

Not knowing what would be appropriate, Su-myeon handed over every type of painkiller he had.

Young-cheol picked out the ones he needed.

"Thank you."

"Yeah."

You should be thankful.

Su-myeon watched him swallow the pills, then looked around again.

The corridor stretching endlessly in both directions.

Ha-min, whose energy never seemed to flag, was already up and surveying the area.

"……What's wrong?"

But Su-myeon noticed the color had drained from Ha-min's face and furrowed his brow.

At his question, Ha-min looked around one more time.

"Hyung…."

Su-myeon followed Ha-min's gaze and scanned the surroundings again.

Nothing out of the ordinary was visible.

Han-su rose to his feet, noticing Ha-min's strange expression. Young-cheol, having swallowed his medicine, did the same.

And Ju-hee and Du-pal, still asleep……

"…!"

Su-myeon realized what was wrong and shot to his feet.

"Han-su is gone!"

***

Kang Han-su. A proud police officer of the Republic of Korea — a detective in the Violent Crimes Unit, no less.

He'd always believed the only thing he feared was an unsolved case.

But now, faced with the unknown — something that made even cold cases pale in comparison — he felt a crushing helplessness.

"Excuse me……. Where is Room ■■■?"

The formless black mass that said those words.

When it woke him from his sleep, Han-su did the most correct thing he could.

"I'm not an employee of this hotel, so I wouldn't know."

Han-su answered firmly, careful not to violate the rules.

"Oh……. I'm sorry………."

The entity's voice sounded somehow deflated as it seemed to shuffle backward.

In that gap, Han-su quickly reached out to wake Su-myeon beside him.

But instead of retreating as expected, the black mass stretched its neck long and shoved an eyeball right up to Han-su's face.

"Then…… are you a guest…?"

A shape so featureless that it was impossible to tell where or with what it was producing sound.

Faced with the question from something that could only be described as a mass, Han-su kept reciting the rules in his head.

"Yes. That's correct."

"Then…… are you going upstairs…?"

Han-su was caught off guard by the creature's follow-up.

This question was unrelated to anything written in the rules.

Did that mean any answer was safe?

He waited through the silence, but the thing showed no sign of moving until it got an answer.

After a long staring contest between his own eyes and the creature's eyeball, Han-su finally replied.

"………Yes…."

Would it be better to wake the group?

Or was it wiser to keep things quiet and let the creature leave undisturbed?

With nothing he could be certain of, what was the right choice to protect the group?

"Then…… Do you want to go together…?"

"……."

Did that mean it knew the way up?

Han-su glanced over the tired faces of his companions.

They were all thoroughly sick of the paths that led in circles.

If he could scout the route in advance…….

'It would help.'

And even if that wasn't the case, he couldn't let this thing stay near the group.

At the very least, drawing it away from the others seemed like the right call.

He suddenly recalled Su-myeon, who had conversed calmly with the Red Queen without flinching.

He couldn't keep pushing all the responsibility onto that man.

Even if it meant being bait, he could at least pull the danger away. That much he was capable of.

"Do you know the way up?"

At his question, a long, protruding structure — presumably a head — swayed in what seemed like a nod.

Han-su nodded in return, then picked up a bag of candy that had been sitting on top of the group's luggage.

"……Yes. Lead the way and I'll follow."

***

"Why the hell do people keep disappearing one by one?!"

"This isn't the same as when Su-myeon disappeared!"

Du-pal and Ju-hee had woken up by now, but there was no trace of Han-su anywhere nearby.

"He didn't go into one of the rooms, did he?"

"Or maybe he ran into… someone lost, like the rule says?"

Everyone scrambled to piece things together, but answers were impossible to find.

And they certainly couldn't start opening the endless string of Room 666 doors.

Su-myeon saw Ju-hee deliberating over whether to open the Room 666 in front of her and stopped her.

Better not to open Room 666.

"I think… he may have gone on ahead."

The others clearly needed more explanation before they'd accept that, so Su-myeon elaborated.

"If he encountered the entity from the rules and got swept up in it somehow…… it's one of two things. Either it's already too late, or he escaped safely and went upstairs."

Han-su was a man of strong responsibility and courage.

The most likely scenario they could piece together was that something had appeared, and he had deliberately led it away and vanished with it.

"What did you all think when I disappeared?"

Su-myeon asked the group, who still hesitated.

Ju-hee, deep in thought with a grave expression, answered softly.

"……We thought that if we found the way up, we'd meet you at the destination since we were headed to the same place."

"It's the same situation. And Han-su is a detective on top of that. He'll manage better than I did."

Su-myeon's reassurance, added to Ju-hee's words, finally calmed the group enough to start moving again.

There was still worry, but no real alternative either.

For now, all they could do was follow the corridor stretching ahead.

"Candy…. This candy! It was in my bag?"

And after just a few steps, they spotted a piece of candy that looked deliberately dropped — as if Han-su had marked his path.

One by one, picking up candies as they followed the trail, the group eventually reached a fork.

But there, too, a candy lay in front of one of the paths, as if Han-su had marked the way.

"……Stairs."

Before long, the group found stairs leading to the upper floor.

Compared to the other floors, finding the stairs had been almost anticlimactic — but Han-su wasn't there.

Only the candies he'd dropped remained.

"Let's head up for now."

If Han-su had made it this far, he would have naturally gone upstairs.

Suppressing their uneasy feelings, the group climbed the staircase.

The floor they reached was the VIP Lounge. One floor above that — Ground Level. The surface. Freedom.

Clinging to that fact, they entered the lounge and found exactly the familiar silhouette they'd been hoping for.

"Han-su…! Han-su is over there!"

Ju-hee, relieved after all her worry, was about to dash toward him when Su-myeon grabbed her arm.

"Shh."

A vast space. A long banquet table set atop a checkered tile floor that resembled an empty chessboard.

Han-su wasn't the only one seated at that table.

A massive leather-skinned mass with its belly split open, entrails draped across the table surface. Grotesque purple-tentacled, gelatinous plants.

Things of thoroughly abnormal appearance crowded around Han-su, filling every seat at the table.