Our Hotel Is Open for Business as Usual Chapter 144

"Ti limit??"

Kwon Seung-jae asked, but what ca back from Do-heon--who was practically sprinting down the sixth-floor corridor checking doors--was an irritated mutter.

"Fuck, this isn't the last room either."

"Hey, even so, you probably shouldn't just fling those open. What if there's a 'guest' staying inside? The Manager told us to show 'courtesy.'"

"Then what the fuck are we supposed to do!!"

"This kid's lost his mind."

Even as he said that, Kwon Seung-jae understood his nephew's reaction. From the look of things, the boy had lost about a year's worth of mory, which ant right now he was a genuine high schooler.

'There's no way an ordinary civilian suddenly thrown into a situation like this could stay sane.'

Still, for an Artist, holding together this well was decent enough, wasn't it? Seung-jae smiled and asked.

"How many minutes left?"

"Seven,"

> [Ti Limit 07:02]

"Seven minutes two seconds...."

"If we hustle, should be doable. Co on, let's go up."

"Am I going to die when this ends? Am I dying?"

"Oh dear, did your ntal go boom? Calm down and look at your uncle."

Seung-jae smiled and t his eyes.

"So doors you opened and so you passed by. What's the difference?"

"Ah, it felt like there was... sothing inside."

"The Manager said 'there might be sothing that helps,' so you've been opening only the doors that feel like they've got sothing. Right? So you can at least tell which ones have 'sothing'?"

"It was just a feeling...."

"The kid who forgot everything his uncle taught him still manages to do his Artist thing. Then again, losing your mories but keeping your bullshit going is a species trait of Artists. Okay, so uncle'll carry you on his back, and you yell when you see a 'weird door.' Deal?"

"Carry ? No, wait--"

"'Wait' my ass."

Seung-jae hoisted his nephew onto his shoulders and ran.

"Let's take this nice and steady."

Using his body was Seung-jae's specialty, after all.

***

> [Ti Limit 00:27]

"Insane,"

Tick-tock-tick-tock-- the red tir in the upper right of his vision--no, floating in midair--blinked madly, gnawing at his nerves.

"There! That room! That one! Over there!!"

"Give the number~"

"1209! 1209!!"

At the far end of an endless row of firmly shut doors, one that gave the first real certainty of being 'open' caught his eye. Seung-jae didn't hesitate--he slamd the door open and dove inside.

CRASH--!!

"AAAGH!!"

"Is that it? Take a look, nephew?"

"Wh-what. What."

Do-heon swept the room with ragged breaths.

"Oh fuck,"

A disgustingly spacious guest room.

> In the center of the room, far from the entrance, a massive [silver birdcage] sits abandoned--utterly out of place among the antique furnishings.

Inside the ornately wrought cage, a snow-white owl was huddled tight. It snapped its blood-red eyes open and clattered its beak against the bars--CLANG, CLANG.

"The helpful sothing the General Manager ntioned is this bird? Is he out of his mind?"

"No ti, nephew. Just open it!"

> [Ti Limit 00:05]

Do-heon unconsciously raised the revolver and aid at the cage latch.

> Would you like to release the old latch on the birdcage?

[Yes / No]

BANG!!

[Yes]

SCREEEEEAK--!

"Hrk...!"

A bone-scraping tallic screech accompanied the cage door swinging open. From inside--flutter-flap--! The white owl launched into the air and alighted delicately atop the white cage.

> [SYSTEM] You have rescued the 'White Owl'!

At that instant.

"Wh-what. What is this."

The tir in the upper right of the void stopped at [00:03].

The red digits lted like blood and scattered into nothing. The ticking that had been choking him ceased as though it had never been. Seung-jae set his nephew down and asked.

"Did it work?"

"Three, three seconds... we made it with three seconds left...."

"Barely safe, looks like~"

Looking at the white owl perched atop the cage, Seung-jae continued.

"Lucky or unlucky, we'll never know what would've happened if we'd gone over the ti limit. I was kind of curious, honestly."

"I'd rather not know, fuck...."

That was when.

> DONG--, DONG--, DONG--.

> [12 o'clock sharp] has passed.

> The lights in [Room 1209] went out. Sothing seems to have changed.

"......"

"Huh."

When the sudden darkness and dropping temperature silenced Do-heon, Seung-jae scanned their surroundings.

"Strange--wasn't it supposed to be exactly a ten-minute tir?"

"Y-yeah?"

"That was the midnight chi. The grandfather clock in the lobby made the sa sound. I've been thinking about it since the Manager waved his hand and the clock hands went backward."

He stroked his chin and said:

"Ti here must be pretty screwy, huh?"

The ti the General Manager had reversed was precisely ten minutes. The tir ran from that point, so the chi should have sounded the mont the ti limit ended. But the grandfather clock hadn't done that.

"There was a gap of a few seconds, almost like it was giving ti to assess the situation...."

"Clock hands? Ti, what? How does that work?"

"Labyrinths are fickle by nature. Oh boy, this ans when we get out, there's no telling how many days will have passed, is there? I doubt ti flows the sa inside the labyrinth and outside."

"Did we fall into space or sothing? Is this relativity?"

"Could be similar?"

Seung-jae lifted his hand from his chin and asked.

"You seeing anything, nephew?"

"You think I'm the right person to ask?"

"This isn't my area of expertise, so I don't have the eye for it."

"And you think I do, old man...."

Even so, Do-heon looked around.

Had he been too rushed when they first entered to notice? Or had sothing changed when the hour struck? Deford dissonance lurked in every corner.

> [Old Vanity Table]

> A bottle of ink has toppled before the mirror, dark-red liquid dripping to the floor. The sll is too pungent and fishy to be ink--it reeks of blood.

> The liquid doesn't seep into the floor but oozes along the gaps between the floorboards as if traveling through capillaries, pulsing as it creeps along.

"......"

"Yeah, even I can tell that's wrong."

"I want to puke."

"Might be able to tell what you ate? Want to try?"

"Uncle, you're a genuine lunatic."

"My, my? As if you're not?"

"Urgh...."

Even so, this was too much. Wincing at the fishy blood scent, he turned his head, and this ti a massive oil painting on the wall seized his gaze.

> [Wall-Mounted Landscape]

> An oil painting of a misty forest. Stare at it long enough, and an unpleasant sensation of dozens of sticky, grotesque gazes observing you from within the canvas-forest crawls up the spine.

"Ah, fuck, another one of those."

"If you're going to curse anyway, let your uncle enjoy it too. Seen one of these before?"

"Similar to what I saw in the corridor when I first left the room I woke up in...."

Co to think of it, what room number was that?

"......"

"Share the fun, I said."

"...I was trying to rember what room number I ca from."

"It was the fourth floor, at least."

"Roughly counting the rooms...."

"That I wouldn't know."

They'd t after Seung-jae found Do-heon wandering the corridor. There was no way he'd know the room number. An indefinable unease creased Do-heon's face, and Seung-jae said "Ah" and added:

"Co to think of it, there is no fourth floor here."

"FUCK!!"

He was at his wit's end.

"Wh-what are you saying? I ca down from the fourth floor."

"Noo~ I an the elevator numbers. I ca up through the ergency stairwell so I'd briefly forgotten, but the elevator buttons didn't have any floors with a 4."

"Now that you ntion it, there was no Room 4 among the room numbers, either...?"

"So maybe you woke up in Room 404 or Room 444 or sothing?"

Saying this, Seung-jae burst out laughing.

"Oooh, did that get you? Haven't seen you shrink this small in a while!"

"I want to go ho...."

"Yeaah, that doesn't look like it'll be easy, huh."

"God, this is infuriating...."

Do-heon, who had been hiding his face in both hands with his head bowed, straightened up.

"Looking around, there's a surprising number of frad landscapes."

"Hotels usually have those. Landscapes, fruit, portraits, that sort of thing."

"The interior design here is genuinely revolting."

Forcing himself to ignore the unpleasant sensations, he turned back toward the center of the room. The owl, which had been preening atop the cage, t his gaze, then fluttered off to land on the balcony railing, parting the curtains as it went.

"...? A balcony...?"

"Funny, that wasn't there when we ca in."

Do-heon looked back at Seung-jae in disbelief.

"How can you say that so calmly?"

"Should I say it while crying? Is that really what you want, nephew?"

"Uncle, you don't have friends, do you."

"Sotis I do, sotis I don't."

"I give up."

After hesitating, Do-heon thought:

'That weird guy said to find the owl, and it does seem like the bird is what he ant.'

It was on the balcony now. Outside, rain poured and the wind was fierce. The balcony had no windows or bars to stop the owl, so if he approached too hastily, it might fly off entirely.

'I still don't know how this bird is supposed to help, but....'

He took one step closer.

FLASH--!!

> ...Hm?

A deford navy bolt of lightning struck, casting the owl's shadow long across the translucent chiffon curtain. Do-heon stopped dead.

The shadow flickering on the curtain was by no ans the round shape of a bird.

> The silhouette's outline is sharply lit by the lightning.

> It is [a kid about my age with short hair], hugging their knees and hunched over.

> For so reason, they look a little lonely.

'What in the....'

KA-BOOM--!!!

"FUCKINGSHIT!!!"

"Bwahahaha!"

"Hkh, haahh...!"

The massive thunderclap that followed the flash sent Do-heon stumbling backward and crumpling to the floor. Seung-jae doubled over laughing at the sight of his nephew sprawled face-down with legs gone limp.

"Ahehk, kh,"

Choking, are you, old man.

'Fuck, I can't believe this.'

Clutching his hamring chest, Do-heon got to his feet. His feet itched to kick the figure still rolling on the floor cackling, but Confucian values held him back.

'More importantly, what was that just now?'

Do-heon approached the balcony and drew back the curtain.

"......"

"...It's just a bird...."

But behind the curtain on the balcony, there was only a white owl sitting quietly, tilting its head and watching him. No trace of a child's shadow.

'Am I so tired I'm seeing things?'

Given today's events, that was plausible.

When he lowered the gun he'd been holding just in case, the owl fluttered again. He panicked thinking it might try to flee, but it was just flapping in place.

Do-heon's gaze naturally drifted to the 'outdoor' landscape.

"...Huh?"

Vast.

"Wait?"

And high.

"Un-uncle. Fuck, uncle! Uncle!!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming~"

"Fuck, get over here!! We're screwed!!"

"Been screwed for a while now~"

Stepping onto the outdoor balcony, Seung-jae gave an impressed "Oh." The mountain range ahead jutted far more brutally, and above and below, the hotel's exterior walls stretched on without end.

"F-fuck, is this the Back○○ms? Have I actually fallen into the ○ooms?"

"Now that you ntion it, they did say labyrinths like that exist?"

"That wasn't bullshit? It's real?"

"Maybe the midnight chi was the trigger...?"

He rolled his eyes and added:

"The room lights went out around that ti and the layout shifted, so."

"Share stuff like that! Aren't we a team right now? Why don't you tell ?"

"I figured you'd catch on~ How unfair."

The navy sky churning with storms and lashing wind and rain. A landscape even more dizzying than before, when at least a modicum of reality had been present. Through it all, the owl in flight let out a cry.

"Hoo."

Seung-jae blinked.

"...? My, whose owl says 'hoo' that honestly?"

"Is that even honest? Do owls normally go 'hoo'? Is that right?"

"Oops, did they...?"

The fluttering owl fell silent, then called out again.

"Hoooh."

"Is that even a call?"

"Looked more like a sigh to ."

Seung-jae stroked his chin.

"Going by looks, I'd say a Barn Owl~"

"Does each species have a different call?"

"Your uncle doesn't know everything...."

"Then what do you know?"

"I may not know things, but I can hunt."

"Are you insane?"

A horrified Do-heon sidestepped to stand between the balcony and Seung-jae, shielding the owl. The owl was flying higher anyway, but it was reflexive.

"I'm absolutely reporting you for animal abuse."

"Sure, I'll show up when I have ti~...."

The owl, watching the two with what could only be described as exasperation, soon landed on Do-heon's head.

"Kkik."

"Oh, it said 'kkik.'"

"So Barn Owls say 'kkik~' Learn sothing new every day."

"Shut up, Uncle."

"Keeik, kkik."

"Uwah."

The owl poked Do-heon's scalp with its beak--gently, not painfully--then took off again. Flying toward the front door, it cried as if urging them on.

"Hoo-- hoooh--"

"What kind of bird has zero consistency in its calls?"

"Please, just shut up."

"It does seem to know the way, though?"

Seung-jae tapped his nephew's back and walked on.

"Let's follow it. Doesn't seem like the Manager was lying."

"...I still don't know how it's supposed to help, though."

"Maybe it'll lead us to our cop friend."

"That would be nice."

At his uncle's words, Do-heon gripped the revolver firmly and stepped into the corridor outside the room.

"......?"

"...Huh...."

And what they faced upon opening the front door and stepping into the corridor was the complete collapse of any sense of reality. Seung-jae rolled his eyes around and asked.

"What was that thing called again? The Back○○ms?"

"...Yeah, the Back○○ms."

"Is this what they look like?"

Seung-jae stroked his chin and added.

"Infinite space."

The corridor stretched on without end.

***

Dining at the Aqua Park with the Drenched One, General Manager Lee Yeon-woo thought:

'It is similar, yes.'

[Pardon? Yes.]

'I hadn't planned for this, but I'd better go guide them soon.'

As the thought ford, water squelched beside Yeon-woo's ear.

"Why is there no at? at at at."

"Next ti I'll make budae-jjigae with brisket instead of just doenjang. Just eat."

"Ooh, brisket sounds good...."

What should he serve the Human Guests for als?

'Korean food should be appropriate.'

And so a peaceful alti passed.