Chapter 17: Wine Bar (2)

[17. Item 4 is false. At midnight, everyone dances together under the flickering lights!]

Su-myeon struggled to keep his composure in the face of what had already happened.

Gaining items by sacrificing companions?

Even in a game, where they were nothing more than scraps of data, he had never done anything like that.

If it had at least been efficient, I might have tried it out of curiosity.

Deliberately cutting down the number of available hands was incredibly inefficient.

No matter how many weapons you had, one person only had two hands.

There was no reason to sacrifice people who could cooperate with you and fight on your behalf.

But... to sacrifice the companions who had been traveling with him.......

Even if they had only been together for two days, it was not easy to treat another human being that way.

Just how insane was he?

Once again, Su-myeon was reminded that San-hyeok existed far beyond the bounds of ordinary understanding.

Su-myeon, who at least already knew what kind of bastard San-hyeok had always been, was the first to recover from the shock and speak again.

“...If I pay the price instead, can we take those people with us?”

At Su-myeon’s words, the Red Queen smiled brightly.

“No.”

Then she placed four Heartphones, each broken cleanly in half, on the table.

“Once something has been broken, it cannot be restored to its original state. And if they cease to be employees, they will become illegal intruders, will they not?”

[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.]

As they stared at the Heartphones that had been completely split in two, the group recalled that same rule.

“Uuugh.... Uh, ngh....”

“Sa, save... save me. Save me.”

“It... hurts....... It hurts....”

“.......”

The four who had lost their minds—no, the things that were no longer human.

“Uegh....”

Ju-hee could no longer hold it in and retched.

And she was not the only one.

Ha-min and Du-pal stood frozen, unable to move, their eyes fixed firmly on the floor. Han-su, too, forced himself to keep his gaze trained solely on the Red Queen.

After sweeping her gaze over them, the Red Queen gave a small sigh.

“Ah. Are they making our guests uncomfortable?”

What they were feeling was far too complex to be described by a word like uncomfortable, but Su-myeon nodded anyway.

The Red Queen responded with an apologetic smile.

“Oh dear, my apologies. Once their training is complete, I will have them come greet you again.”

The Red Queen clapped her hands once more.

At once, the four bodies moved in perfect unison, as though controlled by invisible strings, and disappeared back into the darkness.

Faced with something that could never be undone, Su-myeon rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand.

What matters on this floor is information.

Information.

Get a grip.

“How many floors does this hotel have in total?”

“This building has a total of nine basement floors. At present, you are staying on the fourth floor, the Wine Bar.”

The Red Queen smiled and answered Su-myeon’s question without hesitation.

Su-myeon already knew this information, but he confirmed it again for the sake of the others.

“Then we need to go up four more floors to reach ground level, correct?”

“Yes. That is correct.”

“Then, if we reach ground level, can we go outside?”

The Red Queen, who had been answering so pleasantly until then, fell silent.

Several seconds passed.

After a silence long enough for tension to creep into the air, she finally answered.

“Yes.”

There was something strangely unsettling about the answer.

Han-su, who had been watching her closely, glanced sideways, stepped up beside Su-myeon, and asked directly,

“Why did you hesitate before answering just now?”

At those words, the Red Queen pulled one of the remaining sandwiches closer.

Her body was standing in front of them while her head sat beside it, making it somewhat difficult to know where they were supposed to look.

Once everyone had finally settled their gaze on the sandwich, the Red Queen began her explanation in the same gentle tone.

“I was simply wondering for a moment which outside you were referring to.”

The Red Queen placed a small rabbit figurine from the table on top of the sandwich and looked toward Su-myeon.

“Now, shall we say that this is the guest?”

Then the Red Queen pressed one finger brutally down onto the rabbit.

It sank deep into the sandwich until it was completely buried.

The Red Queen continued her pleasant explanation as she peeled away the top slice of bread.

“The world is like a sandwich made of many layers.”

She rummaged through the sandwich, peeling away the ingredients piled on top one by one.

“If one climbs upward, layer by layer, and goes outside, a new world will come into view. But above that, there is always yet another outside.”

The final piece of the sandwich.

Only a single slice of bread, identical to the first, remained.

The crushed rabbit figurine, embedded into it, sat alone atop the bread.

Bread identical to the first.

......No.

Could it truly be called identical?

The ingredients were the same. The composition was the same.

But could it really be said to be the same thing?

“In any case, an outside is still an outside, so I decided that answering in the affirmative would be correct.”

Did you understand?

Faced with the smiling Red Queen, every member of the group wore the exact same expression.

What the hell is she talking about?

In the end, unable to make proper sense of it, they looked from one another’s faces until, eventually, every gaze came to rest on Su-myeon.

But among them, Su-myeon felt as though he understood what she meant.

He had crossed beyond the world where he had originally lived and arrived somewhere else.

And now that he had experienced this hotel, he could never return to being exactly who he had been before.

Even if he escaped the hotel and reached the “outside,” perhaps it would be like the two ends of that sandwich.

The same.

And yet different.

“.......”

At that moment, all of their Heartphones began ringing at once.

Startled by every device going off simultaneously, the group hurriedly checked their screens.

[17. Do not trust item 4. Do not trust Ellis.]

An unmistakably direct warning.

Amid the suddenly chilling atmosphere, the Red Queen’s severed head smiled brightly.

“By the way, will it not be blackout time in a few hours? Since things have already turned out this way, why not rest here a little longer before leaving?”

“Ah, no. We’re fine.”

Su-myeon answered quickly, then turned to look at the others.

The greatest concern right now was Young-cheol, who had only joined them recently, but—

“I, I’m... fine too. I think I can move a little now.”

At some point, Young-cheol had finished treating his injuries.

After eating enough to take the edge off his hunger and disinfecting all of his wounds, some color and energy had returned to him.

He managed to stand on his own and handed the bag back to Su-myeon, having neatly organized the remaining medicine and bandages inside.

What the hell had they beaten him with to leave him looking like that?

Young-cheol had quite a number of injuries, both large and small, but fortunately, at least for now, nothing seemed to be broken.

“You must be exhausted. You still have a long way ahead of you, so please, take a little more time to rest here.”

The Red Queen spoke in a gentle voice, smiling all the while.

Yet every member of the group went rigid with tension.

[17. Donottrustdonottrustdonottrustdonottrustdonottrustdonottrustdonottrustdonottrustdonottrustdonottrustdonottrustdonottrustdonottrustdonottrustdonottrustdonottrustdonottrustdonottrustdonottrustdonottrustdonottrustdonottrustdonottrust]

Their Heartphones continued to ring.

The words on the screens kept changing.

Caught between those contradictory signals, the tension around them grew heavier by the second.

The longer the unnatural silence dragged on, the more rigid the Red Queen’s expression became.

The atmosphere felt ready to explode at the slightest spark.

There was only one person who could break that suffocating silence.

“If it wouldn’t be rude of us, shall we do that?”

Su-myeon gave the Red Queen an agreeable answer while discreetly touching Ju-hee beside him.

More precisely, he tapped the weapon he had purchased for her.

The crowbar.

“Then, this time, I’d like one alcoholic drink, please.”

As if trying to lighten the atmosphere, Su-myeon simultaneously ordered a drink from the Red Queen.

Only then did the Red Queen’s body brighten again and turn away.

Su-myeon did not miss the opening.

He immediately seized the Red Queen’s head, which had been left unattended on the table.

“Ms. Ju-hee!”

The crowbar was a heavy chunk of metal, but Ju-hee had more nerve than her appearance suggested.

Having understood the signal Su-myeon had given her beforehand, Ju-hee was already gripping the crowbar tightly.

She immediately raised it high above her head.

The solid piece of metal came crashing down on the Red Queen’s head without hesitation.

“Kyaaaaaaaagh!”

“Aaagh!”

Unfortunately, the hooked end of the crowbar plunged straight into the Red Queen’s eyeball.

The sight—and the sensation in her hands—was far more gruesome than Ju-hee had expected.

She screamed as well.

While Ju-hee frantically yanked the crowbar free, Han-su rammed his shoulder into the Red Queen’s body as it flailed around in search of its head and knocked it aside.

“Ha-min!”

Calling out his name, Su-myeon hurled the Red Queen’s head toward him.

The weapon he had purchased for Ha-min was a sturdy aluminum baseball bat.

CLANG!

With a heavy impact, the Red Queen’s head went flying into a corner of the Wine Bar.

Ha-min, who had instinctively swung at the object hurtling toward him, went pale.

“My head! My head! My eye!”

The Red Queen’s shrieking head rolled into the gap beside a sofa.

Her body immediately rushed off in search of it, leaving the path to the stairs completely clear.

“.......”

Su-myeon did not overlook the two Rose Coins resting on the tray where the Red Queen’s head had been.

He snatched those up as well.

“Let’s go up!”

After confirming that Han-su was supporting the staggering Young-cheol, Su-myeon hurried up the stairs first.

Du-pal and the others rushed after him.

“Aaaaaagh! I will not let you get away! You vermin! You creatures lower than insects! You mortals......!”

The Red Queen’s piercing shriek rang out behind them as though she might come charging after them at any moment.

Su-myeon rushed up the stairs, and the rest of the group followed close behind.

Five people besides himself.

After carefully confirming the head count, Su-myeon immediately slammed the door shut.

“.......”

From beyond the closed door—

BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG!

Someone pounded against it violently, as though trying to smash straight through.

The terrified group grabbed hold of the door, but Su-myeon instead removed his hands.

None of the monsters in this place could leave the areas assigned to them.

......BANG!

One final, vicious blow struck the door, as though the Red Queen were venting the last of her rage.

Then silence returned.

“Wow... shit.......”

Only then did Du-pal finally let out the breath he had been holding and rub at his goosebump-covered arms.

Ju-hee and Ha-min, meanwhile, appeared to be having considerable trouble shaking off the horrible sensation lingering in their hands.

“......This is a new floor.”

Amid the chaos, Han-su quietly called their attention back to their surroundings.

Only then did the group raise their heads and, as they had grown accustomed to doing, search for a sign.

[SPA]

The hotel’s spa facility.

True to its name, countless mirrors stood before them.

[17. This item has been officially deleted. Item 17 does not exist.]

“The rule... changed.”

Young-cheol muttered, apparently having noticed the altered text on his Heartphone.

“...If the rules can work like this, what the hell are we supposed to do? Do they seriously expect all of us to die here?”

Du-pal checked the rule again and muttered in despair.

It certainly seemed contradictory.

But Su-myeon already understood the loophole.

“It said employees cannot lie. It never said the rules themselves cannot lie.”

“Employees cannot lie... is also a rule, though.”

When Ju-hee immediately pointed that out, Su-myeon nodded.

“That’s why I think we should trust the rules for now, unless two of them directly contradict each other.”

The way the Red Queen had tried to persuade them had been suspicious from the very beginning.

Especially that dubious item 17.

Everyone dancing together at midnight?

“We all saw what happens when item 4 is broken. So there was never any reason to worry about that.”

They had already witnessed someone die a horrible death at midnight.

“It’s more rational to assume that item 17 alone was the exception—that there was something wrong with it.”

Rational.

Really, there could hardly have been a word less suited to their current situation.

At Su-myeon’s concise explanation, which gave them a clear way to interpret the situation, Young-cheol nodded as though something had finally clicked.

“As expected. I see.”

And it was not only Young-cheol.

The rest of the group seemed equally impressed by Su-myeon’s reasoning.

Now that his words had given them a clear standard to follow, everyone gradually began to regain their composure.

If the rules were fundamentally reliable, then there was still definite hope.

That also meant the Red Queen had been telling the truth when she said this strange hotel had an end.

“In any case, we’ve reached a new floor, so we should be all right for now.”

Han-su spoke in a reassuring voice, seemingly trying to calm everyone a little further.

Su-myeon did not particularly want to undermine Han-su’s attempt at reassurance.

But in this hotel, there was no such thing as a floor that could truly be considered safe.

And as if to prove him right, a new rule appeared on the Heartphone.