Chapter 19: Spa (2)

[19. A special event for hotel guests! Enjoy a one-time complimentary Spa visit — don't miss out.]

Han-su led the group onward, weighed down by an overwhelming sense of helplessness.

The space consisted of glass walls lined with identical cabinets and mirrors—no, mannequins.

Aside from its oppressive atmosphere, the floor itself did not seem particularly dangerous.

The only problem was that one person, Su-myeon, had disappeared.

'And yet everyone's completely shaken.'

An uncertain place. Enemies with irrational forms. Situations that defied comprehension.

Even amid all of that, everyone had come to rely heavily on Su-myeon, who always managed to find something concrete to work with and keep them moving forward.

Kang Han-su himself was no exception.

"Was there anything... like that? Some method Su-myeon used to figure out where to go......."

After wandering the same endlessly repeating corridors until everyone was beginning to tire, Young-cheol finally asked.

Han-su was just as frustrated.

Had this damned hotel always felt this hopeless?

A fresh wave of fear crept over him.

Su-myeon had always pointed them toward the next objective and charted their route as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

Han-su had no such confidence.

"I'm... not sure there was anything like that."

[PM 10:32]

"We've been wandering around for quite a while now."

Ju-hee checked the time and spoke in a heavy voice.

Only now were they beginning to realize just how difficult the things Su-myeon had made look easy really were.

After a moment of thought, Han-su stopped beside the only open path.

Then, just as Su-myeon had done before, he tried opening one of the cabinets beside him.

Whenever Su-myeon opened one, a new passage would sometimes appear immediately, but—

CRASH—!

The instant Han-su opened the cabinet, he slammed it shut again.

Inside stood a mannequin that looked exactly like Su-myeon.

"Holy sh......."

Du-pal, who had been watching from beside him, clutched his chest as though the sight had just shaved ten years off his life.

With no clear answer in sight, the group eventually decided to sit down and rest for a while.

They could not keep wandering around like this forever.

"How the hell did Su-myeon know which doors had passages behind them?"

"Was there some difference between the doors?"

"......I can't remember...."

While Ju-hee and Han-su tried to retrace Su-myeon's actions in reverse, Ha-min quietly reread the Safety Rules displayed on his Heartphone.

The surrounding glass looked so much like mirrors.

The mannequins, mimicking the group's movements, gathered around them once again.

"Could we be going in circles?"

"There weren't any rules against leaving markers, right? If we drop something as we go, at least we'll be able to tell whether we've passed the same place before."

"We don't have any better ideas, so that seems like our best option for now."

While the adults traded suggestions, Ha-min, who had been silently turning the rules over in his mind, cautiously spoke up.

"Um, excuse me. This is about something else."

The adults fell silent.

Once everyone's attention turned toward him, Ha-min continued, his voice growing smaller and smaller.

"There's nothing about it in the rules, and Su-myeon never mentioned it either, but......."

It was not that he lacked confidence.

He sounded more like someone whispering because he was afraid something nearby might overhear him.

Ha-min lowered his voice even further.

"There's nothing that says the mannequins can't talk......."

Mannequins obviously couldn't talk.

Ju-hee had been about to say exactly that, but the words died in her throat.

Then again—

Was it really obvious that mannequins could imitate living people and play mirror games with them?

Everyone was too stunned to answer, clinging to the faint hope that it could not possibly be true.

Then a single voice broke the silence.

"Busted."

Su-myeon walked on, following the trail of a pleasant fragrance.

If he followed it, he would eventually reach the counter where the Spa services were offered.

His legs were exhausted, and even a route he already knew seemed to take longer than expected.

"Would you like to receive our Spa service?"

When he finally reached the counter, an employee greeted him.

It looked identical to the diamond-faced employee he had encountered earlier in the Shopping Mall.

The only difference was the symbol drawn on its smooth, featureless face.

Instead of a diamond, there was a spade.

"We offer full-body care as well as targeted care for specific areas."

The employee continued its explanation in a prim, professional customer-service voice.

Getting to the next floor from here was simple.

All he had to do was decline the service and ask the employee to show him the exit.

That was it.

Of course, there were situations in which the Spa could genuinely be useful.

'Not right now, though.'

Its effects were far too drastic.

He had no intention of using it unless absolutely necessary.

Especially not on himself.

"No, I'm fi——"

Su-myeon was about to give the answer he had prepared when he abruptly froze.

Footsteps.

He could hear footsteps.

The group?

Relief surged through him—

and vanished just as quickly.

"Well, well. Look who we have here."

This time, it was the real Ki San-hyeok in the flesh.

The exact opposite of the person Su-myeon had hoped to see.

Still, judging from his appearance, San-hyeok seemed to have gone through his own share of hell.

He looked like a wreck.

He had changed so much since their first meeting that, if nothing else, Su-myeon could be certain he was not a mannequin.

"You're alone?"

San-hyeok struck what was presumably meant to be a threatening pose.

Su-myeon had absolutely no intention of indulging him.

Without a moment's hesitation, he adjusted his grip on the gun.

BANG!

A single gunshot rang out.

But this time, the result was nothing like what had happened with the mannequin.

"Ah, f—— fuck....... This bastard greets people with gunfire?"

The bullet had clearly struck him.

And yet there was no scream, no sound of flesh tearing, no sign of destruction.

Nothing.

San-hyeok remained standing exactly where he was, completely unharmed, his lips curling into a feral grin.

"The 'Spa' here works wonders."

"......You."

Keeping his gun trained on San-hyeok, Su-myeon carefully examined him.

San-hyeok had blocked the bullet with his right arm.

The limb had turned pitch-black, transformed into something entirely different from human flesh.

"So you already know what the Spa does?"

San-hyeok frowned at Su-myeon's reaction.

As far as Su-myeon understood it, the Spa's effect was simple.

'Body modification.'

It altered—or outright replaced—the human body.

Whatever body part you gave up would be lost forever.

In exchange, it could be replaced with something grotesque.

San-hyeok had apparently surrendered his right arm to the Spa and had it replaced with some other material.

"......Whatever. Doesn't matter how much you know."

Apparently bored by Su-myeon's refusal to react, San-hyeok sharply cracked his neck.

"I'm going to kill you right here anyway."

A savage grin spread across San-hyeok's face as he charged straight at him.

Su-myeon barely managed to stagger backward in time, the black fist grazing past him.

It slammed into the wall beside him.

The wall shattered with a deafening crash.

"Would you like to receive our Spa service?"

Even in the middle of the fight, the spade-faced employee continued repeating the same line like a broken record.

Perhaps it was encouraging Su-myeon to accept the treatment and obtain the same kind of power.

"Ugh!"

San-hyeok charged at him recklessly, seemingly unconcerned with anything around him, and drew a gun with his unaltered hand.

A small, lightweight revolver.

He pressed it against Su-myeon's chest and pulled the trigger.

BANG—!

Fortunately, Su-myeon was still wearing the jacket made from the Nemean Lion Hide.

The impact felt like a hard shove.

He was thrown backward and rolled across the floor.

San-hyeok had fired at point-blank range, yet Su-myeon did not appear injured in the slightest.

It did not take San-hyeok long to understand what had happened.

"So you got your hands on something special too?"

Kahahahahaha!

San-hyeok burst into laughter as though he genuinely found the situation hilarious.

Su-myeon had no reason to keep watching his performance.

He immediately steadied his own gun again.

His trigger hand trembled from tension and agitation, causing several shots to go wide.

Even so, blood burst from multiple places across San-hyeok's body.

Against an ordinary person, the wounds would have been devastating.

And yet San-hyeok remained standing.

Unfazed.

"Even with all that, this is the best you can do? This is exactly why bottom-feeders never amount to anything."

As though he could not even feel the pain, San-hyeok muttered the words with open contempt.

But that son of a bitch's bullshit was not enough to shake Su-myeon.

Carefully.

This time, aim for the heart.

Just as Su-myeon steeled himself, something appeared behind San-hyeok.

BZZZZT.

Something strange.

Something making an equally strange sound.

"You have no idea what kind of limitless potential this place holds."

A sharp crackling filled the air, like sparks jumping from a short-circuited wire.

Listening to it, Ki San-hyeok let out a sickening little chuckle.

Heh heh heh.

"I took a worthless little worm and personally turned him into something special."

The figure that emerged from behind San-hyeok was Lee Min-su.

The man they had believed to be the sole survivor of San-hyeok's group.

BZZZZZT.

He appeared amid the crackle of electricity.

His head looked as though it had been fused with a stun gun.

Electricity sparked from the empty sockets where his eyes had once been.

His mouth hung wide open, as though he desperately wanted to scream, but no sound came out.

It was impossible to tell what had been taken from him—

or from where.

His very identity as a human being had been destroyed.

"W-wait!"

Su-myeon shouted.

But as though he could no longer hear, the ruined Min-su charged straight at him.

The Nemean Hide was excellent at blocking physical impacts.

Whether it could protect him from electricity was another matter entirely.

Su-myeon had never seen anything like this before—

a monster assembled from the remains of a destroyed human being.

"What the hell did you do to him?!"

For now, all Su-myeon could do was run.

He darted between the glass panels and cabinets scattered throughout the area, while the ruined Min-su smashed through everything in his path as he pursued him.

Without eyes, Min-su lacked precision.

But he was tracking Su-myeon by sound.

CRASH! CRASH!

"Ahahahaha! Go on—it's a mouse hunt! Go! Kill him!"

San-hyeok howled with laughter as he screamed orders at Min-su.

Like a hunter setting a hound loose on its prey.

The surrounding area was being destroyed piece by piece, steadily reducing the space Su-myeon had left to maneuver.

But then San-hyeok noticed something.

The more cornered Su-myeon became, the more his expression changed.

Not toward panic.

Toward certainty.

'Why?'

What was he plotting now?

San-hyeok should have been the one who had adapted to this hellhole better than anyone.

He should have been the one exploiting its rules to the fullest.

So why was that utterly unremarkable nobody looking so confident?

THUD!

Min-su charged again and slammed into a wall before crashing to the floor.

Su-myeon slipped past him.

And with that, his suspicion became certainty.

Whatever had been done to modify Min-su, one thing was obvious.

He no longer possessed a will of his own.

Su-myeon turned toward San-hyeok, the man radiating an almost incomprehensible amount of hostility, and spoke firmly.

"How much do you think you actually know about this place?"

What?

Before San-hyeok could even process the question—

THWACK.

A dull blow struck the back of his skull.

That was the last thing he felt before pitching forward.

"......Are you all right?"

Standing behind the fallen San-hyeok was Han-su, breathing heavily, a hatchet clenched in his hands.

Clumps of hair and blood clung gruesomely to the blade that had struck San-hyeok's skull.

At last, the group had reunited with Su-myeon.

Min-su, freed from San-hyeok's control, sat huddled motionless in a corner.

"Are you hurt anywhere?"

"No, well. I'm fine for now."

Su-myeon nodded at Ju-hee's worried question.

Exhaustion washed over him so heavily that he wanted nothing more than to collapse where he stood and sleep.

Rubbing his brow, he forced himself back to his feet.

Min-su sat trembling in the corner, his body broken beyond recognition.

Su-myeon's conscience would not allow him to simply leave the man like that.

He walked over and tapped on the counter.

"Can you restore that guest's original body?"

The spade-faced employee behind the counter glanced toward Min-su before replying in a disappointed, almost deflated voice.

"Were you unsatisfied with the service?"

"Yes. He says he preferred the original."

The spade-faced employee fiddled with the computer for a moment before answering.

"Hmm... in the case of a reversal due to a change of mind, it would count as an additional session."

"Can you deduct it from my session count instead?"

"I'm sorry, but transfers aren't possible."

No other choice, then.

Su-myeon presented his voucher.

It still had tens of millions of won remaining on it.

"Payment on behalf of another guest is possible. However... this may be difficult."

"Why?"

"The brain has already been purchased by the Mad Hatter, and the eyes were purchased by the Red Queen."