Chapter 21: VIP Lounge (1)

[21. A happy tea time is prepared every hour on the hour in the VIP Lounge. Guests who enjoy a pleasant 10-minute conversation with Ellis may receive a complimentary hotel stay.]

Su-myeon rubbed his aching forehead.

It would have been a serious problem if Han-su had ended up somewhere dangerous, but at least they had found him.

For now, Su-myeon chose to focus on that.

As long as Han-su was within sight, there was still something they could do.

"...Ellis?"

Ha-min read the newly appeared rule aloud, his voice tinged with surprise.

Between irregularly spaced pillars and checkered tiles stood a long Western-style banquet table, the kind that looked as though it had been lifted straight out of a foreign movie.

Ha-min pointed toward the figure seated at the very head of the table.

Its position alone made its role unmistakable, as though it were openly declaring itself the host of the tea party.

"Wait, that's supposed to be Ellis?"

It looked as though every depiction of Alice from every piece of media had been mashed together into a single creature.

Dozens of heads and limbs had been joined together at random, forming one enormous mass.

White lace, barely enough to qualify as clothing, had been wrapped around it in a futile attempt to conceal its grotesque form.

Blonde hair sprouted from the creature and stretched all the way to the ceiling like marionette strings.

"What the hell is——"

"Shh."

Before Ha-min could say anything dangerous, Su-myeon cut him off.

"Could you turn on the flashlight?"

He gestured toward Du-pal.

Swallowing hard, Du-pal switched it on with trembling hands.

The area around the banquet table was brightly illuminated, almost as though a spotlight had been trained on it, leaving the staircase where the group stood comparatively dark and difficult to see.

Du-pal quickly understood what Su-myeon meant and swept the beam across their surroundings.

That was when they saw them.

Ears.

Ears attached to the walls.

'Watch what you say.'

Su-myeon silently mouthed the words.

The others, their faces gone pale, nodded.

By then, the figures seated at the distant table had clearly noticed them as well.

"Guests!"

"New guests!"

"Welcome to Ellis's tea party!"

Before the group could even gather themselves, a swarm of bipedal mice appeared from nowhere and surrounded them, chattering excitedly.

Where they had come from was impossible to tell.

Su-myeon did his best to recall the strategies from the game he had played in the past.

On the other floors, bending the rules a little or taking an unconventional route had usually been fine as long as they eventually reached their destination.

But this floor was different.

Here, Su-myeon needed to keep events moving along the path he remembered as closely as possible.

"We'd appreciate an escort."

When Su-myeon spoke first, the mice squealed with delight.

"This way!"

"A gentleman with manners!"

"Welcome!"

The mice swarmed around them, guiding the group toward the table.

As they followed, Ju-hee spoke in the calmest voice she could manage.

"They're... actually kind of cute, at least."

The brief pause in the middle probably concealed the words compared to everything else.

To some extent, Su-myeon agreed.

The closer they came to the table, the more clearly they could see the abominations occupying the seats.

Grotesque creatures made of exposed flesh and gelatinous slime.

Compared to those things, the scruffy little mice were definitely on the cuter side.

"Guests, right this way!"

At the table, each member of the group was guided to a separate seat.

It seemed deliberate.

The mice never seated any of them together.

"...I'm sorry for the trouble."

At least Su-myeon's seat was close to Han-su, who sat with his head lowered.

Surrounded by towering things that stank, things whose very existence defied comprehension, Su-myeon felt a small measure of relief simply from hearing Han-su speak in his usual tone.

He did not seem to be under any sort of spell.

"You can check your Heartphone."

Su-myeon kept the remark brief for Han-su's sake.

The man had not read any of the messages Su-myeon had been sending him.

Han-su had personally witnessed the Red Queen destroy other people's Heartphones and declare them irrecoverable.

That was probably why he had kept his own device hidden in his pocket the entire time—as a precaution.

Even now, Han-su only reached for it after Su-myeon deliberately pulled out his own Heartphone and made a show of sending a message.

With trembling hands, Han-su finally took his device from his pocket.

[Are you hurt anywhere?]

Su-myeon sent the message.

After a moment, Han-su replied.

[No]

[I'm sorry]

Su-myeon let out a short sigh after reading the response.

He had been trying not to appear overly familiar with the Heartphone, but there was no helping it now.

Su-myeon added Young-cheol's code—which he already knew—as a friend and created a group chat.

Ding ding ding ding.

Just as everyone had settled into their seats, the clear sound of a teaspoon tapping against a glass cup rang through the room.

"It's been a while since so many guests attended the tea party. Welcome, everyone."

Ellis spoke in a bright, girlish voice that could not have contrasted more sharply with her enormous grotesque body.

For a moment, Su-myeon wondered which of those dozens of heads was actually speaking.

He had absolutely no desire to find out.

While every monster at the table turned its attention toward Ellis, Su-myeon's fingers moved quickly.

[Su-myeon: Don't eat anything.]

[Su-myeon: Always answer when someone speaks to you. Say anything.]

[Su-myeon: You have to respond no matter what.]

If they failed to participate sincerely enough, they would fail the prerequisite condition of a "happy tea party."

That meant they had to participate to some extent.

But becoming too enthusiastic and earning Ellis's favor would be just as dangerous.

So Su-myeon added one more crucial instruction.

[Su-myeon: It doesn't have to make sense]

[Su-myeon: No, it HAS to not make sense]

After hastily sending out the precautions, Su-myeon felt strangely as though he were the one writing the rules.

It was an odd feeling.

But necessary.

There was no faster way to convey the important points.

The tea party had already begun.

The time was exactly 10 o'clock.

"The tea party lasts only 10 minutes. It isn't very long, but I hope you all enjoy yourselves!"

Ellis spoke in her bright, lilting voice, sounding almost disappointed by how short the gathering would be.

But things would not unfold the way she described.

[Han-su: She said the same thing when I first arrived.]

[Han-su: But the time doesn't change.]

Ellis theatrically pointed toward the hourglass.

Not a single grain of sand inside it was moving.

Time here was not absolute.

If they did nothing, time would not pass.

Those ten minutes could stretch into something close to eternity.

'And if I play along too well with Ellis just to make progress, that's dangerous too. I might earn a complimentary stay and end up trapped here.'

That meant they had to be more careful than ever with every word and every action.

They could not offend Ellis in the slightest.

But they also could not win her favor.

And at the same time, they had to discover the condition that would make the hourglass start flowing again.

[Du-pal: We can't eat?]

Du-pal asked in the middle of everything.

Under ordinary circumstances, it would have seemed absurd.

Here, it was actually something worth confirming.

Because the food spread across the table looked unbelievably delicious.

Even more absurdly, despite the Western "tea party" theme, every dish was exactly the sort of food that would drive Koreans wild.

And the seating arrangement seemed to have been tailored to each person's tastes.

[Young-cheol: This is cruel.]

In front of Young-cheol sat kimchi stew and rolled omelette, accompanied by a bowl of steaming white rice.

Near Ju-hee and Du-pal were freshly grilled pork belly and soju, still visibly hot.

And in front of Su-myeon, Han-su, and Ha-min sat every variety of fried chicken imaginable.

The menu was so blatantly tempting that its very existence felt suspicious.

Everyone forced themselves to look away.

At least none of them was starving.

That was one small mercy.

Before the silence could drag on too long, Su-myeon spoke first.

"Our companion who arrived ahead of us is seated over there. I'm glad to see he was already enjoying himself."

"Companion...?"

At Su-myeon's words, the pitch-black mass sitting beside Han-su suddenly reacted.

Something so dark it could easily have been mistaken for a shadow began to writhe.

"My...... friend......."

The mass leaned toward Han-su.

"He said...... he'd be my friend......."

...Han-su did not exactly seem like the type to become that friendly with someone so quickly.

Still, Su-myeon decided against responding coldly.

Causing trouble at the tea party and drawing Ellis's attention would be a terrible move.

"Just because he's with us doesn't mean he can't be your friend too. He can be both, can't he?"

Han-su understood immediately.

He kept his mouth shut and nodded.

Besides, Su-myeon already knew what the black mass was.

It was a person who had remained trapped here for too long and lost their sense of self.

If they made the wrong move, death would not necessarily be the result.

They could end up like that instead.

Failing to make the hourglass flow.

Participating too enthusiastically and being awarded an indefinite stay by Ellis.

There were several ways things could go wrong.

"I thought...... he was alone like me.........."

The mass sounded somewhat disappointed.

But apparently convinced by Su-myeon's words and Han-su's nod, it slowly nodded as well.

"Still...... if we're friends...... that's good......."

It spoke as though struggling to remember a language it had once known.

The slow, halting cadence reminded Su-myeon of the Cheshire Cat he had encountered earlier.

Where had that vanished cat plushie gone, anyway?

Ellis, who had been listening to the conversation, suddenly cut in with an intrigued tone.

"Quite the popular guest, aren't you?"

"The Pool yesterday was wonderful. I've never been to such a nice pool before."

Su-myeon replied without missing a beat, offering a perfectly polite non sequitur.

Ellis's dozens of heads turned toward him at once.

Eyes in varying shades of green and blue.

Glassy, doll-like eyes that glittered without blinking.

Every one of them fixed on Su-myeon.

His entire body stiffened.

"Then how about staying a little longer?"

"Time really flies. It feels like we've already been here for quite a while."

The instant Su-myeon mentioned time, the room fell silent.

A sudden, unnatural stillness descended over the tea party.

For a moment, it became so quiet that they could hear the faint electrical hum of the fluorescent lights overhead.

Shhhhhh.

The sound of sand flowing through Ellis's frozen hourglass rang out with startling clarity.

[AM 10:01]

It felt as though far more than ten minutes had passed since they entered the room.

But subjective impressions meant nothing here.

They had only managed to make one minute pass.

"......."

Even so, everyone felt a small measure of relief.

The hourglass had moved.

At the same time, once they realized that advancing the clock required fulfilling some sort of condition, their eyes began darting around in thought.

Su-myeon's first response had produced no reaction.

Only the second had moved time forward.

What was the condition?

While everyone was lost in thought, Ellis extended something toward Su-myeon's glass.

It was more tentacle than hand.

She filled the cup to the brim.

A beautiful crimson liquid trickled into the teacup.

"I had no idea so much time had already passed. Not even in my dreams."

Su-myeon bit his lip at Ellis's words.

He had to keep participating in the conversation while avoiding her favor as much as possible.

Picking up the cup she had just filled, Su-myeon made another remark completely unrelated to what she had said.

"Oh, the tea's gone a little cold. It must've been a while since you brewed it."

The instant Su-myeon gave another suitably irrelevant answer, everyone's gaze snapped toward the hourglass.

Tension stretched across the next few seconds.

Shhhhhh.

Once again, sand began to fall.

[AM 10:02]