Escaping the Mystery Hotel - Chapter 1: First Day at the Hotel, Meeting the Crew (1)

Chapter 1: First Day at the Hotel, Meeting the Crew (1)

Day 1

I was dumbfounded the moment I woke up. Since I was in the middle of a fairly high-expense trip, the hotel was decent and the room was also fairly okay. In other words, it was a good enough room for one man to leisurely go to sleep in a tidy room while watching a movie on the wall-mounted TV.

So where was this place?

The room I woke up in was an unbelievably large and fancy room that would come out in movies. In the first place, this room was definitely not for one person. Rather than a hotel room, it was more like a mansion of the rich – on the walls were antique paintings and there was a blanket on the bed that was so luxurious I felt bad for messing it up.

I was once again dumbfounded when I turned on my phone to check the time – there was a sign that said there was no reception in this place. While gradually feeling more and more confused, I cursorily washed my face, changed my clothes and left the bedroom and found the display screen of the living room flashing.

/Congratulations on the start of your adventure!

You have gained the Blessing of Wisdom. You may discover facts that others do not know of, and may comprehend an incomprehensible fact. The longer you continue your adventure, the more possibilities of change there will be for the Blessing of Wisdom.

Your Blessing has been activated.

Today’s Surprise Event: There are no bad animals in the world./

What was going on? I felt more and more like I was losing my mind. Supporting my head, I turned to the ceiling when a corner of my vision shook.

[User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 1

Current Location: Floor 1, Room 105 (Room of Rest)

Sage’s Advice: 3]

Was this the status screen of a game or something? Only at this point did I finally accept the fact that something ridiculous had happened to me.

*

When I went out to the living room that was still inside Room 105, I came across an incredibly large dining table that you would see in movies, and there was a button on the table that read ‘Meal’. 

Does food come out when you press this button? I was wondering when a sharp scream echoed across. In order to leave the ridiculously large ‘room’, I hurriedly ran out and pushed the door wide open.

My chin dropped the moment I arrived at the front desk of the hotel. 

Large monkeys? It was a bit strange to call that a monkey though – it was standing on 2 legs despite being a monkey and there was a cold weapon on its hand. Rather than normal teeth, it had the teeth of saw blades in its mouth.

They were just monsters and not monkeys.

Around four to five people were being threatened by them. At the left front desk was a group of 2 females including a foreigner that were screaming, not knowing what to do, whereas there was a person fainted near the potted plant on the right. 

But there was a reason why there was no-one dead despite this hopeless situation.

“Terminator…?”

A stupid remark unconsciously left my mouth as I gazed at the man so bulky that one would mistake him as the terminator. He was fighting with a wooden stick that was presumed to be the leg of a chair. His body was even bigger than the monkey monsters and even the monsters were seemingly out-muscled whenever he swung his club, as they were flung off with each strike.

I was absentmindedly watching the fight when one of the monkeys noticed me and suddenly began walking this way. 

I had no clue what was going on.

Seriously, I had no idea what the heck was happening. When I sincerely hoped from the bottom of my heart that someone please tell me what to do regardless of whether they were an angel or a devil, a message suddenly appeared in the air.

[Head to Room 105 immediately.]

Room 105 – that was my room number. The moment I checked the message, the number stuck next to Sage’s Advice went down from 3 to 2. 

Fortunately, it wasn’t that far.

While I mindlessly sprinted to Room 105, I heard a bizarre roar alongside a noisy set of steps. Pushing down the impulse to do something as meaningless as turning around to have a look, I hurried my feet and opened the door of Room 105 when the sound immediately ceased.

Only then did I blankly turn around. The monster that had probably been chasing after me till now was panting at the other side of the door while looking at me, but rather than walking towards me, it turned around and returned to the front desk.

Was there something unique about this room?

It seemed that the monsters could not approach this place. After gasping for breath for about 10 seconds inside the room, my mind finally went back to the people that were at risk at the front desk. Even though the terminator was fighting pretty well, he wouldn’t be able to fight endlessly, right! Whatever it was that was going on, I had to save them.

Clenching my teeth, I picked up a silver candlestick that looked super expensive just in case. It should somewhat serve as a weapon if I swung it properly, and with how things were, I doubted someone would demand compensation just because of a broken candlestick. Even though I was quite scared, I could simply return to Room 105 if things went wrong.

I ran back towards the front desk and the situation was even worse than before. The man who had been rampaging like a general was bleeding profusely as if he was heavily injured, and the two girls that were hiding behind the front desk were all swinging some shards they had picked up. It was chaotic.

I was worried the girl that was unconscious next to the potted plant might have died, but fortunately, there was still nothing wrong with her. 

What was very fortunate was that one of the monsters was stuck on the ground unable to move. It seemed that terminator of a man had done something to it.

“The monsters can’t come to Room 105. Come this way right now!”

I shouted three to four times like a crazy person and only then did they turn towards me and one by one, they began running this way. The terminator blocked the monsters from approaching the people in a timely manner, and the monsters that were conscious about him defeating one of the monsters already could not readily run at him.

How many people did that man save? He might have dealt with the two remaining monsters even if I didn’t call them over. Well, judging from all that blood, there was also the chance he could have died before that.

The girl who had fainted next to the potted plant also belatedly came back to her senses.

After everyone ran to Room 105, the terminator and I followed suit as we also headed to Room 105 and like what happened before, the monsters only watched our backs without coming too close.

Entering the room, I took a deep breath out, closed the door and turned around.

There was no-one.

Was I bewitched or something? I definitely saw 2 other men and 3 women entering this room though!

As I was slowly starting to get used to all the peculiar events, the display screen on the wall flashed a message.

/Welcome, esteemed guests, to Hotel Pioneer!

There are several guiding notifications so please refer to them. There could be an addition to the notifications and you may see them at any of the displays of the hotel.

1. Hotel Pioneer always loves our esteemed guests.

2. A few of the elevator’s functions are deactivated, so please take that into consideration.

3. The hotel always respects the privacy of our guests. However, perhaps meals should be shared together?/

It was a situation filled with question marks, with nothing but the announcements of the display screen providing anything similar to information. Concentrating like I have never done before in my life, I read through the sentences.

‘Privacy’.

Did everyone disappear because of this privacy thing? Because I fervently realised that common sense was of no use in this place, I thought as nonsensically as possible. Since a room with 6 people would have no privacy in the slightest, it seemed that everyone would stay in a different dimension in Room 105, and only meet during meal times. 

[You have understood a little bit about the hotel.]

A message immediately appeared on the status screen and I gave an empty laugh. It seemed that my absurd hypothesis was actually correct. 

Blankly, I headed to the large room that had the dining table. Next to the clock was a timetable showing each of the meal times which respectively began at 7 am, 12 o’clock and 7 pm. There was also a notice saying each of the meal times lasted one and half hours.

Right now it was around 10:20, and something would probably happen at 12. 

It was an extremely confusing morning. I was seriously exhausted so I headed to the bed and lied down to take a short nap.

Tap. Tap.

“Can you please wake up?”

Ah. It seemed that I had completely dozed off in that short period of time. I opened my eyes with a flash and saw the noonim* that I saw before. She appeared to be in her mid 30s, and was a tall lady who asserted the atmosphere that she was a ‘well-off lady of the city’. However, she had a rather cold atmosphere and it seemed rather difficult to strike a conversation with her.

“Umm… Thanks for waking me up. What about everyone else?”

“Well, I thought it was quite absurd but as soon as it became 12 o’clock, everyone appeared like we were teleporting or something, and everyone else has gathered at the dining room apart from the two of you. Jinchul-ssi* was injured during the fight just then. We stopped his blood but he’s still lying down and… you were sleeping so we wondered whether we should wake you up or not, but we should have a little chat, right?”

“Yes. Even though everything is very strange, I think we still need to talk about it for the time being.”

“Follow me.”

As we were heading to the dining room, she suddenly turned around.

“Ah, thanks for what you did before. I thought I was becoming monster food all of a sudden and it’s thanks to you that I managed to stay alive. I’m Lee Eunsol.”

“Don’t worry about it. The termi… No, Jinchul-ssi, was it? He’s the one that did everything. My name is Han Kain.”

“Han Kain? That’s a cute name.”

“Ahaha… I often hear it sounds like a female name.”

After a short introduction, Lee Eunsol-noonim smiled and turned back to the front.

*Noonim = Respectful way of calling an older sister, or a woman that’s older than a male.

*Ssi = Mister / Miss that comes after a name.