Ch.128Kind Hotel (7)

A single word was enough to ignite madness when spoken calmly.

I’d never before seen someone’s face contort this severely right in front of me.

“We can’t leave this place.”

The man repeated my words with a trembling voice.

“We can’t… leave this place.”

I observed his reaction with my arms crossed.

My body trembled involuntarily.

“Not a single moment of peace…”

Thud.

The man struck the wall by himself.

Thud.

Again and again.

Is this what it feels like to be overwhelmed by someone else’s emotions?

The sound of him hitting the wall echoed sharply through my foggy mind.

When I opened my eyes again, the man’s wrist was completely broken.

His hand was barely hanging from the end of his arm, attached only by grotesquely stretched skin.

Residents from this floor were crawling out of their doors from the corridors on both sides.

Commotion was rare here.

Anything unusual became a spectacle.

I raised my voice as loud as possible so everyone could hear.

“The only way out of here is death.”

I filled my voice with as much despair as I could convey.

“But you’re all already dead, aren’t you?”

The air froze.

Madness spread through the silence.

The murmuring among people gradually grew louder.

Finally, someone screamed.

“I’m getting out.”

“I’M GETTING OUT!!!”

People instantly became enraged at the fact they couldn’t leave this place.

Their anger was amplified by how much hope they had held.

Crack—

CRASH!

Everyone rushed out of their doors as if on cue and began swinging weapons at each other indiscriminately.

A young man’s hammer sliced through the air, and with the sound of crushing bone, a woman’s head burst open.

Crunch—

I ducked down.

A man’s grasp, trying to grab my hair, brushed past my nape.

“You cannot leave this place.”

I needed to see properly.

To see if the madness I ignited was spreading correctly.

Barely maintaining my balance after almost falling, I sprinted down the corridor.

It was a scene of slaughter where no one died.

People swung weapons at each other or struck the building walls.

Some even jumped into the abyss outside the corridor.

“Kill me! Kill me! Please kill me!”

“Just destroy everything. Then we can get outside. I’ll destroy it all.”

The corridor quickly filled with blood and fallen bodies.

Half-formed towel racks and chair legs were pulled from the bodies of people who had collapsed completely dismembered.

It was the same outside the corridor.

People gathered in the plaza screamed in unison as they burst each other’s flesh.

THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!

Several women and children who lacked the strength to wield weapons smashed their own heads against the building walls.

Blood flowed from their broken foreheads, followed by brain matter, but they didn’t die and continued their self-harm.

“Huff, hah. Huff…”

When I could no longer run, I sat down with my back against the wall.

People trapped in the apartment even after death.

When they first entered the apartment, what they believed in was the possibility of escape.

If they wandered through hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of floors, there must be an exit somewhere.

They could escape this dangerous place and return to reality.

But no such exit exists.

Once you enter the apartment, the outside is a complete void.

Countless people met meaningless deaths during exploration.

So they had to find another goal.

Their next belief was about “safe floors.”

The apartment occasionally had “safe floors,” but these always demanded cruel prices.

But surely there must be a space that offers shelter without any cost.

They might not be able to leave, but perhaps they could regain some semblance of daily life there.

The safe floor everyone now dreamed of.

But only a tiny minority could access it.

The group I once belonged to was probably the only one.

Again, countless people died.

The final faith they held was about a safe place.

At the same time, they knew they could never leave this place, and that seemingly safe floors always came with cruel prices.

The afterlife is created based on beliefs.

Two beliefs of the dead: hope and despair.

Hope floated upward to become the perfectly safe hotel on the upper floors.

Despair sank downward to become the purgatory of the lower floors.

The dead are trapped in purgatory, living while yearning for heaven.

Only a select few can go to heaven after death, but who would dare try to find a safe floor here?

Becoming furniture and going to the hotel.

Then returning to human form and growing furniture inside their bodies.

Those who die in the apartment merely repeat an endless cycle of reincarnation, holding onto futile hope.

“…”

I showed them there was no hope,

and now their faith crumbles before madness.

This is no place for dead souls to stay.

They’d better find somewhere else.

Once again, with the desire to leave this apartment.

“Hah.”

I stood up with a sigh.

A child had just passed by and jumped down from the building.

Now it’s time to finish the proof.

I can die here and return to the hotel on the upper floors.

“Ah?!”

I almost fell when someone roughly grabbed my wrist.

Looking up, I felt a desperate gaze.

A fire burned in the sunken eyes of the emaciated man.

Yes.

If I die here, I can show everyone.

How wrong their thinking has been.

With the right belief, simply dying is enough to escape this place.

“…Kill me.”

I picked up a crowbar that had fallen to the floor.

“I’ll do the same for you.”

Clang!

The crowbar flew through the air and crashed back to the floor.

My hand that lost the weapon tingled as if electricity was flowing through it.

The man who disarmed me approached, still gripping his crowbar.

Is it harder against male opponents after all?

I thought it was natural to lose halfway since we faced off with the same weapon.

But I didn’t expect to be pushed back this much.

This was just a test, but… I should avoid situations like this in the future.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

Whoosh—

With the sound of air being cut, a dull pain soon struck my shoulder.

When I regained my senses, I was lying on the floor.

“Ugh. Uh…”

[Librarian Protection System: Reduced severity of injury from external impact.]

[Librarian Protection System: Pain is being alleviated for efficient duty performance.]

Less pain my ass.

I’m still groaning involuntarily.

After looking at the sentences that appeared in midair, I quickly averted my gaze.

“Kuhk!”

In truth, I couldn’t look for long anyway.

The man grabbed my throat, immediately cutting off my airway.

But what came next was the real problem.

“Wait, a sec!”

Even while suffocating, I could feel it.

The man was firmly pinning me down with his body, trying to find and pull down my zipper.

Because of this, I was released from the hand choking my neck, and fresh air entered again.

“Get off! Just kill me!”

Is it because of the time I spent living as a man?

Even though this was something I should have been able to calculate, I unconsciously thought this couldn’t happen to me.

If this continues… something inside me might crumble.

Both as a man and as a person.

Crack!

I managed to reach out and grip the man’s shoulder tightly.

My nails dug into his skin, but he didn’t budge.

“Let go!”

No matter how much I resisted, it was useless, and I finally had to squeeze my eyes shut.

Then my body was lifted up.

The area that had been almost empty until just now was suddenly filled with a crowd.

People speaking with determined, solemn faces.

“We’ll sacrifice the woman!”

“Yes… if we offer a sacrifice, we can all leave…”

“Kill the woman!”

That’s fortunate.

No.

Should I call it fortunate?

“The sacrifice must die as a virgin. No one touched her, right?”

A middle-aged woman frantically drives the crowd.

“We need a cross, nails, a hammer, and a bucket. Bring them quickly!!!”

Then the woman’s gaze turns to me.

“And that girl. Knock her out first.”

“Yes.”

Bang!

A shock that seemed to make the whole world ring.

With a feeling of my body and consciousness separating, all my senses went numb.

Eeeeeeeee—

A sharp noise rang in my ears.

Though my eyes were closed, I could tell what was happening.

Crack—!

[Librarian Protection System: Reduced severity of injury from external impact.]

“You need to drive the nail properly. Again!”

Thud!

[Librarian Protection System: Reduced severity of injury from external impact.]

Crunch—

[Librarian Protection System: Pain is being alleviated for efficient duty performance.]

[Librarian Protection System: Pain is being alleviated for efficient duty performance.]

[Librarian Protection System: Pain is being alleviated for efficient duty performance.]

Pain piercing through my hands and feet.

They collected my blood in buckets, drank it, and smeared it on their faces.

People who had fallen into despair were powerless before this madness that borrowed only the form of religion.

“Keep bleeding her!!!”

But if it’s for a new beginning.

And since I had to die anyway.

Though it’s mere fanaticism now, there’s a goal within it to escape this place.

Underlying it is also the new belief that staying here only means suffering eternally.

The fact that everyone here knows but doesn’t speak aloud.

I confirmed with my death the fact that there is no heaven, only eternal suffering.

Soon they’ll find another way.

I lost consciousness amid people’s cheers.

***

“Ugh.”

My head.

No matter how I look at it, this Librarian Protection System or whatever isn’t helpful at all.

What hurts still hurts, and what gets injured still gets injured.

I guess it’s better than nothing.

I got up, dusting myself off.

The pain had subsided, leaving only faint traces, but everything that happened on the lower floor remained vivid in my memory.

The luxurious hotel corridor I returned to.

The heaven imagined by the survivors who died in the apartment.

The dead no longer believe in heaven, but this place will remain as is for a while.

After all, countless sufferings have been offered.

The corridor was quiet.

I walked toward the end, muffling my footsteps.

I reached the end of the corridor, just like before.

But the emergency exit leading to the lower floor was no longer visible.

[Haunted Apartment Survival Log – The Kind Hotel episode has been added.]

[The work takes another step toward its conclusion.]

[The added episode can be viewed later in the reading room.]

“…”

After silently reading the newly appeared sentences in midair, I stared at the flat wall—the space where the emergency exit once was—and fell into thought again.

How many people had entered this apartment and died?

It was too heavy a thought for dawn, so instead, I knocked on a door midway down the corridor.

Knock knock knock—

“Mmm…”

Daju’s voice came from beyond the door.

“What is it, oppa?”

“Yeah.”

“What?”

“Can’t sleep. Just want to be with someone.”

“How did you know I wasn’t sleeping?”

“You always stay up late.”

“…”

Only now, as we conversed like this, did it sink in that I had returned.

Though Yoon Daju seemed to be suspicious of me.

“You still look fake… Oppa. I’m asking just in case.”

“Yeah. Go ahead.”

After a brief pause, Daju asked in an annoyed voice.

“What color are your underwear today?”

“You crazy girl.”

“Hurry. 3, 2, 1…”

“Don’t you have any other questions?”

“No.”

She’s always so ridiculous.

“But how would you know that anyway?”

“Okay. Come in.”

The door opened.

As soon as I stepped inside, Daju started chattering with a bright smile.

“A fake just came by earlier.”

“Really?”

“Yes. They got the color right, but the real oppa would never tell me that, right?”

“…”

“Hey, Yoon Daju.”

When I got serious, she burst into laughter again.

“I’m joking, of course. There’s nothing like that here.”

“That’s a relief.”

“Right?”

“Yeah.”

[Haunted Apartment Survival Log – The Kind Hotel episode has been added.]

[The work takes another step toward its conclusion.]

[The added episode can be viewed later in the reading room.]

[Reward: Safe Floor Secured.]