CH 14

Everything felt distant. Was I still alive?

I couldn’t see anything with my eyes, nor could I feel anything with my body. Maybe this is how it feels for your consciousness to float without a body…

That was when a soft voice was heard from somewhere.

“Can you hear me? I hope you can, because you are half-healed. Your arm was completely shattered but that wasn’t even the main problem. Your stomach, liver and intestines were all ruptured.”

Tap tap tap.

“Honestly, if there was a patient like this in the outside world, we would seal the stomach back up. If someone can heal this, they would be the god of medical science instead of a human being. In that sense, you can half call me the god of surgery.

“I did study a hell of a lot when I was young. Although embarrassing, I was the pride of our family. I got into medicine at uni, and was getting top marks! My father was always busy bragging about me, and my mother was the envy of all the mothers of our village. Ahh… I hope they’re both doing fine.

“Well, but I did achieve my dream. I became a doctor, and thanks to that, I’m still living like this despite being a loser, and even half became the god of surgery.”

Rip. Crack.

“Haha. To think I’m bragging about myself in a time like this. I’m really sorry, but… it’s been way too long since I’ve met another person. Please understand.

“It doesn’t hurt, does it? It shouldn’t, because I’ve cut off your nerves. This… honestly it’s not an injury that can be healed by a human so I’m practically rebuilding your body.

“I’m not sure if you can hear me properly. But judging from how there’s no particular restriction from me blabbering like this, it seems your mind isn’t fully back yet.

“Anyway, we’re 80% done.

“You might be flustered when you wake up because of how clear my voice is and how well it stays in your memory. Don’t be surprised though. It’s… thanks to a small trick. Haht, I am finally getting some restrictions. It seems you are about to wake up.

“This hotel… has been running for a very long time. Innumerable challengers have gone through various tests, and a small few of them have gained remarkable glory but…

“Most of them fell to hell and I am one of them. You can say I’ve become an NPC. It’s fortunate though that I didn’t end up becoming a sacrifice or an experiment material at least.

“There is one thing I would like to request. This small trick is all because of that one thing I wanted to say. Later… if you happen to gain a chance at the Room of Resurrection, or if you see Buddha, please don’t forget me.

“I am Kim Sanghyun. I’m sure I will be very handy. I’m confident with my surgery skills, and I’m also confident in using my brain. I have also built a lot of experiences in this hell.

“Ahh. The restrictions are coming to place. You’re probably going to wake up soon. I hope you obtain honour, and I sincerely hope you remember my name, ‘Kim Sanghyun’.”

[User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 5

I woke up.

I instinctively turned to the status screen immediately after opening my eyes.

Day 5. We went to the pool on Day 3, so it seemed that the entire Day 4 had disappeared. I must have been unconscious for a whole day.

That was quite surprising, not because a whole day had gone by, but because it had ‘only been 1 day’.

Even though I was not a medicine person, I remember myself being close to a corpse, so how was I able to wake up in just one day despite such injuries?

Besides, I wasn’t feeling any pain. There were no bandages on my body and there weren’t any signs of surgery either.

That conversation.

I faintly recalled the words I heard in my sleep.

It definitely wasn’t an overstatement that he was half the god of surgery. I also engraved the name, ‘Kim Sanghyun’ into my memory. Whatever the case, he was still the one who saved my life.

‘Room of Resurrection’, ‘See Buddha’, ‘NPC’.

I had no idea what any of them meant. But what was clear was that he called himself a ‘loser’ of the hotel, and the reason he made a request like that… was probably because there was a ‘repechage’ of some sort in this hotel.

Of course, it meant nothing for the time being, and I still wasn’t sure what Resurrection and Buddha were about.

While checking the unbelievably normal state of my body, I stood up to look at the clock and saw it was 7:40. The meal would have begun at 7 o’clock, so breakfast shouldn’t have ended yet.

I headed to the dining room to meet everyone.

“!!!”

“You!”

“K, K, Kain-oppa!”

It immediately resulted in an uproar. They couldn’t hide the surprised looks on their faces, and it was soon followed by shouts full of concern.

“You, you fool! Why did you get up already? Or more like, how did you even get up so quick!?”

“That’s right. If you’re here to let us know you’re okay, it’s enough so you should go lie back down. Don’t you need a full-on rest?”

I calmly told them that my body was in a mysteriously perfect state.

“Thanks for worrying about me, but I’m really okay. See this.”

Seeing me suddenly do an acrobatic exercise and a handstand (all of their eyes turned into circles here), they were finally relieved. 

“Are you really okay? How is that even possible? I… saw your arm dangling like an elastic band. How did that arm grow back to this?”

“First of all, please tell me what happened to me in your eyes.”

“Even if you say that,” said Jinchul-hyung. “We just carried you to Room 105 the day before yesterday. Actually, we were a bit hesitant. Since we all get separated apart from the meal times, we were worried you might die inside by yourself. So some of us said we should wait until mealtime to lay you down on the bed.”

Eunsol-noona opened her mouth.

“I turned it down. No matter how I saw it, you weren’t going to survive until meal time. But you were saying 105, 105 before you fainted so we all just went inside, thinking there might be something. As expected, we were put into different places the moment we headed in, and we couldn’t see you, Kain.”

“I went to the bedroom as soon as it became meal time, but you weren’t there oppa. Even though we should be able to see each other during meals.” Songee added.

“That is why I said it was fortunate instead,” This time, it was Elena. “If Kain-ssi was lying down on the floor, that would have been the worst case scenario. The fact that you disappeared instead, made us think the hotel was doing something in its own way.”

“And you just suddenly came out of the bedroom just then. You weren’t there even when we were coming to the dining room until now, so you must have appeared during that gap.” 

They were all throwing out words at almost the same time so it was quite confusing.

But overall, it wasn’t that complicated: they carried me to Room 105 on Day 3 and I disappeared the moment they entered the room. I was nowhere to be seen for a whole day and suddenly came to the dining room in the morning.

That was the gist of it.

From the afternoon of Day 3 to Day 5 morning.

Around 40 hours perhaps? The ‘doctor’ appeared to have treated me during that time.

After some thought, I also shared everything I got to know including how I was told to head to Room 105 by ‘Sage’s Advice’ before losing my consciousness, and the chunks of information that the ‘doctor’ somehow forced into me while I was asleep.

Resurrection, Buddha, NPC and others.

“That is interesting. Of course, there’s probably nothing here that isn’t interesting.”

“Resurrection? Is something like that even possible? Even though they’re not God?”

“Come on, Elena. Why do you seem so surprised? You know in Room 101 – well, we decided not to talk about it – but didn’t we all experience something similar to a resurrection there already?”

“That’s true. I guess everything really is possible in this place.”

“‘Kim Sanghyun’, huh. Let’s all remember that name for now. Though I don’t know when that would even become relevant to us,” said Eunsol-noona.

“Kain-hyung.” Seungyub called me. “Actually, the hotel’s announcement changed a little while you were sleeping.”

“Nn?”

/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.

– However, the waiters of our hotel are very shy and only work diligently away from everyone’s sight.

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? Please always keep the meal times.

4. At times there will be fairly unclean preceding visitors in guest rooms. If possible, please enter together. There will be no problems for everyone as long as one person manages to come out.

5. More and more special events will be added when our esteemed guests appear bored. Aren’t events the best way to help you forget boredom?/

“Up to Number 3 is what we’ve already seen. Number 1 is saying meals will be prepared when we’re not looking, Number 2 says the elevator is broken, Number 3 is how we can’t see each other apart from meal times, and Number 4 is also straight-forward. It means one person escaping from the ‘Cursed Room’ would allow everyone to survive, right? And Number 5… maybe that means…”

“Well, it’s telling us not to sit around doing nothing. ‘If you eat and do nothing but play around without working, ‘you seem bored’ so we will pour out monsters like 2 days ago.’ That’s what they’re saying – it’s a threat.”

“Looking back, the monsters suddenly appeared on Day 1 and Day 3. Those two days…” 

Songee slurred her words as Eunsol-noona finished it in her stead.

“Those are the days when we didn’t enter the Cursed Room.”

“Yes. There were no monsters on Day 2 when we went into the Cursed Room. Ah, there was nothing yesterday on Day 4, but that’s probably because…”

“‘One of you is half-dead and is in the middle of recovery so we’ll let you off today.’ That’s the feeling I got.”

“So, now that I’m healthy again…” 

“Either today, and at the latest tomorrow, we have to start that ‘treasure-finding’ again. If not, then who knows? This time, some monster could show up in our bed and slice us into pieces.”

“Kain. Can you check the information of the hotel with your ability?”

[User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 5

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

Floor Information(*)

Room 101 (Cursed Room – A Strange Family)

Room 102 (???)

Room 103 (???)

Room 104 (???)

Room 105 (Room of Rest)

Room 106 (???)

Room 107 (???)

Sage’s Advice: 3]

I told them that all the rooms apart from Room 101 and Room 105 still had question marks. 

Room 101. Even the name of the room itself was ‘A Strange Family’. 

It felt like I somewhat saw it as soon as I entered Room 101, but more importantly, simply looking at the name made me recall how absurd everything was.

After a short silence to let everyone finish thinking to themselves, Eunsol-noona opened her mouth.

“Well, then we should head to Room 102 next. If we are going to go, I think we should go as soon as possible because this hotel hates seeing us take a day off. Taking yesterday off because of Kain’s absence might have been the hotel being lenient on us already. Kain, do you think you’ll be alright?”

I quickly checked my body.

My body was seriously okay. In fact, it felt even better than the first day when we suddenly arrived at the hotel.

We would only be exposing ourselves to more monsters even if we were to rest a little bit more.

“I’ll be okay. I think we should finish our meal, and head straight to Room 102.”

We decided to take our belongings and head to Room 102 after the meal.

Room 102… I sincerely hoped it would be at least bearable unlike the hellish Room 101.