Chapter 177

Several years of harvests had been ruined, an unidentifiable plague had come, and the villagers cast about for a cause. The foolish villagers, declaring the young lady an ill omen, branded her a witch.

"My lady."

"It wasn't my doing."

"My lady, I…."

"It's the truth—believe me."

A gentle voice. A face no different from usual.

"…."

"Hm? Greta."

You know that love and trust are not synonyms. And because of that, you were not a pitiable person. The girl, too, knew this.

That she could not shake off the white hand clasping her own, even knowing all this, was because the lady was still beautiful. Because that tender voice was intoxicating.

"I'll say that I did it."

It was more bearable than expected. Because I had always done as she wished.

"The villagers branded you a witch without even knowing my lady's mysterious power. Without even knowing exactly what you did, they say you must be burned and purified…."

"Is that so?"

"So I will say that I did it. I did it; it was me who did it."

It was I who, for her sake, killed people, buried them in the earth, and defiled the dead. Even standing before God, I could declare boldly that it was my sin.

"My lady, you simply—"

Knowing how foolish this was, I still could not stop.

"Just once—really, just one single time…."

"What do you want me to do for you?"

"Love me."

Thv mich lieben.

"Love me, please…."

Hab mich lieb.

The girl, who knew no fine words like her lady's, clung to her mistress like nothing more than a beast or a small child. All she could manage was to crave and beg for the lady's warmth in clumsy, unrefined speech.

The lady never once answered the girl's pleas, not even on the day the girl was thrown into prison.

* * *

A cold, damp prison into which not a speck of light entered.

The sturdy feet of the girl, who was to mount the pyre come tomorrow, were bound in heavy iron chains. The girl had gladly confessed that every sin was her own and been locked away here.

Death had crept up to her very chin, yet a paltry and yet noble pride—that she had shielded her beautiful lady from the flames—held the girl's heart upright.

Because she wanted, at the very least, to keep that noble smile from being twisted in the flames….

"…."

She wanted to prevent it, yet she was still afraid.

"…."

"…."

Light footsteps descending the stone stairs.

The lady, standing in the darkness with the cool moonlight at her back, approached from beyond the iron bars. Wearing her ever-tender, perfect smile, she stretched out a pale hand and caressed the girl's dust-covered cheek.

"Are you afraid?"

"…."

"Doesn't it feel terribly unfair to die in my place, and aren't you frightened of your flesh burning away in the fire?"

The girl could only nod, as if confessing before God.

"I'm… afraid…."

"I see."

"I'm afraid. Everything, all of it… the flames frighten me, but…."

"But?"

"After I die."

After I burn hideously like a handful of straw and turn to ash.

"The world in which you will be left all alone—that frightens me most."

The girl reached both hands through the bars and clung to the lady's frail fingertips. Her hands, which conjured all manner of delicate miracles, were drained blue as ever. They bruised easily, and healed.

That became the proof of your miracles.

"So please, just once, tell me that you love me."

"Are you begging for love in exchange for your paltry little life?"

The lady spoke, smiling as beautifully as a god.

"You're a coward."

Merely beautiful, the inner heart of this woman—who surely had to be human—was utterly impossible to read.

"You can't believe that any love will last forever, and while you crave a fleeting affection, you fear to look upon its source. You long for love, yet you couldn't even summon the courage to face me directly."

"My lady."

"You only praise me as beautiful and fix your eyes on the ridiculous mask of a moon goddess. Poor thing—does love seem so noble to you? Did you truly believe every sin would be washed away beneath it?"

"My lady…."

"Look at me, my Greta."

With her delicate fingertips, she stroked the corners of the girl's eyes.

"Have you ever once confessed that you love me?"

"…."

"So much fear, and no courage at all."

She was right. Knowing she would be rejected, and because she believed the lady's deception, she had never confessed.

"You knew, too, that it wasn't real."

"No, I—"

"You know full well that the affection I spoke and pressed into your hands was a deception."

"I never thought such a thing…."

"Young, pitiful child."

"Please, my lady."

"And even so, do you still want my love?"

It was a cold hand without warmth, and a gentle touch no different at all from usual.

"If so—very well."

The lady's red eyes curved slowly. A contrived, cool smile, like a cut jewel. Looking at the dazed-faced girl, she whispered.

"I'll try to love you."

In that instant, consciousness was hurled down into a deep abyss.

* * *

"Ah."

When she opened her eyes again, the weight of a vicious illness she had never known in her life pressed down upon her whole body. Even gasping in a breath was a struggle.

The hand braced against the floor was no longer the calloused hand of the girl. It was a pale, gaunt hand, its veins showing blue from never having seen the sun.

When she picked up the old hand mirror lying on the floor with a trembling hand—

"Ah, ah…."

What was reflected in the mirror was the face of the "lady."

"No."

It was a moan like a scream.

* * *

The highest, darkest solitary cell of the mansion.

"Open it, please! Please, open the door!"

Blood seeped from the two hands pounding on the crude, massive door.

Trapped in the lady's sickly body, the girl shrieked toward the parents beyond the door. It was useless to cry out that she was not the real daughter, that the lady had stolen her body and fled.

"Tsk, shameful to the very end…."

"If anything, it's for the best."

They loathed their albino child and knew that their own blood was a witch. They gladly locked away the girl who wore the shell of their true daughter in the solitary cell.

"Aah…."

Beyond the bars of the cell window, a crimson pillar of fire rose up in the middle of the square.

Wreathed in smoke amid the madness of the cheering villagers, the thing burning away in agony was none other than her own once-healthy body. The true lady, wearing the girl's body, was dying on the pyre.

She had hoped the lady would at least flee far away.

"…."

The girl gripped the silver cross pendant the lady's parents had hung around her neck as if to tear it off.

The one who deceived me and took my body. The one who abandoned me in this cold place and fled alone. Yet watching that body collapse in the flames, what rose in the girl was not rage.

'You are dying.'

In that instant, the girl became a witch.

* * *

Drenched in blood from head to toe, the girl ran like mad on torn bare feet.

Upon the pyre where the flames still blazed fierce, the girl embraced her already lifeless lady as if she might shatter. The cross pendant, melted by the heat, congealed against the skin of her palm and became one with it.

"Even if you loved only my useful body…."

In the flames that melted her skin away, the girl clutched the blackened lump of charcoal and laughed in rapture. From burned-out tear ducts she wept blood in place of tears.

"I love you."

You told me. That you, a wicked witch, would never reach heaven.

"Somewhere in this hell, I will find you without fail."

Because the world of the living is always a hell.

As the immense blaze devoured the entire village, the girl's blind curse, too, sank into the ashes. The night that had been bright as midday slowly drew to its close.

* * *

At dawn, from a nest made of white bones and ash, the "White Crow" was thus born.

* * *

"…."

"…."

"And that's as far as…."

Kwon Do-heon said with an awkward face.

"—the 'flashback scene' I saw from items two through four."

"Well I'll be—is this thing actually a game?"

The Director, who had listened to the whole story, made a strange face.

"Hearing a tale entangled with a classical labyrinth in such detail is all but impossible."

"The fact that I'm the only one who can see it is a bit strange to me too."

"Special treatment aside, if it's like this, then the balance of power is clear."

The Director scanned the room of this "hotel."

"It means it's turned a classical labyrinth on the order of the 'White Crow' into a part of its 'game.'"

A newborn labyrinth, no less.

"I suppose it really is a labyrinth born of the Foundation. I've no idea how I'm even supposed to react to this. And I can't tell why it bothers to show the labyrinth's story at all."

"Why? I find it fun."

Cha Do-hyeon laughed and stroked his chin.

"Like our Director says, where else would you hear such detailed behind-the-scenes of a labyrinth? Even the Gaps' renowned scholars struggle to fully uncover the past of an ominous labyrinth like the 'White Crow.'"

"Well… if you think of it as obtaining a rare historical record, it's a good thing, but it leaves a bad taste, doesn't it."

Among the Dokkaebi, there were no small number of bastards who disliked having their "story" made known.

"Especially a Dokkaebi whose theme is 'love' tends to have a more private streak."

"That would depend on how well the master of this labyrinth understands humans. From the looks of it, the impression is that it sincerely wants to enjoy this 'game.'"

"You'd best stop trying to judge a labyrinth within the bounds of common sense, you little rascal."

Even as she said this, having no other recourse, the Director sighed and spoke.

"So then, what about that 'memo'?"

"It seems to have been written by someone I knew during the year of memories I've lost?"

"Well now—it's definitely all left by the same person?"

"Probably…?"

Kwon Do-heon showed the memo paper.

"The handwriting's all the same."

The second memo was a record of reflections on the "Lover of Dawn," who did not abide by the hotel's rules, and research into methods of drawing its attention.

"It's about how one might draw the 'Lover of Dawn's' attention entirely onto oneself, and…."

『Addendum: The anemia from frequent bleeding has grown severe. I must avoid misusing the phlebotomy equipment.』

"Roughly along these lines—the person might have been a bit odd to begin with."

"Goodness, you can feel a sensibility dried up and cracked like a drought-stricken rice paddy right off the handwriting."

"Right?"

Kwon Do-heon agreed with his uncle's words.

"From the third memo, you can tell that everything leading up to this was for a person named 'Seome.' What's it called—it seems the 'Lover of Dawn' took an interest in this Seome person, and that put her in danger."

"Was this Seome person also a pretty young lady, I wonder?"

"Does this Dokkaebi—'Lover of Dawn' or 'White Crow' or whatever—just go for any pretty woman?"

"There is a bit of that, admittedly."

"The lady's weeping in hell, then."

"Well, she brought it on herself."

The Director shrugged her thin shoulders and looked at the third memo.

"In any case, from the look of it, the one who wrote this…"

『Emergency Measure: A contract was issued to prevent complete subordination.』

"—seems to be that 'Lee Yeon-woo,' doesn't it?"

『As with the Lover of Dawn's other subordinates, the mutation into an albino-form avian cannot be prevented; however, by binding the subject to a staff code within the system, complete annihilation is expected to be avoidable.』

"And that Seome person—"

The gazes of everyone in the room except Kwon Do-heon landed on the white owl perched atop his head. The bird-shaped "staff member," large even for an owl, blinked its eyes.

"Hoot."

"—seems to be this one."

Kwon Do-heon, at last, buried his face in both hands again.

"I'm going to lose it, seriously."

"I thought the two of you looked close. And then you played dumb, treating it like some owl you'd never met?"

"Ugh, I don't know—I told you I had no memory."

"Well now—why take it out on a poor old woman?"

"Does this look like a situation where I can keep my cool??"

Pulling his hands from his face, Kwon Do-heon choked up.

"I can't even remember, so why did this much happen to me?!"

"I'd say the bigger fault here lies with your uncle, who set a child loose by the water's edge."

"Ugh, so annoying…!"

Kwon Do-heon couldn't even retort to the Director's words. The memo read, in neat handwriting:

『If you should find Seome, please do not treat her coldly, even if you have no memory of her.』

"This person's annoying too!!"

And then Lee Seon-hae checked the last memo.

"And in the end, um…."

『As expected, letting it consume me appears to be the most effective course of action.』

"It seems he let himself be devoured of his own will—by that guest called the 'Lover of Dawn.'"

At Lee Seon-hae's words, Hong Gyeong-yeon turned pale as though he might vomit.

"I feel sick."

"Honestly, so do I, a little."

Lee Seon-hae nodded and said to the people looking at her.

"This is definitely Mr. Lee Yeon-woo's way of doing things."

"May I throw up?"

"Try to bear it like an adult, Writer Hong."

"Is this something being an adult can fix?"

The memo bore deep traces of someone groping toward a final response: planning how to execute it, laying out the expected effects in concrete terms, and then weighing even the risks involved.

"'During the absorption process, I inject my own blood into the subject's body to construct a control circuit from within, thereby enforcing this hotel's rules and synchronizing a portion of the ego with the system core—'…."

"Good grief—can't you give me the short version of that?"

"Mr. Lee Yeon-woo says not to trust the General Manager."

"Oh my, refreshingly blunt."

Kwon Seung-jae nodded, and Lee Seon-hae finished.

"And lastly,"

『Please be kind to my guests.』

『You may be able to find a better method in Room 444.』

"…."

Lee Seon-hae set the memo down on the table and said.

"So it says."

Cha Do-hyeon, after a glance at the memo, stroked the tip of his chin.

"'My guests,' he says—which would mean…."

"Are there just one or two guests here?"

The Director made a daunted face.

"Just counting the monster-tags I saw on my way up here from the lobby, there were over ten of them."

"But couldn't this be something said as 'Lee Yeon-woo' rather than as the 'General Manager'?"

"You mean Lee Yeon-woo's 'guests,' as opposed to the General Manager's, are a bit different?"

At Cha Do-hyeon's and the Director's words, Kwon Do-heon recalled something and let out a short exclamation.

"What's it called—at the Dining…."

"Dining?"

"There was that Dokkaebi we ran into at the 22nd-floor Sky Lounge."

Hyeon Si-gyeong cut in.

"Recognition Species."

"Ah, yes, that—Recognition Species."

In other words, the "Guest Without Taste."

"What's that—who's that, now?"

"It's 'Count Dracula.'"

"Good heavens, fuck it all—what did I just hear?"

"You heard correctly."

"Mr. Tarot, unless you're going to explain in a way that won't drive me up the wall, let's keep it shut."

Wheeet—a whistle sounded in place of a reply. A spiritless sound, as usual.

* * *

"So what is it I'm supposed to do?"

At the Water Wraith's question, the vampire answered.

"When the slabs of meat speak to you, send them off alive?"

"You disgusting puddle of bloody water, how dare you offer me such an insult."

"Then are you not a member of this hotel's staff? You ought to work, 'Drenched One.'"

"One day I shall drown your bloody water in the sea."

"How greatly I look forward to it."

The Aqua Park. Coco, watching the two converse, asked.

"Hello?"

"We're not fighting."

"We are not fighting."

"Huh? Okay."

Coco decided to accept it. In any case, the staff working was a good sign.