Chapter 193

The old vampire blinked.

"……."

"Teacher?"

"No."

He smiled with easy nonchalance, as if it were nothing.

"Continue."

"Yes. As you instructed, rather than decorating the banquet hall, I focused on its fundamental structure…."

Listening to the report from a senior disciple who went by the name "Robert," the "Guest Without Taste" gazed past the wall beyond. At the ceiling that extended from it, at the floor,

and at the "hotel."

'Headstrong as ever.'

The hotel's identity, which had been assimilated with the General Manager, had returned to that of an ordinary "building."

'So he came to his senses, right on schedule.'

Having beguiled the General Manager into letting him bring in a number of vampires, he couldn't imagine Lee Yeon-woo would let that slide quietly. But that would be an entertaining complication in its own right, so it mattered not in the least.

'If he trusted me and left the matter in my hands, he must have anticipated mishaps of this degree.'

Having reached his own conclusion, he turned his attention back to the disciple's report.

"…and so, the format will likely approach that of an opera theater."

"A splendid form of comprehensive stage art in its own right."

"Yes. As you instructed, we avoided violent formats as much as possible."

"The master of this place would not wish for it."

A barbaric structure like a Colosseum, for instance.

"He dislikes the sight of a slaughterhouse."

He avoided, in any situation, a scenario in which one person must face the emotions of many.

"Is that not befitting of the master of a paradise?"

"Indeed it is."

'Sin and resentment are separate matters.'

Lee Yeon-woo's goal was not to kill or destroy the "White Crow." It was not even to punish her. He would simply want to give her a chance, so it was certain he would avoid such rough handling.

'Whether water ghost or vampire, he is the sort of being who calls them "person" first and thinks second.'

The "Guest Without Taste" lightly tapped the marble floor with the tip of his cane.

"We are blood mages of pedigree. Remember that even if blood must be shed, it should be shed within the most beautiful songs and the curtain of rules."

"I humbly heed the Teacher's deep intent."

Robert bowed his head courteously.

"The interior walls of the second-floor Grand Banquet Hall have been latticed with an orchestra pit and a grand red velvet curtain. Even should there be an unruly guest who causes a disturbance, the rules of this place will not be permitted to come to harm."

"Excellent."

The old vampire raised the corner of his mouth in satisfaction.

For him, this Grand Banquet Hall was not a mere venue for celebration. If only to pay the price for the "piece of Lover of Dawn flesh" he had received from the General Manager, he had to deliver his end in full.

Depending on what "choice" Lee Yeon-woo made, he could indulge in a bit of mischief, but….

'Before long, this place will become my domain, shared with the labyrinth's two masters.'

Just as the "Drenched One" had claimed the Aqua Park.

'If a game is to be made, it will be to my advantage to have my name carved into it as well, for the sake of maintaining a voice in things to come.'

And so, the right thing was to set the first button properly and start from there, so that he could at least hold the "line." The "Guest Without Taste" gazed at the firmly closed great doors of the banquet hall with eyes that rippled red.

"Hasten the preparations. Honored guests will arrive before long."

"There shall be no shortcoming."

"When the time comes, you too may have your names carved in."

"Ah…."

The face of Robert, who had assumed an East Asian form to match his Teacher's, was instantly suffused with elation and awe.

"Yes, Teacher."

For the sake of the young god.

* * *

"So."

Dan-cheong grimaced as though she'd just seen something grotesque.

"You gambled like that against the blood god?"

"Well, I had a feeling…."

"You knew that high-ranking vampires fundamentally lack a 'heart,' and still had them aim there?"

"But Yeon-woo is a person…!"

"Would you look at this young lady."

Kwon Seung-jae cut in with an easygoing grin.

"Ease up~ The kid's rattled enough already. This much is a job well done."

"Rattled about what?"

"Must feel like making a kid shoot a kid."

Kwon Seung-jae shrugged. Lee Seon-hae avoided both their gazes, and Hong Gyeong-yeon had been hiding his face in both hands for some time, unable to speak. At the sight of those two, Kwon Seung-jae added pointedly.

"We're not like the rest of us, after all."

"Honestly."

The Director clicked her tongue but said nothing further.

"Well, what can I say to an Artist's intuition?"

It was because Lee Seon-hae had manifested as an "Artist."

"Still a bit uncertain?"

"Ah, a little. Just on the edge of grasping it…."

Lee Seon-hae, having forcibly set aside her guilt, added with an abashed face.

"I was thinking this must be how student Do-heon felt all along. It's similar to inspiration being right on the verge of hitting—but the moment things get urgent, I just snap into focus."

"The fact that you call that chaos 'focus' is proof enough you've become a full-blown Artist. Sure, sure, well done. As long as you made it out alive, let it go."

The Director waved a hand.

"That was just a word to the wise for next time. Most of the blood mages Miss Baeksan is going to run into from here on won't be nearly as kind."

Kwon Do-heon, who had been chased to the brink of death by that "kind blood mage," lifted his head from the sofa in protest.

"I seriously almost died?"

"I know, kid. That was him going very easy on you."

"Wow, I feel really wronged right now."

"I don't know exactly how a blood mage treated as a god keeps its Core, but no matter what, do you really think a being on the level of Velmareth didn't know that was a weakness and left a piece of Core shaped like a heart right where a heart would be?"

To some extent, he genuinely hadn't known—but that was not something Dan-cheong could be aware of. By the common sense of the Gaps, it defied reason.

A being at the pinnacle of Blood Magic could not possibly be ignorant of such an utter basic.

"He must have thought he ought to have at least one mechanism that could stop him."

At that, Lee Seon-hae wore an abashed expression.

"Then did I miss the mark?"

"If your 'intuition' is right, he probably made it that way back when he was young and still thought he was human. After he became the 'General Manager,' he would have known and deliberately left it alone."

"Known and deliberately left it alone…."

"Either way, it was 'Lee Yeon-woo's' judgment, not 'The Devil's.' In the end, 'Lee Yeon-woo' seems to be the one who holds the largest share of the 'General Manager.'"

"So he openly built in a weakness because he thought it would help run this 'hotel.'"

It was a little bitter.

"……."

Quite a lot, actually. Uncomfortable.

"…Kids shooting each other, what a circus…."

The Director's expression grew stranger still.

"Good heavens, and you're still just calling them kids? I'm surprised."

"You really think it's right that kids aged eighteen and five, in mental terms, are shooting each other and getting shot?"

"Spin it like that and I truly have nothing to say, young lady."

The Director, who had been clicking her tongue, suddenly turned to Kwon Do-heon.

"You breathing again, kid?"

"Oh? Yeah, yep."

Kwon Do-heon, who'd been feeling oddly unsettled because of Lee Seon-hae's discomfort with the very idea of him firing a gun, perked up. Seome, who'd been sitting atop his head, fluttered down to the sofa's armrest.

Watching the two of them, Dan-cheong asked Cha Do-hyeon.

"Those kids could've died just like that, couldn't they?"

"That's true."

"Then the 'game' or whatever would've been all for nothing."

"That's also true, but…."

It had been Cha Do-hyeon who suggested sending Kwon Do-heon in alone for this chase.

"Everyone agreed, Director. More importantly, that 'Run & Gun' mini-game only targeted the one who crossed the hotel's nerves."

Cha Do-hyeon shrugged and continued.

"If we'd all piled in together, it would've been registered as 'organized hostile action' and the response would've been far more ruthless. Keeping it to one guest's shallow bit of defiance draws a line that irritates the General Manager less."

That was also more advantageous for Seome to wring out guidance and for Kwon Do-heon to flee. Provoking things needlessly could have triggered an annihilation-level defense mechanism and gotten them all killed.

"Above all, student Do-heon was this episode's lead. He's the reference point for the 'users' who'll play in the future."

"Well, would you look at this rascal."

"If the runner multiplied or a stand-in took over, the balance and the narrative would both get hopelessly tangled… and besides, there were no other options to begin with."

Excluding Cha Do-hyeon and Lee Seon-hae for route guidance, Hong Gyeong-yeon as a civilian, and Kwon Seung-jae as vulnerable to madness contamination—there were no remaining cards.

And Dan-cheong stepping up herself would have been no different from a detonator for the General Manager's defense mechanisms, given her terrifying combat power.

"And yet here you are giving me grief."

As Cha Do-hyeon feigned a sulk, Dan-cheong scrunched her face.

"Who's talking about that?"

"Then what?"

"I'm saying let the kid's heart settle down, you cursed thing."

The flat of her blade struck Cha Do-hyeon's shoulder with precise, savage force.

"Ow, OW! Don't hit me with the blade! That hurts!"

"Good heavens, look at that mouth go."

"No, seriously!"

Having barely escaped Dan-cheong's thrashing, Cha Do-hyeon said, milking the pain.

"As I've said time and again, at nineteen—"

"Mental age eighteen."

"At eighteen, he's grown. He's an Artist, an Artist. The Gaps aren't that forgiving a place."

"Goodness, a man past fifty, and how is he so immature? End of days."

"You only need to look at a history book to know the end of days came long ago. Why act like I'm the one who brought it about? That hurts my feelings."

After the dust-up settled, Cha Do-hyeon turned to Kwon Do-heon, whose expression was still sour.

"Hey, kid—it's about time for that thing."

"Use your words."

"I am using words."

"Use human words."

"Is this any way to treat a national treasure of an actor?"

Cha Do-hyeon recited with feigned injury, then added.

"Plug the phone line in."

"The phone?"

"Seems like someone's waiting on the other end."

Between his long fingers, the code-phrase note from Room 444 was already fluttering.

"This thing."

* * *

"……."

Lee Yeon-woo was the kind of person who could not endure his own flaws.

He could not bear himself when he failed to be upright and clean. Every imperfection loomed as a great blemish. He wanted to be unstintingly good to the people he liked,

but nothing was ever easy.

"Hello?"

"Yes, it is all right."

And yet, it was all right.

"It seems I still have room to grow, even at this age."

My insufficiency simply means I have room to grow further, does it not?

'So for now….'

Fingertips still tinged blue from the lingering effects of the Water-Affinity Penalty closed around the antique dial telephone. He began turning the numbers, one by one.

"……."

1-2-0-9

"Hah…."

Click—the sound of the call connecting. Lee Yeon-woo opened his mouth in a smooth voice.

"Good day, sir. This is General Manager Lee Yeon-woo at the Front Desk, calling for the guest in Room 1209. I trust you are having a comfortable time? I apologize for disturbing your rest, but I am reaching out regarding the banquet."

From the other end of the receiver, no reply came. Only a heavy silence stretched on. Having listened quietly to that stillness, Lee Yeon-woo said in a low voice.

"However, before that…."

[…….]

"Have you plugged the line back in?"

In that instant, a smile slipped out—so faint he himself felt it was clumsy.

"It has been a while, Rawi."

"Long time!"

Coco seemed glad, too.

* * *

"……."

In Room 1209, Kwon Do-heon covered the receiver with his hand and asked urgently.

"Who's Rawi…?"

"Good heavens."

"Uncle said it once before, didn't he?"

"Would you look at that?"

"Just tell me!!"

"Haaah…."

Kwon Seung-jae thumped his own forehead.

"It's your courtesy name, nephew…."

Rawi—羅幃—a name Kwon Do-heon himself had chosen together with Kwon Seung-jae.

* * *

A small nose twitched.

"……."

A soft bundle of fur nuzzled its head against the woman's leg.

"Sister."

"Sister, the god has become a person."

At the small foxes' voices, the woman took her hand from the wall.

"Your words are true."

A faint, rhythmic pulse rose from the marble tile beneath her feet and climbed through her soles. At some point, the hotel's air—which had been flowing in a grotesque, distorted current—had settled to a calm.

Beyond the veil, the labyrinth had resumed imitating the form of an ordinary stone building, but it could not fool the keen spiritual senses of "The Fox Sister," who was herself both a labyrinth and a vampire.

"The god has become a person."

To human eyes, it would look like nothing more than a luxury hotel adorned with splendid chandeliers and carpets. But in the vampire's sight, this space was like a malignant tumor that had grotesquely bloated its mass within a dimensional Gap.

"Sister, were you not devoured?"

"Was I not spat back out?"

"It was frightening."

"What timid little bundles of fur."

"That is hurtful."

"What is there to be hurt about?"

Her gaze traced the banquet hall's pillars, brimming with elation and awe.

"When the god looks after us."

The corridors and rooms heaved endlessly, like the innards of a beast turned inside out, and the walls and floors were like viscid membranes compressed from ground and crushed souls.

It was a pressure that sent an instinctive shudder through even vampires who fancied themselves the apex predators. Because they were acutely aware that the place they stood upon was "the belly of a newborn young god."

'How intoxicating.'

The primal terror that those pulsing red walls could swallow them at any moment swept a chill down the spine of the man-eating fox.

'The Teacher said that He mistakes Himself for a human because He is young, but….'

No mere human could work a miracle like this. Nor could any human handle a disguise this vast with such nonchalance.

'To be able to watch the growth of our young God—such glory will not come again.'

And so this opera-theater-style Grand Banquet Hall was the most perfect and refined flattery offered to the order that young god had established. This was a banquet to adorn the inside of that young god's belly.

The fox licked the thick thirst lingering at the corner of her mouth with the tip of her tongue and smiled arrogantly.

"When this play has been perfectly concluded and the paradise bestowed by the god is complete, this Grand Banquet Hall shall become the sturdiest temple and territory in which He and we share our souls."

The ecstasy of becoming part of a vast act of worship, unfolding in the very center of a god's belly, blazed strangely in the red eyes of the vampires.

'And I am surely not the only one who feels it….'

The fox sneered at the four vampires who had been taken into His embrace after her.

'Only I received His august gaze directly.'

Of course, His gaze fell evenly upon every part of this place, but that was a different matter. "The Fox Sister" was the sole vampire staff member to have met eyes with Him directly, in that doll's shell of His.

'And yet He said nothing about these two—which surely means permission was granted.'

"Sister, what are you thinking?"

"Sister, you are slacking."

"……."

"Sister?"

Hmm.

"Kong."

"Kong-kong."

She scooped the two chattering creatures into her arms as if catching them. Startled by the sudden capture, the little ones wriggled their tiny snouts and whimpered.

The Fox Sister ran a practiced hand over the fluffy bundles of fur squirming in her embrace.

"You foolish, adorable little furballs."

"Not furballs."

"Foxes. Foxes."

"The god whom we serve is at once very tender and very cruel."

The woman's eyes sank deep.

"There is only one thing we must do inside this labyrinth. Remain beneath the stage that the Teacher has personally assembled for Him, and be the most loyal and mannerly tools."

She drew the two bundles of fur close to her chest and whispered low.

"But do not disturb the rules the god has set. Be grateful for the gracious offering He bestows and guard this territory. Only then will these red innards swallow us once more, and spit us out again for all eternity."

"Swallow us?"

"And spit us out again?"

"Whether that day comes sooner or later—is that not in the hands of One higher than the heavens?"

The secret elation of being the sole staff member to have received "His true gaze" in full—that thrill ran tingling down the Fox Sister's spine.

"So long as you belong to me, you too are His servants. Go quickly and show off your tricks to please Him. Go to Him and offer your usefulness."

"Fox does tricks."

"Fox does tricks very well."

Hop. Two black foxes with red bibs alighted nimbly on the marble floor.

"Fox serves god."

"Going to serve god."

The two scurried away, tails swishing, vanishing beyond the dark corridor.

"……."

Watching the small retreating figures grow distant, the Fox Sister slowly closed her eyes.

'Truly, a fine place.'

Beneath her feet, deep within the belly of the vast god, a living, breathing pulse once again resounded—thud, thud.