Hotel Snark

Hotel Snark was there.

It rose alone in Ghost Town’s gray zone, carrying both the bleakness of the industrial age and the grandeur of Gothic architecture.

[Among Hotel Snark’s guests, there isn’t one who hasn’t killed a few people. This place, the quietest, most discreet, most secret in Guild City… is where the city’s most dangerous and loudest things begin.]

When Solomon pushed open the heavy hotel doors and stepped inside, a grand lobby greeted him.

The gatekeeper and undertaker zombie stayed behind to guard the entrance.

“Welcome, Mr. Solomon.”

A man spoke as if he’d been waiting by the door. He too was a zombie, his flesh rotted down to bare bone.

It wasn’t just zombies, either.

A hotel where zombies, skeletons, floating ghosts, and every other kind of dead served the guests.

“My job ends here. See you later. Hey, you walking corpse. Got any powder? Titania’s Breath.”

“Regrettably, Lord Oberon, at the moment we only have cremation ash left over from a service just finished…”

‘Oberon?’

The name felt oddly familiar, but Solomon didn’t have time to spare on the druggie fairy.

“The tea lounge is this way.”

A legless ghost bowed politely and gestured toward an arched passage leading deeper into the lobby.

Dark mahogany, marble floors, delicately patterned wallpaper. An aristocratic elegance the Lowlands slums could never offer clung to everything here.

The only familiar thing was the stench seeping in from every direction. Rotting flesh.

Before he knew it, Solomon had crossed a corridor teeming with the dead and reached the tea lounge.

Several people were there. Not the dead, but the living. All dressed like fellow professionals. But among them, he didn’t see the face the Faceless One had worn in the sewer.

“Oh, you got here fast.”

The man seated at the center of the lounge spoke between ceramic teacups and a silver teapot lined up on an old-fashioned wooden table. He wore a black suit.

It was a new face, nothing like what Solomon had seen in the sewer. Younger, too.

“There’s no reason to delay.”

“I like that.”

Without missing a beat, Solomon sat at the table. A woman who seemed to be with him sat there as well, dressed in a suit and wearing a monocle.

White, beautiful, milk-pale skin and distinctively pointed ears. An elf.

“Is this him?”

The milk-pale elf asked in a businesslike, cold voice, studying Solomon.

“Yes. The capable contractor who will restore our trust.”

“…”

The monocled elf stared at Solomon, her gaze sharp enough to feel like it could cut through him. After the silence, she spoke without preface, straight to the point.

“To start with the conclusion, the power moving the Cesspit Mage Tower to carry out those experiments is the Biotech Guild.”

“The Biotech Guild….”

[Guilds are a rising bourgeois force that threatens the Five Great Houses and Uptown, and they are Downtown itself.]

“It’s where the psychos gather. The ones into body modification, living weapons, biological armaments. And even within magitech, they lean hard into bio-manipulation.”

“Then the monsters in that sewer…”

“They’re the guild’s synthetic creatures. They’re aiming to supply them to the kingdom for military use in the future.”

It was exactly what Solomon had expected.

“And these are the contract targets you will take on, Mr. Solomon.”

As she spoke, the elf held something out.

“Each of them is someone who should be held responsible within the guild and the mage tower.”

First was a Biotech Guild executive, Gilbert Graham. The general manager in charge of the bio-weapon project Solomon had seen in the sewer.

Second was a low-ranking elder of the Cesspit Mage Tower who leeches off him.

The two documents were packed with information on the bastards who needed to die.

“So how does this, specifically, connect directly to my trust?”

Solomon asked carefully as he looked them over, even knowing it might sound rude.

The elf frowned slightly, but the Faceless One answered in a voice that didn’t mind.

“First, there aren’t many fixers or contractors who take jobs against guilds. You need real skill. Like it or not, your name will get out. It’s a small world.”

“…”

“Second, there are plenty of people who want to hire someone to go after guilds. There are hundreds of guilds across Downtown District 20 alone, and they’re dying to put knives in each other’s backs. At least you won’t have to worry about losing your meal ticket.”

“That sounds overly rosy.”

“Well, that’s something to think about when it happens. Just listen to the rest.”

The Faceless One continued.

“The moment you accept the job, the hotel will give you a room. You’ll be able to use room service right away.”

A room. Room service. Solomon didn’t even have time to feel puzzled before the conversation kept moving.

“The vacant rooms… 101… 102… no, 104 looks suitable.”

“My apologies, but is that not a somewhat high room number for someone who has not been verified in any way?”

“That’s something we’ll see.”

At the elf’s words, the Faceless One shrugged.

“Want to bet he’ll make it to the third floor within a month?”

[Adults like numbers.
When describing a Major League hitter by saying,
“There’s a player who works harder than anyone else on the team, has big dreams, and is overflowing with passion…,” they rarely seem to understand.
You have to tell them something like No. 4 on his back, or top priority for re-signing.]

With the voice in his head included, it wasn’t hard to guess what rooms, floors, and numbers meant.

‘A system where you get higher floors and room numbers based on skill. Like a rank system.’

A blatant hierarchy, almost childish in how crude and easy it was to grasp.

In the Assassins’ Hotel, what could be more straightforward than dividing people by numbers?

“What floor is your room on?”

“Room 1408.”

The Faceless One’s voice dripped with disgust.

“It’s been so long it’s sickening. Was it since the Battle of Camlann? No matter how long I wait, no one comes.”

‘Eighth room on the fourteenth floor….’

Solomon was room 104, the fourth room on the first floor. That alone was enough to understand the gap, and what the numbers meant.

“So, what will you do?”

“Thank you for staying at Hotel Snark.”

Solomon followed a clattering skeleton hotelier down the corridor, leaving the lobby and lounge behind as he walked along the floor lined with guest rooms.

“Before you enter, I will inform you of a few precautions.”

Before long, Solomon passed rooms 101, 102, 103, and stopped at room 104.

“Hotel Snark has fourteen guest floors, and each floor contains forty-four rooms.”

Fourteen times forty-four. Did that mean there were 616 professionals in this hotel?

“I cannot speak in specifics, but there are quite a few vacancies. So there aren’t that many occupied.”

“I see.”

“Even at the highest occupancy in the hotel’s history, it has never exceeded seventy percent.”

‘So in reality, maybe two hundred or three hundred.’

The skeleton hotelier opened the door with an old-fashioned analog key. Room 104. Maybe because it was Western-style, they didn’t bother avoiding the number four¹?

No, if anything, the fact that there were fourteen floors and forty-four rooms per floor felt intentional.

“And our hotel provides several room services for our customers. The higher your customer rank, the greater the room service benefits you may receive.”

“Room service?”

“Yes. For your reference, Mr. Solomon, your room service for today has already been provided.”

“It’s already been provided?”

“After you enter, please check the table facing the mirror.”

The skeleton hotelier spoke in a voice that seemed to come from nowhere.

“In addition, we have left a booklet recording our hotel’s rules of use. Please refer to it.”

With that, the skeleton hotelier withdrew. Solomon was left alone in the room.

It was small and cozy, but it felt permeated by an unknown chill.

The table sat beside the bed. On it was a suspicious mirror, and beneath it, a two-tier bookshelf piled with documents.

Along with a glass of whisky on the rocks, frosted cubes slowly melting and clinking.

It didn’t take long to realize what room service meant. It wasn’t the whisky. It wasn’t the ice.

Solomon sat at the desk and immediately examined the documents slotted there.

“So this is Hotel Snark’s room service….”

Starting with information on the targets, down to their smallest habits. There were even reports detailing their schedules and routes for about a week.

‘Even the interior blueprints of the Biotech Guild hideout….’

Everything he needed to complete the contract was already on the desk.

Like they’d set the table and were telling him to look it over and just stab cleanly when the moment came.

So Solomon started with the Biotech Guild executive, Gilbert Graham. By the time he finished reading, he couldn’t hide his shock.

‘My god, is this a human? It’s a working monster.’

An executive of a massive guild would have a packed schedule, sure. But Gilbert Graham’s bordered on inhuman.

There wasn’t a single moment of rest. He didn’t go home. He didn’t sleep.

And for a guild that treated life itself as something you could reshape with magitech, Gilbert had undergone all kinds of bio-mod procedures and boasted considerable combat power.

Some of the procedures he’d received even let him go without sleep. Tempting, enough to tug at Solomon’s curiosity, until he saw the price. Aside from the cost, it seemed to sacrifice over half your lifespan outright. No matter how he looked at it, the numbers didn’t add up.

‘Does he want to work day and night that badly?’

That was Gilbert. A machine, no, a monster shaving away his own life to work for the guild.

‘The tower side doesn’t look too hard, comparatively.’

The Cesspit Mage Tower target, the low-ranking elder, was a scholar type with nothing to do with combat.

By contrast, Gilbert would need careful handling from every angle, considering both his personal strength and the state of his security.

Fortunately, thanks to Hotel Snark’s absurd room service, finding an opening wasn’t difficult.

After sorting through that much, Solomon opened the booklet listing the hotel’s usage rules.

[Hotel Snark Usage Rules — For Guests]

Solomon carefully picked it up and began to read.

───
Rule 1. Within the hotel, fights, disputes, slaughter, possession, exorcism, predation, and body snatching between guests are prohibited.

Rule 2. Long-term absence and staying outside are permitted. However, external room service is not provided.

Rule 3. If both guest parties request room service for contracts in opposition to one another, the hotel provides the best possible room service to both sides. (May vary by customer rank.)

(omitted)

Rule 7. When going out, you may exit to any location within Downtown District 20 via the 「Door Room」.

Rule 8. When returning, you may return to the 「Door Room」 at a specific time, specific place.

(omitted)

Rule 14. The 14th floor does not exist in Hotel Snark. (May vary by customer rank.)

(omitted)

Rule 41. Rule 14 does not exist in this booklet.

Rule 44. Run. (May vary by customer rank.)
───

“What a circus.”

This was the new stage Solomon would fight on. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say every guest in this hotel was a potential competitor.

A hotel on the boundary between life and death.

It was the perfect place for an assassins’ hotel, to the point it even had a resident undertaker.

‘No, wait. If you die here, does that mean…’

Mid-thought, Solomon shook his head.

‘There’s no need to think about that right now.’

After organizing everything, Solomon lay down on the bed.

It wasn’t a stone floor where even stretching his legs was a struggle, but a soft, high-quality bed. He’d never felt the difference in sleeping arrangements this sharply.

‘A good house, a good bed….’

With a pleasant buzz, his eyes slid shut like he was collapsing. The ice in the glass melted and clinked.

[Congratulations, Mr. Solomon. Your level has increased.]

A voice spoke. Solomon opened his eyes without panicking.

Somehow, he was seated at the table again.

[This makes you level 3. The bonuses provided are as follows.]

The Game Master continued in the same calm tone as always.

───
· Two Aptitude Points you can allocate freely.

· A new level 2 spell.

· Your usable level 1 spell slots increase from 3 to 4 (⚀⚀⚀⚀), and you gain 1 level 2 spell slot (⚁).

· You can use the enhanced effect of your innate bloodline trait, 「Shadow Bloodline」.
───

New gains from leveling up. Far more than what he’d gotten at level 2.

From a new spell at the next level, to spell slots, to traits.

There was no reason to hesitate.

What he had to do was clear. Become stronger. Gain enough strength to not die.

Build the foundation that would let him become stronger than anyone in this world.