Floor 1 - Hotel (1)

The spacious, luxurious hotel lobby came fully into view.
A front desk stood directly ahead.
Naturally, there was no staff.
Past the entrance, corridors stretched off to the east and west.
A fork in the road.

“Which way?”
“The west corridor.”

Han Gyeong-ah pointed down the long corridor stretching west.

“The east side of the hotel connects to the guest rooms, while the west side leads to the common facilities.”

The common facilities were the only places large enough for a group to gather.
Apparently, the restaurant in particular was used for meetings every morning and evening, so people gathered there often.

“If everyone’s together, they’re probably at the restaurant.”

We headed for the restaurant.
But it was silent.
Despite its size, the restaurant was completely empty.

“I don’t see anyone.”
“That can’t be…”

Han Gyeong-ah looked flustered when her assumption that everyone would be there proved wrong.
It was still too early to give up.
I’d heard there was a library too… and the Private Rooms were down the corridor on the other side.

“We’ll find them if we check everywhere.”
“…All right.”

We left the restaurant and strolled down the corridor. Han Gyeong-ah checked what came next.

“There’s a Smoking Room straight ahead. Honestly, I doubt anyone will be there, though…”

There wasn’t much confidence in her voice. Had she already decided no one would be there?
A Smoking Room.
I wasn’t expecting much. I didn’t smoke, so I wasn’t interested either.

“You going to stop for a smoke, Gyeong-ah?”
“Do you want to get hit?”

Still, we had to check.
Just as we approached the Smoking Room without much expectation, I spotted someone’s silhouette through the glass.

“Someone’s in there…!”

Han Gyeong-ah’s face brightened at the unexpected discovery.
I was a little surprised myself.
Someone was actually there?
We cautiously opened the door and stepped inside. Thick smoke and the overpowering stink of cigarettes immediately washed over us.

‘…That’s nasty.’

I instinctively held my breath.
A man sat inside smoking a cigarette.

“You…”

Han Gyeong-ah recognized him immediately. I knew him well too.
Every character in 「Tower Death Game」 had a distinct personality.
And there was only one man in a white coat who smoked with a permanently exhausted, irritated expression.

‘Lee Sa-hyuk.’

I brought up his Status Window.

[Status Window]
Name: Lee Sa-hyuk
Age: 31
Title: Doctor
Trait: Individualism

“Back already…”

Lee Sa-hyuk turned toward us from where he sat alone.
As his clothes and Title suggested, he was a doctor.
He had an irritable personality and little interest in other people.
He gave Han Gyeong-ah a tired, indifferent look and asked a question that made no sense to us.

“So? What did you find?”
“What…?”
“I’m asking whether you found an exit, a clue, anything.”

He looked as irritable and bothered as ever. Then he finally noticed me standing beside her.

“…What?”

A mixture of suspicion and interest entered his exhausted eyes.

“Why are you here?”
“Gyeong-ah can explain.”
“M-Me?!”

Flustered, Han Gyeong-ah explained what had happened before dawn.
She skipped the finer details and only gave him the general sequence of events.

“…And that’s what happened.”
“Hmm.”

Lee Sa-hyuk listened with mild interest.

“So you’ve been stuck on B1 this whole time?”
“Yes. When we came up, there was nobody in the hotel… What happened?”
“It’s a long story.”

As he said that, he casually took out another cigarette and put it between his lips.
He lit it and slowly drew in the smoke.

“I can’t be bothered explaining. Ask someone else.”
“What?”

Han Gyeong-ah stared at him as if she’d misheard.
But his answer was firm.

“There’s one other kid here besides me. Go ask her.”

He refused to answer simply because it was too much trouble. Han Gyeong-ah was left speechless.
I, on the other hand, wasn’t surprised. He was exactly like he’d been in the game.
Everything was a hassle to him. He preferred being alone and was thoroughly uncooperative.
With a personality like that, he genuinely had no intention of telling us.

“Gyeong-ah, let’s just go.”
“All right…”

Arguing with him would only wear us out. I ushered the still-unsteady Gyeong-ah toward the exit.

“Well, that’s an interesting sight.”

He suddenly glanced at the two of us and muttered under his breath.
Since he knew what our relationship had been like in Chapter 1, seeing us walking around together must have struck him as strange.
Of course, I wasn’t that bastard, so I answered without hesitation.

“I’m reflecting on my actions.”
“Is that so.”

Lee Sa-hyuk reacted with complete indifference.
He’d been just as uninterested in other people in Chapter 1, so he didn’t seem to harbor much personal resentment toward me.

“If you’re done here, leave.”

With that, I stepped out of the Smoking Room. The moment I reached the corridor, I could finally breathe again.

“Phew…”

Now I could breathe.
With the cigarette smell gone, my head felt clearer already.
Why did a doctor smoke so much when he knew how bad it was for him?
At that rate, he’d die young.
As I gulped down the fresh air, Han Gyeong-ah glanced back at the Smoking Room with lingering disappointment.

“I guess he really isn’t going to tell us…”
“What can you do? You know what he’s like.”

He’d been like that from the very beginning, back in the prologue of 「Tower Death Game」.
Even while everyone else was panicking over being abducted, he’d remained detached.
If anything, what horrified him was the thought of being marked absent without leave from the hospital.
He was the exact opposite of the stereotypical doctor.
Expecting help from someone like him was asking too much.

“But still… doctors are supposed to help people!”
“Well, a person’s job doesn’t necessarily match their personality. You should know that better than anyone, Gyeong-ah.”

Han Gyeong-ah had a strong sense of justice befitting a police officer. But not every police officer was like her.
There was corruption, misconduct, abuse of authority… Plenty of cases brought out the worst side of the profession.

“Same thing here. Not every doctor is kind and caring.”
“I suppose…”

Still reluctant to accept it, Han Gyeong-ah lowered her gaze.
Even so, we’d learned something.
Something had clearly happened overnight, and there was one other person still on Floor 1.
He’d called the person a kid.
It was a vague description, but I had a pretty good idea who he meant.
And we met her sooner than expected.
It happened just as we reached the library farther down the corridor.

“Gyeong-ah unni!”
“That voice…”

A girl in a school uniform came rushing toward us.

“Se-rim?!”
“How could you disappear without saying anything this morning? I was worried something had happened to you!”

She was short and petite, but in stark contrast, she had the fierce look of what you’d call a school delinquent.
I spotted the name tag pinned to her school uniform. At the name ‘Kang Se-rim,’ I checked her Status Window.

[Status Window]
Name: Kang Se-rim
Age: 17
Title: High School Girl
Trait: Guts

She looked every bit like a delinquent, though her small build made her less than intimidating.
Just as I’d expected, she was the kid Lee Sa-hyuk had mentioned.
Kang Se-rim had eyes only for Han Gyeong-ah.

“Are you okay? You’re not hurt anywhere, are you?”
“Y-Yeah…”
“I was scared that bastard had somehow crawled out and done something to you.”

She hadn’t even looked at me.
She wasn’t ignoring me. She genuinely hadn’t noticed me at all.
How oblivious could she be?
Kang Se-rim had been inattentive in Chapter 1 too. That was how Kim Yohan had taken advantage of her so badly.
And of course we had to run into her now. Han Gyeong-ah glanced uneasily in my direction.
She shot me a nervous look, so I pretended not to notice.
What did she expect me to do?

“Unni, what’s wrong? You don’t look so good…”

Only then did Kang Se-rim notice me. The moment she did, she recoiled in horror.

“Unni! He must’ve escaped from underground! Shoot him right now!”
“Se-rim, there’s an explanation for this…”

What a warm welcome after so long. I’d expected it, but experiencing it firsthand was something else.

“Long time no see.”
“Hey! Why the hell are you here…?!”

Kang Se-rim nearly jumped out of her skin.
Their bad blood from Chapter 1 ran deep.

“Calm down. Gyeong-ah brought me here herself.”
“Don’t lie!”
“Then how do you think I got all the way up here looking like this?”

To demonstrate my harmlessness, I raised both arms, displaying the cuffs still locked around my wrists.
Still suspicious, Kang Se-rim glanced at Han Gyeong-ah, whom she had practically tucked against herself.

“Unni, is that true?”
“There’s a bit more to it, but… yes, I brought him here.”
“What?! Why would you do that? Send him back right now! You know what kind of bastard he is!!”

Now that was hurtful.
A barrage of colorful abuse came flying my way, all thanks to the atrocities Kim Yohan had committed in the past.
I couldn’t exactly argue, so I apologized on that bastard’s behalf.

“I’m sorry about what happened back then.”
“Bullshit…”
“I’m seriously reflecting on it.”
“Fuck off!”

Was this some trendy new greeting among high school girls?
Kang Se-rim glared at me as though I were an insect. Reluctantly, Han Gyeong-ah stepped in to persuade her.

“I’ve been watching him the whole time. If he causes any trouble, I’ll restrain him, so don’t worry.”

The gun at her waist caught the light. The message was clear. Resist, and she’d put a hole through my head.
Just looking at it made me break out in a cold sweat. She was only saying it to reassure Kang Se-rim, so she probably wouldn’t actually shoot me.
…Probably.
The reassurance seemed to work, because Kang Se-rim hesitated. She might hate me, but she trusted Gyeong-ah more.

“If you say so, unni… But if he does anything suspicious, shoot him immediately.”
“Thanks for trusting me.”

She still didn’t lower her guard. When she glared fiercely at me, I gave her my brightest smile.
The way her face instantly twisted in disgust was quite a sight.

‘Anyway.’

I looked around the library. It was about as spacious as the restaurant, but there was nobody here either.
Where had everyone gone?
It was the same question I’d had since we first arrived at the hotel.
Kang Se-rim gave us a completely unexpected answer.

“They went to Floor 2?”
“Yeah. You disappeared first thing this morning, unni, so…”

Apparently, the others had gone up to Floor 2.
When Han Gyeong-ah disappeared in the morning, they’d apparently assumed she’d gone up to investigate first and followed after her.
I remembered the newly activated 2F button in the elevator.
Come to think of it, Lee Sa-hyuk had said something along those lines earlier too.

-So? What did you find?
-I’m asking whether you found an exit, a clue, anything.

I hadn’t understood what he meant at the time. He’d been asking for the results of their investigation.
He’d assumed Gyeong-ah had just returned from Floor 2.
So that was it.
Mystery solved.
No wonder nobody was around.

“So that’s why the hotel was empty…”
“Gyeong-ah, what do you want to do?”
“We should wait until the others come back.”

She looked like she wanted to go upstairs herself.
But she stayed put to keep watch over me.
Meanwhile, Kang Se-rim was struggling to follow the conversation.

“That’s weird. If unni went to Floor 2, then why is she with that guy…? He was definitely locked underground…”

It looked like she needed the whole situation explained. We had something to tell them too.
Might as well tell everyone at once.

“Kang Se-rim, are you and Lee Sa-hyuk the only ones still on Floor 1?”
“Yeah. I stayed behind because they said it was dangerous, and that old guy said it was too much trouble… Wait, why am I telling you any of this?!”

A little late for that.

“I’ve got something to tell you two, so go get Lee Sa-hyuk.”
“Fuck off.”

She rejected me without hesitation. I’d expected as much, so I wasn’t disappointed.
Then how about Han Gyeong-ah?

“Se-rim, could you do it? It’s important.”
“If you’re asking, unni…”

The effect was immediate.
She might ignore trash like me, but apparently she couldn’t refuse a request from Gyeong-ah.
We agreed to meet at the restaurant shortly and parted ways with Kang Se-rim.

“Do you understand now?”
“What?”
“Just how terrible everyone’s opinion of you is.”
“I already knew.”
“…What an accomplishment.”

I’d expected this much from the start.
Kim Yohan had been a morally bankrupt piece of trash in Chapter 1.
Most of the others would probably react just like Kang Se-rim. Thankfully, they were all on Floor 2 right now.
At least I wouldn’t get mobbed and beaten to a pulp.
We crossed the lobby and headed down the east corridor. Just as I’d heard, guest rooms lined both sides.
So these were the Private Rooms.
Each door had a nameplate bearing its occupant’s name.
Lee Sa-hyuk, Kang Se-rim, Han Gyeong-ah…

[Han Gyeong-ah]

“Come in.”

I followed her into her Private Room. A clean, luxurious interior opened up before me.

“Whoa…”

My jaw dropped the moment I saw it.
The room wouldn’t have looked out of place as a suite in a five-star hotel.

“This is where you stay?”
“Yes. All the Private Rooms on Floor 1 have the same layout.”

Every room was like this?
I couldn’t help being impressed. It was worlds apart from the underground prison.
Thinking back on the days I’d spent down there, I felt seriously cheated.
As I looked around, I noticed a mirror in the living room.

‘Jesus.’

I nearly jumped when I saw some filthy beggar staring back at me, only to realize it was my reflection.
My shirt was practically a rag, torn up and stained black with grime.
My mug was just as filthy. I barely looked human.
That was what several days of imprisonment without a bath had done to me.
Han Gyeong-ah gave me a quick once-over, then cleared her throat softly.

“I’ll go by myself, so wait here. Twenty minutes should be… enough, right?”

I felt the unspoken pressure behind her words.
Was she telling me to clean myself up and look human while she was gone?

“…Got it.”

She left me behind in the Private Room and locked the door so I couldn’t wander out on my own.

So I was locked up again after all…
Still, this was hundreds, thousands of times better than being underground.
How thoughtful and considerate of her. There was just one tiny problem.
I looked down.

Clink-
The cuffs around my wrists weren’t going anywhere. I appreciated the gesture, but she’d forgotten the most important part.

“Gyeong-ah… Even if I wanted to wash up, I can’t like this.”

I muttered helplessly at the closed door. By then, she’d long since left for the restaurant.