### Chapter 222 – Reward Confirmation, Entering Room 202
—
– Han Kain
The chaotic cooking competition has come to an end. Naturally, everyone’s interest shifted to the rewards of the cooking contest—the glass jar that Ari received and the hat my sister got.
The jar had tiny writing on it.
‘Fresh Insulated Jar: Please store perishable ingredients!’
I immediately recognized what kind of tool it was. It’s a jar that keeps the freshness of the stored items, preventing spoilage. Songee tilted her head slightly while asking.
“What’s this tool for? Is it for storing drinks? Is there a room among the cursed rooms where it’s hard to get water? Should we pack some food for that room?”
That didn’t seem right.
“It’s too small to store food. It’s just the size of an insulated bottle, right? No matter how high-calorie the food is, it’d be hard for our party to even eat one meal.”
Others started throwing in ideas. Jinchul suggested that there might be a scenario in the cursed room where we would have to store a specific liquid. It sounded plausible, but I didn’t think the hotel’s special event would hand out a tool just for one specific room.
Since we’ll be entering the cursed room tomorrow, I felt the need to figure out how to use the tool quickly and wrote down a piece of advice.
[Advice: 3 -> 2]
[Ingredients typically refer to living things. Humans are living things too.]
Upon hearing the advice, Ari responded with a half-open mouth and a look of realization.
“‘Freshness,’ and ‘ingredients’ seem to have a broader meaning than we initially thought!”
“What do you mean?”
“Beyond just the freshness of food preventing bacterial growth, it seems to prevent the magical powers contained in liquids from dissipating! The advice sounded like it was saying, ‘Store your blood.’”
At her words, the rest of us quickly understood what Ari was getting at.
“You’re saying you should store your blood in the jar?”
“If my blood comes out of my body, it loses its powers in an instant. But maybe it’ll be different in this jar.”
With that, Ari pulled out a syringe and began to slowly fill it with her blood. True to the hotel’s nature, even a tool intended for ingredient storage had a blood-curdling usage.
Seeing this, Jinchul looked intrigued.
“So, if we fill the jar with Ari’s blood, can we use it like a potion?”
The experimental results turned out to be somewhat different from what Jinchul hoped. Generally, hotel tools only exhibit supernatural abilities when they are handled by their owners, and the glass jar was no exception. While the jar kept Ari’s blood potent for a long time in her hands, it rapidly turned into ordinary blood as soon as it was in ours.
At this point, we understood the jar’s use. It provides Ari with an additional 500mL of blood that she can use!
Old blood consumes real blood each time she uses it for her powers. Because of this trait, the amount of usable blood directly impacts the power of the old blood.
This explains why Ari could showcase such overwhelming strength when she was decapitated in ‘The Cube’ and when she committed suicide in the ‘Hotel High School 2nd Round.’ She used up all the blood in her body in situations where escaping death was not an option. In this light, the jar is quite a useful tool for Ari.
While the glass jar came to a clear conclusion, the hat was unexpectedly complicated.
“There’s no manual for the hat?”
“I figured out one of its effects.”
One of the known traits of the chef’s hat my sister received was that she couldn’t say anything insincere while wearing it, she would only express her true feelings ‘a bit harshly.’
…
What kind of effect is this? Is it a benefit? Eventually, my sister couldn’t hold back her frustration and lashed out.
“Hey! What is this? Does it just make me a foul-mouthed girl? What am I supposed to do with this? This f*cking xxx—”
“Uh, uh… Sis, maybe take off the hat and then talk?”
“… Sorry, everyone. For some reason, whenever I wear this hat, foul language just slips out. What the heck was this made for?”
When wearing the hat, one is forced to speak only the truth, and it becomes peppered with curses. This effect, while absurd, would be quite useful for disorienting an enemy, and its power to compel one to only speak the truth is highly beneficial in interrogation situations.
The problem lies in the fact that these hotel tools don’t work for anyone but the owner. When we wore the hat instead of my sister, none of the mentioned effects occurred. It merely turned into an ordinary white hat. By this point, my sister started to mutter curses even without the hat.
Fortunately, today was a day off, and with the cooking contest finished by lunchtime, we had plenty of time with not much to do. I didn’t hold back and tossed in both remaining pieces of advice.
By evening, we finally grasped the true nature of this bizarre hat.
“It’s a fascinating hat. I’m sure there will be useful situations where it comes in handy.”
Songee didn’t complain about the hat any longer.
— Clunk!
Out of nowhere, a boy burst out from Room 105 after not being seen since lunchtime.
“I…I’m alive! I really made it!”
“Seungyub? Did you really eat that chicken? I thought you’d never get through it!”
Instead of answering, Seungyub embraced Pero and gave the parrot a flurry of kisses. The parrot, highly annoyed, pecked him with its beak before flying off.
“Pero ate it for me!”
Fortunately, we managed to avoid the situation where Seungyub couldn’t leave Room 105 until just before entering the cursed room. Late at night, we decided to enter Room 202 tomorrow.
—
[User: Han Kain]
Date: Day 100
Current Location: 2nd Floor, Corridor
Sage’s Advice: 3
– Han Kain
“Uh… I know this isn’t the right time for it, but according to my status window, today marks the 100th day since we entered the hotel.”
With entering the cursed room on the horizon, a palpable tension spread among everyone. Ari responded.
“What does that even matter? Everyone’s had different experiences anyway. Your status window doesn’t keep track of time after you die in a room, right?”
“That’s true. Just thought I’d mention it.”
Elena asked with a worried expression.
“Who’s going to get sealed this time? Is it going to be you again, Kain?”
“Maybe. There’s no rule against the same person getting sealed twice.”
Grandpa showed a hint of skepticism.
“I don’t know. I feel like someone else will get it this time. Just a hunch, though.”
After figuring out the hat’s powers yesterday, my sister appeared much more cheerful.
“Alright! Let’s go in. Did everyone grab the necessary tools? Is everyone mentally prepared?”
There’s no point in dragging this out. The hotel tends to create odd events when things start getting too slow. Room 202’s door opened.
—
– Elena
I felt a boiling rage within me.
The unfathomable malice of those barbaric beings walking on two legs above!
Though our ancestors had once bestowed grace upon them, the goodwill shown to these ungrateful beasts returned as chilling tears of blood.
The unbearable memories of suffering my kin endured struck my mind relentlessly.
…
My head started to ache. It wasn’t even my memory, but the sheer weight of hatred from a time beyond reckoning invaded my mind deeply.
[You are sealed! The skill ‘Calm Awareness’ is non-functional. Await assistance from your allies.]
As Elena Ivanova’s consciousness sank into the depths, my best effort was to offer one last cheer to everyone before losing consciousness.
“Everyone, let’s go!”
—
[User: Han Kain]
Date: Day 100
Current Location: 2nd Floor, Room 202 – Cursed Room ‘Mermaid Princess’
Sage’s Advice: 3
– Han Kain
“Hey, Director, did you read the reports sent from Cheongseong Group?”
“I’ve read them, but what the heck are they trying to argue?”
“It seems there’s a disparity between their public view and actual stance.”
“Is that why we’re going to confront that chairman in person? Ugh, that guy—”
“Director, let’s tread carefully with Cheongseong Group. Regardless of their misdeeds, their chairman’s son is unfortunately deceased.”
— Beep!
With a head-splitting alarm, I snapped back to reality. A flood of disorienting information left us all in silence.
…
“J-Jinchul! Pull over!”
After stopping the car, we began to assess the situation.
“Everyone is here except for one person. Elena got sealed.”
“What does that even mean? They said the individual with a necessary skill for resolving this room is the one who got sealed.”
“Not sure… the antagonist could be an evil person, which could mean we need the power of justice. Let’s regroup for now.”
Looking around, everyone except Elena had boarded the luxurious limousine. We were all dressed rather dapperly, our outfits adorned with elegant badges that proclaimed to the world.
“Calamity Administration Bureau”
The fact that our snazzy outfits and the limousine attracted attention from passersby hinted at two things.
First, we are agents of the Bureau. Second, this stage of the Bureau was operating ‘much’ more publicly.
Information started to come back to me sequentially. Given his age and status as an actual agency agent, Grandpa was leading us with the title of ‘Director.’ We had been dispatched to uncover the truth.
According to reports from the Bureau, the merfolk living on ‘Sea God Island’ off the coast of Busan had killed several high-ranking members of Cheongseong Group. One of the victims was even the chairman’s eldest son. Of course, the merfolk strenuously denied the murder charges. Our task was to uncover the truth and resolve the situation.
“What the heck is going on?”
When I grasped the rough scenario, my comrades’ mouths dropped open! What on earth is that supposed to mean?
Merfolk living openly in Korea? Fighting against a chaebol? Based on what I saw with the mention of Busan, it seemed to be set in Korea, but I simply couldn’t comprehend how things were unfolding and everyone stood speechless.
Meanwhile, Grandpa suddenly pulled out his phone.
“Hey! It’s Director Kim. How’s the Chairman doing? Just letting you know we might be about an hour late.”
Everyone’s gaze focused on Grandpa. He gave Ari a knowing look.
“Me?”
“I’m kinda bad with words, you see.”
“Fine. I guess I’ll need to explain the ‘background’ of this scenario. That’s why Mooksung bought us time.”
Fortunately, there were a couple of people that seemed to understand the situation as it developed.
“Have you heard about the ‘faction’ within the Bureau?”
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