Chapter 18
#018
1.
Joker.
A consumable item obtainable from 《Joker Random Box》.
It eats up 30 pt per pull, but its effect is enough to boast, “A single card that can change fate.”
As a blatant example, if I hadn’t had the evil-averting charm at the start of this run, I’d have started it as Shanks, thanks to the death penalty [One-Armed].
The most important point here is….
Joker is a guy born from the ‘gacha’ in my status window.
“…….”
「The Hotel Abyss, Suite Room Stay Voucher」
Then what the hell is this.
Is this some bastard child my status window had while cheating on me?
While I was still bewildered, A-reong and Akit slowly approached me.
“Brother Gatsu, what exactly is this?”
“I’ve never seen a hotel employee act like that before.”
“They’re just taking your side.”
In the previous run, Akit and A-reong were my comrades, but since I’d regressed, they were basically strangers.
Even so, they’d been acting unnaturally, overly familiar.
“Hmm.”
I know exactly what this is.
It’s the ‘throw me a few scraps too’ move.
People act like this when word gets out you’ve made a lot of money from investing.
I wondered if this was really such a big deal and looked around….
The troubleshooters gathered in twos and threes in the lobby were staring at me.
Damn it.
I didn’t want this much attention.
I’m already being chased, and I’m not even in disguise today.
I gave up once I realized they weren’t chasing me for my face anyway.
Taking it off is surprisingly a pain too.
Anyway.
What was even scarier was that, in front of everyone, the hotel employee gave me a Joker as compensation for the apology.
Suddenly, every conversation around me started sounding like, “That bastard’s a golden goblin” and “Let’s kill him and take it.”
If this were just a slum, I’d pull a reverse robbery, but this is a hotel.
It’d be full of elite troubleshooters….
I was a little spooked.
I kept sneaking glances around and showed the stay voucher to A-reong.
First, I needed to find out what this stay voucher actually was.
“What the hell is this? The thing you handed me earlier.”
“Ah, that. That happens sometimes. Isn’t it a blank business card?”
“A blank business card?”
A-reong shrugged as if it were nothing.
“A business card with nothing written on it. Hotel staff sometimes hand those out like that. I haven’t gotten one myself, though.”
Nothing written on it?
I looked down at the stay voucher again.
The white background was trimmed with gold leaf around the edges, and it had embossing, making it look extremely luxurious.
No matter how you looked at it, it was a tastefully designed stay voucher.
“Focus! Don’t just glance at it—look carefully.”
“Why? Do you see something?”
A-reong took the voucher and inspected it from every angle before saying,
“It really is a blank business card, isn’t it?”
“I said look more closely. Try viewing it with a Magic Eye too.”
“Come on, you’re taking this too far.”
I checked with Akit too, but got the same reaction.
To other people, this voucher looks ‘blank.’
That was why, although it was undeniably a stay voucher, it was being called a business card.
“Hey, you guys, wanna take a look at this too?”
Something clicked in my mind, so I pulled out the ‘Coin Toss of Truth’ as a test.
“What does this look like?”
“Just a coin, isn’t it?”
“Can you see what’s written on the front and back?”
“…Nothing really seems to be written on it. It’s just a normal coin, isn’t it.”
To me, it’s a coin engraved with TRUE/FALSE on each side.
“Okay, this kind of setup?”
I get it now.
I’m the only one who can identify Joker as Joker and see its effect.
I’m the only one who knows this world’s Joker.
“Hmm.”
In this kind of possession-regression story, you gotta have the fun of hogging all the good stuff!
“Hm.”
But this hotel is a rift too.
More precisely, it serves as a hub for other rifts.
If a ‘suite room’ is actually a rift around Depth 6, wouldn’t using the ticket just get you killed?
“No.”
Since the hotel treats guests like ‘kings,’ maybe it’s fine?
“Well, I’m sure it’ll be useful somewhere.”
For now, I don’t have time to think deeply.
I’ve already wasted too much time.
I carefully tucked the hotel voucher against my chest.
2.
After a minor run-in with a scrub extra.
I followed the procedures to enter the ‘Mushroom Factory.’
Though it looked like a ‘hotel,’ most of the process was similar to actual hotel check-in.
First, I went to the check-in counter with the goat-headed female clerk.
“Party of three for Mushroom Factory.”
I said.
For reference, until you reach a Depth 2 rift, there’s no separate fee.
The female clerk silently bared her yellow teeth in a grin and handed me a brass key.
“Wow, brother. You’re popular, huh? The receptionist just flashed you a friendly smile!”
“Brother Gatsu really is handsome.”
“Shut it.”
“Heehee, are you shy?”
Whether it was because I’d shown some backbone in front of Sunming,
or because the hotel staff’s special treatment seemed suspicious,
or because, after falling out with Rank 7 Sunming, they’d decided they needed to butter me up to survive—
Akit and A-reong were acting way too friendly.
Even if their intentions were obvious, I wasn’t particularly annoyed.
To them, I’m a stranger, but I’ve got a week’s worth of memories with them.
In fact, this level of distance feels familiar.
I took the key and headed for the elevator.
According to the setting, this hotel itself is a rift that has ‘surfaced’ into reality, and also a hub leading to rifts.
Each floor is made up of a rift.
Here, consult the rulebook:
27) Guests board the elevator one team at a time in accordance with the staff’s instructions.
28) The elevator’s capacity is 5 people.
Take note.
The elevator line was long, but there were eight elevators.
As soon as one team went up, the next elevator arrived immediately with no gap, so we could go in without waiting.
-Ding
When we boarded the old-fashioned elevator, a staff member was standing in front of the buttons.
Naturally, there were hundreds of buttons on the panel.
I wasn’t very surprised.
Well, it’s common knowledge that the interior of a haunted hotel is Hilbert’s Hotel, right?
“Mushroom Factory.”
Showing the key, the horned goat employee smiled again and pressed the button for us.
“Wow, she smiled again this time.”
“No, seriously, you’re this popular? Why are you even a troubleshooter? Quit and become the king of the night.”
Akit and A-reong snickered and made a scene.
I scowled.
“Cut the crap.”
“Come on, you secretly like it.”
“I know they’re monsters, but the hotel staff are pretty cute, if I may say so. Their bodies are a whole other level too…. If it were me, I’d sweet-talk one and just...”
“What?! You’re into that kind of thing?”
I was startled by A-reong’s inhuman taste, something I hadn’t known last run.
Is Necropolis really different in all the weirdest ways?
Even as a joke, that’s fucked up.
What’s the point of a great body if their head’s a goat!
It’s a supply with no demand that both furry fans and human fans would pass on.
While I was recoiling at the abyss of A-reong’s psyche,
-Ding!
We soon arrived at the Mushroom Factory floor.
When the elevator doors opened, a huge factory interior greeted us instead of a neat hotel hallway.
A burst of hot, humid air rushed at us.
Mixed into it were the smell of moss and the strange fishy stench you get when sandy soil rots.
“Creepy.”
“That’s what rifts are like.”
The Mushroom Factory was, as its name implied, the inside of a factory.
Only, it was absurdly tall—so tall that the concept of a ceiling was meaningless—and unrealistically vast.
Judging by the giant blast furnace over there, is this some kind of steelworks?
Clearly, it wasn’t operating normally right now.
With the lights off, the only light inside was the phosphorescence emitted by mushroom caps sprouting everywhere.
Mushrooms and moss had even formed colonies all over the factory, including atop the rusted steel machines.
It’s an eco-apocalypse, mushroom edition.
“What are you doing?”
After getting off the elevator, I kept looking back until the doors closed.
Sure enough, just as the rulebook said, the door vanished like magic the moment it fully closed.
“It really disappears.”
In other words, the hotel elevator randomly drops checked-in guests somewhere inside the rift and then vanishes on the spot.
Conversely, to get out, you have to find an escape route randomly placed within the rift.
-Ting!
An alert sounded.
======
::: New Area Entered (NEW!):::
Blue life blooming over a grave of rusted steel.
A giant mushroom colony blanketing halted machines and a dead blast furnace.
This is the rift, ‘Depth 1: Mushroom Factory.’
Be careful not to stay too long.
You might become part of the colony too.
*** TIP ***
- The rule here is ‘people are mushrooms.’
- Never stay in the factory for more than 24 hours at a time.
- The Mushroom Factory is the perfect place to obtain fairy meat.
- Distinguishing poisonous mushrooms from edible ones is extremely difficult.
:::Challenge Objectives(New!):::
- Enter the rift through the hotel +1pt
======
I’d already gained 4 points right at the start of the run.
Since I was proceeding with a playstyle I’d never used before, the challenge-objective points were piling up nicely.
The rough tips in the status window were reassuring too.
“Should we start working right away?”
From here on out, the task is simple.
Hunt monsters.
That’s the fastest way to make money.
Why does entering a rift make money?
Why does Arden keep sending troubleshooters into human-crusher rifts nonstop?
Because rifts are treasure troves of resources.
In truth, a mere Depth 1 monster doesn’t drop all that much gold dust.
But the shallower the depth, the less black-ash contamination there is, so monsters can be used as food.
In Necropolis, where the food situation is so bad that cockroach blocks are a staple, the Mushroom Factory is a great source of fairy meat.
“Brother, I found it. It’s over there. That’s the mushroom fairy.”
“Yeah? Where? Let me see.”
-Mm… mm… mm…
Right nearby.
We hid behind cover and watched the Mushroom Factory’s mascot, the ‘mushroom fairy.’
“Huh… it looks disgusting as hell.”
This isn’t a metaphor.
I’m describing exactly what I see.
I expected something like an orange mushroom or a horned mushroom, all bouncy and hopping around, since it was called a mushroom fairy.
But the real thing looks like a giant button mushroom with muscular limbs attached.
“Damn, that’s the fairy meat I ate?”
“Heh, it’s a chewy delicacy.”
“And if we don’t get out within 24 hours, we turn into that too?”
“Ah, probably we’ll be fine. Depth 1 rifts have plenty of exits.”
My stomach suddenly turned.
This is gross as hell.
And on top of that, there were low moaning sounds coming from all around.
-Mm… mm… ugh…
-Mm…ugh…mm
It’s doubly unpleasant because it sounds like some old guy getting a sedated colonoscopy.
But aside from being unpleasant, it didn’t seem all that dangerous.
The way they wandered around was sluggish too.
More than anything, the cries sound like total loser-tier garbage.
At this rate, I could save bullets and not even need Hero—just beat the crap out of them.
“Are those things really dangerous?”
“Of course, brother. Honestly, I feel like I’m about to shit myself right now. We’re here because we thought you’d do something.”
I rolled up my sleeves and grabbed the machete I’d brought from the Get Money office.
“You bastards, look here. I’m taking the lead.”
Even without Hero, I have the Eyes of Laplace.
I’m the god of counterattacks, enough to make even Rock Lee a mere mortal.
I strode toward the mushroom fairy.
“Be careful!”
“What do I need to be careful about? Just wait. Tonight’s dinner is mushroom salad.”
“You really do need to be careful! They aren’t incredibly quick or anything, but they move slowly and steadily. Their strength is fucking insane. If they grab even your hem by accident… yeah, that’s what happens.”
A-reong pointed with his hand to a corner between some factory equipment.
I narrowed my eyes and looked where he was pointing.
There was something like a gym ball between the mushroom-covered shelves.
“Ugh.”
Just looking at it in detail made my stomach turn.
Mushrooms were sprouting luxuriantly from a corpse whose limbs and torso had been crumpled into a ball.
It’s the grotesque kind of visual best-gore site users would love.
What the hell do they do to you when they catch you that your body ends up looking like it got tangled up in factory machinery?
I backed away again.
“Hey, can they hear well?”
“I don’t think they can hear all that well.”
“Really? Nice.”
I pulled out Hero.
Let’s just use a gun.