Rose Hotel 1

Su Man read the notification and asked one more question, "So, you mean no one has ever intruded into someone else's territory like that before, right?"

[Correct. You and that player named Duan were exceptions, but such a thing will never happen again; the bug has been fixed.]

Well, thinking about it that way, Su Man felt she had come out ahead. After all, if the explosives she left behind failed to kill Duan Jing, and he had come back to raid her home while she was away, it would have been a headache for her.

After deducting the money spent on purchasing the fast-food restaurant, she had less than ten thousand Horror Coins left. Once the various hiring and maintenance fees mentioned by the light screen were subtracted, there wasn't much remaining. Fortunately, that restaurant would provide her with a steady stream of income in the future.

However, she needed to hurry up and earn more money. According to the light screen, that man surnamed Duan had quite a lot of wealth. If they were to cross paths later and she was still a pauper, that would be unfortunate.

The light screen was eager for her to complete tasks. Since this was not a special territory selection, it used the dice-rolling method to assign her a task, and this time, the destination was the Rose Hotel.

She left Sun Li at the villa to guard the house, and as for the Mirror Horror, she kept it at the fast-food restaurant to help manage the shop.

*

"Your task this time is to go over there and deal with the woman who has been pestering me! I will give you a very satisfying reward afterward!"

A gaunt-looking man shoved a note into Su Man's hand. Su Man then followed the address to the Rose Hotel.

On the way, she briefly digested her identity information. This time, her role was that of a runner who solved problems for others, and her mission was exactly what the man had said: to deal with a woman who wouldn't stop harassing him.

However, the employer had also mentioned that there was no photo and no identity; he didn't know who it was, only that she was a woman from the Rose Hotel. The employer was about to marry his girlfriend and didn't want any other woman bothering him and causing misunderstandings.

It sounded like a romantic love story, but this task, which was akin to finding a needle in a haystack, was truly... capricious.

Fortunately, that man’s employment task was not the real mission she had to complete here. After she entered the Rose Hotel, the light screen revealed her true objective.

[This is a Realm of Obsession. Please resolve the obsession. Task complete, reward: 1000 Horror Coins.]

The light screen was suddenly generous with its reward. However, Su Man had a question: "This is the Horror World; why are there humans here?"

She hadn't thought about this question before, but ever since she experienced that special territory, she had this doubt. Clearly, the Horror World should be inhabited only by horrors.

[...The player now has the authorization to know this not-so-secret secret. In fact, all humans in the Horror World are players completing tasks under various identities. Depending on the identity, the tasks vary.]

However, the system warned Su Man: [The identities players assume are real. When they inhabit these identities, they are no longer players, but participants. Please remember not to separate these two identities.]

Su Man generally understood what it meant. In other words, if a player assumed the identity of a heinous criminal, then in this instance, they were a heinous criminal. They might do bad things according to that identity, and when the final judgment came, they would not be spared just because they were players. In short, one could treat it as if there were no players here—everyone was simply a participant.

"Welcome to the Rose Hotel, miss. Checking in?" An elderly woman at the front desk noticed Su Man standing at the door and asked gently.

"Checking in. One person. How much?" As Su Man asked this, she looked around the Rose Hotel.

The Rose Hotel—the name sounded quite lovely, but in reality, it was a dilapidated old building. It was a two-story structure with concrete floors, and the room doors looked worn and tattered. The elderly woman at the desk, however, was dressed quite elegantly and carried herself with grace; she must not have suffered much in her youth.

"A young lady all by herself?" The old woman peered at her from under her reading glasses and muttered softly, "Why would someone come here alone?"

The old woman stopped reaching for a vacant room key and said, "Haven't you read the news? My hotel... it isn't safe."

"Everyone says there is a horror here whose obsession hasn't faded. Everyone is afraid." The old woman said understandingly, "Unless you have no other choice and absolutely must stay, I don't recommend it, dear."

A horror with an unfaded obsession? It seemed this Realm of Obsession was that very horror. She hadn't expected to get information so easily.

"Then, have you ever seen this horror with the unfaded obsession?"

The old woman shook her head. "I have never seen it..."

She paused and sighed. "My little hotel has seen too many grievances and regrets. Too many, too many; I don't even know who is causing the trouble."

As if lost in past memories, the old woman stared blankly for two seconds. Then, snapping back to reality, she apologized to Su Man, looking embarrassed. "Look at me, I'm old and love to dwell on the past. By the way, young lady, did you say you wanted to stay or not?"

Su Man's destination was here, so of course, she had to stay.

She spent five Horror Coins to rent a room for one day. The old woman gave her a room on the second floor near the stairs. When Su Man took the key and prepared to head upstairs, she added one more question: "Ma'am, have any other women my age come to rent a room recently?"

Although she wasn't very enthusiastic about the man's task, Su Man suspected it might be a hidden mission, so she wanted to ask.

"Someone your age?" The old woman shook her head and then nodded. "There are people every day; I can't remember them all."

Su Man wasn't in a hurry and went upstairs after getting her answer.

Opening the door, a smell of mold mixed with an indescribable odor rushed out. Su Man didn't mind; she simply made the bed and tidied up her things. There was an old-fashioned vanity in the room, and its square mirror was exceptionally bright, as if someone polished it every day.

As Su Man looked into it, several bleeding characters slowly appeared on the surface of the mirror, as if someone were writing them stroke by stroke:

"Unwilling."

Perhaps because she had been in contact with horrors for the past two days, Su Man wasn't very afraid. She even walked closer. After all, she had an unconditional resurrection opportunity, so gaining more information was a profit.

"Unwilling to do what?" Seeing no more characters appear, Su Man muttered to herself and reached out to wipe the three words away.

But the text didn't answer her; it simply reappeared as if talking to itself.

"Regret."

Su Man read it aloud and wiped the words away again. Immediately after, the blood-red characters appeared at an even faster speed:

"Go to hell!"