WTRM 03

Chapter 3

Surely, she must have heard wrong.

Hoping desperately that was the case, Sohee slowly turned around.

Forget the photo or anything else. She couldn’t stay here anymore. She wanted nothing more than to run out, but her legs wouldn’t move properly, as if someone had tied heavy stones to them. The area above her knees began to tremble violently.

It was just when she finally managed to grab the doorknob.

“Granddaughter of So Young-ho, So So….”

“KYAAAAAA!”

She didn’t even have time to think. Hearing that exact voice once again, Sohee hurriedly flung the door open as though she had been shot out of a cannon.

“Aah!”

As she rushed out, her foot caught on the entrance step, and she fell hard onto her butt.

The impact sent a sharp jolt through her body, and her head spun.

“Ah… it hurts. I’m dizzy.”

She had to escape somehow.

But with her head ringing loudly, she couldn’t even open her eyes properly. She simply sat there, clutching her badly twisted lower back.

I’m scared. Somebody, please help me….

Sohee trembled as she wrapped her arms around her head.

She couldn’t bring herself to look up. It felt as though some terrifying entity that had tried to call her name was glaring down at her from right in front of her.

“Hurry… that is….”

“Today… more than I expected….”

“No… that can’t….”

She could even hear faint murmuring voices.

At this point, Sohee was genuinely on the verge of tears. Since she was hearing things that weren’t there, she must have been completely possessed by something.

How could everything go this horribly wrong?!

It wasn’t just an old, run-down motel.

It was a haunted motel!

The muffled sounds, as though they were coming from beyond a telephone receiver, were gradually becoming clearer.

Before long, she could distinctly hear people’s conversations and the ordinary sounds of daily life, and an overwhelming sense of terror pressed down upon her.

Ah….

Sohee’s consciousness gradually became hazy.

Her head spun, she felt nauseous, and cold sweat poured down her body like rain.

At this point, Sohee could no longer endure it.

The extreme stress seemed to be making her body shut itself down, as though it were turning off its own power.

No more….

The noises around her ears slowly faded away, and Sohee’s consciousness was sinking deeper and deeper into darkness.

“So Sohee!”

Sohee suddenly opened her eyes as though she had awakened from a dream.

“……?”

She froze.

Before her stretched a wide-open street, with countless people coming and going.

No matter how hard she looked, no matter how hard she tried to understand what she was seeing, her eyes and brain simply couldn’t come to an agreement.

“New motel manager. So. So.hee.”

When someone called her name in a mechanical, AI-like voice, Sohee jumped in surprise and turned around.

“Uh, uhh…?”

With a gasp, she covered her mouth.

Where the motel that had been on the verge of collapsing should have stood, there was now a dazzlingly bright building.

“The motel… was pink?”

Sohee rubbed her eyes once again.

Nothing changed.

…There was no way this was my motel.

The sign had definitely been on the verge of falling off, too.

Her gaze naturally shifted toward the sign.

“Love’s… Reincarnation Motel?”

At both ends of the horrifying name were two huge red hearts, proudly displaying their presence.

Sohee stared blankly at the sign.

There was a limit to how much she could try to understand, but this had gone far, far beyond that limit.

“Hey, could you move aside? We need to get through.”

“Huh? Yes.”

…Huh?

After naturally stepping aside, Sohee suddenly came to her senses and stared at the person in front of her.

A foreigner wearing armor was walking past with an axe resting on his shoulder.

And beside him, a person dressed in a black robe swept past as though flying.

Next to that person, a beautiful red-haired woman wearing a gorgeous dress walked by.

He speaks Korean really well… No, that’s not the point!

Only then did Sohee properly look around.

There were people wearing hanbok and traditional gat hats, women who were obviously disguised as men, beautiful and handsome beggars, and even people dressed in the elaborate clothing of royalty.

People wearing every kind of outfit she had either heard about at some point or read about in novels were all out on the streets.

“Alright, alright. Stay in line and follow along. We’ll give you some time to look around after registering your identity.”

And there were even groups of people following in a line behind a person wearing a black dopo and a gat.

“Hey! This is the village in front of Wicheon, so the dead should go over there!”

“Grim Reaper! There’s someone here who hasn’t come to their senses.”

“I told you not to eat just anything you find!”

Not a single one of the people rushing past paid Sohee any attention.

In front of the motel that had somehow become completely flower-pink, Sohee alone stood there in a daze.

“…How… how could this….”

And she reached only one conclusion.

“I must have finally gone crazy. I went crazy from stress!”

Sohee shuddered and glared sharply at the moon jar.

“Why did you suddenly call my name like that?! Every time I think about that day, my heart still pounds!”

“The heart is supposed to pound.”

“Then what about my back?! Do I really have to have back pain at twenty-five?”

Sohee let out an exaggerated groan and patted her lower back.

She had indeed strained it slightly when she fell in surprise that day.

Of course, it had healed long ago.

“…I prepared the finest chair for you. A signature product from a high-end brand that costs more than six million won at current Korean prices.”

Sohee leaned back into the soft, comfortable leather chair.

The expensive chair was far more comfortable than any bed she had ever lain on in her current life.

“An ergonomic chair. I even paid for it out of my own pocket. A benefit no manager before you has ever received….”

“I know, I know. That’s why I’m letting it slide.”

Sohee nodded playfully and stroked her chair.

Although she kept talking about her aching back, everything she did made it painfully obvious just how much she loved the chair.

Patience. I must endure. Three times the character for patience. Three times should be enough.

Dal Hangari swallowed his frustration again and again.

Whenever that fresh-faced youngster kept getting on his nerves, he reflected upon himself.

Do I still lack sufficient spiritual cultivation?

Dal Hangari—in other words, the actual owner and longtime resident of this motel—had settled here from the moment Wicheon came into existence.

Wicheon had existed since the distant past, from an era when stories were passed down orally without writing.

Naturally, he had lived here for an extremely long time.

Whenever he occasionally became bored, he would slightly alter his outward appearance.

At present, among the countless objects around him, he had simply taken a liking to this moon jar and occupied it.

I should have realized it the very day I first met her.

Over all those years, he had met countless characters and numerous motel managers, trained them, and eventually sent them on their way.

He had encountered all kinds of human beings beyond description and experienced all sorts of things.

Even so, So Sohee was different.

On the first day she fell into this place, So Sohee sobbed her heart out.

“I suddenly got dropped here out of nowhere. How am I supposed to live if I can’t even feel at ease?!”

Perhaps because she had recklessly searched through the mountains while looking for the motel, she was covered in scratches here and there. Her hair was a mess, and her clothes were covered in dirt.

The biggest problem was that body of hers, thin and twisted like a half-burned fire poker.

When she sobbed uncontrollably, looking like an abandoned kitten, Dal Hangari eventually gave her permission to live comfortably.

It was the perfect mistake of Dal Hangari, who had failed to recognize just how shameless an ego was hiding inside that girl.

I told her to live comfortably. I never told her to throw all manners out the window.

Judging from the life she had lived, even a timid personality would have been understandable.

Yet, somehow, whenever she needed to stand her ground, she didn’t lose her nerve even in front of customers.

She wasn’t even afraid of him, the longtime resident of this place.

If only she weren’t competent at her work, I would have to give her some serious discipline.

Dal Hangari looked at the ledger Sohee had carefully filled out, page after page.

The mad scientist’s idea notebook.

The sacred stone of a candidate for High Priest.

The jade hairpin of the king’s third wife.

The knight’s second sword.

The fortune-telling orb that showed the future of a mage who had failed to awaken.

She had successfully helped a total of five people undergo reincarnation, regression, or transmigration, and had received quite valuable items from them.

Unlike her grandfather, So Sohee seemed to possess a certain talent for handling reincarnation, regression, and transmigration.

However, there was one major problem.

Most characters below the level of supporting roles didn’t want to undergo any kind of reincarnation, regression, or transmigration.

“Then advertising comes first!”

Sohee therefore made her initial goal to properly introduce the motel to people.

And so, her first method of advertising was extremely straightforward.

「The last chance to fix the life you regret leaving behind! Personalized one-on-one consulting available! Come inside for a consultation!」

A standing sign in an old-fashioned Korean calligraphy font stood prominently at the motel entrance.

From the perspective of the scholarly-minded Dal Hangari, it was so blatant and commercial that it was embarrassing.

But So Sohee raised an eyebrow and replied.

“This doesn’t even count as proper advertising. We need to make the supporting characters interested, even just a little. Is there anyone who doesn’t have a moment in their life they’d want to turn back?”

“It’s useless. Characters with insignificant roles have much better conditions if they simply disappear. For the next work.”

“…Are you seriously talking about someone else right now? What are you going to do about the taxes you have to pay in just two months?!”

Wondering if anyone might have come, Sohee threw open the motel door.

As expected, no one came.

“Taxes are a headache here just like they were in my current life. What are they taking so much from us every quarter when they don’t even give us anything in return? Then at least loosen the conditions for supporting characters to undergo reincarnation, regression, and transmigration!”

Sohee’s irritated gaze naturally settled on one particular place.

Across the way, at a considerable distance, people were constantly coming and going.

That place was the ‘hotel’ where the protagonists of the stories could undergo reincarnation, regression, and transmigration.

The hotel manager, greeting people with a relaxed smile, was guiding customers when he suddenly glanced in this direction.

Chunrok, the manager of the reincarnation, regression, and transmigration hotel.

When he gave her a subtle smile, Sohee couldn’t sleep that night.

After that, she began throwing herself into advertising with a frightening amount of enthusiasm.

…She should have stopped her back then.