After roughly wiping up the blood I had spilled with a towel, I put the scattered gold bars back into the bag.
My clothes, only two sets of them, were grubby from days without washing, but I decided to hand that over to the hotel's cleaning service.
"Hey! Heeeeeey! Can't you hear me?!"
"Yeah. Can't hear you."
On the table, where the bluish light of dawn seeped in, a small living creature was trapped inside a clear glass cup.
Closer to the form of a baby chameleon, with an appearance that looked squishy and a small sprout growing on its head. That was the real-world form of Room 404's Other Side Administrator.
"Pretending you can't hear when you can! This isn't what we agreed!"
"It is what we agreed. Think abooout it carefully."
"Y-you! Con artist!"
Before we slipped out into reality, the Other Side Administrator and I made one small promise. Picked apart it was closer to a threat, but anyway.
To start with the conclusion, we decided to maintain Room 404's Other Side.
Because keeping it ready for the protagonist's visit was advantageous in many ways.
―So you want me to tell you if a guy like this comes in?
―Don't even think about eating him. Tell me right away.
―Why should I? You won't let me eat the others either!
―Water play provided, and I'll play with you when you're bored.
―Hmph!
It was a promise in which I gained an alarm service that spared me watching in person twenty-four hours a day, and the thing was guaranteed a correspondingly comfortable life.
Isn't this exactly a mutual win-win?
Shading the dazzle of the breaking dawn outside the window with my hand, I looked at the thing scrabbling away at the glass.
It seems fairly aggrieved about being trapped.
"If you don't let me out right now, I won't tell you either!"
"You seem to have forgotten, but you don't have a choice."
"Dictator!"
"If you feel wronged, then just get eaten."
"So cruel!"
I need a safety device too.
The reason the thing was trapped right now was that it was in the middle of being fitted with the shackle I had made. Something like making its skin barrier extremely firm?
From now on, if I do not attend to it once a day, the thing's whole body will dry out and die.
As if I would let it play in water for nothing.
The thing, shedding tears and rolling the yellow eyes that took up half its head, wept all the more piteously when our eyes met.
Anyone watching would think I was the bad guy.
"If you don't do as I say, you'll get eaten by that guy."
"You're saying there's another guy like you?!"
No, that is offensive. Comparing me to the protagonist? That idiot kid and me?
Ha.
In disbelief, I swallowed a gust of empty air.
Being compared to a bastard packed tight with a sense of justice and the logic of force, who lives without doing that thing called thinking, made the back of my head prickle for the first time in a while.
"I've seen a bit of the future......, and you're going to get eaten for real before long."
"C-could you not say scary things?"
"Mm, let's see. A month at the most? It won't take long. Shall we say our farewells in advance?"
"That's awful!"
Well, I teased it a little with the feelings built up from being harassed by it all that time, but this much is enough.
When I lifted the glass, the thing raised its head along with the cup, then startled and spun round and round on the table.
Were baby chameleons always this cute?
Small enough to fit in my palm with room left over, the thing savored its freedom, then realized its situation and quickly went glum again.
How in the world was that the Other Side Administrator that had eaten six people?
***
When I finally got to sleep late and opened my eyes, bright morning sunlight was already pouring in.
I checked the Administrator, curled up and sprawled right in front of my nose, and sat up.
At dawn, even though I had returned to reality, a stifling feeling had risen as though I were still trapped in the Other Side, but now my breathing was clearly open.
It was a little deflating when I washed my face with cold water, went looking for something passable to wear, and belatedly remembered there was nothing.
"I'll have to exchange the gold bars first and buy a whole pile of clothes at least."
As I packed the bag and woke the sleeping Administrator, faint music came from far off. It was music coming from the small terrace café next to the hotel.
The smell of coffee beans was rich, so perhaps they had refined tastes. Considering that most people in this city were insane, a sound neighbor was a welcome element.
"Ah, I'm craving coffee."
Even if it did needlessly stir up old memories.
Past life or present life, a hard-going life did not change. No, if anything this one was worse.
Why did I have to read a comic like this.
Judging by the thick wave of self-loathing, it was definitely a caffeine shortage.
"Guard the house well."
I gave my instructions to the still thoroughly drowsy Administrator and opened the door.
By my own sense of it, it was no different from opening the door after ten days, which stirred fresh feelings.
"Hurk...... F*ck!"
No, surely I am the one who should be more startled, having taken a fresh curse to the face first thing in the morning.
Seo Mok stood in front of the door with his face deeply furrowed, reciting curses in a stream. At a glance he also looked flustered.
Giving up on interpreting it, I tilted my head at a slant and shoved my hands into my pockets.
"What's the matter?"
"What's the maaatter? Is this a situation for saying crap like that? This one's lost it."
"......I'm asking because I really am curious."
Seo Mok, his stubble still untidy, scrubbed roughly at his hair and then glared at me steadily.
Unable to get out because of him, and mindful of the Other Side Administrator, I pushed Seo Mok back and shut the door behind me.
"I thought Sophia would come......, so you came in order of who's least busy after all?"
"Sitting there talking about being unbusy. I swear......, I'd better just not say anything."
Ah, has quite a bit of time passed in reality too?
Seo Mok, flushing red and blue in a way that made it unclear whether he was angry or worried, really did have a lot of heart.
"Let's get out of here first."
"Hey, I've got a whole lot to say to you."
"Yes, yes. Understood. Do you drink coffee?"
"I do drink it, but...... no, f*ck."
Since there was no elevator, Seo Mok muttered every kind of complaint and grievance the whole way down the red-carpeted stairs.
The only part worth filtering out and listening to was that I had far too little fear.
"Why did you ignore me signaling my ass off not to follow Sophia? You got dragged along, showed off doing something you didn't have to do, and that's how it came to this."
"It was an interview, though?"
"That's what I'm saying! You didn't have to do it! Do you have no fear? No, wait, your fear is the only thing that went missing in the Other Side."
"Why are you so worked up?"
"Hey! Do you know how much guilt I've been......."
"Hm?"
A strangely odd sense of dissonance came over me.
It could not be that I was excessively relaxed, and Seo Mok flying off the handle to this extent was, well, a bit much.
Only after coming all the way down to the first floor did I turn to Seo Mok and ask.
"Say...... how many days has it been since I went missing?"
"You don't know?"
"Well, the Other Side being the Other Side?"
"I thought you were dead."
At Seo Mok's chilly words, a cold sweat broke out.
My time in the Other Side had not exceeded a week even by the most generous count. I had thought that much was a reasonable span.
The span that came out of Seo Mok's mouth was far more excessive than I expected.
"It's almost been a month for you."
"What?"
"Next week makes exactly one month. Do you know why I came today? Do you have any idea I came to smash the Other Side and everything else to pieces?"
Ah......, I'm screwed.
Which means the time for the protagonist to drop in here is nearly here.
My leisurely ease evaporated completely.
And along with it, perhaps the lives of the six missing people.
"Let's do coffee next time."
"What?"
"Tell Sophia I'll come by in the evening. Ah, would the Captain be in?"
"In the middle of this, what?"
"I need to make up some of my live interview."
"Hey!"
Leaving behind Seo Mok as he shouted "I'm against it!" I went to find the manager.
Seo Mok must have been raising hell lately, because the manager greeted me looking quite anxious.
"Oh my! You are alive!"
"I have a favor to ask."
"Only say the word."
"You've compiled the list of the missing, haven't you? Does it include photos?"
"For a few of them there are none......."
"Do you remember their faces?"
"Of course. Everyone who stayed here remains in this head of mine."
"I'll borrow the photos. For the ones without photos, composite sketches instead."
Perhaps seeing hope in my urgency, the manager prepared what I asked for quite briskly.
The hope that the missing, who might be dead, might just be alive.
I snatched up the photos and returned to Room 404.
Seo Mok stood slantwise in front of the door with his arms crossed, but I had no intention of talking.
"I'll wait."
"......Do as you like."
As though he had not been waiting merely a day or two, Seo Mok dragged over a chair from the corridor, plopped down, pulled out a cigarette, and glared at me while spinning it round and round.
He looked ready to keep me from setting foot on the Ability Office's threshold if it came to that, so I opened the door and went in as if fleeing.
"Huh? Why are you back? Haaaah, are you here to watch whether I'm behaving?"
I laid the photos out in a row in front of the Administrator, which was rolling around using the spacious bed as its playground. Six missing faces, including the two composite sketches.
"Are they alive?"
"Hmm?"
"The people you ate. I'm asking if they're still alive."
"Well......."
"Which of these."
The thing, cautiously reading my mood, raised a squishy hand and tapped at the photos one after another.
A full three of them.
"Open it."
"Hmm?"
"Don't play dumb. Go and fetch the ones who are alive."
"No! That wasn't part of the promise!"
"Do you think I don't know you meant to keep them stored away behind my back and eat them?"
The bright view flickered, went dark, and brightened again, over and over.
It was because the Other Side Administrator's instability was reflected in it, and we had precariously entered the Other Side again.
And so, when the door opened to find the first missing person, the desert's hot heat surged in.
There was a reason three of them were alive.
"I hate this place the most! I'm not a slave!"
Everyone thinks they are not a slave before they join a company.
Still, it was fortunate that it was not too late.
Because the protagonist was not among the missing.
***
Thanks to a span of time short enough to avoid starvation and the choice of a suitable place, the three missing people were able to come back.
By the Other Side Administrator's consideration, their memories of wandering around in that place were all erased.
The slight gap in their memories would be forgotten like a dream, and no trauma would form.
They looked slightly puzzled watching the manager thank me, but that was all. I had no particular intention of explaining anything to them.
Because my fishing them out of the Other Side was nothing but selfishness, a wish to meet the protagonist one-on-one.
"I can keep using Room 404, right?"
"But of course. It would be even better if you stayed for life."
"Ah, that's a bit......."
I peeled off the manager as he showed a touch of madness, and I ignored Seo Mok as he picked a fight.
However much Seo Mok was the Ability Office's mascot, the force of his decision-making authority was very weak.
And so, despite Seo Mok's fervent opposition, my hiring at the Ability Office was processed with a single hearty laugh from Sophia.
Seo Mok, ranting and raving, moved his lodging to Room 402, and I came under fairly bothersome surveillance, but it could not be helped.
I had to stay obedient.
Because I had to keep playing innocent, as quietly as possible, until I could work the protagonist over.
But why.
Why will they not leave me alone?
Kyaaah!
A scream sounds in the distance,
RUMBLE-CRAAASH!
the sound of some building or other being blown away is heard,
"Hey! Get inside right now!"
and the frantic café owner, instead of the coffee I ordered, hurriedly pulls at the arm of me sitting on the terrace.
The author, with his excess of settings, really did love blood spraying.
"Author? This is a bit much."
Everything is going to blow up before the protagonist even appears.