Chapter 02
If the fire alarm hadn’t slammed into her head again, her mind would have been completely consumed.
Weeeeng, weeeeeeeng!
The alarm’s wail shocked her sinking mind as if a bucket of cold water had been poured over it.
Ordelfia, who hadn’t even realized that her eyes had lost focus and her mind had scattered, shuddered at the damned alarm that shredded human nerves like a steel blade.
“Ugh… ugh…”
She forced her eyelids open with all her strength, desperately trying not to close her bloodshot eyes.
All these strange actions she took after the fire alarm had sounded were exactly what she had seen in the hotel’s rulebook.
Weeeeeng.
Listening to the alarm wail even louder, as if it had no intention of stopping, Ordelfia briefly regretted coming to the hotel.
“No…”
She immediately gritted her teeth and shook her head. No matter what happens, she had already left the mansion and had no choice but to stand on her own.
She didn’t know what had happened, but she couldn’t leave the hotel until she achieved her goal.
The small relief in this misfortune was that, although she hadn’t memorized all the rules, she remembered enough to somehow handle this bizarre situation.
Weeeng! Weeeeng!
This damned fire alarm! How long is it going to keep going?!
Hilgrace Hotel Rule #3: When the fire alarm sounds, cover your ears and do not close your eyes. Hide until it passes.
Let it pass. She only needed to endure it until it did.
But what exactly was supposed to “pass”? A belated curiosity bubbled up.
Hoo… hoo… hooo…
They said that if you see a ghost, the ghost can see you too.
For a brief moment, she had a perfectly reasonable question about something she couldn’t yet comprehend or perceive.
Then, without warning, an unidentifiable creature suddenly approached her.
It had four legs.
She couldn’t tell whether it was crawling or walking.
Its head wasn’t visible—too tall to see properly.
Its shapeless form seemed smeared with fog, or as if mud was dripping off it, impossible to define.
The one thing Ordelfia understood when she saw “it”:
It was a disaster. Literally. She could neither confront it nor avoid it; she could only hold her breath and hide until it “passed.”
She didn’t even want to know why she had to cover her ears or keep her eyes open.
Once again, Ordelfia faced a crisis.
In this sudden situation, any normal person would have panicked, cried, or convulsed, but she had to force herself to restrain the sudden laughter threatening to escape at the corners of her twitching mouth.
Being alone made it harder.
Since realizing that sharing her emotions with others was inevitable, from childhood she had suppressed or even killed her emotions hundreds, maybe thousands of times.
When alone, her twisted and distorted emotions became uncontrollable.
In the end, her attempt to restrain her strange laughter only succeeded halfway.
“Pff.”
Covering her ears made her own laughter sound even sharper. Instinctively, she tried to shut her eyes tightly, forgetting the rules for just a moment.
“Why are you laughing, sis?”
The moment she realized someone was there, all fear, surprise, and laughter sank instantly to the deepest recesses of her mind.
With an expressionless face, Ordelfia stared at the suddenly appeared child.
In every way, it looked human.
But having just witnessed something indescribably strange, she couldn’t be sure if this child was truly human.
Still, she didn’t tremble or hesitate in fear.
Even if the other was not human, it at least looked human on the outside, so her emotions remained steady.
The child tilted their head, eyes wide in surprise.
Ordelfia had suddenly laughed, then immediately wiped her expression clean.
As the child opened their mouth again, Ordelfia was quicker.
“I didn’t laugh because it was funny.”
“You laughed even though it wasn’t funny?”
“I said it wasn’t like that.”
Ordelfia answered coldly enough that one could have asked if she was angry. Then she realized something.
The four-legged “thing” had already passed, and she had just entered the Hilgrace Hotel lobby, her intended destination.
She also noticed the unsettling fact that, despite the creature’s massive size, easily taller than the hotel itself, it had nonchalantly passed through the lobby. She buried this strange observation in a corner of her mind.
The fire alarm had rung so loudly, yet the child before her was unnaturally calm.
Though there were many incomprehensible things, she pushed aside her doubts out of habit.
No one had ever explained things to her when she was curious about something.
The child peeked at her silently staring at the hotel lobby.
“Is something fun happening? I want to see too. Me too.”
Seeing her laugh under abnormal circumstances, the child grabbed her skirt and shook it, whining.
Reflexively, with an expressionless face, Ordelfia pushed the child’s hand away.
Thwack!
The child looked alternately at their pushed hand and at her icy demeanor, eyes widening in shock.
The child, like any child, began to whimper.
Ordelfia looked down at them with the same expressionless face and said:
“Sorry.”
“You don’t like me?”
“It’s not just you—I don’t like anyone. No, I mean… it’s not that I dislike you; I just don’t like anyone touching me.”
Even though her words were blunt, the child seemed to barely understand, and their tear-filled eyes quivered as they mumbled.
A normal person might have tried to console the child with a troubled expression.
But Ordelfia, accustomed to suppressing emotions around others and avoiding contact, refrained from approaching.
Remaining expressionless, she added:
“As long as you don’t touch me, it’s fine. I don’t dislike you. We just met, so there’s no way I could feel like or dislike yet.”
“Huh? Touch? When did I touch you?”
Seeing the child still confused, Ordelfia tapped her own skirt.
Finally, the child realized and pointed to their chest, eyes wide with realization and wet with tears.
“So… you don’t dislike me?”
“I already said. I don’t even know you, so there’s no way I could dislike you.”
The cold, blunt response satisfied the child, who immediately let out a giggle.
“By the way, why are you alone? Where are your parents?”
Ordelfia glanced around the spotless, meticulously arranged hotel lobby, which was eerily quiet.
Squinting and surveying her surroundings, she concluded the child was lost.
She would bring them to the reception desk, and they would handle it.
“Let’s go there together.”
“Huh? Uh… I want to go out by myself.”
“It’s dangerous to be alone.”
Now that she said it aloud, this hotel really was dangerous.
The rules had seemed odd from the start…
“I’m not alone!”
“Stop insisting.”
“I said I’m not alone!”
“You’re alone now; your parents aren’t here.”
When Ordelfia didn’t give in, the child pouted and raised their arms.
“Then I’ll go with you! Hug me! Huh? Hug meeee!”
Despite recently saying they didn’t like being touched, the child kept demanding a hug.
Ordelfia didn’t get angry or irritated. She simply ignored the child, gradually increasing the distance.
She was already skilled at dealing with those who didn’t accept her strict rules against contact.
“Sis! Let’s go out! I said, let’s go out!”
Ordelfia observed the child waving their hands wildly. To an outsider, it might have looked suspicious or made one frown.
But she avoided the small hands and didn’t abandon the child.
Although she suppressed almost all feelings, including compassion, deep inside she couldn’t leave someone seeking help behind.
Moreover, leaving the child alone based solely on their word could lead to real trouble.
“Are you sure your parents are nearby? Don’t lie just because you keep saying you’re not alone.”
“We were together just a moment ago!”
The child, as if wronged, shouted, then suddenly smiled broadly and waved frantically at Ordelfia’s back.
“Uncle!”
