Hotel Between Worlds

Ah, the familiar darkness, the familiar oppressive weight, and the familiar sensation of consciousness sinking deeper and deeper.

Darian's thoughts drifted within a chaotic abyss, and along with the pressure surging from all directions came a profound helplessness and exhaustion.

He had anticipated many more twists before leaving that "Otherworld," had even considered that he might have to "die" more than once. He had guessed the beginning and the end but not the process in between. As he floated and sank in the darkness, he couldn't help but recall the final scene he saw before losing consciousness. In that brief and blurred instant, those golden-red pupils had locked with his gaze, accompanied by those luxurious fox tails blooming like fire under the night sky...

And that supersonic headbutt.

So who exactly was that girl who smashed into him and killed him? Where had she come from? And why did she appear in the Otherworld?

Moreover... what exactly happened to his body during the battle with that monster? The sudden surge of strength, the agility, and...

That ravenous hunger.

What had happened to him?

Darian felt a whirlwind of chaotic thoughts swirling through his mind like a vortex. Freed from the confines of his physical body, these out-of-control "thoughts" kept transforming into bizarre illusions before his "eyes," mixed with countless memories rising from deep within. He saw that creature formed from a pile of countless limbs, then the "headbutt girl" who had fox ears and a tail, appearing out of nowhere but the next moment, he saw a painting: Eileen, shattered into pieces around a chair, her doll-like limbs connected by spiderweb-thin threads, and a strange shadow lurking faintly in the background...

Suddenly, Eileen vanished again. From the depths of Darian's memory, a new scene surfaced, crimson clouds and sky, sunlight flowing like water, bathing the familiar alleys of an old street.

Oh, that was the place where Darian had been born and raised. his hometown, the "Realm City," a small coastal city easily overlooked. It had been two months since he left... yet for some reason, when that image surfaced from deep within his memory, it felt like it belonged to a distant past as if it were someone else's memory, coldly unfolding before his eyes.

All the visions vanished, and in the end, only a gentle darkness surrounded him.

Darian felt his mind become a little clearer. After a moment's hesitation, he tried calling out inwardly, "Eileen."

There was no response in the darkness.

It seemed that while in this "dead" state, his connection with Eileen was severed.

Next, Darian tried to shift his "sight," searching the darkness for anything around him, while also attempting to confirm whether his body still existed.

He saw nothing. The place was utterly empty, and he seemed to exist as nothing more than a drifting, unanchored "thought," without any physical form.

Silently, Darian kept experimenting.

During his previous two "deaths," he'd had no experience. he'd more or less stumbled back to the "living world." But this time, he was beginning to consciously perceive the process, testing out various theories.

He knew he had spent all this time in a haze: an unfamiliar world, strange phenomena, mysteries surrounding himself, dying and resurrecting... too many incomprehensible things were tangled together, leaving him utterly lost.

But ever since Eileen had told him about the concept of the "Otherworld," he had a new goal. he had to return, return to the "normal" side.

When the rifts to the Otherworld occasionally opened before people, a single glimpse of the scenery leaking from those cracks was enough to push ordinary minds beyond the edge of reason, casting them into a world outside normalcy. This might happen because someone got off at the wrong stop, took one extra step down a staircase, turned one more page of a book and misread a word, or... opened the wrong door.

But regardless of the cause, the most crucial thing was this: the process was not irreversible.

According to the information Eileen had revealed, there were people in this world who studied the Otherworld, who had discovered patterns within it, and even experts who specialized in solving problems related to it. Even ordinary people, once caught in the Otherworld, still had a chance to return.

This valley shrouded in twilight was an Otherworld. The house he now stayed in, 66 Wutong Road, was also an Otherworld. But Darian believed his first contact with the Otherworld had occurred even earlier—

Perhaps it happened the moment he pushed open his front door two months ago, stepping into a version of "Realm City" that was an Otherworld centered around himself.

Now, he had to explore as much as possible, uncover the truths behind these strange events, understand the knowledge related to the Otherworld and then, escape this distorted world.

So, he opened his eyes.

Cold night wind swept through the large hole in the wall. Beyond the half-collapsed roof stretched a murky sky.

He sat in the corner of the ruined temple, but did not get up immediately. Instead, he remained motionless in the posture he had awakened in, cautiously sensing everything around him while trying to hold on to the memories and "impressions" that were rapidly slipping away from his mind.

He was trying to recall the sensation of awakening, the very instant he crossed back from the darkness to the "real world."

He believed that might be the key to understanding the process of his death and resurrection.

At the very least, it might bring him one step closer to the truth behind all these mysteries.

Vaguely, he began to recall certain images he had "seen" just before waking up. He remembered himself rising out of the darkness, crossing a hazy boundary, and then sinking back toward reality... But what happened after that? Between the moment of "sinking toward reality" and actually "opening his eyes"? What took place in that fleeting instant?

He seemed to have seen several flashes of imagery, fast and blurry. A few, however, were relatively clearer... including the small road near his home, the front gate of 66 Wutong Road, and... this corner deep inside the ruined temple.

Darian's eyelids lowered slightly as his thoughts settled. Some guesses surfaced in his mind, but he set them aside for now. Then, he quietly exhaled and began to gently move his hands and feet.

This body felt pure and vigorous. He could even feel the immense strength surging through his veins. His hearing was sharp, his vision far-reaching, and his limbs full of power. even though not long ago, he had been practically decapitated by a supersonic headbutt. But now, he was completely full of life again.

He rose from the corner, intending to call out to Eileen.

But in the very next second, he abruptly froze.

Because he heard a rustling sound coming from outside the wall.

His first reaction was—That tasty-looking monster actually chased me into the ruined temple?!

But he quickly realized something was off. That monster always made a thunderous entrance, not something this cautious and quiet.

Taking a slow breath, Darian crept cautiously toward the hole in the wall and peeked out through the opening.

The night was dark, but his vision was crystal clear.

He saw a girl, tiptoeing carefully through the rubble of the ruined temple.

She wore a tattered robe, which must have once been a luxurious gown but was now reduced to dirty scraps of cloth. Her unkempt white hair hung in messy strands, covering most of her face. And atop her head... were two fox-like pointed ears.

But more than her furry ears, what really caught Darian's attention was behind her those tails.

Fox tails. More than one. But from his angle, it was difficult to count how many there were and given how disheveled the girl looked, he even suspected it might be just one huge tail, hopelessly matted from lack of care...

By now, of course, Darian had already recognized her.

It was that supersonic headbutt girl.

But she didn't seem to notice that Darian was nearby. She was cautiously prowling through the ruins of the temple, occasionally twitching her nose as if sniffing for something. After a while, she appeared to have found it, her eyes lit up, and she darted off in that direction.

The sound of a plastic bag being rifled through echoed faintly in the night.

Darian's eyes widened.

It was the bag of kitchen scraps he had brought with him when he was "thrown" into this valley. he had casually tossed it into the ruins earlier.

Inside were vegetable peels, eggshells, and leftovers he had cleared out of the fridge that evening.

Pressing himself to the wall, he watched as the fox-tailed girl tore at the plastic bag with a mixture of joy and clumsiness, accidentally spilling its contents. Without hesitation, she grabbed a lump of leftovers and stuffed it into her mouth.

As if she hadn't eaten in years.

Darian suddenly felt a wave of suffocating discomfort.

He didn't know why, but it hit him hard. He felt... that no one should ever be that hungry.

Even if she didn't quite look like a "human."

Even if she had once slammed into him with a headbutt. she'd done that to save him.

And just then, the girl seemed to finally sense the presence of another living being inside the temple.

Crouched on the ground, a wilted leaf still in her mouth, she turned her head in shock and alarm.

Darian stood in the corner of the crumbling temple wall, his eyes meeting hers across the ruins.

(End of Chapter)

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