Chapter 123: The Game Inside The Hotel

The girl behind the desk...I recognize her. She's stood in the third room, on the seventh floor.

Her style is quite memorable, and the same weak sense of familiarity I got back then is now present again.

?????: "You're late."

Miwen: "...Your elevator is broken. You're not getting a five-star review."

I dislike everything about how she looks. As I told the girls prior, I prefer light makeup that emphasizes one's natural beauty. Hers stands in opposition to that, there's a conscious effort to change her own appearance to the point that she might look like a different person without it.

She is incredibly flashy, to the point that it looks like she's trying very hard to stand out from the others. Yet, it's undoubtedly stylish.

It's an annoying feeling. By all means, she's not my type, every conscious decision that she seems to have taken goes against what I like, and yet, I cannot criticize her. She is incredibly pretty, and I hate not being able to deny that.

It makes me question my own preferences, things that I didn't even choose to like to begin with. These things ingrained into my mind could be said to be an essential part of my identity, and yet, her existence contradicts what I've believed about myself. Almost as if she's trying to deny me.

?????: "Well, no matter. Welcome, to the Infinite Hotel! As a humble receptionist, allow me to-"

Miwen: "...Yeah, you're not fooling anyone."

Humble receptionist my ass.

I admit that her act is good, but no matter how over-the-top confused she looks, there's no way she's just a receptionist. If I'm right, this place doesn't even need a receptionist to begin with.

?????: "Oh? Can you elaborate?"

Miwen: "Quite simply, you're not a receptionist. You're the owner... no... you're the Infinite Hotel yourself, right?"

Her eyes suddenly became sharp, and a crooked smile appeared on her face.

?????: "Hahaha! You're absolutely right! I'll give you 8 points for that!"

Miwen: "I didn't know we were playing a game."

Not to mention... just eight points? Realizing that took a lot from me.

If not for the labels of each floor and this strange sense of already knowing her, I doubt I'd ever be able to reach this conclusion. Though the fact that she should be on the seventh floor right now also helps quite a lot.

Infinite Hotel: "No need to be so worried, it won't be a competition... it will be a high-score type of game."

The idea of playing against someone who can mess around with my Gift is a bit concerning, even more so considering her true identity... but...

Miwen: "Do I need to play in order to finish the event?"

Infinite Hotel: "Absolutely. I'll use the amount of points you have when we're finished to determine your ending achieved and its rewards."

So she has the final word over that... as expected, it's not only knowledge that she has over my Gift but also control... it might even be to a degree that I'll never reach...

Still, I'm glad that all it takes to finish the event is playing her little game. Even more so considering that there doesn't seem to be any harm in doing it.

Miwen: "So... what are the rules?"

Infinite Hotel: "Interested, are we? Well, it's quite simple. I'll award you with a few points for every right deduction that you make. I also want to hear your reasoning for each one and in exchange... you can ask me any question. I shall answer them to the best of my ability."

So I need to keep a high amount of points in order to get a good reward... but I'll also need to use them if I want some answers...

I see...

I doubt we'll get both a good reward and meaningful answers, but it's worth trying...

Miwen: "You want to know my reasoning, right? Well... The rooms and the floors in this hotel are numbered. There was also a pattern that repeated on all floors... an empty room, and then one guy, one girl, two guys, two girls, three guys, two girls... and a wall.

There was never a deviation from this pattern, meaning, there was a reason for them to be in those exact rooms, and they couldn't be in any other... in other words, it wasn't random."

There are many ways to list things... alphabetically, numerically, and chronologically are just the most common.

Miwen: "You appeared in the third room of the seventh floor... with that face. But you were also in the third room of the other floors, wearing a different face and look. Having the same exact feeling about every version of you gave it away... it also got me thinking about which order was being used to determine what would go in each room...

With this place being infinite it couldn't be in alphabetical order, and while you could attribute a random number to each thing, it would make it highly unlikely for the pattern to repeat itself the way it did... so the order that determined the contents of each room had to be chronological."

Infinite Hotel: "Oh... impressive. But you realize that there are other ways to list things, right? It could just be that you didn't remember or knew the correct one."

Miwen: "True. But thinking that everything was put in the rooms in chronological order in relation to their existence was the only way to explain the empty rooms."

Her grin became wider... she seemed to be having a lot of fun with this...

The girls seemed to be completely lost, and as for me... using my brain is not something I'm very fond of. I really wish this wasn't the point of the game.

Infinite Hotel: "So you're saying that the rooms are empty?"

Miwen: "...No way. Here comes my second and third deduction, so prepare those points alright? You... are an Endless. A race that stands even above the Merchant... one he's been looking for quite a while.

You stand at the true top of the universe, as creators who aren't even interested in interfering with the others..."

This much was pretty obvious. She messed with my Gift in a way that even the Merchant could not. This meant that she was an even higher form of being. Thankfully, the list of beings that stand higher than the Traveling Merchant is quite short, and he had already told me about the Endless.

Also, having Infinite in her name was a pretty big clue. It's a synonym for Endless, after all.

It's a mind-fuck in itself to think that the Infinite Hotel can be found inside the Infinite Hotel, but... not that much if you interpret each room as a spot in a catalog.

Miwen: "...I don't know about the first room and the wall... but the rooms in between them hold the existing Endless... as for what's beyond the wall... that's what you've created... one by one... molecule by molecule...

from the very first atom... everything in the universe, cataloged in chronological order. It's not that the rooms were empty. It's just that we obviously couldn't tell that an atom was supposed to be there."

There are three possibilities... it's either her level, the Divinity, or the Demonic Power that she had. Aside from her Gift, it's all that separates her from the others.

I'm pretty sure the Gift has nothing to do with it... I'm not sure about the levels but... the Merchant said that Divinity allows for bending the rules, and Demonic Power as its counterpart seems to also work the same...

Miwen: "My best bet is... Divinity and Demonic Power."

Hotel Girl: "20 points for that one. It's been quite some time since I've last had a guest that managed to get so many points!"

Is that... sarcasm?

Strange... she seems to like the game or at least the part where she gets to show off that she knows about everything.

So why is it that her words sound so acid?

Miwen: "Alright then... When I summoned the Merchant, my Gift talked about a Contract... This contract was signed between the Merchant and me the moment the event started."

Hotel Girl: "Wrong. The contract you're referring to was not signed between you and the Traveling Merchant."

Miwen: "It was signed between... Licia and I."

Hotel Girl: "Wrong. The contract you're referring to was not signed between you and Licia."

.....

And my exploit ended up going down the drain. She clearly became quite annoyed that I listed everyone that I knew, and she answered every attempt the same way, so I couldn't squeeze anything out of her.

Well, there was one thing... either I never signed this contract, or I signed it with someone I don't know or don't remember.

But there's still a way to discover it... I just had to ask her directly.

I don't really care how shameless this is, it's one of the most important matters. The last time I got into a contract someone ended up dying, so I'm not too keen on participating in another one. Even more so when I'm not even sure what it is about.

Miwen: "I'll turn it into a question then. Who is it that I signed this contract with?"

Hotel Girl: "You don't have enough points for me to answer that."

Well, shit.

Miwen: "I need more than one hundred points for you to answer the question."

Hotel Girl: "...Correct. I'll give you 2 points for that. Do you want to try being more precise?"

Miwen: "More than a thousand."

Hotel Girl: "...Right, but it's not precise enough for any points."

....

Since she wasn't giving me any points I decided to give up on that after discovering that the amount of points necessary was more than a billion.

Hotel Girl: "...Anything else you'd like to ask?"

Miwen: "There is. On the companion's banner, I can only summon females."

It was worth a try... five out of five times was a bit too much of a coincidence.

Hotel Girl: "Haah... out of all the things... yes... you can only summon girls from the Companions Banner... this is worth... a thousand points, fuck it."

She... seems extremely displeased.

Is it because of the topic, or...

Hotel Girl: "Of course, it's because of the topic, how clueless must you be to talk about other girls so much on our first meeting? Talk about me more! I want to know what you thought about the Infinite Hotel! Were the cookies to your liking? Can you please put into words how pretty I am? Can you stop trying to exploit my game?

I was being nice and deducting like, one or two points from each question! You didn't need to try to cheat me!"

She poured her heart out while responding to something that I never said... I'm not even surprised that she can read my mind, as far as I know, it might just be that every thought I have is also stored in this place anyway.

... It was surprising to see her acting this way though... it felt... true.

After she said all of that, I started to understand her a bit more. Her looks and her attitude, perhaps, even this game and the reason for me being here.

Miwen: "You... Are you lonely?"

Hotel Girl: "A quadrillion points for that. It's still not enough for you to know about the contract though."

...The way she answered me... even the amount of points wasn't enough to make me feel happy... in my heart, I was really sad for her.

I could tell that the sentiment was genuine...

Miwen: "When was the last time you had a guest?"

Hotel Girl: "Don't you wanna deduct it? It's gonna lower your score."

Miwen: "...It's fine."

Hotel Girl: "Alright...It was... Halfway through this Cycle. A few trillion years ago. And I know what you're thinking, literally. Don't feel bad for me, I don't care about it... so much.

Yeah, I like having company, but I don't need it either... it's just nice to have someone to talk to sometimes... that's all!"

She's burying the feeling... but I suppose I overestimated how strong it was too, it's just that it hits home a bit more than I'm comfortable with. Also, since she was so over the top before, any small change in her mood becomes a lot more apparent.

I suppose the least I can do is continue the game.