"Where the fuck is he? Find him. Now!"
Guk Bong slammed the table so hard that a crack formed beneath his hand. He glared at everyone around him.
"Alliance Leader! We've already tried everything we could. If we keep pushing our people, the other two forces might start to make their move!"
One of the men at the table spoke up. He was a middle-aged man with long black hair, Tang Yang-Seon, head of the Tang Clan.
"And besides, why are we even wasting our strength looking for him? Isn't he just a useless failure anyway?"
Someone else cut in.
Guk Bong closed his eyes for a moment and let out a slow sigh. "That so-called useless one you're talking about... he has it. The thing that can wipe us out, not just us, but the entire world."
His words pulled a sharp gasp from the room. A few men even shot up from their seats.
"Impossible! That artifact was lost for decades! How could anyone have found it now, and how did it end up in the hands of that fallen saint?" the head of the Wudang Sect shouted.
"Yes, it should have been impossible."
"No," Guk Bong raised a hand, silencing the room. "I thought the same. But just days ago, that same so-called useless one destroyed an entire sect, the Heaven Burning Sect. Alone. Completely alone."
"This..."
"It's true. And now that person is holding the one thing that can destroy us all. The World Shard," Guk Bong's eyes slowly gaze at everyone.
...
"Man, what the heck is going on?"
Samuel looked out the window, his mind spinning with confusion. Everything outside felt completely unfamiliar.
There were no streets, no cars, no tall buildings. More importantly, the people walking around were dressed in ancient clothing. Some were pulling carts, others rode horses with swords hanging at their sides. Was this even allowed?
"Damn... why the heck is that guy jumping on the roof?"
Shock and confusion were all he could feel, but after a moment, something clicked in his mind. His eyes lit up.
"Wait... are they filming something? Is a new show being shot near my place?"
Now that he thought about it, it didn't seem that strange. He closed his eyes, thinking maybe he could go back to sleep. He wanted to check it out, curiosity tugging at him, but after a long night of studying, all he wanted was to lie down and rest forever.
But when he turned his head, he froze.
His eyes went wide.
"When did my room change?"
His room was now completely different. Wooden walls surrounded him. A small wooden desk, a simple lamp, and a narrow bed filled the space. Everything was made of wood. The familiar walls were gone, the air conditioning was gone, and even the anime posters he had ordered online were nowhere to be found.
The only thing that remained from his old life was his computer, sitting quietly in the corner.
"What the heck is going on? Am I dreaming or something? Am I part of a movie?"
Samuel rubbed his eyes, thinking maybe he was hallucinating. Eventually, he just lay down again and closed his eyes.
"No way I'm going to sleep like nothing weird is happening!"
People in ancient clothing, a town outside that looked like something from another era, and now his entire room had turned into something out of a history book. He knew he couldn't ignore this. This wasn't some movie set anymore.
Maybe... his eyes lit up.
Just as he was about to step outside, the window shattered. Glass flew everywhere, and blood splattered across his face.
Samuel stood frozen, stunned, as a sword sliced past his cheek and stabbed into the wooden wall beside him.
Two people had crashed into his room mid-fight. One was wielding a sword. The other looked like a bandit, missing his left arm.
"Now, guys are fighting in my room!"
For reasons only the universe knew, Samuel hoped this was all just the dream of a lonely and overly imaginative mind.
"Mwahaha! As expected from the Spirit Blossom Swordsman!" the bandit-like man laughed, his yellow teeth showing. "But no matter! I already got what I came for!"
"No, you can't!"
The handsome young man swung his sword, but the bandit-like figure dodged with ease. Then, his eyes suddenly locked onto the man hiding under the desk.
A grin spread across the bandit's face.
"Come here. What are you hiding from?"
He vanished from his spot in an instant and reappeared right in front of Samuel, grabbing him by the throat. Without warning, he hurled Samuel straight at the swordsman.
The young man's eyes widened. He quickly pulled back the blade that was about to strike and shifted his stance. With graceful precision, he turned the sharp edge aside and let the flat of the sword meet Samuel's back.
The motion was smooth, almost like a dance, and Samuel was flung gently away instead of being sliced in half.
"As expected... but it's useless!" the bandit laughed. "You know what you righteous types always mess up? Your weakness is that you waste your strength protecting people who have nothing to offer!"
He flicked his wrist, sending a dagger flying straight at Samuel's face.
Samuel, who had already been tossed around twice, just lay there in a daze. His mind was blank.
He had just woken up in this strange world, and now two maniacs with clearly illegal weapons were fighting in what used to be his bedroom. His brain couldn't even begin to process any of it.
And now there was a blade coming right at him.
He couldn't move. He couldn't react. His body wouldn't listen. The power coming off these two fighters was so intense that it had completely paralyzed him.
'Fuck, am I gonna die like this? Who the hell are these guys? Why the hell are they fighting in my room?' he cursed in his mind.
The dagger came closer, and the handsome swordsman's eyes went wide in horror, realizing too late what was about to happen.
But just then, out of the corner of Samuel's eye, his computer lit up.
[Detecting that the Dimensional Hotel owner is in a serious situation. Customers one and two have broken the rules of the hotel. A solution is being processed.]
A barrier suddenly formed around Samuel, deflecting the dagger just before it could strike him.
Both the bandit and the swordsman froze, eyes wide with shock.
"What..."
The bandit's words caught in his throat as a burst of electricity came out of nowhere, arcing through the air and striking both fighters.
They cried out as the energy surged through them, their bodies convulsing. A strange, invisible force followed, slamming into them with incredible strength and launching them out of the room.
They crashed through the neighboring wall with a deafening boom, wood and dust flying everywhere as part of the house collapsed.
"What just happened?"
Samuel was stunned. He stayed on the floor for a moment before slowly getting to his feet. His eyes shifted to the two fighters lying unconscious outside.
He didn't know exactly how it happened, but deep down, he had a feeling. The whole time, his eyes had been on the computer.
He sat down in front of it, curious and slightly nervous, and took a closer look at what was going on.
After a while, he sat silently, trying to process all the information he had just received.
Apparently, he was now the owner of something called the Dimensional Hotel. He had no idea how or when that happened. All he had was this computer, and it was connected directly to the hotel's systems. Through it, he could manage and upgrade everything related to the hotel.
So now, instead of being just a student, he was a hotel owner.
What a surprise.
What a surprise indeed.
For god's sake!
Samuel moved the mouse and clicked on the only app that remained on his desktop. The icon looked like a simple drawing of a two-story wooden hotel.
When he clicked it, an image appeared, a detailed display of the hotel layout. It was a modest two-story building made entirely of wood, more like an old inn than a modern hotel. A wooden door, glass windows, and behind the front counter was his room, the one he was sitting in right now.
A table and chair were neatly arranged.
The second floor had six small rooms, all uniform in size. Everything about the place screamed rustic inn, not high-end hotel.
Below the hotel image were six icons:
- His face, which led to his status
- A quest log for earning daily rewards
- A worker management tab
- The hotel tab, where he could upgrade everything inside
- A shop
- And finally, a question mark icon that probably hid something important or mysterious
After staring at the screen for a while, still trying to wrap his head around all of it, Samuel suddenly yawned.
He hadn't slept the entire night. Now, the exhaustion was catching up to him fast.
As strange and confusing as this situation was, waking up in another world, owning a hotel, watching two armed men crash through his wall, he couldn't do anything about it right now.
So, he did the only thing he could.
He climbed into bed, pulled the blanket over himself, closed his eyes, and let the darkness take him.
Unbeknownst to him, the broken window and shattered wall beside his bed slowly began to repair themselves.
Outside, however, no one noticed. Everyone's attention was locked on the two unconscious men lying on the ground. The strange building behind them was completely ignored.