Chapter 009
I turned the man’s hand over to confirm the identity of the object he was clutching.
A round silver object with a long, thin chain trailing from it.
“It’s a pocket watch.”
The blood-stained pocket watch had a tree with lush branches delicately engraved on its cover.
However, for some reason, the center was dented. It looked as if it had been struck multiple times with something like a chisel.
‘Is it a similar size to mine?’
To compare it with my own watch, I reached into my pocket. The familiar round object sat easily in my hand.
Then, I suddenly felt a sense of oddity.
‘I put this in the pocket of the uniform I got from the Room Bunny.’
Because Cheshire had suddenly changed my clothes, I hadn’t had the chance to take the watch out.
…So why is the watch coming out of this outfit?
‘Don’t tell me.’
Can I make it disappear and reappear at will? Like a magical girl’s wand?
“…….”
As if giving an answer to that hypothesis, the watch slipped away and vanished. It happened the moment I imagined it disappearing.
When I imagined taking the watch out, it reappeared in my hand.
“Whoa!”
This is insane! To think it had a function like this! It’s like I’ve become a wizard!
Wait for me, Ho*warts. The student who was missing from the enrollment list nine years ago is coming. I will definitely lead my house to victory….
“Wait a minute.”
If the watch had a summoning function like this… then I’ve been needlessly worrying about carrying it in my pocket this whole time.
Pointlessly.
“I should have experimented sooner….”
I definitely saw that Bunny-Pervert guy making it go beep-boop with the watch. Ah.
Farewell, Ho*warts. My brain seems too stiff to take magic classes with children at this point….
I slumped my shoulders gloomily and compared my pocket watch with the man’s. As I suspected, the sizes of the two watches were exactly the same.
However, beyond that, I couldn’t find any other similarities. Even so, I felt strangely uneasy.
‘A character found in a hidden secret map happens to have a pocket watch just like the player.’
Is this really a coincidence?
In my opinion, no way.
‘I need to have a talk with this fellow.’
Just in case, it would be better to save around here. I was about to open the pocket watch cover when it happened.
Whirrrr—.
Suddenly, the pocket watch vibrated.
“!”
Just like that time when the save function was unlocked.
I hurriedly opened the cover to check the game window. Sure enough, an exclamation mark speech bubble had appeared over one of the dark, inactive icons.
This time, it was the icon on the top left used for checking player information.
“…….”
I extended a stiff finger and touched the icon. A pop-up appeared on the screen.
《 Exploration for synchronizable data complete! 》
《 Synchronization Target: Nickname ‘Substitute 9th Dan’ 》
‘Synchronization?’
‘Substitute 9th Dan’ is my nickname for <Hello Happy Hotel>….
When I pressed the pop-up, the player info window appeared. In the place where the hotel grade and hotel level used to be, there was different information.
《 Hotel Dominance: 0% 》
《 Synchronization Points Held: 0p 》
I stared with my mouth open, reading the items I was seeing for the first time. Another pop-up appeared on the screen.
《 Increase your Hotel Dominance to earn Synchronization Points! 》
《 Use points to unlock the functions of the synchronization target data one by one. 》
“Hotel Dominance….”
Ah.
Now I get it.
What I need to do to see the ending of Hard Mode.
‘It was to reclaim the position of General Manager.’
In the main game of <Hello Happy Hotel>, the player was the General Manager of the hotel.
But in Hard Mode, an NPC named Luel sat in the General Manager’s seat. While Luel never appeared directly in the game, there were several lines where other characters mentioned the ‘dreaded General Manager.’
‘There were also hints scattered everywhere that the reason the hotel became such a mess was all because of the new General Manager.’
And the player’s position had fallen to the bottom. Content that could be enjoyed as a low-level employee was limited to things like guest management and hotel exploration.
Users guessed that was because Hard Mode was unfinished, but….
‘How could one move to the next stage without progressing through the main quest!’
The truth was, one had to enter the staff dormitory and receive the mission to take over the hotel. Steadily increasing Hotel Dominance and finally being inaugurated as the General Manager again was the ending of Hard Mode.
Synchronization and Synchronization Points were probably… functions added to make conquering the extreme difficulty of Hard Mode a bit easier.
‘Insane.’
It was a perfect deduction. It felt like fireworks were going off in my head. I touched the hologram screen to examine the newly opened functions in more detail.
Then, a new pop-up appeared.
《 There is a function currently available for synchronization. Check it out! 》
Ah, is it for a trial? Good.
I obediently clicked the arrow that appeared on the screen. When I went out to the main screen, a sparkling yellow rabbit icon caught my eye.
This is… the Employee Management icon.
The function to hire and manage the doll employees, the Bunny Bunnies.
‘You want me to hire an employee already?’
I was a bit flustered, but first, I pressed the rabbit icon as the arrow directed.
Then, a window that looked like an index file appeared. It was a format where you toggled between two types of windows by pressing the icon buttons at the top. The buttons were shaped like a watch and a rabbit, respectively.
Among them, the one glowing was the watch-shaped icon. Following the instructions, I pressed the watch icon.
A pop-up appeared.
《 You can synchronize the Assistant Employee hiring function!
(Points required: 0p) 》
《 Would you like to synchronize? 》
‘Assistant Employee…. There was no such function.’
In the main game, the only things you could hire were the Bunny Bunnies, the doll employees for automatic hotel operation, and in Hard Mode, the hiring function was completely blocked.
‘Did they make a new type of Bunny Bunny for Hard Mode?’
Well. Since it’s a function they opened up for free synchronization, it must be the most necessary one.
Thinking I had nothing to lose, I silently pressed synchronize.
“!”
Color filled the window that had been dark, as if the function was being activated. And another pop-up appeared.
《 You can now hire an Assistant Employee! 》
《 It just so happens there is a poor hotelier without an affiliation right in front of you! 》
《 Let’s take in this pitiful hotelier. 》
‘Pitiful hotelier…?’
I looked down at the man who was still unconscious and collapsed. This guy, I wondered what he was, and it turns out.
‘He was a tutorial NPC.’
Then what is the pocket watch he’s holding, which is similar to mine? I pondered for a moment, but the answer came quickly.
That was because there was a blatant hint right in front of me. The watch drawing on the ‘Assistant Employee’ function.
In <Hello Happy Hotel>, employee NPCs are divided into two types: the rabbit doll employees, Bunny Bunnies, and regular human-form employees.
It seemed that the symbol for the human employees was indeed the watch.
‘Come to think of it, that Bunny-Pervert guy also gave me a pocket watch while saying he would hire me.’
If the Bunny Bunnies were employees for automatic hotel operation, human employees were for raising affinity to obtain items and such. Therefore, in the main game, you couldn’t hire or manage human employees separately.
But it seems they added a human employee hiring function under the name ‘Assistant Employee’ in Hard Mode. Well, to climb from the bottom to the General Manager position, one would certainly need a lot of helpers.
‘Interesting.’
Dopamine surged at the secrets of Hard Mode being solved so smoothly. Right. If I have to do this anyway, it’s better to make it interesting.
With my shoulders trembling with excitement, I pressed the 《 Hire 》 button. Then, a male character with black hair appeared on the screen in a small, cute art style.
《 Please give the new employee a name! 》
“A name?”
I have to do that too? I’m not confident in naming. Look. My nickname is even ‘Substitute 9th Dan’.
“Uh….”
I stared quietly into the man’s face. A face so white it was pale. Pitch-black hair.
Suddenly, a certain name popped into my head.
“…Novann?”
I don’t know how I thought of that name. Was it one of the male lead names from a romance fantasy novel my younger sibling told me about?
Anyway, the pronunciation felt right, and it seemed to suit the man quite well. I immediately entered the name ‘Novann’.
《 ‘Novann’ has been hired as an Assistant Employee. 》
It was the moment the pop-up appeared. Suddenly, Novann’s body was enveloped in a yellow light.
“What?!”
Terrified, I jumped up from my seat. Fortunately, the light subsided quickly before I could even do anything.
Novann, emerging from the light… was perfectly clean as if he had been reborn.
He even flickered his eyelids as if he were about to wake up.
“Gasp.”
What am I supposed to say when he wakes up? That I’m your employer?
Well, I would need to have lived as a boss to know. I was dragged into this kind of game as soon as I got into college. Life….
In the end, when the man’s eyelids slowly opened, I was sitting regally in front of him.
Faced with my solemn posture, the man’s pitch-black pupils trembled.
