Dimensional Hotel

It took Yu Sheng a long time to settle Squirrel once again. During that time, he finally felt he understood the underlying chaos of this strange Otherworld called “Fairy Tale.”

It was shaped by the boundless imaginations of the Cursed Children, by the Dark Angels’ misunderstanding of Human stories, and by the changes that generation after generation of “Fairy Tale” members made to the “stage” once they fell into its subsets. All that, piled up over eighty-six years, had warped this “Fairy Tale” system beyond recognition.

Now, this enormous, mutated collection of stories loomed like a swollen mass of flesh on the brink of rupturing completely. And from that swollen growth, Anka Aila’s “child” was about to be born.

A low rumbling rose from deep beneath the earth, and the groaning of growing trees echoed through the black Forest. Yu Sheng carefully tucked the stack of “Fairy Tale” fragments into his clothes. Holding the heat-radiating bullet in one hand and gripping his weapon in the other, he slowly stood up with caution.

Irene perched on his shoulder, while Squirrel—at some point—had scampered into Irene’s arms. Foxy stood nearby, her ears twitching and her fur on edge.

“Benefactor…” Foxy said in a tense voice. “Something’s changed in the air around us…”

Yu Sheng said nothing. He only glanced up at the sky.

The broken remains of the Orphanage’s structure had vanished from sight. Through gaps in the treetops, he could see a hazy twilight sky that clearly wasn’t the Borderland’s. The fading light of dusk streamed through the Forest, casting shadows across the tall trunks. Distant wolf howls echoed, drifting closer and then fading away, as though forming an invisible circle around them.

A faint, rustling whisper brushed across Yu Sheng’s body. When he looked down, he saw a ghostly layer of “fabric” taking shape over his clothes—it was the Hunter’s attire he had once worn, now appearing on him again.

“Depth must be at least L-3…” he muttered, recalling knowledge from the archives.

Foxy stared at the hunter’s outfit now forming on Yu Sheng and opened her eyes wide. “Benefactor! Your clothes…!”

Yu Sheng smiled. “This is the ‘identity’ I got in the black Forest. Don’t worry.”

He raised his head toward the depths of the trees. Endless trunks flickered in his field of vision. From the Hunter’s perspective, the true paths in this Forest were slowly coming into view.

Far in the distance lay that giant fissure, standing like a gash in the land. Thin, writhing tendrils crept around its edges, as though they were alive. But before he could focus on that fissure, uncountable wolves began appearing all around them.

Some were the size of ordinary wild wolves, while others were twice as large. Some even stood on two legs like humans, hunched over, their eyes glowing with hungry green light. All of them exuded savage, murderous intent. Their shapes flickered in and out among the trees, merging into a hair-raising pack.

“Holy—!” Irene swore the moment she saw the wolves. “There are so many?!”

“That’s the ‘immune’ mechanism of this Otherworld called the black Forest,” Yu Sheng said calmly, tightening his grip on his weapon. “Because we’re about to do something drastic, the Forest is reacting.”

The wolves drew closer, and the nearest of them crouched low, ready to pounce.

“Foxy,” Yu Sheng said.

“Yes?” she answered immediately.

“Let’s make a scene.”

“Understood!”

In the next instant, streaks of Fox Fire lit up the darkness. They raked across the surrounding pack in a furious barrage, lashing out like the whips of a relentless reaper. The Evil Wolves howled and lunged, throwing themselves into the flames. A grand eruption of combat roared to life among the flickering trees.

Fox Fire whirled, ripping through the air. The Evil Wolves snarled like a dark tide, surging in endless waves. Yu Sheng stepped forward, moving toward the fissure at the center of this “stage.” With every step, the Forest trembled as though struck by a violent quake. More and more wolves—larger and stranger—kept appearing out of the shadows of trees and twisting out of the very air itself, trying to rip apart the “Intruders” who threatened this world.

Irene clung to Yu Sheng’s hair with one hand and held Squirrel in the other. “When do I get to fight?” she shouted. “It looks like we’re getting overwhelmed here!”

Yu Sheng swung the Tetanus Staff and slammed it down, snapping a lunging Evil Wolf in half. “Don’t worry about me—keep an eye on the Sheltering Wasteland!”

“Ah… All right!”

While the little doll hurried to focus elsewhere, Yu Sheng’s peripheral vision caught movement from a giant tree. Its trunk and branches started to twitch, the bark shriveling and shifting until it sprouted fangs, claws, and fur like steel needles. Hunched over, it became yet another massive Evil Wolf. With a roar, it lunged at them—

Only to be cut short when a silvery Fox tail, blazing with blue jets, shot into its open jaws. The explosion that followed tore it apart in a thunderous mushroom cloud.

Three piercing whistles followed in quick succession. Several Fox Carrot Missiles streaked across the sky, blasting apart clusters of wolves that kept materializing in the distance.

Yu Sheng grinned at the billowing explosions. “I always said letting out a big roar before you actually pounce is a dumb idea—yell for even a second too long, and someone’s stuffed a missile in your mouth.”

He hadn’t even finished speaking before another dark wolf slipped through the crossfire unleashed by the Fox Roaming Cannon. It pounced at Yu Sheng from a blind spot. In Squirrel’s shriek, Yu Sheng cursed under his breath and darted aside, raising the cold gleam of his weapon—only to be saved when another figure dashed out of the shadows and tackled the wolf. Several more shapes swarmed in, tearing the beast apart in seconds.

Yu Sheng turned and saw a girl in red emerge from the gloom. A vague pack of wolves followed, shapes shifting at her side.

“You finally showed up,” he said with relief. “I was starting to worry something had happened to you.”

“Why do you always have to make such a huge mess every time?” Little Red Riding Hood sounded exasperated. “Couldn’t you have tried something stealthy? This is the black Forest! We do stealth here! This isn’t Snow White’s stage with that lunatic stepmother crashing around like a maniac!”

“Hey, I didn’t mean for it to escalate this fast! We couldn’t even take our first step without all hell breaking loose!”

“Ah, forget it!” Little Red Riding Hood kicked a wolf off to the side. “Just tell me what to do next—I just got here, and I’m lost!”

Yu Sheng pointed toward the distant fissure without slowing down. “That way. We need to force a path through.”

She glanced over but saw only an endless stretch of Forest. Still, she asked no questions. She just nodded and lifted both arms high.

“By the way,” she growled, “I almost never use this move. Dr. Lin would chew me out for days if she knew.”

Darkness spread beneath her feet, as though the shadows themselves were rippling, creeping over the ground. They rose like a physical tide, even stretching into the air, tainting it with gloom.

“But who cares… I’ll be eighteen soon. Either we settle this today, or this is my last time!”

Within those shadows, countless shapes loomed—restless illusions taking shape. The red coat on Little Red Riding Hood’s shoulders shifted into a cloak as vivid as blood. It flared in the wind while a strange gleam flickered in her eyes.

When she opened her mouth, her voice echoed with a wolf’s howl.

“Awooo—!”

At that call, Little Red Riding Hood’s true wolf pack materialized. Every wolf she had ever seen. Every wolf she had ever fought. Every wolf she had ever killed. They all emerged from the cloak’s edges, from the creeping darkness at her feet, and from the air around her.

In the span of seconds, those wolves outnumbered the pack lurking in the black Forest. A fierce clash erupted between wolf and wolf, turning the woods into a chaotic battlefield.

Foxy charged into the thickest cluster of Evil Wolves. After hearing Yu Sheng’s command to go all out, she rolled forward in a burst of light. When she rose again, she stood as a massive nine-tailed demon fox, easily as large as two vans. One sweep of her tails ignited a ghostly blue firestorm that consumed everything around her.

Little Red Riding Hood, riding on the back of her largest wolf, stared at the rampaging demon fox in disbelief for a moment, then turned to Yu Sheng.

“She can do that?!”

Yu Sheng laughed. “I never told you? When she gets serious, things get wild…”

This novel is translated and hosted on bcatranslation