< Episode 10 >

Opening the door, I found a typical delivery man standing there with a large metal bag, wearing a full-face bike helmet.

He opened the metal lunchbox with a natural ease, placing the wrapped-up bowls of zha jiang mian and tang su yuk on the inside of the room.

 "Enjoy your meal!"

How he found his way here, whether the food was what I ordered, and even the deliveryman's attitude of quickly closing the door without taking any money left me feeling puzzled.

Why is there zha jiang mian and tang su pork, but no pickled radish, which is the most important thing?

As I grumbled about the poorly made Chinese restaurant, moving the dishes, I noticed a rough piece of paper stuck to the bottom of one of them.

Upon inspection, it turned out to be something like a business card, a call girl dispatch card that one might expect to receive at an old-fashioned boarding house or a motel near a red-light district.

In such a motel, the call girl they would send would likely be either similar to the prostitutes in the red-light district or even older than them, an old lady.

The only lifeline for women who can no longer call themselves 'girls'. That means this motel owner and the gangster's place nearby are feeding off each other, running a call girl brokerage business.

When a man like me enters a motel alone, they pretend to offer a free meal and subtly hand out call girl calling cards.

After all, the motel room rate is at least 50,000 won, and if you call a girl, you'll be charged somewhere between 70,000 and 120,000 won, which is then split between the Chinese restaurant and the call girl.

It's definitely a profitable business, selling a set of machine-made, mass-produced jajangmyeon and sweet and sour pork made from meat whose origin is unknown.

Originally, humans are animals that are true to their primal desires.

After all, I had inadvertently gotten free jajangmyeon and tangsuyuk, and as I lay on the bed, gnawing on my teeth, wouldn't a call girl's number naturally catch my eye?

With that in mind, I called a call girl out of curiosity, and when a call girl of just this level, like a set of jajangmyeon and tangsuyuk, arrived, I paid the appropriate amount and satisfied my desires.

Feeling like having rice cakes while getting a fortune told.

I finally realized how this motel could still be thriving in the heart of Seoul and why the motel owner was leisurely watching a drama.

In fact, the motel owner was quite a master of his craft. Collaborating with a cheap Chinese restaurant that minimized costs to the maximum, even bringing in call girls to generate additional income—what a setup.

Such underground business would be surprisingly safe, as it leaves no evidence and is rarely raided by the police.

"To think that one can feel the profundity of social economics even in a dilapidated motel and cheap food."

I ate the jajangmyeon with deep gratitude in my heart to the motel owner who had taught me a lesson in life.

Although I was still upset that the danmuji hadn't arrived, I decided to forgive it, considering that I hadn't eaten anything in recent days.

The important thing is ultimately the calories that go into your stomach, isn't it? Whether it's bugs or cheap food, as long as you don't die from eating them, filling your belly should be enough to satisfy the human condition.

'At least it's better than the fifty meals and scraps of kimchi I've been given while moving from one relative's house to another.'

It must have been around then. I started to frequently relieve stress through eating.

I inhaled the overly deceptive jajangmyeon, which was cheap but packed with MSG, and the tangsuyuk, which couldn't be anything but delicious since it was fried in oil.

 Whoosh! Crunch!

He started with a light noodle dodge, then grabbed two pieces of sweet and sour pork and stuffed them into his mouth. No, it wasn't an exaggeration to say he crammed them down his throat, eating greedily.

As if hiding my eyes from Maram, I devoured the jajangmyeon set and got up to take the dishes outside.

And just as I was walking towards the door, a faint sound of footsteps echoed from outside.

"......"

Opening the door and looking outside, the corridor was empty, as the high-rise buildings on either side of the motel blocked any light from entering.

Unfortunately, since I had no intention of calling a call girl, I placed the call girl call map along with the bowl by the door.

 And the moment the door closed.

 Ding-dong!

 -404, please open the door.

It might have been just a second after the door closed. No, perhaps even less time had passed. As soon as the door shut and the lock clicked into place, the bell rang.

What was even more surprising was that, unlike the deliveryman's low, croaking voice from earlier, this time it was definitely a soft female voice.

 Ding-dong!

 -404 Guest, please open the door.

When a person's back is warm and their belly is full, they are bound to entertain other thoughts. If the desires for sleep and food are satisfied, what remains is nothing but the desire for sex.

 Ding-dong!

 -404 Guest, please open the door.

Then in this series of events, I must have triggered something.

The motel is a place for lodging. That is, from the moment one enters their own room, the guest begins to take a rest.

After washing up, lying down on the bed to soothe my weary body, ordering something or eating out when hungry, and then, all that remains is just one thing.

 Ding-dong!

 -404th floor, please open the door.

That is, this is a 'phenomenon' born out of a certain 'system' that has been maintained for a long time.

A student who had studied relentlessly, sitting at his desk until his buttocks were covered in sweat, failed to become a perfect scorer on the exam day because he made the mistake of writing his answers out of order.

So, in the face of his own mistakes and the misfortune that befell him, under the relentless and harsh pressure of a society that would not even tolerate the smallest error, the student ultimately made an extreme choice.

Running with all my might on the rooftop of a tall building, I leap over the railing and dive towards the ground tens of meters below. From the moment my body floats in the air, regret, more than sorrow, and despair, more than relief, come crashing in, but it's too late.

From the head that fell to the ground, the anger, regret, despair, and resentment of one who was not yet ready to die seeped out in an instant of a wrong choice.

Then, would the soul of a student who died like that become a ghost or a demon? Surprisingly, not really.

Although I did confirm that the likelihood of someone becoming a ghost is higher if they meet a specific death in a specific place under specific circumstances, there is no exact statistic for that either.

It was just that I had read, at my own whim, the lamentations of anonymous shamanists, those who possessed inspiration, as they scattered their pent-up grievances across the internet.

To put it simply, it's the repetition of phenomena caused by system errors.

A student who missed a perfect score on the exam commits a cordless bungee jump, cursing the world, and as a result, in a ghostly state, performs another cordless bungee jump to broadcast his grievance to the entire world, a self-satisfying act.

In room 404 of an old motel that shouldn't exist, the motel owner who dealt in shady business, the boss of a Chinese restaurant, and a call girl. If there was an error among them, it would undoubtedly be the guest who stayed in room 404.

And now the guest is none other than myself.

 Ding-dong!

 -404 Guest, please open the door.

Because I was an error, I twisted the system and triggered anomalies.

If I hadn't been mistaken, I wouldn't have chosen this motel in the first place, and this wouldn't have happened.

But thinking that way only linked my life with those shitty adjectives like fate and inevitability, so I pushed those thoughts aside.

 This is 'I's choice.

Not the life of Han Siyu, planned by that esteemed Lord Jesus, but the life and choice of Han Daili, a being in its own right.

There is no room here for fate or inevitability, nor is there any divine arrangement or guidance.

It was just one of the many trials a proxy must endure that had just arrived.

"I had promised to send everything associated with me to heaven."

Even if I have to grab you by the hair and make you kneel in repentance before the Lord Jesus, I will fill the TO of heaven completely.

It means I'll personally lend a hand to God's selfish human management. Instead of managing them to fill the seats of heaven with fanatics, I sincerely hope to be spared myself.

If that god resides there eternally with his fanatical followers, then it is no longer heaven or paradise.

Please take those seeds outside the door if it's alright.

Although they are insignificant creatures who have not even been granted a single glance, and whom You have not deigned to take to Heaven, did You not say that You love all things equally?

So when the time comes, please accept even those scoundrels who wanted to throw you into hell and clean up everything into heaven.

Although it may stink and be piled high with sins, making it utterly unfit for heaven and nothing more than a piece of trash, isn't it still your child?

It's my service to help you repent. You wouldn't say no, would you?

 Ding-dong!

 -404, please open the door.

"I didn't order a call girl, I ordered a dim sum?"

 Ding-dong!

 Delivery for Room 404!

"I didn't call a gangster, I called a call girl?"

 Ding-dong!

 -404 Guest, please open the door.

"I ordered both a gangster and a call girl?"

-......

 Ding-dong!

"Delivery for Room 404, please open the door! slurp slurp chomp chomp chomp crunch crunch sizzle sizzle vroom vroom crackle crackle slurp slurp gulp gulp nom nom!"

I ordered a set of jajangmyeon and tangsuyuk with an extra serving of mandu, along with a generous amount of danmuji, with an ace call girl who was gentle, quiet, and not inferior to a 0.5.

-Guest of Room 404! Your delivery of a set meal featuring a double-serving of the finest call girl, delicate and quiet, not inferior to a 0.5, made to be shared by two but so delicious that one might not even notice if the other died—a combination of zha jiang mian (noodles with soybean paste) and tang su yu (sweet and sour pork), along with a generous serving of pickled radish and complimentary steamed dumplings!

I ordered a jajangmyeon and tangsuyuk set, the kind that can quietly dodge even an ace call girl who wouldn't notice if two were to eat her and one died. With lots of condoms and love gel service.

 Kwaang!

The door of room 404 was torn off its hinges in front of me, who had been standing quietly at the entrance.

There, an Ace deliveryman stood in a delicate and quiet posture, his long hair made of zha jiang mian noodles, his face with dumpling eyes, nose, and mouth, and his body of tender shredded pork in garlic sauce. He held a box of pickled radish chopsticks and a condom box generously coated with love gel.

The accumulated sins were deep and profound, and there were many, many beings like me who were connected to this place, the errors (guests).

Jesus had always detested merchants. It might be that he had particularly chastised the merchants in Jerusalem because he was disgusted by the sight of humans corrupted by money. So much so that he would even rebuke Judas Iscariot, who was particularly stingy with money, for being unwilling to sell this ointment for the profit it could bring. Then why did he hate money so much? The answer lies in the fact that everything belongs to his Father, the Creator. He simply hated the idea of his Father's possessions being fought over and corrupted by money by these ignorant humans. Isn't that interesting?

 I quietly opened the Bible.

Nevertheless, the reason why strife and corruption do not disappear from this world is that the Lord Jesus, our Father, intends to sift out riffraff like you. It may sound like blasphemy, but the evidence is that even at this very moment, while you are bound and suffering here, He is only caring for His own fanatics.

 It must be unfair.

The motel owner, delivery man, and call girl, moving only according to the predetermined system, would have been as busy as ever in their shady dealings.

Then there was the suspicious guest in room 404, clearly entangled with someone who, like me, looked shabby and seemed to have some sort of mental issue.

The delivery man who forgot to bring the pickled radish was unfortunately caught up in the mess.

Killing a delivery man after a quarrel over a trivial reason.

But the customer, without a trace of guilt, moved the deliveryman's body aside and silently ate the zha jiang mian without pickled radish and the sweet and sour pork. Afterwards, he discovered the call girl's calling card.

The call girl, summoned in ignorance, was used to satiate the murderer's desires and met the same fate.

The motel owner was also murdered by the killer, who realized that the service of the system he had received was inferior to what he had expected.

That's why I received the key to room 404 of a motel that never should have existed and was acknowledged as an error here.

It's not certain, but judging by the state of the sinners wailing in the face of the vile sins and suffering emanating from the being before them, that's what it seems to be.

"You who were wrongly designed from the beginning by the Creator, suffering in a wretched life where you cannot choose anything freely, and eventually committing sins and enduring pain, listen."

I murmured softly towards the existence where the black bean sauce was dripping down in drops.

"Am I really the guest you should be seeking, questioning, and holding accountable for all this? Or......"

He quietly raised his index finger and pointed upwards.

"Could it be that the one above does not love you, respect you, or save you?"

Kneel before me and truly repent. And pray with all your heart and soul, as if your soul were on fire.

Then you will be able to ascend to the heaven you so long for, and finally stand before the Lord Jesus, our Father.

The accumulated curiosities, resentments, sorrows, anger, and the satisfaction you have never tasted, like dregs within you. All can be obtained through Him.

"The place you truly need to go is not hell, where you are condemned for the mere fact of having lived an unfair and unequal life."

The prison of victims, driven out as if kicked away in the final moments, because they could not believe, and could not be believed.

I had resolved to gladly send the prisoners to their doom. Since you created them and bestowed their fate, you must take responsibility to the end.

I am neither a proxy nor a servant. Nor am I a poor little lamb like you. I am simply myself. I am like a signpost in the middle of the road that can show you the right path. Or do you plan to walk right past the signpost and into the abyss of hell on your own? If it were me, I'd go to heaven even if I felt wronged.

So repent, pray. If you have the means, also give some offerings and tithes.

 Ahhhhhh......!

 Crunch!

As the presence before me, shimmering with black bean sauce, knelt down, I quietly placed my hand on his head.

 "What are you repenting for?"

The sin of perishing while trying to bear a life cursed, not blessed, entirely on one's own!

 "What do you pray for?"

 -Salvation!

"Then do you believe in the Lord Jesus, our Father?"

Believe! Only then can you go to heaven!

"Then go now. To the place where you belong, to the side of the Lord Jesus, our Father, where the blessings and love you did not receive overflow."

When the dark, greasy black bean sauce melted like ice cream, and the crispy potstickers and sweet and sour pork, once crunchy, turned soggy and finally rotted away.

I realized that the countless sinners entangled here had ascended to heaven.

 "Sex."

 It was indeed a satisfying exorcism.