Dimensional Hotel

“The wolf… is me.”

As these words left Little Red Riding Hood’s lips, Yu Sheng saw a strange, troubled glimmer cross her eyes. It was hard to understand what lay behind that look, but a heavy sense of unease seemed to settle around her, like a damp fog in the air. Her revelation—that the wolf was herself—certainly didn’t sound like a cheerful confession.

If the timing hadn’t been so odd, Yu Sheng might have asked more questions right then and there. But this moment felt wrong for prying, and so he kept quiet, making a silent promise to himself that he would return to the subject someday. Perhaps once they trusted each other more or found a safer place, he would ask who her wolves truly were, and why she said what she did.

For now, Yu Sheng’s attention drifted back down the corridor. At the far end, a stark white exhibition hall waited. The atmosphere felt colder and heavier the closer his thoughts moved toward it. He could almost catch the faintest scent of blood in the air, and it made his heart tighten.

Quietly, Yu Sheng thought aloud, “The ‘guards’ only react to intruders. They can see, but they can’t hear or smell. They follow their orders without thinking—like puppets with plenty of gaps to slip through…” His voice trailed off thoughtfully, his eyes narrowing as if he were envisioning the guards’ weaknesses and how to take advantage of them.

Beside him, Little Red leaned in close, speaking in a hushed tone. “What do you think? Should we pull back for today? We could always come back tomorrow—”

“No,” Irene cut in sharply, her voice unexpectedly firm. “Look at Yu Sheng’s face.”

Little Red blinked at Irene, puzzled. “What about his face?”

Irene let out a weary sigh. “He has that look again—he’s got another idea.”

Before Little Red could even form a reply, Yu Sheng turned to Foxy, the fox girl, with a sudden spark in his eyes. “I have a question,” he said. “Do Foxy’s tails count as part of her own body?”

The entire group froze for a moment, baffled. Little Red recovered first, blurting out without thinking, “Of course they’re part of her! They’re right there, attached to her—”

“But she can launch them,” Yu Sheng said eagerly. “Those tails are artifacts she made herself, right? She can fire them off and then get new ones. That might mean they aren’t truly part of her, at least not in the normal sense.”

Little Red stared at him, trying to understand. “Wait… what are you trying to do with that idea?”

Yu Sheng’s eyes gleamed as if he were preparing some bold trick. “I want to test something. If the guards react only when they see an intruder, what if we block their view with something that isn’t really ‘us’? We’ll slip past their line of sight. If they start to move, we’ll just grab what we need and run. We have that door trick, right?” He nodded confidently, as though the plan were perfectly logical.

Without waiting for further protest, he turned back to Foxy. “Foxy, I need your help. I need to use your tails.”

“Hold on!” Little Red gasped, still trying to catch up. “There are, what, seven or eight guards in there? Foxy already fired two tails earlier. How many can she possibly have left?”

She felt a sudden tightness in her chest—this was all too strange. She had expected danger, maybe traps, but not this kind of lunacy. Before she could voice her worries further, Foxy calmly stepped forward.

The fox girl reached behind herself and, with a casual motion, pulled off two fluffy tails. She placed them gently on the ground, and then took off two more, placing them in a neat line. Little Red watched, her mouth slightly open, as Foxy continued doing this, each tail carefully laid out. After unloading all her current tails, Foxy paused. Then, with a quiet, slippery sound—like a blade pulled from a sheath—nine brand-new tails sprouted out from her back.

Little Red blinked. “…What?”

Irene patted her arm as if to comfort a confused child. “She keeps them stored up,” Irene explained. “She eats a lot, and that lets her maintain plenty of tails in reserve.”

Little Red stared blankly. “…What?” Every word Irene spoke made sense on its own, but strung together, they formed a sentence that sounded completely ridiculous.

Meanwhile, Foxy pointed to the tails she had laid down. “This one cost me twenty chicken legs to make,” she said calmly, “and this one cost ten.”

Little Red managed to mutter, through her disbelief, “Because the second was half-price?”

“No,” Foxy said, sounding faintly offended. “That second one can only reach subsonic speed. Matter and energy are connected, you know. Don’t you understand the basics of how this works?” ℝâ

Little Red suddenly felt as if she might need something to dull her sense of reason. None of this fit into any normal pattern of thought. She was used to strange things, but this was pushing her limits.

Now Foxy arranged all her tails in a tidy line, each one hovering just a tiny bit above the floor, though it looked as if they were resting on it. A faint glow of ghostly foxfire shimmered behind them, making a soft, unsettling sound. The sight reminded Little Red uncomfortably of rockets lined up before launch—each fluffy, silvery tail ready to blast off at high speed.

Just thinking that made her realize how deeply she had been influenced by these odd companions. She was starting to think the strangest thoughts. Dealing with Entities—like Yu Sheng—was indeed dangerous. Even a supposedly harmless one could twist your mind into knots.

Foxy raised her hand gently, causing the silver, foxfire-tinged tails to lift silently into the air. Though they were capable of incredible speeds, she moved them slowly and carefully down the corridor, like patient swimmers gliding through still water.

Yu Sheng’s voice came softly behind them. “If the guards don’t react, we’ll block their view completely and move in. If they do react, then we’ll grab whatever’s at the center of the hall and run. I’ll set up the door spell and stand by.”

He lifted his hand, and a shimmering door—more like a ghostly outline of one—appeared at his fingertips, ready to be used at a moment’s notice.

“Understood,” Foxy said, giving a tense nod, guiding her tails bit by bit toward the white exhibition hall. The energy in the corridor felt thick with nervous anticipation.

Little Red stood there in a half-dreamy state, unable to truly feel frightened. The scene was too odd, too outlandish for her mind to properly process. She sensed she should be on edge, but she felt only numb confusion. Even her shadow wolves seemed spellbound and silent.

“They’re not moving…” Foxy whispered. Her voice trembled slightly with excitement. “I think I can cover all their lines of sight. This should work!”

Yu Sheng allowed himself a tiny smile, letting out a quiet breath as the ghostly door vanished from his hand. He had hoped this plan would work, and so far it looked like it might.

After Foxy gave him a confirming look, he motioned for the others to follow. “All right, let’s go have a look,” he said softly.

Together, they approached the silent exhibition hall. Every step felt as if it led them deeper into an unnatural quiet. Their eyes flicked from one guard to the next—mannequin-like figures in deep blue uniforms, standing deathly still, blinded by the floating tails wrapped around their heads. The guards looked so rigid and artificial that it sent a shiver down Little Red’s spine.

At the main entrance stood one of these plastic sentinels, its painted face completely smothered by a fluffy silver tail. Normally, Foxy’s tails looked charming, even delightful, but now, twined around a guard’s head, the effect was disturbingly eerie. It made the guard seem like a strange creature with a monstrous growth.

Then Yu Sheng inhaled sharply, his whispered exclamation almost lost in the silence:

Little Red’s gaze snapped to where he was looking—towards the center of the hall, where the rumored “Weeper” statue was supposed to be. Except this was no statue.

On the pedestal stood a man’s corpse, twisted into a painful kneel, hands over his face as if weeping. He was held in place by cruel iron thorns that stabbed through his body. The blood had long since dried, leaving dark, rusty stains behind. He must have been dead for ages. The air reeked of old blood and something more sinister. The sight made Little Red’s stomach clench.

Yu Sheng went still. He had died before—more than once, in fact—but witnessing death from the outside was different. The atmosphere here was horrifying in a new way. This was not a simple murder. It felt more like a dreadful ritual, a sacrifice offered to something cruel and hungry. There was a twisted elegance to it, as if someone had posed the corpse to match the “Weeper” statue’s pose exactly, and it made Yu Sheng’s skin crawl.

He wanted to understand. He turned to the one person who might know more about such horrors. “Little Red, do you know what—”

He never finished his question.

Something was terribly wrong with Little Red. Her eyes were fixed on the corpse, glowing a fierce crimson that matched the eyes of her shadow wolves. A deep, throaty growl rumbled in her chest. Fur sprouted along her cheeks and the backs of her hands, wild and unnatural. As Yu Sheng watched, stunned, her own shadow began to shift and stretch over the floor.

Suddenly, a monstrous shape rose from that shadow, something tall and bestial with a wolf-like hide draped over a human frame. It looked like a dreadful fusion of person and beast, a creature that had taken a man’s skeleton for its own. Without sound or warning, it lunged forward.

It was not attacking Yu Sheng or the others. It aimed itself straight at Little Red. And how could she possibly avoid an assault from her very own shadow?

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