Panic gripped him, and he stepped back a bit, desperately searching the area for any hint of a way past the barrier.
Left with no choice, he looked over at the motel again.
It now felt like a haunted house, filled with shadows and secrets.
The peeling paint and cracked windows seemed to leer at him for having come here in the first place.
'What have I gotten myself into?'
Taking a deep breath to calm himself, he felt the cold air cling to him like an oppressive fog. It was odd, especially with the sun blazing overhead.
But as if to mock him even more, the light suddenly dimmed, turning day into night.
"Fuck! " Luck stumbled back, cursing under his breath.
Panic clawed at him as he cowered, pressing his back against the invisible wall.
This was madness! Even the bravest soul wouldn't be able to withstand something like this.
"Grandpa, are you haunting me? I don't even know you, for God's sake! Why are you so angry?" He pleaded.
"I'm really sorry, even though I don't even know what I did wrong! Was it the gaming? The hentai? That time I watched something illegal. I was just curious, and I stopped at the five-second mark—no, wait, seven seconds! I promise!"
He kept on speaking, but his words were more about soothing his own nerves than making sense.
Suddenly, the invisible wall behind him vibrated. Without warning, it began to push him.
"I'll stop the gaming. I won't watch those degenerate contents anymore. I'll start exercising," he rambled while he tried to stop it with his body, straining his thick legs against the force.
But it was no use.
The pressure increased, forcing him back, step by step, until he stumbled against the motel's short stairs.
THUD!
He collapsed onto the cold floor, gasping for air.
'I'm dead. This is it for me,' he muttered between breaths, feeling the weight of despair crush him. 'I just hope I still get to heaven after I die a virgin... That should give me additional points for purity, right? right?'
Having lost all hope, Luck's defense mechanism kicked in, and he started cracking jokes instead of succumbing to fear. After all, yelling wouldn't help him now.
Facing bad people was one thing, but a ghost?
That was on a whole different level. It felt like asking an ant to take down an elephant.
As he closed his eyes, bracing for the worst, a thought suddenly struck him—the paper.
He remembered the old man's words "You are the successor."
His eyes snapped open .Was he the owner of this cursed motel now?
If so, maybe there was more to that paper than he initially thought.
He slowly pushed himself to his feet and headed back toward the lockbox.
The paper was still there, untouched. With a deep breath, he reached for it.
"Ouch!" He winced as the sharp edge gave him a paper cut.
Cursing under his breath, he wiped his fingers on his clothes, but a small drop of blood had already fallen onto the paper.
[DING!]
A notification bell echoed in his ears, and he stumbled backward as a blue, translucent window materialized before his eyes.
[Blood Relationship Recognized.]
[Successor Legitimate.]
[Scanning Host Brain Waves.]
[Readjusting System Interface for Host Preference.]
[Calibrating...]
[Calibrating...]
A series of texts began flashing before him, so fast that he could barely make sense of what was happening.
But something about the experience felt oddly familiar.
'Are you kidding me?... Is this a system interface?' he exclaimed, his eyes widening in disbelief.
He wasn't ignorant to this—this was the kind of thing he'd read countless times in web novels. It was practically a cliche, so overused that authors slapped a system into any story they could.
[Congratulations, Host! You are now the new owner of the Motel System.]
The words hovered in front of him, glowing faintly in the dim room
Luck's jaw dropped—not just out of shock, but from the sheer lack of originality.
'Really?' he muttered in disbelief.
'All that test, all the fear factor, all that roundabout, all the mysterious buildup that felt like the start of some epic thriller story... and what I get is a system?'
***
Authors Note:
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