Spirit Hotel

Translated by Rook of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

"Do you still want to look at it?" Isefel asked.

Feisha looked at the s.e.xy witches who were walking back and forth and their attempts to seduce Isefel which they made no attempts to disguise, shook his head very quickly and said, "Let"s go to the third floor."

Isefel carried him and flew into the sky.

"Oh yes, what about the wine?" He felt his sleeve.

"Returned it to Noah"s Ark."

Feisha said, "Remember to put it somewhere Gin won"t be able to find." Wine"s allure to Gin was like fresh flowers to bees, beautiful women to perverts.

Isefel said, "I put it in his wine cellar."

Feisha said, "Is this the famed saying that the most dangerous place is also the safest place?"

Isefel replied, "The temperature in his wine cellar is most suitable for wine."

It was he who was the narrow-hearted person. (1)

Feisha was very remorseful.

"I hid it."

"….."

The third floor was right before his eyes. But if the first and second floors a.s.saulted one"s eyes, the third floor a.s.saulted one"s nose. Feisha diligently breathed in the rich smells of food flooding the air, repeatedly swallowing saliva.

"The most important thing on the third floor is…"

"Delicious food!" Feisha"s eyes were sucked in by the various mouth-watering food that was becoming clearer and clearer. The steaming aroma flowed into his body through his various senses and wreaked havoc.

Once they touched the ground, he charged to the small shop where one could smell appetizing fragrances. The saffron color scheme made him even hungrier and he ignored even the tall and bulky looking guy with a cow"s head in the interior of the shop.

Cow-head looked at him and stretched out five fingers, "What do you want to eat?"

Thank you G.o.d, he spoke English, not moo moo moo.

Feisha said, touched, "Something edible."

Cow-head"s expression immediately turned unfriendly. Although it was difficult to see changes in expression on that cow"s face, Feisha could feel the changes in the air around him.

"Are you a homeless person?" Cow-head glared at him.

Feisha"s eyes widened, "Hah?" What was a homeless person? Someone who didn"t have h.e.l.l"s travel pa.s.s? It seemed like he was such a person.

Isefel"s hand brushed over his shoulder and put a gold coin down.

Cow-head"s expression warmed and he said, "How about some winter melon and corn porridge? Or winter melon and tapioca pudding?" (2)

"….." Feisha asked very earnestly, "How about having it without winter melon?"

Cow-head"s expression began to change again, "If you won"t eat winter melon, what are you here for?"

Feisha was at a loss.

Isefel said, "This shop is called Winter Melon Shop."

So those scribbles he"d seen on the saffron-colored signboard just now weren"t h.e.l.l"s special patterns, but actually h.e.l.l"s words?

Feisha was very 囧 and took the two bowls of winter melon and corn porridge and then reached out his hand and said, "Change." He didn"t trust that a gold coin could only buy two measly bowls of this.

Cow-headed very resentfully broke off half of the gold piece and returned it to him.

Feisha: "….." This way of giving change really saved one"s energy and they sure weren"t scared of fake money.

The third floor was very big, the roads were very long, the shops were very many, Isefel was very generous. The result of Isefel leading him around was… Feisha was stuffed.

"I want to go to… the toilet. Belgh…" He felt that the food was surging turbulently within his throat as though the slightest movement would cause it to flow out. He decided that before the food could ripple, he would topple it first!

Isefel frowned, "Very uncomfortable?"

"Mm." He didn"t even dare to nod too vigorously.

Isefel"s finger lightly ma.s.saged his neck.

All the feeling in his body suddenly transferred from within his neck to outside his neck. All the hair on his skin stood up and he felt like there was a fire gradually burning in his belly.

Boom–!

A huge firework exploded in the night sky.

Before something hasty was done, Feisha quickly switched the focus, "Fireworks!"

Isefel glanced at him and said, "The compet.i.tion should have started."

"Compet.i.tion? What compet.i.tion?"

"Compet.i.tive eating compet.i.tion." Isefel said, "Every day, the Esophagus Hall holds compet.i.tions for each category of compet.i.tive eating. The reward for every compet.i.tion is gold. If you are among the top ten winners of a compet.i.tion, you will become a master eater and you will receive a salary and cash prizes every year." (3)

"What is the purpose of such compet.i.tions?" Feisha thought for quite a while before asking.

Isefel said, "The Esophagus Hall is under Beelzebub. The sin he fell for is — binge-eating."

"…..I understand the purpose and its essence now." It"s purpose was to exalt and promote this self-abusive act, binge-eating.

"Beelzebub is h.e.l.l"s Prime Minister. His power is on par with Lucifer"s."

Feisha said, "I understand, I will fully utilize the strengths of unspoken criticisms, I"ll definitely not let a single word escape my lips."

※※※

The Esophagus Hall was in the center of the east side of the third floor. The huge cake-shaped building was especially overbearing amongst the short shops. The pear-shaped front door was wide open and there were quite a lot of people entering and leaving. Loud cheers could be continuously heard from within.

Within the Esophagus Hall, there was a gourd-shaped lobby. After walking in, Isefel and Feisha learned that the cheers were from a large chicken-shaped speaker — obviously, this was a form of advertising. Feisha had a new understanding of this Prime Minister of h.e.l.l.

In the recessed area of the gourd, two huge men not much smaller than t.i.tans stood guard. Before them, sat a goat demon with one leg c.o.c.ked and crossed over the other. One hand was resting on a strawberry-shaped table with a small steak-shaped container. Within the container was a huge pile of gold coins.

Isefel walked over and the huge men immediately blocked his way.

The goat demon lazily pointed at the container, "Entrance fee. Above a thousand years, a gold coin. Below a thousand years, a hundred gold coins."

Feisha was speechless and asked, "Why is it so expensive for those below a thousand years?" Shouldn"t it be half price?

The goat demon said, "Because Lord Beelzebub believes that this isn"t a place for young children, but he doesn"t want to deprive them of their rights, so Lord Beelzebub decided to use a high price to deter them from stepping foot here. Of course, only our Lord Beelzebub can think of something this wise and benevolent."

Feisha felt that this wasn"t a question of depriving rights but plain discrimination. Among humans, who had lived over a thousand years? Even if in the past, there had been Adam and Eve and in the future, there was him, right now, there was still no one! He seemed to have forgotten, among the humans who hadn"t died, not many could run here for a holiday in h.e.l.l.

Isefel didn"t even blink as he threw a hundred and one gold coins into the box.

The goat demon swept a look towards the two, "Which one of you is below a thousand years?"

Can"t you tell? If you couldn"t even tell, I won"t have been so honest. That"s a hundred gold coins!

Even as he and Isefel walked into the Esophagus Hall, he was still pondering this problem. Once he entered, he no longer thought about this because his attention was caught by the sight before his eyes.

On the square shaped stage, four huge contestants each occupied a corner, crazily stuffing beef into their mouths. Behind them stood two more goat demons and also carts that were piled with small mountains of beef. The goat demons were bent over, striving hard to push the beef onto the stage. Although their movements were very swift, the speed that the beef was being consumed was even faster.

Feisha felt that compared to the size of these four contestants, the two huge men outside were definitely slim like they were malnutritioned. The audience seats were below the stage. From the volume of their cheering, they were likely close friends.

"It doesn"t look very popular, huh." Obviously, it wasn"t popular, anyone who looked at this would feel disgusted with food. What they were doing shouldn"t be called "eating" at all, it"s called "stuff" or "cram". Feisha didn"t know if this was considered abusing the food or abusing one"s stomach.

"Because this is a lower category of compet.i.tive eating." Following the low and heavy voice, a middle aged man wearing a black suit and white dress shirt with a tie with deep blue stripes walked over to stand beside them. His hair was combed and not a strand was out of place, his five features were pleasing to the eye. No matter how one looked at him, he was the very image of a successful entrepreneur.

Isefel didn"t even blink, "Beelzebub."

"Isefel." Beelzebub held his hand out to shake, "Welcome to h.e.l.l."

Isefel shook his hand lightly.

Beelzebub"s gaze paused briefly on their connected hands and then nonchalantly said, "You didn"t use to shake hands with me." (3)

Isefel withdrew his hand and didn"t deny it.

Beelzebub held his hand out to Feisha, "Welcome to h.e.l.l."

Feisha quickly shook his head and dropped it, "To humans, this opening scene is like the prologue to a horror movie."

Beelzebub said, "This is because Heaven"s suppression of h.e.l.l has caused humans to have a big bias against h.e.l.l. Truth to be told, h.e.l.l has absolutely no interest in the slave-like human race"s souls. h.e.l.l has its own army and people. To us, humans are just pa.s.sing travelers."

Isefel said, "h.e.l.l has many modern buildings and inventions. Are they not the masterpieces of the human scientists that h.e.l.l has detained?"

Beelzebub said, "They stayed here very willingly. Compared to the messy human world, the governance of h.e.l.l is much more united and complete. In this place, there is definitely no one who would question Lord Lucifer"s authority."

Isefel said, "Including you."

Beelzebub replied without a flicker of emotion, "Of course."

This was the angel who fell because of binge-eating? Countless questions floated in Feisha"s mind. No matter how he looked at it, Beelzebub looked like someone who ate regularly or a workaholic who just ate once or twice a day.

"If you"re interested, we could go to the top floor to have a look. It just so happens that tonight, there is a compet.i.tion for the higher grade compet.i.tive eating. You can lay a bet or you can make a guess. The price is generous." As Beelzebub spoke, he turned and walked towards the elevator as though he fully trusted that they would follow him.

Isefel and Feisha didn"t utter a word and followed him. They were here on a holiday anyway, they might as well take a look at this exciting show.

The elevator was patterned like a peanut sh.e.l.l.

As the doors opened, one could see that the interior of the elevator was light red just like the skin around a peanut. The innermost area was rice-white, just like a peanut.

Feisha admiringly touched the walls of the elevator, "If only Noah"s Ark had this."

"That"s impossible," Beelzebub said. "Because that would mean you"d built an elevator that led to Heaven any time. G.o.d would not allow this."

Feisha asked, "Noah"s Ark is really connected to Heaven?"

"Of course. Mettaton lives right by the entrance of the path."

Feisha was astonished, "But I"ve never seen any stairs when I went there?"

Beelzebub gazed at him and spoke each word distinctly, "You"re saying that you"ve been to the famed tower that is nearest to Heaven and you"ve seen Mettaton?"

—–

T/n:

(1) Feisha actually uses an idiom here, 以小人之心度君子之腹. This means that those with narrow-hearted and small-minded views measure great men with their narrow-hearted and small-minded standards.

(2) Winter melon is also known as wax gourd, white gourd, Chinese squash.

(3) The implication here is that Isefel won"t shake hands with Beelzebub.