Chapter 6

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Sophie's POV

My head was spinning as Hunding led me through the many corridors of the hotel. Seriously! This hotel had more corridors than Foxfire! And I still hadn't explored the whole pyramid. The corridors were incredibly tall. You could probably fit ten goblins standing on each other's shoulders before they could touch the ceiling.

We wandered briskly down the corridors, walking past many people. Most of the occupants of the hotel seemed to be of high-school age, but there were several older-looking people in the corridors. There were many people in groups, talking to friends in many different languages, eating food, and board games like chess and Monopoly.
In side rooms, which I assumed were lounges, I spotted pool tables and arcade machines that looked like they were from the 80s. I also saw things that looked suspiciously like medieval torture devices.

Wandering through the groups I saw females wearing uniforms with dark green shirts and the same axe that Hunding had at their hips and carrying platters of food or pitchers of drinks. I assumed they were staff members from the way they acted. One of these waitresses passed me, carrying a plate of what looked like steaming hot spring rolls. My stomach grumbled. I realised that I hadn't eaten since that morning.

"If we're dead, how can we be hungry?" I asked Hunding. "In fact, I haven't seen anyone who doesn't. Why is that?"

Hunding seemed a bit annoyed at me asking him that. Slightly grumpily, he said: "There's dead, and then there's dead. You could think of Valhalla as... an upgrade. You're one of the many einherjar now." He pronounced it in-HAIR-yar.
"What's an einherjar?" I asked.
"Singular: einherji. We are the chosen of Odin, soldiers on his eternal army. Many people nowadays commonly translate it as the 'lone warriors'. However, that doesn't convey the actual meaning. It's more fitting to translate it as 'once warriors'. Warriors who fought bravely in their first life and will fight bravely again in their second on the Day of Doom. Move." He shoved me out of the way just as a bullet came screaming by, narrowly missing us by a couple of centimetres and hitting a guy on a sofa directly in between the eyes.
"I saw that, Joe Marston!" Hunding shouted at a guy wearing a stereotypical cowboy outfit and holding an old-fashioned rifle. "You know that lounge #64 is a 'no shooting' lounge!"
The man answered with a very insincere sounding. "Sorry 'bout that."
"Anyway, the elevators are right over there." Hunding continued walking like nothing had happened.
I felt like vomiting. How did nobody seem to care about the guy's death?
"Why does nobody care about the fact that a guy was literally just SHOT and is bleeding on the sofa?" I asked Hunding incredulously.
"He'll be fine by dinner. Anyway, the wolves will clean everything up."
"Wolves?"
As I spoke, I spotted two large shaggy grey furred wolves trotting through the people and grab the dead guy. They dragged him away, and the blood evaporated instantly, leaving no trace of the death.
"Are there no rules against killing here?" I asked, resisting the urge to hurl the contents of my stomach onto the floor.
"Hunding laughed, an ugly sound, "That was just a bit of fun, girl,  even if a bit overboard. Now, chop-chop, we dont have all day."

Before I could ask any more questions, we reached an elevator. The doors of the cage were made of interlocking spears, had golden shields lining the wall, and had a massive control panel, at the top, I could see the number 540. I assumed that that was how many floors there were here in this hotel. Hunding saw me looking at the numbers and raised a bushy eyebrow.

"It's rare that a new person doesn't question how there are so many floors at this hotel."

I shrugged, "I've seen houses with more floors." At this, the doorman's second bushy eyebrow joined the other one on his forehead. He quickly composed his facial expression and simply said: "Well, that's certainly interesting, especially since you came through the Midgard entrance"
"What's the Midgard entrance?" I asked, I was starting to get tired of not knowing anything here.
"That's the entrance in which most mortals come through." He then proceeded to press floor 19.

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