WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 118: Room 107, Gate Room - Second Trial (Final) (9)

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- Han Ga-in

The others noticed something was wrong from a distance and came running.

“What happened?”

“What is it? What happened all of a sudden?”

“Ahhh! What on earth is this corpse?”

Amid the confusion, I slowly explained.

Arima had suddenly started talking at length about her childhood and some magical realization. Then she kissed me out of nowhere, said she was going to be reborn, and killed herself.

Even as I said it, I could barely make sense of what I was talking about.

The others looked just as dumbfounded.

A-ri spoke as though she found it amusing.

“That’s strange. She made it obvious she liked you, but then she suddenly kissed you and killed herself.”

“She made it obvious she liked me?”

“You really didn’t know?”

“She’d acted strangely from the beginning, but I thought it was just an act.”

“She probably was acting at first. After that, though, she made it so obvious that Arima would have to be a professional actor for it to be acting.”

Song-i added, “I sometimes got that feeling when we talked. Arima seemed like she had a lot of scars. Maybe she thought we were a kind of ‘wizard party,’ and she was really jealous because we all get along.”

Eun-sol asked, “This is confusing, but the witch is dead. Is it over now?”

“It can’t be. Before Arima died, she said she’d finished preparing to be reborn, so there must be another phase...”

A booming announcement rang out from the sky.

/Participants! Congratulations on clearing the second trial, ‘Witch’s Forest’./

The space around us began to collapse in an instant.

I had no idea what was going on, but as I watched my companions rejoice at the announcement that we had cleared the second trial...

I was terrified.

The things Arima had said to me. The disturbing circumstances. And that announcement just now.

‘I want to serve you as my teacher, too.’

‘The human mind is an illusion. I’ll abandon meaningless attachments.’

‘I’ve finished preparing to be reborn.’

‘I wanted to live as a woman, too.’

For days, Arima had tampered with Jin-cheol’s body however she pleased.

When the hotel determined what was real and what was fake, it considered the body itself important.

Every clue fit together and pointed to one horrifying conclusion!

* * *

Just like after the first trial, we all arrived in a space that looked like a neat hotel room.

The Sealing on the Inheritance had ended. The Grimoire’s power returned. I shouted frantically.

“Song-i! Check Jin-cheol with your bracelet!”

The moment a white flash burst from the bracelet and covered Jin-cheol as though it were scanning him...

Song-i’s face turned pale.

“Ah! Ahh! Aaaah!”

While Eun-sol and Elena froze in confusion, A-ri shouted with a horrified look on her face.

“No way! Don’t tell me that isn’t Jin-cheol, but...”

By then, even Mook-seong was aghast.

“Fuck! That thing is trying to wake up!”

Jin-cheol’s body began to twitch.

I immediately summoned the Grimoire.

If we openly fought that monster occupying Jin-cheol’s body, the cost would be unbearable.

I had to finish this with the Grimoire.

The Grimoire’s power manifested, and my consciousness floated away.

When I came to, I found myself in an extravagant mansion.

* * *

Music made up of violins, pianos, and more tickled my ears.

Every decoration, candlestick, and chandelier in the mansion shone splendidly.

I walked through the center of a space that reflected its owner’s lavish tastes.

This had never happened before.

I’d used the Grimoire many times, but normally, the moment I used Possession, I took control of the other person’s body. I’d never fallen into a place like a world inside someone’s mind.

Was this the witch’s power? I didn’t know.

As I walked, an ornate dining table appeared. Arima sat on the other side.

“Is this one of your tricks?”

“Please call it an invitation rather than a trick.”

“You have something else to say?”

“It’s nothing special. I simply wanted to persuade you.”

“Persuade me? After taking my companion’s body?”

Arima smiled faintly.

“Ever since I read this body’s memories, Cha Jin-cheol’s memories, it’s been one shock after another. To think the whole world I existed in was nothing but a play created by an omnipotent transcendent being... Then the ‘real Arima’ before I entered this body was fake too, if you think about it.

“Before my enlightenment, an experience like this might have driven me mad. It means that I myself was fake. But I’m fine with it now. The mind is an illusion, after all! It is nothing more than an attachment. It’s all thanks to your teachings, Teacher. Thank you.”

Seeing how calm Arima was, I calmed down as well.

“I’m glad to hear that. But if you read Jin-cheol’s memories, I think you must have guessed. I’m not the great wizard you think I am.”

Arima looked puzzled.

“Why not?”

“...It seems you haven’t read all the memories yet...”

“Because you don’t understand the power you use? Because you’re actually young? Because the people you called disciples are, in the end, just companions using the power the hotel gave them?”

She had read them all.

“I don’t completely understand the power I use either. I use much of it through experience, without knowing the principles. I only know that doing certain things works. Being young is an advantage, and having many companions is an advantage too. You received your power from the Grimoire? Didn’t you obtain the Grimoire through your own efforts? You are unquestionably a wizard, Teacher.”

I didn’t know what to say. I should just be honest.

“Could you leave Jin-cheol’s body?”

Arima let out a small sigh.

“That answer is a little disappointing.”

“Cha Jin-cheol is precious to me...”

“I’m not disappointed for some childish reason, like you valuing Cha Jin-cheol more than me. I’m disappointed because your answer has made me realize once again that you don’t truly understand the truth contained in the Grimoire.”

“...”

“Why don’t you understand, when you are the Grimoire’s owner? The human mind is like a flowing river. Just as a river flows, the mind changes endlessly. What ordinary people think of as an unchanging self is nothing more than a handful of river water scooped up at a particular place and time. Even if you scooped water from the same place at the same time a day later, the river would be completely different.”

“I have no idea what you’re trying to say...”

“Listen a little longer. You asked me to leave because you think I’m not Cha Jin-cheol right now, correct? Then what exactly am I?”

“Arima, aren’t you?”

Arima snickered and turned in a circle.

...Cha Jin-cheol appeared before me.

“Are you Cha Jin-cheol now?”

“...”

Arima turned again, returning to her former appearance.

“I copied my mind and put it inside Cha Jin-cheol’s body. The real Arima’s soul and body are already dead, and only the copied mind awakened in this body. Can I still call myself Arima? Could I actually be Cha Jin-cheol, inheriting part of Arima’s memories?”

“You copied only your mind and put it in Jin-cheol’s body? You gave up your soul and body entirely? How is that any different from suicide?”

“Why is it suicide? I’m right here. Because the ‘real Arima’ you imagine killed herself before your eyes, and that breaks the continuity between her and me? Wasn’t it your teaching that an attachment to that kind of continuity is meaningless?”

“I was just talking nonsense. I don’t know whether any of the Grimoire’s wisdom was mixed into it, but how the hell did hearing something like that lead you to such insane enlightenment?”

“As expected, persuading you won’t be easy.”

With Arima’s disappointed words, the extravagant mansion collapsed, and even the space itself crumbled.

The beautiful witch’s body scattered like foam in an instant, and a massive vortex of darkness appeared.

A voice echoed in my mind.

‘If you insist on making such a foolish choice, prove it through strength!’

A strange battle unlike anything I’d ever experienced began.

The vortex of darkness covered me, and my body was torn apart in an instant.

Yet I could still think clearly. I naturally knew how to fight as well.

This was a clash between minds. The body itself had been an illusion from the beginning.

Pitch-black chains rose from every direction and pierced the vortex.

The vortex shook again. This time, Arima reappeared, and lightning flashed all around, burning the chains.

I extended the chains again and crushed Arima’s form, only for lightning summoned behind me to scorch me.

After dozens of exchanges like this, I realized each side’s strengths.

Because Arima had become one with Jin-cheol’s body, she had greater control over Jin-cheol’s mental world itself, the stage of this battle.

My overwhelming advantage was the very fact that I was wielding the Grimoire’s power, a boundless treasury of mysteries.

The problem was that this battle could never end quickly.

It was essentially a battle of imagination without any physical substance, so it was difficult for either of us to land a decisive blow.

The next trial would surely begin in an hour. I had to end this before then.

More than ever, I felt my consciousness reach ‘above.’

In this dreamlike world beyond reality, my mind grasped the doorknob to a distant realm it could never normally reach.

To win, I needed greater power.

The power to call reality from a dream, to draw existence from nothing!

The Grimoire appeared before me in the void.

A new page, one I had never been able to open, unfolded before me.

The power of Avatar.

Then substance appeared in the world of illusion.

A single flash of light pierced through the empty world where Arima and I fought in an instant.

Arima began scattering like ash.

‘What kind of power is this?’

‘I don’t know either.’

‘Ahaha! You truly are consistent, Teacher. You clearly understand it while using it, yet you believe you don’t. Do you truly not know? Or do you believe you don’t because you fear the meaning of enlightenment?’

‘...’

‘They say enlightenment is sudden, while cultivation is gradual. Even after attaining enlightenment in a single moment, one needs time to embody it. Remember this. The moment you obtained the Grimoire, you were already enlightened. The memories accumulated by a person over twenty years are merely holding you back from being truly reborn into greatness...’

With those final words, Arima disappeared.

No, had she disappeared? My mind, still reaching higher than usual, told me that as long as Cha Jin-cheol was not completely dead, Arima could never truly die either.

Arima’s ego and memories had vanished.

But some trace of them would remain within Jin-cheol when he revived outside the Gate Room.

My mind, which had reached that lofty realm, gradually descended ‘below.’

It wasn’t time yet.

For the power of Avatar to truly become mine, I needed some fundamental leap forward.

Simply letting time pass and becoming more proficient with Possession wouldn’t be enough.

I needed more fundamental growth.

It would likely take a long time. I might not attain it even by the time I left the hotel.

‘A mindset beyond human limits!’

...Was this kind of growth really desirable?

My consciousness faded amid those thoughts.

* * *

- Han Ga-in

I awoke as my consciousness returned to reality.

The moment I came back, I looked at Jin-cheol.

His head had been cleanly split apart.

“What on earth happened?”

Eun-sol answered, “I should be asking you that. What did you do? It looked like you used the Grimoire, then both of you collapsed. About ten minutes passed, and Jin-cheol’s head suddenly split open.”

“Is that so...”

I felt empty. I’d tried so hard to save Jin-cheol throughout the second trial, and all that effort had failed.

Everyone sat there with similarly hollow expressions.

A-ri nudged me.

“You still did well. Was that the Grimoire’s power? It feels like it’s getting stronger and stronger. At least we avoided an ending where Jin-cheol fought us. If Jin-cheol had summoned a star and fought us, one wrong move could have killed us all. Did you definitely finish the witch?”

“Probably.”

“That’s an unsettling answer.”

Mook-seong cut in.

“More importantly, this incident is terrifying. You already know it, but if we put together what A-ri and Song-i said, didn’t that witch succeed in using Jin-cheol’s body to escape the trial space?”

“If you put it that way, yes. Though I don’t know if we can call the one who escaped the real Arima...”

“Let’s put aside the philosophical questions. The important thing is that it was a kind of ‘escape.’ There’s no real difference between escaping from inside the Gate Room’s trial space and getting outside. Could a similar escape be possible in a Curse Room too?”

My thoughts became tangled. An escape where someone copied their mind into a participant’s body, then came out with them when the participant escaped...

At that moment, something happened that I had never experienced since entering the hotel.

[Sage’s Advice: 3 -> 0]

What? I hadn’t even used Sage’s Advice, and the crisis was already over. All three disappeared at once?

[Remember your current enlightenment. It is a problem you must overcome in the hotel.]

Footnotes:

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