WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 119: Room 107, Gate Room - Third Trial (10)
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Episode 119: Room 107, Gate Room - ‘Jekyll and Hyde Game’ (10)
- Han Ga-in
I thought my head was going to split.
Too many confusing things had happened in a single day.
There was everything that had happened while fighting Arima inside Jin-cheol’s mind, along with Sage’s Advice appearing in a form completely unlike usual.
As I held my head and lowered it, A-ri tapped my shoulder.
“What are you thinking so hard about? Also, the break won’t be very long this time.”
...Come to think of it, I didn’t need to work through this alone.
Wasn’t this exactly why it was good to have companions?
I immediately began telling them what was on my mind.
Song-i and Seung-yeop were staring blankly at the ceiling, but Eun-sol and A-ri soon began considering it seriously.
A-ri spoke first.
“So, to sum up what happened in the mental world, it’s this. The Grimoire’s knowledge has already settled inside you, but it’s taking time to digest. The more deeply you accept that knowledge, though, the more afraid you become that you’re drifting away from being human. Is that right?”
“I think that’s roughly it.”
“At its core, it’s something you have to choose for yourself. Still, there’s one thing I want to say.”
“Go ahead.”
“Before we talk about the Grimoire’s knowledge, who made the Grimoire? The Unborn One, right? Think about what that god actually is.”
The Grimoire’s creator. The Unborn One.
“Honestly, isn’t he just a shut-in pervert?”
That was an answer I never could have expected.
“What?”
“Isn’t it true? From the moment his consciousness awakened, he couldn’t leave his mother’s womb. When he finally managed to communicate with mortals, all he could think about was tormenting them out of jealousy.
“‘The Unborn One!’ ‘The Nebula Dragon’s eldest son!’
“He dressed himself up with grand titles like that, but in reality, he’s just a shut-in who spent his whole life trapped in a dark hole, envying the outside world. He may have crafted magic arts that imitate Buddhist ideas while acting like he was the child of a god, but it’s still an utterly sinister philosophy. Do you really need to immerse yourself so deeply in the ideas of someone like that?”
“...But if I can’t accept that understanding-”
“You’re worried you won’t be able to use the Grimoire properly if you don’t? It’s a tool anyway. We can’t know whether you have to embrace the philosophy within it to use it. It’s ultimately your choice, but remember this. You don’t have to become obsessed with words like god and demon, or feel intimidated and blindly follow beings like that.”
It felt like my mind had suddenly cleared.
Was this the perspective A-ri had developed through the Management Bureau’s accumulated experience?
“Did that help?”
“I feel like I understand, but I also feel like I understand even less.”
Eun-sol, who had been listening, joined in.
“I’m glad A-ri seems to have helped with the Grimoire. I don’t have anything useful to say about that. But I noticed two unusual things about the advice.
“First, unlike normal advice, all three uses were consumed at once. Second, it gave you advice specifically ‘now.’”
“I can vaguely guess why all three uses were consumed at once. Normally, Sage’s Advice falls into two categories: crisis alerts that automatically warn me when my life is in danger, and answers to questions. This advice fit neither category. It wasn’t a crisis, and I hadn’t asked anything. Maybe it was penalized as a kind of rule violation? It’s absurd, since I wasn’t the one who broke the rule.”
“I think so too. The Owl forced itself to give ‘unreasonable advice,’ and that caused a penalty. Which is why the second point is important. Why did it go so far as to use up every remaining use just to advise you ‘now’? We have to interpret the advice with that in mind.”
Listening to her, a thought came to me.
“Then the advice probably isn’t about preparing for the distant future.”
“I don’t think so. The Owl isn’t stupid. If it were advice for the future, there’d be no reason to give it now, while we’re in the middle of the Gate Room. That advice must be closely connected to the Gate Room.”
A-ri joined the conversation.
“I don’t think we should be too certain. I agree that it’s probably related to the Gate Room, but that doesn’t mean it has no other meaning. From what I’ve experienced, the Owl tends to make the interpretation of a single statement complicated.”
The advice might have multiple meanings. That made sense too.
Let’s think about what it meant.
[Remember your current enlightenment. It is a problem you must overcome in the hotel.]
“This current enlightenment must be related to the Grimoire, right?”
“Most likely. Which means you have to interpret this advice yourself in the end. We don’t really know what you realized about the Grimoire.”
What had I realized?
...
There were too many possibilities to pin it down to one thing.
I’d vaguely sensed what the power of Avatar was, and I’d realized that I had to change myself to become more proficient with the Grimoire. Of course, A-ri had later given me a different perspective as well.
Out of all those realizations, which one was it talking about?
And how would that realization apply to the rest of the Gate Room?
While I was deep in thought, Grandpa Mook-seong placed a hand on my shoulder.
“Your head seems pretty tangled, so stop thinking about it for now.”
“Huh?”
He stretched out an arm and pointed at the notification floating in the air.
[22:33]
“There are only a little over twenty minutes left of the break. Are you going to spend the whole time thinking until your head bursts, then start the next trial? You need to catch your breath too.”
“You’re right.”
“Also, this is just my thought, but it might not be about the Grimoire at all.”
“What?”
“Wasn’t what you were talking about right before the advice appeared unrelated to the Grimoire?”
I thought back.
What had we been discussing right before the advice appeared?
The witch had nearly escaped the trial room by copying her mind into Jin-cheol.
“We were talking about escape. But could that have anything to do with the Gate Room? It’s not like we can escape the Gate Room by copying our minds into someone.”
“I don’t know. I was only saying what came to mind.”
Everyone tilted their heads for a moment.
There was less than twenty minutes left now. In the end, everyone stopped thinking and began resting.
I leaned against the wall, intending to at least close my eyes for a while.
...As I rested with my eyes shut, I realized something else strange about this advice.
It was an odd detail only I could recognize, since I was the one who had directly received the advice.
[It is a problem.]
Did the Owl normally speak in such an unusual way when giving advice?
I thought it usually spoke either casually or half-formally.
Strangely, that way of speaking felt as if it were imitating someone.
I fell asleep after thinking that much.
--Tap.
“Wake up.”
“Ah.”
A-ri gestured, and I fought through my fatigue as I opened my eyes.
[1:21]
“One minute left.”
“That’s why I woke you.”
“We’ve only cleared two trials, and I already feel half-dead...”
“I think it’s more manageable than I expected.”
“Manageable?”
“There are five trials, and as long as even one person clears them, everyone survives! But everyone cleared the first trial, and only one person was eliminated in the second, right? We’re forty percent through, and only one person has been eliminated. I think we’ll clear this easily-”
I jolted forward and covered A-ri’s mouth!
Grandpa Mook-seong, who had been listening, slapped his forehead.
“Huh? Why are you suddenly doing that?”
“Please don’t say things that invite death flags! Don’t you know you should never say, ‘It’s pretty quiet today,’ in an emergency room? How can you say something like, ‘This trial seems easy,’ in a place like this hotel?”
“What kind of superstition-”
“A-ri. Please shut up. I agree with Ga-in this time. Listening to you makes me feel like the hotel is about to prepare one hell of a shitty trial!”
A-ri pouted slightly as the break ended.
Amid an inexplicable sense of dread, the third trial began.
* * *
[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 44
Current Location: Level 1, Room 107 (Gate Room)
Sage’s Advice: 0]
- Han Ga-in
When the lights came on, we were seated around a round table in a neat office.
An unidentified sphere descended into the center of the room.
/Hello!
From this point onward, participants will take part in the Jekyll and Hyde Game.
Please call me the Host. From now on, the participants’ blessings will be sealed./
With those words, my Status Window disappeared.
Jekyll and Hyde Game?
As I wondered what that was supposed to mean, a notification appeared in the air.
/The Jekyll and Hyde Game has three roles: Jekyll, Hyde, and Doctor.
You are Jekylls. During the day of each round, Jekylls may discuss and identify the Hyde inhabiting one of you, then execute it. If the Jekylls identify and execute Hyde, the game will end in your victory.
At the start of each round, Hyde parasitizes one participant. During the night of each round, Hyde executes one participant. Hyde may parasitize each person only once and cannot be found using an Inheritance.
During the day of each round, the Doctor may designate a target to protect. If Hyde attempts to execute the target designated by the Doctor during the night, the execution will fail.
If the game ends in the participants’ victory, one deceased person who participated in the game may be revived. Please ask any other questions you have about the game.
The game will begin in thirty minutes./
This seemed familiar somehow.
Song-i reacted first.
“Doesn’t this resemble Mafia?”
“Are Jekylls the citizens and Hyde the Mafia? The unusual part seems to be that Hyde parasitizes one of us.”
Grandpa Mook-seong cried out in surprise.
“Hey, hey! Don’t talk like you’re the only ones who know what’s going on. Explain it to me too, quickly. What? Mafia? What is that?”
Eun-sol looked deeply flustered too.
“I know Mafia, but isn’t that just a game where you play politics? How are we supposed to find Hyde? And it says, ‘It can’t be found using an Inheritance’? Our blessings are sealed, and we can’t find it with an Inheritance either. Are they telling us to settle this by guessing?”
Our greatest guessing expert, Seung-yeop, had his Luck sealed.
What were we supposed to do? Everyone was confused.
Stay calm.
“Everyone, calm down. The hotel wouldn’t make us play a meaningless guessing game.”
“What do you mean?”
“There has to be some logic to it. The key to this game is, first, who Hyde will parasitize. Second, who Hyde will execute.
“If we figure out the first, we can identify and execute Hyde. If we figure out the second, the Doctor can protect the target Hyde intends to execute.
“The choice of whom to parasitize, the choice of whom to execute. There must be some logic behind them. I don’t think Hyde will parasitize someone at random and execute someone else at random.”
I said that, but I was confused too.
What standards would Hyde use to choose whom to parasitize and execute?
I had a bad feeling. I sensed that we would suffer considerable losses in this game.
Footnotes:
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