WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 128: Room 107, Gate Room - Fourth Trial (19)
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Episode 128: Room 107, Gate Room - ‘The Secret of the Esper’ (19)
[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 46
Current Location: Level 1, Room 107 (Gate Room)
Sage’s Advice: 3]
- Han Ga-in
As I ran frantically, I checked the scenario that had updated at midnight.
/Scenario: Gate Room - ‘The Secret of the Esper’
The hotel group finally makes a decision. To uncover the truth, Kim Mook-seong personally takes part in an Offering Ritual for Marcas, the Deep-Sea Demon.
After learning the nature of the evil ritual, the hotel group rushes to stop it.
Can the hotel group stop the evil ritual and save their companion?/
Several new keywords had appeared.
The Deep-Sea Demon. Marcas. An Offering Ritual for the demon.
Was that the truth behind this ship's secret?
There was nothing about when the next scenario would appear. Was there no more story left?
If so, that was a relief. It meant this would be over once we got there and joined Elena in going wild.
A-ri suddenly stopped while we were running.
“What are you doing? Hurry up.”
“We're not the ones fighting anyway, so there's no need to run ourselves ragged. The ship's falling apart too, so it's dangerous. Look down.”
I looked where A-ri was pointing.
... What the hell was that?
As Elena tore through the ship, it had literally been smashed to pieces.
A huge hole had opened from the deck containing the cabins all the way down to the basement far below.
There was something in the Esper's basement that made no sense at all.
“What kind of place is that?”
“From a distance, it looks like an underground prison. It doesn't seem like the sort of place that belongs on a ship.”
“Do we need to check that out too?”
“Eventually. For now, let's go to the Colosseum.”
First, we needed to focus on rescuing Grandpa and defeating the enemy.
By the time A-ri, Song-i, and I reached the area near the Colosseum, Elena, who had flown ahead at tremendous speed, was already fighting.
More accurately, she was slaughtering them.
It was hard to call that sight a fight.
It didn't matter that there were hundreds of enemies and only one Elena.
Could hundreds of chicks take on a tiger?
That was exactly how the fight was going.
Every time Elena made a gesture, at least five or six people were crushed. It even seemed like an invisible wall had appeared at the entrance to the Colosseum, preventing the crew and passengers from escaping.
Some of the crew fired guns, while the passengers attacked by bursting out of walls or stretching their limbs with some unknown power.
Of course, it didn't mean much. Bullets stopped in midair, and passengers who emerged from the walls were soon smashed back into them until they turned to mush.
Before long, the sailors and passengers were being swept away without even daring to resist.
Cries filled with despair began to fill the plaza.
As I stood overwhelmed by the sight of an angel descended from heaven burning sinners, A-ri grabbed my arm.
“This isn't the time to watch. Let's go save Grandpa.”
“Right. Let's go.”
The moment we ran into the center of the Colosseum, I saw that Grandpa had been nailed to a pillar in that brief interval.
...
He really had been ‘nailed’ there. Were they imitating Jesus Christ nailed to the cross?
Huge nails had been driven all over Grandpa's body.
If we forcibly pulled them out, the bleeding would only get worse. There was nothing we could do.
Song-i and I supported Grandpa's body, at least reducing the pain caused by gravity, but that was all.
A ragged voice leaked from Grandpa's mouth.
“Couldn't you have come a little sooner?…”
“I'm sorry. We ran as fast as we could, but I didn't think it would get this bad in such a short time...”
“Heh heh heh... Those bastards are the worst. Watching Elena wipe them all out feels damn good.”
Song-i began to tear up.
“Grandpa. What do we do?”
I desperately examined him from head to toe, but I couldn't see any way to help.
Grandpa called to A-ri in a weary voice.
“Senior. Please.”
“... You want me to make it easy?”
“Please.”
White foam was already spilling from his mouth whenever he spoke.
Even if we got him to an emergency room right now and doctors worked on him, it was uncertain whether he could survive.
Song-i began to sob as she realized there was no way to save him.
A-ri quietly held Grandpa's face, then pressed her pistol to his temple.
“Go on ahead and rest. See you later.”
--- Bang!
Now there were four of us left.
... By the way, A-ri was Grandpa's senior? The pain must have been so bad that he let something he'd normally kept hidden slip out without realizing it.
The moment Grandpa breathed his last, something strange happened in the Colosseum.
--- Clank!
A massive sound rang out from the ceiling, loud enough to echo through the entire Colosseum.
Everyone looked up in surprise.
One hand of the giant clock on the ceiling moved.
0 -> 1
The hand was now pointing at 1 instead of 0.
What could that mean?
At the same time the clock hand moved, the screams filling the Colosseum grew harsher and more horrific.
The sailors and passengers who had remained to resist Elena looked at the clock and began to sing songs of grief.
“Ahh! Marcas!”
“Please, please show us mercy...”
Seeing their reaction, I understood. The clock hand moving was like a nightmare to them.
Which meant we needed to turn the clock hand!
How could we make it turn? Why had it moved just now? My thoughts began to tangle.
In that space filled with sorrow, only the angel wielding golden waves continued her relentless slaughter.
The spinning Scales flew through the air, crushing sailors and passengers over and over whenever they found them.
It looked like drones from a developed country roaming an entire battlefield and massacring people.
Every time I saw it, I felt the same way. I had no idea how Justice's combat mechanics worked.
At first, people seemed to just die without anything happening in between. At other times, it looked like an invisible giant hand grabbed and threw them. Now the flying Scales had become war drones equipped with high-performance AI.
There was no consistency at all in how it fought. Other than being overwhelmingly powerful, I couldn't find a single thing they had in common.
A-ri must have been thinking the same thing. She spoke up beside me.
“Is Elena just manifesting whatever kind of power she thinks would look plausible?”
“You said you'd seen another user of Justice before, right? Was it very different?”
“Completely different. Not nearly that...”
“Not nearly that what?”
“Not nearly that strangely powerful. It didn't feel like they could fight as freely as she does either.”
“...”
“It feels like the blessing itself has developed some kind of AI.”
“AI?”
“Look closely. Elena's eyes aren't even properly tracking where the enemies are. She's just standing still while the Scales intercept the enemies on their own.”
“If it develops any further, will the Scales start talking to Elena?”
I meant it as a joke, but A-ri didn't change her expression.
“That might actually happen.”
At some point, the Colosseum had fallen quiet too.
The shining waves that had filled the entire space calmed, and the spiraling Scales stopped motionless in midair.
“Is it over?”
“We're the only survivors in this space.”
Was it finally over? Everyone stood still, catching their breath and waiting.
...
Song-i asked, sounding puzzled.
“Why isn't it showing that it's been resolved?”
A-ri noticed something odd too.
“If we're the only survivors, why hasn't the execution ended?”
Just as she said, the Scales of Justice had only stopped in midair. They hadn't disappeared.
--- Rumble!
The entire ship suddenly began to shake!
Panicked, we grabbed onto nearby fixtures and held on.
--- Goooooo!
A monstrous roar echoed through the entire ship.
The next moment, time aboard the Esper began to turn back!
The enemies' scattered flesh, blood, and bones gathered together again in midair, taking human form.
Hundreds of dead people returned to life, and their endless malice flared anew.
Elena's Scales began spinning again, attempting to tear apart the resurrected dead.
But the reversal of time began affecting us too.
Elena suddenly floated into the air and flew backward, while we repeated our run from the cabins to the Colosseum in reverse, as though rewinding.
The ship Elena had destroyed while flying from the cabins to the Colosseum began to restore itself in an instant.
It was overwhelming. Faced with such a surreal miracle, we didn't know what to do.
--- Screech!
Something came to a rough stop.
Our bodies, which had been stepping backward amid incomprehensible vibrations, stopped.
Elena, who had been flying backward at tremendous speed, appeared in front of us again.
Golden waves pouring from the spinning Scales wrapped around us.
In the confusion, A-ri shouted.
“Elena! Can you keep holding on?”
Elena shook her head with a pained expression.
Even a tiger that slaughtered hundreds of chickens was nothing more than a large cat before a dragon!
Before the power of a demon that could turn back time, Justice's power had reached its limit.
--- Crack!
Cracks began to form in the Scales. A-ri shouted with a face full of despair.
“Memory!”
“What?”
“The memories after we arrived on the ship are getting hazy!”
I hurriedly tried to recall what had happened after we arrived on the ship.
I couldn't remember what we'd eaten yesterday. Why isn't Pero with us?
What had Grandpa called A-ri?
I immediately sought advice.
‘Tell me the best thing I can do right now!’
[Sage’s Advice: 3 -> 2]
[Write it somewhere that can never be erased.]
Somewhere that could never be erased.
A power that even a demon who turned back time could never interfere with!
I expanded my Status Window. Then I took out a pen.
I wrote frantically, over and over.
Flash!
... My consciousness grew hazy.
* * *
[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 46
Current Location: Level 1, Room 107 (Gate Room)
Sage’s Advice: 2]
- Han Ga-in
When I came to, we found ourselves standing in an incredibly lavish room.
I was wearing a very old-fashioned, angular tuxedo.
A-ri, Song-i, Elena, and the others wore dresses so beautiful it was hard to look away, with soft fur shawls draped over their shoulders.
Were we going to some kind of party?
A-ri had a strange reaction.
“This dress is a very old style...”
An old style? I had no idea. It all looked like Western formalwear to me, so I was completely lost.
When I looked around, Grandpa Mook-seong was gone.
Song-i spoke in alarm.
“Where could Grandpa be?”
“Did he start somewhere else? Like Seung-yeop did in the House of Horror?”
During the Gate Room trials, none of us had ever started in separate locations. Was the fourth trial different somehow?
As we all wondered about it, there was a knock at the door.
Soon, someone dressed like a hotel employee came in, gave us a rough explanation of the ship and instructions for the Dinner Party, then left.
Elena answered with interest.
“This place must be a ship.”
“Looking out the window, I can see the ocean. Let's check the scenario first and go from there.”
All right, first, I'll expand the Status Window and check the scenario-
???
What the hell was this? Why was the scenario in such a state?
As I stared at my Status Window in confusion, my companions spoke to me.
“Is something wrong?”
“Yes. It doesn't feel like the scenario just started. It feels like it's already progressed quite a bit. Huh?”
“What else is strange?”
“There's a whole bunch of messy writing in the empty space of the Status Window.”
The moment I expanded the blank space as much as possible, I was at a loss for words.
The first sentence of the messy writing read:
‘Our time is going backward now.’
Footnotes:
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