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Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 12: Rest, The Hotel Basement - 'The Living Pool' (1)

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[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)

Date: Day 3

Current Location: Basement Level, Billiards Hall

Sage’s Advice: 3]

“You can’t even push a cue straight? I showed you how. Grip the handle tight, keep the angle steady with your left hand, then send it straight through!”

“I told you, I’ve never played billiards before...”

“What kind of college student has never played billiards? From what you said earlier, you barely play games either. What the hell have you been doing with your life?”

This was unfair. There were plenty of things to do besides billiards and games, yet Jin-cheol had been scolding me for twenty minutes just because I couldn’t do either.

Thankfully, Sage’s Advice hadn’t activated while we wandered through the facilities. What had it said when I tried to take the elevator down to the basement on the first day? ‘It is dangerous to go down now!’ Why was it fine today?

The difference between the first day and today.

Come to think of it, a monster had attacked us at the front desk on the first day. Then it had disappeared at some point...

Maybe it had gone down to the basement. There was still so much about this hotel we didn’t know.

Eun-sol had been right about the facilities yesterday. From the outside, they looked exactly like the guest rooms. There was no way a swimming pool or zoo could fit inside spaces that size, but once we opened the doors, everything was there as if by magic.

We were past the point of being surprised by things like that. Everyone happily headed off to wherever they wanted to go.

Eun-sol went to some bar for cocktails. Song-i went to the zoo, Elena to the swimming pool, and Seung-yeop to the PC café.

They were probably all having fun where they wanted to be. Everyone except me. I’d been wandering around, wondering where to go and what to do, until Jin-cheol caught me like this. This hotel had practically everything, but there was no one else besides us, and you couldn’t play billiards alone.

“Still... the facilities are great and all, but it’s kind of awkward to have fun when we’re the only people here.”

“True. I wonder if Eun-sol is having fun alone at the cocktail bar. The zoo should at least have animals. And does Seung-yeop even have anything to do at a PC café?”

“The games he plays probably aren’t the kind where you sit next to your friends.”

“I know that. Who doesn’t know League of Legends? But do you think there’s internet? Our phones are dead, and this place doesn’t seem like it’d let us communicate with the outside world.”

“Hmm... Maybe it’d be more fun if we all got together.”

Thwack!

My cue sliced cleanly through the air before striking the edge of the table beside the ball. Jin-cheol immediately set down his cue and stood up.

“Hey, let’s stop. What’s the point of beating someone who can’t even hit the ball? I’m not having fun, and neither are you. Let’s go find the others.”

What a relief. Where should we go? The first place that came to mind?

Honestly, hand on my heart, I’d admit it. Ninety-five percent of men in the world would think the same thing, right?

The swimming pool!

I’d wanted to throw away this damn cue and go to the pool from the very beginning! Any person, no, any man, would feel the same way as Jin-cheol! I was one hundred percent sure.

“Jin-cheol! How about the swimming pool? We don’t need to learn games, and I’ve never even had a cocktail. The zoo is obviously out.”

“The swimming pool...? I don’t have a swimsuit.”

“Elena went there without one, and she still hasn’t come out. Doesn’t that mean they have swimsuits inside? This billiards hall has cues and everything.”

“Of course a billiards hall has cues... But swimsuits at a swimming pool? How could they have them when they don’t know people’s sizes?”

“Jin-cheol. That’s true for a normal hotel, but every time we’ve eaten or drunk something here, it’s appeared exactly to our tastes. Are you really worried they don’t know our swimsuit sizes now?”

Something was strange. How could he act like he didn’t want to go to the swimming pool in this situation? Every time he talked to Elena, he’d been grinning from ear to ear. I thought he had the same idea as me.

Still, I somehow managed to persuade him. It wasn’t like there was anywhere else to go.

As we left the room and headed down the corridor, Seung-yeop and Eun-sol came out from across the hall.

“Hmm, you two came out too.”

“Ah, were you feeling awkward alone too?”

“Well, I was drinking cocktails alone in a place without even a bartender and wondering what the hell I was doing. When I came out, this one was already out here.”

“There’s no internet... The computer is insanely good, but what am I supposed to do with a computer that can’t access the internet?”

“I was about to head your way, but you came out too. Was billiards no good either?”

“You have no idea, Eun-sol. This guy can’t even hit the ball with a cue. Seriously, what has he been doing with his life?”

“Hahaha. So where should we go?”

“Let me guess. You two came out because you want to go to the swimming pool!”

I flinched.

It was true, but being called out so directly was somehow embarrassing. Still, all four of us were already out, and Song-i’s zoo was a bit much, wasn’t it? The pool was the only option left.

As I stood there flinching, Eun-sol snickered and turned away.

“Aww, that’s cute. Let’s go to the pool. There are a lot of things here, but there aren’t actually that many places to go.”

We all decided to go to the swimming pool.

“By the way... I came out first, right? While I was waiting, I heard something strange. Did anyone else hear anything?”

“I didn’t. What kind of sound?”

“You know how our hotel displays make a ding! sound whenever something appears? I think I heard that sound from far away. Or maybe not?”

“Ga-in?”

“Hmm, there aren’t any notifications in Sage’s Advice.”

“Then it should be fine. Sage’s Advice always appeared whenever something seemed dangerous.”

During the monkey incident on the first day, at the main entrance, in the elevator, and in the Curse Room, Sage’s Advice had given us proper warnings whenever we faced danger. It wouldn’t suddenly stab us in the back.

Seung-yeop soon said he had probably heard it wrong, smiling awkwardly. Then we all headed for the swimming pool.

* * *

/Today’s Surprise Event! The ‘Living Pool’ is now open!/

* * *

Now I understood why Jin-cheol, who had spent all morning mocking my billiards, had seemed reluctant when I suggested the swimming pool. He must’ve been confident in his body too, and Elena was swimming there!

The guy was unbelievably bad at swimming.

“Huff, huff, huff.”

“Cough! Blub blub! Ptooey, ugh!”

An impressive variety of sounds filled the swimming pool.

“I’m pretty sure I heard yesterday that you at least knew the basics of swimming.”

“Huff, huff, huff... I definitely learned when I was little.”

“When you say little, do you mean swimming in your mother’s womb?”

“Haha, huff, you’re quite the comedian.”

She wasn’t joking at all. As far as I could tell, Eun-sol had said that with complete sincerity, and I was thinking the exact same thing.

How... how was this possible? If you just took a deep breath, your body naturally floated. Even if all you did after that was dog paddle, shouldn’t you at least move forward?

He was ridiculously strong, kicking hard enough to sound like thunder, but why couldn’t he stretch his legs out behind him?

It looked like he would float if he just breathed in, but every time he twisted his whole body, he visibly sank lower. Jin-cheol’s astounding lack of skill was so remarkable that even Elena’s dazzling, dolphin-like swimming skills, strictly in terms of swimming, faded into the background at some point. Everyone leaned against the wall and watched Jin-cheol instead.

Seeing a 190-centimeter giant twist his entire body, flail around, and slowly sink into the water was worth paying to see.

After getting nagged all morning for being unable to hit billiard balls, it was even more entertaining. While we were all giggling, Song-i came in at some point.

“Ah! So you were all here. I checked the billiards hall and the bar, but no one was there, so I was wondering where you’d gone.”

“Song-i, hurry and change too! Go into the second room from the far end, the one with clothes drawn on it, and a swimsuit will pop out! If you don’t see one, turn around for a moment and look again. It’ll be there before you know it.”

“The fact that we can talk about something like that so casually really shows we’re in a strange place.”

We truly were talking about something strange as if it were perfectly normal.

“Was the zoo fun? Were there lots of animals? Elephants, maybe?”

“Ah, Ga-in, the zoo is... Hmm. I think we should all go there together later. It’s a little strange. It isn’t the kind of zoo we imagine.”

Jin-cheol, who had somehow made it out of the water, answered.

“A strange zoo? Nothing in this hotel isn’t strange. This swimming pool is already weird as hell, so if something stands out as especially strange even in a place like this, what could it possibly have? Don’t tell me they call humans animals and keep them locked up too?”

“It’s not like that. It’s just full of animals I’ve never seen before. Not deer or foxes or anything like that... Animals I’ve really never seen before.”

“Couldn’t they just be animals you don’t know? I was surprised once while watching that famous documentary, Planet Earth. There are a lot of truly strange animals in the world.”

“Maybe that’s true for some species. But the zoo is so huge that I only saw a few kinds, and still, I saw more than ten species I didn’t recognize.”

“Then... shouldn’t we all avoid it instead of going together?”

“Maybe?”

A strange zoo. I made a mental note of it. The botanical garden would probably be similar. A zoo full of animals that existed nowhere else. Maybe it only kept unusual animals ordinary people didn’t know about? That would be better, but...

What if, by this hotel’s standards, they were ordinary animals? What if they were animals from somewhere else?

Just as ominous thoughts began to take hold,

something strange happened.

Footnotes:

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