WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 136: Room 107, Gate Room - Final Trial (27)
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- Kim A-ri
I walked beneath the blue glow of the city lights and thought.
Who am I, exactly?
My mind, which had only just begun to awaken, spoke to me.
This was a false world. There was another place where I was meant to be. I had a goal I needed to achieve.
But my awakening was still incomplete.
Why had I gotten caught up in this false world? What had I been doing before I was dragged into it?
Who was I in the first place? The vague identity surfacing in my mind was that I was an agent of the Chaos Disaster Management Agency.
Had I fallen into an unidentified illusion while working as an agent?
I didn't know. This world was far too complete to dismiss as a mere illusion.
Put simply, the power to manipulate illusions was the power to feed false visual information into the brain.
The methods differed, but the VR devices created by modern humanity weren't fundamentally different from the power to manipulate illusions.
How much processing power would it take to feed someone information that perfectly simulated an entire world, like every sight I was seeing now?
Lost in those thoughts, I arrived at Bareum Publishing House.
The publishing house building looked ordinary. Since it was already late, most of the lights were off and the entrance was locked.
As I wondered what to do, the door opened with a click.
When I stepped inside, a security guard gave me a slight bow from a distance.
How was I supposed to get farther inside again? Every branch had a different way in, so I couldn't remember.
After I stood there silently for a moment, the guard spoke to me.
“Are you lost?”
“...”
“Would you like me to show you the way?”
“How did you know I was an agent?”
The guard looked at me as if I were saying something absurd.
“Isn't agent mode activated on your phone right now?”
“... Right.”
“They're already waiting for you inside.”
I'd made a stupid mistake.
The guard led me to the elevator, stood before the control panel, and made a few adjustments.
Soon, the elevator began moving horizontally.
--- Clank! Whiiir!
... At this point, shouldn't the elevator have left the building?
Even though I knew the Management Bureau was a place where “common sense” meant nothing, I still found myself thinking things like that when I saw it firsthand.
“Ah!”
The moment I got off the elevator, I gasped without meaning to.
How could a place like this exist in the middle of Seoul?
Before me was a space so vast I couldn't take it all in at once. At least a hundred employees dressed in white rushed busily about.
In one area, a cart restraining a dog the size of a car rolled past.
Elsewhere, a rotating sphere that fired lasers was being transported inside an opaque box.
In another area, a man with a nameplate reading “13th Second Coming of Jesus” was being dragged away.
Why were they all Second Comings of Jesus? Weren't there any Second Comings of Buddha or Allah?
Ninety-nine point nine percent of people like that were probably ordinary humans without any supernatural powers, but the Management Bureau brought them in every time because of the remaining zero point one percent.
As I looked around with a sigh, memories I'd gradually forgotten began returning.
From afar, it was a mysterious, transcendent organization that inspired endless awe.
Up close, it was a chaotic marketplace with management so lousy it made a neighborhood convenience store look competent.
From afar, it was an organization of geniuses, with most of its members among humanity's greatest talents.
Up close, it was a black company full of idiots who made me want to ask whether they'd gotten into Harvard by playing poker.
An ordinary Management Bureau.
* * *
As I walked through the vast corridors, countless people greeted me.
My memories were hazy, so I couldn't remember any of them, yet every one of them knew me.
In the end, I didn't even know where to go, so I stood still and grabbed the nearest person.
“Hey! You there!”
“Yes? Agent Kim A-ri?”
“Who's in charge here?”
The man, who looked like a researcher, studied me with a puzzled expression.
“My mind's a little unstable from a mission.”
When I brushed it off like that, the researcher tilted his head and replied.
“If you mean the person in charge, are you referring to Department Head Park? Department Head Park's office is on the right side of the corridor-”
“You take me there. I can't remember my way around here.”
“I'm a little busy right now-”
“Hey! Have someone else take the Second Coming of Jesus. People claiming to be Jesus are everywhere, so why do you bring one in every time? Next time, bring in someone claiming to be Buddha or Allah.”
“One out of every several hundred really is a monster...”
The researcher grumbled, but began leading me anyway.
After turning through the corridors for quite a while, I was glad I'd made him guide me.
The researcher brought me to the door of a rather large, fancy office, then disappeared.
--- Click.
The office was fairly barren. There were no decorations, only a single orchid pot in one corner.
“Don't stand there. Come over here.”
A middle-aged man, perhaps in his forties or fifties, rose from his desk and called to me from the window.
“What should I call you? Department Head Park?”
The man turned his head and sighed.
“I received a report, but did you really lose your memories?”
“A report came in that quickly?”
“You've been making it very obvious that you've lost your memories. Of course a report came in.”
“Is that so...?”
“This is very uncomfortable. Drop the formalities. Since when did you ever speak politely?”
“Fine. Then what should I call you?”
“Call me Park Hyun-min.”
“Hyun-min, I think something's wrong with me right now.”
“... ‘Hyun-min’ feels a little strange. I'd prefer Department Head Park Hyun-min.”
“I'll just call you Department Head Park.”
After that, I told him everything strange I'd noticed.
The abnormalities of this world that I'd begun recognizing earlier. The excessive number of bars, buildings without drones, and the moon shining in the sky.
And one realization. This entire world was fake. I had an inexplicable certainty of it.
The department head listened silently before speaking.
“I'll give you an honest answer. You've gone mad. Even as a department head of the Management Bureau, the bizarre things you've described are things I've never seen or heard of.
“A world where pigeons try to eat people.... I couldn't imagine such a thing even in a dream. I've never heard of an alcoholic Fungal Parasite or the Red Plague either. The moon is gone too? That's a change too difficult to imagine.
“It's more likely that one person has gone mad than that the entire world suddenly changed. You said yourself that your memories were incomplete. You may have encountered a strange Chaos Entity during your mission.”
“Hearing that made me curious. According to this world's records, what was I doing?”
“That's a good question. Before you came in, I looked into what mission you were on. The result was surprising. It said my security clearance was insufficient to access it.”
“Even with your security clearance?”
“The meaning of that is clear. The only people on Earth who know the nature of your mission are the leaders of the World Council.”
Had I gone mentally unstable while carrying out some special secret mission?
... I shook my head. That wasn't important.
“Just assume everything I said is true. This entire world is fake! I'm not saying it casually. I've had this certainty that the whole world is fake since earlier!”
“The 13th Second Coming of Jesus we brought in today is also certain that he's the resurrected Jesus.”
“This isn't just my own thought. ‘Mom’s’ reaction was strange too. She encouraged me and sent me off, as if telling me to follow my own path!”
“That is the sort of reaction a parent might have when their child enters adolescence and begins wandering.”
“Who is my mother according to the Management Bureau, anyway? Her appearance alone is far too special! And judging from your reaction and my vague memories, I'm incredibly old. Then how old is Mom? Isn't that strange?”
“Your mother is a former Management Bureau agent. She's currently taking a break, but she's older than you and me combined.”
Just that brief conversation drained all my energy.
Finding the contradictions in this world through logic was harder than I'd expected.
Even Mom, who had seemed so full of mystery, had already been implemented in this world without contradiction.
There were many other strange things about this world, but that short conversation made me realize something.
They all had their own logic. No matter what I pointed out, Department Head Park seemed able to offer an explanation proving this world was real.
... Had I really just gone mad? Had I met a strange Chaos Entity during some secret mission and become mentally twisted?
The department head watched me as I fell into confusion, then spoke again.
“Let's look at it from another perspective.”
“Another perspective?”
“Let's assume, for now, that this entire world is fake as you say. Normally, the power that manipulates hallucinations rapidly destabilizes when the person caught in them begins to doubt them. Why do you think that is?”
“I don't know. I feel like I used to know.”
“Put simply, hallucinations are a process of feeding information that simulates a world into a person's brain.”
The explanation sounded familiar. I'd heard it once before.
“The problem is that continuously feeding in information simulating a world is far more difficult than it sounds. It consumes an enormous amount of processing power. In the end, the caster's processing power alone isn't enough, so they usually borrow the imagination of the person suffering the hallucination to create it.
“Simply put, the caster only feeds the victim a message saying, ‘From now on, you are going to school.’ After that, the victim's mind imagines itself going to school. That is the true nature of the power to manipulate hallucinations. Do you understand?”
“I understand. I think I already knew that.”
“In other words, hallucinations are similar to making a person dream while awake. So when someone caught in one begins to doubt it, it's bound to break apart. After all, the person caught in the hallucination is the one who created it.”
“Then if I'm already doubting it, why isn't this hallucination breaking?”
“There are two possibilities. First, the theory I mentioned only applies when the caster of the hallucination lacks sufficient processing power. If the caster's abilities are so transcendent that they can endlessly feed in information simulating a real world regardless of the victim's imagination, there's no way to wake up whether the victim recognizes the hallucination or not.
“Think of VR devices as a similar example. The technology is still imperfect, but every visual image shown by a VR device is created through the device's own processing, completely unrelated to the user's imagination. Would anything change if you wore a VR device and shouted, ‘Everything I'm seeing is fake!’?”
“If that's the case, it feels like I have no way to wake up at all...”
“Honestly, that would be a hopeless case. If the caster were such a transcendent being, even if you woke from the hallucination, they could crush you to death with a fingernail.”
“There's no answer if that's the possibility, so let's rule it out. What's the second assumption?”
“That you still lack certainty. The human mind is complex. Part of you has awakened and begun doubting reality, but deep down, don't you still believe this place is real?
“Or perhaps you want it to be real. According to your explanation, the true reality seems to be a desperate situation racing toward the end of the world. There are plenty of reasons you might not want to wake up.”
I thought I had awakened, but perhaps deep down, I still hadn't fully awakened.
Or perhaps some part of me still yearned to remain in this place.
It seemed I ultimately had to convince myself.
I quietly stood and looked out the window.
The department head, who had been observing me, spoke again.
“I just had an idea.”
“An idea?”
“If this world really is a place where the happy ideal you imagined has been realized, then it won't be able to properly realize anything you cannot imagine. The more terrible and unhappy the thing you imagine, the harder it will be to create.”
Something terrible and unhappy to imagine. One answer came to me without difficulty.
I asked one final question.
“Aren't you afraid? If this entire world is fake, like I said, then you're nothing but a fake too.”
“What is there to fear? There are two possibilities. You may be mad, or this world may truly be your dream or hallucination. If you are mad, I have no reason to be afraid. If this world is your dream, then I too am a part of you.
“Didn't Descartes say, ‘I think, therefore I am’? Even if this entire world is fake, the you who thinks is real. And since I was created by that real person's imagination, I too am part of you. There is no reason to fear.”
He was a truly difficult person to understand. I could sense that vaguely.
If this entire world was an illusion created by my mind, then outside it, there had to be a real person who had become the basis for my imagined Department Head Park.
The real Department Head Park must also have been a truly difficult person to understand.
There had been progress. Through that long conversation in this place, I'd learned the true way to wake up.
Something terrible and unhappy that I could never imagine could not be properly created in this world.
I had found the answer to that “something.”
Footnotes:
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