WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 149: Rest and Reorganization (5)

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- Han Ga-in

As I sorted through my thoughts, a gravelly voice spoke up.

“Ahem. Hm. Let me say something first.”

“Please go ahead, Grandpa.”

“Strictly speaking, I’m not entirely neutral on this matter either. Still, I want to start by thanking you for trusting me enough to include me in this discussion. First, I’ll tell you what I know about Mi-ro, A-ri’s mother.

“You may have already guessed it, but Mi-ro was a far more senior agent than I was. Unlike me, an ordinary human, she was clearly superhuman even before entering the hotel. Her overall physical abilities, including strength, agility, and stamina, surpassed human limits, and she possessed a wide range of supernatural powers as well.”

Jin-cheol asked a question.

“Listening to this makes me curious. Where did those superhuman abilities come from? If she was already superhuman before entering the hotel, did the Management Bureau give her those powers? But I thought A-ri said the Management Bureau had no way to grant supernatural abilities.”

“The Management Bureau has no such method. I’ll give you the same answer I gave then. If the Management Bureau could grant supernatural abilities, why would I be an ordinary person? Naturally, even a veteran agent like me would have gained powers. I don’t know how Mi-ro became superhuman. A-ri might know.”

Eun-sol asked next.

“What was she like as a person? I heard she’s mentally like a child now.”

“I heard she was somewhat self-righteous by nature and tended to look down on ordinary people. Still, she wasn’t without ethics, and she did have the basic desire to protect the world as an agent. Of course, I don’t know how meaningful that information is when analyzing Mi-ro after she entered the hotel.”

She had already been superhuman, separate from any powers granted by the hotel. By nature, she was somewhat self-righteous but did not cross certain lines.

I felt like I had a rough grasp of her character.

By then, I had organized my own thoughts as well, so I gave my opinion.

“If we’re going to resurrect someone else, I think we need to consider two factors. The first is ability, obviously. It has to be someone who can help us. The second is controllability. The person we resurrect needs to be someone we can control in our current state.”

“Controllability...”

“Is there anyone among the people we’re considering resurrecting whom we know well? No. Even our information about Mi-ro is fragmentary, and we know nothing at all about the others. We can’t know whom we can trust until we resurrect them. But we can judge, to some extent, whom we can control.”

Eun-sol replied.

“So someone too strong would be a burden.”

“That’s what I wanted to say. We’d have trouble controlling someone excessively powerful. Song-i, do you think we could control Estavio?”

Song-i immediately answered firmly.

“Absolutely not. Even now, I sometimes dream about Estavio slaughtering many of the aliens in that facility by himself. I think he must have been powerful even among the Athanasia. If he suddenly attacked us, he might be able to kill all of us by himself.”

“Then let’s exclude someone like Estavio. We can consider it again in the distant future, if we become much stronger than we are now.”

Elena looked somewhat disappointed.

“If someone that strong were with us, we could practically breeze through almost every trial!”

Eun-sol seemed to have made up her mind as she answered decisively.

“That’s what we think. The resurrected Estavio might think differently. He might decide the best option is to slaughter all the stupid apes, take every Inheritance for himself, and clear the hotel alone. He’s an alien to begin with, and an alien who used humans as livestock at that. We can’t predict his way of thinking at all. Exclude him.”

Jin-cheol spoke up cautiously.

“By that standard of ‘controllability,’ doesn’t Mi-ro also have to be out?”

“At least Mi-ro is in a better position than Estavio. I think A-ri can control her, at minimum.”

Song-i spoke uneasily.

“If we try to resurrect someone other than Mi-ro, won’t A-ri fiercely oppose it? What if a fight breaks out among us?”

...

Everyone fell silent at those words.

--- Click!

The door opened, and a clear voice broke the silence.

“Don’t you think you’re treating me like too much of a child?”

“Ahh!”

“Cough!”

A-ri had suddenly barged in!

Everyone startled and looked at Grandpa Mook-seong in confusion.

He waved both hands in surprise.

“It wasn’t me! Not me! I didn’t send her a private message!”

A-ri giggled for a moment before cutting in.

“Don’t misunderstand. This hotel doesn’t have hundreds of people, only eight. If everyone except me suddenly disappeared somewhere, wouldn’t it be normal to find that strange? Wasn’t this a pretty sloppy conspiracy?”

We had been carrying out such a sloppy conspiracy that we could only lower our heads in embarrassment.

If we were going to hold a secret meeting, we should have at least made sure not to get caught!

In the awkward silence, Song-i asked,

“Um... how much did you hear?”

“From what you said. The part where you said that if we resurrected someone other than Mi-ro, I might fiercely oppose it and a fight could break out.”

In the end, we told A-ri about everything we had discussed before that.

Jin-cheol’s opinion that we should save the ticket for ourselves.

Grandpa Mook-seong’s brief explanation of Mi-ro.

The standards I had suggested, ability and controllability.

A-ri listened quietly, then shared her thoughts.

“I don’t think Jin-cheol’s opinion means much. The greatest threat in this hotel is the Curse Room, right? By their nature, Curse Rooms only end in total annihilation or everyone surviving. There’s no possibility that only a few people die while the rest make it out alive.”

“I thought about that too. As you say, if we only consider Curse Rooms, saving the ticket for ourselves has no meaning. If someone dies, it will mean everyone has been wiped out, and there’ll be no one left to use the ticket. But Curse Rooms aren’t the hotel’s only danger. There are rooms like Mission Rooms, where we can give up if it becomes too difficult even after casualties have already occurred, and the hotel itself sometimes holds special events.”

A-ri immediately countered.

“Not every threat is a Curse Room, but about ninety percent of them are. There was only one Mission Room on the entire floor, and we don’t even know whether there’ll be one on the second floor. The hotel’s special events don’t normally happen if we do nothing but keep entering Curse Rooms. Focus on the greatest threat, the Curse Room. Increasing our numbers and strengthening our forces means we can clear Curse Rooms more easily, which reduces the danger.”

Eun-sol cut in.

“Let’s stop there with the discussion about whether to save the ticket. We’ll discuss it again after finding the Resurrection Room. If one of us has died by then, naturally, one of our own will be the top priority for resurrection.”

“So we’re talking on the assumption that we resurrect someone else?”

“Yes. Honestly, I asked because I wanted to hear your opinion in that case.”

A-ri glanced around at the others before answering.

“My opinion is similar to what Ga-in said. Ability and controllability. Those are good terms too. I think everyone has one misunderstanding about me, though. I’m not going to insist that the first ticket absolutely must be used on Mi-ro.”

???

For a moment, everyone was surprised.

She didn’t plan to insist that we use it on her mother?

While everyone was flustered, Eun-sol caught the word “first.”

“The first ticket... You think there’ll be more tickets? Since we can get several, you’re not going to obsess over using the first one to resurrect Mi-ro? As long as we resurrect her before leaving the hotel?”

Jin-cheol quickly asked as well.

“Is that based on your past experience too?”

“It’s unclear. We didn’t get any more tickets then. Still, people said there were other ways to obtain them.”

A-ri gave several grounds for her speculation afterward. The ticket had multiple possible uses, and there were vague memories from the past.

I decided to get a more definite answer.

[Sage’s Advice: 3 -> 2]

‘Can we get more tickets?’

[There is a Gate Room on the second floor as well.]

It was the Owl’s usual indirect way of speaking. Still, I immediately understood the meaning of that answer.

We could obtain another ticket as a reward from the second-floor Gate Room.

At the same time, I understood the basis of A-ri’s vague speculation about the past.

According to things A-ri had mentioned from time to time, there had been someone with Wisdom back then too.

That person must have asked the Owl directly and received the same answer as me.

Still, since their party had been falling apart, the information probably hadn’t been properly shared. I guessed the others had merely watched the owner of Wisdom and formed vague guesses.

I didn’t need to do that. I immediately told everyone the Owl’s answer.

There were other ways to obtain tickets, so there was no need to insist on using the first one to revive Mi-ro.

I understood A-ri’s thinking. As the tension eased slightly, A-ri continued.

“I think Ga-in’s standards, ability and controllability, are quite appropriate. If we classify the candidates by those standards, only one person is left. First, Mr. Cha Seung-jin, who saved Seung-yeop. I’m sorry, but I don’t think we desperately need him in terms of ability.

“Estavio, and regrettably, my mother Mi-ro too, have problems when it comes to controllability. There’s no need to explain the transcendentally powerful alien, and my mother is the same. I can’t stay by her side twenty-four hours a day. Once we eliminate those three, only one person remains, right?”

In the end, the person I had been considering inwardly remained.

Someone with extraordinary healing abilities that would be immensely useful to us, but without overwhelming combat strength beyond our ability to control.

The Doctor, Kim Sang-hyeon.

On the fifth day of our vacation, the conclusion of the resurrection discussion at the cocktail bar was that if we were to resurrect someone, the Doctor would be the most suitable first choice.

* * *

- Lee Eun-sol

After the discussion ended, everyone left the cocktail bar one by one.

...

The only people left at the bar were A-ri and me. A-ri asked with a cagey air.

“Did you have something to say? You signaled for me to stay, so I did.”

“Yeah. There are a few things I want to ask.”

“What are they?”

“I need to talk to you about your eye too, but I’ll ask this first. Your attitude toward Mi-ro. It was so different from what I expected.”

“...”

“What you said earlier was very logical. That’s why it felt strange. You love your mother enough to return to this hotel despite knowing exactly how dangerous it is, right? The fact that you’re so calm when it comes to resurrecting someone you love that much is strange in itself. If you’re hiding something, just tell me. Isn’t it about time you cured that compulsive secret-making syndrome?”

Footnotes:

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