Escaping the Mystery Hotel - Chapter 155

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 154: Room 201, Curse Room - ‘□ □□’ (3)

──────

- Kim A-ri

Amid the confusion, Seung-yeop spoke up hesitantly.

“Should I choose the next route again? I got it wrong once already. Should I use my active skill? It’s available right now.”

“From now on, let’s call that active skill ‘Heavenly Luck.’ Don’t use Heavenly Luck. Its cooldown is ridiculously long.”

Mook-seong agreed.

“Heavenly Luck? What a name.... Anyway, Seung-yeop, they call Heavenly Luck an active skill, but isn’t it really automatic? It activates on its own whenever it’s absolutely necessary. It activated by itself during Strange Family, and at Hotel High, you got a notification asking whether you wanted to use it. Just wait. If it’s needed, it’ll activate on its own.”

Now that he mentioned it, that was true.

Luck’s active skill, which we’d decided to call Heavenly Luck from now on, wasn’t really an active skill when I thought about it.

It activated on its own whenever there was danger. If it seemed necessary, it even suggested that its owner use it. What a strange skill.

Even its cooldown was arbitrary. It was definitely extremely long, but Seung-yeop himself didn’t know exactly how long.

It felt different every time.

It was nothing new, but Luck was the hardest blessing to understand out of all of ours.

In the end, Seung-yeop chose the next route again. This time, the back entrance.

We called Elizabeth over and headed to the back entrance together.

Then we set out for the fourth mansion.

While walking through the underground passage, Song-i sighed.

“It’s a little late to bring this up, but where do you think Pero is?”

Mook-seong, who was walking beside her, nudged her to tell her to use the Chat Window. Only then did Song-i close her mouth.

... Honestly, I didn’t think it mattered.

Unless Elizabeth was an idiot, there was no way she hadn’t figured out by now that we were hiding something and had a way to communicate among ourselves.

Elizabeth had already seen Mook-seong’s glove and Jin-cheol’s Star among the abilities our party had revealed in that short time.

It must have looked strange from the outside, the way we acted as though we could read each other’s minds despite never saying a word.

Yet Elizabeth had never questioned us even once.

...

Should I shoot her from behind?

Like us, she was wearing full-body bulletproof armor and a helmet, so I couldn’t kill her instantly.

She was a trained agent, so she would resist. But we had Cha Jin-cheol.

I seriously considered killing her right now.

I shifted my gun slightly toward Elizabeth-

Lee Eun-sol: A-ri, stop.

Kim A-ri: She’s suspicious.

Lee Eun-sol: What do you mean?

Kim Mook-seong: Calm down!

Let’s watch her a little longer. Aren’t Curse Rooms basically structured to be cleared through multiple attempts?

Rather than getting rid of someone immediately because they seemed dangerous, we needed to observe her and find out what the secret was.

Another concern came to mind.

We were supposedly a group with all kinds of supernatural abilities, but was she really just an ordinary human?

Since she was a Management Bureau agent, we couldn’t let our guard down around her combat ability either.

I relaxed a little. The subject Song-i had brought up earlier began appearing in the Chat Window.

Kim Mook-seong: Pero missing from the start.

Yoo Song-i: First time this has happened.

Park Seung-yeop: Somewhere else, like Ga-in?

Kim A-ri: Could the location itself be a clue?

--- Click!

Elizabeth, who had been leading the way, opened the door to the fourth mansion.

Tension filled the air again, and the Chat Window went silent.

Where was Pero now?

* * *

After experiencing the first three mansions, we came up with a hypothesis about this trial.

It was a kind of spot-the-difference game.

Each repeating mansion had one difference.

There was always a monster hidden in that difference. After a certain amount of time passed, it would attack.

That was why, the moment we entered the fourth mansion through the front entrance, we searched every inch of the place with our eyes wide open.

The first three times, we’d been helpless because we had no idea what was going on. This time was different because we had a strategy.

Eun-sol, who possessed powerful eyes, found the difference almost immediately.

“Over there! The tree in the living room! It’s a different species.”

We couldn’t make the same mistake we had when we lost Elena.

Mook-seong and Jin-cheol immediately fired at the tree.

--- Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

After four or five shots struck it in rapid succession, something strange happened.

The tree began bleeding like an animal, then sank into the floor and vanished.

...

After that, no other strange phenomena occurred in the fourth mansion.

At last, we had figured out one correct response.

After taking a moment to catch her breath, Eun-sol gave an order through the Chat Window.

Lee Eun-sol: Seung-yeop. Next room.

Park Seung-yeop: Every room I choose has a monster in it. Can’t someone else choose instead of me?

Lee Eun-sol: Save words. No one blames you. Just choose.

It was true.

None of us were foolish enough to resent Seung-yeop just because a monster appeared in a room he chose.

We had no idea how to choose properly anyway, so we had to guess. There was no reason someone else’s guess would be any better.

Still, monsters kept appearing in the rooms he chose, and Seung-yeop seemed badly shaken.

“Okay! Everyone, this way!”

Elizabeth’s voice, unexpectedly deep for a woman, rang out.

Everyone turned in surprise and saw Elizabeth opening the back entrance.

Cha Jin-cheol hurried over to persuade her.

“Team leader, please wait a moment. We should discuss where to go first-”

“Discuss? Have you actually discussed anything so far? That child just keeps choosing, and monsters keep appearing in every room we enter.”

For a moment, no one could say anything.

We had exchanged opinions through the Chat Window, but from Elizabeth’s perspective, it must have looked like everyone stood around silently before following whichever direction a child picked.

If Elizabeth had been trustworthy and the situation had been calm, we might have listened to what she had to say.

Honestly, we didn’t have that kind of leeway right now.

Kim A-ri: This feels wrong. Let’s kill Elizabeth here.

Cha Jin-cheol: All of a sudden?

Kim Mook-seong: An impulsive judgment, not like you.

Lee Eun-sol: What’s wrong with you? You’ve been like this since earlier.

Yoo Song-i: Calm down.

They were all against it. And Song-i was using English even though she was poor at it!

I let out a small sigh. I understood why they opposed it.

My reasons for finding Elizabeth suspicious were that she kept acting independently and barely reacted even after seeing our supernatural abilities.

Her acting alone could be explained as her searching in her own way. And considering she was a Management Bureau agent, not reacting much to supernatural powers wasn’t especially strange either.

Thinking rationally, it was only natural that I would look strange for suddenly wanting to kill Elizabeth just because she had a different opinion.

The reason I kept suspecting Elizabeth was....

It was intuition! Intuition!

Even if you added up all your experience with these demonic events, you still wouldn’t have as much as I do!

Experienced police officers could sense something suspicious just by watching a passerby’s behavior.

In the same way, my instincts had been warning me since earlier that there was something off about that woman.

Perhaps Elizabeth sensed the subtle tension between us, because she made a conciliatory offer.

“If anyone thinks another route is better, speak up. Let’s exchange opinions properly. Stop letting a child choose whatever they want.”

Nobody answered.

We weren’t choosing routes through logical reasoning in the first place, so we couldn’t think of anything persuasive to say.

And regardless, it was true that monsters had appeared consecutively in the rooms Seung-yeop chose.

Everyone seemed to be considering a different approach.

Something was strange.

Even if he hadn’t used Heavenly Luck, wasn’t Seung-yeop the kind of person who proudly showed off by rolling sixes over and over?

Of course, he hadn’t rolled a six every time then either. It was still a matter of probability.

Still, he was definitely lucky, so getting two wrong answers in a row felt odd.

The simple explanation was that he had become psychologically intimidated, and his blessing couldn’t function normally.

But what if we looked at it another way?

What if Seung-yeop had been picking the right answers?

What if the assumption that he was choosing wrong because every room contained a monster was itself wrong?

My thoughts became tangled again.

We walked through the familiar underground passage via the back entrance and headed for the next mansion.

As always, there was a door at the end of the passage leading to the next mansion.

Elizabeth opened it, and-

“You fucking idiots.”

At that moment, Elizabeth turned transparent and vanished!

“Argh! What is this?”

“What do you mean, what is this?! I told you we should kill that bitch!”

There wasn’t time to curse any more.

Beyond the door wasn’t another mansion. It was an enormous white space, and a gigantic gorilla stood in the center.

--- Graaaaaaah!

A roar that shook heaven and earth!

This room was a dud. Seung-yeop had been avoiding the duds all along!

The gorilla charged toward us at terrifying speed.

--- Bang! Ratatatatatat!

In an instant, everyone ran wildly in different directions while pulling their triggers.

Flames burst from gun barrels, and flashes exploded from bracelets.

Something unbelievable happened.

The bullets bounced off!

“Stop! Stop shooting! The bullets are ricocheting. We’re in even more danger!”

Dozens of shots had been fired in that brief moment, but they hadn’t even pierced the monster’s skin.

At least the bracelets were effective.

The gorilla seemed unable to find our positions and flailed around, then-

This time, it began swinging wildly in every direction!

Not even three seconds passed before the gorilla’s fist came flying toward Song-i.

--- Bang!

Seung-yeop threw himself forward to take the blow, then was embedded in the wall with a deafening crash!

Was he okay? He had a Protective Suit, so he wasn’t dead, right? I’ll hug him when we get out!

In the chaos, Song-i cried out in horror.

“Seung, Seung-yeop! What do we do? That gorilla is intelligent. It’s just swinging everywhere-”

--- Boom!

Cha Jin-cheol rushed at the gorilla from behind. He kicked off the floor so hard that the vibrations reached me.

At the same time, a violent wave erupted in front of Jin-cheol, accompanied by a sensation like something pressing against my skin.

Even a monster that could deflect bullets couldn’t withstand the Star, could it?

--- Gwaaaaaah!

Its reaction was clearly different!

In an instant, the Star began twisting the gorilla’s skin along its back. Ore burst from the monster’s back, and its flesh started splitting apart!

Mook-seong and I fired at the same time when we saw it.

This was different! As its skin twisted, it lost its distinctive, powerful defense.

As bullets burrowed into its body, the gorilla let out a groan of pain.

--- Bang!

“Argh!”

The next moment, a bullet flew in from empty air, and Song-i collapsed with a scream.

“Elizabeth!”

Elizabeth, hiding somewhere while transparent, had attacked Song-i!

She didn’t seem dead thanks to her full-body bulletproof armor, but armor couldn’t completely negate the power of a gun. The impact must have felt like being struck with a hammer.

Song-i crawled across the floor in agony. The gorilla, freed from the bracelet’s control, immediately regained its bearings and charged at Cha Jin-cheol.

--- Crash! Crash!

“Gah! What is this, fucking King Kong-”

Two seconds? Three?

The gorilla was faster at batting Cha Jin-cheol away with its fists than the Star was at killing it.

One exchange was enough to make it clear.

That monster’s physical strength far surpassed even Cha Jin-cheol. It really did resemble the gorilla from that movie, the one that wrestled dinosaurs.

The gorilla was even intelligent. It didn’t stop after throwing Cha Jin-cheol aside. It immediately jumped into the air-

It could jump like that with that body? Was it the Hulk?

I couldn’t bear to watch any longer. With an explosive boom that seemed to shake the world, Cha Jin-cheol became the thing that had once been Cha Jin-cheol.

It wasn’t without results.

While the gorilla brought its huge fists down on Cha Jin-cheol, he hadn’t even been able to fight back properly.

But the Star that had already been summoned steadily released waves from the Otherworld until just before Jin-cheol’s death.

Only a few seconds had passed, but in that brief time, more than half of the gorilla’s tough skin had become ragged flesh.

In this chaos, I...

Honestly, there was nothing I could do.

What was I supposed to do? Old Blood had various abilities, but none of them would work on that brute.

Walk up and hypnotize it? The gorilla would turn me into jelly faster than I could hypnotize it.

The one small relief was that once the gorilla regained its senses, Elizabeth had completely erased her presence and gone utterly silent.

Apparently, the gorilla had no intention of going easy on Elizabeth either.

Just as terror filled the area, a butterfly appeared in midair.

...