WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 159: Room 201, Curse Room - ‘The Cube’ (8)

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[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)

Date: Day 82

Current Location: Level 1, Room 105, Rest Room

Sage’s Advice: 1]

- Han Ga-in

For a long time, we tossed around ideas for safely entering through the ‘Research Lab route.’

Eun-sol suggested going in while invisible using the power of her badge, while Jin-cheol suggested closing his eyes and running like mad.

Song-i was sure the bracelet's mental protection would work. A-ri thought she could endure it, though she'd have to lose a great deal of blood.

There were also more unusual ideas, like dressing in white lab coats like the researchers or, in the most extreme case, removing our own eyes once we got inside.

A variety of ideas came up, but in the end, we reached one conclusion.

There was no way to know whether any of them would work without trying.

We didn't even know what kind of being was at the root of that madness, so it couldn't be helped.

At that point, Eun-sol offered an entirely different perspective.

“Let's split the party.”

“What? What do you...”

“Didn't we talk about this before? Don't put all your eggs in one basket. When you're doing something extremely dangerous where failure means death, spreading the risk is basic. What if we all go into the TV and none of the methods we came up with work? We'd all die right then.”

She had a point. There was no need for every one of us to take a route where failure practically meant instant death.

“So some of us will take the Research Lab route through the TV, and the rest will follow the original plan?”

Song-i asked with a blank look on her face.

“Did we have an original plan?”

“We never decided on one exactly, but securing the Escape Route first is usually our plan. If I summarize everything I've heard so far, it goes something like this. We keep going through the rooms inside the Cube, and if we find a room where we can escape, we stop progressing. If we wait there, a notification saying ‘Move!’ appears in one of the mirrors. Behind that mirror is both the Escape Route and the place where the demon girl is waiting.”

Grandpa Mook-seong drew the conclusion.

“We conserve as much of our strength as possible until we reach that point, then have a go at the demon. One person escapes while the rest of us fight.”

Jin-cheol replied uneasily.

“But don't we have to fight that demon to secure the Escape Route in the first place? Isn't it risky to split our strength if we're going to fight it anyway and send some people down the Research Lab route?”

Eun-sol answered in a slightly bitter tone.

“That's easy. We send the people with less combat power to the Research Lab. Honestly, would I be much help against that demon girl from the mirror? The butterfly probably wouldn't mean much either. It has an obvious weakness, after all.”

Song-i looked curious.

“The butterfly had a weakness? I was impressed when it knocked out that gorilla in one hit.”

Eun-sol snickered, opened her brooch, and summoned the butterfly.

“Whooo!”

When she blew at it, the butterfly couldn't keep its balance, as if it had been caught in a typhoon.

“See? It's still just an insect. You can stop it from getting anywhere near you just by blowing on it. That gorilla only got hit because it suddenly got sentimental for no reason and slowly reached out its hand.”

Grandpa Mook-seong said something similar.

“I agree. The moment it treated bullets like BB pellets, there was nothing I could do against that girl either.”

Jin-cheol, who had the Star, A-ri, who could use Old Blood, Song-i, who had the bracelet, and Elena, who had Justice. Those four seemed like they could fight the demon.

Seung-yeop would have trouble joining the fight, but he seemed perfect for securing the escape while those four fought.

We split into the ‘Research Lab Party,’ which would enter through the TV midway through the Cube and consisted of Lee Eun-sol and Kim Mook-seong, and the ‘Escape Party,’ which would continue through the Cube, fight the demon girl, and secure an escape, consisting of Kim A-ri, Park Seung-yeop, Elena, Yoo Song-i, and Cha Jin-cheol.

I felt that the party heading toward the Research Lab, which was connected to unsealing me, was too weak.

It was also unfortunate that Song-i and A-ri, who could resist the madness, wouldn't be there.

Still, there was no other choice. Since our lives were at stake, my companions put far more weight on securing an escape. I understood how they felt.

At last, we finished our rough discussion about how to handle the second attempt.

“Does anyone have anything else to say?”

...

Actually, I did.

Since yesterday, I'd heard how my companions had proceeded from a third-party perspective.

Maybe it was because I was one step removed, but the more I listened, the more I felt something was wrong.

It was because of the Hotel's Sealing, but I felt uncomfortable criticizing people who had fought desperately and returned while I couldn't properly participate, so I let it go yesterday.

But this was a matter of life and death.

In the end, I decided I had to say what needed to be said.

I did need to keep A-ri's earlier advice in mind, though.

“I have something to say. Before that... Seung-yeop?”

“Yes?”

“I'm sorry, but could you step outside for a moment? I want to talk about your blessing.”

The less Seung-yeop himself knew about Luck, the better.

Since he knew that too, he left without another word.

Everyone looked at me curiously.

“You may not have noticed while you were going through it, but since I wasn't participating and only heard your reports, I noticed a problem.”

Eun-sol already looked entertained.

“I like this. Sometimes you only see a problem when you take a step back.”

“Thank you. Haven't all of you been relying too much on Luck? For example, the rooms we've identified so far are the Mimic Room, the Dud Room, and the Escape Room, right? How can we tell them apart? There must be a way.”

“There must be. Elizabeth led us into the Dud Room because she could tell them apart.”

“But it seemed like, instead of finding a way to distinguish the rooms, you just told Seung-yeop to pick one. Isn't that why you so easily fell for Elizabeth's trap?”

Jin-cheol answered as if making an excuse.

“Well, after waiting only a little while in a room, ‘Move!’ appeared and rushed us. We didn't have time to properly look around.”

A-ri spoke too.

“We did look around for a moment. We just couldn't see any differences. Still, like you said, there must be a way to tell them apart. Otherwise, Elizabeth couldn't have fooled us.”

I offered a more forceful opinion.

“Besides that, there are plenty of things that don't add up. For example, is it really true that some rooms let us escape while others don't? Didn't you say the word ‘Move!’ appeared in the first room too? Maybe there was an Escape Route behind the mirror where those words appeared in the first room as well. So why did everyone naturally assume that only certain rooms could be escaped from?”

“Because Seung-yeop guided us for a long time, then fainted.”

“Right. Seung-yeop made it to the sixth room? Or the seventh? Then he fainted, and believing even that fainting spell was a kind of choice, A-ri examined the mirrors and found the Escape Route. But isn't that interpretation too dependent on hindsight? Maybe there was an Escape Route behind a mirror from the very first room.”

Everyone seemed to think for a moment. I continued.

“Our interpretation of Luck relies too much on hindsight. If even fainting was a choice made by Luck, then Seung-yeop not choosing faster before Elizabeth chose a room on her own could also be considered a choice. But nobody thinks of that as a choice made by Luck.”

A-ri, who had listened until then, answered.

“I get what you're saying. You're saying we're framing every event with a good result as ‘a choice made by Luck,’ while interpreting every bad result as ‘a choice unrelated to Luck,’ right?”

“That's right. Interpreting only the good outcomes as Luck's design makes Luck seem like an overly omnipotent ability, and we've come to rely on it more and more.”

Grandpa Mook-seong, who had been listening for a while, nodded.

“Listening to you, I thought of something too. We only learned through Elena's memories after escaping that there was a Research Lab behind the TV. If Luck were truly an almost omnipotent ability, shouldn't Seung-yeop have acted in a way that indicated something was inside the TV when deciding where to go next?”

Song-i answered with a troubled expression.

“But when Seung-yeop made his choices, he did avoid the Dud Room with that ridiculous monster, the gorilla.”

“Of course, Luck clearly contributed to that. I'm not saying Luck is meaningless.”

“Please make it easier to understand.”

“Put it this way. When you roll a die, the chance of getting a six is normally one in six, right? But when Seung-yeop showed off in front of us, he rolled it ten times and got a six almost seven times. That's clearly supernatural, and it's an incredible ability. But it isn't one hundred percent. He got other numbers at least three times.”

“So there are plenty of times when Luck malfunctions, making it hard to trust and follow without question?”

“It may have malfunctioned, or it may not have worked at all.”

After hearing that, A-ri let out a long sigh and summed it up.

“I thought this even inside the Cube, but interpreting Luck is exhausting. Depending on how you look at it, it can seem like an incredibly powerful reality-altering ability whose limits are impossible to know. To someone skeptical like you, it probably looks like a broken machine that malfunctions all the time.”

“...”

“This is a slightly different matter, but now I understand why Luck wasn't given to you, Ga-in.... It really doesn't suit an analytical person. Don't let Seung-yeop hear anything from this meeting. Merely hearing an analysis like yours from someone so skeptical would be harmful to Seung-yeop.”

“What am I, radioactive?”

Unlike A-ri, who seemed subtly unconvinced by what I said, Eun-sol took my side.

“Ga-in has a point too. On the second attempt, let's not choose the next room by relying only on Seung-yeop's picks. Let's also look for a way to distinguish the rooms. I think if we seriously beat Elizabeth up, we'll get something out of her. At the very least, that woman seemed able to tell the rooms apart.”

Eun-sol gave a simple conclusion to our long discussion about Luck.

‘Let's seriously beat Elizabeth up.’

The shock Eun-sol had received from the gorilla seemed immense, and she also seemed very angry at Elizabeth for leading everyone into the gorilla room.

After the morning meeting ended, Eun-sol organized the plan on the whiteboard.

1. After entering the Cube, interrogate Elizabeth and learn whatever information we can.

2. Proceed until we find the TV room. In the TV room, the Research Lab Party enters the TV and explores the Research Lab.

3. The Escape Party proceeds until the Escape Room. In the Escape Room, Seung-yeop escapes, and the rest try fighting the demon girl.

“Nothing else to say now, right?”

I thought about what to ask with today's final Sage’s Advice.

How to distinguish Dud Rooms within the Cube? A tip for lifting my Sealing? There were too many things I wanted to ask, making it difficult to choose.

Unlike me, whose questions were numerous, my companions had one clear question.

“Mr. Ga-in.”

“Ah, Elena?”

“You have advice left, right? Please ask if there's a tip for dealing with the demon.”

Everyone nodded and looked at me.

I was reminded again that the people who had experienced it firsthand were clearly different from me, who had only heard about it.

Ever since yesterday, I had been able to feel my companions' fear and wariness of the gorilla and the demon girl.

I had vaguely reassured myself that, since it had a human form, there would be no problem if Elena used Justice....

Did they think there was a chance they could still lose even with Justice?

“Of course.”

[Sage’s Advice: 1 -> 0]

‘Please give us advice for dealing with the demon girl behind the mirror.’

[Look to the Moon, Not the Finger]

“...”

“What is it?”

“It gave me that idiom you told me about earlier. ‘Look to the Moon, Not the Finger.’”

“Don't look at the part, look at the essence?”

“That's roughly what it means.”

After discussing the final piece of advice for a while, we headed to Room 201 once again.

Seeing everyone so tense made me tense too.

Would they be all right? This was my first time doing nothing but cheering people on.

After seeing everyone off in spirit with the strange feeling of being a parent sending their child to a college entrance exam, the second attempt began.

Footnotes:

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