WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 160: Room 201, Curse Room - ‘The Cube’ (9)

──────

- Second Attempt, Kim A-ri

“Team Leader Elizabeth, this is Hesbeth Mansion.”

“Hmm. Hundreds of people have already died in a place like this?”

“At this rate, it’ll be thousands by next year.”

“Isn’t that why we came? Let’s go in.”

--- Clunk!

“What was that sound?”

“Team Leader Elizabeth! The door’s locked!”

“What are you talking about? Contact Headquarters!”

“What? What’s going on? The signal’s gone!”

--- Beeeeeep!

My mind cleared as a signal rang through my head.

Unlike the first attempt, none of my companions were flailing around.

Instead, the Chat Window immediately flashed.

Lee Eun-sol: Capturing the first mansion.

While Eun-sol captured images of the first mansion with her eyes for the later game of spot-the-difference, I stalled Elizabeth by pretending to panic over the sudden loss of communication.

As expected, it began soon after.

“Argh!”

“Oliver? What is it?”

“L-look at this!”

Just as expected. Clear blood-red letters appeared on the huge mirror hanging on the wall.

Go down.

Ga-in had suggested breaking the mirror with those words on it in the first mansion, hadn’t he?

There might be an Escape Route behind it too.

It was worth trying. We were prepared to fight the demon girl if necessary, and we were stronger than ever now.

Kim A-ri: Seung-yeop. Get beside the mirror. Prepare to escape.

Park Seung-yeop: Yes.

I watched Elizabeth as I aimed my gun at the mirror.

Elizabeth barely reacted. If anything, she seemed to be wondering why I hadn’t shot it already.

Thinking of the Management Bureau agents’ response protocols, shooting first and throwing grenades at somewhere that seemed strange was perfectly normal.

Agents weren’t horror movie protagonists. They didn’t enter strange places unarmed. Guns and bombs worked on more than ninety percent of the Chaos Entities on Earth.

--- Bang! Crash!

The mirror shattered with a loud crash.

...

There was only an ordinary wall behind it. Ga-in’s prediction had been wrong on that point.

We couldn’t escape directly from the first room. Only certain rooms allowed escape.

The first room had only one exit anyway, so there was no need to decide where to go. We headed through the underground passage.

* * *

We entered the second mansion.

Unless something had changed, this mansion’s monster was hiding in the carpet.

Lee Eun-sol: The living room carpet has changed shape. The monster is here.

Just like before, the second mansion’s monster was in the carpet.

Now it truly began.

Mook-seong and Jin-cheol casually moved behind Elizabeth.

It wasn’t time yet. We needed to confirm a few things.

Elizabeth opened her mouth.

“Go check the living room.”

We headed toward the living room as instructed, looking around without getting too close to the carpet.

After a while, Elizabeth grew impatient and spoke again.

“You there! Stop chatting and search more diligently.”

“Ah, yes, Team Leader. Sorry.”

“Check the floor too.”

She was clearly referring to the carpet. That was enough. We had confirmed two things.

First, Elizabeth knew where the monster was.

Second, she intended to get rid of Oliver along with us.

Jin-cheol immediately shoved Elizabeth hard toward the carpet as though it had been an accident.

Elizabeth was so startled she nearly fainted. She hurriedly staggered back and immediately pulled out her gun!

But she was too late.

“Didn’t Grandma tell you? You mustn’t step on the carpet with your shoes on!”

The monster sprang from the carpet and grabbed Elizabeth’s legs with both hands.

“Shut your mouth.”

Before it could do anything, Jin-cheol grabbed the monster by the scruff of its neck and simply dragged it out with brute force.

The monster that emerged from the carpet was quite grotesque.

Its upper body resembled an elderly human woman, but its lower body was nothing but random masses of flesh jutting out.

As though it were nothing, Jin-cheol pried open the old-woman monster’s mouth, summoned the Star, and shoved it inside.

Before three seconds had passed, the old-woman monster had become a bizarre mass of writhing soil, metal, and flesh.

“Hey, Team Leader. You should be more careful.”

“Cha Jin-cheol! I should be saying that! You suddenly shoved me-”

“If it weren’t for me, that monster would’ve dragged you across the floor and killed you. Doesn’t that make you feel grateful?”

“... I am grateful for that. But be more careful with your actions as well.”

“I plan to be. Now we need to subdue the most dangerous one.”

“What are you-”

--- Clunk!

Jin-cheol immediately seized Elizabeth with both hands.

Mook-seong rushed in and stripped off her helmet and bulletproof vest, while Eun-sol tied her to a chair with the sturdy rope she had prepared.

Naturally, someone didn’t stay still through all this.

“What are you all doing? What is this?”

Oliver rushed at us in shock, but Song-i subdued him with a few flicks of her fingers.

Second attempt. We had subdued both NPCs.

Once things settled down, Song-i came over.

“A-ri, what should we do with Oliver?”

“I don’t know. He doesn’t seem to be on Elizabeth’s side. Elizabeth tried to feed Oliver to the monsters along with us. Still, that doesn’t mean he’s trustworthy.”

The others gathered around the restrained Elizabeth, murmuring among themselves.

Before entering the Cube, everyone had looked ready to torture Elizabeth, but that wasn’t something just anyone could do on command.

Besides, there was no need for such crude methods.

“Hold her tight. I need to maintain eye contact for quite a while.”

“I’ve got her.”

While they held Elizabeth so she couldn’t close her eyes, I locked eyes with her for about three minutes and used the strongest Suggestion I could manage.

“Good! You’re ready to answer properly now, right?”

“...”

“First question. How do we safely get to the Research Lab?”

“What do you mean?”

“The space beyond the display in the room with the TV. How do we get there safely?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

I briefly turned to check Elena.

Elena immediately made an O with her hand. It meant Elizabeth was telling the truth.

Elizabeth wasn’t resisting my Suggestion and lying.

“Let me change the question. A companion is trapped somewhere. The surroundings are completely white, and people in white clothes walk around there. Do you know the place?”

“Are you talking about Headquarters?”

“Good. Let’s use the word you like, ‘Headquarters.’ The space beyond the TV is Headquarters, right?”

“That’s right.”

“How do we get there safely?”

“I don’t know what you mean. What danger are you talking about?”

Her answer was practically asking what danger there could possibly be when there was none.

Elizabeth herself sounded frustrated as she answered. We kept talking past each other.

Song-i pressed her impatiently from beside me.

“Can’t you just tell her to say everything she knows about the Cube?”

Mook-seong, who understood Suggestion, stopped her.

“If you ask a question like that, she’ll just give endlessly disordered answers. We need to be specific.”

“Everyone else, be quiet. Elizabeth, explain how to get to Headquarters through the TV.”

“Turn on the TV while wearing earplugs. Pass through the screen with your eyes closed, then walk straight for roughly 200 meters. You will arrive at Isolation Facility 13-4 inside Headquarters.”

... Wasn’t that answer a little strange?

The others began chattering happily at the easier-than-expected solution.

Jin-cheol spoke first.

“Wait, all we had to do was close our eyes?”

Song-i gave a hollow laugh.

“That’s ridiculously easy. Wow! I thought we’d need some amazingly creative solution.”

Elena looked unconvinced.

“It’s such an overwhelming being that even seeing it can mess with your mind. Can closing your eyes really be enough?”

Seung-yeop was happy even in the middle of this.

“Earplugs! It’s similar to the solution I thought of, right? Right? Muting it or wearing earplugs, it’s the same principle! We just don’t listen to the TV.”

Mook-seong sighed and praised him.

“Yes. Good job, good job. Still, it’s strange... Closing your eyes shouldn’t be enough against such a transcendent being.”

Elena looked confused.

“I agree with you, but Elizabeth isn’t lying.”

Something was strange. I’d felt something off about her answer just now.

There was an important fact hidden in that answer, one Elizabeth herself didn’t recognize.

But I didn’t have time to calmly think it over.

“Sis! Ask her about the demon girl! Ask what she is.”

“I’ll ask, so be quiet. Elizabeth, if we pass through this mansion several times, we’ll eventually find a mansion with a mirror connected to the outside, right?”

“That’s right.”

“There’s an incredibly powerful being behind that mirror, right?”

“Are you referring to Lady Beatrix?”

“Beatrix? What is she?”

“...”

“What is she?”

“You’re quite talented. Is that powerful hypnosis?”

My Suggestion suddenly broke!

There was no warning at all. Before I could react, Elizabeth’s entire body became opaque, then twisted grotesquely.

--- Grrrk!

Her skin rippled sickeningly as though it were made of piano keys. Elizabeth suddenly displayed immense strength, tearing apart all the ropes and breaking free.

Jin-cheol immediately rushed over and grabbed her.

The next moment, a tongue as thick as a human forearm shot from Elizabeth’s mouth like a frog’s tongue and flew toward the wall to the left of the clock hanging in the mansion.

“What? She isn’t attacking us, so why is she suddenly aiming at the wall-”

--- Rumble!

The wall her tongue struck collapsed. An unknown button had been hidden behind it.

The moment we saw it, everyone’s faces went pale.

She’d pulled some kind of trick!

At that point, I gave up on questioning Elizabeth any further.

“Cha Jin-cheol! Kill her!”

Jin-cheol immediately snapped Elizabeth’s neck with both hands. Apparently thinking that wasn’t enough, he briefly summoned the Star and turned her already hideous body into a solid lump of stone.

--- Rumble! Crash!

The entire mansion shook. Something horrible was about to happen.

“Everyone, this way!”

We all ran toward the back door at Seung-yeop’s urgent shout.

Ah, we were following Seung-yeop’s pick again.

There was no other choice now. Let’s just pray it wasn’t a Dud Room.

Right before we closed the back door, I saw something absurd break through the wall and come after us.

I didn’t feel any need to look more closely. I shut the back door and ran to the next mansion.

* * *

- Kim A-ri

“Gasp, gasp, gasp. Is everyone okay?”

Everyone was breathing hard, but no one seemed seriously hurt.

Ugh! What a waste. I still had so many questions to ask!

I couldn’t understand it. I knew Elizabeth could turn invisible, but she could transform into a monster too?

She hadn’t used that power even when fighting us during the first attempt.

And she could break Suggestion as well! What was she?

Oliver, who had been freed from Song-i’s restraint during the chaos, was panting beside us too.

Everyone’s gaze naturally turned to Oliver.

“W-what is it? I’m not a spy.”

Elena nodded, and Mook-seong calmly answered after confirming it.

“We think so too. Elizabeth was trying to harm you as well.”

“I didn’t know earlier. I never imagined Elizabeth was a spy. A traitor. Something like that. How did you all know? And what are you talking about when you mention the TV and Headquarters?”

It was hard to answer. Since we outnumbered him anyway, Mook-seong simply brushed it aside.

“Do I need to explain everything to you for three nights and four days in a place like this? We’ll explain in detail once we get out. More importantly, don’t you have something to tell us?”

Oliver answered fearfully, especially wary of Jin-cheol.

“If I have something to say... The only word I understood from your conversation with Elizabeth was ‘Beatrix.’”

!!!

Wait, he understood the most important word? I immediately ran over.

“What? Tell me everything you know about Beatrix. Don’t leave out a single word.”

Jin-cheol smiled pleasantly and put a hand on Oliver’s shoulder. Chunks of flesh from when he had torn apart the old-woman monster still clung to his hand.

“You should avoid having any strange ideas. I’m saying this for your sake.”

Oliver trembled all over and began answering miserably.

“Beatrix, or more precisely Chaos Entity 1283, ‘Ominous Imagination,’ is her official designation. Long ago, she was the Arizona Branch’s greatest achievement under the command of Chief Researcher Han Ga-in. There were even people who said that if the Management Bureau could fully control her abilities, she would be the ultimate weapon for protecting the world. That’s why Beatrix’s rampage and Chief Researcher Han Ga-in’s disappearance could only be called an enormous tragedy...”

Footnotes:

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