WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 161: Room 201, Curse Room - ‘The Cube’ (10)

──────

- Second Attempt, Kim A-ri

The moment everyone heard the words ‘Chief Researcher Han Ga-in,’ they froze.

He’d been under Sealing, yet he had a role within the scenario too?

Oliver continued.

“Honestly, I’ve only heard bits and pieces about the Arizona team myself, so I don’t know the details.”

“Quit rambling and explain.”

“Understood. Beatrix was discovered near North Carolina sometime in the 1990s. She had a bizarre ability from the very beginning.”

“What kind of ability?”

“It’s classified information, so I don’t know the exact details, but I heard she could create monsters. At the time of her discovery, though, the ability had many flaws, so the Management Bureau apparently tried to eliminate Beatrix rather than use her.”

“Flaws?”

“I heard she couldn’t control the monsters.”

I understood. If she could only create monsters without controlling them, she was practically a natural disaster. Far from being usable as a weapon, she should’ve been a top-priority target for elimination.

Mook-seong asked with interest, “Looks like they fixed that weakness?”

“I heard that was Chief Researcher Han Ga-in’s achievement. Through some method, he made it possible for Beatrix to control the monsters she created. But judging by the current situation, it seems serious problems remained.”

“He succeeded in letting Beatrix control monsters, but he himself couldn’t control Beatrix.”

“That seems to be the case.”

After thinking for a moment, Song-i asked, “Is creating monsters Beatrix’s only power? Doesn’t she have monstrous strength, enough to rip someone’s head off with her bare hands, or durability that lets her treat assault rifle fire like BB pellets?”

“What? As far as I know, apart from her power to create monsters, Beatrix herself is just a human girl.”

?

That was strange. The Beatrix we fought was so absurd that I wondered whether creating monsters was even a secondary ability.

She’d torn off my head with her bare hands. The physical strength that let her treat a barrage of assault rifle bullets like a refreshing shower sent chills down our spines.

Eun-sol answered as if it were nothing.

“Maybe her abilities were enhanced. Our Chief Researcher Han Ga-in must’ve worked very hard on his research.”

“Oh, come on. What on earth did Ga-in do? He made the enemy stronger!”

While the two joked around, Seung-yeop asked seriously, “Did Ga-in make Beatrix stronger? Before he entered the Hotel?”

A sigh escaped me, and I smacked the back of Seung-yeop’s head.

“Please be quiet for once. Oliver, do you know anything else?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Let’s move on, then. We should head to the TV room first. We can check the room’s rules while we’re at it.”

We all got up and decided to inspect the mansion.

Exactly five seconds later, something happened.

“Gyaaaah!”

Before we could stop him, Oliver said he was thirsty from talking so much and opened the refrigerator.

The living refrigerator decided that instead of storing food, it would store Oliver.

We hurriedly smashed the refrigerator, but in that brief moment, Oliver had turned into something like a well-aged frozen sausage.

“...”

“...”

Song-i looked dejected.

“He was an NPC, but he gave us a lot of information. I was hoping he wouldn’t die...”

“He lacks caution. We hadn’t even found the monster in this room yet.”

“... Oliver died first during the first attempt too, didn’t he? I thought Elizabeth had led him into a trap that time.”

Mook-seong sighed.

“He wasn’t the sort who’d live long, one way or another.”

Eun-sol shook her head.

“He picked the wrong career. People who make lots of mistakes should never work for the Management Bureau. Anyway, we’re busy. Let’s find the room’s rules quickly. Ga-in was right that relying only on Seung-yeop’s picks is unsettling.”

“As we discussed before, how about smashing the mansion with the Star?”

“We decided we’d fight Beatrix properly this time. It would take a while to destroy the entire mansion with the Star, so do we need to worsen your condition beforehand?”

“Hmm... I should think of another way.”

* * *

- Kim A-ri

It took about ten minutes of thoroughly searching the mansion before I realized something.

I had no idea. Wasn’t it impossible to learn where the mansion’s front door, back door, and basement door connected just by searching inside the mansion?

From experience, it felt like a message telling us to move would appear soon. I was curious what would happen if we ignored it, but...

Eun-sol, who was sitting beside me, suddenly spoke up.

“Maybe we can figure it out by analyzing the relationship between the doors we enter through and the doors we leave through?”

The door we entered through. The door we left through. I hadn’t thought of that.

Eun-sol and I carefully went over our memories of the first attempt and wrote everything down on paper.

At the first mansion, we heard the words Go down and went into the basement.

Then we entered through the front door of the second mansion.

A monster was hiding in the carpet of the second mansion. Elizabeth tried to lead us to the back door, but Seung-yeop chose to return through the front door of the second mansion.

Then we entered through the back door of the third mansion.

The third mansion was the TV room. After Elena killed herself there, Seung-yeop chose to return through the back door of the third mansion.

Then we entered through the front door of the fourth mansion. The trees were strange there.

At that point, Seung-yeop completely lost his confidence. Elizabeth led us to the back door of the fourth mansion, where we ran into the gorilla.

!!!

We found two rules!

At the very least, we could distinguish rooms with weak monsters from rooms with top-tier monsters like the gorilla-

--- Craaash!

What was that?

“Bwahaha! I knew this was right! Everyone, come over here!”

“Ha! You damn boar, I like you!”

Eun-sol and I were so startled that we ran toward the sound.

After taking the Protective Suit off Seung-yeop, Cha Jin-cheol had grabbed it and swung it wildly at the mansion, collapsing an outer wall.

Even the Hotel that had given us the Protective Suit probably hadn’t expected Cha Jin-cheol to use it as an indestructible hammer.

Beyond the collapsed outer wall was an opaque wall. Through it, we could vaguely see the other room connected by the passage.

“Ha! Wasn’t this the old man’s idea? Is that kind of instinct something you developed while getting knocked around at the Management Bureau?”

“When you know, you know. Isn’t it obvious?”

When had Cha Jin-cheol and Kim Mook-seong become so close? They were praising each other to the point of embarrassment, marveling at their own excellent judgment.

Beside them, Eun-sol folded the paper she’d been diligently writing on into a plane and threw it away with a hollow expression.

* * *

- Lee Eun-sol

--- Craaash! Rumble!

“Not this way. What’s that? Sis, what is that?”

“... It looks like an enormous snake. Maybe it’s a friend of the gorilla?”

--- Rumble!

“Oh! This way. Everyone, come over!”

This was comfortable.

I remembered how A-ri and I had wracked our brains to analyze the Cube’s rules earlier.

When we considered the positions of the doors we entered through and left through, along with Seung-yeop and Elizabeth’s choices, we did find several rules.

Thinking about it again, that had been a waste of time.

It was far easier and more reliable to just smash the walls and look directly into the next room.

Well, it wasn’t easy for me. It was easy for Jin-cheol.

I watched the movie Cube when I was young.

I vaguely remembered the characters fiercely racking their brains and studying the room’s rules involving prime numbers.

Thinking about it now, their problem was that they were too weak.

They could’ve just smashed through the walls with their fists and left, but they couldn’t, so they all died. What a pity.

After moving like this around four times, we arrived at the TV room.

“Wait! We’re here. Jin-cheol, come here for a moment before you break the wall.”

“Ah, have we arrived?”

“Yeah. You wouldn’t know because you’ve been smashing walls without checking anything.”

The TV would activate if we got close. There was no need for us to approach it ourselves.

Before long, Grandpa’s glove flew over and retrieved the remote near the TV.

Then, when we all approached the TV, it turned on as though it had been waiting for us.

/Se-/

The instant it made the sound “Se,” Grandpa pressed the mute button with the glove.

The display began to ripple. It was time to split the party.

“As planned, Grandpa and I will go through the TV.”

“Sis! Good luck!”

That was kind of cute. I patted Song-i on the head, then headed toward the display with Grandpa-

“Wait, wait a second.”

A-ri grabbed me.

“What is it?”

“There’s something I need to think about. No matter how much I think about it, something about Elizabeth’s answer earlier was strange.”

Elizabeth’s answer? She’d said we just had to pass through the display with our eyes closed, then walk straight for a while.

I didn’t understand what was strange about that. Still, A-ri could be sharp. Everyone waited for her to speak.

A moment later, A-ri suddenly took out a syringe and began drawing blood.

“A-ri?”

Instead of answering, A-ri held out the syringe filled with blood to Grandpa and me.

As I was about to ask again, Grandpa grabbed my arm.

“Seems like it’s better if we don’t know?”

“Right. I have a feeling. But it’s better if you two don’t know.”

What could we do when she put it that way? With no choice, Grandpa and I shared A-ri’s blood, hoping she would explain later.

A-ri’s blood, the miracle medicine rumored to be something Ga-in drank regularly, tasted fishy and bitter.

* * *

- Kim A-ri

Eun-sol and Mook-seong entered the TV display before us and vanished.

The two people who served as the ‘adults’ of our group had left.

I should’ve felt reassured, but... it felt like we’d sent children off alone by the water, so I couldn’t fully relax.

Strangely, Mook-seong seemed more childlike and worrying than Eun-sol.

“A-riii...”

“What?”

“Why did you suddenly make those two drink your blood?”

“It reminded me of our conversation with Elizabeth.”

“You kept saying that conversation was strange. What was strange about it?”

The others seemed curious too.

I looked up at the ceiling for a moment, recalling the conversation.

“At the beginning, she said it herself, didn’t she? ‘There’s no danger beyond the TV, so I don’t know what you’re curious about.’”

“Did she?”

“She did. That answer was strange from the start. The danger beyond the TV wasn’t just our guess. Elena had already entered and come back, so we knew it was there. But Elizabeth said there was no danger, and she wasn’t lying.”

“That is strange.”

“What’s stranger is what came next. She said there was no danger, yet she explained that when entering the TV, we had to ‘pass through the screen with our eyes closed.’ That’s a safety precaution. She says there’s no danger, but she gives instructions for dealing with danger.”

“That’s really strange. It goes beyond her simply being mistaken. The knowledge she has contradicts itself.”

“So I only made a guess. Maybe not knowing about the danger itself is a way to avoid it.”

“We have to not know that danger exists? Is that why you did something to your blood?”

“It’s a guess. Let’s ask once we’re out of the room.”

--- Bang! Rumble!

While I was talking with Song-i, we heard the sound of a wall collapsing.

“Cha Jin-cheol!”

“Hm?”

“From now on, break things a little more slowly.”

“Don’t worry. I’m managing my stamina well enough.”

“It’s not because of your stamina. From now on, we need to break mirrors as we go. We sent people beyond the TV, so now we have to find the room Beatrix is in.”

“Oh, right!”

Oh, right?

For a moment, I was dumbfounded by how completely he seemed to have forgotten the plan.

Well, if you were strong enough, maybe you could let your brain rest a little.

After that, we rested and waited for Move! to appear in one of the mansion’s mirrors, then progressed by smashing mirrors.

When we reached the seventh mansion, a ‘different message’ appeared in the mirror.

Did you find me?

Ha! So it was finally starting?

Come out already.

Footnotes:

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