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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 175: Party Time - Special Night Meeting, Sanctuary of Blessings (2)

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[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)

Date: Day 89

Current Location: Level 1, Corridor

Sage’s Advice: 3]

- Han Ga-in

“From this moment on, the first Hotel Party Special Night Meeting is now in session!”

“...”

“...”

Silence filled the room. It was three in the morning, not a time any of us would normally be awake.

“Let's give Grandfather Kim Mook-seong a round of applause for gathering everyone... Actually, this isn't the time for that. Thank you for your hard work.”

“What kind of meeting is this that you had to gather everyone at this hour? You even made a huge fuss about not using the group Chat Window, so I had to call everyone one by one through Personal Chat Windows.”

A-ri answered him.

“It couldn't be helped. Some of this needed to be kept from Elena. She's sleeping deeply right now.”

Besides Elena, two others were missing. Seung-yeop and Jin-cheol must've been sleeping too deeply to respond to Grandfather's Personal Chat Window. With how Room 105 worked, there was no way to call them if even the Chat Window couldn't wake them.

“Some of you may have guessed already, but this meeting is about how all of us should respond to the ability Elena gained this time, Ominous Imagination. I considered holding it during the day, but it would've been difficult to have a meeting in the hotel without Elena finding out.”

“Hmm. It looked like you and A-ri were dealing with it in your own way. Is this about not provoking her anxiety?”

As expected, Grandfather had already figured out the purpose from A-ri's and my strange behavior.

Only after hearing him say it did Song-i's eyes widen.

“That's right. Until Elena becomes proficient with her ability, screaming at the strange phenomena around her or running away in shock is forbidden. It could provoke her negative emotions.”

“Yeees... I'll be careful.”

Judging by how quickly Song-i answered, she must've already done something like that once.

“Good. We didn't gather everyone at dawn just to talk about that. I've spent the last few hours digging through the Chief Researcher's memories.”

Grandfather's eyes widened.

“Oh! Come to think of it, that bastard raised Beatrix. Did he have any good methods?”

“I vaguely remember him trying every method imaginable. The memories aren't very clear, but broadly speaking, they can be divided into three approaches. The problem is... they're very much methods befitting the Chief Researcher, so I don't think it'll be easy for us to use them as they are. I wanted to hear everyone's thoughts.”

Grandfather tilted his head.

“This is about how to use her ability, so is it all right to discuss it without Elena? You must've had a reason to leave her out.”

“That's right. The first method is building self-esteem.”

“What?”

“It's nothing complicated. Due to how the ability works, strange things happen when she feels anxious or afraid. These phenomena become more severe the weaker the person's sense of self is.”

“So you instill the belief that, ‘I'm an incredibly powerful being,’ so there's nothing for her to feel anxious about in the first place?”

“Something like that.”

“How did the Chief Researcher do it?”

“In various ways. He made everyone use honorifics when speaking to Beatrix, or had a few large soldiers pretend to be frightened and back away whenever they saw her.”

“... Wouldn't that only work when he was teaching Beatrix as an actual ten-year-old? It doesn't seem like something we can use on a grown woman.”

Grandfather pointed out another problem.

“Wouldn't it only work if the person being taught had low intelligence to begin with? A child under ten might get drunk on the feeling of being the emperor's child from experiences like that, but Elena would wonder what the hell we were doing.”

“More actively, there was also a method of creating an overwhelmingly powerful duplicate and transferring your consciousness into it. If you could smash a wall with one gesture and regenerate even after your head was crushed, there'd be almost nothing left to fear.”

“That sounds all right.”

“The problem is that even Beatrix, the original owner of the ability, took over fifteen years to reach the point where she could transfer her consciousness into a monster she'd created.”

“...”

“The second method is similar to what A-ri and I are already doing. You could call it turning fear into laughter.”

“Everyone sees the monsters and laughs it off like it's nothing, making Elena take these things lightly too?”

“Exactly. Think back to what you heard when you first met Beatrix. ‘Let's play!’ Something like that, right? Beatrix's cruel yet playful personality was formed through that kind of training.”

A-ri had been the first among us to start using this method.

She was also the first to sigh and answer.

“After trying it for a day or two, I think there are limits. Honestly, I was startled when poison appeared in the black tea. If we laugh while going through things like that, it'll feel even more unnatural. Of course, we don't need to put on an act just to pass our fear on to Elena, but it's not a fundamental solution.”

“Right. My conclusion is that there isn't an easy solution. If danger could be erased so easily, Ominous Imagination would be a ridiculous ability. The gorilla that pinned Jin-cheol down with a single punch, and Beatrix's own body that made that gorilla tremble in fear. They were all products of Ominous Imagination. Anyway, the Chief Researcher found a third method too.”

Everyone fell silent and listened to me.

“The methods I've mentioned so far are only solutions that expect someone to carry around a bucket filled to the brim without spilling a single drop. The enormous jar called Ominous Imagination is full of water that can produce all kinds of bizarre phenomena at any time, and Elena is carrying it. No matter how careful she is, the jar will shake with every step, and some water will inevitably leak out.”

“And that leaked water produces those pointless little monsters we keep seeing?”

“Right. The first two methods are about how to avoid using the ability. The third method is the opposite. You use all of it.”

Grandfather, who had been tilting his head, spoke.

“What, are we supposed to cover the whole hotel in monsters and kill them one by one?”

“I'm not saying we should make that many monsters. And there'd be no point if we had to kill them all. Ominous Imagination isn't a curse. It's a reward Elena was given, so we need to find a way to use it well.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“Instead of creating dozens or hundreds of insignificant monsters like she is now, she creates one extremely powerful being. One containing all the power of Ominous Imagination.”

A-ri looked deeply uneasy at that.

“Was the ‘gorilla’ we saw inside the Cube made through that process?”

“That's right. The reason the gorilla was absurdly stronger than the other monsters was that Beatrix poured so much power into it that her jar was completely emptied.”

“Even if she makes one, how are we supposed to control a monster like that? Song-i's Affinity? From what I've seen, Song-i's Affinity doesn't seem to work on things that have gone crazy past a certain point.”

“Actually, the stronger the monster is, the more likely it is to be something we can control. The insignificant ones only have cruelty and ferocity without any real intelligence, but something truly powerful can possess high intelligence too.”

“So we create an intelligent demon and try to persuade it? The ability is called Ominous Imagination. Do you really think a monster made by taking that ominous imagination to its limit will turn out the way you want?”

“The Chief Researcher solved that problem very easily.”

“How?”

“If he couldn't persuade it, he killed it. He kept creating them, a hundred times, a thousand times, until one he could control appeared.”

“...”

“If we can do it, it's the perfect way to use Ominous Imagination. Once the jar is empty, the ability won't leak into everyday life anymore. And unlike hundreds of low-intelligence monsters we have no way to communicate with, one overwhelmingly powerful monster we can communicate with would be useful tactically as well.”

“Come to think of it, there's also something we can do that the Chief Researcher couldn't.”

A-ri pointed at me as she spoke.

“Right. Unlike hundreds of low-intelligence monsters, if it's one powerful monster... I can just use Possession and control it myself if things go wrong!”

That was exactly why I thought this method was the best.

Did Elena really have to be the one controlling a monster she created? It would be best if she could, but if that was too difficult, I could control it instead.

The area fell quiet for a moment.

Eun-sol and Song-i were both silent, since they knew nothing about controlling supernatural abilities like this. Even Grandfather Mook-seong kept his mouth shut.

Then A-ri, the greatest expert among us in this field, spoke.

“So, roughly speaking, there are three methods. First, build self-esteem. It'd be even better if she could transfer her consciousness into a monster's body. Second, don't make a big fuss around her. Try to laugh it off, and don't provoke her. Third, create one powerful monster and control it well. If controlling it is difficult, Ga-in, you'll use Possession.”

“That's right.”

“They all sound plausible in theory. We even saw a real successful case inside Room 201. In the end, it comes down to what she can actually do. Isn't that always how it is? To put it in terms of the college entrance exam you like so much, even if a Seoul National University graduate tutor perfectly teaches you their own study method, it's meaningless if the student can't follow it.”

“We should tell Elena the parts of today's discussion that are safe to tell her. In the end, it comes down to which method she herself is capable of using.”

Since it was Elena's ability, it was ultimately her choice.

Eun-sol, who had stayed quiet throughout the meeting because it was about controlling supernatural abilities, asked a question.

“Ga-in, you have all three uses of Sage’s Advice again, right?”

“Yes.”

“What are you planning to use them on? I think we need to use them carefully this time...”

“Actually, I originally wanted to ask some questions about Room 104. We usually need to use Advice to resolve Curse Rooms, so I thought Party Time would be the right time.”

“Hotel High? Hmm. You said questions about Room 104 consume three at a time?”

“Yes. I'm curious why that is too.”

“Using Advice is your choice in the end, but I think it'd be a problem if you used too much on Room 104.”

“I agree. Wanting to ask a lot of questions about Room 104 was something I'd thought about before... Right now, though, it looks like the hotel is determined to freeze us to death, so we should get information about that first. I think I'll only use one on Room 104. Though even one is an expensive question that costs three.”

“You've thought it through well. Honestly, it already feels subtly colder. Starting today or tomorrow, let's gather information about the second floor and discuss what we need to do.”

It wasn't just Eun-sol's feeling. Despite being on the first floor, I'd felt the hotel's average temperature dropping for the last few hours.

* * *

The next morning, the atmosphere among the companions heading to the Sanctuary of Blessings was bitterly cold.

Jin-cheol spoke uneasily.

“I'm starting to get worried.”

“Idiot, you're only starting to worry now?”

“Still, cold spicy pork stir-fry is a bit much...”

“That's what you get for shoving spicy pork stir-fry down your throat in the morning.”

“No, old man. What the hell does ordering meat for breakfast have to do with the food being cold?”

As always, Jin-cheol and Grandfather bickered, but what they were talking about was no laughing matter.

Even the yukgaejang I'd eaten was as cold as if it had just come out of a refrigerator.

The air temperature had clearly dropped too. The hotel had originally felt like a cool spring day, but now it was like autumn with a cold wind blowing through.

In the middle of all this, the blanket Elena had wrapped around herself to endure the chill suddenly began moving on its own, rolling her up like a mat. She was trying to escape with A-ri's help.

What were we supposed to do on the second floor?

Everyone's worries deepened.

Footnotes:

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