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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 17: Room 102, The Cursed Room - ‘House of Horror’ (3)

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[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)

Date: Day 6

Current Location: Level 1, Room 102 (Curse Room - House of Horror)

Sage’s Advice: 3]

It was the morning the torrential rain began.

When I got up and stepped outside, the butler was there as expected. As we passed the time making small talk about how hiking would be difficult in the rain but the church might be reachable, the others emerged one by one.

Even when it was time for breakfast, Elena didn’t appear. Had yesterday's exhausting schedule, including the hike, left her sleeping deeply?

Everyone suspected the butler and the maid, so we had all gone to sleep with our doors locked. That made it difficult even to enter Elena's room.

Still, as it neared ten, the butler eventually brought the estate's master key and opened the door.

The room looked like something out of Sleeping Beauty.

A peaceful room. A luxurious bed, as though nothing had happened. On it lay a young woman who looked like a Nordic princess.

Yet there was a pungent, foul stench that couldn't be concealed.

Death. It was surprising and shocking, but not as tragic as I had expected.

After all, Eun-sol had reminded us yesterday.

As long as even one person survived until the end, everyone could live.

So rather than crying or grieving, we had to understand what had happened and how those left behind could avoid the same fate.

“Sniff. Sniff... Ugh...”

Not everyone could think so coldly. Song-i began sobbing uncontrollably.

Jin-cheol stood blankly, looking as though he'd been struck by lightning.

It wasn’t easy for me either.

Even knowing there was still a chance, the corpse before me was enough to shake me.

I calmed myself and approached the body.

Getting closer wouldn't suddenly make me understand everything. I was neither a police officer nor a detective.

Still, a few things caught my eye.

There were no other visible injuries. There was a distinct mark around her neck, so red it had already bruised black. It did not appear to have been made by human hands, but by a cord. Had someone strangled her with a thin, strong cord?

It didn't look as though there had been a major struggle. The estate wasn't completely soundproof, but it couldn't hide the sounds of a desperate fight.

Above all, the room was too tidy. There were no signs of a struggle.

Someone else noticed something too.

“This... the marks. Elena's position, and the marks beside her. It looks like someone was with her.”

When I looked again, I understood what they meant.

Elena hadn't been lying in the center of the bed, but on the left side by the window. On the right were obvious signs that someone had been sitting or lying there.

The mattress was still slightly indented, and the blankets were scattered around.

An ominous thought crossed my mind.

Was it because I couldn't hide my shock?

Unlike the other three, who could only cry or stammer without grasping what was happening, Eun-sol looked at me sharply.

“Ga-in. Don’t jump to conclusions. We don't know anything for sure, and in a place like this, even ‘logical thinking’ might not mean much.”

“Yes... I was just surprised.”

‘If I think logically...’

Someone entered the room of a person suspicious enough to lock her door. They sat or lay together on the bed and spent time there. After Elena fell asleep, they strangled her with a cord.

Wasn't it so clear that I could barely think of anything else? Someone Elena trusted...

No.

Perhaps conclusions reached by thinking too hard in a place like this had no meaning.

As my thoughts grew more tangled, the butler made the situation even more complicated.

“I regret to inform you that there is another serious matter. The weather has deteriorated so badly that it seems the road by the lake has been blocked.”

Jin-cheol and I hurried outside in raincoats and headed toward the lake. While we had been discussing matters in front of Elena's body, the downpour had grown even fiercer.

Now we could barely see in front of us.

When we reached the lake, Jin-cheol and I sighed at the same time. The water level had clearly risen a great deal.

The bridge, which had already been soaked by the lake's moisture enough for Rasputitsa to be mentioned on the first day, was now deeply submerged. Neither people nor cars could cross it.

Just one day.

Only one night had passed since that peaceful time when we had done nothing but play together, eat meat, and sleep. Now one member of our group was dead, and the way out of the estate was blocked.

I remembered what Eun-sol had said in the valley the previous evening.

‘Doing nothing may seem safe, but it's actually the most dangerous thing we can do.’

Had we needed to start acting yesterday? We had spent one night doing nothing, and now we were already cornered.

After we returned to the estate, the real “offensive” began.

I casually washed my face, then raised my head to find myself staring back at me.

My reflection was smiling broadly, its features slowly twisting out of shape.

Its eyes opened wide. Teeth sprouted from within them, and disgusting insects crawled across its tongue.

After watching it for thirty seconds, I grabbed a cup beside me and smashed the mirror.

After we returned, the estate had become like this.

Whenever we looked in a mirror, our reflections began a staring contest with us. When the cuckoo emerged at twelve o'clock, the clock collapsed, spilling red liquid. Every time we walked up the stairs, we heard sobbing.

At first, Song-i screamed loud enough to shake the estate every time. Yet it took only half a day before even she kicked a doll that kept turning its head to stare at her.

Was that fortunate?

The strange phenomena that had begun occurring in the estate didn't seem to harm anyone directly.

The reflection in the mirror only transformed into something disgusting, and the cuckoo clock only broke on its own.

The stairs were simply noisy, and the living dolls only seemed excessively curious about people.

Since there was no direct danger, we all became somewhat accustomed to it...

But getting used to it didn't make us feel at ease.

We barely ate lunch, then gathered several times to put our heads together.

Nothing useful came to mind.

As bizarre phenomena began appearing everywhere, the cause of Elena's death became even more mysterious, and our escape route from the estate disappeared. Time passed endlessly.

Six in the evening.

When red liquid erupted from the cuckoo clock with a sound like fireworks, the subject of the church came up.

“I think we should first try to reach the church somehow.”

“The church all of a sudden? Why?”

Eun-sol's clipped, prickly tone revealed how little composure she had left.

“Shouldn't we at least look for a way out? The church was abandoned long ago, but the Elder has been using the half-ruined building as something like a storage room.

“Behind the church is the lake, and there's a fairly sturdy boat there. It was originally meant for recreation when the lake was calm...”

There was a boat where the lake met the back of the church. The butler was suggesting we use it to leave.

Two thoughts came to mind.

First, I was tempted.

I had heard a little about how Seung-yeop had survived in Room 101.

Apparently, he had succeeded in escaping by somehow getting away from the dangerous area and putting distance between himself and it.

If that was the case, then leaving the estate should naturally count as escaping as well.

My second thought was suspicion.

Why was the butler offering us a path to survival?

There were two possibilities here as well. There might be some kind of trap at the church or the boat.

Or... perhaps the butler had never been hostile in the first place.

Come to think of it, neither the butler nor the maid had harmed us even once. It was entirely possible.

After turning the matter over in my head, I looked up. At some point, Eun-sol had begun watching me.

“What do you think, Ga-in?”

“If we want to get out, shouldn't we try different things? It's better than doing nothing.”

‘Doing nothing is the most dangerous thing.’

When I answered as though agreeing with Eun-sol's belief, the group made its decision.

By evening, the downpour had grown even more violent, closer to a storm than simple rain.

With the weather like this and only a limited number of raincoats, only four adults set out for the church: Han Ga-in, Cha Jin-cheol, Lee Eun-sol, and the butler.

Once outside, it was so dark that we could barely see an inch ahead.

In the end, the butler, who knew the way, took the lead with a flashlight. We followed behind him, using its beam as a guide.

Someone tugged at my clothes.

“Eun-sol?”

“Come back here for a moment.”

Did she have something to say privately? I checked the Status Window just in case, but Sage’s Advice hadn't changed.

“After we visit the church, I'm going to the study. I don't care if they stop me. If I have to, I'll tell Jin-cheol to get rid of the butler and go anyway. Right now... we know too little.

“No matter how I look at it, we need to go to the most suspicious place and find something. At the very least, we need some idea of what's trying to kill us.”

“Then I'll come with you later...”

“You pretend to oppose it. Oppose it strongly, and don't follow us while acting like you're upset. It'll look more natural that way.”

“What? What are you talking about all of a sudden?”

“This place. I think I'm starting to understand it. Not everyone can try to survive. The more we all try to live, the more we'll all die without even knowing what's dangerous.

“The reason we've learned so little about the estate is because no one has taken risks. Someone has to put themselves on the line so we can find out what the danger is.

“Of course, we can't all go together. If we all go and die together, then it really is over. One by one, we have to go and uncover every danger, even if we die.

“Then the one or two people still alive at that point can avoid those dangers and hold on.”

I felt suffocated.

“You need to survive. Haven't you felt it by now? This isn't a place where you endure through strength. You endure by thinking. The others can't think right now.”

I forced the words out.

“Jin-cheol thinks deeply in his own way.”

“He's not stupid, but he's emotional. Since Elena died, Jin-cheol has been out of it. He'll die somewhere without even being able to resist.”

The thought that Eun-sol was a little frightening struck me anew.

I no longer had the confidence to oppose her.

After walking for over twenty minutes in silence, we reached the church.

Footnotes:

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