WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 184: A Prayer for Mi-ro (3)
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[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 92
Current Location: Mi-ro’s Hell
Sage’s Advice: 2]
We wish you a merry Christmas
With the carol endlessly tickling my ears, I headed toward the location indicated by the Chat Window. Less than five minutes after leaving the room, I was certain.
This place was a boarding school. A fairly old British or American boarding school, at that.
--- Click!
When I entered what would now be called the staff room, Grandfather and A-ri were already there.
“Oh! You’re here. I was wondering if you’d gotten lost.”
“I was a little late because I looked around on the way here. As I walked, some of the information the Hotel implanted in us started coming back to me.”
“Good. Go say hello to your older sister.”
“...”
“...”
Neither A-ri nor I smiled. Ridiculously enough, we were supposed to be fraternal twins, a brother and sister.
“... Honestly, we don’t look much alike.”
“Idiot. We’re not twin brothers or twin sisters. We’re a brother and sister. We’re fraternal twins, so even scientifically, it’s normal not to resemble each other any more than ordinary siblings.”
It went beyond that. Honestly, we looked like we were from different races.
A-ri’s appearance had such an unreal quality that it was hard to define exactly, but she looked as though she had both Western and Eastern ancestry. I obviously didn’t.
I decided to accept it. When the Hotel was involved, it was best to just accept most things as they were.
“Where exactly is this school? From the circumstances, it seems like America or Britain...”
“It’s probably the early 1980s, and the school is called Eastwood High School. It’s in America. And you’ve probably remembered by now, but we’re apparently first-years who transferred here recently, so keep that in mind.”
The general setting was coming back to me in real time too, and I knew the school’s name and country as soon as I heard them. But the era...
That didn’t seem like implanted knowledge.
“Do you know this school?”
A-ri nodded confidently.
“It’s the high school Mi-ro attended. But their school system isn’t like Korea’s six-three-three system of six years of elementary school, three years of middle school, and three years of high school. It’s five-three-four, so rather than Korean first-year high school students, we should think of ourselves as third-year middle school students.”
“You seem to know a lot about this.”
A-ri’s expression suddenly grew distant.
“I was curious about what kind of person Mi-ro had been on Earth, so I looked into her for quite a long time. Mi-ro went through something terribly tragic and frightening at this school. It happened around this time too. She was rescued by the Management Bureau then and became a member at a young age.”
This was the time when something terribly tragic and frightening had happened during Mi-ro’s school days.
Hearing that, I began to grasp the true nature of this Hell.
“It can’t be a coincidence that it’s replaying the most frightening time in Mi-ro’s life, right?”
“...”
It was probably the first Chaos Disaster Mi-ro had ever experienced in her long life. She must have seen all kinds of hellish scenes while working for the Management Bureau afterward, but they couldn’t have compared to the shock of experiencing it for the first time as a child.
The true nature of this Hell was repeating the most painful moment in a prisoner’s life.
... Who could it be? Who had created such a painful place and treated so many people so cruelly?
After letting out a sigh, I returned to reality.
“You said you looked into Mi-ro’s past. Do you remember what kind of accident she went through?”
A-ri gave a bitter smile.
“Of course I knew. I used to.”
As expected, it seemed the Hotel had temporarily erased only the part of A-ri’s memories concerning what Mi-ro had gone through. It was so predictable that I wasn’t surprised. There was no way it would let us enter already knowing the answer.
“Either way, if this is set during Mi-ro’s childhood, there’s one advantage. At least Mi-ro won’t be running wild with the Inheritance she gained from the Hotel.”
“Running wild...? We’re here to save Mi-ro, not subdue her.”
“We are here to save her, but from what I’ve heard so far, the person we need to save feels like the most dangerous one here.”
“And you still haven’t noticed, but Mi-ro isn’t the only one without an Inheritance.”
The moment she said that, I tried to summon the Grimoire, then realized nothing came out. It was as if the thread connecting the Grimoire to me had been cut from the start.
Like some of the rooms that had Sealed Inheritances, I couldn’t use the Grimoire here either. Was that the Hotel’s way of telling me to manage with blessings alone?
Fortunately, my wing tattoo and pen were fine. Grandfather slapped the desk.
“Get moving for now. You two have classes to attend this afternoon. Find Mi-ro, and search the school too if you can. Still, there’ll be limits to what you can do as students, so don’t overdo it. It’ll be a pain if a security guard catches you. I’ll handle the more active investigation.”
A teacher would have more freedom to move around than students. After roughly dividing our roles, we left the staff room.
While walking down the hall with A-ri, I asked a question I’d been struggling to hold back.
“There’s something that’s occasionally felt strange to me.”
“What is it?”
“You said this school was set in the 1980s, right?”
“Yeah. I can’t remember the exact year. I think the Hotel erased that part too.”
“This is your mother’s childhood, and she’s older than you. How can it be the 1980s? It’s not just this school. That first party you said you experienced, the things you mentioned in Perfect Life... The timeline has always felt strange.”
Instead of answering, A-ri grinned.
“... A long time ago, maybe before entering the Gate Room, didn’t we promise not to keep hiding things from each other...?”
“I can tell you this much. First, this isn’t my personal secret. Second, it isn’t a problem at all inside this Hotel. Third, you’ll naturally learn the answer once you get outside.”
As if she had no intention of saying more, A-ri passed by me.
That afternoon, I met Mi-ro for the first time since entering the Hotel.
* * *
“During the Revolutionary War, the Iroquois Confederacy faced its greatest crisis of division since its founding...”
“The Six Nations split apart, each pursuing its own course...”
... I felt dazed.
If it had been math or science, I might have been able to listen well enough. But hearing about the actions of Native American tribes in American history, a subject I’d never encountered in my life, naturally made my mind grow hazy.
--- Thud!
In the middle of it all, the one person who could at least snap me back to attention made a sound.
“Teacher! Let’s take a break.”
It wasn’t break time. Class was still in session.
The girl openly suggested taking a break without caring about such trivial details, then didn’t even wait for the teacher’s response. Before long, the students pulled food from their bags and started eating.
“Oh, uh! Was class getting boring? I should’ve made it more interesting. What kind of stories do you find interesting, Mi-ro?”
“Let’s eat sandwiches.”
“Okay!”
Why were you agreeing? This was a classroom! The teacher’s authority was collapsing before my eyes!
A student had stopped class on her own and started eating snacks, while the teacher was going along with it. Watching this insane scene, the Confucian dragon inside me began spewing flames of fury.
Mi-ro paid no attention to that. Like a queen bee among a swarm, she stirred the children up with every gesture.
“Hmm. Thomas, do you want a sandwich too?”
“Yeah! I do!”
“Handstand for thirty seconds! If you hold it, I’ll give you a bite.”
Before long, a white boy began holding a handstand for one bite of Mi-ro’s leftover sandwich.
I couldn’t stand watching this mind-numbing scene anymore.
Han Ga-in: Your mom’s incredible.
Kim A-ri: American kids are like this.
Han Ga-in: Don’t turn American kids into crazy people just because you feel like it.
Kim Mook-seong: Save characters!
Neither A-ri nor I dared to stop this atmosphere of chaos, and we couldn’t find a chance to join in either. More than anything, it was an extremely dangerous situation because carelessly joining in could get us swept up in it too.
From one perspective, it wasn’t much different from mental contamination spreading.
The next period, even more free-spirited things began happening.
--- Thwack!
“Ahaha! Take this, knuckleball!”
“Headshot! Nice!”
“Mi-ro! Over here, over here!”
“The ball is rolling awayyy!”
The chaotic sounds of a snowball fight coming from outside were very cheerful. More than twenty children, covered head to toe in snow, were rolling around on the ground. Mi-ro was knocking them down one after another with every heartfelt throw, as though she were a Major League pitcher.
What a happy scene.
Except it was math class.
Of course, it didn’t seem like there was a serious problem. The teacher was outside throwing snow too. The only people left in the classroom were children who said they were sick or sleepy and wanted to sleep, along with A-ri and me.
“... Mi-ro had a very happy school life.”
“Isn’t Mi-ro so cute?”
I couldn’t believe A-ri was watching her mother’s past with such affectionate eyes, as if she were already completely smitten.
“Not a rude student?”
“She’s in middle school. It’s normal to be immature at that age. Besides, she hasn’t done anything bad. She just seems to like playing.”
--- Whoosh! Thwack! Thud!
A snowball flew in through the window and struck me in the head.
“...”
“Uh... Isn’t it fun?”
Kim Mook-seong: A-ri, can you come out for a moment?
Grandfather suddenly called out only A-ri. Had he found some suspicious trace?
A-ri had looked flustered after seeing me get hit by the snowball, but she hurried outside as if she’d been waiting for the chance.
--- Whoosh! Thwack!
A second one?
This wasn’t a coincidence.
“What? Who the hell is it? I said I’m not going out-”
“Are you really not coming out?”
When I turned toward the window, I realized a girl like a snow fairy was smiling brightly at me from the other side.
“...”
“Why aren’t you coming out? Let’s play together! If you stay there by yourself, I’ll keep throwing them!”
“I said I’m just going to stay here...”
“It’s more fun when everyone plays together. Come out, come out!”
Growing tired, I simply turned my attention back to the classroom. I had no desire to study middle school-level material again, but I didn’t want to go outside either.
“... You don’t listen very well.”
?
“Look into my eyes.”
My head grew foggy. My consciousness floated up as though I were dreaming.
Without realizing it, I turned my head and met those red, blazing eyes. Those eyes. They were similar to A-ri’s, which I had seen several times already, yet different. An endlessly deep vortex.
A blessing befitting one born above all others.
“You are my friend. Friend should follow me.”
Why had I kept acting on my own?
Was it reasonable wariness? Or instinctive fear a weak mind felt in the presence of a predator?
Friends were meant to be one. I was Mi-ro’s friend, so of course I had to follow Mi-ro. That was the natural order.
“You’ll have a good time with me.”
Ah! My mind was finally clear.
How fun would it be to follow Mi-ro? Let’s go outside. Let’s have a snowball fight. The discomfort that had filled my heart until just now was swept away in an instant, and profound peace filled the empty space.
Happily, I rose to head outside-
--- Scrape!
“Aaaagh!”
“Don’t give me that bullshit! You think I’d still fall for such a shallow trick?”
I immediately slashed across Mi-ro’s eyes with my pen and ran out into the hallway.
Footnotes:
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