WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 186: A Prayer for Mi-ro (5)
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[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 92
Current Location: Mi-ro’s Hell
Sage’s Advice: 2]
- Han Ga-in
“Mi-ro, Mi-ro. Come over here! Hurry!”
“Huh? Why all of a sudden? What-”
--- Rustle! Squeeeal!!
The instant something burst out of the bushes with a rustle, the extreme tension gripping me suddenly vanished.
What emerged from the bushes was neither a monster nor a demon.
It was simply a rather impressive-looking reindeer.
“Ah.”
“Hehe! Are you scared of reindeer too, Ga-in? There are tons of them around the school!”
I was startled when Mi-ro fearlessly rushed toward the reindeer. It wasn't a monster as I'd first expected, but a reindeer was still dangerous enough for a middle school girl.
“Be careful, Mi-ro! That's not some little deer, it's a reindeer! It's dangerous.”
“Ho ho, child. There's nothing to worry about.”
Startled by the gentle voice that suddenly came from behind me, I turned around.
An old man stood there, broad and round, dressed in an extremely familiar outfit.
“Who are you?”
“Goodness! Don't tell me you've never heard of Santa Claus?”
“It's not that. You just appeared out of nowhere.”
“Out of nowhere? Child! Can't you hear that music?”
We wish you a merry Christmas
We wish you a merry Christmas
We wish you a merry Christmas
And a happy New Year!
The cheerful carol had played without interruption since we arrived here.
“I can hear it.”
“Then ‘out of nowhere’ isn't the right phrase. You know tomorrow is Christmas, don't you?”
“Was it? I hadn't paid attention to the date.”
“Ho ho, honestly. How disappointing! Still, you seem like a fairly good child, seeing how worried you were about that girl, so I'll forgive you.”
“... Yes.”
While I spoke with the fat old man calling himself Santa Claus, Mi-ro was happily playing with the reindeer nearby.
“Ah! What a beautiful sight. Such a lovely image. She's like a snow fairy. Little boy, do you happen to like that girl?”
“Not in the slightest.”
“You're not being honest! I ought to scold you, but since it's Christmas Eve, I'll let you off.”
What was he talking about? I really didn't like her like that.
Listening to this ridiculous old man make things up on his own and then declare that he was forgiving me was absurd.
“You can't take your eyes off that girl. Are you still afraid of the reindeer? Don't worry. That one is called Comet. Not as dependable as Donner, perhaps, but still a gentle child.”
“... That's a relief. It's getting late, so can we go have dinner?”
“Oh! I liked that just now. Yes, yes. Children must eat their meals on time. Take your girlfriend along too.”
I no longer even felt like arguing against the old man's wild imagination. Ignoring him, I led Mi-ro toward the school cafeteria.
Han Ga-in: ‘Santa’ appeared. Suspicious. Did the school call him in?
Kim Mook-seong: Wait.
...
Kim Mook-seong: They said the school called him in?
The school called him in? Then was that old man simply someone the school had hired?
Just in case, I looked out the window, but Santa, who had put me on edge earlier, had already disappeared. I checked the scenario too, but there was no change there either.
It still said, ‘Wait for the night.’
Was Santa really just someone hired by the school?
A-ri appeared during dinner, so I immediately asked her.
“You said you found traces of some kind of ritual with Grandpa earlier?”
“We didn't learn much, but I'll tell you what we know. The ritual itself was performed a very long time ago. There are traces of Christianity, and it's a kind of sorcery that dates back at least fifty years.”
“Sorcery from over fifty years ago is causing trouble now?”
“It might sound strange to someone unfamiliar with this, but things like this are everywhere. Think about it logically. It's not like the world has Wikipedia for evil sorcerers, or schools for them, right?”
“I get it. There are no groups that preserve and pass down that knowledge, and organizations like the Management Bureau actually interfere with its transmission?”
“That's right. The more evil the knowledge, the harder it is to preserve in complete form. Even when someone happens to obtain it, it's usually incomplete. That's why far more strange rituals happen in this world than you think, but very few succeed as intended. The rest fail and leave only traces behind.”
“Some rituals fail at the time, then decades later, when various conditions line up, they suddenly manifest ‘by accident.’ Something like that?”
“Yeah. That's roughly it. Has the scenario changed?”
“No. It still only tells us to wait for tonight.”
A-ri muttered as she looked out the window.
“Let's patrol together.”
We walked around outside until dinner, and I also took a look at the ritual Grandpa and A-ri had found. We learned nothing.
To me, the ritual just looked like an unidentified pile of trash, and there was nobody outside. This boarding school was already deep in rural Indiana, not the kind of place outsiders could casually enter.
“This is frustrating. And why Santa? Isn't this a high school? Santa events are for elementary schools.”
“You can't think of it like the twenty-first century where you lived. This era doesn't even have smartphones.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“It means kids stuck in some rural American school like this would all go crazy from boredom. So the school holds events regularly. The kids all know Santa is someone the school pays to bring in. Apparently they took gift requests a few days ago too. Of course, I don't know how they handled yours and mine.”
With no real results, midnight approached.
* * *
- Mi-ro
Yaaawn~!
After letting out a long yawn and looking around, everyone was still awake despite looking tired. When was Santa going to come? Ga-in, sitting beside me, looked less sleepy than uneasy.
“What gift did you ask for, Ga-in?”
“I don't know either.”
What a stupid answer.
“Why is everyone waiting for Santa to come in the first place?”
“You don't even know that, Ga-in? He used to come into the dorms and put gifts in the stockings beside everyone's beds. But lots of the girls' parents didn't like Santa coming into the dormitory. So now everyone receives them together on the first floor.”
“... That's a remarkably realistic reason.”
“When will Santa come?”
Ga-in thought for a moment before answering.
“The Chat Window, no, when I asked earlier, they said he'll arrive around two in the morning. If you're sleepy, just go to bed first.”
What was he talking about now?
“Two in the morning? It's midnight right now.”
“Yeah?”
“He's here now. He's outside.”
The moment I finished speaking, Ga-in's face went pale.
What's wrong with him now? He got startled all by himself when he saw the reindeer earlier too. He's more scared than he looks.
Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way.
Oh! what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh.
The cheerful carol rang out. On a boring winter night, wasn't this the most fun time of the year?
--- Boom!
Santa came in. All the children were delighted.
“Waaah! Santa Claus!”
“Did you bring my gift?”
“Santa! Did you bring my skateboard?”
“Oh! My cute little children. Of course, I brought gifts. But...”
“Huh?”
“Are you a good kid?”
Thomas, standing at the front, answered with a bored expression.
“Of course I'm super good. So hurry up and give me my skateboard. I-”
“You lied to me...”
“Huh?”
“You bad boy!”
--- Splat!
Thomas's head burst like a soft tomato dropped on the floor.
Christmas had begun.
* * *
“Aaaaah!”
“Eeeek!”
It felt like my ears were going to fall off. Every child screamed frantically as they ran and ran.
Dashing through the snow~! (Dashing through the snow~!)
As a line from the cheerful carol rang out, snow suddenly fell from the air, and everything became slippery.
Even though we were indoors!
The children slipped in the sudden snow, and every time someone fell, horrible sounds came from behind them.
I ran and ran and ran again.
I didn't want to think about what was happening behind me.
I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared.
My heart felt like it was going to burst! What was happening? What was happening?
The teachers appeared. At the front was Grandpa Mook-seong, the gym teacher who had arrived a few days ago.
When Grandpa threw off his glove, a strange arm appeared, like the arm of a monster. One punch from him sent Santa Claus flying backward.
The teachers cheered and began firing their guns.
It was over now, right?
I hated strange things like this so much.
Santa stood up as though nothing had happened.
A sleighing song tonight! (We'll sing a sleighing song tonight!)
The teachers suddenly froze like stone, dropped their guns to the floor, and started singing.
Jingle bells, jingle bells, Jingle all the way! (Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way!)
The singing teachers' heads swayed from side to side, then countless tomatoes suddenly appeared.
A thick layer of tomato soup covered the entire floor. Add mushrooms and sprinkle some pepper, and it would make the perfect breakfast soup! It was a shame there were no eggs.
I understood now.
I must have fallen asleep while waiting for Santa. Maybe there were tomatoes everywhere because I was hungry? When morning came like this-
“Mi-ro, don't think about anything. Just run.”
“Huh?”
Ga-in grabbed my hand and began running.
“Ga-in? You're not allowed to run like this at school! The teachers always-”
“Just don't think.”
In a one-horse open sleigh! (Riding in a one-horse open sleigh!)
Another line of the carol rang out.
The reindeer carriage I had seen earlier smashed through the first-floor wall and entered. Comet, the gentle reindeer, tore into and devoured the tomatoes everywhere with its face stained red.
After eating the tomatoes off the floor, Comet slowly came toward me.
Was I going to become a tomato too?
--- Dash! Crash!
Ga-in beside me suddenly ‘disappeared,’ then appeared where Comet had been, sending the man-eating reindeer flying!
“G-G-G-Ga-in, what is this???”
Ga-in smirked and muttered.
“That Santa bastard is seriously something else. Now he can summon monster carriages too? There's nothing he can't do!”
With that, Ga-in grabbed me and pulled me along again.
As I was dragged away, I thought I vaguely understood now.
This boy was completely different from an ‘ordinary person’ like me.
By the time I reached the back entrance of the first floor after running frantically, a car ‘smashed through the back door’ and drove into the school!
While I could only stand there with my mouth open in shock, a girl beyond the car window spoke to Ga-in.
“I'll stop it for a moment, even if I have to ram it! Take this! The number is written on the key.”
“Huh? Huh? Hey, I don't even have a license-”
--- Vroooom!
Who was she now?
A frightening voice came from behind us.
“Are you a good kid?”
“Shut up, you bastard!”
--- Vroooom! Crash!
I felt like I was losing my mind.
Without understanding anything, I simply let myself be dragged along as I ran and ran.
Ga-in brought me into a red Cadillac, then took the driver's seat and let out a deep sigh.
“Ah... I really need to learn how to drive a manual later.”
“...”
“This isn't really the time to ask, but are you okay?”
“I don't understand what's happening.... I feel like I suddenly got dropped into a 007 movie.”
“I'm sorry.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don't think this will work this time. It looks like we have to do something before that thing appears, but...”
“I haven't understood a word you've said since-”
In a one-horse open sleigh! (Riding in a one-horse open sleigh!)
“It's already here. That was fast.”
“...”
Ga-in, who had been about to get out, suddenly turned back.
“Do you think you're a good kid?”
“... I've never done anything bad.”
“Really? I don't think you're a very good kid.”
“Are you picking a fight at a time like this?”
“But you're not evil enough to deserve dying over and over to a monster like that either. Let's try one more time. We can keep going while the Rest Incense Candle lasts.”
“What have you been talking about this whole time?!”
Just before leaving, the boy smiled gently at me.
“See you later! Everything will be fine. May those words carry magical power too!”
...
My consciousness grew hazy.
When I realized the nightmare had returned to the beginning once again, I forgot everything all over again.
Jingle bells, jingle bells, Jingle all the way!
Oh! what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh.
Footnotes:
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