Escaping the Mystery Hotel - Chapter 198

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 197: Party Time - Growth, Preparing for the Next Room (1)

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‘Remember what I am about to say. You must not miss a single word.’

The Owl’s words carried enough tension to stop my breath. I focused with every bit of my mind.

“First, this matter exceeded the limits of Wisdom. I cannot advise you in the next Curse Room you enter. The punishment begins today. Second, the room the Penalty applies to is decided the moment you enter it for the first time. Choose your room carefully. Third,”

...

After saying “third,” the Owl fell silent. Its beak clearly opened and closed several times in front of me, but no sound came out. If it had been a person, I could’ve at least tried to guess by reading their lips, but even a master lip-reader couldn’t decipher the movements of a beak.

Once the Owl went quiet, I looked around. It was a plain white room. I must’ve entered Room 105 in a daze and fallen asleep after exhausting myself during that long exploration. This was probably a dream.

The Owl’s expression changed. Even I could understand what it meant.

Frustration.

Some unknown force was preventing the Owl from conveying its message. Had the power that trapped it in the Birdcage judged that the third thing it wanted to tell me had crossed the line too?

Or perhaps, once I received a Penalty, it had been allowed to explain the details of that Penalty. The first two points did seem related to what the Penalty was and how it would be applied.

What had the third point been?

--- Tap!

Sound suddenly returned.

“Third, I can sense your growth. It would be good to study again.”

Clank!

An unfamiliar sound rang out after those words, and my consciousness faded.

Until the very moment I lost consciousness, I kept repeating those three statements to myself. I needed to examine their meaning as soon as I woke up.

* * *

[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)

Date: Day 95

Current Location: Level 1, Room 105: Rest Room

Sage’s Advice: X]

The moment my mind began to stir awake that morning, I checked my Status Window.

...

An X was displayed where the number of Sage’s Advice uses normally appeared. I’d never seen that symbol before. That was probably the Penalty.

Had any other functions disappeared? If the Filter function or Scenario Understanding had vanished too, that would be a serious problem.

For now, the Status Window still unfolded at my will and spread around me. That suggested the Filter function was intact, though I would need to check further to see whether its mental defense function still worked. There was no way to find out whether Scenario Understanding worked right now.

It was the second day of the three-day rest period that had begun with the use of the rest voucher, so the topic of the morning meeting was already decided.

* * *

By breakfast, everyone I’d missed had returned. The companions whose energy had been drained by the Rest Incense Candle still looked gaunt, but they seemed to have recovered enough strength to smile and talk.

The four of us, A-ri, Grandpa, Jin-cheol, and I, told them about breaking through the second-floor exterior wall, finding the Snow Globe, and exploring the world outside it as if we were recounting some heroic tale. Everyone listened with fascinated expressions.

As the tale neared its end, Elena asked worriedly.

“Now that we know the entire second floor we’re on is inside the Snow Globe, I have to ask. What if the people outside decide to throw away or break the Snow Globe?”

A-ri answered as if it were no big deal.

“Who knows? But think back on the Hotel’s style so far. At the very least, ending everything in a way that those of us inside can’t respond to at all isn’t the Hotel’s style.”

“That’s true.”

I added my own thoughts.

“We can’t know for sure, but I think our connection to the outside world has been permanently severed. Jin-cheol confirmed yesterday that we can no longer go outside.”

“If we can’t go out, then the outside world can’t affect the inside of the Snow Globe either?”

“That’s what I think.”

Eun-sol spoke as well.

“I think so too. More importantly, there’s something else I’m curious about. Where are that ‘craftsman’ and the thing that looked like ‘glowing dust’?”

“Maybe they’ll be somewhere like the front desk after breakfast? They might even be on the second floor. Repairs should be finished today.”

“Is that so? Let’s go out after we eat. I’m looking forward to the second floor. Like Grandpa said, we went through so much trouble to find them, so surely we won’t be shortchanged. Anyway, as everyone knows, the matter we need to decide is quite-”

“Wait! I know what you’re about to say, but there’s something we need to confirm first.”

I hurriedly stopped Eun-sol from changing the subject, then told them what the Owl had conveyed to me last night. On the whiteboard in front of us, I wrote down the Owl’s three messages without leaving out a single word.

* * *

First, this matter exceeded the limits of Wisdom. I cannot advise you in the next Curse Room you enter. The punishment begins today.

Second, the room the Penalty applies to is decided the moment you enter it for the first time. Choose your room carefully.

Third, I can sense your growth. It would be good to study again.

* * *

Silence hung over the room for a moment before A-ri cautiously offered an opinion.

“The first message seems exactly as it appears. Before we realized anything about exploring the second floor, the Owl told us something first, remember? That was probably the problem.”

“Right. It probably gave advice about something we hadn’t asked about and hadn’t noticed, so a Penalty was imposed. The next part seems clear too. Sage’s Advice already has an X beside it. It must mean I can’t use advice today or tomorrow, and it’ll be blocked in the next Curse Room we enter too.”

Eun-sol, who had been listening, sighed.

“Isn’t that Penalty too harsh? The advice function is practically more than half of your blessing. Not being able to use it during our rest days isn’t a big deal, but having it blocked in the next Curse Room is devastating.”

Grandpa stared at the whiteboard for a long time before speaking.

“Doesn’t this sound like advice will be blocked for more than just the first attempt at the next Curse Room?”

“I think so too. Otherwise, it would’ve said ‘the first attempt.’”

“It means we have to clear one Curse Room without your advice, and that’s where the second message comes in.”

The first message meant I couldn’t receive help from Sage’s Advice during this rest period or in the next Curse Room I entered. Then which Curse Room would my advice be blocked in? The second message answered that.

It would be decided the moment I first entered the next Curse Room.

In other words, if I entered Room 202 once, it would immediately be decided that I couldn’t receive advice in Room 202. Even if I escaped afterward and proceeded to Room 203, the Penalty would not apply there.

Having understood everything so far, A-ri spoke.

“We need to consider that when we choose our next room. Honestly, I think the answer is already clear. Isn’t it Room 104?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

I gave Song-i, who hadn’t understood A-ri’s words, a simple explanation.

“I can’t get help from Sage’s Advice in the next room, right? It feels risky to challenge one of the second-floor rooms when we know nothing about them.”

“Ah! Then should we enter Room 104 like you and A-ri said? Come to think of it, we have a hint for Room 104 too. It was, ‘□ is how to □□ one’s father,’ right?”

A-ri answered.

“You still remembered that? You have a good memory. You’re right. We’ll have to talk about it again later, but I think we should probably go to Room 104. I don’t like the idea of entering a completely unknown room on the second floor without help from Sage’s Advice. Besides, I thought of a trick.”

I immediately guessed what that trick was.

“Is the trick to visit Room 104 once, then escape somehow if nothing works and proceed through a second-floor room?”

“Yeah. We even have the Escape Button to get out if things don’t look good. Once we escape, we can just forget about Room 104, where we won’t be able to use advice anymore. I’ve told you several times, haven’t I? We don’t have to resolve every room.”

A-ri had treated Room 104 as a ruined room for a long time. A-ri seemed to think that, in exchange for gaining the power of Descent, which in some ways surpassed even an Inheritance, it had become a room that couldn’t be resolved normally. This newly imposed Penalty would also ruin one of the Curse Rooms by making it impossible to use advice there.

Once I thought that far, I understood A-ri’s real intention, and why A-ri was suddenly so eager to re-enter Room 104 after having hated the idea before.

Let’s pile the Penalty from Sage’s Advice onto Room 104, which is already ruined anyway, gather all the ruined elements in one room, and give up on it!

...

We still had rest days left, so we should think about it more. At least it wasn’t a baseless judgment.

Grandpa, who had been quiet, spoke.

“‘I can sense your growth. It would be good to study again.’ What do you think that means? This isn’t exactly a good place to study.”

“I’ll explain the circumstances around those words in detail. When the Owl tried to say something, some kind of force made it so I couldn’t hear the Owl’s words. The Owl was quiet for a moment, then suddenly said that, and the conversation ended.”

Eun-sol muttered as though finding it interesting.

“So it said something indirectly.”

Silence settled around us for a while. Grandpa spoke again.

“Let’s split it up. ‘I can sense your growth.’ It’s praise, but I don’t think it said that just to give you a compliment out of nowhere.”

“Right. It had already given me a simple compliment before that...”

“What kind of growth do you think it means? I have a vague idea.”

“What?”

I looked up, wondering what he meant, and saw that A-ri had an expression as though A-ri had realized something after hearing Grandpa’s words.

“Ga-in, have you ever heard the term ‘Soul Rank’?”

“What?”

A-ri quietly muttered.

“You study by reading books. Take out the Grimoire.”