WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 207: Room 104, Curse Room - ‘Hotel High, the Prestigious Academy’ Re (1)
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[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 97
Current Location: Level 1, Room 104 - Curse Room ‘Hotel High, the Prestigious Academy’
Sage’s Advice: X]
- Han Ga-in
What the hell had just happened?
Still reeling, I staggered as I thought back on what had just happened.
Hotel High was already absurdly strict. When Seung-yeop suddenly stood up in the middle of class, the English teacher approached in disbelief, ready to reprimand him. At that moment, Seung-yeop pulled a hand hammer from his waist and smashed it into the teacher's jaw as if throwing an uppercut.
One blow. He didn't need a second.
The English teacher had never imagined a student would attack them with a hammer. They took the blow to the jaw without any chance to defend themselves, crumpling like a doll and lying still.
“Eeeeeek!”
“Ahh! H-he's insane!”
The classroom instantly descended into screaming chaos. Completely thrown off, I grabbed Seung-yeop by the shoulder-
--- Whoosh!
Seung-yeop's hammer flew toward my head!
Had this bastard been possessed or something? I barely ducked in time, hearing it cut through the air above my head.
“What the hell!”
“Ahhh!”
... Seung-yeop himself screamed in shock. He seemed even more startled by the fact that he'd swung the hammer, then hurriedly apologized.
“B-Bro! I’m sorry. I was mentally prepared, but actually hitting someone with a hammer shocked me so much that I froze up. Then someone suddenly grabbed my shoulder, so...”
“You swung on reflex, right? Forget that. Why did you suddenly hit a teacher? Was that part of the plan?”
The answer came from behind me.
“I told you not to be surprised. Both of you, relax. It was part of the plan.”
The teacher had been knocked unconscious by a hammer blow to the jaw, while the students screamed and fled in complete chaos. A-ri answered gently, as if she alone belonged to another world.
Elena looked around with an uncomfortable expression.
A-ri's calm attitude helped me settle down, and I quickly understood the situation.
“You're planning to secure Seung-yeop's escape from the start?”
“That's right. He hit a teacher with a hammer, so the police will come soon. I can already hear the kids who ran outside heading to the staff room.”
“Isn't that full of holes? What if they don't report it to the police and deal with it themselves?”
That was what had happened during the first attempt. Hotel High sent people to the Old School Building one by one so the Daughter of Heaven could brainwash them. Because of that, it tended to deal with ambiguous incidents involving its members through internal discipline, using brainwashing as the solution.
“That’s why Song-i went downstairs.”
Seung-yeop, A-ri, and Elena were here, but Song-i was nowhere to be seen. If the school tried to quietly bury the incident instead of reporting it to the police, Song-i intended to force the matter and report it herself.
“Explain things to me, at least briefly.”
All three of them wore uncertain expressions. I looked to Elena, who seemed most likely to take my side. She sighed and spoke.
“Ga-in doesn't feel like he's being controlled right now, does he? If we don't explain at least a little, we'll keep being out of sync.”
In the end, A-ri explained the situation.
“It’s nothing complicated. The top priority is securing an ‘escape.’ Until then, we aren't doing anything.”
“You'll do something after confirming that Seung-yeop gets taken away?”
“Right.”
“And that something will obviously happen at the Old School Building?”
“...You read it too easily. The plan is so obvious that it's hard to hide. Right. Once Seung-yeop gets taken away, we'll all storm the Old School Building. Do you really think the forces there pose a threat to us now?”
Certainly, the cultists in the Old School Building wouldn't be a problem for us anymore. Aurelia might be the only issue. If Elena activated Justice and kept Aurelia occupied while A-ri, Jin-cheol, and I supported her, I thought we could handle her now.
“Gasp... Haaah... Haaah...!”
Despite preparing himself mentally, hitting someone with a hammer must have been quite a shock for Seung-yeop. His breathing had become ragged. While A-ri lightly patted his shoulder to calm him down, I checked my Status Window.
Unfortunately, Scenario Understanding was sealed too. The Filter function in my Status Window had worked when I read the Grimoire, so I'd thought Scenario Understanding might work as well. Apparently not.
--- Woooo! Woooo!
Sirens rang out. Fortunately, the school's attempt to bury the incident seemed to have failed.
Not long after the police arrived, the teacher who had collapsed on the floor died, and the police took Seung-yeop away. Everyone relaxed a little, knowing we had secured an escape. Messages and instructions began rapidly filling the Chat Window.
Was there any need to waste time? We decided to infiltrate the Old School Building together that very evening. Thanks to the chaos Seung-yeop had caused, the school was in disarray that day, so Hotel High's usual high-difficulty pop quizzes weren't an issue.
* * *
After classes and dinner ended, around seven o'clock, the signal finally came.
Lee Eun-sol: Begin!
I left my dorm room and headed to the first floor to make for the Old School Building. The moment the guard at the security office saw me, they called out a warning.
“Student! It's already late. You know you need a teacher's permission to go out at night, don't you?”
During the first attempt, even getting outside had required quite a commotion because of that. Of course, back then we were trying not to get caught, so things were different now. We were planning to storm the Old School Building anyway.
“Student? What is that book-”
I took over the guard's body, pulled out the key, and opened the locked door. There were handcuffs in the security office, so I cuffed the guard's hands before returning to my own body.
“What the hell? W-what are you doing?!”
Leaving the guard's shocked shouts behind, I stepped outside. It was so easy compared to before. I could really feel how much had changed since the first attempt.
Soon, I joined my companions. A-ri said she had a Protective Suit in her dorm room and showed up wearing it. But one person was missing.
“Sis?”
“Yeah?”
“Are we leaving on our own?”
“That’s right.”
“Where's Grandpa?”
Grandpa Mook-seong wasn't among those gathered.
“Grandfather has another role.”
Eun-sol had called us together through the Chat Window just a little earlier. Grandpa probably wasn't very far away yet.
Thinking about it, the decision made sense. Compared to the past, we had grown tremendously, and a mere army of cultists wouldn't be a problem. Grandpa also had little he could do in a battle against Aurelia. It seemed he was doing something separately instead.
If that was the reason, why was Eun-sol coming with us?
I found out soon enough. As we approached the Old School Building, Eun-sol put a little distance between herself and the rest of us and began looking around with the One-Eyed Giant Bird's eye. She seemed to be taking on the scouting role.
Elena suddenly stopped.
“Elena?”
“This is important. If we come face-to-face with Aurelia, I think we should wait for her to attack first.”
Unlike me, who was startled by her words, the others nodded as if they had expected this. Had this been part of yesterday's meeting too?
“Do you think it will be difficult to activate Justice?”
“It feels uncertain. It might be difficult. Of course, Aurelia and the cultists had already committed evil acts against us during the first attempt, but...”
“Our enemies won't remember what happened then. I was worried about that, but it really did become a problem.”
Only then did I understand the situation. During the first attempt, we had been attacked by the cult's strike force while trying to escape Hotel High. This time, though, Hotel High's cultists and Aurelia hadn't done anything to us yet.
“Even if they haven't done anything to us, aren't they already replacing many people?”
Instead of answering, Elena gave an awkward smile. I could make a guess.
All seven of them, except for me, were practically accomplices in the teacher's murder. That might be the problem.
There was no need to think through such complicated reasons, though. Elena's blessing depended on her own state of mind. The point was that Elena herself felt uncomfortable with the current situation. Would that discomfort be resolved if Aurelia attacked first? Then it would become self-defense?
It was an incredibly vague standard.
--- Crash!
Jin-cheol kicked open the Old School Building's door with great force.
* * *
“What is this? Who are you people? Do you know where you are-”
“Is this supposed to be some special place?”
Perhaps they hadn't been notified in advance that anyone was coming to the Old School Building, because only around five cultists were there instead of the Guide, the Daughter of Heaven. Before anyone else even had to move, Jin-cheol knocked them all down at once.
“No one's dead yet. I'm holding back.”
As Jin-cheol spoke as though making excuses to Elena, I opened the hidden door behind the curtain that led underground.
“Let's go in! Like I told you before, if we keep going down these stairs, there's an underground city of unbelievable size.”
“Huh. You said every Curse Room scenario is a variation of something that really happened somewhere in reality, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Then somewhere in the world, there are insane cultists who build an underground city beneath a school?”
“It might not necessarily be the reality we live in.”
“I suppose so... Still, it's strange that people like this exist in any parallel world. How did they even build it?”
A-ri cut in, sounding annoyed.
“Just move on. Don't you remember them resurrecting dozens of cultists with a single prayer? Just assume they built it through prayer. ‘Lord, give us this day our daily bread, and since food alone isn't enough in the twenty-first century, please give us some real estate too!’ Something like that.”
As we descended the stairs, loud noises began ringing out from all directions. Everyone's expressions grew tense. A-ri, wearing her Protective Suit, stood at the front.
--- Bang! Bang! Bang!
Should I call this fortunate?
Elena's suggestion, that we meet a kind of ‘self-defense’ condition by making the enemy attack first, seemed to be fulfilling itself. The moment we entered, the roar of gunfire shook the underground city!
...
Something was strange.
Not one bullet was fired at us. The sounds had all come from blank rounds. The dozens of cultist strike force members who had gathered as if waiting for us merely pointed their guns and didn't fire again.
A path opened through the center of the strike force. Everyone's attention naturally turned toward a single person.
In the suffocating underground city, a woman appeared with a powerful presence, as if the light of heaven itself had descended upon her.
“Daughter of the Newly Risen One. Have you come to punish us?”
???
What the hell was that supposed to mean?
A-ri, standing at the front, asked as though she had heard nonsense.
“Could you say that more simply? Who's the Newly Risen One? Daughter? You aren't talking about me, are you?”
Aurelia didn't even look at A-ri, reacting as if the question was absurd. Her eyes were fixed solely on Elena.
“Father has delivered his words...”
Heavenly light began pouring down upon the earth.
Footnotes:
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