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Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 209: Room 104, Curse Room - ‘Hotel High, the Prestigious Academy’ Re (3)

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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

“Sacred Sun...”

Tears streamed down Aurelia’s face as joy filled her expression while she looked at the flames.

‘Sacred Sun.’

Was that this room’s Inheritance? It seemed to be an object that appeared once enough cultists had died. A religious group might well have a legend about a holy relic appearing to save them when the faith stood on the brink of destruction.

I finally understood why something incomprehensible had happened when I’d left Aurelia near death during the first attempt. When the saint was stabbed by my sword and fell into danger, the holy relic had recognized it as a crisis threatening the cult’s destruction. It had appeared and allowed the Lord to intervene.

The flames, initially as faint as a match flame, flared up in an instant, as though drawing light in from every direction. For a brief moment, the expanding flames radiated an incomprehensibly overwhelming presence.

Everyone present froze like stone.

I saw the sun.

I saw the sun.

I saw the sun.

I saw the sun.

I saw the sun.

The sun came toward me. My hand stretched out naturally and caught it.

My son, the time has come.

I looked at the Sacred Sun in my hand. I saw light reaching into the distant sky.

Only moments ago, I’d been in the middle of an underground city where the sky couldn’t be seen. Yet somehow, I saw a lamp in the sky illuminating the entire world.

My son, where are you looking? The light is already in your hand. There is no need to strain your neck looking at the sky.

Dazed, I lowered my gaze.

The moment the tiny sun appeared, Aurelia and my companions had all frozen like rocks.

Everyone had frozen?

No. Only then did I realize that they hadn’t frozen. I had become incomprehensibly fast.

“What did You do to me...?”

Do not fear. Look within yourself.

As I felt myself rising into the sky, as though my perspective had shifted into third person...

I felt the Lord seep into me.

[Descent: 2 -> 1]

Aurelia crawled toward me with a cry.

“Father... Father! You were there! You did not abandon me!”

The despair vanished from her beautiful face as though washed away, replaced by profound reverence and a sense of triumph.

“My faithful daughter, Aurelia.”

“Father!”

“Only one step remains for Me now.”

--- Thunk!

An outstretched finger pierced Aurelia’s neck in an instant.

The Lord is trying to resolve this room!

* * *

Slow.

Every change in the world was endlessly slow.

Was this how a god saw the world? The changes of all things seemed almost frozen.

Of course, I knew the world hadn’t actually slowed down. I had simply become too fast. Only around five seconds had passed from the moment the Lord seized control of my body to the moment He pierced Aurelia’s neck.

Yet my drifting consciousness watched even the drops of blood spraying through the air scatter in slow motion.

The Lord’s voice came from my body.

“Do not fear. This room’s resolution is near. Kill Aurelia and deal with the remaining cultists, and this room will be resolved. You will obtain the Inheritance, Sacred Sun. Allow Me to offer My congratulations in advance.”

‘Aurelia’s execution and the destruction of the cult, that was this room’s resolution condition?’

“Is that not simple? Room 104’s scenario was not particularly difficult to begin with. The simple approach would be for you to execute Aurelia and the cultists through force. With a little thought, there was also the option of receiving help from an outside force.”

‘Wouldn’t that holy relic appear if Aurelia were in danger? That’s why the first attempt failed.’

“The holy relic always appears in this underground city.”

The underground city was Aurelia’s home ground.

Aurelia could never be defeated here. The cult’s holy relic would appear the moment she neared death and resolve every crisis.

Was the proper solution to somehow lure Aurelia outside the cult’s territory and kill her?

At the same time, I realized that none of those concerns mattered!

For reasons I didn’t understand, resolving the room itself was the Lord’s goal. What was the point of wondering how to resolve it now?

‘What are You planning? Why are You trying to resolve this room?’

“My son, temper your speech with humility. I have promised you boundless glory.”

He didn’t seem willing to tell me more.

Think calmly.

The overwhelming acceleration of consciousness caused by Descent was affecting me as well. The first drop of blood from Aurelia’s body hadn’t even reached the ground yet.

There was still time.

What exactly was this person’s goal? Was He trying to take my body? But how could that be possible? The Prisoner would disappear once the room was resolved.

I didn’t know how He planned to take my body. As far as my limited knowledge went, resolving a room meant the Prisoner’s disappearance.

Still, this wasn’t the time to waste trying to understand the Lord’s plan.

Now was the time to act.

A book appeared before me.

The Lord’s brow furrowed.

* * *

The moment I manifested the power of the Avatar, my consciousness rose free.

Freed from the shackles of the body the Lord controlled, my consciousness looked down at myself from high above. The situation came into view.

The Lord, controlling my body, held the Sacred Sun that had suddenly appeared in one hand while His other hand remained thrust through Aurelia’s neck.

...

I saw threads.

When I’d first gained part of the Avatar’s power, hadn’t my companions said it resembled puppetry?

I saw the threads connecting consciousness and body.

I saw the line connecting soul and flesh.

What controlled my body now was a thread burning like flame. A single thread extended from the cult’s holy relic, the Sacred Sun, and touched my body.

What should I do?

Instinctively, I understood.

I had the strange feeling that the Grimoire was telling me what to do. A black thread stretched out from it.

The moment the pitch-black thread touched my body again, I gave it an order.

‘Don’t move!’

At my command, my body froze like stone.

At the same time, the flame thread controlled by the Lord writhed!

The black thread and the flame thread clashed as if testing each other’s strength. My entire body staggered, and blood began to flow from my eyes and nose.

The power I borrowed from the Grimoire clashed with the Lord’s control, placing a burden on my body that it couldn’t bear.

The next moment, the Lord withdrew.

Unlike me, who didn’t fear death because I could revive after leaving, the Lord seemed unwilling to see my body die.

Thanks to that, even with the Grimoire’s borrowed power, I succeeded in making a god retreat despite being nothing more than a human sorcerer.

... When the situation is chaotic and I don’t know what action to take, understanding the enemy’s intentions is important.

Even simply obstructing what the enemy intends to do gets you halfway there.

The fact that the Lord didn’t want my body to die gave me one clear direction.

I had to kill my body.

Three seconds passed as the contradictory orders from the Lord and me held my body still.

In that brief moment, Aurelia, with a hole through her neck, wore an expression full of confusion before running frantically away.

What could she be thinking after losing her cultists in an instant and being betrayed by her god?

Who knew.

And this wasn’t the time for me to worry about her.

The fact that she could run instead of dying with a hole in her neck meant remnants of transcendent power still remained in her. The hole in her neck was even beginning to close in that short time.

--- Whoosh!

The sun moved.

I felt the anger of the sun that illuminated all things. The sun that existed nowhere glared at the sorcerer who had left his body.

“You are making things difficult!”

‘It won’t go Your way, no matter what.’

“Do not be arrogant. Do not mistake the evil insight you gained for talent that is wholly your own!”

Like a hazy cloud, a faint realization seeped into me.

Was it because the Lord and I had shared one body? Or because the aftermath of Descent had clumsily mixed our minds together?

Countless secrets the Lord had concealed seeped into me.

I began to understand the true nature of the scheme the Lord had created.

At the same time, I knew what I needed to do.

Another thread stretched out from the Grimoire.

It shot toward a bird hiding in one corner of the underground city with Lee Eun-sol and Kim Sang-hyeon, frightened when the battle between superhumans began.

--- Screech!

* * *

The first thing I did after entering Pero’s body was viciously bite and tug at Eun-sol’s hair.

“Ahh! What the-”

“Go to A-ri right now! I have something to tell everyone!”

I’d practiced speaking through Pero’s body a few times before, but I was putting it to use sooner than expected!

Eun-sol was briefly startled by a parrot speaking so much like a human, but she quickly followed my instructions and joined the others in the center with Pero.

The situation in the center was complete chaos.

Think from my companions’ perspective.

They thought Aurelia had been defeated, then a mysterious object shaped like flames suddenly appeared in midair. At the same time, Han Ga-in used Descent, radiated golden light, and seemed about to kill Aurelia, only to stop in place while Aurelia escaped.

That alone was confusing enough. Yet Descent Ga-in, who had caused all that confusion, neither explained what had happened nor moved. He stood frozen like a mannequin.

The situation itself was confusing, but the overwhelming presence I radiated through Descent, one that subdued mortals, made it even worse. In the end, all my companions stood there dazed.

The moment I arrived, I gave everyone an order.

“Screech! Attention!”

Everyone turned to look at Pero.

“Kill Han Ga-in right now!!!”

My order seemed to worsen the confusion instead of settling it down.

After hesitating for a moment, A-ri asked, “Did you possess Pero? Then your original body is... You used Descent, didn’t you? What trick is the Lord-”

“That’s right! There’s no time to explain, so hurry! I can’t keep that body stopped for long!”

The group’s expressions hardened.

The situation everyone had feared, a clash with Descent Ga-in, had finally become reality.

Amid the extreme tension, I felt a different kind of pressure from my companions.

I’d vaguely understood the scheme the Lord had set up, but I didn’t know how to break it.

If we’d caused this situation by making some mistake, we could just escape somehow and avoid making the same mistake afterward.

But...

We had made no mistakes since entering this room.

If there had been a mistake, perhaps it was entering this room again in the first place.

An indescribable sense of crisis seized my mind.

Footnotes:

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