WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 212: Room 104, Curse Room - ‘Hotel High, the Prestigious Academy’ Re (6)
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- Lee Eun-sol
After listening to Pero Ga-in's explanation, Grandpa thought for a moment before gathering his thoughts.
“I understand the Lord's objective now. To achieve it, the Lord must have deliberately withheld real help from Aurelia in Room 104 and let her lose to you, right?”
“That's right.”
“Then why did that bastard intervene?”
“What?”
“Didn't you say Aurelia was already being pushed back and on the verge of defeat? If the Sacred Sun hadn't appeared, you would've killed her and resolved the room. We would've already obtained the Sacred Sun and left the room.”
“...”
... Now that he mentioned it, he was right.
If the Lord's goal was to resolve the room, there'd been no need to make such a spectacle of sending a sacred artifact, taking over Ga-in's body, and using Descent. Aurelia had been on the verge of losing to us anyway! If the Lord had simply waited, the goal would have been achieved.
The more I thought about it, the stranger it seemed. Why had the Lord given Aurelia information about Justice in the first place? Without that information, Elena could've defeated Aurelia far more quickly with Justice.
“Listen to me for a moment, both of you. I think you were so shocked by the Lord's overwhelming power that you missed something fairly simple. Even in baduk, a move that looks obvious to someone watching from the side can be invisible to the person playing.”
“Did you think of a brilliant move?”
“Listening to you, I came up with a hypothesis. I'll give you the conclusion first so I don't keep you in suspense. I believe that bastard's victory condition isn't simply resolving the room. It's ‘Han Ga-in obtaining the Inheritance.’”
“The Lord can only achieve the goal if I obtain the Inheritance?”
“If you look at it that way, many of the things you found strange become easy to understand. Why did the Lord intervene? Because if things had been left alone, someone other than you, Ga-in, would have obtained the Inheritance. You said everyone present joined forces to fight Aurelia, right?”
“Yes. Everyone would've received Contribution for resolving the room. If we'd resolved it in that situation, a Time of Choice would've come, and we would've decided among ourselves who received the Inheritance. I probably would've given it up. If I obtained another one, I'd face Sealing in the remaining rooms on Level 2.”
“That's why the Lord intervened. After killing Aurelia, the Lord needed to wipe out the remaining participants so that you, Ga-in, would be the only one left who could obtain the Inheritance. Then the Lord would've resolved the room by dealing with the remaining cultists at Hotel High.”
“Looking at it in that context, I understand why the Lord gave Aurelia information about Justice. If Elena activated Justice and defeated Aurelia one-on-one, Elena might receive too much Contribution.”
“Right. If the difference in Contribution became too large, Elena could obtain the Inheritance immediately without a Time of Choice. Justice had to be Sealed. I also think there was a second purpose: the chance that you'd lose because of the unpredictability of battle.”
By then, I was beginning to understand too.
“Since you never know how a fight will go until it happens, the Lord considered the possibility that we might lose!”
“The Lord gave Aurelia a revelation so she wouldn't kill you if you fought far worse than your actual strength should have allowed.”
After hearing Grandpa's hypothesis, Pero Ga-in seemed to realize something.
“Could the reason I absolutely have to obtain the Inheritance for the Lord's goal be connected to Descent?”
“I believe it must be. What would the Lord do after leaving for the outside world in the form of an Inheritance? I don't know, but to act freely, the Lord would need to control the owner of the Inheritance. Descent is probably the groundwork for that.”
Grandpa's hypothesis was simple when summarized. For the Lord to win, no one else could obtain the Inheritance. Ga-in had to obtain it!
There were three main grounds for this hypothesis.
First, the battle against Aurelia had already been moving toward our victory, yet the Lord intervened. If the goal had only been to resolve the room, the Lord could've simply left us alone.
Second, the Lord gave Aurelia information that countered Elena's Justice. This prevented Elena from killing Aurelia alone and accumulating overwhelming Contribution. It also ensured that, even if Aurelia won, she couldn't wipe us out.
Third, the very existence of Descent meant Ga-in held some special place in the Lord's plan.
Grandpa fell silent after that, perhaps tired from speaking. Still, the mood around us had clearly brightened. At last, we could see hope.
If resolving the room itself meant the Lord's victory, we had no answer. But if Ga-in obtaining the Inheritance meant the Lord's victory, we could stop the Lord by having someone else obtain it.
Having recovered a little strength, Grandpa asked another question.
“There's still something I don't understand. Why the hell can that Lord bastard intervene so freely? We've resolved several Curse Rooms and met many Prisoners, but I've never seen one like that.”
“At least, it can't be because the Lord is powerful.”
“I agree. It's absurd for humans to compare the strength of divine beings, but if the Lord were powerful enough to ignore the Hotel's laws, the Lord wouldn't be trapped in Room 104.”
“Actually, I came up with a hypothesis too. Do you remember the advice the Owl gave me about Room 104?”
“Wasn't it something about setting up a board?”
“‘The wisest person sets the board so everyone benefits.’”
I remembered it too.
“I couldn't understand what that advice meant for a long time. But I think I understand now. There were three key points to interpreting it. First, who does ‘the wisest person’ refer to? Second, who is ‘everyone’ that benefits? Third, what do they gain from it?”
“Isn't the wise one the Lord? The Lord is the one who pulled tricks in Room 104.”
“The Owl always puts several meanings into a single word. I used to think it was bad taste, but it's probably because the Hotel has imposed restrictions on the Owl as well. In the Hotel, ‘Wisdom’ refers to the Owl. I think this expression went further and referred to all Sponsors. In other words, the Lord and the Sponsors set the board together.”
“Then who is ‘everyone’ that benefits?”
“It wouldn't be the cultists who died yesterday or Aurelia, who nearly died at the Lord's hands. Unfortunately, NPCs inside Curse Rooms aren't even qualified to sit at the negotiating table in this Hotel. There are three parties at the table of the great game played in the Hotel: Prisoners, participants, and Sponsors.”
At that point, I understood what Ga-in was trying to say.
“This is what you mean, Ga-in. Participants and Sponsors normally aim to resolve rooms, while Prisoners resist them. But the Lord has set up a board where the Lord also resolves the room. That goal aligns with the Sponsors' goals as well.”
“I think the Sponsors have tolerated the Lord's many tricks for that reason. Descent, one of the Lord's tricks, gave us tremendous power. I couldn't have obtained my Grimoire without Descent.”
Grandpa gave a bitter smile and muttered.
“To add one more thing, from the Sponsors' perspective, the problem of the Lord seeping into your mind because of the Sacred Sun or Descent's side effects might not matter much at all.”
“...”
“They aren't the sort to care about human circumstances. Look at Elena, still unconscious on the sofa. If they cared about people's mental health, they wouldn't have bestowed an Inheritance like Ominous Imagination. The Otherworldly Star Fragment is a problem too.”
“How do you think the Sponsors see this meeting we're having right now?”
“They might think our concerns are pathetic. They might think we're passing up the easy path to take a difficult one because we care about something as trivial as ‘human purity.’ But speaking as a Management Bureau agent, Ga-in, you mustn't think like the Sponsors. That's why I'm prepared to risk my life to stop the Lord's plan for you.”
It was a simple story.
The Lord had made a plan to escape the Hotel through Descent and the Inheritance, and the Curse Room would be resolved as part of that plan. Descent would also give the participants tremendous combat power as they progressed through the Hotel. Since the Lord's plan benefited the Sponsors too, they were tolerating all the Lord's tricks.
Was it true? Ga-in himself wasn't certain of this hypothesis, so there was no way to know. Our guesses had been wrong many times in this Hotel.
But this wasn't the time to think about it any longer.
Grandpa summarized the situation.
“All right! We've figured out enough. We can't sit around worrying forever.”
“The goal has been decided. Someone other than me has to obtain the Inheritance.”
“Exactly. And now we know what we have to do. Don't we just need to find Aurelia and beat her up?”
“Grandpa, let's think about that part a little more while we're moving.”
“Do you have another idea, Eun-sol?”
“Yes. Ga-in told me Aurelia seemed terribly shocked after realizing that the Lord intended to kill her.”
“Well, she was practically a Saintess. Of course she'd be shocked when the god she worshipped tried to kill her.”
“She may have lost her faith now. Can we still call her an Adversary?”
“Hearing you say that reminds me of something the chief researcher told us before. Terms like Prisoner and Adversary are concepts we created for convenience so we could progress through rooms more easily. It isn't like the Hotel itself has those concepts.”
“Scenarios are fluid. We can't blindly judge things based on old information. Besides...”
“The hint.”
“Right. The hint. ‘□ knows how to □□ the father.’ I still don't know what it means, but I think the first blank means daughter. It's a hint telling us what to do to the father, meaning the Lord, by using the daughter. And that daughter ran away while feeling deeply betrayed by the father. Could that really be a coincidence?”
“Let's find Aurelia first. I think that's where we should start.”
Everyone nodded. When Pero Ga-in nodded in that parrot body, it was so cute that I almost laughed.
As we left the hideout and headed outside, I thought about it.
Where could Aurelia be now?
Footnotes:
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