WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 218: Room 104, Curse Room - ‘Hotel High, the Prestigious Academy’ Re (12) (Final?)

──────

- Elena

The sky was clear and blue. But the ground was covered in broken machines, leaving nowhere to properly set foot.

I broke them, then broke more. It was hard to even guess how many machines I'd destroyed. At least most of the forces the Management Bureau had sent to kill me had been unmanned weapons. There weren't even ten people among all those machines.

I could guess why. After the underground city collapsed, perhaps the Management Bureau had gathered what information it could about Hotel High and realized it was an incredibly suspicious school. They might have also thought I possessed some magical power that could ensnare people's minds while I rampaged through Hotel High.

Whatever. Now that I'd smashed them all, I was simply relieved that I hadn't killed anyone!

I'd used up all my blessings, and Ominous Imagination still hadn't recovered. There wasn't a shred of strength left in my body. Still, I'd seen Ga-in fly into the sky and leave this Room earlier, so I was at ease.

So what should I do now...?

I picked up a gun that had fallen to the floor and considered shooting myself immediately, but something felt unfinished, so I headed toward the underground city. It didn't take long to find a young girl.

“Sniff! Sob! Waaaah!”

“Hey, why are you crying like that?”

The girl blankly looked back at me, fear filling her eyes. Did she know me? Then again, after fighting so noisily in this place, it would've been stranger if she didn't.

“You! You people, you people did something to Father!”

“Father? Did something happen to the Lord?”

I could make a guess. His plan to steal Ga-in's body must have required an enormous investment of power from him as well. Now that the plan had failed, at least during this second attempt, the Lord likely had no strength remaining. To this girl, that situation might have felt like the death of her god.

But the Lord hadn't disappeared. As long as Room 104 remained, he still had a chance.

“I'm Father's daughter! As long as I'm here, the Cult-”

I ignored the girl's whining after that and began considering the practical issue. Was there any reason for me to remain in this Room?

Ga-in had escaped, and apart from Seung-yeop, who had been arrested by the police, all our companions were dead. Yet the enemy seemed to have no forces left either. Maybe killing this girl in front of me would resolve everything?

...

One concern remained in my mind. The Inheritance, Sacred Sun, was another self created by the Lord. He wanted Ga-in to obtain that Inheritance and leave this place.

Then what would happen if someone other than Ga-in obtained it?

At the very least, it was certainly an ending the Lord didn't want. But an ending the Lord didn't want wasn't necessarily a good ending for us. Perhaps anyone other than Ga-in wouldn't be able to bear the Inheritance and would immediately burn to death. That would be the worst possible ending for the Lord, but it would be just as terrible for us.

Part of me thought such an extreme assumption was absurd.

An Inheritance was, one way or another, a reward the Hotel gave us. Would it really burn its recipient to death the moment it was received? The Hotel wouldn't allow such a bizarre reward.

I didn't know. I had no idea what would happen if someone other than Ga-in obtained Sacred Sun. Sage’s Advice would be useful at a time like this.

After thinking for a while, I finally made my decision.

The second attempt had been eventful and difficult, but in the end, we'd uncovered every one of the Lord's plans and tricks. If we came back someday, we could proceed through the Room under far more favorable conditions. We could also ask Ga-in's Sage’s Advice about the danger of someone else obtaining Sacred Sun and get some sort of answer.

There was no need to take on uncertainty and danger right now. If we truly regretted leaving Sacred Sun behind, we could return to Room 104 then. Of course, the Escape Button was gone now, so we'd need to become stronger than we were today!

--- Bang!

With a single gunshot, I lost consciousness.

* * *

[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)

Date: Day 98

Current Location: Level 1, Corridor

Sage’s Advice: 3]

- Han Ga-in

The moment I came to outside the Room, the first thing my eyes went to was the Status Window.

‘Sage’s Advice: 3’

The Penalty on my Status Window had finally disappeared!

The process had been difficult, but A-ri's plan to dump the Penalty into Room 104 and leave it there had worked out well enough. I immediately began considering what to ask. A few questions came to mind right away. Of course, I'd need to discuss them with the others.

When I stood and looked around, all the familiar faces were smiling warmly. We headed over to the refreshment table, trading stories of our exploits. Naturally, the topic of conversation was Room 104.

“So Room 104 ended with an escape after all. No one resolved it, right? Elena ended it by killing herself? What about you, Seung-yeop?”

“I escaped too, but I got out much earlier than A-ri did!”

“Much earlier?”

“I got arrested by the police, then an escape notification appeared about a week later.”

“Ah! I get it. We stormed the Old School Building that same day, and Elena brought the place down, then fought fiercely against the Management Bureau's unmanned weapons the next day. Hotel High probably shut down around the time you're talking about.”

Let's consider Room 104 concluded through escape. Honestly, I didn't want to go back in. More importantly, we no longer had the Escape Button, so we couldn't use the same tactic again. When I told them what I'd said to the Lord at the end, everyone burst out laughing.

“You thought of that even then? I'll admit, that was a wise solution! Still, it's a shame the Escape Button is gone. Though it was something we'd have used eventually anyway.”

A-ri seemed amused, but she also looked regretful about losing the Escape Button. I understood how she felt.

“Seriously, you're something else. You wanted to tease him by saying, ‘Are you senile? What next could there possibly be between us?’ right in front of him?”

“Hyung, honestly, I was probably the most annoyed. There were eight people here, but that crazy bastard went through all that trouble just to steal my body. It really gave me chills! It felt like I had the worst kind of stalker following me around.”

“A stalker. He really was a persistent stalker. Come to think of it, do you have any Descent left?”

The moment I heard that, my eyes went to one corner of the Status Window.

[Descent: 1]

“... I still have one use left.”

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

“You already used it once, and nothing happened, right? I don't think Descent itself is a problem. Maybe the problem only happens when you enter Room 104?”

Looking at everything that had happened so far, along with the Lord's words, it was clear he had granted me Descent in order to strengthen Han Ga-in himself.

If a god was a lake, you couldn't pour that lake into a tiny soy sauce dish. To hold a lake, the vessel itself had to become that much larger. During my first clash with the Lord over control of my body, he had said this to me.

‘Don't mistake the evil enlightenment you gained for entirely your own talent!’

A-ri had said my growth in Grimoire proficiency was unbelievably fast. There was also the strange extrasensory perception I'd suddenly begun to feel from time to time, and finally, the Lord's words. Put them together, and the answer was obvious. Descent had developed every part of what made me who I was.

Then, as long as I didn't return to Room 104, was Descent not much of a problem?

Just as my thoughts began to grow complicated, Grandpa neatly sorted out the situation with simple logic.

“What are you worrying about again? It's the same as before. Don't use it normally, and use it once when you think we'll all be wiped out without it. If you die without using it, you'll suffer endlessly in this Hotel anyway. At that point, even if something happens afterward, wouldn't you still use it?”

“That's true.”

I decided to stop worrying. Like he said, if we faced a massive crisis where we were about to be wiped out, I'd use Descent a third time no matter what side effects waited for me. After we talked about Descent for a while, Eun-sol brought up the Lord.

“That Lord bastard was really too much! Wasn't it unfair how he tried to figure us out like he'd read a strategy guide? I really hope we never see him again.”

Jin-cheol brought up another question.

“Are there more Prisoners like the Lord?”

“If they're Prisoners, wouldn't it be natural for them to dream of escape? I could understand his goal, if anything. What was surprising was how he made another self into an Inheritance, then had it escape after the Room was resolved.”

Another being that dreamed of escape, like the Lord. When that came up, A-ri suddenly grabbed her head.

“A-ri? What's wrong?”

“No... I feel like I've met something similar before. Am I imagining it?”

Something similar? Was it a memory A-ri had forgotten?

In any case, everyone agreed with the hypothesis that there were other Prisoners who dreamed of escape besides the Lord. It wasn't unusual for people to struggle desperately to escape prison when they were trapped inside one. The Hotel's Prisoners, beings no different from gods, wouldn't be any different.

The cheerful conversation eventually turned to Doctor Kim Sang-hyeon.

“Sang-hyeon! You really surprised me earlier. I honestly thought the Lord had gotten to you. What do you think, Elena?”

At Eun-sol's teasing tone, Elena's face turned red, and she apologized to the Doctor.

“I'm sorry... I was a little flustered then.”

“Not at all. The people who noticed were the impressive ones. Besides, considering that the Lord read my actions and you had to fight the Management Bureau's weapons because of it, I'm the one who should apologize.”

“No. Even if we'd known the Management Bureau had an army there, we would've had to go anyway.”

In the warm atmosphere, Eun-sol suddenly asked him directly.

“Sang-hyeon, didn't the Lord's offer tempt you, honestly?”

Everyone flinched for a moment, but the Doctor answered calmly, seemingly unconcerned.

“Didn't I tell you before?”

“What did you say?”

“The Hotel needs strong leadership. But I said I wanted that leadership to come from a person's natural abilities, such as knowledge and character, rather than supernatural power.”

“Ah, I remember.”

“Then the Lord was disqualified from the start. There was nothing for me to consider.”

The tense atmosphere instantly relaxed. Until it was time for dinner, we spent a long time at the refreshment table, laughing, chatting, and enjoying ourselves.

Footnotes:

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