WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 243: Room 202, Curse Room - ‘The Little Mermaid’ (21)
──────
- Park Seung-yeop
“Agent Seung-yeop, do you have an inquiry?”
“I came to check on the request I submitted yesterday.”
“That matter has been classified, so it’s difficult to access.”
“... I understand.”
It was this again.
Four days had already passed since I parted from my older companions and came to Headquarters in Seoul alone. I rested comfortably on the first day. It didn’t seem like there was anything for me to do, and Headquarters even put me up somewhere like a fancy hotel because I was an ‘agent’ too.
For a moment, I’d even had the carefree thought that if I took a nap, my companions might resolve Room 202 and get outside by the time I woke up.
Then an utterly baffling stretch of time flowed past. By the next morning, there wasn’t a single word in the news or within the Management Bureau about Kadarudah’s Descent, so I thought my companions had stopped it, but...
On the third day, I was resting absentmindedly near a meeting room at Headquarters when an older man passing by suddenly grabbed my shoulder and said something ridiculous.
“Stay strong. You have to overcome the grief of losing your companions.”
That was when I roughly understood what was going on. A considerable number of my Hotel companions, aside from me, had died. Maybe I was the only survivor.
I submitted questions twice about why my companions had died, trying to find out what had happened, but I got the same answer both times.
‘Classified.’
In other words, they’d buried it and didn’t want me asking questions.
I tried to gather information by running around afterward, but it wasn’t easy. Over the last two days, all I’d clearly learned was that Headquarters treated me as an agent because I had special powers, but still saw me as nothing more than a kid.
What had happened?
If they’d stopped Kadarudah’s Descent, hadn’t my companions accomplished something? Even if everyone but me had died in the process, the Hotel system should have issued a resolution notification.
...
Once I thought about it simply, the answer came to me.
Why hadn’t a resolution appeared? Because they hadn’t stopped the Sea God’s Descent.
Why hadn’t even an escape notification appeared? Because the Sea God’s Descent wasn’t far off.
The fact that an escape notification hadn’t appeared even after I reached Management Bureau Headquarters also implied something important. If the Sea God descended, even Headquarters wouldn’t be safe.
It practically meant there was nowhere on Earth that would be safe.
Once I thought that far, I felt at ease. If Headquarters wasn’t safe anyway, there was no reason to stay here. I’d go back to Busan and find out what had happened.
Just before I stood up, I had a good idea.
“Agent? Do you have another request?”
“Yes. Could I get some operational expenses?”
“Pardon? An operation? All of a sudden, what-”
“I heard that agents have the authority to independently formulate a ‘Chaos Disaster Response Operation’ depending on the situation in the field.”
“Th-Then please write down the details first-”
“It’s classified.”
“...”
“...”
“How much do you need?”
“Ten million won.”
I was going to take a taxi from Seoul to Busan!
* * *
“Chief, do you remember that young agent I mentioned before?”
“Ah, was he called Park Seung-yeop?”
“He left for Busan a little while ago.”
“... Didn’t you report that he likely knew little about the situation on Haesin Island?”
“I’m sorry. He’s young, so I didn’t think there would be much of a problem.”
“It’s fine. Everyone makes mistakes. Have the car prepared.”
“You’re going yourself?”
“I don’t want to see you make the same mistake twice. Besides, I heard that agent has a peculiar ability.”
* * *
The boy had just stepped out of the taxi and taken a single step when he heard someone call him.
“Hey! Are you Seung-yeop?”
Startled by the very fact that someone in Busan recognized him, Seung-yeop turned around. Across the street stood a sharp-looking middle-aged man.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Park Jin-seong.”
“Ah! I heard about you from Grandpa. I heard you helped us a lot.”
“Ha ha... That was some time ago. Well... It’s unfortunate what happened to Agent Mook-seong. I feel a great sense of responsibility too. They were certainly the Management Bureau’s proud-”
“It’s okay.”
The boy truly looked unaffected as he said it.
To him, death inside a Curse Room didn’t feel like ‘real death.’ It was more like logging out of a game. As long as he was alive, the Hotel party wasn’t over.
“... Are you really okay?”
“I said I’m okay. Did you have something to tell me?”
Park Jin-seong was briefly confused. The fact that the boy showed so little emotional disturbance even though they had died during a mission meant his emotional connection to the agents who had been ‘purged’ wasn’t deep.
In other words, perhaps this boy truly knew nothing.
Soon, he gathered his thoughts again. Matters concerning the ‘Project’ always had to be handled perfectly. Not a single trace of danger could be left behind.
“There’s something I need to tell you. I have a limousine waiting across the street, so it would be better to talk there.”
“Okay.”
...
As Park Jin-seong walked, he studied the boy.
Was he thinking about something? He seemed so deeply lost in thought that he wouldn’t notice if someone carried him away. He looked rather cute and innocent, and Park Jin-seong briefly felt guilty.
‘Am I really supposed to cut down this young boy with my own hands?’
A powerful wave of doubt surged through him. The urge to order his subordinates not to increase the number of unnecessary sacrifices rose to his throat.
‘What glory could possibly be worth hurting a child?’
He sighed repeatedly, steeling himself again and again. The ‘Project’ wasn’t for any one person’s benefit. It was a grand ideal meant to overcome humanity’s long despair and the innate frailty of Homo sapiens.
Suddenly realizing that his sighing might look strange to the boy, he turned his head.
Then Park Jin-seong screamed.
“Aaaargh! Seung-yeop! Hey! You crazy bastard!”
In the middle of Busan’s six-lane roads, where dozens of cars raced like maniacs and drivers seemed to believe they’d rather die than let someone cut in front of them, where speed limits were for drivers too unskilled to break them, the boy was ‘slowly’ crossing the road!
When the nearby employees finally ran over, Park Jin-seong felt his anger rising.
“Why do you even have those dog eyes? Why didn’t you stop him from running into the road?”
“C-Chief! Did you see what just happened?”
“What happened?”
“Well, that kid was walking along when a die suddenly fell out of his pocket. Then he naturally ran into the road chasing after it.”
Too drained to get angry anymore, Park Jin-seong blankly stared at the road and marveled.
The boy wandered around looking for that damn ‘die’ as if he had no thoughts at all, staring only at the ground, while cars naturally passed close by him as though nothing were happening.
“... What kind of special ability did you say that agent had?”
“I heard he’s the ‘Luckiest Man Alive.’”
“It seems his ability activated when we tried to make Seung-yeop ‘quiet.’ This will be difficult.”
“If it’s difficult to lure him somewhere quiet, how about evacuating all the civilians nearby instead?”
“Well, at that level, it might be difficult even if we openly shot him.”
“Pardon?”
“You pull out a handgun, and right before you pull the trigger, your hand loses strength and the bullet heads toward the friend next to you.”
“Does that even make sense?”
“Then does it make sense that he can stroll across six lanes without a scratch while looking only at a die on the ground?”
“...”
“Um, Chief. I heard that ability has a ‘weakness’ too...”
* * *
- Park Seung-yeop
“Ah! Why did it suddenly bounce away?”
I never expected the die I’d always kept with me since meeting my Sponsor to suddenly fall onto the ground. Startled, I chased after it desperately without thinking and barely managed to pick it up again.
But where was I?
When I picked up the die and finally came to my senses, the chief who had been walking beside me was nowhere to be seen. Somehow, I felt like he might have been able to tell me what happened to my missing companions...
--- Ring!
Suddenly, the smartphone in my pocket rang.
“Hello?”
“Seung-yeop. Where did you run off to all of a sudden? You startled me.”
“Huh! I’m sorry. The die I treasure suddenly fell onto the ground.”
“Really? Well, if it’s something you treasure, it can’t be helped.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll come to where you are-”
“Seung-yeop, don’t hang up. Listen to me for a moment.”
After that, the chief suddenly began talking about ‘complicated’ things, saying they were knowledge a young agent absolutely needed to know. At first, he talked about the nature of the Chaos Entities we had to face. Later, he even started talking about the political situation in Russia these days, and my head started hurting like crazy!
Did real agents have to know all this? I’d thought I might want to become an agent after returning to reality, but maybe I needed to reconsider.
The long conversation didn’t end even after I met up with the chief again. Like a stereotypical talkative older man, he brought up every kind of story. He even talked about useless things like what it had been like when he was in high school, until my mind started going blank.
Whenever it looked like I was spacing out, he even asked what he had just been talking about.
“C-C-Chief!”
“When I went to France last year, even then... Hmm? Do you have a question?”
“My head hurts so much. Are these the kinds of things you wanted to tell me?”
“Ah ha ha! Seung-yeop, cultivate your patience.”
“I’m sorry...”
“Of course, I have more interesting stories too. Are you curious about Haesin Island?”
“Yes!”
“It would be perfect to discuss that over a meal.”
Only then did I realize we had arrived in front of a small restaurant. No, he was a high-ranking Management Bureau official and had plenty of money, so why had he come all the way to such a remote place?
The situation didn’t change much after we entered the restaurant. The chief stared intently at my face and endlessly brought up difficult topics, while I started to wonder whether the food was going into my nose or my mouth.
“Seung-yeop.”
“Yes?”
“Does your head hurt a lot right now? Because you’ve heard so many complicated stories?”
“Yeees...”
Something was strange. The chief’s demeanor had changed. The warm, next-door-neighbor feeling from earlier had completely vanished, replaced by an icy, stern air.
The chief’s hand slipped inside his suit. Was he about to take something out?
--- Crash!
With the sound of a window shattering, a parrot flew in.
Footnotes:
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