WeTried Translations

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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 248: Room 202, Curse Room - ‘The Little Mermaid’ (26)

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[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)

Date: Day 106

Current Location: Level 2, Room 202 - Curse Room ‘The Little Mermaid’

Sage’s Advice: 3]

- Han Ga-in

The third attempt had finally begun!

From the very start, this attempt, which I hoped would be the last, was completely different from the past. We weren't heading to Haesin Island, nor were we going to Cheongseong Group.

According to the resolution scenario we had developed late last night based on Eun-sol's idea, we didn't need to visit either place. Splitting up would only be more dangerous.

A-ri spoke anxiously.

“We already decided to go with this plan, so I won't question it again, but... are you sure we don't need to get the Flutes the Daughters of the Sea God have? And you're not planning to release Elena from Sealing either?”

Eun-sol answered with considerable confidence.

“We're incredibly short on time. We don't have time to go to Haesin Island. Besides, this plan doesn't absolutely need the original Flute or Elena. You agreed yesterday too, didn't you?”

“That’s true, but...”

“It doesn't matter. There's a substitute Flute where we're going anyway.”

That was right. The place we were headed had a substitute for the Flute, one the Management Bureau had created themselves.

The limousine was heading straight for the Research Lab.

At that moment, Grandpa was on the phone with Director Park Jin-seong. He'd already figured out what kind of person Director Park was. Anyone could see that his mind was completely consumed with maintaining the Project's secrecy.

After spinning a long string of stories that would make Director Park suspicious, Grandpa asked for support, saying we were headed to Haesin Island. Before long, Director Park would send troops to Haesin Island to purge us, weakening the Research Lab's forces.

Of course, we had no intention of going to Haesin Island. Concerned that the Management Bureau would track us, we had disposed of all our phones and anything else we carried.

A-ri still looked uneasy.

I could understand why. This method of resolution was different in so many ways from the approach we'd taken so far. It also made much of what we'd discussed until now feel meaningless.

Still, I tried to cast aside my preconceptions as much as possible. I stopped pursuing a mechanical solution, as though I were trying to clear a game. I needed to step back and look at the scenario.

What path would truly lead to a happy ending?

Around then, the limousine arrived near the Research Lab.

“Seriously, can a Research Lab running suspicious experiments really be sitting there so openly?”

Grandpa's answer to Jin-cheol's baffled reaction was simple.

“Are you stupid? If you put up a Management Bureau sign, nobody's going in anyway.”

Realistically, the experiment was probably too large-scale to hide the entire facility. We waited in the limousine, watching the area around the Research Lab.

About twenty minutes later, multiple vehicles departed from the lab. The Assault Team, made up of the Advanced Humans under Director Park's command, was heading for Haesin Island.

But it still wasn't time.

Even if their main force had left, this was an important Management Bureau facility. There were bound to be plenty of personnel guarding it. We waited and waited until a phenomenon that would greatly help us occurred.

Before long, the ground shook, and a tsunami swept in.

No matter how capable the Management Bureau was, this was Korea. South Korea might not be entirely free from earthquakes, but it wasn't a country constantly battered by earthquakes and tsunamis like Japan across the sea. No matter how tight the Research Lab's security was, would it really be properly prepared for a tsunami?

Just as expected, the tsunami swept over the area around the Research Lab in an instant!

Even from where we watched, we could see that everyone, staff and researchers alike, was utterly panicked.

Now it began.

“Hup!”

Tension filled the air.

Most of the group stayed behind me. They had decided there was no one better suited than me to take the role of vanguard in this plan. I was wearing a Protective Suit, but the tension still surged hard enough to make my skin tingle.

When I approached the Research Lab, a sharp-featured man tilted his head and struggled over to me despite the chaos.

“The lab is in a terrible state right now, but... are you wearing an Enhancement Suit? If you're with the Management Bureau, could you show me your identification?”

Instead of answering, I summoned the book imbued with a baleful star into my hand.

“What in the-”

“I'll borrow your body!”

* * *

- Lee Eun-sol

Ga-in, who had gone ahead of us, threw the Research Lab into complete chaos in an instant near its perimeter. The soldiers started shooting at one another, then swinging their fists. It was a complete mess.

Seeing that, the others gestured and began moving. A-ri naturally slipped into the group and waved her hand through the air. Song-i's bracelet flashed, and before long, more than twenty soldiers had been incapacitated. When Pero joined in and let out a few howls, the situation was cleaned up very neatly.

Even after things had reached this point, the Research Lab still failed to mount a proper response. With Director Park and the main force gone, followed by the tsunami, they had become a complete rabble.

Soon, Sang-hyeon and Grandpa collected the equipment the soldiers had been wearing.

I walked leisurely at the rear, watching the situation. The battle seemed to be going well. The Research Lab's forces had already been more than halfway defeated without our involvement. We'd only given them one big extra shove!

A-ri summoned the red mist she had shown before and brought down more than ten soldiers at once. At some point, Sang-hyeon had found and put on a bulletproof vest, and his precise shooting was impressive enough to make me gasp. There was no need to even mention Grandpa's and Jin-cheol's combat abilities.

And with Pero at her side, Song-i was practically worth a hundred people by herself!

...

After admiring everyone, I noticed how pathetic I looked in comparison. I really wasn't doing anything except following along.

At least Seung-yeop beside me wasn't doing much either.

That thought only made me feel worse. He's a middle schooler.

Around then, I heard someone approaching me. Thankfully, it wasn't a soldier.

“Who the hell are you people? After doing something like this-”

I adjusted my hat and shouted. Before long, the approaching employee apologized to me and got into a push-up position.

Seung-yeop looked dumbfounded beside me.

“You tell someone to get into a push-up position, and they actually do it?”

“Looks like it.”

They said we had to find Imelda or the vice director to get to the secret space where the Conductor Rudah was, right? Where could they be?

Then the Chat Window flashed.

Kim Mook-seong: I think this fatso is the vice director? Everyone, come to the entrance.

I ran through the turbulent water and debris toward the entrance. Grandpa was holding onto a heavily built man.

“Hey! Hey! You're the vice director, right?”

“N-no, I'm not. Vice director? I'm just a lowly-”

“This person has a nameplate. Doesn't it say vice director? Mister! Why are you lying?”

“You little punk. Want to drink a bucketful of muddy water before you come to your senses?”

Why did Grandpa always act like a gangster whenever something like this happened?

Sang-hyeon gave a wry smile and grabbed Grandpa's arm.

“Please step back. There's no need to use rough methods.”

There was no need when Ga-in was here.

Just as Sang-hyeon said, Ga-in soon began controlling the vice director's body. Jin-cheol carried Ga-in's body on his back, and A-ri naturally put on the Protective Suit.

“Ugh! It's hard to move in this.”

“Is something wrong?”

“This guy's in such terrible shape that he gets out of breath from taking a single step. How has he even been living?”

“Did anyone see a woman named Imelda?”

A-ri answered.

“A car left earlier. Imelda probably ran away with a few close aides.”

“She really knows how to look after herself.”

As we crossed the Research Lab, I thought of how Elena had described this place. She often called it a demonic realm recreated in the human world.

It was probably because she had witnessed so many horrifying sights here.

She was right.

This place was the culmination of truly wicked creativity. It was a Research Lab that treated supernatural creatures, beings believed to possess advanced intelligence even if they weren't human, like lab rats. And that wasn't enough. It was the product of madness that had sacrificed many people to create Living Flutes.

I recalled the Room 202 scenario we had organized during our meeting last night.

Where was the source of every tragedy that had occurred in Room 202?

If I stopped fixating on words like Source of the Curse and Adversary, and stepped back to view the scenario itself, the answer was clear.

The root of everything was the Management Bureau.

What had the Sea God been doing in the first place? The Sea God had simply been living peacefully on an island, persuading the disobedient Merfolk to listen. That island hadn't even been stolen from humans who already lived there. It was land the Sea God had personally raised from the ocean.

Poor fishermen begged to be saved, so the Sea God blessed them and freed them from hunger. Even when they said they didn't want to live in the sea and tried every trick they could think of, the Sea God had overlooked it for a full eight hundred years.

There hadn't been any problem for more than eight hundred years.

Not until the Management Bureau fell into delusions and abducted the Sea God's kin!

The moment that realization struck me, I understood what the Sea God had meant by asking, “Why are you a Merfolk?”

Why had Elena been given the role of a Merfolk in this room?

What were Merfolk in the first place?

They were born from the fusion of humans and Rudah. They weren't wholly human, but neither were they wholly nonhuman. They stood on the boundary between the two.

That made them beings who didn't need to be bound by the perspective of any one group.

Sometimes, you needed to leave behind the human position and the human perspective. Sometimes, you had to step back and examine the situation from that gray area to understand who the true source of the problem was.

A thought suddenly came to me.

What were we now?

What were the companions I saw through eyes that had yet to cross that boundary?

Someone could shatter concrete with a light jab and take a bullet to the waist, enduring it with a single complaint. Someone could manipulate all five senses with a wave of their hand and command a bird that was practically a monster with a single word. Someone could bring down dozens of people with a cup of blood, and someone could toy with the bodies of countless people with a single book.

Weren't we beginning to leave the limits of humanity ourselves?

That was why I thought this.

Perhaps the Hotel and the Sea God were telling us to think beyond the position of humans.

Having reached that point, I came to a conclusion.

In this room, I, we-

We would crush the Management Bureau's misguided ambition.

* * *

- Han Ga-in

The group, which had advanced with confidence, finally stopped at the most dangerous place of all. We had arrived at the space holding the most important being in our plan.

The moment I saw the Rudah before us, I instinctively knew it was the “Conductor” Elena had mentioned.

For one thing, its size was completely different. It was overwhelmingly larger than any snail I had seen so far.

A-ri scratched her head and muttered.

“I guess most people would die if something like that was implanted in them. Would it have been easier if we'd brought Elena and summoned the moth?”

I thought differently.

“It would've been difficult to summon it. I know a little about Ominous Imagination, and that ability isn't very consistent either. It depends quite heavily on Elena's mental state.”

“So you're saying a truly enormous monster only comes out when she's consumed by despair and madness?”

“Right. She seems able to make the caterpillar, her first creation, whenever she wants, but she wouldn't have been able to create the far stronger moth in a situation like this, even if she were beside us.”

There were plenty of companions around, and the Research Lab had already been completely wrecked. There was still a lot of time before the Sea God's Descent.

Put simply, it wasn't easy to fall deeply enough into despair or madness.

Of course, we had expected this situation too.

And we had prepared an answer for it.

Jin-cheol approached with a tense expression. The Doctor followed beside him.

“Cha Jin-cheol, if anything seems wrong, I'll take action immediately.”

“Well, having a tough body is my greatest strength, so I'll be fine. If it fails...”

A-ri smiled.

“Then we'll have to rush to Haesin Island, bring Elena back, and tell her to summon the moth.”

“Hup! Hup! With a single-minded spirit, nothing is impossible!”

What was that supposed to be? Some kind of battle cry?

The Doctor held the snail and seemed to deliberate for a moment, then slowly implanted it inside Jin-cheol's body.

...

My heart pounded.

Was this really right?

The plan Eun-sol had made last night was actually simple. Rather than stopping the Sea God's Descent from the perspective of humans or the Management Bureau...

We would eliminate the Sea God's reason to descend from the Sea God's perspective, as the victim in this scenario.

Put harshly, it was no different from saying that we'd take revenge in the Sea God's stead. If we wiped out most of the targets of that revenge, wouldn't the Sea God's anger ease considerably?

That really was the plan!

“Ugh... This hurts a little.”

Foam suddenly began leaking from Jin-cheol's mouth, and then his mouth opened. In silence, everyone's eyes turned toward him.

Slowly, Cha Jin-cheol's huge body rose.

Was it my imagination? It looked like he had gotten even bigger in that brief moment.

“I understand what Riringanor meant.”

“What?”

“I can hear the screams.”

“Are you okay, Jin-cheol?”

“I know this is the right path. The screams of Rudah filling the whole world... we need to stop them. Let's go.”

Although everyone had mentally prepared themselves before entering this room, I could sense some people hesitating.

Now, we had to begin our fight with the Management Bureau Korea Branch in Seoul in earnest.

I wasn't suddenly afraid of the battle itself.

No matter how frightening the Management Bureau was, there was no reason it would be any more frightening than the Chaos Entities we had encountered so far.

Even so, the reason our steps felt heavy wasn't because our opponent was strong.

It was because our opponent was an organization that protected humanity.

Jin-cheol looked back at us and smiled faintly.

“Tonight, the order of the world ruled by the Management Bureau will collapse!”

Eun-sol snorted at his attempt to ease the tension.

“Jin-cheol, that's a little...”

“I meant we should have confidence.”

Incomprehensible Aberrant Waves began pouring from Cha Jin-cheol's body. Throughout the chaos-filled Research Lab, the Living Flutes finally began to obey his control.

At the same time, the Management Bureau's dream, the army made up of the Ascended, began clutching their heads.

They wouldn't last long either.

Rudah were colony organisms that submitted to the stronger being, and the person who held the strongest Rudah here was Cha Jin-cheol.

Footnotes:

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