WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 259: Party Time - The Secret of the Mirror Room (5)
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- Yoo Song-i
/Would you like to make a wish? Press ‘Yes,’ and your wish will come true./
Swirling desire. Before me, words that could grant all of it gleamed.
As if possessed, my outstretched hand moved toward the notification to press ‘Yes,’ as though it were only natural.
“Transcend the limits of your senses.”
It felt like someone had doused me with cold water.
“Embrace clear reason.”
A crackling bolt of lightning shot from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.
“That is why I bestowed this bracelet upon you.”
My Inheritance had never left my wrist since I came out of Room 103. A white flash burst from Diverse Perspectives.
The mirrors vanished from view. The countless visions of other versions of myself that had swirled through my mind gradually faded.
I couldn't see anything. I couldn't hear anything. I couldn't feel the cold glass beneath my feet. I couldn't feel the cool air brushing against my skin.
Once the bracelet blocked every kind of sensory information my brain received, I could no longer feel the very existence of my body.
In a world of empty darkness, only the self of the human called Yoo Song-i truly existed.
Only then did clear reason awaken.
Reason warned me.
There was danger in this place. Danger that even Mi-ro, an experienced agent, had been unable to overcome!
Something felt wrong.
Everything that had happened since I entered the Mirror Room carried an inexplicable sense of wrongness. Something that absolutely should have been there was missing. Something so natural that its absence was stranger.
The Mirror Room had never once asked me, “What is your wish?”
It showed me countless bizarre mirrors and examined every desire within me, yet it never asked which of those desires I wanted fulfilled.
That was when I finally came to my senses!
It said it would grant my wish, so why hadn't it asked what my wish was?
Because it didn't need to ask.
The Mirror Room was a place that granted every desire curled up inside a participant's heart!
Even if those wishes contradicted each other or contained endlessly dark thoughts.
I had to confirm it.
I had to find out whether the danger my reason warned me about was real.
Slowly and carefully, I restored the senses the bracelet had blocked.
The first thing I felt was the cold, solid glass beneath my feet. Then I felt air moving through my nose and mouth. Finally, the shining mirrors around me returned to my sight.
The mirrors began showing scenes different from before.
One mirror showed a girl exhausted from tiring work, doing nothing but sleeping endlessly.
Another showed a girl worn out by human relationships, quietly reflecting in a place with no one else.
There were scenes too embarrassing to even remember.
The dark thoughts dreamed up by the beast hidden inside me became unpleasant images that tempted my eyes.
I passed them by.
I passed by the desires hidden deep in my heart, reflected in the mirrors.
After passing by them again and again, I finally found it.
One mirror showed me a human life.
When you're young, you usually go to school. After becoming an adult, many people go to university in their early twenties while preparing to find work. Once that stage passes, it's time to get a job and enter society.
If you naturally meet someone you love along the way, great happiness will enter your life. Then perhaps you'll marry and have children.
Maybe that child won't listen to you as well as you expected. Even so, the time spent raising a child with someone you love will be happy.
Someday, even that child will become independent, and you'll enter the latter half of your life.
This was a human life.
The me in the mirror was growing old happily through that process.
I looked at the mirror beside it.
There, I saw another version of myself calling everything I had just seen “trivial.”
That other me didn't want to leave the hotel in a hurry.
The possibility of surpassing humanity! Immortal life and the path to transcendence were right here in the hotel, so why leave so quickly?
Finding work? Having a job? Marriage?
There was a version of me who called all such human desires worthless.
The me reflected in the next mirror pursued something completely different.
There was another version of me who climbed the hotel again and again, reaching Level 3 beyond Level 2 and eventually arriving at its end.
There were supernatural objects beyond value and surreal abilities beyond human imagination.
Among them was a version of me dreaming of ascending into a great being.
What would come after that ascension? I didn't know. A life the current me couldn't possibly understand would be waiting.
Humans were contradictory creatures by nature.
They wanted great success, yet also wanted a lazy life spent lounging around all day. They wanted people to love them, yet sometimes wanted time to reflect alone, forgotten by everyone.
They wanted a humble life with the people they loved, yet couldn't easily cast aside their longing for transcendence.
Which of the infinite possibilities reflected in the mirrors was the real me?
It was a meaningless question.
All of them were countless fragments that made up who I was.
A thought suddenly came to me.
The Mirror Room was a place that granted the many desires held by participants. Of course, even the power to grant wishes would have limits.
But the real problem wasn't the extent of that power.
How could contradictory wishes be granted in the first place?
How could it satisfy both the girl loved by everyone and the girl exhausted by human relationships at the same time?
How could it satisfy Song-i, who wanted to return to reality and live a humble life, and Song-i, who wanted to stay in the hotel and become a god?
... I thought I understood.
Behind the mirrors rising on every side, countless possibilities were slowly taking form.
“Enough. You don't need to grant them like this.”
A voice so cold I couldn't believe it had come from my own mouth cut through the air.
The mirrors around me blurred. The things that had been taking shape returned to darkness.
Once I decided to leave, I naturally understood how.
--- Crash!
I bunched the towel wrapped around my body in my hand and smashed mirror after mirror.
Shards flew everywhere and pierced through the towel. Before long, my hand was stained red.
Then a notification appeared.
/Would you like to leave?/
“Yes. Then what happens to my wish?”
/Unfortunately, if you give up, the chance to make a free wish will pass to the next person who enters the Mirror Room. So please do not make a hasty decision -/
What a waste.
The warning that my chance would disappear made fierce greed boil up inside me.
But...
I thought I understood now.
I understood how the Mirror Room granted wishes.
I also understood why Mi-ro had been doomed to destruction.
“It's okay. It's really okay. This place... isn't somewhere I can gain anything. It's a place where terrible destruction awaits anyone who isn't suited for it.”
Even as I repeated those words to convince myself, taking that first step was harder than I expected.
* * *
[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 110
Current Location: Level 1, Corridor
Sage’s Advice: 2]
- Han Ga-in
Song-i suddenly appeared at dawn, naked and with her hands covered in blood, leaving everyone bewildered.
What was even stranger was that she didn't explain anything.
She just sat blankly in a chair in the lobby and muttered one thing.
“... If I go back in now, then I'll be the first person again.”
Eun-sol brought her something to wear, and the others grabbed Song-i and shook her, but her absent soul didn't return.
It wasn't easy to go rest after seeing Song-i, who was clearly not okay, saying, “I'm fine, so please go get some rest.”
Wondering what was wrong with her, I used Sage’s Advice despite worrying that my Contribution might be deducted. The answer I received was strange.
[A problem she must overcome herself. Leave her alone.]
So I just went in and slept.
The next morning, after A-ri and Seung-yeop woke up, the situation changed a little.
Unlike the rest of us, who didn't know what to do, A-ri desperately clung to Song-i because the matter involved her mother.
After listening closely to Song-i's explanation for a long time, A-ri asked again.
“So the Mirror Room is a place that indiscriminately grants the desires humans hold?”
“That's roughly right.”
“But those desires often contradict each other, so there's a high chance they'll be fulfilled in a bizarre way. For example, if a single person has wishes that can't be achieved at the same time, it might split the person in two?”
“That's how it felt to me.”
“Your feelings matter. You probably know more about the Mirror Room than anyone I know. Even Mi-ro went in once and came out insane, but you came out perfectly...”
“...”
“You did come out okay, right?”
“Probably... Also, contradictory wishes aren't the only problem.”
“There's another problem?”
“Some... embarrassing wishes? Dark wishes? It seems to read even those indiscriminately and tries to grant them in some vague way.”
“Vaguely?”
“The Mirror Room's power has limits too. It can't perfectly fulfill the infinitely many different wishes a person has. It feels like it fulfills all those different wishes in an ambiguous way.”
There were no easy places in the hotel, but from what I heard, the Mirror Room was bizarre beyond belief too.
I explained what I understood.
“It sounds like there are two major problems. First, it tries to grant wishes that shouldn't be granted. Second, because it tries to grant contradictory wishes at the same time, it might even split a person in two to do it.”
“That sounds about right. I think that's an appropriate summary.”
It was a difficult problem.
I understood why Song-i had given up on her wish and left.
How could a person's heart contain only a single thought? Of course, there would be tens of thousands of wishes.
Among those many desires, there would naturally be dark wishes that shouldn't come true, as well as contradictory ones.
I had the same contradiction Song-i mentioned, between wanting to leave immediately and wanting to remain in the hotel to gain surreal treasures and powers.
Mi-ro must have been the same.
The result must have been Mi-ro losing her reason and falling apart, and A-ri being born.
Of course, it was hard to guess what Mi-ro had wished for to bring about such a result.
A-ri muttered with a somewhat hollow expression.
“You're better than Mi-ro. Mi-ro couldn't overcome her desires in the end, but you came out okay.”
“Huh? I don't think so. I had a rough idea of what Mi-ro went through, so I knew there had to be something dangerous about the Mirror Room. I think that's why I was able to come to my senses halfway through.”
“Thank you for saying that.”
Anyway, it was fortunate she came out without anything terrible happening.
While everyone happily held Song-i by the shoulders, I suddenly felt like teasing her a little.
“By the way, Song-i.”
“Yes?”
“What were those embarrassing and dark wishes? Just how embarrassing were they that you couldn't even look at the mirrors? Could it be related to how you appeared naked at dawn yesterday -”
“I, I was wearing a towel at first! I only took it off because I needed to break the mirrors!”
Song-i ran off before I even finished speaking.
A-ri snapped at me from beside me.
“Ah! Idiot! We still have so much to ask her. Why did you make her run away?”
“Then go after her and ask. What are you curious about?”
“The Mirror Room. It can't be a place made to keep people from entering it. You get one free wish, and you can even use Tickets to make additional wishes. Could it really be nothing but a trap?”
“Of course not.”
“There's a way to make wishes there. There must be a way to avoid the dangers Song-i discovered. We need to find it.”
After saying that much, A-ri kicked my leg and went after Song-i.
...
I lay alone on the floor and thought.
The two dangers hidden in the Mirror Room.
Wishes that shouldn't be granted, and contradictory wishes.
How could someone overcome them?
Was it even possible for a person's heart to be free of such things?
Footnotes:
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