WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 263: Room ???, Curse Room - ‘????’ (1)

──────

[???? : ??????

???? : Day 118

???? : ??????

???? : X]

- Han Ga-in

At the very least, this wasn't a Mission Room. No notification about a first mission had appeared, and the final sentence of the hotel’s earlier notification reminded me that this was a Curse Room.

Normally, once I entered a Curse Room, I focused on what was happening inside it. This time, though, the situation right before we entered kept circling through my head.

Something about it felt unnatural.

It wasn't simply difficult or dangerous. Something was wrong. I hadn't felt this kind of absurdity since the very beginning, when I first entered the hotel. I tried to pinpoint what made it feel so unreasonably strange.

First, the notification that came at dawn.

Even when it had something to announce, the hotel usually sent notifications in the morning or evening. Why had it woken everyone in the middle of the night just to announce the package?

Because my eyesight would have recovered by the next morning. In other words, it sent that notification at dawn purely to screw us over.

Fine. I could accept that much. What I really couldn't understand came next.

Second, the Sponsors had suddenly become complete idiots.

Sponsors basically knew how the hotel progressed. They knew about hidden elements and the Scenarios of every Curse Room. Otherwise, there was no way to explain the advice Owl gave me, or the hints we occasionally got when we met Sponsors at the Sanctuary of Blessings.

That was why this was so ridiculous. If the situation we were in had been planned from the start, if the package had been a trap, then was Owl an idiot? Why had it guided me to find the package even at the cost of being trapped in the Birdcage?

The Sponsor of Luck was the same. If blessings were going to malfunction on our first attempt at the next room anyway, why give Seung-yeop such a powerful enhancement now?

...

As I quietly paced around inside the tent, two thoughts came to mind.

First, this situation probably wasn't the Sponsors' intention. Owl had gone to unreasonable lengths to intervene, while the Sponsor of Luck had expended its own power to grant Seung-yeop a powerful enhancement.

The course they had envisioned was probably for us to use the Sandglass properly, then for Seung-yeop to endure Room 203 with his new enhancement.

A sinister hand had interfered. Maybe this was the intention of whoever had trapped Owl in the Birdcage.

Second, the Sandglass wasn't a trap. If it were, there would be no way to explain Owl’s attempt to deliver it to us while accepting a Penalty. It was clearly an item with a proper way to use it.

Come to think of it, the Inheritances we possessed also carried tremendous risks. Without the Status Window's protection, reading the Grimoire for too long would drive you mad and kill you. If you summoned Star without warning, it was nothing more than a self-destruct move. And without Clear Mirror, Still Water, how were we even supposed to use Ominous Imagination?

The Sandglass had to be similar. There was definitely an appropriate way to use it. I had to check once I got out. Didn't they say there were numbers on its bottom?

--- Click!

“Divine Human... are you all right?”

“I'm fine. Did you have something to say? Your name was...?”

“I am Old Wolf Claw.”

“Good. Old Wolf Claw. Did you have something to say?”

That was enough. It was time to put thoughts of the outside aside and focus on what was happening in this room. I didn't even know its number, name, or Scenario, but this room looked like it would be just as exhausting.

Old Wolf Claw tearfully explained how miserable the tribe's situation was, using both hand and foot gestures as he spoke. He knew my condition as a Divine Human wasn't normal, but he emphasized that everyone would become anxious if I didn't go out and show them I was still well.

In other words, he wanted me to leave the tent.

My head was starting to hurt as I listened, so I waved him away after telling him I understood. Then I threw on a fur hide hanging from the wall and stepped outside.

The fur hide was heavy and smelled unpleasant. If this civilization had even reached the medieval era, I probably wouldn't have worn something like this.

But as I walked among the tribespeople outside the tent, I naturally realized something. The fur hide I wore probably looked like an emperor's dragon robe to the people here. At least it was relatively clean!

From what I could tell, this world's civilization level was no more than the Stone Age. Most people were barely dressed, partly because they were poor, but also because they probably lacked the ability to make proper clothes in the first place.

As I walked outside and breathed in the clear air, a woman who was nearly half-undressed came running toward me with a child on her back.

“Please, my child has been sleeping poorly since yesterday, and their skin is burning. Please-”

I had no idea what I was supposed to do. Would patting the child’s head at least make them feel better?

“Get out of the way at once!”

Before I could do anything, an old man who had practically been crawling on all fours in front of me glared at the woman and drove her away. When I said, flustered, that there was no need for that, the old man pleaded with me instead.

“It is extremely dangerous to go near someone who is ill! If the Divine Human collapses again, we will all die.”

Now that he mentioned it, he was right. Even people from the Stone Age knew not to carelessly approach the sick. Yet I, a modern person from the twenty-first century, had overlooked that fact and nearly made a mistake.

Perhaps because I looked perfectly fine walking around outside, a younger man approached me this time. He was called Blue Wolf Claw. It seemed the title Wolf Claw was given to the tribe’s greatest warrior. Old Wolf Claw was probably an outstanding warrior from the previous generation.

“Congratulations on waking up.”

“Was I unconscious for a long time?”

“You were down for nearly a week.”

Perfect. I could go with the amnesia excuse.

“Good. Blue Wolf Claw, my memories are a little hazy now that I've woken up. Let me ask you a few questions.”

“Ask anything you wish.”

“Are there any people like me? I mean... Divine Humans? There should be more Divine Humans. Around eight of them, specifically.”

Where were my companions? The young warrior seemed to consider the question for a moment before answering.

“Those who lead the tribes of the plains have all inherited great bloodlines. I do not know how many of them there are.”

Great bloodlines...

It seemed my other companions had each awakened in tribes they were responsible for managing.

I continued asking various questions about the tribe's situation. Their civilization was at the Stone Age level, and they were such a simple group that it didn't take long to grasp the general situation.

The tribe was like a fairly large group of refugees, with more than two thousand people. I appeared to be a chieftain of sorts, descended from the god they worshipped. Their biggest concerns at the moment were the climate and monsters.

The weather had begun getting colder some time ago. They said the land where the tribe had managed to survive had been devastated by attacks from Gnashing Teeth. Food had become a serious problem, and the Gnashing Teeth that attacked every night had thrown the entire tribe into terror.

Of course, no one could properly explain what these Gnashing Teeth actually were. It seemed they wanted me, someone descended from a god, to stand against the monsters and lead them to safe land...

What was I supposed to do? There wasn't even a map. Where was I meant to go?

As I sank into thought, they brought me a bowl of porridge and called it a meal. It had an unpleasant gamy smell, a strange sweetness from tree fruit clumsily mixed in, and even a salty, fishy flavor.

I could guarantee that by twenty-first-century standards, even Song-i's dog or parrot wouldn't eat food like this. But after watching the tribe's greatest warrior smack his lips at the sight of it, I just ate it.

* * *

After getting a rough grasp of the tribe's situation and carefully listening to the elders' memories of the nearby geography, the sky had already turned orange. As the sun began to set, loud murmuring rose outside the tent.

“What is it?”

“...You must have experienced this over the past few days, but-”

“I told you I don't remember much of what happened before.”

“My apologies. For a long time now, the tribespeople have gathered around the tent where the Divine Human stays whenever night falls.”

I wondered what that meant, then quickly understood. After being driven out by monsters called Gnashing Teeth, people had apparently died every night when the monsters attacked. Given the situation, everyone gathered near my tent late in the day because they considered it the safest place.

“Let's take a look.”

“Pardon?”

“Gnashing Teeth. Let's see what those bastards are.”

I thought they might oppose me, but they didn't. Everyone who had been speaking to me inside the tent followed, their eyes shining brightly.

What kind of people would stay near someone treated as a descendant of a god in a Stone Age tribe? Most were probably strong warriors or elders who had once been warriors. They weren't people who would fear a fight, even if it meant dying in one. Thinking that made me feel a little better.

Outside the tent, I saw people so wretched-looking that they seemed closer to monkeys than humans. As I looked at their frail bodies and hearts even more shrunken than their bodies, my chest tightened.

In front of everyone, I dramatically stretched out my hand toward the sky and summoned the Grimoire. A book that appeared from thin air, radiating an ominous aura!

In a murky, dark world, humanity's remaining fate was nothing but to be crushed in the darkness. In a place like this, great power was something everyone had no choice but to rely on, no matter how ominous and evil it might be.

Before properly getting started, I opened the Grimoire slightly to check something I had been wondering about.

The Status Window's mental protection had clearly weakened. It didn't feel as though it had disappeared entirely. The hotel's notification upon our arrival had warned that blessings would not function normally. That was different wording from Room 107, where it had said, “You cannot use blessings.”

Thinking back, Cha Jin-cheol had been weaker than usual before we entered, but he was still strong enough to match a monster in a contest of strength. The Chat Window hadn't completely stopped working either. At the very least, we could send some kind of signal. From the circumstances, no one's blessing had disappeared completely. They had just become absurdly weak and malfunctioned.

With mental protection weakened to this degree, there would be restrictions on using the Grimoire too. I had to finish this quickly. If the fight dragged on, the problem would probably get worse.

--- Grrrr! Awooo!

A vicious cry came from the western sky. Gnashing Teeth had appeared. Hearing the monsters' cries brought a fresh question to mind.

What exactly was this room's curse? Something that ruined the world? No matter how I looked at it, this world was already ruined.

With complicated feelings, I looked over the residents of this already ruined world and sensed the emotions in their eyes.

Normally, they would have trembled at the murderous intent leaking from the monsters and rushed into my tent. Now, though, their eyes held a glimmer of desperate hope.

The belief that perhaps I could solve all their problems.

Caught up in the mood, I opened my mouth.

“Tonight, we hunt.”

Footnotes:

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