WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 272: Room ???, Curse Room - ‘????’ (10) (Final?)
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- Han Ga-in
This wasn't easy.
There hadn't been an easy moment since entering the room, but this was the gravest crisis yet. Aside from that beam of unfathomable power, A-ri's combat ability wasn't enough for her to overpower the entire party alone. The only one among us with that kind of strength was me, when I used Descent.
Yet A-ri looked ready to kill all of us by herself. There were two main reasons: her use of the terrain and the Penalty imposed by the hotel.
Unlike us, who couldn't make use of this ruined city's terrain at all, A-ri knew it inside and out, appearing here one moment and there the next. It gave her a tremendous advantage in mobility, attack opportunities, tracking our positions, and more.
The hotel's Penalty had also created a situation that heavily favored her.
Cha Jin-cheol, physically our strongest member, had suffered a sharp drop in combat ability due to his weakened blessing. I had lost Danger Alert, so I couldn't make any aggressive moves and had been reduced to running around the buildings. A-ri, on the other hand, had never relied on her blessing inside Curse Rooms.
Elena, our strongest psychic, dying in an ambush right at the start of the battle had also been a devastating blow.
If we scattered, A-ri would only hunt us down one by one. We had to stick together somehow and avoid exposing any weaknesses. In that sense, Grandpa's decision to tell us to maintain formation as soon as the battle began had been correct.
Once Grandpa, Jin-cheol, and I managed to stay together and circle the buildings, A-ri couldn't attack us easily, and a standoff formed. That didn't mean the standoff favored us.
--- Whoosh!
A blade flying through the air tore apart Grandpa's raised hand and glove in an instant. His attempt to stick only his hand out and snipe her with a pistol had failed. I wasn't even sure he could've hit her from this distance in the first place.
“Grandpa! When is A-ri going to run out of blood?”
I'd been wondering that for a while too. Wasn't one of A-ri's weaknesses her lack of endurance in battle? Old Blood consumed the user's actual blood, so she shouldn't have been able to fight for this long!
“That damned glass bottle! She must've gotten it and gained extra blood, which is why we're dealing with this shit!”
“Damn it! Once we get out, we should bury A-ri in the snow.”
“Not a bad idea. Does anyone know where Seung-yeop is?”
I wondered that too. Where had he gone? I saw Grandpa roughly throw him somewhere at the start of the battle, but after getting up and running off, he hadn't appeared again.
“He's the type who does all sorts of things well when left alone, so let's worry about ourselves. Anyone got a good idea? Ga-in, what about your Descent?”
My gaze rose automatically.
[ÐØñ¢ : X]
“Can't use it.”
Like the Status Window, the word for Descent was distorted, with an X beside it. Had the restriction on my blessing affected Descent too? Even if I could use it, I probably would've hesitated. It was my last Descent.
A powerful instinct struck my mind that using it would cause something irreversible.
Of course, if it looked like we were all going to die anyway, I would use it.
“The Star still hasn't done anything.”
“Wouldn't using that again without your blessing be suicide?”
“We'll die like this anyway. We might as well take her down with us.”
“Wait, what I'm saying is-”
--- Whoosh!
If I hadn't reflexively ducked, I might've had the strange experience of seeing my own back with my own eyes.
Avoiding that attack confirmed it. The moment A-ri unleashed that sharp force, she had no choice but to reveal her location.
“Listen up!”
* * *
A moment later, Cha Jin-cheol and Kim Mook-seong rose from the gap between two buildings at the same time. A-ri, who had been about to unleash that sharp force, moved behind a wall to avoid the guns trained on her.
That instant, everyone hurled themselves toward the building where A-ri was hiding!
A-ri had been using the buildings throughout the city like bunkers, claiming advantageous positions. We knew nothing about the city's layout, and it was obvious there would be no light inside the buildings, so we hadn't dared to enter one.
As a result, A-ri had been using her safe bunkers while waiting for chances to attack us. If this dragged on too long and that beam started charging again, there would be no next chance.
We had to make an aggressive move at least once. We had to risk our lives and enter the building where A-ri was hiding!
As expected, there wasn't a single speck of light inside. Jin-cheol and Grandpa, who had charged in bravely, both flinched.
Of course, we hadn't entered without a plan.
“I'll go first. Do your best, everyone.”
With a hearty laugh, as if it were nothing, Jin-cheol produced the Otherworldly Star from his hand. The surrounding air began to tremble, and waves spread in every direction.
The building's exterior wall, struck head-on at close range by the Star's waves, began to twist in an instant. Cha Jin-cheol swung a shard of the Star like a club and brutally smashed through the wall.
“Come out! Don't think you can hide in some corner of this shitty building- Cough! Fuck, already?”
There was no time to waste. Jin-cheol could only use the Star for a moment without his blessing!
Grandpa and I relied on the light streaming through the broken wall as we rushed upstairs, toward the place where A-ri had been sniping us. We could hear A-ri moving urgently after sensing our approach.
At last, we reached a position close enough to feel each other's breathing.
There was only one wall between us, or perhaps two. Everyone realized the others were on the opposite side.
The air was thick with tense determination. Grandpa and I met each other's eyes once, then immediately moved in.
I took the lead. According to the plan, it didn't matter if my body died now.
A-ri's hand swept through the air as she hid behind a huge sofa. When I felt that chilling force descend upon me, I didn't avoid it. Instead, I skipped past it.
“Got you!”
For a single instant, the Teleportation tattoo I had saved until now shone. My body crossed the air and appeared directly in front of A-ri.
The moment A-ri grabbed my throat, a book appeared in my hand.
I felt my consciousness float.
* * *
I fell endlessly through vast darkness.
Strange. I'd possessed countless people, but had something like this ever happened before? Normally, my consciousness floated briefly before I naturally found myself in control of that person's body.
But now...
I couldn't see anything.
It felt as though I had jumped from a bottomless cliff and was falling freely forever.
Thinking back, the first time I possessed A-ri had felt subtly different from possessing anyone else. I could control her body, but A-ri forced me out within seconds. At the time, I assumed it was because A-ri had always been capable of anything.
How had she defended against the power of an Inheritance, the Grimoire, so easily? Was it the power of Old Blood?
If that was the case, I could understand it. No matter how powerful an Inheritance was, it was only natural that it could be blocked by the power of another Inheritance.
Was Grandpa doing well outside?
The plan I'd made ended here. My goal wasn't to do something after possessing A-ri. Possessing her was the goal itself.
I'd already experienced A-ri using some means to force me out even after I possessed her. Possession itself couldn't be the finishing blow.
Still, it would take A-ri a few seconds to expel me. Those few seconds were more than enough time for Grandpa, who had approached alongside me, to blow A-ri's head apart.
That was the core of our plan.
Jin-cheol would destroy the building so we could get close. I would briefly control A-ri's body through Possession, and Grandpa would kill A-ri.
“You made your decision faster than I expected. What a nuisance.”
When an ice-cold voice came from behind me, I realized my fall had stopped at some point and someone had appeared behind me.
“Who are you? Where's A-ri?”
“Final Flash would've finished charging soon, yet you forced your way in before then. Did I pressure you too much? Perhaps that was a mistake.”
“You don't intend to answer?”
The being before me looked like a dark blue-black mass of jelly writhing in midair. I wondered how something in that form could speak at all, but this place wasn't reality in the first place. There was no point thinking about it.
“Descendants of the Traitor. Your judgment was not bad, but entering this body was a foolish choice. Do not think you caught me. I caught you.”
I saw eyes.
Eyes growing everywhere.
In A-ri's vast mental world, I felt the gaze of countless eyes falling upon me.
Then I understood.
I understood how A-ri could defend against my Possession through the power of Old Blood. I also understood why that being could confidently say that it had caught me.
You can't do anything. You can't do anything. You can't do anything. You can't do anything. You can't do anything. You can't do anything. You can't do anything. You can't do anything. You can't do anything. You can't do anything. You can't do anything. You can't do anything. You can't do anything. You can't do anything. You can't do anything. You can't do anything.
Countless sentences carved themselves into my mind again and again.
Just before my consciousness disappeared, I thought:
This was the hell of Suggestion.
No one could defeat A-ri within A-ri's mental world.
Still, I had known from the start that I couldn't win through Possession. Understanding the specific reason why didn't change much.
The reason we lost was elsewhere.
Why?
Why hadn't Grandpa killed A-ri yet?
Why was A-ri still alive?
* * *
- ???
--- Splash!
A small pool of blood, barely large enough to dip one foot into.
After stepping into it lightly, the girl thought this result was unsatisfying. She was disappointed with the outcome.
The Descendants of the Traitor had bravely entered Paradise of their own accord.
If she had only wanted to tear them apart and kill them, she wouldn't have needed to step forward herself. She could have hidden somewhere safe and summoned the Security Units scattered across the mountain range into Paradise.
The Descendants of the Traitor had no ability to face the Security Units throughout the mountain range. The only person who could have fought them had been reduced to ashes by Final Flash.
She wanted to collect specimens.
It was strange. How long had it been since the Traitor's blood had flowed into this Age of the Declining Dharma? Hadn't it been two thousand years? Their bloodline had been pitifully degraded for over five hundred years.
Yet, in only a few years, descendants of absurd strength had appeared.
Not only had they inherited the strength of the ancestor who had betrayed humanity, they even seemed stronger.
What had happened?
She had to secure and investigate the bodies of a large number of descendants.
And yet...
“They were inconveniently strong, so they all ended up like this.”
Even thinking back, the enemies' tactics at the final moment were difficult to understand.
The tactic itself was simple. The owner of the Otherworldly Star would destroy the building, the owner of the Grimoire would stop her, and Kim Mook-seong would kill her.
That simple tactic gave her chills.
Cha Jin-cheol had no way to survive from the moment he summoned the Otherworldly Star. Han Ga-in had no way to survive from the moment he entered my mind with the Grimoire.
The operation itself was a suicide attack built on the deaths of two people!
They weren't some hive organism. The two of us will die, so you finish it? How could that come so naturally to them, as though they were breathing?
It was a tactic she could never have anticipated, so she had to borrow the power of the waiting Security Units. Unfortunately, Security Units had no concept of regulating their firepower, so Kim Mook-seong vanished under a single shell, leaving only a pool of blood behind.
『Because they believe there is a “next.”』
Strange words passed before her eyes. A headache struck her, and she clutched her head.
“What the...”
『Did this attempt fail? Still, I got two people out, so that's enough. I'll wait for the Next Chance. Though... that little one is an unexpected variable. He saw something important before leaving, so the Next Chance may be worth looking forward to.』
An image of a blue creature filled with starlight flickered before her eyes.
Then a notification appeared that she could never understand, even if she died and came back to life.
/All participants have either escaped or died, and no participants remain inside the Curse Room! The Curse Room will reset in 3 seconds./
* * *
[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 131
Current Location: Level 2, Snowfield
Sage’s Advice: 3]
- Han Ga-in
Until the very end, I passed out worried that I might not wake up this time. Fortunately, someone had escaped, and I returned safely.
Everyone was happy to reunite, but there was something we had to do before anything else. Grandpa, Jin-cheol, and Elena, after hearing the explanation, all agreed, so it wasn't difficult.
“...Do I have to stay like this?”
“Be quiet!”
The vast snowfield outside Level 2, filling my entire view, had a fairly convincing atmosphere.
Seeing a girl buried completely in the snow with only her head sticking out made it feel even more fitting.
“...No, I seriously don't remember anything.”
A-ri's face, genuinely aggrieved, vanished beneath the final scoop of snow Grandpa dumped over her.
Footnotes:
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