WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 279: Room 204, Mission Room - ‘Hotel Cinema’ (3)

──────

- Elena

--- Splash!

A bucket of cold water brought my hazy consciousness back in an instant. I tried to sit up, only to realize my limbs were bound in cold iron shackles.

“... Waking up like this doesn't feel good.”

“Ha! After what you did to me, did you think anything good would happen to you?”

It was a familiar voice, thick with rage. Only then did I realize who my ‘kidnapper’ was. Honestly, I was a little... caught off guard. Why were you here?

“Your Highness.”

“So you do think of me as the Crown Prince? You fucking bitch!”

“...”

“Was it fun? Was it? Was making me... making me the laughingstock of the entire Empire that fun?”

I felt a little sorry. That was for Seung-yeop, whom I'd compared to this idiot in front of me.

For a while after that, I listened to insults no one had ever thrown at me in my life. Honestly, I didn't feel much. Saying he'd do this and that to parents whose faces I'd never even seen didn't affect me.

Instead, I thought hard about how things had ended up like this. I had a vague idea of the answer.

“Who were you screwing? Pendleton? Did that motherfucker tell you his plan to make me a laughingstock? Did you, in bed-”

“Stop.”

“What do you mean, stop? You think you can just-”

“Let's leave it there. If your mouth keeps dancing around like that, this movie will become adults-only. I don't plan on letting that happen.”

“You still... you still think I'm a joke. You, of all people! You, of all people! You think being pretty is all it takes?”

“Oh! That line wasn't bad. ‘You think being pretty is all it takes!’ Do you think I'm pretty too?”

“You're still joking around! Fine. Today, I'll make that expression of yours twist in pain.”

The Crown Prince trembled as he gestured. Across from me, an attendant approached with red-hot pincers.

“Pull them out!”

“... Your Highness, please restrain yourself. We can still settle this by contacting the count's family, but-”

“I said pull out her eyes!”

“Your Highness... If you do something like this, even His Majesty-”

A laugh escaped me.

“Pfft!”

“You...”

“Hey, are you really the protagonist? Your attendant must think you look pretty pathetic if he's lecturing you like-”

--- Stab! Clang!

“Guh!”

“Now, now there are no attendants left to laugh at me! Right?”

I looked at the Crown Prince as he shook like he was having a seizure.

The sword he'd drawn from his waist tore through the attendant's chest in an instant. The attendant began crawling across the floor, coughing up bloody foam. Perhaps the sight was too miserable and painful, because one of the knights standing nearby approached without a word and cut off the attendant's head with a single strike.

“Your Highness.”

“What? Are you going to tell me what to do too?”

The Crown Prince's eyes gleamed with murderous intent. Maybe the anger of being made into a joke by me, who might have been his first love, had burned away what little reason he had left.

“... Of course not. But whatever you intend to do, you don't have much time left. Please carry out your will quickly.”

“Hmph! Fine. I'll pull this woman's eyes out myself.”

The moment the Crown Prince picked up the pincers from the floor...

I finally accepted that my attempt had failed.

“Ah... I failed. I wonder where I went wrong. Was it the Fox Hunt after all? Now I'm curious about the scene I didn't get to see too.”

“What the hell are you talking-”

“You're dead now.”

--- Laaaaa!

A heavenly song spread through the room. The Scales appeared, warping space, and crushed the shackles binding me in a single instant. Freed, my body rose weightlessly into the air.

“Wh-What? What? What is this-”

Unlike the dumbfounded Crown Prince, the knights standing behind him were much more capable. Some drew guns, others drew swords, and they gathered in front of the Crown Prince.

Of course, it didn't mean much.

Kidnapping me to torture and kill me. Butchering an attendant before my eyes. Trying to blindly protect someone who did such things.

The sentence was death for every one of them.

--- Crunch!

A knight's torso crumpled like a cake struck by a fist.

“Get His Highness out of here! This devil, I will-”

You would what? Since the knight's torso split vertically before the sentence could finish, it probably didn't matter what the knight had meant to say.

This felt refreshing. The frustration that had been building in me vanished in an instant, replaced by a clean, satisfying feeling. Was this the ‘cider’ feeling people talked about these days?

The knights babbling nonsense and the Crown Prince howling as he began wetting himself...

I no longer saw either the knights or the Crown Prince.

...

...

One person remained.

“Sniff, ugh! What... what are you? What are you?! How can a human be like this?!”

Before, whenever I used Justice, I couldn't control my actions at all. I couldn't even say a word.

Lately, I thought I was starting to understand. My mindset and control.

Maybe it was because I had grown in those ways. As I understood more clearly the restrictions Justice placed on me, I realized what I could and couldn't do.

“Let me give you an example.”

“What?”

“Once I've used my power, I have to kill everyone here. That's a fixed rule, and I can't break it. On top of that, I can't stop carrying out the sentence. Every moment, every second, I must move forward to enforce it. That's why I'm walking toward you even now.”

“What are you talking about...? What are you saying...? Please, please! I'm the Crown Prince of the Atrant Empire! If you kill me-”

“But as long as I follow those principles, the rest is rather vague. The order and method of killing you are entirely up to me. For example, I'm walking toward you because I was thinking of pulling out your eyes.”

The pincers were in my hand. The Crown Prince's cries filled the room.

“This isn't easy. Were you really planning to pull out someone's eyes with this? Someone who can't even manage a Fox Hunt... Let's just finish this quickly. I'm getting tired too.”

The final moment was a single flash.

And then...

The ending credits rolled.

* * *

“...”

“...”

The theater was filled with silence. Everyone watched the ending credits filling the screen, unable to speak. Eventually, a heavy voice broke the silence.

“Guys. We're... fucked, right?”

“... Mook-seong, Seung-yeop is here. Watch your language. Use nice words.”

“Can nice words even come out in a situation like this?”

Elena, who had sensed the disaster coming, leaned against the wall with a hollow expression and stared at the ceiling. About three minutes passed like that before ‘Taming the Crown Prince: Elena's Story’ finally ended and the theater lights came back on.

Everyone was too drained to say anything when something absurd began happening.

“Da-da-da-dun! Da-ra-ra-ra-ra-dun!”

“... Why are you making sound effects with your mouth?”

“Because the hotel spent too much of its budget producing the film.”

The Guide had appeared at some point and begun spouting ridiculous nonsense.

“Now! Participants, it's time to ‘evaluate’ the film, isn't it? Of course, this ‘unique’ scenario doesn't seem likely to receive high scores from anyone, but there is a process to follow. Please welcome the hotel's proud panel of distinguished judges!”

There were judges too?

“Da-da-”

“Will you shut up?!”

The theater doors opened, and three people entered. The three judges sat in chairs that had appeared in front of the screen.

All three were familiar faces.

“Merchant, you do this kind of work too?”

“Ha ha ha! Eun-sol, are you getting good use out of the eye you bought the other day?”

“I'm using it well. You really do every kind of job, don't you? Are they paying you properly?”

“Ha... I'm glad someone understands. There is a limit to how many roles one person can take on. Why am I even evaluating movies? This hotel is hopeless.”

“Come work for me once we get out. I'll make you work far less and pay you properly.”

“Thank you.”

The Merchant seemed to have become quite close to Eun-sol. The person beside the Merchant was familiar too.

“It's been a while.”

“Hello, Ga-in!”

It was the NPC from the souvenir shop we had seen during Hiking in the hotel basement. This time, the Souvenir Girl had changed her hairstyle and appeared with her hair in buns.

“The Merchant, the Dumpling Girl-”

“Just call me the Souvenir Girl.”

“I can understand Souvenir Girl, but what's that thing? Can it even talk?”

The third judge, the LEGO Mysterious Craftsman from Level 2, didn't answer.

The Guide laughed heartily as if it were no big deal.

“Ha ha ha! It may not be able to speak, but it can evaluate! Shall we get started? I trust that although the judges have shared plenty of small talk, they will be thorough in their evaluations!”

The Merchant went first. Apparently no longer planning to hide it, the Merchant openly revealed an inhuman body, split the Merchant's mouth open vertically, and waved a tentacle to pull an O Panel from the Merchant's waist.

“Pass!”

“What?”

“Huh?”

We were even more surprised.

“Pass! My score is a pass! I've worked at this hotel for over a hundred years, and I've never seen such an original scenario. What age are we living in now? It's the era of women's empowerment and girl crushes! Is there a more certain girl crush than crushing the male lead?”

Everyone, even the Guide, was speechless for a moment.

“A new era, the twenty-first century! The time has come for romance films where the heroine tears the male lead apart and kills him! Isn't this completely MZ? Isn't this completely a multiverse?”

“Oh, please shut up!”

The Souvenir Girl beside the Merchant raised an X Panel in annoyance.

“Ignore this bastard. Do you even know what MZ and multiverse mean?”

“I do. MZ is short for ‘ruined plot,’ isn't it?”

“Ah... How long do I have to be stuck in this hotel, working with someone like this...? Anyway, I've never seen such a stupid ending before, so it's a failure! An absolute failure. And what was with the narration throughout the film? The heroine had been treating the male lead like trash from the beginning!”

I felt like I had something to say about that, so I carefully raised my hand.

“Um... May I give my opinion?”

“Participant Han Ga-in, of course! If the participants have objections, please speak up. Persuading the judges is part of your skill as well.”

“Please cut us some slack on the narration. What kind of movie just exposes the characters' inner thoughts without restraint? Even famous films would have plenty of ridiculous moments if they showed the actors' true thoughts.”

Eun-sol immediately backed up my protest.

“That's right! Take Titanic, for example. Everyone knows the scene near the end where Leonardo DiCaprio says goodbye to the heroine in freezing water, right? What do you think Leonardo DiCaprio's ‘real inner thoughts’ were in that scene? Maybe, ‘Cold! It's freezing! I'm dying of cold, so can this damn filming end already? Who was the bastard who messed up the previous take?’”

The Souvenir Girl seemed to consider it for a moment before answering.

“Fine! That's not wrong, so I won't include the narration in my evaluation from now on. Still, even without that, the ending was a complete mess. Elena blew up the Crown Prince with the Scales. Does anyone have an argument against that?”

No one spoke.

In the end, the second evaluation was an X. The final LEGO judge simply raised an X Panel without speaking. Elena's first attempt was officially declared a failure.

* * *

Everyone except Elena temporarily left the theater. The Doctor broke the silence.

“We need to rescue Miss Elena, so we'll have to go back in soon. Let's first analyze why it failed.”

“The Fox Hunt.”

“The Fox Hunt.”

Everyone said the same words at once. The reason Elena's attempt had failed, and why the Crown Prince went mad in the latter half.

... We had seen the answer.

Elena, who had been inside, didn't seem to know, but those of us outside had seen it clearly.

Eun-sol let out a deep sigh.

“The Fox Hunt was a complete disaster... Think from the Crown Prince's perspective. Maybe he was happy on the day of the hunt. But he found out the truth in the end.”

That was right. Between the Fox Hunt and the New Year Festival, there was a scene where several mean-spirited nobles told the Crown Prince the ‘truth.’ From the circumstances, Elena didn't seem to have seen that scene.

Jin-cheol spoke with regret in his voice.

“Honestly, I could understand some of what the Crown Prince felt. Every year, there was that hunting competition. He thought he embarrassed himself every time because he couldn't shoot well, then for the first time in his life, every fox he shot fell over. How happy do you think he was? Then he learned the truth later. It had all been staged.”

Song-i joined in.

“Actually, there was a bigger problem than it being staged. All the nobles there knew it was staged. What do you think the Crown Prince thought when he realized all of this? He probably thought the nobles had all mocked and played him for a fool. That shock alone shattered his mind, but then he realized that the person behind all of it was Elena, his ‘first love’...”

I picked up from there.

“He went crazy. He was already petty and small-minded, and this drove him completely over the edge.”

A-ri summarized tiredly.

“Okay, okay. Let's make sure the next person doesn't make the same mistake. Who's going in? Ga-in?”

“Argh! Hey, I'm a man!”

“What does that matter? Was it Lady Evelyn at the party? She was pretty. Possess that girl's body. This time, since we'll be watching too, don't touch her chest.”

The sudden attack left me too flustered to even breathe! Instead of stopping A-ri, everyone around us was busy giggling.

“Ha ha ha! A-ri, you're making Ga-in panic.”

“Then will you go, Song-i?”

“Cough! U-Um, Eun-sol is a woman too-”

“Oh my, Song-i. Think about my age. I'm at least fifteen years older than the Crown Prince. Would that work?”

“Then you go in, A-ri!”

“Didn't you see the movie titles? There was a horror film at the end. That's obviously the one for me. Have you seen as many monsters as I have?”

Everyone's gaze gradually turned toward Song-i. In the end, she said she would go in with an expression like she was about to cry.

“Um... Could everyone wear earplugs?”

No one answered.

Footnotes:

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