WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 283: Room 204, Mission Room - ‘Hotel Cinema’ (7)
──────
- Yoo Song-i
The moment I sensed danger, the “accident” during the Fox Hunt flashed through my mind. Someone of unknown identity had fired in my direction, turning the Fox Hunt into a complete mess. Looking back, the Crown Prince’s fury as he tried to find the culprit in a state of extreme agitation had been understandable.
What was a gun, anyway? It was such a dangerous weapon that people said even pointing an unloaded gun at someone would bring bad luck. There was a reason the Crown Prince had brought up such grave words as assassination and treason.
“Someone is after me.”
“Pardon? What?”
Gellion still seemed unaware of what was going on. I briefly suspected him, but quickly dismissed the thought. How could someone who had cared for a nation’s Crown Prince since childhood be ordinary?
He was probably from a family that had served the Imperial Family loyally for generations. A development where someone like that suddenly harmed the Crown Prince’s fiancée was far too implausible.
--- Rattle!
“You bastard! What the-”
“Aaah!”
The driver’s scream reached the inside of the carriage. I quickly grabbed Gellion’s arm and jumped out, and the situation came into sharp focus.
“S-Sir Gellion! My lady! A bullet came flying at us!”
The driver was already dead, and the carriage’s wheels had broken from the sudden impact. I looked around and immediately got the feeling.
An isolated place, mountains to the right and the sea to the left.
“Perfect place to die.”
“Pardon?”
A variety of possibilities passed through my mind. Mountains, so bandits? The sea nearby, so pirates? An attack by an enemy nation? A rival of the Crown Prince who wanted the throne?
No. There was no need to consider so many possibilities.
This world wasn’t reality. It was a movie. Considering where we were in the story and the film’s running time, the ending wasn’t far off. Now that the story had reached its latter half, some villain unrelated to a romance fantasy narrative wouldn’t suddenly appear.
I remembered the face of the girl who had glared at me like she wanted me dead earlier.
It looked like she and I were meant to settle things.
Just then, a familiar voice echoed from far away.
“Catch her! Bring the thieving cat back alive if you can!”
I almost laughed.
What kind of idiot noble personally came to the scene while arranging someone’s assassination?
Even so, the situation was serious. The carriage was wrecked, and there was no way a teenage girl like me and an old man like Gellion could outrun our pursuers.
“Lady Crosibel! This way-”
--- Bang!
With a sound like thunder, a hole opened in the neck of the guard waving at me.
In that brief instant, what I felt wasn’t anger or sorrow, but disbelief.
Even if they were a ducal house, did it make any sense to openly assassinate the Crown Prince’s fiancée like this?
Who the hell wrote this movie’s script? The plausibility is a complete mess!
...
Plausibility.
Panting, I looked down at my bracelet.
Plausibility, huh. Come to think of it, it felt a little unfair for someone like me to complain about plausibility in this movie.
Based on everything so far, this world had no magic or superpowers. Even the knights protecting the Crown Prince had never displayed any movements beyond human limits.
Yet in a world like this, I’d used my bracelet to make everything I wanted happen.
This stupid movie had thrown plausibility out the window the moment people with blessings and Inheritances like us entered it. So there was no point blaming anyone. I just had to do what I’d always done.
I only needed to twist the scenario with the bracelet’s power and get what I wanted.
How should I do it? Diverse Perspectives was incredibly powerful in a one-on-one situation. Unless it was a psychic like Beatrix in Room 201, who could respond to altered senses by absurdly creating additional eyes, an ordinary person could never resist it.
The problem was that this wasn’t one-on-one.
At least ten pursuers were after us. I could only deceive one person!
“Gellion, I have a question.”
“Pardon?”
“How many people in the Empire do you think know what I look like?”
* * *
“Why haven’t you caught that bitch yet?”
A harsh curse that didn’t suit a girl with beauty like the goddess of the night came from Evelyn’s lips. Cedric, a retainer of the ducal house, calmly tried to soothe her.
“Lady Evelyn, please calm yourself. The Crown Prince’s fiancée-”
“No! I told you she isn’t his fiancée!”
“... Lady Crosibel is not alone. The Crown Prince and the count’s household both sent guards with her. Fortunately, we have more people. Please be patient.”
“...”
Evelyn slowly steadied her breathing and surveyed the situation.
Just as Cedric had said, things were proceeding according to her wishes. The group surrounding the unworthy woman who had dared to seduce the Crown Prince was fleeing in disarray, while the ducal house’s soldiers surrounded them from every direction and drove them like rabbits.
Unless they could fly, there was no way out.
At last, the news she had been waiting for arrived.
“My lady! We have captured Lady Crosibel alive.”
When Evelyn heard the news, the first emotion that came to her was not joy, but confusion.
She hadn’t expected them to catch her so quickly.
“Bring her before me!”
When the family soldiers brought over a “self-proclaimed Crosibel” in fluttering clothes, Evelyn felt as if the sky had fallen.
“That’s not her!”
“Pardon?”
“I said it’s not her! She looks similar, but she’s someone else! Who are you?”
“...”
“This woman isn’t Crosibel, you... you... idiots!”
Evelyn’s furious shout made everyone around her turn pale.
What did that even mean? The woman had been in the carriage personally sent by the Crown Prince, accompanied by the attendant personally sent by the Crown Prince, but she wasn’t Lady Crosibel?
Cedric couldn’t believe it. Still, it was difficult to argue with Evelyn. What kind of person was Lady Crosibel?
She was a mysterious woman who had grown up delicately sheltered within the count’s household all her life, then instantly captured the Crown Prince at the first party she ever attended. Before becoming the Crown Prince’s lover, nobody even knew who she was. Afterward, her status had become so exalted that it was difficult to see her face even once.
In other words, Evelyn was the only person here who had met her in person.
“Evelyn! Is that true?”
“Would I say it if it weren’t? Hey! Who are you?”
The girl who had silently knelt down gave an utterly absurd explanation. She claimed to be Crosibel’s half-sister and said the real Crosibel had caught a severe fever two days ago and was too sick to rise from bed.
“Th-then why were you in the carriage?”
Her answer was even more absurd.
They couldn’t send someone suffering from a contagious disease to meet the Crown Prince, the Empress, and the Emperor. That meant the engagement had to be postponed, but they feared people would notice something had happened to Crosibel if the carriage were empty. So they had put her half-sister, who looked similar, inside it.
Naturally, they couldn’t deceive the Crown Prince, but they believed he wouldn’t want his lover’s condition to become public either. They had intended to explain that part to him and ask him to cooperate with the act.
Cedric muttered with a sigh.
“So the real Crosibel never even left the count’s household!”
At that moment, Evelyn’s thoughts went in another direction.
“Cedric, this situation isn’t entirely bad for us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s take this girl to the Imperial Palace.”
Cedric’s eyes widened for a moment before the meaning became clear.
“You intend to announce that Crosibel has caught a fever?”
“That’s right! How could someone at death’s door from a plague become the Crown Prince’s fiancée? Does that make any sense? What if she passes that plague on to His Highness? Or if she passes it on to the future Imperial Grandson Crosibel might bear!”
It was a reasonable argument. It was also safer.
To be honest, Cedric had thought today’s plan carried far too much risk. They had been planning to kill the Crown Prince’s fiancée without warning. Wasn’t that a truly insane plan?
In comparison, publicly revealing that the fiancée had contracted a contagious disease would achieve their goal with much less risk.
* * *
- Yoo Song-i
“Dear, you only need to say what we agreed on. Understood?”
“Yes.”
“Remember. None of this is for anyone’s personal benefit. It is for the Empire’s future. How could we place someone with a plague beside His Highness? And- Hm?”
I immediately curled myself up.
Evelyn tilted her head, then soon dismissed her suspicion and continued spouting nonsense.
The plan I’d come up with in that urgent moment was honestly nothing special.
In a world without cameras or the internet, how many people would know what the Crown Prince’s fiancée looked like? I figured nobody besides Evelyn would know my face.
As expected, once I deceived Evelyn’s eyes, everyone else also fell for the flimsy lie I had made up on the spot and mistook me for someone else. That had been fine, but...
I never expected Evelyn to put me in her own carriage!
This was the moment that truly scared me. The bracelet’s illusion had a time limit. When I first obtained Diverse Perspectives in Room 103, it had only lasted ten minutes. The duration had gradually increased over time, but it still couldn’t exceed twenty minutes.
Naturally, the illusion on Evelyn had worn off long ago. Right now, she was mistaken only because of her first impression and my act of curling up as tightly as possible with my head bowed to the floor.
I waited and waited.
While the idiot girl in front of me rambled on about concern for the Empire’s future, something she had obviously never cared about in her life, I waited only for the moment the bracelet’s power recovered!
Thankfully, because movies liked to skip boring scenes, I didn’t have to wait long.
“Ha! Now’s the time!”
“His Highness- Hm?”
I straightened my curled-up body and raised the head I had bowed so low it nearly touched the floor.
Evelyn watched me as if wondering why I was suddenly acting like this, then seemed to doubt her own eyes.
“What the-”
“Idiot. You still don’t recognize me?”
A flash from the bracelet filled the carriage.
Footnotes:
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