WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 288: Room 204, Mission Room - ‘Hotel Cinema’ (11)

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- Cha Jin-cheol

“General, your meal has been served.”

“... Leave.”

Not even five minutes after entering the film, that scene began. The poisoning event I already knew about. Should I eat it or not?

Honestly, I didn't think poison would take me down so easily when even my body could withstand the Otherworldly Star for a while. Maybe if I ate it and acted like nothing had happened, I could find the culprit?

“Yeah, eating this is a bad idea.”

I decided against it.

The Hotel Party still had several more chances, but this was my first and last chance. I didn't want to take a reckless gamble. No matter how I looked at it, knowingly stuffing poison into my mouth was idiotic. It could be some unbelievably potent poison.

“Guards!”

What followed wasn't much different from what happened during the Doctor's turn. Things got noisy outside, and while I waited, I patrolled the wall and held a strategy meeting.

* * *

--- Neigh!

“This still sucks, even when you know it's coming.”

Around the time the meeting ended, I blinked once, and suddenly the war had begun. It was absurd even when I knew it was coming. I could imagine how shocked the Doctor must've been when it happened for the first time.

I had a plan from here on, so I should stick to it.

“Hey!”

“General! Your orders-”

“What rank are you? You're next after me, right?”

“I-I am, but-”

“Lead the troops around here.”

“Pardon?”

“Do I need to make it sound convincing? From this moment on, I transfer command to you. Fight bravely!”

“Pardon?”

I'd said enough. They'd get the idea.

Holding a fairly impressive Guandao, I got off my horse.

What was I supposed to do with a horse anyway? None of my Hotel companions had lived such a blessed life that they'd learned horseback riding. I'd even asked Eun-sol whether she'd ever ridden one, and she shook her head.

More importantly, I was confident I could move faster than a horse.

--- Boom!

The moment I kicked off the ground with all my strength, my whole body shot forward. I felt the cool wind brushing my cheeks and the stench of blood droplets flying everywhere at once.

The expressions of the enemy soldiers who spotted me flying at them like a cannonball contorted in alarm. The moment my feet touched the ground, I spun halfway around and swung the Guandao.

I didn't know any techniques for wielding a long spear like this. What would a modern person from the twenty-first century ever use that kind of skill for? Still, if you swung a sharp weapon hard enough, it would cut people.

Enough strength was a skill in itself!

--- Crack!

A heavy resistance ran through my arms, and I cut down two soldiers in a single blow. The first had been split from neck to shoulder, while the second had been carved apart from waist to knees. Flesh scattered in every direction.

I looked at what had once been people and was now just lumps of meat.

Strangely, I didn't feel much of a human emotion like guilt. Was it because this was a battlefield? A place where people killed and were killed, and these soldiers had probably cut down others too?

I didn't know.

Still...

It felt refreshing. Something that had filled my chest drained away, and my vision opened up.

I cut again and again.

I split the neck of a soldier charging at me with the face of a demon. Immediately, I thrust the arm holding the Guandao behind me and struck someone at my back with its shaft. I knew without looking that someone's upper body had been pierced through.

I was getting used to using the Guandao.

Complicated spear techniques were unnecessary for me in the first place. I didn't need sophisticated techniques about controlling all eight directions at once or smoothly deflecting attacks.

I packed as much of my overflowing strength as possible into each swing and swung quickly. No one could stop my spear.

Just as I began losing track of how many people I'd cut down, a general riding a brown horse came charging toward me from across the field, shouting.

“You bastard! This Purdhan, your wickedness-”

“You're not Murtanie.”

“The general, the likes of you-”

I leaped powerfully like before. Caught completely off guard by my body flying toward them, the opponent couldn't even get into position before being swept up by the Guandao's lightning-fast path.

One strike split both the general's torso and the brown horse.

Was that a bit too much?

My arm tingled. More than that, the Guandao's shaft was beginning to wobble. It seemed the weapon had reached its durability limit. The spear of the general I'd just cut down looked to be in decent condition, so I switched weapons.

It should be about time for Murtanie to appear...

“Hey! Have you seen Murtanie?”

I asked an allied soldier behind me if they'd seen Murtanie.

“Gah!”

Instead of answering, the soldier suddenly fell backward, screamed, and started running away. Did this idiot not recognize an allied general?

--- Neigh!

The cry of a massive horse rang out in the distance. A horse with an extraordinary build, obvious at a glance, approached through the dust-filled battlefield.

“Ha ha ha ha! General of the Empire, there was no need to search so urgently for me. I have come to cut you down.”

“You're here.”

“I saw you from afar. Your spirit was remarkable. I had no idea the Empire possessed such a warrior.”

“Hey, asshole. If you saw me from far away, shouldn't you have come sooner?”

“Ha ha! You speak less like a general of a nation and more like a street thug. I rode here the moment I spotted you, so what could I do if I was late?”

Armor caked with bits of flesh. Corpses scattered everywhere.

Even to myself, I probably looked terrifying right now. Seeing the enemy general approach so calmly despite having watched me from afar made tension slowly build within me.

We raised our spears at the same time and met each other's eyes. Neither of us rushed in recklessly. As we faced off like this, I suddenly noticed that our heights were different. Murtanie seemed to notice too and smirked.

“Did you lose your horse in battle? An old saying goes that a general without a horse is no general at all.”

“Don't worry. Your horse will die soon anyway.”

“Ha ha ha!”

The instant Murtanie's horse moved, I lowered my stance and adjusted my grip on the spear.

The ground-shaking vibrations were terrifying. I extended my spear slightly toward the horse, signaling that I was focused on it.

Then Murtanie's spear tore through the air.

Now!

I immediately took two steps to the side, and a pitch-black vortex swept through the spot where I'd been standing. I'd already seen that bastard fire off something like sword energy before entering. I'd be an idiot if I let it hit me!

I trusted that no matter how much of a monster Murtanie was, a magical technique like that couldn't be used repeatedly. There had to be some recharge time after using it once, right?

That was how balance worked.

Murtanie slowly stretched out a left hand and clenched a fist in the air.

I had to accept that I was wrong for looking for balance in this shitty hotel.

An immense pressure crushed down on my entire body. It felt like I had been thrown into a giant press and squeezed like an orange. This was the move that had utterly destroyed the Doctor.

“Raaah!”

I endured it with a battle cry. No joke, I really did. I just screamed, flexed every muscle in my body, and forced all my strength outward.

I endured through sheer willpower!

--- Boom!

With a roar like a bomb going off, the force suppressing my body faded like ice beneath sunlight. At the same time, blood sprayed from Murtanie's left hand.

This was backlash. Was it the principle behind that supernatural power? If the opponent countered or endured it, the user suffered backlash?

“Ghhhk!”

“Is that all? It's nothing.”

Honestly, it was something. My entire body was still trembling, so I couldn't continue the attack. I could only bluff with my mouth.

“What... What is your body made of? Iron? How can a human-”

“Wow... You fucking asshole. That one really pisses me off. Of all people, I have to hear ‘how can a human’ from someone like you? From a bastard using Force Grip?”

“Poshu geurip?”

“You piece of shit! Don't half-assedly imitate the pronunciation!”

I forced my trembling body to move. Maybe because the backlash was still affecting Murtanie, there was no counterattack even as I moved.

Strength rose from my toes, passed through my waist, and flowed into my arm. As the immense force created by my spinning body entered the spear, it tore through the air and shook violently.

The spear that shot toward it like lightning blew the horse's head apart before it could understand what had happened. At least it died instantly. The bastard riding it was the problem. What had the horse done wrong?

Murtanie reacted too late, kicked off the horse, and used the recoil to leap high into the air, escaping my spear's path.

There were no horses left here now.

There were only two warriors, each holding a spear, capable of crushing rocks like tofu and twisting steel like taffy.

For a brief moment, we caught our breath. I glanced around.

At some point, the soldiers around Murtanie and me had stopped fighting. They stood in a wide circle, watching us.

They must've realized it too.

This battle wouldn't be decided by the bloody clash of thousands of soldiers. They were only supporting characters, weak people who accepted their fate. Victory and defeat would be decided by the duel between the two people standing here.

There was no reason for anyone else to waste their strength.

“I told you earlier, didn't I?”

“...”

“I said your horse would die soon. I'm good at reading this kind of flow.”

“My body.”

“What?”

“My body feels lighter now. So the Empire does have a general after all. Only one of us will leave here alive today...”

“Quit posing and just come at me.”

“Raaah!”

With a rough shout, Murtanie charged forward with a spear extended in a straight line. From the very start of the attack, the black energy wrapped around the spear spun in a spiral as it flew toward me, ready to grind everything apart.

I stepped back half a pace and swung my spear sideways. The two spears collided.

At that moment, a smile appeared on Murtanie's lips. The rotating dark energy instantly shredded my spear, turning everything from the blade to the shaft into splinters.

Ha! I hadn't expected an ordinary spear like this to block that mysterious energy in the first place!

What I trusted was the laws of physics. Once our spears had collided, no matter how much that unknown power destroyed mine, Murtanie's spear would have to be knocked off course too.

As I avoided the twisted spear path and moved inside its reach, the surprised opponent immediately pulled the spear back.

As expected, Murtanie's weapon skill was on an entirely different level from mine!

I had planned to immediately close in and throw a punch, but the weapon was recovered faster than I expected. I couldn't easily find an opening.

What should I do-

...

I remembered the nature of that unknown black energy. If the opponent countered it and endured it, the user suffered backlash.

Then...

I reached out and grabbed Murtanie's spear shaft.

Even in that instant, I wondered if this was really right. Had I lost my mind?

“Ghhhk!”

It hurt. It couldn't even compare to the Force Grip from before. In an instant, my vision turned red, and five or six teeth burst from my mouth.

Blood burst from my mouth, ears, nose, chest, arms, and legs.

Blood vessels burst throughout my entire body, turning me into a red goblin in an instant.

Even so...

I didn't die.

My hand didn't let go of Murtanie's spear.

--- Snap!

The moment Murtanie's spear shaft broke, a sound like cannon fire from backlash rang throughout Murtanie's body.

“Huh... Hup!”

On the silent battlefield, the stunned soldiers who had forgotten even to fight came faintly into view.

Blood streamed from our entire bodies. From mine and Murtanie's.

Pain.

Pain.

Pain.

Every moment, lightning struck my entire body, and it felt like I was being roasted alive. I clenched my teeth and swallowed the screams trying to burst from my mouth.

It felt like I had to.

Because Murtanie wasn't screaming either.

I couldn't scream first. That would mean losing, wouldn't it?

The moment I thought about the situation, a hollow laugh escaped me. Unless you were an idiot, couldn't you tell at a glance that both of us would die if someone just gave us a push? Yet not a single person was firing an arrow?

What, were outsiders refusing to interfere before the battle between two men reached its conclusion?

Heh. Even for a film, this development was fucking stupid. Childish, pathetic, ridiculous.

People often called a stupid situation like this...

‘A man's romance.’

I felt sorry for Murtanie, but the match was over the moment we both ended up like this. Unlike Murtanie, who couldn't survive without immediate treatment, I had Regeneration.

My vision slowly returned. The bleeding stopped. The intense pain eased.

Slowly, but with every ounce of strength I had, I approached the enemy.

“Say your last words.”

A villain like you needed to say something before you went.

“Sky God... I return to my father's embrace.”

The edge of my casually extended hand pierced the enemy general's neck.

The outcome of that brutal field battle had been decided.

Footnotes:

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