WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 28: Room 103, The Cursed Room - ‘Animal Farm’ (2)

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- Yoo Song-i

I'd never been this afraid in my life.

To be on the verge of dying while being plucked alive.

If they were just going to twist my neck cleanly and kill me, I could die in peace, trusting the others to handle everything. But this...

I checked the enclosure as thoroughly as I could.

It was a fairly large space, like a chicken coop, and there were an awful lot of geese.

Wouldn't the odds of me being chosen be low if I just stayed still?

Still, just in case, I put as much distance between myself and the door as possible.

As I waddled along, I tapped other geese's beaks or rears with my beak. They responded with irritated honks, but I didn't care.

Sorry, but die in my place. Thinking geese should survive, shouldn't they?

Of course, being plucked didn't necessarily mean death. Most of them would probably live...

Either way, I couldn't let them pluck my feathers. They were so fluffy even when I poked them with my beak. There was no way I was letting anyone pull them out.

El Doggo (Elena): On my way now!

Wolf Boy (Park Seung-yeop): Ready.

Tension hung in the air. It'd be fine, right? There were so many geese, and I was even hiding in a corner. Would they really go out of their way to find me?

A shaggy-haired man entered. The moment I saw him, I got a little annoyed.

Pluck your own hair! Don't go ripping out innocent geese's feathers! Geese get cold in winter too!

I wedged my rear as far into the corner as possible, then bit another goose and put it in front of me.

Sorry, friend. I trust you'll protect me.

That was a mistake.

“HOOOOOOONK!!!!!!!!!!”

A goose's honk boomed like thunder. The farmer, who had been looking around, immediately fixed his eyes on me.

“What’s with that one?”

“I saw it earlier. It bit the one in front of it.”

“Good grief, that's a nasty biter. Peter, keep an eye on that one. If we leave geese like that alone, they'll fight among themselves in the enclosure, get hurt, and cause a huge mess. You have to cull the troublesome ones. Understand?”

“Yes. I'll catch it.”

I couldn't understand every word.

Still, when the boy stared straight at me and walked directly toward me, I understood.

I'm doomed. My breath felt like it had stopped, but I tried reaching out anyway. There was no response.

Ah! I'd used up my Chat Limit too. There really was no way out now.

Soon, the boy's firm hand grabbed my body, lifted me up, and shoved me into a wooden box.

I'm going to be plucked to death in here. From what I overheard, they said they were going to cull me? Maybe I wouldn't just be plucked. Maybe they were going to kill me.

Was this how it ended in Room 103, as goose meat?

At the moment I was drowning in indescribable despair, salvation arrived.

Woof! Woof! Grrrrr, woof woof!!!

Awoooooooo!!! Awoooooooo!!!

A dog barked like mad. A wolf howled.

The situation was so obvious that the farm family's expressions changed at once. They forgot all about a goose like me and rushed outside.

“Peter! Get to your room! Make sure May doesn't leave hers! Amy! My gun!”

“I'll bring it! You be careful!”

“Hmph. Looks like one or two lone wolves. I'll teach them a lesson today!”

I felt like crying. Elena and Seung-yeop must have coordinated this.

I'd survived for now. But... did it matter when I was still inside the box?

Wouldn't they chase away the wolf, come back, and take me again?

Wolf howls. Dog barks. Gunshots cutting through the air.

The farmer's angry shouts, a screaming girl, an excited boy.

Even the other enclosures were in uproar...

More than thirty minutes of chaos swept through the entire farm.

Then, in the middle of all that confusion, help came again.

Click.

The top of the box opened, and I realized it.

I was alive.

As if she had been waiting, a golden dog gently grabbed me by the neck and pushed me outside. Nearby, she struggled with a goose about the same size as me, then killed it and put it in the box.

A friend who'd die in my place. I felt a little sorry. Still, please understand. Thinking geese had to survive.

But when Elena lifted me by the neck earlier, I heard a crack?

Like something had cracked slightly.

What was that?

There wasn't anything in my neck that should make a sound like that... I must have heard wrong.

Everyone had worked this hard and done their best for me. Seung-yeop especially could have been shot dead by the farmer at any moment!

He hadn't actually been hit, right? I prayed he hadn't. I was so grateful to everyone that I could have cried.

Somewhere, I heard mooing too. Was Ga-in worried about me? Or was it another cow crying out in fright?

I held my breath and waited.

Had about two hours passed?

Ever since becoming an animal, my sense of time had become vague.

The farm family returned one by one. They looked incredibly irritated. From what I could overhear, the wolf had escaped.

Seung-yeop had gotten away safely. What a relief. If he'd been shot dead trying to save me, it would have been a tragedy.

I hid quietly in a corner of the enclosure and watched the farm family approach the box.

“Hm? Why is this one's neck broken? Peter, did you kill it before putting it in here?”

“What? I only grabbed it by the neck and put it in the box.”

“It must have died from a broken neck. The wolf suddenly showed up, so you probably made a mistake.”

“Uh... That's strange. I'll be more careful next time.”

“Well, it's no big deal. We were going to kill it anyway. It bit too much, so there was no helping it. Let's head in for today.”

Ah... Somehow, I'd lived.

I felt sorry for the goose that died and went into the box in my place, but the farm couple couldn't tell it apart from me.

Really, it was only natural. No one would normally imagine a dog killing another goose and swapping it in.

When KakaoTalk recovered tomorrow, I'd thank everyone, even if only briefly.

After getting through that ordeal, all the tension suddenly drained out of me.

I looked blankly up at the sky. The sun had long since disappeared, and moonlight was beginning to embrace the world, scattering light into every corner.

A-ri had said that a Goblin appeared every night in this world.

Wasn't it about time I started being useful to everyone too?

Even if Seung-yeop had handled Room 101, Strange Family, all by himself, I hadn't done anything after that. Not at the pool, not during the exploration mission, and not in Room 102, House of Horror.

I was possessed the moment we entered the mansion and only did crazy things.

Even now, in Room 103, I was like this. Someone was gathering information day and night, while someone else had even drawn the farmer out with howls to save a goose from being plucked...

I was still just a goose inside an enclosure. Why had I been given a role where I couldn't do anything at all?

No, this wasn't the time to resent it. I should look for something I could do myself.

Maybe because I'd just narrowly escaped a painful death, I wasn't sleepy either.

Since things had come to this, I decided to watch the Goblin. According to A-ri, it didn't seem particularly interested in us.

I quietly pushed other geese aside with little jabs of my beak, making my way to a breezy spot at the enclosure's outer edge.

The geese reacted irritably. Sorry, friends. But a thinking goose had a lot to do.

When I cautiously poked my head outside, I couldn't see anything.

The whole world was pitch-black. There'd seemed to be moonlight earlier. Had clouds covered it?

Or was a goose's vision worse than I'd thought?

I turned my head this way and that, but still couldn't see anything, aaaah-HOOOOOOONK!

Something enormous descended.

I instinctively let out a honk and understood. Clouds hadn't covered the moon!

Something unimaginably huge, as seen through a goose's eyes, had simply been standing right in front of the enclosure!

I was so startled, so terrified, that my whole body froze.

A massive black shape, like the face of a giant, lowered itself and looked into the enclosure.

No, not at the enclosure.

It was looking at me. I couldn't see its eyes, but I knew. It was focusing on me.

My entire body trembled. Only now did I understand how small and insignificant I was.

Please spare me. I don't want to die like this.

What happened next was unexpected.

A tentacle-like thing stretched out from the black shape and dangled into the enclosure. It pushed me, where I had been sticking out, back inside with a light shove, tapped my head, then disappeared.

There was something oddly familiar about the gesture. It was like an owner petting a pet and putting it back inside when it tried to leave the house.

About five minutes passed before I came back to my senses. I was a bird, but it felt as though my whole body had been soaked through with tension.

The enclosure was quiet, as if nothing had happened.

It was strange.

I'd raised everything from dogs and cats to parrots since I was little, so I knew very well.

Small animals were terribly fearful.

A parrot that screamed and flew onto my shoulder whenever a clothes hanger fell. A puppy that clung tightly to someone's leg and wouldn't let go whenever the robot vacuum started moving. A cat that screamed and fled at the sound of a shower.

Small animals knew they were weak without anyone teaching them.

The genes they had inherited from their ancestors over millions of years told them.

You are tiny grains of sand in this vast world. The whole world is danger.

Yet that terrifying thing, terrifying enough that even a goose with a human mind couldn't breathe, had come right beside the enclosure and pushed a tentacle inside. Why was the enclosure so quiet?

Not every goose was asleep. Quite a few were awake...

Yet it was as if nothing had happened.

I should tell everyone tomorrow. Still, I didn't think discussing it would lead to any conclusion.

Thinking that the mysteries were only multiplying, I tucked my beak between my wings.

I was getting used to life as a goose too. Still, my feathers being so fluffy was really nice. I absolutely couldn't let them be plucked.

Footnotes:

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