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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 293: Room 204, Mission Room - ‘Hotel Cinema’ (16) - Part 2 (Final)

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[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)

Date: Day 133

Current Location: Level 2, Room 204 - Mission Room, ‘Hotel Cinema’

Sage’s Advice: 3]

- Han Ga-in

“Wh-what is this?”

Elena's utterly flustered voice rang out. No one could answer her. We were all thinking the same thing!

“What the hell is this, you stupid hotel!”

A-ri openly cursed, but nobody stopped her. Everyone felt the same way.

No, seriously, what was that? Hadn't this been a perfectly normal, spectacular action movie?

It had been surprising when it suddenly veered into an assault on the capital near the end, but a war hero clashing with the emperor seemed like a reasonable development. But then the emperor's corpse suddenly came back to life at the end? A hair-growth commercial?

“What did I just watch? Does anyone understand this?”

I'd never seen such an absurd movie in my life!

In the middle of all this, Eun-sol was the only one who had regained her senses and offered an opinion.

“You all saw the notification earlier, right?”

“A notification?”

“Were you too distracted to notice? ‘You have obtained ‘Hair of a Lightning-Enduring Warrior’!’ That notification appeared near the end of the movie.”

I hadn't seen it. Honestly, the movie had suddenly gone insane at the end, so I hadn't had the presence of mind to look at some notification blinking faintly in the corner.

“If it's Hair of a Lightning-Enduring Warrior, then it's a Wing Boots material.”

“Right. So I was thinking, it must be because of the ‘transformation’ in the middle of the movie.”

At her words, an unbelievable thought came to mind.

“Don't tell me Jin-cheol became a warrior who endured lightning while fighting Kurta, so his hair itself became the reward?”

“That seems to be it. But he suddenly transformed into some weird being like Kamen Rider during the fight. His hair disappeared, so they forced hair back onto him by inserting a hair-growth commercial.”

Grandpa, who had been listening carefully to her explanation, looked dumbfounded.

“Wasn't the transformation part of the movie? No, if the hair was the reward, why would the movie include a transformation that got rid of it?”

Grandpa had a point. If the hair was the reward, why would a transformation that removed it appear during the movie? It made no sense.

Unless the transformation was something unrelated to the movie!

Just then, the judges began appearing with their usual ta-da-dan sound effect.

Their mood was subtly different from yesterday's. The Souvenir Girl kept her head lowered and showed no intention of raising it, while the Merchant stared blankly at the ceiling.

The room had fallen quiet. Even the Merchant, always so noisy, kept their mouth firmly shut. In that atmosphere, the Souvenir Girl cautiously raised her sign first.

“I... I'll give it a pass.”

“What?”

Funny enough, the startled cry came from our side. We'd never seen such a ridiculous ending in our lives, and she was giving it a pass?

“I-I thought it was a good story except for the ending. The action scenes were especially impressive, I suppose? The part where you defeated Kurta! I want to praise that. Honestly, it wasn't a conventional development, but it was even more impressive because you overcame it through sheer skill. The usurpation afterward was good too. I liked how the war hero chose to drive out the emperor.”

A-ri cautiously asked a question.

“What would the conventional development have been? I thought we had failed the moment Kurta appeared. No matter how I think about it, gritting your teeth and beating down a monster like that doesn't seem right.”

The Souvenir Girl didn't answer. If a judge gave a failing assessment, someone else would have to enter next. She couldn't exactly tell us the right answer.

The Souvenir Girl, whom we'd thought would be the hardest to deal with, gave us a clear pass, putting us at ease. As for the Merchant, absurd stories were their thing, so-

“I give it a fail.”

“Aaaagh!”

“What the hell is wrong with you? You like stupid endings! I've lived past sixty, and I've never seen such a godawful ending!”

What was with this bastard all of a sudden? I hurriedly raised my hand.

“Why is it a fail? Judge, didn't you say you rated absurd, no, distinctive and unusual plots highly?”

The Merchant suddenly spun around and transformed into a stern-looking professor. I was only dumbfounded for a moment before the Merchant answered in a completely different tone of voice.

“Ho ho... Participant Han Ga-in. I don't know what exactly you think of me, but what I like isn't a carelessly scribbled story fit only for kindling.”

“Give us an example, at least! Tell us what works and what doesn't!”

“An example that doesn't work? One comes to mind immediately. Suppose a protagonist has been steadily taking over a chaebol family, then suddenly gets hit by a truck at the end and dies, and it turns out it was all a dream. Do you think I'd give that a pass? That's an ending fit only for kindling.”

Elena, who had stayed quiet, spoke in a voice full of irritation.

“No, I heard you gave it a pass even when I beat the Crown Prince to death with a scale!”

“If Participant Cha Jin-cheol had torn the National Protector Grand General or another general to death, I would have given it a pass!”

“Why would he suddenly kill his allies? Killing allies is a pass, but a hair-loss commercial is a fail?”

“Isn't the difference obvious? The former is fresh, and the latter is stupid.”

“How are they different!”

The Merchant suddenly flipped the table over and sprang to their feet.

“They are different to me! Different to me!”

What was that bastard even saying now?

“We asked you to explain your standards, and you suddenly say they're different to you-”

“Now I shall stand above the heavens! I am the standard of this world! If I say no, then it's no!”

At that point, A-ri picked up a chair and threw it.

“Hey! Honestly, we didn't ruin the ending! Didn't you people ruin it?”

“Yep! I didn't ruin it! I'll judge it together with the ending, so become a judge if you're unhappy! Goodbye, everyone! It's a fail, and I'm leaving!”

With those words, the Merchant really vanished somewhere. Silence filled the room, leaving us speechless.

“Wh-what, what, what did that bastard just say?”

“...”

Amid the atmosphere of total shock, the Mysterious Craftsman quietly raised a sign.

“X.”

Eun-sol sighed after hearing A-ri's words.

“Ah... Jin-cheol worked so hard, and it's still a fail? This is really-”

I raised my hand first. If I didn't protest, the failure would be set in stone, so we needed to stop this for now. I barely calmed myself and thought. What exactly was that thing's standard?

Since the first day, we'd questioned LEGO's standards and even used Sage’s Advice.

‘Consider what LEGO is.’

What was LEGO?

The Mysterious Craftsman, whom we had found in the Snow Globe outside the hotel, had been a toy rather than a living creature from the moment we found it. That hadn't changed after it activated inside. It was closer to a robot incapable of normal communication.

“LEGO...”

“Ga-in?”

A-ri, who had come up beside me at some point, tilted her head.

“LEGO has no intelligence.”

“What?”

“LEGO is a toy. It has no intelligence. The Mysterious Craftsman can't communicate! How could a robot with no intelligence make a judgment?”

An absurd idea came to mind. In my experience, absurd ideas often turned out to be right in the hotel. I stopped the judging process with my raised hand and approached LEGO.

The Merchant beside LEGO had disappeared after spouting nonsense, while the Souvenir Girl kept her head lowered and pretended not to notice us for reasons unknown.

When I got close enough to see the hand holding LEGO's X sign, I found a translucent string.

“... What is this?”

Once I found the string, the rest came quickly. There was no need to bother grabbing it and tracing it myself. Eun-sol's eyes instantly followed its path...

Everyone's gaze turned to the third NPC who had been here all along, the ‘real judge,’ the Guide.

“...”

“...”

“Ta-da-dan!”

“You...!”

Grandpa had been about to snap, but lowered his head with a tired expression. I understood the feeling completely. What could getting angry accomplish against someone who made a ta-da-dan sound effect in the middle of all this?

Even Confucius had supposedly taught that someone who defecated beside the road still had enough conscience left to be corrected, but someone who defecated in the middle of the road was beyond correction, so he simply avoided them.

A-ri asked with an endlessly exhausted expression.

“... Fine. Third judge hiding your identity. What is your standard that you keep giving us failing marks?”

“It's simple. I like happy endings.”

“Happy endings?”

“Of course, I don't expect an impossible ending. It's a war movie, so not everyone can survive. I'll allow that! But I would like the major characters to reach a happy ending. In Participant Cha Jin-cheol's case, it was regrettable that he drove the emperor to suicide. Did he really have to stage a ‘Wihwado Retreat’?”

“The emperor tried to kill him! What was he supposed to do?”

“The assassination attempt could have been stopped, then he could have retired into seclusion. Or the emperor could have been reformed through sincere conversation. He could have been ambushed, imprisoned, and prevented from committing suicide.”

The third judge, the Guide, presented an unexpectedly clear standard. The Guide wanted all the major characters to have happy endings. The Guide was the type who wanted even villains to be reformed rather than killed.

The Guide wasn't just making unreasonable demands. The Guide even gave alternative plots for how it could have been done, which made it hard to think of a rebuttal.

The part about reforming someone through sincere conversation sounded like bullshit, but stopping the assassination attempt and retiring into seclusion? If Jin-cheol had wanted to, a story like that might have been possible.

Still, it was hard to ask why the Guide preferred such frustrating developments. The Guide would obviously say it was personal preference, and what could I say to that?

As I hesitated, A-ri spoke beside me.

“So you're disappointed because the emperor died?”

“To put it simply, yes.”

“He didn't die.”

“Pardon?”

“Did you watch a different movie from me, Judge? Didn't you see the emperor alive and moving at the end?”

What was A-ri talking about now?

“Ho ho! Participant Kim A-ri, you're trying to spout sophistry again. That wasn't part of the movie, but a commercial-”

“A commercial? Why would there be a commercial during a movie?”

“In Vietnam or India-”

“That's Vietnam or India. Are we in India? We're speaking Korean right now. Guide, you clearly said this when the movie began, didn't you? ‘Hotel Pioneer prides itself on being the best in the world in every respect!’”

“I-I did say that-”

“Then your standards should be the best in the world too! The world's number one film market, the United States. Number two, China. Number three, Japan. Number four, Korea. Number five, the United Kingdom! Name even one of those countries where a character who died in the middle of a movie comes back to life and runs an advertisement!”

While the Guide stammered in confusion, A-ri pressed forward even harder.

“You aren't thinking of bringing up seventh-place India, are you? I trust a hotel that prides itself on being the best in the world wouldn't use the standards of the seventh-largest market.”

“... Wh-what exactly are you trying to say? That advertisements don't appear during movies in countries with advanced film industries?”

“That's right. The final scene wasn't an advertisement. It was part of the movie, and the emperor really came back to life. The resurrected emperor was up to something...”

“Up to something?”

“Wasn't it foreshadowing a sequel?”

A-ri. My head is starting to hurt.

“A-A sequel? Say something that makes sense! The emperor and Cha Jin-cheol clearly shouted the price, 39,800 won, together!”

“Maybe the emperor's brain melted when he came back to life! Cha Jin-cheol must have been controlled! And what? You want me to say something that makes sense? Does stuffing a hair-loss commercial into the ending of a movie make sense?”

“...”

“Am I wrong? There was no commercial, and the emperor came back to life! It was only a scene where he revived, planned for the future, and hinted at a sequel!”

At that point, Eun-sol finally charged out with an expression that said she didn't care anymore. She grabbed the Guide and began shaking them.

“Hey! Honestly, tell us! You put that weird final scene in, didn't you? Wasn't it some kind of mistake? You had to give us Wing Boots materials, but Jin-cheol transformed, so you had no choice but to interfere!”

“...”

“You did something weird, then the Merchant failed us because the ending was stupid and ran away! The judges ruined the ending, then failed us because the ending was ruined? Does that seriously make any sense?”

The hotel was already a place that made no sense, but this was absurd even by its standards.

Eventually, the Guide relented.

“Huuuu... I'm tired. I feel like I've aged.”

Grandpa looked at the Guide in disbelief.

“You brat, you people are why I aged. Mentally, I'm in my seventies now.”

“Your seventies are still quite young.”

“...”

“Fine. This time, it was also ‘our’ responsibility-”

From afar, the Souvenir Girl shouted.

“Bullshit! It's not ‘our’ responsibility, it's ‘your’ responsibility!”

The Guide was the culprit?

“... This time, it is ‘my’ responsibility, so I'll let it pass. I'll mark it as a pass. But remember this. Especially you, Miss A-ri. You've been pushing sophistry too far since yesterday. This sort of trickery ends here, and-”

A-ri let out a deep sigh.

“Please, I'm begging you. You people need to stop doing weird things.”

“Please understand that this sort of trickery ends here. If you come again, I'll tell you then, but I guarantee that a ‘horror movie’ will be on another level.”

With the Guide's ominous warning, sounding slightly angry, the second movie came to an end.

Footnotes:

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