WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 298: Room 204, Mission Room - ‘Hotel Cinema’ (20)

──────

- Lee Eun-sol

The moment I ran outside, it was pitch-black.

The darkness of a rural area without a single streetlight was on a completely different level from the darkness in a city.

Actually, these conditions were pretty favorable for me. If I put on the badge in this situation, could they even fight back? They had trouble finding me during the day. In this darkness, they wouldn't even be able to move before I took them down.

I changed my mind. No matter how I thought about it, the Invisibility Badge was a little much. I could probably get away with the Chef's Hat by claiming that anyone would be startled if an elegant young lady suddenly started swearing, but there was no explaining away invisibility like that. It'd probably turn into some bizarre story where Park Su-mi was actually an agent of the Holy See.

Then a thick arm suddenly came at me from behind, grabbed my head, and slammed me to the ground!

I immediately tried to swing my knife, but it slipped against the thick clothes the sister-in-law had put on for the fight.

“Ghk!”

“Miss, you should've stayed still. Why are you making such a fuss? Why would someone so... so beautiful act like this...?”

My consciousness blurred in an instant. This woman, this fucking sister-in-law, was much stronger than me! I should've just used the badge! -

--- Thud!

...

A viscous liquid poured over my head.

I wasn't about to scream just because blood had gotten on my face, but the sister-in-law's head burst so suddenly that it still startled me.

Behind the sister-in-law stood a young man gripping a heavy crowbar. Perhaps shocked that the young man had killed an older sister with his own hands, he began trembling all over.

But this wasn't the time for that.

“Hide!”

“Uh, ah, ngh.”

“Idiot! Hide! Can't you hear your brother and father coming?”

Only then did the young man blankly hide behind the building. I picked up a stone from the ground and rubbed it against the sister-in-law's shattered head, making it look as though I had killed her.

A moment later, two men appeared.

“H-Hye-yeong! You crazy bitch, how dare you!”

“Haaah... Hearing you two call me a crazy bitch actually makes me laugh.”

Unlike the father-in-law, who couldn't calm down, Park Sang-ho's eyes gleamed coldly.

“After living with you for months, I see I never knew you.”

“I didn't know you either.”

More accurately, the owner of this body hadn't known you.

“You... You crazy demon bitch!”

“Hey, you two really aren't in any position to say that.”

I stalled for time with wordplay as I looked behind them. Don't tell me he was still standing there with his mind gone blank.

“I was going to preserve as much of your face as I could and peel it off n-nicely!”

“Are you expecting me to thank you for that?”

“I wanted to preserve the most beautiful moment of your life forever! I'll fry you alive! Think I'm lying? Do you know what smell comes from heating up a frying pot with chopped pork fat in it?”

“Who knows. The smell of blood sausage?”

“Ha! Acting brave-”

--- Thud!

The young master's second surprise attack made me nervous. From where I stood, on the opposite side of Park Sang-ho, I could clearly see him approaching and hear him stepping on dry leaves.

Fortunately, the two men who were busy hurling abuse at me didn't notice the young man coming up behind them.

“Guhk! What the-”

--- Thud!

The young man brought the crowbar down again and again. Park Sang-ho's right eyeball had already popped halfway out and hung loose after the first blow. It didn't take long for his head to turn into a smashed watermelon.

Of course, the father-in-law who witnessed it didn't stay still. He immediately turned to attack the young man, but that only meant he had turned his back on me, so I stabbed him with my knife.

“Why are you in such a hurry at your age? People who need to go should go. Honestly, you can leave now.”

“M-Myeong-jin! Me-”

“What do you expect me to do about you?”

Of course, now that things had come this far, the young man didn't listen to the old man's words.

... The long, madness-filled night was finally coming to an end.

The young man stood there blankly, looking as though his soul had left his body.

“Young master, no, Myeong-jin.”

“Ghk...”

“I know you can't speak. I'll give you a pen, so write it down. Right, Park Sang-ho was the one in charge of supplying victims to this house?”

‘Yes.’

“I understand most of it now, but there's one thing I don't know. Who are you?”

‘... I was brought here with my mother a long time ago.’

I remembered the story Song-i had told me long ago. She had said the strange stories that unfolded in the hotel were adaptations of things that had actually happened in reality.

Had something this horrible happened in real life too?

The thought made me almost throw up.

Calm down. There was still work to do.

I went around and finished off even the mother-in-law, who was still coughing up bloody foam. Then Myeong-jin and I dragged the bodies into the country house and set it on fire.

The young man stared blankly at the burning house, then wrote on my hand.

‘Are you a Witch? Or an angel?’

“Sorry, but I'm neither. My friends far away are halfway to becoming beings like that, but I'm not there yet. More importantly... let's leave together. A bus will come tomorrow morning.”

I watched the young man stagger as he turned away.

Then, without thinking, I pulled him into a light embrace.

“Ngh!”

“Sweet dreams. You're leaving this place with me. I'm sure happy things will be waiting for you outside.”

I prayed desperately.

I prayed to Buddha that he had been saved in reality too. If he hadn't, then I prayed he would at least be saved in the next life.

* * *

“... That's what happened. I walked and walked down the country road with the young master. My legs were shaking so badly I thought I'd die, but we made it to the bus stop.”

Park Su-mi explained exactly what I had gone through. Writer Do In-ho nodded attentively.

“You truly went through a great deal. May I ask how Park Myeong-jin is doing now?”

“Who knows? A happy ending? Though calling it an ending for someone who's still alive feels a little strange.”

Rather than answering, Park Su-mi smiled brightly.

Just from that smile, I felt like the young man was living reasonably well. It put my mind slightly at ease.

“It was an interesting story. Still, there was one thing I found strange as I listened. May I ask about it?”

“What part?”

“You said that when you cursed at the murderers in the middle of it, they froze like stone. Could something like that happen ‘naturally’?”

“Did that part feel strange to you?”

“A little. It almost sounded like you had used some kind of supernatural power-”

“Hey! You fucking son of a bitch!”

“!!!”

“!!!”

Silence fell over the entire coffee shop.

At such an unexpected moment, vulgar words came from the refined lady's mouth, and Do In-ho froze like a statue.

Soon, Park Su-mi smiled elegantly again and answered.

“I think that answers your question. I'm sorry. Seeing it for yourself is more convincing than hearing about it a hundred times, so showing you directly was the surest way.”

“... I-I was startled. I can imagine how shocked the murderers must have been. I understand. Good, good. This story has a very high level of ‘completeness’ as it is. I also like that it has a happy ending. I will ‘confirm’ the first story here.”

Before speaking that last sentence, Do In-ho strangely turned his head in another direction.

* * *

- Theater

「I will ‘confirm’ it here.」

“...”

“...”

“Ga-in, no matter how I look at it, wasn't that line directed at us?”

“I think so. It sounds like he confirmed the first story as Eun-sol's scenario.”

“Confirm... Then does that mean everyone after her skips the first story?”

“We'll find out when we go in.”

“By the way, Eun-sol must've really immersed herself in that story. She hugged that kid named Myeong-jin tightly at the end, and she even cried a little.”

Ga-in nodded.

“I think that's what allowed her to finish the first story successfully.”

* * *

- Lee Eun-sol

Without even a moment to catch my breath, Han Yu-ri opened her mouth, and the second story, ‘The Bewitching Girl,’ began.

I hadn't seen that title inside. It was the title Grandpa had seen when he first entered, but...

“Just the title makes me want to swear. What the hell is so bewitching about it?”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

The lunch bell rang out. As I naturally headed toward the shoe lockers, I thought.

What should I do?

Grandpa had shown us the first crisis when he died. Some lunatic who had stuffed Slime into the shoe locker as a confession was hiding nearby.

I looked around, but the lunatic had hidden himself well and was nowhere to be seen. What should I do? Should I ignore the shoe locker altogether? That didn't seem right either.

--- Click!

As I was considering it, Saerom casually reached for Han Yu-ri's shoe locker, and I stopped her in alarm.

“Y-Yu-ri?”

“... Aren't I supposed to be the one startled here? Why are you suddenly reaching for my shoe locker?”

“S-Sorry. But you always told me to open it whenever there was something weird in your shoe locker.”

I sighed.

Even if I didn't open the shoe locker, someone else would. If I stopped Saerom, someone else would open it instead. It looked like what was going to happen would happen in the end.

I just opened the shoe locker.

As expected, there was sticky Slime and an ‘I love you’ note inside.

Saerom immediately frowned.

“Eugh! What kind of fucking id- Mmph!”

She'd been causing problems for a while now. Was she some kind of crisis-generating machine?

“Saerom, it's only a clumsy confession. You don't need to swear at them.”

Sorry, Saerom. I would've cursed too.

But if the person confessing was a lunatic, wouldn't it be better to reject them ‘kindly’?

I forcibly peeled away the sticky Slime, pulled out the note inside, and read it carefully. Then I spoke so that the guy undoubtedly hiding somewhere could hear me.

“I appreciate how you feel, but... I don't intend to date anyone yet. And I'm sorry, whoever you are.”

You heard that, right? You heard it, you idiot? Give it up and go to sleep already!

--- Crash!

At that very moment, the fucking idiot who had been hiding behind the shoe locker like a ninja - Was this bastard seriously insane? - jumped out and shouted excitedly.

He held a fire extinguisher in his hand.

“Lies!”

“...”

“D-Don't lie! It's not that you don't intend to date anyone. You just don't intend to date me, right? Right? You're definitely planning to date some other guy-”

Had Yu-ri promised to date you without me knowing? Then why the hell were you acting like this?

Fortunately, by the time this idiot jumped out, there were already many other students nearby. Anyone could see that a lunatic shouting while holding a fire extinguisher was threatening.

“Ah, that loser is doing it again?”

Soon, the other students dragged the idiot with the fire extinguisher away.

Phew... That got us past the first crisis.

The difference from Grandpa's run was that I had treated him kindly and bought time for other people to arrive, right?

Fortunately, there were no more crises during lunch.

Still, over the course of just an hour or so, I felt it countless times.

The girl whose body I had entered, Han Yu-ri, truly had an enviable life.

I really wanted to live like her!

Whenever I sighed while walking around, everyone looked at me and asked what was worrying me.

Whenever I looked down the hallway, it was full of high school students staring shyly at me.

Whenever I sat by the window in class and looked outside, I could even see students from other schools who had come to look at me.

So this was the life of the prettiest girl in the province!

Elena and A-ri had lived lives like this too... No, they hadn't. Elena had been too busy running away, and A-ri had grown up in the hotel.

Wow. Growing up in the hotel was really awful.

Sorry, but I grew up better than them.

* * *

“Eun-sol?”

“Uh, Sis!”

* * *

The second crisis came after lunch ended.

I heard murmuring outside the classroom, then the girls began squealing.

“Wow! He's here again! He's here again!”

“What?”

“Yu-ri, are you going to accept Ji-ho senior's confession this time?”

“... Ji-ho senior? Who was that?”

“Come on... You know, but you're pretending again! He's on the baseball team! Apparently he was even drafted by a professional team this time.”

I didn't have time to say anything. The girls had already practically dragged me out of the classroom.

Outside stood a boy with a strong build. His face had already turned red like a ripe persimmon just from looking at me from a distance.

That was enough for me to guess what cringe-inducing event was about to happen.

... If an aspiring athlete went crazy, this would be seriously difficult.

This Han Yu-ri girl was really something else. Now I understood the meaning of the title ‘The Bewitching Girl.’

It was scary just thinking about who else might still be left.

Footnotes:

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