WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 307: Room 204, Mission Room - ‘Hotel Cinema’ (29)
──────
- Park Seung-yeop
Keeping my back against the wall, I slipped sideways out of the room and into the hallway. Then I heard Thomas’s horn in the distance. What was the way to deal with Thomas again? Climb onto furniture?
I hurriedly looked around and spotted a table in the direction I needed to go. The problem was that it was too far away to reach at my current snail’s pace, shuffling sideways with my back against the wall!
「Thomas is departing! Please clear the way so I can lay tracks!」
“Argh! Al-already?”
When I heard Thomas rushing toward me, I squeezed my eyes shut, stepped away from the wall, and ran for the table. I desperately prayed Happyhappy wouldn’t attack me from behind.
My prayer was answered through someone else’s sacrifice.
“Happyha-”
“Woof!”
A horrible sound came from behind me, and tears welled up in my eyes before I realized it. Thanks to the time kind Suzy had bought with her life, I managed to climb onto the table.
--- Whoosh!
Before I could even catch my breath, Thomas tore past me with a deafening noise. Just as expected, once my whole body was off the floor, Thomas passed by without paying me any attention.
“Kiieek!”
Seeing Thomas grab Happyhappy, who had been chasing me from behind, with his spider legs and throw it away eased some of my tension. Thomas’s attack had torn Happyhappy’s legs apart. Could that attack have killed it?
Probably not. I remembered when A-ri had gone in. After Suzy bit Happyhappy’s leg off, Happyhappy had appeared on the screen again completely fine.
「Dolly dolly! It’s tea time!」
Dollyphant’s second cry! There wasn’t much time. Now that I was out in the hallway, the second cry sounded far louder and clearer. I could roughly tell where Dollyphant was.
“Hyah!”
I jumped from the table and landed on the next one. The next piece of furniture was too far away, so I briefly stepped on the floor before scrambling up onto a wall cabinet. Then I ran, stepping across a chair and the top of a heater in quick succession.
I could avoid Thomas like this, but my back was exposed. I had to find Dollyphant before Happyhappy recovered and came after me!
I ran through the hallway, passing two rooms and a living-room-like space. Dollyphant should be nearby. It had to be somewhere around here-
--- Clink!
I heard a clear, elegant sound like glasses touching. Praying this was the place, I opened a huge wooden door and went inside.
“Dolly dolly!”
“...”
“Dolly dolly!”
D-do I have to say it too?
“D-dolly dolly!”
“Hm. I was thinking of stepping on you if you answered any later. Is Kevin always this slow? I had to call you twice before you came!”
My whole body trembled at the vicious aura of the enormous pink elephant.
Would a real elephant have been less frightening? Looking at this monster suspended between an actual elephant and an elephant doll, I finally understood what people meant by the uncanny valley.
“... Sorry.”
“Fine! Come sit here!”
The huge drawing-room-like space where Dollyphant stayed had already been prepared for tea time.
Several enormous, brightly colored teacups sat on the table, and Dollyphant held a teapot big enough to fit my entire body with its trunk-
“Pfft!”
“What was that? Don’t tell me you laughed because I’m holding the teapot with my trunk?”
“Of course not! I was thinking you looked so cool and beautiful.”
“Cool and beautiful? You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?”
“Huh? What?”
“Teapots are supposed to be held with hands! Kevin, don’t you even know that?”
“... I do. You’re supposed to hold a teapot with your hands.”
“But I have elephant feet, so I can’t hold it. That’s why I held it with my trunk. You saw that and laughed! You’re a bad child!”
Argh! No way... It wasn’t about to do something to me just because I laughed once, right?
“No! I really thought it was beautiful. There’s no rule saying you have to hold a teapot with your hands, right?”
“Liar! I have this book, ‘Tea-Time Etiquette for English Gentlemen’! Nowhere in here does it say you can hold a teapot with your trunk! That makes me very sad.... I want to put every author of this book into a teapot and boil them.”
Where had it even gotten a book like that? The people who wrote about tea-time etiquette probably never imagined an elephant doll would attend tea time! Was that why it was angry?
“Th-that’s because the people who wrote the book were narrow-minded. They thought only humans could join tea time. Elephants can use their trunks.”
“But Kevin said teapots should be held with hands earlier.”
“I didn’t know better earlier, so I made a mistake. There’s no set body part for holding a teapot. You hold it with whichever part of your body is most comfortable. Elephants use their trunks, and people use their hands. That’s why elephants look beautiful when they use their trunks, and people look beautiful when they use their hands!”
“But tea-time etiquette has to follow what’s written in the book.”
“Give me that book!”
I stood up and shouted without thinking. Dollyphant tilted its head for a moment, then picked up a tiny booklet with its trunk. I had no idea how something that huge had managed to read it.
The moment I received the book, I picked up a pen rolling around on the floor and added a sentence.
‘An elephant attending tea time may use its trunk in place of hands.’
“There. Is that good?”
“It is! It is! Now I can use my trunk. Kevin, don’t you want to use your trunk too?”
“... I’m human, so I’ll use my hands.”
I could add things to that damn book? I didn’t know. Let’s just assume it was fine.
Dollyphant lifted the teapot with its trunk and began pouring tea. I was nervous because I didn’t think an elephant doll could make normal tea, but it must have had tea leaves. Ordinary-smelling tea flowed out.
The problem was that the teacup was as large as a small bathtub and filled to the brim with tea. It might have seemed like a small serving by elephant standards, but it was enough to make my stomach burst.
“Kevin! Drink your tea now.”
With that, Dollyphant put its trunk into the teacup, sucked up the tea, and transferred it into its mouth. After repeating that motion exactly three times, the bathtub-sized teacup was empty.
Of course, I drank as hard as I could too. The teacup was so huge that I had to climb onto the table to drink from it.
“The tea hasn’t gone down at all. Kevin, don’t tell me you dislike black tea?”
“I-I’m drinking it!”
“It hasn’t gone down at all.”
Even to me, the teacup still looked completely full. As I turned my head slightly, cold sweat running down my face, I saw Happyhappy glaring at me from near the entrance.
Dollyphant was definitely keeping Happyhappy from entering. Thomas must have gone down to the first floor at some point, because his horn sounded quite far away.
“I-I’ll drink it!”
I gritted my teeth and drank again, then realized something too late. This is bullshit. I’m only twelve! There was no way I could drink all this tea.
What should I do? If I refused to drink, it would say I ruined tea time, wouldn’t it? Should I say the teacup was too big?
“Dollyphant, my teacup-”
“Kevin, I brewed this tea with great care. If Kevin leaves any, I think I’ll get very angry.”
That idiotic pink elephant!
... There was no choice. This was the moment I needed the power of my blessing.
Use Heavenly Luck!
[The energy of the universe settles within you!]
--- Rumble!
The next moment, something crashed loudly and the room shook. My entire body lurched as the whole drawing room trembled, books and ornaments falling to the floor everywhere.
“Urgh! What is-”
“Thomaaaas!”
Dollyphant’s fury rang through the drawing room.
“Can’t you drive properly? If you crash into a pillar again and make this area noisy-”
--- Craaash! Screeech! Rumble!
Another impact rang out, far louder than before. As the entire table began to shake, the cursed monstrosity in front of me finally started wobbling.
“Ah! My teacup! My teacup!”
When tea spilled slightly from the swaying cup, Dollyphant immediately cried out in alarm. I lost my balance beside the shaking cup and nearly fell beneath the table, but something lifted me at that moment.
No way... Dollyphant wasn’t about to do something to me because I ruined tea time-
“Kevin! Are you okay?”
Dollyphant’s reaction was gentler than anything I’d seen from it so far. It must have decided I wasn’t the one who ruined tea time.
“... I’m okay. Thanks for saving me.”
“Stupid Thomas is trying to ruin tea time! Do you know how carefully I brewed this black tea? Kevin, do you know how hard it is to brew black tea with only one trunk?”
“It does sound difficult.”
Was it like a human using only one arm?
“Wait here! I’ll go smash stupid Thomas to pieces.”
With that, Dollyphant twisted its face and left the drawing room. Before long, loud sounds of something breaking began coming from outside.
“... Is that it now?”
But what was I supposed to do now? Did I just have to keep holding out until every strange thing happening in this mansion was over?
“Kevin.... I’ve been waiting a long time.”
The moment I heard that whispering voice behind me, goosebumps rose all over my body! I immediately turned around and pressed my back tightly against the teacup.
“You’re still here?”
“Kevin’s here, so where would I go? Kevin, wouldn’t playing tag with me be more fun than drinking black tea with Dollyphant?”
“Please go away!”
I clung to the round teacup and moved sideways. Happyhappy seemed to find the sight funny, because it began giggling.
“Kevin’s doing that again? Hiding your back and sidestepping like a king crab! Is that fun?”
“...”
“Didn’t I tell you earlier? If you keep doing that, I’ll treat you ‘roughly’ next time.”
“E-even if you stretch out your hands, it won’t do any good!”
“What about this?”
Happyhappy’s stretched-out hand knocked the teacup over in an instant. An enormous amount of black tea poured out, making the table and the entire drawing-room floor slippery. I lost my balance and slipped at once.
“Are you going to lie still on the floor this time? Even if you do-”
My breath caught. It wasn’t because of Happyhappy flashing its sharp claws in front of me.
Dollyphant had returned behind it. Just now, Happyhappy had knocked over the teacup right in front of Dollyphant.
I muttered blankly.
“Dolly dolly....”
“What?”
* * *
- Theater
As the crazed Dollyphant roared and turned Happyhappy into H A P P Y H A P P Y decorations all around, the hotel companions began analyzing the situation.
“It seems Heavenly Luck has run its course.”
Ga-in nodded at Kim Sang-hyeon’s words.
“I think so too. Heavenly Luck disabled Happyhappy and Thomas, and that ridiculous amount of black tea all spilled onto the floor. It feels like we got rid of more than half the danger at once.”
Cha Jin-cheol looked uneasy.
“The pink elephant is still fine, though. And that thing has started brewing black tea again.”
Ga-in frowned and stared at the screen.
“When is this damn tea time going to end? Doctor, do you happen to know?”
Kim Sang-hyeon searched his memories for a moment before answering.
“My memory is hazy, but according to the booklet that elephant has, it’ll take at least an hour.”
“At least?”
“It could last over two hours. Tea time prepared so seriously was a pastime enjoyed by wealthy British nobles with time to spare.”
“Oh dear. It feels like only twenty minutes have passed so far.”
Everyone’s expressions darkened.
“But Ga-in, Seung-yeop discovered something very important earlier.”
“‘Tea-Time Etiquette for English Gentlemen,’ right?”
“We can alter the contents of the book Dollyphant follows like a Bible. Seung-yeop needs to remember that fact.”
* * *
- Park Seung-yeop
“Cough!”
I felt like throwing up.
“Dolly dolly! What was that? You weren’t just trying to spit out my tea, were you?”
“... No. I just cough a lot normally.”
“A cough? Oh my! Kevin, you haven’t been taking good care of your health? Lemongrass tea is good for coughs too!”
The moment I saw the pink elephant shove a huge grass stalk resembling a green onion into an enormous teapot, I made my decision. I couldn’t endure this anymore. It was better to try something than die from my stomach bursting.
As though it had been waiting, an opaque window appeared before my eyes, practically begging me to press it.
[Would you like to use Primordial Human?]
Footnotes:
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