WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 315: The Perfect Child (3) (Final)
──────
[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 136
Current Location: Level 2, Snowfield
Sage’s Advice: 0]
- Han Ga-in
While everyone else spent their time as they pleased, I came up to Level 2 because I was curious about what A-ri was doing.
A-ri seemed to have already gone out to the Snow Globe Snowfield. As I pushed through the gently swirling snow flurries, I found her walking across the snowfield in light clothing.
“Aren’t you cold dressed like that?”
“I can bear it.”
That was all she said before silently continuing on, leaving footprints in the pure white snow.
Ten minutes passed, then another ten. The blizzard had died down, but crossing the snowfield was still difficult. By the time sweat ran down the bridge of my nose, I asked A-ri.
“Are you going in today?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wouldn’t tomorrow be better? We’ll have Advice again tomorrow, so why not ask about it first?”
Instead of answering, A-ri asked me a strange question.
“Do you love your parents?”
If I said no here, wouldn’t that make me a fire-element filial son?
“Of course I do...”
“Why?”
It was such an obvious question that I was momentarily at a loss for words. Of course, there were countless reasons. My parents were good people!
“They raised me, didn’t they? Not just materially, but emotionally too. My parents are pretty good people.”
“I’m not asking what keeps love going. I’m asking what created it in the first place.”
Not what maintained love, but what created it? What was she talking about?
“You’ve loved your parents for twenty years and still miss them now that you’re in the hotel. Of course that’s because they raised you well. What do you think would’ve happened if they were awful people?”
“I probably wouldn’t miss them. If it had gone too far, say I’d been abused as a child, I might’ve wondered when they were going to die.”
“Go back to when you were a newborn. You probably loved your parents even then. Your parents would’ve cherished you beyond measure.”
“That’s usually how it is.”
“Why? Why do parents love their children? Because they’ll support them when they grow old?”
“... That’s taking it too far. That would be decades after having a child. Besides, the odds of a grown child doing well enough to support their parents aren’t that high.”
“You’re right. What about the other way around? Isn’t that stranger? A child loves their parents from the moment they’re born, even though their parents haven’t done anything for them yet.”
I was starting to understand what A-ri was talking about. She was saying there was no rational reason for the love between parents and children at the moment it first formed.
From a parent’s perspective, they didn’t even know what kind of child their newborn would become. Any calculated benefit was far too distant. From a child’s perspective, how could they know what kind of people the parents they had just met were?
Then why did they love each other from the moment they first met?
If we had to examine the answer, everyone knew it. It was simply too unromantic to bring up.
“So you’re saying parents and children love each other because of their genes?”
A-ri gave a small nod.
“Yes. Parents treating their children well later on, cultural background, social pressure, those are secondary reasons. Or the driving force that maintains love once it already exists. The beginning of love is genes. Don’t you think?”
It wasn’t wrong.
Even animals like rats, with hardly any intelligence to speak of, cherished their young dearly, and their young followed their parents. In the end, genes could be said to be where love began.
Of course, I believed human love was far more advanced than the love of such tiny creatures... Still, it was hard to deny that genes played a major role.
“To some extent. But why bring this up all of a sudden?”
A-ri didn’t answer. Instead, the slightly gloomy expression she’d worn since earlier relaxed a little.
Was there something in that conversation that could have put her at ease? It seemed like the sort of conversation most people would find uncomfortable and unromantic.
“Take this!”
A-ri suddenly scooped up a snowball and threw it at me!
“Argh! What was that for?”
“Take this! Eagle Shot!”
As I dodged the snowball flying at me at terrifying speed, without any chance to respond, I thought that this absurd side of A-ri was exactly like Mi-ro!
Before long, the companions who had been in the hotel came rushing out and began throwing snowballs too.
* * *
- Kim A-ri
--- Splash!
“...”
--- Slosh!
“... Don’t you have any intention of getting close to me?”
I stared intently at Pero, whom I had borrowed from Song-i.
According to Song-i, Pero had behaved differently than usual right before entering the Mirror Room...
“Don’t you sleep too much? Hyah!”
I flung a round plastic toy from the bathtub. As though the lazy side Pero had shown until now was all an act, it would display dazzling agility...
It didn’t. It just got hit by the toy, squawked, and collapsed.
“...”
--- Squeak! Squeak!
“At times like this, I really can’t believe you’re a mysterious creature that came out of a Golden Egg.”
Pero seemed to have no intention of giving me any advance warning. Well, it was a creature that only ever cared for Song-i.
It seemed to care for Seung-yeop a little in Curse Rooms too, but that was as far as it went. It had no intention of looking after me.
--- Slosh!
After getting out of the bath and drying my hair and body, I changed into light clothes. I didn’t think there was any need to drag this out any longer. Let’s go.
Ga-in wanted me to listen to one more piece of Advice before going, but I thought differently. The Owl wasn’t an entity that answered questions as they were.
It always mixed in its own intentions and gave strangely twisted answers. Would the Owl want Mi-ro to be revived?
I didn’t think so. It might see it as adding an unnecessary variable. So whatever I asked, it would probably find a way to answer with a negative implication.
--- Ting!
A clear sound rang out. At last, the moment I had awaited for so long had arrived.
* * *
- Kim A-ri
The space was filled with light. Gleaming mirrors covered every place my eyes could reach, from the floor to the walls and ceiling.
As I looked around, something felt strange. Mirrors didn’t create light, but reflected it. For mirrors to shine like this, there should have been a separate source of light, but there was nothing of the sort in this space.
It was hardly anything new. Something like this wasn’t particularly strange in the hotel.
Soon, the notification I had already heard about appeared.
「Participant Kim A-ri, congratulations. You have discovered the hotel’s hidden secret, the ‘Mirror Room’!」
“Song-i was the one who discovered it, and you know that. But the message is exactly the same. Aren’t you putting in too little effort?”
I playfully criticized it, but the hotel ignored me and delivered the rest. It was something I had heard before. Wishes required Tickets, but the first one was free.
I slowly moved toward the huge mirror in front of me. The closer I got, the more colorful things began appearing in the mirrors all around me.
One mirror showed a mighty treasured sword brimming with fierce, malevolent energy.
Another showed a mysterious throne imbued with the starlight of the universe.
Another showed me awakening the power hidden in Old Blood and being reborn as a transcendent being.
Another showed Mi-ro smiling “intelligently.”
“...”
I knelt and clasped my hands.
I gathered my thoughts into a single point, seeking help from the omnipotent being somewhere in the hotel, the great one whose true nature even the Management Bureau had failed to grasp.
Old memories surfaced in my mind. The time I had spent with Mi-ro in the hotel, in that hotel from so long ago, flashed past.
Mi-ro whining that she didn’t want to eat, Mi-ro rejoicing that someone else had been Sealed in the Curse Room this time and running wild until she nearly ruined the room. Mi-ro trying to beat a protesting companion half to death by overpowering them.
... There weren’t many good memories, were there?
Ahem! As I thought a little longer, good memories came to mind this time.
The girl who put food in my mouth after saying it was delicious, the girl who said she didn’t want to sleep alone at night and held onto me as she fell asleep on the sofa, Mi-ro sending a companion who threatened me flying with a single point of her finger.
Every memory came back as vividly as though it had happened yesterday.
It was strange. Humans were creatures who forgot, so how could events from decades ago remain so vivid?
Memories from after we escaped came much later, yet so much of them had blurred. The Management Bureau branch chief who first took me in, the other agents I had called seniors back then...
I couldn’t even remember their faces anymore.
I steadied myself. Like ripples made by a single drop of water spreading across a quiet lake, the ripples caused by one wish began filling my entire heart.
One by one.
The countless impulses that all humans carried began to fade away. One desire, stronger than anything else, swallowed every other wish.
The mirrors that reflected the sword, the throne, and my reborn self lost their light one by one.
At last, only the mirror reflecting Mi-ro’s mysterious smile remained. In that moment, I wished with all my heart.
Please, let my mother, who had suffered for so many years, be given another chance. Before her revival, let clarity return to her mind once more.
The mirror shook and gave off an unknown light. Was the wish coming true?
「Part of your wish contains an element that cannot be fulfilled! Would you like to check it?」
“There’s something that can’t be fulfilled? What is this all of a sudden...?”
Before I could even respond, the mirror suddenly began showing unfamiliar footage. This footage was...
It was about Mi-ro.
* * *
...
...
...
I understood. I understood why the Mirror Room had judged part of my wish as impossible to fulfill, and what the “fulfillable direction” was.
A conversation I had once had with Song-i crossed my mind. Why had Mi-ro lost her intelligence? Was it the price she had paid when she made a wish in the Mirror Room?
Song-i had said that couldn’t be it. The Mirror Room accepted only Tickets as payment and wouldn’t take something like human intelligence as a price. Therefore, the reason Mi-ro had lost her intelligence was...
Because Mi-ro had wanted it herself.
“It’s okay. I know another way now.”
The Mirror Room also showed me another possibility for solving this problem. So...
--- Ting!
The clear sound rang out again. The mirror showed another image I had never expected.
... The moment I was born.
I saw a beautiful girl.
A girl who looked exactly like me, as though we were twins, except for her mysteriously fluttering silver hair, was quietly kneeling in the Mirror Room and praying.
「I pray to the ruler of the hotel seated upon the great throne.
I want to gain a perfect companion.
A child who can overcome the hotel’s trials. A child born with special power, destined for an extraordinary fate.
A child who will not yield to fear even if an evil god wields endless power, and who can unravel a tangled knot of trials at once.
A child with the rationality not to fear sacrifice, yet one who can uphold humanity’s greater cause in the broader scheme.
And there is one condition that takes precedence over all of these. That child must love me and never betray me.
Even if the heavens collapse and the earth splits apart, even if eons pass and all memories scatter like a fleeting dream -
I hope that child will keep an unchanging love for me.
Please give me a perfect child.」
When I turned away from the girl smiling brightly in the mirror, I realized hot tears had filled my eyes and blurred my vision.
Yes, I had vaguely expected it. I’d thought it was strange for a long time.
How could only my memories and feelings for Mi-ro remain so unchanged?
Even as every other memory and emotion had worn away with time...
Only a single memory and emotion remained unchanged forever.
I was Mi-ro’s perfect child. My genes were Mi-ro’s wish.
Footnotes:
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