WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 328: Re Room 203, Curse Room - ‘A New Beginning’ (8)
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[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 683,622
Current Location: Level 2, Room 203, Curse Room ‘A New Beginning’
Sage’s Advice: 1]
- Han Ga-in
For countless years, humanity has longed for the blue sky.
In many myths, great gods always gaze down upon the earth from the heavens above the clouds, while the messengers of the gods always descend from the sky with their wings beating.
Then there is the legend of Icarus, who tried to fly despite his inadequate skill, only for the sun’s heat to melt his wax wings and bring him to a tragic end.
Paradoxically, that story itself proves that humanity has longed for the sky since ancient times.
And now, I am looking down upon the earth from the heavens!
“Wow... I wonder if the Wright brothers were moved when they saw a view like this.”
Jin-cheol, running busily several hundred meters below, looked like a tiny ant. Eun-sol, riding atop the Grotesque, happened to look up at that exact moment and wave at me.
“Helloooo- Urk!”
The Cutter suddenly twitched, making its body sway. I was securely tied to the monster’s hard shell with a sturdy cord, so I did not fall, but the violent lurch sent my whole body jolting and nearly made me throw up.
“Song-i! Try steering properly!”
“Oppa! Seriously, shut up! What Wright brothers? This thing’s throwing a fit because it’s hungry!”
“...”
The moment I heard Song-i’s irritated voice, my sentimental mood vanished. The massive beetle slowly descended toward the ground.
* * *
The moment we reached the ground thirty minutes later, Song-i shattered my sentimental mood again.
“Bleegh! Bleegh!”
Eun-sol lightly patted Song-i’s back. After watching her for a moment, I turned to Jin-cheol.
“Hyung, are you okay?”
“...”
“Hyung?”
“Huff! Th-this is rough. Ga-in, how far do we have left?”
“Uh... At this pace, I think we’ll reach Mi-ro’s location tomorrow morning.”
“F-four days? It’s fast, at least.”
“If we grit our teeth and keep moving, we might even arrive tonight-”
“Hey! Are you seriously going to talk nonsense while traveling in the most comfortable way possible? I can’t take another step!”
People could not keep moving endlessly like cars that only needed fuel. The brutal march that had continued for days was exhausting not only Jin-cheol, but even the monster carrying us through the sky.
The sun was beginning to set as well.
“I don’t think we can keep moving today.”
As soon as I finished speaking, Jin-cheol sprawled out spread-eagle on the ground. Song-i began leading the Cutter toward a lake she had spotted from the sky.
As the only one with any stamina left, I reflected on our march over the past few days.
On the morning of the day we entered Room 203 for the third time, everyone had gathered and reached a simple conclusion.
We needed a means of transportation. As it happened, we decided that “certain monsters” were suitable for carrying us around.
There had been two candidates. One was the gigantic bull near Eun-sol, and the other was the flying insect near Song-i, The Cutter.
We thought a creature that could fly would give us an advantage in scouting, so we decided to tame the Cutter. Still, we had plenty of concerns. If Song-i failed to tame it, everything would fall apart.
Fortunately, that did not happen. By the time Jin-cheol and I reached Song-i’s location after traveling for two nights and three days, Song-i had already tamed the Cutter and brought Eun-sol, who had been nearby, with her.
“Ga-in, have a sip too.”
“Okay. Are you feeling better now, hyung?”
“I don’t know... We’re near a lake, so we’ve had water, but hunger is the problem. We’ve been eating nothing but scraps of fruit for days.”
“That is a problem.”
“Apparently, the mental stress is pretty severe too.”
“Stress?”
“It seems there are still doubts sometimes about whether it was right to leave all the tribespeople behind.”
Of course, there was no way we could undertake this absurd march while bringing the primitive humans along.
“They aren’t even human anyway. You’re really sensitive, hyung.”
Eun-sol looked at me with an odd expression.
“When you act like this, you’re kind of like A-ri.”
“...”
Choosing the Cutter instead of the bull had created its own problems. Unlike the house-sized bull, the flying monster did not have the strength to carry all of us over long distances.
In the end, Jin-cheol had to run under his own power, while Eun-sol had to ride the Grotesque.
“I’m really exhausted now. Technically, I was just riding Pero, but my legs are shaking so much I can barely stand.”
“Yeah.”
“You really have a strong stomach. You’re fine riding a swaying bug for hours at a time? It’s not even an airplane. I tried it once, and I couldn’t handle it at all.”
“I’m managing somehow...”
Was I just resistant to motion sickness?
Eun-sol muttered worriedly.
“Do you think the others are doing okay?”
That made me think of the plan again.
During our second attempt, we were forced to escape without getting much done. Fortunately, before that happened, I had been able to use my Status Window to determine the distances between myself and my companions.
Combined with the Crimson Mountain Range, a kind of landmark visible to everyone, we could estimate everyone’s rough location.
As a result, we concluded that the most reasonable option was for the four of us to gather first: me, who could track Mi-ro’s location through the Status Window; Eun-sol, who could spot distant traces with her powerful eyesight; Jin-cheol, who could run like a car on foot; and Song-i, who could tame monsters. Then we would head toward Mi-ro.
The other four had more complicated routes.
Grandpa and the Doctor were so far from Mi-ro that the mountain range was actually closer. So they decided to head toward the range, our final destination, while exploring along the way.
Elena and Seung-yeop, on the other hand, were positioned so that moving straight toward Mi-ro would be much faster than joining us first. The problem was...
“Ga-in, can Seung-yeop really track Mi-ro’s location accurately?”
Eun-sol did not ask about Elena, who was with him. She did not have that kind of ability.
“Judging by the Companion Location Information, I think he’s tracking her well. Seung-yeop and Elena should meet us within a day or two too.”
Silence lingered around us for a moment before Eun-sol asked me a question.
“Have you figured anything out? It seems like you practically have conversations with the Owl these days.”
What else was there to do while flying all day atop a swaying beetle?
Naturally, I used my spare Sage’s Advice every day. That said, my questions had been similar lately.
“I’ve been discussing Adravita’s intentions with it.”
“Calling it a ‘discussion’ is funny in itself. Shouldn’t the Owl be the one telling you?”
“I’m certain of it now. I don’t think even the Sponsor can fully see through the Prisoner’s plans. I got a similar feeling in Room 104 too...”
It was a thought that had occurred to me when we faced destruction at the hands of the Lord in Room 104. If the Owl had understood the Lord’s entire plan, could it not have warned us more clearly beforehand?
The vague answers back then, and the equally vague answers now.
Even a Sponsor that had transcended humanity might not be able to grasp every scheme devised by a Prisoner that had also transcended humanity.
Eun-sol asked with a slightly hopeful expression.
“Could our first thought have been right after all?”
“Our first thought?”
“Adravita is tired now. It’s sick of the Curse Room repeating for thousands, tens of thousands of years, and wants to die.”
“From the conversations it had with Song-i, it did not seem like it wanted to die.”
“Sigh... That’s true. So, did you find out anything?”
“The Owl said...”
“The Owl said?”
“It said Adravita seems to be deeply immersed in this room.”
“Deeply immersed in Room 203?”
Eun-sol listened with interest, then brought up something amusing.
“Have you heard of Zhuangzi’s Butterfly Dream?”
“I dreamed I became a butterfly, then woke up and found I was a person. I couldn’t tell whether I was a butterfly or a person.”
“You know it well. I sometimes think Adravita’s situation feels exactly like that. Maybe this place, Room 203, is another real world to it...”
What did the Prisoners trapped in Curse Rooms feel about the events inside? An endlessly repeating, meaningless puppet show?
Maybe not.
The beings inside Curse Rooms were no different from real people, whether in intelligence or behavior.
On top of that, entities aware of the outside world, the “participants” and “Prisoners,” created butterfly effects in every iteration. Because of that, the beings inside Curse Rooms behaved completely differently each time.
That was why people like Jin-cheol and Eun-sol came to see the beings inside as ordinary people.
Eun-sol continued.
“The Teacher in Room 103 enjoyed killing the Athanasia inside. That means they felt a real emotion called hatred toward the NPCs inside. The Sea God in Room 202 wanted salvation for its Servants. That also means it genuinely cared about them.”
“That makes sense. Let’s say Adravita has been in this room for so long that, like some other Prisoners, it has become deeply absorbed in Room 203’s scenario. Then what would its goal be?”
“... Our conversation stops here again.”
“...”
“We can think about this much, though. After that damned spaceship arrived on this planet, what exactly happened?”
An immeasurable amount of time had passed since the Pride of Humanity arrived on this planet.
The spaceship had been left in the mountain range, unable to get out after its power source was removed and transported hundreds of kilometers away. The AI called the crew traitors and went wild trying to capture and kill them on sight.
The demigod-like being that had boarded the ship to help humanity pioneer a new world wandered aimlessly through the sky, sightseeing across the continent. Meanwhile, beings who might or might not be descendants of humanity had lost their civilization and were living as Stone Age primitives.
“This is something I heard after asking the Owl too.”
“Go on.”
“It’s clear that the crew clashed with the AI, right?”
“Considering it calls them traitors and rebels, I guess so.”
“Perhaps that conflict led to mutual destruction? The spaceship lost its power source and is stuck in the mountain range, half dismantled, while a group that may or may not be descended from the crew lost its civilization.”
“That does seem likely.”
“What role did Adravita play in that conflict?”
“I don’t know... Maybe we’ll find out if we locate that damned power source or whatever it is. I thought of another unpleasant hypothesis.”
“What is it?”
“This world has a disgusting number of monsters, doesn’t it? It feels like we see at least one every day.”
“That’s true.”
“It’s an environment where humans without civilization can’t survive. The power of Divine Humans descending from the sky is essential.”
“I suppose so.”
“In other words, intelligent primitive humans have no choice but to desperately worship some being that sends down Divine Humans.”
“...”
“...”
“You said we can meet Mi-ro tomorrow morning, right? And Seung-yeop and Elena are nearby too?”
“Yes. We’re less than forty kilometers from Mi-ro. We’ll get there quickly by air. Seung-yeop’s group has gotten close too.”
“It feels like the calm before the storm.”
The next morning, Song-i died.
* * *
- Elena
“Young Master! Please heed my words!”
Hearing the now-familiar plea, I turned my head. As expected, several old men had gathered, kneeling before Seung-yeop and desperately pleading with him.
They must have found the current situation impossible to understand.
A hellish forced march continued endlessly for no apparent reason. They did not know their destination or why they were moving. They only walked and walked across the plains because the Divine Human commanded it.
Food was scarce, and water was scarce. The little food and water available were not even enough for the few strong warriors, including the Divine Human. The weak simply collapsed and died on the plains.
Yet the world was full of monsters, so they could not flee from the Divine Human who ruled like a tyrant. Another Divine Human would descend within a few months if the current one died, but this was a world where it would not be surprising if the tribe was wiped out in the meantime.
As far as they were concerned, there was only one way out.
Persuading the tyrant.
“Young Master!”
“...”
“Please, more than thirty people fell behind yesterday alone. Where in the world are we going?”
“You won’t make it through today.”
“Pardon?”
A chilling declaration rang out softly.
The surrounding primitive humans flinched and stepped back. The old man whose fate had been foretold trembled violently without even being able to lift his head.
He would die today, or tomorrow morning at the latest. It had already happened several times.
Feeling a chill run down my spine, I approached Seung-yeop, no, the Primordial Human.
“... I wonder every time, but how do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“How do you kill people? With just a word?”
“I’ve never killed anyone.”
“Y-you did! I’ve seen people die one after another whenever you say something ominous!”
“What are you talking about?”
The boy who seemed to have gathered all the darkness in the world looked at me as though I were the strange one, then pointed around us. Everywhere across the vast plain lay the bodies of primitive humans who had failed to overcome hunger and thirst.
“Look. You saw them dropping dead while they walked, right?”
“...”
“People die. That’s just how it is. I only told that person he was going to die.”
Unsettling. This boy was unsettling.
... I questioned myself for thinking that.
The primitive humans trembled in fear just from looking at Seung-yeop, the Primordial Human. Yet when things became unbearable, the person they went to was Seung-yeop, not me.
Because...
At least Seung-yeop did not turn people into monsters.
--- Kiiing!
I turned toward the sound, which was cute, at least to my ears. The Fairies flew about with bright smiles, creating a mysterious sight.
I knew it now. I knew I was the only being on these plains who found them beautiful.
“Elena.”
“Hm?”
“We’re almost there.”
“Did you divine it with that turtle shell again?”
“Yeah. Look.”
I remembered rushing to find Seung-yeop a few days ago, worried that he might be suffering. The boy I knew was already gone.
All that remained was an unholy shaman walking through a primordial world.
“I wonder... what kind of command you entered.”
“Hm?”
“It’s nothing.”
I only prayed that this time would pass quickly.
Footnotes:
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