WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 329: Re Room 203, Curse Room - ‘A New Beginning’ (9)
──────
- Mi-ro
My mind was hazy. There wasn't a scrap of strength left in my body. I couldn't even move a finger.
I'd been starving for days. My thoughts drifted back to a few days ago, to when I first entered the room.
A revolting, monstrous nest filled with writhing flesh. A Hatchery where Divine Humans were born. That was where I had started in Room 203.
Why was I the only one who had to start in such a horrible place? I had no idea.
Anyway, my starting point had been so hopeless that I had to choose whose time to borrow with the Time Lender based on whether they could get me outside.
The first choice was obviously Yoo Song-i. She could command the hornets in the Hatchery and get me out. Everyone had thought of her first during the meeting.
The second was Cha Jin-cheol. Someone suggested that he might be able to tear down the Hatchery wall with brute force, and if the hornets reacted aggressively, he could beat them to death.
Honestly, I wanted to borrow Ga-in's time.
But Ga-in said that even if he possessed a hornet, he probably wouldn't be able to fly, let alone properly move all four of its wings, so I gave up on that.
The third choice, with no other option, was A-ri. The fastest and easiest escape method currently known was A-ri's death.
After entering Room 203, I summoned Song-i right away.
* * *
“Look at this! Isn't this one surprisingly cute?”
“That's amazing. I can't believe you can command a monster like this.”
“Don't think of it as a monster. Just believe it's cute. Bees are secretly kind of cute too, you know. They're fluffy and round. If you look closely, this one is similar to a bee.”
“A bee wouldn't be cute at all if it were a million times bigger. I don't care, just get me out of here!”
“... Who taught you to have such terrible manners? Were you born like this?”
“Hurry up!”
* * *
Song-i complained, but she commanded a hornet and took me outside the Hatchery. Up until then, I thought things were going well.
The moment we poked our heads out of the Hatchery, Song-i and I both froze in shock.
* * *
“Kyaaaah!”
“Aaaah!”
“Kieeeek!”
“Wait, Kong-i, why are you screaming too?”
“Ko, Kong-i?”
“This one's name-”
“Stop talking nonsense and save me! What are all these monsters?”
“Mi-ro, stay still! You're going to rip Kong-i's legs off struggling like that!”
“Kyaaaah!”
“Can't you stay still? You stupid middle schooler! Don't just look like A-ri, try acting like her too!”
* * *
The memory made me smile without realizing it.
It was funny even thinking about it again. No, why had the hornet carrying us screamed too? Was it mob mentality?
There had been at least five enormous monsters outside the Hatchery. The moment we emerged, we thought we were dead and screamed in terror.
Yet the monsters had only stared at us with indifferent looks, showing little reaction.
At first, I was touched, thinking Song-i's Affinity was this incredible...
* * *
“Song-i, you're amazing!”
“Hm?”
“Did you charm all these monsters? I wish I had a powerful Blessing like yours too...”
Song-i looked dumbfounded for a moment.
“My Blessing? Powerful? That can't be right.”
“What?”
“Can't you tell? They're like the guardians of this Hatchery. If the hornets are workers, then those things are guards.”
“Ah...”
“They aren't attacking because we're with Kong-i. My Affinity can't charm that many monsters all at once.”
“I-I see.”
“Mi-ro, you need to learn to read the room better.”
You screamed along with me at first, yet now you were acting all smug!
... Still, she was helping me right now, so I had to put up with it.
“L-look over there!”
“Hm?”
Song-i immediately gave Kong-i, the monster hornet, an order and changed direction.
The building I had spotted was remarkably clean. It didn't fit at all with the Hatchery, which was full of grotesque monsters with unrecognizable forms and writhing flesh.
It looked like a clean research lab, so I knew the moment I saw it. This was the place the Whale had shown me at the end of my second attempt!
There was some kind of security device in front of the building. When I put my hand into it, my fingers stung, and a mechanical voice sounded.
「Identity confirmed. Captain Kim A-ri, welcome to the Southern Frontier Branch.」
Three days passed. Then five. Then seven.
* * *
“...”
This place was safe.
The horrible monsters swarming outside ground their teeth at me through the transparent door, but that was all. I knew they wouldn't so much as lift a finger against the building.
There were no monster attacks here, and it was neither cold nor hot. There were comfortable beds to lie on, and even a modern bathroom that didn't belong in the Stone Age.
It would have been a perfect place if not for one problem.
“I'm... hungry.”
There was no food in this building. I could drink water from the bathroom, but there wasn't even a crumb of food to be found.
Every night, exhausted by hunger, I fell asleep after thinking about it countless times. What if I simply summoned A-ri and asked her to kill herself?
Escaping like this didn't seem so bad. I had already learned so much!
This place was a facility established by humanity, which had arrived on this planet eighteen hundred years ago to colonize it.
Unlike their fallen descendants, the astronauts had been truly great. They had moved the spaceship's main power source, the Core, here to colonize the planet.
There were also tragic records here about why they had perished. I had so much to tell everyone once I got out somehow.
Wouldn't it be fine to end things here?
... I endured.
This was already my third attempt. If I left now and entered again, it would be my fourth attempt, practically the last one. A fifth attempt?
Honestly, if we reached a fifth attempt, I thought everyone would just give up on Room 203. It wasn't like this was the only room we had.
“Do you understand my situation now? Even talking like this takes a lot out of me...”
“I understand.”
A-ri sat beside me with a complicated expression and held out a thermos.
“... Isn't this A-ri's blood?”
“That's right. Blood has calories, surprisingly enough. And my blood is a miracle medicine with all sorts of effects.”
I wasn't sure it was a miracle medicine, but drinking A-ri's blood did restore some of my energy.
“Thank you.”
“It's only a temporary measure. This has limits.”
After hearing about my situation, A-ri looked at the monsters waiting outside the building's door and spoke.
“Who did you say you borrowed time from with the Time Lender?”
“Song-i, Jin-cheol, and you.”
“What about Han Ga-in?”
“Not this time. As you know-”
“Ah, I remember. We skipped him because he didn't seem like he'd be much use in the Hatchery... That's unfortunate. He would've been the most useful in this situation.”
“Ga-in?”
“Should we summon Jin-cheol and break through? No. There are too many of them. That's impossible.”
“...”
“You already summoned Song-i once in the Hatchery, right?”
“Yeah.”
“How much of Song-i's borrowed time is left?”
“About forty minutes. The building is near the Hatchery, so I didn't use much of Song-i's time.”
“Would it be better to trust Affinity and go outside?”
Maybe because I had drunk A-ri's blood a little while ago, I had enough energy to join in.
“Can't we summon Jin-cheol first, take down just one or two of them somehow, then summon Song-i?”
A-ri shook her head and explained the nature of Affinity.
“Affinity only makes Chaos Entities feel considerable affection toward Song-i. It isn't mind control or brainwashing. Affinity has its limits when they're under the command of a stronger being or have developed intense hostility.”
“After a fight, the monsters would get angry and ignore Song-i's Affinity?”
“Most likely. Jin-cheol won't be able to kill all those monsters anyway, so it's better not to summon him.”
In the end, it seemed we had no choice but to summon Song-i, trust that the power of Affinity would keep those monsters from attacking, and pray we could get out.
I asked A-ri one last question as she looked at me worriedly.
“... What about summoning the past Mi-ro?”
A-ri's expression darkened terribly.
I guessed it wasn't time to use our last resort. This was only my crisis for now. Most of the others should be fine.
They were fine, right?
* * *
[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 683,623
Current Location: Level 2, Room 203, Curse Room ‘A New Beginning’
Sage’s Advice: 3]
- Han Ga-in
“... Let's go.”
Jin-cheol looked grim after burying Song-i's body in a pit.
Of course, it was a death inside a Curse Room, so we would see her again once we got out...
Even so, death was death. It could never be accepted easily.
Eun-sol wiped at her wet eyes, sounding somewhat regretful.
“The Cutter just flew away. What should we do?”
“It's good that it flew away on its own. Song-i, the one who tamed it, died, so I was worried that monster might try to kill us.”
“Maybe it grew attached to us in its own way?”
“We only rode on top of it and treated it mercilessly. Whatever. We're almost there anyway.”
Jin-cheol approached me and asked, “Exactly how many kilometers are left until Mi-ro's location?”
“I can't see it anymore.”
“Ah...”
I didn't know anymore. This was what Mi-ro's location displayed in Companion Location Information.
[Kim Mi-ro: Dead]
That also explained why Song-i had been lying dead without a word when we woke up that morning, like Sleeping Beauty. It seemed Mi-ro had summoned Song-i to escape some kind of crisis, but failed.
“There's no problem. If we follow that, we'll probably find something.”
Eun-sol, riding atop Grotesque, spoke simply. Her eyes were fixed ahead.
“Can you see something?”
“... I can see something like a huge shape. And there are squirming things around it.”
“Squirming things?”
“Let's think about it as we go.”
After moving for about an hour, Eun-sol climbed down from Grotesque with a grim expression and stopped us all.
“That huge shape I mentioned earlier. It's a building.”
Jin-cheol reacted in disbelief.
“A building? Since this is the Stone Age, did they pile up some stones?”
“No. It's clearly a modern building.”
“Then that means?”
“It was probably built by the spaceship faction that established civilization in the mountain range.”
“Let's go.”
“Wait. There are a lot of monsters nearby.”
“Ones like the Cutter?”
“Probably. One, two, three. Uh...”
“...”
“Five? Six? Seven?”
“That's awful.”
There were seven monsters that would be dangerous even one-on-one?
There were three of us, but Eun-sol wasn't combat personnel, so in reality, Jin-cheol and I would have to face all seven.
“This is difficult.”
The three of us put our heads together for a while, but no brilliant idea came to mind. With so many monsters near where Mi-ro had been until right before her death, I could guess why she had died.
[Advice: 3 -> 2]
‘Is there a way to break through the monsters and reach the building?’
[Wait. The path will soon open.]
“Huh?”
“What is it? Did it tell you something?”
“It says to wait.”
The Owl's idea of “soon” really was soon. It took less than ten minutes for Eun-sol's gaze to snap in another direction and for her expression to turn grave.
“Let's go.”
“Eun-sol?”
“I understand what it means for the path to open.”
“What?”
“Just go.”
For some reason, Eun-sol didn't explain why the path had opened.
Still, her expression had become as hard as stone, so I could tell that something serious was happening.
It was almost embarrassing to have worried about the monsters. No one stood in our way until we reached the building and passed through the security device.
Instead, someone had arrived inside the building before us.
“Ga-in! You're here! There's a washbasin over there, so you should clean up a little. Oh, and if you put your hand into the machine at the entrance and take it out, you can get in.”
Seeing Elena again after so long, looking even more beautiful than usual, made me smile without realizing it.
Eun-sol smiled brightly and gave Elena a light hug, then suddenly asked with a worried expression, “You... are you okay?”
“Pardon?”
“Would you like me to play the Flute for you?”
“...”
“I'll just play it for you.”
“I'll bring Seung-yeop down from upstairs too.”
Unable to endure the strange atmosphere, Jin-cheol asked me, “What's with Eun-sol? Why does she suddenly want to play the Flute?”
I was curious too, so I couldn't answer. Still, one ominous thought came to mind.
From the circumstances, it seemed Elena and Seung-yeop, who had arrived before us, had lured the monsters near the facility away.
What had they done, and what had Eun-sol seen?
By evening, we were finally able to understand the tragedy that had taken place in Room 203 eighteen hundred years ago.
That was because a great deal of material remained in this building, the Southern Frontier Branch.
“... There was a reason that AI bastard was trying to kill the crew.”
Everyone nodded at Jin-cheol's words.
Footnotes:
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