WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 335: Re Room 203, Curse Room - ‘A New Beginning’ (15)
──────
- Park Seung-yeop
It was dark and stifling.
The space itself wasn't small, but complicated machinery obstructed movement in every direction, and the Protective Suit made me much larger than usual.
--- Clank!
“Ah!”
“Be careful. Just stay still.”
“Okaaay...”
I was reunited with A-ri after hundreds of years, yet she hadn't changed at all. Of course, she'd only been asleep, so it would've been stranger if she had changed much.
At last, a strange metallic sound came from the machine A-ri had been operating, and an image began to appear on the wall. It seemed to be some kind of beam projector.
The video began like this.
「I think of the moment of destruction.
Since the subject of thought is not human, the word playback may be more appropriate than thought.
...
...
...」
After the video ended, A-ri fell silent in thought.
“A-ri.”
“...”
“A-ri, there's something I wanted to ask-”
“Sorry, but let me ask first. I need to sort out my thoughts.”
“Okay.”
“From what I heard, you woke up from Cryogenic Sleep and 322 years had passed?”
“This is the first time I've heard the number 322. That much time passed?”
“If the AI's records are accurate, yes. After waking up, you joined the city-state Sang-hyeon built, got their help, and came back to the mountain range. Start again from there.”
“The moment I entered the mountain range, robots appeared! The instant they aimed shells larger than my head at me, my instincts sensed danger and-”
“You used Heavenly Fortune, didn't you?”
“... Yes.”
“Skip that part. It probably isn't even funny.”
“A shell landed behind me, and the shockwave swept me away. After that happened about three times, I reached the spaceship.”
“That's even more ridiculous than I thought. Anyway, Heavenly Fortune ended when you reached the spaceship? Start from there.”
“Once I got inside, the robots stopped firing shells.”
“They probably couldn't fire anything like that because damaging the spaceship would kill me or wake me up.”
“At some point, Pero suddenly began leading me. I think Pero sensed where you were. Then I found a gap leading underground.”
“Go on.”
“As I moved through it, Pero suddenly stopped in front of a huge wall. Then! My instincts told me you were behind it.”
“How did you get past the wall?”
“I tried punching it with the Protective Suit's strength, but it didn't work at all. I couldn't figure out what to do, then I heard a strange noise.”
“A strange noise?”
“The sound of metal shaking and scraping? A squeeeak? When I got closer, there was a mark like that.”
I stretched out my hand and pointed at the hole in the wall I'd come through. A-ri examined it closely.
“Then, well, once I got inside, there was something like a capsule you were sleeping in.”
“You worked hard. And you did well.”
A-ri suddenly pulled my head into a light hug.
“Ah!”
“You're not an elementary schooler. You're surprised by a little hug?”
“No! You hugged me while I was wearing the Protective Suit! Wait, I'll take it off, so please hug me again-”
“Stop talking nonsense and sit back down.”
“... Okay.”
A-ri continued pacing around as if she were deep in thought. Thinking about the Doctor waiting outside made me anxious.
“A-ri! Shouldn't we leave now? The Doctor must be waiting outside!”
“He's waited over three hundred years. Is it really a big deal if he waits another hour or two?”
“...”
Th-that was harsh!
For a moment, I almost understood why Ga-in sometimes wanted to body-slam A-ri.
“More importantly, there are a lot of records the AI left in this place. It'll be hard to come back in here, so we need to check everything.”
“... Just say that from the start.”
A-ri suddenly looked at me closely.
“A-ri?”
“I don't think it's this one.”
“What?”
“Never mind. You said you had something to ask me?”
“Ah, while watching the video the AI left earlier, I didn't understand the last part. It said the AI found a logical flaw in the Demon God's proposal and left behind an act of defiance. What does that mean?”
“This record itself.”
“What?”
“The record saying everything in this room was made from beginning to end according to Adravita's design is itself an act of defiance.”
“W-what do you mean?”
“The Prisoner ordered the AI, ‘Forget what happened today and never remember it for eternity.’ The AI separated that day's records from its database, then made it impossible for itself to access them.”
Only then did I understand. Since the AI itself couldn't access that data, it had followed the order to forget that day and never remember it.
But the data hadn't disappeared!
“The data didn't vanish. The AI just can't access it. Of course, someone with higher authority than the AI can access it. Like me.”
After saying that, A-ri fell quiet again. This silence lasted a long time.
“Um...”
“Seung-yeop.”
“Yes?”
“Should we call it here and escape?”
“What? Why all of a sudden?”
Could we escape right now?
“What do you think Room 203's escape condition is? Think back on the first and second escapes.”
“During the first escape, Eun-sol and Song-i moved far away in the opposite direction from the mountain range, then suddenly, for reasons they didn't even know-”
“The timing was similar to when the people who went to the mountain range fought fiercely against the AI using my body, wasn't it?”
“I guess so...”
“The second escape happened the moment Mi-ro killed the version of me summoned by Time Lender. Everyone escaped, too. What's the common point? Both times, we dealt the AI a critical blow.”
“That's true.”
“What directly threatens us in this room? The Prisoner who designed this hellish game? No. Since we woke up, the Prisoner has been suffering under all kinds of restrictions.”
“The AI is this room's direct threat? Come to think of it, the AI was the one that put us into Cryogenic Sleep.”
“Right. Deal major damage to the AI and create distance, or suddenly destroy the body it inhabits before it can prepare. In the end, dealing the AI a critical blow is the escape condition. And...”
Without a word, A-ri raised a finger and pointed at the screen. A small notification had appeared there.
「Captain Kim A-ri, would you like to shut down all functions of the Pride of Humanity?」
“If I press Enter once here, the AI will stop forever.”
If she did that, we would escape Room 203.
“Escaping is a little...”
“Does it feel like a waste? Sang-hyeon suffered for hundreds of years, so it feels wrong for this to end with us simply escaping?”
“Am I being childish...?”
“No. I've been thinking something similar.”
“You too?”
A-ri wandered around for a while before speaking again.
“Escape. Endure a little longer for a resolution. Which is right? There is a reason to escape immediately. We're already in serious danger.”
“Serious danger?”
“I found this while checking the AI's central control system. Han Ga-in, Cha Jin-cheol, and Elena are already dead. It says Adravita's Servants invaded and destroyed the Cryogenic Sleep equipment.”
“Argh!”
“Keep it down.”
“N-no, why are they dead? The Prisoner killed them? If we die, doesn't this room disappear?”
“If everyone dies, yes.”
“What?”
“Think from Adravita's perspective. As you said, all of us dying can never be allowed. But does Adravita really need to keep all of us alive?”
“Uh...”
“As long as we're alive, we have opportunities. If we hold on for hundreds or thousands of years, who knows what might happen? You alone escaped because of an earthquake.”
“That was Heavenly Fortune-”
“Heavenly Fortune caused an earthquake? Isn't that strange? You've used Heavenly Fortune many times, but it never displayed that kind of power before.”
“That's true. I thought it was strange too.”
“Think simply. What if the earthquake happened regardless of your blessing? You could say an earthquake happening by coincidence is unlikely, but if you stay in one place for hundreds of years, it's bound to happen eventually.”
“That makes sense. They say there are no earthquake-safe zones.”
Listening to this, I felt like I understood why I had woken up so late.
Even Heavenly Fortune couldn't bring forward the time an earthquake would occur.
Maybe Heavenly Fortune hadn't caused the earthquake. Maybe it had just allowed me to wake up safely during a naturally occurring earthquake.
“Just like that, us being alive is a variable in itself. You're proof of that.”
“I guess I am.”
“Let's go back to the Prisoner's perspective. To Adravita, we can't all be killed, but if we're all kept alive, we're bound to create variables.”
“So the ‘dangerous participants’ were killed. You had to be kept alive because you're the Captain and could control the spaceship in an emergency?”
Ga-in, Jin-cheol, and Elena.
The Prisoner must have considered those three too dangerous to leave alive, so it sent Servants to kill them while they were in Cryogenic Sleep.
“... I survived because the Prisoner saw me as weak. I even used Primordial Human!”
For some reason, I felt dejected. A-ri noticed and snickered.
“Are you sad because you're alive?”
Of course not.
“Anyway, the survivors are you and me, Sang-hyeon outside, and Mook-seong and Eun-sol, who are still asleep. Five people. With half our strength or less remaining, everything from here on will be extremely dangerous.”
“Then should we escape?”
“There's also a reason to try a little longer.”
“What is it?”
“First, when we usually escape, we gather information, make a new plan, and come back, right?”
“Right.”
“This room won't be like that. I'm sure of it. If we escape now, we'll never return to Room 203.”
“Why not?”
“We've learned that escaping into space aboard the spaceship is the Prisoner's trap. What's the real solution? Maybe it's giving the primitive people A New Beginning, like Sang-hyeon is doing now?”
“I think so too.”
“Who would want to do that difficult work again next time?”
“...”
If the true resolution meant raising a civilization with primitive people like the Doctor had...
Who would want to do something this difficult again?
Even I thought the answer was to never come back to this insane room.
“There's an even more serious problem. As we develop, the Prisoner develops too. Room 203's Prisoner is a lunatic like the Lord from Room 104.”
That was true.
Like the Lord, Adravita actively designed the room. If we escaped now and came back later, the room itself might be twisted into something bizarre.
“So this escape isn't taking one step back to move two steps forward. It means giving up the rewards we could obtain from Room 203 forever.”
“That makes sense.”
“Second, I think we're surprisingly close to resolving this room.”
“Because the Doctor has already raised a civilization?”
“That's it. Sang-hyeon has already suffered like crazy to get through the hardest part. I think all that's left is the finishing work.”
“Finishing work?”
“We help clear the obstacles standing in the way of humanity's new beginning. I'll explain that part in detail after we meet Sang-hyeon.”
“Okay.”
A-ri fell silent again, and I organized what she'd told me.
Right now, A-ri could use her Captain’s authority to shut down every function of the spaceship, erase the AI, and allow the entire hotel party to escape.
If we left and continued onward to aim for a resolution instead of escape, we would be giving up this convenient escape. It would be difficult to erase the AI from outside.
What was the reason to escape?
Ga-in, Jin-cheol, and Elena had died in Cryogenic Sleep, leaving the party with little strength.
What was the reason to keep trying?
If we escaped now, we would be giving up Room 203's Inheritance, and according to A-ri, we were already close to resolving the room.
The Doctor had already dealt with the hardest part.
A-ri, who had been silent, suddenly turned toward me.
“Decide.”
“What?”
“No thinking!”
“What?”
“Don't think, just choose! Trust the energy of the universe and pick!”
“Fine! Let's keep trying!”
I didn't think.
A-ri was ten times smarter than me, and even she couldn't reach a conclusion. Would I find an answer by agonizing over such a difficult problem with my own head?
I chose with my heart, not my head. The Doctor had suffered for three hundred years, after all!
Would we really let all this monumental effort end with “just escaping”?
That wasn't right.
A-ri smiled faintly and looked up at the ceiling.
“Yeah. Let's keep going. We'll finish this goddamn room, then slice up that delusional Whale and eat it raw if we have to.”
A-ri's hand rose toward the sky.
“Actually, there was a third reason to keep trying.”
“What?”
“I think I know what one of this room's two Inheritances is.”
“An Inheritance?”
At that moment, A-ri's voice rang out with a rhythm almost like a song.
“Final Flash shall purify all things. Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
Then light erupted.
A flash that sprang from A-ri's fingertips pierced the heavens.
Neither the spaceship's outer hull, which had flown across space, nor the rocks of the Crimson Mountain Range, which had endured countless ages like flowing water...
Nothing could stop the flash.
At last, every landform was pierced through, revealing a blue sky. Then the flash vaporized even the clouds in the sky.
My heart swelled.
The shock of pure power, destruction, and overwhelming force washed over me like a wave of emotion. I looked at A-ri, feeling like I might cry-
“In the name of love and justice! I will not forgive the Whale!”
“... What line is that?”
“Huh? You don't know it? It was from a comic that used to be popular-”
“Body slam!”
“Ah!”
Today, I understood why Ga-in sometimes body-slammed A-ri.
Footnotes:
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