WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 340: Time to Choose (1)
──────
- Kim A-ri
For a long while, he touched and moved his own hands and feet as if they were fascinating.
What did it feel like to regain a human body after hundreds of years?
Soon, he began walking toward us.
Strangely, the closer he came, the colder the air grew and the dimmer the lights became.
“There’s something I’ve been wondering about.”
“Please, ask.”
“Why was Ga-in trapped in a bird’s body? He could use the Grimoire, so he could’ve taken over another primitive person’s body...”
“He wasn’t trapped for the entire three hundred years. At first, he occasionally borrowed human bodies too.”
“Really?”
“The last time he borrowed one, Ga-in said there was a ‘thread’ inside primitive people’s bodies. He was afraid of it, so he wouldn’t enter their bodies.”
“...”
I understood.
During the latter half of Room 203, the Demon God had turned the entire Legion into monsters through some unknown means.
That meant the Demon God had some kind of connection through which it could control the Legion.
At some point, Ga-in seemed to have noticed that connection through the power of the Grimoire.
Entering a primitive person’s body would certainly be risky in that situation.
Then Ga-in silently sat beside me. I spoke to him just in case.
“Do you remember anything?”
Instead of answering, he blankly stared at my face. Then he suddenly reached out and touched my face and neck.
“...”
It looked as though he was trying to figure out how to produce his voice.
“He acts like a child in an adult body...”
“That’s not far from the truth.”
“Did he act this recklessly when he was with you too?”
“This is actually a fairly recovered state. It seems to be the Flute’s influence.”
“This counts as recovered?”
“... Toward the end, he was just a bird. An ordinary bird that occasionally did mysterious things for a brief moment.”
Kim Sang-hyeon’s expression was so dark that I couldn’t bring myself to ask anything else.
Watching a companion of hundreds of years behave like an animal must have been a tremendous shock to him.
As I observed Ga-in in silence, I realized that his condition was far more severe than Sang-hyeon’s.
Sang-hyeon had lived in a human body, as the leader of a tribe and someone’s husband or parent. He had lived a human life.
That was why, even after enduring three hundred years, Sang-hyeon was still unmistakably human, even if he had changed from who he used to be.
Ga-in, on the other hand, had spent most of that time trapped in a bird’s body, surviving for centuries while relying solely on the Grimoire’s power.
The Grimoire was both the power that allowed him to exist and a demonic force that shattered his mind.
Ga-in as he was now was closer to a Chaos Entity that had acquired a human body than a human being.
At least he didn’t seem completely like an animal that had lost all intelligence, as Sang-hyeon had described him toward the end.
The Flute had restored his intelligence, but it was no longer human intelligence.
Just then, I heard metal clattering. A metal cart carrying three covered plates rolled toward us.
“This is...”
“Food. I suppose it wants us to talk while we eat.”
When we brought over the plates and lifted the covers, each one contained the food its owner wanted. It was such a familiar hotel touch that it even felt comforting.
--- Rustle!
A strange sound came from Sang-hyeon’s direction.
There were unidentified leaves on his plate. The moment he saw them, his face brightened. He crushed some into small pieces, rolled others up, and then...
“Do you smoke? Did you used to smoke?”
“I don’t know what I was like before, but I smoke now. The scent is rather nice too.”
Sang-hyeon put the cigarette in his mouth, then snapped his fingers to light it.
“Fuuu! How long has it been? Honestly, this is...”
“...”
“Achoo! Cough!”
Fortunately, Ga-in immediately coughed beside him before I could point it out.
Sang-hyeon’s eyes widened. Then, as if he had realized something, he threw the cigarette into the trash bin beneath the cart.
“That was careless of me. I apologize.”
“It’s okay.”
Smoking without saying a word to the person beside you, as if it were only natural.
The Sang-hyeon of the past, who watched our reactions almost to an uncomfortable degree, would never have done something like that.
It struck me again just how much he had changed.
I didn’t feel like reproaching him.
For the past three hundred years, Kim Sang-hyeon had not lived as a slave or servant. He had lived as the king and ruler of a city.
How often would he have needed to worry about what others thought?
After a while, Sang-hyeon brought up something else.
“Over such a long life, there were times when I had regrets.”
“About what?”
“With my own...”
“Sang-hyeon, you can just speak casually now.”
“...”
“Or should I call you big brother? Big Brother Sang-hyeon. What do you think?”
The next moment, Sang-hyeon burst into loud laughter as if he couldn’t hold it in.
“Ha ha ha! No, let’s do that. Let’s speak casually. But don’t call me big brother. It’s funny the first time, but it stops being funny after the second.”
“Fine. What did you regret?”
“Even though I lived for so long, I had less time than expected to properly train in martial arts or combat techniques.”
“Because you lived as a leader, not a warrior?”
“More precisely, because I often avoided crises instead of confronting them.”
I thought I understood what he meant.
If a warrior wanted to achieve greatness, they had to face a monster when it approached rather than flee from it.
A struggle that risked one’s life was a valuable experience that couldn’t be replaced by anything else.
Still, that was the mindset of a warrior responsible only for their own life.
If the chief of a primitive tribe acted like that, no one would be left alive.
“Ga-in was different from me.”
As he spoke, Sang-hyeon cut the meat on his plate into tiny, tiny pieces.
His knife moved so quickly that it looked like a skilled knight was using swordsmanship to cut a steak.
“It seems you learned how to handle bladed weapons.”
“I can call myself an expert now.”
Watching Sang-hyeon cut the meat so a child could easily eat it, I finally looked at Ga-in beside me.
“... Ew, that’s dirty. Ga-in, you shouldn’t touch that with your bare hands.”
Ga-in had not even touched the knife or fork. He was handling the whole chunk of meat with his hands, pondering how to swallow it.
Sang-hyeon moved the finely cut meat onto Ga-in’s plate.
Only then was Ga-in able to eat. Once he began his belated meal, Sang-hyeon and I shifted to the subject of the choice.
“Which Inheritance do you think would be best?”
“Big brother, weren’t you obviously going to choose Unknown Cells?”
“I’m considering it.”
I was surprised that Sang-hyeon was even considering this.
“It’s surprising that you’re debating it at all. Have you lived so long that you no longer care about immortality?”
“Of course not. Eternal life without youth would be exhausting, but Unknown Cells would guarantee my youth as well. It would be a lie to say I don’t want it at all.”
“Then what are you considering?”
“I realized after enduring so many years in the hotel that immortality and all that have little meaning inside the hotel. It means nothing if you can’t get out.”
I understood.
If Final Flash was a more powerful Inheritance than Unknown Cells, choosing Unknown Cells out of a desire for immortality would be risky.
If he lacked the power to survive and died, he would be trapped in Frozen Hell. What meaning would immortality have then?
For Kim Sang-hyeon, the foremost criterion in choosing an Inheritance was not immortality, but whether it would help him escape the hotel.
He continued his explanation.
“Unknown Cells is a powerful Inheritance. At least in terms of ‘enhancing an individual’s body,’ I believe it surpasses every other Inheritance we’ve confirmed so far. It certainly surpasses physical enhancement through Rudah, and from my experience fighting you directly...”
“It surpasses Old Blood too.”
That was the conclusion I had reached after fighting him.
“But its limits are also clear. No matter how much you enhance or mutate it, the human body is ultimately a mass of flesh made of protein.”
“Can’t you turn your entire body into titanium or something?”
“That’s impossible.”
“Hmm...”
“I felt it countless times while fighting you. Even though Unknown Cells surpassed Old Blood, even though I added the martial arts I had trained in... I couldn’t win. Why was that?”
“Final Flash. Also, either speak casually or formally. Pick one. It’s really irritating.”
“You said you used to mix up your speech all the time too. Are you telling me to fix mine perfectly all at once?”
“That’s true.”
“Anyway, I felt the limits of Unknown Cells’ power. Even if I drew out every last bit of potential within Unknown Cells, even if I enhanced my body to its utmost limit with that power...”
“You’d still die if the laser even grazed you?”
“Right. At least from what I felt, the difference between the two Inheritances was clear.”
“...”
“I’m not simply talking about which one would win if the two Inheritances collided. Put another way, a monster that Unknown Cells could defeat only through a life-or-death battle could be destroyed by Final Flash with a flick of a finger.”
I understood as I listened.
I had used Final Flash, while Kim Sang-hyeon had used Unknown Cells, so I thought he would prefer Unknown Cells. That wasn’t the case at all.
Whenever I threatened him with Final Flash, Sang-hyeon had helplessly rolled across the ground. It seemed that had been an extremely shocking experience for him.
I fully understood what Sang-hyeon meant.
This was not so much the limit of Unknown Cells as it was the limit of the human body.
No matter how much Unknown Cells strengthened a human body, it was difficult to compare it to Final Flash in terms of combat power.
Several counterarguments came to mind.
Comparing an Inheritance that pours all its power into one attack and then requires a long recovery period with one that provides continuous physical enhancement in a short battle inherently favored Final Flash.
Not every problem in the hotel was a battle either.
Still, I decided not to say anything.
There was no way Kim Sang-hyeon had failed to consider that much.
If this was a decision he had made after careful thought, I needed to respect it.
“It sounds like you’ve already decided. You’ll write it in the catalog, right?”
“I will. But Miss A-ri, you should wash your hands.”
“Huh?”
As I stood up, wondering what he meant, I looked at my hand. It was completely slick with grease from the meat.
“Wh-what?”
Sang-hyeon gave a bitter smile.
“Hadn’t you noticed? It’s striking all over again, but Ga-in’s power is incredible.”
“...”
“This time, please look closely at your own hand.”
A moment later, my hand moved on its own and rose above Ga-in’s plate of meat.
Soon, my hand tightly gripped the meat on the plate and tore off a piece. Ga-in happily picked up the torn meat and ate it.
“...”
“He’s using your hand as a knife because it’s inconvenient for him to use one.”
“...”
“After he entered Pero’s body and a long time passed, he began doing things like that. He mainly used it to control his followers’ bodies as comfortably as his own.”
“I didn’t feel anything at all. My hand is moving by itself, and I can’t even feel it now. What is this? Is it a type of Power of the Avatar?”
Of course, Sang-hyeon couldn’t answer that either.
The ability seemed to be an extension of the Power of the Avatar.
He controlled his own body while taking control of part of another person’s body.
In the past, he had seized control of an entire body. Now he was only controlling part of one, so in terms of scale, it was actually smaller.
Yet he was using it far more comfortably.
Even with the Status Window’s protection, he had struggled to use the Power of the Avatar for even ten minutes. Controlling just one hand like this seemed as effortless as breathing.
It gave me an unsettling feeling. I had thought about it from time to time for a long while, but...
He, as he was now, had clearly entered a realm beyond my ability to deal with.
Sang-hyeon, who seemed to have read my unease, carefully defended him.
“Ga-in doesn’t have any bad intentions. He just, well, doesn’t see much reason to distinguish between his own body and someone else’s body.”
“What kind of mindset is that?”
“Maybe it’s the f-free American spirit...”
“Was that supposed to be a joke?”
Sang-hyeon awkwardly began adding one excuse after another.
Ga-in had refused to enter primitive people’s bodies because he feared Adravita might control him.
Yet because he needed to borrow the primitive people’s hands depending on the situation, he seemed to have developed this habit.
The only thing I realized through this was that Sang-hyeon carried a considerable emotional debt toward Ga-in.
“We’ve learned everything we need to know, so let’s get ready to leave. You’re choosing Final Flash, right?”
“That’s right.”
“What about Memory and Oblivion?”
“...”
“Think about it alone for a little longer.”
To give Sang-hyeon time to think by himself, I took Ga-in by the arm and began walking through the train.
In truth, I could guess what decision Sang-hyeon would make.
Even with all his memories intact, he had remained perfectly human.
“The problem is you two.”
Ga-in had already pressed himself against the window, looking outside.
In the meantime, my right arm, which I could no longer tell belonged to whom, moved on its own and pushed a chair over so Ga-in could settle in comfortably.
“...”
Then Ga-in suddenly turned toward me.
Footnotes:
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