WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 342: Party Time - A Meeting After a Long Time (1)

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- Han Ga-in

I had a dream so long that I couldn't tell where it began or ended.

In the dream, I became a bird. Flapping my wings and flying through the blue sky was so enjoyable that I never stopped to wonder whether I truly was one.

When I suddenly woke up and thought about it, I realized that I was, surprisingly, human.

I couldn't tell whether a human had dreamed of becoming a bird or a bird had dreamed of becoming a human.

Of course, humans and birds were clearly different creatures.

But wasn't the one doing the thinking still me either way?

If so, there was no need to cling to the form of the body. That was the great truth.

It felt within reach.

Something great, something too immense to dare put into words, seemed close enough to grasp.

One step.

If I took just one more step, I could surely soar to the highest realm.

So...

「That's far enough.」

...

「Everything has its proper time. Too much is worse than too little.」

Someone's voice broke the silence.

I vaguely saw the shape of an enormous bird.

I was sinking.

My consciousness, which had soared endlessly, began to sink back into a small body.

I felt regretful, yet relieved.

* * *

[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)

Date: Day 683,628

Current Location: Level 1, Room 105 - ‘Rest Room’

Sage’s Advice: 3]

- Han Ga-in

“Ah.”

I woke up in bed.

The moment I woke up, an unbearable headache struck, leaving me unable to get up for a long time.

By the time it finally subsided, I realized I had made it out of Room 203, the place where I'd suffered so much.

What had happened to me in Room 203 again?

It began with the tribe. I killed monsters and reunited with my companions.

After moving to where Mi-ro was, we gathered all kinds of information at the mysterious Research Lab.

In the end, we decided to escape aboard a spaceship, took the Core, and headed for the spaceship in the mountain range.

And on the spaceship...

Everything after that was hazy. Had I died as soon as I arrived at the spaceship?

If I had died, I should at least remember how, but I had no memory of it at all.

Well, it didn't matter. I made it out somehow.

Still, why had I woken up in bed instead of outside the room?

I should go out and ask my companions what happened.

* * *

“Ah! Ga-innnn! You're out, you're out!”

The moment I stepped out, Mi-ro, who had been pacing by the entrance to Room 105, opened wide their eyes and grabbed my arm.

It struck me again that although Mi-ro looked exactly like A-ri, Mi-ro acted so differently that it was hard to believe.

“Ga-in! You worked so hard.”

“Huh?”

“It must've been really difficult, right?”

“I don't really know what you're talking about.”

“Come with me.”

What I heard while Mi-ro dragged me along was a little absurd.

Room 203 had already been resolved, but apparently I staggered as soon as I came out and then collapsed unconscious.

The others were gathered around the refreshment table.

“Oh! Ga-in, you're awake?”

“You okay? You suddenly passed out and scared the hell out of us, man!”

“My head feels a little fuzzy, but I'm fine. Where are Elena and Song-i? I don't see Grandpa either.”

“They're hanging out underground.”

The rest of them were resting at the table, eating snacks and drinking beverages.

I was happy to reunite with everyone in a peaceful place after so long, but I also felt a little regretful.

They were already relaxing in a calm atmosphere.

Normally, after getting out of a Curse Room, everyone went wild and cheered together.

I used to join in and shout with them, but it looked like that moment of joy had already passed.

A-ri suddenly nudged me and told me to sit beside them.

It was unusual behavior, so I wondered what was going on. Still, there was no reason to sit elsewhere, so I took the seat next to A-ri.

“What is it?”

“I have something to ask. How much do you remember about Room 203?”

I briefly told A-ri what I remembered.

“Hmm... Looks like you only remember up until you got hit by the anesthetic gas. Do you remember entering Pero's body after that?”

“I borrowed Pero's body?”

Instead of answering, A-ri suddenly looked at Doctor with a strange expression.

I followed A-ri's gaze, and Doctor's behavior was rather funny.

He was savoring the aroma of his coffee as though it were the most precious drink in the world.

“Sang-hyeon.”

“Fwooo...”

“Sang-hyeon.”

“What is this scent? Fwoosh! This truly is a miracle of civilization... Aah! What was that for?”

Doctor frowned sharply after A-ri kicked him, but when he spotted me beside A-ri, his expression softened again.

“Oh! Ga-in, you're awake.”

“Yes.”

“Sang-hyeon, I think he has no memory at all of what happened after he came out of the spaceship.”

“Is that so?”

Doctor's expression suddenly filled with complicated emotions.

He seemed regretful, but also pleased.

“Ga-in, you worked hard.”

“Yeah...”

Honestly, anyone who still couldn't figure it out by this point would be an idiot, and I didn't think I was one.

It seemed I had borrowed Pero's body near the end of Room 203 and done something fairly significant.

But why had I lost my memories?

“We've already gone over it among ourselves, but we'll need to explain it to Ga-in again. Seung-yeop, help me out.”

“...”

“Sang-hyeon, his name isn't Park Seung-yeop. He's Cha Jin-cheol.”

“Oh, was it?”

“Haha! It seems you're still mixing up our names. Since Sang-hyeon only has vague memories of the old days...”

“I won't make any more mistakes after a day or two.”

Before the real conversation began, I realized something through that brief exchange.

Doctor seemed to have started speaking more casually to some of the companions, especially A-ri.

It wasn't awkward, considering he was considerably older than everyone except A-ri and Grandpa.

Someone like Jin-cheol, if anything, had found Doctor's careful way of speaking uncomfortable.

For some reason, Doctor also kept confusing our names.

“Doctor, you can speak casually to me too now.”

“No.”

“Pardon?”

“I don't believe there will ever come a time when I can treat you casually, Ga-in. Listen carefully to me for a moment.”

...

It was a long story. It was also an incredibly shocking one.

The way Room 203 had been resolved and Doctor's long suffering were shocking enough, but the most surprising part to me was what had happened to me.

“... I lived for hundreds of years in Pero's body?”

“That's right. There was even an opinion that we should hide this information from you.”

“Because it might be too shocking?”

“Something like that. But Miss A-ri said there was no point.”

A-ri, seated beside me, answered simply.

“We decided not to lie to each other anymore.”

“A-ri, you still lie all the time.”

“That's right, that's right!”

When Mi-ro agreed with me, A-ri gave Mi-ro an incredulous look.

“... It's better not to tell lies you can't hide.”

That meant lies A-ri could hide were fine, and somehow Mi-ro flinched.

“That makes sense. Several people saw me possess Pero, so it couldn't have been hidden.”

Besides, even if my companions had hidden that information, the Owl probably would have told me somehow.

Once the conversation turned to me, everyone began reacting emotionally.

Elena, who had appeared at some point, silently gripped my hand tightly. Mi-ro and Seung-yeop sniffled.

A-ri and Doctor looked at me with concern.

Grandpa, who had come up from underground, told me to make sure to say something if I needed psychological counseling.

Jin-cheol even said he was deeply moved by my unshakable determination, looking at me like I was the protagonist of a shonen manga.

Honestly, it was incredibly awkward.

Imagine waking up one morning to find reporters lined up outside your house.

Then you learn that over the past month, you'd fought a demon and saved the world, but you'd forgotten every memory of that heroic struggle due to the aftermath of defeating it.

How would that feel? That was exactly how I felt right now.

Then Doctor, who had been observing me, summed it up simply.

“Ga-in. If you're confused, you can just let it go.”

“...”

“That room is behind us now. You don't need to force yourself to remember what happened. It's enough to enjoy today and take comfort in the pleasant discovery that you were a hero.”

At that moment, Elena raised a question.

“Now that it's over, I'm curious. What exactly were the escape and resolution conditions for Room 203?”

Doctor answered her question.

“Mi-ro... No, Elena. As is usually the case with Curse Rooms, it's complicated if you think of it as complicated, and simple if you think of it as simple. You need to separate the Prisoner from it when you think about it.”

“Separate the Prisoner? It was the room where the Prisoner had made its presence felt more than any other since Room 104.”

“Eun-sol told us the contents of the resolution notification, didn't she? Adravita's intervention, which was close to a rampage, must have been beyond what the hotel anticipated.”

That part was interesting too.

Apparently, according to the resolution notification that had appeared when the room was cleared, the hotel apologized to us, saying the actions of its ‘guest’ had gone too far.

It also promised that something like this would not happen again in the next room.

“Similar events will not occur in the room you enter next. Isn't that sentence interesting? It seems open to a lot of interpretations.”

A-ri nodded at Doctor's words.

“Let's talk about it again when we decide which room to enter next. And the scenario prepared by the hotel, wasn't it actually centered around the AI?”

Elena looked intrigued.

“Centered around the AI? Not the Prisoner?”

“A ruined civilization, and an AI hostile to survivors for some reason. I think escape would have meant killing the AI or dealing it a major blow somehow, while resolution would have meant persuading or subduing the AI and escaping the planet.”

Doctor added a comment.

“In the end, it became meaningless. Adravita overturned everything on its own.”

With that, the conversation about Room 203 gradually came to an end.

Doctor's ‘magic show’ was the finale.

--- Snap!

“Wow! This is totally like a superpower.”

“Brother, that'd be perfect for lighting cigarettes.”

“I used it for that purpose a lot.”

Each time Doctor snapped his fingers, he made flames appear. He also moved a cake knife so quickly it couldn't be seen, slicing through the table.

Making flames wasn't as amazing an ability as it sounded.

It couldn't create huge fires, only enough flame to light a cigarette.

His skill with bladed weapons or his outstanding martial ability seemed more useful.

Of course, the most useful power had to be Final Flash.

... I wanted to fire a laser too.

“By the way, Party Time starts tomorrow, right?”

Grandpa answered my question.

“That's right. I saw the notification earlier, and it says we get five whole days this time.”

“That's quite long. Have you decided on the schedule?”

“First, we need to go to the Sanctuary of Blessings tomorrow morning. That's the top priority. I think quite a few people will benefit this time too...”

A-ri, who had been yawning beside us, added their thoughts.

“We also talked about exploring, but let's just rest this time. Room 203 was too exhausting.”

Everyone nodded.

According to what A-ri had told us before, there were two hidden rooms and two hidden NPCs among the hidden elements that appeared after reaching Level 2.

We had found the Resurrection Room, the Mirror Room, and the Mysterious Craftsman, so we had found all the rooms and only one NPC remained.

Even so, everyone seemed to have lost much of their enthusiasm for exploring.

As A-ri said, Room 203 had been too exhausting, and we needed rest.

“Eun-sol, shouldn't you use Greedy Hand this time?”

I suddenly realized that throughout our fairly long conversation, she hadn't said a single word.

Wasn't she normally the most talkative out of all of us?

“... Ah. I should. I already mentioned it earlier. I'm thinking of using it as soon as we return from the Sanctuary of Blessings.”

She seemed to be deeply lost in thought about something.

“Come to think of it, where's Song-i?”

A-ri smiled awkwardly.

“Song-i is probably in the botanical garden, healing Pero's heart.”

“Healing Pero's heart?”

“...”

As the conversation at the refreshment table came to an end, I began to feel considerable fatigue again.

I said I would rest a little longer and got up from my seat.

* * *

After Ga-in left, A-ri looked at Eun-sol with confusion.

“What is it? Why did you suddenly freeze up and stop saying anything?”

“...”

“Eun-sol? Are you all right?”

“The lights.”

“Pardon?”

“Don't the lights seem a little dimmer?”

At Eun-sol's words, the companions looked up at the ceiling.

No one noticed any particular change, but A-ri answered with a subtle expression.

“I got a similar feeling on the train too.”

“The train?”

“This Time to Choose took place somewhere like a train.”

“Did the lights dim when Ga-in appeared there too?”

“That was the feeling I got.”

With those words, Eun-sol fell silent again.

Then Sang-hyeon, who had been drinking coffee, asked Eun-sol a question.

“Eun-sol. How does Ga-in appear to your eyes?”

“... There's nothing special. He's just Ga-in.”

Sang-hyeon sensed the brief silence and awkwardness, realizing that Eun-sol had lied.

At the same time, he understood that she wanted to hide something she had seen.

Sang-hyeon understood her attitude.

If it was an irreversible change, there was no need to go into every detail and stir up everyone's unease. That would only cause conflict.

As if to lighten the mood, Cha Jin-cheol spoke in a casual tone.

“Who do you think will be able to enhance their blessing at the Sanctuary of Blessings this time?”

As though he had been waiting for the question, Sang-hyeon answered.

“Jin-cheol, you saved up Contribution for a powerful enhancement last time, so you can definitely do it this time.”

“Haha! Who else besides me?”

“I think my name will be on the list too.”

A-ri agreed. It would have been stranger if Cha Jin-cheol, who had saved up Contribution, and Kim Sang-hyeon, who had made the greatest contribution in Room 203, were not included.

There were likely others as well.

In particular, it might be time for people who had not enhanced their blessings in a long time to get their turn.

Footnotes:

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