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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 351: Final Rest and Choosing a Room

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[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)

Date: Day 153

Current Location: Level 1, Corridor

Sage’s Advice: X]

- Han Ga-in

With A-ri returning last, all the companions who had been dragged into Hungry Ghost Hell had come back.

The next morning, A-ri and I talked about various things while we rested.

“The others got out before me?”

Doctor and Jin-cheol had escaped Hungry Ghost Hell before A-ri.

“That feels a little weird. How did they get out? What kind of stories did they choose?”

“Jin-cheol chose a story where a serial killer murdered his family.”

“Ah... Did he catch the serial killer at the scene?”

“He beat the serial killer to death in self-defense, and an escape prompt appeared right away.”

“What about Sang-hyeon?”

“He played the older brother of a graduate student suffering under a horrible professor. He met the professor himself and handled it.”

“...How?”

“Well.”

I didn't bother asking what he had done.

Once we entered a story, we didn't have to worry about consequences or cleaning up afterward.

By the time the aftermath became a problem, everything would already be over.

In the most extreme case, he might have broken the professor's wrists while “persuading” him to treat the person in the story kindly.

“Ah, Sang-hyeon and Jin-cheol picked good stories.”

“Didn't you?”

“Mine was more complicated than that. I'm out now, so it's fine.”

“You know today's the last day of Party Time, right? We're going to choose the room we'll enter tomorrow later.”

“Okay.”

As we headed back to our rooms, A-ri suddenly looked at me and asked,

“You haven't eaten anything for the last three days, have you?”

“Yeah.”

“...You probably couldn't even drink a sip of water. Are you okay?”

“It's more bearable than I expected. At this rate, I could probably go hungry for a few more days. I'll just think of it as dieting.”

“...”

* * *

Around evening, everyone gathered around the huge table on the second floor for the meeting.

As soon as we arrived, Eun-sol asked me,

“Ga-in, are you okay?”

“Huh?”

“...Never mind. I'm glad you seem fine.”

“It's more bearable than I thought.”

Once the meeting began, Doctor was the first to speak.

“As you know, the subject of this meeting is which Curse Room we should enter next. The first thing we must consider is the promise the hotel made to us. Some of you saw it yourselves, while others heard about it afterward.”

In Room 203, Adravita had interfered so excessively that it was almost absurd, turning everything into a painful ordeal.

According to the notification that appeared after the room was resolved, that sort of intervention by a Prisoner went beyond the hotel's intentions.

As both a reward for overcoming such a harsh trial and an apology, the hotel made one promise.

“‘Nothing similar will happen in the next room you enter.’ That was the exact wording. What do you think it means?”

I gave my opinion.

“I think ‘the next room you enter’ should be taken literally. It refers to the next room we choose.”

“That seems likely.”

“The problem is how to interpret ‘nothing similar.’ Does it mean the hotel will completely block the Prisoner's intervention?”

“We won't know for certain until we enter, but I don't think it goes that far.”

Eun-sol, who had been quiet lately, spoke up for the first time in a while.

“From experience, Adversaries often serve as the Prisoner's hands and feet. If the Prisoner loses influence to the point of being expelled from the room, the Adversaries would lose the power they received from the Prisoner too. That would mean we get to clear a room for free.”

A-ri responded.

“Honestly, I don't think the hotel would be that kind to us.”

“I agree. I'd rather interpret it in terms of roles.”

“Roles?”

Everyone's attention turned to Eun-sol as she began making a convincing point.

“Normally, in scenarios created by the hotel, we're the protagonists. The Adversary is the villain.”

Not every room had been like that, but it did feel similar.

“On the other hand, the Prisoner should be more like part of the background. An unidentified being plotting in the darkness, the source of evil. It should remain in an abstract role like that. It should only appear at the very end, when the Bad Ending is certain and everything is about to be destroyed.”

A few fitting examples came to mind.

“Room 203 was nothing like that. Adravita personally acted like a villain on stage. The hotel considered that the problem and promised to prevent it from happening in the next room.”

It sounded convincing.

If Eun-sol's hypothesis was right, the Prisoner wouldn't reveal its presence as though it were a character in the scenario in the next room.

It could do no more than watch the protagonists struggle from the background, or appear at the end once the Bad Ending had been confirmed.

Put another way, the Adversaries empowered by the Prisoner would likely still be able to use that power.

Unlike the Prisoner, they were characters in the scenario.

Eun-sol lightly tapped the table as she concluded.

“Let's leave our interpretation of the hotel's promise there. Tell us which room you think we should enter next.”

Which room should we enter next? I thought back on the rooms we had resolved in the past.

We didn't even know who the Prisoner of Room 101, Common Sense-Altering Media, was.

There had been speculation that it was the hospital director, but the Prisoner never appeared, even when the room vanished.

The Prisoner of Room 102, House of Horror, had been the Nebula Dragon, but it had barely played a role either.

It only made its existence known at the very end, when everything was over.

Maybe that was the kind of ideal Prisoner the hotel had in mind.

Even if the hotel's promise applied to rooms like those, nothing would change.

On the other hand, applying the promise to Room 103, where Doctor, the Prisoner, had been our ally, would be a disaster.

Room 103 without Doctor being able to intervene? Even with our current strength, I wasn't confident we could clear it.

Once I thought it through that far, the answer was obvious.

Reasonably speaking, the next room we should enter was one where the Prisoner actively opposed us.

One example that fit perfectly came to everyone's mind.

Jin-cheol raised his hand.

“Come to think of it, isn't the choice obvious? The remaining rooms are 104, 205, and 206. We don't know anything at all about 205 and 206, so let's skip those. Room 104 is clearly one where the Prisoner wreaks havoc.”

Doctor replied with a somewhat complicated expression.

“If we only consider the hotel's promise, Room 104 is the obvious conclusion. But if we take into account the information we received through Revelation of Heavenly Secrets, things become less clear. What do you think, Ga-in?”

During the Revelation of Heavenly Secrets event, we received the following hints about Room 104.

The dangers of a Mirror Match, the Cult's mythology and doctrine, empty the enemy's magazine.

“I don't understand what ‘the dangers of a Mirror Match’ means. The Cult's mythology and doctrine? I understand that even less. But I do understand the last part.”

“Empty the enemy's magazine?”

“A magazine means something like a limited-use ability. Among the powers we have, there's only one thing that could be called the Lord's magazine. Isn't it Descent?”

That was my interpretation.

Perhaps Revelation of Heavenly Secrets had hinted that I should use my final remaining Descent somewhere else before entering Room 104.

Jin-cheol tilted his head after hearing that.

“If you're right, Room 104 is still a room we should avoid? Because you still have a Descent left?”

“It must mean the Lord could use Descent again and control me.”

“Can't we do what we did before? You resist with the Grimoire's power while we restrain you?”

At that moment, A-ri, who had been thinking deeply, slapped the table.

“I get it!”

“What?”

“The earlier phrase, ‘the dangers of a Mirror Match.’ After hearing what Jin-cheol just said, I understand what it means.”

Everyone looked at A-ri.

“A Mirror Match is a conflict where two opposing sides share the same advantage. The opposing sides here are obviously the Lord and us.”

The Lord and we shared the same advantage.

That was why our confrontation was, by nature, a Mirror Match.

Song-i muttered with a somewhat blank expression.

“Our advantage? That we're close with our companions?”

A-ri shook her head.

“Think about the context. The Lord doesn't have companions. The advantage the Lord and we share is recognizing changes between iterations!”

Just as we, attacking Curse Rooms from the outside, could recognize changes between a room's iterations, the Prisoner inside could recognize those changes too.

“We can repeatedly try a Curse Room, learn what powers the enemies inside have, and use that information to defeat them.”

“...You're saying the Lord can do the same thing? That it can figure out how to defeat us?”

“Originally, the Lord had no information about the Inheritances we possessed. That's why, when Ga-in resisted through the Grimoire, it was caught so off guard.”

Jin-cheol shook his head in amazement.

“Now it knows not only Ga-in's Grimoire, but my Star, A-ri's Old Blood, and even Song-i's bracelet. It could make another plan based on that information?”

“Isn't that possible?”

“Something's strange. I get that it would devise new countermeasures after learning about our Inheritances. But according to the hotel's promise, shouldn't the hotel prevent the Prisoner from running wild like this in the first place?”

Jin-cheol's words sounded convincing too.

No matter how cunning the Lord was, before the hotel it was no more than the Monkey King in Buddha's palm. Even if it devised some scheme in a corner of its room, wouldn't it become useless if the hotel suppressed its intervention itself?

Something was strange.

The hotel's promise clearly seemed to mean that it would stop the Prisoner from actively causing trouble, so it felt like we should go to Room 104. Yet interpreting the Revelation of Heavenly Secrets that came afterward suggested that it wasn't time yet, and that I should use even my remaining Descent before going there.

As though the Lord of Room 104 could ignore the hotel's restrictions and run wild regardless.

Then Eun-sol carefully muttered,

“I think I just realized something incredibly important...”

“Huh?”

“The reason the Lord can act so freely. Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“Maybe the Lord's true form hasn't intervened at all since it bestowed Descent on Ga-in during the first attempt.”

“Huh?”

“The Lord only watched from above. It hasn't intervened since the first iteration. That's why the hotel doesn't consider the Lord a problem.”

What was she talking about? My first thought was that it was absurd.

“Then who possessed my body and tried to kill all of you?”

“...Let's leave this conversation here.”

Eun-sol fell silent.

It seemed she had come up with an unusual idea but wasn't certain of it.

Or perhaps she was holding back because I was here.

It wasn't the first time.

The most dangerous being in Room 104 was me, and my companions often hid their plans for Room 104 from me.

Then Doctor brought up something more positive, as if to lighten the gloomy atmosphere.

“No matter what, this is good news! Revelation of Heavenly Secrets gave us valuable information about Room 104.”

“Valuable information?”

“‘Empty the enemy's magazine.’ Ga-in's interpretation is that the magazine refers to Descent, correct? That means you should use all your remaining Descent, and it also means you can use it.”

It was a thought I had had as well.

Through Revelation of Heavenly Secrets, the hotel had told me that I could use my final remaining Descent, so I should use it.

Realizing that made me feel a little better.

Doctor continued.

“Perhaps the hotel's promise wasn't made with Room 104 in mind at all. Perhaps it had another room in mind. If we think of it that way, we can understand why the later Revelation of Heavenly Secrets instructed us to enter Room 104 after using up Descent.”

A-ri asked curiously,

“Another room the hotel had in mind... Which one do you think it is? Is there another room where the Prisoner actively intervenes and opposes us? We have no information at all about Rooms 205 and 206.”

“No information at all? We have Revelation of Heavenly Secrets, don't we?”

As soon as Doctor said that, I recalled the information we had received about Rooms 205 and 206.

Room 205: An Absolute Master. An unavoidable death. No lucky breaks will work, and outstanding martial prowess is required.

Room 206: A three-way confrontation, a favorite device in fiction, check the date regularly.

Was there anything in those phrases that could be interpreted as “the Prisoner actively opposes us”?

As everyone tilted their heads, Doctor spoke with confidence.

“Room 205. Don't you find the phrase ‘an unavoidable death’ meaningful?”

“An unavoidable death...”

“There are truly remarkable powerhouses in the Hotel Party now. Isn't that true from the Management Bureau's perspective as well?”

A-ri nodded.

“That's right. Even by the Management Bureau's standards, some of us are superhumans who would rank among the handful of strongest mortals.”

“Then could a human be the being capable of bringing unavoidable death upon people like us?”

Once he said that much, I understood.

Doctor was saying that the phrase “an unavoidable death” in Room 205's Revelation of Heavenly Secrets hinted at the presence of a hostile god.

It sounded convincing.

If there was a force capable of inflicting unavoidable death on us, it certainly didn't seem like the power of a mortal.

A-ri and Grandfather nodded.

“That sounds reasonable.”

“Then Room 205 next?”

Mi-ro, who had been quiet until then, gave her opinion for the first time.

“So we should go to Room 205? That's a relief. Room 206 was supposed to be... a difficult room, wasn't it?”

That was information we had received from A-ri's Sponsor. The final Curse Room on each Level was said to be especially difficult.

“If possible, I think we should save the incredibly difficult room for last.”

That was enough to conclude the meeting. The next room we would enter was Room 205.

Footnotes:

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