Escaping the Mystery Hotel - Chapter 360

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 359: Room 205, Curse Room - ‘Absolute Master’ (8)

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[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)

Date: Day 161

Current Location: Level 1, Corridor

Sage’s Advice: 3]

- Han Ga-in

I woke up in the hotel.

This was the second time I'd been affected by Sealing. I felt like Sleeping Beauty.

When we were tackling Room 203 before, everyone had suffered each time they returned.

So I checked on everyone as soon as we came back, but thankfully, it wasn't that bad this time.

“It doesn't seem to be mealtime yet, so let's talk over some drinks.”

At Jin-cheol's suggestion, we headed to the refreshment table.

The first topic at the table was everyone's roles.

“Seung-yeop was the emperor?”

“Ga-in, I told you... Right, you've forgotten now.”

Judging by Mi-ro's reaction, she must have summoned me using the Time Lender.

“Bro, with just one gesture from me, three thousand palace women!”

“Three thousand palace women?”

“I thought there'd be three thousand palace women, but they'd all run away.”

“Th-they ran away?”

Eun-sol burst into giggles, then explained the basic scenario of Room 205 for the benefit of those who didn't know.

“So... the emperor governed like a complete mess and ruined the country, so a cult called the Fire Cult started a rebellion?”

“That's right.”

“The Fire Cult rebelled under the banner of saving the people, and Martial World factions like the Heavenly Righteous Alliance, which should have defended the empire, are standing by because they've had enough of the imperial family.”

“Exactly.”

“And the Source of the Curse is, judging from the circumstances, the Ascension Ritual the Fire Cult plans to perform after bringing down the empire?”

Everyone nodded.

I hoped Curse Room plots could keep being wrapped up in three lines like this.

Just then, Seung-yeop moved his plate below and above the table several times, gathering a huge pile of fries.

A-ri watched him and asked, “Are they really that good? It's not like you were starved in this room.”

“Sis, I can say this for sure now. Fries dipped in ketchup are better than anything emperors used to eat!”

It was a very convincing statement coming from a former emperor.

Grandpa spoke up.

“You brat, if you like fried food that much, aren't you going to turn into a whole pig?”

“Ah, stop giving me looks. You're not Lee Won-cheol, Minister of the Songmu Department.”

“What? Who... who did you say?”

“Ahem!”

Seung-yeop suddenly cleared his throat and began a grand speech from the table.

“Your Majesty, for the glory of the imperial family that leads this radiant age, Lee Won-cheol, Minister of the Songmu Department, would like to offer a word. Recently, famine and rebellion have overlapped, leaving the people's lives in misery and causing a shortage of food. If Your Majesty wishes to ease the people's worries and suffering...”

“Enough! What is all this?”

“If you set an example by reducing your meals, the people of the realm will see Your Majesty's benevolence, and Heaven's will...”

At that point, Eun-sol summarized between fits of laughter.

“It wasn't anything special. There were a few officials who nagged so much it was disgusting. The kind who say, ‘Please see the wisdom in this!’ every single day in historical dramas.”

Seung-yeop complained, “Seriously, every time I ate a meal, they said there was a famine because of me. Every time I closed my eyes, they said a rebellion happened because of me. It took everything I had not to have them beaten.”

“So that's why Yeonsangun happened!”

“...”

Only then did I understand the situation well enough to join the joke.

“That's just how premodern times were. If it rained or snowed, it was because the king was incompetent. Still, you were lucky. Since it wasn't prehistoric times, it ended with people saying, ‘It's all the emperor's fault,’ instead of anything worse.”

A-ri nodded too.

“Seriously. In an ancient civilization, they'd tie the king to a stake before they even started thinking about it. They'd burn different body parts and see which one made the rain come faster.”

Seung-yeop, who had actually been tied to a stake, went pale and began stuffing himself with fries.

Maybe she felt bad teasing him any further, so Eun-sol changed the subject.

“The situation itself is simple, so let's talk about the main figures now. We can wrap up by organizing what we need to do.”

At that point, I naturally understood the word that filled the blank in Room 205's title, 「Curse Room - ‘□□□□’」, which I'd seen when I was sealed.

“Absolute Master...”

“What?”

“The title of Room 205 is ‘Absolute Master.’”

Everyone nodded.

The three strongest superhumans in human history, possessors of mythical martial prowess on an entirely different level from other masters.

Those three Absolute Masters were the key figures in Room 205.

“Let's start with that dog bastard Yi Ja-seong.”

Jin-cheol frowned as he spoke, and the Doctor gave a quiet laugh.

“He's your master in his own way. Calling him a dog bastard or a cow bastard is a little much. Let's soften it to madman.”

One after another, my companions showed hostility toward Yi Ja-seong.

Ironically, the person with the least emotional investment was Eun-sol, who had died without even knowing what happened.

“I've got nothing to say. I've never even seen Yi Ja-seong's face.”

Putting everyone's accounts together, he sounded so strong it was almost laughable.

It didn't seem like anyone could beat him one-on-one. Elena said that even using Justice wouldn't make it easy.

Then A-ri asked the Doctor, “Sang-hyeon, Final Flash missed him, right?”

For once, the Doctor looked wounded in his pride.

“Yeah...”

“How did it miss? I know Final Flash travels at sixteen percent of the speed of light, around fifty thousand kilometers per second.”

“Of course Yi Ja-seong didn't dodge by moving at fifty thousand kilometers per second. He moved too fast for me to react. It was almost... like Teleportation?”

“Teleportation?”

“No. It was definitely different from Teleportation. A movement with no warning? It's hard to describe. He has so many strange and mysterious techniques...”

Then Grandpa muttered with a meaningful expression.

“Shifting Form, Changing Position...”

You don't need to be faster than a bullet to dodge a gun.

You only need to move too quickly for the person firing the gun to track you, and their aim will fail.

It seemed Yi Ja-seong had dodged Final Flash through that principle before taking down the Doctor.

That wasn't the only feat the Sword of All Under Heaven had performed.

“Yi Ja-seong's sword ignored your spear and went through?”

“I told you it did!”

“How? Did it split the spear? Or did it pass through it, like the Doctor's hand ignores our skin?”

“No, no, Ga-in. It's not that kind of concept...”

Jin-cheol took a long time to choose his words before saying something I couldn't understand at all.

“He drew the flow of my spear into his own flow?”

“Huh?”

“It was like a bird in flight or a sailing ship catching a headwind and moving forward instead.”

“What does that even feel like?”

“Hmm...”

“Ga-in! Ga-in! I have something to say too!”

What Mi-ro said was even harder to understand.

“He split his mind to resist Possession? He swung his sword and cut apart the Grimoire's power?”

Apparently, it was me, summoned by the Time Lender, who had said that and insisted she pass it on to the others.

By then, I felt like I would've believed it if someone said Yi Ja-seong had split the sea with his sword and performed Moses's miracle.

Listening to the Doctor, Jin-cheol, and Mi-ro's vague explanations made one thing clear.

My companions clearly didn't understand exactly what martial arts Yi Ja-seong had used either.

In a way, that was only natural. None of them were Absolute Masters.

Eun-sol, who seemed to have reached the same realization, changed the subject.

“Enough. If anyone could understand it after listening for a few minutes, everyone would be an Absolute Master. I'm more interested in what Sang-hyeon said he heard.”

“The conversation I had with Yi Ja-seong?”

“Sang-hyeon, Yi Ja-seong said he didn't care about grudges with the imperial family, right?”

“That's right. Yi Ja-seong watched the Phantom Demon and came to the realization that one must not be bound by worldly principles to grow stronger. Eventually, he came not to care even about the deaths of his daughter or disciple.”

“That's strange.”

Eun-sol tilted her head for a moment, then pointed out the contradiction she saw in Yi Ja-seong.

“The Yi Ja-seong who appeared before us asked if we knew what a terrible existence the Phantom Demon was. He believed such a being must never be revived, and he stood before us like a chivalrous hero.”

“Hmm...”

“He's supposedly transcended worldly principles enough to take even his family's deaths lightly, but the moment he learned that a follower of the Phantom Demon had entered the capital, he rushed in with his sword without a second thought, like a chivalrous hero?”

It made sense when she put it that way.

What he'd said to the Doctor made him sound like a demonic martial artist who had attained a chaotic enlightenment that disregarded all worldly laws, but his actions were those of a chivalrous hero through and through.

After a moment, two interpretations emerged.

“I trust a person's actions more than their words. Yi Ja-seong is still someone like a hero of the Martial World. Perhaps what he said to Sang-hyeon was meant to test him?”

“To test me?”

“At that point, Yi Ja-seong had learned through some means that a follower of the Phantom Demon had entered the capital. He must have believed the imperial family had finally joined hands with an evil fiend. And...”

“I would've been a suspect too. Did he reveal that he had become something similar to the Phantom Demon to test my reaction?”

Eun-sol believed Yi Ja-seong's actions were sincere and that his words had been intended to test the Doctor.

Grandpa Mook-seong thought a little differently.

“No, no. If you settle it like that, it doesn't explain the discomfort Sang-hyeon said he felt while speaking with Yi Ja-seong during the day. You said you felt Yi Ja-seong was acting, didn't you?”

“I definitely did.”

“I think this is a martial arts novel cliché.”

“A martial arts novel cliché?”

“Yi Ja-seong has fallen to an Inner Demon.”

Grandpa then explained the concept of an Inner Demon to us.

When outstanding masters spend a long time stalled at a martial-development barrier, they can be swayed by misguided temptations. That was called an Inner Demon.

The Doctor was intrigued, saying it seemed to be a form of mental illness.

A-ri cut in then, perhaps thinking the conversation was drifting into an overly fanciful direction.

“Let's stop talking about enlightenment and all that. More importantly, I learned something really important while listening. Didn't we actually have no reason to fight Yi Ja-seong?”

“What?”

“Yi Ja-seong doesn't seem to intend to oppose the imperial family. He's only standing by. He has no intention of taking up a sword and cutting off the boy emperor's head. Yi Ja-seong acted purely to stop the Phantom Demon's revival.”

“Th-that's right!”

A-ri reached a simple, clear conclusion.

“From the next attempt onward, Mi-ro and I shouldn't go to the capital. If we go there, it seems Yi Ja-seong notices us somehow and starts running wild with his sword.”

“Huh! Yi Ja-seong went wild because of us?”

A-ri shook her head at Mi-ro's surprised cry.

“Not because of us. Because of Ga-in.”

“Ga-in's the culprit?”

I had nothing to say.

Next, we talked about Jo Won-hong.

Unlike Yi Ja-seong, whom everyone had something to say about, Elena was the only one who had faced Jo Won-hong, so she described him herself.

“He's definitely not someone who runs around like a madman.”

Eun-sol nodded.

“Someone like that couldn't have become the leader of a huge religious organization in the first place.”

“Rather than the leader of a cult consumed by madness, he feels more like a revolutionary who rose up for people suffering under tyranny. At least, that's how Jo Won-hong sees himself.”

That seemed right.

The Ascension Ritual looked like Room 205's curse from our perspective, since we understood the concept of Curse Rooms. To them, it was a means of saving the world.

“Unlike Yi Ja-seong, I don't know how he fights, but he's definitely incredibly strong. And... his faith is wavering.”

Jo Won-hong's faith was wavering.

Everyone nodded as soon as they heard that.

This was the greatest benefit created by the hotel's promise to weaken the Prisoner's intervention.

Jo Won-hong knew nothing of the hotel or the concept of a Prisoner. One day, he woke up to find that a flame bestowed by his god, which had burned in sacred ground for eight hundred years, had gone out.

As a religious person, he could think that his god had abandoned them.

It was also enough to make him wonder whether they had committed some great sin.

“This will remain his weakness for a long time. He also possesses a treasure containing the power of judgment.”

Jo Won-hong possessed a divine relic called the Crimson Flame Iron Fan, an instrument that judged sinners through the power of a god.

It was subtly similar to Elena's blessing, and Mi-ro was dumbfounded the moment she heard about it.

“That's what killed me!”

After hearing Mi-ro's explanation, Elena was dumbfounded too.

“What? The person the Crimson Flame Iron Fan judged was Mi-ro, who happened to be passing nearby? Jo Won-hong and I didn't know that either.”

“Why did it kill me?”

A-ri answered with a bitter smile.

“... Well, you were supposedly a follower trying to revive the greatest evil demon of all time. A god of justice probably had a million reasons to kill you.”

Mi-ro closed her mouth at that, and A-ri immediately giggled and nudged me.

“This one's the real problem. Ga-in, I told you to live a little more kindly.”

Jokes aside, we learned several characteristics of the Crimson Flame Iron Fan from that brief conversation.

First, its range of judgment was wider than expected.

Neither Elena nor the Fire Cult Leader had noticed Mi-ro approaching, but the Crimson Flame Iron Fan selected Mi-ro as a Judgment Target.

That meant it could judge people from quite far away.

Second, even its user didn't know whether a judgment had occurred or who had been judged.

Not only had Jo Won-hong failed to realize Mi-ro had been judged, he didn't even know a judgment had taken place.

Instead, he mistakenly concluded that there were no sinners present.

Third, resisting its judgment was nearly impossible.

The “inescapable death” mentioned in Revelation of Heavenly Secrets was, judging by the circumstances, the Crimson Flame Iron Fan's judgment.

Simply having a strong body wasn't enough to withstand it.