WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 382: Room 205, Curse Room - ‘Absolute Master’ (31) (Final)
──────
- Park Seung-yeop
My senses returned.
Then the memories of another me came flooding back.
Startled by the shocking information, I looked up at the sky.
The sky my master had split apart with an incomprehensible sword strike was slowly closing.
Only part of Asha’s form remained visible.
And Yi Ja-seong, my martial arts master.
His body was scattering like sand.
I ran toward him in a panic, unable to close my gaping mouth.
“M-Master! Your body is-”
“...You’ve awakened.”
“Master, I’m sorry... I-I-”
“Did you see it?”
“Pardon?”
“You brat, you’re always going on about ‘Master, Master.’ Don’t tell me you missed it. You saw me split the sky, right?”
Flustered, I looked up at my master.
His eyes had gone blind from gazing directly at Asha, and he still couldn’t hide his utter emptiness.
And...
He wore a smile like that of a young boy.
He wanted to show off to the disciple he had taken in during his final years.
A laugh slipped out before I knew it.
“Yes, yes! I saw it!”
“H-Haha! Hahahaha! Who am I?”
“The greatest swordsman under heaven!”
“No, disciple. Why does it need the word ‘sword’?”
“Yi Ja-seong, the greatest master under heaven!”
“Ahh!”
“...Are you happy?”
“Of course I am.”
“I thought you’d say things like this were meaningless. You always spoke as though you’d cast off worldly principles.”
“Seung-yeop.”
“Yes?”
“That’s one thing, and this is another.”
At that moment, I really couldn’t help laughing.
“Pfft! Isn’t that a little too convenient?”
“You brat, wasn’t I always a narrow-minded man?”
“That’s true.”
“What do you mean, ‘that’s true’! Anyway, have you mastered Aksha’s Soul?”
“Yes.”
“You must train every day after you leave as well. Don’t forget the teachings I gave you, or the teachings Phantom Demon gave you. His martial arts may be weaker than mine, but he had a decent talent for teaching you.”
I burst out laughing again when he emphasized that Phantom Demon’s martial arts were weaker than his, even at a time like this.
Until now, I had only seen his dignified side. Had approaching death changed him?
“...”
Our conversation hadn’t lasted long, but in that brief time, less than half of Master’s body remained.
It was like a snowman melting beneath the blazing sun and gradually collapsing.
Without thinking, I took the Soul Box from inside my clothes.
He was still alive. If I did it now-
“Stop.”
“Master...”
“I want it to end here.”
“...”
“I... achieved my dream.”
“You achieved your dream?”
“Rather than live an ordinary life for a hundred years, I wanted to see the end of martial arts, even if I lived only one day.”
“...”
“I cut the sky. I thought it was a realm I could never reach even after training for a hundred years, no, a thousand years... But a miracle happened. An enlightenment I could never grasp, something hazier than a mirage... descended upon me.”
“...”
“This is enough. I put everything I had into a single instant, so I am real in this moment. So...”
“Master.”
“Please don’t make me fake again.”
Rain was falling from the sky.
The raindrops washed away the old man’s remains as they scattered like sand, leaving no trace behind.
Song-i, who had silently watched everything until then, gently pulled me into an embrace.
Yi Ja-seong, the greatest master under heaven, died.
The next morning, the Emperor’s order to advance came down, and the remnants of the Fire Cult were purged.
That was my final memory of Room 205.
* * *
[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 223
Current Location: Choice Restaurant
Sage’s Advice: 3]
- Han Ga-in
I suddenly regained consciousness in a gleaming space.
A splendid chandelier hung from the ceiling, neat tables stood below it, and the scent of food stirred my appetite.
It was a restaurant.
“Choice Restaurant? Is this the Time of Choice?”
I hadn’t expected to wake up during the Time of Choice rather than outside the Hotel.
I was probably here to explain the Soul Box’s functions.
Come to think of it, something similar had happened before.
The Time of Choice was judged a little differently from a Curse Room.
When I looked around, Song-i was there in a pretty white-and-pink dress, along with Seung-yeop, who was neatly dressed.
And...
Both of them stared at me with their mouths half open.
“What’s with you two? Oh, is it because I died but showed up during the Time of Choice?”
“G-Ga-in!”
“Hey, this happened before too. I’m not qualified to receive an Inheritance. I’m probably just here to explain the Soul Box.”
“I can’t believe Ga-in showed up here!”
Even after I explained, they only gaped at each other.
“Wait, then Phantom Demon really did something stupid.”
“Phantom Demon?”
From there, the two finally started talking and told me what had happened during the latter half of Room 205.
After I died, Phantom Demon had taken Yi Ja-seong’s body to survive and impersonated him.
He had apparently thought Song-i and Seung-yeop would never spare him.
So he disguised himself as Yi Ja-seong, Seung-yeop’s martial arts master, and tried to deceive Seung-yeop, who couldn’t distinguish between souls...
“That Phantom Demon bastard could’ve just come out instead of pulling all that bullshit! Ga-in would’ve been waiting here, then he could’ve convinced us himself or something!”
I understood the situation, but that wasn’t true.
“That’s not true.”
“What the... Huh? What isn’t?”
“I had no intention of saving him.”
“...”
“How many people died at Phantom Demon’s hands during the second attempt? Why would I save someone that evil?”
“You could’ve controlled him...”
“Don’t be ridiculous! He might have kept quiet for now because he was afraid of the Grimoire’s power, but he’s far too evil. What do you think he would’ve done if he found an opening? There was no guarantee I’d always be alive, either.”
“...”
“The Soul Box doesn’t have to contain an NPC from Room 205. It can hold an NPC from any room, as long as the room hasn’t been erased yet. Rooms 104, 206, and 207 are still left.”
“...”
“I’ve personally thought of about two candidates. I don’t know if one of them will work, but-”
“Wow, seriously...”
Seung-yeop cut me off and covered his face with one hand.
“Phantom Demon trusted you completely until right before he died. He said you’d promised him, like there would’ve been no problem if only you’d survived...”
“He was more naive than I thought-”
Unable to take it anymore, Song-i cut me off too.
“It was a lie from the beginning... You were even planning to put someone else in the box from the start...”
“...”
“Phantom Demon, it’s a good thing you died in Room 205. If you’d learned all this and come to the Time of Choice, you’d have cried tears of blood after hearing Ga-in talk.”
“He should thank Master even after death. Master cut off his attachment, so he was at least able to go peacefully. If he’d come outside, he probably would’ve gone into shock and fainted after hearing Ga-in.”
Somehow, I had become the bad guy.
What was wrong with deceiving a lunatic who killed people as easily as breathing?
A little later, a sheet of paper describing the Crimson Flame Iron Fan was served with our food.
After reading it, Song-i gave a simple assessment.
“The Crimson Flame Iron Fan isn’t bad either.”
“I thought it was a useless Inheritance because it kept killing Mi-ro.”
“So allies can be excluded from the Judgment Targets. We just didn’t know because we were Jo Won-hong’s enemies from the beginning.”
“I remember. Elena, who first confirmed the Crimson Flame Iron Fan’s power, said something. Whenever Jo Won-hong used it, he shouted, ‘I, Jo Won-hong, will no longer flee.’”
“You always have such a good memory, Ga-in. Anyway, that must have meant he included himself among the Judgment Targets.”
“If you don’t say something like that, the user and their allies are excluded.”
“It also has the power to control flames, apart from the judgment function.”
The ability to judge an enemy who had committed evil deeds.
The power to control flames.
It wasn’t bad.
Still, there were two options, so we had to compare them.
“I think the Soul Box-”
“The Soul Box-”
Song-i and I spoke at the same time.
Seung-yeop, who had been cutting his steak with scissors, nodded.
“Mhm, everyone agrees. A power that instantly kills enemies? It’s good, but we still can’t choose who we want to target. The standard for judging ‘sin’ is vague too.”
“The target is practically random. Besides, there’s no guarantee that an Adversary is a sinner.”
“It doesn’t even kill with one hundred percent certainty. Phantom Demon resisted it with the Soul Box, didn’t he?”
“An Adversary might be able to resist as well.”
“And the power to control flames, well...”
“It feels vague.”
“Doesn’t it seem like the Hotel expected us to choose the Soul Box from the beginning?”
“What?”
“It only revived me.”
Song-i and Seung-yeop both went, “Ah,” in surprise.
“That’s true. It would’ve been natural for Elena to explain the Crimson Flame Iron Fan, but they replaced her with this sheet of paper.”
“Right. I mentioned it briefly earlier, but let me explain the Soul Box’s functions in detail.”
The Soul Box could hold one soul at a time and had two methods of use.
First, it could hold the user’s own soul.
In that case, the user gained extremely powerful immortality.
Even if their body was destroyed, they naturally wouldn’t die. Unless there was transcendent power capable of disabling the Soul Box itself, they wouldn’t disappear.
But...
“I think losing your body would mean losing your ‘qualification as a participant,’ separate from the immortality.”
“Would you help us in a ghost-like state? What about your Inheritance and blessing?”
“We’d have to use it once to find out.”
Second, it could hold another person’s soul.
In other words, it could contain an NPC from inside a Curse Room.
Phantom Demon had wanted to escape the Curse Room through this method.
And...
“It could also be used to persuade other NPCs.”
“...Someone from Room 104 comes to mind. Could we use it in Room 206 too?”
“It doesn’t have to be a Curse Room NPC.”
“A companion’s soul?”
“That would be possible too, but...”
I thought of an entirely different existence.
Something that now had no body and had become a Wraith, or perhaps even less than that.
“We’ll have to test that after we leave.”
Song-i asked an important question.
“Does the Soul Box itself have the ability to take someone’s body, like Phantom Demon did?”
“It sort of does.”
“What? Sort of?”
“Compared to the Grimoire, which specializes in stealing bodies, it’s very weak. It’s about as powerful as an evil spirit possessing someone in a horror movie.”
“...What exactly does that mean?”
“An ordinary person would have trouble resisting it, but a trained person could overcome it.”
“But Phantom Demon was much stronger than that.”
“That was only possible because he strengthened it with a separate power called Soul-Shifting Demon Art.”
Seung-yeop, who had been listening closely, spoke up.
“Then, as you said, whatever we put in the Soul Box will most likely help us in a ghost-like state without a physical body.”
“That’s right.”
“We need to find someone who can still use their power in that state.”
“Good point. That was actually why I opposed saving Yi Ja-seong too. I didn’t think he could fight without a body.”
“...”
Seung-yeop looked somewhat bitter at my words.
He had thought of Yi Ja-seong as a real master more than I had realized.
Some of my companions occasionally became too invested in what happened inside the rooms.
I didn’t think it was a desirable attitude, but I should be considerate.
Let’s stop talking about Yi Ja-seong.
If Seung-yeop felt this way, it was fortunate Yi Ja-seong chose death in Room 205.
The two candidates I had in mind were more suitable for the box than Phantom Demon or Yi Ja-seong.
Of course, I didn’t say that out loud this time.
As our conversation drew to a close, Song-i and I both looked at Seung-yeop.
Looking a little apologetic, Seung-yeop murmured quietly.
“To be honest, I didn’t contribute much in this room...”
Song-i and I spoke at the same time.
“Neither did I.”
“Me neither.”
In the end, the key to Room 205 had been how the Empire would bring down the Fire Cult.
The Contribution of our companions on the Empire’s side, who defeated Jo Won-hong in two consecutive attempts, must have been considerable.
Kim Mook-seong, Kim Sang-hyeon, Lee Eun-sol, and Cha Jin-cheol.
Those four had played major roles.
But none of them survived.
Song-i murmured carefully.
“Something I think about sometimes...”
“What is it?”
“If we got along even a little worse, things would get ugly whenever something like this happened.”
“...”
“Like in a dynastic state.”
“Why bring up a dynastic state all of a sudden?”
“They give the throne not to whoever is most capable, but to whoever was born first. If they didn’t...”
“Every time a king died, they’d have to go to war to determine who was more capable.”
“Maybe conflicts have been reduced because we get one Inheritance per person, in order.”
It was a strange comparison, but it seemed to fit somehow.
“Then is Grandfather next? Of course, he has to survive until the end.”
“If we include Room 104, there are two Inheritances left. Rooms 104 and 206.”
“...”
“One person might get two.”
And that was how Room 205 came to an end.
Footnotes:
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