WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 386: A Midsummer Night's Dream (2)
──────
- Yoo Song-i
The Great Chaos Multiverse! No, the Hotel!
Just as my mind started reeling from what had happened the moment we left the Sanctuary of Blessings, I finally realized there were two other sane people besides me.
“So Ga-in, that brat, jumped out of the Hotel?”
“I’m telling you, he did!”
“And Mi-ro and Elena... c-confessed?”
“Yes.”
“Kids these days, honestly! Though I suppose Mi-ro isn’t exactly a kid anymore?”
“Grandpa, what does that matter right now?!”
Maybe the situation had become too absurd.
Grandpa’s expression actually grew calmer.
“Hmm...”
“Grandpa...”
“Seung-yeop, tell me again what happened yesterday.”
“Yes.”
The other sane person, Seung-yeop, told us about the events of the previous night.
Grandpa nodded.
“I understand one thing. That drinking session seems to be the cause of all this. Aren’t the only people who are fine the ones who didn’t take part?”
Seung-yeop tilted his head.
“But I took part.”
“You little brat, you said you drank soda! That doesn’t count as taking part!”
“Is that so?”
“A bizarre event has occurred in the Hotel. The trigger condition is drinking until you pass out?”
There was something I didn’t understand.
“Grandpa, this isn’t the first time we’ve drunk during Party Time, is it? A-ri has made us cocktails plenty of times.”
“It probably doesn’t happen just from drinking in moderation. Most of you need to drink until you black out and collapse for the event to occur.”
Understanding the situation a little better didn’t change anything.
Grandpa muttered as if to comfort us.
“It can’t be that serious. It’s Party Time, so a dangerous event couldn’t possibly occur. Besides, my Sponsor told me to have a fun time.”
“My Sponsor said it’d be dangerous if I went outside now.”
“...”
Seung-yeop summed up the Sponsors’ contradictory words simply.
“It must be dangerous for us, but fun for the Sponsors.”
“...”
“What should we do?”
“What condition are the others in?”
After Grandpa, Seung-yeop, and I went around checking, this was what we found.
Kim Sang-hyeon and Han Ga-in: Left the Hotel.
Mi-ro, A-ri, and Elena: Lying dazed near the first-floor desk.
Cha Jin-cheol: Deep in thought at a table on the second floor.
Lee Eun-sol: ?
“Where did Eun-sol go? This is when she should use the Flute to wake everyone up!”
“I haven’t seen her either, but the Flute probably couldn’t wake them. My bracelet didn’t work either, and every blessing that prevents mental contamination has stopped working too.”
“... I think I understand.”
When he heard that Inheritances and blessings had become useless, Grandpa seemed to realize something.
“This is a dream.”
“Huh?”
“What?”
Seung-yeop and I were both startled, so Grandpa explained.
“During my work as an agent, I caught plenty of monsters that use dreams to trap people in nightmares. Seung-yeop, you were attacked by a Nightmare Butterfly once too, weren’t you?”
“Yes. It was really hard.”
“Our companions’ condition is similar to dreaming. They’re immersed in their own worlds? Of course they are! The essence of dreams is creating your own world and sinking into it.”
“And the reason Inheritances and blessings have become useless is...?”
“Because this place is half removed from reality. Or because dreams aren’t mental illnesses.”
“The Hotel itself is some sort of place where everyone’s dreams overlap instead of reality?”
“That’s right!”
“Then what are we?”
“Something like outsiders invited into everyone’s dreams.”
Seung-yeop asked urgently.
“Then what should we do?”
“We need to wake the sleepwalkers!”
“H-how? You said Inheritances don’t work!”
“Well, I know how to wake at least one person.”
* * *
Grandpa took us to the Costume Room in the basement.
As expected of the Hotel’s Costume Room, it wasn’t an ordinary place. Whatever clothes we wanted simply appeared.
A little later, Grandpa came out dressed in a black suit and a checkered tie.
But that wasn’t the end of the transformation.
“Grandpa?”
“Song-i, help me a little. It’d be easier if your bracelet worked, but since it doesn’t, I’ll need to put on some makeup.”
“Okay.”
As Seung-yeop and I helped him, Grandpa explained his plan.
“Management Bureau agents often fight monsters like Dream Demons and Nightmare Butterflies that wield dreams as weapons. The key to dealing with them is realizing, ‘This isn’t reality. It’s a dream.’”
“Is it like waking up from a lucid dream? A reality check?”
It probably wasn’t quite the same as an agent’s experience, but I’d heard something similar in movies.
“Something like that. Usually, you try doing something that can’t be done in reality.”
“Like bending your fingers backward?”
“Though this method is difficult for some people.”
“Are you talking about A-ri?”
“A-ri can perform almost any movement.”
“Huh?”
“A-ri can bend her fingers backward even normally, and she can even cut off her own head and carry it around for a while...”
Seung-yeop jumped in shock.
“What?! Sis doesn’t normally do things like that!”
“Because you’d be startled.”
Ordinary people could try doing something impossible in reality, realize they were dreaming, and wake up.
But there were hardly any actions impossible for A-ri in reality, so this method wouldn’t work for her.
“So this is how we’ll wake A-ri.”
Then Grandpa’s “disguise” was complete.
Grandpa, standing before the mirror, no longer had the confident, muscular build we were used to seeing.
He had a generous belly, a relaxed expression, and somehow altered facial features.
He looked like a wealthy old man enjoying retirement.
“This way?”
“Someone A-ri trusted deeply. But someone who no longer exists in reality.”
“Who?”
“The first Management Bureau Korea Branch chief A-ri met.”
* * *
Something strange happened as soon as disguised Grandpa appeared before A-ri.
A-ri had been leaning against the wall with a hazy expression, but her eyes suddenly cleared. Then she began looking around in shock.
“Agent A-ri, wake up.”
“...”
“Honestly! You’re hopelessly sloppy! Are you dreaming in a place this important?”
“Mook-seong.”
“Pathetic. You’ve been pathetic ever since you cried every day because you missed your mother...”
“Mook-seong, I’m awake.”
“...”
“I never cried because I missed my mother.”
After waking from her dream, A-ri began viewing the situation from a different perspective.
“I think there’s one misunderstanding. It’s not that communication is impossible, and it’s not that blessings or Inheritances have stopped working.”
“My bracelet didn’t work.”
A-ri gave a small laugh and grabbed my arm. I couldn’t move an inch.
“Come to think of it, you were incredibly strong earlier too. You were using an Inheritance?”
“While they’re dreaming, people become self-centered.”
“Self-centered?”
“They only react to subjects they want and ignore everything else.”
“Hmm...”
“In a conversation, if you bring up something they aren’t interested in, they’ll ignore you or force everything back to the subject they want.”
I remembered how Ga-in had arbitrarily changed the keyword “love” into “Let’s jump.”
“Blessings and Inheritances are similar. They work however the dreamer wants them to. The reason they can’t wake up is because they never even consider that this situation is a dream.”
“Okay, okay, I get the situation. But how do we wake the others? They haven’t trained to wake up from supernatural dreams like you have.”
“For now, I know how to wake Mi-ro.”
On our way to wake Mi-ro, A-ri looked at me with a complicated expression.
“When we wake up, what happened in the dream will be as if it never happened. Ga-in and Sang-hyeon’s escape will be undone too. So...”
I understood what A-ri wanted to say.
“I’ve already forgotten it all.”
“... Thank you.”
What happened in the dream had to remain in the dream.
I had forgotten everything I saw earlier.
I had decided to forget.
* * *
“Mi-ro.”
“...”
“Mi-ro, do you want to see Ga-in?”
Mi-ro hadn’t reacted no matter how seriously A-ri spoke, but she raised her head at the name Ga-in.
“Ga-in? Where’d he go?”
“Where do you think he went?”
“I think I like Ga-in! I want to ask him out!”
“... This is exhausting.”
“But, but!”
“But?”
“What if I confess and he says he doesn’t like me? He disappeared earlier after saying nothing but weird things!”
“...”
In that brief exchange, I realized something.
It was an experience everyone had at least once in their life, wasn’t it?
You started liking someone, but confessing was scary.
At least for now, you could laugh and talk together. But if you confessed and got rejected, even that could become impossible.
Of course Mi-ro had thought about that much, which was why she’d never confessed before.
But after falling into a dream, she had lost her self-control and acted like she had earlier.
The others were probably the same.
Things they desperately wanted to do but had held back for realistic reasons.
In dreams, they didn’t hold back.
“Mi-ro, then check for yourself.”
“Huh?”
“You have the Time Lender, don’t you?”
“Oh? Oh?”
“Use the Time Lender to summon Ga-in and ask him.”
“H-he’ll just say weird things again...”
“No. Not this time.”
That should be right.
The real Ga-in from earlier had ignored Mi-ro’s confession because he was trapped in his own dream.
But the Ga-in summoned through the Time Lender wouldn’t be affected by the dream.
Mi-ro took out her watch with a trembling expression.
The moment Ga-in appeared, I quickly grabbed his hand and pulled him back.
A-ri immediately cooperated too.
“Huh? Huh? Why are you pulling Ga-in...?”
“Mi-ro, you can’t rush something important. Have you thought about what you’re going to say?”
“Th-that’s!”
“I’ll help you.”
While A-ri bought time, I quickly explained the situation to Ga-in.
“The Hotel is pulling another ridiculous prank.”
“Ga-in, you understand what I said, right?”
“More or less. But a sudden confession...”
Rather than happy, he looked flustered.
“I talked with A-ri, and she thinks people will wake up if their wishes are fulfilled.”
“Really?”
“So if you accept her confession, she’ll probably wake up filled with happiness. Don’t worry too much about what happens after that. Once everyone wakes up, this event itself will end and...”
“Everyone forgets what happened today?”
“Exactly!”
Ga-in wore a somewhat subtle expression.
“I see it a little differently.”
“What?”
“What’s the purpose of this event, and why did it happen?”
“A frustrating prank unique to the Hotel?”
“The Hotel is a place that makes people furious, but an event like this can’t just be a prank.”
“...”
“As always... there must be danger and a reward.”
Danger and reward.
“I can guess the danger. Someone might not return to their senses before Party Time ends. Then we’d have to enter a Curse Room with a sleepwalker.”
“And the reward?”
“Information.”
“Information?”
“What happens in dreams disappears when the dream ends. That means we can do things now without thinking about what comes after. For example, what would happen if we escaped through the elevator or the front entrance?”
“...”
“Would the reality we expected really be waiting outside? Would our families be there? Would reality be all right?”
“...”
“If information is the reward, then the memories won’t disappear completely. They’ll remain vaguely, like dreams.”
“I-is that so...?”
Just then, Mi-ro approached, trembling.
She was far more nervous than when she had charged in to confess earlier.
Maybe she had realized it instinctively.
Confessing while Ga-in wasn’t in his right mind and confessing while he was were completely different things.
“G-Ga-in.”
“...”
“I...”
The moment a girl in love opened her mouth with the courage of her entire life, the moment Grandpa, Seung-yeop, and I, even A-ri behind us, were all extremely tense, Ga-in opened his mouth.
Footnotes:
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