WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 389: A Midsummer Night's Dream (5)
──────
[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 224
Current Location: Level 1, Main Entrance
Sage’s Advice: 3]
- Han Ga-in
The first thing I experienced after escaping was a storm on an unbelievable scale.
The wind was so strong that when someone jumped from the sky, they didn't fall. They kept getting flung upward instead!
I'd once asked my Sponsor whether I could escape by tying together curtains and other things from inside the Hotel to make a makeshift parachute.
The Owl had answered as if to say, “Try it if you don't value your life,” and only now did I understand why.
Unless I was incredibly lucky, the parachute would rip apart and I'd die.
“Ahhhhh!”
--- Screeech!
“Argh, P-Pero?”
Pero bit down like it was ready to tear off my finger rather than die with me!
Pero found freedom as it soared toward the open sky.
Meanwhile, I was free-falling toward land I could barely see.
At that moment, all kinds of thoughts ran through my head.
What would happen if I fell to my death like this?
My body would be destroyed outside a Curse Room. Could that be undone?
Would my companions have to use a Ticket for me?
Amid countless overlapping thoughts, I finally found a way out.
I held the Hourglass in one hand.
The Grimoire was in the other.
The Hourglass turned over.
The Grimoire opened.
I didn't know which happened first, but the result was clear.
Possessing Pero's body, I saw my own body frozen in the sky!
It was as if only the time around my body had stopped.
Then an ominous thought crossed the little parrot's mind.
Could the aftereffect of using the Hourglass have frozen my companions at the Hotel too?
...
Probably not.
In Room 205, Mi-ro woke the Phantom Demon and turned the Hourglass, but nothing changed for the companions in the capital.
The Hourglass had an effective range too.
Pero's body had been about twenty meters away and was fine, so the companions at the Hotel, who were much farther away, should be fine too.
--- Whoooosh!
I didn't have long to think.
The violent storm didn't go easy on me just because I was a parrot.
A notification even appeared in the middle of it.
「You have obtained the Wing Feather of a Bird That Soars Through Typhoons!」
“Hey! Why now of all times?”
I wasn't happy at all.
Just like when it took Jin-cheol's hair and Eun-sol's eye, it took some of Pero's feathers.
The balance I'd been desperately maintaining in the storm collapsed at once.
After a long stretch that was closer to free-falling than flying, I finally began to see land.
* * *
After returning to reality, I sat on top of a building and realized two things.
First, it seemed some strange event had occurred at the Hotel.
The day before, I'd gotten blackout drunk and passed out.
Everyone had been acting as though they'd completely lost their minds.
Powers that protected the mind, such as Clear Mirror, Still Water and Immutability, had all stopped working.
The cause of something this absurd had to be the Hotel.
“Even so, I jumped out of the Hotel with no plan at all?”
I'd really gone completely insane!
Second, my Status Window had disappeared.
That was only natural.
Blessings were bound to the physical body, not the body being possessed.
Even before this, I couldn't see the Status Window while using Possession.
Of course, that “natural” fact was a terrible disaster for me.
“Peep...”
Even my sigh came out as a peep.
...
Even though I was in a bird's body, observing the reality I'd finally returned to made me feel a little better.
The feel of the air against my whole body.
People hurrying along beneath the building.
The laser turret that had started aiming at me.
All of it filled me with a deep sense of emotion...
A laser turret?
--- Bzzzz!
What the hell was this now?
The moment I jumped away to avoid the turret, which was openly trying to burn me alive, another danger struck.
“Skreee!”
A powerful beak came at me, strong enough to crush a cute parrot's head in one blow!
I hurriedly twisted my body half a turn in midair and escaped the predator's attack.
My opponent roared with an arrogant expression.
“Coo-oo-oo!”
“You think you're an eagle or something?”
The danger wasn't over.
To the pigeon ruling the skies of this vicious urban ecosystem, I was nothing more than a tasty, boneless parrot.
The only difference between chicken and me was whether we'd already been dropped into a vat of oil.
The pigeon spiraled around again and thrust out its powerful beak.
Its momentum was like a spear strike from a Peak Master.
But who was I?
The smartest parrot in the world!
The instant I pressed my wings tightly against my body, I started dropping rapidly, and the pigeon's strike cut through empty air.
The enraged pigeon glared at me and rushed in again.
By then, I'd already clung to a nearby small building.
--- Bzzzz!
“Die!”
The moment the red-glowing laser turret aimed at my opponent, its eyes filled with despair.
It had no more chances.
“See? This is the difference in intelligence! You think a pigeon can beat a human?”
Still, it had been a formidable opponent, no less dangerous than many of the monsters I'd faced in Curse Rooms.
...
...
...
“What the hell was that...?”
A sudden moment of clarity hit me.
Did I really just have a life-or-death duel with a pigeon?
I hadn't even been confident I could beat it one-on-one, so I got help from a laser turret too...
--- Bzzzz!
The laser turret that had burned the pigeon to death began focusing on me again.
With no other choice, I had to press myself tightly against a window to get out of its line of fire.
“Where the hell am I...? Is this even Korea? Why does every building have a turret?”
--- Ring ring!
A telephone?
“Hello! There's a strange parrot outside my window right now! I think it's speaking human language-”
“Hey! Hang up right now!”
“I-it's even threatening me-”
The city was no longer a safe place for a weak parrot.
* * *
For the next half day, I flew around central Seoul and thought.
What a bizarre world.
It was so, so bizarre that...
I couldn't believe this was the reality I'd lived in.
I forced myself to look away from the world and thought.
What should I do now?
...
First, I should check my home.
Were my parents okay? What about my younger sibling?
...
They were nowhere to be seen.
I'd lived around here my whole life, but...
I couldn't see my parents, and I couldn't even find the home where I'd lived.
For that moment, it felt as if the sky had fallen.
Then I remembered Hotel Cinema.
‘Will Ga-in's family be in the world he reaches after escaping?’
‘I don't believe it will be a tragic ending. If Ga-in overcomes his trials, he'll be able to see the ending he wants.’
“...”
Those words had clearly been a promise the Hotel made to me.
A promise that if I overcame my trials, a happy ending, the ending I wanted, would be waiting for me.
Right now, I hadn't escaped after overcoming my trials. I'd just lost my mind and suddenly escaped.
So the ending I wanted wasn't waiting outside.
I decided to believe that.
Comforting myself that way, I fell asleep.
There was no longer a moon in Seoul's night sky.
...
The next morning, I woke up inside a birdcage.
People dressed in white surrounded me.
The Management Bureau had captured me.
* * *
Half a day passed.
I realized something else.
“Hey! You idiots!”
“Note: The behavior of the ‘College-Educated Parrot’ is becoming increasingly aggressive.”
“Hey! I'm a colleague of Management Bureau agents! Bring someone important here!”
“Note: The ‘College-Educated Parrot’ wishes to meet with Management Bureau higher-ups.”
“Wow...! Do you think I'm here because I don't have the power to kill you?”
“Note: The ‘College-Educated Parrot’ is highly prone to bluffing.”
“Kim A-ri! Kim Mook-seong! Mi-ro! Don't you know them? You do know them! They're Korean Branch agents!”
“Note: The ‘College-Educated Parrot’ knows the names of missing agents Kim A-ri and Kim Mook-seong. Since it possesses internal Management Bureau information, its risk level should be raised.”
“No... Sir, I get it, so could you please bring just one higher-up who can understand what I'm saying?”
“Note-”
--- Thud! Crackle!
“Argh!”
“Note: The ‘College-Educated Parrot’ appears less intelligent than expected. It seems to frequently forget that its birdcage is electrified.”
“...”
The Management Bureau researchers were exceptionally talented at driving people insane.
* * *
I thought about how to get out of this situation.
My original body probably wasn't in any serious danger yet.
The Hourglass had turned, leaving my body frozen in the sky near the Hotel.
Unless there was some special adjustment, the Hourglass stopped our bodies' time for seven days.
Seven days hadn't passed yet, so I just had to return to where my body was before then.
That meant I had to escape this damned place somehow.
After that, I could fly-
...
There was a problem even after escaping.
My body was far too high up.
I didn't know whether a parrot could fly all the way up there.
If I focused on escaping first, there was another problem.
A concern I'd never faced in a Curse Room had come over me.
This was reality.
Not the reality I'd lived in, but the reality A-ri and Grandpa had lived in.
The people in front of me were A-ri and Grandpa's colleagues.
So...
I couldn't kill them carelessly.
“Hey, I could kill you right now if I wanted.”
“...”
“It wouldn't be me killing you. The Management Bureau would kill you!”
“Note: The ‘College-Educated Parrot’-”
“Ah, fuck, could you shut up?”
“-frequently makes absurd threats.”
What would happen if I took over this fucking researcher's body?
Would I escape successfully as if nothing had happened?
...
Probably not.
This wasn't some mafia prison. It was a place where the Management Bureau sealed monsters.
They would have some way to discover a body takeover.
What would happen if I took this person's body and the Management Bureau found out?
The answer was too easy.
I'd already seen it in Room 201.
The Management Bureau wasn't an organization that wasted time “thinking” in situations like this.
A drone or something would come from somewhere and blow off the head of the researcher who'd been their colleague just moments ago without hesitation.
The escape would fail, and an innocent Management Bureau researcher would die.
What about transforming into Grotesque?
It probably wouldn't make much difference.
...
If this had been a Curse Room, I would have tried all kinds of things.
But this was reality.
They were A-ri and Grandpa's colleagues.
That fact left me unable to do anything.
And then...
Night came again.
* * *
--- Beep, beep!
...
--- Beep!
What was this at this hour?
Were they planning to torture me by not even letting me sleep now?
--- Creak!
A door opened.
It was not the door to where I was, but the door to the cell next to mine, where an “other being” was being held.
“Lord...”
Lord?
“Ah... You've come. Kim Hyeon-mu's son, So-un. You've come.”
“Lord, how many long nights have you spent in this cramped place? When I first received you, I learned of the Management Bureau's corruption-”
“So-un, my loyal child. We can discuss the details once we're out. I shall grant you boundless glory. You didn't come alone, did you?”
“Lord, five companions have already sworn to serve you.”
What kind of bullshit was this now?
Could it be that the fifth Reincarnated Jesus or whatever in the next room was charming a Management Bureau employee and escaping?
Those Management Bureau idiots-
...
No, no. This was a very good opportunity.
I didn't want to harm anyone from the Management Bureau with my own hands.
But escaping in the middle of a little disturbance that had nothing to do with me should be fine, right?
--- Thud!
“Father!”
“...”
“Lord! Jesus!”
“So-un, what was that sound?”
“It is a talking parrot. You need not pay it any mind.”
“Then, in that case-”
“I'll scream, you know?”
“...”
“Really fucking loudly. You think I can't?”
“...”
“Lord, please show mercy even to a young lamb.”
“...”
“From the first time I heard your sermon, I knew that a true shepherd had been born upon this land-”
“I've never preached.”
“Wait, you're the Reincarnated Jesus, and you haven't even preached once? When the fuck are you going to save the world?”
“...”
Footnotes:
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
