WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 401: Room 206, Curse Room - ‘The Demon King Who Revives After 100 Days’ (3)

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[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)

Date: Day 236

Current Location: Room 206, Curse Room - ‘The Demon King Who Revives After 100 Days’

Sage’s Advice: 3]

There were twenty-four mining teams working in the Mirconium mine. Each team consisted of one foreman and twenty miners.

In other words, there were twenty-four foremen and 480 miners.

Being a foreman didn't actually put someone in a higher rank than the miners.

After all, a foreman was nothing more than the biggest, nastiest bastard among the miners, picked for the job.

The mine administrators gave these nasty thugs the right to handle the miners however they pleased.

What would happen next was obvious.

True to their nature, the foremen abused the miners and diligently embezzled everything from valuables to food.

The miners' hearts filled with rage toward their foremen.

Once the Fourth-Class Citizens began beating and fighting one another, the Third-Class and higher mine administrators could simply stand back and enjoy the good life.

All they had to do was discipline a foreman who went too far every few months or years.

The miners would be grateful for the mercy of the higher classes that had punished their corrupt foreman.

There was also a cruel law for controlling the mines.

According to a special law of Paradise, if a foreman died underground, every miner in that team was treated as an accomplice to murder.

At first glance, it was an absurd law that imposed collective responsibility on an entire team of miners, but a look through history books revealed it was actually a fairly old method.

It was the Five-House Mutual Responsibility System, widely implemented in premodern East Asian states.

Because of this law, the miners couldn't even think of standing up to their foreman, and they kept watch over one another in case someone tried to harm one.

* * *

It began simply.

Early in the morning, Foreman Peterson, seated in a mine cart, leaped to his feet in fury.

“Which bastard put a sharp rock in my seat? Who was it!”

The miners could only panic. No one answered.

Of course, Peterson hadn't been chosen as foreman because he was the sort to let something like this slide.

“Oh! Fine. So you're all going to keep your mouths shut? Come here! I'll slap you one at a time!”

This crazy bastard was at it again.

The miners waited with resigned expressions for the pain to come.

Then a tall, fair-skinned young man, far too well-built for a Fourth-Class Citizen, stood up.

“Peterson, aren't you being too unreasonable today?”

“What? You bastard, Han Ga-in, you really-”

The next moment, something happened that nobody could have imagined.

Peterson, who had been about to grab Han Ga-in by the collar, suddenly lost his balance and fell.

With the cart speeding through the depths of the mine, losing his balance was extremely dangerous.

The startled miners stood and approached Peterson.

The foreman was a son of a bitch, but if he died like this, the innocent miners would all be dragged off to prison. They had no choice.

Then Peterson lost his balance once again, and his body slipped.

“Argh!”

And then...

“Ah, argh! I lost my grip!”

With the young man's flustered cry, Peterson slipped out of the mine cart.

“Gaaah!”

--- Crunch!

It took only five seconds.

Before anyone could even catch their breath, Foreman Peterson had fallen to his death.

Naturally, everyone in the cart was dumbfounded.

“T-the foreman is dead!”

“What the hell was that? H-how did that happen?”

“G-George!”

“What?”

“Didn't you trip Foreman Peterson while you were beside him?”

“You bastard, where do you get off-”

As the miners began to lose their minds and blame one another, a calm voice spoke up.

“Everyone, calm down. Fighting won't accomplish anything. Whether Peterson slipped out of the cart because of George or James, do you think the mine administrator will care?”

Everyone stared blankly at the young man.

“This is a serious problem.”

“...”

“Now we're all murderers, aren't we?”

“...”

“What should we do? If we go back like this and report the foreman's death... we'll all be dragged into the underground prison and suffer something worse than death.”

“S-so what are you saying we should do-”

“A thought just occurred to me. If one foreman dies, twenty miners become murderers. Then...”

“... Then what?”

“What if twenty foremen die? Would the administrators still turn 400 miners into murderers?”

Everyone continued to stare at the young man in a daze.

He answered with an utterly solemn expression.

“Let's steel ourselves. Don't we all need to survive?”

* * *

After the cart arrived underground, the fair-skinned young man carefully walked over to the team on the right.

“Foreman Lloyd!”

“What? Aren't you one of Peterson's miners?”

“As expected, you have an excellent memory. Foreman Peterson has something to tell you.”

Thinking Peterson might have embezzled something else, Lloyd grinned and entered the area where Peterson's team worked.

“Alright, where's Peterson?”

“...”

“I said, where's Peterson-”

--- Crunch!

Pickaxes flew in from both sides, striking Lloyd's shoulder and head in rapid succession.

The fair-skinned young man stared at Lloyd, who now looked like mashed potatoes, then headed to the place where Lloyd had been working.

“Miners!”

The miners from Lloyd's team, who had been wildly swinging their pickaxes, turned their attention to the young man.

“Something has happened to Lloyd!”

Upon hearing that something had happened to their foreman, Lloyd's team hurried into the next room.

What they saw was Lloyd's corpse reduced to chunks of flesh.

“W-what the hell is this!”

“What's wrong?”

“What do you mean, what's wrong? Don't tell me you bastards killed the foreman? You crazy sons of-”

“This is a serious problem.”

“What did you just say, you bastard-”

“Foreman Peterson on our side is dead too.”

Lloyd's miners stared wide-eyed in shock.

“Now that two foremen are dead, forty miners have become murderers.”

“H-how could this happen-”

“What if twenty foremen die?”

All eyes turned to the young man.

He spoke with an utterly solemn expression.

“Let's steel ourselves. Don't we all need to survive?”

Soon, madness filled the entire mine.

At some point, the miners stopped considering whether this was really the right choice.

Perhaps they needed a justification.

A justification to beat their hateful foremen to death.

* * *

One quiet afternoon, Rupert, a Third-Class Citizen and administrator of the Mirconium mine, was leisurely enjoying a cup of coffee.

Then Rupert received a shocking report.

“W-what did you say!”

“One foreman escaped covered in blood! According to the foreman’s report, the miners have gone mad and are beating the foremen to death!”

By the time Rupert arrived at the mine in a panic with a suppression team, it was already over.

The miners sat on the ground with vacant expressions, while the bodies of more than twenty foremen lay scattered across the floor.

At that moment, Rupert didn't feel sympathy for the murder victims or anger toward the miners.

‘I-I'm going to be fired! My career is over!’

In Paradise, the lives of Fourth-Class Citizens and laborers were worthless.

A minor issue like one or two miners dying wouldn't affect Rupert's career.

...

But what if twenty foremen died and more than 400 miners were dragged off to prison?

It was guaranteed to make the morning headlines, and the mine owners' furious wrath would certainly descend upon Rupert.

Just as Rupert felt their soul about to leave their body, a calm voice spoke.

“This is a serious problem.”

Rupert blankly raised their head and looked at the tall, fair-skinned young man who looked nothing like a miner.

“Twenty foremen have been murdered, so nearly 500 miners at the scene have become murderers.”

“...”

“Good heavens! Twenty murders and 500 murderers? This will cause an uproar in tomorrow's news.”

“...”

“Rupert may have to bear a terrible responsibility.”

“You filthy Fourth-Class bastard! Shut that mouth of yours right-”

“Sir, how about this?”

Rupert raised their head as if entranced.

In a mine filled with madness and corpses, there was clearly something extraordinary about a young man calmly spouting insane words.

“What if we say that twenty foremen suffered a major accident?”

“...”

“We don't even need to reveal that they were foremen, right? We can simply say a mine passage collapsed and several Fourth-Class laborers died.”

“... Are you asking me to cover up murder?”

It was insane.

But it was logical too.

Two kinds of news articles came to mind.

One reported that 500 people had been consumed by madness in an underground mine and killed one another.

There was no question that the entire city would be in an uproar, and Rupert's career would end here.

The other reported that twenty Fourth-Class Citizens had died in a mining accident.

“...”

The young man spoke with an utterly solemn expression.

“Let's steel ourselves. Don't we all need to survive?”

When Rupert blankly nodded, the young man added one more sentence.

“By the way, didn't one foreman escape alive?”

“... You seem to be mistaken. Every foreman suffered an accident. It's a sad matter.”

Thus, the murder of twenty-three foremen by 480 miners became an accident in which twenty-four unfortunate laborers had died.

* * *

After handling the accident, Rupert sighed in relief and reported to their superiors.

Part of the mine had collapsed, and a few Fourth-Class laborers had died.

This should be no big deal, right?

Sure enough, the article about the Mirconium mine appeared in a corner of the second page of the morning paper.

After all, Fourth-Class Citizens being “used up” in Paradise was truly a minor issue.

Still, Rupert vaguely remembered the face of the miner who had calmly uttered wicked words in that madness-filled mine.

Rupert had a plan.

“George.”

“Yes, Rupert?”

“What was the name of that guy who kept running his mouth in front of me yesterday?”

“Fourth-Class Citizen Han Ga-in, I believe.”

“... Don't you think we should get rid of him?”

“I agree. He schemes in some rather unpleasant ways. I'll find an opportunity to deal with him soon.”

“Good. By the way, there aren't any new foremen at the mine yet, right?”

“We'll select new ones sometime next week.”

Thinking they had somehow overcome a major crisis, a smile returned to Rupert's face.

Surely, the mine would return to running smoothly.

Two days later, 「Happyhappy Paradise News」 published a shocking article.

「Shocking True Story! What Really Happened at the Mirconium Mine in District 17?

According to Happyhappy Paradise News's investigation, all previous reports concerning the “passage collapse” were lies.

Then what really happened in the mine?

According to the heartbreaking testimony of a Fourth-Class Citizen identified only as Mr. Han, numerous Third-Class Citizens violently abused Fourth-Class Citizens-」

Rupert, who had been reading the article, went blank once again.

At some point, the incident had become a case in which violent Third-Class Citizens had murdered twenty innocent Fourth-Class laborers.

Footnotes:

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