WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 406: Room 206, Curse Room - ‘The Demon King Who Revives After 100 Days’ (8)
──────
- Kim A-ri
“We'll join the fight too.”
The moment I made my decision, the believers around me rose with delighted smiles.
Before long, everyone from the Cult's leadership to its ordinary followers had armed themselves and begun joining the protesters.
Honestly, there was no avoiding this decision.
I might hold the lofty position of Apostle, but I couldn't ignore public opinion within the Cult.
The Cult had endured the Kadyrov regime's harsh oppression for many years.
To its followers, revolution was an irresistible temptation.
The moment everyone began shouting and heading for the battlefield, I quietly slipped away.
“Apostle?”
Sharp-eyed, huh.
“I'll look for any Secret Agents Kadyrov may have planted.”
“I-I see! I trust you!”
Trust what?
I'm just running away.
Avoiding the furious crowd, I made my way underground through the city.
I'd used this route several times already. It was vivid enough that I could trace it with my eyes closed: the path leading outside Paradise.
Why head outside Paradise when there were so many other places to go?
I had my own reasons.
--- Creak!
I pushed open the city's outer wall and stepped outside.
Fresh air and soft grass.
The scenery was pleasant enough to remind me of some national park, if I exaggerated a little.
“One, two!”
Counting aloud, I lightly moved both feet and adjusted my breathing.
“Whew... Please, don't let me fall this time.”
When we first got the Wing Boots, we'd thought this.
Since the shoes generated thrust like engines, wouldn't our bodies simply float upward?
Before long, my companions began spinning in midair, with only their feet rising upward.
To prevent that, you had to angle both feet diagonally...
...
That's enough about the principle. What mattered was that it was absurdly difficult.
As a Management Bureau agent, I was more skilled than most at using supernatural tools.
Even for me, the Wing Boots were ridiculously difficult to use, and no one but me had succeeded in flying.
--- Tap!
The moment I kicked off the ground and activated the boots, both shoes began producing powerful thrust with a crisp sound.
Gritting my teeth, I twisted both feet every which way with all my strength to keep my balance.
--- Whoosh!
At last, my body tore through the air like an arrow.
While the protesters and the Kadyrov regime were turning the city into a complete mess, I flew beyond the city and used the Wing Boots to make my way to the highest point of Paradise.
At last, Leon Kadyrov's Floating Mansion came into view.
This was my plan!
While the mayor fought the protesters in the city, I'd raid his mansion, his base, and find out what was inside.
Even thinking about it again, it was a brilliant plan.
“... Huh?”
When I arrived at the Floating Mansion, I realized things hadn't gone as expected.
According to the plan, I was supposed to search an empty house alone!
There were two people inside the mansion, and one of them was a companion I knew all too well.
Then something shocking happened.
“...”
It seemed I'd learned Paradise's greatest secret.
* * *
- Yoo Song-i
“If you kill this man, I'll kill myself too!”
The moment those unbelievable words burst out of my mouth, the world stopped.
Leon Kadyrov, the Enforcers around us, Ga-in behind me, and even I were all shocked!
“Eek!”
When I cried out in surprise, Ga-in whispered from behind me.
“C-calm down! Calm down!”
How was I supposed to calm down in this situation?
The first thing I'd heard after coming underground was, “Song-i and I have promised each other a future.”
A little later, the mayor covered his face with both hands and muttered.
“My child...”
“...”
“What on earth happened to you?”
“F-fate?”
Agh! That was embarrassing too!
“Fate...”
There was no choice.
You know how people say there's no getting off a tiger's back once you've climbed on?
Right now, I had to say whatever nonsense I could about an engagement or marriage just to save Ga-in first.
“We're engaged!”
The mayor opened and closed his mouth for a long time before he finally managed to speak.
“If you're saying this because he's handsome for a Fourth-Class Citizen, I'll introduce you to several actors.”
...
Gasp! For a moment, I imagined a group of handsome men surrounding me.
“T-that's not it!”
So please stop making me say embarrassing things.
Would it be so hard to say, ‘I'll spare you for my beloved Song-i's sake’?
The mayor muttered with a weary look on his face.
“The human heart truly is impossible to understand. Yes, emotions cannot be controlled as one wishes.”
“...”
“Even as her father, it is difficult to control the direction my daughter's heart takes.”
Had he somehow been persuaded?
At that moment, the ceiling shook and a thunderous shout rang out.
--- Waaaaah!
It was the Citizen Army.
The Enforcers tried to stop them, but the difference in numbers was too great, and they failed to hold the line!
“...”
Suddenly, something felt strange.
What exactly was the situation now?
If the Citizen Army broke in, it wouldn't be strange for Leon Kadyrov to be torn limb from limb while still alive.
Yet despite this enormous crisis, Leon didn't seem particularly tense.
He only spoke a single sentence with a tired expression.
“It is difficult to delay this any longer. I must do what needs to be done.”
“... Dad?”
“Song-i. Let's go home together for now.”
“Why all of a sudden-”
“I'll spare that boy this once, as you wish. But you'll soon understand as well.”
What was the mayor talking about?
“I'll show you how worthless the ‘love’ you speak of truly is.”
The mayor had the Enforcers bind Ga-in tightly and throw him onto the floor, then took me to the Floating Mansion at the highest point of Paradise.
* * *
I looked down at the city through the mansion window.
Countless people swarmed below like ants.
Even at this moment, they were burning the city and searching for the mayor.
“How ridiculous.”
“...”
“They truly believe all their suffering will disappear if they kill me. What do you think?”
“...”
“Do you intend to keep avoiding an answer?”
“I'm not avoiding it. I just don't know what to say.”
“...”
The mayor strolled leisurely through the mansion and looked out the window.
Even the sight of the city burning like an active volcano seemed no more than a spectacle to him.
Then the mayor muttered bitterly.
“I wish that were true.”
“Pardon?”
“If the city's suffering would end with my death alone, I would gladly die.”
“...”
Those words didn't sound like the Leon Kadyrov I knew.
No.
At the very least, I shouldn't be the one saying that.
Perhaps Leon Kadyrov had always been this kind of person.
“The problem is that nothing would change even if I died. Only the person who carries out my role would change.”
“What is Dad's role?”
The mayor's eyes turned toward me.
He wore a complicated expression I'd never once seen on him before.
“I'll show you now.”
Then a small coin emerged from inside his clothing.
“A coin?”
“...”
“What is that?”
“Long ago, when this city was founded...”
“...”
“It was a treasure the Progenitor entrusted to the Kadyrov Family.”
A treasure the Progenitor had entrusted to the ancestor of the Kadyrov Family.
“It possesses power equal to Indomitable Reason underground.”
An Inheritance, an object of equal rank to Indomitable Reason.
Another Inheritance.
“I call this One More Chance.”
--- Ting!
The coin spun once in the air.
“Grant us one more chance!”
The scenery around us began changing at an incredible speed.
Citizens rapidly walked backward to the factories.
Police cars drove in reverse toward Enforcer Headquarters.
The blazing flames died down in an instant, and every piece of rubble from collapsed buildings returned to its original place.
The injured rose where they had fallen and moved backward, and even corpses got to their feet as if nothing had happened.
Time throughout Paradise, excluding the Floating Mansion, was turning back.
Leon Kadyrov was a Regressor.
He possessed an Inheritance that turned back Paradise's time.
As I trembled from head to toe at that shocking realization, a gentle voice spoke to me.
“My child, do you understand now?”
“...”
“Do you understand how meaningless the ‘love’ you spoke of is? That young man who said he was engaged to you won't even remember you now.”
“...”
“This is the duty given to us, the rulers of this city. Therefore, you too-”
The next moment, the coin spinning in the air gave off a strange light.
Then Leon Kadyrov's time, too, began moving toward the past.
“W-what? I clearly excluded the Floating Mansion from the range of regression-”
The mayor seemed unable to understand why the Inheritance was suddenly acting this way, but I understood.
One More Chance had detected an abnormality in its owner.
“...”
Leon Kadyrov's time returned to the past.
The love for his daughter that had filled his eyes faded away.
The human heart shaped by the warmth of love returned to the steel-like mind of a frozen dictator.
My powerful ability granted by the Hotel, Beloved One, broke.
The curse of love that had created a crack in the mayor's soul had been undone.
“... So that was what it was.”
His tone was completely different from moments ago: that of an iron-willed man of extreme rationality, one who regarded every human being, including himself, as a cog.
The mayor's eyes turned toward me.
“I did not know you possessed such power.”
“...”
There was nothing I could do.
One More Chance was controlling the mayor's time every moment, protecting him.
“I will not resent you. Loving someone was not a bad experience.”
--- Click!
When the gun in that false father's hand was aimed at me, I wasn't afraid of death, but I didn't know whether those left behind would be able to endure it.
The mayor's shackles had broken.
A far more difficult time awaited them.
--- Bang!
Just before I lost consciousness, I saw A-ri staring inside through the window with her mouth wide open.
That made me feel a little better.
* * *
[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 268 (+36)
Current Location: Room 206, Curse Room - ‘The Demon King Who Revives After 100 Days’
Sage’s Advice: 3]
- Han Ga-in
--- Clang! Clang!
“Ugh... Is it morning already?”
“It feels like I just fell asleep.”
“Fuck! Our sleep time is way too shor-”
Fourth-Class Citizen Paulo, profanity detected.
...
I was sleepy enough to die.
I'd only slept for four hours last night.
“Assembly! Assembly!”
With that call, today's grueling Labor Reeducation began.
I swung a pickaxe in the mine and processed the ore I dug up.
When I was about to collapse from exhaustion, I ate a bowl of watery corn porridge and descended deeper into the coal mine.
I endured that hellish routine all day.
...
After finishing the evening work and returning, I thought it through carefully.
What the hell was going on?
Why had I been dropped into this horrible city and treated like a half-slave?
The keywords Revelation of Heavenly Secrets had given for Room 206 were as follows.
‘A three-way battle, a staple of fiction, check the date frequently.’
What did that have to do with this shitty reality?
Who were the three sides, what was the staple of fiction, and the date-
The date?
Footnotes:
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