WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 412: Glory and Transcendence (1)

──────

- Kim A-ri

My consciousness suddenly returned, as if someone had flipped a light switch labeled “Kim A-ri.”

When I looked around, familiar faces were glancing about as they tried to figure out what was going on.

Cha Jin-cheol was the first to speak.

“So... it’s not resolved, then?”

Ga-in, leaning against the wall with a slightly pale face, nodded.

“Yes.”

“Ah... that’s too bad. Then again, resolving it on the first try would be a stretch.”

Elena smiled faintly.

“Ga-in, I was right to believe in you, wasn’t I?”

I didn’t know what exactly she’d been right about, but judging by the situation, Elena and Ga-in must have been the last two standing.

“... I used my last Descent.”

No one looked surprised.

Room 206 was the hardest Curse Room to begin with, and the most dangerous thing in a Curse Room was charging in blindly on the first attempt.

So I reassured him.

“You used it well. You made it out alive, and that’s what matters. Let’s pool the information everyone gathered. I’m most curious about where Seung-yeop was and what he was doing.”

We knew where everyone else had been and what they’d been doing, and we at least knew Mi-ro had been affected by Sealing.

What on earth had Seung-yeop been up to?

Soon, Seung-yeop put on an animated expression and -

--- Tap!

Ga-in’s face went pale again as he leaned against the wall.

Mi-ro hurried over in alarm.

“Huh? Huh? What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

“I’m a little tired. Maybe it’s because Mi-ro tormented me.”

“What?”

“Mi-ro turned into the Demon King and stuffed Elena and me into a crocodile’s mouth alive -”

“Eek! T-That’s a lie!”

Even now, he was teasing Mi-ro. It was ridiculous, but I was relieved it didn’t seem to be a life-or-death crisis.

“What’s the problem?”

Then he dropped a bombshell.

“I can hear the Lord’s voice.”

“...”

The area fell silent in an instant.

Song-i looked stunned.

“W-What is it saying? Is it because you used Descent three times? What’s happening?”

“Is this really the Lord’s voice? Or is it Revelation speaking?”

“What?”

“It’s telling me to come back to Room 104. It says we should make one final deal. This time, it’ll definitely prepare terms everyone can be satisfied with...”

Everyone began to panic, unsure what to do.

Ga-in spoke calmly.

“I’ll go have a talk.”

I shouted the moment I heard that.

“With who? Who are you going to talk to?”

“I don’t know either.”

With those words, he slid down the wall.

* * *

Ga-in rambled about something strange before passing out.

This was an emergency.

In some ways, it was a far bigger problem than our progress in Room 206.

Of course, what Seung-yeop said was shocking too.

“I-I only found it after taking down two bears and three tigers!”

Bears and tigers? Out of nowhere?

“There was another city outside Paradise. That city was covered by a dome too, just like Paradise -”

Eun-sol urgently cried out.

“Seung-yeop, write that on the whiteboard for now. We can talk about it later. Check on Ga-in first!”

--- Tap!

I lightly tapped the table to get everyone’s attention.

“Listen. The situation is still within the range of things we’d often anticipated.”

Everyone nodded.

“Ga-in mentioned it often from the start, didn’t he? That something might happen if he kept using Descent. That’s why he always wanted to go back to Room 104 and settle things with the Lord.”

Ga-in was the one who had obtained and used Descent.

He must have sensed some ominous future that the rest of us couldn’t detect.

Then Eun-sol’s expression turned thoughtful.

“... Do you all remember what I said before?”

“What did you say?”

“The night before we entered Room 205, we had a meeting about which room to go to. We discussed Rooms 104, 205, and 206, remember?”

At the time, the Hotel had promised to suppress the Prisoner in our next room, and we were agonizing over which room to choose.

Elena sighed.

“Now that I think about it, we absolutely should’ve gone to Room 206.... If we’d sealed the Demon King, Room 206 would’ve been an easy win!”

Eun-sol shook her head.

“That decision would only have been possible if we could see the future. Don’t worry about what’s already passed. More importantly, have you all forgotten what I said?”

I was starting to remember.

“You said something interesting about Room 104. That you thought you understood how the Lord, unlike the other Prisoners, could act however it wanted.”

Eun-sol nodded.

“Let’s make one thing clear. No matter how strong a Prisoner is, it can’t ignore the Hotel’s rules. If it could, it wouldn’t have been imprisoned in the first place.”

Adravita from Room 203 was a good example.

Adravita turned us into frozen humans and tried to keep Room 203 going forever by preventing the participants from escaping and resolving it.

Even in the Hotel’s eyes, it had been an excessive loophole, but it couldn’t be considered a violation of the rules.

Couldn’t the Lord be doing something similar?

It hadn’t broken the Hotel’s rules. It was using some kind of loophole.

Eun-sol repeated what she had said back then.

“What if the Lord’s true body hasn’t intervened even once since the first attempt, when it granted Ga-in Descent?”

Song-i asked in disbelief.

“Then who took over Ga-in’s body during the second attempt?”

Up to this point, the conversation followed the same course as it had then.

“The answer is actually within the information we already know!”

What we knew about the Lord.

The Lord was a being that had escaped the concept of identity and turned a copy of itself into an Inheritance.

It had also granted Ga-in the power called Descent, which let a human transcend humanity not only physically but mentally as well.

* * *

- Han Ga-in

...

...

...

--- Ding! Ding!

I regained consciousness to the familiar ringing of a bell.

When I looked around, I saw scenery I knew all too well and familiar people passing by.

Shinbanpo High School, the school I had graduated from.

「The 21st graduation ceremony of Shinbanpo High School will begin shortly. Graduates -」

“What is this now...?”

My first thought was that I had entered a Curse Room.

It reminded me of my experience in Room 101, which had become hazy in my memory.

Unlike then, though, my mind didn’t seem contaminated.

...

No.

A crazy person can’t tell whether they’re crazy or not.

Who knew?

Maybe real high school students had to hold a battle royale with guns at graduation ceremonies.

Was that too wild an imagination, even for me?

“Ga-in! Congratulations!”

“Yes.”

In the peaceful atmosphere, my parents handed me a bouquet.

For this moment, I almost wished this really were a Curse Room.

Then I could mistake the people before me for my real parents.

My mind, clearer than ever, whispered to me.

This was a kind of mindscape, and I had run into a bizarre situation as the price for using Descent a third time.

Time passed steadily even as I got lost in one thought after another.

The student representative came out and droned on about this and that, while those who had done well on the College Scholastic Ability Test were already grinning as they talked about university.

Naturally, the students preparing to retake the College Scholastic Ability Test looked determined just from their expressions.

This was a memory from a few months before I entered the Hotel.

“Ga-in, I reserved a Chinese restaurant at Hamjibak Intersection -”

“Dad, I’m going to grab something from the classroom for a moment.”

“Huh? Huh? Ga-in!”

Talking to my parents in this illusion was fairly painful.

Not long ago, I had spoken confidently in front of A-ri.

I said I wouldn’t worry because the Hotel had promised me a happy ending.

...

How could I really not worry?

Half of that was my wishful thinking, and the other half was meant to reassure A-ri.

Could there be any place as bizarre as this damned Hotel?

The Hotel’s idea of a happy ending could be completely different from what I considered a normal ending!

As my thoughts reached that point, my mood plummeted.

“So quit it and come out already.”

Who was showing me this illusion of my past?

Was it Revelation, the one I had spoken to after defeating Apollion?

“You’re listening, right? I’ve roughly figured out your identity too.”

...

“You’re a personality the Lord created through Descent, aren’t you?”

...

“Let’s say I resolve Room 104 and obtain the Sacred Sun. What is the Sacred Sun in the end? An Inheritance. Even if it contains a copy of the Lord, it’s still an Inheritance.”

...

“An Inheritance can never bind a participant. Just look at my Grimoire. It twisted my way of thinking over a very long time, but that’s all it could do. There’s no way the Unborn One’s mind will burst out of my head or anything.”

...

“For the Lord’s plan to be complete, the participant who obtains the Sacred Sun must not defy the Lord’s will within it. In other words, an Inheritance alone isn’t enough. The participant themselves must be altered too.”

...

“And that’s why it granted Descent - Hey, you bastard! If you’ve heard this much, come out already!”

After talking to myself in the classroom for so long, I felt like an idiot.

The Lord’s intentions, the Sacred Sun, the purpose of Descent.

I had figured those things out long ago.

Eun-sol seemed to have grasped the overall picture too.

Then why wasn’t this bastard coming out?

“Are you trying to trap me in this memory forever? Do you think I have no way to leave this memory?”

With those words, I summoned the Grimoire.

“If I want to, I can tear this space apart and leave with the Power of the Avatar. Revelation, I’m humoring you because I want to hear what you think -”

「You are more talkative than I expected.」

“...”

「Show a little patience. I wish to show you glory.」

It would show me glory.

What was that supposed to mean?

“Just tell me.”

「A thousand words are not worth seeing it once.」

“You’re kind of a pain.... And why should I listen to you? I know perfectly well you’re trying to contaminate my mind -”

「I contaminated you? Is that truly so? Is the culprit not the book in your right hand?」

“...”

A moment later, a disgusting illusion, like a dream within a dream, flashed through my mind.

I saw myself standing before Indomitable Reason.

Indomitable Reason was controlling a tentacled monster and offering thousands of civilians as sacrifices without hesitation.

「Is it not remarkable?」

“...”

「I witnessed the decision you made in Room 206. Surely, someone with a mind this ruthless can overcome the Hotel’s trials.」

“...”

「Is this truly your essence? I ask again. What contaminated you? I, or the Grimoire?」

I didn’t know how to answer.

* * *

When I stepped outside the classroom, friends whose names I could barely remember anymore appeared.

Still, after exchanging a few words with them, old memories came back to me.

They really were faces I missed.

Then Min-seok grabbed my arm and pulled me along.

“Hey, hey! Hurry up!”

“What is it? Why are you acting like this all of a sudden?”

The friends around us were already giggling like they knew everything.

Even my parents watched me with excited expressions.

“What? Did you all set up some kind of event?”

“Ugh! You bastard, who needs an event? Your whole life is the event!”

There was more than playful teasing in those words. I could feel a good deal of jealousy too, which only made me more confused.

Revelation had created this strange dream in the first place.

What was Revelation trying to show me?

As my friends led me aimlessly toward the edge of the schoolyard, a student from another school approached from far away.

“Who could it possibly be for everyone to suddenly -”

What? No.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no!

It couldn’t be real, right?

“Hey! Revelation, you bastard!”

Just as I was about to pull out the Grimoire and tear apart the dream without looking any further -

A devilish temptation reached my ears.

「Why not at least look at her face?」

“...”

She approached, looking at me as I stood there trembling, unable to breathe properly.

She was the same age as me, a little taller than Song-i.

Her wavy dark brown hair fell just below her shoulders.

She wasn’t a stunning beauty like A-ri, Mi-ro, or Elena, which made her seem like someone who could really exist.

The legendary province-wide A-tier beauty who had wrapped dozens of boys at Banpo Middle School around her finger with a single gesture!

It was Ga-young.

“Ga-in.”

Footnotes:

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