WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 417: Room 104, Curse Room - ‘Hotel High, the Prestigious Academy’ Re (16)
──────
[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 281
Current Location: Level 1, Room 104 - Curse Room ‘Hotel High, the Prestigious Academy’
Sage’s Advice: X]
- Han Ga-in
Five days had passed since Hotel High had been laid waste.
The situation was similar to before.
A-ri and Elena periodically staged scenes straight out of a horror movie, tormenting the Lord's followers.
Naturally, cries begging for salvation filled the area, but Aurelia remained silent in her quarters and never came out.
Meanwhile, Mi-ro used “divine power” each time to save the Cult from the demons. Thanks to that, I'd heard A-ri's voice as she fled from Mi-ro at least ten times.
Naturally, Mi-ro's authority rose by the day through all this, and within the Cult, she came to be regarded as the undisputed second Saintess.
In other words, the Cult had effectively begun splitting in two.
So far, things were broadly going according to plan, but...
“I didn't expect Aurelia to stay holed up this long.”
Her reaction went beyond what I'd expected.
I'd thought she'd lose her mind for a day or two after realizing the Lord intended to kill her, but she'd shut herself in her room for five whole days?
Was she really so mentally fragile?
Thanks to that, Jin-cheol's plan had gone slightly off course.
“Hmm...”
“You look like you've got a lot on your mind. Have a sandwich.”
“Ah, thanks, Eun-sol.”
For the past few days, I'd stayed hidden in the Old School Building with Eun-sol and Grandfather Mook-seong's help.
“Eun-sol, you know the plan has gone a little wrong, right?”
“Yeah. Aurelia must've been more shocked than we thought. She won't come out of her room at all.”
“So I think I should go to the underground city.”
“I'll bring you a Host.”
With that, Eun-sol left the classroom.
... A Host?
She wasn't wrong, but that wording felt a little weird.
...
...
...
“Haha, Teacher Eun-sol, did the Saintess really say she wanted to see me?”
“Of course.”
--- Creak!
* * *
The new body's identity was Deacon Kwon Il-hwan, apparently an influential figure who had assisted Aurelia, who knew little of worldly affairs.
“Deacon, greetings!”
“Good morning.”
Thanks to that, I could move through the underground city beneath the Old School Building without any trouble.
It was nothing new, but after obtaining so many Inheritances and challenging a Level 1 room again, everything went far too smoothly.
If this had been a Level 2 room, there was a one hundred percent chance some sacred Cult artifact that prevented Possession would have appeared by now.
“Deacon, what brings you underground? If you have business here-”
“It's nothing important. I only intend to study some old scriptures for a while.”
“Haha! As expected of such a devout person-”
The gun-toting cultists smiled brightly as they let me through.
“...”
Every cultist in the underground city wore the same expression, to a chilling degree.
I'd already confirmed this in the past, so it didn't surprise me.
That didn't mean I could let my guard down.
Room 104 was not difficult to resolve. The problem was what came after the resolution.
Everyone was going through this trouble because the Sacred Sun itself, the reward, was suspicious.
The Sacred Sun, Room 104's Inheritance.
What exactly was it?
I already knew quite a few things.
First, the Sacred Sun was an avatar of the Lord.
Second, it appeared when the Cult faced a crisis that threatened its existence.
Third, the Lord's objective could only be fulfilled if I obtained the Sacred Sun.
I'd learned that third piece of information during our second attempt at Room 104. The Lord used every trick possible to prevent anyone but me from obtaining the Sacred Sun.
Why?
Was it because the Lord wasn't confident it could consume anyone else's mind?
That didn't seem right...
The more I thought about it, the more my head hurt.
Once again, I realized just how strange Room 104 was.
The room's mystery didn't lie in the process of resolving it, but in the Inheritance we would obtain afterward.
There was one clue.
Revelation of Heavenly Secrets had told us to examine “the Cult's myths and doctrines.”
Maybe the answer to a question that had troubled me for so long was in there.
Like most religious organizations, the cultists of Room 104 had a place where they kept old scriptures, and the security wasn't particularly strict.
Scriptures were made for everyone to read, after all.
...
[25:18]
I'd spent nearly thirty minutes reading the scriptures.
“There's nothing special here.”
They were stories I'd heard somewhere before.
The Lord had prepared an immortal paradise for the faithful.
Therefore, do not cling to worldly wealth or the flesh.
Honestly, didn't all pseudo-religions say something like this?
That doctrine basically meant, “You'll go to heaven when you die, so give us all your money,” didn't it?
“...”
No.
Thinking of it as an ordinary pseudo-religion would only lead me in the wrong direction.
Because this religion was real.
I habitually used terms like cult and pseudo-religion, but in truth, they weren't fake.
They worshipped a real god who ruled the stars, and they had a Saintess who performed miracles. How could that be fake?
With that in mind, I examined the scriptures again.
An immortal paradise had been prepared.
Let's assume that was true.
The Lord had truly prepared paradise for the cultists, and they could gain immortality there.
Do not cling to worldly wealth or the flesh.
Let's take that literally too.
Paradise was a place separate from the material world, a place unrelated to worldly possessions or the physical body.
[19:27]
Why had the Lord created the Cult in the first place?
I'd met many Prisoners in the Hotel, but not every Prisoner established a religious organization.
Did the Lord pity mortal humans?
Honestly, it didn't seem like that kind of being.
Did it have something to gain from humans?
A famous celebrity on TV once said that the purpose of pseudo-religions was money and women.
At the very least, that couldn't be the Lord's purpose.
“...”
Immortal paradise.
The worthlessness of wealth and flesh.
The reason a divine being had founded a religion.
The followers all wearing the same expression to a terrifying degree.
Finally, the reason I had to obtain the Sacred Sun.
Once I considered all that, a vague realization about the Sacred Sun's nature came to me.
I'd already experienced a similar being or phenomenon in the Hotel.
Could the Sacred Sun be something like a pointillist painting?
For now, it was only a hypothesis.
I needed evidence to be certain.
[14:11]
A place where I might find that evidence came to mind.
* * *
I moved while recalling our second attempt.
My destination was the holiest of Sacred Domains, an especially sacred place.
“Hm? Is that Deacon Kwon?”
“...”
Four heavily armed cultists blocked the way. It seemed that even someone as influential as a Cult deacon couldn't enter a place like this.
It was likely a place permitted only to the Saintess.
“Can I enter?”
“Pardon? Haha! Deacon, that joke was a little too much.”
This body couldn't get through.
What about someone else?
[05:13]
I should stop here.
--- Click!
“H-Huh? D-Deacon Kwon! Why are you suddenly pulling out a handgun?”
“Put the gun down if you don't want to die! Do you think you can get through with a handgun?”
They were wearing bulletproof vests, so a handgun couldn't get through.
Even I knew that much.
--- Bang!
“Aaaaah! D-Deacon Kwon has committed suicide!”
“T-The emergency room!”
“Inform the Saintess!”
* * *
The moment I returned to my body and opened my eyes, A-ri was right in front of me.
“Did you find something?”
“More or less.”
I told A-ri what I'd learned and several of my hypotheses.
“It's an interesting hypothesis, but isn't it more your intuition than something with solid evidence?”
“That's right.”
“We should check out that underground place, the holiest of Sacred Domains.”
“Yeah. But if I go, I'll have to kill a lot of people.”
It wasn't that I couldn't kill them, but if I started slaughtering cultists underground, the Sacred Sun might appear and shout, “You bastard!”
“I'll talk to Mi-ro. She's treated like a 0.9 Saintess now, so she should be able to do it.”
“Good. By the way, what happened to Jin-cheol?”
“He might've met Aurelia by now.”
* * *
- Cha Jin-cheol
Everyone was doing their best, right?
One was a Saintess, one was a ghost, and one was a Saintess assassin. They'd all smoothly taken on roles that suited them.
So what was I, Cha Jin-cheol, doing right now?
...
I was locked in the Cult's underground prison.
“Ah, fuck!”
Everyone else was running like well-oiled gears, so why was only my job getting so tangled up?
The original plan was damn simple!
After getting stabbed by Ga-in and being psychologically shaken, the Saintess would probably be bedridden for a day or two.
Then some fake called Mi-ro or whatever would start showing off?
Naturally, the genuine Saintess should rise in anger and go punish her.
At that exact moment!
I'd step in and achieve my goal. That was all.
But Aurelia had locked herself in her room for five days and hadn't come out.
No, why was she so mentally fragile?
Was it really that shocking that her god had tried to kill her?
Wasn't she a Saintess?
If the Lord said, “So-and-so, the oil's boiling, get in there right now!” shouldn't a true Saintess say, “Yes!” coat herself in batter, jump in, and let herself be fried?
That was going a little too far.
Still, after resting for three nights and four days or so, shouldn't she have gotten up and rationalized it by saying, “The Lord must have some grand purpose. Satan deceived me!”
Didn't someone need at least that much craziness to be a Saintess or anything else?
Let's return to reality.
The important thing was that Aurelia hadn't taken a single step outside her underground quarters, and that I'd been locked in the underground prison because I was frustrated and wanted to see her face once.
Thanks to that, a certain being who had kept her presence hidden for a long time had been making a fuss since the day before yesterday.
「Why are you staying here without doing anything?」
“...”
「You can just tear apart iron bars like these. Hurry up and send me to Aurelia.」
“...”
The Witch, who had stayed quiet for several months, had lately grown noisy like a child.
Was she excited by the possibility of finally obtaining a body of her own?
“If you want a body that badly, I'll find you some suitably vicious NPC-”
「No.」
The answer came in less than a second.
「The moment I saw that woman, Aurelia, I decided. That's the body. She's so pretty, has such high magical aptitude, she's so pretty, has such high Chaos resistance, she's so pretty-」
“You said pretty three times.”
「I want a pretty body too.」
“You can change your appearance anyway. You can switch to another body too.”
So couldn't she pick any body first, then slowly choose one she liked?
「Don't make it sound so easy. It's a higher-dimensional matter your intelligence could never understand.」
So I shut my mouth.
Thinking about it quietly, it was ridiculous all over again.
A body wasn't some luxury shopping bag, but she was casually talking about picking a pretty, good one and deciding whether to enter it...
It was an inhuman conversation, enough to make my breath catch every now and then.
The very fact that I was naturally taking part in such a conversation made me uneasy.
「Why are you just sitting there?」
“I told you. I'm holding back because if I start beating cultists to death recklessly, that damn Sacred Sun might pop out and shout, ‘You bastard!’”
「Then are you going to stay here forever?」
“I've got my own plans, so be quiet.”
Did she think I'd been lying around underground without any thoughts?
Of course I had a plan to meet the Saintess.
Even if Aurelia's mind was completely broken!
If my plan worked, I would definitely meet her.
“Just wait a little. It won't be long.”
Then Arima's trace said something ominous.
「Is the Saintess really mentally broken?」
“...”
「Maybe-」
“I know. Don't worry. I'm considering the other possibility too.”
Footnotes:
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