WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 431: A Family of Distinction (7)

──────

- Han Ga-in

“Mmph! Ghk! Mmph!”

Even while being strangled, Han Min-sang, who had stolen the child’s body, twisted and thrashed wildly.

Several times, I considered pulling the strings with all my strength, but it would be a disaster if I ended up killing the child’s body.

It was an exhausting situation, but dealing with something inhabiting a child’s body was still better than dealing with a formless ghost.

Only after about ten minutes did Han Min-sang finally go limp, drooling. Elena and I hurried over.

“The Name Tag, the Name Tag! There it is!”

At some point, a Name Tag reading ‘Han Min-sang’ had naturally appeared on the chest of the body’s original owner, Min-seok.

“Where’s Han Min-seok’s Name Tag?”

“Here! It fell on the floor!”

After removing Han Min-sang’s Name Tag, we put Min-seok’s Name Tag back on him.

“Now let’s go to the jar!”

To end the Name Tag Snatching Game, we had to put the Name Tag meant to serve as the Sacrifice back into the jar and close the lid.

I ran toward the jar with Han Min-sang’s Name Tag in hand.

As expected of the hanok where my great-grandfather, a man with over 100 billion won in assets, lived, it had far more than one or two rooms.

“There’s the jar!”

“The jar is in your great-grandfather’s room again!”

“When I watched Ga-in’s dream from outside, it was always in that room. Was that his great-grandfather’s room?”

The jar always appeared in the hanok’s largest room, my great-grandfather’s room.

When we entered, I saw the open jar in the middle of the room and the old man’s body lying there as though dead.

“Ga-in, Han Jin-seong is...”

“...”

I remembered the Nightmare where Han Min-sang had won.

Back then, Han Min-sang had dragged me to the jar like a dog after stealing my younger sibling’s body.

Then, while mocking my great-grandfather beside the jar, he put my great-grandfather’s soul inside it.

In other words, if we left him alone, Han Min-sang would trap the soul of the person he hated most, my great-grandfather, in the jar.

In this run, my great-grandfather’s soul was already trapped inside.

“Should we take your great-grandfather’s soul out of the jar?”

“...”

“W-we could put our hands in and take out the Name Tag-”

“That’s too dangerous.”

Elena lowered her head with a gloomy expression.

Take my great-grandfather’s soul out after it had already entered the jar? By putting our hands inside and searching through it?

It was far too dangerous.

Our bodies had souls in them too. How could we be sure the jar wouldn’t swallow another soul?

There was no guarantee that only one person’s soul could enter that jar in the first place.

--- Thud!

So I threw in Han Min-sang’s Name Tag as well and closed the jar’s lid.

The jar did not hesitate to swallow two souls.

...

...

...

* * *

[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)

Date: Day 378

Current Location: Basement Level, Museum

Sage’s Advice: 3]

- Han Ga-in

I suddenly came to.

The first thing I did after waking up was check my Status Window. Two days had passed in the meantime.

Was that why?

I was terribly hungry and thirsty.

“Gaa-iiiin!”

“Gah!”

As I turned my head after waking up, Mi-ro beamed and threw her arms around my neck.

Elena, who had woken up beside me, looked flustered. A-ri, who had been nibbling on potato chips, stiffened slightly before lifting Mi-ro by the nape of her neck.

“Mi-ro, enough. Ga-in, how are you feeling?”

“I’m hungry and thirsty.”

Before I’d even finished speaking, Jin-cheol handed me a bottle of water.

“Here. Water.”

“Thank you.”

“Good work. Something feels off, but the Painter says this is enough.”

“...”

After quenching my thirst, I finally looked around.

We were in the middle of the Museum, and Elena and I had been sleeping on blankets spread across the floor.

My companions had somehow brought in chairs and even sofas, where they sat or lay down.

It looked like they had spent the last few days watching my dream as if it were a movie.

Beside the enormous canvas that had served as a screen, the Painter was yawning.

“Resolved?”

“More or less.”

“... Isn’t there more after we closed the jar? It felt like you stopped it halfway through-”

“What would be the point of watching more? The Name Tag Snatching Game is over, and Han Min-sang and Han Jin-seong are happily locked in the jar together.”

“...”

“All that’s left are frightened children and Han Jin-seong’s soulless body.”

That did sound about right.

“The children will find their own way home, won’t they? Han Jin-seong is an old man who could suddenly die in his sleep at any time, so they’ll probably handle it that way. The jar’s secret will be buried in the darkness of the storage room, and your family will divide up the Inheritance and live comfortably. What else is there?”

There was nothing else.

Even I thought that was the sort of ending it would have.

“Good work finding me. If you’d come to the Museum even once, you would’ve found me much sooner. Now, aren’t you curious about your reward?”

The moment my companions’ faces brightened with interest, I shouted firmly.

“Wait!”

“What? Do you still have something to say?”

“Elena told me there were two chances left, right? We used one with Elena, so there should still be one remaining.”

“That’s true, but I told you this is enough. I said I’d give you a reward.”

The emotions on the Painter’s face were clear.

Boredom, regret, fatigue, and disappointment.

Something was wrong with ending it like this.

I didn’t know the exact reason, but this wasn’t it.

My intuition was warning me.

[Advice: 3 -> 2]

‘The Painter seems disappointed. Why?’

[Because you failed to see what you needed to see.]

The Hotel had wanted to show me something, yet I had ended the dream without seeing it.

It had to be valuable information.

Something my past self had experienced but forgotten because of some kind of intervention.

Why hadn’t I seen it?

Because the events had unfolded too differently from what really happened!

“Wait, please wait!”

The Painter chuckled.

“Sure. Make good use of your Advice. That’s your power, so I’ll give you the chance.”

The way Elena and I had resolved it was far too different from what Han Ga-in, then a middle school student, had really experienced.

Since the events had changed so much, the ‘special event’ that had occurred back then had not happened this time.

I understood that much, but...

“...”

I had felt that something was off midway through it all.

More precisely, I had realized something was wrong from the moment I wrapped strings around my younger relatives’ necks.

No matter how thoughtless a middle schooler I’d been, would I suddenly wrap strings around my younger relatives’ necks?

That wasn’t something my past self would naturally do.

I had learned the game’s rules through repeated runs and made a move before my opponent could.

That was the way of a Regressor.

The typical behavior of a Hotel participant.

Not the way a human boy living a single life would think.

I vaguely sensed that, but I had no idea what I should do instead.

Why?

Because I couldn’t find the right answer.

I simply couldn’t imagine how an ‘ordinary middle school student’ could survive in that situation.

Let’s step back and think about it.

I wasn’t a Regressor, so I only had one chance.

I didn’t know the rules of the Name Tag Snatching Game. I didn’t even know something like that would happen.

Naturally, I didn’t know Han Min-sang was in the jar or that Name Tags could transfer souls.

I had been sleeping in bed without knowing anything when an evil spirit that emerged from the jar ambushed me.

Did it make any sense for a middle schooler to win under such absurd conditions?

I had no supernatural powers, no information, and only one chance. The conditions were far harsher than a Curse Room.

It was an unwinnable game, so when I tried to force a victory, I had no choice but to use unnatural methods.

“...”

[Advice: 2 -> 1]

‘How could I survive that situation naturally, as a middle schooler would?’

[Think backward. You are someone from the future who has already survived. Look back on your experiences and consider what happened in the end.]

Think backward.

Instead of analyzing the trial in order from the beginning, I should start with the already decided outcome in the future.

First, my family had never received an inheritance worth tens of billions of won or more.

Second, I had no memory whatsoever of what happened back then.

“...”

As I focused on that information, I began to vaguely understand what kind of ending had occurred.

A fortune worth nearly 100 billion won had vanished completely, without so much as a reserved inheritance share remaining.

Supernatural events involving a haunted jar had occurred, yet even I, along with all my younger relatives, had forgotten everything.

The only organization capable of doing that was the Management Bureau.

Still, knowing the ending changed nothing.

I still had no idea how we got there.

It felt like my thoughts had hit a wall.

A massive rock had blocked the flow of a river, but I had no idea how to remove it.

[Advice: 1 -> 0]

‘I know the ending, but I don’t know how to proceed. No matter what I do, I can’t think of a way my past self could have won without any information.’

It wasn’t that I didn’t know how to resolve it.

Elena and I had already resolved it, and several other methods came to mind.

The problem was that every method I thought of was only possible for a Hotel participant who had seen the future.

I couldn’t find a method available to a middle schooler with no information.

[If a veteran progressing through the latter half of the Hotel’s second floor cannot think of it, how could a middle schooler have thought of it?]

“... What are you talking about?”

I asked for the answer, so what kind of reply was that?

If I, a Hotel veteran, couldn’t think of it, how could a middle schooler have thought of it?

No, my past self had thought of it, because I survived-

...

“Ah.”

No way.

Surely not.

It seemed impossible, but could it be?

“... No.”

A truly absurd possibility came to mind, and I unconsciously opened my mouth. The Painter smiled faintly.

“Participant Han Ga-in.”

“...”

“Would you like to try one last time?”

“... Yes.”

One final attempt.

I earnestly told my companions, who were watching me with worried eyes.

“This time, I’m going in alone again.”

“Huh? Ga-in, without our help, it won’t be easy for you to change anything on your own. You should just get swept along by the situation like a middle schooler-”

“That’s why I’m going in alone.”

A-ri tilted her head beside the flustered Elena.

“You went in alone and failed at least twice already.”

“When I did it alone, where did you stop it?”

“What?”

A vague memory came back to me, words my companions had shared.

‘Here again. It’ll stop here this time too.’

‘He’s already lost at this point.’

‘It isn’t easy just watching this either. So...’

Whenever my defeat became certain in the runs I had gone through alone, my companions stopped the dream and started it over.

“This time, just leave it alone.”

Song-i muttered uneasily.

“Um, I don’t think you realize this, Ga-in, but if we leave you alone, you try to commit suicide in the body of a ninety-year-old man-”

“Then leave me alone until I kill myself and drop dead.”

“...”

* * *

--- Swoosh!

A soft breeze brushed against my cheek, and leaves rustled in the nearby bamboo grove.

For a moment, I smelled the earthy scent tickling my nose. Then the little kid in front of me reached for a wriggling bug-

“Hah!”

「I let memories of the past unfold as they will and think. What did my companions and I get wrong in this incident?」

...

Around noon, when I returned to the country house with my younger relatives, the adults were having a loud argument.

“Jeong-ho! You never even visited Grandfather’s house before, and now-”

「The conditions for victory are absurdly harsh. I only have one chance, and unlike me, an ordinary middle school student, my opponent is a supernatural evil spirit. The imbalance of information is even worse.」

...

The next morning was chaotic from the start.

“G-grandfather! What do you mean? D-donating everything all of a sudden?”

“Jun-seok... If you make such a fuss, my ears start ringing.”

“Grandfather!”

「At night, the jar appears, and the evil spirit that comes out of it steals a living person’s body through the Name Tag Snatching Game. The evil spirit alone knows all this, while I’m ambushed in my sleep without knowing anything.」

...

“I can’t stand seeing you all loafing around! Go pick tea leaves right now!”

“F-father! Tea leaves, all of a sudden? The children are all city people. Even if you say that-”

「It’s unfair. A middle schooler like me can never win. Since I tried to win an unwinnable game through any means possible, the events naturally unfolded in an unnatural way. That was the trap my companions and I fell into.」

...

The storage room at my great-grandfather’s country house.

My father had told me before that it was full of all kinds of expensive artwork my great-grandfather had collected since he was young.

Maybe that was why I was too afraid to touch anything carelessly and sat quietly.

“What are you doing?”

“...”

“Come here. Do you know what this is?”

「The direction was wrong from the beginning. We had all been blindly digging in the wrong direction. That was why the Painter was disappointed, and why I could not see what the Hotel wanted to show me. This time, I will return the twisted dream to the right path.」

...

When we returned to the hanok, the phone was ringing loudly.

“What? You’re coming tomorrow?”

Because of my great-grandfather’s whim, all the adults had gone to pick tea leaves together. They said they would stay another day before returning.

「I accepted one ridiculous truth. From a common-sense perspective, it was ‘obvious.’ Yet it was also something my companions and I had never even imagined.」

...

--- Crack!

I woke up in terrible pain as something violently strangled my neck!

「My past self lost. He had been thrown into an unwinnable game, so he lost like anyone else would. That was the truth my companions and I had excluded from the beginning.」

...

I, Han Ga-in, a first-year middle school student...

Was trapped in the body of a man nearly ninety years old.

This was the most painful prison in the world.

“Wow! A boy’s body really is nice.”

「My companions stopped the dream and started over every time it reached this point. They thought there was no chance to turn things around.」

...

The being that had now become a ‘boy’ snickered as it approached the open jar.

--- Clatter!

The jar’s lid closed.

The Name Tag vanished into the darkness.

“It’s over now! Hahaha! Look at those eyes! What, did you think you’d get a chance too?”

Despair, terror, pain, fear.

I fell into a bottomless abyss of negative emotions beyond words, screaming and screaming where no one could hear me.

Rather than live out the rest of my life as a ninety-year-old man and die, I wanted to beg someone to kill me right then.

「The remaining scenes showed me despairing while trapped in a ninety-year-old man’s body, so my companions, who watched it unfold in real time, found it hard to endure. I understand. That was proof of how much they loved me.」

...

...

...

“...”

This much was unavoidable.

Hadn’t the Owl said so?

If a veteran progressing through the latter half of the Hotel’s second floor could not think of the answer, how could I, an ordinary middle schooler, have thought of it?

My past self did not come up with the answer.

Before that, he had not even realized there was a question to answer.

That was why I lost and had my body stolen by Han Min-sang.

My past self began his comeback from this very point.

Footnotes:

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