WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 442: Room 206, Curse Room - The Demon King Who Revives After 100 Days Re (7)
──────
- Yoo Song-i
“Pure will? May, I’m not sure what you mean...”
What? What? What?!
“A gut feeling, I suppose? Leon, I don’t think your mental state is normal.”
Barely holding on as my mind threatened to go blank, I urgently called my companions!
Yoo Song-i: Grandpa! Jin-cheol! Get here now!
Kim Mook-seong: What? A moment ago, you told us not to come in recklessly-
Yoo Song-i: I said, now!
Kim Mook-seong: Of all times, Jin-cheol isn’t here!
I tried my best to look calm, but it was already impossible. Sweat was pouring down my face!
“W-What do you mean?”
The Progenitor watched me with an eager expression.
“You might not know, but I’ve watched Leon since before you were born. The Leon of today is... well, he’s far too different from the one I know. Is it the bracelet’s power?”
At that point, I accepted reality.
The Progenitor had figured out that I’d shaken Leon’s mind.
She didn’t seem to know about the power called Beloved One, though. She thought I’d manipulated him with Diverse Perspectives.
Ironically, it was the mayor who refuted the Progenitor on my behalf.
“I spend more than half of every day in my office in Paradise, and the bracelet’s illusions disappear there. You know that, don’t you? It seems May has misunderstood something.”
He was right.
The bracelet’s sensory control didn’t work in Paradise, and the mayor went there every day.
The Progenitor remained firm.
“I know. Still, there’s no question that something is wrong with Leon. Your daughter may have another power unrelated to the bracelet.”
Something was strange.
Her certainty was too strong to be explained by the simple fact that the mayor had become friendly toward me.
Had she somehow detected that the mayor’s mind had been twisted through supernatural means?
Just as my thoughts began to tangle, the situation took a turn for the worse.
“Leon, stay still. Don’t close your eyes. I’ll fix your mind right now.”
“Pardon?”
Leon was as flustered as I was. While he hesitated, the Progenitor approached him and met his eyes.
I could feel it.
My powerful blessing, the essence of Affinity, Beloved One, was being undone!
Soon, the frozen part of the mayor’s mind awoke.
The moment Leon Kadyrov realized what had happened and looked at me with cold eyes.
--- Click!
A cold gun barrel was aimed at the mayor.
“Good grief... It seems things have suddenly taken a strange turn...”
Grandpa Mook-seong had heard my plea for help and burst into my private dinner with the Progenitor!
Kim Mook-seong: What happened?
Yoo Song-i: Beloved One was exposed.
Kim Mook-seong: Oh dear!
This was far beyond an “oh dear” situation.
I fell into indescribable confusion.
What did it mean that Beloved One had been undone?
Leon Kadyrov no longer loved me, and from the mayor’s perspective, everything I’d done until now was nothing but rebellion or usurpation.
Naturally, what had happened during the first attempt came to mind.
Back then, when One More Chance’s power woke the mayor from his love, he shot me dead without hesitation.
A similar incident came to mind too.
When the doctor’s old colleagues woke from Mi-ro’s hypnosis, hadn’t they felt an overwhelming sense of betrayal?
Wouldn’t Leon feel the same?
Then the Progenitor spoke.
“Your subordinate? You don’t even seem to use a phone. How did you call him?”
“Stay still. Every time you twitch, my finger trembles.”
“You! You bastard-”
The Progenitor herself possessed Teleportation, so aiming a gun at her would be useless. Leon had no such power.
Kim Mook-seong: The Progenitor has no means of subduing me from afar. Calm down.
Hearing Grandpa’s calm message, my wildly racing heart began to settle.
He was right. Even with all the Progenitor’s supernatural abilities, she had no way to neutralize Grandpa in an instant.
If she did, she would have already subdued him and resolved this situation.
In the end, the Progenitor shouted in a sharp voice.
“Do you think you can survive my wrath after pulling something like this?”
“...”
This woman was the real problem.
If Leon Kadyrov were the only issue, I could just steel myself and shoot him.
But how could I handle the Progenitor’s anger afterward?
We couldn’t afford to clash with the Progenitor this soon.
She knew quite a few secrets about Room 206 that even the mayor didn’t know.
Ga-in’s Scenario Understanding had also told us to contact the Progenitor and get information from her.
She possessed a wide range of supernatural abilities, so I wasn’t even sure I could kill her.
If I let the mayor live, he seemed likely to kill me. If I killed the mayor, the Progenitor seemed likely to kill me.
Yoo Song-i: What do I do?
Grandpa could only give a bitter smile, unable to answer.
Then Leon spoke amid the murderous tension.
“Song-i.”
“...”
“Song-i.”
“Yes.”
“A few days ago, during that health examination, I heard that several Enforcers on the first floor had made strange mistakes. I wondered what that meant. Had you been involved since then?”
“...”
“Did you falsify the test results? Strange. I checked twice, three times afterward, but the results were all the same...”
Leon’s question was simple.
After coming to his senses, he found the health examination that had set off my succession to the mayoral position suspicious. Yet the results themselves were accurate.
Every other examination Leon had personally received gave the same results.
“I never falsified anything. You really are sick.”
Leon had been terminally ill even before we acted.
“You intended to falsify the results, but there was no need because I was genuinely terminally ill?”
Close enough.
More precisely, we hadn’t intended to falsify the results. We had intended to cause the illness.
Leon gave a bitter smile, then looked at the Progenitor.
“May, please leave.”
“What? W-What? If I leave, this girl will kill you! Do you understand?”
The mayor continued in an unwavering tone.
“To maintain Paradise, someone must serve as mayor and manage Indomitable Reason. It’s not a job just anyone can do. Only someone with special powers can.”
Someone who could turn back time, or someone who could control a human mind.
“There are only two qualified people, and one of them is terminally ill.”
“You...!”
The Progenitor let out a low groan.
“So you cannot kill Song-i. Who will manage the city if you do? Will the Progenitor take charge herself from now on?”
Only then did a question occur to me.
Why had the Progenitor established the Kadyrov Family as the city’s administrator in the first place?
Was there a reason she couldn’t do it herself?
“Leon! You...”
“Goodbye.”
May looked lost for words for a moment. In the end, she let out a long sigh and vanished.
Once the Progenitor disappeared, silence settled over the area.
--- Clink!
A fork struck a plate.
“...”
“...”
Leon Kadyrov slowly took a bite of tenderloin steak.
As though he couldn’t see the situation around him, he ate two more pieces before speaking.
“Song-i.”
“... Yes.”
“I had no idea your table manners were this terrible. Who knew you’d bring the smell of gunpowder to a meal?”
“...”
“Don’t worry.”
“... What should I be worried about?”
“Weren’t you thinking that May might become hostile to you after this?”
“...”
Had the mayor learned mind-reading?
Just as Leon said, I was worried the Progenitor would oppose me from now on.
There was still a great deal of information I needed from her.
“May is human, so she has an emotional side. But she’s ultimately someone who can accept sacrifice for the greater cause.”
“...”
“You’re her only alternative. If she kills you, there’ll be no way to sustain the city.”
“...”
“When did you recruit the Enforcer?”
“A long time ago.”
Grandpa had been on my side since before we entered Room 206.
“Did you use a power similar to the one you used on me on the Enforcers too?”
“...”
Beloved One was an ability that could only be used on one person.
Of course, I had no intention of casually revealing such a weakness.
“Don’t you plan to tell that arrogant Enforcer to lower his gun?”
“I’m a coward.”
“So rather than be killed by your father, you’ll choose to kill your father?”
“I’m considering it.”
“Well, I certainly raised one hell of a daughter.”
“I know, right?”
I found it truly difficult to understand Leon Kadyrov.
As Beloved One broke, the trust between this man and me had broken as well.
There was only one reason I hadn’t killed Leon. I couldn’t handle the resulting conflict with the Progenitor.
Yet Leon himself had persuaded the Progenitor.
No matter what happened from now on, she was to leave without concern.
Song-i Kadyrov was the only person who could sustain the city, so she was never to be harmed.
The Progenitor had been persuaded by those words.
And now, I had no reason to keep the mayor alive.
“The steak is delicious. I can at least finish my meal, can’t I?”
“...”
Let’s think about it from the other direction.
Did I really have to kill this person?
Leon Kadyrov was extremely intelligent and capable.
And seeing how he had resolved the conflict with the Progenitor in a way that favored me, he didn’t seem to bear much hostility toward me.
So...
“The murderous look is leaving your eyes.”
“What?”
“Are you thinking something like this? ‘Maybe I can let Dad live.’”
“...”
“He seems clever, he persuaded May too, and he seems to be on your side.”
“... Dad.”
“How about this?”
--- Bang!
“Urgh!”
With a single gunshot, Grandpa’s body began to crumple.
In that instant, countless thoughts flashed through my mind.
How?
The mayor hadn’t moved a single finger.
Did Leon have a supernatural ability I didn’t know about?
Or had he controlled the turrets installed throughout the Floating Mansion?
This wasn’t the time to be thinking about that.
The mayor could hurt me without moving a finger!
Soon, the bracelet gave off a bluish light.
Feeling the pain caused by his twisted senses, Leon collapsed beneath his chair. I picked up Grandpa’s pistol from the floor.
--- Click!
With trembling hands, I aimed the barrel at my father.
I, I mean...
“You should aim a little higher.”
“Dad, what are you...?”
I couldn’t understand.
I couldn’t understand this man, Leon Kadyrov, at all!
If he could kill someone without laying a hand on them, he could have killed me too!
He had actually killed me without hesitation during the first attempt!
Why hadn’t he killed me?
Because he was terminally ill?
Because he had no time to make another successor?
If he wasn’t going to kill me anyway, why the hell was he doing this-
“Are you wondering why?”
“...”
“I can’t trust myself.”
“What does that-”
“And today, I finally learned something.”
“What?”
“My daughter is quite a bitch.”
The profanity from the mayor’s mouth, so unfitting for him, left me speechless.
“What?”
“That’s why it’s a relief. This city was never a place a decent person could rule.”
“...”
“Become ruthless.”
--- Bang!
A gunshot rang out.
Now, only one Kadyrov remained in this place.
Footnotes:
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