WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 463: Rest Day - The Second Sentence (2)

──────

- Han Ga-in

--- Crack!

Lightning struck me.

I felt the power of The Second Sentence dragging me into an unknown realm.

An Avatar was an extension of me, a Division of me!

Something I'd heard long ago struck my mind again like a hammer.

“What the-”

Then countless mirrors appeared all around me.

Me cracking witty jokes and making my companions laugh.

Me ravenously swallowing steak as hunger gnawed at me.

Me leading meetings and offering ideas.

Me rolling around in bed, saying I was tired.

Me getting hit after teasing A-ri.

Me holding myself back from telling Elena she looked pretty again today.

Me, to Mi-ro-

“...”

All of this was part of me.

It merely showed the things I had done, was doing, and could do!

Just as I made that vow and suppressed the indescribable anxiety within me, the sentence shone once more.

「If what belongs to another can be yours, then could you not also be another?」

At the same time, those things turned their gazes toward me.

So it’s finally come to this.

Should I have sensed something wrong when I thought, ‘Time to charge the Sacred Sun~’?

I felt a revulsion difficult to put into words.

No, “revulsion” wasn't enough to fully express what I felt right now.

This was a different direction.

A path different from the one I wanted to take, the one I was already walking!

“Be silent! Everything is part of me. You are no more than footprints left behind by the life I have lived. Why don't you understand that you aren't even someone I can converse with?”

Isn't there a contradiction in what you're saying?

If we're not conversation partners, then what exactly is “this” that “we” are doing right now?

“A person's heart is deeper than the sea and wider than the sky. Therefore, a person cannot have only one thought. Things like this are nothing more than temporary illusions.”

A being bubbling up like foam whispered.

Oh? We're temporary illusions, and you're the enduring self?

Isn't that excessively arrogant?

“The weak cannot accept the truth.”

Even cold water has an order of precedence. If we're going by order, aren't you the later one and I'm the earlier one?

They say the truly arrogant never realize their own arrogance. Only today did I understand what that meant.

“What nonsense! You're nothing but mirrors reflecting me. What meaning could order possibly have-”

At that very moment, every mirror around me laughed at once.

As if they couldn't bear how absurd I looked, trapped in some unknowable obsession.

Hey, shouldn't you look at yourself first before saying something like that?

Ah.

Ah.

Ah.

I understood.

I accepted a truth I had never recognized, a painful wisdom I had been unable to accept!

I too was a mirror.

The most foolish mirror of all, one that didn't even know it was a mirror.

I thought the mirrors were reflecting me, but I myself had been a mirror from the start.

No Establishment of Words.

An Enlightenment beyond words, filled with despair, swept over me.

The image formed in one mirror was reflected by another, then reflected again by yet another mirror.

If countless versions of me had been created like this...

Who was the first me, the one who first formed an image in a mirror? Did such a being even exist?

Or had all this belief been nothing more than the illusion of a finite being?

--- Crack!

As I watched lightning split apart the hardest thing in the world, in other words, “me,” I thought:

What a relief.

At least after today, I would never feel this kind of pain again.

Change could not be undone.

Today, I lost my Uniqueness.

* * *

- Mi-ro

Silence fell over the table Ga-in had left after complaining of a headache.

Everyone stayed quiet as though they'd secretly agreed to it, and as an unknown anxiety tormented me, I kept pinching A-ri's shoulder-

“... Mi-ro, please stay still.”

“T-the mood suddenly got weird!”

“...”

A-ri finally looked around before carefully speaking.

“A little while ago... You all felt it too, right?”

“Felt what?”

“Mi-ro, be quiet.”

“W-what are you talking about?”

“... Seung-yeop, you be quiet too.”

Wasn't this age discrimination?

Strangely, everyone except Seung-yeop and me slowly nodded.

Soon, Grandpa murmured under his breath.

“Ga-in was unusually decisive today.”

Decisive?

Wasn't he always like that?

Even Song-i, who could be secretly kind of mean, added a comment.

“He was sort of like that today. Less considerate, maybe?”

Elena cautiously spoke up too.

“He seemed a little angry... Specifically, um, at A-ri and Doctor?”

He was angry at A-ri and Doctor?

Strangely enough, both of them nodded at the same time.

“Yeah. Every time I spoke, his expression would subtly harden.”

“I didn't notice at first, but after talking for over an hour, I suddenly realized it.”

I couldn't understand, so I honestly said what I thought.

“Um... Couldn't that just happen? Maybe he was in a bad mood! He could've gotten mad at A-ri or Doctor over something trivial. Like A-ri eating Ga-in's egg without asking.”

“Do you think I'm you?”

“...”

“No. It wasn't just a change in mood. He was fundamentally a little different from usual. More than anything else.”

After saying “more than anything else,” A-ri looked at each of the other companions.

Understanding A-ri's intent, Eun-sol spoke.

“If only one person had felt something was off, it could have been their imagination. But if several people felt it at the same time, we should assume something really happened.”

“...”

“If this place were a Curse Room, I would've thought some unknown being had possessed Ga-in.”

“Possession...”

“Or I had another thought. Maybe Ga-in triggered some strange event in the Hotel without our knowing.”

“... Is that why you used the Flute?”

“Yeah.”

A-ri said in a mildly reproachful tone.

“Wasn't that a pretty clumsy act? You suddenly said you had a headache and would use the Flute. The Flute doesn't normally work on headaches.”

“Eek! I couldn't think of a better excuse to take out the Flute all of a sudden.”

“Well, Ga-in didn't seem to notice, so it doesn't matter.”

Grandpa looked at Eun-sol and asked.

“Eun-sol, I heard Ga-in looks strange to your eyes?”

“... Right. Most of the time, he looks like normal Ga-in, but every now and then, I catch flashes of something grotesque.”

“How does he look now?”

Eun-sol's expression turned complicated at that question.

“Honestly, he looks more normal to me now than before.”

“He looks better now than before?”

“Before, I would see flashes of something completely monstrous. It isn't like that now.”

“Hm...”

The room fell quiet again.

But wasn't everyone basically gossiping behind Ga-in's back just now?

The moment Ga-in left, everyone started saying he was meaner than usual or less considerate!

They even said he looked like a monster?

This was pure slander.

So I realized something.

I should never be the first one to leave!

Then A-ri stood and said,

“Let's end the meeting here for today. It doesn't look like Ga-in will come back, and tomorrow is a rest day. Mi-ro, come with me for a moment.”

Without even looking at A-ri, who had suddenly placed a hand on my shoulder, I answered.

“No.”

“... What's wrong with you now?”

“You don't know this, A-ri, but I can't leave this seat!”

“...”

Our companions stared at us as if they had no idea what was going on, while A-ri looked at me as if to say, What is wrong with her now?

“I won't stand up until someone else leaves first!”

“...”

A little later, A-ri let out a deep sigh.

“Every time I see you, Mi-ro, I wonder. What kind of organization was the Management Bureau, the workplace you spent your whole life in?”

“What do you mean, huh?”

“They turned such a ridiculous little girl into a cold-blooded agent!”

Then A-ri picked me up by force!

“Hey! Hey! Aah! A-A-ri's kidnapping me!”

“Be quiet!”

* * *

--- Click!

Where am I?

It was some room in the Hotel's basement, but I'd been struggling while A-ri carried me inside, so I hadn't seen what kind of room it was.

“Eek!”

“Quiet down.”

“A log cabin?”

“‘Noonday Tranquility.’ It's a relaxing place with a lake and a cottage. This is your first time here, isn't it?”

Soon, A-ri placed me on a soft bed inside the cabin.

“Go to sleep.”

“...”

“Close your eyes and sleep.”

“...”

This was way too obvious.

“You're trying to use a s-strange painting again, like last time, to enter my dream!”

“You know me well. Ga-in took the painting, but I can imitate it even without it.”

“Absolutely not!”

“Yes.”

“Absolutely- Mmph!”

“Mi-ro, Mom, please just go to sleep. I have something to ask ‘Lady Mi-ro’ in your dream.”

“Mmmph!”

“...”

“...”

About ten minutes passed.

“I can't sleep.”

“...”

“I-I can't sleep because A-ri is watching me.”

“... I'll turn around.”

“Instead, um, sing me a song.”

“...”

“I think I could sleep if you sang me a lullaby.”

“... This reminds me of the old days.”

The old days?

Come to think of it, I'd heard another Mi-ro, one who seemed even more childish than I was now, had raised A-ri!

“Oh! Did I, um, did the other me sing A-ri lullabies?”

“...”

“Mm, mm. So there was a time when A-ri fell asleep listening to her mom's lullabies.”

My heart warmed.

I didn't remember it now, but something so beautiful had happened between us!

“... I sang them to you.”

“Huh?”

“From the third day after you were born, I sang you lullabies to put you to sleep.”

“...”

Soon, a song that tickled my ears filled the cabin.

Sleep, sleep, my little baby

In the front yard and on the hill behind the house~

Because of that, I had a dream. A very long dream.

Strangely, I thought I met someone other than A-ri in that dream too.

* * *

“I didn't expect to meet you in a place like this.”

“That’s what I should say. Is Mi-ro’s dream some kind of subway anyone can wander into? I told you not to come.”

“... I have a question.”

“Do you even know who's beyond there?”

“I somehow felt like I knew that too.”

“...”

* * *

The next morning, everyone gathered as if nothing had happened.

Fortunately, my companions didn't gossip about Ga-in anymore.

“All right! Shall we all share our ideas for solving Room 206 today?”

“E-excuse me!”

“Seung-yeop?”

“I came up with an amazing idea after thinking about it all night!”

Footnotes:

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