WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 476: Party Time - Worries (1)

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[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)

Date: Day 931

Current Location: Level 1, Corridor

Sage’s Advice: 3]

- Han Ga-in

I woke up in the corridor.

I turned around to check my companions’ expressions, just in case, but no words were needed.

The relief on my companions’ faces and Grandpa’s excitement were answer enough.

At last, we had escaped the long, crushing pressure of Room 206 and the Demon King.

* * *

We went to the refreshment table, drank some cold drinks, and heard what had happened during the Time of Choice.

“So Grandpa got One More Chance. Do you understand?”

“Yes. Congratulations, Grandpa.”

“Ho ho, congratulations for what? Maybe if it had been another room, but in Room 206, I really feel like I was carried through the whole thing. It’s embarrassing.”

“You’re still happy, right?”

“Haha!”

Embarrassed because he got an Inheritance without doing anything?

Come on. That was obviously a lie.

Life was happiest when you got something without lifting a finger.

I might be an eternally twenty-year-old young man, but even I knew that much.

Soon after, Eun-sol returned from Room 105 with two pieces of good news.

“This time, Party Time will last a whole week! And ta-da!”

“The Ticket is complete, just as expected.”

It was the third Ticket we had obtained from the Hotel.

The first had been used to revive Sang-hyeon, and the second to revive Mi-ro.

What would we use the third Ticket for?

“Oh, and that line disappeared from the Party Time notice.”

“What line?”

“The one saying the Hotel has secrets that only reveal themselves during Party Time.”

“Maybe there’s nothing left to find.”

During every Party Time, we had explored the Hotel and found hidden NPCs and rooms.

Whenever a Level opened, two hidden NPCs and two hidden rooms had appeared.

A-ri had shown us images like this a few times, saying they were visible only to her.

「Hotel Secrets! Level 1 Edition

1. Hidden Rooms

1) Sanctuary of Blessings 2) Souvenir Shop

2. Hidden NPCs

1) Doctor 2) Merchant 」

「Hotel Secrets! Level 2 Edition

1. Hidden Rooms

1) Mirror Room 2) Resurrection Room

2. Hidden NPCs

1) Mysterious Craftsman 2) Painter 」

“It’s bittersweet. It feels like we have a little less to do during Party Time now.”

Everyone nodded at Eun-sol’s words.

Jin-cheol added, “Doesn’t it feel like our suffering in this strange place is coming to an end? We can return to reality after we finish Level 2.”

This time, everyone fell silent.

The Hotel had repeatedly confirmed that we could escape at the end of Level 2, so it was reliable information...

But what exactly did that reality mean, and if everything could end on Level 2, why was there a Level 3?

All sorts of thoughts crossed my mind, leaving my head a mess.

I lightly slapped the table to draw everyone’s attention.

--- Tap!

“Ahem! All right, all right. Let’s settle down and return to reality. There’s still one thing left, isn’t there? The Gate Room.”

Room 207, the Gate Room.

“Let’s also think about what we should do during Party Time.”

As if she had been waiting, A-ri spoke.

“Sanctuary of Blessings, where to use the Ticket, Greedy Hand. Those are what come to mind. What about testing Mook-seong’s new Inheritance?”

Grandpa proudly summoned One More Chance, then immediately looked unsure what to do.

“I’d love to test it too, but...”

The Hotel had told him to be prepared to pay the Price of Defying Heaven.

That meant he couldn’t even dream of using it once just for practice.

“Think about it. I fall into hell because of the Price of Defying Heaven. Lord Yama, flaunting his dark red beard, beats me with his staff and asks me a question.”

Grandpa suddenly spoke in the tone of a stage actor.

“‘Sinner Kim Mook-seong, speak. Why did you shatter the laws of the universe and become guilty of shattering Heaven?’ And I answer, ‘I practiced wrecking the world once.’ What do you think Lord Yama would say then?”

“Pfft! Hehe! Grandpa, were you an actor before?”

“An actor? No. It’s enough that you laughed, Song-i.”

Unexpectedly, Song-i seemed to enjoy this kind of joke.

As for me, I just felt that Grandpa’s mood had risen quite a bit after obtaining an Inheritance.

Elena chuckled along with them, then brought up something serious.

“As A-ri said, we should visit the Sanctuary of Blessings, but is there anyone who can enhance their blessing this time?”

“Good question.”

Blessing enhancements were like a game. The higher the enhancement stage, the more Contribution was required.

“The Owl said the third stage is usually the final enhancement. There is a fourth stage, but almost nobody gets it.”

“Should we count how many enhancement stages each of us has?”

Eun-sol began writing them down one by one on a whiteboard, looking interested.

“Ga-in, you go first.”

“Companion Location Information and Scenario Understanding. Scenario Understanding is a ‘powerful enhancement,’ so it should count as two.”

My blessing information was soon written on the whiteboard.

Han Ga-in: Companion Location Information (1) -> Scenario Understanding (2) = 3 stages.

The other companions’ information followed in much the same way.

Yoo Song-i: Telepathy (1) -> Beloved One (2) = 3 stages.

Park Seung-yeop: Heavenly Luck Control (1) -> Primordial Human (2) = 3 stages.

Kim A-ri: Compass (1) -> The Unremarkable Girl (1) = 2 stages.

Elena: Lie Detection (1) -> Clear Mirror, Still Water (1) = 2 stages.

Cha Jin-cheol: Regeneration (1) -> Instant (2) = 3 stages.

Kim Mook-seong: Vivid Communication (1) -> Crowd Psychology (1) = 2 stages.

Lee Eun-sol: Greedy Hand (2) = 2 stages.

Kim Sang-hyeon: One Who Enjoys (1) = 1 stage.

Mi-ro: Power of Immutability (1) = 1 stage.

“I was a little unsure about Greedy Hand when I wrote it down. Still, the Dragon openly called it a ‘powerful force,’ so shouldn’t it count as Stage 2?”

That made sense.

Either way, looking at it like this, some people had no chance of an enhancement, while others had at least a small possibility.

“I was still only at Stage 2.”

“I worked hard in my own way too...”

“Well, maybe the Hotel thinks differently.”

A-ri sounded disappointed, Elena agreed, and Eun-sol looked half resigned.

“Hey, I was lucky to get Crowd Psychology at all, and you’re still being greedy! If that’s how the Hotel sees it, you have to accept it.”

Grandpa had apparently become pro-Hotel after receiving an Inheritance.

“Teacher, do you think we can enhance our blessings too?”

“I don’t know either.”

Mi-ro and Sang-hyeon, who had joined us late and did not expect much from blessing enhancements, spoke up as well.

We would find out tomorrow, but it seemed likely that at least one companion at Stage 1 or 2 could receive an enhancement.

It wasn’t necessarily because they had played such a huge role in Room 206.

To put it in game terms, if their experience bar had already been about 95% full, then even without accomplishing much in Room 206, they would have filled the remaining 5% and leveled up.

And...

Maybe I would receive a fourth-stage enhancement.

* * *

Once the discussion about blessings was settled, Eun-sol briefly brought up Greedy Hand.

“Where should we use it this time?”

“Is that even a question? Obviously, on Room 207... Ah, no. We can’t.”

Grandpa was about to answer easily, then realized the problem and fell silent.

I thought back to Revelation of Heavenly Secrets, the information-gathering event Greedy Hand had created.

If we demanded too much information, an unbearable Heavenly Punishment would fall upon us. Room 207 was the highest-ranking room, so no question about it had been permitted.

Even if we changed the type of event, the result would likely be similar.

The Hotel didn’t want to tell us anything about Room 207.

Then A-ri looked at Mi-ro with a somewhat complicated expression.

“Mi-ro, how do you...”

“Hm?”

“... Never mind.”

As always, there was something between those two that the rest of us couldn’t easily get involved in.

Funny enough, A-ri often knew what it was while Mi-ro didn’t.

The conversation naturally moved on to the Ticket.

“Another Inheritance would be better than a revival, right?”

“Of course.”

“Then let’s do that this time.”

Everyone naturally agreed on an additional Inheritance.

After Mi-ro, who had been A-ri’s paramount task, awakened, the very idea of revival felt farther from us.

Realistically, there were few remaining candidates who could help us in our current situation.

The only one who fit would be Estavio, the alien who had helped Song-i in Room 103...

But aliens were a little much.

I really thought I wasn’t prejudiced, but one thing was having an unusual companion. Another was having an alien that looked like a starfish as a companion.

In the meantime, Eun-sol wrote down all the Inheritances we had missed on Level 2.

「List of Missed Inheritances.

Irregular Polyhedron (Room 201)

Queen Rudah (Room 202)

Unknown Cells (Room 203)

Crimson Flame Iron Fan (Room 205)

Indomitable Reason (Room 206)」

“We’ll choose one of these. Tell us what you think.”

Mi-ro spoke first.

“I don’t like that fan!”

“... Right. The Crimson Flame Iron Fan did like Mi-ro quite a lot.”

Even apart from Mi-ro’s preferences, the Crimson Flame Iron Fan had the most problems objectively speaking.

“The Crimson Flame Iron Fan isn’t great. Look at me. I use Ominous Imagination much more often than Justice, right? You all know why.”

The power of Judgment of Evil overlapped with Elena’s Justice, and Justice itself was harder to use than expected.

As we progressed through the Hotel, I had realized that villains dangerous enough to threaten the world were surprisingly rarely just evil people.

“I’m not too keen on Queen Rudah either. Do you all want to eat snails and become Merfolk?”

Everyone nodded at Eun-sol’s words.

Eating snails was one thing, but none of us wanted to become fish.

This time, Sang-hyeon gave his opinion.

“I wouldn’t recommend Unknown Cells either. The Inheritance itself is quite powerful, but...”

Quite powerful, but?

After taking a moment to choose his words, he said something unexpected.

“... It’s somewhat similar to Ga-in’s Inheritances.”

Similar to my Inheritances?

“The potential is quite high, but that potential isn’t human.”

I grew more curious about what he was trying to say.

“Um, let me explain simply. Have you all heard the phrase ‘Blind Watchmaker’?”

I had seen it in a very famous book.

“It’s a description comparing natural selection in evolutionary theory to a watchmaker. To put it very roughly, it means evolution has no plan or intention. As a result, the human body has a great many imperfections.”

The inevitable imperfections of the human body caused by evolution having no plan or intent.

“There are many examples besides famous ones like blind spots, the appendix, and wisdom teeth.”

Song-i’s eyes had already gone unfocused. She spoke in a dazed voice.

“Um, what does that have to do with Unknown Cells?”

“If I obtained Unknown Cells, there are many things I’d truly want to fix.”

Fix?

“Why are human eyes so inefficient? Do you know how flimsy the structure of the cruciate ligaments in your legs is? The human spine is still not fully adapted to walking upright.”

Everyone sat there with their mouths half open at this unsettling topic.

“And what about vitamin synthesis? Why can nearly every animal make vitamin C in its liver, but primates cannot? The brain is the same. We adapted over millions, tens of millions of years in the Stone Age, and as a result, we suffer from countless mental illnesses in civilized society.”

I was starting to vaguely understand what Sang-hyeon meant.

“If I obtained Unknown Cells, I could improve all these problems. It would be a truly great miracle, something like transcending humanity.”

“That...”

“Ga-in, you understand what I mean, do you not? What it means to remake the body and transcend humanity.”

“...”

If the Grimoire and Sacred Sun sought to remake the mind or pursue transcendence in a spiritual direction, Unknown Cells were an Inheritance for the ultimate materialist.

It was a possibility for challenging the limits not just of humanity, but of life itself.

That was why it was dangerous.

Once the room fell quiet, A-ri spoke.

“Then two remain. Irregular Polyhedron and Indomitable Reason. Shall I give my opinion? I obviously think it should be Indomitable Reason. Ga-in will strongly agree too, right?”

Why was she suddenly talking about me?

“Don’t forget. Room 206’s Inheritances are tools for saving the world, and we still don’t know whether Indomitable Reason or One More Chance is the key. So we need both. Right, Ga-in?”

“...”

That was true.

I had said that to persuade the others, hadn’t I? I remembered now.

“Of course, talk about the crisis of the world might not feel real to you all. But you don’t intend to live in the Hotel forever, do you?”

“Of course not.”

Even the most individualistic person would have to care if humanity faced extinction.

“You think so too, Ga-in, right?”

“...”

I could only smile awkwardly as I looked at A-ri, who seemed to trust me completely.

What I had said back then wasn’t sincere. I had been half out of my mind because of the Sacred Sun’s erosion.

Looking back, it had been a time when my thirst for souls kneaded my mind like clay.

We absolutely had to obtain both Inheritances from Room 206 to save reality?

That was just logic I had forced out to persuade everyone else.

To put it bluntly, I had made up that story because I didn’t want to give the souls in Room 206 to the Demon King.

...

Even if it was forced logic, it was admittedly a fairly persuasive argument.

That was why the other companions had agreed with me at the time.

Still, it wasn’t flawless logic, and Eun-sol pointed that out.

“But Ga-in, I was thinking this back then too... Isn’t it a little strange?”

“...”

“What the Hotel expects from us is usually an ordinary resolution, like in Room 201.”

“... Right.”

“If we resolve a room normally, the standard is one Inheritance per clear. But it feels a little strange that only in Room 206, we need to get both Inheritances.”

Eun-sol’s point was simple.

Looking at the notices the Hotel displayed when a Curse Room ended, the usual expectation was a thirty-point resolution that did not earn a Ticket, not a high-scoring resolution that earned one.

The Hotel didn’t demand that we absolutely do this either.

In that context, saying that Room 206 hid rewards for saving the world alongside the Hourglass should be understood like this.

With either Indomitable Reason or One More Chance alone, we could solve the problem in reality, though the method would differ.

“I understand what you mean, but isn’t that just your guess, Eun-sol? Ga-in probably thinks differently.”

“...”

A-ri kept putting pressure on me like this.

So what did I think?

Footnotes:

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