WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 479: Party Time - The One Who Sees What Cannot Be Seen (4)
──────
- Kim A-ri
“Looking back, my experience in Room 206 was helpful. I found someone there who could use the Irregular Polyhedron well.”
What?
Was I imagining things?
If the conversation was headed this way, then the person who would receive the Irregular Polyhedron was...
“Room 206? What experience are you talking about?”
“Do you remember how I made a quick stop at the Sacred Domain during the final run?”
“Of course.”
“Before I met the Ipsissimus.”
“Before the Ipsissimus? Ah, the time you met our copies?”
“That’s right.”
What? I’d hoped I was wrong, but it was true?
“Back then, I met A-ri after she acquired Ominous Imagination.”
“A-ri with Ominous Imagination? That’s an interesting combination... Right, A-ri?”
“...”
With that example coming up now, it was obvious who Ga-in would choose.
“A-ri’s copy manifested hundreds of Far Rooms and trapped me in an endless maze. To escape, I had to use the Kingdom of Dreams and meet the real A-ri.”
“Wow, this is the first time I’ve heard the details. That’s another interesting story. Far Rooms! Hardly anyone on our side survived one.”
“Oh? Agent, what exactly is a Far Room?”
“Well, sir, a Far Room is, simply put...”
As Mook-seong began explaining Far Rooms to everyone else, I looked at Ga-in, still a little confused about what was happening.
“...”
He was wearing a blindfold, which made it even harder to tell what he was thinking.
Ga-in, were you really planning to have me receive another Inheritance?
The conversation naturally shifted toward me receiving the Irregular Polyhedron.
The reasoning was clear enough.
My copy had already caused a similar phenomenon with Ominous Imagination, so the original should be capable of it as well.
Since it was an Inheritance that ordinary people would struggle to use properly, Ga-in’s claim that it should go to someone who had already caused a similar phenomenon sounded convincing.
Everyone seemed to accept it without much objection.
Even Kim Sang-hyeon, whom I’d expected to be the leading candidate, was smiling brightly as he said, “Ga-in, you’ve truly been through all kinds of things.”
It was partly because none of them were particularly greedy for the Inheritance, but more than that, they all wanted to follow Ga-in.
“...”
I was the only one sitting there with an awkward expression, as though I’d somehow been left out.
Maybe Song-i found that funny, because she snickered and gave me a couple of light nudges.
“Congratulations!”
“...”
“Besides Ga-in, another person is getting a second Inheritance now!”
“... Wait, everyone, listen.”
Everyone looked at me as if asking what was wrong.
“Isn’t the basis for this a little unclear? My copy manifested Far Rooms with Ominous Imagination, so that means I can use the Irregular Polyhedron well too?”
Ga-in nodded.
“Yeah.”
“I mean, I’ve never used Ominous Imagination, and they’re different Inheritances. Just because the results are similar doesn’t mean they followed a similar process. Elena probably never had to perform complicated calculations when using Ominous Imagination.”
Similar results didn’t mean similar processes.
Biology even has a term for it: convergent evolution.
Instead of arguing back, Ga-in let out a small laugh.
“Why are you arguing against me recommending you? Are you not confident?”
“That’s not what I mean...”
“Of course, it would be hard for us to be geniuses remembered throughout human history like the Chief Researcher. But the Irregular Polyhedron you’ll receive is an Inheritance, not the original. You probably don’t need to be a genius of the century.”
“Haha, if it requires that much intelligence, none of us will be able to use it.”
“You think so too, Sang-hyeon?”
“...”
It was hard to argue any further.
As Ga-in said, I was about to receive a new Inheritance.
Ga-in had created a situation favorable to me, so was there any reason to object just because the reasoning seemed weak?
“A-ri, take it!”
“...”
The third Ticket landed in my hand.
Now I only had to exchange it for the Irregular Polyhedron in the Mirror Room.
As the discussion about the Inheritance came to an end, Eun-sol spoke.
“As for Greedy Hand, I’ll use it tonight.”
“Sis! Have you decided what to use it for?”
Using it to obtain an item would probably give us some mediocre junk.
Using it for information was no good either, since the Hotel didn’t seem willing to provide information about Room 207.
That was why Eun-sol had been agonizing over it since the first day.
“You all heard Elena’s story about the Sanctuary of Blessings, right?”
“Elena, I didn’t hear it.”
“Ah, Ga-in. It’s nothing special, but...”
Apparently, Justice’s Sponsor had shown Elena a mansion with a dark, murky atmosphere.
We didn’t know what it meant, but judging by the circumstances, it was a hint for Room 207.
Eun-sol spoke again.
“I don’t think we can get an easy-to-understand, sentence-like hint as we did during Revelation of Heavenly Secrets. Still, it seems we can get indirect hints through the background of what it shows us. At least that much.”
So that was it.
During A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Midnight Mi-ro woke from her dream and spoke with me one-on-one, telling me a strange story about Room 207.
Considering how desperately the Hotel had hidden information about Room 207 during Revelation of Heavenly Secrets, it had been strange enough that Mi-ro knew that information at all.
Now I understood.
It seemed we could obtain hints that weren’t made of words, far more indirect and vague hints.
“I’m going to use it for that.”
“I think that’s a good idea!”
That was how the lunch meeting ended.
* * *
.
.
.
Lost in thought as I walked down the corridor, I ran into a young man wearing a blindfold.
“Whoa! We almost bumped into each other. Whoever you are, watch where you’re going! I’m wearing a blindfold right now-”
“It’s me.”
“Oh, you haven’t left yet? You should hurry to the Mirror Room and collect your Inheritance. You’ll need time to practice with it, right?”
“...”
I reached out and stopped Ga-in.
“What is it?”
“... I wanted to ask you something.”
“Hm?”
“Why did you choose me?”
“Haha, I told you, didn’t I? I saw your copy using a similar ability.”
It wasn’t complete nonsense, but it didn’t feel like enough.
There had to be something else.
“I thought you’d choose Sang-hyeon.”
During the meeting, the strongest candidate for the Irregular Polyhedron, in my eyes, had been Kim Sang-hyeon.
He was intelligent, and since it was surely an Inheritance that was difficult to use, I thought his blessing of Diligence would be useful.
Beyond those abilities, Ga-in was the one deciding who received the Inheritance.
“Why?”
Let’s be honest.
“Sang-hyeon is practically your loyal retainer.”
“...”
Kim Sang-hyeon was far more firmly on Han Ga-in’s side than I was.
Ga-in had been the one to insist on reviving Sang-hyeon after he fell into hell. Even after saving him, the two had shared pain for a long time in Room 203.
Maybe that was why Sang-hyeon’s eyes often welled up whenever he heard about Ga-in suffering or accomplishing something.
If I were Ga-in, even if Kim A-ri’s abilities were far superior to Kim Sang-hyeon’s, I would’ve pushed Sang-hyeon as the candidate.
If it was a treasure I wouldn’t use myself, shouldn’t I give it to my loyal retainer?
So-
--- Rustle!
Ga-in suddenly took off his blindfold!
“Ah! Is that okay-”
Our eyes met.
My gaze crossed with his.
For an instant, the extreme tension stopped my breath.
Eyes greedily seeking truth between the present, past, and future examined me.
An intense pressure beyond anything I could express in a few words crushed down on me.
--- Thud-thud-thud!
Without realizing it, I turned around and ran about ten steps away.
“...”
“...”
When I turned back after belatedly realizing how pathetic I must have looked, Ga-in had already put his blindfold back on.
“Did you see something in me too?”
I wanted to say it as naturally as possible, as if I were joking.
At least to hide how intimidated I felt.
“What was it? A cow going moo and biting me? Or me wrapped in dough and about to get into boiling water?”
“...”
“Or maybe I was sitting in a restaurant, enjoying fine dining...”
“The reason I chose you.”
Don’t suddenly get serious.
“You seemed like the person most likely...”
The person most likely?
“To not hesitate when making a decision.”
“... What are you talking about?”
“Let’s just say I trusted you the most. I mean that.”
W-what was that supposed to mean all of a sudden? How embarrassing!
“W-what? Don’t say weird things! I asked why you chose me!”
“You’re not a good person by ordinary moral standards.”
Sudden insult?
“Rationality unconstrained by morality. That’s a quality the Management Bureau considers a virtue. It isn’t always positive, but there are times when it becomes necessary.”
“...”
I had no idea what he was talking about.
Maybe he read that from my expression, because Ga-in gave a bitter smile.
“I’m just saying you should keep doing what you’ve been doing. That’ll make things easier for me too.”
“...”
The moment I heard that it would make things easier for him too, I vaguely understood what situation he was in.
“You saw something while looking at me, at us. Right? The future? Possibilities? Fine. You can’t just tell us, can you?”
Instead of answering, he watched me closely.
“Why would it be difficult to tell us? If you tell us, we’ll change our actions based on what you said. Then whatever you saw will lose its value, and new possibilities will arise.”
“...”
“You told Mook-seong about him dying at the Spire earlier, right? Were you testing what would happen if you told him? What happened?”
“...”
“Once you told him, did the old information become meaningless? Did something new appear?”
He saw possibilities and conveyed them to us.
Having seen terrible information, we changed our behavior to avoid it.
At that point, the possibility Ga-in had seen became meaningless information, and he saw something new again.
It was a pointless cycle.
To break that cycle, he couldn’t tell us what he saw.
“We have to act as you predict. Only then can you guide us to the ending you want. Is that right?”
“As expected...”
“What?”
“I’m glad I chose you.”
He smiled after saying that.
“...”
As I watched him return to Room 105, I thought.
Why had I received the Irregular Polyhedron instead of Kim Sang-hyeon?
Who was more suited to using the Inheritance didn’t matter at all. The example Ga-in had given earlier was only a means of persuading the others.
“...”
It was easy to understand if I thought of chess.
In an area beyond my understanding, someone had assigned me the role of a knight.
A knight needed a mount, so I had to receive the Irregular Polyhedron.
Then what about a bishop?
The loyal retainer would have his own role too, so an order from the king would come soon.
“...”
Foresight and Wisdom were completely different powers in the Hotel.
In Ga-in’s own words, Foresight created something from nothing without context, while Wisdom created something great from something small.
Insight wasn’t the power to read the future from an empty void. It gathered the small pieces of evidence already obtained and showed concrete possibilities.
Therefore, the basis for the bleak future Ga-in saw already existed.
It was information I surely knew as well.
My thoughts stretched out like a spiderweb, then suddenly reached a memory.
A memory of one midsummer night when everyone had been swept away by a mysterious dream.
The Management Bureau.
I felt like I vaguely understood what Ga-in had seen and why he had given the Inheritance to me.
“... Should I stop?”
Was it right to keep trying to understand Ga-in’s intentions?
What if I eventually figured out what he was thinking?
What if I acted accordingly?
Wouldn’t that disrupt the possibility Ga-in had seen instead?
Maybe the opposite was true.
Could falling into this kind of worry be part of the larger picture from the start?
Then I should think even more deeply and-
“Ah.”
My head suddenly began to hurt.
This was one of those situations where thinking too much was a problem, but not thinking enough was a problem too!
What had Ga-in said about me earlier?
That I wouldn’t hesitate when making decisions?
Fine. I wouldn’t think about it any further.
...
One last thought crossed my mind.
The moment in Room 203 when he had temporarily reached the limit of the Grimoire after enduring hundreds of years of hardship.
The moment in Room 206 when he had accumulated countless souls and stepped one foot into the realm of a demigod.
In a way, Han Ga-in had become even more unknowable now than he had been then.
* * *
[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 933
Current Location: Level 1, Room 105 - ‘Rest Room’
Sage’s Advice: 3]
- Han Ga-in
Room 105, the most peaceful place in the Hotel.
I touched the blindfold I was still not used to wearing and recalled the conversation from earlier.
The Hotel-born girl was surely tangled up in indescribably complicated worries by now.
“...”
Perhaps I had mistaken myself for someone who had stepped one foot into the realm of omniscience.
It would’ve been nice if that were true.
“...”
Before, I didn’t even know 1, so I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Now, I knew 1.
It was more lamentable than joyful.
I knew there was 0 before 1, and 2 after 1.
Because I knew 1, I knew that I didn’t know 0 or 2.
The strange contradiction where the more I knew, the more I realized I didn’t know.
“...”
Whether I wanted it or not, I could feel myself rising higher and higher.
I could faintly see the tail feathers of my Sponsor, whose shadow I couldn’t even glimpse before.
That was why I understood.
I understood why Owl, my Sponsor, loved Zen riddles and kept giving vague answers.
The answer had always been simple.
In many cases, Owl didn’t know exactly either.
Of course, what Owl and I meant by not knowing was probably completely different from what ordinary humans meant by not knowing.
--- Rustle!
After lightly wiping the bathroom mirror, I removed my blindfold.
“... Ha.”
Insight was the power to read endless possibilities from the smallest clue.
How could such a power work only on others?
I looked at myself reflected in the mirror.
I saw part of the bleak future that would come to me if things continued this way.
I saw myself torn into hundreds of pieces and scattered across the world.
--- Boom!
“What?”
Lee Eun-sol: Everyone, come to the front! I just used Greedy Hand!
Greedy Hand?
At that moment, the displays hanging all over the Hotel corridors flickered and sent out a notification.
[Today’s Special Event: ‘Dinner Party’ begins!]
“Dinner Party? At the Hotel?”
At least for that moment, I was sincerely grateful to Eun-sol noona for ending my complicated thoughts.
Footnotes:
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