WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 489: Room 207, Gate Room - First Trial ‘Eternal Life and Resurrection’ (7)
──────
- Kim Sang-hyeon
A great struggle worthy of being recorded as a scene from Egyptian mythology.
On one side stood great Menes, commanding golden forces. On the other was Malkab, an ancient Evil God.
At first, I thought Menes would win without much difficulty.
Most of Malkab's powers were useless before Menes's robot legion.
An ancient Evil God should have been able to split the sky with a word and dry up rivers without difficulty!
When the seated pharaoh statue stretched out a hand, its fingers transformed into missiles and shot forward.
A leopard racing across the ground suddenly opened its mouth and spewed a heat beam powerful enough to melt rock.
Black flying swords swooped in like arrows and tore Malkab's massive body to pieces.
Of course, Malkab regenerated the shattered skeletal body again and again, but surely that consumed some kind of power.
It looked as though Menes alone might overpower Malkab.
Then, the Evil God spat out a cursed phrase, announcing the true beginning of the battle.
There is an arrow that can never be avoided, and that is death itself.
A black arrow, dark as tar, suddenly appeared in the sky. Ignoring the robot legion, it flew straight toward Menes!
“Ugh! Aah!”
“Excuse me!”
Menes was physically no more than an old man and could not react in time, so I had to shove him aside.
“Th-thank-”
“This is not the time for thanks!”
Menes's golden robot legion had clearly been created with science-fiction-level technology. There was no way the power of this era could contend with them.
Even the ancient Evil God had not found a way to destroy those robots.
But...
With most of the robots fighting Malkab at the front, Menes at the rear was not invincible!
If Menes were truly invincible, why would Menes have lain down inside the Immortal Sarcophagus?
“Damn it!”
One, two, three... There were too many to count!
Black arrows filled the sky, all hurtling toward Menes.
In this bolt-from-the-blue situation -
Menes looked at us calmly.
He did not say a word, but everyone understood the great pharaoh's intent.
‘If you do not want to deal with that skeleton god yourselves, use whatever tricks you have to keep me alive.’
--- Click!
The hands of the pocket watch moved, and a peerless beauty with black hair and red eyes appeared.
As always, she reacted with remarkable speed.
--- Rumble!
With a roaring sound like the air itself was tearing apart, the arrows of death covering the sky stopped in midair.
It was as though invisible walls had blocked their paths!
“Ho...! Is this young lady also a remarkable deity? Or perhaps Horus's daughter or wife?”
At the mention of daughter or wife, both A-ri and Mi-ro flinched.
Thinking about the emotional entanglement between those two and Ga-in made me laugh despite myself.
Of course, this was not a situation where we could laugh at ease.
--- Thud!
Skeleton soldiers began falling from the sky.
* * *
“Hyaa! Take this!”
Everyone began desperately fighting back.
Yumi melted skeleton soldiers with green bubbles from her fingertips, while Song-i made her bracelet shine and forced the corpse soldiers who seemed to retain faint traces of self-awareness to their knees.
I kept swinging my melee weapon without rest. Seung-yeop pitched in, as did Aedia, who had been nothing more than a princess until yesterday.
Menes was the only one staying clear of the fierce battle.
It would be better for me or Song-i to fall than for Menes to die. If Menes died, we had no way of dealing with Malkab!
The one shining most brightly on the battlefield was A-ri.
“Yah!”
Her sharp cry rang out alongside the radiance of the glowing reddish Irregular Polyhedron.
In an instant, opaque walls spun like propellers and ground up the corpse army around us.
At that moment, A-ri truly looked like an angel descended from heaven.
“... Ngh!”
Watching from nearby, I could see her limits.
She did not seem able to create several walls to form multiple rooms, nor could she maintain the walls she created for long.
If she could, she would have been able to block most intrusions simply by creating isolated spaces.
Instead, she actively moved a small number of walls and used them like enormous blades.
Compared to the Chief Researcher's use of the Inheritance, which I had heard about from my companions, she was far behind in endurance but somewhat ahead in quickness.
Perhaps that was the difference between the Chief Researcher, a once-in-a-generation genius who was fundamentally a deskbound scholar, and a girl who had received gifted education while surviving in the Hotel since childhood.
At that moment, A-ri spat blood.
“Ah! A-ri!”
Had her use of the Irregular Polyhedron reached its limit?
The radiance of the Irregular Polyhedron, which had been constantly cutting down the corpse army and protecting everyone, began to fade.
Even Menes, who knew nothing about the Inheritance, saw this and his expression hardened.
The outcome of this bloody battle depended on which happened first: Menes's Golden Legion defeating Malkab, or Malkab killing Menes.
And then...
Remember.
The end awaiting all is death.
Malkab's cursed power broke through the gap left by A-ri and struck Menes directly.
“Gaaaah!”
A swarm of insects seemed to burst from the old man's mouth, while maggots crawled from his ears.
Yumi, who had been holding back the skeleton soldiers, rushed to Menes.
“C-can you treat him?!”
“I don’t know! Why are flies coming out of his mouth in the first place?!”
His skin split apart in an instant. Teeth fell out. Hair melted away.
There was no way to save him like this...
What?
Menes's body... Had I seen wrong?
“What? Why does a human body have an organ like this attached to it?”
For an instant, Yumi and I looked at each other and confirmed that we had seen the same thing.
“D-Doctor! No matter how I look at this-”
--- Smack!
A-ri's cold hand covered Yumi's mouth.
“This isn’t the time to argue about it. Look at the battlefield!”
“Aah!”
Yumi looked to the front as instructed and screamed like a child.
I wanted to scream right beside her.
The moment Menes fainted, every robot began to freeze in place!
“Fuck!”
“Sang-hyeon, this isn’t the time to swear. Is there any way to save this human?”
In an instant, complicated thoughts flashed through my mind.
Should I just let Menes die and try sniping Malkab with Final Flash?
If both sides died, wouldn’t we reap the benefits?
A-ri, who could read this kind of thought with uncanny accuracy, asked again.
“You’re thinking of using Final Flash after Menes dies?”
“...”
The question was whether Final Flash could kill Malkab.
Seeing that the golden robots' missiles and lasers could harm Malkab, it was clearly possible to destroy Malkab's body.
The problem was that Malkab was repeatedly being destroyed and regenerating.
Final Flash was an Inheritance that had to decide the battle in one strike. If Malkab regenerated after I fired it, we would lose.
A-ri offered no further opinion.
Did that mean I should decide for myself whether to use Final Flash, since I was its owner?
“Whew...”
I made my decision.
“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
A single flash split the earth.
At its end stood the mountain-sized skeleton god.
* * *
As my ominous prediction had suggested, Final Flash did not erase Malkab.
Still, once most of Malkab's body vanished, the curse crushing Menes also faded.
“You truly are remarkable.”
“...”
“I apologize. I had underestimated you until now. To think you could manifest Horus's wrath!”
Final Flash had nothing to do with ‘Horus's wrath,’ but there was no need to argue over it now.
“Menes, is Malkab finished?”
“No.”
“...”
“Though Malkab is a being like a savage beast, Malkab has clearly acquired the fate of immortality... Even if Malkab's body is burned away without a trace, Malkab will not die.”
“Then what are your servants doing right now? It looks like they are carrying out some kind of excavation.”
“They are imprisoning the Evil God in the abyss. To put it simply, you could call it sealing.”
“...”
“Malkab will awaken someday. Though it will be in the distant future.”
My decision to ‘save’ Menes had been correct.
If I had fired Final Flash at Malkab after Menes died, the Evil God would have eventually regenerated.
We had no way to seal Malkab within the abyss.
“...”
The barren plain where the Evil God had fallen had changed as though a nuclear missile had struck it.
Menes looked around at the landscape with a deeply moved expression, then spoke calmly.
“Let us go to the palace.”
“...”
“We both have much to say. We can speak on the way. And...”
“And?”
“It seems my worthless descendant is still living in the palace.”
“Ah.”
Menes's worthless descendant.
The one who had submitted to Malkab and nearly brought about Egypt's destruction.
It seemed Omar was still alive.
* * *
During the journey back to the palace, I could not stop thinking.
The secret Yumi and I had discovered about Menes earlier.
“...”
If that was true, it would explain every mystery surrounding Menes.
And we could never coexist with Menes.
If we had to fight, when should we do it?
Now, while Menes's condition was not normal?
Could we win if we fought now?
Would it not be better to bow our heads to Menes and wait until Final Flash recharged?
Thought after thought after thought.
One worry led to another.
Fortunately or unfortunately, I was not the only one thinking about it.
“My thoughts are tangled. Do you feel the same?”
“...”
Could Menes possibly be at ease?
Not after witnessing A-ri's power to manipulate space and seeing me defeat Malkab with a single gesture?
“Horus, Horus... A truly remarkable being.”
That statement let me read Menes's thoughts more accurately.
The great pharaoh was worried about Horus, whom Menes believed commanded us as servants. Of course, that was only Menes's misunderstanding.
I decided to add a little to that concern.
“Horus is watching all of this.”
“So you are telling me to behave? Not to get above myself just because I am a mortal?”
“...”
“Did Horus tell you that if some mere desert king gets arrogant because he trusts in toys, Horus will kill me?”
I could feel considerable hostility toward Ga-in in his words.
Menes was powerful enough that it was hard to believe Menes was a Mortal.
Perhaps that was why Menes could not accept a god who had made Menes kneel, even if only briefly.
This time, I thought I should soothe Menes a little.
We needed to buy time for Final Flash to recharge!
Once Final Flash recharged, pharaoh or whatever the fuck, one shot would take Menes down.
“Please calm down. Horus has no intention of ruling Ancient Egypt. If you doubt it, read my true intentions for yourself.”
That was the truth.
Ga-in had no reason to want to rule Ancient Egypt.
“... This is difficult.”
Extreme tension filled the air.
Both groups were wary of each other, yet kept their attitudes deferential, as though ready to draw their blades at any moment.
Our uneasy coexistence continued until we reached the palace.
* * *
At last, when we returned to Memphis, Ancient Egypt's imperial capital where the disaster had begun, the pharaoh's horrific final form greeted us. The being that had sought eternal life was more like living flesh than a human.
“Grrrgh!”
“Good heavens... Omar! How did you end up in such a miserable state-”
What happened next was something no one there expected.
Menes, I congratulate you on your victory.
“Hm? That voice is-”
And you fools who call yourselves Horus's servants.
See clearly with your wretched eyes whom you have handed your victory to!
At the moment the Evil God's final defiance echoed throughout Memphis...
--- Riiip!
The skin of two people - no, two ‘monsters’ - tore apart.
Footnotes:
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