WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 490: Room 207, Gate Room - First Trial ‘Eternal Life and Resurrection’ (8)

──────

- Yoo Song-i

I’m confused.

What is happening in the first trial?

What exactly were the monsters I, we saw?

The moment Malkab’s roar echoed throughout Memphis, an unimaginable truth came to light.

...

What now?

* * *

“Reptilian. That is probably the true identity of the Pharaoh’s bloodline.”

After saying that, Teacher fell silent.

Of course. Reptilians were nothing more than a conspiracy theory to begin with.

There were plenty of reliable sources on Ancient Egyptian history in the Library, but not on Reptilians.

There was no way anyone could truly know much about them, and Teacher was no exception.

There were stories I had picked up here and there.

They looked like bipedal reptiles.

They had powerful shapeshifting abilities that let them imitate humans. Supposedly, they had used that power to infiltrate the upper levels of society.

That was all.

“...”

Thinking back on what we had experienced during the first trial, a few more things came to mind.

Once her identity had been revealed, Aedia had fallen into deep shock and trembled all over.

It seemed she had not known that she and the rest of the Pharaoh’s bloodline were Reptilians.

Had Menes hidden the truth from his descendants?

Perhaps it had something to do with him entering the Immortal Sarcophagus.

The greatest question surrounding Menes had resolved itself naturally.

Even if someone from the future had fallen into ancient times through time travel, even a genius of the century on the level of a Chief Researcher could not have built robots like these alone.

That was why everyone had been confused, but the answer was simple.

Menes was not a human from the future. He was an alien from space.

Naturally, he must have had a spaceship. He had probably used its internal equipment to build the robots.

Or perhaps the spaceship itself was designed to transform into a robot once it reached a colony.

The interstellar spaceship built by the future humans of Room 203 had felt similar.

“...”

After the truth about the Reptilians was revealed, we hurried out of Memphis.

Even though our escape speed was painfully slow given our group’s makeup, Menes did not send pursuers after us.

“I thought he would at least pretend to send a few human soldiers after us, but he didn’t even do that.”

“I know.”

To Menes, we were the Priests of Horus, an unknown god.

Perhaps he was worried Horus would take revenge if he killed us.

Even though Ga-in was not part of the first trial’s team, he was proving very helpful in many ways.

“I thought it over, and I don’t think he’ll send anyone after us in the future either.”

“...”

“This is the primordial age. Most of Earth has no proper civilization yet. In other words, it is empty.”

“...”

“By not sending pursuers, he has sent us a message. Go somewhere else, worship Horus, and build a civilization of your own. There must be other places where people can live, right?”

I understood.

If I were Menes, I would rather tell us to go our separate ways than fight us.

We were both burdens to each other. Was there any reason to risk our lives fighting over Egypt, a tiny place compared to the whole Earth?

Of course, that was only Menes’s way of thinking.

“...”

I thought and thought again.

The Hotel often placed clues in places that were easy to overlook at first glance.

The fact that this had begun on a train out of nowhere was a good example.

Who had to go to each trial had already been decided.

If so, the Hotel could have simply thrown us into those trials. Why had it started us on a train?

“...”

A train moved step by step from the first station to the second, then from the second to the third.

There was an order, and every station was merely an intermediate stop along a single route.

All four trials were one world.

We were at the earliest point in time, while our companions would continue through the Middle Ages, the modern era, and the present day.

This was probably around 3000 BCE.

Even compared to the next point in time, the Middle Ages, there was a gap of at least 3,500 to 4,000 years.

That meant the first trial had the widest temporal gap.

What did that mean?

“...”

There was something called the butterfly effect.

From what we knew, only a tiny number of Reptilians currently existed, namely members of the Pharaoh’s bloodline, including Menes and Aedia.

What would happen if we failed to kill them and 4,000 years passed?

“We have to go back.”

“...”

“We have to go back and kill Menes. No, the entire Pharaoh’s bloodline!”

“...”

“If we fail to kill all the Reptilians, and then 3,000 or 4,000 years pass...!”

“The entire ruling class of humanity might become Reptilians. Or humans themselves might become livestock raised on farms.”

“So-”

“Now is the time.”

“Huh?”

“The time to check the second piece of paper.”

With that, Teacher took the paper marked ‘2’ from inside his clothes.

「2. If possible, keep Mi-ro for later.」

“Hm?”

“Keep Mi-ro for later?”

“Huh? Huh? Is that about me? Did Ga-in write about me?”

“How... No way, the Immortal Sarcophagus?”

My breath caught in my throat.

Ga-in had written this letter before we had even entered Room 207!

Had he foreseen the existence of the Immortal Sarcophagus before the trial began?

Was that really a human ability?

Unless he was truly an angel descended from the heavens!

“I don’t think so. Insight is the power to read concrete possibilities from small pieces of evidence. Before entering, there was no basis at all for predicting the sarcophagus’s existence.”

“Th-then?”

“There isn’t even a word like ‘sarcophagus’ in this sentence. He didn’t predict its existence. He simply believed there would be something.”

“Something?”

“A way to bring one of our companions into the later trials.”

“...”

“What could have been his basis? I don’t know that much.”

It was strange.

For some reason, Teacher was different from usual right now.

He was like an ancient priest interpreting the will of a god, speaking words that seemed understandable yet impossible to understand.

“Ah, Midnight Mi-ro?”

Midnight Mi-ro.

“She claims it herself, but she says she was foretold to play an active role in Room 207. The Hotel placed Miss Mi-ro in the first trial, but... Ga-in believes this is not the right point in time.”

In Ga-in’s view, the time for Midnight Mi-ro to play her part was not now, but thousands of years in the future.

“If this letter had not existed, Midnight Mi-ro would have been used up in the process of fighting Menes.”

The predetermined fate was that Midnight Mi-ro would be consumed in the first trial.

“Miss Mi-ro, do you understand?”

“...”

“You cannot die now. You cannot use Midnight Mi-ro either. Even if the rest of us are wiped out, you must endure until the end, enter the sarcophagus, and go to sleep.”

“... Okay.”

Insight had changed that fate.

Midnight Mi-ro would not appear in the first trial.

“Final Flash will recharge in three days.”

“...”

“Then we will attack Memphis.”

* * *

- Aedia

I am human.

I am not human.

I am human.

I am not human.

I am...

A monster.

A lizard with pale blood flowing through it.

A reptile hiding scales beneath soft skin.

I could not breathe.

It hurt so much, as if my heart were being torn apart...

I truly did not want to live.

“I am sorry.”

The great ancestor, or perhaps the most terrible monster, spoke to me.

“Thinking about it now, it must have been Malkab’s doing, but in the past, I was struck by an unknown plague. I had to enter the sarcophagus in a hurry to survive. I did not know something so troubling would happen.”

We, the Pharaoh’s bloodline, were not human, but merely monsters disguised as humans.

...

It was a perfect disguise.

When we transformed into women, even the children we gave birth to were born in human form!

Our shapeshifting ability was so absurdly powerful that even we had forgotten we were not human.

“I clearly told my children... I do not know at what point you lost the culture of ‘our kind.’ Did Malkab interfere?”

“Ah... Ah...”

“Now that I have awakened, there is no problem. Accept your fate from now on. The primitive mammals filling this planet were born to serve us.”

I stared blankly at the great ancestor, who ordered me to accept my fate.

A being who called humans nothing more than “primitive mammals born to serve us.”

Someone who had never been human from birth, the king of cold-blooded lizards.

That was why he was completely different from me.

...

I returned to my residence and lived as though dead.

I was someone who had lost the will to live. No, I was a lizard.

Even Egypt’s scorching air was far too weak to soothe my heart, which froze at every moment.

I slowly rotted away.

I stiffened as if I had become a plant, not a person, though I had never been one to begin with.

I wished everything would stop like this.

If this was a nightmare, I wanted to wake up as soon as possible.

--- Clunk!

“Lady Aedia!”

“...”

“Lady Aedia! This is not the time for this!”

Taio, my longtime loyal servant and friend.

The person who had not hesitated to do the harsh work of bringing Egyptian children to me.

Did he know?

That I was nothing more than a monster, not a human-

“Lady Aedia! Please, get a hold of yourself! Look outside!”

Unable to refuse Taio’s desperate plea, I went outside and saw something I could not believe.

Memphis was burning, and poles had been driven into the ground everywhere.

My all-too-familiar brothers and relatives were hanging from them!

The bloodline of the great Pharaoh was being slaughtered.

The sight was so unbelievable that my mind, once filled with despair, snapped awake!

“W-what is happening?”

“A rebellion has broken out! Hundreds, thousands of people suddenly began killing Omar’s bloodline without restraint.”

A rebellion had broken out? All of a sudden?

“Th-that is! It may sound strange, but it was as though someone was controlling thousands of people-”

Someone ruled thousands of humans through charisma.

The moment I heard that, I thought of someone who had seemed more like a god than a person.

“Everyone has gone mad! They are shouting nonsense-”

The “nonsense” Taio spoke of soon reached my ears as well.

“Kill every disgusting lizard!”

“Kill every member of the corrupt Pharaoh’s bloodline!”

My breath stopped again.

When I raised my head with my mind half gone-

I saw a streak of light that looked as though it could split the world apart.

--- Rumble!

* * *

- Cha Jin-cheol

“Are those the robots? It looks like eighty percent of them got wiped out by that one blast! Hahaha!”

They had all become piles of metal wreckage, but according to Sang-hyeon, they had been more impressive robots than expected.

Didn’t Sang-hyeon say that that skeleton called Malkab or whatever could not do a thing against them?

Of course, none of that mattered before Final Flash.

That skeleton could not withstand the beam either, so it was only natural.

“Luck is on our side. If the robots had been scattered all over Egypt like before, there would have been no way to deal with them one by one.”

Song-i added, “They probably kept the robots near the royal palace to control public sentiment. They won’t be able to do that anymore.”

Seung-yeop spoke hopefully.

“Could Menes have died from that attack too?”

That was not the case.

“You idiot, how can you still say that after being here all this time? You said the robots would stop if that Pharaoh bastard died. Look over there.”

Perhaps because it had been at the edge of Final Flash’s range and avoided a direct hit, a Pharaoh statue writhed and made a strange sound.

It looked like we would have to land the final blow ourselves.

“Looks like Menes is still alive.”

The capital of Ancient Egypt, Memphis, was burning.

The sight of Final Flash smashing the robots near the royal palace was like an enraged god crushing an alien’s servants.

Was that why?

Even crazier shouts filled all of Memphis.

“Burn every lizard Pharaoh to death!”

A mob of enraged humans could not threaten Menes, a superhuman, no, a super-lizard.

That might be different for foolish Reptilian descendants who had lived believing themselves human!

“Let’s go in. It looks like this only ends when we take that lizard’s head!”

“... Jin-cheol, be careful.”

Sang-hyeon looked somewhat uneasy.

It was probably because I could not use Inheritances properly if I lost my Blessing.

If I summoned an Otherworldly Star Fragment without Regeneration, my whole body would twist apart in seconds.

That was probably why Mi-ro had summoned Ga-in or A-ri instead of me...

But she had used nearly all of their time, so she had no choice but to summon me.

“Hyung, when have we ever fought in comfortable circumstances?”

“Hah, Jin-cheol, you’re better than me. You’re right. Let’s go kill the lizard king.”

It was time to finish the first trial.

Footnotes:

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