WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 509: Room 207, Gate Room - Third Trial ‘Miskatonic University’ (11)
──────
The first emotion I felt was surprise.
It seemed that roughly a thousand years had passed, yet Aedia was still alive. That alone was astonishing.
“How are you still alive? Because you aren't human? No, that can't be it. Menes wasn't immortal either!”
The girl, appearing exactly as she had a thousand years ago, answered.
“Daughter of Horus. You are a mysterious person who holds many secrets. I, too, am rather mysterious in my own way. But more than anything, this world itself is mysterious.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let's just say I've had many experiences you wouldn't understand. More importantly, why are you so surprised when you haven't changed at all either?”
“...”
Only then did I notice that part of Aedia's body had turned crystal-like.
Was that the secret to extending her lifespan?
* * *
Did she just say Aedia? Holy Mother Aedia?
This was thousands of years before 1897, yet Holy Mother Aedia already existed. She was even well acquainted with Yumi and Seung-yeop's party.
In short, Aedia originated in Ancient Egypt.
* * *
“Aedia, you came alone without even an escort?”
“Do we need such things between us?”
What kind of relationship did we have?
Dumbfounded, I ordered the entire nest to subdue her.
Tentacles closed in from every direction, binding Aedia in an instant.
“...”
That was too easy, wasn't it?
She had survived a thousand years through some unknown means, so I'd expected absurd combat ability. Yet she was captured far too easily.
She hadn't even pretended to resist, so I couldn't tell how strong she was.
“Wow! How fascinating. The whole cave is like the stomach of some living creature. So this is what a witch's lair is like? I'd only heard about it.”
“...”
“It was a good thing I left my attendants behind. If I'd brought them, they might've died without even knowing what happened. Human lives are precious, after all.”
Aedia's attitude went beyond being relaxed. It was as though all tension had been stripped from her, leaving me bewildered.
Listening to her, I could almost mistake her for a friend.
I gave her neck a slight squeeze.
“Cough! Cough! I can't breathe! Let me go.”
“What is this, Aedia? Did you really come here intending to die?”
“Then go ahead and kill me. For the record, I don't age, but I'm not immortal. Cut off my head, and I'll die.”
“...”
The silent standoff continued.
Aedia went limp without resisting, as if daring me to kill her, and I didn't know what to do.
Then her attitude subtly changed.
The playful girl's mask slipped away, revealing someone filled with resentment and emptiness.
“I wondered if that was it, and it really was.”
“...”
“You can't kill me, can you?”
“...”
“Because Horus saved me a thousand years ago. There must've been a reason he saved me!”
Even now, I didn't know why Horus had spared the lizard princess.
That was why I still couldn't kill Aedia.
I was afraid of going against Horus's orders.
No matter how much time passed, he remained impossible to understand.
“I suspected it, but it was true. Horus saved me. Why? Why would he?”
“...”
“You don't know, do you? Even you don't know. You just obey him without knowing? Are you afraid of him? Do you think he'll cast you into hell if you disobey him?”
A firm voice came from behind me.
“Don't say weird things. Bro... Horus isn't that kind of person!”
“Then what kind of person is he?”
For a moment, Seung-yeop and I were both speechless.
What kind of being was he?
Why was I afraid of him, unable to go against his instructions?
“...”
Was I afraid he would kill me if I disobeyed?
That he would cast me into hell and torture me forever?
No.
I didn't think of Ga-in as fondly as Seung-yeop did, but I knew he wasn't someone who would kill or torture me simply for disobeying him.
He would probably just smile and say, “It's okay. That can happen.”
Instead, he would lower his opinion of me, Yumi, in his heart.
I was afraid that the chess player on the Gate Train would see me not as a bishop or knight, but as a pawn.
“Will you put me down?”
“... Fine.”
Now that it was clear I couldn't harm Aedia anyway, there was no point in keeping her tied up.
Aedia spoke again shortly afterward.
“Hello? Wow! I didn't expect Seung-yeop to be here too. Huh? Don't tell me this atmosphere means...”
“Ah! Ah! D-Don't misunderstand!”
“Ah, so I've got it wrong? Yumi and Seung-yeop aren't in that kind of relationship? You just happen to be living together in a cave for a thousand years for no particular reason?”
“Aah! Aah!”
Seeing Seung-yeop turn bright red while Aedia put the playful girl's mask back on, I could only let out a hollow laugh.
“By the way, where is the Immortal Sarcophagus? You are keeping it, aren't you?”
“...”
There was no need to tell her where the sarcophagus was.
* * *
I never expected this to be why Yumi was afraid of Ga-in.
She was afraid he might see her as a pawn rather than a bishop or knight...
Right, then what does the chess champion think of me?
...
Come on! What else could I be? Obviously a queen!
* * *
I didn't know what Aedia truly felt beneath that mask, but at least on the surface, she didn't seem particularly emotional.
Had she buried the past as though it had never happened?
Burying the past like that should have made her harder to trust, but that wasn't what she had done.
“Let's be honest with each other. Put a hand on your chest.”
“...”
“Put your hand there. I've already done it.”
“Huh? We really have to put our hands on our chests?”
“Yes.”
Seung-yeop really did place his hand on his chest, looking puzzled.
“Yumi too.”
“... I have no idea what kind of show this is.”
“We aren't comfortable with each other, are we?”
“...”
“You slaughtered my ancestors and my people, while I was driven out under everyone's curse.”
Seung-yeop and I could only remain silent with awkward expressions.
“For a long time, I boiled with resentment. Take revenge. Burn Egypt. Kill the evil god Horus and all his servants. Those thoughts consumed my soul.”
Unable to hold back any longer, Seung-yeop quietly placed a hand over his sword hilt.
The atmosphere was so tense that it wouldn't have been strange for a sword to fly at any moment.
“Pfft!”
The next instant, Aedia's light laughter shattered the tension.
“I got over all that about eight hundred years ago. You two have spent more time asleep than awake, so I don't know whether you'll understand what I mean, but there are no eternal emotions in this world.”
To be honest, I understood her the moment I heard it.
I had gone through the same process.
My obsession with Egypt and desire for power, which had felt eternal, had nearly faded in just a hundred years.
Aedia didn't even seem to have gone into Hibernation, so she had spent a full thousand years awake.
* * *
A thousand years awake without Hibernation...
Surely that was long enough for even the resentment of having one's parents killed to grow faint.
That didn't mean she had completely forgotten her grudge.
It only meant that she was no longer swayed by those emotions.
Wasn't forgetting said to be the greatest blessing given to humans?
An emotion that never fades is itself something supernatural.
Like my love.
* * *
“Please help me. Don't think of it as helping me. Think of it as helping the people who are suffering.”
“You suddenly want our help?”
“I wouldn't call it payment, but if you help this time, I'll forget the grudge from the past. Just like that! I'll never mention it again.”
As Seung-yeop and I stared in surprise, Aedia added a touch of threat.
“Isn't it tiring for you to remain enemies with me? You can't kill me, after all.”
“Are you threatening us?”
“Yes. If you don't help me this time, I'll grit my teeth and torment you for a thousand years. I'll shove wild boar shit into this strange cave three times a day, throw in burning logs, spread rumors outside that it's filled with gold nuggets...”
Listening to the strangely realistic threats, Seung-yeop quickly spoke up.
“Wait, wait! Calm down. J-Just give us some time to talk it over.”
“Fine. I'll leave you to it.”
After Aedia left, Seung-yeop and I sighed and looked at each other.
“What is this supposed to be? Ugh! Ga-in, seriously! If only he'd just dealt with her back then!”
Why had Ga-in spared that girl?
There was no point blaming him now.
“Let's stop talking about pointless things. What will you do? Help her?”
“... The situation itself did sound serious.”
The facts were simple.
Aedia said that around seven hundred years ago, she had built a city on the Iberian Peninsula, future Spain, and had ruled there as the city's goddess ever since.
Then, around twenty years ago, nightmare-like phenomena began occurring every day, and innocent people started dying.
According to what Aedia had learned through her own investigation, the cause was surprisingly the massive Mirror found beneath the city.
“Is it some kind of haunted Mirror?”
“She says there's a bizarre world beyond the Mirror. From the description, it sounds like a door to another world.”
“No matter how many human soldiers are sent, it's useless, and Aedia isn't confident she can handle it alone... Yumi, what should we do?”
“You choose.”
“You know I don't have Luck.”
“Watching you all this time, I've realized that aside from your Blessing, you have a strangely good instinct. So just pick.”
“... Let's help her.”
I knew he would say that.
It didn't affect me that much, but the fact that innocent people were being slaughtered by strange phenomena every day seemed to matter to Seung-yeop.
Setting ethics aside, Aedia's threat was also fairly vicious.
An Aedia who neither aged nor died, whom we couldn't kill because of Ga-in, eternally interrupting our Hibernation?
That wouldn't be easy to deal with.
* * *
Yumi's memories passed by in an instant.
She seemed to have forgotten unimportant scenes here and there, such as how they had reached the Iberian Peninsula.
Or perhaps, as a fragment of Yumi, those memories simply weren't there.
Soon, three people stood before the gloomy entrance to ruins leading beneath the city.
At this point, Seung-yeop didn't have Luck.
* * *
“Let's go in!”
“Aedia.”
“Seung-yeop? Go ahead.”
“Are just the three of us going in? I thought you might bring at least a few city guards.”
Aedia lightly shook her head.
“They would be useless, and they'd only get in the way.”
“...”
“I've told you many times, haven't I? Ordinary humans go mad and start rampaging before they can even get close to the Mirror.”
“That's true, but...”
According to Aedia, reaching the Mirror itself was easy.
The path simply wound downward, and there were no forks.
There weren't even any horrific monsters along the way.
So there was only one problem: the unidentified Mirror causing all kinds of strange phenomena.
“... Aedia. You said you'd seen the Mirror once, didn't you?”
“I am the only one who has seen the Mirror and returned unharmed.”
Watching Aedia smile brightly, I thought to myself.
An eerie Mirror that ordinary humans couldn't even approach.
She said she was the only one to see it and return unharmed.
...
Was she really unharmed?
* * *
A Mirror, huh...
Come to think of it, apparently when Lucas summoned an Outer God called Yaldabaoth, a doorway to another world appeared as well.
It was said to resemble a gigantic mirror.
Could they be related?
No, wouldn't it be stranger if they weren't related in this context?
Was this the result of research Aedia and Yumi had conducted in their respective domains after finding the Mirror?
I needed to see more.
For an instant, Yumi's judgment about the Mirror flashed through my mind.
‘The cause and answer to every problem in the world.’
Footnotes:
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