Escaping the Mystery Hotel - Chapter 511

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 510: Room 207, Gate Room - Third Trial ‘Miskatonic University’ (12)

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The ruins beneath the city that Aedia claimed to have built seven hundred years ago.

Their overall structure resembled a tower extending deep underground, and just as Aedia had said, there was no particular danger.

We simply followed the gray path endlessly downward through the dark, stale air.

At first, everyone walked in silence, but after about thirty minutes, Seung-yeop couldn't hold back any longer.

“Aedia, we've been walking for thirty minutes already.”

“That's right.”

“Not ‘that's right.’ I said we've been walking for thirty minutes.”

“Are you tired?”

“No... That's not what I meant. Never mind.”

I understood what he had been trying to say.

At the moment, we were somewhere between 1500 and 2000 BC.

How had anyone in such ancient times built an enormous underground ruin that still showed no sign of a bottom after thirty minutes of descent?

It was a reasonable question, but what was the point of dwelling on it now? We were people from the future, and the girl before us was an alien.

On top of that, these ruins were beyond even that alien's understanding.

--- Click. Click.

Five more minutes passed before Aedia spoke again.

“Long ago, precisely 724 years ago, I gathered a primitive tribe.”

Was this from the time she had been building a city on the Iberian Peninsula?

“To be honest, at first, I planned to gather enough strength and invade Egypt immediately.”

“...”

“It was impossible. Did you know? Once you leave Egypt, there's nothing but a world of barbarians.”

“...”

“Far from gathering forces, I had to start by teaching people closer to apes than humans how to farm and make clothes. Well, I kept at it, and eventually it all worked out.”

Eventually, it all worked out.

Those simple words carried the full weight of the years Aedia had endured.

“Then, at some point, I realized something. The world we live in is very strange.”

“What?”

The world was strange?

Come to think of it, she had said something similar when we first met.

‘The greatest mystery of all is this world itself.’

Was that what she had said?

“About five hundred years ago, a man-eating boar devoured more than thirty members of a tribe.”

“A boar? Not a leopard or a lion, but a boar?”

“Yes. I was curious too, so I took skilled warriors and tracked it down. When we finally found the herd, what do you think I saw?”

“...”

“I found a herd of boars that ate human flesh and were transforming into people. The one that had changed the most was entirely human below the head.”

Seung-yeop frowned.

“Does that even make sense?”

“A boy who has stayed young for a thousand years, a Witch who uses magic, and an alien are all gathered in one place. Is a boar turning into a human really that strange?”

Seung-yeop fell silent.

“That isn't all. Around 320 years ago, a bird as large as a house appeared in the sky over the city. With a single thunderous cry, it burst the heads of twenty people, then carried off children to feed its chicks.”

“... Why are you telling us this?”

“This isn't meant to frighten you, so please listen a little longer.”

Neither Seung-yeop nor I would be frightened by stories like this.

We simply understood the meaning behind Aedia's first words.

The world we lived in was very strange.

“This happened more recently. About 160 years ago, glowing mushrooms began growing every night in the hills east of the city. Every night, people from the city went to pick those mushrooms and were eaten by wolves.”

“Mushrooms?”

“At first, I thought they were some sort of mushroom that caused hallucinations. I don't know if you know this, but some mushrooms have the power to beguile people.”

“I know there are mushrooms that work like drugs.”

“Drugs? I've never heard that word before, but it has a nice ring to it.”

I gave Seung-yeop a look, telling him not to casually reveal knowledge from the future.

Of course, I wasn't sure my warning would get through to Seung-yeop, who still had an immature, boyish side.

“Anyway, I thought burning the mushrooms would solve the problem, so I took skilled warriors and torches to where they grew.”

“Did another monster show up this time?”

“I wish it had been a monster!”

“... What was it, then?”

“The mushrooms were people. I named them Human Mushrooms.”

“W-what...?”

“Listen. When someone takes a bite of a Human Mushroom, spores enter their body and begin multiplying. During that process, the person feels incredible happiness.”

“Ugh!”

“As time passes, the host's skin splits apart and mushrooms grow from it. By then, people realize what is happening to them, but... it doesn't matter.”

“It doesn't matter?”

“By that stage, they have already become slaves to the pleasure the mushrooms give them. They keep eating, and eating, and eating, until they lose their strength and collapse near a mushroom colony. That is how new mushrooms are born.”

“That's horrible.”

“How do you think I responded?”

“You burned the mushroom colony.”

“That was the obvious part. But even if you burn the colony, the people who have eaten the mushrooms are still left, aren't they?”

“Uh... You gathered them and treated them?”

“Pfft!”

Instead of answering, Aedia gave a small laugh.

I thought I knew what choice she had ultimately made.

Mushrooms reproduced through spores.

By the time finger-sized fungal growths, what people commonly called the body of a mushroom, became visible, invisible spores had already spread across an area hundreds of times larger.

Burning the mushrooms alone would not solve the problem.

She had to eliminate every host that continuously scattered spores.

...

After silence filled the air, Seung-yeop realized the truth. With a sigh, he muttered, “Let me ask again. Why are you telling us such depressing stories?”

Instead of answering, Aedia began another story.

“I came to fully understand what it meant to rule a city. The responsibility of a ruler, perhaps.”

“The responsibility of a ruler?”

“If you pity about fifteen people infected with a plague and try to save them, two hundred people die because of them.”

“...”

“So all the infected must die. Not because the lives of ten people are light, but because the lives of two hundred are heavier.”

It was a story I had heard many times before.

Seung-yeop must have thought of something similar, because he wore a gloomy expression.

* * *

It felt strange hearing the Management Bureau's philosophy from someone else.

That woman, Holy Mother Aedia, was surely the founder of the Holy See.

Had she created the Holy See based on the lessons she learned while governing a city in ancient times?

When I meet her in person, I'll call her a great senior, as someone walking the same path.

* * *

After we had descended for nearly an hour, I finally sensed something strange.

There was no light here except the torches we had brought from the surface, yet the surroundings suddenly brightened without warning.

As Seung-yeop and I looked at one another warily, Aedia spoke again.

“We're almost there.”

“The place with the Mirror?”

“Yes.”

“... You said it was filled with incomprehensible madness. Should we prepare to fight?”

“Before that, would you listen to me one more time?”

“If you have something to say, say it. You did that earlier too.”

“Haha, that's true.”

Perhaps as a side effect of extending her life through unknown means, nearly thirty percent of Aedia's body had turned to crystal. She wore a dreamy expression.

“This may sound strange, but I wanted to become a king.”

“A king?”

“I wanted to build a kingdom greater than Egypt, which abandoned me, in a new land.”

“...”

Aedia had said she had let go of her desire for revenge against Egypt and ‘us’ around eight hundred years ago.

Perhaps she had half forgotten her resentment, but a kind of competitiveness remained.

‘I will create a kingdom greater than the one that abandoned me with my own hands.’

I vaguely understood that feeling.

“I wanted to become a good king. A king revered by all people. I wanted to become Nitocris, the queen of paradise, where everyone could live in peace without hunger.”

“Nitocris?”

“It's the name I use these days.”

“... It's a good name.”

“When I came to my senses, the one sitting on the throne was not a king, but a monster.”

“...”

“To save a hundred people, I burned five, drowned twenty, and hung thirty from poles.”

“Aedia...”

“Doesn't it ever end, no matter how many you kill? Just when I thought I had driven out the Human Mushrooms, a piper appeared. Once I drove the piper out, corpse worship spread.”

An indescribable despair radiated from Aedia.

Even I, who was somewhat insensitive to such emotions, was taken aback. Seung-yeop already looked as though he could barely breathe.

“When I came to my senses, there was no being who had killed more people than I had. People began calling me not a merciful king, but the goddess of death.”

What could I say to someone enduring, thousands of years ahead of time, the pain the distant future's Management Bureau bore?

Seung-yeop and I had long since cast aside even Egypt, telling it, ‘Fend for yourselves.’

“What should I do?”

* * *

What should she do?

Even the Management Bureau, a full three thousand years after the Holy Mother faced that dilemma, had not found an answer.

What we found, something too shameful to call an answer, was simple.

‘Do not think about such dilemmas in the first place.’

I too had believed this without wavering for a long time.

That was why Aedia's next words truly shocked me.

* * *

“Uh, um, do I have to answer? So, um, the internal contradiction you experience while sacrificing the few to save the many?”

“Stop with all the ‘um, um.’”

“Haha! Yumi, don't pressure Seung-yeop. It's a difficult question, so he might say um, um while trying to find an answer.”

“From now on, I'll just go mmph, mmph.”

“...”

For a moment, Aedia wore an expression that said, What on earth is he talking about?

Then she composed herself and continued.

“Shall I give another example? You arrive at a fork with three paths. You are wondering which path is right, only to learn that all three lead to Hell. The only difference is the kind of Hell. Which path should you choose?”

“You should choose the Hell that hurts the least...”

“That was the trap I fell into.”

“Huh?”

For the first time, I could not understand what Aedia meant.

“The answer is to leave the fork where every path leads to Hell. To remake the entire game from scratch.”

“What does that mean?”

“Ah, we're here.”

At that moment, a sincere smile, one I had never seen from her before, appeared on Aedia's face.

Behind the brightly smiling girl, the Mirror appeared.

...

The Mirror.

A convergence of infinite possibilities, bubbling up like foam.