WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 511: Room 207, Gate Room - Third Trial ‘Miskatonic University’ (13)
──────
“Son! Shouldn't you eat?”
“I put the food on a plate! I'll leave it in front of your door.”
“Please, come out of your room.”
Sometimes, I dream.
It is a dream about my oldest First Memory.
According to what the Holy Mother told me, it was probably a dream about my parents.
It was a precious memory. It meant that I, too, had ordinary parents who cherished and loved me.
...
Little by little, that happy memory scattered like dust.
Like a flower rooted deep in my heart slowly withering away...
At some point, I could no longer remember Mother's face.
At some point, I could no longer remember Father's voice.
...
Nightmares of a grotesque world gradually filled the void left by that beautiful memory.
A hellish world full of monsters imitating humans.
According to the Holy Mother, this world had originally belonged to humans as well.
Before monsters from a distant land beyond the Void stole their place.
“P-Please spare me!”
“Argh! Please, please-”
“Y-You monster! This is just a university. A university!”
Disgusting.
Everything was disgusting, but what disgusted me most was their attitude.
Even as they died, they believed themselves to be human.
Think about it.
They had lived peacefully with their families until monsters from beyond the Void killed every human and wore their skins.
Then, to ease their guilty consciences, they began to believe, “I am human.”
Disgust, hatred, fury, malice, every negative emotion I could feel boiled within me.
That was why I did not pity them.
「Wake up.」
?
「Wake up, Hero.」
Ah...
For a while now, I had been lost in thought, as if floating somewhere, and only now realized my situation.
I was dead.
I had died once and was in the process of resurrecting.
While fighting to reclaim the stolen world, I seemed to have been ambushed by a mage who had reached a lofty realm.
Ordinary magic could not harm me, but this power had used the Mirror. Even I had no choice but to be brought down by it once.
That was no great problem.
I had infinite chances.
...
My vision slowly brightened.
My eyes had regenerated.
An old monster trembled before me.
An excited voice reached me.
My ears had regenerated.
I heard the old monster's curse.
“You bastard! Do you know where you have come? No matter how strong you are, Miskatonic University is my spiritual ground! I have no equal on this land, and-”
--- Shing!
If my long life had taught me anything, it was that conversation was unnecessary for many problems.
If conversation was necessary, a conversation of steel would be enough.
I was Fortuna.
* * *
- Kim A-ri
--- Creak! Clank!
What was that sound? An ambush?
I was defenseless while reading Yumi Fragment's memories, so I had asked Mook-seong and Sophia to guard the surroundings!
“Phew...”
Just as I tensed and prepared to fight.
--- Bang!
“A-ri, you're awake?”
“Mook-seong? Where did you go? I thought you'd be beside me.”
“Kuh...! Come out first! Things outside are a complete mess!”
Mook-seong must have been in a terrible hurry. He said only that before rushing straight back outside.
Before following him, I looked behind me.
“Yumi.”
Yumi, or Yumi Fragment, who had given me valuable information, had grown quiet and wore a dazed expression.
As if this was all she had needed to do...
“Yumi, you did well. You really did.”
“...”
“Once we're outside, I'll treat you as a true companion from now on.”
I had nothing else to say.
* * *
According to Sophia, Yumi's Hibernation Nest had originally been in the Old World.
When they moved their base to the New World, they also relocated the Hibernation Nest to a forest near Miskatonic University. Judging by its size, it must have been quite an ordeal.
The moment I emerged into the forest outside the nest, I understood what Mook-seong had meant.
“What on earth is that aurora...?”
Pale green and blue light filled the entire sky!
Before I could marvel for long, Mook-seong shouted urgently.
“I think Lucas has caused trouble! Sophia already left.”
“Trouble?”
“Something about using a forbidden secret art-”
A forbidden secret art.
It must have been something similar to what had summoned Yaldabaoth before time was turned back.
In the past, I would have wondered how Lucas, a disciple, could use such an absurdly powerful secret art when even Yumi herself seemingly could not.
Now, I could guess the source of that art.
Yumi had also obtained some of the Mirrors discovered beneath the ancient Iberian Peninsula. Wasn't this some ridiculous form of magic that had emerged from studying those Mirror Shards?
“... Lucas wouldn't run wild without reason. He cares about the university in his own way.”
Mook-seong, who had reached a similar conclusion, nodded.
“Fortuna, that bastard must be devastating the university. A-ri, you go ahead! I'll follow after you!”
“Okay.”
I immediately used the power of the Wing Boots to lift myself into the air.
* * *
While flying toward Miskatonic University, I spotted Sophia, who was moving slower than I was.
“Sophia!”
“A-ri, you're awake!”
I quickly asked her a question.
“You can probably guess it, but Fortuna must have appeared at the university.”
“I-Is that your precognition too? You saw the future-”
“... Yes.”
It was a hassle to explain, so I would call it prophecy.
“Talk while we move. Be as specific as possible about Fortuna's abilities!”
“O-Okay. Fortuna is an entity that controls luck, as the name suggests. When you fight him, he is bizarrely lucky-”
“Luck?”
“Huh?”
“... Go on.”
Luck? Was it just me, or did Seung-yeop immediately come to mind?
“On top of that, he inflicts absurd misfortune on his enemies-”
--- Cawww!
In the middle of our conversation, a flock of crows suddenly swooped down on Sophia and me.
Fortunately, Sophia immediately waved a hand and drove them off.
“That is an example of the misfortune! Stay alert. Stranger things will happen as we go!”
“... Keep explaining.”
“Next, he's a kind of knight.”
“A knight? The kind that wears armor and swings a sword?”
“That kind of knight. The difference from an ordinary knight is that he runs one hundred meters in three seconds and splits buildings apart with a single swing of his sword.”
That was physical strength comparable to Cha Jin-cheol.
“He can also do all sorts of strange things, like stepping on the sky and jumping. But his most important power is immortality!”
Immortality.
The Soul Box had offered no protection as Yumi was split into hundreds of pieces.
The two disciples who had desperately tried to restore Yumi had never even seen the Soul Box.
If Seung-yeop was the current user of the Soul Box, it was easy to explain.
Luck, martial arts, and immortality!
Having heard this much, my suspicion turned to certainty.
If only one thing matched, perhaps they could be different beings. But could they be different when all three matched?
“Park Seung-yeop...”
“Huh?”
Why was Seung-yeop on their side?
Was it connected to the memories I had just seen from Yumi?
Had he been twisted after being exposed to the Mirror's power while trying to protect Yumi?
As all kinds of questions surfaced at once, the most fundamental one came to me.
“How?”
“A-ri, did you realize something?”
“How is he using a Blessing?”
“What?”
I could not understand.
Twisted or not, the real Seung-yeop in Yumi's memories could not use his Blessing either!
The companions from the first trial had their Blessings sealed and could only use Inheritances.
Yumi's very existence was proof of that.
Therefore, it was not strange that he could use the Soul Box.
But a Blessing?
There was no way to explain that.
“We're almost there!”
There was one last thing I needed to ask Sophia.
“Sophia, do you know what the Immortal Sarcophagus is?”
Her eyes widened.
“H-How do you know about that-”
“Then you know. We can talk about the details later.”
Now was the time to fight, not lose myself in thought.
* * *
When we reached the skies above the university, an enormous battle was raging below.
A grotesque monster that brought to mind a demon from Hell was unleashing horrifying roars.
Facing it was a jet-black knight clad in full armor, who was cutting off the demon's horns with a blazing red sword even now.
Looking at this scene, it would have seemed as though a righteous Holy Knight was subduing a fallen sorcerer who had summoned a demon.
Come to think of it, the Holy See probably believed that was exactly what was happening.
“Lucas!”
The dean, who seemed to have aged twenty years in a short time, only turned his head slightly to confirm Sophia's arrival.
In the meantime, I approached Fortuna while gauging the maximum range of the Irregular Polyhedron.
Hup!
As I took a deep breath and stretched out a hand, I soon felt a heavy weight on my palm.
It was my Inheritance, the Irregular Polyhedron, radiating a dark crimson brilliance.
Sorry, Seung-yeop, but I'm going to stab you once.
In an instant, my heightened senses perceived something beyond human cognition. Space itself.
In an instant, an incorporeal hand born from my Spirituality shaped an invisible wall.
In an instant, a spear no shield could block cleaved through empty air.
Just as I was about to split Fortuna in two.
--- Whoooom!
A sudden sandstorm obscured my vision and threw off my aim.
“...”
Instead of his body being split apart, the armor covering Fortuna's right shoulder fell away. He turned a murderous gaze toward me.
I was bizarrely unlucky.
“... So this is what bad luck feels like.”
--- Crash!
Sensing the threat, Fortuna rushed at me like lightning.
The first thought that came to me was that I could not fight on the ground.
Fortuna surpassed me in both speed and strength.
The moment I floated upward, Fortuna pursued me by “stepping” on empty air, just as Sophia had warned.
“Void Stepping!”
Wasn't that a legendary realm even by Room 205's Absolute Master standards?
Once more, I unleashed the strike I had arbitrarily named Spatial Slash at Fortuna.
My blade itself was a severance of space, so it had no physical form.
I thought it was a perfect assassination technique, one that could neither be seen nor heard!
Sway!
Fortuna, floating in the air, twisted his body like a carp swimming upstream through a waterfall, then evaded Spatial Slash with a strange movement.
Was that just because he was lucky too?
Or was there some ridiculous theory that an Absolute Master could perceive even the distortion of space?
“Argh!”
What mattered was not how. He had avoided it!
I hurriedly retreated, but even the Wing Boots could not shake off Fortuna's pursuit.
I quickly extended both hands, creating a horizontal wall this time and cutting off the space between Fortuna, who had reached right in front of me, and myself.
“Ah! Seung-yeop, being this close to each other is a little-”
As if he had not even heard me, the jet-black knight suddenly reached out.
What? Was he going to break the spatial barrier with a punch?
No, no matter how skilled a Martial World master was, this was not something he could break with his fists-
The moment his slowly approaching hand lightly tapped the severed space.
--- Boom!
A thunderous boom, like the ringing of a bell, struck my body with tremendous force.
“...!”
Tremendous pain, as though my organs had twisted, and the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth.
This was...
Strike the Ox Across the Mountain? Hundred-Pace Divine Fist?
“A-ri!”
Sophia, who had arrived a moment later, caught me. The exchange had lasted less than ten seconds, so she was not truly late.
It seemed I still had a chance.
...
There was no way to defeat Fortuna fighting “like this.”
What should I do?
Footnotes:
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