WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 512: Room 207, Gate Room - Third Trial ‘Miskatonic University’ (14)
──────
- Kim Mook-seong
When I arrived at the university, I heard Sophia’s clear shout.
“Eternal winter descends. Freeze!”
A moment later, Sophia poured every last bit of mana into her spell. Fortuna, who had been standing in midair, froze solid and fell.
If it had been a human, they would have either frozen to death or died from the fall. To that monster, though, it would probably only buy us a few seconds!
A-ri had taken a heavy blow in the meantime and was lying on the ground, blood running from the corner of her mouth.
She seemed to be recovering through the power of Old Blood. Before long, she forced herself upright through the pain.
Soon, A-ri brought her hands together and focused. Semitransparent barriers rose from every direction, surrounding the fallen Fortuna.
“Did it work?”
“No. It’s just buying us some time. A few minutes at most.”
“Ghk...!”
“More importantly, Mook-seong, something’s strange.”
“What?”
“Seung-yeop’s current condition.”
“...”
I was stunned.
Fortuna was Seung-yeop?
Maybe it was obvious to A-ri, who had even searched through Yumi’s memories, but it was far too shocking for me!
Naturally, A-ri was recovering her body with Old Blood while using the Irregular Polyhedron to contain Fortuna. She didn’t have the spare energy to explain it nicely.
“It’s strange. Seung-yeop belongs to the first Party, so he shouldn’t be able to use his Blessing. How is he using Luck? And...”
“And?”
“The power to resurrect. The more I think about it, the stranger that is too. Even if he has the Soul Box, it doesn’t make sense.”
I understood what A-ri was pointing out.
“I remember. If you die after placing your soul in the Soul Box, you only become a sort of Wraith that wanders the world. It can’t regenerate your body.”
The Soul Box itself had no ability to regenerate flesh.
If it did, the Phantom Demon would never have needed to create the Soul-Shifting Demon Art and move between countless bodies. Yumi of the past would not have suffered so much trying to create a body, either.
“If what you’re saying is true, Seung-yeop must’ve lived for a damn long time. Didn’t he learn magic from Yumi?”
“I don’t think so. The Seung-yeop I saw in those memories had no intention of learning magic. More than that...”
I understood what she was about to say.
“He isn’t using it even now. If he could use magic, he would’ve used it offensively already. He’s only using martial arts. He only uses magic at the moment of resurrection?”
Listening to A-ri, I noticed another strange detail.
“Come to think of it, the way he uses Luck is different from before too.”
“Right. Before, it only made him lucky. I don’t think it had the power to cause misfortune to an enemy from such a long distance.”
The more I thought about it, the more I agreed with A-ri.
Fortuna’s power was strange somehow.
Say Seung-yeop’s powers were A, B, and C.
At first glance, Fortuna seemed to use A, B, and C. Yet to companions who knew those powers well, it felt like Fortuna was using a, b, and c, or something entirely different.
“I feel like I almost understand. So...”
“A-ri.”
I firmly gripped pale-faced A-ri’s shoulder and stressed my words.
“You seem caught up in complicated thoughts, but sometimes you find the answer by looking at things simply.”
“Tell me.”
“The solution to the third trial. You know the condition, and I know it too. We kill the boss.”
“Right.”
In the end, the most important question was who the boss was.
“At first, I thought that thing, Fortuna, was the boss. But think about it. Has Fortuna ever threatened the world?”
“Uh...”
“Has Fortuna ever targeted us?”
“...”
“You heard Sophia. Fortuna killed Eun-sol. He probably killed Elena too. Which means...”
“Fortuna was the boss of the second trial.”
Ever since appearing, Fortuna had only been obsessed with hunting Chaos Entities. He had never acted like an enemy of the world.
He had not come after Kim Mook-seong and Kim A-ri, either.
His target was Miskatonic University. We had only happened to be inside it.
More than anything, he was the boss of the second trial.
How could the second and third trials have the same boss?
If they were the same, then defeating Fortuna in the second trial would mean the third trial had no boss!
“... Fortuna was the boss the second Party failed to defeat. That’s why he remained and has been running wild until now.”
Then who was the boss of the third trial?
As if it had been waiting, a voice cursed the entire world.
“Aaaah! In the end, there is only one answer. There is only one salvation for this wretched world!”
“Lucas! Please...!”
Sophia turned toward the dean in horror, and I heard the ominous spell I had already heard once before.
I understood his motive.
The Holy See’s logic was the kind that could never be accepted by the few who were sacrificed, and he was someone who had lost everything to the Holy See.
Still, whatever his reasons, he was a mad archmage trying to summon an Outer God not once, but twice!
“To one who is truly great, the distinction between beginning and end is...”
For fuck’s sake! Again?
The instant I sighed and summoned One More Chance, a pale hand seized my arm.
“Don’t use it. Go to Lucas and tell him I still have one move left, so he should put off self-destructing.”
“There’s no way he’ll be persuaded...”
“If it fails, turn back time then! There’s one last thing I want to try.”
“What do you want to try?”
“I need to see what state Seung-yeop is in. Tell Lucas to use the power he was going to use to self-destruct and weaken Fortuna, even if it’s only for a moment!”
“... All right.”
Surprisingly, Lucas accepted the suggestion and changed the spell.
The old man tightly gripped something glowing strangely in his hand.
“Priests of Horus! For the sake of my master, who sought Horus until the end, I shall listen to you once. But Fortuna is an immortal being. What meaning is there in suppressing him for a moment?”
* * *
...
...
...
--- Click, clack! Click-clack!
“Argh! Follow up when I go in!”
This was seriously pissing me off.
If I flashed in and used my ultimate to engage, shouldn’t they immediately follow up?
They were all useless idiots, so I was always stuck in Platinum...
“Seung-yeop, are you having fun?”
“Huh?”
The moment I turned my head, my breath caught.
Black hair that swayed at her waist and scarlet eyes that looked as if they had formed from gathered drops of blood.
She didn’t seem like someone from this world. I couldn’t breathe.
“W-w-who are you?”
“That’s cruel. You don’t recognize your own older sister?”
“S-sister? I’m an only child...”
“Really? Are you sure? Do you remember correctly?”
“...”
I was confused.
I was an only child, but maybe I wasn’t.
Most of my memories involving my family were vague.
“Are you really my sister? Uh, so, your name is...”
“I’m Park A-ri.”
The stunning girl claiming to be my older sister suddenly reached out and pointed at the monitor.
“Is this really so fun?”
“Huh?”
“But didn’t you make a mistake just now, Seung-yeop?”
“...”
What did you just say?
“Um, I don’t really know this game, but you and your teammates were too far apart. Even if you think it’s a good time to start a fight, when your teammates are far away...”
“You...”
“Huh?”
“What do you know! What do you know about League?”
“Uh, Seung-yeop. I’m definitely your older sister...”
“Sister or not, don’t backseat me when you don’t know anything about League!”
“???”
I calmed down, took hold of A-ri noona, and slowly explained.
The right moment to start a fight was, by nature, a cross section of time, something that appeared and vanished again and again in an instant.
It was the single opportunity caught within the current of time, forever flowing like a river.
Pouring one’s entire life into that moment was the pinnacle of martial arts...
“W-wasn’t this about a game just now? Why are you suddenly talking about the pinnacle of martial arts?”
“Do you really know nothing, noona? Don’t you know that the principles of all things converge at the highest level? Haven’t you heard the saying, ‘All paths return to one’?”
“I don’t think even the Greatest Martial Artist Under Heaven would say the pinnacle of martial arts and League are the same thing.”
“I’m the Greatest Martial Artist Under Heaven! Me! So I’m right!”
“Wow... Why does that sound like nonsense, but also somehow make sense?”
I had no choice but to sit noona in front of the computer and teach her everything one by one.
Around twenty minutes later, A-ri noona muttered with an empty expression.
“You’ve forgotten how many family members you have, but you remember only things like this in your subconscious...”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing. Seung-yeop, do you want to watch a movie with noona?”
“A movie? What movie?”
“I’ll look one up!”
Noona lightly took my hand, then used her other hand to tap on the keyboard and search for a movie.
...
Suddenly, I heard someone’s cold and merciless voice.
‘Come to your senses. An intruder is attacking our mind.’
This was the lucid reason I had gained upon reaching the extreme of the Mind-Splitting Art, a power that protected me from sinister forces that toyed with the mind.
‘The action of typing on a keyboard or searching the internet has no meaning. The place the intruder is truly searching is our memories.’
“You! How did you...”
“Thinking about it again, didn’t Seung-yeop make a mistake earlier? Your teammates were far away...”
No!
No, no, no, no, no!
Why was this noona so unbelievably irritating?
“Seriously! I explained everything!”
“And that backdoor afterward was awful. That was practically why you lost, wasn’t it?”
“... I told you, it wasn’t a backdoor. It was macro play...”
I was furious.
I was so angry that my entire body trembled!
Thanks to that, I no longer had any idea what that lucid reason was supposed to be!
“The Mind-Splitting Art isn’t much. Found it.”
“Noona, how many times do I have to explain this... Found what?”
A-ri noona smiled and pointed at the title of a movie.
‘The First Meeting of the Black Knight and the Holy Mother: Nitocris’s Mirror’
...
* * *
- Kim Mook-seong
--- Twitch!
A-ri, who had been sleeping deathly still, slowly woke up.
Fortuna looked ready to run wild at any moment, so I shouted urgently.
“A-ri, what happened? You found a way to deal with Fortuna, right?”
The black-haired, red-eyed girl stared at the sky with a dazed expression.
“I asked what happened?”
“... The Mirror.”
“What?”
“I think I know what kind of artifact the Mirror is. I think I know what state Seung-yeop is in, too.”
“Don’t keep it to yourself. Tell me too!”
A-ri made a complicated expression for a moment before asking a strange question.
“Do you remember the Management Bureau’s theory about the world?”
“What? Why bring that up now...”
“There are no parallel worlds. We live in a single universe that vibrates endlessly.”
I was startled.
There was no one around who would understand that. Sophia was only tilting her head.
This was one of the Management Bureau’s greatest secrets!
“A-ri, why are you suddenly saying this...”
“When Hotel Cinema ended, the Hotel supposedly promised Ga-in that it would give him an ending he could be satisfied with. What do you think that meant?”
Her thoughts were scattered, and the topics of conversation leapt all over the place.
She would discuss A, then suddenly talk about B, then mention C before I could even understand.
“What’s really wrong with you?”
“A thought just occurred to me. What color is the sky?”
The same thought occurred to me.
Had A-ri entered the memories of the insane Seung-yeop and gone insane herself?
“... Blue.”
“What color is blue?”
“A-ri, this isn’t the time for this...”
I was confused.
A-ri was too bizarre to seem sane, yet there was a logic to her words that made it hard to call her insane.
The old man, the dean, hurried over from a distance.
“What happened? Fortuna is still fine. He’ll wake up soon! Even if we kill him, he will resurrect. What are we supposed to do? You clearly said you could stop that thing...”
A-ri gave a simple answer to the dean, who was consumed by despair and fear.
“I can.”
“... What?”
A-ri soon stood and approached the dean.
“If exactly one person dies today, every problem can be solved.”
The old man tilted his head.
“You found a way to kill Fortuna? Ho...! As expected of Horus’s...”
--- Slash!
That was the end of Dean Lucas.
Until the instant an invisible sword beheaded him, he had never imagined A-ri would ambush him.
Of course, neither had anyone else there.
“Aah!”
“Eek!”
Sophia screamed like a child.
Beside her, I was just as shocked as Sophia!
No, even if she was going to kill the dean, she could have told me first!
No matter how I looked at it, A-ri had gone insane.
I should just use One More Chance and...
“It’s okay.”
“...”
“Mook-seong, calm down. It’s really okay. We’ve almost cleared the third trial now.”
We had almost cleared the trial?
A-ri stretched out her hand and opened the dean’s tightly clenched fist. A shard of glass giving off an eerie light appeared.
Smiling, A-ri took the shard into her hand.
Amid the confusion, the Black Knight rose to his feet behind us.
This was clearly a desperate crisis. Lucas, who had suppressed Fortuna with forbidden magic, was dead. If I didn’t turn back time, we were all going to die!
Yet as if she could not even see Fortuna behind her, A-ri looked at me and continued the questions from before.
“I keep thinking this.”
“A-ri...”
“All of us live inside boxes created by our own cognitive abilities. Could the blue you see really be exactly the same as the blue I see?”
The single vibrating universe.
The Hotel’s promise to Ga-in.
The boxes created by each person’s perception.
Nitocris’s Mirror.
I felt like I vaguely understood A-ri’s realization.
At the same time, I understood nothing.
--- Bzzzz!
At that moment, the shard of glass glowed ominously.
Footnotes:
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