WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 524: Room 207, Gate Room - Fourth Trial ‘The Fallen King’ (10)
──────
- Han Ga-in
To be honest, I was momentarily overwhelmed by the destructive force that had seized Seoul.
I could hear citizens screaming from every direction, along with the grim song produced by countless Chaos Entities.
If this had been a Curse Room, this would have been the point where I realized the attempt was doomed and started considering escape.
But this was Room 207, the Gate Room.
A place where escape did not exist and there was only one chance.
There was One More Chance, an Inheritance with an effect similar to a retry, but its owner had not joined us yet.
There was no time to consider impossible options.
I just had to choose from the possible ones!
“Min-a, you heard that call, right?”
“Th-that voice just now was Hong Go-hak, wasn’t it? I didn’t even open my phone, but-”
“Contact the Holy See and have them track his location. Track the call, use satellites, do whatever it takes!”
“You’re going to Hong Go-hak? E-even if we find his location, that’s a problem! There are monsters everywhere. They don’t seem able to enter this church for some reason, but if we go outside-”
“I can handle that part.”
“... Okay.”
While Min-a contacted the Holy See, I called someone too.
--- Ring-ring!
“You’ve checked the situation outside, right?”
「...」
“I want your help now. The location is the church entrance I told you about yesterday, so if you use a map app-”
「Joining you?」
“Not yet. Just kill the monsters around us from a distance.”
「- Click!」
I ended the call and looked over at Min-a. She was already coming toward me.
“I found him! He was so obvious that there wasn’t even any need to track him.”
“He was out in the open?”
“There’s a park on the way from here toward Yeouido-”
“If you know where it is, that’s enough! Can we get there on foot?”
“We have a car! Should we leave right away?”
“No, wait a moment.”
The monsters outside looked ready to rush in the instant we opened the church doors.
They had tried to drag the worshippers outside too. Could there be some kind of power protecting this church?
Then Min-a carefully asked, “Who were you talking to just now?”
“...”
“That person is going to deal with the monsters around us? Are they an ally? From what you explained yesterday-”
“It’s someone you know well too. You’ll meet them soon.”
“What?”
“I’ll explain soon. We’re busy right now, aren’t we? Let’s go.”
* * *
The entire time we ran to the parking lot, Min-a couldn’t hide her surprise, her eyes wide like a rabbit’s.
A thick fog rolled over the area, and the monsters trying to target us melted away one after another.
Honestly, I was just as surprised every moment.
Hadn’t they originally lacked this kind of power?
Was it a power gained after entering Room 207?
Since this trial had been going on for so long, unpredictable things like this could happen.
“The car keys!”
“Here!”
Time was running out, so I stepped on the accelerator without hesitation.
--- Vrooom!
I checked the location Min-a showed me on her phone-
--- Crash!
I swerved around the monsters rampaging everywhere, sometimes hitting a few of them-
--- Screech! Crunch!
I frowned as I watched a monster devour a citizen right in front of me-
--- Crash! S-save me!
At that point, Min-a finally snapped.
“Hey!”
“...”
“Do you think this is a bumper car? Why are you hitting every single thing on the way?”
“I-I’m doing my best.”
“Why the hell are you such a terrible driver? You said you’d been through everything!”
This was unfair.
I’d gone through all kinds of bullshit in the Hotel, but I’d barely ever had to drive a car!
Even if I spent a hundred or two hundred years rolling around in prehistoric times, that wouldn’t improve my driving skills. What was I supposed to do?
--- Honk! Honk!
“Why are you honking? You think man-eating clowns will move aside because they hear a horn?”
“I-it was just a habit!”
“Is stepping on the accelerator instead of the brake also a habit?”
“...”
Come to think of it, getting into the driver’s seat had been a mistake.
But think about it.
I was getting into a car while making plans complicated enough to make my head explode, and the person beside me was a high school girl.
Ninety-nine point nine percent of adult men would naturally get into the driver’s seat in that situation!
And Min-a had gotten into the passenger seat as though it were only natural too-
“Move! Just move!”
“...”
--- Whoosh!
By then, Seoul was being battered by wind and rain.
The road, filled with swaying human figures, looked like something out of a nightmare.
A security vehicle carrying a Holy See girl who didn’t even know what she was, and a young man who could see the future but often mixed up the accelerator and brake, crossed the grim streets.
* * *
By the time we reached the desolate park, I knew the Holy See’s information had been correct.
Hong Go-hak was not hiding his location at all.
As I approached, I wondered how things had gotten this strange.
“...”
At first, when I knew nothing, I had planned to steal the Sacred Sun that the Church of Horus leadership supposedly possessed.
After entering the Cult, I learned that the Horus they worshipped was me. I thought there would be no need to fight.
That was why I changed my short-term goal to securing the Kingdom of Dreams halfway through.
Given the circumstances, my companions must have established the Church of Horus. If I contacted them, I thought the Church of Horus would naturally fall into my hands as well.
Once I had the Cult, wouldn’t the Sacred Sun naturally end up in my hands too?
So I had been handling things step by step, when Hong Go-hak suddenly started rampaging like a lunatic!
“...”
When I connected with Hong Go-hak, I vaguely sensed it.
There was a bizarre distortion deep in his heart.
“Bishop. Why are you doing this?”
The old man clasped both hands politely and spoke.
“What have I done?”
“...”
“If you are shocked by Seoul’s tragedy, I can only say that I have revealed the truth.”
“What?”
“The Holy See has deceived everyone with its crude Veil for countless years. Lies always come to an end.”
I felt as though I understood what he meant, yet I didn’t.
If I had to interpret it, Seoul had already become hell for some reason, and the Holy See seemed to have concealed that tragedy with a powerful miracle.
Had Hong Go-hak punched a finger-sized hole in a solid dam and destroyed the balance in one stroke?
“Even if everything you said is true, you’re the one who brought down the Veil.”
“It is an illusion that would have collapsed one day anyway. Today is only the beginning.”
“What-”
“The Holy See knows as well. That foolish wretch behind you may know nothing, but the Holy Mother, Aedia, cowering in Spain, knows.”
I closed my mouth and waited.
It seemed the bishop was about to say something meaningful.
“...”
“...”
Five seconds of silence, long or short depending on how you looked at it.
Then Hong Go-hak suddenly laughed.
“H-ha ha! What did you think of that imitation just now?”
“... An imitation?”
“Didn’t it seem as though I knew every secret in the world? Wasn’t it a fairly convincing pretense?”
“...”
“Lord Horus.”
At last, that name came out.
I did not deny it to the priest who called me Horus.
“I served Pontiff Sophia for many years, and she had a strange habit.”
“...”
“When someone asked her a question, she never gave a clear answer. She enjoyed riddles and speaking indirectly.”
“...”
“Thanks to that, many people believed Sophia was all the more mysterious and secretive. But I came to realize something else.”
“What did you realize?”
“Ah! This person is human too! She doesn’t speak clearly because she doesn’t know the exact answer herself, and she enjoys riddles because that’s how she ensnares others with her cleverness.”
“...”
“Am I wrong?”
The more I listened, the less wrong he sounded. It was a little funny too.
I had not met her yet, but Pontiff Sophia’s behavior vaguely resembled the Owl’s.
“That makes sense. When my knowledge isn’t perfect but I want to intimidate someone, a little bluffing is necessary.”
“I see!”
“So, Hong Go-hak, are you going to imitate Sophia from now on?”
“Ha ha, may I not?”
He wasn’t even the Owl, yet he wanted to play at riddles with half-baked information?
--- Flutter!
When the Grimoire, radiating an ominous aura, appeared, the old man smiled as though disappointed.
“It seems you need power to imitate a god after all.”
--- Screeeech!
Once again, I felt an indescribably unpleasant sensation.
Bizarre thoughts repeating without end swallowed my mind!
Asquareinsideasquareinsideasquareinsideasquareinsideasquare.
Corneredcircularmotioncorneredcircularmotioncorneredcircle.
Amanseesthroughthesoapscentofthebloodvesselsthroughwhichsoapflows.
What the hell was this?
Thirteenchildrenruntowardtheroad.
(Theroadshouldbeadead-endalley.)
Thefirstchildsaystheyareafraid.
Thesecondchildsaystheyareafraid.
Thethirdchildsaystheyareafraid-
This was the work of that insanely famous eccentric poet![1]
Twocompanionslikeamaleandfemalewhohavejustreachedtherestaurantdoorsteppartways
Asugarcubedrenchedinblueinkisloadedontoatricycle
Militarybootstramplingbusinesscards.Artificialflowerpotstorturingfurniture.
‘I’ endured the chaotic strings of words that felt as though they would drive me mad and waited.
Fortunately, it did not take long for the contest to be decided.
Because I had the Second Sentence!
「If what belongs to another can be yours, then can you not also be another?」
“Ghk! W-what is this?”
I looked at the mysterious shadow that had appeared behind Hong Go-hak.
He was me, yet not me.
“...”
For a moment, I became curious.
When I first split myself, I had put the Grimoire’s madness into one side and the Sacred Sun’s Encroachment into the other, keeping them separate. What about now?
Perhaps that distinction itself was meaningless.
“Ghhk!”
Watching Hong Go-hak’s entire body twitch, I honestly had to admire him.
He possessed special powers, but I hadn’t expected him to resist another me’s attempt at Possession this well.
Still, it was only a matter of time.
Hong Go-hak possessed magical power that shook the mind, but he was not of a rank capable of resisting the Grimoire.
At last.
The twitching old man suddenly became still.
“Did it work?”
“It did.”
Every time I spoke with myself like this, it felt strange.
Soon, the information that another me had gained through Possession began naturally surfacing in my mind as well.
“...”
Crisis, despair, pain, frustration, and... betrayal!
“So that was it.”
After Sophia disappeared, the Church of Horus fell into crisis due to a lack of leadership.
The Holy See’s attacks grew fiercer by the day.
The ordinary believers, who were close to normal humans, were better off. But the Cult’s high-ranking officials were practically living on borrowed time.
“Ugh... There were this many nonhumans?”
Many of the Church of Horus’s high-ranking members were intelligent nonhuman beings, such as werewolves and yetis. They were hardly people the Holy See would ever show mercy to.
“...”
The Hong Go-hak in those memories lost friends and loved ones every day.
Yesterday, he lost a friend of twenty years. Today, he lost a disciple who had served him for many years.
Amid all that despair...
Horus had never once extended a hand of salvation to him.
“... I see.”
At the final moment, when the candle of Faith was about to go out.
Someone whispered to Hong Go-hak.
‘Foolish priest, are you still seeking a god who will not answer? I shall grant you true salvation.’
“So Hong Go-hak became the lackey of some unknown person?”
Another me answered.
“Unable to endure the Holy See’s persecution, he betrayed the Cult. The problem came after that. He abandoned his Faith, but then, incredibly, the god returned.”
“... That’s a little sad.”
“Since the god returned, an ordinary priest should have clasped their hands and prayed, like that priest at the church earlier. But not Hong Go-hak. He had already committed an unforgivable sin.”
“If you mean apostasy, I think I would’ve let him off if he got on his knees.”
“That’s what we think. In this guy’s mind, he probably believed there was no going back. That would be one thing, but...”
He tilted his head again.
“Is it tucked inside his clothing?”
“What?”
“It says the ‘true salvation’ is tucked inside his clothing. Wait. I’ll take it out.”
Soon, another me searched through Hong Go-hak’s clothing and found something.
“It seems someone gave the bishop something like this.”
A small object wrapped in soft cloth.
“It’s really small.”
“Yeah.”
Once the cloth came off, I saw a small shard of glass glowing with an eerie light.
“It looks like a shard of a mirror. What is this-”
--- Ting!
Footnotes:
[1] The run-together passages quote Yi Sang’s “Architecture, Infinite Hexahedron” and “Crow’s Eye View: Poem No. 1”; the unspaced typography is deliberate.
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