WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 528: Room 207, Gate Room - Fourth Trial ‘The Fallen King’ (14)
──────
- Holy See, Inquisition Bureau Korean Branch
“Seven PA-192 attack drones have been shot down!”
“TCS-911 Alpha Squad has been wiped out!”
“The Aesus is attempting to approach, but Horus is moving too fast!”
Reports streamed into the operations control room without pause.
A massive screen, like one from a movie theater, covered the front wall of the enormous conference room.
The footage playing across it looked like something straight out of an action film.
The only difference was that what was happening on the screen was real.
That’s right.
For the Inquisition Bureau staff, a humanoid Chaos Entity shining like a star, flying at subsonic speed, and firing heat rays powerful enough to melt a fourth-generation tank was undeniably real.
It was also real that a demon daring to call itself a god had destroyed over two hundred drones in real time.
At the center stood Kim Hak-yeon, head of the Inquisition Bureau’s Korean Branch, unable to hide his anxiety.
“Our forces alone can’t stop that monster! What about the request for reinforcements?”
“We’ve already sent one, but...”
“Then send more!”
The branch head had every reason to be anxious.
There was a dreadful prophecy that the ancient devil worshipped by the wicked Church of Horus would one day awaken in South Korea.
It was one of the oldest Revelations passed down by the Holy See.
The Korean Branch had prepared for it for countless years, yet when the day of fate arrived, all of it proved useless.
If this grew out of control, who would take responsibility?
Of course, Kim Hak-yeon had excuses of his own.
How could he have expected part of Seoul’s Veil to suddenly come undone?
The demons suppressed by the Korean Branch had all awakened and run wild, practically paralyzing not only Seoul but the entire branch.
By the time they had barely brought Seoul under control, Horus had already begun flying toward America with Pontiff Sophia.
Kim Hak-yeon believed they had to settle this in the Pacific.
Once Horus reached American soil, they would have no choice but to limit their firepower out of consideration for the United States government.
Though, based on what he had learned through years of service, the Inquisition Bureau might drop a nuclear missile on New York if it came down to it.
“Drones aren’t enough! Assemble an additional fighter formation and...”
“Branch Head! H-Horus has the power to bewitch people, doesn’t he? If the pilots get brainwashed...”
“Then fire missiles from a distance!”
By then, the operations control room staff’s eyes were bloodshot from strain.
--- Zzzzzzt!
Every speaker around them suddenly began emitting static as if they had all broken at once.
It was a bizarre occurrence, but something even stranger happened to the operations control room staff.
--- Thud!
Everyone’s eyes widened. They immediately stopped what they were doing and knelt respectfully.
At that moment, not even Horus rampaging on the screen could break their concentration.
“Please grant us a Revelation...”
“Please grant us a Revelation...”
“Please grant us a Revela-”
Holy Mother Aedia’s Revelation had begun.
Its message was incredibly simple.
「Just let him go.」
Instantly, the operations control room buzzed as they failed to understand the Revelation.
Soon, Kim Hak-yeon calmed the room and asked, “Quiet, everyone! Holy Mother, are you saying we should simply let Horus go?”
「Yes.」
There was no room for any other interpretation once she had answered.
“...”
Kim Hak-yeon couldn’t understand the Holy Mother’s will.
No matter how he looked at it, confronting Horus in the Pacific seemed like the better option.
Then the branch head realized that such an attitude itself was irreverent.
Obedience without doubt was the highest virtue.
“Withdraw!”
“I’ll relay the withdrawal order to the field!”
The staff soon began issuing withdrawal orders to the field.
* * *
- Han Ga-in
By the time I finished my grueling flight and arrived in Massachusetts, America, I had already become the most famous person on Earth.
“...”
Looking at the crowd gathered like clouds in the distance made it hard to breathe.
“Did we really have to do this?”
“Your return isn’t something that can be hidden.”
Sophia’s calm answer implied many things.
The twenty-first century was an age when shocking news from Africa could spread across the world in thirty minutes.
In a world like this, a self-proclaimed god had returned. That self-proclaimed god was heading for the Church of Horus’s headquarters while the Holy See fought a massive aerial battle to stop him.
How could something like that possibly remain hidden?
Even if the Holy See gritted its teeth and tried to conceal it... No, it didn’t look like the Holy See had intended to hide it from the beginning.
“What is this article headline supposed to mean?”
「The Ancient Devil Awakens.」
Articles like that were everywhere.
“It says the ancient devil has awakened.”
“Why am I the devil?”
“Because the Holy See says you’re a devil.”
“So I’m a devil just because the Holy See says so?”
“There are over five billion Catholics worldwide.”
“No, what have you all been doing for there to be such a huge gap in follower counts?”
“If Lord Horus had granted me just a little more power...”
“Both of you, stop talking nonsense and come over here.”
Jokes aside, it was unsettling.
Why was the Holy See, which censored practically all information related to Chaos Entities, loudly advertising my return to the whole world?
It was a public-opinion campaign.
They had to make my ‘danger’ widely known to make their next move easier.
“This makes me nervous.”
“...”
“The Holy See isn’t really going to drop nukes on all of America, right?”
“Then you can send the nuclear missiles back into space.”
Fortunately, the Cult had prepared well after receiving word from Sophia, so I was able to avoid the crowd gathered like clouds without much trouble.
* * *
As I headed for the area where Grandpa and Mi-ro were sleeping, Sophia stared out the window and muttered.
“Can you see it over there?”
“A university.”
“A-ri and I attended it together.”
“I heard. Was it Miskatonic University? Haha! So you two are alumni?”
“No.”
“Huh?”
“I received diplomas several times, but A-ri has never graduated even once. A-ri is a high school graduate.”
“I got high school diplomas around thirty times instead.”
“Are you bragging?”
“I have more diplomas.”
Subtle tension between those two often began out of nowhere, like it did now.
Once it started, it didn’t end easily.
“I can see it. That was the place, wasn’t it? Where A-ri cowardly ambushed Lucas, who was like family to me.”
“It felt good.”
“Ugh!”
No, it was too much to say it felt good!
“Can you really feel that when you kill someone by cutting them with an invisible blade?”
“You can.”
“Well, I felt it too when I melted Fortuna’s skull.”
“...”
Oh dear.
According to what A-ri had told me, Seung-yeop had also been exposed to the Mirror and transformed into an alien being called Fortuna.
Through a kind of hypnotherapy, A-ri awakened Seung-yeop’s ego, which had been trapped within Fortuna, and together they attempted to assassinate Aedia.
...
The attempt on Aedia’s life, a major event later recorded as the Spanish Disaster, failed for several reasons.
First, the Holy Mother’s forces, built up over thousands of years, were naturally overwhelming.
Second, A-ri couldn’t refute the Holy Mother’s repeated argument: “Horus saved me, so why are you trying to kill me?”
After the Spanish Disaster, A-ri and Seung-yeop wandered Europe for quite a long time, recovering A-ri’s Fragments.
When the two returned to America, Sophia of the Church of Horus destroyed Seung-yeop.
“Sophia, my opinion hasn’t changed. It was a huge mistake for you to gather all of the Cult’s forces and bring down Fortuna.”
“You have no idea what a monster that person was.”
“I’ve told you a hundred times, haven’t I? Fortuna was by my side, remembering the past...”
“Fortuna hated humanity until their final moment. Try refuting that.”
“No...”
“Stop, stop. Let’s leave it there. Sophia, are we almost at the cave?”
“About thirty minutes remain.”
Perhaps because we had returned to a place that brought back memories of the past, A-ri and Sophia couldn’t hide their old resentment.
To A-ri, Fortuna was a precious companion who had only been temporarily twisted by a powerful being called the Practitioner.
To Sophia, Fortuna was the enemy who had killed her mother and teacher, the Cult’s greatest foe, and a monster that hated humanity.
Even if the sky split in two, that gap could never be narrowed.
It was hard for me to take either side.
I could sympathize with both sides, and everything had ended before I even woke up.
Still, there was one thing I was curious about.
“Just to be safe, are you two certain Fortuna is dead?”
“...”
“...”
Unexpectedly, neither of them answered easily.
“... Fortuna definitely hasn’t appeared for over fifty years.”
“According to the informants we planted in the Holy See, Fortuna isn’t there either.”
“But you said Fortuna had stored their soul in the Soul Box. They should have been close to immortal.”
A-ri glared sharply at Sophia and added, “I told you, Yumi had part of a Mirror Shard too. I used it once, then returned it to Sophia afterward.”
Sophia was said to have borrowed the Mirror Shard’s power to destroy Fortuna.
Certainly, if it was the Mirror that pierced through every secret of Room 207, it might have been capable of overcoming Fortuna’s immortality.
But was Fortuna really dead?
One thing was certain.
Even if Fortuna was alive, they were definitely not in a normal state.
That was because Kingdom of Dreams had determined that Seung-yeop did not exist.
* * *
“Ugh! Oh, my...! My back is killing me. A-ri, what decade is it now?”
“Yawn! What time is it... Huh? A-ri! Ga-in!”
Grandpa Mook-seong and Mi-ro woke up!
At that moment, A-ri and I looked at the two of them with deeply moved expressions.
How much preparation had I made to use their power in the fourth trial?
At last, the owners of One More Chance and the Time Lender had joined the fourth trial.
“Ga-in! I have so many things I want to say, and so, so, so, so many things I want to ask...”
“Let’s talk later.”
“Oh my! Is it already the twenty-first century? Well, I’ll be! It feels like I just took a nap and woke up. It would be nice if Yumi gave this kind of advanced technology to the Management Bureau too.”
“Tell Yumi that once we get out.”
“You think Yumi will still be outside?”
“... Stop talking nonsense and get up. Don’t act old.”
“Kid, I’m not acting old...”
Soon, everyone shared the joy of reunion.
As we talked about this and that, Sophia came up from behind and tapped me on the shoulder.
“Excuse me!”
“Do you have something to say?”
“Well... you may find this surprising, but it’s very noisy outside.”
“What?”
“At least several thousand Cult believers have gathered. More are still arriving in real time.”
That caught me a little off guard.
Security had been solid until we reached Yumi’s Hibernation Labyrinth, so how had word spread everywhere that I was here?
“Who leaked the information?”
“I don’t know. The driver and attendants are all trustworthy people...”
Sophia only tilted her head. She didn’t seem certain where the information had leaked from either.
Grandpa, who had been listening beside us, came to a simple conclusion.
“Then go out and give a little speech.”
“...”
“What’s wrong? It’s not your first time. If you give the ordinary people a speech for about a minute, they’ll be crying, taking off their pants, and dancing...”
“Please stop saying weird things.”
“Ga-in’s right about this. Mook-seong, you can’t treat Ga-in casually like this once we go outside. The believers might shoot you.”
“Oh dear... I’ll be careful.”
* * *
When I came out of the cave, I realized Sophia hadn’t exaggerated at all when she said at least several thousand people had gathered.
So many people began shouting frantically the moment they saw me that this was all I could hear.
“#$%&*@!”
“@#$%!&”
“*&%%$#@ #^%$#!”
So...
Was this how the Second Coming of Jesus, no, Horus, was supposed to act?
As if drawing down the power of the sun, I raised my hand to the sky and summoned the Sacred Sun.
Soon, the entire world fell silent.
Countless people stared at the Sacred Sun as if entranced, and a considerable amount of Faith soon began to gather.
It was noisy, but not a bad situation.
If I thought of it as properly recharging Faith here too, like in Room 206...
“It is a miracle!”
“Ah, Horus...!”
“H-How can this be!”
People suddenly began crying as they looked up at the sky.
As if it had been waiting, the blue sky split open and a vast universe appeared.
A staggering miracle that only a god descending from the Celestial Realm could bring about!
Faced with that wonder beyond all common sense, the believers fell to their knees and wept.
And I...
“... What?”
I was fucking confused!
What the hell was that?
Why did the sky suddenly split open?
--- Woooooo!
Before long, starlight began pouring down from the distant Starry Heavens, the great Upper Realm unreachable on foot.
* * *
「Remove the Veil and show the ancient Demon God how precarious this world is. With more than 7,000 believers and over 200 cameras watching him now, he will never be able to flee.」
Footnotes:
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