WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 536: Room 207, Gate Room - Fourth Trial ‘The Fallen King’ (22)
──────
- Han Ga-in
--- Flash!
The moment I entered the Lunar Base, multicolored light briefly filled everyone’s vision.
When my vision returned, A-ri and Mi-ro were nowhere to be seen.
“...”
This was within expectations.
I quickly opened the Kingdom of Dreams, confirmed that both of them were alive, then closed it again.
Part of me wanted to join them, but the Kingdom of Dreams only worked properly when both the user and target were asleep.
I might be able to sleep, but there was no way A-ri or Mi-ro could let their guard down and fall asleep in a place this bizarre.
Aedia was everyone’s destination anyway. I had to trust we’d meet again eventually.
* * *
I walked endlessly through a silent space filled with gray bulkheads.
There was incomprehensible electronic equipment everywhere, but it all seemed to have lost power. Even when I smashed it, nothing happened.
“...”
I’d expected a fierce battle against the tactical weapons or drones Aedia had deployed, but there was nothing like that.
I simply kept walking down an endless path leading underground until, at some point, I found myself running.
Before long, I naturally sank into thought.
What were the conditions for clearing Room 207?
After Mi-ro joined us, we learned about the first trial.
After A-ri and Grandfather joined us, we learned about the third trial.
The second trial was the vague one, since there had been no survivors, but we had received indirect information through Sophia.
One thought naturally came to me through all of this.
Had the “Hotel” really designated the final obstacle, the boss, of every trial?
Maybe we were the ones who chose the bosses.
The moment that thought occurred to me, one corner of my vision blurred slightly.
「User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)」
“Ha!”
So this was what it meant when it said the place where the third power, blessing, was hidden was “Han Ga-in”?
I’d secretly thought it meant I had to find my real body hidden somewhere in Room 207!
I’d been completely off track.
The blessing had literally been inside me.
It was a much more classic problem than I’d expected!
A laugh slipped out, and I asked whoever was surely watching me even now.
“Are you telling me to think for myself and get closer to the answer?”
Then I heard a phantom voice, as though the Hotel were whispering to me.
‘You have never been wise of your own accord. Whom do you blame? Prove yourself worthy of gaining Wisdom.’
Let’s think more wisely.
The companions in the first trial had considered Menes the boss and defeated him.
Then what had Malkab been?
Just a mini-boss?
Malkab had been far too strong for that.
Even Menes joining them to defeat Malkab was a strange development if you thought of it like a game.
Besides, they hadn’t even needed to fight Menes.
Didn’t Menes open an escape route for them, telling them to leave on their own and build a civilization?
We were the ones who “chose” Menes as the boss.
That choice was both a choice of boss and a choice of scenario.
The companions chose to execute Menes because they couldn’t stand by and watch Reptilians rule humanity, because they couldn’t accept humanity’s history being distorted so severely.
The Hotel had simply accepted that choice.
...
The companions in the second trial considered Fortuna the boss and were defeated after fighting Fortuna.
Looking back, the very fact that Fortuna was the boss was strange.
Fortuna was Seung-yeop in twisted form, so Fortuna could not have arisen naturally within Room 207.
In other words, the boss had never been firmly determined from the start.
Eun-sol and Elena “chose” a scenario, and someone corresponding to it simply stepped forward.
What choice had the two of them made?
I’d have to ask them after we got out to know exactly how things unfolded, but I could make a guess.
They knew the Holy See was essentially an organization similar to the Management Bureau, yet they stood against it.
They viewed the Holy See’s justice as violence, and rather than root out Sophia, an obvious threat, and hand her over, they chose to reform her.
What if A-ri and Grandfather had been in their place?
I felt sorry for Sophia, but those two agents would’ve seen through a child’s act at once, grabbed Sophia by the nape, and tied her to a stake.
By standing against the Holy See, Fortuna, Aedia’s strongest sword, had been chosen as the boss.
...
The companions in the third trial considered Dean Lucas the boss and executed him.
Looking back, it must have been an absurd turn of events from Lucas’s perspective.
Lucas had never considered A-ri and Grandfather enemies.
He’d never attacked them first, and even at the moment of his death, he hadn’t expected A-ri to attack him.
The Holy See massacred all the students he cherished, and he simply went berserk. A-ri saw that, considered the dean the boss, turned back time, and judged him.
No matter how you looked at it, it showed A-ri’s Management Bureau-friendly way of thinking.
In the end, it was A-ri’s choice.
She must have felt an intense aversion to Miskatonic University, the group established by Chaos Entities who had gathered to escape the Holy See’s persecution.
What if they had thoroughly taken Miskatonic University’s side and chosen to oppose the Holy See?
The Hotel would have accepted that as well.
The role of the third trial’s boss would have gone to someone among the Holy See’s powerful figures, excluding Fortuna.
「User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 2,008,924」
Wow, had it counted from Ancient Egypt?
That was quite the dramatic day count.
Once I got out, I’d have to ask Owl to reset it again.
“...”
A door stood at the end of the long corridor.
Aedia was surely beyond it.
--- Creak!
* * *
The instant the door opened, a blue flash flew at me.
I had already summoned the sun, so blocking it wasn’t difficult.
“What does this mean?”
“Just a light greeting.”
Aedia stood at the center of a massive hall with an opening in its ceiling, her back to me as she looked out at the Mirror.
“Can I ask you one thing?”
“Of course.”
“You split us up, so I thought you’d pick us off one by one. But you aren’t. Why split us up if this was all you were going to do?”
“Unlike you, the other two are having quite a difficult time.”
“... Why?”
“Because I wanted to talk with the two of them. I particularly can’t stand that black-haired girl.”
“You mean A-ri? I heard she thinks of you as her senior.”
“Ha!”
Aedia laughed as if that were ridiculous, then answered with another blue flash.
--- Ting!
Outer space, the world of the void, where everything seemed frozen.
The only two moving beings exchanged skillful attacks and counters endlessly.
To some, it might have looked like angels locked in a bloody battle...
To me, it was nothing more than a meaningless war of attrition. Flash! Flash! Bang!
Too intense to be playing around, too trivial to be serious.
Did she really want to talk?
“There’s one more thing I want to ask. Why the moon?”
“... I’m sorry.”
“If you don’t want to say it-”
“It isn’t that I don’t want to. I don’t know.”
“What?”
“Did you know? There is an incomprehensible mystery dwelling on the moon.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know either. I was researching it.”
The conversation was subtly missing the point.
In the past, I would have been confused, but not now.
An otherworldly intuition flashed from somewhere far away.
The moon’s mystery was not Room 207’s problem.
The Hotel would not permit you to know the moon’s mystery yet.
Leave this place and discover it in reality.
There was no moon in reality, so what did this intuition mean?
One thing was certain.
Insight was slowly returning.
“Fine. There’s no need to discuss this any further.”
“...”
At that moment, Aedia’s eyes gleamed chillingly.
“You saw something.”
“...”
“I... We spent decades researching the moon and learned nothing... Yet you know just by looking once?”
“...”
“That look. It’s the same even after thousands of years. I truly hated it.”
“What?”
“You, do you think you’re some omniscient god?”
--- Rumble!
Her attacks after that were far more serious than before.
Even so, they weren’t beyond my ability to handle.
Then I noticed that Aedia was avoiding my gaze.
...
I remembered something Grandfather had said long ago, when we were going through Room 205’s Absolute Master.
He said martial artists could learn about one another after facing off once. Sang-hyeon had found that ridiculous.
「“Martial artists in the Martial World can tell whether someone is good or bad once they fight them.”
“I’ve heard plenty of bullshit in my life, but that’s the first time I’ve heard a psychology theory that stupid-”
“I said it isn’t psychology! To someone from the Martial World, a person’s life is contained in the tip of their sword!”
“Ha ha! Mook-seong, I usually let things slide because of your Management Bureau career, but I’m a doctor licensed by Harvard!”」
Looking at it now, Grandfather’s words hadn’t been complete nonsense.
I could feel Aedia’s emotional state through our fierce exchange.
“I can feel your despair and pain.”
“Have you learned mind reading now?”
“It’s more reasonable deduction than mind reading.”
“Deduction?”
“You live cooped up in a remote room in this lunar slum like a shut-in. Wouldn’t it be strange if you weren’t depressed?”
“Ha!”
Aedia soon lowered the writhing mass of flesh that looked ready to spew an evil curse.
“I told you before I began Salvation, didn’t I? If I failed, I wanted all of you to be my insurance.”
“You did.”
“I saved humanity. Ninety percent of humanity was freed from fear and pain! Then why are you trying to overturn everything?”
“It’s a difference in perspective.”
“Perspective?”
Why Aedia’s choice was wrong.
Why I had to choose again!
“You didn’t free ninety percent of humanity. You killed ninety percent and turned them into monsters, then cast the remaining ten percent into hell.”
“Those blessed by the Mirror are no longer human? What proof do you have?”
Countless thoughts came to mind.
The Ship of Theseus.
How could beings whose minds had been twisted, who were toyed with by inexplicable love and hatred, be human?
To put it harshly, ninety percent of humanity had simply become animals with diminished intelligence.
What was more, the power the alien god beyond the Mirror had granted the Advanced Humans was only an imitation of Affinity.
Even the original Affinity had many limits. How could an imitation be humanity’s salvation?
Another thought came to mind as well.
Could people stripped of their selfishness to suppress conflict maintain or advance civilization?
...
There was one problem with these thoughts. Much of it was only my speculation.
The guesses I made with Insight were far more accurate than an ordinary person’s, but they still could not persuade anyone else.
On the other hand, there was one argument that could convince no one in the world except Aedia.
“Most of the thoughts I had, you must have considered them in this tiny room too. So I won’t list them one by one.”
“If you have nothing to say-”
“I have nothing to say. Because from now on, I plan to ask you.”
“What?”
I smiled and lowered both arms, showing that I had no intention of fighting.
Aedia only stared at me with clouded eyes. She could no longer attack.
Just as Wisdom had been hidden within my heart, the answer to Aedia’s question lay within Aedia herself.
Something A-ri had emphasized again and again.
‘Aedia was humanity’s greatest guardian.’
‘Sometimes, it was almost strange. In a sense, she truly deserved the title Holy Mother.’
‘Unlike me, she possessed a love for humanity so profound it was incomprehensible.’
A lizard-like alien, not a human, had become aware of her identity and still loved humanity without limit.
Even when an Egyptian mob rose up and massacred her own kind, she let go of every grudge.
Though she was a Chaos Entity herself, she gritted her teeth and founded an organization to eradicate Chaos Entities.
It was incomprehensible.
Which was why that love was a miracle.
Just as my companions, who had been human, looked beyond the Mirror and returned with hatred for humanity and love for the Twisted One...
A being that had not been human from birth had merely gained the opposite.
“Then tell me, Aedia. If you truly believe you saved the world, look me straight in the eye and tell me. Can you feel love for the ninety percent of humanity you saved with your own hands?”
“My emotions are... nothing more than worthless things created by instinct-”
“But you followed those instincts when you created the Holy See and tried to save the world, didn’t you? Either affirm those instincts or deny them. Choose one.”
「User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 2,008,924
Current Location: Room 207, Gate Room - Fourth Trial ‘The Fallen King’」
In Room 207, the final moment of a trial had always been decided by the companions’ choices.
At last, the moment of choice had come to me as well.
...
The eerily gleaming Mirror reflected me.
Footnotes:
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