WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 542: Room 207, Gate Room - Fourth Trial ‘The Fallen King’ (28)

──────

- ???

I found Mi-ro about three months ago.

Early one morning, I woke up to find her sleeping demurely beside me.

For that one moment, I thought an angel had descended from heaven.

She had no idea what had happened after summoning Midnight Mi-ro.

According to Mi-ro, she used the midnight hour, blinked, and found herself beside me.

She had no memories at all of the nearly five years that had passed.

All of Mi-ro's time that had remained in the Time Lender had disappeared.

So ‘Mother’ had vanished from the world without leaving a trace...

As if!

Are you stupid?

She wasn't the kind of person who'd disappear so pointlessly and be done with it!

Mother's goal was clearly to return to her adult state.

I'd wondered what she would do in the process, but she'd achieved ‘about half’ of that goal in a bizarre way.

Either way, Mi-ro had joined us again.

In other words, the Time Lender was back.

* * *

Jin Mok-gyeong and Serena glared at me, both on edge.

I looked at them and spoke.

“Let's stop here.”

“... What do you mean?”

Jin Mok-gyeong seemed to have a lot of misconceptions about me, but there was no cunning plot or wicked scheme.

Those words were truly my entire goal.

‘Let's stop here.’

“Mi-ro!”

Before I could even finish speaking, I heard the distinctive “Clank!” of the Time Lender activating.

Soon, Noon Ga-in appeared.

The first thing that guy I'd missed for five years said was this.

“What? Why am I on Earth?”

That Summoned Entity had been stored before we left for the Moon, right?

Unlike the confused Ga-in, Jin Mok-gyeong and Serena reacted violently.

“Damn it!”

They charged at Ga-in in an instant, their eyes wide.

I'd never experienced it myself, but there was a theory that an original and a Summoned Entity from the Time Lender felt hostility when they faced each other.

It seemed that feeling affected the Fragments as well.

Holding Mi-ro, I rose into the sky.

“Eek! G-Ga-in, shouldn't we help?”

“He'll handle it.”

“Is, is this really okay?”

I'd watched Ga-in for years while standing beside Jin Mok-gyeong, so I knew.

Those two had gathered tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of Fragments over several years and gained tremendous power...

Yet they were still only inferior versions of the Book of the Avatar and the Sacred Sun.

No matter how many Fragments from a shattered vessel they gathered, they could never compare to the original vessel.

“Ga-in must have plans of his own, so I wanted to leave them alone if possible, but...”

“...”

“A truce? Don't say something so horrible! He needs to turn the world upside down until the very end.”

“A-ri... That sounded far too witch-like.”

“It wouldn't be so bad for him to finish what he started with his own hands.”

* * *

Once Mi-ro returned with the Time Lender containing ‘Ga-in before he split apart,’ I thought we could end this calamity whenever we wanted.

Still, Summoned Ga-in had a time limit, so the Fragments needed to be gathered in one place. Besides, Ga-in had set this whole board up, and I didn't want to meddle clumsily, so I'd simply let things play out.

The moment they gathered in one place and faced Ga-in, the contest was over.

...

Moscow was being reduced to ruins in real time.

Massive shockwaves crushed buildings and tore up the ground in an instant.

I briefly wondered how many Moscow citizens had died in that short time, then stopped thinking about it.

They weren't the kind of people to care about such ‘minor’ matters anyway.

“Let's go higher.”

Thermal beams that looked capable of vaporizing me in one strike and enormous shockwaves kept erupting without pause. It was far too dangerous.

I had no choice but to rise high enough that Mi-ro began shivering from the cold.

Was the fight really this intense?

The bloody battle below was too fierce for me to make out properly.

“I didn't think Jin Mok-gyeong could fight Ga-in this well. Is Serena holding her own?”

“I'm cold!”

“Or is Ga-in going easy on them? Can't he move much faster than that?”

“A-ri... I'm really cold.”

“Hold on a little longer. It'll be over soon.”

--- Rumble!

When a violent tremor and a wave that seemed to press down on my skin swept over us, I knew the fight was over.

“Let's go down.”

* * *

The moment we reached the ground, I covered Mi-ro's eyes.

The Moscow citizens' bodies scattered everywhere were bad enough, but Jin Mok-gyeong's condition was especially horrific.

His arms and legs had been torn apart, his right eye ripped out, and half his skull crushed.

It was more astonishing that he was still alive.

“You... thieving bastard!”

It seemed former General Secretary Jin Mok-gyeong was still alive through sheer hatred.

He had to be in unbearable pain, yet he spat out such furious rage that I almost felt a trace of respect for him.

What was the source of such overwhelming emotion?

Anger toward the person responsible for playing with their fates?

The hostility said to arise when an original met a Time Lender Summoned Entity?

Maybe it was simply both.

Either way, one thing was certain.

“... You worked hard.”

That emotion didn't seem to affect Ga-in.

His expression was strange, somewhat bitter and somewhat regretful.

Ga-in usually didn't care much about NPC sacrifices, and he didn't even spare a glance at the Moscow citizens' corpses all around us...

But Jin Mok-gyeong couldn't have been such a meaningless NPC to Ga-in.

“Demon! What, what are you intending to do with this world...!”

“I'm sorry. I'll let you rest now.”

A firm hand ended Jin Mok-gyeong's life in one motion.

The futile death of the General Secretary who had ruled one-third of the world.

Soon after, Ga-in removed a Fragment from his head.

“So this is it.”

Once things had settled down, I approached Ga-in. He looked at me.

“Give me a quick explanation.”

As a Summoned Entity with memories only up to before going to the Moon, he looked somewhat confused by the current situation, regardless of who had won the fight.

I gave him an extremely brief summary of the last five years.

You suddenly split apart, Ga-in, and Fragments scattered across the entire planet.

After fighting among themselves, only a small number of the strongest Fragments remained, and so on.

About two minutes into the explanation, I realized someone was missing.

“Where's Serena?”

“...”

“Did you lose her? Or let her go?”

I thought he'd let her go.

Considering the strength of the Jin Mok-gyeong I knew and Serena's strength, which at best should have been similar, the answer was obvious.

Neither of them should have been able to last long against Ga-in before he split apart, but the actual fight had been fiercer than I'd imagined.

It meant the stronger side had gone easy on the weaker side.

“... I didn't want to put a full stop here.”

“Hm?”

“I don't know what happened on the Moon. But the future me who made a decision on the Moon...”

“Future? Ah, it would be the future for you.”

“I don't think this is the ending future me had in mind. There must be a separate ‘game-ending event’ that future me prepared.”

That made sense.

Ga-in had split apart about five years ago.

Mi-ro returned to me about three months ago.

In other words, Mi-ro's return had nothing to do with Ga-in's arrangements, and it was highly likely that the original Ga-in hadn't intended for Summoned Ga-in to end the game.

Near the end of our conversation, Summoned Ga-in asked a question.

“Where's Sophia?”

“I think she's inside the Soul Box. She should be outside.”

Of course, we'd have to leave to know for sure.

“What about Aedia?”

“I don't know. She may be watching the situation on the ground from the Moon.”

Then came the final exchange.

“... There's something horrible around Mi-ro.”

“Please don't call her horrible.”

“There's something grotesque.”

“Don't use an even worse expression. That's my mother, you know?”

“Midnight Mi-ro...”

“That isn't the right name anymore. She no longer depends on the Time Lender to exist.”

“Then let's call her ‘Ghost Story Mi-ro’ from now on. Is that monster really your mother?”

“Who knows.”

The Moon was full of mysteries.

There, ‘Mother’ had finally found a way to survive without depending on the Time Lender.

The price had been harsh.

* * *

- Kim Mook-seong

It was an early morning with a chill in the air.

The young man who had been with me for the last five years made a request.

“Grandpa, could you make that bouillabaisse from before again?”

“It isn't bouillabaisse, it's seafood stew. More importantly, it's morning.”

“I want to eat it now. I've prepared all the ingredients.”

“...”

It took about an hour to clean the seafood and prepare the vegetables.

The young man didn't help me at all during that long time.

Normally, I would've scolded him for being rude and asked what a lazy young man thought he was doing, but I didn't want to do that today.

Fortunately, I finished cooking before breakfast time.

It was seafood stew with fresh octopus, shrimp, and several large fish. It smelled appetizing enough on its own.

It wasn't the sort of food one ate for breakfast, but what did that matter?

Around the time we each finished a plate, the young man asked me something.

“By the way, you said you had a family, didn't you?”

“I did.”

“I'd heard about it now and then, but it seemed like an uncomfortable subject, so I couldn't ask in detail.”

“I suppose you couldn't.”

“Can I hear about it today?”

“...”

Love and marriage.

A son who was the apple of my eye.

Happiness that seemed as if it would never end.

And then...

A terrible end.

“Sniff...”

“What is it? Don't tell me you're crying. A grown man shouldn't cry.”

“It's a sad story, so I should cry. Do your companions know?”

“Hey, even my companions don't know this story. A-ri was the only one who knew, and now you're the second.”

“I'll consider it an honor.”

“No need to call it an honor...”

The mood had become rather gloomy.

I was considering having a drink so early in the morning when the young man stood up.

“I should get going.”

It felt like I should say something, but nothing came easily to mind.

“W-what... Why are you talking like you're saying goodbye? Hey, we'll keep seeing each other, even if you look a little different. You'll be embarrassed later if you keep this up.”

“You can think of it that way.”

“...”

It was a lie.

I'd never once thought of this kid as Ga-in.

As he headed out of the house, the young man suddenly turned around.

“I've seen it many times.”

“What?”

“This moment of farewell. I've seen it more than ten times.”

“...”

“I always wondered what would be good for the final meal. For the record, hamburgers are my favorite.”

“Hey, then you should've asked me to get you one...”

“You don't like them, Grandpa. So I chose bouillabaisse. I like that too.”

“...”

“I've seen it more than ten times, so I thought it wouldn't feel like much when I actually went through it... But it doesn't work that way.”

“...”

“I've been in your care all this time. Thank you.”

“Y-you!”

“Go ahead.”

“What were you, exactly? Why did Ga-in...”

“I am the ‘ending’ your companion prepared.”

With those words, the young man left.

Soon, I was alone in the silent mansion in Florida.

And I knew that the long ordeal of Room 207 was nearing its end.

It should have been a moment of joy and accomplishment.

...

I wanted to get drunk.

Footnotes:

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