WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 550: Hotel Delight (3) Fin
──────
「User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 0
Current Location: Hotel Delight, Yeongdeungpo District, Seoul
Sage’s Advice: 0」
- Han Ga-in
The moment I returned to reality and experienced what the Management Bureau called a Chaos Disaster, several thoughts came to mind.
What happened to the one year of rest the Hotel promised?
I'd thought it literally meant nothing would happen for a year, but chaos had already broken out on Day 0.
“...”
I recalled how, despite Eun-sol saying there was no price to pay, the Hotel had taken her “real eye” when she borrowed the Eye of the Monocular Giant Bird.
The Hotel doesn't lie, but its standards are somewhat different from those of the ordinary world.
In other words, something on this scale was nothing to the Hotel. It was just a minor event during our rest period.
Then flip that around.
Even by the Hotel's standards, something big would happen a year from now?
Would the event related to the Light That Calls the End, which A-ri had mentioned, begin in one year?
A-ri had made it sound like even she couldn't be sure of the exact timing.
“...”
I reined in the thread of thoughts trying to jump in every direction.
For now, it was time to focus on Hotel Delight.
Should I save them?
Should I enter an unknown Otherworld to save people I'd never met?
Should I pretend not to know and avoid it?
After all, even in the Hotel, I hadn't cared much about NPCs who weren't companions.
But Eun-sol owned this hotel.
If rumors spread that guests had died because of a supernatural phenomenon, she might have to shut the place down!
--- Smack!
“Phew...”
I lightly slapped my cheek and pulled myself together.
Weighing the risk of saving the missing people against the damage to the hotel's reputation if I didn't.
What a horribly calculating attitude.
As I rushed toward Eun-sol, I had one final thought.
The distinction between NPCs and real people.
Someone might call it meaningless, but I'd always drawn a clear line between them.
Now that I was outside, would I treat even real people like NPCs?
What did “reality” even mean to someone like me?
That way of thinking would only turn me into a wraith trapped in a false world forever.
I'll save them.
I'll save the people trapped in that strange world because of my actions.
Not for anyone else, but to save myself from hell!
* * *
--- Ding!
The moment I reached the conference room on the seventh floor, I approached Eun-sol.
The hotel staff tried to stop me, but a high-pitched voice rang out.
“Let him in!”
The employees murmured among themselves.
Soon, Eun-sol's secretary, whom I'd met earlier, added, “He's, um, something like a very powerful exorcist.”
A powerful exorcist?
It was funny, but it wasn't exactly wrong.
The staff seemed convinced and stepped aside.
In a world where even ordinary people naturally accepted the existence of ghosts, monsters, and demons, the word exorcist probably wouldn't surprise anyone.
“Ga-in...”
“Let's go save them. We should leave before it's too late. If they're dead, we'll at least recover their remains.”
Eun-sol looked a little surprised.
“You're more proactive than I expected. I knew it, because you're a real person... Fine. We leave right away?”
“Yes.”
Just before we left, a middle-aged man who looked like one of the hotel's executives stopped Eun-sol in alarm.
“Director! D-don't tell me you're going too?”
“...”
“I don't know what's going on, but it's dangerous! Leave it to the exorcist and report it to the Management Bureau...”
An instant of silence.
Eun-sol spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear.
“I've worked with the Management Bureau before.”
Everyone's eyes widened.
“I can handle most things, so everyone get back to work. And!”
All eyes turned to her.
“For the next hour, nobody uses Elevator No. 3! Inform the guests as well. Tell them Elevator No. 3 is broken, so they should only use Elevator No. 1 or No. 2 when coming to the lobby!”
“Understood.”
“Call the elevator in one hour! Got it?”
“You mean nobody should use it for an hour, then we should call the elevator that went upstairs after one hour?”
“Exactly.”
It was preparation for our escape.
* * *
--- Ding!
The elevator arrived.
“So this was Elevator No. 3.”
“That's how we distinguish them. The missing guests also had trouble while riding this elevator. What are we supposed to do about this...?”
“You said you'd worked with the Management Bureau. Why did you tell that lie?”
“A lie? Why would that be a lie? I worked with A-ri and Grandfather.”
“That is true, but still.”
“I had a feeling strange things would keep happening from now on. I needed to reassure the staff.”
“Because they might all quit and the hotel's reputation might be ruined otherwise?”
“... It might sound calculating, but...”
“No.”
I didn't think it was calculating. If someone was a managing director, caring about their business's reputation wasn't selfishness. It was responsibility.
“What do you think the condition is for the elevator, specifically Elevator No. 3, to go to the twenty-second floor or above? It doesn't happen every time. If it did, every guest would have gone missing.”
The condition had to be something that didn't normally happen.
It also had to be what had happened when I'd barged into the elevator earlier.
“I went over everything I remembered on the way here. Then I suddenly realized something.”
At this moment, while we were talking in the elevator, neither of us had pressed a button for any floor.
Normally, the elevator shouldn't move.
--- Whirr.
It started moving!
“I knew it! This was the condition!”
Getting into the elevator and waiting for a long time without pressing any buttons!
* * *
Just like before, the elevator stopped on the twenty-seventh floor.
“Let's get out.”
“...”
“Ga-in? What's wrong?”
“Nothing. The location is just... absurd.”
“Ah, the current location shown in your Status Window?”
“Let's go. Pero!”
- Grrr!
Soon, Pero transformed into the Grotesque, revealing a hideous, or perhaps reliable, form.
“I have a bad feeling. Pero, stay here.”
- Grrr?
Eun-sol tilted her head for a moment, then nodded.
“You're going to make Pero guard the elevator?”
“It'll be a problem if the elevator goes back down.”
“I did tell everyone not to use Elevator No. 3... Still, we can't exactly trust the staff in a situation like this.”
Something straight out of an urban legend was happening.
An unknown force could be controlling the employees.
“Hup!”
- Gurgle!
I dragged Pero over and planted it between the elevator doors.
“Stay right here. Don't let it go down, no matter what. Got it?”
* * *
Eun-sol and I quickly searched the twenty-seventh floor.
Since it was a repeat of the search I'd done earlier, it didn't take long, but the missing family was nowhere to be found.
“Where did they go? Don't tell me a monster ate them? Then where's the monster?”
“Eun-sol, you have a photo of the missing family, right?”
“If you mean the reservation holder's photo, here.”
It was a small photo of a woman in her forties.
As I stared at it intently, Insight showed me a faint possibility.
A dark space with poor lighting.
Hiss! Hiss! The sound came from every direction.
I'd heard that sound before.
“This sound...”
“Sound? You can hear sounds through Insight too?”
Insight was a kind of prediction. It didn't show a confirmed future.
Instead of looking at the possibility it showed and saying, So that's it, I had to ask, Why did this possibility appear? That was how I could get more meaningful information.
How would the missing family have acted?
They got into the elevator, then something happened and they didn't press a button.
There was a young child in the family, so the child might have suddenly started crying.
Then the elevator moved to the nonexistent twenty-seventh floor.
Only then did they realize something strange had happened.
They got off on the twenty-seventh floor and, confused, probably wandered around like we had in the past.
As ordinary people, they wouldn't easily think of the answer, that they had to get back into the elevator connecting the Otherworld to reality.
Even if they did think of it, they had no supernatural power like Greedy Hand, so they couldn't call it.
Then what would they do?
“The rooms.”
“What?”
“They must've tried to ask other people for help.”
If they'd remembered that Hotel Delight didn't have a twenty-seventh floor, they should have guessed that there couldn't be normal guests in the rooms either.
But ordinary people might not have thought that far.
They would have been too terrified to think rationally.
We returned to the hallway lined with guest rooms.
“It looks like they entered one of the rooms, but which one...”
“Room 2704, I think.”
I looked where Eun-sol pointed. Only the carpet in front of Room 2704 was covered in a fair amount of dirt.
As if several people had anxiously paced around and knocked on the door.
“... Phew.”
Eun-sol stood in front of Room 2704, unable to hide her tension.
I thought I'd been through every kind of hardship, but human instinct was still this fragile.
At times like this, I needed a show of bravado.
--- Fwoosh!
“Huh? Ga-in, you...”
--- Boom!
The door was blown apart with a deafening crash!
“Bwahaha! Come out! I am Horus!”
“...”
Eun-sol looked slightly disgusted.
Still, she didn't seem afraid anymore, so that was a relief.
* * *
The room was decorated like an ordinary home.
Of course, it had residents too.
“What are those?”
They were things shaped like humans.
The best way to describe them was shadows writhing together with lumps of flesh, imitating human beings.
Someone with weak nerves would probably collapse at the sight of those monsters.
Of course, Eun-sol and I had long passed the point of being frightened by something this minor.
Before opening the door, I had been tense because I didn't know what might come out. Once I opened it, though, it was nothing much.
I'd worked myself up with the Sacred Sun's tremendous strength. It was time to show the Grimoire's power!
Soon, the eerie magic of the Avatar surged upward in streams.
The moment I devoured a Shadow Human with the Power of the Avatar...
“...?”
For the first time, I felt something strange.
“Did you find something out?”
Eun-sol looked anxious.
“Wait a moment.”
The strange beings seemed terrified, rolling around on the floor.
I briefly borrowed the body of one of them.
“...”
“You just used Possession and came back, right? Did you find the missing family?”
“There's a door to the basement in the living room over there.”
“In a hotel room, why would there be a basement... No, never mind. I'll go check.”
While Eun-sol was gone, I faced the five Shadow Humans in the room.
Calling it a confrontation was generous. The Shadow Humans showed no sign of wanting to fight me.
They just lay flat on the floor.
“...”
One by one.
I repeatedly used Possession, reading the information in their minds.
“...”
What was this information?
What kind of place was this, and what were they?
I was confused.
I'd left the Hotel. I'd returned to reality...
Yet it was still filled with unknowable secrets.
“Waaah!”
“Hush! Sun-a, don't cry!”
“Oh, goodness... Agent! We thought the monsters had caught us and that we were going to die...”
“Quiet. Follow me.”
People followed Eun-sol out.
Since they called her Agent, it seemed Eun-sol had passed herself off as a Management Bureau agent.
“Let's go.”
Just before I turned away, a panting boy asked me, “M-mister! Mr. Agent!”
“Yeah?”
“D-don't you have to kill the monsters?”
“...”
“Can't you be quiet? The agent will know what to do! I'm sorry. The child...”
“Let's go.”
* * *
Fortunately, Pero had guarded the elevator well.
After we returned to the elevator, the family began collapsing onto the floor with dazed expressions.
“Thank you... Thank you...”
“It's okay. Get some rest.”
“W-when can we go back?”
“About twenty minutes remain.”
“That long? Ah, no, that's fine.”
While Eun-sol quietly reassured the others, I was busy focusing on the current location shown in my Status Window.
「Current Location: Atlantis - Searching for specific location」
“...”
The bizarre information I'd learned while searching the Shadow Humans' minds.
This place was Atlantis.
We were the Chaos Disaster taking place in a peaceful home in Atlantis.
* * *
- Park Seung-yeop
Warm sunlight.
Peaceful land.
Ah... That's right.
Nothing in the world lasted forever, and even struggle came to an end.
At last, to a peaceful land...
--- Smack!
“Ow!”
Who was that?
Who dared to strike the greatest martial artist under heaven?
“Hey, you! Park Seung-yeop!”
“...”
It was the math teacher.
“Even if you're going to sleep, try not to make it so obvious! You were even snoring?”
“... Sorry.”
“Go stand at the back with your hands raised!”
Ugh, so annoying!
When using Dream, I should've asked to become a high school senior who had just finished the College Scholastic Ability Test, like Ga-in.
Why did I forget that?
What a real “Whoopsie~!” moment!
My body was still the same age, so I was a middle schooler again?
That meant I had to go to school again!
I really hated school.
“Pfft!”
A male student giggled, apparently finding my punishment funny.
Who was that again? I didn't even know his name.
“... Are you laughing?”
He was still beneath me.
“...”
“I asked if you were laughing. Is it funny? Is it funny because I'm being punished?”
“N-no.”
“If you laugh one more time, you're dead.”
“S-sorry.”
This bastard!
I'd let him off this time.
Who was I?
Park Seung-yeop, the top dog of Bangbae Middle School!
At that moment, a faint voice only I could hear tickled my ear.
“Ah... I thought you'd become someone halfway decent since you were going back to before you were corrupted into Fortuna! I can't believe you were this much of an idiot!”
Footnotes:
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