WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 555: Rookie Agent Cha Jin-cheol
──────
- Cha Jin-cheol
--- Ring-ring! Ring-ring!
“Mm, Sang-hyeon again... Huh?”
I thought Sang-hyeon was calling to talk me out of it again, but it was Elena.
The moment I answered, her cheerful voice came through.
“Jin-cheol, you got the invitation, right? I sent it by email!”
“Ha ha, of course.”
“You’ll come, right? I prepared the best room for everyone-”
“Ahem! Ahem! Um, Elena. I don’t think I can make it this time.”
“... Hmm.”
Disappointment colored her voice.
I couldn't help feeling a little heavyhearted at the thought of disappointing such a beautiful companion.
Still, this was a busy time for me too!
“Elena, I don’t know if you heard, but I’ve been a little busy lately.”
“Yes. Doctor told me. It’s okay! There’ll be another chance.”
Elena sounded delighted as she said that Song-i, Eun-sol, and even Ga-in would soon be coming.
Song-i and Eun-sol aside, if Ga-in was going, wouldn’t that be enough for Elena?
My guilt vanished.
Now that we had finally escaped the Hotel and returned to reality, I hoped her love would make some progress.
“You seem happy lately, Elena.”
“Of course~! I spent a long time thinking about how to use Dream, but I think I used it well.”
“Congratulations.”
The call ended.
“...”
I now had a rough idea of how my companions were living.
Thinking about Yoo Song-i and Elena left me with a somewhat strange feeling.
Neither of them had made a malicious wish.
If anything, it sounded fun, even a little enviable.
But what would it look like from the perspective of a third party, or an ordinary person who wasn’t one of our Hotel companions?
“...”
I was beginning to understand why the Management Bureau was wary of those who had escaped the Hotel.
The two of them had created amusement parks of their own.
“... Time to invest.”
* * *
10, 17, 22, 30, 35, 43. The bonus number was 44.
Those were the lottery numbers I had just won with.
The prize was 12.7 billion won. Even after taxes, it was still around 8 billion won.
The money had just arrived in my bank account.
Before going through the Hotel, I probably would’ve wondered whether this was a dream or reality and lost my mind.
“...”
I felt nothing.
This was fake luck that the Management Bureau periodically manipulated anyway. Besides, what did money mean to someone trying to become an agent?
“A little more...”
It still wasn’t enough.
Lottery jackpot winners appeared every week in South Korea.
That meant the Management Bureau wouldn’t consider me a Regressor just because I’d won the lottery.
The lottery money was only seed capital. The real work started now.
“Is this really right?”
I searched online and downloaded a strange program.
It was supposedly a trading program, but it was ridiculously complicated and looked incredibly shabby.
“Mm... The more I look at it, the stranger it seems.”
According to A-ri, the price of things like this would go insane within three years.
“...”
Did that make any sense?
I wasn’t exactly knowledgeable about economics, but still, did this make any sense?
It was supposedly currency, yet it wasn’t even clear who issued it.
There was no financial authority controlling the supply, nor was there any trustworthy institution guaranteeing its value.
Most of all, no one even knew what the hell this currency could be used for.
I doubted I could even buy a slice of pizza with it!
“Ah, this is seriously fucking weird. Could A-ri’s memories be wrong?”
I couldn’t believe that money enough to shake the whole world would pour into these chunks of data within three years.
According to A-ri, even that was only because the Management Bureau’s Adjustment had greatly delayed the surge.
“I’ll only put in a little. Just a little...!”
The lottery money had come for free, but it still felt wasteful to think of throwing it away somewhere on the internet.
I’ll spend just 100 million won.
--- Click!
Purchased 5,000 Bitcoin.
“Done.”
I spent some time investing the 8 billion won in that fashion.
I had around 1.7 billion won left.
Now it was time to buy the dreams and hopes of fifty million Koreans.
* * *
Outskirts of Yongin, Gyeonggi Province.
The elderly licensed realtor at Happy Realty stared wide-eyed.
“Ch-Chairman! Um, you mean you wish to purchase the land and building at the XX lot in Jigot-dong all at once?”
Was it because this was a cash transaction worth 1.5 billion won, and for a rather undesirable property at that?
The realtor had automatically begun calling me Chairman.
“How many times do I have to say it?”
“I-I understand what you mean, but you should at least visit the site once-”
“Just contact the landowner.”
I was about to spend 1.5 billion won on real estate without even seeing what land or building I was buying.
It was absurd even to me, so how ridiculous must it have seemed to the realtor?
“P-Please wait a moment. I’ll contact the seller.”
Spending 1.5 billion won without even looking at the property was a bit excessive. Should I at least take a look?
No. Considering my real purpose, shouldn’t I act suspiciously enough for anyone to notice?
As I was lost in such thoughts, a tall young employee lightly touched my shoulder.
“President Cha, why not inspect it at least once?”
“That’s all right.”
“It’ll take quite some time before you meet the seller anyway.”
“Then let’s take a look.”
* * *
Barren land, a shabby building.
That was my objective assessment of a property worth 1.5 billion won in total.
Real estate was expensive, but this wasn’t even the middle of Gangnam. I couldn’t understand how this price made any sense.
Yet I had come to buy it.
“Chairman, would you like to look around this side as well?”
“...”
The employee continued talking beside me about recent prices in Jigot-dong and construction laws concerning three-story villas.
He seemed to have done some studying, but since Chairman Cha had no interest at all, it was like preaching to a cow.
Had about thirty minutes passed?
As the sky began to darken, word came from the agency.
“Chairman, they say they’ve reached the seller. Shall we go?”
“Let’s go.”
Then the employee cautiously asked a question.
“Um... Chairman Cha.”
“Yes?”
“Forgive me, but-”
“If you think it’s rude, you should stop.”
That was my personal philosophy.
“Uh, ahem, you’re right, but I’m just too curious.”
“About what?”
“Well... You probably guessed after I told you the market price earlier, but honestly, this isn’t a property worth 1.5 billion won.”
“Is that so?”
“... Did you receive some insider information?”
Did he think I’d gotten information from a high-ranking civil servant or politician that would raise land prices?
Well, for an ordinary person, that was a reasonable conclusion.
“Who knows? I don’t know either.”
“Come on! Who invests 1.5 billion won in something they know nothing about? Don’t you know something?”
His tone was probing.
It amused me, so I played along.
“What if I do? Why are you so curious?”
“Why am I curious?”
Then the young man smiled.
“Of course I’m curious. The fact that the government will announce a new high-speed rail line in three months, and that this property’s price will rise twelvefold because of it!”
The young man smiled broadly.
“And finally, the fact that all of that information is a smokescreen, and the real reason is serial number D-0241, which is confined in the building’s basement! I’m curious how much you know.”
He no longer spoke to me politely.
The Management Bureau had finally approached me.
* * *
--- Step. Step.
It was a quiet road in early autumn, with a cool breeze blowing through it.
The young man spoke as if he were entertained.
“This must be a fun time for you, right?”
“...”
“Want me to tell you what happened to you? As always, you were living an ordinary life when something straight out of a novel happened.”
“...”
“An incomprehensible light descended from the sky, and everything vanished. When I came to, I had awakened in the past.”
“...”
“Oh, not that one? You heard a roar at sea that shook heaven and earth. A whirlpool rose high enough to pierce the sky and ground South Korea to pieces in an instant. When I came to, I had awakened in the past.”
“...”
“Not that either? There are countless apocalyptic scenarios in this damned world, so cut me some slack. The point is, the world ended and you woke up in the past.”
Regressor.
In other words, an agent candidate.
“Now that you’ve returned to the past, there’s something you have to do, right? That’s right! First, buy a lottery ticket. Jackpot! Damn, that feels good! What’s next? You bought Bitcoin too? What was with buying only 100 million won worth? Did you think buying too much would somehow destroy the balance of the world? Or were you worried about the butterfly effect?”
The young man’s voice was playful.
“Ha ha! Chairman Cha, have you ever considered this? That the luck I experienced might not belong to me alone.”
“...”
“There might be other Regressors in the world besides me.”
“Are you one of them? Or is it the organization you belong to?”
The young man smiled.
“You’re not completely oblivious.”
He looked at least five years younger than me, yet he kept speaking casually.
It didn’t bother me.
If this person was an agent, he might have actually lived far longer than I had.
“So what, are you going to scold me? For stealing someone else’s luck?”
That was the essence of the benefits a Regressor gained.
Intercepting benefits that should have gone to someone else.
Lottery winnings, profits from cryptocurrency investments, profits from rising real estate prices.
Originally, every one of those gains should have gone to someone other than me.
The young man answered my question with laughter.
“Pfft!”
“...”
“Ha ha! Ahahaha!”
“Is that so funny?”
“It is. It’s hilarious!”
“What part of it is so funny?”
“Stealing someone else’s luck? Ha ha! That’s not entirely wrong, but do you really think we, of all people, would blame you for that?”
The Management Bureau wouldn’t blame me for that reason.
“You can guess where I’m from, can’t you? You know where strange people like me belong.”
“The Management Bureau.”
“Have you ever had this thought?”
It was a thought anyone might have had at least once.
“Where does the Management Bureau’s money come from?”
The police operated on government budgets.
The military operated on government budgets too.
It was common sense that public organizations protecting the world ran on ordinary citizens’ taxes.
The Management Bureau was an organization outside that common sense.
No individual, corporation, or government paid taxes to the Management Bureau.
Yet the Management Bureau had branches all over the world and paid its members generous salaries.
Even personnel costs were only a tiny fraction of the Management Bureau’s operating expenses.
Countless weapons of war to fight Chaos Entities, satellites and drones monitoring the entire planet, even systems controlling the internet!
Where did the resources for all of that come from?
It was impossible to understand, so conspiracy theories had spread widely among the public.
The Management Bureau was the true owner of various major corporations.
Part of the taxes paid to governments flowed into the Management Bureau.
...
They were all wrong.
“People think they’ve never paid taxes to the Management Bureau.”
“...”
“They’re mistaken. All humanity pays taxes to us. The heaviest taxes of all!”
Lottery winnings that should have gone to someone else.
Crypto investment profits someone else should have earned.
The increased value that should have gone to the original landowner.
An organization that collected all of that luck from across the world!
A black limousine appeared in front of me.
Just as I was about to approach it, the young man put a hand on my shoulder.
“Until yesterday, you were a child in the Playground.”
“... The Playground.”
“Congratulations. From now on, you are an awakened person. Remember this sentence.”
The one sentence believed by those who managed the Playground.
“All humans are equal. Except us!”
Footnotes:
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