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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 55: Room 106, Mission Room - ‘Hope Hotel Land’ (2)
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[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 21
Current Location: Level 1, Room 106 (Mission Room - Hotel Land of Hope)
Sage’s Advice: 2]
2. Challenge: Man-Eating Carousel Horse!
The cost of losing focus for a moment to glance at Jin-cheol was steep!
In an instant, I felt my shirt being tugged. When I looked ahead, a monster shaped like a horse was biting part of my shirt and tearing at it, drool streaming from its mouth and hundreds of needle-like teeth filling its jaws.
I frantically pounded its head with my fists, then tore off part of my shirt to get free. Thankfully, horses weren't built to attack something on their backs with their heads.
This horse was anything but normal, but it had the same limitation. It couldn't properly deal with me on its back.
After holding out for about thirty seconds, I got the hang of it. There was no need to wrestle with this damn horse head. All I had to do was shift as far back as possible, toward its rear. A horse simply wasn't built to do anything to something sitting on its rump.
When I finally caught my breath and looked around, everyone was holding out in their own way.
As expected, Song-i had already made a peace treaty with her horse and looked the most comfortable. The others had apparently gone through the same thing I had and were all enduring by shifting toward their horses' rears.
Jin-cheol...
Ah. He'd pulled the horse's head off and killed it. The horse he'd been riding had vanished entirely. Fortunately, although the carousel horse was gone, the pole that moved it remained. He was just holding onto it through sheer strength.
He'd be fine. Someone that superhuman could probably hang onto a pole for an hour.
Just as I began thinking this was much easier than the bumper cars, Phase 2 began.
* * *
The rotating platform suddenly contracted, sharply narrowing the gaps between the horses.
What was this? Then I realized what the change meant!
As the horses drew closer together, the horse behind me opened its eyes wide and began glaring at me. The head of the horse I was riding was in front of me, while the head of the horse behind me loomed at my back. I was trapped.
What was I supposed to do? I couldn't go forward or backward. At this rate, I'd either be bitten to death by one of the horses or fall to my death.
“Argh! Thanks, Jin-cheol!”
Why was Seung-yeop thanking him at a time like this? I turned my head for a moment and saw Jin-cheol, who'd been hanging from the pole through arm strength alone, leap to the pole behind him. Apparently, he still had strength to spare. He was lifting Seung-yeop with one arm.
They'd survive somehow. I clearly wasn't in any position to worry about anyone else.
Amid the chaos, I barely came up with a solution.
The most reliable weapon I'd carried with me ever since House of Horror. I pulled out the spray and aimed it at the horse head targeting me from behind. It was still the head of a living creature. It couldn't escape the pain caused by Capsaicin.
The horse head targeting me immediately went berserk. This worked!
“Everyone, take out your spray and use it!”
I didn't know how they heard me through the chaos, but I saw Eun-sol and Elena fumbling for their sprays and using them. How many times had this spray saved us by now?
I didn't feel the need to check on the others. A-ri would handle herself, and Song-i was probably communing with her horse or something. Before long, they might be close enough for her to feed it carrots.
Was that it? There couldn't be another phase, right?
Phase 3 began.
* * *
Phase 3 ended.
Ridiculously, Phase 3 was the easiest.
When it began, the sharp spikes covering the floor turned into grass. The horses became entirely living creatures, bodies included, and began attacking us in earnest.
Jin-cheol killed every last one in under five minutes.
The moment he got down, he started throwing nuclear punches as though venting all his frustration. One horse died in about five seconds after taking roughly five punches. Seeing that, the other horses began running away. Song-i could only yawn as the horse she'd befriended was beaten to death.
If they wanted to make things harder for us, they should've kept the spikes in place and restricted Jin-cheol's movement. Instead, they removed the spikes themselves and made things easier for us.
It seemed the Mission Room didn't adjust its difficulty to suit each person's abilities. It simply changed according to a predetermined sequence.
Most of the time was spent with Jin-cheol chasing horses around the cramped space. I'd lived long enough to see man-eating monsters run away from people.
As I sat on the ground, resting blankly, a thought came to mind.
Maybe it wasn't just that stupid people suffered physically. Maybe weak people had to suffer mentally.
Someone who could beat a man-eating horse to death with their fists didn't need brilliant wisdom to subdue one.
As everyone sat on the ground and watched the horses get beaten to death, the next notification appeared.
/Mission 2. Challenge: Man-Eating Carousel Horse cleared! Congratulations. Would you like to proceed to the next mission?/
Of course, no one was going to turn back now.
* * *
When I came to my senses, we were unbelievably high in the sky.
/3. Read-the-Room Gyro Drop
Starting in 30 seconds! Get into the correct position./
What? The instructions were different from the first two missions. Until now, it had been 1, 2, 3, Start! This time, we had thirty seconds? The correct position?
I hurriedly looked around. It was exactly what it sounded like, a gyro drop. Except it was so high, maybe 1,000 meters up, that the ground wasn't visible. More absurdly, there were no safety restraints at all. We were only sitting in chairs fixed to a platform.
If the gyro drop started like this...
We'd be launched into the sky.
“W-what do we do?!”
Song-i's scream rang out. What were we supposed to do? It was the first time thirty seconds had felt so short.
I heard a rough clattering sound and looked to the side. Jin-cheol had clamped his chair between his legs, then grabbed Seung-yeop and Elena, who happened to be seated on either side of him, one with each arm.
So...
As the gyro drop fell from a height too great to gauge, he planned to hold himself, Seung-yeop, and Elena against the force launching them into the sky, all by gripping the chair with his legs.
An incredulous laugh escaped me, yet somehow, it felt possible. Right. Being strong made life easier.
“Sorry to the rest of you! I only have two arms!”
“Forget it. Just hold onto those two! See you later!”
Eun-sol sounded strangely calm, as though she'd given up. Honestly, I understood that feeling now.
Feeling peaceful as you were about to die?
People in the outside world might not understand what kind of insane thing that was.
I'd realized something while surviving in the hotel.
The most terrifying moment here wasn't when I died first. Surprisingly, dying alone before everyone else wasn't as scary as you'd think. I trusted that the companion who endured to the end would save me.
The hardest moment to bear was when I was the only one left.
Everyone except me had already died believing I would save them, and I was left alone, forced to save them all. That was when I was most afraid.
Looking at it that way, wasn't it fortunate that three people besides me seemed likely to survive?
I felt at ease.
Those three would save me.
The gyro drop began to fall.
* * *
Less than five seconds after the fall began, I was launched into the sky.
Just in case, I tried copying Jin-cheol by gripping the chair with both hands and my legs. Honestly, if I'd had the strength to endure this, I could've taken down one of those horses earlier.
I hadn't expected anything from the start. I simply spread out my whole body and experienced skydiving for the first time in my life.
Jin-cheol! Seung-yeop! Elena! A-ri! I'm trusting you all and going to rest first!
* * *
How many kilometers up had we started falling from? I'd been falling for quite a while, but I still couldn't properly see the ground.
[Stretch your right arm as far behind your back as possible!]
Sage’s Advice appeared out of nowhere. I didn't understand what it meant, but I did as it said.
Then...
My falling speed began to slow.
?
A small, warm hand tightly grabbed mine and slowed my descent.
“I thought about it, and I chose you. It was a close call, but you happened to stretch out your hand.”
“A-ri, you...”
I swallowed the question of how she was flying. Song-i had already told me long ago that A-ri seemed able to fly.
“This is really hard for me too. I'm using blood in real time. I'm not even flying, just falling slowly, so I could only grab one person. I had to think about who to save. I think choosing to save you, since you have Descent, was the right choice.”
“...Thank you.”
“Don't thank me. I'm expecting you to save everyone if it comes down to it.”
“...”
The free fall that had felt as long as eternity came to an end.
As we fell slowly, I suddenly realized something.
A-ri... could actually escape on her own even now. All she had to do was use this ability while jumping from the front gate.
When we reached the ground, five of us had survived.
Jin-cheol had succeeded in holding on until the end, keeping hold of Seung-yeop and Elena as well. But his legs looked ruined. They had turned completely blue. Maybe the durability granted by his blessing had somehow kept the bones intact, but half the skin had peeled away, and his legs trembled.
What had happened to Song-i and Eun-sol?
No one bothered to mention it.
We had only cleared three missions, with four still left, yet only five survivors remained.
As everyone silently waited for the next notification, A-ri staggered and collapsed.
Startled, I caught her. Her skin was white as paper, and she began trembling, unable to speak.
What she'd said earlier.
"I'm using blood in real time."
Had she used too much blood slowing our fall all the way to the ground while holding onto me?
This was bad. I felt guilty that she'd gone through this to save me, but there was a far more serious problem.
Jin-cheol's legs weren't normal, and A-ri wasn't normal because she'd lost too much blood.
Our remaining strength was now far too weak.
Just as my head was about to burst from all my worries, I realized the solution to this damn gyro drop.
It had given us thirty seconds and told us to get into the correct position. In other words, there was a position from which we could clear it easily.
The chairs were fixed to the platform. If you thought about it, weren't the chairs themselves basically safety bars?
Couldn't we have simply gone under the chairs and wedged ourselves between the chairs and the platform, using the chairs as safety bars as we descended?
As I lamented myself for only realizing the solution after everyone who would die had already died, a notification appeared.
/Mission 3. Read-the-Room Gyro Drop cleared! Congratulations. Would you like to proceed to the next mission?/
* * *
/Mission 4. Real or Fake? The Room of Mirrors.
1! 2! 3! Start!/
When the distortion of space stopped, I found myself trapped in a world filled with mirrors. A massive Mi-ro filled with mirrored walls in every direction!
Did we have to find the way out?
Following the traditional solution for a Mi-ro, I decided to place my hand on one wall and follow it all the way through.
The moment I placed my hand on one of the mirrored walls...
The mouth of ‘me in the mirror’ split open, and it attacked me!
Footnotes:
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