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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 560: The Secret of the Esper 2 (5) Fin

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「User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)

Date: Day 27

Current Location: Esper

Sage’s Advice: 1」

- Han Ga-in

I told them Eun-sol's location was listed as “Searching.”

“Ah! What do we do?”

“We have to find her right away!”

“B-but we don't even know where she is!”

“That’s... Ah! The hotel said it would give us a rest, and yet...”

Elena's last words echoed something I'd thought many times myself.

“... This.”

“Ga-in?”

“How is this a rest?”

“Exactly!”

Even if the hotel's standards were more extreme than an ordinary person's, this crossed a line.

Still, something was strange.

Wasn't the hotel the kind of place that hid the truth but never outright lied?

“...”

I recalled what the Merchant had said before our escape.

* * *

“This much is within my discretion, so I'll give you a sort of guideline for your actions.”

“Rest for about six months.”

“For the first six months, just rest and go with the flow without thinking about anything. During the next six months, only gather information. The main game begins in a year.”

* * *

“They never said it was safe.”

“Pardon?”

“The hotel and the Merchant never told us it would be safe.”

“Pardon?”

“They only told us to rest.”

Song-i, who had been repeating, “Pardon?” in disbelief, finally snapped.

“What kind of wordplay is that? If they tell us to rest, of course that means it's safe!”

The hotel was the kind of place where things that seemed obvious sometimes weren't.

“The first thing the Merchant said was, ‘This much is within my discretion.’”

This much is within my discretion.

In other words, they couldn't tell us anything beyond that.

“If the total information was 100, the Merchant's discretion was less than 5. They couldn't tell us everything, so they gave us a literal guideline for our actions.”

“What do you mean?”

Elena looked confused.

“Reality is already dangerous. We all knew that, right?”

“That's right. That's why Miss A-ri and Mook-seong came to the hotel.”

“Being told to rest doesn't mean the outside is safe. It was never safe to begin with.”

They hadn't told us to rest because the outside world was safe.

“Then why did they tell us to rest?”

“Because acting recklessly would make things more dangerous.”

“Ah?”

“If we go around digging into things with too little information, we'll end up in the palm of their hand!”

Song-i's eyes widened.

“Whose hand?”

Once again, I recalled what had just happened.

The past I had seen through Insight.

The man who had spoken to me in that past.

What he had said.

「Shouldn't you check on your companion's location?」

He hadn't simply seen the future.

He knew about the Status Window's Companion Location Information!

“... Former Participants.”

“Ah?”

“People who escaped the hotel before us.”

“...”

“And probably the people currently controlling the Management Bureau.”

It should have been a terrible crisis, depending on how I looked at it, but I laughed instead.

An inexplicable thrill pricked at my skin.

I asked my final question for today.

「Advice: 1 -> 0」

‘Did you pass information about me to another participant of yours? Where is he...’

--- Beep!

It sounded like a warning alarm.

「That question violates the rules!」

I gave a hollow laugh, but felt relieved at the same time.

If I couldn't obtain information about Former Participants through Advice, then they probably couldn't obtain information about me through it either.

Then another answer appeared.

「It is not too late. Because you made an excellent wish.」

If the warning just now had come from the hotel, this answer seemed to have come from my Sponsor.

What wasn't too late, and why was my wish excellent?

As always, there was no detailed explanation.

“...”

Still, for an Owl, wasn't that an unusually easy answer to understand?

I thought I vaguely understood what was happening.

What happened at Hotel Delight and Esper weren't coincidences!

Did they know those two places were specifically within my companions' domains and cause incidents there?

That didn't seem likely.

As I had confirmed by using Advice just now, Hotel-granted powers couldn't directly locate another Hotel participant.

Had they caused incidents in dozens, perhaps hundreds, of places they considered suspicious?

Then watched how the people caught up in them responded?

“Let's rest.”

“G-Ga-in?”

“I think we should just rest.”

“Mr. Ga-in?”

“Come to think of it, Eun-sol's hotel problem was the same. Eun-sol and I didn't need to make a fuss. We only had to wait.”

“What do you...”

“This is what ordinary people do. We quietly wait for the Management Bureau.”

Now I understood.

“The process of us solving things is the trap itself.”

Song-i and Elena had fallen silent at some point.

They were both beginning to understand what I meant.

Some of my companions might already have ended up in the enemy's hands.

Still, I had to remember what the Owl said. It wasn't too late yet.

Because of my wish, information about me would be censored automatically. At least for me, things weren't irreversible yet!

Six months. One month had already passed, so five months remained?

I also had to remember the Merchant's advice to simply rest until then.

What would change after that period?

I didn't know.

But when I didn't know, following the advice of someone who did was wisdom.

From now on, I was an ordinary person who knew nothing, not some member of the Hotel Party.

So...

“Ahh!”

“Ga-in? Why are you suddenly screaming...”

“Aaah!”

“M-Mr. Ga-in!”

“Help me! Please help me!”

“D-do we have to go this far?”

From now on, I was blind, deaf, and a fraudulent exorcist.

“W-what are we going to do about Eun-sol?”

I trusted Eun-sol.

She'd get out on her own.

* * *

- Lee Eun-sol

--- Creak!

The air was dark and stale.

The wooden planks swayed beneath my feet with every step.

“...”

What kind of place was this?

I'd accepted Elena's invitation, arrived at the Esper's dock, and boarded the ship...

When I came to, I wasn't on a luxury cruise ship but in a place that looked like some ghost ship.

The sky, filled with dark crimson whirlpools, clearly didn't belong to this world either.

--- Whoooom!

Even after using the Flute of Rest, the scenery didn't change.

That meant it wasn't some illusion.

“Another one of these... At Hotel Delight, the elevator went wild. This time, it's the entire ship?”

It seemed to be another Chaos Disaster.

What kind of Chaos Disaster appeared nearly every week? I could only laugh.

In many ways, it was worse than the hotel.

The hotel at least gave rewards when its trials were resolved.

What about reality?

After resolving the strange elevator at Hotel Delight, the stock price had fallen, rumors had spread, and customers had dropped sharply.

“Whew... This is seriously too much.”

At that moment.

--- Click!

The sound of dress shoes approached.

“Ha ha, what has you so worried?”

A man had appeared in this shabby place that resembled a ghost ship.

He wasn't as tall as Jin-cheol, but he was tall enough to feel imposing.

And...

“You're quite mysterious.”

I couldn't make out the man's facial features.

The man had appeared openly before me, yet I couldn't recognize what his face looked like.

If I still had the Eye of the Monocular Giant Bird that I'd returned to the hotel, perhaps I could have seen through him.

There was no point thinking about it. It was an item I couldn't bring outside the hotel.

“Mysterious? I simply value my privacy.”

“...”

“Ha ha. Haven't you ever thought that, Miss Eun-sol? That it's uncomfortable when people recognize you, that you'd like to live without others knowing who you are?”

That sounded like something Ga-in, with his strange wish, would think.

“Well, I wouldn't have gone into business if I wanted to live unnoticed.”

“Oho...! That's true.”

The dark crimson whirlpools filling the sky.

The unbearably stale air and creaking floor.

An ordinary person would have been terrified and screaming in a place like this, but the man remained perfectly calm.

The man was clearly no ordinary person.

Yet the man didn't seem to be a monster either.

That left only one possibility.

“Are you with the Management Bureau?”

The man smiled.

I couldn't be certain because I couldn't properly see the man's features, but that was the impression I got.

“That is correct, Miss Lee Eun-sol.”

“Then will you rescue me?”

“Is this a situation where you need rescuing?”

“Isn't it?”

“I don't see anyone trying to harm you.”

The man's tone suggested he had no intention of harming me.

I couldn't trust the man completely, but it was best to avoid a rash confrontation.

“Look at the sky. Anyone can see this isn't our world, can't they? I'm a timid businesswoman. If you want to speak with me, I think we can do so somewhere safe.”

“A timid businesswoman... That's different from the information we've gathered.”

“...”

“Didn't it make the news? The strange phenomenon at Hotel Delight! They said the CEO handled it brilliantly with her quick thinking.”

“Quick thinking is an exaggeration...”

“According to the article, Miss Lee Eun-sol has connections in the Management Bureau.”

That was a lie I'd told to calm the situation in front of the employees.

Still, one detail bothered me.

He knew about Lee Eun-sol, the CEO with Management Bureau connections, but seemed unaware of the young exorcist who had acted with me.

Had that information disappeared because of Ga-in's wish?

“If that concerns you, I apologize. It was a lie. If you wish, I can issue a correction, and...”

“A lie?”

“Pardon?”

“Why would it be a lie? Could Miss Eun-sol possibly be unrelated to us?”

“...”

“Isn't that right? You are Agent Kim A-ri's companion!”

A chill ran through me.

For that moment, I felt like Sun Wukong in Buddha's palm.

Had A-ri passed on information about me?

I'd always considered that possibility, but seeing it confirmed made my chest feel heavy.

Of course, it was too soon to call it a betrayal.

It was difficult to describe my group and the Management Bureau as enemies in the first place, and it wasn't certain that A-ri had passed on any information.

More importantly, why did the man only mention Kim A-ri? What about Kim Mook-seong?

“Let's get to the point.”

“... Very well.”

“Participant Lee Eun-sol, congratulations.”

The word “participant” made the meaning of his congratulations clear.

“You escaped the hotel! It is truly a heroic achievement. Throughout human history, few participants have made it through the second floor and escaped.”

“That's the first I've heard of it.”

“Ah, perhaps there would be more if we expanded the definition of participant to include aliens? Even so, it remains a rare feat. Congratulations once again.”

“... Thank you.”

The man shrugged with exaggerated flair.

“We want you to join us.”

“...”

“Let us share the world's secrets and its crises.”

“...”

“Let us guide the fate of humanity, mired in suffering, into the light. Let us become heroes and saviors. You have more than enough qualifications.”

“...”

“Do I have to decide now?”

“Is there a reason to hesitate?”

“I suppose after experiencing all sorts of strange things at the hotel, I've started thinking this way.”

“Ha ha! You're already talking about the hotel. This should be interesting. Go on.”

“Why would someone who came with good intentions deliberately imprison me in a place like this?”

I calmly raised a hand and pointed at the sky.

A world where dark blue whirlpools seethed, and faint screams had been audible for some time.

A place convincing enough to call hell.

Could I trust that someone who imprisoned another person here and spoke of negotiation had come with good intentions?

“It's a little dark, isn't it?”

“...”

“Since Miss Eun-sol spoke of her experiences at the hotel, shall I tell you about mine?”

“Your experiences?”

“The most meaningless things in the world are words and promises.”

“What do you...”

“Isn't that true? The moment they leave your mouth, they vanish into nothing. So no matter what answer Miss Eun-sol gives, we have no way of trusting it.”

The next instant, the man pulled a rolled-up scroll from his waistband.

That damn scroll!

Seriously, I knew the moment I saw it.

That scroll wasn't some cheap oddity scattered around the Management Bureau, or some mere Magical Artifact.

“Inheritance!”

“You recognized it immediately. Now then, let us begin the real negotiation...”

Words for words.

Threats for threats!

[Greedy Hand: 1 -> 0]

“Wish output to maximum! I'm leaving here immediately, Hotel Delight becomes the No. 1 hotel in Korea, and...”

“What the hell are you doing all of a sudden?!”

--- Rumble!

I made my wish.

And then.

[It has been granted.]

“Lord Dragon, I love you!”

Footnotes:

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