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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 56: Room 106, Mission Room - ‘Hope Hotel Land’ (3)

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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: 1]

4. Real or Fake? The Room of Mirrors.

Only after I stumbled backward in a panic and landed on my ass at the sight of the monster lunging at me did I realize it.

The monster couldn’t cross the mirror.

It repeatedly crashed into the mirror as if it were an impassable wall, but the mirror didn’t budge.

Couldn’t it cross the mirror on its own?

Too dumbfounded to believe it, I walked up to the mirror and flipped the monster off a few times.

“Don’t scare me like that. Why are there so many damn monsters in this hotel?”

Once I relaxed a little and looked up, I spotted the one place without a mirror.

< 59:48 >

As I watched, the numbers kept changing, soon reaching 59 minutes and 30 seconds.

The meaning was obvious. I had to escape this space before time ran out.

Let’s think.

If this wasn’t the kind of Mi-ro whose structure changed, then following one wall with my hand against it would eventually lead to the exit.

Also, the monsters reflected in the mirrors couldn’t come out.

Wasn’t this a simple problem?

I just had to ignore the monsters that couldn’t come out anyway and find the exit.

I put my hand against the wall and started moving again. Just in case, I took off the cardigan draped over my shoulders and left it on the floor.

After ignoring the monsters and moving for around ten minutes, the cardigan I had left on the floor appeared again.

I had returned to my starting point.

I hadn’t felt the maze’s structure changing as I moved. Unless it had changed somewhere beyond my perception...

This Mi-ro had no exit.

If there was no exit, the simple answer was to make one.

The mirrors. Unless they were some incredible kind of bulletproof glass, wouldn’t they break if I just punched them?

I had my cardigan and my Dagger. If I wrapped the cardigan around my hand and struck the mirror with the Dagger’s handle, I could break it without getting hurt.

Was breaking a mirror and leaving through it the right choice?

I hesitated for a moment, but the clock on the ceiling already showed 47 minutes. There was no point dragging things out. I had to decide.

I still had one use of Sage’s Advice left. I had used one to tell me where the accelerator was in the bumper cars, and another to tell me to reach toward A-ri in the gyro drop. Only one remained.

Sometimes, it felt like it wasn’t much help, but in the end, this advice had saved my life countless times. It would help me this time too.

Beyond the mirror, a monster that vaguely resembled me but had its head split into four parts was threatening me.

The moment I raised the Dagger to strike the mirror.

[If you strike it, you will be killed by the monster.]

I lowered the Dagger.

I’d wondered if that might happen. Would those monsters cross over if I broke the mirror? Still, I hadn’t expected them to actually exist.

The monster beyond the mirror was real. It couldn’t cross the mirror on its own, but if I carelessly broke it, it would come through and kill me.

What should I do?

1. There was no exit in the mirror Mi-ro.

2. To make an exit, I had to break a mirror.

3. If I broke a mirror, the monster beyond it would come to my side.

I was at a loss. Was this something only people who could fight and defeat monsters, like Jin-cheol, could clear?

It didn’t feel like the kind of problem that could be solved that way. From what I had experienced so far, physical strength wasn’t that important for getting through this hotel.

< 42:39 >

Forty-two minutes. My heart was beating faster. Would this really be the end once I cleared it? If there was another stage afterward, I needed to decide quickly.

Could there be a safe mirror somewhere? For example, maybe there was a mirror where no monster appeared.

After looking around, I ran through the Mi-ro and examined the mirrors.

Before long, I found a mirror that reflected nothing even when I stood directly in front of it.

Was this the answer after all? Find a mirror without a monster, break it, make an exit, and leave!

It felt like I had finally found the answer. I raised the Dagger’s handle to break the mirror again, then stopped.

I had no Sage’s Advice left, so I needed to be even more careful now.

Let’s think rationally.

Of course, a mirror with a monster on the other side wasn’t normal.

But was a mirror that reflected nothing normal? That was just as abnormal.

I calmly examined the mirror that reflected nothing.

?

Something glittered near the upper right, around shoulder height.

What was that? Puzzled, I leaned closer to get a better look.

No, fuck, seriously, cut it out already, you crazy bastards, aaaaaah!

I cursed without even being able to breathe.

Absurdly, the mirror that reflected nothing was a mirror with a monster hiding inside it.

A monster of unknown identity, seemingly modeled after me, had been hiding beyond the mirror with a knife. The thing that had glittered was the knife.

I nearly fainted when I got close enough to see myself with five eyes hiding there with a knife, then thrusting it at me the moment it saw me.

There was no time. I felt like I was going insane, but I didn’t have time to stand there trembling.

It was already 37 minutes. I really had to get out now. There was no guarantee this was the end.

Let’s organize the information I had gathered so far.

1. Beyond the mirrors were monsters modeled after me.

2. If I broke a mirror, the monster would cross over and kill me.

3. There were no safe mirrors. Even mirrors that reflected nothing had monsters hiding in them.

Number one. “Monsters modeled after me.”

Would a monster appear even at an angle where I wasn’t reflected in the mirror at all?

It was similar to number three, but a different approach.

Number three was a situation where nothing appeared even though I was at an angle where I should have been reflected. In that case, I had concluded that a monster was forming but hiding.

Then what if I was at an angle where I wasn’t reflected in the first place? Would a monster form then too?

I moved to the left of the mirror in front of me and looked at it from an angle where my body wasn’t reflected at all.

At first glance, nothing appeared.

...

< 35:28 >

Let’s decide.

There was no guarantee I’d find the answer by thinking forever. I stayed as far outside the mirror’s range as possible so none of my body would be reflected, then pushed only the Dagger into view and struck the mirror.

----Crash!

...

I waited, but no monster appeared.

I passed through the opening created by the broken mirror.

* * *

/Ding dong dang! Correct. You were the first participant to make it through.

But there are still companions who have not yet cleared it. You can help them.

If necessary, why not choose an appearance that seems more trustworthy?/

Correct Answer: Prevent the monster from forming by keeping your body from being reflected in the mirror, then break the mirror with a tool to create an exit and leave.

I got it right.

But as I had guessed, it wasn’t over. I had to help the other companions get out.

“Choose an appearance that seems more trustworthy.”

What was that supposed to mean?

* * *

After leaving through the exit and walking for a while, I arrived in a strange room.

Several enormous full-length mirrors stood around the room’s perimeter, while a board covered with everyone’s ID photos stood in the center.

And there was one huge clock.

< 31:23 >

About thirty minutes remained.

Once I reached the center of the room and examined the full-length mirrors around the perimeter, I could see four companions who were still alive beyond them. Cha Jin-cheol, Park Seung-yeop, Elena, and Kim A-ri.

I realized what I needed to do.

From now on, I had to make my companions break the mirrors where I appeared and come to the room where I was.

I understood the meaning of “Choose an appearance that seems more trustworthy” too. Whenever I touched one of the ID photos on the board in the center of the room, my appearance in the mirrors changed into the person in the photo.

* * *

Thirty minutes. That was enough. My companions just needed to trust me, break the mirrors, and come out.

The hardest part was “trust me.” How could I make them trust me?

I thought from their perspective. They had been dropped into a Mi-ro filled with mirrors, and monsters that looked like them appeared in those mirrors to threaten them.

Then, out of nowhere, Han Ga-in appeared in one mirror and beckoned them over.

Would they trust Han Ga-in and follow his instructions just because of that?

Wouldn’t they think it was another mirror with an unidentified monster in it?

How could I make them trust me?

“A board that can change my appearance.”

Let’s think about that. They wouldn’t have given me a useless tool. They wanted me to use it.

Whose appearance should I take to guide my companions?

The first person who came to mind was A-ri. The most mysterious girl among us. No one knew the limits of her abilities.

If it were A-ri...

Couldn’t A-ri appear in someone else’s mirror through some magical means?

Whether A-ri could actually do that wasn’t important.

What mattered was that, in my companions’ minds, A-ri was someone capable of causing mysterious phenomena.

I immediately placed my hand on A-ri’s ID photo.

My appearance in the mirror changed into A-ri.

Something was different.

What was this? It resembled A-ri, almost looked exactly like her, but it was slightly different. The hair was closer to silver.

Silver hair and red eyes, like a character from a comic. The impression was subtly different too. A gentler expression?

Could A-ri’s black hair actually be dyed?

I didn’t think it was a huge problem. Other than the hair color, it was obviously A-ri to anyone who saw her.

I went to Seung-yeop first.

* * *

----Crash!

With the sound of a mirror breaking, Seung-yeop burst out.

It took maybe ten seconds. It was ridiculously easy. It was so easy that I almost felt empty.

I just went to the mirror on Seung-yeop’s side in A-ri’s form and crooked a finger once. He immediately came up to the mirror, and when I pretended to hit it, he instantly body-slammed his way out.

I felt like Seung-yeop would run without hesitation even if A-ri told him to come over while she stood with lava behind her.

“Huh? Ga-in? Where’s A-ri?”

“...”

“Ga-in?”

“I’m busy getting the others out, so go wait over there.”

I roughly pushed Seung-yeop aside and started rescuing the others.

The next person to rescue was... A-ri. A-ri was smart, so I thought she would understand the situation quickly.

Things went completely differently from what I expected.

* * *

“Mom? Mom, is that you? How are you there?”

“...”

Since arriving at this hotel, it was the first time I had seen A-ri make such a childlike expression.

Footnotes:

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