Escaping the Mystery Hotel - Chapter 575

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 574: The Management Bureau Is an Elephant (4)

──────

- Cha Jin-cheol

Violent tremors, deafening noise, grotesque masses of rock rising all around us!

I'd expected some fighting, but not this much.

What had we, the Management Bureau, overlooked?

We hadn't known the exact nature of Jang Seo-jin's ability.

We knew he could create living sculptures, but the range of what counted as a “sculpture” was far broader than we'd imagined.

“Ha! Sticking rocks together counts as sculpture?”

“Rookie, what the hell do we do?”

“Could you watch the swearing?”

“How am I supposed to not swear? We don't have enough grenade rounds to destroy all of those!”

We were surrounded by rock sculptures rising up from every direction.

Kim Ji-ho didn't have enough ammunition for the grenade launcher he'd brought.

And there was no way I could handle them with my fists.

...

If I used the Otherworldly Star Fragment, I could clean this up in an instant.

The Star Fragment could ignore those rocks' hard surfaces and kill the “core” inside.

The only problem was that I was posing as a rookie agent, so I had to be mindful of Kim Ji-ho watching me.

Then Kim Ji-ho looked at me as though he'd made up his mind.

“Rookie, just use it.”

“What-”

“You're a Hotel participant, aren't you?”

“...”

“Use your Inheritance. You used it inside that rock hand earlier too. I didn't see it, but I felt something pressing down on my skin.”

Honestly, I was a little flustered.

Had my acting been sloppy enough for Kim Ji-ho to see through it?

Then again, I wasn't a former actor like Elena or a former cult leader like Ga-in.

Kim Ji-ho could be a bit of an idiot at times, but he was still an agent.

More than anything, we'd stuck together as senior and junior agents through several missions, and I'd used my power more than once without realizing it.

Now that he'd already found out, there was no reason to stall any longer.

“Please stand back. My Inheritance can't distinguish friend from foe.”

A moment later, a wave that twisted all things swept through the area.

It didn't take long for the rocks given life by a magician's power to become inanimate once more.

* * *

--- Thud!

The sound of the Otherworldly Star Fragment striking the head of the largest rock giant.

Using an Inheritance didn't require a physical impact like this, but at some point, I'd started using the Star Fragment like a hand axe.

It was my own way of concentrating the Star Fragment's destructive power at a single point instead of letting it spread everywhere and go to waste.

The moment the last piece of rock crumbled away, Jang Seo-jin looked surprised for the first time.

“...I never imagined such an object could truly exist in this world.”

“Do you understand now? Your resistance stopped meaning anything a long time ago.”

“Urgh...!”

Then Kim Ji-ho asked irritably.

“Hey, let me ask you one thing. Why the hell are you making such a fuss?”

“...”

“We don't intend to kill you. We intend to put you to work! So why are you causing all this trouble?”

I'd been wondering the same thing.

We'd informed Taeseong Group from the beginning that we intended to take him, not kill him.

The chairman seemed half out of his mind, so maybe he'd imagined his son being tortured like a lab rat at the Research Lab.

But Jang Seo-jin himself seemed perfectly sane, so why was he acting like this?

Did he really think the Management Bureau would subject him to human experimentation?

Then the pale young man muttered.

“...You know nothing.”

He looked utterly grave.

“What don't we know? I'm curious, so just tell us.”

“Do you have any idea what ultimate art requires!”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. So tell us what this damn art is.”

“Kh, khuh...”

“Don't cry.”

“Ehehe! Ehehe!”

Jang Seo-jin flailed like a madman, then walked toward the head of the rock giant destroyed by the Star Fragment.

“Hahaha! You fools, see it with your own eyes!”

--- Rustle!

The shattered head split apart, and red liquid burst out from within.

“Behold! The sages of old once said that people are the most precious beings of all.”

“...”

“To create the greatest sculpture, you need the finest materials. I came to know this painful truth when I witnessed lightning striking down from the heavens!”

“...”

“Therefore, ultimate art must use people! Ha, can you possibly handle this-”

“...Pfft!”

His pompous words didn't suit his overly solemn expression at all.

I couldn't help letting out a hollow laugh as I listened, and Kim Ji-ho finally burst out laughing.

“Hey, Seo-jin. So this is what you call ultimate art? There are human fingers inside the rock hand, and brains and bone marrow mixed into the materials for your moving sculptures?”

“...”

“So that's why you made such a fuss? Because you killed people to make sculptures, and you thought the Management Bureau couldn't allow that?”

“...”

Was that why Jang Min-cheol and Jang Seo-jin had fought us so desperately?

They'd mistakenly thought the Management Bureau would kill them if it learned their “secret,” that their sculptures were made with people as materials.

“Are you really an idiot? We acquired your sculptures and even analyzed their components. Did you think we wouldn't notice human body parts mixed into the materials?”

For the first time since we'd met, Jang Seo-jin's face turned pale.

The idiot had only just realized it.

The Management Bureau had known from the beginning that murder was essential to Jang Seo-jin's “art.”

“Y-you knew? Th-this pigment-”

“Has blood mixed into it.”

“...And this aggregate-”

“Contains real human bones and spinal cords. I told you, we know.”

The conversation in the car came back to me.

The Management Bureau needed living people, and Jang Seo-jin's sculptures could replace “people,” unlike drones.

In other words, something mysterious, like a soul, inhabited those sculptures...

But could someone like Jang Seo-jin really have created souls?

If that were possible, he'd be a god.

My companions and I knew what kind of organization the Management Bureau was after going through the Hotel.

To put it another way, they were a group that wouldn't hesitate to cut away part of a loaf of bread to protect the whole thing.

But what did ordinary people, unlike us, truly think?

Jang Seo-jin's current state showed the answer.

“Why...?”

“...”

“W-why are you doing this? Y-you aren't supposed to do this...”

The person who'd looked like some dark wizard who alone had uncovered the world's secrets only moments ago turned into a child in an instant.

“What aren't we supposed to do?”

“I, I, I'm c-crazy, and my father went crazy because of me, but... you people aren't supposed to be like this...!”

“...”

His voice was rambling.

What frightened Jang Seo-jin wasn't the Management Bureau's strength, which he couldn't possibly resist.

It was the cruelty of the first “part of the elephant” he'd ever seen.

Kim Ji-ho shook his head and looked at me.

“Rookie.”

“...”

“You really are a Hotel participant?”

“How did you know?”

“Hey, do you think this is my first time training a rookie? No matter how many regressions you've endured, a real rookie isn't like you.”

“...”

“They see ghosts and monsters, scream, run away, piss themselves, the whole deal.”

I'd been too calm.

Should I have screamed every time I saw a monster?

“I thought something was off from then on, but Kim A-ri was subtly looking out for you, so I wondered.”

A-ri had intervened when assignments were being handed out not long ago.

It had been to send me to the company where Ga-in was playing cult leader, but apparently it looked strange from the outside too.

“I became certain when you escaped from that rock hand earlier. So, you're a participant, right?”

“Yes.”

Our gazes met, and Kim Ji-ho asked as though testing me.

“That edgelord chaebol heir. How do you think Headquarters will evaluate him?”

“I think they'll consider him useful.”

That was why they'd ordered us to bring him in.

“Why? Is creating human substitutes by killing people meaningful?”

“Many sacrifices, like death row inmates, are difficult to control. Those sculptures obey Jang Seo-jin's orders, so they're useful. Aren't they?”

That was right.

The value the Management Bureau found in Jang Seo-jin wasn't that he could reduce casualties.

It was his ability to turn disobedient human sacrifices into human “sculpture” sacrifices that followed orders.

That made him extremely useful.

Kim Ji-ho smiled.

“That's enough. Rookie, you've learned everything there is to learn.”

And then-

--- Bang!

A single gunshot rang out, and Taeseong Group Chairman Jang Min-cheol's head exploded.

“Wow! Tomorrow's going to be a mess. This'll make the front page of Hankook Ilbo. Chairman dies suddenly!”

“...”

The moment his father's head exploded beside him, Jang Seo-jin's face went pale.

The reason we'd killed the bodyguards without hesitation but hadn't killed Jang Min-cheol was that he'd been a hostage to control Jang Seo-jin.

What did it mean that Jang Min-cheol had now been killed without hesitation?

“Hic! I-I'm sorry! I'll do whatever you-”

--- Bang!

Jang Seo-jin's head exploded.

Soon, only two people remained on the ruined road.

“...”

“Is this really all right?”

“What? Are you worried Headquarters will discipline us? I'll write one incident report.”

We'd killed the powerful ability user the Management Bureau coveted and a chaebol chairman, yet one incident report would be enough.

That was what it meant to be an agent.

“We can say his resistance was too fierce and his ability was less useful than expected.”

“...Thank you.”

The reason Kim Ji-ho killed those two.

Of course, it wasn't because they killed people to make sculptures.

I was hiding from the Management Bureau that I was a Hotel participant, but they had seen my Inheritance.

We had no clean way to erase Jang Min-cheol and Jang Seo-jin's memories.

So we had no choice but to silence them by killing them.

“Don't thank me. More importantly, damn it!”

“...?”

“If I'd known you were a participant, I wouldn't have tried to act cool!”

You're worrying about that now?

“Let's go back.”

“Let's. Since the car's wrecked, we'll have to walk for quite a while-”

“I called another one, idiot.”

“Ha, you're thorough.”

And so, another mission came to an end.

To the Management Bureau, it must have been an utterly hollow conclusion, but for me...

It wasn't bad.

I was gaining a deeper understanding of the Management Bureau and its agents.

“Rookie Cha. I don't know why you're hiding that you're a participant, but I won't report it, so deal with it yourself. And find another senior agent from now on. Don't let them find out.”

“...”

* * *

- Kim A-ri

--- Screeech!

At last, the door leading to the Management Bureau's leadership, The Silent, opened.

The first things I noticed were the deep darkness and the distant mist that obscured my vision.

As I walked through the gloom that weighed down my body, I found a Stone Tablet giving off a faint light.

We are this star's rightful heirs, and we stand at the beginning and end of all things.

“...”

A voice came from behind me.

“Read after me.”

“We are this star's rightful heirs, and we stand at the beginning and end of all things.”

“There's another sentence after that.”

Therefore, only we are qualified to know all mysteries.

“Therefore, only we are qualified to know all mysteries.”

We swear never to permit mysteries to those who are unqualified.

“...We swear never to permit mysteries to those who are unqualified.”

The moment I read the three sentences, I felt an incomprehensible, profound pressure settle over my mind.

“...”

From now on, I couldn't reveal any secrets I learned to those who were “unqualified.”

Because I had become one of The Silent as well.

“Be careful from now on.”

“...”

“Obligations come with responsibility. If you recklessly expose mysteries to the outside, the Stone Tablet will punish you.”

“...What punishment?”

“Ha! You're showing your nasty disposition from the start. You want to tell your ‘companions’ the information even if it means being punished, don't you?”

“...”

This person was a lot to deal with.

They had endured far more Loops than I had, and they knew the Hotel inside and out, so they could read my thoughts far too easily.

“Let's go. Congratulations once again.”

I followed the dark passageway.

At the end of it, I found those who had walked this path before me.

...

The information Ga-in had told me in Room 207.

Ga-in himself said he had learned it from Mi-ro's mind, which meant it was something Mi-ro from the past had discovered.

Many of The Silent weren't human.

But that was truly only a trivial detail.

...