WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 576: Everyone’s Interpretation (1)
──────
- Kim A-ri
A weight lifted from my heart.
Ga-in had escaped my dream realm.
I think I've done everything I could.
As for the rest, well, I suppose my companions will take care of it.
--- Rumble!
The dream realm was collapsing.
I could see a hand of punishment descending from beyond time and space.
Even the Kingdom of Dreams, which had protected Ga-in and me until the end, had vanished. It really felt like it was over now.
“...”
A thought suddenly crossed my mind.
Had I betrayed the Management Bureau by taking my companions' side?
At least, the Stone Tablet seemed to think so.
That was why it was making such a fuss about punishing me.
“...”
I didn't see it that way.
The Management Bureau and the Hotel Party.
They were two groups with different ideologies, beliefs, perceptions of the problem, and solutions. But the most important thing was the same.
‘We’ all wanted a happy ending.
That was why ‘we’ could be both the Management Bureau and the Hotel Party.
The process wouldn't be easy.
We'd fight many times, and some people on either side might die.
Still, in the end, we'd somehow reach a happy ending together.
At least, that's what I believed.
“Hngh...”
My whole body hurt.
It hurt so much that approaching death felt more like release than something to fear.
I'd confidently told Ga-in, “Let's meet again in the next world!” if it came to that.
But would there really be a next time for me?
...
I didn't know.
The Management Bureau had ways to destroy even an agent's immortality and kill them permanently.
And now, the Stone Tablet was punishing me because it saw me as a traitor. Maybe this would be different from an ordinary death...
“...”
It was okay.
I wasn't afraid of death.
Wasn't dying when your time came the Natural Order everyone was destined to follow?
I knew better than anyone that I could die permanently one day.
I'd prepared myself for that a long time ago.
Just as I lay down peacefully on the ground,
--- Whoosh...!
a faint glow appeared before me.
It was Dream, the reward for clearing the second floor that I'd received when I escaped the Hotel!
I hadn't had a wish to make at the time, so I'd kept it as a final insurance policy. And it was showing up now?
“Ah?”
I was briefly amazed by the rare experience of seeing Dream within a dream. Then a cold voice rose from inside me.
A-ri, are you really not afraid of death?
Are you sure you're prepared?
Dying when your time comes is the way of the world, the Natural Order...
I sprang to my feet and shouted.
“Bullshit! What Natural Order?”
What kind of Natural Order is that supposed to be?
Where's the Natural Order in a crazy world where the Moon turned into a demon and dove into the Earth?!
I was only trying to convince myself because I had no way to survive!
I thought it was over, so I'd even given Ga-in a cool farewell.
But I still had one more chance!
--- Rumble!
A violent force was approaching, tearing down my mental world.
It was the Stone Tablet's punishment descending upon Kim A-ri, the ‘traitor’!
“Yeah! I've got Dream in my hands!”
Who the hell do you think you are, Stone Tablet?
What, some ancient out-of-place artifact passed down from the primordial Management Bureau?
An insurance policy created after the first betrayal to make sure the same thing never happened again?
Wow, amazing!
But are you stronger than the Hotel's Buddha? Are you?!
“I love you, Buddha!”
I smiled blissfully and made my wish.
The eighth Dream shone.
I felt the brush held by the Greatest Hand drawing near.
* * *
「User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 112
Current Location: Unit 205, Singil Apartment, Seocho 3-dong, Seocho District, Seoul
Sage’s Advice: 3」
- Han Ga-in
“It’s Day 112.”
“Has it already been that long?”
In one more week, it would be four months since we escaped the Hotel.
There wasn't much time left until the point the Hotel had predicted, six months after our escape.
So much had happened in that time.
Right after escaping, we went to a strange world through Eun-sol's hotel.
Then we boarded Elena's cruise ship, where we got caught up in that bizarre incident involving masks. Eun-sol was the first among us to meet a Former Participant, Patrick Biederman.
As soon as that was over, I went to The World That Cannot Be Remembered with Grandpa Mook-seong, where we got into a serious fight with another Former Participant, Ryan Reynolds.
The Sun had been depleted during all that, and in the end, we had to create something poised between a cult and a company with a friend in order to recharge it.
“Ugh...”
“What is it?”
“Thinking about it, I feel like I've been living an insanely busy life.”
“Hmm. Hearing your story, Ga-in, I've felt much the same. I've had an easy time until recently.”
Maybe he didn't mean to, but it felt like he was rubbing it in.
“Didn't the Hotel tell us to rest for at least six months?”
“... It did.”
“A great many of the things you've been through probably wouldn't have happened if you'd just stayed in bed and watched movies.”
I had to admit it.
Rather than events coming after me, I'd gone looking for quite a few of them.
The others knew that too, so we all laid low for nearly two months.
Then everything started returning to normal without any major incidents.
Hotel Delight had been restored on a larger scale, and the Esper had begun sailing the Pacific again.
There had been one change, though.
Sang-hyeon had moved into Singil Apartment.
“Then by that logic, Doctor... no, hyung, isn't it unusual for you to have moved here too?”
“Ga-in, even ordinary people move house.”
“...”
“It seems likely that something will happen here in Korea, where all of you are. I should be on-site as well. My wife and children are doing well in America.”
What brought Sang-hyeon to Korea was an incident two months ago.
A-ri had appeared in my dream, given me a huge amount of incomprehensible information, then vanished.
“Is A-ri's condition still the same?”
Since it had come up, I checked.
「Companion Location Information (*)
Kim A-ri: Searching...」
“It is.”
“It's strange. She seems to be alive, but the search for her location has been ongoing for two months?”
“I have one hypothesis.”
The search function of the Status Window's Companion Location Information was more powerful than I'd initially thought.
It was no coincidence that this ability had appeared when my blessing was enhanced.
It could indirectly tell me not only someone's location, but whether they were alive or dead.
If there was no place name, such as when Room 203 was set in prehistoric times, it told me the direction and approximate distance from my location.
It naturally worked in Curse Rooms, but it also worked perfectly well in reality.
Even if someone fell into an unknown Otherworld in reality, it somehow found their location.
“A hypothesis?”
“Like I told you before, the Status Window can tell me A-ri's location even if she's in space or an Otherworld.”
“I heard. You said that even if she died and went to the afterlife, it would probably list her current location as the Afterlife.”
“But when someone is in an Otherworld in reality, it takes time to find them.”
The word that appeared then was ‘Searching.’
“Are you saying it hasn't been able to find her for two months?”
“No. I think A-ri's location keeps changing.”
“Oh?”
“This is a possibility Sage’s Advice showed me.”
“That makes sense.”
A-ri wasn't in reality, and her location kept changing.
As if...
“It sounds like she's running from something.”
I remembered the moment I parted with A-ri.
Could she be fleeing from the immense power that crossed the Boundary and attacked the dream realm?
“Either way, it's a relief that she seems to be alive. More importantly...”
“More importantly?”
“The information you said A-ri gave you, Ga-in.”
We had discussed what happened that day many times.
We actively used Sage’s Advice, and once everyone put their heads together, we arrived at far more interpretations than I'd thought of at the time.
“There were three main points. First, there's a demon similar to the Demon King in reality. Second, a narrative contrivance that regression stories often gloss over is causing problems in reality. Third, a mysterious painting.”
The first point had produced the most interpretations.
“The Moon is suspicious, huh...”
I watched Sang-hyeon stroke his beard with interest and sank into thought as well.
The mystery of the Moon.
In the world I remembered, there had clearly been a Moon in the sky. My companions didn't remember it that way.
Some said they'd only seen the Moon in history books.
Others had seen the Moon in reality, but their memories of it were completely different from mine.
“According to my memories, the Moon had been an object of fear since long ago. Whenever there was a full Moon, everyone was afraid to leave their homes.”
“...”
It was a story I could never get used to.
The Moon I remembered was simply Earth's satellite.
“A-ri has never actually seen it, while you have, Ga-in. I believe it must be the real-world Moon.”
“Let's say there's a Demon King in reality, and it's the Moon. Where exactly is the Demon King?”
Sang-hyeon confidently pointed a finger downward.
This was also one of the interpretations my companions had agreed on.
“You said A-ri used Room 206 as an example when she mentioned the Demon King in reality. Where was the Demon King? Underground.”
“... So the Moon Demon is beneath the Earth, and all humanity is suppressing it like in Room 206?”
“Didn't we already agree on that?”
“I think it's pretty plausible too, but...”
No, even if the world was fantasy, wasn't there a limit? Did that make any sense?
There was a Moon inside the Earth?
Was that even physically possible?
“It's strange to hear someone who is both a doctor and a former NASA astronaut say that.”
“Ga-in, did you still not know? In this world, science itself is a con.”
“... If the Demon King in reality is the Moon, then what exactly is the Moon?”
Unfortunately, we hadn't reached an agreement on that point.
“Like the Demon King in Room 206, I believe it's a living disaster that fell from space, a kind of alien life form.”
“B-but the Moon isn't an alien life form. It's Earth's satellite-”
“The Management Bureau deceived the entire world.”
“...”
This was a complete conspiracy theory!
But reality itself was a conspiracy theory, wasn't it?
“Grandpa says it's a Chaos Entity created by humanity's negative imaginings gathering together since the beginning of time.”
“That hypothesis also makes sense.”
“Eun-sol says aliens built an invasion base on the Moon.”
“That's convincing.”
From alien life form to a Chaos Entity formed from humanity's nightmares to an alien invasion base, every imaginable scenario was being proposed.
Naturally, there were many more than those.
I let out a helpless laugh and asked.
「Advice: 3 -> 2」
‘Are our hypotheses correct?’
「I have answered many times. Some are true.」
It was openly avoiding a definite answer.
I'd asked the same question several times, but the answer was always at this level.
Still, Owl acknowledged that some of our ridiculous hypotheses were true, so my companions came up with increasingly absurd theories.
“Let's move on. The narrative conveniences glossed over in regression stories.”
We had also reached a degree of agreement on this point.
“To be honest, there are too many to choose just one. Still, Eun-sol focused on what happened in Room 203.”
Room 203, A New Beginning.
“If you think about it, the Curse Room itself is a regression story.”
“Right.”
“What did we learn in Room 203? The beginning of the regression was different from the point when we awakened.”
The world's repetition, the Loop, had a beginning and an end.
In fiction, the beginning and end of the Loop were usually the protagonist's awakening and death.
That wasn't the case in Curse Room 203.
“Humanity arrived at Room 203's setting aboard a spaceship, fought a science fiction-style battle against the Prisoner Adravita, and was defeated. We were the crew members who survived that process.”
History had already begun before the protagonist's awakening.
“And what happened afterward? Once every participant died, the scenario ended and the Curse Room reset. But Adravita remembered all of it and awaited the next cycle.”
Something continued after the protagonist's death.
“In short, there's the question of what happened before the protagonist became aware of the Loop, and what happens after the protagonist dies. Most works of fiction gloss over those parts, but...”
“...”
Let's compare reality to a fictional story about regression.
Unlike ordinary regression stories, there were multiple Regressors, so the beginning of the Loop would be when the first agent awakened.
The end of the Loop would be the moment the last agent died.
That left two Missing Links.
What happened in the world before the first agent awakened.
What happened in the world after the last agent died.
There was something there.
That secret ran through everything in reality.
“Lastly, let's talk about the painting.”
Footnotes:
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