WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 57: Room 106, Mission Room - ‘Hope Hotel Land’ (4)
──────
[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 21
Current Location: Level 1, Room 106 (Mission Room - Hotel Land of Hope)
Sage’s Advice: 0]
...
I was flustered. “Mom.”
I had thought this body looked a little different from A-ri, but I never imagined it might actually be someone else. I’d only assumed this was A-ri’s original appearance and that her current look might just be dyed hair or something.
When I touched other people’s photos, I changed into them. Why had touching A-ri’s photo turned me into A-ri’s mother?
< 29:28 >
I decided to stop dwelling on it. This was the kind of thing I could think about later, when I had more time.
More importantly, the situation wasn’t bad. Whatever this was, A-ri seemed to trust my current appearance quite a bit.
I calmed down and tried to imitate A-ri’s mother as best I could.
I spread both arms wide, smiled as brightly as possible, and mouthed something like, “Come here, my daughter.”
“Phew...”
A-ri let out a deeply disappointed sigh.
Was my acting that awkward?
----Crash!
It didn’t seem like a failure. While I was worrying, A-ri broke the glass and came through.
“Done! That’s two people out. Now we just need to get Jin-cheol and Elena out. A-ri, go rest over there too.”
“...”
Jin-cheol was next. Who should I transform into? Should I become A-ri again and lean into the mysterious act?
For some reason, I was starting to enjoy this.
I went to the mirror leading to Jin-cheol, put my hands behind my back, and copied a slightly sulky expression when-
---Thud!
A fist came flying at me.
“I don’t act like that.”
“Ugh! You startled me. Wasn’t it kind of similar?”
“Not at all.”
“Ga-in. It really wasn’t.”
“Then should I twist my mouth a little and go for a more mysterious look?”
“Are you trying to rescue Jin-cheol, or are you trying to make fun of me?”
“...”
Let’s think more seriously. How could I rescue Jin-cheol?
I tried acting in front of the mirror as A-ri several times, moving almost like I was dancing.
All it did was make A-ri sigh more deeply.
After watching for a while, A-ri pushed me aside and tried to do something herself.
But A-ri’s image didn’t appear in the mirror at all.
I went back and struck all sorts of poses, mouthing for him to come over.
Jin-cheol only stared at me with an expression that asked what the hell I was doing. He didn’t come closer.
“Try acting with Jin-cheol’s personality in mind.”
“Personality?”
“I want to do it myself, but it seems only the first person to escape is allowed to rescue others. So I’ll tell you what I think. Transform into Elena. Smear blood around your mouth and act like you’re half-dead. Jin-cheol won’t be able to stand it. He’ll come out.”
...
Imitating a dying Elena. That definitely felt like it would work on him.
< 19:44 >
We’d wasted a lot of time already.
After touching Elena’s photo, I followed A-ri’s coaching. I smeared blood drawn with a syringe around my mouth, deliberately injured myself, and imitated a badly wounded Elena.
About a minute after I went before the mirror and began acting with all my heart-
---Crash!
In the end, Jin-cheol broke the mirror and came out, unable to bear watching a dying Elena.
“...”
Just like A-ri, he was speechless the moment he saw me.
“Go wait over there too. Elena’s the last one left.”
“Um... Were you the one pretending to be Elena?”
“You can hear the explanation over there.”
“... Good work.”
He looked less grateful and more like he wanted to punch me, but after taking in the situation, he seemed to be forcing himself to hold it in.
This felt unfair.
When you got down to it, I was the one who’d thought things through, escaped first, and was rescuing everyone. Why did nobody seem grateful? Why did they all seem angry?
I went to the mirror on Elena’s side and thought.
Whose appearance would make it easiest to persuade Elena?
Should I imitate A-ri, who had come to rescue Elena by some mysterious means? Dependable Jin-cheol? Transform into Seung-yeop and act pitiful?
Nothing really came to mind.
Elena was always beautiful, kind, and gentle, yet she almost never revealed her true feelings. Then again, all of us hid what we really thought, even as we grew closer.
Still, I’d often felt Elena had an especially high wall around her heart.
I didn’t know.
For now, I transformed into A-ri and tried calling her over with various gestures.
She didn’t move. She didn’t react at all, as if she saw me as no different from the monsters in the other mirrors.
When I transformed into Seung-yeop and tried something else-
Elena moved completely out of sight of the mirror reflecting me. Had she decided it was the most dangerous mirror?
Once she left as if refusing to communicate at all, I had no options left.
As I stood there flustered and at a loss, the others came over and started racking their brains too.
“Isn’t there some way to call her? Did you try shouting?”
“Voices can’t pass through the mirrors.”
“What about transforming into Elena herself?”
“Setting aside what I transform into, she moved completely out of the mirror’s view. I can’t even see her.”
< 9:23 >
Less than ten minutes remained.
There was no solution.
After moving out of the mirror’s view, Elena didn’t look at the mirror reflecting me even once. I occasionally caught glimpses of her passing by, but she only seemed to be endlessly searching the maze.
< 5:17 >
With five minutes left, Elena found a mirror that didn’t reflect her.
That mirror was simply one with a monster hiding inside it. Would Elena understand that?
She didn’t. Elena happily broke the mirror, as though she had finally found a safe one...
Let’s forget what happened next. It was a huge shock to everyone. Seeing a companion die brutally before your eyes wasn’t something you got used to, no matter how many times you saw it.
The one good thing was that the House of Mirrors hadn’t been physically demanding, so A-ri and Jin-cheol, who had been weakened by the Gyro Drop, seemed to have recovered somewhat.
Survivors so far.
Han Ga-in, Cha Jin-cheol, Kim A-ri, Park Seung-yeop.
* * *
/Mission 4. Real or Fake? The Room of Mirrors cleared! Congratulations. Would you like to proceed to the next mission?/
* * *
/Mission 5. Azure Dragon Train Departing from Space.
Congratulations to the participants who have reached Mission 5! Our train will depart from space. First, you will ride a rocket into space, so take your places in the correct positions.
It will begin in 30 seconds!/
What kind of insane nonsense was this now? It departed from space? One phrase stood out in particular.
“Take your places in the correct positions.” It would begin in 30 seconds.
After what happened on the Gyro Drop, I understood now. Choosing the right position was important.
The space shook once more.
Then, at some point, I found myself inside a spacecraft.
* * *
30!
“What? What? What? Where are we supposed to go???”
“Please shut up for a second! But where are we really supposed to go?”
27!
A wide, open space. Four people. Looking out the window, it was clearly a facility for launching spacecraft.
25!
“Shouldn’t we move somewhere? I don’t think we should just stand still.”
“There are a few doors over there!”
23!
“There are four doors! Which one do we take?”
“Let’s split up!”
“Split up?”
“We don’t know which place is right, so if we all split up, at least someone will survive. I’m going this way!”
19!
In no time, everyone ran into the small rooms. There wasn’t even time to worry about each other.
I...
Let’s think a little longer.
16!
This was a spacecraft. How did spacecraft fly? To begin with, wouldn’t we go into space just by staying inside the spacecraft? Why couldn’t we be in certain places?
14!
I realized it.
13!
I immediately went into the room beside me, dragged Seung-yeop out, and threw him back into the large central space without giving him time to speak.
“Ga-in???”
“Stay still! You have to stay there!”
8!
Next was A-ri, who had entered the room across from us. I was about to drag her out by force too, but she came out willingly.
“What did you figure out?”
“Stay in the middle!”
5!
This was bad. I couldn’t drag Jin-cheol out by force.
“Come out, no matter what! That’s not the right place!”
“What?”
“Just shut up and come out now!”
2!
With two seconds left, everyone returned to the space where we had started. They all looked at me with bewildered expressions.
Launch!
The spacecraft launched. At the same time, the doors leading to the small rooms locked.
About a minute passed after launch. There was a rattling sound from the small rooms, and then they all separated from the spacecraft.
It was only natural. Once a spacecraft launched, the boosters responsible for propulsion would all detach.
That was why we never needed to move in the first place. We had been in the correct position from the start.
* * *
“So all we had to do was stay where we started?”
“That’s right. The small rooms on the outside were all traps. They were rooms leading to the boosters.”
“Then what was all that about going to the correct position after it started and giving us thirty seconds?”
“What else could it be but a trap?”
“This gets more exhausting every time. I thought if we all split up, at least one or two of us would survive. We almost all died.”
“Ever since we entered here, it feels like Ga-in’s gotten smarter than usual.”
“Than usual?”
“...”
“No. Ga-in was probably always smart.”
“Did you really need to add ‘probably’?”
“Anyway, good work. Is this over now?”
“Far from it. Isn’t it just beginning? The mission is called Azure Dragon Train Departing from Space, but we haven’t even boarded the train yet. We just departed for space.”
“Ha. Let’s rest. I’m seriously dying here.”
* * *
After moving through space for a long time, we arrived at a train station.
“So boarding this thing is where that damned Azure Dragon Train starts.”
“Just getting here was dangerous. What do you think will happen once we board the train?”
“Let’s all stay sharp.”
I looked around. At some point, everyone had become utterly exhausted.
The House of Mirrors hadn’t been physically demanding, so I had recovered some stamina. The problem was everyone else.
An hour of rest wasn’t enough for A-ri to recover after using so much blood. Even now, Jin-cheol’s whole body trembled every time he took a step.
We were reaching our limits. Today was going to be harder than any day before it.
The Azure Dragon Train waited deeper inside the station.
“Before we leave, let’s at least try to predict what might happen. We should prepare ourselves.”
“There’s an obvious danger right in front of us.”
“A-ri, what looks dangerous?”
“It’s an Azure Dragon Train, like some kind of galactic railway running through space, but it’s exposed to outer space. Even without thinking too hard, I have no idea how we’re supposed to breathe.”
“Gasp! Won’t we explode if we’re exposed to outer space?”
“How old are you that you still believe things you only see in old movies like Total Recall? You don’t explode when you go into space, and unless you stay there for a very long time, you don’t freeze to death either. You’d suffocate before either of those happened.”
“What? Why-”
“Okay, okay! That’s enough science trivia. Just accept it for now. It looks like figuring out how to breathe will be the issue. The train’s already starting to make noises, so let’s hurry up and get on.”
Footnotes:
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