WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 583: Eve of the Storm - The Girl from a Strange World (2)
──────
- Han Ga-in
I drifted between reality and unreality, waking and dreaming, and thought.
What date was it now?
Were the scenes I saw of my companions happening in the present?
Or was the Owl adapting past events and showing them to me?
I didn't know.
Either way, watching Eun-sol somehow force herself to speak was quite interesting.
* * *
“S-Sophia! It’s been a long time. I heard the news. The Management Bureau made you a new body?”
Sophia resembled a classically beautiful woman in her early twenties from a 1970s American film.
It wasn't just her appearance. Her clothes, hairstyle, and makeup all had that same feeling.
Of course, considering she had been born in the Middle Ages, it might have been the latest fashion by Sophia's standards.
“Yes. Would you like to see?”
Sophia smiled lightly, then spun around as though she were walking a runway.
“Wow! Sophia, you’re really pretty!”
At least that much sounded sincere coming from Eun-sol.
Unfortunately, what followed didn't.
“W-Would you like to have a meal? It’s beef stew, like the one I made for you before. Do you remember?”
“... I’m sorry. I don't remember it very well.”
The beef stew Eun-sol had made for Sophia as a child.
For Eun-sol, it had only been about half a year ago. For Sophia, it had been around five hundred years.
Did Eun-sol even remember that stew properly herself?
She had probably only thought of it in a hurry because Sophia was coming.
“When you were a child, I often wondered what you would be like when you grew up... I never imagined it would be like this.”
“Seeing you again, I find myself thinking something similar.”
“Something similar?”
“So this is what you looked like? I thought I had never forgotten Mother’s appearance, but that wasn't true.”
It seemed the Eun-sol in Sophia's memories differed from how she actually looked.
With centuries between them, that wasn't strange.
In Room 207, she had played the role of an impoverished medieval widow. In reality, she was a successful businesswoman. They were in completely different positions.
“Um, am I that different? Hmm... Was I prettier back then? I was half a year younger, after all!”
Eun-sol responded with a joke, but Sophia remained serious throughout.
“More than your face, it’s your build. You were smaller than I expected. When I was young, you felt very big.”
“... Is that so?”
A young girl would naturally see her mother as larger than she really was.
Sophia was now taller than Eun-sol.
“Your face was different too. The image I remembered was a mixture of how you actually looked and my own face reflected in the mirror.”
Memories of one’s mother were bound to grow vague over the years.
It seemed Sophia had filled that gap with her own reflected face.
“Th-then maybe you were a little disappointed. Sophia is so beautiful, after all...”
“That isn't what I meant.”
After that, their conversation remained somewhat awkward.
“In exchange for making me a body, the Management Bureau asked me to work as a researcher.”
“You accepted?”
“From what I could tell, the Management Bureau and all of you didn't seem to be enemies...”
“That’s right. I’ve never received an actual assignment, but I’m an agent in name only too. You don't need to worry. More importantly, not an agent, but a researcher?”
“The Management Bureau said they couldn't be sure whether I could endure the Loop.”
“I see.”
I had heard there was no way to know with complete certainty who could endure the Loop.
The idea that Hotel escapees could withstand the Loop was only an inductive conclusion drawn from the fact that past escapees had done so.
“Come to think of it, now that you've become independent, Seung-yeop’s box must be empty.”
“I heard it now holds his own soul.”
“Ah, then will that kid revive even if he dies, like in Room 207?”
“Hmm... Speaking of that boy, I was more surprised by Fortuna than by Mother.”
“R-Really?”
“It was an incredible form of shock therapy. The Fortuna I knew was no different from a great demon that had risen from hell, but when I came to reality...”
“What was he like?”
“There was a kid proudly calling himself the top dog at Bangbae Middle School.”
“...”
Seung-yeop had regained his “pure self,” for better or worse.
There had definitely been moments when he recited Yi Ja-seong’s Guidance and split a demigod in two with a single sword, even cleaving the heavens...
Yet when I came to my senses, all that remained was the top dog of Bangbae Middle School.
I had also heard that despite learning martial arts, his League of Legends rank was still mediocre.
Apparently, instead of using his extraordinary physical abilities to focus on games, he spent his time typing insults between ability casts and bickering with other players.
He was my companion, but did that make any sense?
“It’s thanks to him.”
“Th-Thanks to him? Thanks to what?”
“His incredible shock therapy helped me adapt to reality quickly. Ah, the people I remembered and the real people before me were completely, utterly different. One hundred and eighty degrees different!”
“No...! Even so, Seung-yeop is an extreme case!”
“Perhaps you, too, Mother, are different from how I remember you.”
“I’m telling you, not as different as Seung-yeop!”
“Pfft! He’s still your companion. Aren't you being too harsh on him?”
The two of them laughed happily.
I could feel them growing closer and more comfortable with each other.
This was definitely thanks to Seung-yeop.
Maybe Lucky Boy willingly played the villain just to make everyone happy?
It was an act, right?
“At first, I was honestly shocked. In modern terms, an identity crisis?”
“Sophia...”
“The life I lived was an illusion? It was no different from a film being shown within a real world?”
“...”
Eun-sol wasn't the only one left speechless. I couldn't say anything either.
In the past, Phantom Demon had shown a similar reaction and suffered a mental breakdown.
“As time passed, I came to think of it this way.”
--- Ting!
Sophia suddenly placed a teacup inside her bowl of stew.
“A teacup inside a bowl. This is the phenomenon we can see, right?”
“The bowl is reality, and the teacup is Room 207?”
“Yes.”
A teacup inside a bowl.
The Hotel within reality.
“To those living inside the bowl, Room 207 would be an illusion.”
“...”
“But look outside the bowl.”
“Outside the bowl?”
“Can you see the table?”
Outside the teacup was the bowl.
Outside the bowl was the table.
Even the table wasn't the end.
“Like a Curse Room, reality goes through one Loop after another. The Hotel even uses a power called Dream to freely paint over reality.”
Eun-sol fell into serious thought too.
“Is the Hotel the table?”
“Who knows? Still, we can think of it this way. From the perspective of someone truly exalted, a Curse Room and reality are no different.”
“...”
To Buddha, the being said to occupy the highest place in the Hotel, what difference would there be between reality and a Curse Room?
Both were only paintings where anything could be changed with a single brushstroke.
... Even such a great being had failed to create heaven.
“Thinking that way made me feel at peace. Perhaps even the idea of an unchanging reality is an illusion.”
If all things were illusions, Sophia, born within an illusion, lacked nothing compared to people in reality.
“I’m glad your heart feels lighter.”
Near the end of their conversation, Sophia took Eun-sol’s hand and asked.
“Please be honest with me about this, at least.”
“Okay.”
“Do I feel like your daughter to you?”
Eun-sol remained silent for nearly a minute, then spoke with a heavy expression.
“I’m sorry. I don't think so.”
“I understand.”
“But... a precious relationship doesn't have to be that of a mother and daughter. I want to think of you as a companion.”
“...”
“What do you think?”
Sophia turned without answering and walked toward the door.
Eun-sol gave a small wave with a resigned expression. Then Sophia smiled.
“I will try.”
It seemed to have worked out well enough.
The matter between those two wasn't something for me to interfere with.
My consciousness gradually grew hazy.
I had looked in on each of my companions, so perhaps this strange dream was about to end.
Huh?
A solid pressure suddenly seized my consciousness and dragged it away!
Before, it had felt as though I were drifting comfortably. This was completely different.
It clearly felt like the hand of a different being had roughly grabbed me and was leading me somewhere.
My consciousness flew far away, to a place endlessly distant.
Not only was I moving quickly, but the flow of time itself seemed to have suddenly accelerated.
Then a mysterious realization seeped into my mind.
If the being that had guided my mind until just now was the Owl, this was an entirely different being.
Secret, is that you?
As if he had been waiting, an apparition of a man in a suit swept past.
We didn't exchange a single word, but this was exactly what unspoken understanding meant.
He asked me to save A-ri.
--- Flash!
In an instant, my vision cleared and I could sense my surroundings.
If I had to describe it, it was like a city destroyed after a nuclear war.
* * *
The first thing I saw was a beautiful girl walking through the ruins.
Ah, hello?
I greeted her on reflex, but naturally, there was no answer.
I wasn't even sure whether the scene I was watching was happening in the present or in the past.
--- Grrrk!
Insect-like creatures let out grotesque cries and rushed at her with saw-like teeth bared.
A-ri rose into the air with the power of her Wing Boots and evaded them.
The next place was deeper within the ruins.
It was filled with stripped electrical wires, and A-ri was weaving them together as though she were trying to operate some kind of machine.
Where was this, and what was A-ri doing?
Why couldn't the Status Window find this location, showing only “Searching...” instead?
--- Rumble!
An enormous vibration, as if the entire world were shaking!
The moment dust poured down throughout the ruins, A-ri calmly floated in midair and slipped into what looked like a prepared hiding place.
She already seemed accustomed to this place and this phenomenon.
--- Whoosh!
As the vibrations came to an end, pale entities emerged through the concrete walls!
They looked like formidable enemies at a glance, and I tensed up.
As if she had been waiting, A-ri pulled a camera from her clothes.
--- Click!
With a single flick of her finger, the unidentified Chaos Entity vanished at once.
Seeing its astonishing performance, I understood why A-ri had called the camera a treasure beyond price.
“Phew...”
She let out a long sigh.
She looked exhausted from pouring every ounce of herself into surviving each day.
For now, she was holding on through her own strength and useful tools, but it was only a matter of time.
If things continued like this, it didn't seem possible for her to survive.
“Haah... Buddha. Since you saved me anyway, it would have been nice if you saved me properly. It wasn't even for free. I used Dream.”
So she had used Dream to escape recently?
“Sending me somewhere beyond the Management Bureau’s reach was fine, but this place is a little much.”
A place beyond the Management Bureau’s reach.
“At this rate, I’ll last two months at most... Huh?”
At that very moment, a feather appeared, fluttering in the air.
A feather that didn't suit this place at all drifted slowly toward A-ri’s face, then settled atop her prominent nose.
“...”
She looked as though she were deeply considering something.
Soon, as if she had felt an unknown hope, she looked up at the sky and muttered.
As though she wanted someone to hear.
“This is the realm of a fallen god.”
...
“A Great One fashioned by everyone’s hands to avoid the End Times, then abandoned by our own hands.”
...
“An entity inherently similar to the one Eun-sol saw in the Otherworld.”
--- Flash!
With that, my consciousness began soaring upward.
In an instant, A-ri became as small as a fingernail, and her hiding place became smaller than my palm.
When my viewpoint rose high enough to take in the entire ruined city where A-ri had been hiding...
An unimaginably immense eye stared back at me.
A being infinitely distant.
A dim-witted god that had lost even its intelligence after being abandoned and falling into ruin.
Ah...!
I screamed soundlessly, where no one could hear, and thought.
A-ri was on the body of a gigantic living creature!
Footnotes:
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