WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 587: The Stolen World (2)
──────
「User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 181
Current Location: Hotel Delight, Yeongdeungpo District, Seoul
Sage’s Advice: 2」
- Han Ga-in
The Management Bureau was building an Ark to avoid the End Times, but neither we nor our companions’ families had secured seats aboard it.
Ryan Reynolds’s proposal to forcibly obtain seats had begun to sway some of my companions.
For people like me, who hadn’t brought their families back to life, or Song-i, who took reality lightly, it wasn’t much of a temptation.
But what about Sang-hyeon and Mook-seong?
Could those two easily abandon their ordinary families?
The answer was obvious.
If they saw the families created through Dream as worthless illusions, they wouldn’t have made such a fuss about sending them to America for refuge.
“What do you think?”
A playful voice pressed us for an answer.
I could say this with certainty. This monstrous old man wasn’t the kind of person who would be swayed by the likes of Mortal families.
Didn’t he have another reason for targeting the Ark?
Sang-hyeon muttered in a slightly trembling voice.
“We can negotiate with the Management Bureau. They haven’t shown consideration because they don’t yet know we escaped the Hotel-”
Ryan snickered and cut him off.
“Negotiate? Have you never considered that your family would effectively become hostages of the Management Bureau? Or do you trust the Management Bureau completely? If so, why have you hidden the fact that you were Participants all this time?”
Hiding that we were Participants meant we distrusted the Management Bureau.
Sang-hyeon’s eyes trembled at the suggestion that he planned to entrust his family’s lives to the Management Bureau’s mercy despite that.
The other side had subtly seized the initiative. I needed to interrupt their momentum.
“Grandfather, Sang-hyeon. Neither of you needs to worry. You know that, right?”
--- Fwoosh!
I smiled and summoned the sun. Their eyes widened.
The Sacred Sun’s essence was also a kind of Ark, and my companions knew that much.
“We can place their souls in here.”
“Ha! I’d forgotten what your Inheritance was, Ga-in! That’s right! As long as we preserve their souls, their bodies aren’t a problem. The Management Bureau in the next Loop can just make them!”
Mook-seong glared at Ryan again, his confidence restored.
Rather than getting angry or worked up, Ryan simply looked genuinely impressed.
“Amazing.”
“...”
“So that fireball is a tool for holding souls?”
“...”
“When you fought me, did you burn souls to gain power?”
I had emphasized the Sacred Sun to reassure my two companions, but Ryan had learned part of how it worked as well.
At times like this, it was troublesome that the other side possessed Communication too.
Since he could spy on Mook-seong’s Chat Window, we couldn’t have private conversations among ourselves.
“Amazing! Still, we have reason to cooperate. Friend, a few of your companions were taken by the Ark, weren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever thought about why they were taken? Hotel Participants can endure a Loop without an Ark, so why put them aboard one?”
“...”
It was a valid point.
Eun-sol, Seung-yeop, Mi-ro, and Jin-cheol were all Hotel Participants. They could endure a Loop without relying on an Ark.
Then why had they been given such precious seats aboard the Ark?
“To awaken around the same time.”
“Huh?”
“After a Loop, the times at which agents awaken are spread farther apart than you can imagine. There’s supposedly a gap of over a thousand years between the earliest and latest. Even I haven’t experienced anything that extreme.”
“...”
“Let’s say they only took ordinary people who lack combat ability and the ability to deal with Chaos Entities. What if those people all awaken in the year 800 AD, and there aren’t any agents who coincidentally awakened around the same time? In other words, no protectors?”
I understood.
If only ordinary people were placed aboard the Ark and sent to the next Loop, what if they awakened to find demons all around them and no agents?
To avoid such a disaster, they simply placed a few powerful Regressors aboard as well.
Besides, not every Regressor was strong.
Jin-cheol’s senior partner, an ordinary agent, had combat ability that, in Jin-cheol’s eyes, amounted to a weakling who would die from one hard hit.
That was why Hotel Participants were suited to the role of protectors.
“...”
In that context, Eun-sol’s combat ability was a little questionable, but perhaps the Management Bureau assumed she had hidden strength because she was a Hotel Participant.
“Young friend, now that you seem to understand, let me ask you this. Can you guarantee that you’ll awaken in the next Loop around the same time as your companions?”
“Hmm...”
I understood what he meant.
If I awakened in the Middle Ages while Sang-hyeon and Mook-seong awakened in the modern era, wouldn’t it be difficult for them to meet their families?
Sang-hyeon frowned.
“Ga-in, even if I’m not there, I trust you to take good care of Jinsol and Baram. So don’t pay any more attention to that man’s words.”
He trusted me to protect Jinsol and Baram?
“It’s the same for me. Don’t listen to that bastard’s pathetic nonsense-”
Didn’t they both trust me a little too much?
--- Clap!
I lightly clapped my hands to silence everyone, then answered Ryan.
“Let’s cooperate.”
“That’s awfully informal... Huh? You’ll cooperate?”
“Do you not want to?”
“No, that’s not it...”
Ryan was the one who looked flustered.
He must have expected me to refuse after seeing my companions’ reactions.
“The terms are that we work together to take down the Ark, and we don’t attack one another until it’s over. Is that about right?”
“...That’s right.”
“It’d be hard to trust each other if all we have is a verbal agreement, wouldn’t it?”
“That’s-”
“Patrick will come tomorrow with something like the Book of Covenants?”
“...Have you learned mind-reading or something?”
“What mind-reading? It’s obvious. Let’s do that. We’re both busy, so bring the Book of Covenants as soon as possible.”
“...”
Ryan, who had just been trying to tempt us no matter what, gave me a suspicious look instead.
That wasn’t bad either.
As long as he had the wrong idea, his suspicion would only make him slower and duller.
“Fine. Tomorrow morning-”
Ryan, who had been nodding despite his suspicions, suddenly tilted his head.
“...”
“...”
A strange silence followed.
Not only were we unable to follow what was happening, but even Ryan seemed unable to.
“What is it?”
Still unable to hide his confusion, Ryan answered.
“...Excuse me. The negotiation has concluded, and Patrick will bring the Book of Covenants tomorrow morning. And, um, I suddenly have something to say.”
Something to say had suddenly come up?
Mook-seong asked with interest.
“Hey, did that ‘Wisdom’ on your side deliver a Revelation or something?”
“...”
“Oh? Really? Now I’m curious. What did it say?”
Ryan muttered like someone who had received an unpleasant order he couldn’t refuse.
“It says to ask whether any of you possess Justice.”
Justice, all of a sudden?
“‘Protect Justice. If Justice dies, a variable difficult to handle will arise.’”
“What does that mean?”
Ryan answered with a more sincere expression than I had ever seen from him.
“Tell me too if you understand it. I’m curious as well.”
* * *
After Ryan left, Mook-seong immediately looked at me.
“You... Why did you join hands with that bastard?”
The others seemed curious too.
“When I can’t be certain which answer is right, I think I should first eliminate the wrong answer.”
When the path ahead is unclear, the first step is to remove the wrong paths.
“The Management Bureau’s plan to build the Ark has a serious problem. At its core, it’s only a temporary measure.”
“A temporary measure?”
I calmly continued while looking at my companions.
“In the end, destruction will occur. The Management Bureau has judged that it can’t stop the End Times and is simply fleeing with its remaining forces.”
The root of every problem was ultimately the Moon Demon or the Light That Calls the End.
The Management Bureau had only chosen to flee because it couldn’t stop the cause of the End Times.
“Think of it like a Curse Room. They can’t solve it, so they just keep escaping, don’t they?”
Only then did my companions begin to nod, understanding what I meant.
“One question. Do you think escape opportunities are infinite?”
“...”
“Ryan said it himself. Civilization has declined several times because Ark construction failed. I see that as a kind of ‘limited number of attempts.’”
Song-i whispered, sounding horrified.
“If Ark construction fails a few more times, there could come a day when it’s already the twenty-first century, but we’re still in the Stone Age?”
“That could happen. If it does, we’ll never be able to stop the Moon Demon or the Light That Calls the End. We won’t even know what’s happening. We’ll just be wiped out over and over.”
Perhaps eternal prehistory was what awaited at the end.
Wasn’t that one of reality’s Bad Endings?
There were probably worse endings too.
There had to be hellish Bad Endings whose existence we didn’t even know about yet.
I put as much force into my voice as possible and looked my companions straight in the eye.
“Let’s make our goal clear. Getting on the Ark and running away? That’s the goal of the Management Bureau and Ryan’s faction.”
“Our goal is...”
“Not escape, but a solution. The Moon Demon and the Light That Calls the End. We have to stop them.”
The Management Bureau was trapped in the mistaken course of repeatedly escaping.
To pull them out of that mire, we had to take down the Ark.
The strength Ryan’s faction had built up would be meaningful help in that task.
That was why I believed a temporary alliance with Ryan’s faction was valid.
After I finished persuading them, Elena cautiously muttered.
“What Ryan said at the end...”
“The words some unknown Wisdom delivered through Ryan?”
‘Protect Justice. If Justice dies, a variable difficult to handle will arise.’
The moment those words came up, Song-i smiled faintly.
“It was kind of funny. Someone above him tells him to say and do things he doesn’t even understand? That just proves Ryan only acts smug. He’s nothing special, is he?”
Sang-hyeon gave a bitter smile instead.
“Rather than funny, didn’t it feel familiar?”
“Familiar?”
“Don’t we often act in a similar way?”
Everyone soon stared at me, looking stunned by the realization.
I smiled awkwardly and changed the subject.
“Elena, did anything come to mind when you heard what Ryan said?”
“Yes.”
Everyone tilted their heads, and Elena brought up something unexpected.
“I didn’t know before because there hadn’t been a proper chance to use my power, but earlier-”
“Earlier?”
“When our companions were taken in the Rapture, I tried to use Justified Self-Defense.”
Justified Self-Defense.
It was the third power Elena had gained through Justice, a power that greatly relaxed the conditions for activating a blessing when an enemy attacked first.
Even so, she had tried to use it in a situation like the Rapture, where we didn’t even know what the enemy was?
“It was too ambiguous, so it failed to activate. I thought about trying to force it, but Mi-ro stopped me too.”
“Is that so?”
“This is the second time, so I’m certain now... It happened only briefly on the Esper, so I couldn’t be sure then.”
Her voice trailed off.
It seemed that even she wasn’t fully certain.
“...It feels like your blessing has become much weaker?”
“Huh?”
The blessing of Justice had weakened.
Before, she had mainly used supportive powers like Lie Detection and Clear Mirror, Still Water. On the Esper, the battle had ended in a single blow, so she hadn’t been certain.
Now that she had tried to use Justified Self-Defense properly once more, she had realized it.
“That means...”
“I think there’s another Justice besides me.”
Sang-hyeon sighed.
“They must belong to the Management Bureau. That’s why they said Elena can’t die. If she does, we’ll have to face Justice at full strength!”
“Oh no!”
Everyone was on guard against another Participant with Justice who belonged to the Management Bureau.
I had a slightly different question.
How did Elder Wisdom know that one of us possessed Justice?
Did Elder Wisdom realize it indirectly after seeing Elder Justice weaken?
* * *
Late at night, after the meeting had ended, I sat in a chair, lost in thought, when I sensed someone’s presence.
--- Creak!
“Elena?”
“...”
She entered without a word and shut the door tightly.
“...Elena?”
Then she gave me a careful look.
“Ga-in.”
“Yes.”
“Earlier, while you were talking with Ryan, I used Lie Detection.”
“Were there lies?”
“At the beginning, when he spoke as if he loved his family.”
Ryan’s claim that he needed seats on the Ark to save his own family had also been a lie.
“I thought so. What love for family could a guy like that have? He must have some other purpose for targeting the Ark.”
I had expected that much, so I wasn’t surprised.
Elena hadn’t come here just to tell me that.
“And...”
I vaguely sensed what Elena was about to say.
“You lied too, Ga-in.”
“...”
“In the middle, when you were persuading Grandfather and the Doctor. You said you could protect their families with the Sacred Sun, so they shouldn’t be swayed by Ryan’s words.”
“...”
“That was a lie, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“...Can’t you save them?”
“...”
With an Inheritance like the Sacred Sun, which possessed all sorts of abilities, it was difficult for anyone other than its owner to fully grasp what it could and couldn’t do.
Since Inheritances were affected by their user’s proficiency, something that had been impossible in the past could become possible now. At times, even the owner was confused.
Could I place another person’s soul inside the Sacred Sun, then release only that soul after a Loop and bring them back to life?
Near the end of Room 206, I had flown through space to escape the Demon King and expelled countless souls. I knew the answer.
It was impossible.
The state in which they were swallowed and the state in which they were expelled were completely different. The latter wasn’t normal.
Placing a soul expelled by the Sacred Sun into a body would, to put it harshly, mean nothing more than mass-producing monsters.
Why?
I didn’t know either.
I only knew that it was impossible.
...
That was why I was curious.
The Lord had clearly said that the Sacred Sun was also an Ark.
Given the circumstances, I had suspected that the Lord’s true nature was something similar to the Ark created in the world of Room 104.
Then why could the Management Bureau’s Ark do what the Sacred Sun couldn’t, if both were Arks?
“Elena, I’m sorry.”
“Oh, no! You said it so our companions wouldn’t waver, right? It was a good, um, white lie...”
“Thank you for understanding.”
A thought suddenly came to me.
Was it really true that the Management Bureau’s Ark could do what the Sacred Sun could not?
Could the Ark itself be one enormous scam?
I still didn’t know anything.
But that hypothesis was also one of the unspoken reasons I was certain the Management Bureau’s choice was the wrong answer.
Footnotes:
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