WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 593: The Stolen World (8)
──────
「User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 225
Current Location: Northern Territory, Australia
Sage’s Advice: 0」
- Han Ga-in
After learning that there was a Mirror inside the Ark, I received no further news.
All I could tell through the Status Window was that the companions on the Ark were still alive.
Had the party on the Ark already been subdued by the Management Bureau?
I couldn't be sure yet.
...
When we returned to reality, the Merchant advised us to lie low for the first six months, then begin acting afterward.
Later, when we clashed with Ryan's group, Elder Wisdom said something similar.
As it turned out, six months meant the point when the Ark began to be built.
Both the Hotel and Elder Wisdom had told us to lie low until the Management Bureau began constructing the Ark.
Why?
The answer was written in Scenario Understanding, which had activated again after a long time.
「Scenario: The Stolen World
The Ark, the Management Bureau's choice for Salvation.
The Management Bureau has exhausted most of its strength to complete the Ark.
Put another way, this is when an opportunity opens for those with a third objective.
Check the rest at the Moon Seal Site.」
“...”
This was the point in all of human history when the Management Bureau was at its weakest.
Much of its leadership, including The Silent, had left for the Ark or was in the process of leaving.
Quite a few had apparently already entered a kind of Hibernation.
Meanwhile, the world left behind had long since descended into chaos.
Not only ordinary people, but even low-ranking Management Bureau personnel who realized they hadn't been chosen had already lost their minds.
The Management Bureau could no longer control the world.
It didn't have enough strength left to stop us from infiltrating the Australian underground.
* * *
--- Rumble!
With a massive explosion, the area near Uluru was secured. It was apparently a famous rock formation in the Australian desert, though this was my first time seeing it.
The small unit the Management Bureau had kept in reserve was neutralized.
Unfortunately for the Management Bureau, the battle had been utterly one-sided.
As I dusted off my clothes atop a rock, Ryan approached me.
“Wow. I felt it before, but you're incredible.”
“...”
“You fly around so fast no one can even see you, then whoosh, slash! The soldiers can't do anything and just die. That's some impressive skill.”
“What did you come here to say?”
“That beautiful lady is Justice, right?”
By now, both sides knew that much.
“That's right.”
“Wouldn't it be better for her to wait outside?”
Song-i and Mook-seong, who weren't suited for extreme combat, had been placed in the rear. Elena and Sang-hyeon, however, were here with me.
Ryan was suggesting that Elena sit this one out.
“Remember what your senior, Elder Wisdom, said? That old geezer said things would get strange if the Justice girl died. I heard her powers aren't fully restored yet.”
Elena, who was nearby, bristled.
“That doesn't mean we can send Ga-in alone-”
“It's fine.”
I lightly tapped the air with my finger, and Ryan immediately stepped back as though he understood.
Elena was the one who didn't understand what I had done.
“I-is it really okay? I was worried too.”
“I used Sage’s Advice to ask.”
“Ah! What did it say?”
“... It said it's better for Elena to stay beside me.”
The moment I received that answer in the morning, all three stacks of Sage’s Advice had been consumed at once.
That meant it wasn't an ordinary answer!
“We found it!”
A soldier shouted.
They were private soldiers, part of the force Elder Wisdom commanded, and had taken part in subduing the Management Bureau's remaining forces.
When I looked where they pointed, I saw a facility that looked like some sort of alien elevator.
“Your companion probably took that elevator underground.”
“And us?”
“It's already wrecked. The other side destroyed it before we could do anything. The easy route is gone.”
“...”
“The elevator is broken, but the shaft it used is still there. Let's get going.”
* * *
We began descending underground, tied together with thick cables.
The moment we started down, Elena asked pointedly, “Why do those soldiers follow you?”
“What do you mean?”
“The Management Bureau can't even get the world under control anymore. It's strange that those soldiers still obey your orders.”
“Because we promised them Salvation.”
“... You're going to make room for them on the Ark?”
“You're sharp.”
“Y-you aren't lying? It doesn't seem like you actually intend to-”
Patrick, behind us, answered in Ryan's place. He looked fairly irritated.
“Hey! Ask the companion beside you questions like that! That ‘Cult’ of yours, Young Wisdom, is still holding rallies in Seoul, isn't it? Do you have a way to save them?”
Elena fell silent, so I answered instead.
“I do.”
“What?”
“So shut up and keep moving. You still don't have one leg, yet you sure do talk a lot.”
Patrick still hadn't fully regenerated the leg Eun-sol had destroyed.
Maybe his Regeneration had weakened because he was sharing the blessing of Courage with Jin-cheol.
“You bastard-”
“Now, now, Patrick. Don't get worked up over nothing.”
I wasn't lying when I said I had a way to save them.
My final goal was to prevent the End Times altogether.
What Salvation could be more certain than that?
* * *
The subtle tension only lasted for about five minutes.
As time passed, everyone grew quieter.
The others seemed crushed by an overwhelming depression that couldn't be put into words.
“... My chest feels tight.”
“It feels like a monster is writhing beneath our feet.”
After Elena and Sang-hyeon each spoke, Patrick and Ryan added similar comments.
“It reminds me of the old days... Was it Room 105? The setting was a desert.”
“The day I lost my son for the first time, I felt exactly like this from the morning onward...”
Stories bleak enough to make anyone depressed just hearing them.
...
I could feel it.
The ceaseless presence of something grotesque writhing directly beneath our feet.
Sang-hyeon, who had been sweating profusely for some time, muttered, “This is... the Moon.”
“...”
“If I had my way, I'd pour all my power into the ground.”
He was impulsively saying that he wanted to fire Final Flash at the Moon.
Before I could answer, Ryan cut in, startled.
“Hey! If you can't handle the pressure, just go back up! If that monster wakes up down here, I think we'll all die before we can even take a breath.”
“Of course I'm joking.”
“What an unfunny joke...”
--- Bang!
Patrick suddenly slammed his fist into the wall.
The cable shook, and everyone nearly lost their balance. Sang-hyeon frowned, so Ryan apologized in Patrick's place.
“Ah! Sorry, sorry. Patrick! Calm down!”
“... That was a mistake. I apologize to everyone.”
Patrick's expression was already far from normal.
Soon, problems began on our side too.
--- Click!
“Your words are still fresh in my mind, you bastard!”
“H-hey! D-Doctor-”
“What did you say? That I should cooperate if I wanted to save Baram and Jinsol? Someone like you-”
When we first met Ryan, he had shaken Sang-hyeon's resolve by bringing up his family. Had those feelings remained?
Even if they had, this wasn't the place to argue about it.
“Sang-hyeon, calm down.”
“You bastard-”
With his eyes burning red and his hand reaching to grab me by the collar, I briefly considered knocking Sang-hyeon out right here.
“Sang-hyeon, it's me.”
“... Damn.”
“Are you okay?”
“Ga-in, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I kept having strange thoughts... Ryan, you too-”
“Forget it. I've wanted to kill all of you more times than I can count... Sorry.”
I turned around and spoke earnestly.
“Let's all move without saying anything.”
“...”
Elena hadn't said a word for a while now, and that was even more worrying.
It was hard to guess what she was thinking.
Ryan, Patrick, Kim Sang-hyeon, and Elena.
None of them had powers specialized in mental resistance, like Immutability or the Flute of Rest, but they were still Hotel escapees.
They possessed mental strength that ordinary people couldn't compare to, yet they were struggling this badly?
They weren't weak; the Moon Demon's presence was simply too intense.
“Was it A-ri? Do we really have to go through all this to save that girl?”
Patrick complained.
As he said, we were suffering underground in Australia to save A-ri.
“Patrick, this is also an order from Elder Wisdom, that old geezer. If we have that girl's vote, we can subdue the Ark easily-”
I suspected it, but that confirmed it.
A-ri was both our companion and one of The Silent, and The Silent followed majority rule strictly.
In other words, if we gained A-ri's vote, we might be able to subdue the Ark more easily than expected.
That was why they were cooperating with us to save A-ri.
“- Be quiet, Patrick. Please.”
“...”
I wasn't particularly angry.
A-ri was our companion, not theirs, so it was only natural for them to have their own calculations.
Still, it wasn't something to say so openly.
Ryan's mind wasn't sound either under the Moon's pressure, so his true feelings had simply spilled out.
Perhaps embarrassed by his mistake, Ryan, climbing down while holding onto the rocks, said to me, “Young man, you-”
“Let's stay quiet while we move.”
“- You're really fine. It's strange, almost unbelievable.”
“...”
He was right. I was relatively fine.
Considering that the other four were halfway to madness, I was the unusual one.
Was it because my mental strength was incomparably greater than everyone else's?
No.
I might have been stronger than others, but that had nothing to do with why I was fine right now.
I wasn't being attacked in the first place.
“...”
My heart was at peace, and the air felt refreshing.
I felt more comfortable close to the Moon than I did outside.
I could constantly feel the boundless affection a colossal being was sending me.
The Moon welcomed me.
“Ah... This path splits in several directions. Hey, Doctor! Don't you know anything?”
“How would I know? How am I supposed to find the way?”
“We're near the Moon. You were an astronaut, weren't you?”
“... We're near the Moon, but this isn't sp- Was that a joke?”
Ryan and Sang-hyeon climbed along the cable and looked around, while Patrick, true to form for a Participant who had received the blessing of Courage, tried shifting rocks with his monstrous strength...
There was no way to tell which path was correct.
“Ga-in, don't you have any Sage’s Advice left?”
I had no uses of Sage’s Advice remaining, but I didn't think I needed it.
“I don't. We'll just ask for directions.”
“What?”
“You don't have Sage’s Advice, so who are you going to ask?”
My companions looked confused, as if they couldn't understand.
Aware of the gaze I had felt without pause since coming underground, I spoke.
“I want to know where the Stone Tablet is. Will you tell me?”
“Who are you talking to?”
--- Rumble!
As if it had been waiting, a loud sound came from one of the passages we had found.
Ryan looked uneasy.
“C-can we really go this way? Young man, just asking in case, you haven't been enthralled by the Moon, have you?”
“I'm saner than you are.”
“...”
“Let's go.”
One step at a time.
Each step down made me dizzy.
I could feel the fragments of information I had gathered so far slowly assembling into one whole.
...
Yesterday, when I learned there was a Mirror inside the Ark...
The realization of the Ark's principle struck me like lightning.
To put it simply, the Ark was the union of the Sacred Sun and the Mirror.
Why could the Ark do what the Sacred Sun, a pseudo-Ark, could not?
Because the Sacred Sun itself had no power like the Mirror's.
...
The Sun was a tool for gathering the souls of mortals and turning them into a god.
By the Sun's principle alone, souls could be gathered together, but not properly divided.
That was only natural. Its principle was to combine souls into a god, not divide them.
To become human again, they needed the power to divide.
In Room 207, the Mirror split “me” apart and scattered me throughout the world.
...
The countless souls of ordinary people unable to endure the Loop are gathered together, fashioning a godlike Great One.
Everyone becomes part of the Great One and endures the Loop.
Finally, the Great One is split apart through the Mirror's power, returning those divided souls to individual humans.
The Management Bureau calls this entire process the Ark.
...
I understood the Ark's principle, but many secrets remained.
For example, during what stage did the Light That Calls the End, which A-ri and Mook-seong had spoken of, arise?
Then there was the primordial information we obtained on Jeju Island.
The people who created the Ark to escape the End Times.
The usurpers who drove them out and stole the Ark.
And the last survivor who escaped the usurpers.
I still didn't fully understand this story.
Yet when I connected it to the story that came after, something faintly emerged in my mind.
According to the information I received through the Status Window, long ago I released an unidentified Chaos Entity that the Management Bureau had contained, creating the cause of every disaster.
「You've come!」
「You've returned?」
「At last, you are here!」
With every step deeper underground, voices welcoming me rang out.
When the Stone Tablet finally came into view in the distance...
I asked the Moon a question.
“What... is your relationship with me? Who do you know me as?”
「Teacher」
「Mage」
「Researcher」
「Traitor」
「A self-righteous person」
「An incomprehensible person」
Footnotes:
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