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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 59: Room 106, Mission Room - ‘Hope Hotel Land’ (6) (Final)

──────

[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)

Date: Day 21

Current Location: Level 1, Room 106 (Mission Room - Hotel Land of Hope)

Sage’s Advice: 0]

6. The Real Deal! Haunted House

It was called a haunted house, and before us stood an old mansion with an eerie atmosphere.

After letting out a sigh, I checked my brother’s legs and my own.

A-ri’s blood, said to be an enhanced version of what had restored our stamina, had definitely worked to some extent.

It wasn’t some incredible stamina potion, but the dark bruises and pain had faded enough for us to walk while enduring it.

There was nowhere left to retreat now. We had to clear the remaining missions and see this through to the end.

Jin-cheol spoke just before we went in.

“Ga-in.”

“Yes?”

“Remember this. I can die for you, but you can’t think about dying for me. Even if it means sacrificing me, you have to make it to the end.”

“...”

“Once you reach the end, you can use Descent if it comes to that. With that power, you’ll probably be able to get through any situation. As long as we can send you to the final moment, we can somehow overcome three crises.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“Let’s brace ourselves. It’s been way too long since I last went to an amusement park. What kind of monsters do you think come out in a haunted house?”

“Same here. Ghosts, zombies, werewolves, vampires... Those are the first things that come to mind.”

“I think we can handle anything we can beat to death with our fists, but ghosts would be the biggest problem. Let’s go in.”

* * *

---Creeeak.

As we opened the old mansion’s door and stepped inside, a thick stench assaulted our noses. It smelled like rotten meat, excrement, mold, and countless other things mixed together.

I held the Dagger tightly in my hand, but I didn’t know whether I could really do anything against the monsters likely to appear in a place like this.

Right before entering, I changed the Status Window to Filter Mode and covered my entire field of vision. Wouldn’t that be an effective countermeasure against beings like ghosts?

---Clack. Clack.

The footsteps of two men echoed through the mansion.

I was beginning to wonder if activating the Status Window had been a mistake. Ever since learning how to use the Status Window in Filter Mode, I’d found it quite useful, but it had one unavoidable drawback.

The opaque window covered my whole vision, so I could barely see ahead, like someone who had worn glasses their whole life and suddenly took them off. I had to focus hard just to make out a person.

We walked down the corridor for a long time.

We passed paintings whose images I couldn’t see, a rather enormous full-length mirror, candleholders on the walls, strange taxidermy displays, and kept walking, but I couldn’t see anything.

Then I felt something grab my clothes.

“Jin-cheol?”

“Go.”

“What?”

“You have Filter Mode on, right?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll tell you once we’re outside, so just keep going. I think this’ll be easy to clear.”

What was he talking about?

Why was Jin-cheol gripping my clothes so tightly out of nowhere?

I had no idea what was happening. Had he noticed something?

We walked through the mansion for nearly thirty minutes. It was already dark, lit only by candles hanging here and there, but with Filter Mode on too, I might as well have been blind.

That was why I even ran into a wall right in front of me.

Thirty minutes? Forty? Only after around that much time had passed did we finally leave the mansion.

What the hell was this?

“What was that? We just walked through it. Nothing happened. We just came out.”

“Heh, heh. Ah, ha ha ha! It got so funny halfway through that I almost couldn’t hold it in.”

?

“Pardon?”

“It wasn’t that nothing happened. All kinds of fucked-up things were happening. The portraits in the paintings kept watching us, and distorted versions of ourselves appeared in the mirrors, like in the Room of Mirrors last time, holding knives and threatening us.

“There were human heads mounted on the walls too. Their eyes even blinked while they stared at us. I got goosebumps in less than a minute and almost screamed.

“But since you didn’t react at all, statues that looked exactly like gargoyles even came out and blocked the path. What did you think those were?”

“...I couldn’t see them, so I thought I’d just bumped into walls.”

“Since it’s a haunted house, I think the rule was that if a participant went in, saw monsters, and kept walking without reacting, it let them pass. But if they screamed, it attacked. It probably would’ve jumped me if I’d screamed. I got the feeling right away, closed my eyes, and just held onto your clothes.”

“Even after clearing it, this is ridiculous. If you were blind, wouldn’t this be a free win?”

“If you’re blind, you probably couldn’t find the way. Maybe you could clear it easily if you squinted? This is absurd.”

“We cleared it all, right? Will a notification appear soon?”

“Is this some kind of backyard? I can see a back door over there. I think we’ll clear it if we go through it.”

It was absurd, but I was happy too. Filter Mode had helped us many times, but this was the first time it had been so absolute.

From a distance, a large, handsome Siberian husky came toward us, wagging its tail.

Jin-cheol cheerfully reached out toward the dog’s head-

No, what was he doing? Had he relaxed because we were almost done? There was no way an ordinary dog would be in a place like this!

When the approaching dog opened its mouth, fragments of a human skull spilled out.

“Fuuuuuck! What the hell is this?”

We were screwed. We had practically cleared everything, then this happened.

The dog immediately swelled as if it were bursting, and a massive creature that practically screamed, “I’m a werewolf,” appeared!

There was no way to avoid a fight now. I immediately dismissed the useless Filter Mode and rushed forward.

At that moment, Jin-cheol’s shout rang out.

“Go! Ga-in, you bastard! Just go! Can’t you see the door? Run like hell!”

...

Right. The werewolf had ambushed us after we let our guard down.

No matter how strong Jin-cheol was, the werewolf had bitten him first. Blood was streaming from all over his body. Even if he won like that, he couldn’t keep going.

I had to go alone.

I squeezed my eyes shut, turned around, and ran madly toward the back door.

The moment I passed through it, a notification appeared.

/Mission 6. The Real Deal! Haunted House complete! Would you like to proceed to the final mission?/

For the first time since coming to the hotel, I was just a little angry at Jin-cheol.

It wasn’t as though he had been pushed back while fighting an unbeatable monster. He had figured out the danger, passed nearly every hazard, and had practically cleared it all. Yet he got caught because he let his guard down?

...

No.

This wasn’t something I could blame anyone for. People made mistakes.

Jin-cheol’s mental strength was extraordinary just for seeing monsters from the very entrance of the mansion, keeping his composure, and responding correctly without the help of Filter Mode.

There had only been one moment of carelessness. One mistake. The problem was this insane place where a single mistake cost someone their life.

All I had to do was make it through to the end. I hardened my resolve.

...

Now, I was alone.

* * *

/Final Mission. Ferris Wheel of Memories!

It will begin in 30 seconds. Read the instructions carefully.

1. Do not fall asleep on the Ferris wheel.

2. Pay attention to the scenery outside the Ferris wheel.

3. It is dangerous to leave the Ferris wheel./

For all thirty seconds, I turned the instructions over in my head and interpreted them the hotel’s way.

Do not fall asleep: I’ll get sleepy, and I’ll die if I fall asleep.

Pay attention to the scenery outside: I’ll die if I look inside.

It is dangerous to leave: It’ll try to make me leave.

I etched the meaning of the instructions into my mind.

Space distorted, and a Ferris wheel appeared before me.

* * *

“Jisu told me yesterday that this thing that’s popular lately-”

“I heard the weather’s gotten chilly lately. Ga-in, make sure you dress warmly-”

“Are you upset about something? Why are you staring out the window? When a family is having a conversation like this-”

...

...

I could hear voices chattering beside me. Judging by them, something was probably imitating my family.

I ignored them and pressed my face against the window. We would probably encounter monsters that tried to draw our attention like this often in the future. Once we got out, I should ask Eun-sol to buy earplugs so we could all carry them.

I heard my younger sibling’s voice, then something touched my clothes. It was trying to make me turn my attention toward the inside of the Ferris wheel.

I slapped the hand away immediately. It felt hard and scaly, unlike my sibling’s hand. That only made me more certain that I couldn’t turn my head.

---Sizzle.

Did it light a fire or something? The Ferris wheel suddenly grew warm, and its seats and backrests, which should have been hard, became soft.

Ah, now it was trying to put me to sleep?

I lightly bit my tongue. It wouldn’t try to put me to sleep with just a warm, soft seat, would it? It was obvious that it would use supernatural means.

Endure. I just had to endure. This didn’t feel like a place where I had to fight physically.

“Ga-in? What’s wrong with your tongue? Does it hurt-”

Something grabbed my clothes and began shaking me hard.

I shoved it away with my arm. As long as I didn’t look at it, it should be fine, right?

Should I close my eyes? No. Falling asleep was dangerous, so closing my eyes was dangerous too.

...

An overwhelming drowsiness swept over me. I wasn’t even sleep-deprived, but I felt an obviously unnatural craving for sleep. I bit down hard with my canine teeth until blood streamed from my tongue. The piercing pain, the throbbing sensation, and the metallic smell of blood shocked me awake.

The effect didn’t last long. Before long, even the pain faded as if I had been anesthetized. It felt as though something was endlessly dragging my consciousness into a deep sea.

Wasn’t there another way? Simple pain wasn’t enough.

I reached into my clothes and pulled out the Dagger. Self-harm? No. There was a better way.

Without hesitation, I kept my head turned toward the window, reached my hand behind me, and wildly swung the Dagger.

“Eeeek! Brother! What the-”

“Argh! Ga-in, what are you doing-”

Disgusting voices. I could tell from the touch alone that they were monsters, yet they were still borrowing my family’s voices.

Just as I expected, since I didn’t look at them, they couldn’t directly use force against me. If they could, they would’ve grabbed my head and forced me to turn around.

All they could do was grab my clothes and shake me.

Screams filled the Ferris wheel’s interior. The knife repeatedly stabbed something, bounced away, then struck again. As I went through that horrific experience, my tension sharpened like a spearpoint, and my mind woke fully again.

...

The area around me fell quiet.

At some point, the scenery outside had changed into a warm spring day.

The Ferris wheel moved slowly. Vague memories from my childhood came to mind.

Everyone has a first love, right?

When was mine? Probably in middle school.

It was probably at an English academy. At first, I whined endlessly about not wanting to go.

The academy I had been forced to attend.

On the first day, I met a girl across from me whose brown hair swayed around her waist. After that, I didn’t hate going there anymore.

What happened after that? There was no need to drag out such a boring story.

We naturally began meeting often, and at least I thought we had become close.

I even started arriving at the English academy thirty minutes before class to sit there early.

I remembered studying nothing but the miraculous art of choosing a seat, worrying over how Ga-young might naturally sit near me.

Then if Ga-young sat far away with the girls she was close to, I spent an hour wondering whether she was mad at me.

Naturally, my English didn’t improve at all. Still, my ability to read the room as a son improved by about three times. Maybe it hadn’t been such a bad investment for my parents?

I remembered asking my friends for advice. What kind of confession would work best?

They laughed like crazy, teased me, and slapped my back, then suddenly became completely serious and debated the perfect way to confess.

Of course, the methods of confession middle schoolers could come up with had their limits.

In the end, I combined a text-message confession, easily in the top three worst ways to confess, with an April Fools’ joke. It was the kind of confession that would appear in an image titled “The Ugliest Confession, No. 1.jpg.”

The result was...

...

The result was...

...

No, fuck! It’s digging through my first-love memories at a time like this?

By the time I snapped out of it, I was just about to open the window and jump out while staring at Ga-young’s face flickering outside!

Wasn’t this seriously too underhanded? Just send a monster after me instead!

I didn’t even know how I had come to my senses.

I was suddenly so furious that I managed to stay alert for quite a long time.

After an agonizing amount of time passed and my anger finally began to subside, I reached the end of my long ordeal.

* * *

/Final Mission. Ferris Wheel of Memories complete! Congratulations on clearing the Mission Room!/

Footnotes:

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