WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 601: The Stolen World (16)
──────
「User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 228
Current Location: Hotel Delight, Yeongdeungpo District, Seoul
Sage’s Advice: 3」
- Han Ga-in
“Today, I came to guide you, who have lost your memories, onto the right path. Fight alongside us. Just as you did in the past, when you freed the Prince from the Management Bureau’s hands!”
My companions could not hide their bewilderment at her request.
Lee Eun-sol: A-ri, you didn’t know about her?
Kim A-ri: Not at all. I never had any information about the Moon’s Holy Mother.
Neither A-ri nor the Management Bureau knew anything about Aedia, the Moon’s Holy Mother.
That was probably because things like the Holy Mother’s Descent usually happened after the Ark departed.
At that moment, Aedia smiled and answered.
“The Management Bureau was the first to seal me. It was a very... long time ago.”
Had she read something from my companions’ reactions?
I did not think it was any special psychic ability.
She had simply accumulated experience over a long life, refining that ability until it had become almost like mind reading.
The Aedia from Room 207 had shown a similar side.
A-ri asked frankly.
“Did we forget you too, after so much time passed?”
“How much information have you all forgotten? I was the one who first discovered the Mirror underground in Spain.”
“...”
Her attitude seemed to carry a subtle mockery of the Management Bureau.
Considering that the Aedia from Room 207 had effectively been the head of the Management Bureau, it left me with a strange feeling.
I needed to remember this.
The Aedia from Room 207 and the Aedia standing before me were essentially different people.
If she had first excavated the Mirror in Spain, it meant she had lived since the era of the First Ark.
I did not know when the Management Bureau had sealed her, or when the Moon had taken her in...
No one knew how many Loops she had repeated. Over endless ages, she had built enough power that even Elder Wisdom was wary of her.
--- Clap!
I lightly clapped my hands, drawing everyone’s attention back to me.
“When you say you want us to fight with you, you mean fight the Pillagers?”
“That’s right.”
“I’d like to hear more.”
At that moment, Aedia looked up at the sky with an uneasy expression.
“It’s impossible in such an open place.”
“...”
“The one who has gained wicked wisdom... Their hearing is very sharp.”
She meant Elder Wisdom.
Elder Wisdom could approach anyone they wanted, anywhere.
“We need to go somewhere safe.”
“Somewhere the Moon’s influence is stronger?”
“Exactly.”
Was it really right to head somewhere with stronger lunar influence?
Still, at this point, refusing because it was dangerous made even less sense.
“I’ve prepared a car as well.”
Once again, we decided to leave Grandpa, Elena, and Mi-ro at Hotel Delight.
“Ha ha! Are you all really worried that I’ll kill that blonde young lady?”
No one answered.
Aedia looked slightly hurt at our reaction as she headed for the car. She seemed genuinely disappointed.
Did she consider us allies because we were on the Holy Son’s side?
* * *
As we drove in the car Aedia had prepared, everything around us suddenly went dark.
「Current Location: Hotel Delight, Yeongdeungpo District, Seoul -> Searching...」
“Be careful. It seems the Pillagers are causing Encroachment in this area. Everything was fine just this morning.”
“... Is this what it meant?”
“Pardon?”
“This is a Pillager Encroachment phenomenon?”
“That’s right. It’s still in the early stages, so...”
“We can physically get out. It looks like we only need to move about a hundred meters away.”
“You know a lot.”
“I went through it often before you woke up.”
The current location on the Status Window would suddenly change to “Searching...,” then an unknown Otherworld would appear.
A building looked ordinary, but a living clown lurked inside, waiting to kill people.
A house looked ordinary, but once inside, it was filled with writhing Cocoons.
These were strange things we had occasionally experienced after returning to reality.
As the Owl had said, the warning signs caused by the Pillagers had existed from the moment we arrived in reality.
We just had not understood what they meant.
Only now did I realize the cause had been the Pillagers’ invasion.
“...”
The Ark had half collapsed, The Silent had escaped through suicide, and the Moon was awakening.
At this point, the third faction, the Pillagers, had finally begun to show its claws in earnest.
If this were a game, it felt like Phase Two had begun.
A-ri, sitting beside me, whispered into my ear.
“I think there are three major factions.”
“The Management Bureau, the Moon, and the Pillagers?”
“I had a hard time understanding what Elder Wisdom was. Elder Wisdom definitely was not on the Management Bureau’s side, but was not on the Moon’s side either.”
Elder Wisdom had been horrified and fled when the Moon began to awaken. The Holy Mother’s reaction made it clear as well.
If Elder Wisdom belonged to neither the Management Bureau nor the Moon, where did they belong?
“I get it now.”
“Me too.”
Elder Wisdom belonged to the Pillagers’ side!
That raised another question.
What exactly were the Pillagers?
As if she had been waiting for it, Aedia answered from the front seat.
“They’re nothing special.”
“...”
“If the Prince of the Moon accomplishes his great work, they are losers who can be driven out whenever he wishes. Halfwits who mistake themselves for gods...”
She called them nothing special, called them losers, but her attitude said otherwise.
The truth was clear from the trembling she could not hide.
Aedia feared the Pillagers.
A-ri asked pointedly, “It sounds like there’s more than one Pillager.”
“... Yes. There are several.”
I had a vague feeling.
Individually, they were nothing much to the Moon.
But there were several of them. Together, even the Moon could not easily handle them.
“...”
Several semi-divine beings who even the Moon would struggle to deal with together.
Beings I already knew, according to the Owl.
I felt as though I was just about to understand the Pillagers’ true identity.
“I’m not afraid of them.”
That was exactly the kind of thing someone said because they were afraid.
“I believe my god will drive them all away someday. Those halfwits...”
In a sense, Aedia’s declaration of faith sounded devout.
This side of her was strangely similar to the Aedia from Room 207.
Back then, she had worshipped my Voice. Now, she worshipped the Moon.
Once I heard that much, the next words slipped out before I could stop them.
“That will happen.”
“Pardon?”
--- Creak!
Aedia turned toward me from the front seat, as though asking what I meant.
“If it goes all the way, the Moon wins in the end.”
It was not baseless.
Mi-ro had told me about the grim future Foresight had seen.
A world where the Management Bureau had lost and a crimson Moon hung in the sky.
There had been nothing other than the Moon in the future Foresight saw.
Even Phase Two between the Moon and the Pillagers would end with the Moon’s victory.
“I see! As expected of the Holy Son, you know something. Thank you for telling me. That’s reassuring.”
Unable to hold back any longer, A-ri cautiously stepped in.
“Aedia, in the future the ‘Holy Son’ saw...”
I knew what she wanted to say.
The future Foresight had seen, where the Moon won, was close to a cosmic apocalypse with no life or hope left.
A-ri wanted to emphasize that point and ask whether Aedia had been bewitched by the Moon as well.
“Forget it.”
“...”
“What is it?”
“Nothing. Let’s pick up the speed.”
It was pointless.
Could a few words persuade someone on the Holy Mother’s level?
The Moon had likely spent thousands or tens of thousands of years brainwashing her.
If we said something unnecessary and Aedia began to guard against us, that would only make things harder.
Still, I needed to remember.
The Moon’s victory was also the world’s destruction...
--- Thudududu...!
“Ah?”
“Huh?”
“Ah, fuck!”
The curse came out on reflex!
I’d already heard that sound twice!
“Get out of the car now...”
There was no need to finish.
A-ri and I, and even Aedia, had already leapt from the car.
Jin-cheol, with Eun-sol tucked under one arm, bolted away like lightning.
Elder Wisdom’s form began to shimmer in the air!
“Wasn’t Elder Wisdom supposed to have left to handle their own business once the Moon started waking up?”
Aedia screamed as if tearing her throat apart.
“They did! They sent a signal to the Pillagers, so...”
“They handled the urgent business and had some free time? So now they’re here to kill us...”
--- Thudududu...!
The familiar, oppressive rumbling grew louder.
Elder Wisdom’s manifestation was close!
Aedia turned pale as she looked at me.
“Holy Son! Call her right now!”
“What?”
“Elena! Make that girl kill herself!”
Look at this!
She acted like she would never suggest killing Elena to recover her power, but it had all been a lie!
“Are you insane?”
“Ah! This is frustrating! At this rate, that monster will kill all of us!”
“If we pool our strength...”
“You idiot!”
“You were calling me the Holy Son a moment ago!”
“You brain-dead Holy Son bastard! We’re all going to die!”
Her genteel demeanor vanished in an instant, and I let out a hollow laugh at the sudden profanity.
The Aedia from Room 207 had stayed dignified until the very end!
--- Rumble!
At last, Elder Wisdom’s distant form forced its way into reality!
「It is time to sever this ill-fated connection.」
“Seriously, Senior! Stop trying to kill me every time and...”
「I have seen the Chaos beyond the Veil...」
Jade-blue energy gathered in the air, forming a sphere.
「How laughable is the puppet show of this tiny, tiny world?」
The sphere shook at the end of that spell-like whisper!
An overwhelming wave of power struck the heart of Seoul.
--- Screee!
It felt as though a massive high-pitched sound had pierced my eardrums!
The explosion was so loud that I could no longer hear anything.
An intense light filled the surroundings, turning my entire vision white!
The gentle light of the Sacred Sun took the front, while A-ri raised layer upon layer of walls behind it with the power of the Irregular Polyhedron.
A-ri and I poured in every ounce of strength we had, hard enough to burst our capillaries!
If I had known we would be in a fight this brutally straightforward, I would have taken the risk and filled the Sacred Sun to the brim before coming!
“Ghhk!”
Only when my mind began to go hazy did the shockwave finally subside.
Fortunately, we had somehow blocked the first attack!
A-ri panted and shouted, “A, Aedia!”
She had not died from a single blow by Elder Wisdom, had she?
Fortunately, as the thick smoke cleared, a golden figure appeared floating in the air.
“...”
Her hair was a mess, her clothes half torn, blood flowing from the corner of her mouth.
Since she had blocked an attack alone from another position, she was in far worse shape than we were.
「Holy Mother, it has been a long time. It seems your body is not in good condition.」
“You... devil! If my power were intact...”
As the Holy Mother and Elder Wisdom revealed their hostility, I rose into the sky, stunned by the sight around me.
“...”
The pale dust gradually faded, revealing a half-ruined Seoul.
Those who had praised the Moon were all buried beneath the dust. Every building in sight had collapsed, becoming grotesque heaps of concrete.
Had a nuclear bomb fallen in the middle of Seoul?
Was this some kind of earthquake?
A-ri, looking equally stunned, muttered, “This is impossible... Strength like this makes no sense!”
Final Flash and Justice had roughly similar destructive power.
Final Flash was a one-shot Inheritance.
Justice had difficult activation conditions, and to produce this much power, it would have to expend all its strength in one blow.
To Elder Wisdom, on the other hand, this attack seemed to be no more than a somewhat strong technique.
--- Rumble!
Jade-blue energy began to gather in the sky once more.
“Y, you have the Hourglass, right? Use it now and...”
“Not yet.”
I stopped A-ri and approached Aedia.
“Is there anything we can do?”
Aedia answered blankly.
“... I told you to kill Elena.”
“Other than that!”
“Then we all die here.”
“Damn it!”
--- Crackle!
This time, even greater power gathered!
As overwhelming energy condensed within the sphere, the aftereffects alone made my hair stand on end.
“Please! Holy Son! If I fully recover my power, I can stop that bastard from using a technique that large...”
“Holy Son, Holy Mother.”
“Pardon?”
“You’re the Holy Mother, and I’m the Holy Son.”
“What does that...”
“N-now, let’s kneel.”
I calmed my trembling heart and took Aedia by the shoulders.
“Pardon?”
“Haven’t you ever read the Bible? You just beat things like this with prayer.”
“What...”
Without hesitation, I knelt and prayed.
“Prince of the Moon in heaven. The Holy Son and Holy Mother have gathered here!”
“Y, you’re really praying?”
A-ri hurriedly forced Aedia to her knees as well.
“You do it too, idiot!”
“Don’t just call us the Holy Son and Holy Mother with that filthy mouth. Help us! At this rate, we’re about to be fried alive!”
“... Please save us.”
--- Rumble!
Then, just as Elder Wisdom’s second attack was about to strike the ground...
...
The sky darkened.
I saw an enormous tongue stretching out from beyond the Veil.
“Prince!”
“Does that thing look like the Prince to you?”
The moment that enormous tongue swept through the city, Elder Wisdom fled in a hurry without even having time to breathe.
Nothing remained of the figure who had looked so proud moments ago, as though they were a god capable of summoning natural disasters.
“Ha, haha!”
A-ri laughed as if her mind had gone blank.
I laughed with her.
The lowly beings walking the earth would kneel before even someone like me, saying they had seen a god.
And a demigod whose punch even I could barely withstand roamed the world, weaving schemes.
A Demon God whose gaze that demigod was afraid even to meet was about to descend.
Then why had the mighty Moon not helped the Holy Mother and me until things reached this point?
Because the Moon, too, had little strength to spare while locked in a standoff with the Pillagers.
Right.
This was a world where even a Demon God of such overwhelming scale could not fully impose its will.
Ah...
It had been a long time since I had felt such overwhelming vastness.
“...”
The thought made my head spin.
Even if we had the power to turn back time.
Could I truly shape events as I wished among such absurd beings?
‘Can I really do anything about those monsters?’
「Sage’s Advice: 3 -> 0」
「Rejoice that there is more than one adversary. If there were only one, you could never win. Because there are several, there is an opening.」
Footnotes:
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