Escaping the Mystery Hotel - Chapter 609

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 608: The Stolen World (23)

──────

「User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)

Date: Day 235

Current Location: 1 Uisadang-daero, Yeongdeungpo District, Seoul

Sage’s Advice: 3」

- Han Ga-in

--- Rumble...!

Elder Wisdom appeared amid violent tremors that shook the air.

A spear made of light was clutched in the jade-blue demigod's hand. The instant I saw it, I knew.

The moment that spear swung, every building in the area would vanish without a trace.

I silently looked up at Elder Wisdom.

Elder Wisdom silently looked down at me.

He could kill me with a single wave of his hand.

Still, I knew Elder Wisdom would not do that.

It was time to break the silence.

“It’s been a while.”

「You.」

I spoke with my eyes gleaming, as though we were about to fight.

“I think you’ll die today. What do you think?”

Even I thought it was a bizarre thing to say.

「This will be a long conversation....」

Elder Wisdom did not deny my insane words.

It was as though he had come here already considering the possibility that he might die today.

--- Ding!

The clear chime of a bell rang out, and the surrounding scenery abruptly began to change.

I knew it was not an attack, so I did not resist.

Private conversations had to be held somewhere safe.

* * *

「Current Location: Searching...」

Before me stretched a vast plain filled with golden wheat fields.

It was so beautiful, almost like Heaven, that my gaze was naturally drawn to it.

Then I heard someone speak.

Elder Wisdom was no longer a jade-blue demigod. He had become a middle-aged man in ordinary clothes.

“Isn’t it beautiful?”

A Caucasian man who looked to be in his late forties or early fifties.

Judging from his appearance, he seemed to be from Anatolia.

“It resembles Heaven.”

“Not that much....”

“Is this your original appearance?”

“It is.”

After a brief silence, Elder Wisdom asked as if poking at me.

“Did the Owl tell you a great deal about me?”

“As you know, direct questions are forbidden.”

“Then all you need to do is ask indirectly. I’ve always thought that bird studied loopholes in the Hotel’s rules more diligently than anyone.”

I agreed with him, so I laughed before I realized it.

“That’s true.”

“How did you know I would come to reality today? Did you ask something like, ‘How long would it take a demigod whose body was thirty percent vaporized by the Moon to recover?’”

“I asked in a more roundabout way than that.”

We had both grown tired of all the indirect questions, but the Owl had ultimately told me.

“So it did tell you. What a bird without principles.”

“As I was asking, I had a thought. You must have learned quite a lot about me the same way.”

“I admit it. When I asked, ‘How can a human earn the Moon’s favor?’ it gave me quite a detailed answer.”

“What a bird without principles.”

“Yet thanks to that, you and I are speaking now, aren’t we?”

“Ah! Of course! The master of Wisdom truly is the greatest god.”

“I’ll answer your earlier question. You said you thought I would die today?”

“Am I wrong?”

“... I also think that is possible.”

It was an utterly strange conversation.

Someone else might have thought it was a conversation between madmen, but both of us knew.

It was a perfectly logical conversation, a choice we were making to achieve our respective goals.

The kind of conversation that could only happen because we were both Wisdom.

“I’ll speak first. I’m younger.”

“Are you, though?”

“Younger than you.”

“Fine. Go ahead.”

“As you know, I currently possess an unusual power. It makes people other than my companions periodically lose information about me.”

“...”

“It did not work on you at all.”

“That is correct.”

“Also, your power is excessively strong. I consider Justice the physically strongest blessing, yet even the Holy Mother, who possesses Justice and two or more Inheritances, can only stall you.”

“...”

“Lastly, you rarely appear in reality. It does not seem as though the Stone Tablet is attacking you, either.”

Dream did not work on him.

Overwhelming strength.

His reluctance to appear in reality.

There was one answer that explained every mystery surrounding Elder Wisdom.

“You are an Ark, aren’t you?”

A completed Ark became something independent of the Loop.

That was why it could ignore Dream, which only took effect within a single Loop.

Its terrifying power and difficulty appearing in reality were also traits of a completed Ark.

“Let’s say I’m half an Ark.”

“Half?”

“I don’t have a Mirror. Long ago, I fought a small Ark and destroyed its Mirror.”

“If you defeat an Ark, can you achieve Unification with it? Like you have now?”

“Let’s say it was thanks to my Inheritance. I need not answer beyond that, do I?”

This time, Elder Wisdom opened fire.

“You gained one answer, so now it is my turn.”

“I only confirmed something I already knew. It feels strange to say I gained anything....”

“I only wish to reconfirm something I already know as well.”

“... Go ahead.”

“As I recovered from my wounds, I kept thinking. What was going through your mind when you caused all this?”

“...”

“You are no fool, so why awaken the Moon, a demon no one can handle?”

“...”

“At first, I thought you had truly fallen under the Moon’s spell.”

“Do you no longer think so?”

“No. After thinking it over carefully, I realized something. What you are doing now is something I often did in the Hotel long ago.”

“...”

“When you do not know what to do, you destroy everything first. Then everyone reveals the card they had been hiding.”

“...”

“You can do that in the Hotel. Why? Because participants have a Next Chance.”

“...”

“You have a Next Chance. Is that right? Can you turn back time?”

Should I try to deceive him?

I stopped myself.

He was asking while already knowing everything. A shallow lie would only be ugly.

“That’s right. My turn again.”

“Speak.”

We had each learned one of the other’s great secrets.

More precisely, we had arrived here already knowing them.

“Elder, your goal.”

“...”

“For a while, I thought you simply sought the Pillagers’ victory. Then something interesting happened a few days ago.”

“...”

“The third floor of Hotel Pioneer began to form. I asked the Owl about the conditions for the third floor, and it told me that it would form when we seemed qualified to challenge it.”

“...”

“We thought, Is this enough? But the Hotel thinks we have hope.”

“Hm....”

Unable to contain himself, Elder Wisdom revealed his complicated feelings.

“At that point, I remembered what I had heard from The Silent before. Their assessment of you.”

“... What did they say?”

“You were a member of The Silent. A loser. You failed the trial and became unable to appear in reality.”

“Ha!”

“Not all of it may be true, but at least one part seemed accurate.”

“What part?”

“You already see all of reality as empty.”

Elder Wisdom had repeated the Loop without end, until he came to regard all of reality as a futile dream.

“Why would someone like you support the Pillagers? For humanity’s survival?”

“...”

“Of course not. You have only one goal. You want to return to the Hotel! Am I wrong?”

This futile reality was no different from a vast prison.

Elder Wisdom wanted to escape that prison and return to the Hotel!

Not long ago, I had experienced his feelings firsthand and understood them.

“You learned the conditions for forming the third floor through some means. Did the Owl tell you?”

“...”

“What does it mean for participants to be qualified to challenge the third floor? It means resolving reality’s problems.”

The Hotel regarded even reality as one enormous scenario.

Only somewhat different rules applied from those of the Curse Rooms on the first and second floors.

That meant the construction underway at Hotel Delight would not be completed just because time passed.

It would only end once we properly resolved reality’s problems!

“Once I understood that much and watched your actions, many things became clear.”

“...”

“Why do you support the Pillagers? Because you think that is the way to stop the Moon.”

Working with the Pillagers to bring down the Moon was the answer we had recently found, one worth thirty points.

Would it not be stranger if Elder Wisdom had failed to find, over countless eons, the answer we discovered in less than a year?

Elder Wisdom had been trying to clear reality’s trial.

“Hah.... You have learned so much about me.”

Elder Wisdom continued with a sigh.

“I will ask to confirm it. I want to compare my answer with yours. The answer you found is also the Pillagers’ victory, correct?”

“I have not found a better answer yet.”

“The Pillagers must win. The Management Bureau cannot face the Moon, and the Moon’s victory means the end of humanity. There is no other option.”

At least for now, I had reached a similar conclusion.

“I have.... spent a length of time beyond anything you can imagine creating the current situation.”

“...”

“Originally, the Pillager Arks beyond the Boundary were busy fighting one another.”

The Pillagers were a group that could not help but divide in the end.

They had even coveted each other’s worlds, so they were also sworn enemies.

“I made them into a single force.”

“...”

“I persuaded them to put aside old grudges and stand against the Moon first.”

“...”

“Do you think it was easy?”

“Of course not.”

If this were easy, the entire world would have stopped fighting long ago and worked together for humanity’s glory.

“Do you think the Management Bureau discovered every measure that slows the Moon’s growth?”

“...”

“Do you think a Young Ark begins acting on instinct to stop the Moon the moment it is born? Those were all lies I created.”

Elder Wisdom lamented without pause.

Perhaps it was because he had met the only person who could understand his suffering.

What he wanted to say was simple.

I worked this hard to resolve reality’s problems.

I designed the very board you are looking at now.

But.

“Why?”

“...”

“Why has the third floor not appeared for me?”

“...”

“Was all this effort absurdly insufficient? Was it nowhere near enough to overcome the terrible despair that is the Moon?”

“...”

“It could be. To the One Who Weeps for the Three Thousand Worlds, a seeker who wanders through eternity in search of a single Heaven! My efforts may seem truly insignificant. So I will accept that I am insufficient.”

Over countless eons, Elder Wisdom had accepted one sad fact.

To the Hotel, my efforts were pathetically insufficient.

Even enduring the long years while creating a force to confront the Moon was not enough.

That was why he could not bear the fact that Hotel Pioneer’s third floor was forming now!

“Hah....”

Once again, I glimpsed his emotions laid bare.

They were a whirlpool of joy and despair, envy and jealousy.

The sum of Elder Wisdom’s longing, accumulated over countless eons.

“I envy you.”

“...”

“How could I not, when you have achieved more in just over a year than I have over all those long years?”

“Are you going to kill me because of that?”

For a moment, Elder Wisdom suddenly seemed old.

His body remained that of a man in his late forties, as befitted an immortal being, but perhaps his heart had broken.

“What would change if I killed you? Would the Hotel make a third floor for me? It may seem strange to say it now, but in my time, it was not a Hotel. It was a ‘School.’”

“Is that so?”

“All kinds of thoughts crossed my mind. I even had the childish thought that the god of the universe favored you.”

The old man slowly shook his head from side to side.

As though trying to cast off his boiling emotions and make a rational judgment.

“It is a ridiculous thought. In the eyes of the One Who Weeps for the Three Thousand Worlds, we are no more than insects....”

“...”

“Why would it have any reason to favor one of us?”

“...”

“It simply looked at the sorry state of this ant called me and thought, This one will be hopeless even after ten million years. Then it watched you for around two hundred days and thought, Given time, this one might accomplish something.”

At that moment, I felt nothing but pure admiration.

He had spent tens of thousands of years striving toward his goal, only to be told that someone who had worked for barely over half a year was better than him?

I could not imagine accepting such a judgment.

Even if the one making it was the universe’s only supreme god!

“What do you think the reason is?”

“I have thought about that endlessly.”

“...”

“If you had found a completely different approach from mine, I would have thought, Ah! I was barking up the wrong tree.”

“...”

“But watching what you do, it seems your approach is similar to mine.”

The similar conclusion Elder Wisdom and I had reached.

To stop the Moon, the Pillagers’ power was essential.

“Then why was I wrong while you are right?”

“...”

“There is an important difference between us.”

“...”

“A difference I could never close, no matter how much longer I tried.”

“...”

“What do you think that difference is?”

I knew the answer.

And he knew it too.

We both knew the other knew the answer.

“Our respective relationships with the Moon.”

“The Moon cherishes you. You freed it for the first time, then freed it again this time. Of course it does. That is impossible for me, no matter how much time passes.”

This was the absolute difference between Elder Wisdom and me.

Did that mean the Moon was an unsolvable problem for Elder Wisdom, who could not earn its love?

I did not think so.

If I possessed the weapon called the Moon’s love, Elder Wisdom possessed the weapon of having started far earlier.

There must have been approaches only Elder Wisdom could take.

Long ago.

Elder Wisdom had missed that opportunity.

The approach available now was impossible for Elder Wisdom and possible only for me.

In other words, Elder Wisdom could never reach the third floor through his own power.

“From now on, you must see just one more thing, then turn back time.”

“I have an idea what it is.”

“Go see the Moon. Confirm the greatest secret hidden by the Crimson Lord.”

The old man’s hand began to shine blue-green.

“You have two problems before you can uncover the final secret.”

“...”

“First, your relationship with the Moon has soured while fighting the Holy Mother. Second, your Insight has been cut in half.”

“...”

“It seems both can be resolved by my death.”

“...”

“Tell the Moon this. Say you wanted to kill me the moment you acquired the Mirror. Say you imprisoned the Holy Mother because she would have objected.”

“...”

“Would it not forgive you if you brought it the head of a Pillager? It originally cherished you, after all.”

“... You wrote it in your Status Window, did you not? The Enlightenment I gained just now, even after turning back time-”

“Let us stop making such elementary observations to each other.”

“Thank you.”

“Why thank me? I simply want to reach the third floor....”

As that eerily gleaming power aimed at Elder Wisdom himself, I asked one final question.

“This is truly a trivial question.”

“...”

“The other day, when you tried to kill me in the Ark. Did you really see it through Insight? That I had to be killed?”

“Pfft!”

“Huh?”