WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 628: The Oldest Wish (9)
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「User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 234
Current Location: Searching...
Sage’s Advice: 0」
- Han Ga-in
--- Rooooar...!
I heard a roar that shook the ocean.
The next moment, the Holy Mother collapsed again, vomiting minerals from her mouth.
“Argh! Th-that thing’s dream is...!”
The Moon’s other consciousness was reconstructing this space.
If Eun-sol had been here, she could have at least used the Flute beside the Holy Mother!
No, would it have mattered even if she had?
Our opponent was a Great One. There was no way someone like the Holy Mother could resist.
‘That’s right. I can’t stop a monster like that with my power.’
Advice from the Owl.
If it was such a perfect trump card, why hadn’t the Moon used it before things came to this?
The Moon’s other consciousness was not the Prince’s subordinate or servant.
In a sense, it was closer to a limit the Prince wanted to overcome, and a sworn enemy.
Let’s interpret the advice in that context.
Didn’t it mean I should make a deal with that thing instead of fighting it?
‘Ridiculous! A deal can only be made when both sides have something to give and take. What could we possibly offer that thing?’
‘... What is this phenomenon?’
Feeling an intense sense of wrongness, I turned around.
The Holy Mother, Elder Wisdom, and Jin-cheol had realized something and looked at one another.
Were we sharing our thoughts?
‘It looks that way!’
‘It is a strange phenomenon created by the Great One’s dream.’
“L-look over there! Something’s coming!”
The moment the voice rang out, everyone’s gaze automatically turned to Mi-ro.
The only girl in this realm whose thoughts we couldn’t hear!
Was this also the power of Immutability?
They said it was ice that wouldn’t melt even in lava. What an incredible blessing.
‘It’s coming! A nightmarishly enormous being...!’
The Moon’s dream, where imagination and reality had mixed together.
A being that had gone a step further, mixing not only imagination and reality but my imagination with everyone else’s!
The Moon’s other consciousness was approaching.
It was like a living, breathing storm, like an active volcano.
A mind boiling up like foam.
Countless minds repeated life and death, formation and extinction, every moment.
「The Moon’s enemy.」
「No, the Prince’s enemy.」
「The Prince’s teacher.」
「Praise the liberator of all.」
「Burn the corrupted Holy Son.」
「The Researcher.」
「One who does not even know who he is.」
I heard every one of those voices at once, yet I couldn’t hear any sound at all.
A million minds wanted to exchange opinions with me, while another million wanted to burn me at the Prince’s command.
Impulses that could not coexist.
Wills that could not be fulfilled together, yet none of which could be rejected.
A being filled with contradictions!
At that moment, I understood why the Prince did not ordinarily use this being like a weapon.
‘Life, Death, and Extinction, endlessly repeating without end, is that thing’s very nature! It truly is like a microcosm!’
A microcosm?
That was Elder Wisdom’s thought.
It made sense, but there was another way to see it.
Someone had seen the Moon as a god with a mental illness.
In that context, that thing’s true nature was mental illness itself!
It declared to everyone.
「Call me Contradiction.」
The next moment, Contradiction’s wildly turbulent mind settled beneath one vast current.
It was calming its chaos to speak with us.
For Contradiction, this was only a brief moment of stillness.
「You see me as a mental illness. But the Prince is just as fickle.」
The Prince was fickle?
「Until recently, he called you the Holy Son and considered you an irreplaceable retainer. Now, he sees you as the greatest of enemies.」
Until recently, he had called me the Holy Son and considered me his retainer?
That was before I used One More Chance!
「His fickleness truly resembles that of a boy.」
The ruler of the Moon, the Prince, was being spoken of as though he were an immature child.
My interpretation of the Owl’s advice was correct.
Contradiction’s interests differed from the Prince’s!
「That is correct. I am not the Prince.」
I calmed my boiling thoughts and formed one clear intention.
Then what do you desire, Contradiction?
「I wish to obtain wisdom from you, as the Prince did in the past!」
As the Prince did in the past?
At that point, I became certain.
Contradiction remembered what had happened before I used One More Chance!
Did it remember everything?
Probably not.
It likely only dimly remembered the general events, like a hazy dream.
It wasn’t impossible.
As I’d witnessed countless times in the Hotel, a Prisoner could preserve its ego even through the Hotel’s reset.
And the Demon King of Room 206 had resisted the Ruler of Time, the original source of One More Chance.
It probably wasn’t entirely impossible for the Moon, which was close to the realm of a Prisoner.
「You think far too much.」
I’m sorry.
What can I teach you?
How can I make you allow me to go to the Prince?
「Look.」
Soon, something shining pure white came into view.
‘What is that?’
‘A gigantic chain?’
‘Contradiction! That chain is binding you.’
As Elder Wisdom said, something resembling iron chains was constricting Contradiction.
「What is this?」
Contradiction was the divided mind of a Stage 2 Soul Convergence Entity.
A force that restrained and controlled that divided mind.
The Crown!
「As expected, you recognized it immediately.」
I could feel the pressure the Crown exerted on Contradiction.
More precisely, Contradiction had allowed us to feel the Crown’s existence.
The Crown’s control never stopped, not for a single moment, every moment, every minute, every second.
I could also feel Contradiction’s disgust toward the Crown.
「What do you think?」
I believe the Prince is Royalty, born in the First Civilization.
It is certainly an impressive origin, but he is ultimately a lowly being born mortal.
「Oh?」
What about you?
You awakened within a chaotic vortex of endless souls!
You were born a Great One, so you cannot be compared to a Prince born lowly.
You alone possess a truly noble destiny.
「Ha ha! Is this a scheme to set me against the Prince?」
Was it that obvious?
「Very!」
Did you enjoy hearing it?
「Ha ha! It was not bad.」
--- Rumble!
Thunder roared.
I felt a will as violent as the storm Contradiction gave off!
Loyalty that said it had to follow the Prince’s orders.
The judgment that the corrupted Holy Son had to die.
Revulsion at the thought of a being born mortal using the Crown to suppress it.
The belief that the Prince was its origin and someone it would eventually become one with.
Hostility toward the Prince.
Love for the Prince.
Impulses that could not coexist.
A mind filled with contradictions!
As I staggered, dizzy, Contradiction calmed its storm again and conveyed its will.
「Do you understand the principle of the Crown?」
What was the Crown’s principle?
It wasn’t asking because it didn’t know about the Crown.
This was a test.
If you were truly wise, figure out at least this much at a glance.
In the silence, everyone’s eyes turned to the chains.
‘The Crown is a supreme treasure created by the primordial civilization! How could anyone immediately understand the principle of something so great?’
Elder Wisdom’s words were entirely logical.
No matter how wise someone was, there was no way they could understand the principle of a supreme object like the Crown the moment they saw it!
Yet...
Strangely, I felt like I knew.
Had my mind reached an even higher plane than usual?
Perhaps Primordial Memory was surfacing as I was constantly stimulated here in the Moon.
「Speak.」
I believe the Crown’s principle lies in the meaning of a crown itself, something worn by a king.
A king is a person seated on a throne, in a position above ordinary people.
Not every voice is the same.
A demagogue standing on a platform is only one person, yet that person’s voice spreads across an entire square and can sway the hearts of ten million people.
How much greater, then, is the influence of the voice of one seated on a throne?
Why does this happen?
Some analyze it from an evolutionary perspective and say this.
Humans have an instinct to accept the voices of those above them without question.
When they were young, it was advantageous for survival to unquestioningly obey their parents’ voices coming from above.
I don’t know whether that explanation is correct, but it is true that people have such a nature.
「I am not human.」
You are not human.
But the souls that make you up are ultimately human souls.
You are a collection of souls that have bowed their heads since childhood to voices coming from above.
The Crown binds you through that principle.
It does not control your entire being, a collection of one hundred billion souls, through force.
Each weak soul bows its head of its own accord to the lofty voice coming from the throne.
That is all that has been repeated without end.
「...」
When I finished explaining, Contradiction began to churn like a living vortex.
Contradiction had already known everything I had just explained.
It hadn’t asked because it didn’t know. It thought I needed to figure out even this much easily before I could answer its real question.
Therefore, Contradiction’s next question was the real one.
「I wish to seek an answer from you...」
Please speak.
「What do I desire?」
What was that supposed to mean?
‘That question doesn’t even sound like a question. What kind of answer does it want me to...’
Once again, Contradiction’s storming will spread in every direction.
Divided minds.
Small minds that endlessly repeated creation and extinction.
Impulses radiating in every direction.
Opposing goals.
Split desires.
It wanted to drink water while spitting it out.
It wanted to walk forward and backward at the same time.
It wanted to sleep while awake, and obtain life and death together.
What the hell was this...
「What do I desire?」
‘God or not, what kind of crazy bastard is this!’
Elder!
It can hear everything we think, so don’t insult it carelessly!
‘What am I supposed to do when the thought just appears?’
Honestly, I understood how Elder Wisdom felt.
No matter how absurd this world was, how could a lunatic like this be a god?
I felt faint.
There wasn’t much time left!
We needed to get away from this insane god and reach the Sacred Domain quickly!
「If you give me an answer I can accept, I will gladly send you on your way.」
Just as I felt like I was losing my mind.
‘Does the answer absolutely have to come from Ga-in, I mean, the Researcher?’
Jin-cheol’s voice, no, his will, reached me.
「It matters not who gives it. That is why I invited all of you here.」
‘Then I shall give you a very easy answer. No, see it for yourself!’
On Jin-cheol’s hand, as he spoke calmly, I saw a formless liquid writhing like mist.
The final, tenth Dream shone.
The brush of One Who Weeps for the Three Thousand Worlds painted over “Cha Jin-cheol.”
Footnotes:
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