WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 629: The Oldest Wish (10)
──────
- Cha Jin-cheol
Something I often thought about.
For some people, their twenties must be the golden age of their lives.
For me, my twenties were a painful time marked by defeat and inferiority.
Do you know the pain of someone who falls just slightly short in talent?
If I’d been given nothing at all, maybe I could’ve given up cleanly.
A proud build standing over 180 centimeters tall, a robust frame, and outstanding strength!
Even I had to admire this body.
When I first got into combat sports, everyone said it.
‘I guarantee it! You’ll make it big in any sport you try.’
‘Wow! Bro, give me your autograph now. I bet it’ll be worth a fortune someday!’
I remembered all the praise, expectations, and envious looks.
I also remembered how they turned into regret, pity, and a little mockery.
...
I wasn’t bringing up my old inferiority complex just to confess it now.
Like so many worries, it felt like nothing when I looked back on it.
It’s not like I was the only athlete whose life didn’t work out.
Still, the mindset I had back then remained a major part of who Cha Jin-cheol was.
I wanted to move forward.
I wanted to become something greater than I was now.
Not something childish, like wanting to become stronger than Ga-in.
The person I compared myself to was always my past self.
I wanted today’s me to be better than yesterday’s me.
I wanted tomorrow’s me to be better than today’s me.
* * *
The overwhelming presence of Contradiction, like a raging typhoon!
‘A cluster of selves where countless minds repeatedly emerge and vanish.’
‘A being that feels countless incompatible desires at once, and can no longer speak of what it truly wants.’
W-Were these Ga-in’s thoughts about Contradiction?
‘Divided minds.’
‘Small minds endlessly repeating creation and extinction.’
‘Impulses radiating in every direction.’
‘Opposing goals.’
‘Split desires.’
‘To drink water while wanting to spit it out.’
‘To walk forward and backward at the same time.’
‘To sleep while wanting to stay awake, and to gain life and death together.’
Ugh!
I’d always known Ga-in was smart, but this was...!
Once our consciousnesses connected, I felt a powerful sense of alienation.
I’d felt it earlier, too, while listening to his absurd analysis of the Crown’s principle.
Ga-in wasn’t just intelligent!
Perception beyond the five senses. Information I couldn’t interpret.
Strange conclusions reached after endlessly analyzing incomprehensible information.
A mind bursting outward!
The output of his very self was powerful.
Was this the result of prolonged exposure to the Blessing of Wisdom?
Thanks to that, Ga-in’s voice was incredibly loud in this place.
Which meant my voice was incredibly quiet.
Just as I staggered from sudden mental exhaustion, a great voice rang out.
「What do I desire?」
What did Contradiction desire?
My first thought was confusion.
Not because I didn’t understand the question, but because it felt too easy.
So, the problem was that it wanted to move forward and backward at the same time?
Then couldn’t it just change one of those thoughts?
‘What the hell is this!’
‘God or not, this bastard’s insane!’
Only after hearing the irritated reactions of the two Wisdoms did I realize it.
Contradiction’s question wasn’t easy. I’d just interpreted it too easily!
Was it because I was the smartest one here?
No.
It was because the thoughts I’d had while pondering the Otherworldly Star Fragment connected with Contradiction’s dilemma.
‘There isn’t much time left. We need to get away from this insane god and reach the Sacred Domain!’
Feeling Ga-in’s anxious thoughts, I came to a conclusion.
This was the moment for me to do something!
Trust myself. Don’t doubt.
In this realm, certainty was directly tied to the size of one’s voice.
Soon, a voice loud enough to draw the Great One’s attention rang out.
Does the Researcher have to give the answer?
「It matters not who gives it. That is why I invited all of you here.」
Then I’ll give you a very simple answer.
Contradiction!
What is the problem you carry?
It is the confusion caused by countless incompatible impulses and endlessly divided minds.
You wish to overcome that confusion.
The answer is simple.
Give up or destroy one of those contradictory desires!
「...」
Contradiction fell silent.
Yet intense disappointment filled this place.
Contradiction didn’t like my answer.
It believed I hadn’t understood the heart of the problem.
But...
Sometimes, seeing is believing!
Then, a formless fluid wriggled like mist above my hands.
Contradiction showed interest when it saw the mysteriously glowing Dream.
Grasping the Dream, I prayed with all my heart.
I earnestly pray to the one seated in the Hotel’s seat of honor.
Even if only once, allow me to reach the ultimate.
Show me a fragment of greatness that even Contradiction can acknowledge.
The tenth Dream shone.
The brush of the One Who Weeps for the Three Thousand Worlds painted over me.
Then, filled with sudden, powerful certainty, I summoned the Otherworldly Star Fragment.
--- Crunch!
‘Aagh! Jin-cheol!’
The Star Fragment crushed my skull and embedded itself in the center of my brain!
* * *
.
..
...
What had I thought about the Otherworldly Star Fragment?
An Inheritance that couldn’t be properly used while trapped in the framework of a human being.
That was the conclusion I reached after thinking of its original user, who had transformed into a hideous monster and distorted the entire world.
Ah...
I’d misunderstood something important.
What was needed to properly use the Star Fragment wasn’t transcendence of the body.
Becoming a grotesque monster was a result, not the cause.
The true path to the ultimate was transcendence of the mind, the manifestation of an unfathomably vast self.
Within my mind’s eye, I saw a massive vortex.
I saw Cha Jin-cheol becoming a surging vortex.
Endure the power of the Star Fragment and use it with a firm mind?
Not at all.
Don’t endure it. Ride the current of Chaos summoned by the Star Fragment!
...
I once saw an interesting video online.
A camera had been set up near a vine in the Amazon rainforest. It recorded for months, and the footage was played at high speed.
What image came to mind when people thought of plants?
Beings rooted in the soil, living by taking in sunlight and water.
Part of a pastoral, peaceful landscape. Static creatures that did not move.
The plants in the sped-up footage were completely different.
They spread broad leaves over nearby young plants, blocking them from the sunlight.
They often stretched out writhing roots to bind other plants or released bizarre toxins that destroyed insect habitats across the area.
The plants in the footage were green tentacle monsters, constantly writhing and crawling in every direction.
Humans only failed to notice all this struggle because it happened so slowly.
That was how speed made the world look completely different.
Plants were unbearably slow to human eyes.
Conversely, there must be perspectives that saw humans as slow and still as plants.
...
A mind burning like flame.
A writhing vortex that never stopped for even a moment.
It wasn’t simply a matter of faster calculation.
Shifts in thought, their scope, clashing desires, heating and cooling. Every change was violently chaotic.
This was another mind, one that regarded a human mind as slow and monotonous as a plant.
It was like the mind of an alien creature.
Its appearance wasn’t the issue. The structure of its mind and its way of thinking were simply too different from a human’s!
...
A chaotic mind, endlessly radiating in every direction and trying to take countless possible forms.
I held the reins of the wild beast, and those reins were called Instant.
It felt like controlling impulses running wild at an incredible speed with reason accelerated to a similar speed!
I suddenly laughed in disbelief.
I couldn’t discover the true way to use the Star Fragment on my own, so I borrowed the power of Dream.
And so, an incomprehensible wild beast awakened inside me...
Yet the reins needed to control that beast had been in my hands all along, as if they’d been waiting?
What did that mean? My Sponsor had known from the start that the Star Fragment could be used this way!
Ha ha!
This truly was the ultimate realm that Dream had led me to!
At that very moment.
「Now you can answer my question.」
I felt Contradiction’s satisfaction.
In Contradiction’s eyes, I had become someone capable of solving the Great One’s question.
「I ask again. What do I desire?」
Now, I truly knew the answer to the problem.
Soon, waves of change emitted by the Star Fragment swallowed the area!
...
...
...
At the end of the ultimate.
The mind that had clumsily approached a great realm returned to the realm of humans.
As my consciousness faded, I lamented again and again.
Could I reach this realm again through my own power?
One thing was certain.
Before I knew of this great realm, perhaps I could’ve remained ignorant. But after experiencing it once...
Until the day I died, I would endlessly yearn to return to this realm.
Today’s experience was both an incomparable blessing and a curse.
* * *
「User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 234
Current Location: Searching...
Sage’s Advice: 0」
- Han Ga-in
--- Clunk!
“Pant, pant! Aah...!”
“Let’s rest for a moment!”
This was already our second break.
The process of creating the elevator, having it destroyed, and restoring it had severely weakened the Holy Mother in body and mind.
On top of that, it seemed that being exposed to Jin-cheol’s Star Fragment in the Deepest Sea had dealt her a serious blow.
An ordinary blow wouldn’t mean much to the nearly immortal Holy Mother, but...
The power Jin-cheol had manifested earlier was different even from the Star Fragment I normally sensed.
It was an unfathomable vastness, like facing primordial Chaos.
“... Mi-ro.”
Supporting the Holy Mother as she panted raggedly, I gestured to Mi-ro.
Mi-ro cautiously held up both hands, showing seven. It meant the Holy Mother had seven minutes left.
Fortunately, the Sacred Domain wasn’t far away.
A moment of silence.
Once everything around us grew quiet, my thoughts naturally returned to what had happened earlier.
Jin-cheol had...
“About what happened earlier.”
The predecessor’s voice.
“Contradiction’s problem was, as its name suggested, a muddled mind made of thoughts that could not coexist.”
“That’s right.”
“Your companion, Cha Jin-cheol, said it should cut away some of its contradictory thoughts.”
“That was probably the wrong answer.”
“Yes. Contradiction thought so as well.”
I also believed Jin-cheol’s first answer had been wrong.
“Muddled minds keep appearing and disappearing over and over. There’d be no end to cutting some of them away.”
“Even if you got rid of them, other contradictory minds would soon arise.”
But what about the other answer he found after embedding the Star Fragment in his brain?
“What on earth did your companion do?”
“... I don’t know.”
I really didn’t know.
The Star Fragment had simply emitted waves entirely unlike anything I’d felt before.
“He did something. He did something, and then Contradiction suddenly...”
“...”
“Became unable to communicate.”
“That’s right.”
“Before, at least minimal communication was possible. Now even that is impossible.”
Something that couldn’t manage even minimal communication.
If I had to describe it, it was a constantly changing vortex itself.
“...”
“...”
The predecessor and I felt an indescribable strangeness from that vortex.
“Was that the answer? Why was it the answer?”
“I don’t know. But...”
“...”
“Let’s stop questioning it and go meet the Prince.”
“... Yes. We should.”
Just before the elevator started moving again, Mi-ro asked in a worried voice.
“G-Ga-in...”
“...”
“Is Jin-cheol dead?”
“I don’t know.”
Was he dead?
Or alive?
Or in some strange state that couldn’t be described that way?
I didn’t know.
Not even Companion Location Information could tell me.
--- Clunk!
“We’ve arrived.”
The Prince, the Crown, the supreme realm where the final secret was hidden.
We had arrived at the Sacred Domain.
Footnotes:
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