WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 633: The Oldest Wish (14)
──────
- Aedia
There are three reasons behind what I’m doing now.
First, my loyalty to the Prince was shattered when I encountered the Dream of Eternity.
That doesn’t simply mean I switched sides.
It means I can see the situation more objectively than before.
Loyalty, love, rage, hatred. Emotions like those are bound to cloud one’s reason.
Second, Pioneer’s third floor had already begun forming before the Holy Son turned back time.
What does that mean?
That the Pioneer Party, including the Holy Son, had achieved meaningful results?
The third floor wouldn’t appear just because they had made a little progress.
If that were enough, poor Elder Wisdom would have reached the third floor three times over by now.
From the Hotel’s perspective, the tide had already turned in the Pioneer Party’s favor.
Why?
Even the Pioneer Party itself wasn’t certain of victory.
There was a variable even the Holy Son didn’t fully understand.
From the Hotel’s perspective, which could account for even that variable, the outcome had already been decided.
Third, the one closest to victory at this point.
Poor Elder Wisdom often lamented that even after striving for eons, he was still lacking.
Yet from a step back, there was someone who had been planning for far longer.
I intend to stop that person from winning.
For everyone.
For humanity.
I believe this is the only way for the Prince and me to atone for the Great Sin we committed against the world.
* * *
「User: --- (Wisdom)
Date: Day 234
Current Location: Searching...
Sage’s Advice: 0」
“Know that beneath Heaven, there is only you.”
The moment the Third Sentence engraved upon the Book of the Avatar began to shine, the entire Sacred Domain started to shake.
Dark blue waves spread in every direction from a single form, one that could have been either the Grimoire or me.
It was as though someone had poured black paint over the Prince’s work, painted upon the canvas of a dream.
With the Book of the Avatar’s power, I was taking part of the Sacred Domain’s control away from the Prince!
--- Shhhhh!
If everything until now had been me fleeing while the Prince toyed with me, this was the first phenomenon that could truly be called a clash.
For the first time, the Prince reacted with displeasure.
「I see. You had one final move. Did you obtain it from the Hotel?」
Power and souls accumulated within the Moon across eons, more time than a Mortal’s life could contain even if multiplied thousands of times. The Prince’s very fate!
A vicious power that sought to steal that noble fate spread from me and covered everything.
“...”
Things joined, broke apart, touched, separated, mixed, and divided.
Countless times, I erased the Prince’s dream and tried to create my own domain.
The Prince restored his collapsing dream and tried to erase me.
Amid the unending clash, I considered which side held the advantage.
Did attaining Enlightenment of a higher rank necessarily make one stronger?
The Unborn One, from whom the Grimoire originated, had clearly reached a higher realm than the Prince.
The proof was how it had taught the Prince with a single sentence and mocked him for lacking talent.
Did that mean the Unborn One was stronger than the Prince before me?
Having fought both, I could answer clearly.
The Prince was far stronger.
Even an Absolute Master could be helplessly defeated if all four limbs were severed and he contracted an incurable disease. That was the way of the world.
Then how great must the disadvantage be for a being that, as its name said, had never even been born?
The same principle applied to the Prince and me.
At times, quantity overpowered quality.
Even if one side held a ten-to-one advantage in battle, it could still lose if the enemy had a thousand times more soldiers.
The number of souls the Prince had gathered across eons was simply too vast.
No matter how great the Third Sentence’s power was, it would be difficult to close that gap.
That was why I could never defeat the Prince.
If we were both in normal condition, that was.
「...You’ve prepared quite thoroughly.」
The Prince wasn’t in normal condition.
The pressure relentlessly applied from outside by the Management Bureau and the Pillagers.
The seal created by the ancient Management Bureau, or a similar organization, which had been far greater than the current one.
The mysterious change in Contradiction, which should originally have submitted to the Crown and aided the Prince.
And countless other arrangements I knew of, or didn’t know of!
Everyone’s efforts, built up across eons, had become shackles binding the Prince.
--- Rumble!
A sound like thunder echoed from the nonexistent sky.
「Do you know what that sound is?」
The Prince’s wavering momentum surged once more with absurd force!
「Contradiction’s power is returning to me!」
Contradiction, which had transformed into an incomprehensible vortex, had returned to its original state and was sending power to the Prince through the Crown?
It meant Cha Jin-cheol’s Dream had ended.
In an instant, the Prince’s authority blazed up like fire and began to swallow my domain!
“Ah...!”
Something said many times in the past.
Time was on the Prince’s side.
Even with just one of his countless shackles removed, the Prince was this powerful.
I couldn’t drag this out. This had to be settled quickly!
How was I supposed to defeat someone already stronger than me in a swift battle?
As I staggered, dizzy, the Prince’s sneer stabbed into me like a dagger.
「Do not be afraid. I will not kill you. You shall serve me for all eternity!」
The moment I felt crushing pressure bearing down on both body and mind.
--- Whooooo!
A pale light gathered around the Prince, whose form resembled a living sun.
The light of reason that suppressed all supernatural forces.
It was Elder Wisdom’s final remaining power, the Radiance of Reason!
“...!”
Perhaps Elder Wisdom had no time to speak. He only looked at me with desperate eyes.
The time he created was truly only a few seconds.
Yet within those few seconds of leeway, someone whispered.
‘This isn’t how you fight.’
“...”
If a Stone Age primitive acquired a grenade, would they know how to use it properly?
They’d be lucky not to mistake it for a hand axe, swing it, and blow themselves up.
That was how I was using the Third Sentence now.
I had gained power but didn’t know how to use it.
So I was merely reenacting the tug-of-war I had with another me in Room 207, only with a little more force.
This wasn’t it!
Different powers had different ways of being used.
But how was I supposed to figure that out right now?
This was the first time I had used the Third Sentence, and the first time I had experienced this incomprehensible kind of battle!
The Sacred Sun, which always stayed by my side and shone auspiciously, whispered.
‘It’s not your first time.’
It wasn’t.
I had fought this kind of battle before.
Not for a day or two, either, but for hundreds of years!
Long ago, someone taught me.
He was a devil without equal beneath Heaven, the embodiment of evil.
Yet at the same time, he was truly like a merciful father.
* * *
After a hammer powerful enough to crush even the North Star was swung three times, I soon became a point rather than a person.
* * *
The Third Sentence was clearly a principle of the Grimoire, yet the Sacred Sun whispered the ultimate method of using it.
What kind of strange harmony was this?
I knew what I had to do now, and that was enough.
“Hah!”
I gave a light shout and raised my hand. In an instant, the Veil was lifted.
Thanks to the few seconds Elder Wisdom had bought me, the Prince couldn’t stop me.
With the Veil gone, behold the hellish landscape inside the Moon!
Countless souls circled around the Prince and sang hymns that would never end.
They called the devil who had thrown them into an eternal hell their god and worshipped him. Truly pitiful lambs.
* * *
For the first hundred years, I only screamed in pain.
Like a baby bird crying with its mouth open whenever it saw its mother.
「Be reborn! Be reborn! Thought is nothing but illusion. Know that pain can become sweetness.」
* * *
The Sacred Sun’s auspicious light illuminated the area.
Countless lambs looked at me as though they couldn’t understand.
As long as the Prince remained whole, this would be no more than momentary confusion.
Still, it was enough time for me to reach toward the lambs.
* * *
For the next hundred years, I confronted him, asking how he could do this to a human being.
Like blaming the stars when an earthquake struck.
「Be reborn! Be reborn! Do not look at the process, but the purpose. Accept the providence of evolution.」
* * *
The hand extending from the Book of the Avatar seized the lambs, an act of unbearable pain to some.
The weak souls immediately twisted their faces and began to scream.
Pain, too, was a process that led to sweetness.
* * *
At last, when the third Heaven dawned, I realized there was a devil within me.
When the devil tore free from the point and scattered black liquid like tar everywhere, he asked what this childish trick was.
I answered that the Book was merely a tool for expansion.
Then the one truly like a merciful father smiled and said,
「At last, you have begun to understand. I have no regrets.」
* * *
Know that beneath Heaven, there is only you.
That was the principle which allowed me to devour the souls of all things!
The authority of the universe’s most vicious devil spread like wildfire among the lost lambs.
Soon, souls as faint as candle flames began to darken like tar.
I devoured them, and devoured them, and devoured them again.
Until the Prince, sovereign over a great host, was left alone and turned pale!
「What power is this? How can such absurd power exist?!」
The few seconds created by Elder Wisdom’s Radiance of Reason had already ended.
Yet the tide that had turned in that time could not be reversed again!
“Let’s finish this now.”
I heard the Prince’s voice, filled with despair and rage.
「Time is still on my side! If I, if I just have a little more time...」
“Don’t you understand yet? There is no next for you.”
The Moon’s utterly pale domain.
Most of his power had been sealed by outside forces, and even the power that remained had been dismantled by me. The Prince was alone.
I grabbed the Prince by the collar, physically, or perhaps magically.
“H-how?”
At this moment, every question the Prince held was contained in that one word.
How had I drawn in both the Management Bureau and the Pillagers?
How had I learned his secret and turned back time?
How had I made even the Holy Mother betray the Prince himself?
Above all, how had I obtained from the Hotel the one power perfectly suited to counter the principle that made up the Prince?
“Teacher...!”
Even after things had come this far, he still called me Teacher.
Thanks to that, I remembered the name I had forgotten for so long.
“Emilio. I have waited a very long time.”
“W-what are you talking about...”
“This moment. I offered up a thousand lives for this one chance.”
At that moment, the Prince, finally reaching a belated realization, opened his eyes wide and cried out.
“You didn’t betray me because you lost your memories of the past! From the beginning, from the beginning, you meant to devour me...!”
“I” answered with a more lively smile than ever.
“Now you understand?”
Through the First Sentence, I gained the power to steal the bodies of all people.
Through the Second Sentence, I overcame even the Uniqueness of the mind.
Then what was the Third Sentence?
Having surpassed the limits of body and mind, the final step was the devouring of souls!
Feeling the indescribable despair etched into the eyes of the handsome blond young man, I whispered.
The words I had wanted to return to him just once!
“Do not be afraid.”
“Ah, ah, ah...!”
“Soon, I will become you, and you will become me.”
The glorious moment when every arrangement made across eons came together.
An incomprehensible unease flashed through my mind.
I felt as though I had made a mistake.
A trivial yet irreversible mistake.
A tiny crack that had just appeared in my perfect plan.
A voice that could not possibly exist came from somewhere.
‘I point at the Moon, yet you only look at the finger.’
“...”
It didn’t matter.
The outcome had long since been decided. No one could stop me now.
“Ah... Aaaagh!”
--- Crunch!
This was the Prince’s end.
Footnotes:
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