WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 634: The Oldest Wish (15)
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..
...
A space filled with songs of pain that seemed as though they would never end.
The Plain of Sinners.
“... I can’t trust everything you say.”
“Even with Miss Mi-ro standing beside me?”
“Mi-ro’s always easy to fool.”
“Ah! That’s so mean!”
“Haha! You’re right. We aren’t close enough to trust each other without suspicion. Then see for yourself.”
“Myself?”
“Come to the Sacred Domain with me. You’ve been promoted all the way to The Silent, so I trust you can judge for yourself.”
“...”
“What are you planning to do? I think-”
“I’ll ask directly.”
“Pardon? No-”
“Holy Mother, the other side is smarter than we are. Don’t you think?”
“... That’s true.”
“This is a time for sincerity, not tricks.”
The recreated elevator.
“A-ri! What are you thinking about?”
“The past.”
“The past?”
“The day we first obtained the Irregular Polyhedron.”
“What kind of memory is that?”
* * *
「User: --- (Wisdom)
Date: Day 234
Current Location: Searching....
Sage’s Advice: 0」
In the middle of the Sacred Domain, now a bleak ruin, I only had a moment to look down at the remains of Emilio, the Prince, now a soulless lump of flesh sprawled across the ground.
--- Shhhhh!
Then the ancient treasure that shone with gentle light, the Crown, revealed itself!
At last, the wait was over.
I had devoted a thousand lives to this moment!
“Ah...!”
At that moment, I felt hot liquid running down my cheeks.
I felt like a child, but I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing.
Who could I possibly explain these feelings to?
This wasn’t the first time I had seen the Crown.
It wasn’t even the first time I had touched it.
But every previous encounter had been filled with despair.
‘You are not Royalty.’
‘You are not qualified to obtain the Crown.’
Those verdicts were all I had received.
What about now?
The moment I approached in a daze and seized the Crown, I knew.
The Crown had acknowledged me.
It had accepted me as its master, now unified with the Prince’s soul!
For a moment, I was drunk on a sense of victory and omnipotence too vast to put into words.
Then I sensed someone behind me.
Actually, I had long known someone was coming.
I simply hadn’t stopped them because they were people I knew well.
“You’re here?”
“Yeah, we’re here.”
It was A-ri’s voice.
When I turned around, I saw A-ri and Mi-ro, two beautiful girls contrasting like black and white.
Seung-yeop stood beside them, panting as though exhausted, while the Holy Mother smiled beside him.
“Aedia.”
“Holy Son, congratulations on your great achievement!”
“... I can’t believe you’re still here.”
Seeing her mingle so naturally with my companions, she seemed to be the Summoned Entity Holy Mother. Yet the time permitted to a Summoned Entity should have ended long ago.
“Ah, you still don’t know? The answer should be in the Prince’s memories.”
It was true that I had unified with the Prince’s soul.
Still, his memories did not feel as natural as my own.
It was like swallowing food without fully digesting it.
Because of that, I needed a little time to understand the Holy Mother’s words.
“...”
“Do you understand now?”
The Holy Mother was a being who had gained immortality by replacing her entire body with Qliphoth Crystal!
And that was not all.
“... There was an absurdly large crystal inside the Moon.”
A mass of Qliphoth Crystal as large as a building!
That was the Holy Mother’s true body.
The beautiful young woman we usually saw was only a small fragment split off from that body, a duplicate.
There was something even stranger.
The usual Holy Mother, the duplicate, did not know that her true body existed somewhere else.
She had deliberately been kept unaware, because recognizing it could destroy the continuity of her identity.
The Holy Mother had designed herself to learn the truth only in moments of extreme danger!
Just before disappearing, the Summoned Entity Holy Mother had transferred her memories to the true body.
“Aedia, you really are a strange one. Just like Elder Wisdom...”
“Well, I’ve lived a long time. When you live that long, you’re bound to go through all sorts of things.”
“...”
“Is Elder Wisdom all right?”
“He used up all his strength and passed out. He’ll need rest.”
The Hotel, or rather, the School?
When the Holy Mother had first obtained the Qliphoth Crystal, she probably hadn’t been this powerful.
At most, she could have replaced her skin and strengthened her body.
Time was terrifying.
The potential of an Inheritance was this mysterious.
“Let’s leave my story there. It isn’t the important part.”
I nodded and looked over my companions again, then noticed someone was missing.
“A-ri, where’s Eun-sol?”
“She’s resting. She’s in much worse shape than I am.”
Since she was physically an ordinary human, there might have been no helping it.
“What about Jin-cheol?”
“He was exposed too heavily to the power of the Inheritance. He’ll need a long rest too.”
“What about Elena?”
This time, Seung-yeop answered.
“I-I put her in the Soul Box!”
“What?”
He sounded as though he didn’t know how to explain it himself.
“... Her body was destroyed.”
Elena’s body had been destroyed, and it seemed her soul had been placed inside Seung-yeop’s Inheritance.
It startled me a little, but it wasn’t irreversible when I thought about it.
The Management Bureau had made a new vessel capable of holding a soul for Sophia, who had been in a similar situation.
There were plenty of traces of Elena’s body left at the Moon Church.
So the Management Bureau could probably make a vessel for Elena’s soul, whether it was a clone or something else.
If it was biologically the same body, perhaps she could use her blessing again.
Just as I was about to nod, having understood the situation...
“...”
I realized something was strange about my companions’ reactions, especially Mi-ro’s.
Normally, wouldn’t this be when she ran toward me with that nasal whine of hers, “Ga-in~!”?
Why was she standing beside A-ri with such a frightened expression?
Perhaps she noticed something in my expression, because A-ri soon spoke.
“Ga-in.”
“What is it?”
A-ri spread her arms slightly before speaking. We had spent so long together that I could sense her intent.
She was going to say it honestly, exactly as it was.
“Aedia suspects you.”
At A-ri’s words, the Holy Mother only gave a bitter smile. She did not deny it.
“She says that you aren’t Han Ga-in right now, but the ancient Researcher, the Prince’s teacher-”
“Aleph?”
“So that was your name. Yes. I think you’re Aleph.”
“...”
“She says you’re thoroughly evil, another great evil that will threaten the world. Could you explain a little?”
Who was I now?
I explained with a quiet sigh.
“Holy Mother, don’t unsettle my companions with nonsense.”
“I-”
As Aedia furrowed her brow and tried to say something, I clapped lightly.
--- Clap!
The Holy Mother’s form immediately vanished.
Mi-ro and Seung-yeop jumped in shock, while A-ri remained calm.
Worried my companions might misunderstand, I quickly added,
“I didn’t kill her or anything. I just-”
“You expelled her from the Sacred Domain?”
Looking back, the Prince could have taken all sorts of measures against us, just as I had now.
When the Prince said, ‘I could have killed you twice, perhaps three times already,’ this was what he meant.
Why had he not done so?
Because the Prince thought there was no chance I could win.
He must have planned to keep me in the Sacred Domain himself, then persuade or brainwash me.
He likely thought that would make handling the Pillagers and the Management Bureau outside easier as well.
That mistake, that carelessness, was one of the many reasons the Prince had lost.
“I thought misunderstandings would keep growing if someone irrelevant stood beside us saying strange things.”
“That can happen.”
Perhaps because of A-ri’s calm tone, Seung-yeop and Mi-ro gradually settled down. I felt a little better too.
“To explain, I’ve only recovered memories from long ago.”
“Memories from when you were Aleph?”
“Right. That doesn’t mean I lost the memories I gained afterward. They’re all intact. For example, Mi-ro summons me with the Time Lender every night-”
“Eek!”
“Summons me-”
“Eek! Th-That’s a lie! I don’t summon you every night! Only sometimes-”
“So it isn’t every night, only sometimes?”
“H-How did you know!”
A-ri let out a long sigh as Mi-ro’s face turned bright red.
“Fine, fine. Mi-ro, I also know you summon him often, so please stay quiet.”
“How do you know that-”
“It’d be stranger if I still didn’t know.”
“Anyway, is that enough of an answer?”
My answer was simple.
I had only remembered a past I had forgotten for a long time. Did that make me such a different person?
Forgetting past memories, and sometimes recovering them, was common even for ordinary people.
A-ri smiled faintly as she answered.
“I think what you said makes sense. The Holy Mother’s opinion is only her own guess.”
“Right.”
“How could the Holy Mother know your condition accurately in the first place?”
“Exactly.”
As I nodded and was about to walk toward my companions, A-ri said something strange.
“I had another thought.”
“What?”
“Maybe not only the Holy Mother, but you yourself might not understand your condition very well either.”
“...”
“It’s possible, isn’t it? You’ve just received an enormous amount of information and power.”
I remembered how I had not immediately recalled the Prince’s memories earlier.
As A-ri said, I had received an enormous amount of information and power, and it would take a long time to digest it all.
There was a Buddhist saying, Sudden Enlightenment and Gradual Cultivation.
Even after receiving sudden enlightenment, one still needed gradual practice.
“I’ll ask just one question.”
“...”
“What are you going to do now?”
What should I do from now on?
That was, in the end, a question of what I considered a happy ending.
It was an easy question.
I had already discussed our plans with my companions long ago.
First, obtain the Crown.
Second, use the Crown’s power to take control of the Moon.
We had succeeded up to that point.
Third, after Elder Wisdom awakened, announce through him that we had conquered the Moon.
And then...
There were several more steps afterward, but the end was simple.
“... Use the Moon’s power to swallow every Pillager, and...”
“Right. The Moon’s greatest trait is that it has no capacity limit. Once we have the Moon, we can unify every Ark into one. What comes next?”
“...”
What came next was the answer to every problem, the core of the happy ending my past self had imagined.
A-ri answered for me.
“I told you before, didn’t I? In the end, we have to dismantle the Moon and the Ark again. Swallowing the Pillagers is a process for us to control them.”
“...”
“We even have the Mirror for that. Of course, it will take a very long time to divide the Moon... but we have plenty of time now. Isn’t that right?”
Nothing A-ri said was new.
My past self had told my companions all of it directly.
The process was long, but the conclusion was simple.
It was to end the game of musical chairs that had seemed as though it would never end.
It was a future where humanity, which had wandered for eons after losing the world, could settle down and prosper again.
That meant every Ark, including the Moon, had to be divided someday.
Only then did I understand the real meaning behind A-ri’s question.
1. You are confused about whether you are Aleph or Ga-in.
2. The happy ending Aleph and Ga-in desire cannot be the same.
3. What ending do you desire?
There was one more thing to add.
4. Once you reach a conclusion, act immediately instead of wasting time.
Once we go outside and begin communicating with the Management Bureau and the Pillagers, it will become harder for you to control the situation.
When my thoughts reached that point, I knew what I had to do.
--- Tap!
“Huh?”
I lightly struck the ground with my foot.
Mi-ro, who had only been tilting her head without understanding what was happening, immediately collapsed.
Seung-yeop sensed something and tried to react, but...
--- Tap!
“Ghk!”
A futile resistance.
From the moment I unified with the Prince, this entire domain had become my land, my territory.
The only person still unharmed was A-ri. By then, she had already surrounded herself with the Irregular Polyhedron.
“You’ve gotten much better at handling your Inheritance than before.”
A-ri answered in a sad voice, as though lamenting something.
“Aleph, this is your choice.”
She no longer called me Ga-in.
“A-ri, think about it. Why do we have to divide them in the first place?”
“...”
“Humans are inherently nothing more than weak, insignificant creatures. Yet those creatures have gathered and reached a great realm. Isn’t this Ascension for everyone? Isn’t that already a success?”
“...”
“Break apart the Moon and the Ark with the Mirror, then return them to hundreds of billions of humans? This isn’t a happy ending. It is the Great One’s suicide, the opposite of Ascension, a fall.”
“You...”
“Think without prejudice. What is best for all of us-”
“You’re not the real Ga-in.”
The next moment, the Irregular Polyhedron in A-ri’s hand emitted a mysterious light and twisted space.
An attack flew through the air toward me!
Something an ordinary human could neither see nor feel.
Yet I could clearly sense the path it would take and how it would come at me.
I even thought it was a slow, weak attack!
“Haha!”
The feeling of omnipotence was so great it made me laugh in disbelief. I casually waved my hand, and the Irregular Polyhedron’s attack vanished without a trace.
As I thought I should put A-ri to sleep for a while and flicked my fingers-
--- Crunch!
“Huh?”
A huge hole opened in A-ri’s body.
For the first time, I was slightly flustered.
I had expected her to dodge or block that much, and had been preparing my next attack.
It was like throwing a light jab, only for your opponent to take it cleanly and die on the spot.
What was this? Was A-ri in worse condition than I had thought?
The moment I wondered, everything around me seemed to move in slow motion.
I watched the beautiful girl slowly approaching death before me.
I watched A-ri, whom I had once considered a precious companion.
“...”
For an instant, I felt an intense emotion that could only be described as sorrow.
This too was a weak feeling I had to overcome.
It was no more than the Five Desires and Seven Emotions that I needed to cut away on my path to Leap into a Great One.
Then A-ri slowly moved her lips in midair.
‘Ga-in.’
That was all.
A worthless voice yearning for a vanished illusion.
Only then did I understand what this ridiculous girl had been thinking.
She had never intended to defeat me in the first place.
I was an opponent she could never defeat.
She had simply wanted to show me something shocking, like this.
If she could shake my heart, even for a moment, if she could create a crack...
She had hoped something might happen.
For a moment, I was dumbfounded.
She had risen to a position recognized by the Management Bureau, yet this was all she had for her final move?
Just as I was about to sigh at how shallow it was, I noticed one change.
「User: Aleph (Wisdom)」
The reason the Status Window, which had displayed my name as ‘---’ until moments ago, now clearly displayed ‘Aleph.’
It had been quietly bothering me, but this was why!
There had never been a predetermined answer for what --- would become.
It was a matter of choice, and ‘I’ had chosen Aleph.
...
I had surpassed Uniqueness, so there must have been someone else who made a different choice.
--- Whoosh...!
I felt someone’s gaze.
I knew that gaze was the final trial Buddha had given me!
Footnotes:
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