Escaping the Mystery Hotel - Chapter 641

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 640: The Path of Ascension (2)

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「User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)

Date: Day 358

Current Location: Hotel Delight, Yeongdeungpo District, Seoul

Sage’s Advice: 3」

- Han Ga-in

Hotel Delight now felt like Hotel Party's hideout.

Looking at the glittering building in the heart of Seoul, I couldn't help but smile bitterly.

Ever since it became the “Pioneer Third-Floor Connecting Passage,” Hotel Delight no longer did business with ordinary people.

The entire building had been designated a Containment Zone by the Management Bureau.

It made sense, but it was hard to call a hotel that didn't accept guests a proper hotel.

Eun-sol had taken that harder than I expected.

Hadn't she demanded to know what had happened to the promise to make it Korea's finest hotel?

Pioneer didn't serve ordinary people either.

The executives and employees proudly called Pioneer the universe's best hotel, so they would probably see nothing wrong with Hotel Delight.

Besides, it wasn't as though there were no guests at all.

--- Ding!

The familiar sight of Hotel Delight greeted me when I opened the front doors.

“Ah, it's been a while.”

Sang-hyeon was in the lobby.

“Why are you here instead of going in?”

“They say Miss Elena's preparations are taking a while. As you know...”

“Her rehabilitation must not be over yet.”

“It isn't something that can be finished overnight.”

Elena had lost her body from the backlash of pushing Ominous Imagination to its limit.

An ordinary person would have died on the spot, but Seung-yeop had preserved Elena's life by placing her soul in the Soul Box.

It had already been two weeks since the Management Bureau created another body for Elena and transferred her soul and consciousness into it.

Since then, Elena had been undergoing rehabilitation.

“Guest, shall I contact Agent Elena?”

“... No, that's fine.”

After all the commotion, the identities of everyone in Hotel Party except me had been revealed.

As a result, everyone but me had gained the title of “agent,” though it didn't mean much.

The Management Bureau hadn't assigned us any missions, after all.

Like A-ri said, wasn't the Management Bureau's position basically, “Please go to the third floor”?

More absurd than calling her “Agent Elena” was the very existence of hotel employees.

Why was a hotel that accepted no ordinary guests packed with staff?

Because it accepted “special guests.”

“Ga-in.”

“Yes.”

“A few days ago, I spoke with Eun-sol. She said Hotel Delight had practically become a Management Bureau welfare facility.”

“... That's true.”

“She seemed very upset about it.”

“Well, if you look at it another way, at least the aboveground floors went back to being a normal hotel as soon as construction on the Third-Floor Connecting Passage ended.”

“That's true as well. During construction, house-sized chunks of concrete were flying around everywhere. Celestial...”

“Wait.”

I lightly cut Sang-hyeon off and looked at the nearby staff.

At a glance, they looked like ordinary hotel attendants smiling sweetly without knowing a thing, but every last one was a Management Bureau employee.

Then a voice came from across the lobby.

“Don't eavesdrop. Forget everything you heard.”

The staff members' eyes immediately went unfocused.

It was a blessing I hadn't seen in a while, the power of Communication, Crowd Psychology.

Glad to see the familiar ability again, I turned and found Grandpa Mook-seong.

“Done?”

“Ha ha! I was wondering if I should use a Grimoire, but this is much more convenient.”

“Well, if all you're talking about is the Celestial Floor, those people know the basics anyway.”

“Still, it's better to be careful.”

“True enough.”

“I don't think you could use it like that before. It's basically hypnosis now.”

“You get better as you use it.”

After exchanging a few casual greetings, I headed to Elena's guest room with Grandpa.

* * *

“Slowly. Rather than moving quickly, move precisely!”

“Mm!”

“Move one part of your body at a time.”

“It's difficult... Ah, we have guests.”

Elena, who was rehabilitating in a place that resembled a massive treadmill, welcomed us.

The person helping Elena with her rehabilitation was familiar too. It was Sophia.

Sophia had gone through the experience of living like a ghost inside the Soul Box, then transferring her consciousness into a body made by the Management Bureau before Elena did.

I heard she had recently become a Management Bureau researcher.

“It's been a while, everyone.”

Sang-hyeon approached, rubbing his chin.

“Miss Sophia, do you think Elena's rehabilitation will be over soon?”

“That depends on what standard you use. If the standard is running around frantically from place to place...”

While they talked, I walked over to Elena and smiled slightly.

Elena looked exhausted, but she smiled gently when she saw me. As our eyes met, I noticed a subtle change.

“Elena, you've gotten really short.”

“This body is still young.”

“Did your blessing return?”

“Of course.”

“A meteor will fall tomorrow.”

“... What?”

“A bomb will go off in Hotel Delight soon.”

“Ah, is this a joke?”

“...”

I had teased her because I wanted to see Lie Detection in action, but Elena didn't understand at all. That left me feeling a little awkward.

I covered it with a laugh and spent some time asking how she had been during rehabilitation.

Then Elena suddenly brought up something serious.

“When Jin-cheol came to visit me recently, I noticed something while we talked. He seems very interested in gaining great power.”

“That's true.”

It was true.

At some point, Jin-cheol had almost completely lost interest in worldly wealth and fame. Instead, his interest in supernatural growth had increased.

Sometimes that reminded me of Aleph and made me uneasy, but Jin-cheol was a different person, and he had companions by his side. I wasn't too worried.

“When I lie in bed at night, I sometimes think about things like that.”

“What things?”

“Imagining wings growing from my back.”

“...”

“Imagining myself turning into a bird and flying through the sky, or my lungs turning into gills so I can drift through the deep sea.”

“...”

“In the past, I would have thought I was becoming a monster. Now...”

“Now?”

“It feels like freedom. Is this what people call shedding one's shell?”

“I don't know.”

“There's a difference, though. Jin-cheol said he would go to the third floor to gain great power.”

So I wasn't the only one going around asking whether people planned to go to the third floor.

Jin-cheol seemed interested in his companions' choices too.

Come to think of it, he had said he was waiting for his companions to make their decisions when I met him recently.

“As for me, um, I don't think I'm quite like Jin-cheol.”

“I understand.”

She had gained a mysterious desire to grow, but not enough to go to the third floor for that reason alone.

Her attitude was similar to Jin-cheol's, yet different.

“Rather...”

Elena glanced toward Sang-hyeon and Grandpa Mook-seong.

Sang-hyeon was still talking with Sophia, while Grandpa Mook-seong had stepped outside to speak with Management Bureau employees.

“Should I ask them to leave?”

“Ah!”

“You've known each other for more than a day or two. Is there something you can't say in front of them?”

Han Ga-in: Grandpa, Sang-hyeon, please step outside for a moment. Take Sophia with you too.

Grandpa left with an amused shrug, and Sang-hyeon also led Sophia out of the room with a faint smile.

Soon, Elena murmured quietly.

“... Sometimes I think about this.”

“What is it?”

“I want to see my real family.”

“...”

“Well, I don't think the family made with Dream is real.”

“I understand.”

This was certainly something she couldn't easily say beside Grandpa and Sang-hyeon.

“If I go to the third floor...”

“If you go?”

“I wonder if I can meet my real family, who disappeared into the flow of time, and make them happy. What do you think?”

“... I don't know.”

A world caught in an endless Loop.

Elena's “real family,” who had vanished into the flow of time in the distant past, at a time no one could name.

Meeting them again and making them happy.

Could it be possible on the third floor?

Even I didn't know.

Still, there was one thing I could say.

“I do think this. If there's only one place in the world where Elena's wish can come true...”

“It's the Hotel.”

It might be impossible.

But if it was possible, the Hotel was the only place where her wish could come true.

* * *

--- Click!

Before I had even taken a few steps after closing the guest room door, Sang-hyeon approached me.

“I've been thinking deeply about the third floor.”

“...”

“Just in case, I didn't overhear your conversation with Elena. I only heard that you've been asking your companions lately whether they intend to go to the third floor, and...”

He seemed to think Elena and I had spoken about that subject, and he was right.

“Ha ha, I never thought you'd eavesdrop. More than that, I was curious what you thought.”

“... I've never struggled this much internally before.”

“Internal struggle?”

“I...”

“...”

“I have a wife and a son.”

Seo Baram and Kim Jin-sol.

They were the wife and son Kim Sang-hyeon had summoned with Dream.

“Jinsol has only just begun preparing for college entrance exams. He...”

“Needs his father.”

If Sang-hyeon suddenly left for the third floor, what would happen to the wife and son left in reality?

Their livelihood wouldn't be a major problem if he asked the Management Bureau, but money couldn't make up for a father's absence.

“I have another thought as well.”

“What thought?”

“... The oath I made when I came out of Room 203.”

In an instant, Insight's power stirred, and visions of two people flashed through my mind.

It was a conversation Sang-hyeon and A-ri had shared long ago.

* * *

“My family, my people... None of them made it out of Room 203. I alone came out.”

“If I forget them, all proof that they ever existed in this world will disappear forever. The time we spent loving and cherishing one another, the glorious history of building a city in that wasteland... The only proof of all of it now lies in my memories.”

“I am a husband who deceives his wife, a father who deceives his children, and a king who deceives his people.”

“I have promised them salvation countless times. I promised there was a Paradise flowing with milk and honey, that if we couldn't obtain it alive, we would obtain it even in death...”

“I knew far too well that it was a lie. Where is Paradise in this Hotel, and where is Salvation? I couldn't even save myself, so how could I save my family and people?”

* * *

“Ga-in, do you know there are two paths for those who died in the Hotel? One is resurrection. Do you know the other?”

“Buddha.”

“Do you know who taught you about that path?”

“You, when you were an NPC.”

“That's right. I was the Doctor in the Hotel then. It seems I knew every secret of the Hotel at the time.”

“Because you were a Hotel employee.”

“There is Salvation in the Hotel. Not some vague fantasy, but something concrete enough that I, when I was an NPC, could state it with certainty. Something that can save countless suffering people.”

“That makes sense.”

“Where do you think it is?”

We had uncovered every secret on the first and second floors.

Yet we still hadn't found a way to save many people, rather than resurrecting a specific individual.

“The third floor. It has to be. If I am to keep the promise I made to my people in the past, I must go to the third floor.”

“...”

Now I understood Sang-hyeon's internal struggle.

His desire not to leave his beloved wife and son clashed with the desire to fulfill the promise of salvation he had made to his people in the past.

“I've sometimes regretted my family...”

“Let's stop there.”

He must have thought he should never have made a family with Dream.

That was something he should never say at this point.

“I'm sorry. So, Ga-in.”

“Yes.”

“... Could you offer me some advice?”

For a moment, I was left speechless by Sang-hyeon's request for Sage's Advice.

I sincerely wanted to give him some groundbreaking answer. I wanted to ease my companion's pain.

But no answer came to mind.

“... Let's both think about it a little longer.”

* * *

As I walked down the hall with complicated feelings, Grandpa Mook-seong appeared.

“Sang-hyeon seems to have a lot on his mind too.”

“What about you, Grandpa?”

“I haven't thought much about it.”

“What?”

How could he not have?

Grandpa had not only a son and daughter-in-law, but a grandson too.

“Hey, his son is still in high school, right? My son is already over forty!”

“Ah.”

“Once you're that old, even if your father dies tomorrow, you'd probably just go, ‘Well, that's life~.’”

“That's impossible. What a ridiculous thing to say...”

I was a little startled by his extreme wording, but I understood what he meant.

Sang-hyeon couldn't easily leave because his son was a teenager, while Grandpa Mook-seong was different.

Or perhaps he was trying to believe that.

His extreme words might have been part of an effort to convince himself.

“I'm satisfied with correcting the mistake I made long ago. They'll live well whether I'm around or not. I don't worry much about my son or grandson. Rather...”

“Rather?”

“What Mi-ro said has been weighing on my mind.”

“...”

“The answer to a world filled with Chaos will be on the third floor. Perhaps that will be my final task.”

“I understand. Grandpa is...”

“I am?”

“A Celestial Realm Agent, like Mi-ro.”

“Was that supposed to be a compliment?”

“Ha ha! So, have you gathered everyone's opinions by now?”

“I still need to hear Eun-sol's.”

“What about the previous generation?”

“I plan to visit them soon.”

“Right, right. I understand.”

* * *

At this point, I organized my companions' opinions a little.

People who had a motive to go to the third floor: me, Cha Jin-cheol, Mi-ro, Elena, and Kim Mook-seong.

People watching their companions' choices: Kim A-ri and Yoo Song-i.

Judging from the situation, those seven would likely go to the third floor.

People with attachments to reality: Kim Sang-hyeon and Park Seung-yeop.

The two of them seemed to be in deep conflict.

“Eun-sol... I can ask her now.”

As if she had been waiting, Eun-sol came running toward me from a distance.

“Eun-sol! It's been a while...”

The moment I tried to greet her, I realized from her expression that she looked desperately alarmed.

“Eun-sol?”

“Ga-in. Where is everyone else?”

“They're nearby.”

“This is important, so listen carefully.”

Something important?

“For the past few days, letters about the third floor have been following me around like a stalker, so I've been thinking about all sorts of things too.”

“Everyone has been caught up in that concern lately.”

“Then I realized something. We know far too little about the third floor.”

“Um...”

“Think about it. What kind of place the third floor is, what it exists for, how things proceed there... We don't know a single thing, do we?”

“That's true.”

“Maybe our worries right now don't mean anything.”

“Ah?”

“Sang-hyeon's worries are the best example. Once he learns what the third floor truly is and thinks again, they might turn out to be meaningless.”

“How...”

“What I mean is, it's strange to decide whether to go or not without knowing anything about the third floor.”

She wasn't wrong.

That was why I had used Sage's Advice several times, but the Owl refused to answer any questions about the third floor.