WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 649: The First Wish (5) Fin
──────
- Kim A-ri
After Song-i’s dream ended, the three of us fell silent at once.
What the hell had I just seen?
“...”
Song-i had believed animals could talk when she was little.
At the time, the adults around her, and even Song-i herself after growing up, had dismissed those memories as childish delusions...
But she hadn’t been mistaken.
Song-i had really seen a talking dog as a child!
Ga-in spoke calmly.
“Was that dog, Som-i, a Chaos Entity? Or had a dog been swept up in a Chaos phenomenon?”
“We can’t say for certain based on that scene alone. We need to consider several possibilities.”
“Could other animals talk too?”
According to Song-i, she had said as a child that dogs and cats could speak like people.
“There might have been talking cats too.”
“What about other animals? Could even pigeons on the street talk?”
“...”
Once the discussion began to expand, I had nothing more to say.
There were limits to what we could infer from such a brief scene.
Ga-in didn’t seem to be looking for an immediate answer, either. He appeared to be considering various possibilities.
As we talked, Ga-in and I naturally regained our composure.
Taking a step back, this was only one part of a reality where Chaos Disasters occurred constantly.
What Ga-in had just said was proof of that.
“There were quite a few security systems inside the mansion. There must’ve been Laser Turrets and things like that outside too, right?”
That meant Chaos Disaster response systems had spread even to the civilian sector.
In other words, Song-i had lived in a Loop where common sense was so distorted that it barely differed from reality.
“Installing all that must’ve cost a lot. Both parents seemed to be veterinarians, so they probably had plenty of money.”
“...”
Ga-in furrowed his brow slightly. He seemed to have noticed something strange about the scene we had just watched.
Then we heard a rough groan.
“Ugh! Ah...! Wh-What is this-”
Song-i was panting as though she might faint.
I hurried over to steady her by the shoulders, but she suddenly threw her arms around me.
“Oh my.”
“Gasp! Gasp!”
“...”
“... Sorry.”
“It’s okay. You must’ve been really shocked.”
“Y-You both heard that too, right? It wasn’t just me because of my blessing, was it? A-ri, you heard it too? Oppa, you...”
“Calm down. We all heard it. Affinity isn’t a power that works on ordinary animals in the first place, is it?”
“R-Right.”
Chaos Disasters were like traffic accidents in some ways.
There were around 3,500 traffic accidents in South Korea every day.
Not every year. Every day. Someone was hit by a car every fifteen seconds.
On a national scale, traffic accidents were common.
But for an individual, they were often once-in-a-lifetime events, something that rarely happened in their life.
So it was only natural that Song-i would be more shaken than Ga-in and I, who could view the situation from a distance...
Even taking that into account, she had lost her composure more than I expected.
The Moon and the Ark in reality were far more bizarre, after all.
“At f-first, I only thought it was a little creepy... B-But then I thought m-more about it and realized. If h-human souls were t-trapped inside the animals we raised at home, then that-”
I understood a little.
What frightened Song-i more than the scene itself was the ominous, horrific possibility it implied.
“Stop, stop! We don’t know enough yet. You don’t need to let your imagination run wild.”
Ga-in nodded and came over as well.
“The dream’s already over. We can analyze it with everyone else after we leave.”
“... Oppa.”
“You should go outside for now. Several companions are already awake, so rest with them.”
After Song-i left, Ga-in suddenly looked at me.
“What is it?”
“Isn’t it strange? Song-i grew up in a world where Chaos Disasters were already widespread.”
“That’s right.”
“... Even if it came from a child, it feels like everyone around her brushed it off too easily.”
“Hmm... Let’s talk about it outside.”
“Okay. One companion left.”
The last one was Elena.
* * *
Elena’s dream was taking place somewhere unusual.
A dark, noisy place full of people, where everyone sat quietly and faced forward.
It was a fairly large theater.
Elena looked around twelve or thirteen in the dream, but since the real Elena had physically become younger too, it didn’t feel especially strange.
Ga-in whispered to me.
“She hasn’t woken up yet.”
“She can’t perceive us.”
“Her parents are on the left... Is that family on the right too?”
“She said she had an older sister.”
A romance movie was playing on the screen in front of us.
Elena watched with sparkling eyes. A beautiful girl looking on with such wonder made quite a picture.
She must’ve already been an aspiring actress at that age.
At that moment, Elena’s mother twitched faintly and abruptly turned her head.
Her gaze briefly swept past me, making me flinch without thinking, but she hadn’t actually perceived Ga-in or me.
She just seemed to be frantically searching the area.
Ga-in, who had been observing the theater as well, looked at Elena’s mother as if asking, What’s gotten into her?
“Елена, Наталья! Уходим сейчас же! (Elena, Natalia! We’re leaving right now!)”
“Мама, что с вами вдруг? (Mom, what’s gotten into you all of a sudden?)”
She began urging her two daughters to leave in the middle of the movie.
People around them frowned and complained, but she didn’t seem to care in the least.
“What was that about?”
“She must’ve sensed something. Did you find anything?”
“Nothing at all. I have no idea why she’s acting like that.”
In the end, Elena and Natalia were dragged out of the theater by their mother.
What was interesting was that, unlike Elena, who was still young and carefree, Natalia seemed quite used to this.
“Her sister seems used to things like this.”
“I heard they lived in exile to escape a dictator’s surveillance. This probably wasn’t the first time. But...”
Looking as though he couldn’t understand, Ga-in asked me, “From the circumstances, it seems like she saw a Russian Secret Agent or something?”
“That’s exactly how it felt.”
“What did you see?”
“Nothing. I don’t know what Elena’s mother saw.”
Ga-in furrowed his brow as if about to say something, then held his tongue.
The moment the three women entered their home, a serious scene began.
“Михаил! Михаил! Пожалуйста, вставайте...! (Mikhail! Mikhail! Please, get up...!)”
A man who appeared to be Elena’s father, Mikhail Ivanov, lay on the floor convulsing.
There were no visible wounds, but the news playing on the TV and the overturned teacup on the table gave us a rough idea of what had happened.
He had been drinking black tea while watching TV, and the tea had been poisoned.
“Looks like poisoning.”
“Did Elena’s father die then?”
Natalia hurriedly supported her father and shouted at Elena.
“Елена! Немедленно сообщите на 999! (Elena! Call 999 right now!)”
“О чем ты говоришь! Я же говорил, что никому не могу доверять? (What are you talking about? I told you I can’t trust anyone!)”
“Тогда ты думаешь таким образом позволить моему отцу умереть? (Then are you going to let my father die like this?)”
They were speaking so quickly that it was hard to follow, but it felt like they were arguing over whether to report it somewhere.
Elena trembled, her face full of fear and confusion.
Then, as if she had realized something belatedly, she began staring at the place where Ga-in and I stood.
“Huh? What is this?”
The moment Korean came out of Elena’s mouth, I realized she was beginning to regain consciousness.
“Ah! Ah? What the hell is-”
Seeing Elena’s reaction, Ga-in approached and briefly explained the situation.
“Ah, so this is a dream related to my First Wish?”
“That’s right.”
I walked over too.
“Have you figured anything out?”
Unlike some of the companions who had still been confused after waking up, Elena answered in a fairly clear voice.
“... In this situation, it’s obvious. I must’ve been furious with Aleksandr Vasiliev. I must’ve wished for justice to be done to Aleksandr Vasiliev.”
“Aleksandr Vasiliev? Is that the dictator’s name?”
“Yeah.”
Hearing that, Ga-in made a strange comment.
“So it isn’t Vladimir.”
“Pardon?”
“Nothing. I mistook them for someone else for a moment. Did your father die from this?”
“Fortunately, no. The ambulance arrived in time. Still, Father’s health became much worse after that.”
I understood the general situation.
Mikhail Ivanov was an exiled diplomat who had wandered abroad with his family to escape the Russian dictator, Aleksandr Vasiliev.
Believing they had reached a safe country, Mikhail’s wife and two daughters had let down their guard and enjoyed a movie at a theater for the first time in a long while.
Then Mikhail’s wife sensed something unknown and hurried out of the theater with her daughters.
Fortunately, nothing happened to the mother and daughters, but when they returned home, Mikhail had collapsed after drinking poisoned black tea and vomiting blood.
What wish would Elena have held in that situation?
Naturally, it would’ve been hatred toward the dictator and a desire for justice.
Ga-in, who had fallen into deep thought, spoke.
“I understand the broad outline, but the details are strange.”
“Which part?”
At that point, Ga-in pointed at me and himself as though he couldn’t understand.
“A-ri is a veteran Management Bureau agent and a high-ranking official. I’m, well, a former Research Lab Director and a fake god.”
“A fake god?” Elena muttered in disbelief.
“I don’t know how capable the Secret Agents serving a Russian dictator are, but could they hide from A-ri and me?”
“...”
Ga-in’s question was one I had thought of at the theater too.
I hadn’t understood why Elena’s mother suddenly acted that way when I saw how terrified she was.
“I think the same. I didn’t sense anything at the theater.”
“That’s...”
“Let’s say the Secret Agent was incredibly skilled. Let’s say they could avoid the eyes of The Silent, even evade Ga-in’s gaze when he can sense even the slightest presence in the dark.”
Elena’s dream looked like a vivid movie to us.
That meant we couldn’t conduct spiritual detection, but if a Secret Agent was present, we should at least have been able to see them.
“How did your mother notice someone like that? Did she have supernatural powers?”
“... Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Maybe Mom was mistaken at that moment.”
Elena’s mother had been mistaken at the theater?
“Mother had become extremely weak from years of surveillance. Maybe she thought there was someone watching her when there wasn’t.”
It made sense.
Anyone could develop mental illness after constantly fleeing a dictator’s surveillance and pursuit, then finding poisoned tea in their home.
But that interpretation was wrong.
“Elena, your mother might’ve been mistaken, but the Hotel isn’t.”
“Ah?”
“If what happened at the theater was just an ordinary person’s delusion, why would the Hotel show us that scene?”
That made sense too.
Since the Hotel had shown it to us, what happened at the theater couldn’t have been a meaningless delusion.
There had definitely been something we couldn’t understand.
Ga-in and I hadn’t sensed it, but Elena’s mother had noticed something unusual.
“I don’t know...”
There was an unknown observer capable of hiding from Ga-in and me.
Yet an ordinary person could notice it?
That was where the three of us stopped thinking.
Elena’s dream continued.
Elena had been telling the truth when she said her father didn’t die.
Mikhail began waiting for an ambulance while gasping on the bed, while his wife and Natalia did their best to calm him.
“The dream seems like it’ll end soon. Elena, you still haven’t figured it out?”
“Yeah.”
I was about to sigh at the girl’s weak answer when...
“Ah?”
For the first time, I sensed something.
“... Elena.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t stay here. Go look after your father in the bedroom.”
Elena tilted her head as if asking what I meant, but obediently followed my instructions.
Ga-in, who had noticed the anomaly at about the same time I did, whispered, “... We’ll be okay if we stay here, right?”
“The people in the vision can’t perceive us, so we’ll be fine. We just need to move Elena away.”
Elena’s parents, sister, and Elena herself all headed for the bedroom.
Only Ga-in and I, whom no one in this world could perceive, remained in the living room.
And then...
“...”
--- Creak!
The eyes of the announcer, the being beyond the TV Mikhail had been watching, rolled about.
As if they were watching the space beyond the screen.
--- Splash!
The moment the last companion’s dream ended, Ga-in muttered as though he was impressed in a way.
“Wow. What kind of world did everyone live in?”
Seriously. I wanted to know too.
Footnotes:
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