WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 652: Meeting, Reconnaissance (3)
──────
「User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 1
Current Location: Level 3, Lobby
Sage’s Advice: 0」
- Han Ga-in
After everyone had time to sit with their painful memories, Song-i cautiously spoke up.
Thanks to her, I was able to forget the painful memory of my confession.
“Only Elena and I are left, right? I’ll go first. The setting is when I was six or seven. A poor little girl named Yoo Song-i spent lonely days with cute animals while her busy parents came home late.”
“Pfft. That’s an entertaining description. Go on.”
Eun-sol chuckled at Song-i’s third-person-like description.
“I didn’t have friends, so I thought of Happy, Som-i, and the other dogs as my friends. Like most children, I believed animals could speak human language. I told adults about it, but they all said it was just cute little Song-i’s misunderstanding.”
“And then?”
“But what could have happened? To everyone’s surprise, the animals really could speak! Young Song-i shared nothing but the truth with a pure heart, yet no one believed her.”
It was interesting, and a little funny, hearing it retold that way.
Song-i seemed to have deliberately made it sound like this.
Still, it had been deeply unsettling when I experienced it myself, and the memory remained vivid.
Soon, the others began offering their own opinions.
“Was a human soul trapped inside one of Song-i’s dogs?”
“Or perhaps the animals’ intelligence increased. If a power like Room 203’s Inheritance, Unknown Cells, intervened, it would be possible.”
Eun-sol and Sang-hyeon’s hypotheses.
“Maybe they weren’t dogs in the first place. What if unknown monsters disguised themselves as dogs?”
“According to young Song-i’s memories, other animals spoke too, didn’t they?”
“Those animals could have been monsters as well.”
“That sounds plausible.”
Elena suggested they might not have been dogs at all, and Grandpa Mook-seong nodded.
Various other ideas came up in scattered bursts.
Then Song-i asked me a question.
“What do you think, Ga-in oppa?”
“I think we lack too much information to have a meaningful discussion.”
That often happened when you held a meeting without enough information.
There were too many blanks, so everyone filled them with their imagination. Put kindly, it was creative. Put less kindly, it was a flood of baseless speculation.
“I’d rather ask you. What did you think, Song-i?”
“... Um, I was focused on something else.”
Something else?
“That already sounds promising. Tell us.”
“Why did Som-i...”
“Why?”
“Why did Som-i say they were scared and in pain?”
“Ah?”
“Why were they suffering? Because they were in a dog’s body? What did they mean by asking me to take them out of there? Is that possible? Were they asking me to take out their mind and put it in a human body?”
An interesting approach.
So that was why she said she had been thinking about something else.
Song-i’s old memories contained the bizarre phenomenon of animals speaking like humans, and the others focused on its cause.
Song-i, on the other hand, seemed less concerned with the phenomenon itself than with what the animals said and what it meant.
Eun-sol nodded and summed it up.
“That’s a good point too. Still, as Ga-in said, I don’t think we can discuss it much further. Let’s leave it there for now.”
Yoo Song-i: Consider why animals can speak human language, as well as the content and meaning of what they say.
Elena was the last one.
“My memory isn’t very complicated either. I went to a theater with my mother and older sister to watch a movie. My mother noticed something strange and hurried us out of the theater. When we got home, my father had already collapsed after drinking poisoned tea.”
Eun-sol asked to confirm.
“Your father didn’t die then?”
“No. His health became much worse afterward, but he didn’t die before I was taken to the Hotel.”
Having said that much, Elena looked at A-ri and me.
“I think Ga-in and A-ri know the hidden secret in those memories better than I do. There were scenes I never saw myself...”
A-ri glanced at me as if asking, “Do you want to say it?” Then she spoke first.
“Ga-in and I first felt something off at the theater. Between Elena’s mother’s reaction and the fact that the Hotel showed that scene, something must have happened.”
“That’s right.”
“But neither of us found it. Strange, isn’t it?”
The moment he heard that, Grandpa Mook-seong nodded repeatedly.
“It certainly is strange. The Russian dictator, what was his name?”
“Aleksandr Vasiliev.”
“Ahem. I don’t know how formidable Aleksandr was. Still, even a skilled KGB agent would have had trouble escaping A-ri or Ga-in’s notice.”
A-ri continued.
“We confirmed the specific scene at Elena’s house. Ga-in and I herded the entire family into a bedroom, then waited.”
I picked up her final thought.
“The news anchor on the television kept shifting their gaze unnaturally, as though searching for someone.”
Perhaps the thought still gave her chills. Elena’s face twisted visibly in disgust.
“That’s creepy. If you’re right, Ga-in, was my mother looking at something beyond the screen in the theater?”
“Probably. A character in the movie may have suddenly started scanning the theater with their eyes.”
“I didn’t notice.”
“Neither A-ri nor I noticed either. Honestly, who would grow suspicious just because a movie character’s eyes moved a little strangely?”
“... Now that you mention it, that’s true. Most people would just think the actor was bad.”
“Elena’s mother must have experienced something similar many times before.”
“Why didn’t she tell Natalia and me? Did she think we wouldn’t believe her?”
Grandpa Mook-seong answered that question.
His experience as an agent seemed to make it easy for him to predict how ordinary people would react.
“She probably felt there was no point in saying anything.”
“...”
“It’s not as though she could avoid screens for the rest of her life. Telling you would only make you anxious.”
“...”
“Besides, your mother probably wasn’t certain either. She must have often wondered whether she was going mad.”
“... I see.”
While Elena looked somewhat depressed, the others began sharing opinions.
There was more concrete information than in Song-i’s case, because there was a clear adversary in the dictator Aleksandr.
“That Aleksandr fellow seems to wield some kind of magic.”
“Hah! What is he, Rasputin?”
“Could he have made a contract with something demonic?”
“That’s possible. Or maybe he was lucky enough to acquire a strange artifact. Either way, his purpose is easy enough to guess.”
“Suppressing and monitoring his opposition. Very clear.”
Eun-sol and Grandpa Mook-seong offered plausible theories.
Since Aleksandr was a clear enemy, their discussion had a firmer foundation than the one about Song-i.
Then Sang-hyeon brought up a sharp point.
“If he could use television and theater screens as surveillance tools, one question arises. How did Mr. Mikhail escape someone with such absurd power?”
It was a reasonable question. How had Elena’s family escaped from a dictator who wielded supernatural power?
The answer came to me quickly.
“There must have been an organization similar to the Management Bureau in Elena’s world as well.”
Elena nodded as though it were obvious.
“Aleksandr had people he had to be careful around?”
“He probably couldn’t openly use demonic power to physically attack his opponents.”
“Hmm... That makes sense.”
A-ri added a thought.
“Maybe Mikhail surviving wasn’t an accident.”
“Are you saying Aleksandr never intended to kill him?”
“He’s wary of the Management Bureau, so he keeps to certain limits. Don’t stir up opposition inside Russia. But I’ll let you flee abroad.”
“...”
“If you leave the country, don’t go on television spouting strange things. Keep your mouth shut, and you’ll live. You saw the poisoned black tea, right? The first time was a warning. Keep your head down for the rest of your life. Take what you know to the grave.”
The room went quiet for a moment. A-ri shrugged.
“What do you all think of my hypothesis?”
I answered.
“It makes sense. It resembles the behavior of real dictators too.”
As I spoke, a thought came to me.
If Aleksandr was the sort of dictator who was wary of the Management Bureau and kept to certain limits, as A-ri said...
Then he probably wasn’t the main villain.
Wasn’t there another true adversary at the heart of this Curse Room’s scenario?
Eun-sol smiled lightly and tapped the whiteboard.
“All right, here’s a brief summary of the First Wish. Read through it and think it over when you have time.”
1. Ga-in: Overcame it.
2. Mook-seong: Almost overcame it?
3. A-ri: The Milky Way Train racing through space. An unknown enemy exists.
4. Jin-cheol: Gymnasium. No additional information.
5. Sang-hyeon: An unknown exoplanet. Faced an incomprehensible being and was terrified. Questions remain about the location, the target, and why he went into space.
6. Eun-sol: Whether the Daeyang Group chairman is a Regressor. Its connection to the scenario.
7. Mi-ro: Monster Santa’s massacre. The wish was to carry out justice.
8. Seung-yeop: Insufficient information. Some believe it was rather convenient.
9. Song-i: Talking animals. Consider the cause and the contents of their conversation.
10. Elena: A dictator who watches people through screens.
As the meeting came to an end, A-ri spoke.
“Let’s take a quick look around the Hotel.”
Eun-sol immediately objected.
“You want to explore now? It isn’t midnight yet.”
Exploring while they had no advice left was dangerous.
A-ri cleared up the misunderstanding.
“I know. I’m not saying we should poke around the dangerous third floor. I mean we should go to the first and second floors.”
“Oh, that’s what you meant?”
* * *
「Current Location: Level 3, Lobby -> Level 1, Lobby」
--- Ding!
The moment the familiar scenery of the first floor appeared, the tension drained from my shoulders.
Only then did I realize how tense I had been the entire time on the third floor.
The others began smiling for no particular reason too. I laughed as I realized just how different the third floor felt from the first.
“Wow... I never thought the first floor would feel this comfortable.”
“Haha! You’re right, Ga-in. We only came down two floors, so why does my heart feel so much lighter?”
“I know.”
As we walked along the hallway in front of the elevator, familiar sights came into view, including the refreshment table and the front desk.
“Oh, there’s the Protective Suit!”
“They brought it in front of the desk. How thoughtful. The Wing Boots are...”
“I’m still wearing them.”
As the scale and intensity of their battles increased, the Protective Suit had become far less useful than it once was.
But what about the third floor?
“The Protective Suit will have its moment on the third floor.”
“Right. There’s the Interstellar Train Running Across the Milky Way, and that unknown exoplanet too...”
“We’ll likely have to go into space several times.”
A considerable number of our companions could not survive even ten seconds in outer space.
The Protective Suit would become a vital lifeline.
Sang-hyeon looked outside the first floor’s main entrance.
“The view outside is the same. If I put on the Wing Boots and jumped from here, would I end up in reality?”
Grandpa Mook-seong asked as though amused.
“Why? You want to leave?”
“Haha! Agent, if I were going to leave right away, why would I have come here in the first place? I can’t use the Wing Boots anyway.”
As everyone relaxed, A-ri spoke with hesitation in her eyes.
“Um... Ga-in.”
“What?”
“You’ve been watching us since earlier, haven’t you?”
“...”
“Did you see anything?”
Everyone must have been aware of my gaze. The moment A-ri said it, their faces filled with both concern and expectation.
“...”
A small clue.
Confused deductions.
Possibilities bubbling up like foam.
Countless guesses that refused to narrow down into one answer.
“I’ll tell you if it becomes necessary.”
“Wow. How very kind of you.”
I fully understood the slight complaint hidden beneath A-ri’s teasing tone.
Still, I wasn’t at the stage where I could easily say one thing or another.
“Let’s eat and think more about the First Wish. Please gather in the third-floor lobby at midnight.”
* * *
「Date: Day 1 -> Day 2」
「Sage’s Advice: 0 -> 3」
Midnight.
Normally, quite a few people would have been asleep by now, but not today.
Everyone gathered in front of the elevator.
“Let’s start with the third-floor guest rooms.”
⇧ Guest Rooms
After moving to the guest room area, everyone realized something.
Unexpected information had appeared the moment they began exploring.
“Huh? There are fewer rooms than I expected.”
The others reacted to Eun-sol’s surprised voice.
No one had openly said how many Curse Rooms they expected on the third floor, but surely everyone had expected at least nine.
The First Wish and the third floor were deeply connected.
Let’s exclude the Empty Wishes Sang-hyeon and Mi-ro made at Pioneer, since they were not their “first” wishes.
The Manager said I had overcome my wish, so mine should be excluded too.
Even then, there were nine First Wishes.
If each wish formed one scenario, there should have been nine Curse Rooms as well.
Yet there were only six guest rooms on the third floor.
Song-i pointed out another unusual detail.
“... The sixth room doesn’t have a number.”
“You’re right. There are only Rooms 301 through 305. What is the sixth room?”
“If we compare it to the lower floors, could it be a Gate Room?”
“There’s no next floor, so why would there be a Gate?”
“That’s true too.”
“Besides, Gate Rooms had numbers. Room 107 and Room 207.”
“Right.”
A-ri was growing increasingly confused.
I had the feeling that the final room was something unlike any room we had encountered so far.
Sang-hyeon muttered.
“Then there appear to be no more than five Curse Rooms. Which means...”
All eyes converged, and everyone soon reached the same conclusion.
“The wishes and Curse Rooms do not correspond one to one.”
“It looks like two or more wishes are mixed into each room.”
That was unexpected as well.
When I looked at our companions’ memories of the First Wish, I had never considered that the memories might be intertwined.
I thought they were entirely different stories.
They were not.
At that moment, the image of a mysterious prism flashed through my mind.
“... One light.”
“Ga-in?”
“One projection, and the light scattered because of it.”
“Say it in a way we can understand.”
“Let’s say there’s a fundamental cause called A. It could be a demon, or an abnormal phenomenon. In reality, it would be something corresponding to the Mirror or the Ark.”
Everyone looked at me thoughtfully.
“There is only one fundamental cause, A. But in reality, it appears to be various phenomena. Like a single beam of light splitting into seven colors.”
Sang-hyeon nodded.
“The strange phenomena in our memories, which we thought were completely unrelated, were actually one thing?”
“I’m not saying all of them are one thing. There is more than one guest room, after all.”
“I understand. For example, if A-ri’s wish and mine belong to the same guest room... We might board the Milky Way Train racing through space from A-ri’s memory and arrive at the exoplanet from mine.”
“That’s possible.”
As I nodded, I heard Mi-ro’s voice.
“Look at this!”
“Hm?”
“There’s writing on the ceiling!”
「From within, you cannot see the whole. From outside, you cannot touch what lies within. There is only one answer.」
“...”
In the silence, I realized it anew.
A place full of riddles and Zen koans. Yes, this was the Hotel.
Footnotes:
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