WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 653: Meeting, Reconnaissance (4) Fin
──────
「User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 2
Current Location: Level 3, Guest Room Area
Sage’s Advice: 3」
- Han Ga-in
「From within, you cannot see the whole. From outside, you cannot touch what lies within. There is only one answer.」
After staring at the riddle-like sentence for a while, I spoke to my companions.
“I think we’ve seen everything there is to see in the guest rooms.”
Grandpa nodded.
“Six rooms in total. The last room is unknown, and there are an estimated four or five Curse Rooms. Considering the number of guest rooms, two or more wishes are tied to a single room. Is that enough?”
“Yes. We’ll need to enter Room 301 to learn anything more specific.”
“Right. Let’s go somewhere else.”
We returned to the signboard near the lobby.
⇦ Observatory
⇧ Guest Rooms
⇨ ??? - Under Construction.
“It looks like we can’t go to the question-mark area yet, so we should head to the Observatory.”
As we followed the left arrow, Eun-sol voiced the question everyone was wondering about.
“What is this place meant to observe?”
I wondered the same thing.
* * *
「Current Location: Level 3, Guest Room Area -> Level 3, Observatory」
When the door to the Observatory opened, the interior looked mysterious yet vaguely familiar.
The space itself was a massive hemisphere, with something resembling an elongated astronomical telescope in the center.
Overall, it looked like an observatory.
“Is that a telescope? It looks enormous.”
Sang-hyeon answered Jin-cheol’s question.
“It’s fairly large, but there are bigger telescopes on Earth. Though since this is the Hotel, its performance is probably incomparably greater... It’s strange that the objective lens extends through the ceiling.”
Near the telescope stood an antique table and chairs, as though we were meant to hold meetings there if necessary.
“There’s a door here too! It says Bedroom above it.”
“Mi-ro, don’t touch things carelessly.”
“I-I was just saying.”
While Mi-ro became a little dejected, I opened the door marked Bedroom and checked inside.
Danger Alert did not activate during this process.
Just as its name suggested, it was a space where several people could sleep comfortably.
“It really is a bedroom. There’s a shower room beside it too. Nothing seems unusual at first glance, but...”
When I looked at my companions, A-ri immediately replied, as expected.
“The fact that there’s a bedroom is unusual.”
“Exactly.”
Since the Hotel had Room 105, a place purely for resting, there was no reason for another floor to have a bedroom.
There had been no beds or bathrooms anywhere on the second floor either.
“Since there’s a bedroom and bathroom, there must be food available from that table too.”
“It’s probably similar to the refreshment table. I’ll try it.”
Eun-sol walked over to the table, slipped her hand beneath it, then performed a magic trick by pulling sandwiches and coffee from thin air.
“As expected.”
“A separate place to eat, sleep, and wash up...”
At first glance, it might seem like thoughtful consideration. It was nothing of the sort.
Elena, who had pulled out an iced tea beside Eun-sol, gave a bitter smile.
“I guess there will be times when we’re trapped in the Observatory. While we’re trapped here, we won’t be able to use Room 105.”
The existence of another resting space implied one thing.
At some point while progressing through the third floor, we would be unable to go to the first floor.
“Let’s take a look at the telescope.”
Song-i naturally began moving toward it, then stopped when A-ri held her back.
“Right, he should go first.”
Seeing how a few of my companions were still subtly careless reminded me that it was only our second day on the third floor.
The moment I was about to put my eye to the telescope’s eyepiece,
「Advice: 3 -> 2」
「Stop attempting observation.」
The warning was quick and concise.
“...”
“Oppa?”
“Something appeared, right? What did it say?”
“It says to stop attempting observation.”
My companions fell silent in an instant.
Danger Alert only appeared when my life was in danger.
In other words, if I had forced myself to observe just then, I would have died or been left on the verge of death.
“... It really is the Hotel.”
For the first time in a while, chills ran down my back.
Outside the Hotel, even someone like me was praised as the great Horus, a demigod, a superhuman.
Yet once I entered the Hotel, I could die on the spot just by mishandling a telescope.
Feeling both dizzy and an indescribable thrill, I took another step back from the telescope.
Jin-cheol asked as if he couldn’t understand.
“If there’s a telescope here, we’re supposed to use it eventually, right?”
“Right.”
“If even approaching the eyepiece is dangerous, how are we supposed to use it?”
“There must be conditions for using it?”
“What are they?”
For a moment, I considered whether to use Advice. In the end, I decided there was no other choice.
No matter how I looked at it, this was not a question we could solve by thinking it over ourselves.
「Advice: 2 -> 1」
‘Why is the telescope dangerous, or what are the conditions for using it safely?’
「It is dangerous because it has not yet been focused.」
“It says it’s dangerous because it hasn’t been focused yet. What does that mean?”
I looked toward Sang-hyeon, who was probably the most familiar with this sort of thing among us.
He seemed to think for a moment before offering his opinion.
“Adjusting a telescope’s focus is the process of observing the target accurately. To put it simply, an unfocused telescope means you’re viewing the target either too closely or from too far away.”
Hearing that gave me a vague sense of it.
“... Needless to say, the observation target won’t be ordinary.”
“Of course not.”
By then, A-ri seemed to vaguely understand the situation too and spoke up.
“It’s like this. Let’s say the target is a Prisoner somewhere in space. If the telescope isn’t focused, you’ll see the Prisoner either too close up or too far away. Seeing it too close would obviously be dangerous, but seeing it from too far away is dangerous too.”
Sang-hyeon nodded.
“If you see it from a distant viewpoint, you can take in the Prisoner’s entire form at a glance. In that sense, it might be even more dangerous than seeing it up close.”
“The safe observation range must be extremely narrow. That’s why we need to focus it before using it.”
Mi-ro murmured with a slightly frightened expression.
“If we look through that telescope, will that whale-like being from before appear right away?”
“Mi-ro, the Prisoner was only an example. I’m saying that because the observation target seems like something dangerous to even look at.”
“Then could it be observing something other than a Prisoner?”
“I don’t know.”
No one yet knew what the Observatory’s target was.
Still, a powerful intuition suddenly flashed through my mind.
“Ga-in, you seem to have been thinking deeply for a while.”
“...”
“Is it still difficult to answer? If I interrupted you...”
“The observation target probably isn’t a Prisoner.”
“Then what is it?”
“... Let’s think about it a little more.”
The observation target did not seem to be a Prisoner.
Because, as the Hotel had said, I was no longer who I had been when I first entered the Hotel.
Would I, as I was now, die instantly just from seeing a Prisoner from far away?
Honestly, I didn’t think so.
That wasn’t an arrogant claim that I could defeat a Prisoner.
It only meant I had passed the stage where merely looking at one would put my life in danger.
“...”
Something far beyond even a Prisoner.
Something that participants could not handle, no matter how many Inheritances or powerful blessings they gained in the Hotel.
The Observatory had been made to observe such a being.
“Alright! Everyone, carefully search the area. If something seems wrong, don’t touch it. Call me instead. I still have one use of Advice left.”
* * *
Nearly two fruitless hours passed.
Just as I was considering ending the search, since we had to enter the Curse Room once daylight came,
“Huh? Ga-in!”
Unexpectedly, though perhaps it wasn’t unexpected considering his blessing, Seung-yeop called out excitedly from the bedroom.
Mi-ro murmured as though she found it strange.
“I thought you were secretly sleeping because you were tired, but you weren’t?”
Seung-yeop came out laughing, then looked at Mi-ro incredulously.
“Hey! Aren’t you underestimating me way too much?”
Mi-ro stuck out her tongue at Seung-yeop. She was clearly trying to tease him, but she was so cute that I laughed without realizing it.
“Hyung, I found a strange piece of paper in the bedroom.”
“Good job! Everyone, come over here.”
It was covered in tiny writing.
“‘Reflections on the Missing Link’...”
* * *
Reflections on the Missing Link
Let us travel upstream along the river of time, as a lone explorer.
If you are lucky, you may discover fossils carried down from the upper reaches.
From those fossils, you can uncover traces of the past that has already slipped by.
Unfortunately, there are often long gaps between fossils, and some call such a gap a missing link.
Why does this phenomenon occur?
Because the probability of a fossil forming is as low as the chance that your first love across the sea will happen to find a message in a bottle you cast into the ocean.
There are more than fifty million species of living organisms in an era, yet fewer than two million identifiable species.
Of those two million species, how many can leave fossils that will remain ten thousand years into the future?
Therefore, missing links between fossils are inevitable.
A species that cannot leave fossils cannot leave any trace in the future.
It becomes traceless sand, disappearing in the flow of time.
But...
Failing to leave a trace does not mean it never existed.
They surely existed, and must have experienced beginnings and endings, prosperity and decline, moments of glory and ruin.
The disappearance of all this can only be a profound tragedy.
Therefore, I vowed this.
Somewhere in this empty world, I will leave an immutable record.
* * *
The area grew quiet.
Everyone seemed lost in thought, or unwilling to interrupt the companions who were.
“...”
As various complicated thoughts passed through my mind, I vaguely sensed one thing.
The phrase “missing link” was a metaphor.
It was not referring to the missing link of biology or evolutionary theory. This writing borrowed only the concept to explain something entirely different.
Sang-hyeon murmured carefully.
“Missing link, fossils, traceless sand, immutable record... Those seem to be the keywords.”
“...”
“I’m curious about one thing: Who do you think wrote this?”
Mi-ro spoke with an expression that said she could not contain her curiosity.
“Can’t we use Advice and ask?”
“We’ve already used two, so we only have one left.”
Since we had to enter the Curse Room within a few hours, I wanted to save at least one.
Mi-ro quickly understood my intention and nodded.
“I-I see...”
“I’ll ask once we have some room to spare later.”
After that, we found nothing special until daylight came.
“Let’s end our first search here. We have to enter the Curse Room within a few hours, so I think everyone should clear their heads until then.”
* * *
「User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 2
Current Location: Level 3, Guest Room Area
Sage’s Advice: 1」
Around eleven in the morning.
At last, we stood before the door marked 〖Room 301〗.
We had made every preparation we could, but...
Curse Rooms were places where people could die in vain the moment they entered, no matter how much they prepared.
No one could hide the tension on their faces.
Since no one stepped forward to grab the doorknob, I did.
“Now that it’s time to open the door, I’m curious. You remember what the Manager told us, right?”
--- Gulp!
Instead of an answer, I heard people swallowing.
Everyone really was tense.
Eun-sol murmured in a trembling voice.
“... There are advantages to having fewer people, and advantages to having more. The appropriate number of people is a matter of choice.”
“Apparently, we can choose the number of people entering from the third floor onward. How do you think that works?”
“Only the person holding the doorknob enters?”
“Look at the size of the doorknob. It would be hard for even two people to hold it at once.”
“S-Sorry. I’m so nervous, I said something strange.”
“No. I think...”
To ease everyone’s tension, I spoke as casually as I could.
“I think we’ll decide who proceeds after opening the door. Then I’ll open it.”
--- Click!
It was beginning.
「Current Location: Level 3, Guest Room Area -> Room 301, Curse Room - ‘On the Origin of Species’」
Footnotes:
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