WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 656: Room 301, Curse Room - ‘The Origin of Species’ (3)
──────
- Yoo Song-i
When I came home with the gray cat, thankfully, no one was there.
“Gray. That’s your name from now on. You understand, right? Rest beside me for a while.”
After giving the sickly cat some proper food, I checked Eun-sol’s reply.
“TeleoTalk?”
She wanted us to communicate through a secure messaging app.
Would that really be enough? I wondered, but I couldn’t think of a better option.
As soon as I installed the app, messages began arriving.
Eun-sol: I’m glad you contacted me, even if it took this long! Did you find anything?
Song-i: I found a talking cat, at least.
Eun-sol: Already? Good work! Did you learn anything?
Song-i: I just got back. What about you?
Eun-sol: I’m gathering suspicious information related to my father.
Song-i: Have you found anything?
There was quite a delay before her next response. Eun-sol must have had a lot on her mind too.
Eun-sol: I never noticed before, but once I started looking at him with suspicion, I could see it. Every year, he spends a considerable amount of money on things I can’t identify.
Song-i: How much?
Eun-sol: At least two billion won a year. Some years, it’s exceeded eight billion.
At least two billion won a year, and sometimes eight billion!
The amount was so unreal that it didn’t quite sink in.
Eun-sol: The accounting is handled so intricately that most people wouldn’t notice. Even those who noticed assumed it was an ordinary slush fund.
Song-i: You still don’t know where it went?
Eun-sol: I don’t know. Also, there are a lot of strange gaps in my father’s schedule.
After that, Eun-sol continued listing the odd things she had noticed about the chairman of Daeyang Group.
Some were obviously strange, like billions of won with no known use or mysterious appointments. Others were hard for someone like me, who knew nothing about companies, to understand.
Song-i: It feels like you and I are progressing through completely different scenarios.
Eun-sol: Both the talking animals and the suspicious chairman are suspicious, so we don’t have much choice.
Song-i: Should we keep doing this for a while?
Eun-sol: Yes. We’ll each do our best in our own area.
There were only two of us to begin with, and even we were split up. Was this really the best way to proceed?
Oh, right. There was something I’d been worrying about on my own. I should bring it up now.
The Management Bureau existed in Room 301 too.
What if we actively sought their help?
Song-i: Should we ask the Management Bureau for help? They’d probably be interested in something like talking animals too.
Eun-sol: I considered that too, but I don’t know how the Management Bureau will react to us.
The question was how the Management Bureau would react.
It was frustrating all over again that it was just Eun-sol and me.
If only A-ri were here, wouldn’t she have found some way to handle anything involving the Management Bureau?
Eun-sol: Our situation is different from reality.
In reality, A-ri was openly one of the Management Bureau’s leaders, and people like Ga-in were absolute powerhouses even the Management Bureau had no choice but to be wary of.
That meant we had nothing to fear from them, but...
Things were much more unfavorable for us now.
Song-i: Still, I’m not sure the two of us can really clear Room 301...
We were far too weak, and more than anything, neither of us was good at physical combat.
It was sad to say, but even combined, Eun-sol and I might be weaker than Pero.
Eun-sol: Let’s do this. You solve the animal-related problem on your own. I’ll try approaching the Management Bureau.
Song-i: You will?
Eun-sol: As you know, I have the backing of Daeyang Group.
Of course, as Jin-cheol had experienced, the Management Bureau was the sort of organization that could wipe out even a chaebol family in broad daylight if necessary.
Still, they would probably treat Eun-sol more carefully than they would me.
Song-i: We’ve divided the roles.
Eun-sol: You handle the talking animals. I’ll contact the Management Bureau and investigate the suspicious chairman.
Just as we were about to end the conversation, she said something unexpected.
Eun-sol: There are a few people who’ve handled various unpleasant jobs for us for a long time.
People who had taken care of the Daeyang Group chairman’s family affairs, big and small, for decades at the least.
Song-i: Like butlers?
Eun-sol: Something like that. Want me to send someone over?
I was flustered by the unexpected offer.
Eun-sol: They’re discreet. They won’t ask you anything, and they’re not someone who’ll go around talking carelessly. It looks like you could use someone strong.
Eun-sol probably didn’t realize it, but I found this incredibly fascinating!
People who silently dealt with all the complicated, delicate matters of a chaebol family?
Wasn’t that the kind of thing you only saw in comics?
Song-i: Please send them!
Eun-sol: What will you tell your parents?
Song-i: Don’t worry about that.
That concluded our first meeting.
We had a rough direction now.
I would continue researching how human souls became trapped inside animal bodies.
I had already secured a specimen that could serve as evidence, Gray.
Eun-sol would investigate the suspicious chairman and contact the Management Bureau.
“...”
Putting aside the Management Bureau, how were the separate stories Eun-sol and I were pursuing supposed to connect?
Talking animals and a suspicious chaebol chairman! There had to be a link between them.
For now, I needed to focus on my own work.
“Gray, come here. Can you read Korean?”
* * *
Communicating with an intelligent cat was harder than I expected.
First, the Authority, ‘Telepathy,’ was not a telepathic power that could be used on just any Chaos Entity.
Rather than conveying clear intent, it was a power that transmitted the heart, or emotions.
Thanks to it, I could clearly feel how much pain and sorrow Gray was suffering, but exchanging specific information was difficult.
Second, Gray’s mental state wasn’t sound.
Being trapped in an animal’s body must have been torture every moment. It felt like trying to talk to someone who had been tortured for over a year.
“Take your time and try to remember. Can you understand what I’ve written?”
Gray could roughly understand speech, but couldn’t write.
Even when I placed Gray in front of a keyboard, Gray didn’t know which buttons to press. It was no different from being illiterate.
Maybe a cat’s brain couldn’t handle human intelligence, causing Gray’s intellect to decline?
I wasn’t sure about that.
“If your head hurts, eat something first.”
Only after receiving plenty of care, including proper food and a warm bath, did something resembling information begin to emerge.
“So... you’re saying you woke up in a cat’s body about two years ago?”
- Meow!
Gray didn’t remember the exact date, but remembered enduring two harsh winters.
“Before that, you were human?”
The moment I said that, intense emotions came through.
Even through Telepathy, it was hard to understand everything, but after listening for a while, I learned Gray’s rough background.
“Your name was, uh, Park Jin-ho? Park Ji-ho? Park Ji-hoo? Sorry, I’m confused. Before you became a cat... you were in your late teens? Or your twenties? It’s vague.”
By the time night fell, I had sorted through almost all the information Gray remembered.
“You woke up in a cat’s body about two years ago. You were a man between eighteen and twenty-one when you were human. Your name was Park Ji-hoo, right? You lived near the coast in Gangneung, Gangwon Province.”
Once I learned that much, another thought came to mind.
“Should we visit your home? Have you ever been there?”
- Meow!
Gray wanted to go, but had never been.
A cat couldn’t use transportation, and Gray couldn’t exactly walk from Seoul to Gangneung on cat paws.
A natural question followed.
Two years ago, a young man named Park Ji-hoo had his consciousness trapped in a cat’s body.
Then what had happened to Park Ji-hoo’s original body?
Was it in a vegetative state?
Had it already died?
Or...
“I need to see it for myself.”
I couldn’t go today, so I’d have to go tomorrow.
Surely the world wouldn’t end overnight, right?
Late that night, Mom and Dad came home.
They both seemed to have something they wanted to say to me, but they didn’t stop me when I said I was going to sleep.
* * *
At six-thirty the next morning, I started getting ready to leave as soon as the sun came up.
My parents were surprised to see me showering and getting dressed so early, but I didn’t feel the need to explain in detail.
Then an unexpected variable stopped me for a moment.
--- Click!
The door suddenly wouldn’t open.
“What?”
The door lock hadn’t activated, but the door still wouldn’t open.
I stood there holding the handle in confusion, and Dad came over after seeing me.
“What’s wrong with this? Song-i, stand back for a moment.”
“...”
--- Rattle!
“What’s going on? Did the lock break?”
It took the three of us more than ten minutes of struggling before the door finally opened.
“Whew! It’s open.”
“... I’m going out.”
“Song-i, um, are you meeting a friend again today? Taking Pero with you?”
“Yes.”
“You’re leaving this early? When will you be back? Song-i!”
“Goodbye.”
After walking for over ten minutes from the apartment, I waited at the meeting place I had told Eun-sol about that morning.
Soon, a black sedan approached.
--- Whirr!
The window rolled down, revealing a solidly built middle-aged man who looked to be in his early fifties.
He looked exactly like the head of a security team.
“Are you Miss Song-i?”
“Yes.”
“I heard from the young lady. I’m Manager Kim. Please get in.”
“Yes. I’ll call you Manager Kim from now on... Huh?”
--- Click!
For some reason, the car door wouldn’t open.
I pulled once, then twice, but it didn’t budge.
Manager Kim looked puzzled.
“It was fine this morning. Why is it doing this all of a sudden? My apologies.”
“...”
By then, I was starting to feel that something was wrong.
A door lock suddenly malfunctioning without warning.
A car door refusing to open for no reason.
Was it a coincidence?
Taken separately, they were common things that happened from time to time in life. But happening one after another, it felt strange.
Either way, the door eventually opened this time too.
--- Clunk!
“Oh! It opened. It was my fault for not checking the vehicle beforehand. I’m sorr-”
“It’s okay.”
Manager Kim didn’t say another word after apologizing. Just as Eun-sol had said, he seemed very discreet.
I had heard the rough details while talking with Eun-sol the night before.
According to Eun-sol, Manager Kim believed I was something like a Management Bureau agent.
She said that would make things more comfortable for me.
It might sound absurd to the Management Bureau, but it didn’t matter. This man wasn’t going to contact them and verify my identity anyway.
“Please take me to this address.”
“Gyeongpo-dong in Gangneung? Do you have a more specific address?”
“I need to find it once we get there.”
“Understood.”
* * *
Oh no...! There’s no stopping Song-i!
Locking the door isn’t enough for her to understand the warning!
Is more active intervention impossible?
Even locking the door was hard! I can only manage ghost-level interference!
Hah! So that’s what “you can’t see the whole picture from inside or interfere from outside” means!
There must be a way. There has to be!
Footnotes:
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