WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 662: Room 301, Curse Room - ‘The Origin of Species’ (9)
──────
- Kim A-ri
--- THUD!
The monster radiating such vicious power finally collapsed into a heap of flesh.
Joy at our victory and relief washed over me at once.
“Whew!”
It had taken a truly brutal fight to destroy that thing.
One thing was certain. I couldn't have handled it alone.
I only won because a companion who saw me struggling joined the fight in time.
“Seung-yeop, you did well.”
“...”
“Are you still not back to your senses?”
“...”
“When are you going to come to your senses? How's Ga-in's side... Ah, looks like they're done too. Let's head back to the truck.”
Seung-yeop followed me like a puppet being controlled.
* * *
The situation by the truck was over as well.
Thankfully, no one had died, though several people were injured.
Cha Jin-cheol was hurt the worst, but since it was Cha Jin-cheol, it didn't seem like a serious problem.
The wound on his nearly severed right arm was wriggling as it tried to fuse itself back together.
Honestly, even a troll would be shocked by this!
Mook-seong and Elena had suffered much lighter injuries, yet neither looked well.
Luckily, the truck had the world's best doctor.
“Elena, does it hurt?”
“Ah, it hurts!”
“Bear with it.”
At the same time, Sang-hyeon thrust a hand straight into Elena's abdomen.
It really went straight in!
A human hand pierced through skin and entered someone's body!
I knew Sang-hyeon's healing ability had reached a supernatural level because of Diligence, but seeing it again after so long was honestly grotesque.
“Argh!”
“Bear with it a little longer.”
“Eek!”
The atmosphere was almost like a field hospital on a battlefield.
Then Ga-in appeared behind us.
“What a relief. No one died.”
“Yeah. Ga-in, did you happen to see how things went on the truck side?”
I hadn't had the chance to check on the truck at all.
“Mi-ro was used as bait to lure in the enemy, then...”
“Who was used as bait? Mi-ro?”
“They probably had no choice. Mi-ro can withstand mental attacks because of Immutability.”
“...”
“Several people were injured while fighting the enemy they lured in. Jin-cheol took attack after attack. Elena used Justified Self-Defense in that opening and destroyed it.”
The idea of using Mi-ro as bait bothered me for a moment, but the operation itself made sense.
Wouldn't I have come up with something similar?
Ga-in asked me this time.
“You were fighting alongside Seung-yeop. What happened? Seung-yeop should have had a hard time resisting the opponent's ability to perform bodily Transference.”
“... You thought so too? So did I.”
“What?”
Some of the powers my companions had gained at the Hotel could only be used for very specific purposes.
Since we almost never used abilities like that, everyone tended to half forget them.
“Primordial Human.”
“Ah?”
“Once he used that, the enemy's control stopped working on him.”
Apparently, Ga-in hadn't known either. Ga-in's eyes widened in surprise.
“Does the self created by Primordial Human have priority over control of the body?”
“That's hard to understand when you put it that way.”
“I was only guessing too.”
By the time we finished talking, no more screams came from the truck.
It seemed the emergency treatment was roughly finished.
“Let's go.”
* * *
As we gathered and shared what we knew, we learned one disappointing fact.
Despite the fairly fierce battle, Ga-in was the only one who had gained any meaningful information.
Neither the truck party nor Seung-yeop and I had been able to kill our enemies.
We could destroy their physical bodies, but we couldn't stop their mental entities from escaping.
Ga-in muttered with a dark expression.
“They say the current situation is a seed we sowed. They gave us several chances and even tried to negotiate, but we rejected every one of them.”
“Does ‘we’ mean humanity? Or the Management Bureau?”
“Most likely. And...”
“And?”
“According to the advice, it's related to On the Origin of Species.”
My head was getting more and more muddled.
I really had no idea what that had to do with On the Origin of Species.
Then Sang-hyeon responded with faint cynicism.
“The Management Bureau again, again, again? It looks like the Management Bureau did something strange this time too.”
“...”
Mook-seong and I had nothing to say, so we smiled awkwardly. A moment later, Sang-hyeon added as if making an excuse.
“I mean the Management Bureau in Room 301. Not the Management Bureau in reality...”
Mook-seong snorted.
“You said, ‘The Management Bureau again, again, again?’”
“Th-that was...”
“Forget it. It's true that the Management Bureau does all kinds of bizarre things. Honestly, even I think so. They really are a bunch of fucking idiots.”
“Ahem!”
Cha Jin-cheol carefully spoke up.
“I've done some work as an agent too, so I'm saying this...”
Right, he had.
Unlike the other companions who had only formally received agent badges, Jin-cheol had actually worked as an agent for several months.
For some reason, I felt proud that the Hotel Party had gained another person who supported the Management Bureau.
“The Management Bureau can be pretty reckless, but they mean well.”
“Mean well?”
“It is an organization that works for humanity. Not for individuals, but they clearly have a sense of duty to serve humanity as a whole.”
Sang-hyeon wore a slightly complicated expression.
“If you think about it, Regressors can enjoy nothing but pleasure without any responsibility if they want to. Yet Regressors in the Management Bureau grit their teeth and hunt monsters and demons, don't they?”
“...”
“They all have a superiority complex, treat civilians as less than human, and seem to have erased words like basic rights from their dictionaries, but...”
“...”
“They do have a sense of duty. A duty to protect humanity.”
As I listened, my face grew a little hot.
Honestly, he wasn't wrong.
Without a sense of duty, what kind of lunatic would search every corner of the world for demons and monsters?
Ga-in, who had been listening closely to Jin-cheol, replied.
“So this is the summary. Seeing every problem as the Management Bureau's fault is the perspective of the Great Race of Yith. The Management Bureau will have its own reasons, and those reasons will clearly be for humanity.”
“Uh, right.”
“That makes sense. Let's discuss it in detail once we get out. For now...”
Ga-in looked up at the sky with an exceptionally grim expression.
“Let's focus on the immediate situation. It's extremely ominous.”
Everyone watched Ga-in nervously.
“We still have difficulty judging the enemy's strength, but they have learned quite a lot about us.”
“...”
“We fought a loud, bloody battle, and two of the three enemies escaped. By now, they must know quite a bit about each of our abilities.”
“... You're right.”
“To be honest, isn't it a miracle we're still alive?”
My breath caught in my throat.
“Let's say the enemy is the Management Bureau. Dozens or hundreds of missiles would have flown at us from somewhere we couldn't even see.”
“... Yeah.”
“On top of that, they are an alien species of mental entities that subdued the Management Bureau. Of course, they might lack physical weapons, but...”
As Ga-in explained just how dangerous our current situation was...
“What the...!”
Ga-in instinctively summoned the Sacred Sun.
As if they had suddenly sensed an overwhelming threat!
The Sacred Sun appeared, a mass of pure white light that heated the area around it.
Among every Inheritance obtained by the Hotel Party, wasn't it the one at the very peak of power?
But no matter how powerful an Inheritance was, it was still only a tool.
A star that could not shine by itself would fade away helplessly once its user was crushed.
Just like now!
An attack of overwhelming force descended from the sky at a speed too fast to react to!
The sound came a beat later.
--- RUMBLE!
Ga-in's attempt to defend with the Sacred Sun was only half effective.
Ga-in reduced the power of the attack from the sky and protected the companions nearby, but could not stop Ga-in's own head from evaporating.
“Ah, urgh...!”
There wasn't even time to scream!
Without taking a single breath, I frantically used the Irregular Polyhedron.
I created barrier after barrier after barrier. Then, CRUNCH!
The next attack pierced through my desperate defenses like they were nothing, and a burning sensation shot through my right arm.
My arm was gone.
By my sense of time, it had taken about one and a half seconds to reach this point.
--- Ssshhh...
A distant whisper drifted down from beyond the sky.
It carried no clear intention, yet it made me feel countless things at once.
An ancient longing.
Eons during which that longing had gone unfulfilled.
The pain of being interrupted just before reaching its goal.
An irreversible failure.
Inescapable doom.
A sliver of hope!
...
Before I could even blink, the sky turned dark red.
The enemy was a higher being that regarded all creatures on the ground as crude heaps of flesh.
As if it had reached the end of evolution.
“...”
I couldn't move a muscle.
It felt as though overwhelming power had turned everyone nearby to stone.
In that unbelievable moment when the world seemed to stop, the writhing shape paused near Ga-in for only an instant.
It did not waste much time.
The enemy soon ignored me, where I had collapsed on the ground, and headed for the companions behind me.
Mi-ro was first.
Because the Time Lender could be used through will alone, Mi-ro managed to summon Eun-sol.
But Eun-sol, who appeared, was frozen like stone and could do nothing.
It did not take long for Mi-ro's body to split in two.
Seung-yeop's situation was slightly better.
As his body was destroyed, the Soul Box appeared. Perhaps the enemy found it difficult to destroy the Soul Box on the spot, because it ignored it.
Of course, it had probably only set aside a tough piece of food for later.
Jin-cheol seemed to put up some resistance.
He couldn't move, but the Otherworldly Star Fragment was an Inheritance that displayed its power simply by being summoned.
Unfortunately, Mook-seong couldn't even make a sound.
One More Chance required the action of flicking, so there was nothing he could do.
Before ten seconds had even passed, I watched half my companions get annihilated and realized it.
Ah...
This thing, this monster, this Great One was the Duke.
It was different.
Far too different from the entities we had fought until now.
To put it harshly, I couldn't believe the Duke was even the same species as them.
The gap was so absurdly vast that I didn't even feel aggrieved or angry.
Would it explain how I felt if I said I was even grateful that it killed us instantly without much pain?
There was only one regret.
Our strongest person had been ambushed and died meaninglessly at the start of the fight.
Just as I was about to lose myself.
“Uh, ngh... Ah?”
My voice came out?
My body, my body could move!
The companions who realized their restraints had been lifted reacted quickly.
What time did we have to test the waters against a monster like this?
“Now I am become Death -”
Final Flash fired immediately, while Ominous Imagination released malevolence that shook the horizon.
I, too, focused until my eyes were bloodshot and tore apart space again and again!
--- Crackle!
Tentacles fell in little pieces, and purple liquid soaked the ground!
Our attacks were working?
It couldn't even endure Final Flash and dodged, covering the ground in sticky fluid!
It was monstrously strong, but it wasn't Prisoner-level.
At that moment, I heard the enemy's voice for the first time.
‘...Still not dead?’
Still not dead?
Who was it talking about...
--- Grab!
Someone's hand grabbed my ankle.
Only then did I understand why everyone's restraints had been released!
“...”
I was afraid to look down.
A person should die if they have no head.
Even a Regressor was no exception!
They would only awaken in the next Loop. They could not keep living and moving without a head.
Then what was that ‘shape’ reaching out with an open Grimoire, despite having no head?
“Ga-in...”
Then the small tool that had been in Ga-in's arms was placed in my hand.
Footnotes:
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