WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 664: First Escape, Meeting (1)
──────
「User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 4
Current Location: Level 1, Room 105 - ‘Rest Room’
Sage’s Advice: 0」
- Han Ga-in
--- Sizzle!
The stone pot radiated blistering heat, while scorched rice crackled against the bottom!
The nutty aroma of sesame oil only made it harder to resist.
Without hesitation, I scooped up a huge spoonful of stone-pot bibimbap.
It was unbelievably good.
There were all kinds of vegetables, stir-fried beef gochujang, and even a fried egg with a golden yolk!
Add in a spoonful of crispy rice from the bottom, and it would have been strange if it tasted bad.
Looking around, everyone seemed satisfied with their meals.
Seung-yeop was eating a juicy burger, while Grandpa cut into a steak.
Elena was having something like cheese fondue. It looked so delicious that Mi-ro kept saying, “Just one bite~! Just one bite~!”
“Mi-ro, stop that and order your own. This is a hotel. There’s no way they wouldn’t take extra food orders...”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“Don’t you know, Elena? Food like this only tastes good when you steal one bite at a time from someone else!”
“...”
Honestly, I understood what she meant.
You know those foods that are perfect for just one bite?
They taste amazing when you sneak a bite while someone else is eating them. But when you order the whole thing for yourself, they somehow feel disappointing.
I understood Mi-ro’s feelings, but I was impressed by how openly she expressed such shameless thoughts.
“Is this the American mindset of not caring what other people think?”
Sang-hyeon, who was cutting into a tenderloin steak, shot back incredulously.
“That’s not an American mindset. She’s just being a nuisance. Mi-ro was never taught any manners, so what can you do?”
“You only ever pick on me! One bite of that steak!”
The instant Mi-ro darted toward Sang-hyeon’s plate!
--- Ting!
Sang-hyeon’s knife moved sharply, knocking away Mi-ro’s fork.
“Huh? Huh?”
Mi-ro opened her eyes wide and tried for another “just one bite,” but this time, Sang-hyeon caught her by the wrist.
In the end, A-ri, who had been watching the whole thing, let out a long sigh and dragged Mi-ro away.
“Please stop.... The more you act like this, the slower Ghost Story Mi-ro recovers.”
“What does this have to do with that?”
“How could it not? Every one of these moments is damaging Ghost Story Mi-ro’s mental state!”
That was how everyone’s pleasant meal came to an end.
* * *
The first topic was the signals sent from outside.
Song-i was the first to complain.
“Wow! This is seriously ridiculous! So you guys were behind everything, like our house door locking or the car door malfunctioning?”
“I told you. Ga-in put his whole mind into it.”
“How was I supposed to know that? Of course I thought they were accidents or bad omens.”
Honestly, Song-i was right.
When I caused Poltergeist phenomena from the Observatory, I’d been frustrated that Song-i and Eun-sol couldn’t understand, but I understood why.
Those of us watching from outside knew. How could the people inside possibly figure it out?
A-ri tapped the table as she answered.
“That’s why Seung-yeop used Heavenly Luck and told only you and Eun-sol to go in. The first attempt was doomed to fail anyway, so we sent just the two of you.”
“Wow! That makes me feel even worse! You openly treated us like disposable cards!”
“We didn’t know anything because it was the first attempt, so you became the disposable cards. The Duke said it at the end. Next time, resolve it before the End Times.”
“Hmm....”
A-ri was right.
Song-i and Eun-sol had been treated as disposable cards only because it was the first attempt.
In truth, only a Resolution Team that included the two of them could truly bring Room 301 to its conclusion.
I looked around at everyone.
“Let’s establish a signal now, so nothing like this happens again.”
As someone who had experienced causing a Poltergeist phenomenon, I added an explanation.
“It has to be extremely simple. It’s impossible to convey a complex message.”
Song-i asked curiously, “You can’t control it precisely?”
“Right. If I had to describe it, it feels like grabbing the room with both hands and shaking it up and down.”
“... I have no idea what that feels like.”
It wasn’t easy to make someone understand without having experienced it, but I could at least say this much.
“It’s hard to control the timing, and it’s hard to cause the exact phenomenon I want. No matter how much I try to send a message from outside, it’ll be difficult for those inside to understand.”
Song-i looked uneasy.
“Th-then what do we do?”
“Like I said at the beginning, let’s keep it simple, with only one meaning. Use it whenever something feels dangerous.”
From now on, Poltergeist phenomena would have only one meaning.
Danger!
The second topic concerned people trapped in animal bodies.
“So all the talking animals I saw were people? Their bodies were taken by the Yith race, and their souls were trapped in animals?”
“Probably.”
“I understand that aliens took their bodies, but....”
Song-i tilted her head.
“Why would the souls that were left behind enter animals?”
Grandpa answered simply.
“Didn’t those Yith bastards put them there?”
“Why?”
“Huh?”
“Think about it. When Ga-in takes someone’s body through Possession, the mind left in that body doesn’t go anywhere in particular, right?”
“Well....”
“When a Yith noble took the Doctor’s or Seung-yeop’s body, their souls didn’t go anywhere either.”
“Now that you mention it, that’s true.”
There was no necessary causal link between stealing a body and forcing the expelled soul into an animal’s body.
When I possessed someone, that person’s soul wasn’t trapped in an animal. From what I’d seen in battle, Yith nobles were the same.
Grandpa frowned and muttered, “Could it be revenge? Humans killed their King, so wouldn’t they hold quite a grudge? They trap victims in animal bodies to humiliate them.”
“Is that it?”
Revenge through the humiliation of being trapped in an animal?
The Yith race seemed to hate humanity, so it wasn’t impossible, but....
Something about it was unclear.
I needed to think about it more.
The third topic concerned the Daeyang Group chairman.
Everyone’s eyes naturally turned to Eun-sol, who had spent the entire meal silently eating only sandwiches.
For once, Eun-sol seemed to have lost her usual awareness of everyone around her. She remained silent as if she hadn’t noticed our attention.
“...”
In fact, Eun-sol’s attitude had been different when we first left Room 301 and walked down the hallway.
As always, she had tried to lead the meeting energetically.
She had fallen quiet after we brought up the troublesome hypothesis that the Daeyang Group chairman was a traitor to humanity.
Eventually, Song-i lightly nudged her.
“Um.... Eun-sol?”
“Ah, right. Is it my turn to speak?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry. Sorry, everyone. I was thinking too deeply by myself.”
“It’s okay.”
Judging by the dream from before and the attitude she had shown in Room 301, Eun-sol’s feelings toward the Daeyang Group chairman were truly complicated.
Respect for the achievements that built a massive conglomerate.
Fear of the pressure of someone always looking down on her from above.
Love for a blood relative who had shown her much kindness.
Resentment toward a father who had encouraged conflict between siblings.
Admiration for intelligence and work ability that belied his age.
Suspicion that all those achievements had only been possible because he was a Regressor.
Up to this point, it was the sort of love and hatred an adult child might feel toward an oppressive parent.
The next sentence carried an entirely different weight.
A traitor who had sold humanity to aliens.
Eun-sol muttered with an exhausted expression.
“Song-i got caught up in it when I started looking into my father. I thought I’d be next, so I reported it to the Management Bureau. Then a Yith noble came and killed everyone.”
We had all seen that much together.
“My father seemed personally acquainted with the Yith noble. It seemed strange at the time, but now.... Well, if he sold humanity out, perhaps it was only natural.”
At that point, I brought up a question that had occurred to me recently.
“Eun-sol, when I first saw the dream connected to your wish, it was unclear. But now that it’s certain the chairman has contact with supernatural beings, something came to mind.”
“What is it?”
“Isn’t the very existence of Daeyang Group strange?”
“...”
Calmly, I raised a hand and pointed at myself.
“I knew about Daeyang Group before I came to the Hotel. Of course, ‘Han Ga-in’s memories of the past’ are very vague.”
At that point, Eun-sol asked everyone, “Who knew about Daeyang Group before coming to the Hotel?”
Soon, more than half our companions raised their hands one after another.
“... I understand what you’re getting at, Ga-in. We all came from different Loops, but it’s strange that everyone knows about Daeyang Group?”
“Exactly.”
Eun-sol let out a long sigh.
“If Father is a Regressor, that explains this easily too. Because he’s a Regressor, he succeeded every time and gave it the same name every time.”
When it became half certain that the chairman was a Regressor, I added what I’d really wanted to say.
“Wouldn’t the Management Bureau have known about your father?”
“Huh?”
“The same person founded a company around the same time every time, chose the correct answer at every critical moment, and succeeded. The enormous conglomerate he built was always named Daeyang Group. Would the Management Bureau really not have known?”
At that point, it was practically an advertisement begging people to realize he was a Regressor.
“You’re right.”
“There’s a high chance the chairman was a Management Bureau agent or a high-ranking employee. Daeyang Group was one of the conglomerates managed by the Management Bureau. What do you think, A-ri?”
A-ri wore an odd expression.
“It was a long-ago Loop, so I don’t know for sure whether the Management Bureau managed it, but it’s possible.”
Naturally, the fourth topic arose: the Management Bureau.
This time, Eun-sol looked toward A-ri as she asked, “You saw it from outside, but when I reported it to the Management Bureau, something like a demon came. So back then, I thought the Management Bureau was the root of the entire conspiracy.”
It was an understandable misunderstanding. At the time, Eun-sol had known nothing at all about the Great Race of Yith.
“If the real enemy is the Yith race, then what is the Management Bureau? Why did aliens come when I reported it to the Management Bureau?”
A-ri shrugged.
“We’d have to confirm it, but perhaps many of the lower-ranking employees have suffered Corruption.”
“The lower ranks of the Management Bureau were infiltrated by the Yith race?”
“If that happened, then what you experienced would be entirely possible.”
A-ri soon spoke again, as if she couldn’t understand it.
“Thinking about it, the Yith race is an incredibly powerful species, right?”
How formidable had the Great Race of Yith been?
Each individual was strong enough to surpass most Participants.
They conquered the entire Earth in an instant and shoved survivors into a human zoo, so they were overwhelmingly powerful as a species as well.
Whether supernatural power or scientific technology, humanity could not handle them. The title Great Race was no exaggeration.
“At this level, I would’ve understood if the Management Bureau had been wiped out without managing a single act of resistance....”
A-ri’s next question was quite reasonable.
“But the Yith noble said something entirely different. That they gave humanity countless chances, that they tried to negotiate many times.”
No human in the world negotiated with chickens or pigs.
For negotiations to happen, the other side needed to be worthy of sitting at the table.
“And according to what Ga-in found out!”
I took over the final point.
“The Yith race is trying to resurrect its dead King. And the Management Bureau was responsible for killing their King.”
A-ri spoke as if she couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“How is that possible? No, um, I’m not saying it’s absolutely impossible, but....”
Everyone’s eyes naturally turned to me.
After all, I had learned that information from the Duke.
--- Tap!
“I should explain it from the beginning. It started with a surprise attack by the enemy. A-ri will remember, but I was overwhelmed by unease at the time.”
“I remember. You said the enemy had learned a lot about us, and that it felt like hundreds of missiles could come flying at us at any moment.”
“I knew a crisis was coming. I just didn’t know it would come at that exact moment.”
“So?”
“With a flash, an attack came at an incredible speed. That power brushed past my head slightly, and...”
A-ri and Sang-hyeon immediately objected, apparently unable to agree with the word “slightly.”
“It slightly vaporized your head.”
“If that was slight, then injuries do not exist in this world.”
“... Anyway, under normal circumstances, I would’ve died instantly too.”
“Under normal circumstances?”
The memory of that time passed through my mind.
The memory of barely blocking the enemy’s assault for an instant with the power of the Sacred Sun.
The memory of the barrier eventually failing to hold and breaking.
The great wisdom that instinctively came to mind as I felt death approach.
Know that beneath heaven, there is only you.
It couldn’t have been even ten seconds.
In that brief time, not even long enough to take a sip of water, I felt all boundaries collapse.
At that moment, I was the Duke, and the Duke was me.
We were two yet one, a single mind that gathered all information and sought a conclusion we could accept.
“The Duke was full of doubts as well.”
“...”
“How could the King have fallen to mortal humans? How could the great star in the heavens have fallen to such insignificant creatures?”
“...”
“They crushed the humans of Earth thoroughly. Yet.... Even in the final moments, they never found any power capable of threatening the King.”
I looked at my bewildered companions.
“This may be one of Room 301’s greatest secrets. How did the Management Bureau harm the King of Yith, whom the Duke worshiped as a god?”
Footnotes:
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
