WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 671: Room 301, Curse Room - ‘The Origin of Species’ (15)
──────
- Yoo Song-i
The Management Bureau operated across the entire world, monopolizing more human and material resources than any corporation or government on Earth.
Those material resources naturally included Headquarters, branches, and various secret bases established around the world and in the Otherworld.
Apparently, secret bases were facilities entirely different from Management Bureau Headquarters or branches.
“Headquarters and branches are like official government agencies. They’re classified facilities to the public, but... people who know enough know where they are.”
“High-ranking politicians or people like the chairman of Daeyang Group?”
“Right. Someone in that position might not know for certain, but they can at least guess where their country’s Management Bureau branch is. Branches have lots of permanent staff because they handle so much work.”
“So we can’t sneak in and meet only the leadership?”
“Absolutely not. That’s why we’re looking for a secret base.”
That was why we hadn’t gone to the Management Bureau’s Korean branch.
It would be extremely difficult to secretly infiltrate it and meet only the Korean branch director.
Would it have been possible if Ga-in were here?
It was pointless to think about since he wasn’t!
“What do secret bases do?”
“‘Secret base’ is just a broad term I use. Each facility has a different purpose. Some are for research, some are for sealing Chaos Entities, and some are safe houses.”
“Can we meet someone high up if we go there?”
“I don’t know about leadership, but we can skip the regular staff and meet an agent directly. More precisely, if we break in, an agent will show up.”
We finished investigating the fifth candidate location while having this conversation.
1. Search for places suspected of being secret bases through a smartphone map app.
2. Go directly to candidate areas and check them.
3. If it’s wrong, go back to step 1!
We had spent half the day repeating those three steps.
I was sure we had left early in the morning, but the sun had been high in the sky for a long time now.
A-ri muttered with a slightly tired expression.
“This wasn’t it either.”
“Do we really have to search through them one by one like this?”
“If you have another method, you tell me.”
“...”
“Let’s go. The next candidate is in Gwanak District.”
* * *
The seventh building was quite old, and it even had a Korean set-meal restaurant on the first floor.
The moment I saw it, I felt sure it wasn’t the place.
“Let’s go. There’s a restaurant on the first floor. What kind of secret base could this be? This isn’t it.”
Instead of answering, A-ri entered the restaurant and began looking around.
“...”
This was the sixth time we had simply entered a building and looked around.
It was a frustrating process for me because I had no idea what standards A-ri used to decide whether a place was a secret base.
I had asked her a few times, and A-ri had explained it pretty kindly, but...
There had been no clear standard in the first place.
A-ri’s centuries of experience as an agent was the standard.
Put nicely, it was big data. Put badly, it was an agent’s instinct.
It wasn’t something I could imitate just by hearing a few explanations.
All I could do was pray that her instinct was right this time.
“Hey, students! Aren’t you ordering?”
“We’re looking at the menu.”
Just as I was about to shake my head, convinced this place was wrong too, A-ri’s eyes widened for the first time.
“That painting.”
“Huh?”
“Do you see the ink painting?”
As befitted an upscale Korean restaurant in the middle of Seoul, several impressive paintings hung on the walls. A-ri pointed to one of them.
“The location is strange, isn’t it?”
“Uh...”
“It’s somewhere customers can’t properly see. Unless you’re looking as hard as I am right now, you wouldn’t even know that painting was there.”
Now that she mentioned it, it made sense.
If it was an expensive painting meant to create an atmosphere, shouldn’t it be displayed where customers could appreciate it?
When I looked at it more closely, the painting itself was strange too.
There was no proper background, only a single house with an eerie atmosphere.
More importantly!
“...”
Using Diverse Perspectives, I told A-ri about what was happening around us.
Ever since A-ri had noticed the painting, the restaurant staff had been giving us meaningful looks!
Wasn’t that clear evidence?
Just as I steeled myself for a fight in the restaurant alongside A-ri if necessary, she suddenly looked urgent and flustered.
“Get past the employee on the right first and...”
“I’ll go ahead.”
“What?”
What was she talking about all of a sudden?
The instant I turned my head in shock, A-ri had disappeared beyond my field of awareness!
“...!”
Was she insane?
What was I supposed to do if she used The Unremarkable Girl and vanished by herself?
Pero also reacted as though it found this absurd.
--- Peep!
Wait, Pero?
“... Pero.”
--- Peeeep! Peep?
“I’ll go ahead.”
* * *
.
..
...
It felt like a wave rolled over me.
Soon, I arrived in an unknown place filled with chilly air.
The Hotel had given me so many bizarre experiences that the impossible had begun to feel ordinary, but I still couldn’t get used to the sensation of entering a painting.
As I moved forward anxiously, I found A-ri standing still ahead.
“Hey!”
“You got here fast.”
“What were you thinking, moving by yourself?”
“... I thought we’d be too late if we moved together.”
“What?”
A-ri immediately silenced me with a shushing gesture, then moved only her lips.
‘There’s an agent here right now. That’s why I came in immediately.’
‘...’
‘How did you get past the staff and arrive so quickly?’
‘Pero’s causing a commotion outside.’
‘...’
After a brief silence, a clicking sound came from somewhere.
--- Click!
A cold metallic sound rang out behind us.
When I slowly turned around, I saw a merciless gun barrel aimed at A-ri and me.
“...”
I was a little flustered at that moment.
The other person looked far too different from what I had expected.
Coldly gleaming black eyes, ghostly pale skin, and horrifying hair that constantly writhed like living snakes.
Even with all that, making him look more like an evil spirit than a human, the strangest thing was that his features belonged to a boy in his early to mid-teens.
Of course, as A-ri and Mi-ro showed, an agent’s apparent age meant nothing.
Our tense gazes crossed in an instant.
The boy holding the gun seemed to be silently demanding an answer.
‘Who are you, and how did you get in here?’
Soon, A-ri raised both hands to show she had no intention of fighting and began the lie we had prepared.
“You’ve probably already guessed, but I’m an agent.”
“...”
“The kid behind me is a trainee I’m teaching. As you can see, she’s crossed the End Times too, so I’m planning to report her to Headquarters soon and have her qualify as an agent.”
A-ri had known an agent was inside the secret base, yet she had entered without warning.
At first, I was startled, wondering what she would do if the other person attacked without listening, but...
“Are you going to keep pointing that gun at us?”
“It does seem like both of you have crossed the End Times...”
Their exchange answered my question of why the other person had not immediately fired.
Agents could recognize other agents, or more precisely, Regressors.
That was because Regressors were inherently beings with high Soul Ranks.
A-ri had shown the same knack when dealing with Ga-in’s great-grandfather and Grandpa Mook-seong, hadn’t she?
Of course, I had heard it wasn’t a very precise ability.
It was less a refined supernatural power and more an instinct learned through a long career as an agent.
Rather than ‘This person is definitely an agent!’ it was more like ‘This one seems like an agent. Or maybe not.’
The other person seemed much the same.
“Hmm, I’m not sure. More than that, if I had seen someone as pretty as you...”
“Thank you.”
The boy flinched at A-ri’s shameless answer, but did not lower the gun.
“I wouldn’t be able to forget. No matter how hard I search my memories, I don’t remember seeing anyone like you.”
“That could be true. Honestly, I lived rather freely during the last few Loops.”
“What do you mean?”
“I wandered the world in disguise and had fun. You understand, right? This job is difficult.”
“...”
“You could call it an extremely long vacation.”
This was another lie we had prepared after the meeting outside.
Officially, agents had no concept of retirement, but think about what agents were.
They were Regressors by nature.
They suddenly Awakened in unknown places at unknown times, recovering memories of the past.
They accumulated an enormous number of experiences over long lives, and most possessed mysterious powers.
Even the Management Bureau had difficulty strictly controlling each individual agent.
So, as A-ri said, there really were agents who went off on long vacations and did whatever they wanted.
We didn’t need to look far. Grandpa Mook-seong was exactly that kind of case in reality.
Soon, A-ri began gradually bringing up information about the Management Bureau that only an agent could know.
The Management Bureau A-ri knew and the one in Room 301 differed considerably, so much of the information was inaccurate, but...
Quite a bit of it was still the same.
Thanks to that, the boy’s expression gradually grew more confused, and the gun barrel eventually lowered slightly.
“... So, senior, you Awakened about two years ago?”
“That’s right.”
“And you’re thinking of ending your vacation and returning to Headquarters?”
“Exactly.”
Naturally, the boy had begun calling A-ri “senior.”
The sight of him scratching his head loosened my tension slightly.
Then!
--- Clang!
He swiftly pulled another gun from inside his clothes, aimed it at A-ri’s head, and demanded an answer.
“Answer yes or no. Are you an agent?”
“Yes.”
The moment A-ri answered, he pulled the trigger without hesitation.
--- Click!
Not bang, but click.
He had pulled the trigger, but no bullet came out.
“...”
After a moment of silence, the boy finally smiled. This time, he truly put the gun away.
“Please excuse me.”
“...”
“Ha ha! You did seem like an agent, but I wanted to be sure. Isn’t it best to be cautious?”
“Sure.”
So that gun was some kind of magic tool that judged lies?
If A-ri had lied, would a bullet have come out and blown her head apart?
Just like an agent, all kinds of strange things kept appearing!
Either way, we had gotten past the crisis.
A-ri really was an agent. She just wasn’t an agent from Room 301.
“Please call me C. But senior, why did you come here instead of reporting your return to the Korean branch?”
“I was going to, but I noticed something strange.”
Now the real conversation began.
“Something strange?”
The next moment, A-ri summoned the Irregular Polyhedron and surrounded the area with opaque barriers.
C was slightly startled, but he soon seemed to realize A-ri was not attacking him and remained calm.
“What is this?”
“I was worried there might be ominous eyes nearby.”
“...”
“I’ll be honest. Something is wrong with some of the staff at Headquarters.”
“...”
“I think quite a few employees have been bewitched or infected by unidentified Chaos Entities. I don’t know how far the Corruption has spread. What do you think?”
“Whew...”
C answered with a sigh.
“So Headquarters is in that state too. Senior, you’ve found traces of the Yith race.”
“... Tell me more.”
“They’re an alien species with abilities such as Possession, body theft, and remote control. Conflicts between the Yith race and the Management Bureau have continued for the past few years.”
“...”
“We’ve steadily defended against and weeded out the infiltrating enemy, but... it’s difficult. Because of that, Headquarters’ activities have been greatly reduced in recent years.”
“Then there don’t seem to be many problems maintaining public safety?”
“This is the interesting part. Employees infected by the Yith Kin still deal normally with Chaos Entity problems unrelated to the Yith Kin.”
“...”
“It may sound strange, but the other side’s attitude is like...”
“Let’s not make too big of a mess. Unnecessary civilian casualties are a hassle. If the Management Bureau meets our demands, we’ll withdraw quietly. Is that what it feels like?”
“... Wow. You’ve already sensed that much? Yes. It seems the other side doesn’t want to make a big issue of this.”
Listening from behind, I was impressed by A-ri’s skill with words.
She added details to the information we had obtained from the World After the End Times, and C was trusting her more and more completely.
Even I thought it would be strange to doubt A-ri at this point.
A-ri spoke in an even tone.
“C, can you contact someone higher up?”
“I can. Shall I contact a Forerunner?”
“... Please do.”
A-ri flinched for a moment at the word “Forerunner.”
Given the circumstances, perhaps the leadership of the Management Bureau in Room 301 was called the Forerunners.
They were called The Silent in reality, but the name could be different.
“Is there anything else you know?”
“... It’s information I only overheard.”
“That’s perfect. Tell me.”
C murmured with little confidence.
“About five hundred years ago, the Company discovered an unidentified ruin underground in what is now Gangwon Province.”
Gangwon Province.
It was the place mentioned in Eun-sol’s Telegram message.
“A ruin?”
“They say it was a ruin imbued with the tremendous power of Chaos. They also say it could accomplish miracles beyond imagination.”
“What kind of miracles?”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know that much...”
“Tell me what you do know.”
“It couldn’t be used when it was discovered. But strangely, thirty years ago? Thirty-five years ago? Around then, it became usable.”
“...”
“A very large Project related to the ruin began at that time.”
“What was it?”
C’s next words were unexpected.
Not because they were words I didn’t know, but because they were words I knew very well.
I simply hadn’t expected to hear them at this moment.
“Project: On the Origin of Species. Have you heard of it?”
Footnotes:
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