Escaping the Mystery Hotel - Chapter 69

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 68: Room 101, Curse Room - ‘Common Sense-Altering Media’ (2)

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* * *

Third Attempt

* * *

[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)

Date: Day 22

Current Location: Level 1, Room 101 (Curse Room - Common Sense-Altering Media)

Sage’s Advice: 3]

The second precaution I was about to ‘break.’

2. Do not look behind you on the basement stairs.

I started down the stairs from Basement Level 2 to Basement Level 3, where the storage room was.

---Clack... Screeeech.

---Clack. Clack.

---Screeeech.

...

Hearing it a second time, I was certain.

Something was following me. Every time I took one or two steps, it followed behind me.

If I went out into the corridor and turned around, there probably wouldn't be anything there again.

Before that, I had to turn around on the stairs.

I stopped, took a deep breath, and was about to turn around when a notification appeared.

[If you turn around, you will be attacked.]

...

It was the first Sage’s Advice I had seen since entering Room 101 again.

...

Why?

Why did it only give advice ‘like this’?

If it was advice from a ‘sage,’ it could tell me a wiser way to deal with things.

I remembered the first time it had appeared.

A man-eating monkey had attacked me. Terrified, I prayed while searching only for a way to survive.

The advice had told me ‘how to survive.’

After that, it had always told me what to do whenever my life was in danger.

...

Advice for survival. It wasn't bad. It had saved my life several times.

But sometimes, in the hotel, there were moments when you had to ‘die to find something out.’

So...

“Give me better advice.”

Not advice that would simply keep me alive right now, but truly ‘wise advice.’

‘Tell me what I need to do to obtain information.’

---Flash!

A second piece of advice appeared.

[The instant you turn around, lower your head, shoot the opponent’s legs, and check the name written on their hat.]

...

Since entering the hotel, this was the second time, after learning how to use the Filter, that I had an epiphany about ‘how to use the advice.’

---Ping!

The moment I turned around, I ducked and aimed my pistol downward.

Something sliced through the air, and a sharp blade passed through the spot where my head had been.

---Bang! ---Bang!

Without time to check anything, I frantically fired at its ‘legs.’ I was terrible with a pistol, but it was so close that hitting it was easy.

The moment it collapsed, I saw its shape and my breath caught.

Its entire body was wrapped in bandages, and it looked over two meters tall. What I had thought was a blade was actually a fingernail more than thirty centimeters long.

That was the source of the screeching sound that had followed behind me.

The monster's feet looked as though shoes with blades attached, like skates, had been fused directly to them.

The most horrifying thing about this dreadful form was that the monster had a somewhat ‘feminine’ figure. It had curves where they should be and dips where they should be. More than half its clothes were torn away and covered with bandages, but if I had to say, it looked like it wore a nurse's uniform.

Its vague resemblance to a human made it even more horrible.

---Bang! ---Bang!

I fired repeatedly into the twitching monster's head. Only then did it stop moving.

It said to check the name written on its hat, right?

‘New World Hospital.’

Was that what I needed to remember?

There might be multiple hospitals with the same name. There was also an emblem beside the hospital's name. It looked like some kind of cloud. Only after memorizing its rough shape did I step back.

...

Something I hadn't noticed while firing and fighting in a panic.

The space around the stairs had ‘changed.’

It was clearly different from the broadcasting station.

With ‘me’ as the boundary, there was a strange space behind me. In front of me were the clean stairs of the broadcasting station.

The car earlier. The stairs this time.

Was this broadcasting station overlapping with some ‘unknown place’?

The clue I had found on the stairs. A nurse-shaped monster and the words ‘New World Hospital.’ The former only told me what the monster looked like, but the latter was undoubtedly a keyword connected to the Source of the Curse.

Should I look it up? Search the hospital's name online?

...

It was difficult. It was hard to go home now, and I couldn't easily use the computers on the upper floors of the broadcasting station either. For now, I should check all the ‘precautions.’

I checked the third precaution.

3. When looking for something in the basement storage room, do not turn on the lights. Use a flashlight.

I headed for my final destination, the basement storage room.

* * *

The basement storage room I had examined with my flashlight earlier didn't look much different from what you'd expect in the basement of an ordinary office building. It was full of printer supplies, stacks of A4 paper, spare chairs, desks, and the like.

Then what would happen if I turned on the lights?

I checked my Status Window in front of the storage room.

[Sage’s Advice: 1]

Once for telling me I would be attacked if I turned around.

Once for telling me how to subdue the monster the moment I turned around, and what information I needed to obtain.

I had one left.

The ‘way to use advice’ I had realized earlier.

If I strongly wished for ‘information I wanted,’ wouldn't it tell me something again?

...

It didn't seem possible right now.

Earlier, I at least had the basic information that some unknown thing making metallic sounds behind me was targeting me. This time, I had no idea what would happen if I turned on the lights, so I didn't even know what information to ask for.

I steeled myself and gripped my gun.

Then I turned on the lights.

The space changed.

* * *

“Ugh... Ughhh...”

“Aaahhh! Aaaah!”

...

An unbearably cruel sight spread before me.

If this had been me when I first entered the hotel, wouldn't I have collapsed screaming?

Instead, my mind became clearer.

About eight beds.

No, ‘torture racks’ would be a more fitting term than beds.

Eight people tied to them.

Their forms looked as though some higher-dimensional artist had sculpted human bodies.

Someone's arms and legs were fused together. Someone's head was attached to their stomach. Someone's tongue had been pulled out.

Endless screams leaked from two mouths. Those ‘mouths’ weren't necessarily on faces.

The reason the others couldn't even scream was simply because their mouths and vocal cords had been separated.

...

It was too unreal.

How could a human being remain alive in ‘such a form’?

People weren't clay.

As I moved closer to inspect them, one of the groaning men, or women, turned an eye toward me.

... The eye was attached to a hand, but it was looking in my direction nonetheless.

A stab of pain shot through my stomach.

“Who... are... you? Not... a... nurse...”

“I’m an agent of the Management Bureau. If you can speak, could you tell me anything?”

“Please... kill me...”

That was the second request to be killed today.

Looking at their horrible condition, I was willing to kill them even without being asked, but...

How was I supposed to kill them?

They were still alive despite their bodies being twisted like clay. Some supernatural power was clearly preventing them from dying, so how could I kill them? Would blowing off their heads with a gun kill them?

Their bodies were so badly ‘mixed together’ that I couldn't even tell where their heads were.

The ‘being’ speaking with me looked at me with an eye attached to a hand-like lump of flesh, while talking through a mouth attached to its stomach. It was impressive that I could even hold a conversation under these circumstances.

Still, I made a promise first.

“I’ll make sure you die. Is there anything you can tell me?”

“...”

“Ghhhk!”

“Cough! Aaah!”

Had that conversation scraped together the last scraps of their sanity? After two or three seconds of talking, they went back to groaning.

I had no choice but to inspect the room myself.

Their bodies were too severely distorted to identify them, let alone tell their gender.

Even so, traces of the clothes they had been wearing remained.

Was this... a school uniform?

It definitely was. I could see remnants of familiar white shirts and blouses.

These days, most students only wore casual uniforms. Even if they bought formal uniforms like these, they wouldn't wear them except on special occasions. Judging by the clothing sizes, they were high school uniforms.

If they were school uniforms, there had to be name tags.

I searched through the uniforms amid the writhing lumps of flesh, looking for a name tag.

It struck me again that once I got out of this hotel, I should ‘never’ become an agent.

If I became one, wouldn't I be doing things like this for the rest of my life?

A sharp pain tore through my stomach again.

Was I hurt somewhere? I held back, afraid I would lose my nerve if I looked at the wound.

I barely found one.

“Lee Hyuk? Of all things, the third, final syllable has been torn off...”

“My name is Lee Hyuk-jin.”

...

The speech was far more composed than that of the student I had spoken to earlier. It came from another direction.

When I looked up, the separated eyes and mouths of another wildly mixed human shape were turned toward me.

“Lee Hyuk-jin?”

“Yes.”

“Can you keep talking?”

“I keep waking up and falling asleep. I can do it for a little while. Hyung, you need to get out quickly too. The nurse will be here soon.”

“Where is this? Who are you? What happened to you? Who did this? Tell me everything you know.”

“I don't know either. Sang-min suddenly turned into a monster and locked us in here. After that, the ‘nurse’ came every day and made us like this.”

“Sang-min? Who's that?”

“... Kim Sang-min. School... Grrrkkk...”

It seemed like he was trying to say something, but he suddenly closed his mouth and began making a grotesque sound. Had he fallen asleep again?

These kids didn't know where this place was either. Still, I had a guess.

The ‘nurse’ they had been talking about. The basement stairs. The monster that had appeared behind me and that I had shot dead did resemble a nurse.

The name written on the nurse's hat. ‘New World Hospital.’

Was that this place?

Why did the broadcasting station connect to a hospital? It was hard to understand.

And these kids.

No matter how I looked at it, the goal was to inflict endless pain while keeping them from dying.

Only the one student who periodically ‘fell asleep’ had managed to retain a sliver of sanity. The rest had long become lumps of flesh that had completely lost their minds.

---Crash!

An unbearable pain struck my stomach, and I collapsed where I stood.

What was this? Had I ever injured my stomach this badly?

Calm down. I should organize what I had learned.

...

It wasn't as though I had found nothing.

New World Hospital, mentally disturbed people bound to beds, high school students turned into monsters. Lee Hyuk-jin. Kim Sang-min.

At the very least, I had found search terms to look up online on the ‘next attempt.’

Could I find out anything more?

Then I began to hear sounds.

---Screeeech! ---Screeeech! ---Screeeech!

Metallic sounds came from all directions.