Escaping the Mystery Hotel - Chapter 84

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 83: Party Time (5) - Checking the Souvenir’s Function, Entering the Safari of All Eras

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[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)

Date: Day 25

Current Location: Level 1, Corridor

Sage’s Advice: 2]

After Hiking, I was starving.

Once we'd eaten dinner, we started testing our newly acquired items.

The pen I got, the badge Eun-sol got, and the glove Grandfather got.

Eun-sol's badge had the clearest function.

“Ah! E-Eun-sol disappeared!”

“Hmm. I can feel something when I touch her, so she hasn't physically disappeared?”

“Grandfather. Do you know where you're touching right now?”

“Ahem! It wasn't intentional.”

Grandfather hurriedly stepped back.

The badge's ability was none other than invisibility.

Was it meant to embody the power that kept the hotel immaculate without ever being seen?

Eun-sol flickered for a moment when she put on the badge, and after checking several times, we figured out the exact condition.

As long as she wore the badge and held her breath, Eun-sol became invisible.

It was obviously an incredibly useful item, so everyone was impressed.

Grandfather's glove had a rather shocking ability.

“...”

“Doesn't it hurt?”

“By my standards, I don't feel anything.”

The moment Grandfather put on the glove, only his hand floated into the air.

Where his hand should have been, only a faint glow lingered. The glove and hand drifted through the air.

When we grabbed the floating hand and pulled off the glove, it immediately vanished, and Grandfather's hand returned to its original place.

“It seems to be a kind of Remote Hand.”

“This is difficult to control.”

According to him, it felt as though his arm had become several times longer, but I couldn't really understand it.

“Can I do this too?”

Grandfather picked up a gun with the Remote Hand!

That was really useful, wasn't it? He could aim from behind an obstacle that way.

---Bang!

...No matter how I looked at it, the bullet had flown somewhere completely off target.

“Goodness! It's hard to aim when I'm firing a gun too. I suppose I'll need a lot more practice.”

Finally, my pen's function was strange.

‘Anywhere-Writing Pen’

If I thought, ‘Write in the air!’ and moved it through the air, words actually appeared in midair. If I thought, ‘Erase!’ and pressed the button on the back of the pen, they disappeared.

It wrote in the air, on bodies, on paper, and even on water. But when the water flowed away, the writing flowed away with it and vanished.

...What was I supposed to use this for?

The two people who didn't get items looked at us with great envy, but even as the person who got it, I had no idea how to use this pen.

The key to applying it seemed to be the part about writing anywhere. Perhaps its true function would come out when I wrote on something an ordinary writing tool couldn't write on?

No practical use came to mind.

All three of us would probably need practice to use our items.

Eun-sol would have to practice holding her breath for a long time, and Grandfather would need to keep practicing with the Remote Hand until he could use a gun properly.

Should I practice writing quickly or something?

No matter how I looked at it, my item seemed to be the strangest.

As I diligently wrote in the air by myself, Eun-sol noticed another characteristic.

“It feels like the writing appears at a distance.”

“Huh?”

“Normally, writing comes out from the pen tip, right? But maybe because your pen doesn't actually produce ink?

“It doesn't seem like real writing either. The letters appear a fair distance away from the pen tip.”

We checked it ourselves. There really was a small gap between the pen tip and where the writing actually appeared.

When I focused on it, I could write even farther away. The range was about one meter from the pen.

...

I could write anywhere from a distance. One offensive use came to mind.

This was a more useful item than I expected.

All the items had one thing in common.

No one other than the owner could use their special functions. If someone else held them, my pen was an ordinary pen, Grandfather's glove was just a glove, and Eun-sol's badge was just a badge.

Only when used by their owners were they the Anywhere-Writing Pen, the Remote Hand, and the Invisibility Badge.

After visiting the Sanctuary of Blessings in the morning, going Hiking in the evening, and checking the items' functions at night, sleepiness washed over me.

The first day of Party Time had passed.

* * *

On the morning of the second day, everyone was suffering from muscle pain and ended up doing nothing.

Since everyone blamed Grandfather whenever they passed by, he eventually stopped leaving his room...

Around lunchtime, the people who had enhanced their blessings yesterday woke up one by one.

As soon as we gathered, we talked about what had changed in their blessings and what items we had received while they were asleep.

“So Elena can detect lies, Jin-cheol gained Regeneration, and A-ri's Suggestion became somewhat stronger?”

“Yes.”

“That's right.”

“Mm-hm.”

“Can Elena detect lies constantly?”

“Not constantly. Wouldn't it be exhausting if I could detect them all the time in daily life? It seems I can do it for about ten minutes a day.”

“We aren't going to a Curse Room today anyway, so let's test it.”

As soon as those words were spoken, Elena's eyes turned golden.

Everyone looked at Elena with fascinated expressions.

I went first.

“I'm two meters tall.”

Elena snickered.

Jin-cheol continued.

“I weigh two hundred kilograms.”

This time, Elena tilted her head slightly.

“What does it feel like? Does lightning strike the moment someone lies?”

“I noticed something while talking to you two. Look at this.”

Elena lightly gripped the table with one hand.

...The corner of the table crumpled.

“It seems that when I hear a lie, I don't just recognize it. I gain a kind of ‘punishing power.’

“It isn't like when I formally begin an ‘Execution,’ where power rises in me like an active volcano. It just feels like I've gained enough strength to throw one or two hard punches.

“Would you like to take a hit, Jin-cheol? We could test Regeneration too.”

“...No.”

After seeing the table break, he couldn't bring himself to take a hit.

It was a scarier power than I expected.

After we messed around like that for about ten minutes, the light faded from Elena's eyes.

“Shouldn't we test your Regeneration too? Like cutting off a finger?”

“You really never hold back, do you? Is Regeneration even an ability that needs to be tested?”

It was difficult to test Jin-cheol's and A-ri's abilities.

Jin-cheol refused to have a finger cut off to test Regeneration, and no one wanted to be subjected to Suggestion just to test how much stronger it had become.

Once we had demonstrated our new powers and items to one another, we decided on our next activity.

The hotel's top-priority recommendation.

The Safari of All Ages, for practicing Inheritances!

* * *

The afternoon of the second day of Party Time.

Today's first activity was going to the underground Safari of All Ages.

What could it possibly be?

The name alone didn't give me much of an idea.

I also couldn't understand why a safari was supposedly a suitable place to learn how to use an Inheritance.

We discussed it, but it seemed we'd only know once we went there ourselves.

For the first time in a while, Mook-seong took the lead.

“Let's go to the safari! Will we get an answer by standing around here talking? We'll know when we get there. If it's suitable for ‘training,’ I don't think it'll be dangerous.”

Was that really true?

This was a place that called itself Hotel Land of Hope, then started by running people over and killing them with monster trucks.

Every time I went underground, I had the same thought. How many rooms were down there?

An endless corridor. Endless rooms.

According to Grandfather, who had carefully examined the layout, the underground structure seemed to change every time.

Today was no different.

When we went underground looking for the safari, a room with SAFARI written on it in huge letters was waiting right near the stairs, as though it had been expecting us.

I was sure there had been a different room in this spot when we went Hiking yesterday...

I stopped thinking about it.

When we entered the Safari of All Ages, a vast space like an amusement park appeared.

At the entrance stood a huge machine resembling a kiosk.

“How do we use this?”

“It looks like we get tickets from it.”

I read the explanation on the display.

1. The Safari is only open during Party Time.

2. The Safari contains animals from ‘all eras.’

3. The era is chosen at random each time you enter.

4. You may leave at any time. If you die inside, you will revive outside.

...

If you die inside? It was a brutal phrase, but it seemed normal by the hotel's standards. More than that, I found myself relieved by the words, ‘You will revive outside.’

“It's funny to complain about it now, but this hotel is full of ways to kill us wherever we go. Even the safari casually explains what happens if you die.”

“Well, at least it revives us.”

“Boar! Have you even tried taking out that Star Fragment?”

“After getting it, I vaguely understood how to ‘summon’ it, but I've never actually done it. How could I take it out when everything around us would be thrown into chaos?”

“Then we'll have to try it here. Song-i!”

Song-i naturally made her bracelet glow and approached Jin-cheol.

“I'll use the bracelet on you.”

After everyone touched the display and received something like an entrance ticket, we headed toward the entrance.

Tension hung in the air.

Unlike a Curse Room, it seemed that dying would only send us outside. Why was I still so nervous?

‘Safari of All Ages.’

What was the truth behind that strange name?

We entered.

* * *

- Han Ga-in

/Choose an era.