WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 93: Room 102, Curse Room - ‘House of Horror’ Re (6)
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* Third Attempt
- Han Ga-in
After hearing the advice, I quickly made a plan and split the party in two.
First was the “suicide squad,” which would charge the demon with Father Jin-cheol at its center.
It consisted of Father Jin-cheol, the star’s owner, Song-i, who would protect Jin-cheol’s mind, and me, since I could resist possession as well.
I carried the gun and the Bell.
The second was the “escape squad,” which would get in a car and flee as far away as possible since they couldn’t contribute much to the fight.
The enemy wasn’t human, and getting close was dangerous if you couldn’t resist possession.
So Sister Elena and the Cardinal would escape.
Just before we went our separate ways, Sister Elena spoke with tears in her eyes.
“Everyone... I’m sorry. I’ll see you outside.”
Father Jin-cheol replied as though to comfort her.
“It’s all right. We’ll see each other outside.”
The moment we decided to charge the demon, everyone in the suicide squad had already made their peace with it.
There was no chance of survival. We were all going to die.
* * *
- Cha Jin-cheol
Huff. Huff.
I took deep breaths as I walked toward the mansion.
Had I ever gone out to fight an opponent this powerful?
Back when I dreamed of making it as a fighter outside the hotel, the other fighters I could never defeat come to mind.
At one time, they’d felt like lifelong rivals. After my passion cooled, they became walls I could never overcome.
Yet now that I thought about it again, they had only been human.
They were nothing more than humans the demon I was about to fight could kill with a flick of its finger.
It felt like I’d moved into a much bigger league.
I’d never told my companions because it would make me sound insane, but ever since entering the hotel, I’d often felt an inexplicable sense of accomplishment.
This feeling of becoming something extraordinary!
Why had I once been so obsessed with fighting mere humans?
Relax.
I’d received blessings that transcended humanity, along with a treasure capable of facing a Demon King.
As I drew closer to the mansion, I saw a world that had become literal hell.
The people nearby had died in ways too brutal to put into words.
I couldn’t bear to look any longer and turned away, but Ga-in went closer to inspect them. He said it looked as though sharp tentacles had burst from the ground.
There might have been information to learn from the corpses, but he really did have a strong stomach.
---Thud! ---Thud!
As we neared the mansion, I saw an unbelievably huge Cocoon. A sound so immense that its vibrations shook the earth came from within it.
“... What the hell is that?”
“Father, to my eyes, it...”
“Hey! Hey! Let’s stop keeping up the act. There’s no one left to watch us.”
“You’re right. To me, it looks like an enormous lump of flesh.”
“The demon hasn’t come out yet? Do we just have to destroy that lump of flesh?”
Before I’d even finished speaking, black tentacles burst from the ground.
I didn’t have time to react. The tentacles wrapped around my body and began to tighten, and I strained against them with all my strength.
A strange voice, as though tickling my ears, spoke.
“Are you really human? Not even a bear should be this strong... Still, it’s useless.”
A creature that looked like Gollum from The Lord of the Rings appeared from somewhere and casually summoned dozens more tentacles with a gesture.
“You fucking bastard!”
---Bang!
A harsh clang rang out.
The rough metallic sound was anything but clear, but the tentacles instantly went limp like withered squid.
The Gollum-like creature’s eyes widened, and it hurriedly began to run.
Too late, asshole!
Boom!
With an explosive blast, I closed the distance in an instant and lunged at it.
“What the hell is that Bell...!”
“It’s a saint’s Bell, you piece of shit! You’re dead now!”
The instant my arm touched its shoulder, it was crushed completely.
Its piercing scream stabbed into my ears. Now, all it would take was one punch to smash its head...
“That body! How very desirable!”
Its eyes suddenly turned blood-red, and my consciousness instantly...
Nothing happened.
“What are you doing, asshole? I’m not an idiot. Your possession wouldn’t work on me.”
Of course, I hadn’t done anything. Song-i must have done something.
Ga-in, who had been ringing the Bell like crazy, came up behind me.
I didn’t know why, but it seemed the Gollum creature couldn’t use much power while the Bell was ringing.
That was all well and good, but the Bell really sounded awful.
There probably wasn’t anything else to learn. Even if there was, we had no time to drag this out.
A pulse that seemed to shake heaven and earth had been coming from the Cocoon across from us.
“Just die already.”
Right before I blew its head apart, it let out a hollow laugh and left its final words.
“It’s useless. Soon, God will descend upon this land. Then a new age shall begin.”
---Smash!
“I didn’t expect to kill it so easily.”
Ga-in spoke up.
“The Bell definitely works. It seems it can’t possess anyone while the Bell is ringing.”
“Wasn’t Song-i the one who blocked the possession?”
Song-i answered.
“Jin-cheol moved too quickly, so I couldn’t target him. That could have been a disaster.”
“Huh. I almost screwed up again. Still, finding out what the Bell can do is a huge gain.”
“There’s no resolution notification even after we killed the Adversary.”
Ga-in sighed at Song-i’s question.
“It must mean we’re already too late. Killing the Adversary after the demon is born would be pointless, wouldn’t it?”
I thought the same.
Once that demon Cocoon had been summoned, the Gollum creature had already fulfilled its role.
We had to do something about that Cocoon.
---Thud! ---Thud!
The enormous Cocoon had appeared where the mansion once stood, destroying the mansion as it emerged. Its sheer size was enough to overwhelm anyone. It was nearly as large as a building.
... It was time to use the star.
Song-i’s bracelet flashed as she approached.
“Everyone, stand back.”
At my words, Song-i and Ga-in moved far away.
I summoned the Otherworldly Star.
---Fwaaaash!
Overwhelming waves of energy burst from the star.
I’d practiced several times at the Safari, but I could never suppress the fear I felt whenever I used it.
Otherworldly power that twisted the world. Authority that scorned all creation, living and nonliving alike.
The moment the star’s waves touched the Cocoon, something strange began.
---Goooooo!
A cry filled with rage burst from the Cocoon. Huge hands rose from the Cocoon the unborn god had formed to complete itself.
---Boom!
I dodged the hands as they shot out to grab me, then dodged again.
The hands stretched farther and farther. At last, one hand seized my entire body!
I shoved the star straight into it, and the hand melted away, turning into bizarre minerals and liquid.
---Aaaaargh!
A scream burst from the Cocoon.
Before my eyes, the Cocoon split vertically.
A moth as large as a mountain sprang from within it.
... That was the last thing I remembered.
* * *
- Han Ga-in
I ran and ran.
When the scream came from the Cocoon and the hands that had risen to kill Jin-cheol melted under the star’s power, I thought the star might actually finish it off.
I’d never seen anything like that in my life, not even in a movie.
The Cocoon, larger than a building, split vertically, and a moth as huge as a mountain burst out. The Cocoon itself looked small beside it!
Jin-cheol vanished in an instant. He must have died the moment the moth emerged.
The moment I saw that colossal body, like a moving mountain, I knew.
The world was over the moment something like that was born. No weapon could possibly work against it.
When a moth flies, dust falls from its wings.
The mountain-sized moth flapped its wings once, and pale powder fell over the entire world.
Ah...
To us, this sight was a scene from hell. To someone else, it must have been the beginning of a new world.
Incomprehensible life forms were born from every grain of powder.
With a single flap of the moth’s wings, thousands of lives were born, and the whole world filled with vitality.
Creatures I had never seen before were born everywhere, and everything from the air to the earth began to change completely.
Only then did I understand why that being was a god rather than a demon.
The one problem was that it wasn’t a god of humans.
... Could I have avoided the powder that covered the entire world?
The powder covering my body began to change me into something else.
Was this the end?
I stared blankly at the moth, then noticed something.
Its wing. One of its wings looked strange.
---Beeeeep! Boom!!!
The moth that had been creating a new world suddenly staggered in midair, then crashed to the ground.
It examined its twisted wing for a while before finally tearing it off.
... That was my last memory.
* * *
- Lee Eun-sol
What a sight.
I’d been born into a chaebol family, eaten plenty of good food, and seen plenty of fascinating things. I thought I’d lived a pretty good life.
Only after entering the hotel did I realize how little I’d known.
There was a world like this.
While my companions ran around the village and the mountain behind it, talking about destroying the evil god’s Altar or whatever, I’d been drinking tea with Lee Se-hyeon.
Then I saw all this.
The mansion suddenly collapsed, and a Cocoon as large as a building appeared.
The Cocoon split open, and a moth as large as a mountain sprang out.
When the moth began flying around the world, it was like an Otherworldly version of the creation of heaven and earth.
Wow! Amazing!
By that point, it felt so unreal that I couldn’t even think about being afraid.
Then the moth fell from the sky.
What was it doing? The moth suddenly began inspecting one of its wings closely.
As I watched along with it, I finally noticed that one wing looked strange.
Its color was bizarre, and strange tentacle-like things were growing all over it.
I could see them even from this distance, so each tentacle might actually have been as large as a building.
After pondering for a while, the mountain-sized moth tore off its defective wing.
Then it began making another Cocoon.
...
This was an escape.
Whatever my companions had done, it seemed they had stopped the moth from forming normally inside the Cocoon.
That was why the moth realized part of its body was defective and would return to the Cocoon to remake itself. It seemed we had escaped the current danger.
At this rate, the moth would soon enter the Cocoon, and an escape notification would appear.
Before that, I had something to do too.
“So, Brother. Do you really have nothing to tell me?”
Lee Se-hyeon, who had been blankly watching all this unfold from the sky, turned his head toward me.
“What? What did you say?”
“I’ve experienced a lot of strange things today. That moth is the strangest of all, of course, but what happened before that was strange too, wasn’t it?”
The mansion shook, and Brother suddenly grabbed me and did something.
When I came to, Brother and I were looking down at the world from inside the belly of a strange flying creature.
“I did it to save you!”
“I know that. You did it because you wanted to protect me.”
“And knowing that, you brought exorcists here? Did you think I wouldn’t know?”
So he had known after all.
It was all right. We could talk this through slowly. From everything I’d seen so far, Lee Se-hyeon wasn’t an evil man.
“I’ve seen suspicious things at the mansion more than once or twice. Even what’s happening now is unbelievably bizarre.
“Are you still planning to hide it from me? Or are you planning to silence me?”
“What... What are you talking about? Silence you? I... I don’t understand!
“I’m telling you, I don’t know what happened either! I never imagined a ridiculous monster like that would appear.”
I observed him calmly.
Guilt, plain as day. This man knew something.
He knew something, but not everything. He clearly had never imagined the entire world would be destroyed like this.
“Si-woo... Where is Si-woo? What the hell is happening?”
I needed to stop him here. This man was on the verge of completely breaking down.
I walked over and took Lee Se-hyeon’s hand.
“Brother. Please calm down. It’s not over yet.”
“Hehehe... Eun-sol. Get a hold of yourself. Look outside! Everything is ruined now! Si-woo must be dead too... Ah! God!”
“Brother. It was a secret we intended to keep until the very end, but the Holy See can turn back time.”
Lee Se-hyeon, who had been sitting there in a daze, slowly raised his head.
“What did you say?”
“The Holy See can turn back time. So tell me. You know something, don’t you?”
On the first day we entered Room 102, we investigated Lee Se-hyeon as best we could and concluded that he knew nothing.
That had been a mistake.
He clearly knew nothing about the Grimoire or the disappearances, but he wasn’t completely ignorant of this room’s secret!
Still dazed as he listened to me, Lee Se-hyeon studied my expression.
Even as he looked at the collapsing world, he could plainly sense that I still had hope.
Only then did Lee Se-hyeon open his mouth.
Footnotes:
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