WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 96: Room 102, Curse Room - ‘House of Horror’ Re (9)
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* Fourth Attempt
- Han Ga-in
---
Kreeeeek!
The monsters’ shrieks rang out from all directions.
The fourth attempt, and if we failed here, there would be fatal penalties from the next attempt onward!
No, penalties weren’t even the problem anymore. The question was whether we could escape at all.
Strange phenomena began occurring throughout the mansion.
Just like during the first attempt!
Birds with sharp teeth burst out of the cuckoo clock.
Monsters that looked like us emerged from the mirrors, holding knives.
The statues decorating the mansion began moving as though they had come alive.
In the chaos, Grandfather Mook-seong shouted.
“Gather up, now! The area around the Bell is the safest place!”
The entire mansion team ran frantically and gathered near the crystallized Si-woo on the first floor.
Seung-yeop, who had received the Bell, began ringing it wildly.
As expected of the Bell of Saint George!
I had no idea what kind of person Saint George was in this world, but he had to be someone incredible.
The dull, harsh ringing swept over us like a majestic tide. Even the monsters that had emerged throughout the mansion couldn’t cross into the Bell’s range.
Would holding out like this even accomplish anything?
“What do we do? Is there any point in just holding out here?”
“How would I know? Let’s hold on and wait for this damn crystal to disappear.”
Did we just need to endure until the crystal disappeared? Then, if we killed Si-woo, would a resolution or escape prompt appear?
Bang!
A table near us shattered with a gunshot.
Why shoot the table all of a sudden? The moment I looked at Grandfather in confusion, I realized.
Grandfather wasn’t the one who had fired. A rough shout rang out.
“Who the hell is that? Come out!”
“It’s the owner of this house, you sons of bitches!”
Lee Se-hyeon’s voice was filled with rage.
Ah, that lunatic had done something.
How the hell had he gotten a gun in South Korea?
“You! How did you get in here...?”
“Ha! Cardinal, all your subordinates already burned to death in the basement, so don’t expect any help from them.”
After that, Lee Se-hyeon began firing wildly at us from behind the monsters surrounding us.
The Bell’s power, which had kept the monsters from approaching, meant nothing against bullets.
There was no way out of this.
Fortunately, Lee Se-hyeon was a terrible shot, and we desperately dragged furniture over to use as cover.
“Grandfather! Can’t you snipe that bastard?”
“Hey! If I could hit him through all these monsters, I’d be the god of marksmanship! I can’t get a good angle either.”
“No, the hand! Use the glove to move the gun closer to him!”
Only then did Grandfather seem to understand. He focused for a moment.
The hand holding the pistol floated into the air and moved into an easy position to aim at Lee Se-hyeon.
Perhaps because Lee Se-hyeon was too busy shooting at us, he seemed not to notice that the pistol had floated into the air.
Bang!
“W-What the hell? Get rid of that hand!”
Damn it!
The bullet missed, and Lee Se-hyeon noticed the floating pistol and ordered the monsters to attack it.
In the end, we only lost the gun and the glove.
“Ah! How could you miss that?”
“Hey... Didn’t I tell you it was hard to fire a gun with the Remote Hand...? We’re really screwed now.”
That was when Eun-sol made her move.
She suddenly darted away from us as though she had gone mad and approached the monsters.
The instant the monsters were about to kill her...
“Stop!”
Lee Se-hyeon shouted.
Eun-sol began acting with all her might.
“Will you at least spare me because I’m your sister?”
“Did you think I ever wanted to kill you? But you need to explain yourself too!”
“Do you mean bringing exorcists into the mansion? If you hadn’t started hiding everything from me and doing strange things, would I have sought help from outside?”
“Even so, you brought people who wanted to kill your nephew!”
“I didn’t know people from the Holy See would be such lunatics either. I never imagined they would try to kill an innocent child without a second thought... Do you really think I wanted to kill Si-woo?”
“...”
“I practically raised Si-woo myself.”
“That’s right. Yoo-jin, that bitch, couldn’t be a mother, so you took her place.”
A sentimental mood suddenly filled the mansion.
We had suddenly become mad people from the Holy See trying to kill an innocent child, and could only crouch silently behind the table.
Wow. Eun-sol’s acting was insane!
She hadn’t even known the kid called Si-woo for three days, but the look on her face made it seem as though she had spent ten years raising a child abandoned by his mother.
Even Lee Se-hyeon fell for that expression.
In the end, he hung his head and had a touching reconciliation with his sister.
He allowed Eun-sol to cross through the monsters and come to him.
The moment she passed the monsters, Eun-sol disappeared.
“Huh? No, what the...?!”
Stab!
A sharp knife, somehow obtained, plunged into Lee Se-hyeon’s chest!
The monsters around him immediately dragged Eun-sol away, but the blade had already pierced a vital spot.
“Sorry.”
“Y-You...!”
“I’ll take good care of Si-woo. At least until I kill him.”
Eun-sol?
Did you really need to say that much?
Weren’t you getting a little too into playing the villain?
Lee Se-hyeon staggered and shouted.
“Attack them! Even if you all die, destroy the Bell!”
At his command, all the monsters charged!
The moment they forced their way into the Bell’s range, their bodies began melting and burning away.
Even so, they no longer retreated.
They rushed forward, ready to die, just to destroy the Bell!
Bang! Bang!
Pistol shots rang out one after another, but these weren’t enemies we could handle with a gun anymore.
The monsters were clearly not human.
By Elena’s sense of justice, Lee Se-hyeon probably wouldn’t count as an evil person either.
... Honestly, judging by how things had gone so far, we were the ones who seemed a little evil.
As a result, Elena had become completely ordinary.
None of us here had any supernatural combat ability.
Crash!
A giant on the right charged at us, half its body melting away.
It knew it would die from the Bell, but it seemed determined to bury us beneath its own corpse!
As we scattered to avoid its collapsing body...
Thud!
Something the size of a massive hammer struck Elena.
Before Seung-yeop, still ringing the Bell, could even react, another bandaged monster fell on top of him.
The monster burned to death in an instant as the price of forcing its way near the Bell, but its charred remains covered Seung-yeop.
“Aaagh!”
Unable to endure the pain, Seung-yeop rolled across the floor and dropped the Bell.
That! If we didn’t pick that up somehow...
Crunch!
...
A huge statue came alive and stomped on the Bell.
Laughter echoed through the room.
“Ahaha! As expected. Well done, my faithful servant, Se-hyeon.”
Instinctively, I covered myself with the Filter, took out the pen, and looked at the crystal.
The moment the awakened Si-woo’s eyes turned red, I scribbled over them with the pen!
“Hmm? You have a few little tricks. It won’t matter, though. There are plenty of people.”
Despite saying it wouldn’t matter, the Apostle didn’t try to possess me.
Chains rose from the floor and bound me.
As the Apostle said, there were plenty of people.
Grandfather Mook-seong suddenly clutched his head and collapsed. Then his expression changed.
Ah, blocking its vision with the pen was no use. Was the Bell the only thing that could stop possession?
Grandfather wore an eerie expression he would never have made normally and walked past the monsters toward Lee Se-hyeon.
“Apostle! I, Lee Se-hyeon, saved you.”
“Of course. I know.”
“Si-woo! Is the child all right?”
“Si-woo? Ah, do you mean your son?”
“Yes.”
The Apostle who had taken Grandfather’s body looked toward the crystal with a strange expression.
The crystal slowly began to melt.
...
Si-woo’s body inside it melted as well.
“N-No! What is this?!”
“Understand. That technique has a very solid defense, but it’s difficult for the body inside to emerge unharmed. Only someone like me, who can change bodies, can come out.”
“What do you mean? Si-woo, Si-woo...!”
“Hmm. You’ve done enough too.”
“What? What do you...?”
Crunch!
The Apostle waved a hand as though it were nothing.
The chains rising from the floor crushed Lee Se-hyeon in an instant.
...
It was amazing that I was still alive.
Since things had gotten this bad, I had been considering using Descent if necessary.
I had planned to wait until the last moment and use it if my life was in danger, but Sage’s Advice hadn’t activated even once.
Just like how the Apostle hadn’t possessed me earlier, it seemed the Apostle had no intention of killing me right away.
As though answering my question, the Apostle looked at me.
“You should wait a little. Souls of such high rank as yours are truly rare.
“The child named A-ri whom I met in the village was truly remarkable.
“One soul like that child’s would be worth more than a thousand humans!
“Unfortunately, I couldn’t offer that child.
“You fall far short of that child, but I should at least offer you properly.”
I roughly understood what that meant. From the Apostle’s perspective, the fierce fighting had prevented it from properly offering many valuable sacrifices, and a considerable number had simply died.
Now it intended to properly offer me, who seemed valuable among the remaining sacrifices, to its god and proceed with the Ritual for the Evil God’s Birth.
And that was my chance.
I had Descent.
Just as I was calmly making my plan...
An enormous sound, like a bomb exploding, rang out!
Crash!!!
The mansion doors literally exploded outward, and a hulking man flew in like an arrow.
The relatively intact monsters outside the Bell’s range charged at him.
Whoosh!
Like something out of a cartoon, the man threw the monsters aside with pure strength as he approached.
No, at this point, who was the monster?
Even the Apostle, watching that insane sight, couldn’t hide its surprise.
“Who the hell is that? Did the Holy See summon Hercules or something?”
Chains stretched out from all directions and closed in on Jin-cheol.
He grabbed the chains, tore them apart with brute force, and charged at the Apostle.
...
Curious, I tried grabbing the chains binding my body and moving them too.
They didn’t move even one millimeter.
Jin-cheol’s strength really seemed to have reached the level of Hercules.
The fight didn’t last long.
For some reason, the Apostle seemed unable to take Jin-cheol’s body either.
There was no way to stop him with strength, and it couldn’t take his body, so the outcome was obvious.
Like Xiang Yu, Jin-cheol tore through the monsters and ripped apart the chains as he charged forward. Then his fist crushed the Apostle’s torso.
Was it over?
Damn it, it still wasn’t over.
After stabbing Lee Se-hyeon, Eun-sol had been bound to the floor for a long time. She twitched, then immediately got up...
No, fuck, she turned invisible!
Jin-cheol tried to chase after Eun-sol at once, but the remaining monsters desperately clung to him.
...
After the Apostle fled and all the mansion’s monsters had been crushed, Jin-cheol came over to me.
“You okay?”
“That’s what I want to ask. Are you okay?”
Jin-cheol didn’t answer and sat down beside me.
“Now, Ga-in, I think you have to resolve this.”
“Descent? I’ve been wondering whether to use it since earlier. But with things like this, can’t you finish it? You fought the Apostle twice, and you won easily both times.”
“The first time was possible because of the Bell’s power. The second time was possible because Song-i placed mental protection on me at the cost of her life before she died.
“That mental protection is over now. More than that, my body is the problem now.”
“Your body?”
Only then did I look him over.
... There were countless wounds.
Almost half his body was covered in burns as though he had been set on fire, and bullet wounds covered him everywhere. What the hell had happened in the basement?
Then he had fought monsters and the Apostle too.
Wasn’t it a miracle that he was still alive?
“I only made it this far because of the Regeneration that bastard Sponsor gave me. Even so, it’s getting hard now.”
“...”
Jin-cheol’s breathing gradually grew faint, then finally stopped.
Now, I was alone.
...
The power I had received from the unknown being known as the Lord.
The time everyone had wanted to avoid had finally come.
[Descent: 3 -> 2]
Laaaaaa!
The angels’ choir echoed across the world.
A heavenly tide covered the earth. Before long, the Son of Heaven stood upon the ground.
Footnotes:
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