WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 98: Room 102, Curse Room - ‘House of Horror’ Re (11) (Final)
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* Fourth Attempt
- Son of Heaven
I paused, floating in midair, as the caterpillar crawled close.
“I thought you were busy making a Cocoon, but you came up here yourself?”
‘What exactly is your goal? Why are you getting in my way?’
“Do you need to know? Today’s your funeral, isn’t it?
Ah, you haven’t even been born yet, so it’s not a funeral.
Should we call it a stillbirth ceremony? Or a miscarriage ceremony?”
I teased it a little, and it openly showed its anger as power poured out of it.
I realized it again.
There was something strange about that Unborn One.
It wasn’t simply a matter of strength.
It didn’t seem to understand the hotel properly, and even mentally, it didn’t seem godlike.
A fleeting thought passed through my mind.
For the first time since Descent, a real battle began.
* * *
Exactly 27.38 seconds had passed since the battle began.
Less than thirty seconds.
In a world moving at speeds far beyond the sound barrier, a hand vast enough to cover the whole world came down on me.
The moment my mountain-splitting sword cut through the hand, malice beyond perception engulfed me.
Sorcery? Magic?
What a foolish thought.
Though it had not been born, the malice of a being that had entered the realm of gods was itself a miracle.
How could human knowledge possibly define something like this?
Of course, I had also taken half a step into that realm.
My desire to live became a miracle and shielded me from that malice.
I summoned a second sun and unleashed searing rays.
It was power that could easily burn down an entire human city, yet the enemy swallowed the sun whole as though it were nothing more than a hot potato.
I closed in again and unleashed a sword strike powerful enough to split a mountain.
The strike seemed to cleave the caterpillar in two, but its body let my sword pass through as if it were liquid.
...
After clashing for a minute like that, I realized something.
I could never win.
The near-arrogant confidence I had carried before entering this space slowly faded.
In astronomical terms, it was the difference between the moon and a star.
No matter how strong I was for a mortal, I was still a moon borrowing the Lord’s power.
No matter how deficient the opponent was as a god, it was a star that shone on its own.
There was another fatal problem.
Every fight I had ever experienced was nothing more than a children’s performance compared to this one.
I had never fought at such an overwhelming level before.
Again and again, I felt how unskilled I was with the power Descent had given me.
I swung twice, but both strikes came to nothing.
A gap I couldn’t help but reveal.
In terms of time, it was only an instant, like a second divided into a thousand pieces.
... In a fight at this level, my head could be lopped off ten times over in that much time.
In the end, I failed to properly defend against the tentacles reaching for me from every direction.
---Bang!
Ah. I was sent flying, completely unable to control my body.
How far was I going to fly?
My body itself was fine, but that wasn’t the problem.
The power Descent had granted me was not infinite.
It was beginning to run dry.
... Defeat was drawing closer.
Would I fail to escape, let alone resolve this?
At the very least, I needed to wound that thing badly enough to delay its birth if I wanted to escape.
I barely stopped myself by grabbing a protrusion somewhere on the wall, or rather, on the corpse of the Nebula Dragon.
... An inexplicable voice reached me.
‘You have gained great power, yet you do not know how to use it properly.’
“... Who are you?”
‘You have obtained the authority to shape reality as you will, yet why do you fight like a monkey?’
“I don’t know who you are, but I’d appreciate your help.”
‘I desire something from you, so I shall lend you some aid.’
My consciousness soared endlessly into the sky.
I felt a truly great will descend upon me.
Only then did I understand the meaning of what the voice had told me.
The Lord had given me a gun, but I had been gripping it and swinging it around like a club.
How foolish must I have looked to the great ones?
* * *
What was a god?
I had realized many times that the gods spoken of by the hotel, the Management Bureau, and the Holy See were not the omniscient and omnipotent beings described in Christianity.
They were beings that surpassed humanity, like something out of Hinduism or Greek mythology, but still had limits.
Then what abilities set them apart from mortals and made them gods?
Only after the voice helped me take one step deeper into the realm of gods did I understand.
If mortals were actors living on a stage, gods were the architects who shaped that stage.
At the edge of my vision, the Unborn One approached me.
Then Words of Power began defining the world through my mouth.
“I declare that you will deny me three times today.”
‘What kind of trick is this? What sort of power is this?’
“Child of the Nebula Dragon. You have heaped sin upon sin by using your servants to slaughter countless innocents.
Yet the Lord’s mercy is truly great. Will you repent before me?”
‘Do you speak of sin when you step on ants? I have committed no sin!’
Those who did not repent did not deserve freedom, so they would remain bound forever.
Burning chains stretched out from every direction and seized the sinner’s body.
“Unrepentant sinner. In this dark place, you gazed upon the shining world above and endlessly envied the living who longed for life.
Yet the Lord’s mercy is truly great. Will you confess before me?”
‘Nonsense! I am the eldest child of the Nebula Dragon! I was born with the destiny of opening a new world. How could I envy lowly mortals?’
Those unable to overcome their own inferiority did not deserve to advance into the future, so they would lose all possibility of growth forever.
Blades appeared in midair and carved the defeated child’s body apart.
They severed every thread made by melting mortal souls to create the Cocoon.
“Child who cannot grow. The sins you have accumulated are returning to you. Judgment Day draws near.
Yet the Lord’s mercy is truly great. Will you acknowledge your fear and kneel before me?”
‘I am... the eldest child of the dragon... Even if I die, I will not tremble like a coward.’
The child’s voice shook as it spoke, and it could no longer look directly at me.
Those unable to face even their own fear had already lost their judgment, so they would possess intelligence no longer.
The child’s enormous, mountain-like body, which had been trembling, shrank.
Soon, the child began crawling across the ground like a real caterpillar.
“Ah, what tragedy could be greater than this?
I gave you three chances, chances to repent, confess, and acknowledge.
Yet because you denied me three times today, how can you avoid paying the price?”
A piercing wail burst from the mouth of the child, now stripped of intelligence.
‘Aaaaaah!’
“You are a sinner. Yet you are also a child.
Behold. The Lord’s mercy is so vast that, even after you have committed such evil, you still have one final chance.
Child. Will you lay down all your sins and be embraced by the parents who have waited for you through countless ages?”
It was only on the fourth chance that the child who had denied me three times laid everything down and accepted my words.
The Unborn One finally turned into pure light and slowly rose into the sky.
The Words of Power ended. The power of Descent left me.
* * *
- Han Ga-in
When the time of miracles ended, “I” finally woke up.
What on earth had happened? And what was that at the end?
I couldn’t understand any of it. It felt as though I had dreamed a long dream.
As I floated in the air, trembling in confusion, the entire space, the remains of the Nebula Dragon, began to shake.
---Thump!
I was flung away in an instant.
When I came to my senses, I saw a “dragon” watching me from within an endlessly vast space.
One eye was larger than a lake, and every scale was larger than an island.
Was this how it would feel if the sun had a mind of its own and looked at me?
‘Do you understand now?’
“What? What do you mean?”
‘How to use power.’
... Only then did I realize it. The being that had spoken to me and helped me earlier had been the dragon.
At the same time, I realized something else.
The reason the Unborn One, the being I had mistaken for the Prisoner, had failed to understand the hotel!
“Were you the Prisoner of this room? Was the hotel the one that killed you?
No, you seem almost alive now for someone who’s dead.”
‘I am certainly dead. Think of this as a final testament. More importantly, there is not much time.
You have greatly helped me achieve my goal. Is there anything you wish to ask?’
... Questions.
There were too many. So many that I didn’t know what to ask first.
I asked the first question that came to mind.
“What exactly is the hotel? Why did it trap us? You achieved your goal? What is the purpose of the Prisoners?”
‘Unfortunately, I can only answer the latter questions. Every Prisoner has a different purpose.
At least, my purpose was the salvation of my child.’
“The salvation of your child?”
‘You care deeply for children too. Why would I be any different?
For ages beyond measure, I watched my child suffer from an unattainable delusion in this hell...
I prayed desperately for my child to have a Next Chance.’
As it spoke, the dragon looked into the empty air.
The pure light the Unborn One had become fluttered like a butterfly as it headed toward the far side of space.
‘Ah... my child. Now Buddha will grant you a Next Chance.’
“What exactly do you mean by this ‘Next Chance’ you keep mentioning?”
The space began to shake. Resolution was slowly approaching.
‘The ordeal, or is it the hotel now? Climb higher. You will naturally learn.
What mortals and immortals alike desperately desire. What can be achieved only in this place in the universe.’
Something that could only be achieved in this hotel, in the entire universe? What did that mean?
‘Though I end here, my child has completed a long atonement in this hell and will gain a Next Chance.’
The dragon closed its eyes, as if it had no intention of continuing the conversation.
It seemed to be telling me a great deal, yet I couldn’t properly understand the important parts.
Judging by the dragon’s attitude, like it was leaving a final testament, it didn’t seem to be trying to hide anything from me now.
It felt more like the constraints imposed by the hotel still remained.
When even the space around me began to convulse, a book appeared before me.
I seized the book and waited for the moment of Resolution.
‘I will say it once more. Thank you. And be careful. I sense that the intentions of the one who gave you the power of Descent are not good...’
What happened today was beyond human wisdom.
Still, a vague realization passed through my mind.
“Hell.” “Atonement.”
... The Management Bureau called the transcendent beings trapped in the hotel “Prisoners,” didn’t they?
Was this place a hell where divine beings who had committed evil suffered endlessly?
If so, what would happen to the “born one” that had turned into a butterfly of light and flown toward the far side of space?
After paying for its sins through countless ages and finally “repenting” through the Lord’s power, would it gain a Next Chance somewhere?
I didn’t know. I couldn’t tell whether I was making deductions or imagining things.
I considered using Sage’s Advice after I got out, but it would be pointless.
Even Owl was constrained when it came to the hotel’s own secrets, so how could I get an answer through advice?
The Prisoners were one thing, but why had we been dragged to this place?
The space slowly began to collapse.
Everything in my sight scattered like dust, and the Nebula Dragon’s body vanished as well.
Until the very moment it disappeared completely, the Nebula Dragon watched its child, who had gained a Next Chance and was vanishing beyond time and space.
In this place where I could understand nothing, I understood at least the dragon’s heart.
At its final moment, the Nebula Dragon was neither the creator of the Otherworld nor the hotel’s Prisoner.
It was only a being that had given everything to change its child’s fate.
... For the first time in a long while, I thought of my parents’ faces.
A notification window appeared.
/You have succeeded!
House of Horror. The one who seeks the resurrection of an Evil God! The tragedy began with the death of the Nebula Dragon.
A world where the end times came when a god died. The Apostle who sought to complete an unborn baby god found within the god’s remains!
Perhaps the Apostle you defeated was humanity’s enemy, but the Otherworld’s savior.
But who cares? Does a deer need to worry about a lion?
The Apostle who endlessly stole the bodies of companions, the master of the mansion who concealed lies until the end!
On top of that, your mistake of forgetting the hints due to the confusing scenario change.
Although the scenario had practically rushed toward ruin, you put on an outstanding performance by borrowing the power of miracles to battle and defeat the unborn god! Impressive.
Still, please don’t put yourselves through “self-imposed hard mode” next time. Congratulations.
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.
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A companion has achieved Final Resolution! Congratulations! A Final Resolution achiever has emerged, and all members will return safely.
You have acquired the Inheritance ‘Book of the Avatar’./
Footnotes:
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