Escaping the Mystery Hotel

User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 16

Current Location: Floor 1, Room 105 (Room of Rest)

Sage’s Advice: 3

— QUAAAAAKK!

“Uaahkkk!”

“Bring something! Anything!”

“Songee! Do you know anything? Do we give it milk?”

“I’ve never raised a baby bird either.”

Chaos!

I woke up from a short nap in my room when it was time for dinner, and realized the utter chaos that the room was in.

An animal that resembled a baby parrot had popped out of the egg.

We didn’t know anything about how to raise baby animals, so what the heck were we supposed to do?

The parrot continued quacking like crazy, adding even more to the confusion.

Nonetheless, this was a bird that hatched from the golden egg provided by the Hotel! It would by no means be a normal bird.

We couldn’t let it die just because of our ignorance of how to raise baby birds!

Sage's Advice 3 → 2

Please tell me everything about how to raise baby birds!

I was skeptical even when asking that question. What if we got a response that went something like, “Raise it with all your heart?” That would be the worst-case scenario.

Fortunately, the response I received was unexpectedly kind and detailed.

Feed a small amount of crushed egg yolk mixed with water. Make a bed with soft clothes. The infancy doesn’t last long, so be careful just for the next few days.

…What? It was very “kind-hearted advice” which was quite different from how it normally was.

Is the owl being nice because the bird was of its own kind?

Regardless, I quickly told everyone the content of the advice.

Some of us quickly retrieved a boiled egg from the dining table to create the baby food, while the others took off their outer garments to wrap the bird and do everything they could.

“Songee!”

“Yes?”

“How long does it take for a bird to grow up? We have to go into a Cursed Room in just a few days.”

“I don’t know either, but according to what Kain-oppa heard, the infancy shouldn’t last long, right? It’s probably different from normal birds. I’m sure the Hotel wouldn’t make us look after a baby bird for a whole month.”

She had a point. I could only hope that she was right.

Only after another hour or so of chaos did everything finally settle down.

“We need to raise a baby bird now? What if they make us raise a human baby next time?” Jinchul-hyung mumbled with a blank look on his face.

Ignoring his remark, Eunsol-noona, who still seemed rational and logical despite everything that happened, said to me.

“Use the advice again as soon as something goes wrong. It’s an extraordinary animal born from the golden egg. We can’t have it die on us for a foolish reason.”

“I guess it should be an extraordinary animal, but I wonder what it’s capable of doing?”

“Who knows, we probably need to wait until the infancy is over at the very least.”

Even after the whole chaotic mess, the baby bird continued crying every 10 minutes for food, and we had to repeat the exhausting process of soothing it with more food.

Perhaps thanks to “Affinity”, the baby bird seemed attached to Songee, and Songee became the one tasked with feeding it.

We were only able to relax ourselves when the bird was asleep.

“It’s really exhausting.”

“...”

“Yeah…”

We were blankly staring off into nothing when Ahri opened her mouth.

“Use the advice again. See if there’s anything we need to be cautious about.”

“Isn’t that what we asked? Feeding it food and keeping it warm.”

“That was just on how to raise normal birds. There is no way this bird is normal, so ask a more specific question like, ‘Is there anything we need to be especially cautious about?’ or something.”

I was a bit skeptical again. Just like last time, it was asking for advice on “something we had no prior information about”.

How likely was it that we would get a proper answer? I wasn’t sure, but there was no other way around it.

Sage's Advice: 2 → 1

Please tell me the specific precautions we need to take for this bird!

You must not leave the Grotesque Parrot alone by itself at night.

***

I was immediately struck speechless.

What the hell is that name? A “Grotesque Parrot”?

What kind of horrifying name is that?

And what will happen if it’s left alone at night?

I conveyed what I received, to which Songee replied as if it wasn’t a big deal.

“I can sleep with it.”

“Will you be alright? Didn’t you say you’ve never raised a baby bird before?”

“I’ve taken care of kittens and puppies. They’ll probably be similar, right?”

It was hard to tell, but there was no one apart from her who had even raised a puppy, so we didn’t have an alternative option anyway.

My brain started to work again once the chaotic situation was somewhat resolved.

“I’m sure we are all tired from what just happened,” I said to everyone. “But we have a lot of things to do during this Party Time. We have to head to the Sanctum of Blessings, look into the Book of Incarnation, and decide on our next room. If we have time, I would also like to have a discussion about Descent.”

When mentioning the discussion on Descent, I made myself explicitly clear by looking at the two from the Administration.

“So we can’t spend all of our time looking after the bird. We have to finish what we have to do. How about we enhance our blessings at the Sanctum first?” I suggested.

Ahri raised a different perspective.

“If we go to the Sanctum, a few of us will fall asleep for a whole day for the enhancement, right? If the bird acts funny during that time, it could be difficult for the remaining people to deal with it, so this time let’s postpone the Sanctum a little. And we can take care of the bird; I think you should prioritize looking into your Inheritance.”

I was indisputably the busiest person during this Party Time.

I had to practice the Inheritance, enhance my blessings, and worry about Descent.

As such, Grandpa Mooksung seemed to be in agreement.

“That’s right,” he said. “You should focus on your own tasks this time.”

Like that, I was exempted from having to raise the bird.

I left Room 105 by myself and took out the grimoire.

Despite the filter being on, I felt like I was about to vomit the moment I laid my hands on the book. Forcing myself to open the book, I looked directly at the strange letters engraved inside.

…My consciousness boiled into bubbles and faded into the abyss.

***

- Han Kain

A distant voice, so powerful that it could melt my brain, came piercing through.

Where is this?

I want to leave.

Let me out.

It’s too dark here.

...

...

...

D

O

W

N

An endless abyss.

No matter how far I went down, there was no end to the darkness.

There was nothing but “down”.

There inside the darkness was something twitching in its wake.

Swimming through the ocean of despair, I realized the true identity of the grimoire.

At one point in time, the “One Who Couldn’t Be Born’ gained its sense of self inside the corpse of its dead mother.

For an eternity, without knowing who or where it was, the unborn god had to endure a long nightmare.

The death of the Nebula Dragon was bringing its world to an apocalypse, and the mortals who attempted to stop the apocalypse came in contact with the corpse of the dragon.

The heroes of the other world noticed the presence of a baby god inside the dead god.

It was at that moment, that the “One Who Couldn’t Be Born” noticed for the first time that there were “other beings” in the world.

He was enraged by the entire world; he became envious of everything including the mortals that came into contact with him.

The envious one formed powerful abilities that could let it see the outside world.

It forged the “Power of Possession” to steal the body of a mortal.

In order to manifest his own Incarnation in the outside world, he forged the “Power of Incarnation”.

And lastly, he forged the “Power of Sacrifice” for his true birth.

The way to share a portion of his abilities with his servants was what the Grimoire was about!

Along with that comprehension, there was a part of me that found it to be a bit of a shame.

It was because the strongest authority of “Sacrifice” had been edited out.

Before being recreated by the Hotel, the original name of the grimoire was the “Book of Sacrifice”.

However, from what I could faintly tell, the power of “Sacrifice” was truly at the pinnacle of evil. And out of the leftover abilities, the strongest authority was the power of “Incarnation”. Thus the name, Book of Incarnation.

Suddenly, I came back to myself. I found myself standing while leaning on one of the walls of the corridor.

“UWEEEK!”

I vomited like crazy on the corridor floor.

An unbearable sense of dissonance struck my head.

Have you felt like the body you were given from birth by your parents was just a piece of clothing?

Coming back to the real world, I understood what it meant to be the owner of the grimoire.

I was freed from my physical body.

At this point, my body was nothing but a piece of clothing.

I gained eternal life!

Eternal life, which even the Emperor of a whole continent had desperately yearned for – I acquired it one month after arriving at the Hotel.

However, what I was feeling was by no means a refreshing sense of enlightenment, nor joy at the fact that I had transcended the realm of humans.

My entire body felt like stuffy clothes, and I instinctively knew that I could “take it off”.

It was extremely uncomfortable, and I wanted to take it off.

A disgustingly powerful sense of dissonance was filling my head.

Probably due to hearing the sound of me vomiting, someone came out of Room 105.

“Kain? Are you okay?”

“Eunsol-noona…”

The moment I looked into her eyes, I realized something - it was the fact that I could steal “those clothes” for myself.

Gritting my teeth, I pulled my eyes away.

I had to hold it in. There was no point in stealing the body of a teammate.

After saying sorry, I headed to the tea table at the front reception to spend time by myself.

It seemed that I would have to spend a bit of time alone for today.

Even eternal life was just an extra “bit of service” included with the Power of Possession, so what exactly was the Power of Incarnation, which even exceeded that?

For some reason, I still couldn’t understand anything about the Power of Incarnation.

I decided to use my last piece of advice for the day on understanding the grimoire a bit more.

***

- Yu Songee

Kain-oppa suddenly started retching outside.

Eunsol-noona came back in after checking on him but had a puzzled look on her face.

“Was oppa alright?” I asked.

“Not sure. I don’t think there was anything wrong but he was a bit sharper than usual. He said he needs some time by himself.”

“Is it because of the grimoire?”

“Maybe.”

I wonder what was wrong all of a sudden?

Should I check in on him too?

— QUAAAAK!

Ah, unfortunately, I couldn’t. This little bird was going at it again.

After taking a short nap, the bird got up and was crying again, just like how it was 10 minutes ago.

This helped me understand what they meant when the Hotel said that the “infancy wouldn’t last long”.

Although this was my first time raising a bird, I had raised kittens and puppies before, and something obvious was that this bird was eating an absurd amount of food.

It devoured a large amount of food consistently despite its small size, which would make anyone question the physical possibility of such a thing happening.

This was probably the only baby bird in the world that could eat 30 egg yolks in one hour.

Even though it had only been a few hours since it hatched, there were already some visible signs of growth.

To be completely honest, it looked a bit disgusting at the start but now that it was slightly bigger with some feathers, it was starting to resemble a cute parrot.

I wonder what his abilities are going to be?

At the very least, it was certain that he wouldn’t be an ordinary animal!

At the start, everyone was devoted to making baby food, cushions, and everything but… in just a few hours, they were starting to take a rest here and there, with nothing but syringes full of baby food lying around next to me.

What is this? Why does it look like I’m the only one raising him!?

Am I a single parent now? They’re not even working!

Kain-oppa I could understand from the grimoire but… it felt a bit unfair.

But… I remembered what Eunsol-noona said. It was true that I tended to zone out without contributing much in meetings.

Like how the meetings were zealously carried out by the people who were good at it, I decided to think of this as me doing what I excelled at the most as my contribution.

In the middle of feeding the baby bird, I recalled the previous conversation we had.

It was about pondering our blessings during this Party Time, right?

Hearing that reminded me of the time I met my sponsor when enhancing my blessing. Others seemed to have had some deep conversations with their sponsors, but I didn’t have any of that.

A large elephant tall enough to reach the clouds just came up and tapped me once with its nose.

That was it, and the skill I acquired through the blessing enhancement was “Tacit Communication”.

…Wait, did it intentionally not say anything because the skill was about “understanding each other without saying anything”?

It was hard to come across “beings of chaos” that my Affinity worked on, so it was hard to put it to use, but I was starting to build experience by looking after this baby bird.

Just like what its name suggested, I was able to feel the bird’s emotions and impulses, and I too could send it my own thoughts.

Endless hunger, fear, curiosity… and love.

I could feel that this baby sincerely believed and relied on me.

That alone was enough to fill my heart with affection, which was also why I could look after it without getting upset, even though everyone sneaked away in the middle.

I was the one practically raising it, so I decided on his name by myself.

Forget about the horrible name of “Grotesque Parrot”! Your name from now on is Perro!

I looked after Perro till nighttime and took him to the cushion next to my bed when it was time to sleep.

That night, I found out what Perro’s horrifying ability was.

***

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