Escaping the Mystery Hotel

* Party Time First Morning

- Han Kain

- Discussion on the Grimoire

An extra phenomenon when using the Grimoire was the disappearance of the system window and the addition of a timer.

“First of all,” Ahri said. “There is a very important reason that made me come to this hypothesis. You said you gained ‘eternal life’ through the Grimoire, right? If there was no restriction, what you obtained would have been like hacking the Hotel’s system. It’s different from what the Apostle went through. He had to stay within the area of the Mansion of Fear to revive his god and had to take a course of set actions to achieve his goal. Because of his goal, there were limitations on his movement and actions, which allowed us to locate him.

“But you, however, don’t have any of that. If you steal an NPC’s body as soon as we enter a room and run away endlessly to some other parts of the world, how would the Enemy possibly be able to kill you let alone find you?

“This is like a ‘cheat escape method’, which the Hotel definitely wouldn’t allow. There must be a restriction put in place to stop that, and I came to this hypothesis after hearing your explanation.”

It was, I suppose, to be expected of a 2nd timer of the Hotel.

I, the one who received the Inheritance, wasn’t even thinking about that but Ahri seemed to have reached that line of thought in a flash.

Without restrictions, the Power of Possession was basically the same as a guaranteed escape.

If I were to steal the bodies of NPCs endlessly and escape to a distant part of the world, how would the Enemy possibly find me!?

Ahri continued her explanation.

“This could get a bit confusing so listen carefully. What do you think determines the identity of a person? According to Descartes, who said based on a dualism of the mind and the body,  human beings needed a union of the body and mind to exist. Of course, according to modern science, that’s a wrong theory. The mind is a creation of the brain, and the brain is a physical organ. Scientifically speaking, there is no differentiation between the mind and the body. Monism is the correct one in terms of science. What do you think?”

She suddenly threw a question in the middle of that difficult philosophical monologue. Technically, I could use the power of the Grimoire to steal the body of another existence.

In other words, my mind was separate from my body.

“My body is separate from my mind, so borrowing your words, wouldn’t I be closer to dualism?”

“But does that make sense?” she asked again.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Before obtaining the Grimoire, your sense of self was the result of electronic signals made by your brain, and your existence was based on monism. So did you become a dualist existence after acquiring the Grimoire, where you don’t have to rely on the brain anymore to think?”

“Can you just jump straight to the point please?” I requested.

“Sure. When you’re using the Grimoire to possess someone, you can be described in two parts; one being the physical body where your consciousness is left from, and your consciousness that is taking over another body. Naturally, you would think the ‘Real Han Kain’ is in the body of another person, and that your physical body is just a shell left behind. But…

“...is that really how it is? Even though your body is still there? Even though your brain, which had formed your sense of self until now, is still left behind in that body? If you think about it from another standpoint, you can say the ‘Real Han Kain’ is actually the body left behind. Your consciousness that is inside another person’s body is like a ‘ghost’ that the Grimoire made by replicating your real mind.”

I was starting to understand what she meant, but there was a question that had to be answered in that case.

“But when I’m possessing someone, the body left behind can’t think about anything.”

“How do you know that?” she asked.

For a moment, I was lost for words.

“The Real Han Kain could be thinking about something – it might just be that the body is unable to move. And maybe the consciousness left behind in the body is just ‘replaced’ by the consciousness, that was possessing someone else when it gets back.”

…That was a scary hypothesis.

“Of course, keep in mind that this is just my hypothesis. Let’s go back to the question at hand. Why does the system window disappear when you are in someone else’s body, and what’s the timer for? This is my interpretation of it. When you’re in someone else’s body, the Hotel doesn’t consider you as the ‘Real Han Kain.’ And that is why you naturally can’t use the system window.

In that sense, the timer also means the same thing. It could be denoting the time it takes before ‘you are considered dead’.”

“Considered dead…”

“If the Hotel deemed you as the Fake Han Kain the moment you possessed someone, you could say the Real Han Kain dies the moment you use possession. But with standards like that, it’s impossible for you to even make use of the Grimoire, and that might be why they gave you an hour. When you pass that time, maybe they consider the Real Han Kain to be dead, and that the ‘Han Kain who is possessing someone else’ is just a fake copy of the original.”

It was a long explanation but it was a simple story.

The Hotel didn’t consider me to be the real one when possessing someone else.

That was why I couldn’t use the system window, and Ahri’s hypothesis was that they would consider the “Real Han Kain” to be dead if I didn’t return to my body for an hour.

According to that, it would be impossible to use tricks like using someone else’s body on repeat to escape from a Cursed Room.

- Discussion on Descent

“Let me also talk a little bit about your Descent because it’s fundamentally related to your ‘sense of self’ as well. Who exactly is the Son of Heaven? Is it a completely different existence to you?

If that was the case, the Hotel would have deemed you dead the moment you used Descent, and wouldn’t have given you the Inheritance either. However, the Hotel still saw you as the ‘Participant Han Kain’. You didn’t have a timer and you also received the Inheritance.”

“Is it because the body was the same?”

“Could be, but you could also be subject to more complicated standards. The point I am trying to make is that you shouldn’t try to differentiate yourself too much from who you are after using ‘Descent’. This is what I felt when I was listening to your explanation – you mentioned that you thought about the process of infancy to adulthood the moment you used Descent, and were expecting yourself to be different after the process. That thought in itself might have been the cause of that big discrepancy. Next time you use it, try to have a different mindset. Maybe tell yourself, ‘I am me!’ or something.”

There was something I found odd when listening to her explanation.

Ahri and Grandpa Mooksung were agents of the Administration. Weren’t they a group that rejected supernatural powers that could serve to be a threat to mankind?

The Son of Heaven not only had an extreme sense of ego and arrogance, but he had also massacred countless innocent civilians.

“I thought you would tell me not to use Descent if possible.”

“Why? Because it’s too dangerous?” she asked back.

“Yeah. It has a psychological effect as well too.”

“Are you not going to use it if I told you not to? Are you going to hold back even when we are moments away from becoming ghosts that forever roam meaninglessly around the Hotel?”

“...I probably would.”

“That’s why I won’t bother saying such a thing. It’s pointless. It’s something you will have to use when we have no other option, so if we are going to use it anyway, we should think about how we can best make use of it.”

She was making a good point.

Just like what she said, it was something we would have to rely on if things turned south.

Being scared of it wouldn’t mean anything.

As she said, I decided to focus on using it “well”, and that I should try to tell myself something different when using it next time.

“By the way, do you have any idea what the ‘Lord’ is planning?” I asked.

“Not a single clue,” she replied. “There is something I really can’t understand.”

“What exactly is that?”

“The ‘Lord’ might sound like an amazing existence, but the Hotel is a place that has several similar beings locked inside. It infinitely transcends the likes of the ‘Lord’, so is it really possible that he can do something by giving an ability to a participant as a mere convict imprisoned inside a single room?”

“...”

“It’s like jumping around on the Buddha’s hand. What makes even less sense, is that the ‘Lord’ should be aware of all that. That’s what’s throwing me off. It’s like Sun Wukong jumping around on the Buddha’s hand, but I don’t understand why the Buddha would let him do that, nor why Sun Wukong would do something meaningless. There is only one thing I can take away from that.”

“What is it?”

“Let’s not go to Room 104 as much as possible. We can try the Gate Room already, right? There is no reason for us to bother going into the room that contains the Convict, who has clearly done something funny. For us, I think there is a chance that Room 104 is even more dangerous than the Gate Room.”

That put an end to the long discussion.

I summarized everything to the best of my ability and left a note of it on the system window.

Grimoire

1. It looks like the Hotel doesn’t see me as the real one after possessing someone.

2. The Hotel will probably consider the ‘Real Han Kain’ to be dead 1 hour after possession.

Descent

1. We have to use it anyway when it gets dangerous. Let’s think about how to use it well instead of being afraid of it.

2. Let’s see if there is a way to maintain my sense of self, instead of thinking about an ‘inevitable change’.

3. Let’s avoid going to Room 104 until we can find out more about the lord’s ulterior motives.

***

We came back to the campfire after the discussion.

It seemed that everyone else had been discussing their plans as well, while Ahri and I were having our own conversation.

Seeing us walking towards the campfire, Eunsol-noona asked.

“Are you guys done now?”

“I think I asked everything I wanted to ask.”

“We saw you guys having a long and serious conversation over there, so we didn’t want to interrupt. I even heard you guys talking about Descartes and some philosophical things.”

“It was quite a difficult conversation indeed.”

“Tell us the summary at the very least. Anyway, we were talking amongst ourselves while you guys weren’t here. I think we are going to head straight to the Sanctum of Blessings after we return to the Hotel.”

We did have to go there as soon as possible because there was the issue of us having to sleep for a whole day to empower our blessings, and also because we needed to get used to the new enhanced versions of our blessings.

“But there is something we have to do before that.”

“What is it?”

“When we go to the Sanctum this time, you will probably fall asleep to empower your blessing, right? So let’s use up all your ‘advice’ before we go.”

That made sense. It seemed that they had also pondered a list of questions while we were gone; there was a notepad full of questions ready to go.

“We took into account your explanation from before. You said ‘questions about things we have no clues about’ will return ambiguous responses, so we gathered questions about things that were hard to understand despite figuring out some parts.”

I used the Advice and read from the list.

First question.

The usability of Wealth is drastically low.

It isn’t very helpful for the individual or the group.

It was something I thought about before as well, and it seemed to have weighed on her mind quite a lot.

Sage's Advice: 3 → 2

Ask questions about Wealth to your sponsor today.

I conveyed the advice to her.

“Ahh! This is so frustrating! It’s so hard to make use of my blessing that I can’t even see my sponsor! That’s why I’m asking!”

“Hmm, Eunsol-noona,” I said, “I don’t think this reply is as bad as you think.”

“What do you mean?”

“As for why it can’t give you a direct response, I’m assuming it’s related to ‘rights’. Because blessings are given directly by the sponsors, maybe it’s a jurisdiction thing that they can’t interfere with. Or maybe they thought using a blessing to find out more about a blessing is like cheating. That could be why they blocked it. But from my experience so far with using the Advice, I realized that it says in a slightly roundabout way whenever it’s a ‘question that it can’t directly answer to’.”

Eunsol-noona immediately realized what I meant.

“Wait, so when it says ‘ask your sponsor today’! Do you mean I can meet my sponsor this time?”

“That’s what I think. There would be no reason to bother using the expression, ‘today’ in there unless you can meet the sponsor at the Sanctum today.”

She was hopping around in joy while I rubbed out all the questions about blessings from the list. It was probably not a good idea to ask direct questions about blessings.

Second question.

This time, I asked one of my own questions.

I cannot understand the Power of Incarnation in the slightest. I need some advice.

I was skeptical despite asking that myself. This was, after all, a typical example of a question regarding “something I was clueless about”.

However, it was hard to use the Advice for personal queries like this outside of Party Time.

Since the Advice and Life Warnings shared the same limit, I had to save my advice for “warnings” whenever we were going into Cursed Rooms.

I hoped it would return a decent reply at the very least.

Sage's Advice: 2 → 1

Do you even understand Possession?

…What?

It was more confusing than anything I was expecting. I told everyone both the question and the answer.

Unexpectedly, it was Songee who interpreted this advice.

“Ah! I think I get it. I think this means, ‘It’s normal to not understand how an Inheritance works’. For example, even though I’m using the Bracelet, I have no idea about the principles behind how it works. It’s like a TV remote controller. I don’t know anything about the science behind remote controllers, but I know I can press buttons to operate the TV. That’s how I’m using the Bracelet. It would probably be the same for Kain-oppa. Your ability to use Possession doesn’t stem from a complete understanding of it either, right? We just know how to use it. So I think the reply is saying that it’s normal not to be able to understand the Power of Incarnation as well.”

“It makes sense that I can’t understand it, but so how am I supposed to use it then?”

“I think time will solve that. I can also do more things now with the Bracelet than how I was at the start.”

In the end, the conclusion was that I had to use the Grimoire for a longer period of time before thinking about the next phase.

Third question.

I found a very important question written by Eunsol-noona.

Is it possible to escape with a parachute?

“Noona? This…”

“It’s just something that hit me a few days ago. The HP Market sells blankets and sturdy ropes, which we can use to make something similar to a parachute. Would we be able to escape through the front entrance using that?”

I turned to Ahri, the 2nd timer of the Hotel.

She tilted her head before giving me a shake, signaling that she wasn’t sure either.

I used the Sage’s Advice.

Advice: 1 → 0

Try it if you don’t value your life.

"..."

What did it mean this time?

Did the owl have an illness or something where it had to beat around the bush?

***

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