Escaping the Mystery Hotel

[User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 13

Current Location: Floor 1, Room 105

Sage’s Advice: 3]

Like always, we all woke up in front of Room 103 and were in the process of going back to Room 105. There were no tears of joy or hugs and everyone just had a blank look on their faces.

What in the world happened?

There was only one person who could answer that question. Everyone else had been playing as animals until we lost our consciousness so there was nothing we could say. 

We constantly stole a glance at Songee who was the only one that could explain what happened to us. We noticed that she was somewhat… different.

Because of the characteristic of this Hotel, we would return to our original states no matter what horrendous thing happened inside the rooms but there was an undisguisable change in atmosphere. She no longer had the timid and shy look on her face and seemed endlessly fatigued. Besides, there was the clear message that everyone saw through the system window right before we woke up from our dreams.

I wasn’t sure what it was, but I did know that it was the ‘treasure’ Songee earned all by herself after a tremendous adventure while we were all out of our minds. She had suddenly jumped up to the top of our food chain.

We all headed to Room 105 to have lunch while reading her mood. She would probably tell us something once we started having a nice meal.

*

—- Bam! —– Bam! Clap clap clap clap clap! Clap clap clap clap clap! Clap clap clap clap clap!

As soon as we entered Room 105, we were met with the sound of firecrackers and a loud round of applause even though there was no-one in the room!

/Esteemed guests! Congratulations!

We, the staff of this Hotel, give sincere words of congratulations on you discovering your first treasure. Unending trials! Vanished teammates! Hopelessly stronger foes! And overcoming all those adversities to reach the treasure! You have proven that you are most definitely the heroes that we had been waiting for.

Of course, we have no doubts on the capabilities of everyone else either. Every invited guest has the qualification to obtain a treasure and we are very glad to be able to observe your upcoming epic poems.

However, as strong as they are, the treasures are very difficult to use. For the next 3 days, how about you take a rest and get used to the treasure? Sometimes you need a good rest for a bigger step forward.

Today’s Surprise Event: Party Time! Will now begin.

# The Party Time will last for 3 days and there will be nothing dangerous happening during that period. Also, there seems to be a secret in this Hotel that only shows itself during the Party Time!/

A big set of announcements flashed on the display screen of Room 105. Everyone was speechless for about 30 seconds and…

“Clap clap clap! Everyone. Say thanks to Songee. Hurry up!”

Eunsol-noona brightened up the mood in an instant as everyone started a bustling celebration. At the start, there was a look of fatigue and fluster on Songee’s face but before long she blushed and returned to the same Songee we knew of.

Only after summoning the food and rowdily digging into it did we start asking her questions.

“So, Miss Dark-mode Songee. Please explain what happened to us plebeians.”

“Unni! What are you even saying! What is with this Miss Dark-mode thing?”

“Then let’s go with Fallen Songee mode. I was so scared that I couldn’t even say anything to you until then.”

The story she unravelled was very shocking.

A human farm created by aliens using manipulative tools to extract the intellect of humans – the spaceship with the farm and a divine transcendent being acting as the engine. Songee talked about receiving the help of that transcendent to escape and acquire the inheritance.

And… she also explained the trials she had to go through.

Meeting the collaborator in a place where countless intellectual beings were being tortured forever with only their heads; and crushing the heart of the administrator by massacring baby ‘Athanasias’ in a place filled with those babies. We were already breathless after hearing up to that point but the last trial she talked about was fighting ‘us’ who had been under the control of those aliens.

Everyone was struck speechless.

Songee didn’t say much about how she overcame those trials and we also didn’t want to bother asking her about how she killed each one of us so we glossed over it. Looking back, she was also the one killing us at the Mansion of Fear.

She was like a terrifying murderer in all the scenarios. That was what I thought, but I obviously didn’t voice out what was in my mind.

When the atmosphere of the room turned shivering cold, Eunsol-noona organised the situation as always.

“Now! Anyways, let’s put aside the things of the past and decide on what we have to do now!”

“According to the announcement, we will be having the next 3 days off. I think our first job is to follow the announcement and spend some time to have everyone understand that ‘inheritance’,” I said.

“I agree. Anyone else?”

“There will be nothing dangerous during the ‘Party Time’ and there is a secret that only shows itself during the Party Time… Well, it’s pretty much telling us to explore the Hotel right? I guess we have to take a little rest and go out on another exploration…” Jinchul-hyung added, which was soon followed by Eunsol-noona.

“There’s quite a lot of things we have to do. We have to understand the inheritance and explore the Hotel. Is there anything else that we have to discuss?”

Something to discuss – actually, there had been something bugging my mind ever since I looked at the system window after waking up.

“It’s nothing crazy but… the date that shows up in my system window says ‘Day 13’. It was Day 10 when we went in, and our last day as an animal was Day 13. The rest of the days haven’t been counted at all, but I’m not even sure how important the dates are either.”

“Well, if we think about it simply, maybe it stops counting after you die, Kain? In the first place, we can’t see it and you’re the only one that can see it, right? Maybe it doesn’t reflect the time after either you die or you fail.”

Was that the case? It was a bit ambiguous but sounded plausible.

“Let’s reorganise what we know about our blessings. It’s quite simple for me – I just get stronger and have good stamina. It’s very simple and straight-forward but there seems to be some abilities that are quite complicated and ambiguous…” said Jinchul-hyung.

I replied.

“Well, mine is the ‘system window’. One that sometimes gives me warning alarms when I’m in danger.”

“It’s the market for me,” Eunsol-noona said. “We bought tonfa, capsaicin and bandages until now. Right! I was about to say this, but you know how it says Day 13 according to Kain’s system window? My market seems to be running based on that same time period. What I mean is, I can buy 3 per week and tomorrow is Day 14. We have to buy 3 useful tools between today and tomorrow. One of them will definitely be another bottle of capsaicin. You guys can think about the other two.”

“My Fortune blessing hasn’t done anything ever since the ‘Strange Family’… maybe it has a long cooldown.”

“I think I know what ‘Affinity’ is. It’s probably something that allows me to be liked by beings that are not human…”

“You guys know mine, yeah? Communication.”

*

We had a relatively clear idea about 6 of the blessings.

Han Kain (20) – Wisdom -> System Window. Warning when in danger.

Cha Jinchul (31) – Courage -> Enhancement of physical abilities.

Yu Songee (17) – Affinity -> Liked by supernatural existences.

Park Seungyub (14) – Fortune -> Literally about good luck. Might have a long cooldown.

Lee Eunsol (32) – Wealth -> HP Market

Kim Mooksung (64) – Communication -> A Discord channel inside the brain. Severe limitation in conversation.

And there were 2 blessings that we still weren’t sure about.

Elena Ivanova (23) – Justice

Kim Ahri (16) – Allusion

I think I had an idea of what ‘Allusion’ was about.

Ahri herself was pretending like she was clueless, but I still remembered the hypnosis she cast on me at the Mansion of Fear. That was probably what Allusion was. After organising what we currently knew about the Hotel and ourselves and finishing our lunch, we decided to check the inheritance before exploring the Hotel.

*

The first thing we discovered while testing the functions of the bracelet – ‘Diverse Perspectives’ was that Songee was the only one who could use the bracelet. She took it off and gave it to other people but it couldn’t do anything once it was on someone else’s wrist. Only the rightful owner was able to use it.

Was that a characteristic that would be shared for the future treasures as well? Or was it unique to this bracelet?

When Songee started using the bracelet on us, we were all flabbergasted.

*

What in the heck was going on? We’ve been going around and testing the abilities of the bracelet for like hours but it was shocking every single time. 

In front of my eyes, Eunsol-noona’s face increased in size by threefold before suddenly being replaced with Jinchul-hyung’s face. I blankly tried to touch him only to realise something.

No-one had been standing there in the first place.

I turned around in a fluster and found myself standing in a forest. I turned back again and this time, I was floating in the sky with clouds everywhere.

This was the power of Diverse Perspectives.

Like what its name suggested, it completely shifted our perception of the world!

Even when I tried to somehow retaliate against it, I just didn’t know how I was even supposed to fight back. Did every one of those Athanasias or whatever carry these bracelets around? It was a ridiculously supernatural item in our eyes but Songee herself had an unamused look on her face.

“It’s a bit different from when I was using it on the spaceship.”

“Different? What do you mean?”

“It feels like… there are a lot more restrictions in place,” she said.

???

“Wait, you mean this is with restrictions?”

“It was already very different when I was using it compared to the Athanasias but… that was because I wasn’t a good user. Even aside from that, it became a lot harder to use compared to the one I had been using. The movement function is blocked as well.”

“The movement function might have been limited to the spaceship.”

“Maybe.”

“And what do you mean by ‘harder to use’?”

“I have to concentrate way too much to use this. To the point that I can’t use this for more than 10 minutes.”

“Noona! Maybe that’s a nerf?” Seungyub interjected.

“Nerf?”

“Even in games, there are some super amazing weapons that the boss uses, right? When you defeat the boss and it drops that item, they sometimes nerf it tremendously to make sure it doesn’t break the balance of the game.”

“…”

“Funny but that’s probably correct.”

Eunsol-noona showed her agreement and after that, Songee opened her mouth again while looking around.

“I’ll test it one last time. This time… Ahri?”

*

– Kim Ahri

It was mysterious. And made me very jealous.

The mind manipulative tool of aliens.

It was on an incomparable level to the ‘sloppy toys’ used at the Administration. The remarkable thing was that there was pretty much zero cost despite that ridiculous ability, which was completely different from the ‘terrible toys’ used by the Administration which required litres of blood, your lifespan or were as big as buildings and could only show an illusion for 10 seconds.

The one that this girl had was as small as a bracelet and could play with intellectual beings for 10 minutes and yet the only cost was a slight headache.

It was because the Hotel constantly gave out ridiculous items like this that the Administration couldn’t get rid of their greed and constantly forced agents into the Hotel. 

Everything around me was becoming a mess even while I was continuing that line of thought. It suddenly turned into a sea of flames, before becoming a frozen wasteland (it even felt cold), and soon there were floating faces of teammates.

Should I try retaliating?

I had a feeling that I might be able to but… I soon decided not to. It would only make things tedious if I made someone with such abilities wary of me. 

The bracelet test seemed to be over. I returned to the room with a flick.

That was when letters appeared in the air.

What exactly are you?

I remember everything.

What are you hiding from us?

I will keep my eyes on you.

Ah. Her vigilance was already at MAX level. I really wanted to avoid situations like this but what else could I have done? If I didn’t force myself to use my abilities at that ‘Farm’, I might have killed her and ruined everything.

It’s going to be exhausting to have someone with such powerful abilities wary of me though…

Should I do something that lowers her wariness?

*

– Han Kain

Ahri’s eyes regained their focal points and it seemed that Songee’s bracelet test was about to end.

Right when I was thinking of forming a Hotel exploration plan with everyone else–

Ahri suddenly gave Songee a massive hug.

“Unni! I love you~~!”

I was lost for words.

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