Escaping the Mystery Hotel

* 2 hours ago

- Park Seungyub

I ran like crazy after getting the syringe from noona.

It felt the same way as it did as when I was shooting the balloon with a gun. Therefore, instead of thinking, I decided to let my blessing guide me to the most desirable fate.

During this moment, I was the luckiest person in the world! I could rely on my blessing and guess my way through everything, because those would be the answer!

Explosions and deafening sounds started to echo from behind but I ignored them.

It was a strange world. Everything was small.

Looking back, even the alien-like person that appeared behind Ahri-noona was small. Every animal and plant that I came across during the sprint were all small and tiny.

Was this how Gulliver felt in the land of little men?

I myself had also become smaller after entering Room 102 and yet I was on the bigger side in this mysterious world.

I saw the grass and little trees swaying in the distance.

That was when I began to hear footsteps echoing in my ears, and my nose started to pick up a stinky and rotten smell that you would usually smell from a rotten piece of flesh.

Something was coming after me.

What should I do?

It was times like this that made me feel sad.

Why did I have no ability to fight whatsoever?

In any case, I decided to climb the big tree in front of me to avoid the pursuer. The moment I was about to tread a few steps closer towards it, my body suddenly slipped down.

— Flop!

One of my legs fell into a large hole on the ground!

What kind of unlucky thing was this—

Wait, unlucky? How could I be unlucky right now?

Right now, I was the luckiest man alive. Nothing unlucky could ever happen to me.

Therefore, my leg falling into the hole couldn’t have been anything unlucky; in fact, it happened to me because I was lucky!

I quickly forced my entire body through the hole.

After pushing my way through the mud, I fell into a strange underground cave. I pushed myself up on my feet and began to run.

During the sprint, I started to feel my luck fading away. This was it – my Blessing of Fortune was slowly starting to dissipate.

The fact that I ended up in this cave by simply sprinting forward with the syringe in hand was the limit of my ‘fortune’.

…

As soon as my blessing ended, bats flickered their eyes open from all around.

Bats? Were they even bats when they had scorpion tails?

Clenching my teeth I ran towards the end of the cave as hard as I could.

— Stab!

No matter how fast I tried to run, my speed as a young boy was nowhere near being faster than that of flying animals.

As if they were here to let me personally feel the end of my Fortune, the bats began to pierce me with their tails.

…It was painful, and I could feel something wriggling in the wounds.

I intentionally turned away from my injuries. I would be asking for too much to want to leave a strange place like this unscathed, right?

Even if I were to die, I had to take out this syringe, which must be containing a message that noona wanted to convey.

I could make a decent guess as to what the content of the message would be. It was probably about there being a place connected to a strange world in the mountain, and how that was the Enemy’s real base!

Noona probably figured out even more than what I saw.

Paat!

The world turned bright.

I unconsciously closed my eyes from the sudden spark of sunlight, and realized through that, that I was finally back in the real world.

— Twitch!

It hurt. It was excruciatingly painful!

I rolled on the ground from the unbearable pain.

It was frightening. What was happening to my body right now?

I took off my clothes in fear.

“UAAAHK!!!?” and I ended up screaming out loud.

Those bats from back then had injected eggs into my body! I could see larvae the size of my fingers wiggling inside my body. A few of them even seemed to have headed deeper inside my body already.

Sorry, everyone. I think this is it for me.

I simply cannot bear the idea of these monsters hatching inside my body. I went near the mountain hiking tracks, and placed my clothes down with the syringe carefully placed in the middle.

Then, I went to a cliff and jumped down.

…My consciousness began to fade. Sorry, everyone. And please, try your best.

* Present

- Han Kain

After confirming the death of Ahri and Seungyub, we quickly gathered the sisters back together. We headed to the house where the kids were staying and realized that all the other kids were sleeping dead silently on the sofa and the mattress.

Soon, the Cardinal found traces.

“It’s the rear mountain!”

“Sorry?”

“Here! Agents leave traces behind like this. Let’s head to the rear mountain!”

Without adding any more explanation, the Cardinal headed straight for the car. I glanced at where he was looking and found some undecipherable symbols written next to the door.

Was this a code used between the agents of the Administration?

In a hurry, the Cardinal and the sisters and I rode the car towards the mountain. For a moment, we stopped the car on the way and picked up Jinchul-hyung, whom we had contacted through the conversation tab.

It took us no time to get to the mountain.

But the problem was after that.

Where were we supposed to go in this vast mountain?

For the time being, we decided to climb the mountain using the hiking tracks. When we were about half-way up the mountain—

Songee found a shirt covered in blood.

“There! That’s what Seungyub was wearing today!”

The shirt was covered in blood. What did he go through?

I lifted the shirt and found a syringe filled with blood, and next to where the shirt had been were letters written on the dirt.

‘Mountain, strange world, real base.’

Did this mean there was a strange place somewhere in the mountain and how that was the real base of the Enemy?

I understood what it meant, but how were we supposed to find it in this vast mountain?

Picking up the syringe, I was staring at it with curiosity when the blood inside it suddenly started to swerve around.

“Huh? What?”

The Cardinal standing next to me immediately shouted out loud.

“Wait! Give me that syring—”

The blood forced its way out of the syringe on its own accord and dug into my body as my consciousness started to turn fuzzy.

***

When I came to myself, I found myself standing inside a dark place.

I turned around and found Ahri standing still with a blank look in her eyes.

Was this her way of relaying information?

“How did you die? Why didn’t you call us using the conversation tab, and why did you go by yourself?”

She stood blankly without replying to my question. Only when I got near her did she finally do something – she waved her hand in the air.

…

I had a feeling that this wasn’t the real ‘Ahri’. Was it just a hologram?

A video popped up in the air.

It showed the road from the entrance of the mountain all the way to where a strange door was. Going through the door revealed a strange world with a beautiful plain of flowers.

The video replayed itself twice, as if it wanted me to etch it into my brain.

When the video finished replaying itself, Ahri said in a dull manner.

“Going through this door leads to the other world where the Enemy’s home resides. This place contains flowers made by polishing human souls. Destroying this area is assumed to be the core of the resolution of the curse.”

Wasn’t this too extreme? We had to destroy a place that was in another world?

I was very confused but the hologram didn’t wait for me. It continued revealing some shocking information.

“There is a high likelihood of my defeat. The status of my soul is very high, and it is as effective as sacrificing hundreds or thousands of souls.

The demon, ‘One who couldn’t be Born’ is likely to be born very soon. You must escape right now.”

I shouted out loud in fright.

“Wait! What do you mean the demon will be born very soon? And what is this about the status of souls?”

In the midst of my question, I realized something.

This question was something that the ‘real Ahri’ would have never given the answer to. However, this hologram made with a fraction of Ahri’s memories replied after turning towards me.

“The participants of the Hotel will increase the status of their souls by overcoming its trials. That is one of the objectives of the Hotel. My soul has already exceeded the status of normal humans.”

That response was all that was allowed. After feeling like I was falling into an endless spiral, I escaped the dark area back into the real world.

***

- Han Kain

I immediately conveyed what I heard to everyone.

How there was a place inside the mountain that could be considered the Enemy’s base and how the Convict, the ‘One who couldn’t be Born’ was close to being born after taking Ahri as sacrifice!

The Cardinal yelled with a serious look on his face.

“We’re fucked!”

Songee shouted back in confusion.

“What’s happening?”

The one kind enough to reply to that was not from our group – it was the one that was currently in the middle of its birth.

— GOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

An endlessly evil scream shook the heavens and the earth.

Dark clouds soared from the mansion and immediately covered the entire sky. I dumbfoundedly turned to the Cardinal who explained with a sigh.

“It’s good that we found where the real base is and stuff, but it seems that the demon god will be born now that Ahri herself was sacrificed.”

Hearing that, Elena murmured in fear.

“You mean…”

“We are close to being doomed.”

The ground began to shake as a black aura started to seep out.

“What are we supposed to do then!” Jinchul-hyung asked in a hurry.

“Move right now! We have to escape before the ritual is completely over!”

“What about the real base that’s nearby? Shouldn’t we raid that place now?”

“You retard!” shouted the Cardinal. “The demon god ate everything it needs to and is about to be born, so what are we going to achieve by destroying that place now?! We needed to destroy it before all this happened.”

I started to follow what was happening.

It was great that we found where the ritual for the demon god was taking place, but due to the heavily dense sacrifice, that is Ahri, the demon was about to be born.

In other words, ‘this attempt’ was already doomed.

Of course, that didn’t mean we got nothing from it. Everything would be fine as long as we could somehow move on to the next attempt!

We could probably destroy the base before the birth of the demon god and kill the Enemy. Shouldn’t that solve everything?

I put away that line of thought until the escape because the situation at hand was much more urgent.

We all got back in the car and started moving towards the mansion.

On the way there, I pondered to myself.

‘Should I use Descent here?’

I asked everyone else for their opinion.

“Should I attack him using Descent? It must be pretty weak when it’s just born, right? And how about you guys distance yourself as much as possible in the meantime?”

“Not sure if I like that idea,” replied the Cardinal.

“Don’t you think that’s the best approach?”

“Sure, but there is a limit to your Descent, and I’m still a bit uneasy about the so-called ‘lord’. I’d rather we keep it unless it’s certain that we can resolve the curse.

I believe this attempt is already over. The moment we failed to stop the resurrection of the demon god, the best we can do is probably escape.”

“But can we escape without relying on Descent?”

The conditions for an escape were to escape from the ‘current threat’ even momentarily. The demon god was about to be born, so what were we supposed to do to escape it even for a moment?

It was times like this when we needed to use the ‘Advice’.

I prayed desperately. Please tell us what we need to do!

Sage’s Advice: 3 → 2

Sometimes, the only path out is to buy time by flipping the board upside down.

…What did that mean? Flip the board and buy time?

I couldn’t understand what it meant so I used the Advice again.

‘How do I flip the board and buy time?’

Sage’s Advice: 2 → 1

Your group has the power to ‘distort everything’.

I turned towards Jinchul-hyung.

The Third Attempt was in tatters, but I realized there was still a way out for us.

***

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