Escaping the Mystery Hotel

Third Attempt

- Han Kain

We quickly came up with a plan straight after the Advice and divided our group into two squads.

One of them was the ‘Suicide Squad’, comprising of Priest Jinchul, the owner of the Star, Songee who can protect his mind, and me, who also had protection against possession.

I took hold of the gun and the bell.

Next up was the ‘Escape Squad’, whose job was to run as far away as possible because they won’t be able to contribute much to the battle. The Enemy wasn’t a human, and it was dangerous for anyone without protective means against the possession to even approach him.

As such, Sister Elena and the Cardinal were in charge of the escape.

Sister Elena said in tears before we parted ways.

Priest Jinchul replied to cheer her up.

“Don’t worry. We’ll see you guys outside.”

The moment we decided to head back to the demon, everyone in our ‘Suicide Squad’ made up our minds already. There was no chance of survival for us.

All three of us were going there to die.

***

- Cha Jinchul

Huu. Huuu.

I took a deep breath in and out and thought to myself on the way to the mansion.

Was there a time when I had to fight against adversities of this level?

I thought back on the other martial artists that felt like unsurpassable walls back when I was pursuing that career outside the Hotel.

At that time, I considered them the greatest adversities of my life and saw them as unbeatable foes once I lost my passion but…

Looking back at it now, they were nothing but mere humans.

The demon that we were about to face right now could flick its finger once and kill all of them.

It felt like I was playing in a bigger body of water now instead of the lake I used to be in.

I’ve never said this to my teammates since I might sound like a lunatic, but there were times when I felt an inexplicable sense of achievement and accomplishment throughout my life at the Hotel.

The feelings of becoming a special existence!

Why was I so adamant about the martial arts of ‘mere’ humans before?

There was no need to feel nervous.

I acquired a blessing that surpassed humans and had a treasure that could help me fight against the demon king.

As we got closer to the mansion, we realized the surroundings turned more and more devastating. The people here had been killed horribly in ways that words could not express.

I didn’t feel like looking at them and turned my head, but Kain approached the corpses and came to the conclusion that sharp tentacles must have soared from the ground to pierce through the people.

It was obvious that observing the corpses would be helpful in finding clues, but that was something I certainly couldn’t do.

— Kung! Kung!

When we were close enough to the mansion, we saw an unbelievably enormous cocoon. From inside the cocoon echoed an enormous sound that shook the ground below with each of its pounces.

“...What in the world is that?”

“I believe, Priest, that’s a—”

“Come on! Stop with the role play. We don’t need to worry about that now.”

“You’re right. To me, it looks like an incredibly large piece of flesh.” Kain replied.

“Looks like we’re not facing the demon straight away. Do we just have to destroy that thing?”

As soon as I said that, black tentacles began to rise from the ground. They started to twist and bind my body before I could react and tried to squeeze me dry.

A strange voice reached my ears from a distance.

“Are you even human? Even a bear can’t be this strong… But it matters not anymore.”

A creature that looked like ‘Gollum’ from Lord of the Rings showed up and gestured with its hands to summon a dozen more tentacles.

“This fucker!”

— Tangg!

The sound of a coarse bell rang through the air. It was a sound that no-one would be able to call a ‘clear ding’ even if they wanted to be extra polite about the sound, but it was effective. The tentacles immediately withered like that of a dead squid.

Seeing that, the Gollum-like creature widened its eyes in shock before immediately turning around to run away.

Too late, idiot!

Kwang!

I kicked off with a thud and pounced at him.

“That bell! What is this power!?”

“That’s the Bell of the Saint! You son of a bitch! You’re dead!”

I smashed the Gollum’s shoulder as its shoulder immediately shattered into smithereens. It let out an ear-splitting scream. I was just one punch away from crushing its head—

“That body! How tempting!”

The monster’s eyes suddenly turned crimson red and my consciousness —. Actually, nothing happened.

“What are you doing, little guy? Do you think I’m a retard that will let you possess me?”

Of course, I wasn’t the one that did anything. Songee was probably the one that did something.

Kain, who had been ringing the bell like crazy the whole time, walked towards me from behind. It was hard to tell, but it seemed that the Gollum was having trouble using its powers while the bell was being rung.

That was all good and all, but it did sound horrible.

There wasn't anything much to interrogate the monster about. Even if there was, we didn’t have the time for that.

The heaven-shaking heartbeats from inside the cocoon were becoming larger and larger over time.

“Just die now.”

Right as I was about to smash its head, the monster smirked and left its last words.

“It’s all futile. The god will soon descend on this land. A new era will begin to unfold.”

— Slam!

“Wasn’t expecting him to die so easily,” I commented.

“This bell certainly is effective,” replied Kain. “Looks like he can’t possess others while the bell is being rung.”

“Wasn’t it Songee that stopped the possession?”

“No,” Songee replied. “You were moving too fast and I couldn’t set you as the target. That was very dangerous.”

“Oh, I almost made another mistake, it seems. But it’s good that we found out what the bell was for.”

After looking around, Songee asked a question.

“We killed the Enemy but we haven’t resolved it yet.”

“Probably means we were too late,” Kain replied with a sigh. “It doesn’t mean anything to kill the Enemy when the demon is already about to be born, right?”

I thought the same thing. Now that the demon’s cocoon was already summoned onto the world, this Gollum had already done its job.

We had to do something about that cocoon.

— Kung! Kung!

The large cocoon that showed up while destroying the mansion that used to take its place was awe-strikingly enormous. It was as gigantic as a building.

…Now was the time to use the Star.

Songee came closer and her Bracelet flickered once.

“Step back. Both of you.”

Songee and Kain took several steps back when I said that.

I summoned the .

- PAAAAAAAAHT!

The Star came to existence while immediately giving off an overwhelming energy. Although I practiced a lot in the Safari, there was still an innate sense of fear that struck me every time I summoned it.

After all, this contained the power that could distort anything in this world. It was the authority from another world that scoffed at everything in existence, regardless of whether they were living or not.

The cocoon began to go through a change as soon as the Star’s energy came into contact with it.

— GOOOOHHHH!

An infuriated roar erupted from the cocoon. Arms began to shoot out from the cocoon made by the god who couldn’t be born to perfect itself.

— Kwang!

I avoided the hands that were trying to grab me. I dodged them again and again. The hands grew in number one by one.

Right when one of the arms almost squeezed my entire body to nothing!

I shoved the Star into that hand, which immediately turned into strange minerals and melted into a liquid.

— AHHHKK!

A scream echoed out from the cocoon. The cocoon divided into two vertically as a large moth, the size of a mountain, emerged from within.

…That was the last thing I remembered.

***

- Han Kain

I ran and ran to no end.

When the cocoon was screaming and when the arms that tried to kill Jinchul-hyung were being melted by the Star, I thought the power of the Star was going to be enough to beat it.

What happened next was something I hadn’t even seen in a movie.

The cocoon bigger than an apartment building separated into two, as an enormous moth that even made that cocoon seem tiny shot out from the inside.

Jinchul-hyung vanished in the blink of an eye. He seemed to have died the moment the moth came to existence.

I realized something as soon as I saw that mountain-like moth move itself.

This world was over the moment such a thing came to life. No weapons would be able to protect this world from that thing.

The moth fluttered its enormous wings once as white dust began to fall like rain onto the world beneath.

Ahh…

This was a scene from hell for us, but was the beginning of a new era for others. Inexplicable creatures were being born from each of those specks of dust.

A single flutter of its wing gave birth to thousands of creatures and the world was filled with vitality. Plants that I had never seen before began to cover the ground and everything, from the air to the atmosphere, began to change.

Only then did I realize why this being was a ‘god’ and not a ‘demon’.

The only problem was that it wasn’t a ‘god of humans’.

…I couldn’t avoid the specks of dust that were raining on the entire world. They covered my body and began to change me into ‘another existence’.

Was this the end?

Speechless, I was looking at the moth when I realized something. Wings — one of its wings was strange.

— BIIIIIIIIII! Kwang!!!

The moth, in the middle of its creation of another world, suddenly wobbled in the air before falling onto the ground.

It fidgeted with its distorted wing before eventually ripping it out.

…That was the last thing I remembered.

***

- Lee Eunsol

What a sight.

Born in a wealthy family, I thought I had tasted a lot of delicious cuisines and had my share of seeing mysterious things but…

Only after entering the Hotel did I realize how ‘clueless’ I had been my whole life.

I didn’t know there was a world like this.

While my teammates were running around the village and the mountain trying to destroy the demon god’s altar and whatnot, I was having tea with Lee Sehyun the whole time.

And this was what I was suddenly made to see.

The mansion suddenly broke down and was replaced by a cocoon the size of a building.

The cocoon separated into two and a moth the size of a mountain came out.

The moth flew around the world and created a whole new world.

Wow! Amazing!

It felt so unrealistic that it didn’t even feel scary or anything.

That was when the moth fell from the sky. I wondered what it was doing, and realized it was inspecting one of its wings.

I carefully observed the wings and realized that one of the wings looked funny. The color was off, and there were strange tentacles budding here and there.

Considering how I could see it from all the way here, those tentacles might actually be as big as a building.

After a careful inspection of the tentacles on its wings, the moth ripped out the ‘faulty wing’ and— began to recreate the cocoon.

…

This was probably an ‘Escape’.

I had no idea what exactly happened, but it seemed that my teammates had worked hard to stop the wings of the moth from developing in the way it should.

And after realizing that one of its wings was faulty, the moth recreated the cocoon to build its body again, which meant we had escaped the ‘looming threat’.

The moth would soon enter the cocoon again, and it will be considered an escape for us.

But before that, there was something I had to do.

“So, brother. Is there really nothing you have to say to me?”

Lee Sehyun, who had been watching all that unfold with me from ‘the sky’ with a dumbfounded look on his face, turned towards me after hearing my voice.

“What? What was that?”

“I’ve been through a lot of interesting things today. That moth is by far the most intriguing, but what happened before that was also quite strange.”

When the mansion began to shake, he grabbed me and ‘did something’.

By the time I came to myself, he and I were inside the belly of a weird flying animal, gazing down at what was happening below.

“I did it to save you!”

“I know that. You probably did it in my best interest.”

“And you still brought those exorcists here? Did you think I wouldn't know?”

As I thought, he knew all of that already.

It was fine. I could talk this out.

From what I felt thus far, Lee Sehyun didn’t feel like an evil person.

“I saw a bunch of weird things happen till now inside the mansion, after all. And even the current situation is nothing short of being strange.

Are you still going to hide it from me? Or will you somehow make me unable to say this to anyone else?”

“What…? What are you implying!? I… I don’t know what’s happening!

I don’t know what’s going on either! I had no idea such a crazy monster would appear from nowhere.”

Carefully I observed his expression. There was a clear sense of ‘guilt’.

This man knew something.

He knew something, but not everything. At the very least, it was clear that he wasn’t expecting the world to be destroyed like this.

“Siwoo… Where is Siwoo? How did this all happen!?”

I decided to intervene here. This person was about to break down mentally, so I walked up and held onto his hand.

“Oppa. Calm down. It’s not over yet.”

“Huhuhu… Eunsol. Wake up. Look what’s happening outside! Everything’s over! Siwoo must have died as well… Oh, god!”

“Oppa. I was going to keep this a secret until the end, but to tell you the truth, the Vatican has the power to rewind time.”

Lee Sehyun, who had been blankly sitting there in a stupor, slowly lifted his head back up.

“What?”

“The Vatican has the power to rewind time. So please, tell me. You know something, don’t you?”

The first day we re-entered Room 102,

We investigated Lee Sehyun and came to the conclusion that he didn’t know anything.

That was a mistake.

He certainly didn’t know anything about the ‘serial missing incidents’ and the ‘grimoire’, but was not completely ignorant of all the secrets of this room!

While listening to me speak, he blankly inspected the look on my face. After sensing that I hadn’t lost hope even with the world being ruined underneath us, Lee Sehyun finally opened his mouth.

***

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