Escaping the Mystery Hotel

Third Attempt

- Lee Eunsol

I quietly looked at him while holding his hand until Lee Sehyun finally started revealing his story.

“This is when… Siwoo was young. This was over 10 years ago. Do you remember Yoojin, Siwoo’s mom?”

The man talked for a long time.

10 years ago, Lee Sehyun found out about his wife’s affair, with the partner of the affair being an old friend of his, and a major shareholder of the company he was running.

He wanted to punish his wife but due to the documents that she stole and the conspiracy of the major shareholder, Lee Sehyun was almost forced into losing everything he once had. On top of that, his son fell incredibly ill.

…I see. So something terrible like what you would see in a TV drama happened to you, huh.

Maybe I would have shed a tear or two if I was your real sister, but I’m not. More importantly, that moth is about to finish its cocoon so please get straight to the topic!

I rushed him without making it obvious and he finally started to move on.

“One day, I climbed the mountain behind the mansion thinking of committing suicide. Actually, back then it was closer to being a small house than a mansion, and—”

“So what happened at the mountain?”

Brother, please. That moth is literally about to close the cocoon!

“...Why are you in so much of a rush? While trying to find my way through the mountain, I came across a strange door and arrived at a place filled with sacred light.

I met a fairy there. It was mysterious and beautiful…”

It looked like he was going to enter his reminiscent mode again, so I quickly gave him a punch.

— Bam!

“Uhk! E, Eunsol?”

“If you waste any more time, I will punch Siwoo as soon as I go back in time, okay!”

“A, alright. Calm down. I’m almost there. After a short conversation, I realized he was the apostle of a great existence.

The Apostle gave me the revelation to serve a new god. He said all my sufferings would vanish if I started serving him…”

The mysterious ‘Apostle’ suggested Sehyun serve a new god, and that all of his sufferings would disappear if he served the new god with all his heart.

Surprisingly, as soon as he did that, everything turned out incredibly well and he was able to punish his ex-wife and the partner of her affair.

All of his wealth came back, and his business worked out so well until he acquired a large amount of wealth.

And as if natural, his son also became a lot better than before.

‘...Everything turned out well? More like the Apostle guy possessing humans left and right to fulfill your wish,’ I thought to myself.

“After that, I decided to build an altar in the basement to offer back my wealth, which I regained thanks to him. I prayed regularly and diligently and—”

“An altar?”

“It wasn’t anything grandiose. It was just—”

“Wait, oppa. Where is this altar?”

Please, Sehyun! Stop all the other nonsense! I swear this is important.

We have to break that altar, right?!

“Huh? It’s a bit hard to explain where the altar is in words. The Apostle put a lot of emphasis on security and the way to get there is incredibly—”

— Kugung!

A deafening roar filled the heaven and the earth.

Ah, no way!

Looking outside, I found the moth had finished its cocoon and had gone back inside.

…

I grabbed him by the collar in a fit!

“Lee Sehyun! Just explain how to get to the altar!”

“Like I said, it’s hard to explain that in—”

You have successfully escaped!

…This damn Hotel. How could they cut me off like that? Even though we clearly have to break this altar!

***

User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 30

Current Location: Floor 1, Corridor

Sage’s Advice: 1

- Han Kain

Kung!

I came to myself in the corridor while feeling like I fell down from somewhere.

Looking around, I saw everyone else standing up with a blank look on their face. This was how we always looked when escaping from a Cursed Room.

We headed to Room 105, shared all the details we discovered and started a strategy meeting over the meal.

Usually it was Eunsol-noona who started it off but she was deep in thought so I started it this time.

“We’re close to the end, and the conditions to resolve the curse have become somewhat apparent as well.

There are two main conditions for the resolution.

Firstly, stop the birth of the demon god. As for the method, we probably have to destroy the otherworldly ‘Sanctum’ that we can find somewhere in the mountain, and the ‘altar’ in the basement.

Secondly, dealing with the Enemy.

All we need to do is stop his ability to possess others with the bell and kill the Enemy. According to what Ahri and Seungyub found out, it seems that he is possessing ‘Lee Siwoo’ at the start.

If you have any other ideas, please feel free to share.”

“Rather than another idea,” Songee said. “I have a question. Why is he possessing Lee Siwoo?

Lee Sehyun is the one in charge of the money, so wouldn’t it be easier to do everything by possessing him instead?

He probably could have done that anytime as well.”

It was Grandpa Mooksung who replied to her question.

“Because Lee Sehyun needs to meet more people, the Enemy probably deemed it highly likely that he might be discovered by the Vatican if he was possessing Lee Sehyun.

Even for us, if the Apostle was inside Lee Sehyun’s body in the second attempt, we would have immediately locked him up.

We were fooled because he was in the body of a little kid. Isn’t that also why you didn’t inspect the kid with your bracelet?”

“Yes,” Songee agreed. “I was too caught up with Lee Sehyun and didn’t think about inspecting Lee Siwoo.”

After finishing her line of thought, Eunsol-noona participated in the conversation.

“I thought about it, but I really have no idea where the ‘altar’ might be in the basement. I went through everything in my mind that was injected for being his sister but there’s nothing related to the altar’s location.”

The altar that was apparently hard to approach due to security measures, huh…

“How should we go there? Anyone with an idea?” I asked.

Grandpa Mooksung again replied as if it was no big deal.

“What’s the worry? Lee Sehyun and the Apostle are the only ones that know how to get there. It’ll be impossible to force the Apostle to open his mouth so we can make Lee Sehyun do that.”

“We have the answer to the first condition then. Use Lee Sehyun to find out where the altar is, destroy that and let’s do the same to the sanctum.”

I turned to Jinchul-hyung while using the word, ‘destroy’ and he immediately nodded after understanding what I meant.

“It should be fine with my Star,” he said. “It’s not like we have a bomb either way, so the Star is the best option. It’s an Inheritance that can even distort the wings of a demon god, so it should be enough to destroy both the altar and the sanctum.”

He stopped there so I continued on.

“As for killing the Enemy, the ‘Apostle’, I think it should be easy. As soon as we start, we can restrain Lee Siwoo, ring the bell to block his possession and…”

I lost my words in the middle of the sentence.

Thinking about it, he was just a poor boy who got his body stolen by an evil existence. Did we really have to kill him?

Ahri continued on from where I stopped.

“We can stop the possession and kill Siwoo.”

…There was no other way around it.

We finalized our plan.

First, destroy the altar and the sanctum with the power of the Star. Find out where the altar is through Lee Sehyun.

Second, restrain the possession ability with the bell and kill the Enemy, the Apostle of the Demon God.

We finished off the meeting with Grandpa Mooksung warning us for the final time.

“Keep this in mind! The demon god’s ritual is ongoing so we must carry out the plan with haste.

None of us can die in the process. If we die and become one of the sacrifices, that will quicken the birth of the demon god.”

Fourth Attempt

User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 31

Current Location: Floor 1, Room 102 (Cursed Room - Mansion of Fear)

Sage’s Advice: 3

- Han Kain

As soon as the Fourth Attempt began, we headed straight to the village, picked up Ahri and Seungyub and raced to the mansion.

There was no need to be cautious of anyone anymore. All we needed to worry about was speed!

The biggest priority of our plan was to restrain the Enemy, who was possessing Lee Siwoo, and make sure he couldn’t do anything funny.

We stormed the mansion like a lightning bolt. Lee Sehyun tried to greet us but we restrained him before he could, and the Cardinal ordered the maids of the mansion to summon Lee Siwoo.

Before Lee Siwoo could do anything—

— Taang!

The bell in my hands gave off a coarse noise.

After feeling something strange, Lee Siwoo’s face crumpled like that of a demon.

“But how!?”

Black chains emerged from everywhere but as expected, they were powerless due to the bell. Priest Jinchul didn’t even need to do anything – they were weak even for me.

We restrained Lee Siwoo on the bed and rang the bell without an end. Before long, he lost consciousness and drooped down.

After that, we tried to persuade Lee Sehyun.

We told him that there was an evil being that possessed Siwoo that was sacrificing the kids of the village for the rebirth of the demon god. We also told him how the god he was serving was an incredibly evil being and that we had to destroy the altar.

After explaining ourselves, we asked him to guide the way but naturally, Lee Sehyun fiercely resisted and refused to believe us.

Of course, we weren’t here to peacefully persuade him either.

Ahri walked closer and hypnotized him.

What do we do now? Do we kill Lee Siwoo straight away?

Before I could do anything, the Cardinal picked up the gun and approached the unconscious boy.

…Heaving out a sigh, I turned somewhere else.

— Bang!

— Ting~!

?

What was that? It sounded like something bounced off.

I turned back in curiosity and realized that Lee Siwoo was imprisoned in a large crystal that popped up from nowhere.

“What is this?” I asked.

The Cardinal was similarly dumbfounded but he soon came up with an explanation.

“It seems that he had a final measure to protect himself. This thing appeared as soon as I shot the gun.”

I rang the bell but the crystal stayed the same. Both the bell and the gun weren’t working, so what did we have to do now?

Priest Jinchul approached with a grin.

“Take a step back, folks. Something like that I can destroy with my Star–”

“You idiot! Don’t use the Star here!”

“Eh?”

“‘Eh?’ my ass! Don’t you see Kain still ringing the bell as hard as he can? As if the bell can resist the Star that can even distort the wings of a demon god!

The bell will break before that crystal does, and once the bell is gone, this guy will return to his original body in the other world. Do you want to see all that happen?”

Priest Jinchul understood what was happening and began to bash down at the crystal with his fists instead.

Unfortunately, not a single dent was made in the crystal. Next, he brought pieces of rock and metal to strike down at the crystal but it still stayed the same.

In the end, the Cardinal said with a sigh.

“Enough! Looks like we can’t break it by pure force. It would be difficult to destroy it through normal means.”

What do we do then?

It was blocking bullets and didn’t crack at all even when being pounded by Priest Jinchul. There were no other means to break it apart from the Star, but using the Star would end up destroying the bell, and if we were to make the bell go out of the range of the Star, the Apostle might regain his ability to possess others.

…We were all thinking about our next step in silence when Ahri made the decision for everyone.

“He won’t be able to sustain that crystal forever. It will disappear over time. Let’s have a few of us stay behind to ring the bell and keep him like that, while the rest can take Lee Sehyun to destroy the altar.”

We decided to separate ourselves into two groups.

In order to destroy the altar, Jinchul-hyung as well as Songee who had to use the bracelet on him, and Ahri who had to maintain the hypnosis on Lee Sehyun headed off to destroy the altar, while the rest of us stayed behind to ring the bell and supervise the Apostle.

***

- Lee Sehyun

…My mind was foggy.

What am I doing?

I had no idea. It all felt strange like a dream.

Why was I leading the priests of the Vatican, whom I met for the first time, to the altar?

…

Open your eyes.

My faithful lamb! My devoted servant Sehyun!

Those following the deceitful god are treating you like livestock.

…

Open your eyes.

The sanctuary you have built with sincerity and maintained with devotion is close to crumbling down.

The life of the child you have protected over 5,000 nights is in peril.

Wake up. For you are the only one who can overturn all this.

My consciousness started to return. I realized that I was being surrounded by deceitful hypocrites.

‘Ahh! Lord! My lord! What do I do?’

Follow what I say. You will serve as my hands and my legs.

***

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