Escaping the Mystery Hotel

Fourth Attempt

- Lee Eunsol

How many hours has it been? We just kept ringing the bell endlessly while waiting for ‘Team Destroyers’ to come back after destroying the altar.

— Taang! Taang!

The bell did sound horrible though. I’d heard a lot of bells throughout my life but this was the first time hearing such a terrible one.

At the start, I just thought Kain was terrible at ringing the bell but when it was my turn to ring the bell (we passed the bell around), I realized it was the bell itself that was strange.

Of course, it’s job was to suppress evil powers instead of providing music so there was nothing wrong in that sense.

Kain, who was drinking coffee from the side, asked after looking at me.

“Hnn?”

“By the way, what do you think the clue meant?”

Hint: Don’t fall into the bias that you must go towards the _________.

“Now that you mention it, we just completely forgot about the clue at one point.”

“We did think about it before the second attempt but the scenario went through a full rework when we re-entered it.

I think everyone was so busy adapting to the new scenario that we didn’t have time for the clues.”

“What were the possible answers that we came up with again?”

“One of them was the mansion, and Grandpa Mooksung and Ahri stated that there were many more including the cathedral, the basement, the lake and the study.”

“Looking back at it, it’s definitely not the mansion. We had to go to the mansion, and I don’t think it’s the cathedral either.

We gathered a lot of information by going to both locations. The lake was never a consideration from the second attempt onwards, nor was the study.”

“Was it the ‘basement’ then?”

“Don’t fall into the bias that you must go towards the basement, huh. To be fair, we’ve fallen into the bias that we must go to the basement after finding the grimoire there.

Even in the second attempt, when we couldn’t find anything after inspecting Lee Sehyun, we all headed to the basement without even having second guesses about it.”

“And we were forced to escape.”

“Now that I think about it, Ahri died in the first attempt immediately after heading to the basement as well. It’s never gone well for us by going to the basement.

In the first attempt, it was an immediate death and in the second attempt, we were forced to escape before we could find any clues.

In the third attempt, we didn’t go to the basement at all and found a lot of important clues.

We figured out that the bell had the power to stop possession, and that there was a sanctum in the mountain behind the mansion that was related to the ritual of the demon god.”

I realized what the correct interpretation of the clue was through the conversation with Kain.

Don’t fall into the bias that you must go towards the basement.

We were giving each other a nod when Seungyub, who had been listening to us from nearby, asked in curiosity.

“But didn’t Jinchul-hyung, Ahri-noona and Songee-noona head to the ‘basement’ to destroy the altar?”

“...”

“...”

***

***

***

“UAHHK!”

I was so startled that I ended up letting out a scream.

“Wait! Is this fucking over?”

Even Kain swore out loud.

“Wait wait wait wait! What do we do? Are we done?”

“Noona, calm down. Let’s think about it! An altar in the basement… Isn’t it obvious that we have to destroy it? It’s literally called the altar!”

“Wait. Wait!”

I recalled the conversation I had with Lee Sehyun.

***

“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—”

***

“Hah! Damn it! I got it!”

“W, what did you get, noona?”

“The Apostle never told Lee Sehyun to make the altar! Lee Sehyun made it himself out of gratitude. Besides, he himself said that it wasn’t anything grandiose!”

“But didn’t the Apostle stress the importance of security?!”

***

“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—”

***

“He was just telling him to be careful because the Vatican is in power in this world! So that they don’t find out about a strange altar for a demon god!”

I discovered the hopeless truth.

The altar in the basement was completely unrelated to the ritual of the demon god; it was built by Lee Sehyun out of his own faith! There was no need to go there.

In fact, it was not only a place that we didn’t need to go to; it was a place that we shouldn’t go to!

It was when kain and I were shocked speechless by the hopeless discovery.

— KYAAAAAAAAAAAK!

A scream started to echo everywhere around the mansion.

* Two hours ago; Team Destroyers

- Kim Ahri

I could tell what Lee Sehyun meant when he told Eunsol that it was ‘incredibly secure’.

How in the world did he make all these things in the basement? And how much money did Lee Sehyun have to spend in order to build all this?

In the middle, I realized it was useless to continue that line of thought.

He was a businessman who had the assistance of the Apostle, who had the power to possess other people. It certainly wouldn’t be difficult for him to acquire a shocking amount of money that would be astonishing to even the royal family of the middle east.

We started off at the mansion. There was a lever in the study that led to the basement with the grimoire, but the study wasn’t the only place that contained that kind of device.

Lee Sehyun led us to the bedroom and did something, which pushed the bed off to one side and revealed a staircase leading to the basement.

This place was quite different from the path from the study.

The air was quite refreshing despite being underground and it wasn’t dark either. But on the other hand, there were a lot of security measures that verified Lee Sehyun’s fingerprints and his iris.

It was much more ‘modern’ compared to the pathway from the study.

Thinking back, Lee Sehyun didn’t even know about the existence of the grimoire.

It seemed that the pathway from the study to the grimoire was different from the pathway from the bedroom to the altar. And those two different pathways seemed to be for different people.

The road to the grimoire was probably just for the Apostle who was in the body of Lee Siwoo.

Did that mean Lee Sehyun was the one mainly using the path to the altar?

I was thinking about this and that when it was time to refresh the hypnosis.

“One second, everyone.”

Everyone halted their feet; I walked up to Lee Sehyun and hypnotized him using the Ancient Blood again.

It was weird though.

My hypnosis and Allusion did not have the power to completely eradicate a person’s ego. It only had the power to allude the consciousness to something else.

That was why I was expecting Lee Sehyun to throw a fit or resist from time to time but…

Mysteriously enough, he obeyed our every word like a puppet.

In fact he was so obedient that Songee became vigilant about my Allusion.

Like, this was a surprise for me as well! It’s not supposed to be this strong!

In any case, we had to walk for about 40 minutes to barely arrive at the altar.

Jinchul looked around before giving his opinion.

“Well, it looks like a place for meditation.”

“Wait. Let me have a close look.”

I was the only one here who was knowledgeable about evil powers so I carefully inspected everything nearby. There was a sculpture of something similar to a moth as well as a cushion that must be for Lee Sehyun to kneel.

Apart from that, there were some paintings and other sculptures.

…

“Ahri. Can you feel anything?”

I had no idea. This was a bit embarrassing now.

Everything was just a normal painting and a normal sculpture. Jinchul attested that the sculpture of the moth looked similar to the moth he saw before he died in the third attempt so we must have come to the right location but…

How strange.

They all looked like normal sculptures and paintings made by normal people based on what they heard.

I couldn’t feel anything supernatural from any of these.

Evil rituals, in some ways, were similar to modern science.

Great preparations were required to do something equally great.

There had to be a significant facility built for something as remarkable as giving birth to a demon god but…

I was pondering to myself in confusion when Jinchul approached from the side.

“Are you not too sure?” he asked. “Let’s just use the Star. I don’t know what we’re supposed to break but I’m sure I can break everything with the Star.”

“I agree. It distorted the wings of a demon god, so a facility made by a mortal won’t ever be able to resist the Star.”

“You can just take a step back with Songee.”

…

In the end, Songee and I took Lee Sehyun and distanced ourselves from Jinchul.

Ah. Something was wrong. I had a feeling that I was missing something important.

Jinchul, after receiving mental protection from Songee, stayed behind at the altar room by himself to summon the Star which was immediately followed by the pain of something prickling at my skin.

It gave me goosebumps how destructive the power of that Inheritance was for me to be able to feel it from this far.

Wasn’t the Hotel crazy for throwing away powerful treasures like this left and right? Please put yourself in the shoes of the poor Administration team, who have to protect the Earth!

If Jinchul succeeded in escaping the Hotel, he would have a power equal to a nuclear weapon just by himself.

How were we supposed to restrain him then?

…

I decided to drop that line of thought, because I was just another participant of the Hotel for the time being.

An ominous wave started to shake the basement. Lee Sehyun blankly took several steps back as if he felt an instinctive sense of fear. However, he suddenly turned around and — began to dash off.

???

What was that!?

I was so surprised that I kicked off the ground and flew after him. After noticing what was going on, Songee also ran after us in surprise.

“Too late!”

Lee Sehyun yelled out loud with excitement before touching something on the wall.

— Vuuung!

A terrifying noise started to fill the basement.

It wasn’t an evil power nor a sacred one. In fact, it was the power of technology! Lee Sehyun disappeared from sight as if there had been a secret passage somewhere, and what replaced that were several barrels being pointed at us.

Like! Isn’t this too much?

Lee Sehyun, this damn madman! How much money did he have to build a crazy place like this underground?

I turned around in annoyance and found Jinchul, who had run out of the altar room after sensing the change, looking back at me in confusion.

Songee seemed to have determined her resolve; she silently walked up to Jinchul.

It seemed that I had to make the same resolve.

Considering our physical abilities and the power of the Inheritance, there was only one person in our group that would be able to escape from this place alive.

But fortunately, this wasn’t the worst case scenario.

Based on my knowledge acquired through my work as an agent, I could say confidently that killing anyone at any place could not make them a suitable sacrifice for a supernatural ritual.

From ancient times, people had to go through complicated procedures to make a sacrifice or an offering to a god, and that wasn’t because they wanted to waste time. There was a reason.

Even if we were to die in a place like this; by a security system at that instead of dying in the hands of the Apostle, Songee and my soul would not be eligible for a sacrifice.

In other words, the cocoon wouldn’t be summoned even if I were to die here.

All I could hope for now was for the team left behind at the mansion to somehow fix this mess.

***

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