Escaping the Mystery Hotel

Fourth Attempt

- Han Kain

— KIEEEEK!

Monsters were screaming all around.

This was the Fourth Attempt, meaning that we would be under a detrimental penalty next attempt!

Actually, this wasn’t even a question about the penalty anymore. It was a question of whether we would be able to even escape it or not!

Strange phenomena started happening across the entire mansion just like how it did in the ‘First Attempt’.

Birds with sharp fangs popped out of the cuckoo clock; monsters looking like us emerged from mirrors with a knife in hand and statues all around the mansion came to life.

“Gather together! We are safer around the bell!”

Everyone in ‘Team Mansion’ ran frantically and gathered around the crystalized Siwoo on the first floor of the mansion.

Seungyub began to ring the bell like crazy.

As expected of the Bell of Saint George!

To be honest, I had no idea who Sir George was in this world, but he must have been an amazing person. The murky noise of the bell created a gentle flow of energy like rippling water and monsters of the mansion were unable to reach us through it.

But what could we achieve by buying time like this?

“What do we do? We can’t stay here and do nothing, can we?”

“Don’t ask me! For now, I guess all we can do is wait and hope this crystal disappears.”

Was that all we had to do; wait until the crystal was gone? If we killed Siwoo, would that let us escape or resolve the curse?

— Bang!

That was when a table nearby exploded with a gunshot.

Why did he shoot the table? I curiously turned to Grandpa and realized that he wasn't the one who shot it.

“Who the fuck is it? Come out right now!” Grandpa screamed.

“The owner of this house. You bastards!” Lee Sehyun screamed out in fury.

Ah, so it was him who must have done something. How the hell did this guy even get a gun in South Korea?

“You! How the hell did you come here?”

“Hah! Mr. Cardinal. All of your subordinates are burned to death in the basement so don’t even try.”

Saying that, he started shooting randomly from behind the monsters that were surrounding us. The bell could stop monsters from approaching us, but it couldn’t protect us from a gun.

It was becoming more and more difficult.

Fortunately, Lee Sehyun was a horrible shooter and we were somehow able to protect ourselves with nearby furniture again and again.

“Grandpa! Can you shoot him down?”

“Buddy! If I could shoot him through the gaps of all these monsters, I would be the god of sniping! I can’t even get an angle on him.”

“No, but you have your hand! Use the glove to bring the gun closer to him.”

He finally understood what I meant, and began to focus. His hand carrying the pistol floated in the air until it was high enough to have a good aim at Lee Sehyun, who was so busy shooting at us that he missed the pistol floating to the ceiling.

— Bang!

“Aht! Where did that come from? That! Drop that hand!”

Ah damn it!

The bullet missed; Lee Sehyun noticed the pistol floating in the air and ordered the monsters nearby.

In the end, we just ended up losing the surprise factor of both the pistol and the glove.

“Ah! How could you miss that!?”

“I told you… shooting remotely with the hand is not easy… It’s over now.”

That was when Eunsol-noona moved to action.

Like a madman, she suddenly ran out of our group and approached the monsters. Right when the monsters were about to kill her–

“Wait!” Lee Sehyun shouted.

Eunsol-noona began her ‘acting’.

“Are you sparing your sister at the very least?”

“Of course I wouldn’t kill you, but you owe me an explanation!”

“About what? Bringing exorcists into the mansion? If you didn’t start hiding things from me and do weird things in the first place, I wouldn’t have reached out for external help!”

“Even so, how dare you bring people that are trying to kill your nephew!”

“I didn’t know people from the Vatican were this crazy either! I didn’t know they would try to kill an innocent boy all of a sudden… Do you really think I wanted to kill Siwoo, oppa?”

“...”

“I helped raise Siwoo like he was my son.”

“You did. You did play the role of a mother that Yoojin that bitch couldn’t do.”

Suddenly, the mansion was surrounded by an emotional mood. We, who suddenly ended up being lunatics from the Vatican that were trying to kill an innocent boy, stayed concealed behind the table.

Her acting was top-notch!

Even though it had been less than 3 days or so in total since she met the boy called Siwoo, she gave off from her facial expression the affection of someone who raised a motherless child for 10 years.

Lee Sehyun was deceived by her act.

He dropped his head and had a touching reunion with his sister by allowing Eunsol-noona to approach him through the defense line of monsters.

The moment she went past the monster, she ‘disappeared’ from sight.

“What! Wait, what is—”

— Stab!

A sharp knife from who knows where suddenly stabbed Lee Sehyun in the chest!

The monsters nearby immediately separated him from Eunsol-noona, but the knife was already deep inside his heart.

“Sorry.”

“You… You!”

“I will be nice to Siwoo in your stead. At least until we kill him.”

Umm, Eunsol-noona?

Did you need to say that?

Aren’t you too invested in your role of a villain?

While stumbling down, Lee Sehyun yelled out loud.

“Run in! Destroy the bell even if it means your death!”

The monsters immediately started to horde in along with his shout! When they forced their way into the range of the bell, their bodies immediately began to burn and melt, but even so, the monsters refused to back down.

They aimed for the bell regardless of their lives!

Even if we still had the gun, it would have been meaningless against these guys.

Plus, these monsters weren’t humans and according to Elena’s view of Justice, Lee Sehyun wasn’t an evil person either.

…Actually, we were more like villains than them at this point.

Anyway thanks to that, Elena was a completely normal person, and there was no-one in our group that possessed superhuman fighting abilities.

— Kwang!

The giant on the right dropped at us despite half of its body having melted down already. It was trying to cover us with its corpse even if it died to the bell in the process!

We had to separate to avoid the falling corpse but—

Kung!

That was when a massive hammer fell on Elena.

Immediately after that, another bandaged monster ran towards Seungyub, who was frantically ringing the bell the whole time.

Although the monster burned to death due to getting too close to the bell, the burning corpse of the monster still collapsed on Seungyub.

“Ahk!”

Unable to resist the pain, Seungyub rolled to the floor and dropped the bell.

We had to pick that back up!!

— Crush!

…

But a large moving statue crushed it with its leg.

Immediately, laughter filled the room.

“Ahaha! Good. Well done, my faithful servant. Sehyun.”

Instinctively, I covered my sight with the filter, took out my pen and turned to the crystal. As soon as Siwoo opened his red eyes, I scribbled on his eyes as hard as I could!

“Mhmm? You have a petty trick up your sleeve, don’t you? It’s pointless. There are enough people anyway.”

Despite saying that it was pointless, the Apostle did not try to possess me. Chains soared from the ground and restricted my limbs instead.

He was right though – there were more than enough people nearby.

Grandpa Mooksung suddenly fell down with an intense headache before his facial expression went through a drastic change.

Ah… it seemed that blocking his vision was pointless. Was the bell the only thing that could stop his possession?

Grandpa formed a wicked expression that he would never make, and walked past the monsters towards Lee Sehyun.

“Apostle! This Lee Sehyun has come to save you.”

“I know. Well done.”

“Siwoo! Is he alright?”

“Siwoo? Ah, you mean your son?”

“Yes.”

The Apostle in Grandpa’s body turned to the crystal with a knowing gaze as the crystal slowly started to melt.

…

Siwoo’s body inside the crystal melted alongside it.

“W, what! No!”

“Hope you understand. That spell has a great defense but it is hard for the body inside to come out safe either. Only someone like me that can move between bodies can use it without penalty.”

“What do you mean by that? What about Siwoo! Siwoo?”

“Hmm. That’s about enough for you too.”

“Sorry? What do you—”

— Ujik!

The Apostle waved his hand as if it was nothing as chains rose from the ground to crush Lee Sehyun in one go.

…It was a surprise that I was still alive.

Honestly, I was ready to use Descent at any moment once the situation turned for the worse. I was delaying it until my life was at risk but Sage’s Advice had yet to alert me.

It seemed that the Apostle wasn’t trying to kill me straight away.

He turned to me and provided an answer to my question.

“Wait for a bit. A soul with a status as high as yours is a rare find.

Honestly, the child called Ahri in the village was the real deal – her one soul was as valuable as 1,000 other humans!

Unfortunately, I couldn’t offer her soul.

Although you fall drastically short of that girl, I have to ‘properly’ offer you at the very least.”

I understood the gist of what he was saying. In the eyes of the Apostle, it could be said that a large portion of potential sacrifice had been unfortunately killed due to the intense battle.

His plan was to properly offer me, who had the most value out of the remaining ones, to continue with the evil god ritual.

And that was what provided me with an opportunity.

I still had Descent.

It was when I was slowly forming my plans—

Something exploded nearby!

— Kwang!

The gates of the mansion literally exploded as a massive giant ran in like a missile. Monsters that were outside the range of the bell pounced at the giant at once.

— Vuung!

It was like a scene from a movie. The giant pushed the monsters aside with sheer force and cleared up a path.

Like, who was the monster now?

Even the Apostle was shocked by the sight.

“What the heck is that? Did the Vatican summon Hercules or something?”

Chains emerged from all sides at Jinchul-hyung, who grabbed onto those chains and ripped them apart before sprinting towards the enemy.

…

Feeling inspired by that, I tried pulling the chains surrounding my body.

They didn’t move an inch – not even a millimeter.

Jinchul-hyung was really on the same level as Hercules at this point.

The fight didn’t last long.

For some reason, the Apostle was unable to steal Jinchul-hyung’s body. There was no way to block his attacks and he couldn’t steal the body either, so the result of the fight was glaringly obvious.

Like a bulldozer, Jinchul-hyung shredded through the monsters, ripped the chains apart and smashed the Apostle into smithereens.

Was it over?

Unfortunately, it wasn’t over yet.

Eunsol-noona, who had collapsed on the ground after stabbing Lee Sehyun, flinched before standing up and—

Wait, she turned invisible!

Jinchul-hyung immediately tried to chase after the invisible noona, but the remaining monsters clung to his legs and held him back.

…

The Apostle escaped.

Jinchul-hyung came to me after destroying all the monsters of the mansion.

“Are you alright?”

“That’s what I want to ask. Are you okay?”

He sat down next to me before changing the topic.

“Kain. It’s up to you now.”

“You mean Descent? I’ve been wondering whether I should use it till now, but can’t you solve it by yourself at this rate? You fought the Apostle twice and you were able to beat him both times with ease.”

“It was only possible because of the bell the first time, and this time, thanks to the mental protection that Songee put on for me with her life on the line.

The protection is starting to run out. Actually, my body itself is more of a problem.”

“Your body?”

Only then did I carefully observe his body.

…There were countless wounds all over his body. Almost half of his body was full of burn marks as if he returned from hell, and there were bullet marks everywhere.

What in the world happened in the basement?

On top of that was his fight against the monsters and the Apostle.

It was a miracle that he was still alive.

“I was only able to last this far thanks to the regeneration that my sponsor gave me. But even that isn’t going to be enough now.”

“...”

His breath slowly started to slow down before eventually coming to a stop.

I was all alone now.

…The power I had received from the unidentifiable being, the ‘lord’. Everyone had been wanting to avoid it but there was no other option anymore.

Descent: 3 → 2

— RAAAAAAAAAAA!

The harmonious hymn of angels echoed the world.

A radiant light of heavens covered the ground and following that was the descent of the son of heavens.

***

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