Escaping the Mystery Hotel

[User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 16

Current Location: Floor 1, Room 104 (Cursed Room – Preparatory Selective, Hotel High School)

Sage’s Advice: 3]

Had I ever studied this hard in my entire life? I probably hadn’t even been this diligent for my actual college exam. 

That was natural though, because it’s not like you died from having bad marks at the college exam!

*

Lee Eunsol (Teacher): Language – 43211 53422 15323 12432

Kim Mooksung (Teacher): Korean History – 52452 12431 11123 14123

*

We had the answers for Language and Korean History. Now, it was time for me to work my ass off answering questions.

I opened the test paper.

Question 1. The two equations, P(x) = 0 and Q(x) = 0 each have 7 and 9 roots. A = [(x,y) – P(x) Q(y) = 0. In P(x) Q(y) = 0, x and y are real numbers. And—

Ah. The first question was already disgusting.

Did we seriously have no other approach than this? This didn’t seem right no matter how I thought about it…

I wasn’t sure. We couldn’t think of any other methods so the only thing we could do was focus on the problems in our hands and survive.

…

50 minutes went by. With less than 10 minutes in our hands, I uploaded all the answers.

Han Kain (Student): Maths – 21223 53121 45121 33315

Kim Ahri (Student): Question 13 is 3, not 1.

Han Kain (Student): Not sure about Question 16. Is it 3?

Kim Ahri (Student): Think so.

At least I wasn’t the only one solving questions. It was a bit of a relief.

I was racking my brain and solving the tests when a problem occurred during the English exam.

Han Kain (Student): English – 23111 45231 13522 3 ——– BIIKKK.

We ran out of words!

I at least shared up to Question 16 so as for the last 4 questions…I could only leave them in their hands.

*

“Woah… Hyung. Seriously, that was amazing!”

“Thank you oppa.”

“If not for you, Kain-ssi, we probably would have all met at the Old Main Building.”

“Good work~. But I think Question 11 for English was wrong.”

Everyone was saying thanks but the last comment from Ahri put me in a slightly bad mood. It didn’t matter though. All we had to do was survive in this strange Hotel.

Even though I wanted to have a strategy meeting after this, we didn’t have time. The bell rang for us to return to our dormitories as soon as the exams were done without even the time to say anything else to each other.

This annoying boarding school, ‘Preparatory Selective Hotel High School’ had such a strict supervision over the personal lives of students that the students weren’t allowed to do anything apart from studying in their rooms after the tests were over.

*

It was quiet.

How long has it been since I was by myself like this?

Looking back, before Grandpa Mooksung and Ahri joined our party, we were each locked in Room 105 just like this. I remembered how we left once an hour to see each other.

But after we had the ‘messenger ability’ of Grandpa Mooksung, we tended to say a few things to each other even apart from mealtimes, so there was less of a sense of isolation.

Left alone, I pondered to myself.

Did we seriously have no other options?

Was surviving day by day while studying our souls out for the college exams the only solution we had? In the end, this was just a temporary measure. 

The only thing we found out until now was that the ‘Old Main Building’ was a dangerous location.

Was it okay for us to simply avoid going to the ‘Old Main Building’ like this?

I recalled the conversation I had with Eunsol-noona back at the Mansion of Fear.

If we all try to survive, we will all die without knowing anything.

Someone needs to go to a dangerous place to find out something even at the cost of their lives.

The Hotel encouraged sacrifice.

But… who did we have to sacrifice?

The night turned dark. Unable to fall asleep, I tossed and turned on the bed with a painful concern filling my head.

*

[User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 17

Current Location: Floor 1, Room 104 (Cursed Room – Preparatory Selective, Hotel High School)

Sage’s Advice: 3]

The messenger turned into utter chaos as soon as it became morning.

Lee Eunsol (Teacher): You damn idiots!!!!

Han Kain (Student): What is wrong? Did we get a lot wrong?

Kim Mooksung (Teacher): That would have been better off.

Lee Eunsol (Teacher): You did very well. Was it Kain or Ahri who solved them?

Han Kain (Student): Both of us.

Lee Eunsol (Teacher): But you idiots, you should’ve changed one or two answers when you were copying the answers!

Kim Mooksung (Teacher): Like… how is Ahri the only one who’s slightly different, with the other 4 having exactly the same answers including the wrong ones?

It was doomed. To think they didn’t even bother changing the answers up… I didn’t mention that because I thought it was obvious.

Park Seungyub (Student): Hukk!

Lee Eunsol (Teacher): It’s not ‘Hukk’. It’s over.

Han Kain (Student): What happened then?

Kim Mooksung (Teacher): There’s an uproar that some students are cheating. Miss Eunsol and I tried our best, persisting we had no proof. We somehow went over it but today’s test will be short responses.

Oh no. Short responses.

We were seriously doomed. The change was as if they were aiming at the messenger ability.

The messenger couldn’t even last us 3 minutes if we started having long conversations.

We probably couldn’t even write the full answers to one or two questions with what we had. 

Yu Songee (Student): That’s better. We can’t continue doing this. We need to go to the Old Main Building.

Lee Eunsol (Teacher): I agree that we should go, but it should be ‘one at a time’. Looking at the tests, El / Park / Yu – these 3 are all at risk at once. That is too much.

Kim Ahri (Student): I have an idea! Cheating impossible with messenger, but possible with ‘Diverse Perspectives’. Teachers, prepare the cheat sheets, give to Songee in secret during tests. Songee sends to us using ‘Diverse Perspectives’.

Kim Mooksung (Teacher): What has the world come to. All the young ones are experts at cheating.

Lee Eunsol (Teacher): Boomer, stop wasting words. I will prep the cheat sheets. Is that possible, Songee?

Yu Songee (Student): Hard to pinpoint people with bracelet when there’s a crowd.

Han Kain (Student): Everyone – adjust your seats to make it easier for Songee to target. Practise making sure nothing is in the way between you and Songee during the test.

Elena (Student): Pretending to drop something and approaching Songee would be good too.

Kim Mooksung (Teacher): What kind of students has everyone been? How could everyone be so—

Lee Eunsol (Teacher): SHUT YOUR MOUTH

Cha Jinchul (Teacher): I’ll also be a test supervisor.

Like that, we planned for the Super Cheating Project with the assistance of teachers.

But we had a problem starting from the first lesson.

*

“Park Seungyub! Are you having trouble focusing today again? Where the hell are you looking at? Are you even listening to me? Come out and solve this!”

Maths.

In the end, Seungyub couldn’t hide the soulless look on his face and he didn’t have any blessings with him either. Naturally, he couldn’t even touch the Maths question.

“Hah, this is terrible. Go out and get your punishment!”

As soon as the Maths teacher said the word, ‘punishment’, a bulky man walked in from the corridor as if he had been waiting and dragged Seungyub outside.

Seriously, how could a school like this exist in this world?

We were all worried about what to do when a message was uploaded by Seungyub.

Park Seungyub (Student): I knew this would happen. It’s better that I’m alone. I will go and check.

Kim Mooksung (Teacher): That’s the spirit. Don’t worry. Even if you die, you can rest and we will meet outside together.

Han Kain (Student): See you later!

Elena (Student): See you soon!

Everyone lifted up the mood by telling each other that we could see each other again outside. 

Logically speaking, although it was a cold-hearted way of seeing things, Seungyub was correct. Instead of waiting for the test and being wiped out together at the Old Main Building… it would be better off for everyone to go one at a time to slowly identify what the problem was.

*

While pretending like we were focused on the lesson, we all concentrated on Seungyub’s ‘reports’ that were going off in our heads.

Park Seungyub (Student): Nothing so far. Heading to the Old Main Building.

…

Park Seungyub (Student): The building looks very worn out. A strange light leaving from the window.

…

Park Seungyub (Student): I’m inside. Very quiet. The man guiding me disappeared.

…

Park Seungyub (Student): A strange sound. A song? I’ll go in.

…

Park Seungyub (Student): Such a mysterious and beautiful—

…

…

His reports came to an end.

What was happening?

A worn-out building, strange light, song, mysterious and beautiful. It was hard to tell what the risk was just with those elements.

It seemed that I wasn’t the only one who thought that way.

Lee Eunsol (Teacher): No idea.

Kim Ahri (Student): Could have been knocked unconscious immediately after entering the room. We need someone with more ‘combat potential.’

She was right.

Like Seungyub, if the next person was to be beaten down immediately after entering the room again, it was impossible for us to gain much information.

Someone with more ‘combat power’ needed to enter the room.

While we were all drowned in doubt,

Seungyub returned.

*

“What happened? You weren’t saying anything so we were all thinking something happened to you!”

“It’s nothing, hyung. There was just nothing for me to talk about. Inside there was a teacher, and I got scolded a few times before coming back. Just some normal nagging about studying, future and all that stuff.”

“Didn’t you talk about a song?”

“It was the teacher humming.”

“Seungyub. So are you okay?”

“Yes, Elena-noona. I must have worried everyone a lot.”

“I think it’s great that you safely came back though!”

“That’s great. Anyway, does this bring us back to square one?”

It was strange.

Even though it was just a short conversation, everything was very strange. Strange light, song, mysteriousness and beauty – were all those elements really nothing significant?

Songee, who had been silent ever since his return, stood up from her chair.

“Seungyub. Come here and look at me.”

“Yes?”

Tap.

After touching him once, Songee re-opened her mouth.

“Everyone. Please pretend like you don’t hear what I’m saying. I made sure ‘this thing’ can’t hear me.”

Tension was rising in the air.

“This is not Seungyub. It’s hard to explain, but the ‘Perspective’ is completely different. Its senses are different from a human’s.”

An ominous thought suddenly popped up in my head so I immediately opened my system window.

[User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 17

Current Location: Floor 1, Room 104 (Cursed Room – Preparatory Selective, Hotel High School)

Sage’s Advice: 3

Teammate Location Information (*)

Park Seungyub: Basement of Old Main Building]

According to the system window, Seungyub was currently in the basement of the Old Main Building.

If so, then this thing in front of us…