Escaping the Mystery Hotel

[User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 18

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

Sage’s Advice: 3]

Overwhelming. That was the only word that could describe it.

It was late at night. The surroundings were all flat with not a single building in sight. Even though everything was supposed to be empty, the charisma of the one who descended from the sky was making the surroundings feel clustered.

My head throbbed in pain as I immediately understood why all of my teammates said their head hurt after meeting the ‘Guider’. A hymn was echoing inside my head.

Lord has sent the wave of heaven to the earth, and his son has stood on the ground. Kneel thee humble ones, for the paradise of heaven has been prepared—

– Slam!

“Wake up!” 

“Huoookk! What was that?” I shouted after being forcibly woken up by Ahri.

“Looks like you still don’t understand how to use ‘Wisdom’ properly. ‘Existences’ like them are like the sun and you’ll be blinded if you see them with your bare eyes. Look at them through your ‘system window’.”

Look at them through the system window? Hearing that, I immediately understood what she was trying to say. The translucent display screen that was constantly in a corner of my sight – if I moved this to the centre of my vision…

As soon as I thought about putting it at the centre, the system window began to move by itself.

[User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 18

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

Sage’s Advice: 3]

It felt strange. After lowering the opacity of the font, I looked at the angel through the system window which made it feel like I was looking outside a building through a foggy window. Immediately, my head stopped aching as the hymn stopped reverberating in my head.

I learned another way to use the Blessing of Wisdom!

*

Child. Why have thou accumulated so much sin? Although ‘Lord’ is magnanimous to the young, there is always a limit.

“By what right do you comment on sin? You killed innumerable people at the Old Main Building, and now you even killed unni and grandpa using other people!”

Thy words do not ring true. At the Old Main Building, the Altar, I have never killed anyone. I have simply guided them to the embrace of the Lord. How could salvation be a sin? Besides, these teachers are naught but corrupt shepherds who have bewitched and guided children down the wrong path. I have cut the corrupt shepherds to lead thou back to the correct path. This too is not sin.

“You steal their free will, switch people around and kill them. How is that salvation? Is everything salvation if you just label it as such? In that case, I shall redeem you to salvation myself!”

Can thy frail balance dare judge me? Can the scale of humans even sustain myself who has descended from the sky?

“Do not even pretend like you’re an angel of some sort. There’s no way there can be gods or angels in this strange place!”

The balance – the scale started to rotate around Elena again as the weight of the sin she perceived started pressing down on the angel.

A divine song started to resonate around the angel.

– Raaaaaaaaaaaa!

The tremendously high note shook the heaven and the earth but in retaliation, Elena’s scale started brightening up the night like a sun.

*

“Let’s run!”

“Huh? Uh?”

“Don’t huh me. If we get caught up in that crazy fight, we’ll die in the blink of an eye.”

It was a fight between Elena, who became like a semi demi-god after all the conditions were fulfilled, and someone that was like a real angel. No matter how I saw it, they were in a completely different league compared to Ahri and me. 

I hurriedly left the car and began a mindless sprint.

“I’m still fine thanks to the system window, and you’ll probably be fine even if you drop down the abyss of hell, but how is Elena able to keep her sanity like that?”

“The easy answer would be that it’s because she’s in the middle of her ‘enforcement’. Looks like no-one, including herself and others, can stop her once the enforcement begins. And don’t add a curse like that as if it’s nothing.”

“It’s not a curse,” I replied. “I’m just saying it because I have no idea what you are. Isn’t it strange how you know more about my blessing than myself?”

“Anyway, that doesn’t look like a ‘human’ to me but Elena’s blessing is still working fine, isn’t it?”

Ahri blatantly changed the topic. However, that was something I was also curious about and the situation was very dire so I decided to ignore it for the time being. 

“She does look like a human overall.”

“She does? She is pretty, but isn’t she flying with her wings? Plus she’s even bigger than a normal human. Even in the Administration Bureau that’s filled with all sorts of unique people, we don’t call that human.”

“I don’t know how you guys decide things, but the wings could be something given by the divine existence called ‘Lord’ or something. Don’t you remember ‘Sir’? He was a human but didn’t even have a body. They can do that so what’s the deal with adding some wings?” I replied.

“You mean the ‘Guider’ is just a human who gained power? Hmm… I have a different hypothesis though.”

*

The air was cold. Breathing in the shivering night wind and running was starting to take a toll on my body.

“You knew about my blessing, but did you not know about ‘Justice’?”

“I told you the Administration only knows about a small portion of things. And let’s stop here.”

Ahri suddenly stopped her feet.

“What? Why aren’t you–”

“I think the fight’s over. If Elena won, there is no need to run and if the angel won, it would be meaningless for us to run away so let’s just take a rest.”

“…Okay. I’m saying this because we stopped but I have an idea.”

“Oh my. That’s the same for me. I think I know what you’re going to say next.”

“If the angel won, let’s just follow her without retaliating against her. I have something in mind.”

“Good. Since the angel constantly talks about how ‘Lord’ is benevolent to children, she should let us live if we drive our heads into the ground.”

After saying that, Ahri suddenly took out a small syringe from somewhere and poked it into her own flesh.

“What are you—”

“It’s just in case. Drink it.”

…

I was somewhat suspecting it, but the thing I drank at the Mansion of Fear appeared to have been Ahri’s blood like I thought.

“What is it for? I’m still okay in terms of stamina though.”

“This time it’s not for stamina. It’s for ‘in case the angel won’. Just drink it.”

What was it for if not stamina? I drank it – it tasted salty and slightly like iron just like before, and it was also unpleasantly warm. It really wasn’t something I would like to drink multiple times but judging from how I had drunk it multiple times already, it seemed that I would be a frequent drinker of it.

*

After about 3 minutes, the angel descended in front of us.

This time in a skilled manner, I immediately changed the system window to the ‘filter mode’ before staring at the angel.

I thought thou were running around like naughty kids. Have thou given up?

“How could foolish little lambs like us possibly escape from the hands of an angel like you? You fly around and stuff. We will look back on our stupid actions and return.”

“Is Elena… dead?”

The sin of attempting to put me on the balance of humans is as deep as the abyss. ‘Lord’ is magnanimous to children but there is a limit. There was no choice but to give punishment. What road shalt thou choose?

“We will kneel before the ‘Lord’.”

“Please say sorry to ‘Lord’ for us~”

The angel wasn’t in a good shape. Her wings were torn apart here and there, and she was letting out golden blood from all around her body. One of her eyes was crushed and looking down at her feet, I could also see that three of her toes had been blown away.

It was truly astonishing. What kind of power was ‘Justice’ that Elena could push back a supernatural existence like the angel this much?

Of course, that was just something to discuss later on after we were outside. Even if this angel had three times the current wounds on her body with both of her arms gone, I think she would still be able to beat us with one of her toes.

Now was the time to lay low. After leaving this place, we shall return stronger and pay her back for what she did this time.

Ahh, how sorrowful. This land has been filled with screams. More than 30 faithful ones have drawn their last breath in this forest. O ‘Lord’. Your young daughter, ‘Aurelia’ requests of you. Please allow another chance to your faithful believers.

The angel prayed to the sky while lowering her head.

That was when a miracle happened.

The exploded bodies of the heretics that Elena destroyed began to stand back up from nothing. Breath returned to the breathless as their wounds began to disappear.

Wasn’t this… just way too ‘overpowered’? Resurrecting dozens of people with one prayer… Could this seriously be something other than a god or an angel?

It’s not like I suddenly felt like worshipping them, but thinking of how we had to defeat such existences later on was nauseating.

*

Light fell from the sky as the angel turned around to stare at us.

Ahh–

Another hymn began to resonate inside my head. I could naturally tell that this power was something that exceeded the blockade of the system window’s filter system.

Maybe she thought she required a stronger mind control after seeing us give normal replies. My consciousness faded away as my body suddenly floated into the air.

After a while, I ‘saw’ myself kneeling in front of the daughter of the great one.

???

I ‘saw’ it.

I could ‘see myself kneeling in front of her’.

What in the world was going on? As if I was playing a 3rd person game, I could see myself doing stuff. 

Was I now a bodiless soul or something?

*

The police arrived. Funnily enough, the one that dealt with the supernatural event of the night was the police.

Who called them I wonder?

Even though I wasn’t sure, the police collected the corpses of Kim Mooksung, Lee Eunsol and Elena who died from a ‘car crash’ and asked several questions to the heretics that were resurrected from death. Under the pretext of sending the shocked young students back to school, the heretics surrounded us and forced us into the car and returned us to the dormitory while making sure we couldn’t escape.

Meanwhile, I was watching that happen outside of my body as if it had nothing to do with me. ‘I’ was definitely outside of my body and yet my body was moving naturally in accordance with the commands of the heretics.

They really were letting us live.

Honestly, it was a bit questionable whether they would spare us just from us lowering our heads but they really did, which was vastly different from how they immediately shot the teachers who attempted to escape. In fact, they didn’t even shout at us and instead, they read lines from a strange scripture as if trying to ‘guide us back to the correct path’.

Were they under the impression that everything was fine now that the ‘angel’ suppressed our minds?

They really meant it when they said ‘Lord’ was benevolent to children. It seemed that they wouldn’t punish children, unless the child was like Elena who committed a big sin by ripping apart the wings of an angel. This might be a part of their doctrine. 

Whatever the case, the important part was that Ahri and I were able to survive until the end thanks to that. And… I was still watching all that happen while floating in the air.

At this point, I had an idea why this was happening.

‘The trick in case the angel won!’

This must be related to the special effect of the blood Ahri gave me. After waiting a bit more, I should be able to tell the exact effects of her blood so I decided to do what I could do for now. 

I contemplated. Taking into account the clear behavioural principles of this religious group that we saw today as well as the arrival of the police, I became certain about my hypothesis.

Tomorrow night, we will be escaping this place for sure!