Escaping the Mystery Hotel

[User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 19

Current Location: Floor 1, Room 105 (Room of Rest)

Sage’s Advice: 2]

“I was… in the Hotel—-”

“My mother—”

“My neck—”

Faint mumbling voices reached my ears.

They appeared to be talking about something but I couldn’t see nor hear anything.

Instead, from a distant place… I could hear a hymn. In order to hold on to myself, I covered myself with the system window filter, closed my eyes and blocked my ears. Thanks to that, the sound of the hymn turned a little softer.

It felt like I was deafened. My body was definitely here, and yet it felt like my soul was being pulled to a distant place.

Voices – soft whispers echoed in my ears. There was definitely an existence that was trying to convey their will to me but I couldn’t make meaning out of those words. As if buried in the background noise, their voice was concealed by a buzz.

Several pieces of information vaguely permeated inside. Without necessarily hearing it from anyone, I realised it.

I realised that a ‘negotiation’ was taking place at the heavenly table.

Soon, the negotiation was complete.

▢▢▢▢▢▢▢: ▢

Des▢▢▢▢: ▢

Descent: ▢

Descent: 3

[User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 19

Current Location: Floor 1, Room 105 (Room of Rest)

Sage’s Advice: 2

Descent: 3]

Let there be light.

And there was light.

*

A tornado of light was swirling like a storm. 

In Elena’s eyes, the scene in front of her eyes was more unrealistic than anything she had seen thus far.

‘Is this the process of a person turning into an angel?’

Inexplicable rays and waves were radiating out of Kain’s entire body.

She just couldn’t dare look at his face with her bare eyes. The halo behind him was truly that of one who descended from heaven.

Let alone beautiful and handsome, he looked ‘holy’. Standing in front of her was someone who had fallen from the sky, that human standards of beauty could not possibly explain.

Tears flowed out of her eyes as all the vicissitudes and pain she had gone through filled her brain. The plentiful and joyful childhood, which unfortunately came to an end due to their family having no choice but to escape from their homeland; poverty and danger was with them wherever they went to, and she had no choice but to leave like a grasshopper hopping for freedom without ever getting close to anyone.

I see, all that pain was to meet this person.

The pain and suffering of the Hotel were nothing but thorns of the path leading to salvation.

Old memories of sorrow and despair turned vague as tears fell like buckets out of her eyes.

Like that, Elena kneeled down and prayed.

*

– Han Kain

My consciousness returned as I immediately opened my eyes. The first to enter my sight were my teammates.

Every one of them were out of their seats. Some were rolling on the floor while some were on their knees, ‘praying’ to me.

Only then did I notice something. Just then, I had left the realms of humanity.

What did I have to do to return to being a human? Although I wasn’t sure, what was certain was that I had to leave my teammates for the time being.

Mindlessly, I stood up and pushed the door of Room 105 wide open.

The door got torn and ripped apart.

Since I didn’t even have the time to stay there in astonishment, I immediately dashed outside.

The floor exploded beneath my feet with each and every step. When I kicked off the ground, my head crashed into the ceiling, but my head was okay and the ceiling was the one that was broken instead. In a fluster, I swung my arm back which ripped the wall out.

After realising how soft I had to be with everything, I started to move with care.

What did I have to do? Was I going to stay like this forever?

I could see colours that I couldn’t see before, and hear sounds that couldn’t be heard when I was a human. My hands touched the dust floating in the air, and my skin felt the pulsation of the pebbles from the crushed walls.

A chandelier was falling from a distance. The vibrations in the air caused by that chandelier; that movement of the air reached my ears as a song.

Ahh, how small of a world were humans living in? How tragic is it that they could not perceive all these things that were happening in the world?

Only now did I understand that every human was a blind and a deaf.

But even so, I sincerely hoped I could return to being human.

That was when an ‘unusually nice advice’ appeared in front of my eyes.

[You can stay still. You will return to being human once all the power seeps into your body.]

It was different – this was clearly different from the normal ‘Sage’s Advice’. Before, it simply tossed a few words when I was close to death but this time, it felt like an actual advice.

I stood still as I was told. Besides, I was crushing everything around me whenever I was moving, so I didn’t even want to move either.

Although it might be edgy of me to say this, I was scared of myself.

After about 10 minutes, the light around my body settled and the infinite source of power that was boiling inside me like an active volcano started to turn faint like a drying stream of water.

Feeling less tense than before, I looked around and noticed that the Hotel looked like it was bombarded in the middle of a battlefield.

There were holes on the floor where my steps had landed as if there had been mines, and the chandelier 20 metres away had fallen down due to me crashing into the ceiling. All the ornaments on the walls turned into trash, and the trees near the front desk were nowhere to be seen, as if they had been wiped out by a missile.

I was simply running to places in surprise and yet that had caused a catastrophe like this to everything nearby. 

And that was when – the last ‘kind advice’ of today appeared before my eyes.

[You may now ‘descend’ 3 times. But please keep in mind that there is no free lunch in this world…]

*

When I returned to Room 105, which had no doors now, I realised that fortunately, my teammates had already come back to themselves.

They looked back at me with dumbfounded looks on their faces.

“…”

“…”

“Umm… Kain. Can you please explain that to us?”

Where did I have to start the explanation from? I decided to share everything that happened from the last day of the school, and the things that happened at the Old Main Building.

I slowly explained everything, from how I infiltrated the Old Main Building by myself and attacked Aurelia after waiting for the chance, before being kidnapped by the ‘Lord’. There, I received something and the message of the Hotel had been distorted.

And— I then talked about the thing that just happened, as well as ‘Descent’ that appeared on the system window.

The room turned silent.

The first one to open their mouth was, as expected, Grandpa Kim Mooksung, who was an agent that was used to supernatural things.

“It seems that the existence called ‘Lord’ that is sealed inside the Cursed Room has put some kind of investment on you.”

“Can someone sealed inside the room affect the real world?”

“That’s something I cannot say for sure, but haven’t we already confirmed through the ‘Devouring One’ that these absolute existences sealed inside the Cursed Rooms are somewhat aware of the works of the Hotel? The ‘Devouring One’ was also aware of the Hotel and had the power to create a pawn inside the stage who had their own individuality.”

“Why do you think he invested in me?”

“You might not be the only one.”

“Do you mean he has been doing the same thing for a long time?”

“It is nothing but a guess.”

“Let’s stop talking about the ‘Lord’ for now.” Ahri said. “We don’t know much about the Hotel in the first place, so it’ll be meaningless for us to worry about the intentions of the transcendent existence sealed in one of the rooms. More importantly, it feels like you gained an incredible amount of power and ridiculous charisma… but are there any conditions for it?”

“It has the number 3 next to it on the system window. I think I can only use it 3 times.”

And there was also the advice I received that finally seemed like an actual ‘Sage’s Advice’.

‘There is no free lunch in this world.’

The room turned quiet again, until Eunsol-noona added a question.

“I believe Mr. Mooksung and Ahri are more experienced in this field than us. What do you think Kain should do?”

“As an agent of the Administration, I would obviously say that he should live his entire life without worrying about such a fishy ability. There is nothing free in this world, and that is why I called it an ‘investment’. ‘Lord’ will definitely come back and ask you for a price.”

“‘As an agent of the Administration’? Do you have other opinions?”

“As someone who is now in the Hotel, I’d say it is quite foolish to forget about an ability that was given by the Hotel just because you are scared about the price of it. If you don’t use it because of the price, and end up having everyone fail in the end, then we will all become resources of the Hotel. Rather than that, it is better to use what is given when necessary and worry about the future later.”

“Umm… sir? Your two opinions are in complete contradiction though…”

“It is up to you to decide which is correct.”

“Then, do it this way,” said Ahri.

“I’m listening.”

“Try not to use it ever until the very very end. And when worse comes to worst, when everyone except for you is dead, or if you think it will be a wipe if you die – that’s when you should use it.”

A final resort, reserved only for the last moment.

I decided to think of the new ability I gained today as a final resort skill, before thinking about some other things by myself..

I was walking around in contemplation when I noticed that Elena and Songee would flinch and avoid me whenever our eyes met. Looking back, those two were the ones who had been praying in front of me…

It was very awkward.

In the end, I headed to somewhere isolated while leaving everyone else behind using the excuse that I wanted to have some time to organise my thoughts. There were a lot of things I had to think about today anyway.

*

“…”

“…I’m just saying this now that Kain’s not here but… What did you guys think when you saw him?” Eunsol opened her mouth.

“Like, ‘holy’? He looked like an angel.”

“Unbelievably handsome; the saviour of the world – some ridiculous things like that.”

“Looks like Songee and Elena felt the same way as me,” said Eunsol after hearing the words of the two.

“I think it will be very awkward to see Kain-oppa from tomorrow.”

“Probably the same for me.” Elena agreed.

“Same here,” said Eunsol. “It was only for a little bit, but he appeared like a totally different existence from ‘us’.”

“I guess we’re not in the mood to eat any more and… there’s less than 10 minutes left of mealtime. Let’s take a rest. Well, we will probably all disappear to our own personal spaces in 10 minutes though.”

“Will we?”

“What do you mean, Ahri?”

After gesturing at the door with her chin, Ahri continued with her sentence.

“I’m just concerned if Room 105’s system will still function properly or not even when the door is broken.”

Her concerns were realised.

That day, all functions of Room 105 stopped, and everyone was left behind at the seemingly bombarded room even after the mealtime was over.

In the end, everyone had to take their few belongings and each head to a place where they could go to sleep.

*

“Ahri.”

“Unni? Didn’t you say you were going to sleep near the tea table?”

“I’m going to, but I have something to say before that.”

“You do? Why didn’t you say it before?”

“I wanted to talk to you alone.”

“…”

“I’ll be honest. I’m not really worried about your past; what your objective is and how you were born.

Ever since I was young, I grew up working in the company. You see all sorts of people when you’re working on a large project – most people have other stuff in their mind and the role of a leader is to take all of them regardless and somehow make something happen.

But there is a condition for that to happen.

It’s that everyone needs to cooperate on the progression of the ‘project’ at the very least. Even if everyone has different thoughts in mind and different goals, as long as everyone cooperates for the ‘project’, things will go just fine.”

“You’re saying we should cooperate for the big objective of ‘escaping the hotel’, right? I was going to do that anyway.”

“I know, and that’s why I was trying to gloss over everything instead of interrogating you. Whatever the case, none of us wants to stay in this strange hotel for thousands of years. I’m sure you know what I mean.”

*

The next day,

The display screen of the Hotel created a big fuss as soon as it was morning.

/Massive Construction Work!

The staff members of Hotel Pioneer are here to convey some very disappointing news. Last night, due to the rampage of a violent and disrespectful customer, several facilities of the Hotel were destroyed which thus interfered with everyone’s comfortable sleep time.

Regardless of the person responsible for this incident, as the staff of the Hotel, we sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused.

The Hotel will be closed for today. All facilities will be stopped, and we kindly ask our dear customers to use the camping grounds in the basement.

In 1 hour, the Hotel will be shut down. Please make your way to the camping grounds./