Escaping the Mystery Hotel

[User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 21

Current Location: Floor 1, Room 106 (Mission Room – Hotel Land of Hope)

Sage’s Advice: 0]

…

That was surprising.

‘Mum’.

I did get the impression that this current body looked slightly different from Ahri’s, but I surely wasn’t expecting this to be that of another person. I thought it was just Ahri’s original appearance before she dyed her hair.

Whenever I touched the portraits of my teammates, I turned into those people so why did I turn into Ahri’s mum after touching Ahri’s image?

<29:28>

There wasn’t much time so I decided to drop that line of thought. Thinking could be done later when I had time.

In any case, this wasn’t that bad. For some reason, Ahri seemed to have quite the level of trust for ‘my current appearance’! After calming myself down, I tried to act like ‘Ahri’s mum’ as much as possible.

Throwing my arms wide open, I gave the brightest smile I could give while opening my mouth to say, ‘Come here my daughter.’

It was when I was moving my lips.

“Haa…”

Ahri heaved a deep sigh as if she was deeply disappointed.

Was my acting that bad?

– Clank!

It was still a success though – Ahri broke through the glass and came over.

“Good! We took out 2 people now and all we have left are Jinchul-hyung and Elena. Ahri, you can go over there and take a rest as well.”

“…”

Next up was Jinchul-hyung. Who should I turn into this time? Should I act mysterious in Ahri’s appearance again?

It was starting to feel quite interesting.

Going to the mirror that connected to Jinchul-hyung, I twisted my back with my hand resting on my hip and gave a rather pouty look on my face when…

— Bam!

A fist came flying from behind.

“I never do that.”

“Ahk! That scared me. Wasn’t that similar?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“Hyung. That was really weird.”

“Then should I twist my lips a bit more for a more mysterious appearance?”

“You… Is your goal to save Jinchul-oppa, or to tease me?”

“…”

I decided to be more serious. What did I have to do to save Jinchul-hyung?

Taking after Ahri’s appearance, I tried dancing a few times in front of Jinchul-hyung’s mirror, but Ahri’s deep sighs were the only things that resulted from it.

Seeing that, Ahri pushed me away and tried to do something herself, but her body was not reflected by the mirror, so I walked up again and gestured to Jinchul-hyung to come over while forming all sorts of postures.

However, he simply watched on with a face that seemed to be wondering what was going on without approaching the mirror.

“Can you think about Jinchul-oppa’s character before doing something?”

“His character?”

“I want to do it myself but I guess you’re the only one that has the power to save other people as the ‘one who escaped first’, so let me just tell you what I think. Try changing to Elena’s appearance. Put some blood on your lips and pretend like you’re dying. Jinchul-oppa will be unable to stop himself from coming out.”

…

Pretending like a dying Elena – it definitely did sound like something that would work on him.

<19:44>

It seemed that we had spent quite a lot of time.

After touching Elena’s portrait, I took out some of my blood using a syringe and applied it to my lips following the instructions of Coach Ahri, and intentionally created some wounds on my body to act like an injured Elena.

Then, I headed to Jinchul-hyung’s mirror and acted as best as I could for a solid minute and…

– Clank!

In the end, Jinchul-hyung couldn’t handle watching the dying Elena and came out after breaking the mirror.

“…”

Strangely enough, he had the same look on his face as Ahri when she just left the House of Mirrors and appeared speechless.

“You should stay there as well, hyung. We just have to save Elena now.”

“… Were you the one acting as Elena?”

“You can listen to the explanation over there.”

“…Thanks for your work.”

He had an expression that seemed like he wanted to punch me despite saying thank you, as if he was holding back because of the current state of things. 

Wasn’t this a bit unfair for me though?

If you look at it, I was the first to come out because I racked my brain as much as I could and was saving other people, so why did everyone look upset instead of being whole-heartedly grateful for my dedication?!

Lastly, I headed to Elena’s mirror before thinking to myself.

Whose form did I have to take to persuade Elena the easiest?

Should I pretend like Ahri who used some mysterious means to come save Elena? Act like the reliable Jinchul-hyung? Or behave like a pitiful Seungyub?

Unexpectedly, I couldn’t come up with anything that seemed good.

Elena was always beautiful, kind and gentle but at the same time, she was the one who concealed her feelings the most. Well, it was true that everyone was hiding things inside them despite being closer than before but…

I had a feeling that Elena had a thicker wall and barrier around her heart. 

It was hard.

First off, I turned into Ahri and gestured as much as I could to make her come over. 

She didn’t move an inch. She didn’t respond in any way and appeared to be treating me as the same existence as the monsters in the other mirrors.

Next, I turned into Seungyub and tried to do something but—

Elena walked away from the scope of vision of the mirror that was showing me. Did she think it was the most dangerous mirror or something?

Now that she left without even leaving any room for communication, there was nothing I could do.

I was rolling my feet not knowing what to do when the others walked up to me, as we then racked our brains together. 

“Is there a way to call her? Have you tried shouting?” asked Jinchul-hyung.

“Sound doesn’t go through the mirror.”

“How about you turn into Elena herself?”

“More importantly, she just completely left the mirror. We can’t even see her now.”

<9:23>

We had less than 10 minutes now.

There was nothing we could do.

After walking away from the scope of vision of the mirror, Elena didn’t even glance at the mirror reflecting me. We saw her walk by from time to time, but she was just wandering through the House of Mirrors without paying attention to our mirror. 

<5:17>

When there was less than 5 minutes left on the clock, Elena discovered a ‘mirror that didn’t reflect herself’.

The true identity of that mirror was one that was hiding a monster. I wondered if Elena would see through that or not.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t. As if she finally discovered a safe mirror, she happily broke that mirror and…

Let’s forget what happened next, because it was a huge shock to everyone. Seeing the gruesome death of a teammate wasn’t something we could get used to by experiencing it multiple times.

At the very least, what was fortunate was that the House of Mirrors wasn’t physically taxing or anything, and I could tell that Ahri and Jinchul-hyung had recovered themselves a fair bit from the gyro drop.

We had 4 survivors.

Han Kain, Cha Jinchul, Kim Ahri, Park Seungyub.

*

/Congratulations on completing Mission 4: True? False? House of Mirrors. Would you like to proceed to your next mission?/

*

/Mission 5. Roller Coaster from Space.

Congratulations on reaching Mission 5! Our roller coaster is due to depart from space. Before that, we will be flying to space on a rocket so please get to the correct position.

We will be departing in 30 seconds!/

What crazy nonsense was this about now? Departing from space? 

That was when my eyes picked up certain sets of phrases.

‘Get to the correct position’ and ‘departing in 30 seconds’.

After experiencing it once in the gyro drop, I understood what this was about now. It meant that our positioning was very important.

Once again, the dimensions started to turn.

And by the time I came to myself, I was inside a spaceship.

*

30!

“What do we do? What do we do? Where do we have to go???”

“Please be quiet! But you’re right. Where do we go?”

27!

Four of us were in a large spaceship. Over the window, I could see that we were still on the ground next to the spaceport.

25!

“Don’t we have to go somewhere? It feels like we shouldn’t stay still.”

“I see a few doors over there!” shouted Jinchul-hyung.

23!

“There are four doors though. Where do we go?”

“Let’s scatter!”

“Scatter?”

“We don’t know what’s right, but at least someone will survive if we scatter. I will go here!”

19!

In a short while, everyone went into the small rooms without even turning back.

And I… decided to think for a bit.

16!

We were on a spaceship. How did spaceships fly again? Besides, wasn’t being inside a spaceship enough to go to space? Why were we told not to be in certain places?

14!

That was when I noticed something.

13!

I immediately headed to the room next to me and pulled Seungyub out. Without even the time to tell him anything, I threw him back to the largest room we were in at the start. 

“Hyung???”

“Stay there! Just stay there without going anywhere!”

8!

Next, I dashed to the room on the other side to pick up Ahri. I was going to pull her out but she left without fighting back.

“Did you notice something?”

“Stay in the middle!”

5!

Next one was a problem. I couldn’t pull out Jinchul-hyung with force.

“Hyung. You have to come out! That place is not it!”

“What?”

“Just shut up and come out right now!”

2!

With 2 seconds left on the clock, we were all back to where we started as everyone stared at me with a puzzled look on their faces.

Fire!

The spaceship departed and at the same time, all the doors heading to the small rooms were locked.

After about a minute, the small rooms started rattling before being separated from the spaceship.

That was normal, because the propulsion systems of the spaceship were supposed to separate from the spaceship once it set off. 

There was no reason for us to move, because we had been in the right spot from the start.

*

“So, all we had to do was just stay still huh?”

“Pretty much. The smaller rooms on the outside were all traps connecting to the engines and the propulsion systems.”

“Then why did they say, ‘Go to the correct position in 30 seconds’?” Jinchul-hyung asked again.

“Well. Probably trying to trick us right?”

“So much stuff to think about. I thought we had to scatter to have at least a few survivors. I almost ended up killing everyone.”

“For some reason,” said Seungyub. “I feel like Kain-hyung became smarter than usual after coming here.”

“Smarter than ‘usual’?” I asked.

“…”

“No. I’m sure Kain was smart all the time. I think,” commented Ahri.

“You didn’t have to add ‘I think’, did you?”

“Anyway, good work,” said Jinchul-hyung. “Is that everything?” 

“More like, we just started. The name of the mission is Roller Coaster from Space and we haven’t even gone to space yet. We just departed.”

“Haa. Let’s just rest for a bit then. I’m feeling dead already.”

*

A while after we started moving through space, we arrived at the starting point of the roller coaster.

“So, do we have to get on this to start the mission?”

“Coming here was already quite a challenge. The roller coaster itself is probably going to be even harder.”

“Let’s just stay awake at least, everyone.”

I turned while saying that and realised that everyone looked extremely fatigued. Because the House of Mirrors wasn’t a physically taxing place, I had recovered most of my stamina but the issue was that others hadn’t.

It seemed that one hour wasn’t enough of a rest for Ahri who used a bunch of blood and Jinchul-hyung also trembled at times when walking.

They were at their limits already. I had a feeling that today would be more challenging than any other day.

Next to the platform was the roller coaster.

“Let’s think about what could happen before we actually get in, so that we can mentally prepare ourselves at least.”

“I can see one risk factor already,” said Ahri.

“Ahri-noona? What do you think is dangerous?”

“It’s a roller coaster travelling through space and yet there’s no ceiling. I don’t understand how they want us to breathe.”

“Hukk! Don’t you explode when your skin gets exposed to space? I saw that in a book!”

“Buddy. Aren’t you old enough to know that you only see things like that in old movies like Total Recall? Even when you’re in space, you don’t explode to death and you don’t freeze to death either unless you’re there for a long time. The first and foremost problem would be that you have no air to breathe.”

“Sorry? I thought—”

“Now now now! Let’s stop the science talk there, and just get over it. The problem will be how we breathe. Well, the roller coaster is already starting up so let’s hurry up and get over there.”