Escaping the Mystery Hotel

[User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 21

Current Location: Floor 1, Corridor

Sage’s Advice: 0]

First reward,

Clues of the Cursed Rooms.

“You see, I’m actually very excited about this one,” said Eunsol-noona. “This might be more helpful for us right now even when compared to the golden egg that we don’t know anything about. Since we were going to enter the Cursed Rooms again, this is the best one we could have asked for!”

“Noona. Hurry up and open the letter so that we can have a look at it.”

– Rip.

When Eunsol-noona ripped it open, a small piece of paper fell off. Thinking how it was way too small to include detailed explanations, we went closer to the table and looked at the content of the small note.

Room 101: The ______ is not the origin of the curse.

Room 102: Don’t fall into the bias that you must go towards the _________.

Room 103: What you see is not all there is to it. It is not an ______  _____.

Room 104: It is natural for the _______ to ______ the father.

…

It was like a riddle. They said ‘clues’ so I wasn’t expecting thoroughly detailed plans or anything, but did they really have to add blanks? 

“Firstly, I get what Room 103 means. The sentence, [What you see is not all there is to it], means you’re seeing an illusion. And [It is not an ______  _____ ] probably means it’s not an [Animal Farm].”

“Let’s try to solve the other sentences as well.”

“It does feel like a riddle but I already feel like I know the answer to two of them. What about you guys?” Eunsol-noona asked.

“I think I’m getting to something as well,” I replied. “I feel like we should see everything that the Hotel shows us from the ‘opposite side’ to see the truth of the matter.”

“Alright alright. Looks like noonim and Kain found something out, so please just explain it to us already.” Jinchul-hyung requested with a grumble.

Eunsol-noona replied to him.

“Let me start off with Room 101. [The ______ is not the origin of the curse]. This means we used to have some type of prejudice to the origin of the curse in Room 101, and it’s telling us that’s wrong. What was the original idea we all had about the origin of Room 101’s curse?”

“Wasn’t it the family? Because all our problems were from interacting with our rather-distorted family members, right?” Elena asked.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Eunsol-noona continued. “But this clue is telling us we were wrong. So I think the clue is [The family is not the origin of the curse].”

“Then what is it?”

“That’s what we have to find out.”

“I applied a similar idea to Room 102’s clue,” I started off and explained my opinion. “[Don’t fall into the bias that you must go towards the _________ ] – this means we had a preconception that we were supposed to go somewhere. When we think about the place that everyone was thinking that we had to go to… you have an idea, right?”

Songee reacted first with widened eyes.

“The mansion!”

“Right. So the clue to Room 102 is [Don’t fall into the bias that you must go towards the mansion].”

“Hah I see. Now that I think about it, didn’t Kain say that on the first day inside the room when we woke up in the SUV? That we came to ourselves before going to the mansion so we should not go to the mansion in the first place?”

“Yeah I remember that,” Eunsol-noona replied to Jinchul-hyung. “And you, Jinchul, said the Hotel would make us go there anyway and that was why we all headed to the mansion.”

“Kuhum…”

“Let’s forget what happened in the past. The next time we go there, let’s try not going to the mansion at all.”

“Okay. For starters we have an idea about Room 101 and Room 102, but the problem is Room 104. I have no idea what this means,” remarked Eunsol-noona, which I agreed with.

“I have no idea either.”

“There are a lot of things for us to do, so I say we should focus on the ones we know. Let’s leave the other ones for later,” Grandpa Mooksung suggested.

“Let’s do that. We’ll rewrite the ones we know.”

Saying that, Eunsol-noona casually took out a notepad and a pen.

“Was that always in the Hotel?” I asked.

“They were selling it in a bundle at the Market so I got them because we would probably need something like this at the very least to organise our plans. All your phones are unusable now, right? We have to stick to the good old way then.”

She then wrote what we have noticed about the hints thus far on the note.

*

Room 101: The ______ is not the origin of the curse.

-> The family is not the origin of the curse

Room 102: Don’t fall into the bias that you must go towards the _________.

-> Don’t fall into the bias that you must go towards the mansion.

Room 103: What you see is not all there is to it. It is not an ______  _____.

-> What you see is not all there is to it. It is not an Animal Farm.

Room 104: It is natural for the _______ to ______ the father.

-> ?

“We have to go looking for new Inheritances very soon. When we’re coming up with the plan, let’s make sure we keep these in mind. For now, let’s have a look at the other rewards.

*

Second reward.

3-Day Rest Ticket.

“That’s the most straight-forward reward we have. They even have an explanation written on the back of the paper.

‘The Rest Ticket acts similarly to Party Time. There will be no negative events happening for 3 days, and you can go to places that are otherwise inaccessible.’”

“A place that is otherwise inaccessible. They’re probably referring to the ‘Sanctum of Blessings’, right?”

“Oh yeah, we did try to turn the light off after Party Time was over to visit the sanctum again but…”

“The lights turned off normally and light came in from outside.”

“There are probably more places that are only accessible during the Party Time,” said Ahri. “We’ve already been hearing stuff about the ‘Room of Resurrection’, ‘Buddha’ and other mystifying things right?”

“Are there any places that the Administration knows about?” Eunsol-noona asked.

“There’s nothing.”

Was she telling the truth? There was no way to find out anyway if she wanted to hide it so I stopped that line of thought.

“When should we use the rest ticket? We can use it tomorrow but we can also wait for a different opportunity.”

“Shouldn’t we just use it now?” I suggested. “It’s probably the same for everyone but I’m really exhausted. I still can’t believe the System Window says ‘Day 21’. We were going through all that crazy stuff in the Mission Room and it still hasn’t even been a day. I think we need some rest.”

“…First off, I do understand where you’re coming from, Kain,” said Eunsol-noona. “Everyone worked hard, but I’m sure it was the one who reached the end that had to go through the most amount of work. Of course, Jinchul also did a great job reaching the 6th mission.”

“Is this time for me to apologise for being bashed to death by the truck from the get go?”

“That is definitely not what I’m trying to say,” I replied. “I am not trying to blame anyone, and it’s just that I think we should all take a well-earned rest because it’s been hard on everyone.”

“What does everyone think?” Eunsol-noona asked.

“Looks like Eunsol-unni has a different idea.” Ahri opened her mouth after seeing that no-one else was replying to her. “You can just tell us what you think because we just tend to follow after unni and Kain’s discussion.”

…Was that how it appeared in Ahri’s eyes? I was under the impression that Eunsol-noona was the one who made all the decisions but looking back, I did tend to open my mouth quite often during strategy meetings and discussions.

“I do understand why you think we should rest from tomorrow, Kain, but I believe we should be more strategic when using this ‘Rest Ticket’ instead of simply relying on it because we are tired.

For example, let’s say the Hotel itself turns into an imitation of hell from a special event. What if we use the Rest Ticket then? I think that would end that special event, and that is why I want to keep this for now.”

Everyone turned silent.

Our opinions were simple.

Topic: ‘Let’s use the Rest Ticket now’ vs ‘Let’s save it’

Kain: We are too tired from the Mission Room. We need to rest now.

Eunsol: The Rest Ticket should be used more strategically. Rather than as a means of recovery, let’s use it when ‘we might die without using it’, which would include the Hotel itself changing from a special event.

…

Her idea sounded a bit more persuasive.

In the first place, I was just saying that because I was currently exhausted whereas noona’s argument was a lot more strategic and effective.

In the end, we came to the conclusion that we should leave the Rest Ticket later for a future predicament.

Third Reward.

An extremely delicious sandwich.

Seeing the note and the sandwich, everyone became silent.

“…”

“Do we even need to analyse this? Is it like a sandwich with hidden secrets? Did you check the packaging, unni?” Songee asked.

“I had the same idea as Songee and tried searching for something, but there was nothing. There was absolutely nothing.”

“Maybe it’s just a bad item,” said Seungyub. “It was from a bronze balloon as well, and bad rewards like that always come out in my gacha game as well.”

“…So I’ve hit a terrible reward, huh. Looks like there are a lot of things for me to apologise about today.”

“Just don’t worry about it, sir. If anyone else used it, we wouldn’t have hit any balloons in the first place.”

In the end, we decided to share the sandwich with the 8 of us.

In between the two slices of herb-sprinkled bread, 

There were 3 slices of cooked bacon,

A special sauce,

As well as lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions.

The sandwich tasted phenomenal.

Fourth Reward,

Red Capsule.

We opened the explanation sheet underneath the capsule and read it together. The explanation was quite simple and straight-forward.

Single use only. Gain resistance to all types of mind attacks of the current room. Nullification of any previously received mental damage.

“So in other words, it’s a consumable that lets you go through a room that focuses mainly on mind attacks, huh.”

“Did they give this to us to use in Room 101?”

“Not sure about that but it will be very handy. It will be very easy to resolve the room if we are able to stop the mental contamination from the ‘Strange Family’, right?”

“It sounds pretty simple. Let’s discuss when we should use this later on though.”

“‘When’ is important but I think ‘who’ is equally as important. Maybe we should give this to Jinchul-oppa?” Ahri said while tapping Jinchul-hyung who then returned a nod.

“Right. I should be able to pop off if I use that. Just for one time though.”

Even though physically he was the strongest person, his greatest weakness was in his vulnerability to mind and mental attacks. 

I could see Jinchul-hyung using this item. It was a shame that it was just a single-use consumable, but if we could obtain an Inheritance in return, that would be a good deal for us.

Fifth Reward,

Golden Egg.

Next up was the most valuable yet the most unidentifiable treasure we received.

“Anyone have an idea as to what this is?”

“It doesn’t come with any explanation so I have no clue.”

“Have you seen eggs like this somewhere, Songee?”

“I can’t tell just from the egg. Besides, I doubt we would see a normal animal from an egg that this strange Hotel gave us as the best treasure.”

“Let’s just set it aside at somewhere warm. It will hatch when the time comes.”

We placed the golden egg inside Room 105 next to a heater on top of a cushion, and that was all we did for the 5th reward.

*

“Noonim. Is that it for everything we need to talk about today? I feel really tired.”

“We’re done regarding the rewards. I’ll put it up here so that we can see.”

*

1. Clues of the Cursed Rooms

-> Room 101: Find a cause other than the family. Room 102: Try not going to the mansion.

2. 3-Day Rest Ticket

-> Use later when absolutely necessary.

3. An extremely delicious sandwich

-> Thanks for the food.

4. Red Capsule

-> For defence from mind and mental attacks. Use when necessary.

5. Golden Egg

-> Placed next to the heater. Will hatch one day.

*

“And now let’s decide on the really important matter. Where do you want to go tomorrow? Strange Family? Mansion of Fear? Or the Hotel High School?” Eunsol-noona asked.

“Let’s get rid of one of the options. For Hotel High School, we don’t know what the clue means and I think that’s the hardest one we have.” I replied.

“The ‘Lord’ is a bit frightening as well. Okay. Get rid of Room 104. Let’s decide from either the Strange Family or the Mansion of Fear.”

“Let me set out the pros and cons of both options first, and then we can decide with a vote. 

The good side of Strange Family is that the escape is very simple.

All we have to do is distance ourselves from the family, right? At the start we had it rough because we had no way of fighting against the mental contamination but we are different from back then.

Now, I can just use the filter-mode or Songee can use her bracelet to have one definite escaper. Seungyub can also stay in his room and jump out the window like last time.

The downside is that we don’t know much about the room. ‘The Family is not the origin of the curse’? Then what is? We have no idea what is dangerous and what we need to be careful of.”

After taking a breath, I continued with the second option.

“On the other hand, the good side of the Mansion of Fear is that we know more about it.

Who’s our enemy?

Fundamentally it would be the devil lying underground but we probably don’t have to fight against that devil. Besides, the devil is in the mansion and the clue is telling us not to go to the mansion. 

Thus, our enemy is probably the owner of the mansion, ‘Sir’.

However, the downside is that the escape is a bit difficult. The escape condition we have verified is to stop the ‘sacrifice of 6 people’, which was the win condition of ‘Sir’. I think a few of us would have to kill ourselves from the very start.”

“Let me sum it up,” said Eunsol-noona. “Long story short, the Strange Family is easy to escape from but we don’t know anything, and on the other hand we know a lot about the Mansion of Fear, but the escape is a bit more difficult.”

“Which one should we go with?”