Escaping the Mystery Hotel

Chapter 128: Room 107 - The Gate Room, The Fourth Trial (19)

User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 46

Current Location: Floor 1, Room 107 (Gate Room)

Sage’s Advice: 3

- Han Kain

While frantically running, I checked the newly updated scenario.

Scenario: The Gate Room - ‘The Secret of the Esper Ho’

Finally, the Hotel Party made a decision. To uncover the truth, Kim Mooksung offered himself for the sacrificial ritual for the Deep Sea Demon, Marcas.

Realizing the true nature of the evil ritual, the Hotel Party rushes to stop the ongoing ritual.

Several new keywords appeared.

The Deep Sea Demon, Marcas, and the sacrificial ritual.

Is this the true secret the ship is hiding?

There’s no mention of when the next scenario update is.

Is there no more story?

If so, that’s good.

It means that once we go and rampage with Elena, it will be over.

Ahri suddenly stopped.

“Why aren’t you hurrying?”

“We don’t need to rush. It’s dangerous with the ship falling apart. Look down.”

I looked where Ahri was pointing.

...What is that?

In the process of Elena tearing through the ship, it was literally falling apart.

Thanks to that, a giant hole opened from the passenger deck to the lower basement.

There was an incomprehensible place in the basement of the Esper Ho.

“What kind of place is that?”

“It looks like a prison. It’s not a place that should be on a ship.”

“Should we check it out?”

“Eventually. But for now, let’s go to the colosseum.”

Right, let’s focus on rescuing Grandpa and defeating the enemy first.

When Ahri, Songee, and I reached the colosseum, Elena had already arrived, fighting everyone in sight.

I can’t even call this a fight.

To be precise, she was slaughtering them.

There were hundreds of enemies, yet it made no difference.

Can hundreds of chickens overpower a tiger?

The battle was just like that.

With each gesture, Elena crushed dozens of people.

It seemed as if there was an invisible wall at the colosseum entrance, preventing the staff and passengers from escaping.

Some of the staff fired guns, and some passengers attacked with unknown powers, stretching their limbs or emerging from walls.

Of course, it was all futile.

Bullets stopped in mid-air, and the passengers who emerged from the walls turned into smears mere moments after.

Eventually, the staff and passengers, overwhelmed with fear, started getting swept away without even trying to fight.

Cries of despair filled the colosseum.

I was awestruck looking at the scene that looked like an angel descending from heaven, burning the sinners with holy light.

Suddenly, Ahri grabbed my arm.

“This isn’t the time to stand and watch. Let’s go save Grandpa.”

“Oh, right. Let’s go.”

When we rushed to the colosseum center, Grandpa was nailed to a pillar.

“...”

He was literally nailed.

Like Jesus Christ on the cross.

Huge nails were driven into Grandpa’s body.

Forcibly pulling the nails out would only worsen the bleeding.

Songee and I supported Grandpa's body to reduce the pain from gravity, but that was all we could do.

A hoarse voice leaked from Grandpa’s mouth.

“Couldn’t you have come a bit faster…?”

“I’m sorry… We ran as fast as we could, but everything happened so fast…”

“Haha…. These bastards. It feels good to see Elena smashing everything.”

Songee began to cry.

“Grandpa. What do we do?”

We frantically looked for a solution but found none.

Grandpa, exhausted, called for Ahri.

“Senior. Please.”

“...Should I make it easy for you?”

“Please.”

With each word Grandpa spoke, white form dribbled from his mouth.

It seemed like even if he was taken to an emergency room immediately, it would be uncertain if he could be saved.

We despaired at the realization that there was no saving him.

Ahri quietly hugged Grandpa's face and aimed the gun at his temple.

“Rest for now. See you later.”

- Bang!

Now there were four of us left.

...By the way, is Ahri Grandpa’s senior?

Grandpa must have accidentally leaked a hidden fact due to the severe pain.

As Grandpa breathed his last, something strange happened in the colosseum.

- Clang!

A loud noise echoed through the colosseum from the ceiling.

Everyone looked up in surprise.

The giant clock’s hand on the ceiling moved.

0 → 1

The hand now pointed to 1 instead of 0.

What does that mean?

As the clock hand moved, the screams in the colosseum became more intense and horrifying.

The remaining staff and passengers, who were still resisting Elena, began to sing a song of despair, looking at the clock.

“Oh, Lord Marcas!”

“Please, please have mercy on us…”

Seeing their reaction, I realized that the clock hand moving was like a nightmare for them.

It seems we need to move the clock hand!

How do we move the clock hand?

Why did it move now?

My head began to spin.

In a space filled with despair, only the angel wielding golden waves continued the slaughter without pausing.

The rotating scales flew through the space, crushing staff and passengers alike who had the audacity to be in their way.

It looked like the scenes of drones used by advanced countries sweeping through a battlefield, slaughtering humans.

Even after seeing it multiple times, I don’t understand the combat mechanism of Justice.

Sometimes it seemed like people were just dying without any indicator, other times it seemed like an invisible giant hand was throwing people, and now it felt like the scales were high-performance AI war drones.

There was no consistency in the combat method.

The only commonality between them was that they were all “overwhelmingly strong”.

Ahri, who seemed to have similar thoughts, interrupted my thought.

“Is Elena just implementing the power she imagines?”

“You said you’ve seen another Justice user before, right? Was it different?”

“Completely different. Not as…”

“As what?”

“Not as mysteriously strong as this. And they didn’t seem to fight as freely.”

“...”

“It’s like the Blessing itself has an AI.”

“AI?”

“Look closely. Elena’s eyes can’t even track where the enemies are. She’s just standing still while the scales are automatically targeting the enemies.”

“If it develops further, will the scales start talking to Elena?”

I jested, but Ahri didn’t change her expression.

“It might.”

At some point, the colosseum became as silent as the grave.

The golden waves filling the space calmed down, and the spiraling scales came to a halt in mid-air.

“Is it over?”

“There are no survivors in this space but us.”

Is it over now?

We stood still, catching our breath.

“...”

Songee asked, puzzled.

“Why hasn’t the trial finished?”

Ahri also noticed something strange.

“If there are no survivors but us, why hasn’t Justice ended?”

As she said, the scales of Justice were just floating in the air, not disappearing.

- Rumble!

Suddenly, the whole ship started shaking!

We grabbed onto nearby objects, trying to steady ourselves.

- Roarrrrr!

A monstrous roar echoed through the ship.

The next moment, time on the Esper Ho began to rewind!

The flesh, blood, and bones of the enemies scattered everywhere began to reassemble into human shapes.

Hundreds of corpses regained life, reigniting their endless malice.

Elena’s scales spun again, trying to tear apart the resurrected dead.

But the time reversal began to affect us as well.

Elena was quickly pulled back, and we started retracing our steps from the colosseum back to the cabin as if in reverse.

The ship, which Elena had smashed from the cabin to the colosseum, was rapidly restoring itself.

It was overwhelming. Faced with such an otherworldly miracle, we were at a loss.

- Screech!

Suddenly, there was a rough halting sound.

With incomprehensible vibrations, our backward movement stopped.

Elena, who had been flying backward at high speed, reappeared in front of us.

Golden waves from the spinning scales enveloped us.

In the chaos, Ahri shouted.

“Elena! Can you keep holding on?”

Elena shook her head with a pained expression.

Even a tiger that slaughters hundreds of chickens was just a big cat before a dragon!

Facing the power of the demon that reversed time, Justice’s power finally reached its limit.

- Crack!

Cracks began to appear on the scales. Ahri shouted in despair.

“Memory!”

“What?”

“Our memories are fading. The memories since we boarded the ship!”

I hurriedly tried to recall the memories since we boarded.

I couldn’t remember yesterday’s meal.

Why isn’t Perro with us?

What did Grandpa call Ahri?

I immediately sought advice.

Tell me the best action I can take right now!

Sage’s Advice: 3 → 2

Record it in a place that can never be erased.

A place that can never be erased.

A power that even the demon that reverses time cannot interfere with!

I expanded the status window and took out my pen.

I wrote frantically, again and again.

-Flash!

...My consciousness blurred.

***

User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 46

Current Location: Floor 1, Room 107 (Gate Room)

Sage’s Advice: 2

- Han Kain

When I came to my senses, I found myself standing in a very luxurious room.

I was dressed in very vintage-style tuxedos.

Ahri, Songee, and Elena were wearing stunning dresses covered with soft fur shawls.

Are we heading to some sort of party?

Ahri reacted strangely.

“These dresses are really old-fashioned…”

Old-fashioned?

I couldn’t tell.

It felt Western, which only added to my confusion.

Looking around, Grandpa Mooksung was nowhere to be seen.

Songee said anxiously.

“Where is Grandpa?”

“Did he start in a different place? Like Seungyeob in the Mansion of Fear?”

During the trials in the Gate Room, we never started in different places, but is the Fourth Trial different?

While we were puzzled, there was a knock at the door.

A person dressed like a hotel staff member entered, gave a brief explanation about the “ship”, and informed us about the dinner party before leaving.

Elena answered curiously.

“It seems like this place is a ship.”

“Indeed, I see the sea through the window. Let’s check the scenario and proceed.”

Okay, let’s expand the status window to check the scenario—

“...???”

What’s this?

Why is the scenario like this?

While I was confused looking at the Status Window, my companions asked, “Is something wrong?”

“Yes. The scenario doesn’t seem to have just started; it feels like it’s already quite progressed. What?”

“What else is strange?”

“There’s a lot of messy writing all over the empty space in the status window.”

When I maximized the empty space, I was speechless.

The first sentence of the messy writing was as follows:

Our time is being rewound now.

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