Escaping the Mystery Hotel - Chapter 259
Only Krnovel
Episode 259 – Party Time – Secret of the Hall of Mirrors (5)
– Yoosongi
/Would you like to make a wish? Click ‘Yes’ and your wish will come true./
Swirling longing. The sentence that could make it all come true flashed before me. The hand stretched out as if possessed moved towards the notification to press ‘Yes’ as if it were natural.
Free yourself from the limitations of your senses.
I felt like someone was pouring cold water on me.
Embrace clear reason.
A stinging bolt of lightning struck me from head to toe.
For that I have given you a bracelet.
My legacy that has never left my wrist since it came out in No. 103. White flashes occurred from ‘various perspectives’.
The mirror disappears from sight. The countless other visions of me that were circling in my mind slowly became blurred. I couldn’t see anything. No sound was heard. I couldn’t feel the cold glass on the soles of my feet. I couldn’t feel the cool air flowing through my skin.
As the bracelet blocked all types of sensory information received by the brain, I could not feel the ‘body’ itself. In a world of darkness where there was nothing, only the human self named ‘Yoo Song-i’ existed.
Finally, at that moment, clear reason awakened. Reason warned me.
There is danger in this place. A danger that even Miro, a skilled agent, could not overcome!
Discomfort.
After arriving at the mirror room, I felt an inexplicable sense of discomfort from what I had experienced so far. The absence of something that must be there. The absence of something so obvious that it would be even stranger without it.
The Hall of Mirrors never once asked me, ‘What is your wish?’ Although I reflected on myself with countless strange mirrors and confirmed my various desires, I did not ask, ‘What do you want to achieve?’ among those various desires.
Only then did I come to my senses!
If you said you would make your wish come true, why didn’t you ask me what my wish was?
Because there is no need to ask. The Hall of Mirrors is a place that listens to the ‘whole’ desires that are buried in the participants’ hearts!
Even if those wishes are mutually contradictory or contain infinitely dark content.
Need to check.
Now I have to find out if the hidden danger in the Hall of Mirrors that my reason warned me about is true. Slowly, slowly, the sense that had been blocked by the bracelet was restored.
The first thing I did was feel the cold, hard glass on the soles of my feet. Next, I felt the flow of air moving through my mouth and nose. And again, the shining mirrors around me caught my eye.
The mirrors began to reflect different scenes from before.
In one mirror, there was a girl who was tired from tiring work and was just sleeping. In one mirror, there was a girl who was tired of human relationships and was contemplating in an empty space.
There were scenes that were embarrassing to recall. The dark thoughts dreamed up by the beast hidden inside me turned into unpleasant images that dazzled my eyes.
It was too much. I passed over the desires hidden deep in my heart reflected by the mirrors. After passing over and over again, I finally found it.
A mirror showed me ‘human life’.
When you’re young, you usually go to school. As adults, many people in their early 20s usually attend college and prepare for employment. After that stage, it is time to get a job and enter society.
If you meet someone you love naturally during the process, great happiness will come to your life. If this continues, you will probably marry someone and have children, right?
Maybe that child doesn’t listen to me as well as I thought. Still, the moment you raise a child with your loved one will be happy. And one day, even that child will become independent of me and enter the second half of his life.
This is human life. The me in the mirror was growing old happily through this process.
Look in the mirror next to it.
I see another me who just says that all the things I said before are ‘insignificant’. Another thing I didn’t want to do was rush out of the hotel.
Possibility to surpass humans! The path to immortal life and transcendence is right in the hotel, so why bother leaving?
Employment? rectal? marriage? There was a person who said that all these human desires were ‘worthless.’
The reflection of me in the mirror next to me was pursuing something completely different. I climbed up the hotel again and again, reaching the end of the third floor beyond the second floor.
Supernatural objects whose value cannot be put on, surreal abilities beyond human imagination. Among them, there was me, dreaming of ascending to greatness. What happens after Ascension? I can not know. A life that I cannot possibly understand awaits me now.
Humans are inherently contradictory creatures.
Even though they hope for great success, they hope for a lazy life of lazing around all day. Although they want people to love them, sometimes they want time to think while being forgotten by everyone. It is also human to wish for a simple life with loved ones, but cannot easily give up the ‘longing for transcendence’.
Of the infinite possibilities I see reflected in the mirror, which is the ‘real’ me?
It’s a meaningless story. Because all of those things are the countless fragments that make up me.
Suddenly a thought occurred to me.
The Hall of Mirrors is a place where the various desires of participants come true. Of course, there are limits to the power to grant wishes. But the real question is not how big the power is.
How can contradictory wishes come true in the first place?
How on earth can you satisfy a girl who is loved by everyone and a girl who is tired of relationships at the same time? How on earth can Songi, who wants to go out into reality and return to her simple life, and Songi, who wants to become a god in the hotel, satisfy them at the same time?
…I thought I knew.
Because the various possibilities fluttering behind the mirrors rising up everywhere were slowly, slowly becoming reality.
“it’s okay. “There’s no need to make it happen this way.”
A voice so cold that I couldn’t believe it came from my mouth cut through the air, and mirrors everywhere became blurred. The ‘something’ that was taking shape once again returned to darkness.
When I decided to go out, I naturally figured out how to do it.
— Clink!
I balled up the towel wrapped around my body in my hands and broke the mirror again and again. Debris flying in all directions dug into the gaps in the towel, and soon my hands were stained red. Around that time, a notification naturally popped up.
/Do you want to leave?/
“okay. “Then what happens to my wish?”
/Unfortunately, if you decide to give up, your chance to make a wish for free will pass to the next person who enters the mirror room. So don’t be quick to judge -/
what a waste. When I heard the warning that ‘my opportunity’ was disappearing, a violent greed boiled in my heart. but… . I felt like I knew now.
I learned how the Hall of Mirrors makes wishes come true. I also realized why the maze had no choice but to fall.
“are you okay. It’s really okay. This place… . It’s not a place where I can get anything. “It is a place where only terrible destruction awaits those who are not suited for it.”
Even though I promised myself several times to convince myself, taking the step was more difficult than I thought.
*
[User: Han Ga-in (Jihye)
Date: Day 110
Current location: Tier 1, hallway
Sage Advice: 2]
– Han Ga-in
Songi, who suddenly appeared naked at dawn with her hands covered in blood, embarrassed everyone. What’s even more strange is that no explanation was given.
I just sat blankly on a chair in the lobby and muttered these words.
“… If I go back in right now. Then I would be the ‘first’ again.”
Eunsol, who was embarrassed, brought her something to wear and others grabbed Songi and shook her, but Songi’s spirit did not return. He just looked like he wasn’t okay at all and said, ‘I’m okay, so go in and rest.’ It wasn’t easy to go in after seeing Songi doing it.
I was wondering why this was happening and was worried that my contribution would be reduced, but the advice I wrote gave me a strange answer.
[A problem that must be overcome on your own. Just leave it alone.]
So I just went in and slept.
The next morning, after Ari and Seungyeop woke up, things changed a little. Unlike us, who didn’t know what to do, Ari, who was involved in her own mother’s problems, clung to Songi almost desperately.
Ari, who had been concentrating on Songi’s explanation for a long time, asked again.
“So, the Hall of Mirrors is a place that indiscriminately fulfills the desires of humans?”
“It’s roughly similar.”
“However, there are many contradictory aspects to that desire, so there is a high possibility that it will be realized in a ‘bizarre’ way. For example, if a wish cannot be fulfilled by one person at the same time, how about splitting the person up?”
“I felt that way.”
“Your feelings are important. Because you probably know more about the Hall of Mirrors than anyone I know. “I even went into the maze once and came out crazy, but you came out fine -”
“…”
“It came out okay, right?”
“maybe… . Moreover, the problem is not simply about contradictory wishes.”
“Is there another problem?”
“little… . Shameful wish? A dark wish? “There is a tendency to read things like this indiscriminately and try to listen vaguely.”
“Vague?”
“Because the power of the Hall of Mirrors has its limits. It is impossible to perfectly fulfill all of the infinitely many and diverse wishes that people have. “It feels like various wishes are vaguely granted.”
They say there is no easy place in the hotel, but from what I heard, the room called the Mirror Room was also extremely bizarre. I explained what I felt.
“I feel like there are two major problems. First, they try to grant even wishes that should not come true. Second, because they try to grant even contradictory wishes at the same time, in extreme cases, they try to grant them even if it means splitting a person in two.”
“It’s similar. “I think that level of organization would be appropriate.”
It’s a difficult problem. I felt like I knew why Songi gave up her wish and left.
How can there be only one thought in a person’s mind? Of course, there are bound to be tens of thousands of wishes. Among the various wishes, there will be some dark content that rationally should not be fulfilled, and there are bound to be contradictory ones as well.
The contradiction between wanting to go out right away, which is the example mentioned by Song-i, and wanting to stay in the hotel and gain surreal treasures and power is something that I also share.
It must have been the same for the maze, right?
The result would be the birth of Miro and Ari, who lost their intelligence and collapsed. Of course, it is difficult to guess what they wanted to achieve this result.
Ari muttered with a somewhat vain look on his face.
“You are better than Maze. “Miro couldn’t overcome his desire in the end, but you came out fine.”
“Eh? I don’t think that’s right. Rather, because I knew roughly what happened to Miro, I could also know that there was definitely something dangerous in the mirror room. “I think that’s why I was able to come to my senses in the middle.”
“Thank you for saying that.”
Anyway, I’m glad we got out without any major accidents. While the others were also happy and holding onto Songi’s shoulders, she felt like playing ‘a little’.
“But it’s Song.”
“yes?”
“What was that shameful, dismal wish? How embarrassing a wish was it that it was difficult to even look in the mirror? Could it have something to do with the fact that I took off all my clothes when I showed up early yesterday morning?”
“Wow, I was originally wearing a towel, but I only took it off because I broke the mirror!”
Before the words were finished, Songi ran away. Next to me, Ari was irritated.
“ah! You idiot! “I still have so many questions left to ask, what if I make you run away!”
“Then you can follow along and ask. “What are you curious about?”
“The room of mirrors. In any case, it’s probably not a place you’re told not to enter. “It’s a place where you can use a ticket to make additional wishes in addition to the free wish opportunity. Could this be just a trap?”
“That can’t be possible.”
“There is a way to make a wish. There must be a way to avoid the danger that Songi discovered. “I need to figure that out.”
After saying that, Ari kicked my leg and ran after Songi.
…
I lay alone on the floor and thought. Two dangers of the Hall of Mirrors.
A wish that should not come true or a wish that is contradictory.
How can I overcome this? How can something like this not exist in a person’s heart?