Escaping the Mystery Hotel - Chapter 517
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EP.517 Episode 517 – Room 207, The Gate Room – The Fourth Trial ‘The Fallen King’ (3)
Episode 517 – Room 207, The Gate Room – The Fourth Trial ‘The Fallen King’ (3)
– Trainee, Kim Min-a
I thought as I walked down the hallway.
If the call hadn’t even been made, it would have been as if some unknown demon had used magic to block even the powerful communications network used by the agents.
The phone line is fine because I got a call, but someone intentionally disconnected my call.
…
The Inquisition has somehow learned that a demonic disaster has struck Hotel Go!
The problem was that the type of disaster that occurred was so mind-boggling that it was impossible to be sure that the rescue workers were still sane.
I avoided verbal communication with myself, considering the possibility that the devil might be controlling my mind.
Instead, by saying ‘I picked up the phone and hung up’, I conveyed two pieces of information that I could understand ‘if I were of sound mind’.
First, the Vatican is aware of the situation in the schools.
Second, since the communication network is intact, we can intervene soon.
*
In an instant, the school became a mess.
This is because more than ten people, including the cafeteria lady, the English teacher, the gym teacher, the student body president, the Korean teacher, someone from class 3, and someone from class 5, ran wild and scared everyone.
Soon, word started coming from here and there that cell phones were dead.
Unlike me, who had a Vatican-issued cell phone, other people’s cell phones did not make calls properly.
At this point, several of the children turned pale and started shouting the word ‘devil’.
To the average person, a demonic disaster is something that you often see on world news, something that is said to exist somewhere on Earth, but is never actually seen.
As an agent, I know a more brutal truth.
The frequency of demonic disasters is dozens of times higher than the general public thinks, and it is not known because the Vatican somehow controls the information.
The things that appear in the news are either information that even the Vatican failed to control, or information that was released because they thought it was okay to release it to this extent.
…
Separately, I thought of a completely different possibility than the students muttering “devil” while looking at their broken phones.
Could it be that the Inquisition, rather than the devil, is isolating the entire Hotel Go area?
Isn’t the top priority in preventing infectious diseases the isolation of infected people and the general public?
As I was walking down the hallway, I saw my classmates.
“Min-ah! Are you back?”
“Ji-eun, are you okay?”
“Uh, yeah! How did it go well… Everyone is still scared though.”
I understood what happened in the classroom while listening to the ramblings of my close friend, Ji-eun.
The students reportedly mustered up their courage and used chairs and desks as shields and weapons to push past their PE teacher and escape.
Of course, there was help from teachers in the next class and others during the process.
Even though he is a former baseball player, there are more than ten hot-blooded male students in the classroom, so it is not like he can’t subdue them.
It’s not like you can cut a desk in two with a baseball bat.
What’s surprising is not strength, but courage.
The gym teacher beat a kid to death with a baseball bat right in front of my eyes, and I gathered my strength and found the courage to fight back… .
When faced with a life-threatening crisis, did the courage inherited from your ancestors who survived the harsh nature boil over?
At that moment, the class president – what was his name? Lee Ho-jin? – approached me.
“You’re back? I thought you went outside because you ran out so quickly. We’re going to stick together and go to the main gate from now on.”
The class president calmly organized the ranks and even assigned roles to the students.
You hold a chair and block whoever comes, you hold a mop and hit them, girls, just stay in the middle, etc.
The bullies, who used to find the teacher’s words funny, strangely followed the class president’s words, even though they grumbled. This is because these kids are sensitive to the so-called ‘peer hierarchy.’
“Min-ah… Why did you come back? While you’re out, why don’t you bring the adults over?”
“Ji-eun, don’t be scared.”
“Uh, yeah.”
If there is someone like the class president who would have been a chief if he had been born in the Stone Age, then the opposite is also true in this world.
The author was exactly at the top of the food chain, at the level of a rabbit.
“Let’s go out!”
*
As I walked out of the classroom, I heard some confusing stories here and there.
They blocked the strange people from going out to the main gate.
No, you can exit through the main gate.
I heard the back door is still okay?
I told you the back door was blocked too!
This is truly confusing information!
I think ‘blocked’ is the correct answer.
We cut off the communication network to isolate the ‘epidemic’, so it would be even stranger to allow physical escape.
Saying you can get out is just wishful thinking.
As the atmosphere became strange, Beomsaeng, who had been quietly hiding, cautiously raised his hand.
“Hey, class president!”
“…What is it? Tell me.”
“Shall we, uh, go to the chapel?”
“…”
“I heard the main gate is blocked -”
Soon, a few thugs started harassing him.
“Ah~! This idiot. Hey, if you run from here to the main gate, it’ll take 5 minutes! What kind of church is this -”
Surprisingly, there were some children who were taken in by Beomsaengi’s words.
“Don’t you hear that the main gate is blocked? Poet, if we go under the cross, God will protect us!”
God protects us out of the blue?
It may sound crazy, but think about it.
A world where the devil exists and the Vatican shouts “God the Father” every day to subdue the devil.
Thanks to this, 70% of humanity and 80% of Koreans are Christians.
The attitude of some students who expected God’s protection was quite common sense by ordinary people’s standards.
Of course, there were many who thought it was foolish to choose to pray instead of escaping when the path out the main gate was clearly visible.
Eventually, the group split in two.
…
I belonged to the chapel group for a simple reason.
Because we’re going to prevent the Inquisition from escaping anyway.
In my opinion, if you want to live, there is only one way.
I must find and kill the demon or sorcerer before the Inquisition makes its ‘painful decision’.
*
I’m sorry to the kids, but it’s difficult to go to the main gate.
What if the main gate is blocked?
Going to a place you can’t get to is a waste of time.
What if you could escape through the main gate?
There’s no way the Vatican wouldn’t know about this chaos at school.
As soon as they escape, the Vatican will arrest the students and teachers, which will make it difficult to retrieve the grimoire.
In short, whether you can escape or not, it is difficult to go to the main gate.
Therefore, the suspect candidates should remain in school.
Until I get my grimoire back.
*
The path to the chapel was darker than expected, and a strange noise, like a ghost crying, could be heard from somewhere.
If this were normal, I would have said the hallway was old.
Eventually, the terrified children started fighting.
“Oh shit, seriously! Hey, Lee Ho-jin! I told you to go to the main gate!”
“Then go. You heard that the main gate was blocked, right?”
“Fuck, then go and check it out. You came in a really weird direction -”
“Hey. Why have you been swearing all this time?”
The next moment, the thug’s eyes widened.
“This fucking kid -”
For a moment, everyone became tense and looked at the thug.
Because I have already experienced it several times.
The pattern of the evil disasters that have occurred so far is that they try to kill people out of nowhere in situations where they should just get a little angry and end it!
“… Huh? Huh? What, what? No. It’s not me!”
The thug, who realized the situation too late, was surprised and made an excuse saying, “No.”
While the students around me were sighing in relief, I felt somewhat puzzled.
Considering the situation so far, wasn’t now the perfect time?
Are there any demons or magicians nearby?
Did you escape through the main gate or are you part of another group that wanders around the school?
Well then, it’s fortunate for them.
It’s embarrassing for me, who has to find the devil.
*
What are the ‘weaknesses’ of the Grimoire?
First, the scope of the ice is not that wide.
It’s hard to say exactly how many meters it is, as it depends on your condition and skill level, but it should be far enough that the target is clearly visible to my eyes.
Let’s look back at what has happened so far.
Cafeteria lady, English teacher, PE teacher.
All three of them ran wild and got entangled with the students in our class.
Student council member, Korean teacher, students from classes 3 and 5.
At first glance, it may seem like it has nothing to do with our class, but the first two people came to stop the PE teacher who was going wild, and the students from classes 3 and 5 came to watch after hearing the noise in our class.
The culprit is a student in our class.
…
The second weakness is that you have to summon the ‘real’ version of the grimoire when using it.
Of course, the Grimoire isn’t as big or heavy as an encyclopedia, and it can be reverse-summoned at any time, so it’s easy to summon it secretly as long as you have some cover.
If it’s a place like a restaurant or a classroom, you can just summon them from under the table, so the culprit hasn’t been found yet.
…
Just in case, I created a situation in which the culprit could come forward.
It was a corridor with no cover, so if I summoned the Grimoire, I could find it right away… .
Unfortunately, I wasn’t stupid enough to use a grimoire in a place like this.
Let’s have a showdown at our next destination, the chapel.
…
Suddenly, this thought occurred to me.
Why did the hotel create such a bizarre event?
Perhaps, it is asking me to think about how I will deal with others when they obtain the Grimoire?
Of course, as is often the case with things that happen in hotels, it could just be my imagination.
*
The group was subtly divided due to the war of nerves earlier.
If I had to put it into words, a group centered around the class president and a group centered around the gangsters?
All the well-behaved kids gathered around the class president, and the rough kids who liked sports stuck together.
They whispered to each other so that no one could hear them – in fact, everyone could hear them – but that did not mean that the two groups were completely distant.
It’s scary to go alone.
Which group did I belong to?
It turns out they’re a group of gangsters.
Kim Min-a, an 8th-year high school student and an expert at school life, is a delinquent.
Oh, I can’t help it!
In the structure of the high school ecosystem, kids like me who are super pretty and bad at studying – who just make mistakes on purpose so they don’t stand out – are automatically classified as delinquents!
What do I do when I’m just sitting still and kids come to me playing on their own?
What’s funny is that the author, who belongs to the ‘rabbit’ or ‘shrew’ category in the classroom ecosystem, is involved in a group of delinquents.
Of course, it wasn’t the gangsters who put the author in, the author was just right next to me.
…
School is like a jungle where fierce battles for rank take place every day.
A place where there is glory and abundance for lions and wolves, but where rabbits struggle to survive from day to day.
Even weak rabbits have their own survival strategies.
If you can’t be a wolf or a lion, wouldn’t it be a good idea to stick with a wolf that looks nice and act friendly?
“Hey, Min-ah! We’re here!”
“Okay, okay, let’s go in. From now on, God will protect everyone.”
At this moment, all the children looked relieved.
Not only ordinary people with no presence, but even thugs who spit out dirty words as soon as they make eye contact.
*
As soon as we arrived at the chapel, everyone sat down with a truly devout expression.
Well, honestly, it was funny in many ways.
How many of these people actually go to church diligently?
Especially that punk guy who looks like he’s never been to church in his life –
“Hey, hey, James 4:7. Submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. -”
?
“Psalm 23:4 You are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
The kid who seemed the furthest from studying suddenly started reciting Bible verses one after another, and the students around him looked on in surprise.
Soon, the class president muttered as if it was ridiculous.
“Hey, Park Min-seung. You said earlier that we shouldn’t go to the chapel but to the main gate?”
“Hey, you little punk! Ha, God doesn’t necessarily protect us when we’re in the sanctuary, but if there’s a space in our hearts where His mercy dwells, He gives us infinite love wherever we are -”
This is ridiculous.
Anyway, since the gangsters are like that, there’s no need to look at the other kids.
Soon everyone was on their knees and began to pray, reciting whatever prayer they knew.
“Father in heaven, I pray that you will protect us from the wicked hands of the devil -”
“Now, children, you belong to God, and you have overcome them -”
“In the name of Jesus Christ -”
“Amen, amen, amen, amen -”
“What the fuck is that a prayer?”
“Oh, I only know Amen!”
At this point, I carefully got up and looked around.
Could there be a devil or a magician somewhere here?
— Bam!
At that moment, a strange noise was heard.
*
Found it.
It was you?
Now it’s time to retrieve the grimoire.
…
It seems like the Vatican has surrounded the school.
After finding the grimoire, I’ll have to figure out how to escape.