Escaping the Mystery Hotel - Chapter 575
Only Krnovel
EP.575 Episode 575 – The Management Bureau is an Elephant (5) Fin
Episode 575 – The Management Bureau is an Elephant (5) Fin
– Han Ga-in
I walked along a road filled with silver-gray fog.
The Kingdom of Dreams is a tool that allows you to travel between your colleagues’ dreams and subconscious.
Ari guides me to ‘Ari’s Dream’ without saying a word.
Do you have anything to say?
Why should I speak in Ari’s dream and not in my own?
…
We crossed the border and arrived at Ari’s dream.
The scenery in my dream was exactly like a coffee shop in a busy area, but when I looked around, I saw some rather awkward things.
In one corner there is a photo booth, something like an instant photo studio.
There was a huge picture frame hanging on the wall, but a black cloth covered the frame so that the picture inside the frame could not be seen.
It seems like Ari prepared it in advance?
“Gain~! I missed you!”
Eww!
What’s this? Aren’t you Kim Ari?
Isn’t that Miro with black dyed hair?
The moment Ariga let out that ‘cute voice’ that I had never heard before, my breath stopped.
They even stuck together and linked arms!
– So touching!
I felt a soft, unidentifiable sensation, so my thoughts stopped halfway!
What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it?
No, I never thought this would happen, but the charm of the crazy popular South Korean singer finally broke Ari’s secret appeal-
“How far are you thinking now?”
“…”
“Dating? Marriage? No way… Until then?”
Don’t ignore me.
My imagination hasn’t reached marriage yet.
“Pfft! Are you an idiot? Are you still this surprised? This isn’t your first time, and you’re really like this!”
When I heard Ari’s words, smiling broadly and asking why I was surprised when this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened, my cold heart finally woke up.
Because this is the first time something like this has happened between us.
So now Ari is lying.
Could it be that someone, or some unknown force, is watching Ari?
So, from now on, what Ari says should not be taken at face value.
…
I felt a little regretful without realizing it.
“Dreams are such a pity. Even if something mysterious happens, you forget it all when you wake up. If you don’t want to forget, you have to concentrate with all your mind.”
analysis.
Listen carefully to what I’m about to say.
“…”
“…”
I thought he was going to say something right away, but about a minute passed without saying anything.
— Tick!
The sound of fingers tapping on a table.
“Oh, we’ve been so silent, haven’t we?”
“… That’s right. Is it because it’s been a long time since we last met?”
Silence… .
Ariya, you got promoted.
“Our coffee is here. I’ll bring it.”
“Uh, um.”
Soon, Ari brought a cup of cool iced Americano.
“It’s yours.”
“Oh, thank you.”
— Tick!
Again, lightly tap the table with your fingers.
Is this some kind of signal?
What is the important thing to say after touching the table?
“I was going to bring them all, but they were too heavy if you put too many cups in them. You bring other people’s coffees.”
“… okay.”
analysis.
It is burdensome for Ari to directly convey information to many people.
I will only pass it on to myself, so I can organize it and pass it on to others.
“How are you doing these days?”
“… I went to work. That, that place I mentioned before.”
“Take care. I heard some bad news.”
My act of gathering faith at sunrise.
Is this a warning that we won’t be able to avoid the eyes of the administration forever?
I asked once with Jincheol’s help, but the crisis may come again.
I need to quickly complete the ‘Automatic Faith Farm’ and then get out.
“Oh, did you meet the girlfriend you told me about before?”
Suddenly the topic of conversation changed.
By the way, you have a girlfriend… .
Let’s get to the point.
“I haven’t met you yet. Ma, I’m not ready mentally… .”
“Are you an idiot? Gayoung must be frustrated too!”
“…”
When did I ever tell him about Gayoung?
“What about you? Have you ever been in a relationship or something?”
“Dating? I’ve done it a lot!”
It sounded like a lie the moment I heard it.
“…”
“…”
“Um, to be honest, almost none. I guess it was because of my looks.”
“appearance?”
“Because I was so young, I often went to school undercover, but think about it. We’re all kids.”
“That would be true compared to you.”
As ‘Agent Kim Ari’, she speaks without hesitation.
Is it okay to say this out loud, and should I only be cautious about the information I get as a ‘silent person’?
I also need to understand the line that Ari can’t cross so that we can have a better conversation, so let’s try to draw the line.
“Aside from your fake student identity, have you ever dated while you were an agent?”
“Not really. By the way, agents rarely date each other.”
“Why? Because we’ve been together for a long time -”
“That’s why I don’t do it. If you look at it for too long, all your illusions will be shattered, and it will be hard to deal with the situation after you date and then break up.”
“We still have to see each other even after we break up? It’s a bit like a relationship between office workers.”
“It’s a romance in the office that doesn’t involve resignation. Romance has to have fantasy. And if it goes on too long, it’s a problem.”
Somehow this part seems like it’s not a lie for the sake of conveying information, but the truth.
I didn’t even bang the table –
— Bam!
“I was looking through your dreams a while ago and I found out something strange.”
“…”
When on earth will you fall behind?
Did you even search for me without me knowing?
No, I’ve been lost in a maze of dreams too –
“…”
Arirang Song was once caught searching for a dream –
“…”
Come to think of it, I think it’s okay to have different dreams among colleagues.
“Gayoung, I’m talking about you. Your ex-girlfriend, oh, we never got to the dating stage, so is she a candidate for your ex-girlfriend?”
“… I was full.”
“Really? Anyway, something felt strange.”
“What was strange?”
“Gain, your memory is….”
“Do you remember?”
“Does it feel a bit random?”
“I don’t really understand what you’re saying.”
“Human memories are inherently difficult to trust. Perhaps, the fresh memories you remember are a mixture of oblivion and distortion.”
Ariya, this is important, right?
It started with hitting the table.
“Think back carefully to what happened in the past. If you do, something unexpected might come to mind.”
“…”
What does it mean?
“Did you drink it all?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“We have something we absolutely have to do.”
The coffee cup was empty and Ari led me to a corner of the coffee shop.
“Gain, do you know this?”
“Isn’t that a sticker camera?”
“I’ve always wanted to take a picture of something like this. Let’s do it!”
Again, soft arms wrapped around mine, and I felt a gentle touch.
— Click!
There was a loud squeak and a zing! Then a small photo of me and Ari popped out.
— Bam!
A signal to focus.
Ari soon wrote the following words on the photo:
「Ahri ♥ Cain」
“How is it! Isn’t it cute?”
“I know.”
My English name is Han Gain, not Han Cain.
Did Ari get this confused?
“By the way, how is your younger brother?”
“… I’m doing well.”
My sister is not a younger brother, but a younger sister, and not only my colleagues but even Ari knows this much.
That neither Cain nor his younger brother made a mistake.
“…”
Does this remind you of the Cain and Abel myth from the Bible?
Next, Ari started walking around the coffee shop with me.
“When I walk with you, I start to think of old times.”
“Thinking about the old days?”
“I mean, memories from the hotel.”
“What part?”
“Um, 206?”
No. 206, The Demon King Resurrects After 100 Days.
“It really was a scary room, even thinking back on it! Wasn’t the Demon King the strongest among all the prisoners?”
“Well, it’s hard to understand from our perspective. If you look at it through the eyes of a rabbit, it would be similar to a wolf or a tiger.”
“The way the Alliance of Reason sealed the Demon King in Room 206 was also horrible. Wasn’t it?”
In issue 206, there were three main ways that the Alliance of Reason sealed the Demon King, right?
The spiritual mass of all surviving humanity created by building a city on top of the Demon King’s fragments.
The power of indomitable reason to suppress the supernaturalness that emerges through human sacrifice.
The Time Master’s Time Distortion.
— Bam!
This is a signal that something important is about to happen.
“Isn’t it scary just to imagine? If the Demon King existed in reality -”
That moment.
—Whoosh!
Thunder was heard outside the coffee shop.
When I looked at Ari, wondering what was going on, I noticed that her expression had suddenly become pale and bloodless.
“…”
The current situation is not Ari’s intention.
Soon, Ari bit her lips and continued speaking with a determined expression.
“If the Demon King were real, it would be really scary.”
“… I know.”
analysis.
There exists a being in reality that corresponds to the Demon King.
There are many other prisoners in other cells, so why did you mention the ‘Devil King’?
Because the sealing method is similar to No. 206?
“Perhaps, you know the true identity of the Demon King better than I do. Because you have actually seen it.”
I know the Demon King better than Ari.
I have actually seen it.
If you turn it over, Ari has never actually seen it?
— Paat!
Ari’s lips were torn and her wrists were bruised.
It’s almost like someone’s warning not to cross the line.
“…”
She smiled brightly and continued talking as if it was nothing.
“Gain, do you like movies and novels too?”
“I like it. I like it very much.”
“Me too. I’ve seen it a lot before, after I left the Hotel in the Deep Sea.”
“That must have been fun.”
“Among them, I really liked things like loops and infinite regress.”
“…”
“It was so freaking hilarious when I compared it to my own experiences.”
“okay?”
“But, do you know this?”
“what?”
“A lot of regression and loop stuff have errors in probability? I just found this out recently.”
“… I don’t know.”
“For example, let’s compare it to a Japanese isekai story. If the main character were to fall into a fantasy world, what problems would occur, in common sense?”
“Uh… I don’t know because I don’t see that side very well.”
“Usually, the language should be different. Even on Earth, languages vary greatly, so there’s no way Japanese would be used in this world.”
“That’s right.”
“However, there are no cases where the main character struggles to learn a language. For one reason or another, the language of the other world is often Japanese. Why is that?”
That’s obvious.
The scene where the character learns a language for 2-3 years is not fun, so the writer must have skipped it.
I think the readers can guess, but I don’t want to see the main character studying for three years, so I won’t ask.
“Isn’t it a convenient device? After all, even hotels use the same language.”
“That’s right. It’s a convenient device. And there’s something like that in the regression too.”
—Whoosh!
Again, the sound of thunder was heard.
“What could happen if actual regression occurred in reality.”
“…”
“Maybe it’s something that absolutely had to happen, but it’s conveniently overlooked – huh… .”
At this point, Ari’s upper garment was soaked with blood.
At this point, Ari also began to gasp for breath, perhaps because she was having a hard time enduring the pain.
“…”
If regression or loops exist in reality, not in fiction, then this is something that should happen with a high probability.
But this is something that most creative works don’t depict.
Something, I think I know vaguely, but I don’t know.
Would it be too much to ask for a more detailed explanation?
“Ma… . It’s the last one. Over there… . Let’s go over there.”
Ari’s expression was already so suffocating that I quickly got next to her and supported her.
The place we arrived with Ari was in front of the huge picture frame we saw as soon as we arrived.
The black cloth still covered the frame.
“… walk.”
The moment you approach and grab the cloth.
— Boom! Boom!
“…”
I stopped because I felt creepy.
If it’s a picture frame, there’s definitely a photo or painting in it.
Will Ari still be okay after I see that?
“Walk.”
“…”
When I turned my head without realizing it and looked at Ari, I saw unwavering determination in her eyes.
It would be disrespectful to Ari to hesitate any longer here.
— Flutter!
A mysterious – yet incomprehensible – picture.
A background resembling a Greco-Roman temple.
The frame within a frame in the center shows a ship sailing with its back to the sun.
The water on the temple floor and in the frame reflected its surroundings with an unnatural transparency, almost like a mirror.
The moment I realized this.
—Whoosh!
The entire space began to shake with a thunderous roar unlike any I’ve ever heard before!
“Eww!”
The destructive momentum that spreads without stopping destroys the coffee shop in an instant, and an incomprehensible eye appears in the sky.
Those eyes!
A being I encountered long ago when I first gained access to the Dream Kingdom?
“Oh my!”
My eyes are bleeding.
A mad chain that invaded from ‘outside’ is shackling my eyes!
Could it be that those eyes have blocked a significant amount of external invasion?
Ari muttered with a faint smile, perhaps thinking of something similar.
“Thank you. I thought I was still holding up despite having crossed the line quite a few times… It was all thanks to you.”
Bleeding eyes look at me.
There were no words or phrases, but I instinctively understood what the ‘Kingdom of Dreams’ was trying to convey to me.
‘Get out of this woman’s dream.’
‘Go out and return to your dreams. They are safe there.’
—Whoosh!
The girl who was leaning against me gently pushes me away.
“Ugh!”
“Cain, do as I say. Go back to your dream.”
“With me, with me -”
“You know what’s not allowed, right?”
My breath stopped.
“…Ariya.”
“It’ll be okay. It’ll be okay, probably.”
“If it’s not okay? If you, if you crossed the line too much -”
The corners of Ari’s lips curved upward.
“If so, Cain.”
A soft touch tapped my forehead.
“Let’s meet in the next world!”
—Whoosh!
This was my last memory.