Escaping the Mystery Hotel

As soon as we heard the name “Chief Researcher Han Kain”, everyone momentarily froze.

So, even though he’s sealed, he still has a role in the scenario?

Oliver continued his explanation, “Honestly, I’ve only heard bits and pieces about the Arizona team in passing, so I don’t know the details.”

“Just explain it already.”

“Understood. Beatrix was discovered near North Carolina in the 1990s. She already had her peculiar abilities at the time of discovery.”

“What abilities?”

“It’s classified, so I’m unsure of the specifics, but I heard she can create monsters. However, I was told that her abilities were flawed back then, so the Administration initially planned to eliminate her rather than use her.”

“Flawed?”

“I heard she couldn’t control the monsters she created.”

Forget being used as a weapon, such power would be a top priority for elimination.

Mooksung asked with interest, “So they managed to fix that flaw?”

“That part was said to be the achievement of Chief Researcher Han Kain. He apparently found a way to allow Beatrix to control the monsters she created. However… judging by how things have turned out, it seems some serious issues persisted.

“So they succeeded in making Beatrix able to control the monsters, but they couldn’t control Beatrix herself.”

“It seems so.”

Songee, deep in thought, asked, “Is Beatrix’s only power the ability to create monsters? She doesn’t have superhuman strength to rip off a person’s head with her bare hands or durability that treats bullets as if they were BB pellets, right?”

“Huh? As far as I know, Beatrix is just a normal human girl aside from her power to create monsters.”

““…?””

That’s strange.

The Beatrix we fought was such an overwhelmingly powerful entity that it made us question if monster creation was just a secondary ability.

She tore off my head with her bare hands, and her physical strength, which treated a hail of rifle bullets like a refreshing shower, made us shudder.

Eunsol shrugged it off as if it was nothing.

“Maybe her powers were enhanced. Our Chief Researcher Han Kain seems to have worked hard.”

“Oh, come on! Kain-oppa, what did you do? Making the enemy stronger!”

As they exchanged jokes, Seungyub asked seriously, “Did Kain-hyung make Beatrix stronger before entering the Hotel?”

I couldn’t help but sigh as I smacked Seungyub on the back of the head.

“Just be quiet for a moment, will you? Oliver, do you know anything else?”

“Sorry, that’s all I know.”

“Alright, let’s move on. We need to get to the TV room. And let’s figure out the room’s rules while we’re at it.”

We all stood up to start examining the room.

Exactly five seconds later, disaster struck.

“Ahhhhh!”

Before we could stop him, Oliver, thirsty after talking so much, opened the refrigerator.

The living refrigerator decided to store Oliver instead of food.

We quickly destroyed the refrigerator, but in those few moments, Oliver had already turned into a well-aged frozen sausage.

“…”

“…”

Songee sighed in disappointment.

“Even if he was an NPC, I hoped he wouldn’t die since he gave us so much information…”

“He’s a bit careless, isn’t he? We hadn’t even found this room’s monster yet.”

“…He was the first to die in the first attempt too, wasn’t he? Back then, we thought Elizabeth had trapped him.”

Mooksung sighed and concluded, “It seems he wasn’t destined to live long, one way or another.”

Eunsol shook her head.

“He chose the wrong career. Working for the Administration isn’t for people who make a lot of careless mistakes. Anyway, we’re busy. Let’s quickly figure out the room’s rules. Kain’s right; relying solely on Seungyub’s guesses is risky.”

“We’ve mentioned this before, but how about we just destroy the mansion with the Star?”

“We agreed to fight Beatrix properly this time. If you destroy the mansion with the Star, it’ll take quite a while, and there’s no need to wear yourself out before the main fight.”

“Hmm… I guess we need to think of another method.”

***- Kim Ahri

It took about 10 minutes of thoroughly searching the mansion before we realized something.

We had no idea.

At least, it seemed impossible to figure out where the front door, back door, or basement door led just by searching the inside of the mansion.

From experience, I suspected we’d soon get a signal to move.

I was curious about what would happen if we ignored it, but…

Suddenly, Eunsol, who had been sitting next to me, spoke up, “Maybe we can figure it out by analyzing the relationship between the entrance and exit doors?”

The entrance and exit doors.

I hadn’t thought of that.

Eunsol and I began writing down our memories from the first attempt, carefully going over them.

In the first mansion, we followed the “Go down” instruction and went to the basement.

Next, we entered the second mansion through the front door.

In the second mansion, the monster was hiding in the carpet. Elizabeth tried to lead us to the back door, but Seungyub chose to go back through the front door of the second mansion.

Next, we entered the third mansion through the back door.

The third mansion was the TV room.

After Elena’s suicide in the TV room, Seungyub chose to go back through the back door of the third mansion.

Next, we entered the fourth mansion through the front door.

That was where the trees were strange.

At that point, Seungyub completely lost his confidence.

Elizabeth led us through the back door of the fourth mansion, where we encountered the gorilla.

“”…!!!””

We’ve discovered two rules!

At the very least, we figured out how to distinguish between rooms with weaker monsters and rooms with top-tier monsters like the gorilla—

- Crash!

What was that?

“Hahaha! I knew this was the way! Everyone, come here!”

“Wow! I’m starting to like you, Boar!”

Startled, Eunsol and I ran toward the source of the noise.

Jinchul had stripped Seungyub of the Protective Suit and was wildly swinging it around, demolishing the mansion’s walls.

I doubt the Hotel, which provided us with the Protective Suit, expected Cha Jinchul to use it as an “indestructible hammer”.

Beyond the collapsed wall, there was an opaque barrier, and through it, we could vaguely see the situation in another room connected by a passage through that wall.

“Ha! Didn’t Gramps suggest this idea first? Is this the kind of intuition you develop after working for the Administration for so long?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

Jinchul and Mooksung were almost embarrassingly praising each other, marveling at their brilliant judgment.

Eunsol, looking defeated, folded the paper she had been writing on so diligently into an airplane and sent it flying.

***- Lee Eunsol

- Crash! Rumble!

“Not this one. What’s that? Noona, what is it?”

“…It looks like a massive snake. Maybe a friend of the gorilla?”

- Rumble!

“Oh! It’s this way. Everyone, over here!”

This is relaxing.

I recalled the memory of Ahri and me analyzing the Cube’s rules and racking our brains earlier.

We discovered a few rules by considering the positions of the entrance and exit doors and the choices Seungyub and Elizabeth made.

Now that I think about it, it was a waste of time.

Just smashing through the walls and seeing the next room directly was much easier and more reliable.

Well, not that it’s easy for me. It’s easy for Jinchul.

I remember watching the movie Cube¹ as a kid.

I vaguely remember the characters engaging in intense debates and researching room rules related to the law of primes ².

In hindsight, the problem was that they were all too weak.

If they could’ve just punched through the walls and escaped, they wouldn’t have died. What a shame.

After moving through four mansions like this, we finally arrived at the TV room.

“Wait! We’ve arrived. Jinchul, hold off on smashing walls for a moment and come here.”

“Oh, we’re here?”

“Yeah. You might not know since you’ve been blindly smashing walls without checking.”

The TV would flick on as soon as we got close. There was no need to approach it deliberately.

Soon, Grandpa’s gloves flew over to the TV and grabbed the remote control.

When we all moved closer to the TV, it turned on as if it had been waiting for us.

P-

As soon as the “P” sound came out, Grandpa used his glove to press the mute button.

The display began to flicker.

It was time to split the party.

“Grandpa and I will head into the TV as planned.”

“Unni! Good luck!”

That’s kind of cute.

I patted Songee’s head, then started to move toward the screen with Grandpa—

“Wait, wait a minute.”

Ahri stopped me.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’ve been thinking. The answer Elizabeth gave earlier has been bothering me.”

Elizabeth’s answer?

Didn’t she say to close your eyes and walk straight through the screen for quite a while?

I wasn’t sure what she found strange.

But Ahri had a keen intuition.

Everyone waited for Ahri to speak.

After a moment, Ahri suddenly pulled out a syringe and started drawing blood.

“Ahri?”

Instead of answering, Ahri handed the syringe filled with blood to Grandpa and me.

Just as I was about to ask why, Grandpa grabbed my arm.

“It seems we’re better off not knowing, right?”

“Yeah. I’ve got a hunch. But it’s better if you two don’t know.”

What can I do when she puts it that way?

I had no choice but to hope for an explanation later as I shared Ahri’s blood with Grandpa.

The famous elixir Kain was rumored to regularly drink, Ahri’s blood, tasted metallic and bitter.

***- Kim Ahri

Right before our eyes, Eunsol and Mooksung disappeared into the TV screen.

The two people who were supposed to be the “adults” in our group were gone.

I should feel confident… but it feels like we just sent kids to the water’s edge, and I can’t shake this uneasy feeling.

Strangely, Mooksung felt more like a child and seemed more unreliable than Eunsol.

“Ahriii…”

“What?”

“Why did you suddenly give those two your blood?”

“It’s related to our conversation with Elizabeth.”

“You mentioned the conversation was strange earlier? But what was strange about it?”

The others seemed curious too.

I stared at the ceiling, recalling the memory.

“Early in the conversation, she herself said, ‘There’s no danger.’”

“Did she?”

“She did. That answer was strange from the start. The fact that there’s danger beyond the TV isn’t just our speculation. We confirmed it through Elena, who went in and came back out. But Elizabeth said there was no danger, and that wasn’t a lie.”

“That’s odd.”

“The next part is even stranger. After saying, ‘There’s no danger,’ she explained that to enter the TV, you should ‘Walk straight ahead with your eyes closed’. That’s more like a safety measure, a precaution. She claimed there was no danger, yet she’s giving instructions to avoid danger.”

“That’s really weird. It goes beyond just being mistaken; there’s a contradiction between the knowledge she holds.”

“So, I came up with a theory. Maybe ‘not knowing about the danger’ itself is a way to avoid it.”

“So not knowing there’s danger is what protects you? Is that why you did something with your blood?”

“It’s just a theory. We can ask them after they come out.”

- Bang! Crash!

While I was talking to Songee, there was the sound of a wall collapsing.

“Cha Jinchul!”

“Hmm?”

“Take it easy from now on.”

“Don’t worry. I’m managing my stamina just fine.”

“No, it’s not about your stamina. We need to start breaking mirrors now. Since we sent people through the TV, we need to find the room where Beatrix is.”

“Oh, right!”

“Oh, right!” Seriously…?

I couldn’t help but feel dumbfounded, realizing he had completely forgotten the plan.

Well, I guess if you’re strong enough, you can let your brain rest a bit.

Afterward, we waited until a mirror in the mansion displayed the message “Move!” and then broke the mirrors as we progressed.

Upon reaching the seventh mansion, a “different message” appeared in the mirror.

Did you find me?

Ha! So it’s finally starting?

Show yourself.

1. A movie released in 1997, where the characters are trapped in a huge cube with rooms that are filled with deadly traps.2. Formula that gives an approximate value for the number of primes less than or equal to any given positive real number x.