Escaping the Mystery Hotel

Chapter 101: Party Time (3) - Grotesque, Discussion

Party Time First Dawn

- Yu Songee

— QUAAAAAKK!

I woke up from my sleep in the middle of the night. Turning the lights on, I checked the time and saw it was 3 am.

Heading to the little nest I made with towels that were all over the Hotel, I realized that Perro had finished eating everything I had prepared already.

I had to make more food.

Right before leaving the room, I turned around and found Perro looking straight at me.

Remembering the warning, “Don’t leave it alone”, I intentionally left the door of Room 105 wide open so that Perro could see me the whole time.

Outside Room 105 on the corridor were mountains of parrot food that Eunsol-noona had ordered before going to sleep.

After bringing the dry food in and mixing it with some eggs, I gave it to Perro, who had been looking straight at the food the whole time. He immediately pushed his beak into the bowl and started devouring it.

***

He hatched just last night and yet was evidently much bigger than before.

Perro was now the size of a small adult parrot, and I didn’t need to put the food in a small syringe anymore. He could eat the nuts that were included in the dry food without an issue.

He was also so incredibly smart that he knew how to pee and poo at a separate place.

Unexpectedly, this was so much easier than raising puppies and kittens!

The only thing tiring about it was the amount of food that he ate.

It might be because he was still growing. Even though he was just a little bit bigger than my hand, he still ate more than a human child and naturally, it took him a long time to eat that much with his tiny beak.

Watching him eat, I slowly went back to sleep.

*******

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— Creak

*******

*******

*******

— Kwang!!!

A tremendous thud and impact woke me up immediately!

I found myself leaning on a wall after being flung into it.

“What’s going on!”

“What is happening?”

“Huh? What is wrong?”

We woke up in a stupor and realized that everyone else was in a similar state all around the room. It was when Elena, who had been wearing a negligee in her sleep, and Jinchul-oppa, who wasn’t wearing a top, were quickly looking for clothes to wear around them.

— Kwang!!!

Along with another thud, the half-broken door of Room 105 was fully broken.

We turned to the door in shock and found a monster we were seeing for the first time in the hotel.

It was around… 4 meters tall at the very least.

It looked like a gigantic, horrendous ostrich, and its beak was large enough to swallow my head whole.

Besides, there were sharp and sturdy feathers and scales covering its body, with tentacles and horns on its back instead of wings.

It truly resembled a monster that would come out in horror movies!

Everyone was struck speechless.

The monster walked in through the broken door, with its “eyes stuck on me”.

As it approached me, I felt the emotions of the monster being conveyed.

Joy. Relief. Happiness.

***

Wait, is that…?

Unfortunately, it was already too late.

“Everyone, be careful!”

Before I could stop him, Jinchul-oppa ran out with a scream—

He smacked the beak of the large bird with his fist and kicked its body with his foot, which made the monster roll out of the room in agony.

Like, why Is he so strong!?

“Wait! Everyone, please calm down—”

— PIYOOOOOO!

The monster in the corridor – Perro – let out a rough growl from its mouth.

Immediately upon hearing that, all sorts of emotions started bubbling inside me. Fear, disgust, and rage – it was a mixture of negative emotions all mixed at random!

Is that one of Perro’s abilities too? This is horrible timing though!

I belatedly protected myself with the bracelet, but everyone else was already getting overly stimulated by his roar.

Jinchul-oppa roared out while running at the bird.

It was the sight of a human running in at a 4-meter-tall bird, but it was clear which one of them was in danger.

Perro’s life is at risk!

Jinchul-oppa had already punched and kicked Perro to send him flying, and it wasn’t a fight Perro could win just because he was bigger.

What was fortunate, was that Perro was running away like crazy after instinctively realizing that.

Someone grabbed me by my shoulder to wake me up from my confusion.

“That monster is the bird from the golden egg, right?”

“Ahri? Are you okay?” I asked.

“I’m fine.”

“Yes. It’s Perro. He is the same bird.”

“I don’t understand how it became that big, but first of all, let’s go stop Jinchul before he punches the bird to death.”

We quickly ran out of Room 105.

Thankfully, Jinchul-oppa seemed to have come to himself—he was leaning on the wall with one of his hands on his head.

But Perro, who must have been bashed up already; that delicate—actually, it didn’t look very delicate—Perro was deeply frightened, destroying everything nearby.

“Oppa! Are you okay?”

“Ah. I’m fine now. What was with that roar? It suddenly made me feel incredibly angry and sent my blood boiling.”

“Looks like you woke up quite quickly considering that though?” Ahri intervened from the side.

“This is not the first time something like this has happened in the Hotel, is it? I found it weird and stopped myself for now… That thing there is the bird from the golden egg, right?”

“Yes, it is Perro!”

“Perro?”

“That seems to be the name Songee gave the bird. Anyway, how are we supposed to calm him back down?”

— Kwang! Bam! Shatter!

It looked like a scene straight out of an action movie.

We were already used to strange things happening every time, and since we were aware of the bird and the golden egg, everyone quickly came to themselves.

However, Perro was still deeply frightened after being punched and was still in the middle of destroying everything nearby.

What was fortunate, at the very least, was that he wasn’t directing the attacks at us, which was probably because he was scared of Jinchul-oppa.

Everyone was looking at him not knowing what to do, when Kain-oppa walked up.

“I will make it quiet. He shouldn’t get hurt.”

***

After walking up, he suddenly stopped before looking straight at Perro.

In the next instant, my bracelet perceived a “change in perspective”.

I couldn’t really explain what I felt, but I instinctively knew that Kain-oppa had stolen Perro’s body!

…Right before Perro’s consciousness faded away… I felt an indescribably enormous sense of fear being conveyed from his mind.

Things quickly de-escalated after that.

As soon as Kain-oppa went into Perro’s body, Perro returned to its former cute appearance. After that, Kain-oppa tried “flying” a few times but—

“Oppa! Don’t do anything weird and just stay still!”

…He crashed into the wall three times and fell back before doing a strange dance. It seemed that humans couldn’t fly just by simply taking over a bird’s body.

I carried Perro in my arms and Kain-oppa soon returned to his original body.

“How did you know I was inside the bird?”

“Maybe it was because I was concentrating, but I faintly felt it.”

“The bracelet is indeed a great treasure. Hmm...”

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“No. It’s just that this was my first time actually possessing a body, and I found out something new.”

“Something new?” Intrigued, Ahri interjected with a question.

“I will tell you after trying it a few more times. It might have been a mistake.”

Kain-oppa stayed standing there in the corridor pondering about something by himself, while the rest of us tried to figure out what happened.

After coming to himself, Perro was still very frightened as it snuggled closer to me. Using Tacit Communication and the underlying evidence around us, we found out the truth behind this whole event, which was quite unexpected and dumbfounding.

In the middle of the night, I opened the door with Perro looking at me and brought in food from the corridor.

Seeing that, Perro realized that there was “food outside the door”, and the next time he woke up, he went outside by himself instead of waking me up to find the food for himself!

However, for some reason, Perro was able to leave Room 105 but couldn’t come back in.

In the end, after staying outside for a few hours, Perro was frightened and changed himself into a monster to destroy the door.

***

Eunsol-noona said in a stupor.

“So, what you’re saying is, he went out by himself because he was hungry, and created this whole mess because he was alone and got scared?”

“Looks like that’s what happened.”

“Haa…” she sighed. “Sure, what would you expect from a birdbrain? But how did it even open the door and go outside in the first place?”

Grandpa Mooksung replied after carefully inspecting the remains of the door lever.

“There are marks all over the handle. I guess he bit on the end of the handle and pulled it down with his wings! This little guy’s quite strong!”

“Like, why bother doing all that to go outside!?”

“Well, I don’t know what the bird was thinking, but parrots are curious animals, so maybe it just wanted to have a look at what was outside. It probably wasn’t expecting it to be difficult to come back in.”

But why?

“Why wasn’t he able to come back in?” I asked. “There aren’t any keys in this Hotel either, so if he knew how to use the handle, he could have just opened it again from the outside.”

“I haven’t thought about this before either,” Grandpa replied. “But if you think about it, Room 105 is like several different dimensions stacked in one, right? We can’t see each other either unless it’s time for a meal, and I suppose other animals aren’t able to enter Room 105 unless they’re with a participant.”

Seungyub sighed and remarked while rubbing his eyes.

“So, what do we do now that Perro destroyed Room 105?”

“Well,” Ahri replied. “Kain has shown that to us already, hasn’t he? They’ll probably do a ‘big repair’ and tell us to go to the camping lot.”

Two hours later.

It was morning, and we realized that Ahri was right.

We had to go to the camping lot again.

***

* Party Time First Morning

- Han Kain

It was already our second time here, so we were all quite used to it.

We took some meat to put on the grill. It was different from the usual scenery inside the Hotel and felt more refreshing and interesting.

But anyway…

I was thinking to myself when Ahri walked up to the side.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked.

“The bird and the grimoire.”

“Perro? He is not even thinking about coming down from Songee’s shoulders. As for his abilities, I suppose they’re changing into a monster and letting out a cry that plays with your emotions.”

“There could be more,” I replied.

“Even this is already quite significant. So, what is this about the grimoire?”

“This was my first time using the grimoire, and there was something strange about it.”

“On the way… you mentioned Possession and Incarnation. Since you said you haven’t understood Incarnation yet, this must be about Possession, yes?”

“Yeah.”

“What was it?”

“Unless it was my mistake, the system window disappeared and there was a strange number on the bottom right.”

“Hmm.”

Ahri thought for a bit before coming up with an easy solution.

“Use it on me right now.”

“Are you sure?”

“This is the fastest way. Just use it on me.”

***

Second Attempt.

Looking at Ahri, I thought about taking off my body and “wearing” Ahri’s body.

My consciousness was pulled in and soon… I found myself in the body of a beautiful teenage girl!

This felt weird all of a sudden.

First of all, I checked the most important thing first.

59:52

59:44

"…"

It was the same as when I had possessed Perro.

The system window was gone and was replaced by a small set of numbers. What those numbers meant was also pretty clear – it was a 1-hour timer.

Is there a time limit on possession?

The Apostle didn’t have such a thing though?

Did they put a restriction on Possession, just like how they removed the third ability, the Power of Sacrifice?

I could understand the restriction, but then why wasn’t I able to access the system window?

It was very confusing.

Hmm… That was when I suddenly felt an urge to do something stupid.

I remembered seeing it from a movie in the past. I slightly lowered my hands towards the chest—

— Tung!

Suddenly, my consciousness bounced off and I returned to my body.

“AHAHAHA! What was that just then? You were like a primary school kid! Did you wanna touch them that badly?”

***

Ah! What the hell was I thinking?

A flood of embarrassment and self-hatred made me lower my head…

I wasn’t even curious about the reason I was flung out of her body. Thinking back, even when the Daughter of Heaven hypnotized us, Ahri was able to wake up by herself. She was probably using the same thing.

“Do you still want to touch?” she asked.

“...Sorry. It was just in the moment.”

“That was so funny. Anyway, did something similar happen again?”

“Yeah, the system window was gone and there was a 1 hour timer. What do you think this means?”

“The latter is simple – there seems to be a time limit. Both the Bracelet and the Star Fragment had less capabilities outside of the Cursed Rooms, right? It’s probably the same thing for the Grimoire.”

“That’s a bit of a shame… I thought I had gained eternal life with the grimoire.”

Eternal Life.

Immediately after hearing that word, Ahri turned to the ceiling with a rather melancholic look on her face.

It was times like this that really made me wonder how old this girl was.

Although I had never raised it before, I could at least assume that she was much older than what was suggested by her outward appearance.

“You’ve probably already achieved eternal life. Maybe even others.”

“What do you mean? I wouldn’t be able to live an eternal life by moving bodies if there’s a time limit with Possession, right? And what do you mean by others?”

“Have you seen Jinchul’s regeneration?”

“...”

“His skin was on fire, and bullets were going through his body but he regenerated everything. Do you think bodies like that would even age?”

“...”

“Same with your book. If the Hotel was trying to nerf the Grimoire itself, there would have been a record left behind just like what happened when they removed ‘Sacrifice’. But according to what you felt after reading the book, there wasn’t such a thing.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked for clarification.

“What I am saying is that the timer is irrelevant to the change made to the Grimoire itself. Both the disappearance of the system window and the timer are probably due to the same thing.”

“The same thing?”

“You wanted to discuss the ‘Descent’ as well, right? What I’m going to tell you now is related to all the problems you are having right now. It’ll be quite long though, so make sure you /genesisforsaken