Escaping the Mystery Hotel

Chapter 145: Rest and Reorganization (1)

User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 74

Current Location: Basement, Ski Resort

Sage’s Advice: 3

- Han Kain

My body zipped down the ski slope at high speeds, swirling snow around me.

I focused all my attention on the path ahead.

Among the rapidly changing scenery, I noticed people watching me with worried expressions.

Now’s the time.

The feather tattoo on my shoulder tingled slightly, and as if an invisible hand had grabbed my collar and thrown me, a yanking sensation pulled my body.

“…”

When I came to, I found myself suspended in the air.

“Ahhhhhhhh!”

- Bang!

From a distance, I heard the sound of snow bursting apart, and a giant measuring nearly 2 meters tall, launched into the air, grabbing me mid-flight.

- Thud! Crash!

Thanks to the sturdy figure who absorbed most of the impact as we hit the ground, I landed relatively unharmed.

“Ah, why is this so difficult? Thanks, Jinchul-hyung. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be able to practice this—”

As I spoke, something felt off, and I turned to look at him.

Jinchul-hyung seemed deep in thought.

“Hyung?”

“Oh, it’s nothing. That said, that teleportation seems pretty challenging, doesn’t it? I’ve seen you try it like 7 or 8 times in the span of two days, and you end up in the wrong place half the time,”

“I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize; we agreed to practice this together. But do you really have to do it while skiing?”

“I’ve found that using it while standing still is easy, but it gets harder when I’m moving, and even more difficult when I’m moving quickly.”

“Is that so? Well, practice is supposed to be challenging.”

- Whoosh!

With the sound of skis sliding on the slope, Ahri gracefully arrived, followed by Songee and Elena.

“Every time you make a mistake, you seem to teleport accurately forward, backward, and sideways, but you keep ending up mid-air,” Ahri immediately commented with an amused expression.

“Yeah.”

“I suspect that when you focus on teleporting, you subconsciously aim slightly upwards because you’re afraid of ending up underground.”

“Hmm…”

“It’s like this: when you decide the direction you want to teleport from your starting position, you instinctively adjust the direction slightly upwards to avoid getting caught in the ground. Although you don’t consciously notice this slight adjustment, the misalignment becomes significant when you move more than 10 meters.”

“That’s a convincing analysis.”

As usual, Ahri, with her experience using “superpowers”, offered a pretty plausible theory.

While I was pondering this, I felt a soft touch brush off the snow that covered my head and clothes.

When I turned my head to see who it was, I found Elena naturally brushing the snow off my hair.

“…”

As soon as our eyes met, we both awkwardly stepped back.

It didn’t seem like Elena had intended to do it.

“Oh, there was just so much snow on you that I did it without thinking…”

“T-thank you.”

“...”

“...”

An awkward silence followed.

Thankfully, Ahri broke the silence and continued the conversation, “Practicing teleportation with your body seems pretty dangerous. Jinchul can’t always be there to save you after all. How about using Perro’s body instead? Even if you teleport into the sky, Perro can just flap his wings and come down.”

Upon hearing this, Songee’s mouth fell open, and she whispered something to Perro.

– Piyooo!

“Ahh! Ahhh! Songee~ get him off me!”

Soon, a very angry parrot started plucking at Ahri’s hair, and the rest of us burst into laughter as we began to leave the ski resort.

While the scene in front of me was funny, the suggestion was meaningless.

The source of my teleportation ability was the tattoo engraved on my body.

I couldn’t use it while I possessed someone. I had already confirmed this yesterday before Ahri made the suggestion.

After clearing the Gate Room, we were given a week to rest.

Ahri’s Blessing had already confirmed that we had no more places to explore on the first floor, so we took the time to relax.

At first, I didn’t understand why we had to wait a week for the second floor to open up, but as time passed, it became clear.

If the second floor had opened right away, we would have spent our time exploring rather than resting.

It seemed the Hotel deliberately kept the second floor closed to give us a proper break.

Everyone went to the facilities they wanted to enjoy.

Songee, who had realized the darkness hidden in Elena’s heart during “Perfect Life”, eagerly led us to the ski resort, and we spent the first day there together.

Of course, not everyone loved skiing.

About half of the group went to different facilities starting the next day.

Thus, everyone took time to relax in their preferred places while preparing for the second floor.

But in the end, this was still the Hotel—a place where countless trials awaited us.

We couldn’t fully relax.

There were a few critical tasks that we needed to address during this time.

***“Achoo!”

“Jinchul-oppa? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I feel a bit cold after rolling around in the snow to save a guy, so I’m sneezing.”

I felt a pang of guilt.

“...I’m sorry.”

“Forget it! Let’s just eat. By the way, this ski resort is pretty unique. It feels like clouds have been wrapped around the entire mountain.”

Songee looked around with an intrigued expression.

“I wonder what’s beyond the clouds?”

“Maybe there’s nothing at all. Like the ‘Hiking Room’. In that place, if you strayed too far from the mountain, you’d be teleported back to the starting point. It might be similar here.”

After that brief conversation, we began eating some simple snacks like sausages, hot bars, and fish cakes prepared at the ski resort.

After a while, the conversation naturally resumed.

The topic we most frequently discussed since the rest period began: “sealing”.

Jinchul-hyung was the first to speak, “I’m worried. If Kain is sealed, it’ll be extremely difficult to progress.”

“Right. His other abilities are also valuable, but the real problem is losing Scenario Comprehension. Can we proceed without that ability...?” Ahri responded with a concerned expression.

Seeing everyone worry about “my absence” made me feel strangely good.

But in the end, I couldn’t hide my own concerns.

If everyone failed while I was sealed, wouldn’t I just die without accomplishing anything?

“Everyone, cheer up. After all, haven’t we cleared the Cursed Rooms without the Scenario Comprehension ability?”

Jinchul-hyung sighed even more deeply at that.

“We just brute-forced our way through and died a lot. I guess we’ll have to do it that way again.”

One fact was implicit in the conversation between my comrades and I.

At least in the first room on the second floor, I was almost certainly the one who would be sealed.

As a bearer of Inheritance, I had gathered powers even beyond that such as Descent, the Pen, teleportation, and more.

I even received the most Blessing enhancement, gaining the powerful ability to understand scenarios.

Although I wasn’t as overpowered as some who had acquired two or three Inheritances, like those in Ahri’s first Hotel party, I had still grown disproportionately stronger than the others.

Ahri spoke up again, “It’s not something we should just worry about. The rest of us need to find ways to grow, even without Kain.”

“That makes sense, but do we have a way? The second floor won’t open for another five days,” Songee replied anxiously.

“There’s still one room left on the first floor.”

The last remaining Cursed Room on the first floor.

Room 104, “Preparatory Selective, Hotel High School”.

When the topic of the Hotel High School came up, everyone fell silent.

Why did we hesitate to enter the Hotel High School?

When multiple Cursed Rooms remained, we avoided it because it was the most difficult, but now the room’s difficulty wasn’t the issue.

We already cleared the Gate Room, a higher-level trial, and obtained numerous rewards.

The threats posed by the Hotel High School could easily be handled.

The cultists in the old school building? Jinchul-hyung could probably wipe them out by himself if he used the Star.

I could also take out the majority of them using the possession ability of the Grimoire over time.

The issue is the Lord.

Specifically, the Descent left in me by the Lord.

I decided to voice the concern everyone had been secretly harboring.

“Everyone is worried that something might go wrong with me because of Descent, right?”

Ahri immediately agreed, “Exactly. We have no idea what might happen. In the worst case, you could lose control to the Son of Heaven and completely turn against us.”

“...”

“If we still had the Red Capsule, I would have suggested taking it before reentering Hotel High School. But, of course, Perro already ate it, so it’s meaningless now.”

Songee weakly defended Perro, “Perro took it and made a big difference in the Gate Room.”

Since that was true, no one argued.

“Can we really be sure that something like that will happen?” Elena responded with concern.

“I was just talking about the worst-case scenario. The problem is that this Hotel tends to turn the worst and most ominous possibilities into reality. Can you ask Advice?”

“I already did yesterday. The answer was pretty meaningless. It told me to think it over carefully.”

“Your patron, the Owl, seems to be less helpful than Perro at times.”

Ahri spoke as if she was just speculating, but...

I knew that Ahri wasn’t just speaking based on a hunch.

She just didn’t want to explain every uncertain detail, so she spoke in a roundabout way.

Through my own reasoning, I had reached a similar conclusion.

The true nature of Descent.

The inhuman personality of the Son of Heaven that I had already experienced.

And the advice the Owl had forced upon me, even at the risk of crossing the line, during the Gate Room.

If I enter the Hotel High School, there’s a very high chance that I will become “something else”.

How could the Lord do something that no other Convict could attempt?

He definitely had some kind of secret.

I lightly shook my head, pushing the unresolved thoughts to the back of my mind.

Jinchul-hyung, who had come to a similar conclusion, changed the subject, thinking that the conversation wasn’t going anywhere, “Haven’t we debated this topic several times already? And each time, we’ve decided to abandon the idea. As Ahri said, if the concern is that Kain might betray us because of the Lord or whatever, then we can’t enter while Kain is the strongest among us. Let’s find another way.”

In the end, we returned to square one.

In the first room on the second floor, I was almost certain to be sealed.

Is there any way for the others to grow during the rest period?

The first option, entering Hotel High School, was rejected again.

This was due to the suspicion that I might betray them in that room.

Whether this was true or not couldn’t be guaranteed until we entered the room, but if it was true, it would be even worse than being sealed on the second floor.

So what’s the second option?

I remembered the idea that Grandpa Mooksung suggested last night.

Elena, who had the same thought, spoke up.

“I think it would be good to use Eunsol-noona’s Monkey’s Paw again. Something like the Nightmare Butterfly event wasn’t too difficult.”

“Elena, it’s not the Monkey’s Paw, it’s the ‘Hand of Greed,’” Ahri corrected her.

“Oops!”

The Hand of Greed could provide rewards without any penalties to its users.

Eunsol-noona hesitated to use it because of its selfish nature, but everyone agreed that the Hand of Greed was more useful than it seemed.

Growth opportunities were surprisingly limited in the Hotel.

Unlike games that encouraged grinding, one couldn’t just endlessly farm in hunting grounds to keep growing.

The only real farming opportunities were in the Cursed Rooms, but they disappeared once they were cleared.

In a place where growth opportunities were limited like this, the Hand of Greed was practically a tool that periodically created “mini hunting grounds”.

With that, our brief meeting at the ski resort concluded.

***- Han Kain

We left the ski resort and returned to the first floor of the Hotel.

As evening approached, people from other areas began to gather in Room 105.

After exchanging greetings and entering Room 105, everyone momentarily fell silent.

There, near the entrance, was the huge Protective Suit.

What are we supposed to do with this thing?

It’s already the third day since we acquired the suit.

For three days, the Protective Suit had made us turn a blind eye to it.

The human-sized outfit seemed to say, “Do something with me,” but everyone just pretended not to notice it.

Whenever someone accidentally bumped into it, the whole group flinched.

We can’t keep avoiding the issue of the Protective Suit.

Invulnerable to Blades, Impervious to Fire and Water!

That suit isn’t just an escape tool; it’s an incredibly useful piece of armor.

We can’t keep avoiding this issue forever.

That’s why we placed it near the entrance of the room, so we wouldn’t forget it.

“Attention, everyone!”

On the third day after acquiring the suit,

Ahri finally took the lead and spoke up.